Enemies of Promise
Mark 10:13-16
October 20, 2002
St. John United Methodist Church
David Beckett, D.Min.

Rob Reiner's film "Stand By Me" tells the story of a group of four boys on their last journey of childhood. They are four very different kids from very different circumstances, and yet, they are still young enough that these differences don't matter very much.

But they sense their time is short. It is the summer before they will enter junior high - where our education system and adolescence work together to divide school-age children into "brains," "geeks," "hoods," "nerds," "popular," and "weirdos." In their last summer together as "just kids," the boys commit to one another as fast friends. It is a promise they cannot keep as childhood slips away.

Childhood dreams that slip away. A teacher in an inner New York City school asked her class on Martin Luther King Day to write about their dreams. These are their "dreams:"

1. Michael dreams that the leukemia will go away.

2. Brandon dreams that some day he will have a dad, "for real."

3. Amber dreams that some day she and her mom can be "safe."

4. Marcia dreams that she can stay in this house, and the judge won't make her go back to "the one where you are always scared."

5. Cheri dreams of food - "a lot" and "a lot of it."

6. Monica dreams that Daddy really wasn't killed so Mom can buy something that isn't food.

7. Jane dreams that "no one kills me before 16 so I can drive away."

8. Chris dreams that he gets a new heart before this one stops.

9. Tim dreams that someday he can be an artist and not have to fight.

10. Perry dreams that people will stop selling drugs so the cops will stay away.

11. Ashley and Ralph "don't have time to dream cause 'living's hard work.'"

These are the dreams of 6-, 7-, and 8- year-olds.

Childhood dreams that slip away. When you walk into a room full of 4-year-olds, you see just children. You cannot pick out who will be the doctor and who will end up in jail. At four there is an equal amount of promise in all of them. They can still do and be anything. So what is it that transforms a carefree 4-year-old, who loves to swing or build with Legos, or dig in the dirt, into a drug dealer, or a drive-by shooter, or an armed robber? What enemies are we letting assault our children - now at ever younger and younger ages - that destroy the promise of life and love that buds out in their preschool years? What happens to turn munchkins into murderers; mischievous elves into violent thieves?

1. The Enemy of Poverty: Children are the largest single group claiming residency below the poverty line. Statistics vary, but a reasonable estimate suggests that one-quarter of all the children in the United States go to bed hungry each night.

It is hard to dream while your stomach is growling. Bad nutrition turns playing hard into hardly playing. Lack of proper medical care and preventive inoculations let diseases we thought were long gone sneak in the back door and devour our children. In the slums of our cities, the pervasive ugliness that surrounds poor children impoverishes their knowledge and experience of beauty. Poverty is a key enemy of promise - and children suffer disproportionately the effects of poverty.

Watch this brief video clip of some of our St. John children speaking out about poverty and what it would be like to not have a warm place to live.

2. The Enemy of Fear: Children are not naturally very fearful. Ask any parent who has both a toddler and a steep set of stairs in the house. Natural fearlessness makes children explore their environment, try out new challenges, giggle and laugh when held up high to the ceiling and enables them to learn their world.

But fear can be so easily instilled. Fear of rejection, fear of humiliation, fear of violence, fear of failure- we teach these to our children a little bit, day by day. Don't try to run up and hug Daddy when he's got his "mad face" on - he'll just push you away. Don't ask questions because Mommy will say "What, are you stupid?" Don't make too much noise or you'll get hit so hard your ears will ring. Don't admit to being scared or lonely or sad because you're supposed to be a "big boy" or "big girl" now.

The enemy of fear takes trust and confidence and love away from children. After the terrorist attacks last year with the horrific images seared into the minds of children, fear will be a key enemy of promise to a new generation.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University reported that 30 years ago, the greatest fears of grade school children were: 1) Animals, 2) Being in a dark room, 3) High places, 4) Strangers, 5) Loud noises. Years later, kids are afraid of: 1) Divorce, 2) war, 3) Cancer, 4) Pollution, 5) Being mugged. 

Here’s what some of our children have to say about fear.

3. The Enemy of Hate: Children are not angels. They can be cruel, nasty, and mean. But hatred is a more refined skill that must be learned at the feet of a master.

To learn hatred, children must already have a good foundation of fear built up, fear for themselves, fear of others. Once that fear is in place, the scaffolding of hatred can be built. Hate people because of how they talk; hate a race because of how they look; hate the rich because you're poor; hate the poor because you're rich; hate peace because your life is not peaceful.

Hate, in turn, supports the whole structure of violence that is staggering our nations. On April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City testified to the violent legacy begotten by hate. That particular hatred was so intense it could not even wait to eradicate the promise within children. It blew them up in their day-care center while they were still innocent of hate. The enemy of hate devours promise, leaving only the bones, and charred remains.

Again, our children speaking about hate.

Adults often say that children are important. But what do children say about what adults say and do? When the 10-year-olds in Mrs. Imogene Frost's class at the Brookside, N.J. Community Sunday School expressed their views of "What's wrong with grownups?" they came up with these complaints:

1. Grownups make promises, then they forget all about them, or else they say it wasn't really a promise, just a maybe.
2. Grownups don't do the things they're always telling the children to do--like pick up their things, or be neat, or always tell the truth.
3. Grownups never really listen to what children have to say. They always decide ahead of time what they're going to answer.
4. Grownups make mistakes, but they won't admit them. They always pretend that they weren't mistakes at all--or that somebody else made them.
5. Grownups interrupt children all the time and think nothing of it. If a child interrupts a grownup, he gets a scolding or something worse.
6. Grownups never understand how much children want a certain thing--a certain color or shape or size. If it's something they don't admire--even if the children have spent their own money for it--they always say, "I can't imagine what you want with that old thing!"
7. Sometimes grownups punish children unfairly. It isn't right if you've done just some little thing wrong and grownups take away something that means an awful lot to you. Other times you can do something really bad and they say they're going to punish you, but they don't. You never know, and you ought to know.
8. Grownups are always talking about what they did and what they knew when they were 10 years old--but they never try to think what it's like to be 10 years old right now. 

Are we then all doomed to be promise-breakers - crushing the new growth of promise in each new generation? For those whose faith is in Jesus Christ the answer is "No!" There is a promise-keeper among us. The power of that one kept promise can renew the childlike promise of life and love that was present in each of us at birth. Because of the love of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, we can make a difference in this world for children.

This is a Christmas story, but is appropriate to share with you on this Children’s Sabbath. "The Boy and the Creche" is the true story of what happened one Christmas Eve in front of the Holy Trinity Episcopalian Church in New York City. The story is told by the Reverend Clarke Kimberly Oler, who was pastor at the time.

A street boy, barely 6 years old, had been showing up at the Nativity scene outside the church. He had been around several times but had always run off when approached. Christmas Eve arrived. It was late. The streets were deserted. This little boy stood in front of the Nativity and peered at the life-sized figures and stared at the manger. Then, suddenly, he climbed inside and curled up in the straw. The pastor who was watching from a distance wrote that "I felt as though I had been granted a momentary look into a lonely child's heart. All I could do was breathe a prayer that somehow he had been comforted by Mary's unchanging expression of love."

The promise of love, of life eternal, of the divine fulfillment of all our longings and desires, is offered anew to us today. With that little boy, we should all take turns climbing in to that cradle and allow the power of the promise to wash over us, encouraging us and filling us with love. We can do it for ourselves. We can do it for those we love. We can do it for the children of the world.

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