Sermons

September 18 2005

Why You Should Bring Your Children to Church

Reverend Dr Cheri DiNovo

I want to describe just for a second what my country Church looked like. It was in the middle of nowhere, so to speak, and if you blinked you would have driven through the town . Most who sat in my pews were farmers and they were often second, sometimes third or fourth, generation farmers. They all voted Conservative, precious few Liberal or any other supporters, and that’s where I was ‘settled’ upon ordination.

My daughter was just going in to University and my son was just going in to high school. I was hoping he would move with me. He had other plans however. I said, "Come on Damien, you really have to come with me. I’ll miss you and there’s no other alternative". I was a single parent at the time. He said, "Mom if you make me go I’m going to paint my bedroom black." I figured, okay, it’s his room and I can live with that. I’ll just have to paint it over when we leave. Then , seeing that he wasn’t receiving the desired reaction, he said, "Okay if you still make me go, I ,m going to wear a dress for the first Sunday in Church" Little did I know at the time that I would one day minister in a place where that wouldn’t have been a problem at all.

As soon as I picked this tile, I was aware that I really should have called this meditation, "Children, why should you bring your parents to Church" because usually that’s the way it works. It certainly worked that way in my house. My son when he was very little saw a neon cross in a front of an Evangelical Church and said, "Mommy what’s that lighted ‘T’ for?" We weren’t Church goers at the time and I thought, "Boy, I haven’t done my job as a parent if he doesn’t understand the Judeo-Christian stories upon which this entire culture is based." "How will he ever read Shakespeare?" I thought to myself.

So really in a sense, my son brought me to Church. My children also kept me at Church. I remember the first time we attended Church in the Beaches, and like you, struggled to get in at the last possible moment. I remember this particular Sunday we’d all just got out of the shower. The kids had wet hair. There we were dragging our sorry little butts along Queen Street, the kids looking in every store window as we went. And I was screaming at them by the time we got to Church at which point Cesca in her infinite wisdom, who was about twelve at the time, turned to me and said, "This is the picture Mom, the dysfunctional family goes to Church!"

I think back as a parent to what I did with my children and I hope this rings some bells with what you as parents are doing with your children. These are the lessons that I paid for, for my kids over the years. I actually made a list of them: Drums, Tae Kwon Do, Ballet, three kinds of interpretive dance (Damien still rues this as we have pictures of him in tights), violin, piano, guitar, meditation, Yoga (Before it was popular), acting, circus performing and that’s not even counting the sports. At various times they were involved with football, hockey, soccer and gymnastics. Now I can say this because they’re in their twenties now. They didn’t become Tae Kwon Do martial artists, Drummers, Ballerinas, Interpretive Dancers (any of the three varities), Violinists, Pianists, Guitarists,professional athletes of any kind or Yogis. But they did become something. They became adult human beings. That’s what they became.

I was wondering, "What is the job description for an adult human being?" And, why should we bring our children to Church to learn how to fulfill that adult job description. What is it about Church? What is it that they learn here they cannot learn anywhere else?

Now I keep in mind this wonderful little girl who came to Vacation Bible School this summer who said, "I really want to come to Church but I don’t think my parents will go for it." She said, "Can you give me some tips about how I can get them to bring me to Church?" She also asked about saying grace at meals, "You know they never pray, they think it’s stupid. How do I say grace before meals in a way that they’ll say it as well?"

So why should we bring our children to Church? What is it they learn here that they can’t learn anywhere else? You know, if I have one regret as a parent, it’s not taking my children to Church when they were younger. I’m sorry that I waited. I wish that they had the Church family since birth. And the best sermon I ever heard on giving and stewardship the minister emphasized this point. He said, "Whatever money you pay for lessons for your children should be what you give to your Church." We doubled our offerings the next week. We knew that we were skimping. He said that the most important lessons that they will ever learn to fulfill the job description of adult human beings will be learned right here. What do they learn here? What do we learn when our children bring us here?

The first thing we learn here is that you don’t have to like people but you do have to love them because guaranteed that if you attend here and get involved in any way with this holy place, on a committee, in small groups, on council for sure, you will end up hating someone and that’s the best day, that’s where the spiritual journey starts. That’s always a great day! Because then they or we have to learn to love someone they or we don’t even like. No other activity or lesson will teach you this. Why, because it’s not about winning a game. It’s not about perfecting a skill. It’s about what we need to learn to become whole human beings.

What do we learn here? We’re called to gather in a place where all we’re asked to do is to learn to love our God with all our heart and mind and soul and our neighbour as ourselves. Now how ever you conceive of God, that source of all love, here is the only place, in a Church family,w here you’ll learn to say "Thank you!". Thank you, not for being able to lace up my skates, not for being able to do a plie, or perform in a drama, but thank you for giving me life. Thank you for giving me this incredible earth with water and soil that sustains me. Thank you, most of all, for giving me the person who sits next to me in the pew. Thank you for my brothers and sisters and my family and my friends. Where do we say thank you? We should be saying it all the time. But where we actually say it is in prayer and here. We gather here to say , "Thank you!"

What else do we gather here to do? We gather in spiritual community to learn how to be spiritual beings, to be true and whole Christian people. We learn how to change the world here. We learn that a handful of people, sometimes it only takes one, can change laws, change cultures, change everything. We learn that we have the power to do that in concert with our neighbours. This is a great place to organize to do all of that. This is a wonderful family constituted to change the world. We learn we are not alone but part of a family that includes congregations across the country. We can make the city a livable place.

Here’s where we learn to live out our baptism promises. What do we promise at baptisms? We promise to help you raise your child. We will be family not just for you but for her and for him. We will provide a faith community where we will get to know you. We will get to know your child so that if you ever have difficulty, if you ever ail, if you ever need anything, you call us and we will be there. We will be there. Not because we met you on the rink, on the soccer pitch but because we met you at Church and this is what we are called to do at Church. This is our purpose.

Now I have my share of paper cut outs of Jesus. I sill keep them from when my kids were little and in Church. And you’ll only ever see my kids at Christmas and Easter. They’re not ever going to come every Sunday (that is until their children perhaps bring them). It doesn’t bother me an iota. Because I can really say as I look at them that even though they haven’t become all those other things, they have become real human beings. They really do know how to love and they really do know how to share and they do know how to keep their word and they know that a handshake should be their bond and they know how to tell the truth. They learned these things in Sunday School. They learned how to respect their elders and each other and most importantly, themselves. They learned that in a culture that places cars before people, that people are more important than cars. They learned that who we are is more important than what we own and how we dress. They didn’t learn that out there in the world. They learned that here.
What lesson is that? So I thought just to finish I might read what might be a job description for a human being. If you saw an ad in the paper for an adult human being, what would it say?

Needed: Adult Human Beings:
Adults who are adult who share their resources with the needy.
Who keep their word in all matters.
Who pray for guidance and then act on the guidance they receive.
Who don’t need artificial means to get through a real day.
Who say, "Im sorry" easily. It rolls off their tongues.
Who say, "What can I do to help?" without wincing.
Who provide for their families and communities to the best of their abilities.
Who, to quote some ghosts of Christmas, make "humankind their business"
Who are peacemakers and reconcilers.
Who would never, ever hurt or abuse anyone.
Who humbly stand before that source of all love and tell the truth about themselves.
and when they pass from this life because they knew so many others in this spiritual community, knew the person who stood at the front of it, will die in a place filled whether Chapel or funeral home, with people who knew them as a brother or sister. And at the front of that funeral home or Church will be standing someone like me talking about someone like you, someone who was a friend, someone who was part of their family, someone that they loved, most importantly, someone who was a real Christian.

This we learned in Sunday School.