October 9, 2011

• Children's Sabbath
• Mark 10:13-16

A procession of special days
Sunday's message: How do we bless our children?

The year now ends with a procession of special Sundays, beginning with Children's Sabbath and continuing through Thanksgiving Sunday in late November.

Children's Sabbath is an interfaith celebration. Materials are available for church, synagogue, and mosque for this weekend. Children's Sabbath was developed some years ago by the Children's Defense Fund.

Our focus on Sunday will begin with the gospel story in which Jesus puts aside good adult conversation in order to receive and bless children. His disciples didn't like that; but Jesus was "indignant" with them, saying (perhaps with some edge in his voice) "Let the children come to me, do not stop them." Mark says that Jesus took these small children up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

We are Jesus' latter-day disciples. How do we follow his lead in blessing children? In what ways do we fail to do so, making Jesus indignant again? Why is it important? I'll be bringing some local facts and figures to that topic on Sunday. But my intent will not be to chide so much as to call us to appropriate action, action that makes an actual difference for the children in our lives and in our community.

What is it that makes children unique? In Jesus' day, and for most time until recently, children were not highly valued. The gained value only when they became productive adults. How do we see that differently now? And in what ways can we meet their unique needs?

In a day when small children were counted as next to nothing, Jesus accorded them kingdom of God importance. So we'll spend a Sunday talking about that. I'll see you there.