A VILLAGE OF ONE
A Sermon preached by Jessica E. Weinhold
September 13, 2009
Pasadena Presbyterian Church
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. - Deuteronomy 6:5-9
In this text, the author of Deuteronomy is addressing the lay citizens of Israel with this all-important command to love God. At this point in Israel’s history, the Israelites have already received the Ten Commandments from Moses on Mount Sinai. Those commandments have served as their guidebook, so to speak, for their faith and faith practices.
But this second giving of the law—as many scholars put it—is even more monumental because it makes explicit that faith is not simply about adhering to a set of rules, but rather, such obedience is born out of one’s love for God. In this context, love does not simply denote an emotion, but it has to do with giving priority to the demands of God. In other words, to love God requires action. So, for instance, just like we’ve heard it said before in reference to a marriage or a partnership: “love is a choice.” You make a decision each day to love someone and you demonstrate that love through your actions. The same idea is true here. God requires love, but a love that expresses itself through service.
The commandment to love God with one’s entire “heart, soul and might” is so important that even the youngest of society are expected to abide by it, and it is the responsibility of the community to ensure that their children learn to love and obey God. Interestingly, the text doesn’t specify that it is simply the “parents” who are to teach children, the text addresses the entire Israelite community. This, of course, includes parents of children, but it also includes those without. Christian Education, then, in this context, is a communal responsibility.
Now I know it’s predictable—and maybe even cliché—that I, as the Director of Education here at PPC, would preach about children and the importance of Christian Education. But despite the predictability, it genuinely is my passion, and I hope it becomes yours also. We—as a community of faith—have a responsibility to teach our children to love and serve God. Second to loving God as individuals, according to this text, it is our most important calling to teach our children to love God.
I know it’s been said before that we don’t have many children in this church. And I also know that it’s been said—even from up here—that quite the contrary is true. We have lots of kids! And in fact, we do. When the observation is made that we don’t have many children, it’s usually an observation that points to the fact that we don’t have many children in the English-language portion of our congregation.
I’ve sometimes wondered if we unconsciously think of the Latino and Korean kids as not “our kids.” And, of course, this kind of thinking—if it is indeed present—is part of a larger issue that we’ve been wrestling with over this last year in our work with Eric Law as we strive to live into a new vision of what it means to be a multicultural church. But the truth of it is: if we are to be one church—as we claim we want to be—we must embrace all members of this church…children included. It is our calling as the community of faith to assist in the raising and teaching of our children. We affirm this call every time we respond to the baptismal vows that are asked of us during an infant baptism: “Do you as members of the church of Jesus Christ, promise to guide and nurture this child by word and deed, with love and prayer, encouraging her to know and follow Christ and to be a faithful member of Christ’s church?” And together, we respond with: We will.
Now this is a difficult calling for many reasons—but most specifically—I think we find this a difficult call to fulfill because it is at odds with the culture in which we live. We’re used to taking responsibility for what is ours and ours alone—this individualistic message has been ingrained and internalized within us even sometimes in spite of our best efforts to fight it. So we begin to parrot the cynicism we so often hear around us saying things like: “I didn’t choose to have kids why should I have worry about someone else’s? Where’s the mother? Why isn’t the father paying child support?” And the list goes on. Certainly there are legitimate concerns behind some of these rather callous questions, but while we debate over who should take responsibility for what and why—there are children in need.
There are children who suffer silently under the shadows of our arguments. There are kids here at PPC right now whose friends have been brutally killed in gang fights, kids who live in poverty stricken conditions, kids whose parents have died—just recently—of illness, kids whose reading level is that of a 4th grader even though they’re 17. These kids can’t wait for the world to right itself—they call out to us now. They can’t wait for us to settle our arguments—they call out to us now. I agree things are not ideal. There are those who have not taken responsibility in the ways we believe they should, but that does not negate the fact that there remains a desperate need, and although we can’t fix everything, we can do our part.
A couple of weeks ago my twin sister and her husband, Kevin, came out to visit for a few days. Kevin just finished a three-year stint as a high school English and Drama teacher at one of the toughest inner city schools in Louisville, Kentucky—Iroquois High School. Teaching is not Kevin’s ultimate goal in life, but he’s extremely gifted at it and took on the job in order to put my sister through law school.
Given that Kevin and I share an interest in education, we often swap stories and talk for hours about our perspectives on education within the United States. I’m always interested to hear his stories because he, like many of you who teach, worked in an environment where he had little to no help from the administration of his school, an almost non-existent budget and kids who were extremely intelligent, but struggling with such profound issues at home that reading “A Raisin in the Sun” was the last thing on their minds.
In the three years Kevin was at Iroquois he made a major impact there: he produced six plays and one musical, and he assisted the kids in writing and producing over 30 of their own short plays. Kevin touched the lives of many students, but it was often an uphill battle. When it was time for parent/teacher conferences he would get maybe a grand total of three to five parents who would come by to visit his classroom out of his 120 students. Compare that to his colleagues teaching in other school districts who had parents lined up outside their classroom doors.
I asked Kevin how he kept going for those years in the face of such overwhelming adversity and his response to me was, “Sometimes you have to be a village of one.” Of course, he was playing on the old African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child.” His point being, that when the village doesn’t do its part then one person can (and must) create a village.
We can often forget how much power we have as individuals to affect our environment for the better. Sure, there are limitations and it’s important to be aware of those limitations, but it’s equally important—if not more important—to work with what we already have. Create the village you want and start by using what little you may have. I believe we can do that here at PPC.
We are undoubtedly a congregation who cares deeply for our children, but sometimes our children aren’t always a priority. Any one of our eight members from the Children & Youth Committee of this church will tell you how difficult it is to find volunteers to teach Sunday School, or lead Youth Fellowship, or drive kids to and from church. When I went through the Time & Talents Surveys that we all filled out a few months ago, of the 35 surveys returned, only one person said she wanted to teach children.
So there is a discrepancy between what we say we value on the one hand and what we actually do on the other. It’s my belief that this inconsistency doesn’t exist so much because people don’t care, but because many people feel they don’t know how to help. I’ve heard it said time and time again: I don’t know enough about the Bible to teach, I’m not good with urban youth, I don’t know how to relate to little kids. And there are some who don’t want to work with children because their own kids have grown and gone out into the world and they feel they’ve put in their time.
But today I want to challenge you to commit to the children and youth of PPC anew. Remember what you promised to them in their baptisms, remember what the Scripture calls you to in Deuteronomy, remember that it does take a village to raise a child.
And for those that say, “ But Jessica, I don’t know how”, I ask you this: Can you drive a car? Can you play basketball? Do you like to watch movies? Can you play a board game? Are you good at math? Do you know how to read? Can you sit at a table with our youth during a Sunday luncheon and make conversation? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions then you have the ability to not only help our kids, but to be a vehicle of God’s love for them. Setting this kind of example requires consistency. Trust me – it’s not a one-time deal. Just like the Scripture tells us, “Recite [these words] to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” This kind of commitment requires consistency, but start small. Choose one child and remain faithful to him or her. And if you don’t know how to choose: ask me, call me, email me and I promise I will connect you.
I close this morning with a story of faithfulness. Of the many kids Kevin influenced while at Iroquois there was one in particular that stood out: Terrance. He was a tough kid, often getting in trouble at school for fighting—he had a younger female cousin that he was continually trying to protect and defend. On Kevin’s second day at Iroquois, he kicked Terrance out of class for insubordination. Kevin had asked Terrance to move to his assigned seat so Kevin could memorize the names of students and Terrance refused. From that day forward, Terrance wouldn’t engage in class discussions, would roll up his sleeves, flex his muscles, and stare Kevin down—silently begging for a confrontation. Kevin remained positive, cordial and didn’t engage Terrance in any negativity—he just focused on building a community within the class, and would sometimes encourage Terrance to join in, but never pushed.
It’s this kind of behavior that wears most of us down. We get frustrated, angry, tired and ask ourselves, “Why do I put up with this?” But thankfully, Kevin knew what Terrance was ultimately trying to do: he was testing Kevin. He wanted to see if Kevin would stick around despite his bad behavior and disrespect. Because Terrance, like all of us, was desperately seeking connection. He wanted a relationship, but he was suspicious because so many people give up when the going gets tough. In time, Terrance came around. He started participating—acting and improvising in class—and he even got nick named Mr. Funny by his classmates.
To this day, Terrance is not necessarily on a path that’s moving “upward and onward”—which is the reality of working with children that face such profound life challenges. The journey, unfortunately, is not a linear path to success, but we MUST continue to hope beyond all hope that these kids will remember the small moments of grace in their lives when they face pivotal points of decision-making. Before Kevin left Iroquois, Terrance gave him a letter that read this way:
Dear Mr. Del Principe:
My time at [Iroquois] has been great but it's time to move on. I know that I have done some crazy [things] but I have done some good thing's as well so all I can say is [thanks] for putting up with me…we was testing you to see if you was a teacher or a man…and you got my respect as a man…
from
Mr. Funny aka Terrance
There were days Kevin wanted to quit. When he wondered why he gave so much of himself to kids that didn’t seem to care. But even in the midst of those nagging doubts, Kevin persisted in creating a village of one—and I believe he has made an eternal difference in lives of more children than he could ever imagine because he was determined to build relationships and to remain faithful.
I pray we do the same here at PPC. You don’t need to know everything about the Bible to be a good teacher. Working with kids doesn’t have to be your life’s passion to make a difference. All you need, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said is a “heart full of grace and a soul generated by love.” It does indeed take a village a to raise a child, and that village begins with you. Thanks be to God. Amen.