Teach Your Children Well - August 8, 2021
Sermon: “Teach Your Children Well”, Carolyn Smith Aug 8, 2021
My first children’s bible was pretty hard-core and I turned out just fine.
But I remember vividly, John the Baptist’s severed dripping head on a platter, and
the flashing sword in King Solomon’s hand as he offered to divide one baby
between two mothers. Any modern 2021 kid’s bible leaves those images out. So
when I realized Jerin was our reader today, I worried!! But I do believe our kids
don’t need sugar-coating or bubble wrapping. They need reassurance, good
sounding boards to figure out the world around them. Sugar coated or not, wee
ones will experience fear, pain, and potentially trauma as they grow. They need a
lens of hope and resilience from supportive brave adults. If only we were all able
to be brave! There is a sense that adults are capable grownups, but we’re just
older, continuing to experience the ups and downs of life, with whatever good or
lousy coping strategies we’ve cobbled together.
Musician Graham Nash saw a famous photo taken by Diane Arbus of a kid with a
grenade in his hand. Vietnam was real, Korea and WW 2 were still vivid, and the
photo of this kid was jarring, so much that he wrote the song we are looking at
today: “Teach your Children Well,” released by Crosby Stills Nash and Young in
1970. And it struck a chord - it hit #8 on the Canadian charts. Easily, this is an
Anti-War song, but it is anti-a lot of things... For war doesn’t come from
nothing....
When most parents cradle their infants, it is with an awe-some sense of
responsibility. As teachers graduate to their first job, they’re excited to nurture a
child’s mind. Although, last week in our service, we adults acknowledged a
common thread of inner struggles making sense of who we are in the lives we live.
And many of us strive to raise up a new generation, but through the tarnished lens
of our past and our memories and our harsh measurements of what matters. That
it goes badly sometimes is part of this song... Nash writes:
Teach your children well, Their father's hell did slowly go by
And feed them on your dreams, The one they pick's the one you'll know by
The kids pick up on things and carry some of it forward in their own way. For
many of us, the learning happens in moderate regular-life ways, with manageable
troubles to grow up with, but we know the dark side. Jeff Laforet works with
Children’s Aid. Our indigenous neighbours weep over lost childhoods. My friend
sat with 2 young boys while their refugee mom from Angola recounted trafficking
and torture to her immigration lawyer. Whether kids know their parent’s stories
or not, they are physiologically and emotionally impacted by simmering stress.
The song sings to the younger ones: And you of tender years Can't know the fears
That your elders grew by...
But growing humans, animals, even trees respond to stress... and it can generate
lives lived to avoid pain, except where love or trust has been enough to shine
through. Young ones living through their ups and downs have an impact too on the
relationships with their elders, and no matter what, the elder ones can’t fully
understand or fix. And then what? Broken relationship, questions, or maybe
acceptance and blessing? So to the young ones, teach your parents well, Their
children's hell will slowly go by, and feed them on your dreams...
We pray for shared dreams, for acceptance and healing when it’s needed, and trust .
With deep breath and courage, maybe relationship means sharing what matters
most: hope, energy, resilience - our faith in a compassionate God who created the
beauty of rainbows and waterfalls and puppies, of laughter and discovery ... our
faith in a future of peace ... that is what we dream of and pray for.
Abraham and Sarah prayed to God for decades to have a child, and it was with
great laughter they heard the news in their 90s they would finally bear a son.
Isaac’s very name means Laughter... what joy in that story!! And so todays’
reading of the Sacrifice of Isaac is so much more gut-wrenching....
It has always disturbed me how this story seem written as if hiding emotion, as if
burying the pain is preferable. Who decided that made sense? We know it’s a
harmful theme in our cultural story that masking pain shows strength. This de-
sensitized story has been used to teach obedience, except only through fear, gas
lighting even, to use modern term. In the passage of time, some who heard this
rejected what taught to them as a violent, abusive parent God.
So teach the children well. Don't you ever ask them, "Why?"If they told you, you
would cry. So just look at them and sigh, And know they love you.
Imagine young Isaac wondering why, despite his love and trust in his father?
You can’t know the fears that elders grew by... we can’t know unless we hear and
understand, so let’s hear what’s been hidden: This story is written about 4000
years ago... not as memoirs, but what theologians and historians have uncovered is
that for the readers at the time, this was a new GOOD thing! We can hardly
imagine a time of sacrificing our children but 4000 years ago it was all too
common. If a god was angry and powerful, then you sacrificed your most
cherished possession to show honour.
But this time - for the first time - our God said NO and rejected child sacrifice.
The God of Heaven, of Abraham and Sarah was a God who treasured the love of
parent and child and raised up a community bound with trust instead of fear. It
was a revelation of reassurance that has been lost in the telling over 4000 years of
tarnished human lenses.
Last week, we practiced a calming breath and trust and centering with the presence
of God to know ourselves more clearly. It’s a gift that then clears our eyes to see
our relationships in the same fresh light.
The song says: You, who are on the road Must have a code that you can live by.
And so, become yourself, Because the past is just a goodbye...Then with your youth
(What you believe in); They seek the truth...
So let’s teach Our Code - the Way of Jesus and a God of love not fear, and in the
calm, centred place of our hearts, we can teach each other well. Our hope for Isaac
is that he learned the love of both parent and an ever-present God. As we learn
each day, let’s share in life and love, for ourselves, and the world we create
together. Amen.