The Audacious Faith of Our Children

I was going to preach this morning on the faith of our fathers and mothers; however the evidence of this past week as proved a theory I have had for awhile: Adults are less faithful than children are. At some point in the life of an adult we become cynical, bitter, and uncompromising. We choose to shut the whole thing down instead show a little faith in one another and in God. We are very much like the disciples, telling Jesus, “Look, we need you to give us a little more faith. Step up our faith. Give us more.” And Jesus tells us, “Why if you had the faith of a mustard seed, you could say to this pecan tree, ‘Uproot yourself and plant yourself in the lake,’ and it would do as you say. But you don’t.”

So, us adults, try to have that type of faith but are more like the old lady, having read this passage one morning during her devotional time, went outside and yelled at the big oak, “You, my good sir. Move!” The tree remained still and she said, “Yep, I knew it would do that.”

I hear a lot about how our children and teenagers’ generation is a faithless generation but I think our generations are the faithless ones. After all, if there is a decline in church attendance among ages 13-25, is it their fault or is it ours? I mean how much of their life is spent at home observing us parents and observing other adults and if they see a disconnect between what we say and do; then who is that really on?

Or is the decline in church the opposite? Is it the result of being too successful with our religious education in Sunday school and in our worship service?

According to survey’s (and you know how I feel about those surveys) what this generation of teenagers and young adults want is not a hipper church with hip music or a change in worship style but a change in substance. They want to be included, not excluded, and we can see that in our very own church when our teenagers ask, “Can we include some of worship music in our worship services?” The other factors include a challenge to live a holy life which to them is more than not having sex before marriage. For them it means living a kingdom style life which includes caring for the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned. They want to attend church and know that Jesus is there in the lives of their people. They want to go out and get their hands and feet dirty. They want to look at the giant sycamore tree and say, “Move!” And here’s the funny thing, they actually think they can do it!

Where do you think they ever learned such nonsense? It is obvious to me that our children have just been too well taught by our Sunday school teachers, too well instructed by their parents, too well engaged in worship, and too well read of the scriptures. Obviously, we should have done a better job teaching our children to do as we do not as we say.

Let’s take a moment and look at Jesus’ relationship with his mother and family. After taking him to the temple to be dedicated, they run into an old man named Simon. Simon recognized the little baby as the messiah, congratulated Mary and Joseph, saying to Mary, “Listen, this little one is put here for the downfall and uplift of many in the nation, and for a symbol of controversy—your heart, too, will be stabbed with a sword—so that the inner feelings of many hearts may be laid bare” (Luke 2:33-35 Cotton Patch Gospel).  Flash forwarding several years later, we hear of Jesus wandering off from his parents at the temple and they couldn’t find him for a few days. When they did find him, sitting amongst the other preachers, listening and asking questions, Mary scolds him, “Listen here, son, why did you treat us like this? Your dad and I have been worried to death looking for you.” Do you remember his response? “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you realize that I needed to be with my Father’s people?” Luke tells us they didn’t exactly catch on to what he had said to them.

So we flash forward several more years and Jesus is out preaching and proclaiming and healing when he is told his mother and brothers are outside and wish to speak to him. They came to bring him home. They wanted to say, “Now look, Jesus. You are about to take this thing too far. You come on home and be a good boy. We can give you a job as a foreman in the woodworking division of the carpenter shop. And I want you to forget about all of this business of being the messiah, and all like that.” (Jordan, Clarence. The Substance of Faith and Other Cotton Patch Sermons pg. 11).

Mary gave birth to Jesus and she constantly gave in to her motherly instinct to protect Jesus. It is not until the crucifixion when she finally relinquished him and gave him away. Gave him to humanity as God intended and at last when she lost him, she fully became his mother.

Clarence Jordan writes, “The Church, in a very real sense, gives birth to sons and daughters of God. She is the womb in which they are conceived. In my own case this was true. The little Baptist church in which I grew up nurtured me. In its womb I learned the Scriptures. I suckled at its breasts. And the little church thought it not only was my mother, but also my father. And when I began to go about my Father’s business, the Church said, “No, son, you’re piercing our hearts. We don’t want to give you up.” And when I finally persisted going about my Father’s business, my mother, the Church, renounced me” (Jordan. Pg. 12).

When I am asked why I am a pastor I have to come to answer that question with this statement: “It’s my parents’ fault. They took me to church where my Sunday school teachers taught me to read the bible; where my pastor taught me about God’s unconditional love; where my youth pastor encouraged me to listen and follow God’s call. If they wanted me to do something else, they shouldn’t have introduced me to Jesus and took me to church. They should have let me sleep in.”

And here is where I think the trouble is with the youth today. We have been too successful in our worship practices, our Sunday school teaching, our teachings of scripture. They have become too well read of the gospels and the prophets and they finally catch the point! Our children have gotten the cockamamie idea that God is to be obeyed, to be followed, and to be listened to. So they go out into their world with visions in their head and dreams in their hearts and start following the very God we have fathered and nurtured within them, then we say, “No, child; be my child. Don’t be so much like your Father.” (Jordan, pg. 12).

During my tenure as a youth minister I experienced a moment when a youth told me she would be missing church for a few weeks due to soccer. I was upset with her because church should be an important part of someone’s life and soccer should come second to Jesus. And then she said, “But you taught me to take Jesus to other people. You taught me to show my love for Jesus through his call in my life and with my talents. So that’s what I’m going to do. I am going to go play soccer and tell people about Jesus.”

Right when we start thinking our children weren’t listening to us, they show up with their dirty friends because they heard how much Jesus loved them. They show up volunteering to lead their younger brothers and sisters in worship because they heard how Jesus loves them. They show up demanding to be a part of the church leadership because they were they were future. They show up demanding the big ol’ tree to move and when a leaf falls to the ground they shout, “Halleluiah!” because they were told they could do it!

They show up demanding Jesus be present in their church because they heard that the church was to be out God’s business. They show up demanding more substance and accountability to live a holy life that is more than about abstaining from sex because they read the prophets, the gospels, and the epistles of James and John. They show up demanding more because they listened to their Father’s teachings. They leave because we have done too good of a job telling them to follow Jesus. So they abandon the security of their homes and go to the lowly desolate places. They become rescue workers, firefighters, social workers, teachers, doctors, pastors, and missionaries. They have abandoned our teachings for the teachings of Jesus when they realize they counter one another. No matter how much we’ve attempted to change or remain steadfast in our in our false biblical traditions, our children have listened to the voice of Jesus and followed him without fear or concern of where it will take them, and it has taken them away from us.

Such childishness pains us adults because here we are clamoring for Jesus to give us more faith; while our children are showing us, “If you have faith, even the size of a mustard seed, you could tell that big ol’ oak to move into the lake and it would get up move.” In our pain we tell them to grow up. We tell them that following Jesus with abandon is silliness. We tell them to grow up and listen to their mother. We tell them when they show up with their lost friends, “Well, now hold on. When we said Jesus love us, what we meant was…”

Several years ago, a local youth group started to experience an immense fluctuation in teenagers on Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings. The youth had been encouraged to bring their friends to church and they started inviting them. One day a concerned parent, after suggesting the youth invite their friends, emailed the youth pastor, “I noticed a lot of the kids who are showing up to church come from rough homes. And I heard some even profess being atheist. I am concerned about my child being around those kids. I am afraid they will corrupt her and challenge her faith.”  In other words, when I suggested they invite their friends, I meant friends from other churches.

In our pain we have become afraid of our own children, and we kill their dreams. We kill their hopes. We kill our relationship with them, sticking them in the back room to be out of sight and out of mind until Youth Sunday rolls around. We put up stumbling blocks left and right of our own flesh and blood until they stay on the path we have designated for them. We kill their faith all because we want them to stay and listen to their mother, instead of listening to their Father. After all, whoever thought they would actually listen?

We live in a serious time that is in need of serious Christians, and I believe our children have listened too well to their Father. Which I guess leaves us with a few choices: either we continue to hold our ground and demand our children to grow up, shutting down our churches until we get our way; or we move ourselves to a nice shady spot with our traditions, staying there until we die and let them have run of the place; or when our sons and daughters give themselves with an abandon to following their Father in the lowly paths of the world, let us, the Church, not hold back and say, “Come, child; be your mother’s child.” Let us grasp their hands, seeing in them the image of their Father, and say to them, “Child, though it leads you to a cross, be a good son, a good daughter of your daddy.” (Jordan, pg. 13).  I like that option.