“You Decide"
Matthew 22:15-22
A Children’s Sabbath Sermon
by The Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
Epworth United Methodist Church

For years Jonathan Kozol has written about the “ordinary resurrections” found in the daily lives of the poorest children of this nation. The walls of his home are covered with art work -- the writings and pictures given to him by children, children who see death, who know suffering, yet who survive to create images of hope.

In the place of honor, right in the window he sees every morning as he comes downstairs, is a picture given to him by Pineapple, a nine-year old from the South Bronx. The picture,
… is an imitation stained-glass window that she made from tissue paper, brightly colored with green paint and … a wash of light-blue ink. It’s a landscape: grass and sky and one tremendous puffy-looking cloud that looks like an amoeba or a fish,… also,-- partly hidden by a hill, (there’s) a jolly-looking thing with orange rays that look like dragons’ teeth and is supposed to be the sun.

Kozol continues,
When I asked (Pineapple)… if it was supposed to be a rising sun or setting sun, … She thought about it for a time, then said… “You decide.”
(My) friends who see it … cannot decide if it’s supposed to be the end … or the beginning (of day). Either way, I think (it’s) beautiful;
and,… I like to think it’s rising.

The officers of the temple and the officers of the Roman Empire came to Jesus and tried to trap him with a question … a forced-choice test designed either to discredit his religious leadership or to catch him advocating the breaking of the Roman law … “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” Either – Or … Yes - Or …

But Jesus found a third way … Yes – And… He asked them for a Roman coin they used to pay taxes. He pointed to the emperor’s image on it … and he said, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s… but then -- he added… and give to God the things that are God’s.”
You decide.

What belongs to empire What belongs to God?

Writing of this story of Jesus in the context of the first Gulf War, Dorothee Soelle wrote a poem:
And what belongs to Caesar?
The bird its wings gummed up with oil
The sunless heaven in the stink
…Hospitals without water
Yes, that belongs to Caesar
…
What then belongs to God?
There were once birds
There were once clouds and water
The children without protection on this earth
Do not forget that they belonged to God
One day there will be laughter
The work in the laboratory and our addictions
And our eyes, our hands
They will belong to God.

We want to give to God what is God’s:
The life of our brothers and sisters
And our hearts.
-------

If I had to choose one thought to place on the altar this Children’s Sabbath it would be this promise and challenge from Solle’s poem … that “the children without protection on this earth do not forget that they belong to God.”

For that to become and remain true will require generations of grown-ups who do not forget that we belong to God. It begins here: seeing and claiming the child of God within. The Christ… within. The light… within. It begins every morning when we remember to see the sun rising, when we re-create images of hope, when we decide to give God what is God’s.

Howard Ikemoto wrote, When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college – that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, “You mean they forget?”

We forget. We learn to forget that we are creative. We learn to forget that we are beautiful. We learn to forget that we all are created in the image of God. That every child has the image of God stamped upon their heart. Even you. Even me. Our ministries with children will flow from remembering.

Printed in your worship guide this morning you will find the names of Epworth laypersons in ministry with children … 44 people … with descriptions of some of the ways those 44 people are being with and serving children in the world … and there are so many more … what a wonderful witness to the heart of this community.

I have been powerfully reminded these past few weeks and days … of the beauty and courage that resides within children spirit born and made in the image of God. (3 months, 7 years, 15 years and 90 years old)

I received an e-mail message this week from Gordon Whitman, a national staff member of PICO Interfaith National Network (PICO - People Improving Communities Through Organizing BOCA). Gordon Whitman said that “PICO has learned that Congress is considering raising funds to pay for rebuilding in the Gulf Coast by allowing states to charge low-income children and families across the country new access fees to use Medicaid. In September PICO released a report entitled DO NO HARM that estimated that these “access fees” would cause 500,000 to 1.5 million children to lose health coverage.” Brothers and sisters in New Orleans are raising their voices against rebuilding their homes and businesses on the backs of the poor. Both houses of congress will address these fees and Medicaid cuts this week and next. An email invitation to join their voices with ours will be sent to you this week.

How will “the children without protection on this earth not forget that they belong to God?” In part they will know when people of faith resist with voice and vote legislative choices that devalue and make more difficult their daily lives.

Reuters news service carried an article dealing with the Palestinian efforts to rebuild the Gaza strip after years occupation and years of “the legacy of a culture of martyrdom and militancy.” One leader observed that among Palestinian children, “Militants and martyrs are the only role models here.” They quote a 12-year-old schoolgirl Abir Jarradah … wearing a blue uniform with a white headscarf … saying “I want to join Hamas because they try to make me less afraid and I want to make others feel less afraid … But I also want to become a doctor.” Think of the choices of children and youth of our communities that make them feel less afraid, and of their unseen and unspoken promise.

“The children without protection on this earth do not forget that they belong to God?” I’m sure it begins with simple things … recognizing children’s presence as gift … taking time to listen …recognizing the image of God in one another… offering support and guidance. But I know it also has far-reaching implications as well … legislative priorities … financial commitments to educational and health services … making the world a place where peace-making is not only credible but powerful.

You decide. It’s not one specific strategy or agenda … but it is a decision, a way of seeing … … and living … that insists on the holy that resides within each living thing, that sees the sun rising.

What belongs to God? Psalm 24 puts it simply:
The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.

What belongs to God is everything.

Let us give God what is God’s.

“You Decide"
Matthew 22:15-22
A Children’s Sabbath Sermon
by The Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
Epworth United Methodist Church

For years Jonathan Kozol has written about the “ordinary resurrections” found in the daily lives of the poorest children of this nation. The walls of his home are covered with art work -- the writings and pictures given to him by children, children who see death, who know suffering, yet who survive to create images of hope.

In the place of honor, right in the window he sees every morning as he comes downstairs, is a picture given to him by Pineapple, a nine-year old from the South Bronx. The picture,
… is an imitation stained-glass window that she made from tissue paper, brightly colored with green paint and … a wash of light-blue ink. It’s a landscape: grass and sky and one tremendous puffy-looking cloud that looks like an amoeba or a fish,… also,-- partly hidden by a hill, (there’s) a jolly-looking thing with orange rays that look like dragons’ teeth and is supposed to be the sun.

Kozol continues,
When I asked (Pineapple)… if it was supposed to be a rising sun or setting sun, … She thought about it for a time, then said… “You decide.”
(My) friends who see it … cannot decide if it’s supposed to be the end … or the beginning (of day). Either way, I think (it’s) beautiful;
and,… I like to think it’s rising.

The officers of the temple and the officers of the Roman Empire came to Jesus and tried to trap him with a question … a forced-choice test designed either to discredit his religious leadership or to catch him advocating the breaking of the Roman law … “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” Either – Or … Yes - Or …

But Jesus found a third way … Yes – And… He asked them for a Roman coin they used to pay taxes. He pointed to the emperor’s image on it … and he said, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s… but then -- he added… and give to God the things that are God’s.”
You decide.

What belongs to empire What belongs to God?

Writing of this story of Jesus in the context of the first Gulf War, Dorothee Soelle wrote a poem:
And what belongs to Caesar?
The bird its wings gummed up with oil
The sunless heaven in the stink
…Hospitals without water
Yes, that belongs to Caesar
…
What then belongs to God?
There were once birds
There were once clouds and water
The children without protection on this earth
Do not forget that they belonged to God
One day there will be laughter
The work in the laboratory and our addictions
And our eyes, our hands
They will belong to God.

We want to give to God what is God’s:
The life of our brothers and sisters
And our hearts.
-------

If I had to choose one thought to place on the altar this Children’s Sabbath it would be this promise and challenge from Solle’s poem … that “the children without protection on this earth do not forget that they belong to God.”

For that to become and remain true will require generations of grown-ups who do not forget that we belong to God. It begins here: seeing and claiming the child of God within. The Christ… within. The light… within. It begins every morning when we remember to see the sun rising, when we re-create images of hope, when we decide to give God what is God’s.

Howard Ikemoto wrote, When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college – that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, “You mean they forget?”

We forget. We learn to forget that we are creative. We learn to forget that we are beautiful. We learn to forget that we all are created in the image of God. That every child has the image of God stamped upon their heart. Even you. Even me. Our ministries with children will flow from remembering.

Printed in your worship guide this morning you will find the names of Epworth laypersons in ministry with children … 44 people … with descriptions of some of the ways those 44 people are being with and serving children in the world … and there are so many more … what a wonderful witness to the heart of this community.

I have been powerfully reminded these past few weeks and days … of the beauty and courage that resides within children spirit born and made in the image of God. (3 months, 7 years, 15 years and 90 years old)

I received an e-mail message this week from Gordon Whitman, a national staff member of PICO Interfaith National Network (PICO - People Improving Communities Through Organizing BOCA). Gordon Whitman said that “PICO has learned that Congress is considering raising funds to pay for rebuilding in the Gulf Coast by allowing states to charge low-income children and families across the country new access fees to use Medicaid. In September PICO released a report entitled DO NO HARM that estimated that these “access fees” would cause 500,000 to 1.5 million children to lose health coverage.” Brothers and sisters in New Orleans are raising their voices against rebuilding their homes and businesses on the backs of the poor. Both houses of congress will address these fees and Medicaid cuts this week and next. An email invitation to join their voices with ours will be sent to you this week.

How will “the children without protection on this earth not forget that they belong to God?” In part they will know when people of faith resist with voice and vote legislative choices that devalue and make more difficult their daily lives.

Reuters news service carried an article dealing with the Palestinian efforts to rebuild the Gaza strip after years occupation and years of “the legacy of a culture of martyrdom and militancy.” One leader observed that among Palestinian children, “Militants and martyrs are the only role models here.” They quote a 12-year-old schoolgirl Abir Jarradah … wearing a blue uniform with a white headscarf … saying “I want to join Hamas because they try to make me less afraid and I want to make others feel less afraid … But I also want to become a doctor.” Think of the choices of children and youth of our communities that make them feel less afraid, and of their unseen and unspoken promise.

“The children without protection on this earth do not forget that they belong to God?” I’m sure it begins with simple things … recognizing children’s presence as gift … taking time to listen …recognizing the image of God in one another… offering support and guidance. But I know it also has far-reaching implications as well … legislative priorities … financial commitments to educational and health services … making the world a place where peace-making is not only credible but powerful.

You decide. It’s not one specific strategy or agenda … but it is a decision, a way of seeing … … and living … that insists on the holy that resides within each living thing, that sees the sun rising.

What belongs to God? Psalm 24 puts it simply:
The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.

What belongs to God is everything.

Let us give God what is God’s.