Jesus, the Unexpected

John 4:1-42

Psalm 42:1-3

Today we hear the story of the woman at the well.  It is a very familiar story, but I want to dig into the context just a little bit more for us today.  In this time of Jesus, the division between peoples, in particular between the Jews and Samaritans was very much like the growing divisions that we are seeing in our own country.  It was a time of great anxiety, just like it is now, and it was a time, just like now, when it was clear who “the enemy” was for any group of people.  Everyone knew which “side” of things they were on.  And they “KNEW” that the others were wrong.  This was so much the case that in today’s passage we read, in verse 9: “The Samaritan woman asked, ‘Why do you, a Jewish man, ask for something to drink from me, a Samaritan woman?’ (Jews and Samaritans didn’t associate with each other.)”  There was so much animosity that people simply did not cross the lines.  They did not associate with each other, they did not talk to each other.  And yet, here was Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman.  And the woman, to her credit, talked back.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: we forget that we belong to one another.  We forget that we BELONG to one another.  You know that question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”  For people of faith the answer is, always, “YES.”  

I found myself remembering when we had our first “crossing the differences” conversation here.  And it was about low-income housing and rent control.  One of our visitors who attended that meeting made the comment, “I find no reason at all why we should take care of people who can’t take care of themselves.  We subsidize them whenever there is low-income housing.  The rest of us are subsidizing them.”  And I found myself thinking, once again, that this is the core difference between our culture and what our faith calls us to do and be.  We are absolutely called to care for those who “can’t take care of themselves.”  God never asks the question of whether or not their care is deserved.  NEVER.  Jesus, when he offers healing, and help, and food, NEVER asks about whether or not it is deserved.  Instead, God’s question is always about what the other needs.  As people with families we understand this.  If our child were hungry, it would never be a question on our mind to ask if they deserved to eat that day or if they deserved to have a warm bed to sleep in.  We provide because they are our family and we love them.  We provide because they belong to us and we belong to them.  That call to remember that everyone else is our brother, is our sister, belongs to us, that is our call as people of faith.  

Outside of faith, that man with his comment was correct: there is no reason, outside of our love for God that calls us to love all of God’s children, all of God’s people, there is no reason.  But inside the bounds of our faith, there is, in fact, no option to fail to offer care, no option to fail to serve, to care, or to love.

As you all know, a group of us have been part of a belong circle now for about eight months.  This is a group of women from our church and a group of women from an African American congregation who meet together twice a month for the purpose of remembering that we belong to one another.  We share with one another where we are, what we are doing, our joys, our hopes, our dreams, our struggles, our pains.  We have come to love each other deeply.  Personally, I also feel that I have learned and grown so much from their example.  One of the women in our group, for example, is struggling with great unkindness coming her direction.  But her commitment to being kind to those who are treating her so unfairly and even, at times, cruelly, moves me every single time that I listen to her.  She understands at a deep place that people are unkind because they are hurting.  So she prays for them, she responds to their attacks with listening, with apology, with words of humility.  She touches and amazes me every day.  She lives out the understanding that despite differences, we belong to one another.  

I was reminded recently of a story called the “Law of the Garbage Truck”.  The person who wrote it said, “One day I hopped in a taxi and we took off for the airport. We were driving in the right lane when suddenly a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded, and missed the other car by just inches! The driver of the other car whipped his head around and started yelling at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean, he was really friendly.  So I asked, 'Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!' This is when my taxi driver taught me what I now call, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck.' He explained that many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment.  As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it and sometimes they'll dump it on you. Don't take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Don't take their garbage and spread it to other people at work, at home, or on the streets. The bottom line is that successful people do not let garbage trucks take over their day. Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets, So ... Love the people who treat you right. Pray for those who don’t.”

The thing here is, Jesus did not change his mind in talking with the Samaritan woman.  He still said in this passage from John, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.”  He still has his same understanding.  But he does not then choose to hold her differences of belief and understanding against her.  He does not avoid her because her worldview is different.  He does not shun her or reject her.  He does not choose hate, despite what other Jews are doing, in the face of their differences.  Instead, he invites her close, he offers her life, he talks to her.  And in so doing, he breaks down walls rather than building them up.  And he crosses differences instead of upholding animosity.  He chooses connection over division.  

I’m reminded of a poem by Yehuda Amichai called, The Place Where We Are Right 

From the place where we are right 

Flowers will never grow 

In the spring. 

The place where we are right 

Is hard and trampled 

Like a yard. 

But doubts and loves 

Dig up the world 

Like a mole, a plow. 

And a whisper will be heard in the place 

Where the ruined

House once stood.

Or as Wayne Dyer said it, “When given the choice between being right and being kind, choose kind.” 

The Priest and spiritual leader, Richard Rohr, said it this way: “Henceforth, it is not "those who do it right go to heaven later," but "those who receive and reflect me are in heaven now." This is God's unimaginable restorative justice. God does not love you if and when you change. God loves you so that you can change. That is the true story line of the Gospel.”

Or, as the author of the book, When Breath become Air, Paul Kalanithi says, “The main message of Jesus, I believed, is that mercy trumps justice every time.”

As I listen to those words I find myself wondering, once again, if we can’t work harder to do the same.  Can we learn to love one another, across our differences, despite our differences, with the hope of creating a society where we understand and remember that we belong to one another?  Can we be the people that we are called to be?  People of grace, of light, of compassion, of LOVE?  

When my son was coming home for Christmas from UAF, I was worried about how he was going to get to the airport.  The school has a shuttle service around campus and downtown so I emailed them and asked if they would be running kids the airport for Christmas break.  The person in charge said he did not believe so (most of the kids live in AK and don’t need that transportation), but if I let him know what time Middle needed to travel, they would come get him and take him.  I sent them back a note saying that was very kind and could I pay them for it.  His response, “no need.  This is the right thing to do.”  I was truly blown away.  But the fact that this kindness caught me so by surprise is a warning sign to me of the state of our nation.  We should always be that kind to one another, all the time.  The fact that it is rare?  We need to work harder to make it less so!

Someone said recently to me, “I don’t worry about putting the Christ back into Christmas.  I worry about putting the Christ back into Christians.”  We are to be known by our love.  Do we live that out?  Do we take that seriously?  We don’t need to pound on each other about our different beliefs, our different viewpoints, our different approaches to the world.  We need to treat one another with the same compassion, love and care that Jesus showed to the woman at the well.  Even his disciples couldn’t grasp it, so I know how hard this is.  Even his disciples struggled to understand why he would talk to a Samaritan, why he would talk to a WOMAN.  But he did it none the less.  Can we do the same with those with whom we disagree?  

Connie Schultz said it this way, “I learned that those who are most secure in their faith feel no need to hammer others with their certainty.  The walk of faith begins and ends with the journey within, and that’s a path fraught with mystery and best guesses.  My own faith makes me neither right nor righteous because it demands so much of me that I am still trying to find.  Empathy, forgiveness, compassion – I never have enough.  Mom would say that’s okay.  She taught me that being a Christian meant fixing ourselves and helping others, not the other way around.” – Life Happens p214

On this the week we begin Black History month in the U.S., I want to end with one more quote.  This one is from Erna Kim Hackett.  She wrote, “White Christianity suffers from a bad case of Disney Princess theology.  As each individual reads Scripture, they see themselves as the Princess in every story.  They are Esther, never Xerxes or Haman.  They are Peter, never Judas.  They are the woman anointing Jesus, never the Pharisee.  They are the Jews escaping slavery, never Egypt.  For citizens of the most powerful country in the world, who enslaved both Native and Black people, to see itself as Israel not Egypt when studying Scripture, is a perfect example of Disney Princess Theology.  And it means that as people in power, they have no lens for locating themselves rightly in Scripture or society – and it has made them blind and utterly ill-equipped to engage issues of power and injustice.  It is some very weak Bible work.”  

No doubt.  My invitation to us, then, is to accurately locate ourselves, not so that we are weighed down with shame: shame is immobilizing and unhelpful.  But so, instead, that we can take the history that is ours, learn from it, and make different choices together.  Will we walk forward hand in hand, or will we isolate and estrange one another.  Will we confront the issues of racism and other isms by separating ourselves into camps of us vs. them?  Or will we work hard to talk together, get to know one another and build relationships together?

The Belong Circle program is a program of crossing differences and building relationships.  Outsiders to the group have asked me on many occasions, “What’s the point?  What are you accomplishing together?  What difference are you making?”  But I can tell you the difference that I’m seeing.  We are no longer strangers to one another.  We are sisters in our group.  And for my sister, I would be willing to stand up, to protect, to speak out against injustice, against racism and prejudice.  When my siblings of color were just an anonymous group of people struggling, I still wanted wholeness and healing for them.  But it is not the same as when I know them, love them, have faces and names put to those I am defending.  That is a whole other matter.  The Belong Circle invites us to truly get to know each other.  We are starting a new circle this month and I hope that you will truly consider joining.  Let me know if you would like to be a part.  It may feel like a small step forward, but in my experience it is not.    

The same is true about forming real relationships with people who disagree with you on political issues. Form those relationships with people who disagree, talk to them.  Remember that despite our differences, they are your brothers, sisters and siblings.  They belong to you, and you belong to them.  Am I my siblings keeper?  Just as Jesus answered “yes” in his conversation with the woman at the well, we are called to follow and do the same.  All that easy and all that hard.

Every vote counts?

         As a rule I really haven't gone out up until now.  I go to church once every two weeks to record services, and that's been pretty much it.  We order our groceries and other things that we need.  We go for walks around the neighborhood for exercise, but always wearing masks and avoid people by crossing the street when we encounter them.  I haven't even seen my mother or my sister during this entire time, though they live right here in the Bay Area.  Extreme caution?  No doubt.  But I am prone to lung infections - I don't get colds, I get bronchitis; and David has a whole host of other issues that make him vulnerable.  Additionally, I just don't want to be the cause of anyone else getting sick, ever.

      But today, for the first time since all of this has happened I went to a non-partisan "event".  I joined a few other clergy and we went and stood on the corner of a fairly busy street (with our masks on, spaced out) with signs that read, "Thank you to the poll workers!",  "Thank you to the postal workers!", "Every vote matters!"  That was it.  

      And it was interesting.  We got a lot of support - people honking and giving us thumbs up.  We also got a surprising number of thumbs down.  And I had to wonder, what were they saying in that?  Seriously!  Are they protesting that we are thanking the poll workers and the postal workers?  Ridiculous.  No, they were showing their hands.  They were protesting the idea that every citizen of this country has a right to vote.  They were protesting the idea that every citizen should be able to have their vote counted.  They were owning their racism and prejudice, without apology.

    As a country we are more and more divided.  Or perhaps, as a friend mentioned to me today, we are not in fact more divided, just more aware of the divisions between us.  Perhaps.  There was a time when manners, kindness, and common courtesy kept us connected, even to those with whom we disagreed.  But this is no longer the case.  We no longer feel we have to practice common kindnesses, common courtesies.  Kindness and courtesy are no longer "common" at all.  And so people are unkind.  People are unafraid to act out their fear in angry and even violent ways.  Those who do not resort to violence often practice other ways of bullying... such as passively aggressively icing others out.  People no longer feel they need to self-reflect, to challenge their own fears and prejudices and work to be better.  They no longer recognize the need to talk with and to those with whom we disagree, working to build bridges of understanding and healing.  Instead, folk feel free, for example, to admit their unapologetic prejudices in the form of protesting that those who are different or "other" from "us" should not even have their votes counted.  

    I do not know the way back from this divide.  I do not know how, if we listen to different news stations and believe different basic truths, and feel that the ways we do things are only the way we will do things when they suit us, but that we will challenge and ignore our laws and our processes when they don't suit us, how we will find common ground and how we can repair and rebuild the damage.  I do not know how we will learn to talk to those with whom we disagree if the only ways we are willing to engage them are through violent words, attacks, or by cutting them off and refusing to engage them at all.

    I think we MUST learn a new way to relate to one another.  We must remember that we are all connected, that we are brothers and sisters to one another.  We must go back to seeing ourselves as family, all children of one God.  If we are to heal this divide we must start to talk to one another, to listen to one another.  We must work on building relationships, taking the risks to be together in kindness and compassion.  

    Until we can start to do this, I think there is little hope of healing for our nation.  And if we can't even learn to hear each other within this country, there is even less hope of healing for our world.

Unkindness and self-righteousness

     We live in a time when self-righteous judging is just a fact of life.  We judge each other, condemn each other, without listening, without even talking about what specifically we don't like or why.  It's just judgment, just condemnation, just attacks and accusations, without the conversations, without real engagement with folk about their thoughts, their ideas, their feelings, their histories, or what creates the world views and opinions that we each have.
      I saw an article (well, video) recently that said that contempt is the current biggest problem with American politics.  It really resonated with me because, again, we aren't kind.  And it seems to me there are a few basic, human things we could do to begin to change this.
    1.  Confront ideas rather than attacking people.  We don't have to call people names or condemn people, even those who've done really awful things.  We can, instead, critique ideas or even behaviors (like, for example, the behaviors of being self-righteous and attacking).  One of the gifts of this is that it gives people the benefit of the doubt.  It recognizes the humanity of the other person which should supersede a person's ideas or even their actions.  It is a way of saying that we believe the other to basically be a decent person who just sees the world differently and explores the possibilities of why that might be the case.
    2.  When we disagree with something, don't like it, or think it is wrong, we should say what specifically we don't agree with and then say why.  Global statements, "you are wrong" or even "I don't like what you said" or "the way you do this is not acceptable" are not helpful to anyone because they are not specific.  Statements like that create enemies, they set up walls and barriers between people without there ever being an opportunity for learning, understanding or bridge-building.  Specific statements, "When you said x, it was unjust or unfair because of y" or even better, "when you did x, I felt y because z" (so putting it back to ourselves, claiming our part, claiming what bothered me specifically rather than attacking the other person) are much, much more helpful because they allow for dialogue, they open the possibility of learning and exploration of ideas, they move us forward in communication with each other.
    3.  Chose always to start with compassion and understanding rather than fury, rage, or hatred.  This one is harder, MUCH harder.  When we are attacked, it is normal, it is almost instinctual, to respond with a counter attack.  But taking a deep breathe and trying to hear under the rage, to hear under the anger, to listen to the pain, to the life story of the other person will go a long way towards building bridges, creating communication and furthering the possibilities of learning, growth and movement.
    4.  Try to have real conversations, not through social media, but in person and using our words, rather than memes and constant attacking posts.
     
      There are other ways we can work towards building bridges as well, but I think that these really simple things are so important to the way we communicate with each other.  We are becoming increasingly isolated, increasingly polarized, and we make enemies far too quickly of people who should be our allies, should be other human beings on the same journey as we are, should become friends and family.  We miss out simply by failing to be kind, failing to listen, and failing to communicate specifically, clearly, and directly when we disagree with something.

      Personally, I was just confronted with a situation in which I was attacked by someone who should have been a support person, through social media, for something I said without the specifics of why what I said was a problem; and, equally, without any comprehension that I was sharing about a problem that I, myself, carry and deal with every single day.  The cruelty and condemnation of the other person was overwhelming. I tried to respond with clarity and and an apology, only to be met with silence. This happens. I had a choice then, in that moment.  Do I practice what I preach and try to stay engaged?  Asking for more clarity?  Speaking with love and compassion?  Or do I let the door that the other self-righteously and judgmentally slammed stay closed?  I'll admit that in the moment I was not able to continue the engagement. There was no way to have a real, actual, in person conversation. Plus, the attack had been far too personal, far too intimate an attack for me to stay engaged in that moment. And finally, my attempts at communication were met with silence, without explanations, without specifics. I've had to realize that not all people who claim to be loving and compassionate can be, or can be at all times. Some carry their own scars, some carry their own chips on their shoulders that they are simply unable to put down; and some, I've finally come to believe, are simply not good people. They attack the weakest and most vulnerable among us at their weakest and most vulnerable moments, without self reflection and without a willingness to hear others.  Sometimes that means we have to turn away, simply to take care of ourselves.
      But most of the time, I think we can use the reasons I've just listen as my own, as an excuse to fail to engage in real conversation.  And my sense is that the more we practice bridge-building communication and listening, the better we will become at it.  Also, we have a responsibility to stand up to bullies, not by bullying back, but by engaging them in the ways I've listed, if not for our own sake, then for the sake of those who are not as able to stand up for themselves.  We never know when our own choices to be compassionate may change someone else.  We never know when we actually touch someone or make a difference.  But I can pretty much guarantee that we don't change others for the better by being cruel, condemning, self-righteous or judging.
      No doubt I should have tried harder in my own situation.  But I suppose the self change and choices to engage start with an awareness that we have choices; that we can choose compassion in the face of cruelty, that we can be bridge-builders even with those who don't know how to listen or communicate without judgment or condemnation; that the place of power is one not of being reactive to others' anger or hate but being proactively compassionate and grace-filled.  It's a goal for me.  I hope it will be for you, too!

Unkindness when it's at home.

          A friend shared with me that she was at a family gathering and was telling a story that she found interesting and which she thought would interest her family.  As she was telling her family her story, one of the three family members with whom she was speaking turned to another of the three family members and began a conversation about something else entirely, talking right over my friend. My friend was very hurt. Of course she was hurt. The one who wasn't interested in what she had to share would have acted more kindly by just saying, "I don't want to hear this, I'm really not interested in it." Kinder still, he would have given my friend the two minutes to tell her story even if it wasn't interesting to him.  My friend is not overly verbose, her communications tend to be short and clear. But apparently, two minutes "wasted" was too much for her family member.  Instead of being kind, instead of carefully but honestly communicating a lack of interest in what my friend was sharing, his behavior also communicated that he didn't respect or value the sharer herself. He didn't respect her enough to even offer her common courtesy or to be willing to spend two minutes on her.  But she wasn't just hurt by the incredibly rude family member, but also by the second, the one to whom the first family member was talking, because this second family member failed to say, "Can this wait? I'm trying to hear what 'Sally' is saying."
        She asked me what she should have done in that situation.  To be honest, I was at a loss.  My training tells me to use direct communication, to use "I" statements, to express feelings clearly and without blame. "When you began a different conversation about something else while I was talking to you, I felt hurt because I felt you were telling me that I didn't matter enough to you for you to listen to me." Okay. But I found myself wondering. The family members didn't care about her enough to bother being polite. So they probably wouldn't care enough about her to respond with any kind of grace, empathy or understanding in the face of a clear communication from her about how it felt. Still, I felt that her clear communication, with honesty, without rancor, might have felt better to her than doing nothing and leaving feeling discounted and invisible.
       As we continued talking, she shared with me that her family treated her like this on a regular basis because they really, truly, didn't respect or value her.  They felt she was stupid, naive, and foolish because she had different beliefs than they did.  And they felt that because she was not equal to them in intelligence, in understanding, in vision, that it was okay to treat her in this way.
       I see this more and more in our culture.  If someone disagrees with us, it has become acceptable to treat them badly, to fail to offer simple respect. It has become okay to be unkind, to express our disapproval in dismissive, abusive and belittling ways.  Once we've opened the door to treat even one other person this way, the gap seems to widen as we find others we don't agree with, don't like, or don't understand. I hear more lip service given to bridging the large political, economic, world view differences in our country.  I hear people on both sides of any issue talking about being open, listening, trying to disrupt the polarization in our country by making an effort to hear each other.  But when it comes down to actually being kind to others?  It doesn't appear to translate.
        I realize being kind to those with whom we disagree is hard. I realize respecting people who do things we don't like can be hard.  But treating others with kindness and respect, even if we don't like them, even if we can't respect them - it's not just for the other person, it is for us as well. I mean this at two different levels.  First, who do we want to be in the world and what do we want to contribute?  Do we want to be the bringers of good to the world?  Or do we want to be people who cause pain for others?  Do we want to lift burdens or add to them?  Do we want to help others be the best they can be, or do we want to polarize the community even more?  Second, I continue to believe that we are deeply connected and that what affects you affects me and visa versa.  By harming another, we harm ourselves.  By lifting the other, we lift ourselves.  Even if you don't believe in this connection of all things, we know this to be true in other ways.  Being generous with others helps us to feel good. Being caring for others literally changes our sense of self-worth and value.  Taking the time to really listen to another, especially if they disagree, helps us to grow.
        Sometimes it is hardest to be kind to those in our own families with whom we struggle.  But if we can't practice it at home, it will be harder to maintain kindness in the world.  It takes practice, sometimes, to learn how to see the Divine in each other, to see beyond what annoys us to the inner core, to treat each other with respect even when we can't feel it.
        I don't know how my friend should have responded in the face of the unkindness of her family.  I do know that sometimes the best way to teach is by example.  And that other times, examples are too subtle to effectively teach.  But her experience calls on me to try harder to be kind to those around me, starting with my family.

Sunday's Sermon: Generation to Generation

Ezra 3:10-13

Luke 15:103, 11b-32

“Why do grandparents and grandchildren get along so well?  They have the same enemy – the mother”.  (Claudette Colbert from Brown, H. Jackson,.Wit and Wisdom of the Peanut Butter Gang. Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press, Inc., 1994).

               Today I want to spend some time talking about generational differences.  How do we communicate across the generations?  How do we teach across the generations?  How do we form community with different generations?  How do we do worship which speaks, teaches and empowers all who come, across the generations?

               I believe that it is more than possible to do worship that touches and moves and is positive for people of many ages, but I also think that before we can make that possible, we have to start by understanding one another across those generations.  This is not always an easy task.  I have come to believe that we are all the ages we ever have been, meaning that while I stand before you a woman in my 40s, I am also still a person in my 30s, 20s, teens and even a child.  We have all of those parts of us, so in one way maybe it is easier for me to understand a young person that it is for them to understand me.  But at the same time our society and culture are constantly changing, so the world that we interacted with as children, the issues we dealt with as young people are very different from what today’s young people face.

               This morning I want us to spend some time looking at and understanding some of those differences.  But because I am limited by my own generation, I want to ask you for your help this morning with the message.

               Towards that end, I want to start by asking you, in this fairly intergenerational congregation, what do you, personally, have a hard time understanding about people of a different generation?  I’ll give you an example, to start us off.  I don’t understand, have never understood some of the fashions of different generations.  On the upper end, I think Polyester is extremely uncomfortable and don’t know why people wear it.  On the younger end, I don’t understand why kids wear their pants so low as to show their underwear.  I understand how that started – gangs wanted to have ways of hiding large weapons and these baggy pants do that successfully.  But what on earth is the appeal for kids who are not in gangs?  I don’t get it.  What are things that You don’t understand?

               Okay, maybe an easier question, what is something in your current life that you feel people of other generations don’t understand or have a hard time understanding? 

               The two Bible passages I shared with you today reflect those differences in generational experience and understanding.  The book of Ezra talks about what occurred after the destruction of the first Jerusalem temple.  The temple had been destroyed at least 49 years, but now, Ezra tells us, God was at work again and the people of Israel were finally able to begin rebuilding the temple.  They laid the new foundation for the temple, and everyone was rejoicing.  But the older people, and the priests who knew the stories of the older temple were also weeping.  Their experience was different.  On the one hand, here was a new generation, excited about what it could do, excited that it could build again, form community again, be a worshiping people again.  But on the other hand, here too was an older generation for whom this new temple foundation brought memories of the past, of the glory of the temple that was destroyed, of their loss of that temple, of the loss of that space, community, and experience.  Yes, a new temple would be built.  But it would not be the same.  It could not be the same.  As some of the other prophets, Haggai, for example, recount, this second temple was nothing like the first.   The young people had not been alive to see the previous temple, they were not alive to suffer its destruction.  But for the older people, this new temple was a reminder of what could never be again.

               For the older people, the new also reminded them that the temple was not the indestructible house of God that they had once believed it to be.  With the destruction of the first temple, their entire understanding of their world had been wrenched from them and changed irreparably.  No longer did they see their God as one who would, against any odds and at any price, live in the temple and save them from other peoples and their other gods.  There was much here to grieve as well as to celebrate; much that a younger generation would not, could not understand.

               In the story of the prodigal son, the misunderstanding between generations flowed in both directions.  While Jesus is telling a story and does not go into detail about the feelings of those in the parable, we can imagine how we might have felt as each character in the parable.  As a parent, what hurt would we feel if our child asked for his inheritance while we still lived, then took that inheritance and left.  How could we understand that?  What would cause a son to do that?  As the younger son, what anger would cause us to leave in such a cold way?  And how, as the younger son, could we possibly understand the father, his feelings, his potential actions as we crawled back to that father in shame, begging to be a hired hand?  What total lack of comprehension we might have felt as the older son on discovering that while we had done exactly what we were “supposed to do” for our father, without any seeming reward, our younger brother, who had been hurtful, rude, and selfish, who had left the house and squandered away what father had given him, had then been given a party after returning home!  Neither son could know, or could understand what it was like to be the parent; the depth of love, the depth of pain, the depth of rejoicing their father felt.  The father in turn did not know the pain, the shame, the hurt their sons suffered from their own actions.  Each was in a unique place, each generation suffered its own unique sufferings, each rejoiced and experienced its own unique experiences.

               Those barriers of understanding often keep us talking and “hanging out” with those who are closest to us in age and experience, and that is understandable.  We share with our peers a common history that makes conversation easier, that makes communication smooth.  Talking to our own peers, there is much that is assumed which we don’t need to make explicit.  There is much, not only in content, but in style of communication that makes it affirming and comfortable to share with those close to us in age and culture. 

               And yet, we have so much to learn from each other.  God has created us to be born, to live, to grow, to die, and to do so in community with people of all different ages and experiences.  We have been given a wealth of resources in those different ages, and different approaches to life.  There is so much abundance here in this room because we are multi-generational, a bit multi-cultural, because we come from and with very different experiences and backgrounds.  We can learn from our children what it means to really trust.  We can learn from them what it is to be completely genuine and vulnerable.  We can learn from people older than us that experience can teach wisdom, we can learn history.  We can learn patience and perseverance. We can learn more than we imagine from people of all ages.

               The book, Wit and Wisdom from the Peanut Butter Gang (see above citation) highlights some multigenerational wisdom, and I thought I would share with you some of these marvelous quotes, particularly about people of other generations, from children of all ages.

               Katherine, age 13 said, “I can remember what flavor of ice cream my grandmother and I shared at Disneyworld, but most of the time I can’t remember what day it is.  I guess it depends on what you think is important.”

               Adult Harold Hubert said, “Children need love, especially when they do not deserve it.”

               Kara, age 13 said, “Once you’ve lost your parents’ trust, it’s hard to earn it back.”

               Adult Rebecca Richards said, “Oh, to be only half as wonderful as my child thought I was when he was small, and only half as stupid as my teenager now thinks I am.”

               Shanna, age 14 said, “Parents should come with instructions.”

               Adult Mignon McLaughlin said, “Likely as not, the child you can do the least with will do the most to make you proud.”

               Jamie, age 16 said, “One of the greatest gifts my parents gave me was their love for each other.”

               Writer Pearl Buck said, “The young do not know enough to be prudent; and therefore, they attempt the impossible – and achieve it, generation after generation.”

               Sarah, age 12 said, “You should be careful around those younger than you.  It is surprising how much of an impact a word or action can make on them.”

               Lois, age 11 said, “You always have time for someone you care for.”

               Finally, I’d like to read to you “on Children” by Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1995):  “Your children are not your children.  They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.  They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.  You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts.  You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.  You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.  For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.  You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.  The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.  Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; for even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.”

               God has given us each other in all our diversity as a gift.  But God has also given us the free will to choose whether or not we will embrace this gift.  It will take time and commitment to get to know those around us who are older, younger, different than ourselves.  We may not quickly see or learn the gems of wisdom and experience we each have to share.  But one of God’s greatest gifts to us is the gift of each other, across all boundaries and ages.  It is worth the time and energy of getting to know people. 

               Coming back to your part in helping me with this morning’s message, I have one more question for you.  If you could share something with all the other generations about your own generation to help them understand you, what would that be?  What wisdom would you share?

               Finally, to leave you with one more piece of wisdom from the peanut butter gang, “children are a great comfort in your old age – and they help you reach it faster too!” – Lionel Kauffman.