Family & Dharma
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. David McMaster
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Proverbs 22:1-6
I've been blessed by three very wonderful children, all now in their 20s. I suppose, however, like all children, they have had their moments and I, like all fathers, have had mine. Like most people, I found that raising children has not always been easy.
I remember 15 or 20 years ago, when I was in the throes of raising young children, I took great solace from the humour that Bill Cosby found in parenting. Cosby wrote a book entitled, Fatherhood, and in it he wondered, for instance, why on earth anyone would have children when they change our lives so dramatically. Gone are the lazy weekends, and the quiet dinners in which we can finish whole sentences. Instead we opt for turning our sofas and beds into trampolines. “I don't understand why I had children,” writes Cosby, “when all my other thoughts were so rational? … It seems that two people have a baby just to see what they can make, a kind of erotic arts and crafts. And some people have several children because they know there are going to be failures. They figure that if they have a dozen, maybe one or two will work out, for having children,” says Cosby, “is certainly defying the odds.”
Cosby continues, “We parents so often blow the business of raising kids. Not because we violate any philosophy of child-raising. I doubt there can be a philosophy about something so difficult, something so downright mystical, as raising children. A baseball manager has learned a lot about his job from having played the game, but a parent has not learned a thing from having been a child. What can you learn about a business in which the child's favourite response is “I don't know.” A father enters his son's room and sees that the boy is missing his hair. “What happened to your head?” the father asks, beholding his skin-headed son. “Did you get a hair cut?”
“I don't know,” the boy replies.
“You don't know if you had a haircut? Well tell me this: Was your head with you all day?”
“I don't know,” says the boy.”
Bill Cosby's humour got me through many challenging moments of fatherhood; just realizing that there were others out there experiencing the same things helped a great deal. Raising children is not easy. I think that it is getting more and more difficult as this age progresses. The children of our society have so many things in front of them that it is difficult for them to choose what is right and helpful and beneficial to them. Many of us here, this morning, had our early years before television was widespread, or before the first video games, or the home computer, or the smart phone. In our day, most Mom's were at home, there weren't as many summer camps to go to, there were fewer organized sports to play in, and the business world and just about everything else came to a stand-still on the Sabbath. We had to make our own fun back then and, I think, without the ongoing incursions of the media into our lives, life was simpler and perhaps easier for children to find the right path.
So it is a different day. During this year at TEMC, I have been asked to give ministerial support to the children's ministry and, on this day, when we in Ontario are celebrating the Family Day long-weekend, it seems appropriate to talk about families, raising children, and where the Christian faith comes into the picture. Now I know what some of you are going to say. You're going to say that we have an older congregation and we're not in the business of child-rearing and that many of the younger families are away for the long weekend. If you're in that camp, I'm going to ask you to hang in with me, because we all still need to think about our children, we need to think about our grandchildren, and we need to think about the direction of the church in these matters as well. So let's focus on children for a few moments.
It was a cold, winter day and I was at home with, at that time, two young children. The two year old was just beginning to take a liking to the various pieces of china that his mother had placed throughout the house, so it wasn't too much of a surprise to find that he had climbed up on top of the piano, and as I entered the room, he was sitting there, a china figurine in each hand, and about to bang them together. “James,” I exclaimed (I'll change the name to protect the guilty), “James, No! Don't let me see you doing that again (while wagging my finger)!” And I lifted him down from the piano and put the treasured figurines back in their place. A few moments later, young James came and took my hand and led me through the house; away to the bedroom. There was a chair there and he sat me down there and promptly disappeared. I sat there for a moment, pondering, “What's he doing? Is this some game he wants to play?” And then the penny dropped. Silly me, I walked back to the living room to find him, once again, perched on top of the piano, figurines in hand. This child understood English and took me literally (Don't let me see you, doing that again!). I was going to have to be much clearer in my directions.
Well this figurine fascination went on and on until, of course, some of them were broken. Then there were other things, too many to mention. As a two year old, he was trying to assert himself, while I was trying to correct him. Disciplinary measures grew and grew until I reached the point of exasperation. Nothing seemed to work and in the end, almost as a last resort, I asked God for help, “God, how am I to raise this child? Please help me.”
Well, in due course, I went to the scriptures asking the questions: How can I, how can anyone help a child grow up? How does one raise a child that one can be proud of in later life? How does one instil values in them? How can we help our children to find the faith that is so precious to us?
I doubt very much that my parenting was perfect throughout the years, but in the scriptures, I found a number of passages about raising children, they helped me and I believe that they can help others. I came across, for instance, these words from the Book of Proverbs, “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” In the book of Proverbs this means teaching a child wisdom, and wisdom in Hebrew society derives from the Torah, the word, or the law of God. Essentially, the teacher (Qoheleth), in Proverbs charges parents, “Teach the word of God.” That is also the theme of one of the most foundational passages in the Old Testament from Deuteronomy. For the Jew, the Shema, as it is called, is one of the best known passages in the Hebrew scriptures. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and 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.” That same emphasis is also found in the New Testament when Paul advises parents, “do not exasperate your children but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Eph.6:4b)
What we find in the Bible is a sort of dharma for parenting. It's a long time ago, but if memory of a graduate seminar in Indian philosophy and religious tradition is correct, dharma is an important aspect of life. Dharma springs from Brahman (god) and acts as the regulatory principle of the universe. It helps us stay in tune with what is right and just in this-worldly and other-worldly affairs. The focus is on doing what is right, doing one's duty in all things. The dharma of a Christian parent is to bring a child up in the ways of the Lord. The scriptures tell us that if we want children we are proud of, if we want children who are honourable and just, if we want children to take hold of the faith and God's eternal life, it is important to teach them the ways of the Lord.
How is that to happen? In times gone by, a parent could rely somewhat on the school system. The Lord's Prayer was said at the beginning of each day, and in the schools that I attended, Christianity and its precepts were taught so that everyone had at least a little knowledge and training. But that is not the case now. The public school system has moved away from its Protestant base to become a secular entity. Immigration has brought the world to our doorstep and notions of tolerance and pluralism have left us bereft of any sense of overarching truth. If Christianity is taught, it is usually from a world-religions perspective such that there is no conviction, little reason to actually adhere to anything, and no call to follow.
So where are our children to get this godly training? Again, in times gone by, a parent could rely on the Church for a significant amount of Christian training through regular Sunday School programs and worship services. And yet, as Dr. Stirling mentioned a few weeks ago, I have been doing a lot of reflecting about life in a relatively affluent, downtown, city-church these days. I don't want to say this in a pejorative fashion but let's just face the facts. We, for instance, have a few families who are here week in and week out. For the most part, our young families have busy lives. They are gone on long weekends, gone from Victoria Day weekend through Thanksgiving, gone from Christmas until the March Break, and if you think about it, that leaves about 15 or so Sundays a year for the church to do its work. When you add that not all are here on those Sundays, let's say, they are here ten of those 15 Sundays. It means that the church actually has approximately ten Sundays, that's ten 20-30 minute Sunday School sessions a year to get the Christian message and word across. On those Sundays, we can have 40-60 children in the Sunday School at our 9:15 service. It's great, but if you add it up, that's about 5 hours a year that the church has for Christian education for most of our younger families, and it doesn't allow for the consistency of weekly lessons that children had a generation or two ago when churches were filled and children were taught each week such that many who experienced that, many who are now 55 or 60 years of age, continue to have a strong commitment and strong practice of continuing worship in their lives.
These are just facts of life for our church and many other city churches. First of all, I would like to say to parents and grandparents today, as we think about fulfilling our dharma and raising children in the ways of the Lord; if you leave Christian teaching to the church, at least give the church a chance. When you are in the city bring your children to church. When you are out of the city, find a good church wherever you are and keep the consistency of worship and centring your life on Christ each week before your children. They are watching you and will learn from you, keep the consistency going; “Train up your children in the way they should go and when they are old, they will not depart from it.”
As I reflect further, however, perhaps there is something for the church to do in this ever-changing environment in which we live. Perhaps, there are some things that the church can do to help parents out? Perhaps we need to think about a mid-week children's program and service when everyone is in the city. At my former church in Markham, we had a wonderful Wednesday evening program that attracted about 50 kids each week from 6:30 - 8:00p.m. Maybe something like that can enter our thinking as our Needs Assessment Committee works to evaluate the needs of the church in the future. Or, one of our long time members suggested to me last week that we could use the internet to send out lessons to children who cannot be with us on some Sundays. There are probably other ideas but perhaps the church needs to get its thinking cap on as it looks to the future and tries to help young families. But the church also needs you to support it.
But where are our children really, then, going to learn the ways of the Lord? They're not learning it in the schools, the church is having difficulties teaching with sporadic attendance, however, as I read the scriptures again and again, it struck me that God seems to situate the primary place of learning in the home. That means that the Bible puts the onus really on the parents themselves. The home is the seedbed of society. People begin in the home and are influenced to a great extent by what they see and hear and are taught as they grow up. Parents are role models for their children but not only role models, they are, and are to be, instructors of their children. That's a difficult thing these days with the predominance of two income families. But we still have this dharma, this duty, to train our children.
That was driven home to me when my eldest was in the first grade. By the end of September, that year, the teacher called me one evening to say that the young man wasn't reading very well. Silly me, again, I had thought that schools taught reading but was informed that most of it happened in the home. So the next day, I set out for an education store and found the Ladybird series of early readers that I remembered from my own childhood. Night after night for the next four months, I sat for half an hour teaching the young man phonics and how to read. Then I sat down with our second child who was sixteen months younger for another four months. It was amazing how they progressed, quite quickly they were reading above their grade level.
I wonder if this parenting dharma that we have been given by God, suggests we teach children, similarly, the word of the Lord. We spend so much time giving them other things, why not also the word of the Lord. We will take the skating, to hockey, get extra lessons in math and reading, they have music lessons; why not also the word of the Lord. Perhaps, as I found with children reading, we just need to get stuck into it and do it! Read them Bible stories. Help them to memorize a few precious parts of God's word. Pray with them before they go to bed. Engage them in discussions about what some things in life mean from a Christian perspective. Teach your children. And that does not mean that we need to indoctrinate them. John Stott wrote of educating children and says,
We have to distinguish between true and false education. False education tends toward indoctrination, in which a parent might impose his or her mind and will on a child. True education, on the other hand, is stimulation, in which parents and teachers act as a catalyst, and encourage the child to make his own responses. This they cannot do if the child is left to flounder; they have to teach Christian values of truth and goodness, defend them and recommend their acceptance, but at the same time abstain from any pressure, still more coercion.[1]
I'm sure that some of you are gardeners. When we plant seeds in our gardens we don't run away and leave them until harvest. We tend to them by feeding, watering, uprooting weeds to encourage growth and in due time harvest will bring in the rewards. Likewise we should not bring children into this world and be too busy to care for them or leave them up to their own devices. If our children are to reach their ultimate as human beings, if we want to raise children with good core values, if we expect them to carry on the faith that our parents handed to us, if we want them too to enter into that blessed rest that is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord, we need to tend to them. We need to help them. We need to show them the way by our own example and by our teaching. This is a part of our dharma, our duty as parents.
On this Family Day weekend, it is my hope that you enjoy your family immensely. And it is my hope that whether parents, grandparents, uncles or aunts, we will fulfil perhaps our greatest calling, our dharma and duty: “Train up your children in the way they should go, and when