The Rev. Canon Mary Carter Green

Today is a day of invitations and explorations.  

Throughout the day, during the service and beyond, we are invited to observe the Children’s Sabbath, a day inspired by the Children’s Defense Fund, when faith groups celebrate childhood and tune into the concerns of children, youth, and families. 

We will celebrate our children in a few ways: 

To begin, we remember the children of the previous generation in this altar frontal made by Grace Cathedral’s young people ~25 years ago. 

And we celebrate our own childhood by tapping that quiet compass within us. 

Later, during the offertory, some of our young people will present their Creation-tide-artwork. 

And at coffee hour today, our youth program welcomes you to a screening of the film of their social justice youth pilgrimage to the American South last summer.  

Today’s invitation in the children’s sabbath is about more than demonstrations though;  

like a wedding banquet, this invitation is to witness and to welcome new life in love. 

Walter Brueggemann wrote, in the presence of God, (we) are visited, “with the freedom of God, so that we are unafraid to live in the world, able to live differently, not needing to control, not needing to dominate, not needing to accumulate, not driven by anxiety.”1  

This is the joy described of childhood, but also the life possible when we are present to God. 

It’s the sort of freedom of perspective and grounded joy found in TS Eliot’s poetic imagery. 

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling, TS Eliot wrote, We shall not cease from exploration. 

And the end of all our exploring  
Will be to arrive where we started  
And know the place for the first time.  

Through the unknown, unremembered gate  
When the last of earth left to discover  
Is that which was the beginning.  

At the source of the longest river  
The voice of the hidden waterfall 
And the children in the apple-tree . . .  

Not known, because not looked for  
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness 
Between two waves of the sea. 

Quick now, here, now, always--  
A condition of complete simplicity 

Today, when we mark the children’s sabbath, we take this day of rest and restoration, of union with God . . . to realize the divine in our youngest . . . to focus on children, and to find the simplicity of the Great Commandment, to love them as ourselves . . . 

In a time of anxiety . . . this stillness . . . to climb the apple tree, to stand between the waves, to find the center point, can seem as out of reach as our own childhood. 

Yet, in a time of brutal war, amid cascading atrocities, of unrelenting bad news and the seeming disintegration of the ground beneath us, we need this stillness, this union with God, more than ever.  

Our practice and our readings today show us a way forward. 

“When the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 

With Moses gone a moment too long, God’s people decided to count on a more expedient deity . . .   

This part of the Exodus story with its sense of remove from God, is the story of our search for easy replacements and is evidently as old as human history . . .  

We look for easy idols of course, and we become, as TS Eliot wrote, distracted from distraction by distraction.2 

Between the Israelites distraction and God’s response, Moses stood in the breach . . . between what is wrong and what is just, we too are called, to enter the gap and to speak for those who cannot – to find a way to make things right.  

Today’s children’s sabbath serves as an alternative to the Golden calf distractions that take us away from the life we are called to join.  

The sabbath invites us to begin listening for God’s guidance for the nurture of children, to understand their challenges, and to discern actions to empower, protect, and seek justice for all children, youth, and families.     

Marian Wright Edelman, the founder of The Children’s Defense Fund made our call as Christians clear, writing this, 

Let the little children come unto me and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of heaven, Jesus said. 

He did not say let only rich or middle-class white children come. 

He did not say let only the strapping boys but not the girls come. 

He did not say let only the able-bodied children come. 

All the children He bade come. 

He did not say let all my children or your children or our friends’ children or those in our families and neighborhoods and who look and act and speak like us come. 

He did not say let only the well-behaved nice children come or those who conform to society’s norms. 

He did not say let a few, a third, half, or three fourths come – but all. 

Jesus said let the little children come and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of heaven. 

The Kingdom of Heaven. 

We have been hearing a lot about it in Matthew these past few weeks, and the parable today takes what seems a heavy turn. 

There was conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of the time, and a growing threat from Rome. 

But Matthew’s Gospel points to a much higher order conflict as well— humanity’s most vexing tension – seen in Exodus and again in Matthew today – our default to try to live without God.  

In this parable of invitations-ignored-and- scorned, Jesus refers to our invitation to life with God together, especially in these most challenging times.  

Another part of the TS Eliot poem Little Gidding reminds us why we do this in a faith community:  

If you came this way,  
Taking any route, starting from anywhere, 
At any time or at any season,  
It would always be the same: you would have to put off sense and notion. You are not here to verify, Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity  
Or carry report. You are here to kneel. 

We came here to kneel, and on this Children’s Sabbath, the creaks our bodies feel when we lower ourselves, may be become aches not for the needs of our own bodies, but those of children and youth in this country and around the world.  

We pray for the underrepresented, the marginalized, orphans, the overlooked, the undervalued and underserved, the misunderstood children of our time.  

We pray for the immediate cessation of violence on all children around the world, at and within our borders as well, and we pray for policies that ensure children’s security and safety, for their wellbeing, hope and joy, for their part in God’s creation, their part in the building of God’s vision for the world. 

And finally, we pray that from God’s invitation we might open our hearts further to discern the needs of the children in our community and beyond. 

“When God wants an important thing done in this world or a wrong righted, Edmond McDonald wrote, “God goes about it in a very singular way.  God doesn’t release thunderbolts or stir up earthquakes.  God simply has a tiny baby born, perhaps of a very humble home, perhaps of a very humble mother.  And God puts the idea or purpose into the mother’s heart.  And she puts it in the baby’s mind, and then – God waits.  The great events of the world are not battles and elections and earthquakes and thunderbolts.  The great events are babies, for each child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged with humanity but is still expecting goodwill to become incarnate in each human life.” 

Children remind us of the goodness and hope promised in our faith life, and our faith life w God gives us all we need to bring about the world our children need and deserve. 

United with God, fed at this table, we have all we need to change the world beyond these walls. 

And then . . . our invitation tells us,  

We shall not cease from exploration 
And the end of all our exploring  
Will be to arrive where we started  
And know the place for the first time.  

Amen. 

 

Today is a day of invitations and explorations.  

Throughout the day, during the service and beyond, we are invited to observe the Children’s Sabbath, a day inspired by the Children’s Defense Fund, when faith groups celebrate childhood and tune into the concerns of children, youth, and families. 

We will celebrate our children in a few ways: 

To begin, we remember the children of the previous generation in this altar frontal made by Grace Cathedral’s young people ~25 years ago. 

And we celebrate our own childhood by tapping that quiet compass within us. 

Later, during the offertory, some of our young people will present their Creation-tide-artwork. 

And at coffee hour today, our youth program welcomes you to a screening of the film of their social justice youth pilgrimage to the American South last summer.  

Today’s invitation in the children’s sabbath is about more than demonstrations though;  

like a wedding banquet, this invitation is to witness and to welcome new life in love. 

Walter Brueggemann wrote, in the presence of God, (we) are visited, “with the freedom of God, so that we are unafraid to live in the world, able to live differently, not needing to control, not needing to dominate, not needing to accumulate, not driven by anxiety.”1  

This is the joy described of childhood, but also the life possible when we are present to God. 

It’s the sort of freedom of perspective and grounded joy found in TS Eliot’s poetic imagery. 

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling, TS Eliot wrote, We shall not cease from exploration. 

And the end of all our exploring  Will be to arrive where we started  And know the place for the first time.  

Through the unknown, unremembered gate  When the last of earth left to discover  Is that which was the beginning.  

At the source of the longest river  The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree . . .  

Not known, because not looked for  But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea. 

Quick now, here, now, always--  A condition of complete simplicity 

Today, when we mark the children’s sabbath, we take this day of rest and restoration, of union with God . . . to realize the divine in our youngest . . . to focus on children, and to find the simplicity of the Great Commandment, to love them as ourselves . . . 

In a time of anxiety . . . this stillness . . . to climb the apple tree, to stand between the waves, to find the center point, can seem as out of reach as our own childhood. 

Yet, in a time of brutal war, amid cascading atrocities, of unrelenting bad news and the seeming disintegration of the ground beneath us, we need this stillness, this union with God, more than ever.  

Our practice and our readings today show us a way forward. 

“When the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 

With Moses gone a moment too long, God’s people decided to count on a more expedient deity . . .   

This part of the Exodus story with its sense of remove from God, is the story of our search for easy replacements and is evidently as old as human history . . .  

We look for easy idols of course, and we become, as TS Eliot wrote, distracted from distraction by distraction.2 

Between the Israelites distraction and God’s response, Moses stood in the breach . . . between what is wrong and what is just, we too are called, to enter the gap and to speak for those who cannot – to find a way to make things right.  

Today’s children’s sabbath serves as an alternative to the Golden calf distractions that take us away from the life we are called to join.  

The sabbath invites us to begin listening for God’s guidance for the nurture of children, to understand their challenges, and to discern actions to empower, protect, and seek justice for all children, youth, and families.     

Marian Wright Edelman, the founder of The Children’s Defense Fund made our call as Christians clear, writing this, 

Let the little children come unto me and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of heaven, Jesus said. 

He did not say let only rich or middle-class white children come. 

He did not say let only the strapping boys but not the girls come. 

He did not say let only the able-bodied children come. 

All the children He bade come. 

He did not say let all my children or your children or our friends’ children or those in our families and neighborhoods and who look and act and speak like us come. 

He did not say let only the well-behaved nice children come or those who conform to society’s norms. 

He did not say let a few, a third, half, or three fourths come – but all. 

Jesus said let the little children come and forbid them not, for such is the kingdom of heaven. 

The Kingdom of Heaven. 

We have been hearing a lot about it in Matthew these past few weeks, and the parable today takes what seems a heavy turn. 

There was conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of the time, and a growing threat from Rome. 

But Matthew’s Gospel points to a much higher order conflict as well— humanity’s most vexing tension – seen in Exodus and again in Matthew today – our default to try to live without God.  

In this parable of invitations-ignored-and- scorned, Jesus refers to our invitation to life with God together, especially in these most challenging times.  

Another part of the TS Eliot poem Little Gidding reminds us why we do this in a faith community:  

If you came this way,  Taking any route, starting from anywhere, At any time or at any season,  It would always be the same: you would have to put off sense and notion. You are not here to verify, Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity  Or carry report. You are here to kneel. 

We came here to kneel, and on this Children’s Sabbath, the creaks our bodies feel when we lower ourselves, may be become aches not for the needs of our own bodies, but those of children and youth in this country and around the world.  

We pray for the underrepresented, the marginalized, orphans, the overlooked, the undervalued and underserved, the misunderstood children of our time.  

We pray for the immediate cessation of violence on all children around the world, at and within our borders as well, and we pray for policies that ensure children’s security and safety, for their wellbeing, hope and joy, for their part in God’s creation, their part in the building of God’s vision for the world. 

And finally, we pray that from God’s invitation we might open our hearts further to discern the needs of the children in our community and beyond. 

“When God wants an important thing done in this world or a wrong righted, Edmond McDonald wrote, “God goes about it in a very singular way.  God doesn’t release thunderbolts or stir up earthquakes.  God simply has a tiny baby born, perhaps of a very humble home, perhaps of a very humble mother.  And God puts the idea or purpose into the mother’s heart.  And she puts it in the baby’s mind, and then – God waits.  The great events of the world are not battles and elections and earthquakes and thunderbolts.  The great events are babies, for each child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged with humanity but is still expecting goodwill to become incarnate in each human life.” 

Children remind us of the goodness and hope promised in our faith life, and our faith life w God gives us all we need to bring about the world our children need and deserve. 

United with God, fed at this table, we have all we need to change the world beyond these walls. 

And then . . . our invitation tells us,  

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring  Will be to arrive where we started  And know the place for the first time.  

Amen.