Sermons

“Teach Your Children Well”

 Psalm 78:1-7; Matthew 5:23-24 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – September 20, 2015

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words, that we might open our hearts to your wisdom and truth, and share it faithfully.  We pray in the name of Jesus, Amen.

So it is that time of year again, when we receive our Special Offering for Reconciliation Ministry and focus on God’s call to us to engage in reconciling with our brothers and sisters across racial dividing lines.  These two short verses we just heard from Matthew have not been used before in my memory as the Reconciliation theme, but they are a stark reminder of why we, as Christians, are unable to ignore the chasm that racism has created in our society:  Until we confront the hurts we have caused, the things we need forgiveness for, the systemic sins we participate in and perpetuate, our worship of God will be lacking, for we won’t be bringing our whole selves to the altar.  It’s as fundamental as that.  “Leave your gift there and go; first be reconciled,” says Jesus.  Church, we’ve got some work to do.

I want to talk more about that reconciliation, and how it relates to our Passing of the Peace of Christ next week.  Today, since we were also celebrating the dedication of Alison Wright, I decided to focus a little more specifically.  Today, I want to talk about kids, and what we’re teaching them about race and racism.  We have just been through a ritual in which we commit ourselves to raising a child in the light of Christ.  If we want to be able to show a child how to engage in true worship of the living God, we must begin by ourselves learning how to “first be reconciled,” so that we can do that.

The first question about teaching our kids about race is whether we’re doing it at all.  At what age would you think it’s appropriate to start talking about race with your child? 16? 12? 10? 6?  In actuality, many experts are now saying that these conversations should start as early as three, and others say that as soon as you start reading picture books to your kids, you should start helping them understand racial differences.  What is the message sent when you name the colors of everything on the page – the blue bird, the green tree, the red ball, the yellow sun, the orange house, the pink cake – but not the brown child?  How early do we start talking about the difference between girls and boys (a conversation with complications of its own, of course!)?  Why are we willing to name those distinctions, but unwilling to give words to the obvious rainbow of hues of the children our kids are growing up with?  The result of grown-ups being unwilling or too uncomfortable to talk about skin color is that children come to understand that race is a taboo subject.  By the time we may feel it’s appropriate to start the conversation, say in third grade or later, they have already internalized society’s unease with the issue.

Many parents may feel that by raising their children to be “colorblind”, they are helping them avoid being racist.  But it turns out, that’s not what’s happening.  Children aren’t colorblind, just like the rest of us.  By pretending those differences aren’t there, we are sending the message that they are too scary to talk about, which leaves children to figure things out on their own.  Turns out that kids, like the rest of us, without alternate guidance, will often gravitate toward what is like them and reject what is different.  Even more dangerous, if we don’t teach them our values around the issue of race, they will get their lessons from the media, which likely means they’ll be learning the opposite of what we want them to believe.  If we want to raise children that are accepting of differences, we have to start by recognizing that the differences are there and being willing to talk about them.

Let me pause here for a moment to clarify that my previous comments are directed at parents who have the privilege of trying to avoid conversations about race with their children.  It is imperative that we remember that not all parents have that luxury.  As our society incorporates more and more multi-racial families, the lines between which families are having which conversations and which families are not having these conversations at all are becoming fuzzier.  But the truth is that African-American families have long had to have difficult and scary conversations about racial differences with their kids, simply to keep their families safe.

The SALT Project, a ministry housed at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, recently created a very short film based on a list of survival tips written by David Miller.  I want to share this video with you, so that we can all be reminded of the stakes of these conversations for some families. (Video)

I don’t know about you, but I need to breathe for just a second after that.  I am not an expert on this.  I don’t even have kids, after all.  But it is something I am passionate about, and your kids are our kids.  They’re all our kids.  We have to have this conversation.  We have to remember that our children are learning as much from what we’re not saying as they are from what we do say.

Whether we allow them to notice and comment on skin color or not, what we respond to as pretty versus what we call ugly, who we teach them to respect as authority figures – these things are formative for our children, from a very young age.  If your child’s skin is already brown, do you caution them against spending time in the sun so they won’t get darker?  If you avoid the checkout line with people of color in it, does it matter if you don’t tell your child why?  Do we think our kids won’t notice who we encourage them to play with and who we don’t?  What do these actions communicate?  How do we keep from passing on the racism that lives so deep within our own souls?  None of us is immune, for this sickness runs deep in our society.  But our silence gives it space to grow.  What if we decided to talk about it all, instead?  Nobody’s saying we have to do it perfectly.  Doing it awkwardly is always going to be better than not doing it at all.

Lest we give up because it seems like a lose-lose proposition, I want to tell you a success story.  Earlier this week, a seminary colleague of mine posted a picture of her son on Facebook.  Deborah wrote:  Josiah is insisting on wearing my Black Lives Matter shirt to school today.  He is well aware of the meaning.  I asked him what he would say if someone said, “What about white lives?”  His reply, “This shirt means that black lives matter TOO and some people forget that.”  She then commented:  I posted this not to brag about my boy, though I am proud of him, but to remind us white folks that we aren’t born with the instinct to be defensive of our privilege.  Honest, consistent conversations about race and white privilege with our children make them bold and prophetic, not scared and powerless.

We can do this.  We must do this.  Not giving our children words to talk about the differences they see all around them handicaps them from being able to engage the world as it is.  We can’t work toward the world becoming as God intends it to be unless we can see it clearly as it currently is.  We can’t dismantle the sinful systems that bind all of us in racial hierarchies unless we’re willing to face the pain and confess the privilege those systems create.  And as our scripture today reminded us, we can’t truly worship the God of all people if there are unreconciled offenses dividing us.  We must help our children enter into this reconciling work with us.  Will they ask us hard questions?  Yep.  Will they make us uncomfortable?  Yep.  Will they eventually call us out for violating the very principles we’ve been trying to teach them?  Probably.  Will God’s grace cover all of that?  Praise Jesus, yes!  We aren’t called to do this on our own.  We couldn’t possibly do it on our own.  But that’s okay, because we are not on our own.  We are in the presence of the living God, the one who makes all things new, the one who is constantly reconciling the world unto himself through the love and mercy of Christ Jesus.  These are the glorious deeds and wonders of the Lord that we must tell to the coming generations, so that they, too, might set their hope in the Lord.  Let us teach our children well.  Alleluia and Amen.