In 1998, we got the book, ‘All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten’ by Robert Fulghum. And so much of what I want to say to students this morning are familiar things that should be at the core of Christian life that I think of that title. Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Flush. Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Now some of us forget the lessons of kindergarten. I went to school before the government provided all day kindergarten. Taxes were lower back then. I wonder if there isn’t a principle there? Low taxes means less government help. Its just a thought! Since my kindergarten was only half day, we only learned half the alphabet. Its pretty pathetic to go to first grade and only know the letters A-M in your name.
Some of us did not have parents that took us to kindergarten so maybe we forgot the rules that way. And for some of you, with families that care, and a good experience with God, and the help of 82nd Street Academics – you are just completing another year to get ready to go out and do something important in our world in crisis. You will have to take it away from people who hit people and people who don’t say they’re sorry when someone in another country gets hurt.
While I was thinking about all this, I realized that Jesus has some words just for kids and those will be the Bible reading this morning. His comments are wonderful, and if you want to grow up right or even change if you feel you only got half of kindergarten – these words are for you. They will be read in just moments ahead so prepare your hearts for grace from Christ.
Jesus is with the disciples and they do not realize the importance of bringing up children properly. Its not clear to me that any of them had children. Peter was married, but the impression I get from Scripture is that many of these are single guys who can travel freely without commitments at home.
So the importance of children is wonderfully established by God as Jesus draws the kids to him. This is like a very important person walking down the street and suddenly stopping to talk to you. Think how you would feel. Mayor Bloomberg was marching in the Halloween Parade and I was just behind him. Imagine how I felt when he turned around and spoke to me and told me how much I was doing for the community. Now he didn’t do that. We both just marched. But imagine how I would have felt if he had done it! That’s the image we have here.
And following that scene, we have the young man who has tried to live a good life and Jesus realizes that he was never taught to share in kindergarten. He tells him to share and the guy really fails the test.
So I want to refresh you on some kindergarten basics that I see in this passage so you will pass those tests still to come.
Never say you can’t. Christians shoot themselves in the foot by imagining why they can’t. I’m too young. I’m too poor. I’m too ugly. I’m too shy. Jesus took a child that no one there thought could do anything and said, of children such as this is the kingdom of God.
Dream, don’t hate. The young man in the text was doing fairly well. He honored his parents. The United States is in a moment of violence. We are torturing people and not apologizing. We look paranoid and mean to the world. We need you, students, people graduating now, to be motivated by dreams of helping others so that we all make it. God is determined to have a world where everyone has enough. God is determined to have a world where orphans are cared for and planet is cared for and we live in peace. God has never let go of this dream from the moment that Adam and Eve went astray. And as you grow up, each of us are asked by God whether or not we will buy into the dream.
A lot of people get scared. They decide that there is only enough for them or only enough for them and their kids. The young man in the Bible decided that the dream was not for him.
Parents, I want to speak to you. If you are not giving, then you are failing your children on the key point of this scripture. The President made a statement yesterday that same sex marriage is the greatest danger to the country. From this text, I say that what families need most are parents that teach kids by rule and by example how to share. We need to lower the divorce rate and provide stable homes for kids to grow in led by parents who are sold out to God. Not sold out to Christian beliefs, but on fire to join God in the dream that peace, happiness, and full stomachs are how the world can live.
They will know that you are Christians by the way you love each other, the Scriptures say. If your children grow up to be like you, will they have these keys lessons in their lives?
And this is where the church comes in. There has been a lot of email to me in Guatemala about the church in the community and especially today at the parade. I hope I have said over and over that life is fragile. We each come to church with our own issues. Some are sexual, and many others have to do with our jobs, family breakdowns, drug use, and aging. I want to have a vibrant community of people here who simply keep asking God how to take a step closer to heaven. And then to stand with our arms around each other so that we all make it. We can all make it. You are here today with a broken heart. You can make it. You are here today because you just heard about your cancer. You can make it. You are here today because you are heading to high school and scared of it? You can make it. Please don’t get caught in the details if your methods differ from mine. Let’s work together, walk together, let each person hear the Spirit of God and trust that the Lord will lead them.
Robert Fulghum in the Kindergarten book writes, When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
Students, graduates, parents, everyone. We can make it.
