Then little children were being brought to him in order that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples spoke sternly to those who brought them; but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.”
- Matthew 19:13-14
This past Sunday, our children’s ministry held a “Welcome to Worship” weekend in which our church’s ministerial staff walked through what it means to worship and gave the kids some resources to help them stay engaged during the worship service (especially the sermon…the pastor can be kinda boring sometimes!) As the capper to the weekend, the children led the congregation in worship on Sunday morning, doing everything from reading Scripture to praying to singing in the choir and more.
Something I didn’t fully comprehend until it was happening was just how many moving parts there would be when you put children in charge of something that adults normally handle. And let’s face it, kids aren’t necessarily as predictable as adults, even when they’ve been trained how to do something.
As a result, the service wasn’t quite as tight as usual on Sunday. Transitions from one element of worship to the next were sometimes a bit halting. Passing the offering plate required some extra direction. And despite the best efforts of their parents, there was a bit more whispering and movement during the sermon than on a normal week.
If you were watching the service like a judge at the Olympics, there were some obvious imperfections. But none of them seemed to matter to anyone—not the kids, not the congregation, not me. And certainly not the Lord.
After all, Jesus is the one who told his disciples to let little children—messy, noisy, unpredictable children—come to him, because the kingdom of heaven belonged to them. In that moment and many others, Jesus seemed less worried about order than love.
There’s a lesson there for us grownups, who place a high value on procedure and decorum and optics. Jesus wants us to worship in spirit and in truth more than he wants us to hit our marks. He values our sincerity, not our performance. He cares more about the depth of our faith than about how it looks.
That children-led worship service was a lot like the kids who led it. It was a little noisy, because it was joyous. It wasn’t always smooth, because the kids are still learning. In a technical sense, it had its share of imperfections. But in the Lord’s eyes, I think it was just about perfect.
Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if my brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”
Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.
- Matthew 18:21-22
It was a morning where my kids were definitely acting like siblings. Lots of bickering, lots of teasing, lots of yelling. I was counting down the minutes til we could get out the door to take the eldest two to school.
Then one little moment popped that I want to share with you. Isaac was wanting Katherine’s attention, and she was not in the mood to give it. In fact, she snapped at him to get out of her room. Butting in, I said, “Katherine, he just wants to play. You don’t have to do what he wants, but give him a little grace.”
Her response stuck with me: “I gave him grace yesterday! What, am I supposed to do it every day???”
The gospels tell us that Simon Peter once asked Jesus a question quite similar to Katherine’s: how many times is a believer expected to forgive someone? Peter thought he was going above and beyond by suggesting that seven might be the magic number, especially given that rabbinical teaching released you from that obligation after three forgiven offenses.
But Jesus’s conception of grace stretches far beyond the bounds of fairness or social acceptability. Some translations say that he told Peter to forgive seventy-seven times; others say seventy times seven. The point remains the same either way: there’s not a specific number. Rather, the life of a believer is to be one marked by grace, where instead of keeping track of the ways you’ve been wronged, you are always looking for opportunities to do right. You don’t forgive because you’re expected to do so, you forgive because you’ve been forgiven.
Grace every day—it’s a tough challenge to be sure, an impossible one without the Lord’s help. But for those sustained by his grace, the least we can do is extend it to others.
I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord; I will remember your wonders of old. I will meditate on all your work and muse on your mighty deeds.
- Psalm 77:11-12
Never forget.
That phrase, almost immediately after the devastating terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, became the watchword of its remembrances. Where other national news stories, even tragedies, tend to fade in our collective memories, we were all sternly warned that such a thing ought never to happen with 9/11.
What there seems to be little agreement on, however, is what exactly “never forget” means.
For the grieving, especially the families of those who died in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, it is a call to remember the men and women who lost their lives on that day, to see them not as statistics but as individual people, each with a story worth sharing. For this reason, the names of those who died are often read one by one at memorial services every September 11.
For the angry and the combative and, in some cases, the prejudiced, “never forget” is a call to arms, a demand that our enemies pay the price for the evil they perpetrated. While the identity of those enemies has tended to shift with the political winds—from Al Qaeda to the Taliban to ISIS and beyond—there have always been some who, as they beat the drums of war, did so with the clarion call, “never forget.”
For those disturbed by today’s political polarization, “never forget” is about the national unity we experienced that September, a time when being a Republican or Democrat mattered less than being an American. Though that solidarity was brought about by tragedy, “never forget” is said with the hope that we might recapture it somehow.
On this 25th anniversary of 9/11, I’ll add one more thing worth remembering. The days following the attacks were filled with fear and anger, there’s no doubt. But from neighbor to neighbor, they were also days marked by compassion and grace. Conflicts that once felt important now seemed insignificant. People looked for ways to be generous, whether by mowing their neighbor’s lawn or by sending money across the country. Prayers came quickly and naturally to people.
That’s because in the wake of a horrific tragedy, God did what he does best: slowly and beautifully, he turned death into new life. Through countless acts of courage and compassion, light began to shine through the darkness and the Lord did redemptive work. Sermons and speeches proclaimed the gospel, but it was the witness of the Christlike who truly brought good news to the brokenhearted.
In the face of unimaginable loss, there were some who dared to love like Jesus. May we never forget what that was like 25 years ago—and may we always remember to do it again today.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
- Jeremiah 29:11-13
A few weeks ago, as my monthlong sabbatical began drawing to a close, I embarked upon something I’d been looking forward to for weeks: a 5-day retreat to practice solitude, enjoy some reading, and work on a few writing projects. My plan was to criss-cross the state, exploring the open road and hitting a new town each day. As for lodging, I had waited too long making my plans to budget properly, so I decided I’d camp in state parks.
Monday evening, after a lovely afternoon in Tyler’s public library and a great coffee shop downtown, I pulled into my campsite at Tyler State Park, pitched my tent, and once the sun went down, I crawled in and zipped the door shut. It was time for a good night’s sleep.
Roughly 1.7 seconds later, I was coated in sweat. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s been hot the last few weeks. Burn your hand on the car door hot. 24-hour heat advisory hot. 90 degrees in the middle of the night hot. As I’d been warned beforehand by my wife and some wary friends, my plan for the week had run into the reality of a Texas summer.
That was one of the worst night’s “sleep” I’ve ever experienced (and the company of the world’s most aggressive raccoon digging around my campsite didn’t help matters). So the next morning, I drove to Waco, paid for 3 nights at the cheapest motel I could find, and bailed on the original plan. My retreat wound up being less scenic than I’d intended, but a lot more air-conditioned.
As the poet Robert Burns famously told us, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. You can think you know what your day, your year, even your life are going to look like, only to have your preconceptions shattered in an instant. Whether because your plans are at fault or because life simply throws you a curveball, sometimes you find yourself completely at a loss, having to feel around in the dark for a new way forward.
In such times, it’s helpful to remember the promise God made to his people in the days of Jeremiah. They found themselves facing an imminent exile into a foreign country, the most humiliating and faith-shaking future imaginable for a nation whose identity was so tied to the Promised Land their God had given them. Needless to say, exile was not their plan.
But even as God warned them of what was to come, the broader perspective he offered was encouraging—that ultimately, his plans for them were for good, not harm. The road ahead was not going to be smooth, and it certainly wasn’t going to be what they would have chosen for themselves. But even as God punished them with exile for their idolatry and faithlessness, he was still going to keep his covenant by preserving them in the midst of their trial. Life was going to look different moving forward, but God had not abandoned them.
For you today, there’s no telling what the future holds. Your big plans for tomorrow may play out exactly as you’ve drawn them up. Then again, they may be ripped to shreds by things far beyond your control, leaving you grasping for new options.
Whatever the case, know that when you cry out to your Father in heaven, he hears you. He has not left you alone in your struggle; he has not abandoned his child. The future may be uncertain, but his love remains steadfast. Your plans may fail you, but your God never will.
