I’m Just a Child – Is That True?

Jeremiah 1:4-10

⁴Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, ⁵“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” ⁶Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” ⁷But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you, ⁸Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” ⁹Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth. ¹⁰See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

The word of the still-speaking God.

Thanks be to Christ.

For the last several months I’ve been focusing on the Work of Byron Katie as a spiritual discipline.  You can find this work in several places on the web and also in her book, I Need You to Love Me – Is That True? [1]  This work of Byron Katie is the practice of examining our thoughts in a specific way to see if what we’re reacting to in life is really real or if we’re just reacting to what we think is happening around us.  It’s an inquiry that consists of four questions and some turnarounds.  One morning in 1986, Katie, as she’s called, discovered that when she believed her thoughts, such as, My mother should understand me, she hurt inside, but that when she didn’t believe them, she didn’t hurt.  I have to tell you: Katie doesn’t claim to be a spiritual person.  She says she’s just somebody who doesn’t like to hurt. 

So, four questions and a turnaround.  The four questions Katie asks of any thought that arises are:

1. Is it true?
2. Can I absolutely know that it is true?
3. How do I react when I believe this thought?
4. Who would I be if it weren’t possible for me to think this?

A turnaround simply takes the original thought and asks whether its opposite is at least as true or possibly truer.  For example, Katie turns the thought, My mother should understand me, into its opposite, My mother shouldn’t understand me, and then finds reasons for why that is at least as true as the original.  My mother shouldn’t understand me because it isn’t her business to understand me, or because she is incapable of understanding me, or because I don’t really talk to her.  Is that true?  My mother shouldn’t understand me because it isn’t her business.  Yes, that is true.  My mother’s job is to understand herself.  Whose business is it to understand me?  My business.  Her business is to understand herself.  Whose business is it who she tries to understand?  It’s her business, not mine.  So if she’s over there trying to understand herself, and I’m mentally over there trying to make her understand me, who’s over here taking care of me?  Who’s over here understanding me?  Nobody!  So maybe there’s another turnaround: I should understand me.  Is that true?  Yes, that’s true.  That’s my business.  I should be here taking care of my business of understanding me instead of trying to get someone else to do it for me.  And by the way, if I’m so keen to be giving advice on who people should understand, maybe I should try taking that advice and see how easy it is to do, which brings up another turnaround: I should understand my mother.  Maybe if I tried to follow my own advice, I’d realize just how hard it is to understand another human being and have a little compassion.  I should understand my mother.  Is that true?  Yes, that’s at least as true as, My mother should understand me.   

Now I give you all of that, not only because I’ve found it to be a valuable spiritual discipline, but in order to frame our inquiry into this morning’s reading from Jeremiah.  In the seventh-century before Christ, God called Jeremiah to do a huge and wonderful thing.  God called Jeremiah to become a prophet to his people – a mouthpiece for the divine who would do more forthtelling than foretelling.  When God called Jeremiah to be a prophet, Jeremiah said, “Oh, God!  I can’t do that!  I’m just a child!”  Okay, honestly, we have no idea how old Jeremiah was when God called him to be a prophet, but you know what?  It really doesn’t matter, because we’re right there with the guy every time we feel God starting to nudge us to do something: “Oh God!  I can’t do that!  I’m just a child!”  At least that’s where I am.  I don’t know enough to do this huge and wonderful thing, God!  I’m not spiritual enough, and besides, I just wanna go outside and play.  Immediately, God challenged Jeremiah to examine his thinking: “Don’t say, ‘I’m just a child.’  Go where I send you.  Say what I tell you.  I’ve got your back.  Honest to God!”  And God challenges us today to examine our own thinking, so let’s do that now.

Whenever we start to feel God nudging us to do something huge and wonderful, we say, Oh God!  I’m just a child!  First question: is it true?  For some of you sitting there with parents or grandparents, it is true that you are a child, but what about the rest of us?  I’m just a child.  Is that true?   My story says I’m forty-nine years old and so I’m no longer a child, but I don’t feel that way.  Sometimes I look in the mirror and people have told me that whatever I see there is what I look like, but I’m not sure I believe that because I know who’s looking out these eyes and I can tell you it’s not that old man looking back at me from that mirror!  So, I’m just a child – is that true? 

Hmmm… maybe we’d better unpack the word just and let it complete the sentence before we answer.  I’m just a child means I feel like a child and I know children can’t do huge and wonderful things for God and so I can’t do huge and wonderful things for God. 

I feel like a child – is it true?  Yes!  Okay, then: children can’t do huge and wonderful things for God.  Is that true?  I think so.

Craig Kielburger is a year older than my son, Ben. 

In 1995, when he was 12 years old, Craig saw a headline in the Toronto Star that read “Battled child labour, boy, 12, murdered.” The accompanying story was about a young Pakistani boy named Iqbal Masih who was forced into bonded labour in a carpet factory at the age of four, became an international figurehead for the fight against child labor by 10 years of age, and was brutally murdered in 1995 at the age of 12.

Angered by the article, Kielburger began researching child labour. He took the article to school, gathered friends his same age and together founded Free The Children. In December 1995, Kielburger travelled to Asia with Alam Rahman, a 25-year-old family friend from Bangladesh, to see the conditions for himself. While there, he learned that then-Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chrétien was travelling to India. After being denied a meeting, Craig arranged a press conference where he announced that the prime minister had a “moral responsibility” to take action on child labour. The Prime Minister eventually met with him and raised the issue of child labour with the trade delegation, and spoke on the matter with the President of Pakistan and the Prime Minster of India.

He and a group of others also successfully lobbied the Canadian and Italian governments to stiffen laws against their nationals who sexually exploit children in developing countries like those in Asia.

Free The Children began to receive international attention. The organization has to date built over 500 schools and implemented projects in 45 developing countries.[2]

Four years after Craig Kielburger started Free the Children, my son, Ben, was delivering the Nashua Telegraph one morning and saw a headline about a high school named Columbine in Littleton, CO.  There’d been a horrible tragedy there involving two young men who, like him, didn’t fit into school culture.  These two young men went to their high school one day with guns and took the lives of twelve other students and a teacher before taking their own.  As he read the newspaper articles in the weeks that followed, Ben was deeply moved.  He decided God was telling him to go to Littleton to face its evil with them.  By the time we realized what was going on, Ben had gone, supposedly on a walk, but actually to hitchhike from New Hampshire to Colorado.  We got a call that evening from some people in town who had stopped to talk with him before he got onto the highway.  They brought him home, much to our relief.  Not only had we been concerned for his safety, we didn’t examine the belief that children can’t do huge and wonderful things for God.  I regret that, after that, instead of driving Ben out to Littleton to stand with him as he stood with the students of Columbine, I clamped down harder than ever on him, arguing with his belief that it was God who had nudged him.

I’m just a child and children can’t do huge and wonderful things for God.  Is that true?  I don’t think so anymore.  Can I absolutely know whether it’s true or not?  No.  How do I react when I think this way?  I get scared and clamp down on myself and those around me.  Who would I be if it weren’t possible for me to think this way?  I don’t know.  Another Jeremiah?  Or maybe just someone who no longer hurt from holding on so tight.

What’s the turnaround?  Maybe I’m not just a child.  Or rather, maybe I am a child, a child of God, and God always expects his children to do huge and wonderful things.

The word of the still-speaking God.

Thanks be to Christ.

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[1] http://www.thework.com/index.php                                                                             

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Kielburger

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