Girl Talk -- Eavesdropping On The Capable Wife And Today's Woman
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
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Object:
Over the last century, the role of women in American society has been completely transformed. While there are still concerns over issues like lagging pay for equal work, women are now able to participate in almost every field of human endeavor -- including many areas such as sports, politics, and the military that were previously considered to be the exclusive province of men. There is even some recent research to suggest that, because they are culturally and physically more adaptable then men, women are more likely to have the skills and mindset to succeed in the 21st-century economy.
Of course, all of this means that the idealized image of women has also vastly changed. No longer is the typical woman in our popular culture portrayed as June Cleaver -- the perfectly coiffed "capable wife." For many women these days, even defining themselves in such a context is perceived as extremely limiting and "old-fashioned." So what do we make of this week's assigned lectionary text from the Hebrew Scriptures, Proverbs' paean to the "capable wife"? Needless to say, it was written in a very different time and place -- so what originally may have been a very progressive text lifting up the importance of women in a society that often undervalued their contributions may now be seen by many of our worshipers (especially younger people) in a very different light. In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Leah Lonsbury tries to rescue this text from its typical Mother's Day niche by bringing together the perspectives of the traditional "superwoman" described in Proverbs and the modern "liberated" woman in order to find common elements -- and to see how this text remains very relevant today.
Team member Mary Austin offers some additional thoughts on this week's gospel text and Jesus' holding up the example of how we treat children as indicative of whether we are welcoming of Jesus and his kingdom. Mary points to the recent release of government statistics indicating that over 20% of American children are in poverty -- and the public's relative indifference to this startling figure -- and suggests that, like the disciples, we are looking for greatness in the wrong places. If we are to live out Jesus' imperative to welcome children into our midst, Mary reminds us, we need to be more proactive about finding ways to seek out children in poverty and do what we can to improve their lives.
Girl Talk -- Eavesdropping on the Capable Wife and Today's Woman
by Leah Lonsbury
Proverbs 31:10-31
It's hard to know how to read this week's passage from Proverbs.
If it's just an antiquated description of a wife and mother from a dominantly patriarchal period and a culture far removed from our own, then it's easy to dismiss.
If it's just a picture of the ideal woman that no one can live up to, then it's really easy to dismiss.
If it's a reading we only pull out for the funerals of beloved mothers, wives, and church ladies, then it's tempting to sentimentalize and ritualize it and not have to wrestle with its meaning for our everyday lives.
But if it's something a bit more complicated than that, then it's going to take a closer look. It will also take a careful look because, as Telford Work notes in Feasting on the Word [Year B, Volume 3, pg. 74], preaching on this text without nuance can be like "stomping through a minefield." In order to avoid explosion in the midst of the "pitched gender politics of our age," we will need to be careful and observant and choose our steps wisely as we move through our interpretation and decide how it will inform our living.
Toward those ends, let's invite the "Capable Wife" in Proverbs 31 into conversation with Today's Woman.
Today's Woman -- you know her and her remarkable friends -- earns 60% of undergraduate and graduate degrees today. Their small businesses outperformed those of their male counterparts in the last recession. They're flexible and resilient and tend to thrive after a job change or divorce and then see their income rise by 25%. (This is not the case with male peers.) They succeed in school and at work, because they are emotionally sensitive, aware of context, and communicate with ease. They balance education, work, and family... and right in the middle of it all do that always astounding feat -- creating and sustaining new human life through the remarkable capabilities of their bodies.
Greg Hampikian, a professor of biology and criminal justice at Boise State University, had this to say about the growing prowess and independence of Today's Woman in a recent New York Times opinion piece: "Women aren't just becoming men's equals. It's increasingly clear that 'mankind' itself is a gross misnomer: an uninterrupted, intimate, and essential maternal connection defines our species."
If we can eavesdrop on this conversation between the Capable Wife and Today's Woman, we may learn some of their secrets of success. We may acquire their knowhow on the realization of dreams and stability, remembering and blessing those in need (v. 20), and praising God (v. 30) with willing and fruitful hands (vv. 13, 31) and hearts. We may learn what it means to live the abundant life for which we were created -- the life that is really life.
THE WORLD
A variety of news sources seem to be full of headlines like this at the moment: "Why Men Fail", "Men, Who Needs Them?" "Who Wears the Pants in This Economy?" and "The End of Men Is Here? 14 Signs and Consequences of Male Decline".
The articles these headlines point to seem to tell a similar story about a changing world, a dominant class (men) failing to evolve and keep up, and a once underdog class (women) using the flexibility and adaptability they have been forced to take on to carve a new and successful way forward. In "Why Men Fail", New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks sifts through a new book by Hanna Rosin titled The End of Men. Brooks picks up Rosin's idea that women are thriving in this tumultuous economy because they behave like successful immigrants do in a new country. "They see a new social context, and they flexibly adapt to new circumstances."
If we follow this line of thinking, then men are like the immigrants who have physically relocated themselves in the new country but have left their minds in the old one. Brooks continues: "They speak the old language. They follow the old mores. Men are more likely to be rigid; women are more fluid."
In "Men, Who Needs Them?" Greg Hampikian points to the growing number of women who are raising and even having children without a male partner involved -- via donor sperm, and more recently through a different kind of marriage... the one between science and machine. Recently geneticist J. Craig Venter engineered a process by which the necessary genetic material for conception usually supplied by sperm can be synthesized by a machine. This surprising development prompted Hampikian to ask a female colleague if there was now anything irreplaceable about men. She answered, "They're entertaining."
So women are more flexible and quicker to adapt. And it appears that they have the strength and capacity to do what it has up until recently been understood to be the job of two differently equipped human beings. But what else is in play here?
Why is it that 12 of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most by the year 2016 are dominated by women? Why is it that at high-ranking business schools like Columbia the curricula for standard courses now teach sensitive leadership and social intelligence, including how to better read facial expressions and body language -- traits that are typically understood to be innate in most women? Jamie Ladge, a business professor at Northeastern University, speaks to this in "The End of Men": "We never explicitly say, 'Develop your feminine side,' but it's clear that's what we're advocating."
It appears that many companies are now looking for high-level employees who are good coaches and use their charisma to motivate workers to be hard-working and creative. But at the other end of that ladder, the first rung -- school -- girls are dominating as well. Three quarters of Ds and Fs go to boys in elementary and high school. And as was mentioned earlier, men are only earning 40% of college degrees. David Brooks hones in again on why girls and women are succeeding while their male counterparts are lagging behind: "To succeed today, you have to be able to sit still and focus attention in school at an early age. You have to be emotionally sensitive and aware of context. You have to communicate smoothly. For genetic and cultural reasons, many men stink at these tasks."
Flexibility, strength, capacity that is deep and growing deeper, sensitivity, social intelligence, creative charisma, focus, and effective communication. Sounds like Today's Woman has it all. What, then, might she have to say in conversation with the Capable Wife? What can we learn as they cross paths?
THE WORD
It's hard to know how to read this week's passage from Proverbs.
Turns out it's not just an antiquated description of a wife and mother from a dominantly patriarchal period and a culture far removed from our own. That's part of the story of this passage, but not its whole truth. We can't simply take Today's Woman and cram her into the mold of the Capable Wife. It isn't a fit, though there are some common features and resonances. We live in a very different time and place. Society works differently. Women today do some version of many of the tasks the Capable Wife takes on (and many, many others not listed in chapter 31!), but they are accomplished in different ways and done on different terms. Women today hold all of the virtues found in the Capable Wife in their collective basket, but even those virtues are exhibited differently.
Proverbs 31 is also not just a picture of the ideal woman that no one can live up to either. It isn't our sacred story confirming our culture's pressure to over function. The Capable Wife carves an admirable path on many levels for all people, not just women, but she cannot be the unattainable standard by which we measure ourselves. The writer knows this and begins with "A capable wife who can find?" not to denigrate women but to point out from the beginning that this example of excellence and flawlessness is meant to inspire and not to shame or defeat those who seek to follow in her ways.
While this is a reading that often gets pulled out for the funerals of beloved mothers, wives, and church ladies, the reason that it has become ritual and makes us sentimental is because it tells us all, women and men, some very important truths about living well with God. Faith communities are often held up by church-lady pillars. Families often stay in orbit because of the strength of their central body -- a mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, or other female relative who sends other family members on the right path, keeps them connected, and holds the family unit intact.
Along these lines, Pastor Kenneth Carter reminds us in Feasting on the Word [Year B, Volume 3, pg. 76] that how a biblical story or book ends is never accidental. It is significant that a collection of teachings on wisdom find their consummation in this portrayal of a woman:
Embedded in these words are the values that sustain our lives, our minds, our bodies, our souls: trust and integrity in personal relationships, sacrifice, going the extra mile, providing for our children, opening our hands to the poor, doing whatever needs to be done -- and yet doing it with a sense of humor, because, really, what is the alternative?
Women, often both history's underdogs and unsung family heroines, have worked and prayed and lived their way into a central and crucial truth about life with God. Here's Kenneth Carter again: "Wisdom may be defined as a life well lived, a life that matters." God's wisdom for our lives is not enlightenment or knowledge that controls others, benefits the holder only, or can be possessed only through privilege or held away from the masses by credentialing. Instead, "wisdom is a way of life that includes justice, righteousness, humility, compassion, and fairness."
The Capable Wife and Today's Woman can illuminate that way of life for us.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
The interplay between the Capable Wife and Today's Woman can help the preacher along a variety of paths this week. Those could include...
* Celebrating the way God's wisdom is found in the Capable Wife and Today's Woman can transform cultural norms. The Capable Wife's passage moves the contextual dynamics between men and women closer to mutual support and empowerment and so blesses the family and the whole community. It doesn't meet all of our contemporary expectations for the role of women and their potential impact in society, but it witnesses to the fact that our sacred story can push against convention in ways that challenge and liberate us toward the greater good God imagines. Today's Woman is also doing just that out of necessity and because she is opening her own opportunities in a shifting world. What might we learn from Today's Woman about embodying wisdom through determination, trustworthiness, fruitfulness, initiative, creativity, generosity, passion, and ingenuity? How does she witness to God's vision for us as individuals, families, and communities?
* Holding up the multiple witnesses the Bible provides about women and studying how, why, and to what effect the witness we choose to highlight and follow shapes our living and our culture. The preacher could also emphasize careful reading of women's stories (and all stories) in the Bible. What is translated as "capable" in the NRSV packs a more powerful punch in the original Hebrew. The Capable Wife is literally a "strong woman" and a "woman of worth." How might a closer study of small details change how we look at women and our big picture?
* Looking at how we limit this text when we only bring it to light on Mother's Day, for memorial services, and during women's retreats (or any text when we pigeonhole it for one occasion or purpose). What if Proverbs 31 became a light for the larger life of a community taking a careful and honest look at roles for women and what God's justice demands in response? Jim Hopkins of Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church in Oakland, California, writes: "This text is for those times when the preacher needs to say, 'The women in our community have been put on pedestals but not accepted as peers; the women in our church have been revered but not respected; the women in our culture need equal rights, equal pay, equal opportunity, equal status, and equal accountability' " (Feasting on the Word [Year B, Volume 3], pg. 77). There is much literature out there to support a serious look at women in contemporary ministry as well. One such article by divinity student Molly Brummett can be found here.
* Disarming the notion that any of us can be everything to everybody or that God intends for us to do so. God calls us beloved and chooses us not because we are perfect or wise in every way, but because God loves us. Our response of awe and gratitude and a shift in our daily choices to live well can lead us to grow in wisdom and toward God's vision of love for our lives. The Capable Wife holds up many possibilities for what that might look like as our growth and path are informed by our gifts and passions. Today's Woman shows us how our lives, shaped by a growing wisdom, might honor God, bless ourselves and those we love, and reshape our world.
* Making the biblical story come alive to illuminate our current patterns and living. One such way that this might happen around Proverbs 31 is by taking on the narratives found in Rosin's "Who Wears the Pants in This Economy?" One story Rosin includes is about Connie and Rob, a married couple who has seen their roles shift in a changing economy and as Connie grows toward our picture of Today's Woman. Connie's daughter Abby has seen her life affected by these changes as well. At one point Connie, who loves to study and dissect a text of any kind, reads our passage from Proverbs 31. Below is an excerpt about the family's reaction:
The passage describes the "wife of noble character," who works with the wool and flax, brings the food from afar, who "gets up while it is still dark," buys a field, plants a vineyard, turns a profit, and "her lamp does not go out at night" because she's still sewing clothes for the poor and generally being industrious while everyone else sleeps. Her husband, meanwhile, "is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land."
Traditionally the passage has been viewed as an elaboration of the proper roles of husband and wife. The husband sits in the dominant, protective role, watching his wife's efforts on behalf of the family and taking pride. But in a town in which many men aren't working steadily anymore, the words have taken on new meaning. There are people who have noticed that the passage never mentions what the husband is doing or what role he's playing in providing food for his family, tilling the fields, or turning a profit. What was dawning on Connie these last few months became obvious to Abby and Rob as she read the passage out loud. That noble wife is working from dawn to dusk. And the husband?
"Sounds like he's sitting around with his buddies shooting the breeze, talking about the ballgame, and eating potato chips," Rob said.
What questions does Proverbs 31 raise for your faith community or the individuals in it? What do we do with those questions? What does the passage and what do our questions tell us about our own living?
* Moving the congregation to act in the example of the Capable Wife and Today's Woman. Old Testament scholar and professor Kathleen O'Connor writes that the Capable Wife is a "poetic figure... [that] moves between the symbolic worlds of human wife and suprahuman dynamo" (Feasting on the Word [Year B, Volume 3], pg. 77). O'Connor points out that the passage is full of active verbs: "She seeks, she works, she brings." What kind of active verbs does the congregation need to take on to live out God's wisdom and bless the world?
***
Whatever road the preacher chooses to take this week, it's important to keep in mind and color the sermon with the wisdom that the successes of the Capable Wife and Today's Woman don't mean that all is well with womankind. Anne-Marie Slaughter's article "Why Women Still Can't Have it All" in The Atlantic is a good reminder of this and offers many ideas on how to change that.
ANOTHER VIEW
by Mary Austin
Mark 9:30-37
Last week, the Census Bureau released its annual report on poverty in America. Many economists had expected poverty rates to rise, but they held steady from the previous year, with 15% of Americans continuing to live in poverty, as defined by an income below $23,021 for a family of four. This means that 46.2 million of our neighbors fall below the poverty line.
Hope Yen of the Associated Press reported that "David Johnson, the chief of the Census Bureau's household economics division, attributed the better-than-expected poverty numbers to increases in full-time workers over the last year. He also estimated that expanded unemployment benefits helped keep 2.3 million people out of poverty, while Social Security lifted roughly 14.5 million seniors above the poverty line. Without the Social Security cash payments, the number of people ages 65 and older living in poverty would have increased fivefold."
At the other end of the age spectrum, the impact on children is sharp. The rate of child poverty held steady from the previous year, but 21.9% of America's children are still counted among the poor. That's about 16 million children who live in families where food is scarce, where the adults are stressed, and where hard choices must be made about clothes, heat, and where to live affordably. For children under six, the rate is 24.5% -- meaning that almost a quarter of young children live in poverty, a rate that also held steady.
As Jesus' disciples talk among themselves about what greatness means, Jesus, always the master of the object lesson, places a child among them. Mark recalls: "Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 'Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me' " (9:36-37).
If 21.9% of America's children live in poverty, we, as a nation, have done a terrible job of welcoming children the way Jesus instructed us.
Like the disciples, we look for greatness in the wrong places. We look to sports stars, "real housewives," and celebrities, instead of to the kids around us. If we paid half as much attention to the children around us as we do the latest adventures of the Kardashian clan, we would never stand for this. We miss our chance and fail to see the children waiting alone at the library for a parent to get off work, or the children eating McDonald's for dinner because they live in a place without a stove. Our eyes travel over the children waiting in a car for a parent who can't afford childcare, or the children who don't eat on the weekend because school breakfast and lunch don't happen on Saturday and Sunday.
As Hannah Matthews of CLASP, a national non-profit that advocates for the poor, wrote on The Huffington Post, this isn't just a problem for today: "Child poverty is linked to a host of negative outcomes. Poverty is a strong predictor of children's success in school and adult employment and earnings. Poor children have less access to preventive health services and early education. The prevalence of poverty among the very youngest children means that during the first three years of life -- a fundamental period of rapid brain growth and development -- babies are deprived of the very resources they need to thrive." For years to come, we will see the results of our current failure to welcome children in the way that Jesus understood was essential.
If Congress doesn't take action, January 1 will see spending cuts to the federal budget that make life even harder for poor people. Without Congressional action, as Hannah Matthews notes in her piece, "child care assistance and Head Start will both be cut, as will early intervention services for young children, Title I funding for disadvantaged students, and funding for maternal and child health services."
These are systemic problems related to the economy as a whole and related to our national priorities. Congress may or may not act. We may or may not elect a president interested in children. But each of us knows a child in poverty, I suspect. Each of our congregations has resources to address even a small part of the problem. Each of us can do something.
ILLUSTRATIONS
It was a television commercial many of us loved to hate. There were three images of the same woman -- one wearing a business suit; another in a housedress holding a skillet; and one clad in sexy lingerie -- all singing these words in a sultry voice: I can bring home the bacon; fry it up in a pan; and never let you forget you're a man! 'Cause I'm a woman -- W-O-M-A-N!
It's not even important what product that commercial was selling. (It was perfume.) The image of that ridiculous song is burned into the consciousness of many who heard it -- ridiculous because no woman (and no man either, for that matter) can be so thoroughly "all things to all people" as that crooning siren with the skillet in her hand.
Don't think for a moment that the author of Proverbs is talking about that kind of woman! No, read a little more deeply in this chapter, and you'll find that the "capable wife" is beloved by her husband not because she's an expert juggler of home and business and parenting and marriage -- although this woman is all these things -- but for a very different reason.
"She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue" (v. 26). This faithful woman is a person of true wisdom -- and the wisdom she teaches best is called "kindness."
* * *
The book of Proverbs begins with wisdom personified as a woman, and it ends with a canticle of praise to the excellent wife. Throughout the ages and across religious traditions, the feminine has been a vital principle through which to perceive the full character of God. In Taoism, the feminine is the yin to the masculine yang; this generates and structures the interrelatedness of all of life. In the Hebrew creation story of Genesis 2, Adam is not complete until Eve stands by his side. In agrarian cultures throughout the ages, it is often a goddess who is responsible for the fertility of the fields and the herds. To honor woman, who is created in the image of God (Genesis 1), is to honor God. Woman -- Sophia, the excellent wife, who fears the Lord -- is worthy of praise and guides our sense of what is worthy to pursue, namely our relationship with God.
* * *
Given the poverty statistics released by the Census Bureau, one would think that poverty and its effects would be a defining issue in this fall's campaign. But of course, that's not at all the case -- it's far down the list of leading topics. As this word map compiled by the New York Times indicates, "poverty" was mentioned only about 4 times per 25,000 spoken words at the Republican and Democratic conventions -- far fewer than phrases like "middle-class," "small business," "jobs," "taxes," "education," and "American dream." Thomas Edsall, in a bracing essay titled "Is Poverty a Kind of Robbery?" offers some insight into why poverty has been dropped from the agenda when he suggests that politicians "have concluded that getting enough votes on Nov. 6 precludes taking policy positions that alienate middle-class whites. In practice this means that on the campaign trail there is an absence of explicit references to the poor."
However, talk show host Tavis Smiley and prominent intellectual Cornel West (currently a professor at Union Theological Seminary) believe that poverty is a vitally important political issue. As Smiley puts it: "When half of the nation... 150 million people [is] either in or near poverty, this is not a Democratic problem or a Republican problem.... This is an American catastrophe.... Poverty is threatening our democracy. Poverty is a matter of national security." Smiley and West refuse to let poverty be swept under the rug. In addition to writing a book together -- The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto -- they have attempted to force the issue to the forefront of the national conversation by traveling this month to the "battleground" states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida on what they have dubbed "The Poverty Tour 2.0: A Call to Conscience". Both men often speak of their Christian faith and its importance in their lives, and they have picked up the challenge to shine a light on "the least of these."
* * *
In his book The Historical Jesus (Harper San Francisco, 1991), John Dominic Crossan cites papyrus fragments that indicate infanticide was prevalent in the ancient world and that children were often rescued from rubbish dumps and reared as slaves. While Jewish parents did not practice infanticide, to be a child was to be overlooked. Commenting on Mark 9:37 and 10:15, Crossan says: "to be a child was to be a nobody, with the possibility of becoming somebody absolutely dependent on parental discretion and parental standing in the community" (p. 268). This explains the shock value for his disciples in Jesus' metaphor of a kingdom of nobodies.
* * *
You may have seen his picture in guidebooks. He was the subject of segments on the Travel Channel and has been featured in the New York Times. When tourists spotted him, they would crowd around and clamor for pictures. Yet he was not an athlete, musician, or actor. His name was Chhoun Neam -- and he gained notoriety because he was the sweeper at Ta Prohm Temple. People were drawn to this weathered, old, bald man wearing a fringed black shirt and simple rubber sandals because he seemed to embody the timeless inspiration that haunts the ancient temples of Angkor in Cambodia.
However, Chhoun Neam was not so impressed by his celebrity. His routine was to sweep nonstop from dawn to dusk simply because it needed to be done. "If I don't sweep," he remarked, "it will all grow over. There is a war between the jungle and the temple. The leaves keep falling. If I stop to eat, the leaves keep falling. Trees, grass, vines all over the Temple. That's why I have to sweep."
Chhoun Neam was famous because he was a servant. Whoever wants to be first must place himself last of all and be the servant of all.
* * *
Contrary to popular belief (accentuated by the motion picture industry) Queen Cleopatra was not a very attractive lady. While beauty is often judged by outside appearances, Cleopatra's true beauty can never be displayed on celluloid, for she was a very intelligent, savvy, and politically astute individual.
We most often associate Cleopatra with her foreign diplomacy, using both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony as lovers in an attempt to secure control of the Roman Empire. But in domestic politics, Cleopatra was equally astute. Her native country was politically divided. The northern part of Egypt had been Hellenized -- that is, it had accepted Greek culture as the norm. The southern half of the kingdom was still traditionally Egyptian in its orientation.
To gain the respect and allegiance of the north, Cleopatra had coins minted that showed her face as a Hellenized Egyptian. For those dwelling in the south, she had stone engravings made depicting her as a pharaoh. In order to summon the loyalty of all her constituents, Cleopatra cunningly had two images of herself presented to the people of Egypt.
Jesus said, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all servant of all." To be a servant of all one does not practice deceit, but instead humility.
* * *
Paul W. McCracken, an economic advisor for several presidents, recently died at the age of 96. A professor at the University of Michigan, McCracken served on Eisenhower's Council of Economic Advisors, and he also was a member of commissions for the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Before departing the realm of politics, McCracken was the chairman of President Nixon's Council of Economic Advisors.
One of the incidents from his political career that McCracken liked to share occurred during the Nixon administration. The economy was unstable, and Nixon wanted to institute wage and price controls. McCracken openly spoke against it. Referencing history, McCracken informed the president that wage and price controls never achieved their intended purpose, and often made things worse economically. Ignoring McCracken's advice, Nixon put in place wage and price controls.
McCracken noted that when Nixon chose this policy the White House and Congress were in a bitter political dispute. McCracken realized that Nixon's actions had more to do with politics than economics. Nixon enforced wage and price controls, realizing they probably would not be effective, doing so for political reasons rather than working in the interest of the public and the economic health of the nation. Regarding the president's action, McCracken said, "Political battles are often more important to them than hard, solid data."
James wrote on how we allow our inner ungodly desires to motivate ungodly actions toward others.
* * *
Harvard University has been consumed by the largest cheating scandal in memory. It is estimated that 125 students, almost half of the 279 registrants for an "Introduction to Congress" class, collaborated on a take-home exam. This class was always considered to be an easy course (thus its popularity). But with a change in the syllabus, it became otherwise. Matthew Platt, the instructor, required students to work on the exam individually, absent of collaboration. Faced with an unexpected workload, the students opted to disregard the professor's instructions and compensate for the unexpected rigorous exam by working in groups. One important factor that fostered the group exercise was summarized by Jay Harris, the dean of undergraduate education. Dr. Harris said: "The enabling role of technology is a big part of this picture. It's the ease of sharing. With that has come, I believe, a cavalier attitude."
James wrote on how we allow our inner ungodly desires to motivate immoral actions.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
Call to Worship
Leader: How do we welcome one little child in the name of Jesus?
People: With hope, with enthusiasm, with respect, with the open arms of our heart, with an attitude of love.
Leader: How do we welcome one little child in the name of Jesus?
People: By calling the child into responsibility, by finding time to listen, by conveying that we value the child, by teaching what is right, by feeding the child's whole being.
OR
(In conjunction with this call to worship, project the photos of some of your church's children onto a screen that everyone can see.)
Leader: Look at that face.
People: Beautiful.
Leader: And that face.
People: Happy.
Leader: And that one.
People: Wondrous.
Leader: That is the joy God made us for.
People: The joy of the child.
Leader: Come, let us worship him, the Maker of children. Amen.
Hymn Suggestions
"A Christian Home"
"As for Me and My House"
"Children of the Heavenly Father"
"For the Beauty of the Earth"
"God Is Our Strong Salvation"
"Great Is Thy Faithfulness"
"Happy the Home When God Is There"
"I Would Be Like Jesus"
"O Happy Day, That Fixed My Choice"
"O Happy Home"
"O Jesus I Have Promised"
"O Perfect Love"
"Open My Eyes That I May See"
"She Will Be Called Blessed"
"Tell Me the Stories of Jesus"
"Unless the Lord the House Shall Build"
Opening Prayer / Collect
God, it's so easy for us to slip into complacency about the poor and to devote all of our time to the maintenance of our status. Comfort those of us who are afflicted and afflict those of us who are comfortable that we may all become good stewards of your wealth.
OR
Almighty God, our Creator and Redeemer, like your children everywhere we are caught up in the pursuit of happiness. There are those who urge us to find it in seeking wealth, and others who claim it can be found by being ambitious and seeking self-glorification. We come to worship you today because we believe true happiness can only be found in following your commands and serving you. Bless our worship, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.
OR
Compassionate God, we come as a church who wants to convey to children that this church home is a place that accepts them, loves them, and welcomes them, one by one. Help us to bolster this hope by entrusting creative energy, our money, and the programs of the church for the nurture of children. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Lord, we want to serve you in a manner that could be rated among the best, but when we look at the attributes of one who serves her family best, we realize we fall far short. We are not as generous to the poor and needy as we could be. We often fear for the future. We do not always speak with a gentle wisdom and in many other ways we need to improve. Strengthen us in our resolve to be better servants of our Lord, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
OR
Lord, when we try to measure greatness we usually pass over the children, assuming that they are out of the running. We forget that Jesus taught us to embrace them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Open our eyes and our hearts, Lord, so we may come to understand that in your eyes all are precious and all may find wisdom and true greatness. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
OR
Leader: If I could be granted one wish that might just make the world a much better place for generations to come, I would wish that the hearts of parents everywhere would be filled with selfless love for their children. There are too many abused, violated, and neglected children in our world,
People: too many being taught to hate,
Leader: too many growing up without the foundation of a strong value system,
People: too many who know nothing of the life of the Spirit,
Leader: too many who are the object of anger and mistreatment,
People: too many who don't know how beautiful they are,
Leader: too many who have never been truly loved.
People: Most loving Father of all,
Leader: forgive us for failing to see that our children are a precious gift from you,
People: and for failing to treat them as such.
Leader: Turn our hearts to our children,
People: and use us to give them the gift of your unconditional, never-failing love.
Leader: We ask it in the name of Jesus Christ,
People: who revealed heaven's love to us.
Offering Prayer / Stewardship Challenge
How do you bring your offering? As an adult? Calculating? Expecting to get your money's worth? As a manipulation? As a child? Humbly? Trustfully? Joyfully?
Children's Message
Do what Jesus did -- he took a child and said, "Whoever welcomes one of these...." Ask one of the young people to sit on a stool, with the other children sitting around him or her. What do you suppose Jesus saw in a child that he didn't see in an adult that caused him to say that the child is the very essence of the kingdom? Ask the children to list some of the qualities; maybe you will also want to elicit the help of the adults. Then you can identify the qualities of children that Jesus considered true greatness. In your prayer, thank God for those qualities.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Help the Children
Mark 9:30-37
Object: a brochure for any agency that helps children (local or international)
Good morning, boys and girls! I want to ask you some questions today. How many of you haven't eaten a meal in the last 24 hours? (let the children answer) Okay, next question. How many of you have no clothes at all except what you are wearing right now? (let them answer) Okay, now one final question. If you got sick, would your parents be able to take you to a doctor to make you well? (let them answer)
I asked you those questions because I want you to know that in many parts of the world there are children just like you who do not get a meal every day, who do not have any extra clothes, and who do not have any medical care. Do you think Jesus wants us to care about those children? (let them answer) Yes, of course he does. He once told his disciples that anyone who helped a little child would be helping him. He certainly does care about all the children in the world.
Here is a brochure that tells about one agency that helps little children. (Show the brochure and tell them what the agency does.) Do you think Jesus is happy that this organization is helping children? (let them answer) I know he really is, and he would like all of us to do whatever we can to help children.
Let's say a prayer now asking Jesus to show us how we can also help children who need to be helped.
Prayer: Dear Jesus, we know that you care about all the little children in the world. Help us see how we can do things to help children who need our love and assistance. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, September 23, 2012, issue.
Copyright 2012 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
Of course, all of this means that the idealized image of women has also vastly changed. No longer is the typical woman in our popular culture portrayed as June Cleaver -- the perfectly coiffed "capable wife." For many women these days, even defining themselves in such a context is perceived as extremely limiting and "old-fashioned." So what do we make of this week's assigned lectionary text from the Hebrew Scriptures, Proverbs' paean to the "capable wife"? Needless to say, it was written in a very different time and place -- so what originally may have been a very progressive text lifting up the importance of women in a society that often undervalued their contributions may now be seen by many of our worshipers (especially younger people) in a very different light. In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Leah Lonsbury tries to rescue this text from its typical Mother's Day niche by bringing together the perspectives of the traditional "superwoman" described in Proverbs and the modern "liberated" woman in order to find common elements -- and to see how this text remains very relevant today.
Team member Mary Austin offers some additional thoughts on this week's gospel text and Jesus' holding up the example of how we treat children as indicative of whether we are welcoming of Jesus and his kingdom. Mary points to the recent release of government statistics indicating that over 20% of American children are in poverty -- and the public's relative indifference to this startling figure -- and suggests that, like the disciples, we are looking for greatness in the wrong places. If we are to live out Jesus' imperative to welcome children into our midst, Mary reminds us, we need to be more proactive about finding ways to seek out children in poverty and do what we can to improve their lives.
Girl Talk -- Eavesdropping on the Capable Wife and Today's Woman
by Leah Lonsbury
Proverbs 31:10-31
It's hard to know how to read this week's passage from Proverbs.
If it's just an antiquated description of a wife and mother from a dominantly patriarchal period and a culture far removed from our own, then it's easy to dismiss.
If it's just a picture of the ideal woman that no one can live up to, then it's really easy to dismiss.
If it's a reading we only pull out for the funerals of beloved mothers, wives, and church ladies, then it's tempting to sentimentalize and ritualize it and not have to wrestle with its meaning for our everyday lives.
But if it's something a bit more complicated than that, then it's going to take a closer look. It will also take a careful look because, as Telford Work notes in Feasting on the Word [Year B, Volume 3, pg. 74], preaching on this text without nuance can be like "stomping through a minefield." In order to avoid explosion in the midst of the "pitched gender politics of our age," we will need to be careful and observant and choose our steps wisely as we move through our interpretation and decide how it will inform our living.
Toward those ends, let's invite the "Capable Wife" in Proverbs 31 into conversation with Today's Woman.
Today's Woman -- you know her and her remarkable friends -- earns 60% of undergraduate and graduate degrees today. Their small businesses outperformed those of their male counterparts in the last recession. They're flexible and resilient and tend to thrive after a job change or divorce and then see their income rise by 25%. (This is not the case with male peers.) They succeed in school and at work, because they are emotionally sensitive, aware of context, and communicate with ease. They balance education, work, and family... and right in the middle of it all do that always astounding feat -- creating and sustaining new human life through the remarkable capabilities of their bodies.
Greg Hampikian, a professor of biology and criminal justice at Boise State University, had this to say about the growing prowess and independence of Today's Woman in a recent New York Times opinion piece: "Women aren't just becoming men's equals. It's increasingly clear that 'mankind' itself is a gross misnomer: an uninterrupted, intimate, and essential maternal connection defines our species."
If we can eavesdrop on this conversation between the Capable Wife and Today's Woman, we may learn some of their secrets of success. We may acquire their knowhow on the realization of dreams and stability, remembering and blessing those in need (v. 20), and praising God (v. 30) with willing and fruitful hands (vv. 13, 31) and hearts. We may learn what it means to live the abundant life for which we were created -- the life that is really life.
THE WORLD
A variety of news sources seem to be full of headlines like this at the moment: "Why Men Fail", "Men, Who Needs Them?" "Who Wears the Pants in This Economy?" and "The End of Men Is Here? 14 Signs and Consequences of Male Decline".
The articles these headlines point to seem to tell a similar story about a changing world, a dominant class (men) failing to evolve and keep up, and a once underdog class (women) using the flexibility and adaptability they have been forced to take on to carve a new and successful way forward. In "Why Men Fail", New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks sifts through a new book by Hanna Rosin titled The End of Men. Brooks picks up Rosin's idea that women are thriving in this tumultuous economy because they behave like successful immigrants do in a new country. "They see a new social context, and they flexibly adapt to new circumstances."
If we follow this line of thinking, then men are like the immigrants who have physically relocated themselves in the new country but have left their minds in the old one. Brooks continues: "They speak the old language. They follow the old mores. Men are more likely to be rigid; women are more fluid."
In "Men, Who Needs Them?" Greg Hampikian points to the growing number of women who are raising and even having children without a male partner involved -- via donor sperm, and more recently through a different kind of marriage... the one between science and machine. Recently geneticist J. Craig Venter engineered a process by which the necessary genetic material for conception usually supplied by sperm can be synthesized by a machine. This surprising development prompted Hampikian to ask a female colleague if there was now anything irreplaceable about men. She answered, "They're entertaining."
So women are more flexible and quicker to adapt. And it appears that they have the strength and capacity to do what it has up until recently been understood to be the job of two differently equipped human beings. But what else is in play here?
Why is it that 12 of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most by the year 2016 are dominated by women? Why is it that at high-ranking business schools like Columbia the curricula for standard courses now teach sensitive leadership and social intelligence, including how to better read facial expressions and body language -- traits that are typically understood to be innate in most women? Jamie Ladge, a business professor at Northeastern University, speaks to this in "The End of Men": "We never explicitly say, 'Develop your feminine side,' but it's clear that's what we're advocating."
It appears that many companies are now looking for high-level employees who are good coaches and use their charisma to motivate workers to be hard-working and creative. But at the other end of that ladder, the first rung -- school -- girls are dominating as well. Three quarters of Ds and Fs go to boys in elementary and high school. And as was mentioned earlier, men are only earning 40% of college degrees. David Brooks hones in again on why girls and women are succeeding while their male counterparts are lagging behind: "To succeed today, you have to be able to sit still and focus attention in school at an early age. You have to be emotionally sensitive and aware of context. You have to communicate smoothly. For genetic and cultural reasons, many men stink at these tasks."
Flexibility, strength, capacity that is deep and growing deeper, sensitivity, social intelligence, creative charisma, focus, and effective communication. Sounds like Today's Woman has it all. What, then, might she have to say in conversation with the Capable Wife? What can we learn as they cross paths?
THE WORD
It's hard to know how to read this week's passage from Proverbs.
Turns out it's not just an antiquated description of a wife and mother from a dominantly patriarchal period and a culture far removed from our own. That's part of the story of this passage, but not its whole truth. We can't simply take Today's Woman and cram her into the mold of the Capable Wife. It isn't a fit, though there are some common features and resonances. We live in a very different time and place. Society works differently. Women today do some version of many of the tasks the Capable Wife takes on (and many, many others not listed in chapter 31!), but they are accomplished in different ways and done on different terms. Women today hold all of the virtues found in the Capable Wife in their collective basket, but even those virtues are exhibited differently.
Proverbs 31 is also not just a picture of the ideal woman that no one can live up to either. It isn't our sacred story confirming our culture's pressure to over function. The Capable Wife carves an admirable path on many levels for all people, not just women, but she cannot be the unattainable standard by which we measure ourselves. The writer knows this and begins with "A capable wife who can find?" not to denigrate women but to point out from the beginning that this example of excellence and flawlessness is meant to inspire and not to shame or defeat those who seek to follow in her ways.
While this is a reading that often gets pulled out for the funerals of beloved mothers, wives, and church ladies, the reason that it has become ritual and makes us sentimental is because it tells us all, women and men, some very important truths about living well with God. Faith communities are often held up by church-lady pillars. Families often stay in orbit because of the strength of their central body -- a mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, or other female relative who sends other family members on the right path, keeps them connected, and holds the family unit intact.
Along these lines, Pastor Kenneth Carter reminds us in Feasting on the Word [Year B, Volume 3, pg. 76] that how a biblical story or book ends is never accidental. It is significant that a collection of teachings on wisdom find their consummation in this portrayal of a woman:
Embedded in these words are the values that sustain our lives, our minds, our bodies, our souls: trust and integrity in personal relationships, sacrifice, going the extra mile, providing for our children, opening our hands to the poor, doing whatever needs to be done -- and yet doing it with a sense of humor, because, really, what is the alternative?
Women, often both history's underdogs and unsung family heroines, have worked and prayed and lived their way into a central and crucial truth about life with God. Here's Kenneth Carter again: "Wisdom may be defined as a life well lived, a life that matters." God's wisdom for our lives is not enlightenment or knowledge that controls others, benefits the holder only, or can be possessed only through privilege or held away from the masses by credentialing. Instead, "wisdom is a way of life that includes justice, righteousness, humility, compassion, and fairness."
The Capable Wife and Today's Woman can illuminate that way of life for us.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
The interplay between the Capable Wife and Today's Woman can help the preacher along a variety of paths this week. Those could include...
* Celebrating the way God's wisdom is found in the Capable Wife and Today's Woman can transform cultural norms. The Capable Wife's passage moves the contextual dynamics between men and women closer to mutual support and empowerment and so blesses the family and the whole community. It doesn't meet all of our contemporary expectations for the role of women and their potential impact in society, but it witnesses to the fact that our sacred story can push against convention in ways that challenge and liberate us toward the greater good God imagines. Today's Woman is also doing just that out of necessity and because she is opening her own opportunities in a shifting world. What might we learn from Today's Woman about embodying wisdom through determination, trustworthiness, fruitfulness, initiative, creativity, generosity, passion, and ingenuity? How does she witness to God's vision for us as individuals, families, and communities?
* Holding up the multiple witnesses the Bible provides about women and studying how, why, and to what effect the witness we choose to highlight and follow shapes our living and our culture. The preacher could also emphasize careful reading of women's stories (and all stories) in the Bible. What is translated as "capable" in the NRSV packs a more powerful punch in the original Hebrew. The Capable Wife is literally a "strong woman" and a "woman of worth." How might a closer study of small details change how we look at women and our big picture?
* Looking at how we limit this text when we only bring it to light on Mother's Day, for memorial services, and during women's retreats (or any text when we pigeonhole it for one occasion or purpose). What if Proverbs 31 became a light for the larger life of a community taking a careful and honest look at roles for women and what God's justice demands in response? Jim Hopkins of Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church in Oakland, California, writes: "This text is for those times when the preacher needs to say, 'The women in our community have been put on pedestals but not accepted as peers; the women in our church have been revered but not respected; the women in our culture need equal rights, equal pay, equal opportunity, equal status, and equal accountability' " (Feasting on the Word [Year B, Volume 3], pg. 77). There is much literature out there to support a serious look at women in contemporary ministry as well. One such article by divinity student Molly Brummett can be found here.
* Disarming the notion that any of us can be everything to everybody or that God intends for us to do so. God calls us beloved and chooses us not because we are perfect or wise in every way, but because God loves us. Our response of awe and gratitude and a shift in our daily choices to live well can lead us to grow in wisdom and toward God's vision of love for our lives. The Capable Wife holds up many possibilities for what that might look like as our growth and path are informed by our gifts and passions. Today's Woman shows us how our lives, shaped by a growing wisdom, might honor God, bless ourselves and those we love, and reshape our world.
* Making the biblical story come alive to illuminate our current patterns and living. One such way that this might happen around Proverbs 31 is by taking on the narratives found in Rosin's "Who Wears the Pants in This Economy?" One story Rosin includes is about Connie and Rob, a married couple who has seen their roles shift in a changing economy and as Connie grows toward our picture of Today's Woman. Connie's daughter Abby has seen her life affected by these changes as well. At one point Connie, who loves to study and dissect a text of any kind, reads our passage from Proverbs 31. Below is an excerpt about the family's reaction:
The passage describes the "wife of noble character," who works with the wool and flax, brings the food from afar, who "gets up while it is still dark," buys a field, plants a vineyard, turns a profit, and "her lamp does not go out at night" because she's still sewing clothes for the poor and generally being industrious while everyone else sleeps. Her husband, meanwhile, "is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land."
Traditionally the passage has been viewed as an elaboration of the proper roles of husband and wife. The husband sits in the dominant, protective role, watching his wife's efforts on behalf of the family and taking pride. But in a town in which many men aren't working steadily anymore, the words have taken on new meaning. There are people who have noticed that the passage never mentions what the husband is doing or what role he's playing in providing food for his family, tilling the fields, or turning a profit. What was dawning on Connie these last few months became obvious to Abby and Rob as she read the passage out loud. That noble wife is working from dawn to dusk. And the husband?
"Sounds like he's sitting around with his buddies shooting the breeze, talking about the ballgame, and eating potato chips," Rob said.
What questions does Proverbs 31 raise for your faith community or the individuals in it? What do we do with those questions? What does the passage and what do our questions tell us about our own living?
* Moving the congregation to act in the example of the Capable Wife and Today's Woman. Old Testament scholar and professor Kathleen O'Connor writes that the Capable Wife is a "poetic figure... [that] moves between the symbolic worlds of human wife and suprahuman dynamo" (Feasting on the Word [Year B, Volume 3], pg. 77). O'Connor points out that the passage is full of active verbs: "She seeks, she works, she brings." What kind of active verbs does the congregation need to take on to live out God's wisdom and bless the world?
***
Whatever road the preacher chooses to take this week, it's important to keep in mind and color the sermon with the wisdom that the successes of the Capable Wife and Today's Woman don't mean that all is well with womankind. Anne-Marie Slaughter's article "Why Women Still Can't Have it All" in The Atlantic is a good reminder of this and offers many ideas on how to change that.
ANOTHER VIEW
by Mary Austin
Mark 9:30-37
Last week, the Census Bureau released its annual report on poverty in America. Many economists had expected poverty rates to rise, but they held steady from the previous year, with 15% of Americans continuing to live in poverty, as defined by an income below $23,021 for a family of four. This means that 46.2 million of our neighbors fall below the poverty line.
Hope Yen of the Associated Press reported that "David Johnson, the chief of the Census Bureau's household economics division, attributed the better-than-expected poverty numbers to increases in full-time workers over the last year. He also estimated that expanded unemployment benefits helped keep 2.3 million people out of poverty, while Social Security lifted roughly 14.5 million seniors above the poverty line. Without the Social Security cash payments, the number of people ages 65 and older living in poverty would have increased fivefold."
At the other end of the age spectrum, the impact on children is sharp. The rate of child poverty held steady from the previous year, but 21.9% of America's children are still counted among the poor. That's about 16 million children who live in families where food is scarce, where the adults are stressed, and where hard choices must be made about clothes, heat, and where to live affordably. For children under six, the rate is 24.5% -- meaning that almost a quarter of young children live in poverty, a rate that also held steady.
As Jesus' disciples talk among themselves about what greatness means, Jesus, always the master of the object lesson, places a child among them. Mark recalls: "Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 'Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me' " (9:36-37).
If 21.9% of America's children live in poverty, we, as a nation, have done a terrible job of welcoming children the way Jesus instructed us.
Like the disciples, we look for greatness in the wrong places. We look to sports stars, "real housewives," and celebrities, instead of to the kids around us. If we paid half as much attention to the children around us as we do the latest adventures of the Kardashian clan, we would never stand for this. We miss our chance and fail to see the children waiting alone at the library for a parent to get off work, or the children eating McDonald's for dinner because they live in a place without a stove. Our eyes travel over the children waiting in a car for a parent who can't afford childcare, or the children who don't eat on the weekend because school breakfast and lunch don't happen on Saturday and Sunday.
As Hannah Matthews of CLASP, a national non-profit that advocates for the poor, wrote on The Huffington Post, this isn't just a problem for today: "Child poverty is linked to a host of negative outcomes. Poverty is a strong predictor of children's success in school and adult employment and earnings. Poor children have less access to preventive health services and early education. The prevalence of poverty among the very youngest children means that during the first three years of life -- a fundamental period of rapid brain growth and development -- babies are deprived of the very resources they need to thrive." For years to come, we will see the results of our current failure to welcome children in the way that Jesus understood was essential.
If Congress doesn't take action, January 1 will see spending cuts to the federal budget that make life even harder for poor people. Without Congressional action, as Hannah Matthews notes in her piece, "child care assistance and Head Start will both be cut, as will early intervention services for young children, Title I funding for disadvantaged students, and funding for maternal and child health services."
These are systemic problems related to the economy as a whole and related to our national priorities. Congress may or may not act. We may or may not elect a president interested in children. But each of us knows a child in poverty, I suspect. Each of our congregations has resources to address even a small part of the problem. Each of us can do something.
ILLUSTRATIONS
It was a television commercial many of us loved to hate. There were three images of the same woman -- one wearing a business suit; another in a housedress holding a skillet; and one clad in sexy lingerie -- all singing these words in a sultry voice: I can bring home the bacon; fry it up in a pan; and never let you forget you're a man! 'Cause I'm a woman -- W-O-M-A-N!
It's not even important what product that commercial was selling. (It was perfume.) The image of that ridiculous song is burned into the consciousness of many who heard it -- ridiculous because no woman (and no man either, for that matter) can be so thoroughly "all things to all people" as that crooning siren with the skillet in her hand.
Don't think for a moment that the author of Proverbs is talking about that kind of woman! No, read a little more deeply in this chapter, and you'll find that the "capable wife" is beloved by her husband not because she's an expert juggler of home and business and parenting and marriage -- although this woman is all these things -- but for a very different reason.
"She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue" (v. 26). This faithful woman is a person of true wisdom -- and the wisdom she teaches best is called "kindness."
* * *
The book of Proverbs begins with wisdom personified as a woman, and it ends with a canticle of praise to the excellent wife. Throughout the ages and across religious traditions, the feminine has been a vital principle through which to perceive the full character of God. In Taoism, the feminine is the yin to the masculine yang; this generates and structures the interrelatedness of all of life. In the Hebrew creation story of Genesis 2, Adam is not complete until Eve stands by his side. In agrarian cultures throughout the ages, it is often a goddess who is responsible for the fertility of the fields and the herds. To honor woman, who is created in the image of God (Genesis 1), is to honor God. Woman -- Sophia, the excellent wife, who fears the Lord -- is worthy of praise and guides our sense of what is worthy to pursue, namely our relationship with God.
* * *
Given the poverty statistics released by the Census Bureau, one would think that poverty and its effects would be a defining issue in this fall's campaign. But of course, that's not at all the case -- it's far down the list of leading topics. As this word map compiled by the New York Times indicates, "poverty" was mentioned only about 4 times per 25,000 spoken words at the Republican and Democratic conventions -- far fewer than phrases like "middle-class," "small business," "jobs," "taxes," "education," and "American dream." Thomas Edsall, in a bracing essay titled "Is Poverty a Kind of Robbery?" offers some insight into why poverty has been dropped from the agenda when he suggests that politicians "have concluded that getting enough votes on Nov. 6 precludes taking policy positions that alienate middle-class whites. In practice this means that on the campaign trail there is an absence of explicit references to the poor."
However, talk show host Tavis Smiley and prominent intellectual Cornel West (currently a professor at Union Theological Seminary) believe that poverty is a vitally important political issue. As Smiley puts it: "When half of the nation... 150 million people [is] either in or near poverty, this is not a Democratic problem or a Republican problem.... This is an American catastrophe.... Poverty is threatening our democracy. Poverty is a matter of national security." Smiley and West refuse to let poverty be swept under the rug. In addition to writing a book together -- The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto -- they have attempted to force the issue to the forefront of the national conversation by traveling this month to the "battleground" states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida on what they have dubbed "The Poverty Tour 2.0: A Call to Conscience". Both men often speak of their Christian faith and its importance in their lives, and they have picked up the challenge to shine a light on "the least of these."
* * *
In his book The Historical Jesus (Harper San Francisco, 1991), John Dominic Crossan cites papyrus fragments that indicate infanticide was prevalent in the ancient world and that children were often rescued from rubbish dumps and reared as slaves. While Jewish parents did not practice infanticide, to be a child was to be overlooked. Commenting on Mark 9:37 and 10:15, Crossan says: "to be a child was to be a nobody, with the possibility of becoming somebody absolutely dependent on parental discretion and parental standing in the community" (p. 268). This explains the shock value for his disciples in Jesus' metaphor of a kingdom of nobodies.
* * *
You may have seen his picture in guidebooks. He was the subject of segments on the Travel Channel and has been featured in the New York Times. When tourists spotted him, they would crowd around and clamor for pictures. Yet he was not an athlete, musician, or actor. His name was Chhoun Neam -- and he gained notoriety because he was the sweeper at Ta Prohm Temple. People were drawn to this weathered, old, bald man wearing a fringed black shirt and simple rubber sandals because he seemed to embody the timeless inspiration that haunts the ancient temples of Angkor in Cambodia.
However, Chhoun Neam was not so impressed by his celebrity. His routine was to sweep nonstop from dawn to dusk simply because it needed to be done. "If I don't sweep," he remarked, "it will all grow over. There is a war between the jungle and the temple. The leaves keep falling. If I stop to eat, the leaves keep falling. Trees, grass, vines all over the Temple. That's why I have to sweep."
Chhoun Neam was famous because he was a servant. Whoever wants to be first must place himself last of all and be the servant of all.
* * *
Contrary to popular belief (accentuated by the motion picture industry) Queen Cleopatra was not a very attractive lady. While beauty is often judged by outside appearances, Cleopatra's true beauty can never be displayed on celluloid, for she was a very intelligent, savvy, and politically astute individual.
We most often associate Cleopatra with her foreign diplomacy, using both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony as lovers in an attempt to secure control of the Roman Empire. But in domestic politics, Cleopatra was equally astute. Her native country was politically divided. The northern part of Egypt had been Hellenized -- that is, it had accepted Greek culture as the norm. The southern half of the kingdom was still traditionally Egyptian in its orientation.
To gain the respect and allegiance of the north, Cleopatra had coins minted that showed her face as a Hellenized Egyptian. For those dwelling in the south, she had stone engravings made depicting her as a pharaoh. In order to summon the loyalty of all her constituents, Cleopatra cunningly had two images of herself presented to the people of Egypt.
Jesus said, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all servant of all." To be a servant of all one does not practice deceit, but instead humility.
* * *
Paul W. McCracken, an economic advisor for several presidents, recently died at the age of 96. A professor at the University of Michigan, McCracken served on Eisenhower's Council of Economic Advisors, and he also was a member of commissions for the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Before departing the realm of politics, McCracken was the chairman of President Nixon's Council of Economic Advisors.
One of the incidents from his political career that McCracken liked to share occurred during the Nixon administration. The economy was unstable, and Nixon wanted to institute wage and price controls. McCracken openly spoke against it. Referencing history, McCracken informed the president that wage and price controls never achieved their intended purpose, and often made things worse economically. Ignoring McCracken's advice, Nixon put in place wage and price controls.
McCracken noted that when Nixon chose this policy the White House and Congress were in a bitter political dispute. McCracken realized that Nixon's actions had more to do with politics than economics. Nixon enforced wage and price controls, realizing they probably would not be effective, doing so for political reasons rather than working in the interest of the public and the economic health of the nation. Regarding the president's action, McCracken said, "Political battles are often more important to them than hard, solid data."
James wrote on how we allow our inner ungodly desires to motivate ungodly actions toward others.
* * *
Harvard University has been consumed by the largest cheating scandal in memory. It is estimated that 125 students, almost half of the 279 registrants for an "Introduction to Congress" class, collaborated on a take-home exam. This class was always considered to be an easy course (thus its popularity). But with a change in the syllabus, it became otherwise. Matthew Platt, the instructor, required students to work on the exam individually, absent of collaboration. Faced with an unexpected workload, the students opted to disregard the professor's instructions and compensate for the unexpected rigorous exam by working in groups. One important factor that fostered the group exercise was summarized by Jay Harris, the dean of undergraduate education. Dr. Harris said: "The enabling role of technology is a big part of this picture. It's the ease of sharing. With that has come, I believe, a cavalier attitude."
James wrote on how we allow our inner ungodly desires to motivate immoral actions.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
Call to Worship
Leader: How do we welcome one little child in the name of Jesus?
People: With hope, with enthusiasm, with respect, with the open arms of our heart, with an attitude of love.
Leader: How do we welcome one little child in the name of Jesus?
People: By calling the child into responsibility, by finding time to listen, by conveying that we value the child, by teaching what is right, by feeding the child's whole being.
OR
(In conjunction with this call to worship, project the photos of some of your church's children onto a screen that everyone can see.)
Leader: Look at that face.
People: Beautiful.
Leader: And that face.
People: Happy.
Leader: And that one.
People: Wondrous.
Leader: That is the joy God made us for.
People: The joy of the child.
Leader: Come, let us worship him, the Maker of children. Amen.
Hymn Suggestions
"A Christian Home"
"As for Me and My House"
"Children of the Heavenly Father"
"For the Beauty of the Earth"
"God Is Our Strong Salvation"
"Great Is Thy Faithfulness"
"Happy the Home When God Is There"
"I Would Be Like Jesus"
"O Happy Day, That Fixed My Choice"
"O Happy Home"
"O Jesus I Have Promised"
"O Perfect Love"
"Open My Eyes That I May See"
"She Will Be Called Blessed"
"Tell Me the Stories of Jesus"
"Unless the Lord the House Shall Build"
Opening Prayer / Collect
God, it's so easy for us to slip into complacency about the poor and to devote all of our time to the maintenance of our status. Comfort those of us who are afflicted and afflict those of us who are comfortable that we may all become good stewards of your wealth.
OR
Almighty God, our Creator and Redeemer, like your children everywhere we are caught up in the pursuit of happiness. There are those who urge us to find it in seeking wealth, and others who claim it can be found by being ambitious and seeking self-glorification. We come to worship you today because we believe true happiness can only be found in following your commands and serving you. Bless our worship, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.
OR
Compassionate God, we come as a church who wants to convey to children that this church home is a place that accepts them, loves them, and welcomes them, one by one. Help us to bolster this hope by entrusting creative energy, our money, and the programs of the church for the nurture of children. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Lord, we want to serve you in a manner that could be rated among the best, but when we look at the attributes of one who serves her family best, we realize we fall far short. We are not as generous to the poor and needy as we could be. We often fear for the future. We do not always speak with a gentle wisdom and in many other ways we need to improve. Strengthen us in our resolve to be better servants of our Lord, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
OR
Lord, when we try to measure greatness we usually pass over the children, assuming that they are out of the running. We forget that Jesus taught us to embrace them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Open our eyes and our hearts, Lord, so we may come to understand that in your eyes all are precious and all may find wisdom and true greatness. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
OR
Leader: If I could be granted one wish that might just make the world a much better place for generations to come, I would wish that the hearts of parents everywhere would be filled with selfless love for their children. There are too many abused, violated, and neglected children in our world,
People: too many being taught to hate,
Leader: too many growing up without the foundation of a strong value system,
People: too many who know nothing of the life of the Spirit,
Leader: too many who are the object of anger and mistreatment,
People: too many who don't know how beautiful they are,
Leader: too many who have never been truly loved.
People: Most loving Father of all,
Leader: forgive us for failing to see that our children are a precious gift from you,
People: and for failing to treat them as such.
Leader: Turn our hearts to our children,
People: and use us to give them the gift of your unconditional, never-failing love.
Leader: We ask it in the name of Jesus Christ,
People: who revealed heaven's love to us.
Offering Prayer / Stewardship Challenge
How do you bring your offering? As an adult? Calculating? Expecting to get your money's worth? As a manipulation? As a child? Humbly? Trustfully? Joyfully?
Children's Message
Do what Jesus did -- he took a child and said, "Whoever welcomes one of these...." Ask one of the young people to sit on a stool, with the other children sitting around him or her. What do you suppose Jesus saw in a child that he didn't see in an adult that caused him to say that the child is the very essence of the kingdom? Ask the children to list some of the qualities; maybe you will also want to elicit the help of the adults. Then you can identify the qualities of children that Jesus considered true greatness. In your prayer, thank God for those qualities.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Help the Children
Mark 9:30-37
Object: a brochure for any agency that helps children (local or international)
Good morning, boys and girls! I want to ask you some questions today. How many of you haven't eaten a meal in the last 24 hours? (let the children answer) Okay, next question. How many of you have no clothes at all except what you are wearing right now? (let them answer) Okay, now one final question. If you got sick, would your parents be able to take you to a doctor to make you well? (let them answer)
I asked you those questions because I want you to know that in many parts of the world there are children just like you who do not get a meal every day, who do not have any extra clothes, and who do not have any medical care. Do you think Jesus wants us to care about those children? (let them answer) Yes, of course he does. He once told his disciples that anyone who helped a little child would be helping him. He certainly does care about all the children in the world.
Here is a brochure that tells about one agency that helps little children. (Show the brochure and tell them what the agency does.) Do you think Jesus is happy that this organization is helping children? (let them answer) I know he really is, and he would like all of us to do whatever we can to help children.
Let's say a prayer now asking Jesus to show us how we can also help children who need to be helped.
Prayer: Dear Jesus, we know that you care about all the little children in the world. Help us see how we can do things to help children who need our love and assistance. Amen.
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The Immediate Word, September 23, 2012, issue.
Copyright 2012 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
