Save The Life Of My Child

"What Is American Doing To Our Children?"

“He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; he will crush the oppressor.” (Psalm 72:4)

“Save the life of my child!’, cried the desperate mother. ‘What’s becoming of our children’, people asking each other.”

Those are lines from a 1960’s song on the Simon and Garfunkel album “Bookends.” No one, in the song, is able to save the life of the child. He is a victim of drugs, it seems. He is also the victim of a mob of human beings who do not care. And the mother, in her desperation, also is a victim. And the ending of the song implies that in a world where there is no safety for such a child and such a mother, there is also no safe place for anyone.

“0, my Grace, I got no hiding place, 0, my Grace, I got no hiding place.” Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel sing somberly over and over again as the song ends: “I got no hiding place.”

If there is no safe place for the children there is no safe place for anyone. The fate of the children will be the fate of everyone.

In the same way the prophet Amos ties the fate of the whole people to the fate of the most needy:

Amos 2:6-7a; 13-14--”This is what the LORD says: “For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath. They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed.... “Now then, I will crush you as a cart crushes when loaded with grain. The swift will not escape, the strong will not muster their strength, and the warrior will not save his life.”

Amos was an 8th century B.C. Hebrew prophet. He told the leaders and people what God was doing and what God would do. In this case, chapter 2, Amos is proclaiming the judgment of God upon the nation of Israel. Israel’s crime?

They sold the needy for a pair of shoes. They denied justice to the oppressed--especially the widows and the fatherless children. The warning of Amos is echoed by the prophet Zechariah:

Zechariah 7:8-l2--”This is what the Lord Almighty says, ‘Administer true justice, show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the father less.. .But they refused to pay attention, stubbornly turning their backs and stopped up their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen. So the Lord Almighty was very angry.”

Israel’s oppression of the children was systematic and heartless. Systematic means that it was built into the economic and political system. Heartless means that the oppression was so automatic that most of the people most of the time hardly knew what was happening. If father went off to war and was killed the sys tem distributed all of his wealth to other males and mom and kids were left desolate, with no rights under the law. In desperation, the prophets and the mothers cried out to God in protest. “Save the life of my child!” Humans and human institutions did not hear these cries. But God heard. And the nation of Israel fell under God’s judgment. And because there was no safe place for the children there was soon no safe place for anyone.

Moving now to the New Testament, Jesus, at the beginning of His public ministry, staked out territory that was firmly within the tradition of the Old Testament prophets. From Luke 4:18-19 we read:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed.”

The oppressed--the Bible teaches in hundreds of places that the primary reason people are poor is because they are oppressed. But, rather than accepting our responsibility for poverty it is far easier to blame the victims with diatribes against the iazy poor and welfare cheats. Christians are to be advocates for, not accusers of, the poor.

As an advocate for the oppressed poor, Jesus applies his teaching specifically to children:

Matthew 18:l-6--”At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: MI tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. “And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large mill stone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

The consequence of causing the children to sin is spiritual death, or as Jesus so offensively puts it again at the end of the 18th chapter of Matthew, the consequence of hurting the children is hell--which is exactly what the Old Testament prophets had told the people over and over again during preceding centuries. But what does it mean to hurt the children, “to cause the children to fall into sin”?

As if it was yesterday, I can still remember the feeling of horror and shock I experienced a few years back when I turned on the television news and immediately wished I had not. The moment the picture came into focus I saw an explosion on a dusty and rocky hillside. Instinctively I knew exactly what was happening, and a sense of fear flooded my entire body, mind and soul. The Israeli army had just blown up the home of another Palestinian family. The TV cameras cut from the explosion to the faces of the family. The children were crying and screaming. The parents stood in numb and horrified silence.

I could not shake that devastating image. Tears came. I found myself suffering with those children. The next day I had a dentist appointment. My dentist was Jewish. Still deeply affected by what I had seen on television I asked him what he thought of all the violence in Israel. His answer:

“The horrible thing is that both sides are teaching another generation of children to hate. The Arab boys and girls and the Jewish boys and girls are learning to hate each other. Now another entire generation will have to pass before there will be a chance for peace.”

That is what it means to cause the little ones to sin; it means to perpetuate a culture of violence, abuse, poverty and despair.

What is America doing to our children? I am fully expecting the answer to this question to shock you. I am sure that most Americans are not aware of how bad things are in this country for our children. If we were aware I have to believe we would do something about it--so I am going to assume that for the most part the problem is ignorance.

Following a nation-wide survey Public Opinion expert Louis Harris wrote an article titled “The Price of Child Neglect”. (The Washington Spectator, October 15, 1987, p.1) Harris’ conclusion:

“Obviously, the cost the country is paying today and will pay tomorrow for allowing better than one out of every five children to be trapped in poverty is just enormous--in terms of added police protection and added prison space to house youngsters who are the product of policies of neglect of children, for remedial education for those who stay in school, and for lowered productivity of the work force because literally millions of children are illiterate and uneducated.”

“By any measure,” Harris continues, “children are the most underprivileged group in American society today. The facts about that are irrefutable.” (Washington Spectator, Oct. 15, 1987, p. 1) I heard Dr. Marian Wright Edelman, of the Children’s Defense Fund, speak at the American Baptist Biennial Meeting in San Jose, California in June of 1993. She bore witness to the tragic facts in a story about a boy named Tony:

“Tony is one among many children who attend a private program called Martha’s Table in Washington, D.C. that serves homeless children. The ministry is staffed by hundreds of church members who make 2500 sandwiches a day and carry out a wide ranging program that includes tutoring and recreation. Toys are an unattainable luxury for many of the children who come to Martha’s Table so the staff tries hard to celebrate each child’s birthday by providing a special gift. When Tony was asked what he would like for his birthday he asked for a bicycle. He was lucky. Two “like new” bikes had just been donated by a church. But on his birthday Tony quietly approached the supervisor of Martha’s Table. He requested a change. ‘I would like a bag of groceries for my mom.’ Quickly and quietly he added, ‘And it has to be things that don’t need to be cooked. We live in the shelter and cannot use the stove.’ The supervisor packed two bags of groceries, put a lemon meringue pie on top and offered to drive Tony to the shelter because the bags were too heavy. In the parking lot her bag broke. Glass shattered on the asphalt. The food turned into a pile of garbage. And crowning the mess was the now ruined lemon meringue pie. The supervisor began to cry. Tony just shrugged his shoulders and looked at the mound of ruined food and said, ‘That’s my life.”

“Twelve year old boys”, said Dr. Edelman, “in our great nation, shouldn’t have to make the choice between the bicycle they have always wanted and the food they need to survive. And their lives and futures should not feel like a mound of ruined garbage. Tony needed, and needs, a lot more than a bag of groceries. He needs a home. He needs good health care and a quality education and people around who love him and support his family. He is one of 14.3 million children who are living in poverty in our rich land today. And every day as we wake up at least 100,000 children wake up homeless. Every 14 minutes, while we listen to shorter sermons in church, a baby dies in America. . . .Every thirteen hours, before we go back to sleep each night, an American pre schooler is murdered.”

“On the eve of a new century and millennium, a new civil war is raging here at home,” Dr. Edelman continued, “as the dangerous triplets of racial intolerance, economic insecurity and violence spread across America. Unless con fronted forthrightly by every one of us, they will stain our social fabric, indelibly fray our national bonds, and undermine our domestic safety and future.”

Dr. Edelman spoke to us like a prophet of old. America cannot survive as a nation divided into one people of privilege and another people of deprivation while a beleaguered middle class barely holds on. Probably the most deadly aspect of our culture desperately in need of transformation is that we are a nation that glamorizes violence. Handgun violence kills an American child every three hours. 65 men, women and children are killed by hand guns each and every day. In 1991, hand guns killed:

13 in Sweeden
91 in Switzerland
97 in Japan
22 in Great Britain
10 in Australia
10,567 in the United States

Children see, on average, 11,000 incidences of violence on television each year. What is America doing to our children? We have not even begun to explore the emotional and sexual abuse of children, including the obscene and growing market in child pornography which reflects a sickness in our sexual values and a refusal to give children even the most rudimentary protection.

We have not even mentioned the deterioration of family values which at its heart reflects a growing preoccupation with individual fulfillment at the expense of family commitment.

We have not yet gotten to severe increases in teenage suicide and homicide rates, more than a 50% increase in obesity among children, sharp declines in intellectual performance--all pointing to “deterioration of the physical and emotional well-being of children.” (“The Family Debate--A Middle Way”, Christian Century 1993, p. 713)

And we have, thus far, failed to acknowledge that we are passing on to our children an environmentally sick planet and a staggering national debt.

What in God’s name is the problem? Unfortunately, the problem is the same as it was in Israel at the time of the prophets, systemic and heartless oppression of the poor and the defenseless, in particular, the systematic denial of justice to the children. Again, systemic and heartless means built into the political and economic system in such a way that most people hardly know the oppression is happening. For example:

Millions of fathers have abandoned their children and nonpayment of child support cheats them of $4,000,000,000 annually. That is why children are poor!

Economic necessity forces their mothers to work, but sexism in our society guarantees that they will earn only 70% of what a man would earn, nearly guaranteeing that they will be poor. And if the mother is not only a woman but also a member of a minority group, the effects of racism multiply the problems. This oppression is build into our economic and political system. It is exactly the kind of oppression decried by the Hebrew prophets.

The prophets, and of course Jesus, not only speak to us of God’s judgment, they also speak to us of God’s hope. The Psalms speak to us of the King who is coming:

Psalm 72:4--”He shall defend the afflicted among the people, save the children of the poor and crush the oppressor.”

The prophet Isaiah proclaims:

Isaiah 11: 1-4--”A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jess. The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him...He shall judge the poor with justice and decide alight for the land’s afflicted.”

A political and social order is coming, the prophets teach, a day of God’s justice, when all of God’s people will choose life in order that we and our children might live.

Our lives are filled with opportunities to choose life. We can be and become doers of God’s justice and love, in order that we and our children might live. In fact, this is the key to ending the oppression of the children. A new spirit of struggle must fill each of us. Person ally and deeply we must be committed to ending the poverty and the violence. We must learn to see all the children as God sees them. Rich and poor, black and white, they are all my children too. This spirit of advocacy for the children begins at home with a careful ordering of family life, a monitoring of the messages our children are receiving from the media, and stronger attention to living our moral and spiritual values. We cannot raise children who are secure in love when our lives are secure only in materialism.

A spirit of advocacy for children calls forth action in the political arena. Should we pay for the immunization of children who have no health insurance? How can the welfare system be reformed so that it no longer promotes a culture of poverty?

A spirit of advocacy for children calls forth action in the church. How do we support the variety of family styles present in America, such as the growing numbers of single parent families, while standing firm for traditional family values? What arenas of ministry to children and youth outside our church could open up for us if we were open to God’s leading?

America has become too materialistic. We are becoming more and more violent and more and more selfish. These values are destroying our children. It is time to begin the long and difficult labor of turning our lives and our country around.