San Lorenzo Community Church United Church of Christ Sermon: “Annie” Preached extemporaneously by Rev. Annette J. Cook
A reading from the Gospel of Mark 10:13-16
13 People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” 16 And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.
This ends the reading from the Gospel of Mark. Thanks be to God.
Sermon presented August 19, 2012 Page 1
San Lorenzo Community Church United Church of Christ Sermon: “Annie” Preached extemporaneously by Rev. Annette J. Cook
On Friday night, Cheryl and I celebrated a well-known holiday. Well, on second thought, maybe it’s not so well-known. Do you have an annual Gotcha Day in your family? Ah, the joys of Gotcha Day – dinner out maybe (that’s what Cheryl and I did, we had dinner out); maybe a special dessert – a cake and ice cream or maybe your favorite pie; a card, yes, a card is nice – my last two weeks have been so busy that I was gently reminded that a card would be nice to mark the occasion of Gotcha Day. Sometimes there are gifts; and almost always there are rituals around Gotcha Day – traditions, familiar patterns, it’s the same restaurant, it’s the same place you watch the sunset, it’s the same way you re-tell the story with each other.
You might think of this holiday as the day you met. You might think of this as the day your child became a member of your family. In fact, Gotcha Day is the most celebrated holiday for adoptive families among all of their milestones and memories. It’s the day we Gotcha. So August 17 is the day I got Cheryl. It’s our Gotcha Day.
For Little Orphan Annie, she and Daddy Warbucks mark December 25 as both Christmas Day and as their Gotcha Day – the day they knew they were family, the day they learned Daddy Warbucks could adopt Annie.
There is a long list of people who celebrated Gotcha Day: Julius Caesar, Johann Sebastian Bach, Sacagawea, Leo Tolstoy, Nelson Mandela, Ella Fitzgerald, William Wordsworth, Steven Jobs, Ingrid Bergman, Rita Mae Brown, John Lennon and Kristin Chenowith. Every one of them was adopted and every one of them celebrate their family of choice by marking Gotcha Day.
Family of Choice. It’s an odd turn of a phrase. We are so used to thinking that our family is the last thing we choose. What’s that saying – you can choose your job, you can choose your apartment you can choose the clothes you wear, but you cannot choose your family. Like we are stuck with them no matter what. You may as well put up with them, ignore them, or even do everything you can to please them because, well, they are your family.
But that’s not exactly true, is it? Families get broken. Parents get divorced. Adults sometimes behave badly and they walk away. The kids are just too much – too much time, too much hassle, too overwhelming – so adults walk away and abandon their kids. And, there are times that the kids walk away, run away – fed up with the rules, the headaches, the expectations or just fed up with the bad behavior of the adults. So they walk away.
Our culture seems to reinforce the idea that family ought to be the most primary and important source of our connections. But what does this mean for those who are estranged from their families of origin – whether that estrangement is of their own choosing or by circumstance and the actions of others? Not everyone’s reality matches the messages we see through media and advertising about what family is supposed to be. So the key here is that the lack of connection with your family of origin does not mean you must be doomed to no family at all!
We are fascinated by stories of orphans, especially when those orphans suffer and still succeed. Our literature shelves are brimming with them. For instance, Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, Oliver
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San Lorenzo Community Church United Church of Christ Sermon: “Annie” Preached extemporaneously by Rev. Annette J. Cook
Twist, and Pip, a young gentleman of Great Expectations. Charlotte Bronte, an orphan, introduced Jane Eyre. Orphans are common in fairy tales, such as Cinderella.
There are, of course, a whole class of super-orphans both illustrated and illustrious including Batman, Iron Man, Spiderman, Superman and Wolverine. And yet the most famous orphan – at least according to books sales, is no one other than Harry Potter who discovers at age 11 that he is also a wizard, living within the ordinary world of non-magical people.
In all of these books, for the main character, for the orphan, the lack of parents leaves them to pursue more interesting and adventurous lives. They are freed from family obligations and controls, as well as deprived of the more mundane things of family life. These are characters who are self-contained and introspective and who strive for affection. In each case, one of the main pursuits of these persons is a family of choice. They are looking for something to fill the void. They have a need for something they left behind or that was wrenched from them. So they engage in the process of meeting, cultivating and committing to a family – their family, a choice.
That’s where we get to our "family of choice.” This “family we choose" has an enormous impact on how effectively we can grow. We carefully select this group of people to be in our lives. They feed your self-esteem instead of depleting it. They are folks who are there for you during the tough times, and also during the celebrations in your life. They might represent a mother or father figure, or it may be a male or female friend who is like the sibling you never had. Or, maybe this is the opportunity to be a parent, a foster parent and adoptive parent.
Serena writes: “I was totally estranged from by family of origin, I made a chosen family for myself. God blessed me with a best friend named Nick. Nick and I have been through a lot together, and our relationship runs deeper than just friendship. I can honestly say that he is my soul mate. I don’t know where I would be without him.
My chosen family has extended in include a lesbian couple who is expecting their first baby, a straight girl who drives a U-Haul like she was born to it, two former roommates who supported me when I was home-bound for six weeks, the chosen mothers who threw my graduation party, and a loud- mouthed feminist with two neurotic dogs who likes to inform everyone just how fabulous she is. We’re a motley crew. But we’re family.”
Family means more than DNA. Family consists of the people who will love you, no matter what you do, or who you are. Chosen family members come together by chance, they’re not the people that you’re forced to love because you had no choice about which home you were born into. There is no sense of obligation that keeps a chosen family together. There are no legal definitions that protect our relationships. And yet we manage to make it all work somehow.
Our Little Orphan Annie had a tough go of things. It was, after all, the years immediately following the depression. I know that some of you remember those years. Gas rations, conserving food and energy, taking whatever work you can find, hoping to keep food on the table. Homes were lost, families torn apart. Annie is in an orphanage.
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San Lorenzo Community Church United Church of Christ Sermon: “Annie” Preached extemporaneously by Rev. Annette J. Cook
There are not a lot of orphanages any more. Kids are more likely to be placed in foster care than put in a residential facility. Residential facilities are more likely to be there for behaviorial, developmental and mental illnesses and difficulties. Foster care, on the other, is used for all of these transitional kids. There are almost half a million kids in foster care. Do you know what the requirements are for being a foster parent? For being a foster home? I don’t know, so I’m asking. Maybe that’s something we should find out about. One of you might find out about.
Half a million kids. Many of those kids will be reunited with their family of origin. But many of them, an estimated 150,000 of them, will rely on the love of strangers, the match of their desire for a family of choice with adults who are also pursuing a family of choice.
Grace Farrell, assistant to the billionaire Oliver Warbucks, comes to the orphanage asking for an orphan to come to his mansion for the Christmas holiday. Because Annie was in Miss Hannigan's office at the time, Grace asks to take her, and Miss Hannigan reluctantly agrees. Once she has left, Miss Hannigan explodes with her hatred for all the girls in the orphanage.
Meanwhile, at the Warbucks Mansion, the staff welcomes Annie with open. When Oliver Warbucks comes back though, he is very moody and not too happy to have an orphan in his mansion. He asks Grace to take Annie to a movie, but she persuades him to come. As he and Annie begin to like each other, they enjoy a fabulous night in New York City.
Warbucks brings Annie to Washington, DC where she requests to meet the president. Warbucks thinks that it would be better if Annie waited outside, but Franklin D. Roosevelt asks her to stay. She begins to sing "Tomorrow", though shushed by the cabinet. Roosevelt, however, believes that people must be optimistic during tough times, and commands them to sing. Once back home, Warbucks tells Annie how much he loves her. Because her parents have not shown up, he announces he would like to adopt her.
But, well, you know, he was rich. Adding another mouth at the table another child in a spare bedroom, well, not all of us can do that. And yet, there is something inside of you that wants to experience religion and spirituality that is genuine. Something inside of you that gets tired of cheap Christianity. Some that gets tired of a shallow commitment to Jesus. Perhaps longs for deep and authentic spirituality. Yes, you are looking for the real thing.
Throughout the letter from James that was read this morning, the faith that counts is the faith that is actually active in a person's life. People might say they believe one thing and yet do something completely different. That’s why James insists that true faith is whatever is actually moving you – not just moving inside of you but actually physical moving you. Faith that is not active is not faith at all.
A Christian cannot separate faith from works of charitable love, from deeds of charitable love, from being examples of charitable love. Just as you cannot separate my head from my body, without both dying, you cannot separate faith from works of charitable love. You cannot do that. To separate the body from the head kills both the body and the head. The same is true with faith and works of charitable love. If you separate them, they both die.
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San Lorenzo Community Church United Church of Christ Sermon: “Annie” Preached extemporaneously by Rev. Annette J. Cook
You see, there has always been this problem in the church of not doing works of charitable love for the widows and the orphans and the needy of the world. James says, “Now this is true worship. Not that you say the Lord’s Prayer. Not that you sing the hymns. Not that you go to church. Not that you go to worship and do the traditional liturgy at 10:00. None of this is true worship. None of this is true worship. True worship is this: that you care for orphans and orphans in their suffering, and you remain unstained from the world. Now, that is true liturgy. That is true worship of God. That is the real thing, and you and I want the real thing in our Christian faith. True worship is not being in church on Sunday morning but true worship is charitable love for the widow and orphan and the needy.
For James, a major problem in his church, was that he was part of a wealthy congregation. There were many wealthy people in his congregation and it was a rich church. Many of the members of these wealthy Christian congregations wanted to just believe. They did not want to go and do good for the widow and the orphan. Pound for pound. Page for page. Paragraph for paragraph. There are more statements against wealthy Christians in the book of James than any other book in the New or Old Testament.
You see, these wealthy congregations wanted to believe and say, “Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I like going to church. Jesus, I love worshipping you. Jesus, I love seeing all my friends at worship. That is true religion and true liturgy for us: to worship you with all our friends.” But these wealthy Christians in James’ congregation did not have true liturgy. They did not have true worship. They did not have the real thing.
Jesus had a similar problem with the Pharisees. The Pharisees went to their synagogues every Friday night. They tithed. They knew their Bible very well. In fact, these Pharisees knew their Bible better than the Southern Baptists. Better than the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Pharisees knew their Bible. They gave their tithe. They dropped coins into the almsgiving pot. BUT…they did not care for the poor, the widows, the prostitutes, the beggars, the blind, the lepers, and all the other outcasts of society who were suffering. That was the problem. They did not have true liturgy. They did not have true worship. They did not have the real thing.
We find this problem not only in James. Not only in Jesus. But in the prophets of the Old Testament. Amos, Micah, Hosea, Isaiah said the same thing: “Do not oppress the orphan, the widow, the stranger who live among you. All rituals and all liturgical sacrifices are worthless without constant charitable love, justice and kindness.”
We recall that when the Apostle Paul visited Jerusalem, "James, Peter and John asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do.”
Compared to the rest of the world, we are a wealthy congregation. Compared to the rest of the world, San Lorenzo Community Church UCC, is a wealthy congregation. Compared to the rest of the world, we all live a comparatively, comfortable material life-style. And the great temptation for us individually and as a congregational, is for us to forget to do good for the orphan and the widow in their suffering. We often become corrupted by the materialistic values of our society around us. We therefore do not have true religion, true worship, the real thing.
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San Lorenzo Community Church United Church of Christ Sermon: “Annie” Preached extemporaneously by Rev. Annette J. Cook
The real thing is active inside of you and outside. It is about making a faithful decision and taking intention action to create a family of choice. Although Jesus never talked much about marriage and family, Jesus had family values. There is no unified teaching on marriage and family in the New Testament. Jesus did say a lot about right relationships. He talked about fidelity, respect, equality, justice, commitment, creativity, gentleness, mercy, compassion, receptiveness, truthfulness, faithfulness and abiding love.
When asked to step outside to talk with his mother and brother who were waiting, Jesus instead said, “they are not my family; the people here are my mother and brother.” My family of choice. This rag-tag group of misfits; this impressive group of believers; this searching, growing, knowing group of followers who want nothing but to experience the genuine faith, the real thing.
And to that Jesus said, let the children come to me. Remember the poor, the orphans, widows and the needy. And let the children come to me.
True religion. Genuine faith. Deep spirituality.
Half a million kids in foster care. Do you know what the requirements are for being a foster parent? For being a foster home? I don’t know, so I’m asking. Maybe that’s something we should find out about. One of you might find out about. Everyone should be so lucky as to celebrate Gotcha Day. Half a million kids. Who is in your family of choice? Is there room for one more?
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