Adrian's Sermon

"Let the little children come to me,
and do not hinder them,
for the kingdom of God
belongs to such as these.
I tell you the truth,
anyone who will not receive
the kingdom of God
like a little child
will never enter it."
Mark 10:13-16

While in New Orleans, one of the volunteer opportunities available to us was to staff Camp Ubuntu, set up by the Episcopal diocese in the area for the poorest kids. The world they live in is something like East Oakland, if it was put through the blender that was Hurricane Katrina. They were hit the hardest, because they are the poorest, and lived every day in the ghetto.

It's a little surprising, but the first words that came to me when I met these kids were "child soldiers". They reminded me of children in Africa, drugged up and gunned out, fighting the wars of adults they didn't understand. Quite frankly, they scared me at first. It wasn't because I was afraid they would hurt me in any way. It was because the life they lived was so radically different from mine, that I felt of afraid of the unknown. Ignorance of their lives and who they were caused me to fear them at first. I have always lived with a loving and supportive family, a mother and father who were always there when they could be- many of the children had parents who had left or died. One of the girls has a mother dying of AIDS. One of them has seen his father shoot a man. I have always lived knowing I would have a home- I have no idea if they have a safe house, or a place of their own. I was taught to love and abide to a code of morality- life has taught these children to grow up and survive the hard way. It was frightening to see how good they were at stealing and pick pocketing. One of the older girls said to me "so what- stealing isn't bad." It's not that she was trying to be malicious, but more that life in the Katrina ghetto had taught her that stealing was a way of survival, and showed me again how life for many of us has been soft, compared to these child soldiers, forced to grow older.

But here is the amazing thing: these child soldiers, these tough kids, were just that- kids. They were small children, sometimes lost and often afraid. For all the toughness they put up to defend themselves, for all of the nightmares they had seen, and all the knowledge they had of the world, they were still small children. When swimming with them, some of them broke down, the walls of the little soldiers they had made crumbling down into the water, which had taken so many of their relatives and friends. Some of them clung to me, afraid of also slipping away under the water. Their faces, when afraid, looked like the faces of any other child- scared, teary, panicked. They asked for help like any other child, and in that moment you could see innocence and fear shining through, a childlike questioning of the world and the unknown. There was one boy who was the toughest, hardest, most grown-up nine year old I had ever met, strong enough to LIFT and squeeze my 166 pound frame with his tiny arms. Yet, he also proved to be still a child. When we were leaving, he jumped into the van, and when asked if he wanted to come back to California with us, he answered "okay, let me go ask my mom.". Let me go ask my mom. Forget that California was almost a country away, and forget that we had just met him a little more than a week ago. He loved us, and was willing to trust us, like any other child I've met. That was another moment in which I saw God shining through. It turns out that his mother works at the zoo, and that when we went with them there, he was very happy to see her.

It is so easy to judge these kids and forget them. Many take one look and say "just another black kid in the ghetto." By saying that, we doom them to always being looked at that way, and we become just another part of society that lets them down. They have been let down by many who should care for them most- the community. The government, the runaway family members, even the Episcopal church in the area threatened to let them down. Without the community to raise them, they forced themselves to survive by becoming tough. It is when a child becomes tough like this that God seems to be snuffed out- the childlike holiness and innocence, the possibility that is a small child is closed off, forgotten. However, these kids showed me that even in the face of the most dire circumstances, God shines through even the angriest child in questions, in fear, in sadness, in blind trust. When these kids let down their defenses, they are all the more willing to love, and it showed me again that all people can be that way. Ubuntu is an African word, and in some translations means "I am because the community is." I am, because YOU are. Without YOU, without US, I am NOTHING, and God is hidden. In order to be children, the community is needed, love is needed, and in that instant, God shines through. That is what these children need, so that they can be the children they are born to be.

-Thanks,
Adrian