The Park Road Pulpit

I was not able to take [the story of Mary and Joseph] out of my mind as we were trying to leave Bethlehem. Israeli army troops were being brought from all corners like Herod's soldiers. Herod lied to the Wise Men, [and] Sharon lies to the world saying he wants to enter Bethlehem to bring peace. The aim for both was to destroy peace by creating more anger, frustration, hatred and violence.

Curfews were imposed and we could hear shelling in the distance. The Bible story was dear to me because I was trying to take my wife, Rana, out of Bethlehem. She was due to have our first child any day. If we stayed in Bethlehem we would be under curfew and not able to reach the hospital.

As the Israeli troops entered Bethlehem we were trying to escape to Jerusalem. While I assume Mary and Joseph would have hidden the baby Jesus, [when] we reached the first army checkpoint I made an effort to show my pregnant wife to the soldiers. One of the soldiers ordered me out of the car and demanded that I take my jacket off and open my shirt. Two [others] were pointing rifles at me. I told them that I was an American citizen and my [wife was] pregnant. I showed them my passport, and told them my wife did not yet have one. Sarcastically he told me that I can pass but she cannot. [Looking for] a different path, at a second, crowded checkpoint, we were lucky -- one of the soldiers simply waved us through.

On that same night, another pregnant Palestinian mother was forced to have her child in a car not far from the Bethlehem children's hospital. The Israeli soldiers had refused her passage. The child died; we cried.

On the 5th of April, a baby girl was born to our family in a Jerusalem hospital. It was wonderful to have the care of the doctors and the nurses, but we were never able to take our thoughts away from Bethlehem, away from the many mothers who were forced to have their babies in their homes or cars, some making it, some not.

We dedicate our child in memory of all children killed in Palestine and Israel. All these innocent lives were killed in order to kill peace, hope, freedom and justice. We pray that the reign of Herod will come to an end and that the message of the Prince of Peace will again be a light from Bethlehem to all corners of the world.

“Every child brings with it the hope that God is not too disappointed in humanity.”[2] We have to wonder how it could be so with all we see and hear and read. With all that is happening in our world, how is that God is not yet too disappointed with us?

Just like the one in which Peter preached his Pentecost sermon, ours is a “corrupt generation.” What is it that we can promise Pearl on her special day? What promises can all parents make to their children in such a generation?

The medical field is achieving incredible results with new medicines, new approaches, new procedures. Every day brings a new miracle in modern medicine. Can we promise them health?

Ryan Dant was a normal three-year-old boy -- active and rambunctious -- a budding baseball star, and the apple of his daddy’s eye. But in a routine checkup the doctor announced to his parents that Ryan was suffering from a rare genetic disease. “MPS I” is a slow, debilitating disease that stiffens joints and damages organs. Most patients do not live past their teens. And, even more unfortunately, it is such a rare disorder that very little research was being done when Ryan was diagnosed, and there was no cure. “One thing you can do for Ryan,” the doctor told his dazed parents, “Love him for as long as he’s with you.”[3]

But the Dant’s wouldn’t settle for love and death, so they worked, around the clock, and after several years of raising money and looking for answers, they met an equally determined research scientist named Emil Kakkis who had been working in obscurity, and with practically no budget, on an enzyme that reverses the effects of MPS I. Soon after getting the Dants’ money and Dr. Kakkis’ research together, they learned that the scientist had been awarded a $5 million grant for his research.

In February, 1998, seven years after his diagnosis, Ryan became one of the first experimental recipients of the enzyme. Since that day “he has gained 35 pounds and grown nearly five inches. His headaches have subsided and his fingers have straightened out… Best of all, baseball is back at the center of Ryan’s life.”

Theirs is a wonderful story. God does continue to bring healing through the hands and minds of doctors, nurses, and researchers. But for every story of amazing success there are untold stories of children, young and old, who do not survive. At some point we will all stare death in the face, and in those moments – whether it is our death or that of someone we love -- we realize that life is not in our hands. It is, ultimately, not ours to give.

Amy and I had an interesting conversation this week with a friend. We were talking about the future. Wondering what our children’s world will be like when we cut them from our apron strings, and send them on their way. Can we give them happiness?

We talked about our parents’ hard work, which has given us a better life than they had known at our age. And we wondered if we, who had been so greatly blessed by their desires for us, would be able to do the same for our children. Or, would our own wealth – the fact that our parents had raised the standards for us so much – would their generosity, ironically, prevent our generation from being able to do the same? Do we know the value of hard work as they did? Or will our children be so conditioned to our lifestyles that a “better life” will be unattainable -- even undesirable?

We decided that we don’t know if we can make their life any better than ours. We’re not sure that we should -- or that we even want to do so. And we obviously cannot choose our children’s friends, select their spouses, make their decisions. We certainly cannot know what their world will be like, in order to best prepare them for vocations, in specific, much less to prepare them for the future in general.

So the answer is again, “no.” We cannot promise Pearl and Ala, Lyndsay and Berkeley, Katie and Karl and Katherine and Keelie health, and we cannot promise happiness either.

Promise is, of course, a tough word. Promises are difficult to make, even more difficult to keep, because they involve the uncertainty of a future tense, in combination with the integrity of an ongoing present tense commitment. “I promise…” leaves little room for personal failure --regardless what the future brings.

But in his speech before a crowded court of believers in Jerusalem, Peter made a promise, “for you, for your children, for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls.”

What Peter promised so confidently that day, we can also promise to our children today: God says, “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh… [on] sons and daughters… [on] young and old…” The promise, which was not new at Pentecost, the age-old promise, is for the Spirit of God, the presence of God, here, with us. Rain or Shine. For better. For worse. For richer. For poorer. In sickness. In health.

It is a promise for all Palestinian mothers, and for all American ones. It is a promise for all Jewish fathers, and for all Christian ones. It is a promise for children of all ages. Everywhere.

As mothers and fathers, as grandparents and siblings, as friends and neighbors, teachers and mentors and ministers we cannot promise health. There is no guarantee of happiness. But there is hope. That is what presence is all about.

[1] Forwarded by Dr. Jim Pitts, Chaplain at Furman University.

[2] Our friend, Dr. Roger Lovette, uses this quote and attributes it to Tagore.

[3] The story is told in the May 2001 edition of Reader’s Digest, 75-81.