CHILDREN IN PROVERB AND MYTH
Proverbs 22:6, 14:26-27

A sermon given by the Rev. Richard H. Taylor
September 11, 2005 / 17th Sunday of Pentecost

Good Morning! I'd like to welcome all the children who are here for full worship for the first time. Welcome! We are glad to have you here.

For those of you who are here for the first time, let me tell you, this part of the service is called the "sermon." For those of you who have been listening to Jed's stories for the last several years, this is kind of like that; except I talk longer than he does, and I'm more boring.

With children and parents here together today I thought we might spend some of the morning talking about how parents and grandparents should raise children. All of us who are adults in the church, even if we have no children, also have responsibility for the children among us so we all can learn.

So I'm going to talk to the parents about how to raise children. Those of you who are children can go ahead and color or read. But if there are a few of you who are interested in how I might tell parents to raise you, you are allowed and permitted to listen.

Well now, parents, adults, how should we raise children? I guess I have some responsibility to turn to the Bible. We sometimes expect the Bible to answer all of our questions.

One of the Bible books that talks a lot about children in the book of Proverbs. It is in Proverbs that we get the injunction, "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it." Or as the modern translation puts it, "Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray." Oh, do we want to believe that! Get it perfect now, and our children will turn out perfect!

Proverbs is full of pithy advice for parenting. "In the fear of the Lord… one's children have a refuge." Big sections of the book sound like they were meant to be read to children. Four sections actually begin "Hear ye children instruction…"

But I'm sorry folks. Mostly I have trouble with Proverbs says about the way to raise children. Its in Proverbs where all this stuff about rods and children gets introduced. See for example 23:13, 22:15, or 29:15. You know the book of Proverbs is how King Solomon thought you should live. He was the ruler of a violent Empire. And he had a harem, so many wives, and so many children, he probably didn't even know all of his children's names. What would he really know about raising children.

We have been told that Solomon was wise. But the most famous story about his purported wisdom involves a baby with two women claiming to be the baby's mother. His proposed violent solution may have seemed very clever to some observers in the palace, but its not exactly a very promising story to tell children.

Honestly, I have to conclude that Proverbs is not a very wise way to find out how to raise your children. Actually a good deal of the Old Testament is much the same way. The Old Testament has some brilliant stories on how not to be a parent, or the realities of a messed up family. But it seems to be a trial and error method: This is how we tried to raise children; it failed, so we tried something else. Adam and Eve and Cain and Able, well that didn't work. Abraham taking Isaac off into the bushes, bad idea. Even David, Solomon's father, with his brother Abraham: not that.

There are some good parts of the Old Testament. Luke repeats Malachi's call to "turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers." Jesus welcomes children, affirms them, encourages adults to be playful and warm. And the Epistles tell parents to "love their children."

The New Testament is a lot better, but not often specific. Start with the New Testament.

But sometimes we have to go elsewhere for good ideas. People have been trying to learn about the lives of children in many ways. Sometimes its helpful to try out some myths. While myths are not Gospel, they can be pretty wise, and sometimes wiser than Solomon.

Jed does a good job with myths.

But let me show you what I mean. I thought I'd take an old myth, and old story, "Little Red Riding Hood." How many of you here have ever heard the story "Little Red Riding Hood?" You see it already has more takers than Solomon and the baby.

"Little Red Riding Hood," is a very old myth. The Brothers Grimm called it "Little Red Cap," when they published it in German in 1812. But we have versions of it in French printed in 1697, and some parts of it can be found in stories going back to the twelfth century or even earlier.¹

Now I told a friend of mine that I might use Little Red Riding Hood in a sermon, and they said ugh, its an awful story! I said "Why?" They said, "because Little Red Riding Hood gets killed." I said, "No she doesn't!" Now, I used to think that myself. Somebody told me the story wrong. I used to think that the wolf ate Little Red Riding Hood and that was it. But then I read the real story, and found out that was not how it ended! And it's the real story I want to talk about.

The real story is about how to protect young girls from wolves: terrible, scary wolves.

Since we have the children here today, let me ask them a question. Kids, young people you can answer to, tell me: How many of you think it's a parents job to protect little girls from wolves? Raise your hands. Do any disagree? Okay.

Now adults, let me ask you. How many adults think it is a parent's job to protect little girls from wolves? Now there is actually a question out there of how we can protect wolves from people, but that's another sermon. Raise your hands. Let me ask the question a little differently. How many adults think it is a parent's job to protect children from wolves, any kind of wolf?

Okay. Now, following the story, how many parents believe that the way you train a child to protect them is to tell them the follow the straight path, absolutely rigidly, never straying off one step; and never, absolutely never, not at all go off the path to smell the flowers? Oh, I knew this was a liberal crowd.

Well now you remember the story. Grandma, who lives in the woods in sick. Little Red's mother sends Little Red to take care of Granny. She gives her a basket of food and drink for her. And mother instructs her, "do not stray from the path, straight ahead, do not be misled."

But along the way Little Red meets a wolf. The wolf seems unusual, almost attractive.

The wolf on the other hand, thinks he has a meal. But the wolf is not sure if Little Red has friends in the woods. So he asks her where she is going. Red tells the wolf right off all about her and where she is going. The wolf worries that grandma might be coming out to greet Little Red, and he doesn't think he can deal with both of them at the same time. So the wolf asks where grandma lives, and Red gives exact instructions. The wolf then recommends that Red stray from the path, and pick some pretty flowers.

While Red delays in the flower bed, the wolf scurries to grandma's house and eats grandma up. Then the wolf puts on grandma's bed clothes, and gets into her bed! When Red arrives, the wolf calls her to the bed. Red looks below the bonnet and says "Grandma, what big ears you have!" "The better to see you with my dear!" You know the rest, "What big eyes you have!" "What big teeth you have!" And the wolf swallows up Little Red as well.

But the story does not end there! Just then a hunter comes along finds the door open, and finds the wolf in the house. The hunter initially plans to kill the wolf, but seeing grandma is not around, and surmising what may have happened, the hunter cuts open the wolf's belly, and both Little Red and grandma, spring out full of life.

Little Red then puts some big stones back into the wolf's belly, and they sew it up. But the wolf, surrounded by Red, grandma, and the hunter tries to run away, but the stones are too heavy and the wolf falls over dead.

Now this story has lessons to tell.

They are in the original story.

But to help us remember, I thought I would invite Little Red Riding Hood here this morning to tell us about it. Little Red Riding Hood, are you here?

[A person portraying Little Red Riding Hood enters.]

Well, you are really alive!

And you are okay?

Now, I understand some terrible things happened to you?

It must have been awful.

What was it like? Could you tell us what you learned?

[Here Little Red Riding Hood sings "I Know Things Now," from Stephen Sondheim's musical Into The Woods.]

"Nice is different than good." Do you really believe that?

Well now parents, you see I told you that you might learn something about how to raise a child from a myth. Little Red Riding Hood has told us that nice is different than good.

Now I have a message for parents only. Children are not allowed to listen, so close your ears. Parents, if you teach your children that nice is different than good, they will be very wise. You may not want them to be that wise right away. So hold onto this message until they are ready. But someday they should learn, nice is different than good. Okay, parents, got it? That's how to raise your children.

And parents, always be careful about what you say and do. Because children will listen.

[Here the choir sings "Children Will Listen," from Stephen Sondheim's musical, Into The Woods.]

Amen.

1 - For more information on learnings from this story, see Bettelheim, Bruno, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, (Vintage Books, New York, 1976), pp.166-183.