I thought of that letter when I read the text from Jeremiah. Is our God on a permanent vacation? Our children, here and around the globe, are suffering and dying—in Somalia, in South Africa, Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Los Angeles, on city streets and on country roads. And Rachel weeps.

But in the midst of her tears, our God says to Rachel: "Keep your voice from weeping, Rachel, and your eyes from tears, for there is a reward for your work...they shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope for your future....Your children, Rachel, shall come back to their own country."

Our God is not on vacation. Rather, our God is doing what God alone can do. These are the words of assurance that you and I need in these days. There is a reward for our work on behalf of our children. They shall come back from the land of the enemy to their own country. There is hope for our future, says our God. And it is in and through this hope that we of Christ's church live out our days.

Seymour, in his letter to God, writes: "Dear God, how come you did all those miracles in the old days and don't do any now?" Like Rachel, I identify with Seymour's question often but, thanks be to God, God does continue to perform miracles, Seymour, and in our God's continuing presence you and I are asked to do the same.

And, if the truth be told, it will take a miracle. Each year, nearly 15 million children under the age of five are dying around the world. Some 40% of children under the age of five in the developing world suffer from malnutrition.

In our own country, one in every eight children under the age of twelve suffers from hunger. Forty percent of the poor in this country are children. Despite medical advances, our country's infant mortality rate is worse than that in some so-called Third World countries. Every day more than 100 babies born in our country die before their first birthday. About one million teenagers become pregnant each year, and as many as 18% of newborns in some city hospitals are born exposed to alcohol, crack and other hard drugs.

Finally, of the some 21% of all children in our country who are poor, 45% of those children are African-American, 30% Hispanic, 15% white. Many Asian-American children are poor and the percentage of poor children among our Native American population exceeds that of all other populations.

Surely, we are in need of miracles!

Some months ago, I attended a meeting in Minnesota of the Council of American Indian Ministries of the United Church of Christ. While there, I was given a copy of an article that appeared sometime ago in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The article is entitled, "Rash of Suicides Moves Entire White Earth Ojibway to Action." It is date-lined, "White Earth, Minnesota." Here are just a few sentences from that article:

"Since spring, three young Ojibway people have died by suicide on the Rez. Dozens more have tried to kill themselves. These gestures, as mental health workers call them, range from scratching the skin on wrists, to pills, to being cut down from a rope. The reservation's annual average suicide rate, the attempts made, now reaches 22. This year it looks as though there will be three times that many. Why?

" `Just a guess,' said Darryl Zitzow, clinical psychologist at White Earth. `There is so much anger, and they're tired of hating and being angry. They paint themselves into a corner. It's either put up with this crap all my life or kill myself. These are the only options they give themselves. That's a guess we don't know for sure and we'll never know.' "

" `Suicide,' the psychologist concludes, `is anger turned inward—and so is depression.' "

I disagree with the clinical psychologist when he says he doesn't know why the native American young people are so angry. I think you and I know why they are angry. I think we do know why they take their lives. I think they do it because their lives have already been taken from them by an uncaring world. They haven't painted themselves into a corner. We dare not blame the victims. We have painted them into a corner and if they are to have a present and a future, it will take a miracle. Thank God, our God is a God of miracles.

We are all born of a miracle—the miracle of God's love. We are sustained by that miracle. And as we love, as we have been loved, the lives of our children—and all children everywhere—will be renewed, sustained and transformed. Is it not time, long past time, that we of Christ's church commit ourselves without reserve to build a world fit for all of God's children everywhere? This is a time for miracles.

Mark's letter to God reads, "Dear God, I keep waiting for spring but it never come yet. Don't forget, God." Mark, I think I can say to you that God does not forget and we, God's children, dare not forget either.

Remember the words from the Gospel of St. John: "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another."

"There is a reward for your work, says the Lord. Your children shall come back from the land of the enemy to their own country."

Years ago, Pope John XXIII provided the guidance we need. "Let love be the motive and justice the instrument." If we of Christ's church are to bring our children back to their own country, we will be motivated by love and we will be prepared to do justice, whatever the cost. Love and justice do not come easily in an unjust world. Love and justice will require sacrifice. Love and justice will require honesty. Love and justice will require courage. Love and justice will require vision. But if you and I are prepared and willing to be a just and merciful people, mercy and justice and love will be done and our children and our children's children will be renewed.

Frank writes to God: "Dear God, I am doing the best I can." Frank, that's all that God asks of any of us. Our God will transform that which we do, the best we can do, into that which God can do. And miracles will happen. "Dear God," says Jeff, "It really is great the way you always get the stars in the right places."

You know, I love the simple hymn: "These are holy hands. God uses these hands and so these hands are holy. These are holy hands. God uses these hands and so these hands are holy." God will perform miracles through these hands and so these hands are holy.

In the Book of St. John we read: "Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed." Yes, we serve in love and we live in hope. God is not finished with any of us yet. What we will be has not yet been revealed but since our God is with us, we continue to hope that love and justice and mercy and peace will prevail. What is need not continue to be. Hungry children will be fed, those who wander the streets will find a home, indifference will turn to care, and love will prevail. There is hope for our future.

Ruben Alves in Tales of the Heart writes: "What is hope? It is the insight that imagination is more real and reality less real than it looks. It is the hunch that the overwhelming brutality of facts that oppress and repress is not the last word. The two, suffering and hope, live from each other. Suffering without hope produces despair and resentment. Hope without suffering creates illusions, naivete and drunkenness." The suffering of God's children is not the last word. The brutality of hate is not the last word. God is the last word and as we trust, so shall we live.

Nora writes: "Dear God, I don't ever feel alone since I found out about you." And in that continuing presence, Nora, you, I, all of us, live in hope. There is hope for the future.

Rachel, the desolate one, weeps for her children. But there is hope for your future, Rachel. Your children will come back to their own country. Love will prevail, Rachel, as hope endures.

During this past year, 1992, we celebrated the 100th birthday of Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the great saints of the church. As we of Christ's church seek to be a church committed to building a world fit for children, it seems singularly appropriate to close this meditation with Neibuhr's words of assurance—slightly edited for each of us and for our children.

"Nothing that is worth doing (for our children) can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.

Nothing, which is true or good or beautiful (for our children) makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith.

Nothing we do, (for our children), however virtuous, can be accomplished alone. Therefore, we are saved by love."

Amen.

Orley Herron: Paul, that was a powerful message. As you look at the history of the church, children were working at seven years of age, getting out of school, dropping out of school, teachers were fourteen years of age. The church in its early history here in America was fighting issues like "God is dead," as if God needed to be defended. Here we had homes breaking up, children really slaves to the market and where was the church in all that time?

Paul Sherry: Well, you know, that is a good question to ask. The church historically has done many good things for children but also there have been many times when we have turned away from God's little ones. As we have turned away from God's little ones, we have turned away from ourselves because our children are a reflection of ourselves.

If the church is to be faithful in these days, we need once again to do as I said earlier in the statement, to help build a world fit for those children to live in. That is going to take a great deal of work. It is going to take rebuilding families; it is going to take churches committed to children's issues; it is going to take a society wherein children can grow and mature in ways that reflect their God-given gifts. I continue to believe that we will return to who we were meant to be.

Herron: You know, Paul, I really believe that we should just preach the clear gospel message to people but also when I read the word, the word tells me that Jesus fed the people, then He talked.

Sherry: That's right.

Herron: Jesus helped heal the people, then He talked. There is the story in the Word about the Good Samaritan caring for the [man who was beaten and robbed] before the message really could go forth.

Where are you helping in your church to make sure people are fed and cared for and the gospel also is preached?

Sherry: Thank you for that introduction because you really are preaching a full gospel. The gospel is made for the full person. The gospel is a gospel that reaches out to meet people's spiritual and physical needs because we are of a piece. We cannot be divided into spiritual and physical beings. We are all God's children; we are of one. You are right—unless the church is meeting all needs of people today, it is less than the church needs to be.

One way that the United Church of Christ at the present time is trying to be of assistance—we all know the serious state of health care in this society—and we have taken, along with many other groups, a leading position to help shape what are the principles on which a decent health care system should be shaped in order to meet children's needs. Then, to help provide people with the wherewithal, the guidance, the direction by which we might indeed in this society finally bring together a health care system that meets the needs of all God's people, including God's children.

We are doing it also through day care centers. We are reaching out through new Christian education programs. We are trying to help people see the way that a child's development is shaped by the milieu in which he or she lives and to try to shape that milieu in ways that provide decency for children in many ways.

I think at the core is what you pointed to earlier, a gospel that calls us to be concerned for all of God's children. If one is truly motivated by that gospel, all particulars then flow accordingly. I am convinced of that.

Herron: I was talking to my son-in-law the other day, Paul, and he said that the research he was given in the company where he serves indicates that less than 2% of the families in America are the Ozzie and Harriet types—the father working and the mother at home with the children enjoying her presence. It is just the opposite today and so it is important that we really instruct the single parent who is raising those children. I know from our research in education that children model after the parent, so if the parent reads the scripture to the child, the child will develop an interest in that scripture.

Sherry: I think that is right. Both points I think you made are very important. So much of our educational programs in the churches historically have been built on some myths about the current nature of family life. Unless we begin to see the changes that your son-in-law indeed has helped point you to, so that we can shape what we are doing for that wide variety of family situations, we will be less than successful. You are also right that somehow or other we need once again to become more attentive to God's word—in scripture, in the hymns of the faith, in worship and find ways to make those scripture readings and those services of worship and the hymn singing of such moment to our young people that they will respond as we did.

When I was a boy, much of my life was framed within that small congregation in which I grew and if it had not been for that framing, my life would not have been the same. That is the role of the church today.

Herron: Jesus said that unless we come as a little child.

Sherry: That's right.

Herron: We need to have more of that in the world in which we live.

Sherry: That's right. In the position I am now in, of course, I am able to move across the world and to see the suffering of children today in every part of the globe, including just a block from where we are in this studio. Unless we see that and feel that in our stomachs and begin to respond accordingly, we will be less than these times require.

Herron: My wife and I and one of my sons saw that in Africa this summer.

Sherry: Yes.

Herron: The starvation. It really grips you.

Sherry: It is heartbreaking. It is absolutely heartbreaking and one's soul is damaged when one's body is damaged as you were suggesting earlier. If one's soul is to be enriched, one's body also needs to be enriched because of we are of a piece. We dare not turn away. We just dare not turn away.

Herron: Thank you, Paul. We look forward to seeing you again.