Encounters // Jesus Encounters the Children

Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast.

Church of the Lookout is an old color of our vision.

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Alright, well, it's already been really yummy this morning, hasn't it?

So hopefully we can keep it going.

Alright, so yeah, we're gonna continue with the encounter series, and we're gonna be talking this morning about Jesus encountering the children.

Relax, relax, I know.

Like stomachs are probably nodding, you're all like holding your breath, thinking, oh gosh, here we go.

It's gonna be uh one long sermon.

I'm realizing I I like to get out in front of this podium, so I'm gonna move it back.

But you're probably thinking, like, oh gosh, it's gonna be one long recruitment uh disguised as a sermon.

I promise we're not gonna do that.

This is all I'm gonna say about children's uh church.

Look out, kids.

If you're not serving there, I'm gonna let you in on a secret.

We don't do it for the kids.

I mean, yes, you get to experience Jesus in a way that you won't otherwise.

But really, it's like this major ego booster.

You just show up there and you smile, and those kids love you.

Their hearts are just open, there's no guile in them, and you are now their best friend.

And it feels so good when this cute little kindergartner is like, Can I sit by you?

I'm like, I'm so loved.

And then when you get a fifth grader that sees you across the grocery store, you're not even at church, you're not at the lookout, and they're like, Miss Janet! They're like so excited to see you.

You're like, I'm cool, I'm cool.

So being part of Lookout Kids is amazing as a volunteer.

So you should serve just to get that Ugo beast the ego boost.

Um, but anyway, that's all I'm gonna say about it.

No, this morning, Jesus encountering the children.

I'm actually gonna open up a vulnerable place of my story in hopes that it will help and bless you.

And if it doesn't, maybe it'll help a friend.

So, um, all right, here we go.

We've got to go back in time.

Not that far, just a little bit, to about May 1st of 2024, and I find myself in this moment in a crisis.

At least it felt like a crisis.

Um, so I have been doing spiritual direction for probably, I don't know, a year and a half, maybe even two years, I don't know.

Um, if you've never heard of that, it's just where you meet with somebody who has gotten skills and certification and training to ask really good questions.

And the questions they ask are non-leading, non-judgmental, just very um compassionate and curious to help you locate what is God doing within me.

Because sometimes we have blind spots, yeah?

So in this moment, I'm I'm at spiritual direction, and it's with a friend of mine that I really admire and have known for over 30 years.

Love, love, love him, and he's amazing at asking questions.

And what I've learned with him during these spiritual directions is I come and he'll say, Do you want to just jump into it or do you want to hold a space of silence?

Well, I've learned even if I come with this laundry list of things that I think I need to talk about, if I'll come and say, you know what, let's just hold some space of silence together.

And I sit still and I kind of open my heart to the Lord and I say, What do you want to bring up?

And then I pay attention to my body, how it's feeling, I pay attention to my emotions.

The emotions sometimes will switch, and I like came in very peaceful, and all of a sudden I start crying.

Or I just pay attention to the thoughts that that surface.

And often what comes up is what God wants to talk about, and it's different than what I thought, but by the end of the time with the crying and the snotting, I realize, okay, this is what I needed.

So this particular day, May 1st, 2024, I said, okay, let's hold some silence.

So I'm being silent and I'm sitting there, and then this memory comes up in my mind.

And the memory is of me as a young adult woman, and I had gone home to visit my parents, and my dad had pulled out old uh footage of us as kids.

So this is probably like late 70s, early 80s footage that I'm looking at.

This is so old, guys.

It's not VHS tapes, it's like real to real.

Like my dad has to bring out an actual projector and put the reel on and put the tape through and bring down the screen to project it, and there's no sound.

All we're seeing is video footage.

And I'm watching myself as this little girl in the kitchen with my mom and my brother, and we're not really doing anything, and they're not dancing, but I'm dancing.

I'm dancing in front of my brother, and I'm dancing in front of my mom, and I look to the camera and I'm dancing and doing all this stuff.

And my mom, as an adult watching this with me, turns to me and says, Oh my gosh, Jeanette, that was just you, the epitome of you as a kid.

You were always dancing, always with a smile on your face, running around.

And it was just a comment, but for me, it felt like a dagger to my heart, and someone twisted the knife, you know.

She didn't mean it that way at all, but that's that was the effect because I'm watching that video and I'm saying, who is that?

I don't know that girl.

I realized I had completely lost touch with whatever version that was that was joy-filled and free and able to just dance for no reason.

And so when I came out of that time of silence over a little bit over a year ago, in that spiritual direction, I tell, I tell my friend what the memory that came up.

And I said, I don't know where that girl is, but she's lost, and I'm picturing that she's out there somewhere, you know?

And for you, you might not be thinking that you've lost touch with a joy-filled version of yourself, but maybe it's something else.

Maybe there is a version of you that you can remember from your past that had peace.

And I'm look, I don't want to make the I don't want to paint the picture that I was never fun, and I'm never fun, and I could never dance, and I could never experience joy, but I'm talking about there was something like in the core of my being that I was disconnected with that that girl in the video knew that I no longer knew.

Does that make sense?

And so for you, it could be peace, it could be um wholeness, it could be healthy mentally, physically, um, it could be loved, or just an openness, adventure, risk, awe, wonder.

I don't know what it is for you.

But what what the spiritual director said to me next was one of those moments where you're like, what?

You know, because he said, I'm gonna read it so I make sure I say it right.

He said, What if she hasn't left?

What?

See, before I was thinking she's out there somewhere, and I need to call a big search party, and we're gonna link arms and we're gonna walk through the field yelling, Joyful Janette, where'd you go?

But he was suggesting maybe she's still there and she hasn't left you.

And I wanted to hope that what he was saying was a possibility, but I had zero idea how to access her.

And he said, What if you could welcome her back to your awareness?

So this morning, what I'm gonna be sharing with you is the journey that I would take from that moment till today, and how the Lord um showed me how to find her.

And my hope in an offering is that maybe you can find something that you've lost as well.

So let's turn to the scripture.

I'm gonna read two passages this morning, and then after I'm done, we get to um share an expression of gratitude together where I will say a phrase and then you get to say it back.

So be ready for that in a minute.

But we're gonna start with Mark 9, 33.

And in this moment, Jesus is traveling with his disciples, and it says, and they came to Capernaum, and when he, meaning Jesus, was in the house, he asked them, meaning the disciples, what were you discussing on the way?

But they kept silence, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest.

So he sat down and he called the twelve, and he said to them, If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.

And he took a child and he put them in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.

And whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me.

Okay, and then in Luke 18, there's another instance where parents are bringing their children to Jesus so that he can lay hands on them and bless them.

And in this version, it even includes infants.

It says, Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them.

And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them.

But Jesus called to them, saying, Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.

Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.

I'm waiting for the prompt to tell me.

Okay, there we go.

This is the word of the Lord.

Awesome.

Okay, so in both of these passages, Jesus is giving this clarion call to let the children come.

And then he says, do not hinder them.

So what does that imply?

They can be hindered, right?

Um, there's some way that these children can be stopped from coming to Jesus.

And then we're told that we are to receive the child.

And when we do, we receive Jesus, and not only Jesus, we receive the Father.

So this is implying some sort of connection with the child being brought and connection to the Father.

Okay.

And then we're told that children belong to the kingdom and must rece in order to receive that kingdom, we have to enter it like a child.

Okay.

So this might seem scary because you think, oh gosh, if I don't do it, you know, then I'm not getting into the kingdom or elitists or something.

Like Jesus is creating all these hoops for us to jump through.

But what I think is happening is that Jesus is giving us a key code.

He wants everybody into the kingdom.

And it the kingdom is not something that we experience after we die.

The message that Jesus starts declaring as soon as he hits the pavement and is ready for ministry is the kingdom of God is here.

It's here now for you to experience now, and he wants everybody to come in.

And so he's giving us the key code, and somehow it has to do with this child.

And he's putting them, he's bringing them physically and putting them in the midst.

And you might say, if you know the Nicodemus story where he's like, What?

I have to get back in my mom's womb to be born again.

What are you talking about?

So is Jesus saying, adults, you need to, you know, have a Benjamin Button moment or something and start becoming children?

No, there's a principle here.

It's a key code.

And we he wants us to have the key code so that we're not coming to the door like me in Portland, Oregon, when I was trying to get into my Airbnb and I'm hitting the thing and I've got my luggage and I'm right on the street and I'm like, please, and I cannot get in.

You know, he wants us to be able to get in, right?

Okay.

So what is he talking about when he's talking about this child?

I already told you I'm not going with the whole thing of like, we need to up our volunteerism and look out, kids.

So here we go with the sermon, saving you all from that.

Um, you know, I've heard a lot of awesome sermons that start picking out all the childlike qualities, and as we adults who are fuddy-duddies, we need to start acting like kids.

And I think those are great.

But what the Lord was showing me was something different, and I think something more ancient and something more core to our being.

What if the child that Jesus was talking about is our true self?

So now I have to define what the heck I'm talking about, right?

What is the true self?

The Christian mystic calls this child the face you had before you were born.

The face you had before you were born.

This is the who I am in God and who God is in me.

We're talking about the divine dwelling, the Holy Spirit within, the tabernacle of God, putting divine and human together, perfect alignment with God, communion, contentment, the part of you that always says yes and always will say yes.

The origin, the original, pure point that knows.

Tracking with me?

John 14, 17 talks about this when it says, the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.

You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

So this true self, this child enters the world and immediately leaves the garden.

And as we leave the garden, we slowly forget this face that we had before we were born.

And Thomas Turn, a 17th-century poet and mystic, mused about this child when he wrote this.

Certainly, Adam and Eve in paradise had not more sweet and curious apprehensions of the world than I when I was a child.

Everything was new and delightful for him.

The rosy glow of sunrise hadn't it, the flaming glory of creation.

The stars at night were a living, heavenly dance.

He listened to the grass growing, smelled the west wind, tasted the rain, touched the grains of sand on the shore.

All his senses, his mind, his heart were alive and in touch with being.

So that without much ado, I was corrupted and made to learn the dirty devices of this world, which now I unlearn and become, as it were, a little child again, that I might enter into the kingdom of God.

Learning these dirty devices and that pure heart being corrupted is a great tragedy.

And this is why I believe Jesus is saying, don't hinder the children from coming to me.

Don't hinder that true self from coming forward and coming to me.

We need connection and awareness.

I believe even the corrupted heart craves connection.

And we need awareness of this Christ child that is within us, the one who knows.

Just as much as we need connection to Christ the man, Christ the crucified, and Christ the resurrected.

Christ the man, we learn from him how to walk in the ways of God and what kingdom living is like.

And we learn much from Christ the Man.

Christ the crucified forgives us of our sins and cleanses us and gives us access to Christ the resurrected, who gives us everlasting life and power to walk through eternity in that perfect communion again with Christ.

But the Christ child teaches us something that these do not offer.

The Christ child teaches us that it is loved not for what he does, but simply as the child of God, as the one marked by God's love, the delight of God's life, loved because God is love.

This is why when Jesus is now ready to step out as a man into ministry, God declares over the one who has done nothing, right?

And God says, This is my son in whom I am well pleased.

Franciscan friar Richard War says, God doesn't love you because you are good.

God loves you because he is good.

And this is the reality that the Christ child offers us.

Loved because God loves.

Loved naked and unashamed.

Our disconnect to this Christ child actually starves us.

And Ruth Haley Barton, an author, teacher, and spiritual director, puts it this way.

We are starved for mystery.

To know this God as the one who is totally other and to experience reverence in his presence.

We're starved for intimacy, to see and feel and know God in the very cells of our being.

We are starved for rest, to know God beyond what we can do for him.

We're starved for quiet.

To hear the sound of sheer silence, that is the presence of God Himself.

And so God says, Do not hinder the children from coming to me.

So what hinders?

I would imagine there's a lot of things, but here's what came up as I was just sitting with all this stuff and felt like God was showing me shame and the false self.

Very connected.

False self, what is it?

Simply put, not the true self.

Brilliant.

Um, but it's an inferior state of being.

So it's what we attempt to be when the shame of not enters.

Not enough.

Not good.

Not smart.

Not talented, not attractive, not worthy, not likable, not lovable, not interesting, et cetera, et cetera.

None of us want to feel that void, right?

Who likes that feeling?

Anybody?

We hate it so much that we're then willing to put on false stuff and costume ourselves to tap out from feeling this lack.

The disciples did it.

If we go back to that Mark 9, Jesus asking them, What are you guys talking about?

But they kept silent.

Why?

Shame.

Shame is this indicator.

Thumbs off.

I'm not operating in something right.

It's the ping on the dashboard of your life card that says, false self, false, false self.

I mean, really, because if the disciples had owned it, right, they would have been like, oh, we were talking about being the greatest, you know.

But something made them want to hide it because they had shame because something was indicating you guys are operating in something that's off.

It's not your true self.

Because the true self is not worried about jockeying for position and stepping and taking out whoever so that they can be the wrong person next to Jesus.

Right?

What the true self knows is it's actually you have to declare all this all the knots.

We aren't worthy.

We aren't lovable.

But here's the trick.

You can't do it in this like floggy way, like self-pity.

You have to do it, be like, yes, I'm not worthy, but you are Jesus.

And you, out of your love, make me worthy.

You make me lovable.

You make me smart.

You give me awesome things to say.

But the false self can't do that.

It is dressing up and hiding when we experience the shame of disapproval from others.

Oh, I'm not that, but they want me to be that, so now I'm gonna tap dance and try to be that.

Hope they like it.

It's really tolering, right?

I didn't take tap lessons.

Sometimes it's sin.

It's that self apart from God.

Oh, I'm not gonna feel the knot, so I'm gonna overcome and be like, I got it.

I'm a strong and independent woman.

I don't need to get down low and like feel needy.

The problem is, is like when we are disconnected and in that false self-game, we are on the treadmill of constantly reinventing ourselves to become something more.

What a rat race that is.

Trying to overcome insecurity, fixation on outward appearance and status, codependent drama with one another, wearing costumes to cover up our inadequacies, trying desperately to become worthy, prone to addictions and looking for outward fulfillment.

I don't know about you, but I have done that game.

I still get sucked into it.

I'm like, oh dang it, I'm on the freaking treadmill again.

Get off, get off, get off, get low, glue, glue.

It's a struggle.

I I actually remember the first time I think I felt shame.

I was like first grade, so we're talking 1981.

And we did not have streaming services at this time.

I don't even know if HBO, we didn't have HBO or anything like that in my house.

You just had what was on primetime television, and Thursday night was like the family shows or whatever.

So my family, we would sit and watch stuff, and there was a show that would not fly today whatsoever, Dukes of Hazard.

About this like quirky family living in Georgia.

The sons had like this souped-up car that had the Confederate flag on it, and they would slide over the hood of that and like jump in the car without even opening the door, like through the open window.

And everybody thought they were so cool, and they were, but I was really into the sister, Daisy Duke.

She was pretty cute, and everybody liked her.

Her brothers and her dad would always protect her, and and all the boys would fawn over her, and she wore these little short cutoff shorts, and she had this little gingham top that she would wear, kind of exposing her shoulder.

My mom sent me off to school one day with a top very similar to Daisy Duke, except my sleeves were up.

Now, I don't remember, this was a long time ago.

I don't remember what was going through my little pea brain at the time.

Um, but I do remember that year, like a lot of instances of like figuring out where you were at in the pecking order, and you know, all those awkward interactions.

It was like, this is not kindergarten anymore.

Everybody's not just like copacetic with each other.

Um, so I'm sure I was dealing with insecurities and must have in my had thought it would be a great idea to emulate Daisy Duke.

So the teacher was out of the room, and I was done with my spelling, and I decided to pull my sleeves down and show my shoulders, be like Daisy Duke.

The teacher walks in and sees me, yanks me out into the hallway, and in my memory, still today, it feels like that room, that hallway was very dark, and that teacher's looming over me and wagging her finger.

Nice girls, don't dress like that.

And for the first time, I feel this heavy thing come over me that feels way too big, super weighty, gross, and I walk back into the classroom, and now I know shame.

It was shame.

I bared my shoulder.

I don't think there's anything wrong with bearing shoulders.

I have a top that does that now.

Um, I digress.

My point is though, I wasn't being Jeanette Marie Lashley at the time.

I was trying to be Daisy Duke, and it was a false persona.

And so, in that false persona, I just opened the door to make room for shame to come and eat me for lunch.

And it did.

So, how do we get rid of this false self?

How do we get rid of it?

Because Jesus didn't want us to experience shame.

He certainly doesn't want us walking in a false self.

He wants us to be true to the face that we had before we were born.

He died to free us from shame.

Richard Rohr says this until we have an experiential glimpse of the true self, we can't rid ourselves of the false self.

Trying to do away with the false self without that experiential glimpse is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Kind of doomed.

So then we say, okay, how do we get this experiential glimpse?

Jesus gave us that pathway in what he was saying with the connection, receiving the child, and then we receive Jesus and we receive the Father.

It's going to that place that knows.

And the psalmist in Psalm 51, 6 said this: Behold, you, God, desire truth in the inward parts.

And the hidden parts of you will make me to know wisdom.

So God is saying, you have this hidden inward part with you where truth resides, and there's truth in me, and I want to encounter you and make truth known to you there.

So people for centuries and centuries have been engaging in practices like prayer and contemplation, silence and stillness to get access to that inward part to connect with God there, to the one who knows.

John Mark Comer in his book Practicing the Way said this.

Contemplate means looking at God, looking at you in love.

2 Corinthians 3.18 says, We who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory.

The requirement is unveiled faces, not hiding, but being honest and real about who you are.

To Paul, this transformation happens as we contemplate, as we gaze, as we look at God, looking at us in love.

Dropping the facade and coming as we really are.

And we can let the child come to Jesus as we gaze at God, looking at us in love.

And this, there's no hindrance here.

Then the connection happens and all the false stuff just has to fall away and melt away.

And we find the kingdom of God living within us.

Okay, so last month I went to my spiritual direction and again was in a time of sitting still with the Lord.

But my spiritual director brought me this practice.

It's called blessing of your knowing.

So it's very similar to just sitting quietly and focus on your breathing, and but you just add the invitation and the blessing to connect to that place of knowing deep within.

And when I did that, I was not, I promise you, was not thinking about the May 1st, 2024 incident at all.

And I got quiet.

And I'm blessing the knower.

I'm blessing the face that I had before I was born, and connecting it to the presence of God within me.

And what the Lord showed me in that moment, I saw this blur of white dress and long hair twirling down this sidewalk, this little girl, and you could just hear her giggling and laughing, and she was so full of life, so much joy, so much freedom, so much excitement for life.

And I was like, oh, there she is.

There she is.

The one that I thought I had lost.

There she was.

And so I came out of the moment and I told my spiritual director, and I said, I don't know if you remember, and he did.

He did remember.

And I said, I found her.

She's there.

She's been there all along.

And so now I just have the joy of remembering and getting connected to the one that was there all along, that wasn't lost.

So for you, I don't know what you would find when you allow God to gaze at you in love.

Who would you find and what do they know that you have forgotten?

I'm actually gonna give us a chance to practice what I did.

Um, it'll just take three minutes once we get into it.

So I'm gonna talk us through and kind of set you up so you understand what you're doing.

So it'll be a little bit clunky as I just talk you through it.

But then once I'm sure that everybody kind of has got the lay of the land and what we're gonna do, I will set my timer for three minutes and just give you guys room to be silent and just see what happens as you connect to the face that you had before you were born.

Amen.

Okay, so what I want you to do is clear your lap of any things, and then uncross your legs.

If you have your legs crossed, put your feet kind of flat on the floor and get in a comfortable, upright position.

And then you're gonna take one hand and you're gonna put it on your heart, and then you're gonna take the other hand and you're just gonna put it underneath above your belly button on your abdomen.

And now I'm gonna ask you to close your eyes if you would and just listen to my voice.

We're gonna begin breathing, and the rhythm of the breathing is we're gonna breathe in slowly through our nose, then we'll hold for three seconds, and then you'll slowly exhale through your mouth.

So let's do that together a few times.

Breathe in through your nose.

Hold, hold, hold, breathe out slowly through your mouth.

Breathe in.

Hold.

Hold.

Hold, breathe out.

One more time together.

Breathe in through your nose.

Hold up.

Hold up.

Hold up.

Breathe out.

Keep that breathing cycle going as I continue to talk.

In your own sp rhythm.

And as you're breathing, I want you to allow a soft gentle smile to spread across your face.

And when you are doing your breath cycle, and you're at the breathe out part, we're going to begin adding talking to yourself in third person.

And I found the talking in third person to be really helpful because it helped me tune in with my spirit and God's spirit, his Holy Spirit, and Jesus and the Father.

Like we were all working together in this moment to open my heart and open my ears and be ready to receive whatever the Father wanted to give in that moment.

So you'll breathe in, hold, hold, hold, and breathe out.

And then you'll speak this blessing.

You'll say your name.

We know.

I bless our knowing.

So it'll be like this.

Breathe in.

Hold, hold, hold, breathe out.

Jeanette.

We know.

I bless our knowing.

Breathe in.

Hold.

Breathe out.

Luke.

We know.

I bless our knowing.

Breathe in.

Hold on.

Hold.

Hold.

Breathe out.

Pat.

We know.

I bless our knowing.

And you can just say that phrase softly under your breath.

I am going to start a timer for three minutes, and you can just continue this cycle.

And just welcome whatever the Lord brings to your thought, to your senses.

Be compassionate and kind towards yourself.

Father, I thank you for this time.

Thank you that you do truly gaze at us in love.

And you smile at us.

And this is not our wishful thinking, but it really is your heart towards us.

Thank you, Jesus.

For showing us that we can find our true self.

And bring that forward to you and experience your kingdom.

As the one that you created.

As that pure point.

Who knows?

So I bless and I seal everything that you've done here this morning, Lord.

And the ways that you've met us.

And I ask that you would continue to unfold the mystery of our face that we had before we were born.

Help us experience you and see your face, Jesus.

We love you.

Amen.