ALL WE WANT ARE GOLDFISH AND EGGS

A sermon by the Rev. Dr. James G. Kirk

Harundale Presbyterian Church

Glen Burnie, Maryland

July 29, 2001

Text: "if your child asks for a fish." (Luke 11:11)

First Reading: Hosea 1:2-10

Second Reading: Colossians 2:6-15

The Big Glen Burnie Carnival is here! This week Barbara Moeller was interviewed by the Sun and commented how she receives phone calls from around the nation. People who once lived here and have moved away want to know the dates of the Big Glen Burnie Carnival. They then plan their trips home so as not to miss it. Talk to any native or long time resident and they will tell you how the carnival is a local institution.

As some of you know, the Rotary Club of Glen Burnie has the pretzel and chip stand. Two chances for a quarter, the roll of the wheel, and you stand the chance of winning a box of pretzels or a box of chips. Elizabeth and I have worked the booth for the past ten years, and we both agree it’s amazing how people choose to spend their money at a carnival. Each roll of the wheel has a certain amount of tickets to sell. All the tickets must be sold before the wheel can spin. Some nights the tickets sell out within minutes. We spin the wheel, announce the winner and we do it all over again. It would probably be cheaper to go to the store and buy a box of pretzels or chips, but then it would not be the Big Glen Burnie Carnival, would it!

Another booth is the gold fish bowl coin toss. Toss the coin into the gold fish bowl and home you go with the gold fish. Nightly we see children carrying their plastic baggies of water and the gold fish and know another proud winner can’t wait to get home, get a bowl, fill it with water, and gently place the fish into its new home.

Of course, the kids think that the gold fish will live forever. Kids do that. They have an innate sense of trust about life and living, that both will go on forever, and everything associated with life will never change. That’s why time and again Jesus uses children as examples in his teaching. This morning, they’re examples of how God answers prayer. It’s quite simple, and something any parent can relate to. If a child were to ask for a fish, no parent would give the kid a snake instead. At the Carnival think how long the booth would last if a child anxiously threw the coin at the fish bowl, hoping to win a new gold fish to take home, instead was given a snake. The authorities would close the booth in a matter of moments. God can likewise be trusted to deliver on what God promises. God’s not going to deliver snakes instead of fish when you throw your coin in the fishbowl. Neither will God deliver scorpions instead of eggs. Children know that and so should we.

The problem is, our trust doesn’t stay as childlike as Jesus would want it. Time and again we get snakes and scorpions handed to us when all we wanted were goldfish and eggs. In his book Toward the End of Time John Updike tells of a 15 year-old girl who, since she was eight years old, has been sexually abused by her father. She admits to her friends how she grew up thinking that it was normal behavior. Her mother was always high on drugs and never seemed to care what her husband and daughter were doing, and certainly was never available to teach her otherwise. Of course, by the time we hear of the daughter in Updike’s story she herself is into drugs and promiscuous sexual behavior with numerous men at a time. At fifteen young years of age she certainly seems to have received a good dose of snakes and scorpions instead of goldfish and eggs.

The congregation itself has had some rather nasty wake-up calls in the past weeks. As our children grow older and begin to make decisions for themselves, we always hope and pray that nothing will go wrong. That everything we’ve taught them, all the love with which we’ve surrounded them will pay off and somehow we can shield them from the snakes and scorpions we know are out there. How badly we feel, how helpless we feel when they get bit. They end up in shock trauma. Suddenly, they have court dates to get restraining orders on one another. They’re fighting custody battles over their own kids. They want to move back home. They’re in debt over their ears and have to go into "credit card counseling." All their dreams are shattered. Their trust, which for so long nothing could remove or tarnish, has vanished. Their age of innocence is over. Welcome to the realm of the snakes and scorpions! When all they wanted was to throw a coin in the fish bowl and take home a goldfish in a plastic bag.

Trust is undoubtedly one of the most sacred gifts God gives us. Again, our children are born with trust in the very fiber of their being. They trust their mothers to feed them. They trust their fathers to protect them. They trust their environment not to bring them harm. As they grow older they learn to trust their friends. They trust their teachers, even their pastors to help them make the right decisions. As they leave home they learn who they can and can’t trust. When they fall in love they trust their mate. They even trust themselves. What goes wrong? Where or when does that trust which was so inherent as a child begin to peel away until someone can say they don’t know who they can trust anymore?

Which, of course, makes the basis of Jesus’ lesson that much more difficult to comprehend. "Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion?" Jesus knew what he was talking about. He knew the sacred gift God had given. He knew how important trust was to the fabric of society. This past Thursday there were two articles in The Sun paper, both had to do with a breach of trust. The one had to do with the Carroll County schoolteacher accused of having inappropriate sex with sex teen-age student. At the conclusion of her trial in which she was found guilty she admitted how she had broken the trust the school district placed in her. The second had to do with the problem Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is having with Police Chief Norris over her hot-spot initiative. It seems as though the chief wants to remove 26 officers from administration of her hot-spot initiative and put them back on the street. Her criticism of his action, she said, has to do with the trust the community has to build in the efforts of law enforcement. When anyone takes advantage of the trust that holds communities and families together it’s very difficult to regain that trust.

To get back to goldfish and eggs instead of scorpions and snakes, it’s going to take forgiveness and repentance. As L. Gregory Jones, the Dean of Duke University Divinity School writes, "Forgiveness does not undo or deny the past; it offers the opportunity to redeem it. The discovery of repentance as a gift linked to forgiveness is crucial so that we can learn, over time, how to cast off those things we have done and had done to us. Repentance and forgiveness give us a daily opportunity to accept the truth of who we have become without binding us to it forever. By God’s grace, the past can be redeemed and our character can be shaped in renewed ways." (The Christian Century, July 4-11, 2001, page29)

Yesterday, I not only helped in Ann and Brad’s wedding here, but friends of ours, a doctor and his wife at North Arundel Hospital, asked if I would perform their wedding in the afternoon. It was a gala affair, with the wedding at their home on Bodkin Creek, then a ride on their boat to St. Michaels for the reception, dinner and evening in town. We left St. Michaels for the return ride home at 9:30 p.m. You have no idea how big and how dark the Chesapeake Bay can be until you are on it in the dark of night. The only things the captain had to guide him were his night vision, the compass and the navigation system. He was taking us home with his skill and his trust in the instruments in front of him. Each mile of the way I could chart our progress on the navigational screen. It showed a caricature of the boat, the shoreline and navigational points. The compass indicated other boats in the water, while the depth finder indicated how much water we were in. At 12:20 this morning we arrived safely and tied up to the slip we left about twelve hours earlier.

Jesus talks about that same kind of trust, a trust that will bring us safely to the haven of God’s love for us. There may continue to be snakes and scorpions to contend with. However, through repentance and forgiveness, we may continue to look forward to the goldfish and eggs that will redeem the past and shape our character in renewed ways.

Thanks be to God,

Amen