Abridged Worship – May 18, 2025

One of the most iconic movie moments showing a father’s love for his child, is probably not one your mind might go to right away. The 2008 action-thriller starring Liam Neeson, who plays a former Green Beret Bryan Mills and finds out his 17-year-old daughter has been kidnapped, is the source of this iconic moment. While speaking to the kidnappers on the phone the character Mills says,

“I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”

I know as a father, and often as someone who would say I’m a peaceful man, violence is not my go to, but sure enough if someone ever did something to my children it would be hard not to follow those words of the action hero myself.

There is something in us, whether you’re a parent or not, that is horrified when we think of harm, abuse, pain, or offense being put on children. Yet, despite us having this repulsion to children being harmed, some how it still seems to happen. Within humanity we still encounter people who harm or despise children for one reason or another.

When we look at Matthew 18, Jesus shows his love for children in a tone that is so serious and so bold that, when I read the words of Jesus, for a minute in my head he has Liam Neeson’s voice – boldly warning with sheer clarity that there will be wrath to pay.

“But whoso shall offend, one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged around his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the seas.”

Then Jesus follows it up by saying that it is better to cut out your own eye or hands to avoid the sins, then to be cast into ever lasting fires.

Jesus finalizes these statements with: “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father in heaven”.

Jesus closes by saying that children have a direct access to God.

You think Liam Neeson’s justice will strike hard? Wait until God the Father is through with you.

To end all this, we get the parable of the lost sheep, and how God will seek out his lost sheep. Sheep often would wander, and in their wandering they were vulnerable, like children, and thieves or predators would take advantage. I think Jesus put the parable at the end of this bold statement of God’s love for children to say, when Jesus goes to get the sheep and bring them home to the flock, you better not be the wolf that the Good Shepherd finds cornering his sheep.

And knowing that none of us, not a single person here, was born as an adult, none of us walked out of the womb with a suit and a briefcase to head off to work, means that great fervour for justice against those who would harm a child, has been on all of us from the beginning.

Thinking about that intensity of the warning Christ gives, makes me wonder about a hard truth: do we as faithful people share that intense love for others, for the children, the lowly, the meek, the poor, for all people? Do we have a love which self-sacrifices to ensure that the little ones do not perish, are not despised, and not harmed?

This question has been haunting me for some time.

It began to haunt me back in 2019, when I first became aware of the sex trafficking which had been being conducted in the elite landscape with Jeffery Epstein facilitating on his private island. You know, I knew this stuff had happened in elite circles, but it was something up until that point that was just easier not to think about and assume it was not common.

But my mind couldn’t ignore it, this was coming out of the tail end of the #MeToo movement which began back in 2006, so many people were being called out: celebrities, politicians, and more. It seemed like every other post on social media or in the news was about bringing an end to these horrible abuses which go unnoticed. We even saw protests, marches, and demonstrations for all sorts of subcategories of these abuses.

When the Epstein stuff hit the news, and underage trafficking was being accused, and large influential politicians, royalty, and celebrities were being named as possible clients, and on flight logs…. I thought, this is it, this will be the straw and bring the whole corrupt camel down, there will be riots and protests over this, people will demand no stone be unturned, every detail exposed, hang the mill stones around the necks of these people. This will be the pinnacle of #MeToo and social justice, when we start standing up for the smallest of us because no matter what race, culture, or language we all start small and vulnerable, we all start out as children and we all can sympathize with this, this is what will bring the West together, a cause worthy for us all to fight for, a cause which God’s angels speak directly to the Father about.

But that is not what happened. Many people suddenly seemed to lose interest in social justice online around that time. The Epstein trial seemed to become politically weighted suddenly as the right and left began to use it as a political tactic in the States. Many people claimed that these rumours of children be trafficked by the elite was just conspiracy theories. #MeToo seemed to fade from social media rapidly and the Epstein story seemed to fall to the interest of a much smaller group. New things were on the horizon to grab people’s attention.

I remember thinking, even if it had been just one child, one person, all of us, should have had righteous anger: a ferocity for justice just like Liam Neeson in Taken, or better as Jesus here in the Scriptures. But why didn’t we?

And its not just the Epstein case. There are countless issues where children are forsaken: other abuse, poverty, war, famine…it continues day and night. How are any of us still sitting here knowing that this stuff goes on in the world? How are we not mobilized every second to do something?

I guess maybe it is a simple as, if we don’t think about it, it doesn’t need to feel real to us. It’s kind of like back when cable was a thing, and you would be watching a show, and suddenly the commercial for children’s aide would come on, and you would see starving children from around the world. And it would be so painful to see, so many of us would just change the channel. Best not to think about it.

Shortly after the Epstein headlines in 2019, my first son was born. I was balancing a new life as a parent and a pastor. Around this time, I was called to a ministerial meeting for the area I was serving, and the different churches spoke about different ministries they were supporting. The homeless, seniors, sports ministries. Lots of fun stuff. One evangelical church which had newly come to the table said “our church is involved in fighting against sex trafficking and helping to support teams which help to get young women and children out of these horrible traps, would you all like to support this?” The look on every pastor, minister, and elder’ss face, was oh no, if we agree to this, then we have to face the reality that this actually happens. Sadly, it got voted down. A room full of clergy walked away from this noble cause.

There are so many sheep which are wandering, lost, trying to find their way home, and we often don’t want to think about it. We would rather focus on the 99 who are home already, safe. Life is great when you let your mind wander away from the truth of things.

This last week, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi stated that the FBI are currently reviewing, “tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children […] and that there are hundreds of victims.”

Humanity, we need to do better. This is something that should have never happened in the first place. Straight and simple we need to do better, we need to expect better. We need to care for the children of this world as if each was the baby Jesus himself.

And if you’re like me your thinking, this is the most depressing sermon, I’ve ever heard – yeah, I’m feeling it too, it was a hard one to write. I tried not too, but the Spirit said, keep typing.

Last week we looked at honouring our parents and serving them as an expression of our faith and trust in God. This week we humbly realize that as the adults of this world, as the masters who are often too willing to be served, we should at the very least be worthy of being served. We need to serve the little ones, cultivate their lives, keep the wolves at bay, and always ensure they are home, loved, and cherished.

This is the beauty of being in the faith: we can choose to do better, we can choose a life of love for the lowliest and the littlest among us.

There is hope in this depressing sermon. The hope is that God’s eyes are upon the children, God’s love is for the children, and God’s justice will meet the predators that target those sheep.

Our Bible study is currently looking at Revelation, and one thing we learned from Revelation is that “the book of destiny” is in Jesus’ Christ’s hands. All the earth: past, present and future, is under the authority of God, which means that in the end there will be justice for every child. For every child matters to God.

Because of that, every child will come to know the Love of God, his mercy, his pardon, his light, his glory – there will come a time when all the horrors of this life, the pain and anguish, will be washed away, and God will grant us new hearts, and unbridled love for one another. So, as we face these hard things, we can hang on to that hope.

At the same time our hope should not leave us complacent, and it certainly does not give us permission to ignore because it is too painful to consider. Our hope should remind us that we are called to honour the little children; today, not just in the future. And we can do that by standing up for young people, by inviting them to faith, and by seeking justice for them. We are to love and care for the young, the lowly, the meek and the poor. Because we are supposed to have a love which serves, which is self-sacrificing, which sees others as beloved creations of God – a love that, like Jesus, has a perfect set of skills to bring his flock home together.

Knowing how much God loves the children, let us pray…

Lord, let us not forget, or turn from the little, the lowly, for all need Your love. Let us be an extension of Your love for all that may come to this house of worship. Amen

Homework: