This past week, quite by chance, I learned an interesting
legal fact. In this country we do not have what's called
"parent-child privilege."1 In a legally privileged
relationship, such as that between lawyer and client,
psychiatrist and patient, husband and wife, or clergyperson
and congregant, exchanges are considered confidential.
With some exceptions, one party cannot be compelled to testify
against the other. But the relationship between parent and
child is not privileged. A mother can be subpoenaed and
asked to reveal something her daughter said during a
mother-child heart to heart. Monica Lewinsky's mother
- do you remember? - was a high-profile example. Now,
despite the fact there's no parent-child privilege, and
notwithstanding the Lewinskys, parents are seldom asked
to testify against their children, and vice-versa. Legal
scholars aren't sure why this is the case, but it seems
prosecutors don't do it because they don't like it, and
they know judges and juries don't either. Most people
think of the love between parent and child as the most
intense, committed, passionate, loyal, noble and selfless
love there is, in theory if not always in practice.
To ask a parent to reveal a confidence that could get a
child in trouble, even if it's the truth, feels like a
violation. "Indecent," said one judge in an article I read.
"Disgusting," said a federal prosecutor, who claimed he never
allowed a member of his staff to compel such testimony.2
We want to believe that a child, whatever they've
done, can go to their parent. A parent who will listen
and advise and love them and be in their corner no matter
what. A parent who may discipline and who might even go
to law enforcement for help, but a parent who will never
"turn" on their child. Indeed, lawyers rarely coerce
parental testimony because it's so unreliable.
When given the choice between telling the truth or
protecting their children, parents are likely to
perjure themselves.
Some among us have children, and can easily imagine
lying under oath. I don't, but for those of you who
do, I've seen your love and tenderness and commitment.
Some of us are children who live gratefully in the love
and acceptance of our parents. Some among us have never
known that love - not knowing our parents or not having
parents able to love - and we yearn for it. Some of us
have known it, and lost it, and will always mourn that loss.
All of us have known it imperfectly. All of us long for a
more perfect love as parent or as child, which is why those
Harry Potter books are so popular.
Perhaps because this love is so powerful, in reality
and in our hopes, the metaphor of parent and child for
God and Israel, or God and humankind, is woven throughout
the Bible. In our reading today, God speaks as a parent
to her child Israel through the words of Hosea. God remembers
the simple, halcyon days, at least in retrospect, of infancy
and early childhood. "It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
I took them up in my arms; even though they did not know that
I healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness,
with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants
to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them ...
when Israel was a child I loved him."
But in the Bible as in life, children stray.
"The more I called them, the more they went from me,"
says God of child Israel. They found other loves:
golden calves, princes, kings, the Baals. God sadly
recites the consequences, the fruits, of these new loves.
The people shall return to the land of Egypt where they were
slaves. Assyria shall be their king. The sword rages
in their cities, it consumes their oracle-priests and devours
because of their schemes. They call to the Most High, a
God of their own making, and he does not raise them up at all.
Yes, God loved Israel like a child. God taught Israel to walk,
held her to his cheek, called her out of Egypt and freed her
from slavery, but she has turned away again and again.
Not only by worshipping the Baals and calves of silver
and gold. Ephraim has also oppressed the hungry,
and cheated the poor. Indeed, Israel's crimes are
many and irrefutable; there's no question she deserves jail time.
And God knows every transgression, every misstep,
every crime of his child. God has invaluable testimony
and a case that could stand up in any court.
Not to mention that this parent is very, very angry and hurt.
But what does God do? She claims parent-child privilege.
"How can I give you up, Ephraim?" "How can I hand you over,
O Israel? ... My heart recoils within me; my compassion
grows warm and tender." "I will not execute my fierce
anger," says God, who is also judge and jury,
"I will not again destroy Ephraim. For I am God and no mortal."
Yes, God is God and no mortal but here God speaks as any parent
might who is asked to testify against her son or daughter.
"How can I give you up? How can I hand you over?
My heart recoils within me. My compassion grows warm and tender."
God claims parent-child privilege with Israel, as God does with us.
When we stray and turn to our golden calves - money, alcohol,
careers, our country, homeland security, those cute little nuclear
bunker busters - God does not give us up or hand us over.
When we suffer the consequences of our new loves:
the sword raging in our cities and in cities far away;
the emptiness that comes from grasping after things;
hunger and homelessness among us; God does not hand
us over and turn us in. Like a child to a loving parent,
we can turn to God and confess any crime. God will not
betray our confidence; God's compassion grows warm and
tender.
I could end the sermon on this reassuring and truthful note.
But it's only half the story. There's a problem with
parent-child privilege, a problem you may have been thinking
about all along. What happens when one parent's child hurts
another parent's child? A number of years ago, two parents were
subpoenaed to testify against their two minor children who were
accused of raping another child. They tried to claim
parent-child privilege and failed. We can imagine the agony
they must have felt in that courtroom. We can imagine the sense
of betrayal and abandonment and hopelessness those two troubled
youngsters must have felt. But what about the child, and the
parent of the child, who was raped? The child who needed to be
believed, who had been so badly hurt. What about that child
who needed the testimony of those parents for justice?
What about that parent who wanted to protect her child,
to keep her - or any other child - from being hurt that
way again?
And what about this parent-child privilege that God claimed for
Israel, and for us? What about the parents and children that we
hurt? What if we are the ones who are hurt?
We are mortals and not God, so we have to make choices.
Parent-child privilege is a good, but not for all parents
and all children at all times. So we weigh the goods.
We do what we think and hope is best for most people.
We make exceptions. But we know that privilege for
one parent and child comes at a cost for another.
But God is God and no mortal. God is the parent - continuing
that metaphor - of every single person. Every person on
the earth right now, and everyone who has died or is yet to be born.
God is the parent of those who believe in Christ,
and those who don't. The parent of those who drive Mercedes-Benzs,
and of those who go to bed hungry. God is the parent of
George W. Bush and the parent of those who die under his orders.
God is the parent of those who vote and those who don't.
I'm going to say it: God is the parent of Hitler.
Of Hitler and of every child, woman and man who suffered
and died in the Holocaust. God is the parent of each person
who died when the World Trade Center and of each hijacker who
killed them. God is the parent of every person, no exceptions.
And God shows no partiality. God's compassion grows warm and tender
for every child. God claims parent-child privilege for each
one of his beloved; he does not give them up and hand them over.
At the same time, God is the lioness mother who roars when any
one of her children is hurt or threatened. God is the parent
zealous for justice when any of her children are wronged.
God doesn't make a choice.
How can this be? It is logically impossible.
We don't comprehend it. We are always wanting
to come down on one side or the other, on the side of justice or
mercy, on the side of one child or the other. So our portrait
of God in the Bible is divided. On one hand we have a tribal God,
a violent warrior defending his people Israel against the Cannanites,
or the followers of Christ against Babylon. Other times we speak of
a God, who calls all peoples to God's Holy Mountain where the lion
lies down with the lamb. In Hosea, we have a merciful God of warm
compassion, but in the surrounding verses God punishes Israel with
destruction and exile. Our pictures of God are so various because
it is our faith that God is a God of everlasting mercy and of
eternal justice. A God whose love for every one of her children
holds both compassion and righteousness.
So what are we called to do in the face of this mystery?
What are we called to do in the light of our faith?
First, we can trust in God's love. We can trust that
no matter our crime, we can approach God as a child who
comes to a loving parent, a parent who will never hand
us over or turn us in. We can trust in a God whose love
is deeper and higher and broader than the most faithful
parental love we know. A God who will always claim
parent-child privilege. And we can also work and pray,
work and pray for that day when God will not need to
claim parent-child privilege for any of God's children.
That day when God will not need to claim parent-child
privilege because every child of God will know justice
and every child of God will practice righteousness.
That day when all God's children will have food to eat.
That day when every child of God will receive care when
she is sick and comfort when she mourns. That day when all
God's children will be home. That day when all God's
children will live in peace, and be blessings to one another.
May we work and pray that this day comes speedily.