Psalm 130
Mark 3:20-35

Helicopter parents became an in vogue phrase a couple of years ago.  As the name suggests, helicopter parents are parents who hover over their children.  They hover overprotecting them at every stage of their development.  The stage where hovering occurs that resulted in the phrase “helicopter parents” is when parents continue to maintain an intense connection and involvement with their children after they graduate from high school and are off to college or trade school or employment.
           
Helicopter parents seem to be fused with their children.  They have great difficulty permitting their children to make decisions for themselves.  They seem fearful their children will make a mistake.  They see their reputation tied directly to the actions and behavior of their children.  If the culture views their children as successes then the parents are a success.  If the culture views their children as failures then the parents see themselves as failures.
           
Seniors, I wonder if any of your parents are helicopter parents.  What about Jesus’ parents?  Were they helicopter parents?  According to the lesson from Mark read earlier, Jesus’ family thought he was crazy.  Jesus was doing some strange things, making some strange statements.  His family’s reputation was at stake and they rushed to him to hover over him and try to take charge of him so he wouldn’t embarrass them.
           
Why did people think Jesus was insane?  In the beginning he was judged to be mad because his words and acts did not echo the accepted teaching of authority.  We tend to accept whatever is as normative and judge what is different as abnormal, the more different, the more abnormal.  Judging Jesus as insane did not end when his family came for him, did not end as the number of people who heard him gladly increased, did not end with his life, and has not yet ended.  People today will say that Jesus was crazy.  Some of us right here will say that it is madness to think that Jesus' ethic of love will work both as end and means of life.  We will say that we need to love God and each other but we keep building up the walls of defenses that give a contradictory message.  We conclude that nobody but a fool would think of anything in a difficult situation but "getting tough", using force, and carrying a big club.  An often quoted comment after World War I was:  "The only man who came out of it with an enhanced reputation was Jesus Christ."  That seemed far more deeply true after World War II.  Isn't it confirmed more solidly now than ever? 
           
Jesus said not to return evil for evil.  We claim that to be madness.  People continue to believe they can cast out cruelty with cruelty, violence with more violence, and war with more war.  But we cannot accomplish good ends by evil means.  Evil always produces more evil.  We see our own insanity and project it onto Jesus, claiming that he is the one who is out of it with his ethic of love, care, grace, and forgiveness.  Jesus threw away security and safety to communicate love.  He seemed utterly indifferent to the verdict of society.  H. G. Wells said of most people, "the voice of their neighbors is louder than the voice of God."  "What will people say?" is one of the first questions many of us ask and too often we never ask any other questions. 
           
Many of the people around Jesus not only thought he was crazy but also were convinced he was the devil incarnate.  Their view was that anybody who would associate with demons, the dark side of life, do things that healed people from their destructiveness must be evil himself.  The old adage, it takes one to know, was operative here.  Can you imagine how Jesus must have felt, doing everything within his power to help and heal people and then being labeled evil for doing it?  The same thing happens today.  People have dedicated their lives to studying the Scriptures, translating and explaining them, applying them to living.  What is the response?  People say they are heretics, liberals, destroyers of the faith.  How painful that must be! 
           
I wonder, seniors, if any of your parents ever thought you were crazy.  If they haven’t yet, they probably will some time down the road as you think more for yourselves and become more of your own persons.  And they may rush in, hover over you and try to take charge of you so you won’t embarrass them. 
           
William Willimon was Dean of the Chapel at Duke University for many years.  He has many examples of parents hovering over their children while their children were students at Duke. Willimon suggests that the story Jesus told about a Pharisee and a tax collector going to the Temple to pray could represent parents and their prayers and I would add illustrates their hovering attitude.
           
One praying parent prays, "God, I thank you that I am not like other parents - that couple who abandoned their young children in Connecticut, the woman who smothered her infant in Georgia, or even those people down the street who are always leaving their feral offspring unsupervised while they play tennis at the club. I thank you that I have planned, and sacrificed too, to send my kids to the very best schools. Then there was soccer camp. The young writers’ camp. The young leaders’ camp. Computer camp. God, you know none of that stuff is cheap. You also know I was not content with just the intellectual and economic advancement of my children, I also forced them to go to confirmation class at church. Our minister said that I was one of the few parents in the congregation who really took the Christian education of children seriously. God, I thank you I’m not like those other parents."
           
Probably it can be safely said that behind every academically high-achieving young person, somewhere, there are some incredibly effective parents. And these parents can be a pain in the neck for those of us who work with their children in various settings. Parents who plan, sacrifice, and work for their children, expect a good return.
           
A Dean at a university had been in his position for about a year when he received a call from a parent. This parent had ordered flowers for her daughter's birthday. She had directed the bouquet be sent to the dorm. But she was uncertain that the florist had properly delivered the flowers. She wondered if the Dean would go over and check to see if the flowers had been delivered. Do you understand why the Dean would say he felt sorry for the daughter?” (Pulpit Resource, October, November, December 2004, p. 18)
           
Helicopter parents are being described by William Willimon when he says, “I have found that the trouble with the good parent - the conscientious, resourceful, extremely attentive parent - is that sometimes these parents look upon their children as their projects. All of their work in behalf of their children becomes a subtle claim upon their children.
‘You need to turn out OK in order to validate my parental sacrifices.’”
           
A few years ago at a conference on higher education, one of the speakers predicted that we would be establishing an "Office of Parental Affairs," at every college. Complaints, interaction with, and work for parents is consuming more of college administrators' time. Maybe there can be something as bad or worse than a lousy parent and that is a one who hovers too much for too long.
           
On the other hand, there is another type of parent at prayer. This is the one who meant to pick up his child after baseball practice. By the time he got here, his conscientious son had already begun the long walk home by himself. When he got home, his son refused to speak to him. "Some dad you are," he said as he slammed the door to his room.
           
That night, when the father said his prayers (which he only rarely said), he mumbled, "God, be merciful unto me, a lousy parent. I did not mean for my marriage to break up when my son was only six. I thought I was working hard in order to give him the things that I didn't have. But I realize now, I gave too much to my work. I woke up one day and he was all grown up - a stranger. I've never really been able to talk to him, and tell him how I feel. Now I fear it is too late to make a good start. God, forgive me for making such a mess of being a parent."
           
Of course these parents can be a pain in the neck too. Sometimes they try to compensate for all of their parental mistakes, by leaning on teachers all the way through the academic journey including at the university. They think that, with the astronomical tuition that they are paying, they can make right, all of their maternal and parental goof-ups.
           
Early on in teaching, one professor dared to give a student a really low grade, C+ as he recalled. He got a fax from a law firm in the Midwest, telling the professor that a father was quite concerned about his son's work in his class, and he would like to make an appointment to call him at 11:00 the next morning. The professor received his call. The father told the professor that his son was terribly devastated over the grade he had received. He took it personally. The father also told the professor that his course had been less than well-organized, that he had not been clear in his expectations, and that his son had trouble understanding the professor’s southern accent.
           
The professor replied that the man’s son was an adult, at least a novice adult, that his son was in class while the father had not been, and that he, the professor, would be delighted to talk to the son, but he was uncomfortable talking to the father. With this, the father got belligerent.
           
As providence would have it, the professor had just spent about an hour with this young man about a month before. He was quite agitated, but not over the class. He was agitated because he had learned that, without consulting him, his dad had remarried (his mom had died while he was in high school), his dad had sold the family home, and had moved into a condo with a woman only three years older than the son. His dad had called to announce to him that, for the summer, he would be glad to get him his own apartment. The student paced about in professor’s office, saying things like, "I'm going to have to make my own meals now. I'll have to buy groceries! I don't have a home." This father saw his chance to prove he was a great dad by leaning on the professor. 
           
There are parents, who have made a mess of things, respond differently. Another father, reflecting on his daughter, said, "I can't believe she has been a good student. I can't believe that she knows all that she knows. I hated school. She is a wonder."
           
One mother said of her daughter, "She took advantage of all of her opportunities. She has really thrived here and made such good choices. I wasted my college years. She is amazing."
           
These parents are a delight. They are wise enough to see that their children are not a mere extension of their personalities, their projects. Thus the church has always taught us to regard our children as gifts, as signs of God's mercy. And that is why I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that the term "planned parenthood" may be a misnomer. Few of us plan to have a child who drops out of school or is put on academic probation. None of us plan to have disobedient or difficult children. But sometimes, those are the children we get. Children are gifts of God.  We are to receive them, give them our love, our care, and our guidance.  We are to let them grow and be and become the best human beings they can become. 
           
A student told a teacher that his father lost both of his parents when he was just a boy. That meant that he was raised by a number of well-meaning relatives. His father was attempting to teach this student to drive. The way he did this was by shouting out orders from the other end of the front seat, telling him to turn this way, now that way. Yelling for him to stop.
           
The son, learning to drive, exploded. "This is no way to teach somebody to drive! You're driving me crazy!"
           
He said he felt genuine compassion for his father when his father said, "Look, I never had a father, I had no training on how to be a good father. I'm flying by the seat of my pants here and doing the very best I can, so bear with me."
           
We parents are probably more inept than we admit. We're making up a lot of this stuff as we go along, flying by the seat of our pants. Perhaps it’s because of this that we hover.
           
Helicopter parents are no respecter of the ages of their children.  Helicopter parents may have children who are in elementary school or teenagers or their children may be adults but the parents are still hovering.  How do children deal with helicopter parents?  Are there things children can do to get their parents out of the hovering mode?  What about the church?  Are there things a congregation can do to help children deal with helicopter parents?  Are there things a congregation can do to cure helicopter parents of their hovering syndrome?
           
As a congregation we can foster children and youth developing their identities.  We can encourage parents to guide their children to grow up to think for themselves and to understand that does not mean that they will think like us or think what we want them to think.  We can assist parents in understanding the importance of ages and stages of development that help children grow up with a clear identity and self-differentiated personalities.  It is helpful to understand that the first effort that a child makes in his or her identity is to identify completely with parents and attempt to emulate their parents, usually the one with the same sexual identity.  Tim McGraw expresses this in a song about his four year old boy saying he wanted to be just like dad in the way he prays and the way he uses four letter words.
           
The approach that a teenager takes in developing identity is to be the opposite of what parents are like.  This is often seen and described as rebellion.  It is lived out in many homes in the manner that whatever the parents suggest, the teenager will do the opposite. In both instances, whether a child is identifying completely with parents or rebelling against them, the parents are still doing the thinking.  To develop clear identities children must learn to think for themselves.  When children begin to think for themselves they begin to become their own persons.  They become interdependent with their parents.  They integrate into their lives characteristics from their parents but they develop a self clearly distinct from their parents. 
           
This is what we want for these seniors.  It is what we want for all children and youth who are part of this congregation.  May all adults join together in helping our children and youth develop interdependent relationships with their parents and with us.  That will help us be more like Jesus.  Being more like Jesus may cause us to do wild and crazy things like loving our neighbors as ourselves, working for peace with justice, feeding the hungry, and befriending those who are imprisoned.  There will be those who call us crazy.  May it be so.  May it be so!