Each parent and grandparent whose child is a “Grace kid”

“LEARNING FOR THE JOURNEY” February 9 & 12, 2006

Sermon on Matthew 11:25-30

Imagine yourself as a child, walking alone on a path through a dense forest with no end in sight. And all the guideposts and signs are just a little too high for you to see. Sometimes, the path almost disappears in the undergrowth, and when the ground gets sandy, you can hardly see it. You’ve been told you have a traveling companion, but you can’t see him or touch him. Sometimes you think you hear him, but you’re not sure you’re listening to the right voice. You look around and see lots of other paths, and some of them look much more attractive than the one you are on. But you really want to get to the right place in the end. It would be so much easier if you just had a grownup on the path with you, walking in the same direction, holding your hand, and showing you how to make your journey. Can you imagine that?

Because that’s what it’s like to a child—a young person—who has been told about Jesus, probably even baptized, but who is not really being led and educated about what it means and how to be a Christian. A child needs someone to tell him things, to show her how to walk so she doesn’t stumble so much, to help him back up when he does fall; to tell you that it’s okay to be imperfect, because God loves you and He forgives you.

Today we are baptizing two young children. What a wonderful beginning for their walk of faith. But baptism is just that—a beginning. Because, it is possible to start a life of faith but never arrive at the desired destination. When infants or young children are baptized, their parents and sponsors promise to “faithfully bring them to the services of God’s house; teach them the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments; place in their hands the Holy Scriptures, and provide for their instruction in the Christian faith.” But to be effective, those promises must be kept. When faith is not coached and encouraged, newborn babes in Christ are like tiny, fragile sprouts that never receive living water or the light of life. Just as it is with adults, it is possible for children to start a faith journey, but then fall by the side of the road for lack of learning and leading.

In his sermon last Sunday, Pastor Powell referred to the “cycles of discipleship”—the way that Jesus made disciples—by inviting individuals to follow him; inspiring them through the miracles he did; and then, educating them. Education is an essential step in the disciple-making process.

So, here at Grace, we are doing all we know how to help parents teach and lead their children in the journey of Christian faith. And we’re doing that in a ministry of education for children called, appropriately enough, “Faith Journey.”

At Grace, children begin their formal, congregationally-sponsored “Faith Journey” education when they are baptized. It’s the beginning for the two children being baptized here later this morning / Bryce and Mirajanee this morning. Maybe one day, children at Grace will begin their formal “Faith Journey” even before baptism, in pre-baptism classes for expectant parents. But in the meantime, our catechism/

education program starts at baptism and continues through childhood, adolescence, and into young adulthood.

You’ve seen kindergartners participate in the “First Steps” rite and third graders receive Bibles. Pastor Powell trains fifth graders to receive Holy Communion, and ninth graders get study Bibles so they can learn more about their faith as their reading and thinking levels mature. At the end of tenth grade, those young people who desire so, and are ready, affirm their baptism in the rite of Confirmation. And, after twelfth grade, those who wish are commissioned to public discipleship as they go out into the world to begin their adult lives.

“Faith Journey” classes are taught on Sunday mornings, when it’s most logical to expect Christians to be at church already. “Faith Journey” includes the same material taught in traditional catechism classes—Our Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Apostles’ Creed—and then it expands on that foundation, teaching children and young people about Lutheran Christian worship and the Church year, the history of Christianity and the Church, how to handle money God’s way, how to pursue a relationship with Jesus, and so much more. These subjects are introduced when a child is very young and then revisited in age-appropriate ways as he/she grows and matures.

Grace’s “Faith Journey” is a unique program, designed just for our children to educate them to be disciples of Jesus Christ. It’s the best way we know to give faithful parents as much support as possible to lead their children on the road of maturing faith. We owe it to our children, to each other, and to God to make every effort to follow through on the promises we make at baptism.

To help you understand the details of our “Faith Journey” catechism ministry, we have for you this morning a copy of the “Faith Journey” handbook. Please take one per family as you leave the sanctuary—everyone, whether you have children or not—and read it. Please notice especially the requirements for Confirmation. And if you have questions, please call me or Pastor Powell or Susan Russell, our Children’s Minister.

Recently, I’ve been reading a book entitled Soul Searching. Its sub-title explains what the book is about: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. It reports the results of a survey and interview research project conducted from 2001 to 2005 at the University of North Carolina, which consisted of thousands of interview hours, with randomly-selected teenagers and parents, about their faith or lack of it. To me, the book’s key conclusion isn’t surprising, but it is sobering: When religion is structurally isolated from the primary schedules and networks that comprise teenagers’ daily lives, their religious and spiritual lives are most weak. By contrast, when teens’ family, school, friends, and sports lives and religious congregations connect, intersect, and overlap, teens exhibit the most committed and integral religious and spiritual lives. It does not take a Ph.D. to understand why. Parents are the primary agents in making such connections and overlapping happen or not. Parents are the crucial influences in forming the religious and spiritual lives of their teenage children, for better or for worse (roughly quoted from p. 162).

If parents’ make worshiping and learning about God optional, young people will, too. If we live our Christianity by attending and participating in Church only when everything else—sports, music, sleep, social activities, and employment—allows it, our children will eventually worship the false gods we have placed in the center of their lives. And, so, they will be less and less likely to worship and relate to God.

Adults, especially parents, must lead the way in the development of a child’s faith. It simply doesn’t make sense to give in when your child says, “I don’t want to go to church (or Sunday school). It’s boring. I don’t know any of the kids there.” Would we allow those statements to keep them from going to school Monday through Friday? And if you miss the traditional two-year catechism program that used to be conducted during a child’s middle school years, ask yourself why we don’t wait until children are twelve years old to send them to school, and then stop their education after only two years, declaring them “finished.” Christianity is a way of life—faith education is for a lifetime.

The writer of the New Testament book of 2 Timothy begins his letter like this: “[I,] Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, [am writing] to Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. … I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.”

Nothing more is said about Lois and Eunice. They are merely names, but they were also the faithful mother and grandmother of one of the handful of disciples who got and kept the Church going in its very early years. Timothy became a great preacher and teacher himself. But the great apostle Paul’s nurturing of Timothy’s faith would not have been possible without these two faith-filled women, who handed on to their son a faith in Jesus Christ—the greatest legacy a parent can give to a child.

And so, as the old song says, “Teach your children well.” Because God loves them.

Not mere learning, not mere training—but transformational education. What I would call the REAL HIGHER EDUCATION.

On the holy day of Pentecost after Jesus went back to the Father in heaven, the Holy Spirit came to dwell not only with, but in believers. In our baptismal words, the pastor prays to God, “Pour your Holy Spirit upon [the baptized one].” Jesus promised that we have only to ask, to receive this indwelling Holy Spirit. And it’s vital that we do, because that is how it is possible for you and me to receive the “higher education” that will transform our minds and give us “that same mind … that was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:2).

Learning that is infused with faith becomes “higher education” in the gift of grace from God through the person of Jesus Christ ion the work of the Holy Spirit. We have all received grace upon grace from our Father in heaven. Love was the gift of God first to us, so grateful obedience from us to God is the proper response. Doing right things does not cause God to love us; God’s love prompts us to do right things. Let us never forget the distinction. Since God loved us so much, Jesus says, we should love him back. “If you love me,” he says, “you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). And we his disciples are all commanded to receive a “higher education.”

I don’t know who coined that phrase “higher education” or exactly what was originally meant by it. Now, it commonly refers to whatever schooling or training comes after high school but before “graduate school.” In light of the widespread exporting of manufacturing jobs and the increasing number of immigrants, “higher education,” these days, is less a privilege of the wealthy and more an essential for employment.

So, I want to suggest to you three distinctions in schooling that are important for us to be aware of—especially when it comes to the relationship between our faith and our schooling:

v The first category of schooling might be called “LEARNING.” – Learning is the first step, but learning isn’t complete education. For example, a person can learn to decode words and call it reading, but if that same person never reads anything that’s not absolutely necessary, never learns or uses a new word, never desires to use language for anything other than basic communication, that person has learned but is not educated.

v A second category of schooling I call “TRAINING” – That’s a kind of learning that can be put on and taken off, to suit the circumstances. My favorite example of training is what I used to say to some of my college student. “If I can dress you up and teach you to talk, I can get you a job.” They were learned people, but they had to learn to “put on” a more standard dialect of English. Feel free, I used to say, to take it off when you get home and talk like everybody else there, because speaking “with an accent” doesn’t make you any better or worse, but it does make you marketable.

v Finally, the category we are going to examine today, is HIGHER EDUCATION – transformational learning. Higher education changes who you are, how you think, how you behave. For twenty-two years, I studied reading, writing, analyzing, manipulating, and understanding the English language. That was higher education because it transformed me. Wherever I go, whatever I do, I can’t help it--am lover of words.

And I believe that it is at the point of “higher” education where learning relates to our Christian faith. Listen to Romans, chapter 12, verse 2: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,” the writer, Paul, tells the followers of Jesus, “but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

When he was asked to identify the greatest commandment, the most important law God ever gave, Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all * your * mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.”

Adults who are new to the faith need education in the faith

Jesus taught that education is a lifelong process for those of us who would be his disciples. John, chapter 14 records Jesus’ words before he was crucified: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said … .” Jesus didn’t say that for the Holy Spirit would teach them for first six weeks or until Confirmation. In fact, the way Jesus is quoted as saying it, the Holy Spirit will ______________, which, in Greek, means that the Holy Spirit will just keep teaching and teaching and teaching—without end—until our Savior comes again in glory to receive us unto himself! Amen!

We are doing all we can for adults and children

Here, at Grace, we call refer to the image of life as a path, and we call our Christian education program “Faith Journey.” Pastor Powell and I and dozens of other teachers are doing all that we can to offer opportunities for the adults at Grace to learn how to make that faith journey and to get to know other people who are walking with you: We offer Bible studies nearly every day of the week; NEW J.O.Y. groups where you can begin your faith journey on the right foot from step one; Sunday morning courses. f God

During the average week, roughly two hundred Grace adults participate in one or more of these opportunities. If you don’t, I urge you to sample classes and groups until you arrive in one where God says, “Stop. This is the place for you. Start letting the Holy Spirit educate you here!” To be fully a disciple of Jesus, you must be educated. Don’t stop your faith journey before you reach our eternal goal.

In the announcements portion of your bulletin this morning, you can see a list of the Sunday morning classes that are be taught today and those new ones that will begin next Sunday. You can also read about NEW J.O.Y. groups that are just getting started this evening, where adults can learn everything they need to know about being a Christian—and make friends while they’re doing it!

Who am I describing? A person young in years or a person young in the Christian faith? Maybe both. And that’s also what it’s like to be an adult in years but a child in faith—just starting your Christian walk

This Sunday/Today, we are celebrating the historic commitment of Lutheran Christians to education, through “Lutheran Higher Education Sunday.”

Now, I know that there are individuals in our congregation associated with other institutions of higher education, and certainly, we do not dishonor you. But this Sunday/today is set aside to recognize those of you who have devoted yourselves to the work of education in the context of the Christian faith at Wittenberg, our local Lutheran university, as well as those students who have received scholarships through Grace to attend Wittenberg and Capital, also a Lutheran university, in Columbus. We honor you for who you are, what you are doing, and how you represent among us the integral relationship between Christianity and higher education.