Kid Stuff

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
September 10, 2006
The 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Kid Stuff
Isaiah 30:18-22
Luke 11:1-11

A few summers ago Pat and I headed to the coast of Maine
for a week’s vacation.
We stayed at a small inn right on the edge of Penobscot Bay.
The briny scent of the cool ocean breeze
was a welcome tonic
to the stifling heat and humidity of mid August.
We took our bags to our cottage
and then stepped out on the deck to take in the view:
we looked out upon dozens and dozens of buoys
bobbing up and down in the bay,
each marking lobster traps.
We breathed in the salty air and knew
what we would be eating for dinner that night.

A couple sat on the deck in front of the cottage next to ours.
They were relaxing in the late afternoon sun:
the man with his nose deep in a newspaper,
the woman immersed in a book.
We stopped and said hello, as folks do in small inns,
and we quickly found ourselves engaged in conversation.
We learned that they were heading home the next day,
back to Philadelphia, after a week in Maine.
As we continued to talk, the man told us that he taught at
the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
I had gone to Wharton right after college
and earned a graduate degree,
a masters degree in business administration.
Over the years I had stayed connected with the school
and worked there part-time while I was in Seminary,
editing papers for faculty and writing articles
for the school’s internet business journal,
but I did not recognize the man.

We finally exchanged names and when he told us his,
I almost burst out laughing.
I turned to Pat and said,
“He was one of my professors when I was a student.”
I then turned back to him and said,
“You taught the Business Law course I took
in the fall of my first year.
I remember you very well.
You were the best teacher I had.”
With that, he beamed, and jumped up, ran into his cottage
and came out a few seconds later with a bottle of wine,
which he handed to me.
“Anyone who feeds my ego like that” he said,
“deserves a bottle of wine!”

I learned that he had been teaching business law
part-time at the school for almost 30 years
even as he built a successful legal practice
in downtown Philadelphia.
He was a remarkable teacher,
even though it was only a part-time profession for him.
He was able to take a dry subject - business law -
and turn it into something interesting,
something exciting, something we students found engaging.
He was not an easy teacher; in fact he was very demanding.
But all of us in the class worked hard for him,
because we knew he was working hard for us.

There is something very special about a great teacher.
We have all had them:
Someone who stimulates us, inspires us,
awakens in us a desire to learn.
Great teachers are not easy graders
nor are they light with the homework.
In fact, they are more likely to be demanding,
holding students to very high expectations.
But they do so because they know that their students
can not only meet those expectations,
but often exceed them.
And they are never expect more from their students
than they do from themselves.

We all have had someone we thought of as a great teacher:
someone who was firm but fair,
who was serious, yet could laugh and smile,
someone whose passion for the subject
was positively infectious.
Who are you picturing in your mind right now?
Someone from elementary school?
Middle School? High School?
College?
Everyone has a picture:
more than two hundred people picturing
more than two hundred different teachers.

Stop for a minute and consider this, though:
even though we all might have different pictures
in our minds right now, we all have one great teacher in common:
for when we talk about great teachers,
we cannot overlook our Lord Jesus Christ.
After all, the term that was used most frequently in the gospels
to refer to Jesus was “rabbi”, which means, “teacher”.
Jesus was a master teacher.
He was demanding;
His expectations were high.
And the high standards he set for his disciples,
are just as applicable to you and me today.

He wants to teach us,
wants us to learn from him.
He wants us to use that phrase we heard in our lesson,
“Lord, teach us”.
and the corollary: “Lord, help us to learn.
Open our minds and our hearts to your teaching.”

When Jesus taught, he did not stuff his disciples’ minds
with bits and pieces to memorize.
He wanted his disciples to think;
he wants us to think,
for that’s the foundation of learning.
Don’t you remember from last week’s lesson
how Jesus shared God’s complaint about practices
that we commit to memory;……that we learn by rote?
We say words without thinking about them.
That’s not what Jesus wants us to learn;
it is not how he teaches us.

So, when he responded to his disciples’ request
“Lord, teach us to pray”
he did not give them words to memorize;
What he did was teach them how to pray,
how to talk with God.

Jesus gave his disciples a few sentences,
but he didn’t bother to explain each sentence,
what he meant with each word, each phrase.
He left it to his disciples,
he left it to us,
to figure out what we were saying.
So, we can and should ask,
why is the version we find in Matthew’s gospel different
from the version we heard from Luke?
How is different?
Should we say “sins”, or “debts”, or “trespasses”?
Why is the prayer we will say in a few minutes
different from both versions we find in the gospels?

Jesus moved on to the parable,
the text following the prayer:
and the lesson that Jesus wanted his disciples to learn,
wants us to learn,
is that we are to pray, and keep praying
to pray without ceasing, as Paul puts it.
We are to persevere in prayer.
We are to be in continuous conversation with God,
talking, lifting up our concerns to God,
and, just as important, listening,
listening,
listening for that “still small voice” to respond to us.

We are to persevere so we will learn
that God not only hears every prayer,
but also answers every prayer.

We are to persevere in prayer so we will learn that
while God answers every prayer,
God may not answer your prayer your way,
in the way you want,
or in your time;
that God will answer your prayer
in God’s time and in God’s way.

We are to persevere in prayer
so we will learn that no matter how God answers our prayers
the answer will always grounded in love.

We are to persevere in prayer so we will learn that
sometimes answers may elude us;
that the answer to our prayer may be acceptance,
rather than understanding.
This is one of the hardest lessons for us to learn,
but the poet Emily Dickinson helps us with her poem:
“I shall know why, when time is over,
And I have ceased to wonder why;
Christ will explain each separate anguish
In the fair schoolroom of the sky.
He will tell me what Peter promised,
And I, for wonder of his woe,
I shall forget the drop of anguish
That scalds me now, that scalds me now.”

We are to persevere in prayer so that we will learn
that God will teach us now, if we let him,
and God will teach us in the life to come.

We are about to begin a new year of learning,
a new year of teaching.
as we begin Sunday School.
Our children will be reading through their Bibles
in the weeks and months ahead
learning all those wonderful stories:
Adam and Eve; Cain and Abel;
Abraham and Sara; Moses leading the children of Israel
through the wilderness;
David and Goliath; Solomon and his Temple;
Peter, Paul, Mary Magdalene,
and, of course, Jesus.

But if our children forget stories,
or dates, or places, but learn to pray,
learn to talk to God and listen to God,
then we will have taught them well.
If a child thinks Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife,
or thinks that Jesus was a native son
because he was born of a Virginian,
but keeps praying, persevering in prayer
as he walks through life,
even in the face of difficulty, pain, and loss,
then we will have taught him or her well.

Learning is not kid stuff,
it is for all of us.
There is no one among us whose learning is done,
who doesn’t have more Jesus could teach him or her.
Our Lord will teach us, every one of us,
teach us just he taught his disciples,
teach us in worship, teach us in classrooms,
teach us as we work in ministry teams
teach us as we reach out in mission work,
teach us as we pray, pray for ourselves,
pray for one another.

Parker Palmer, a man of deep faith
and an expert on education, has written,
“good education is always more process than product.”
Jesus provided his disciples with a process;
Jesus provides us with a process: a process called prayer
a way for us to learn, a way for us to grow.

Our teacher, our greatest teacher is here with us now,
and will be with each of us as we walk through our day today,
tomorrow, every day.
Our greatest teacher will be with each of us
to help us to pray, to talk, and to listen,
so that
“when we turn to the right
or when we turn to the left,
our ears shall hear a word behind us saying,
“This is the way, walk in it.”

AMEN