What Will We Teach Them?

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

August 26, 2012

What Will We Teach Them?

Joshua 24:14-15

"Now therefore revere the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.

 Now if you are unwilling to serve the LORD,

 choose this day whom you will serve,

whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River

 or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living;

 but as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."

These are perilous times for religion,

for churches,

for denominations of every name and style.

Organized religion seems increasingly to be condemned as

something that draws people

who live by myth and superstition,

who are filled with a sense of self-righteousness,

who are quick to judge,

who speak more words of division,

hatred,

even violence,

than words of justice,

mercy,

or love.

How many televangelists ply the airwaves

pleading for money,

calling them love gifts,

saying they need the funds to keep their ministries going,

without saying that their most important ministry

is their own lavish and luxurious lifestyle?

How many religious leaders from Christian denominations

have been arrested over the past few years

and charged with crimes involving moral turpitude?

And if we find the present picture too unseemly and disturbing,

looking back on Christian history provides little comfort.

Ours is history of much good, to be sure,

but it is also stained with blood.

The Crusades and the Inquisition are only two of

countless instances of shameful violence

committed in the name of Jesus Christ.

The unapologetic atheist Christopher Hitchens

was certainly overstating the case when he argued

that, “religion poisons everything,”

but I don’t think we can disagree with him

when he said that religions of all faiths,

including Christian denominations,

have often been at the root cause of hatred,

of conflict,

of violence,

of war.

A few minutes ago we joyfully welcomed

Maggie, Ava, and Zoe into the

universal church of Jesus Christ,

the worldwide communion of more than 2 billion

men, women and children throughout this world.

As part of their baptismal service,

we all made a promise to them

to nurture them in their faith

and to help them learn of Jesus Christ.

How will we do that?

What will we do?

What will we say?

What will we teach them?

How will teach them the good news

of the gospel of Jesus Christ?

For there is good news in the gospel of Jesus Christ,

as long as we don’t distort it,

bend it to our own whims,

as long as we stay faithful to our Lord’s teachings.

If you remember what we talked about last week,

we will want them to grow into Beatitude lives,

Beatitude living as they grow in spiritual maturity.

That’s down the road, of course;

We’ll start them with a foundation of Ten Commandment lives,

teaching them stories from the Bible,

and then in time helping them to learn

the various creeds and statements of belief

that are part of our Reformed tradition.

We’ll want to teach them that church is not an institution,

but a community,

this community,

any community anywhere

where the faithful are gathered

in the name of Jesus Christ.

We’ll want to teach them that

no one church is better than others,

or in greater possession of truth.

We’ll want to teach them that

the root of the word “disciple”

is to learn;

All disciples are called to be learners,

life-long learners,

and that means no one has all the answers.

Most important,

we will want them to understand that

when they get older,

they’ll have to decide for themselves,

whether to follow Christ,

where, and how.

This is what Joshua was telling the children of Israel;

it is what he was saying to them:

Here we stand all together,

here we stand at a crossroads,

at a decision point.

It is now time for each of you

to make a decision for yourself,

to think for yourself,

to choose for yourself.

You have in the past worshiped idols and other gods;

you can continue doing that,

if that’s what you want to do.

Or you can worship the gods of the people whose land

we will be living in, the Amorites.

Or you can choose to do what my household and I

have chosen to do,

intend to do,

and that is, to worship the Lord God,

Yahweh, the God who has led us out of slavery,

through the wilderness

and here to the promised land.

So friends, choose.

Choose this day whom you will worship and serve.

It is up to you.

The decision is yours.

That’s the best thing we can do for these girls

and for all the boys and girls,

all the young women and men in our church:

help them to grow in knowledge and faith

so that when they find themselves at the crossroads,

they’ll be able to choose wisely,

faithfully,

and well.

One of the loudest complaints among young people

in churches of all denominations these days

is that the churches – the clergy, teachers,

and other leaders, are not truly helping young people

to wrestle with their questions;

that instead we are offering them,

“slick, glib, half-baked” responses,

and platitudes.

We must not do that with these girls,

or any of our young people.

The disturbing trend of ant-intellectualism

that seems to have grabbed hold in society at large

has found a home in many churches.

We don’t seem to want to learn,

to use our minds, to explore for answers.

The dismissal of science

as incompatible with faith is the most obvious example

of this anti-intellectual trend.

The churches who readily proclaim

as an essential tenet of their faith,

“we believe in the literal 7 days of Creation

as set forth in the book of Genesis,”

dismiss evolution in favor of a book

that was never meant to be a science text.

Two hundred years ago ministers in this country

argued that a new practice in medicine

surely flew in the face of God’s will.

It was the practice of vaccinating people

against certain diseases.

Church leaders were appalled,

arguing that if it was God’s will

that a person should be afflicted with disease,

even die of it,

so be it.

Clearly we want to create an environment in our church

where we remember that we are called to worship God

with our minds as well as with our hearts,

and that faith and science are not mutually exclusive,

but rather two interconnected ways

for us to know God

that much more,

that much better.

The English theologian Austin Farrer put it this way,

“The God of religion is not different from

the God of rational inquiry.

To see into the active causes of the world

is to find a sovereign and creative will;

and that is the will which religion embraces.”

This is the God we want the girls to learn:

the God who is sovereign, creative,

still creating and re-creating,

active in the world all around us,

the natural world as well as the world of faith.

This God calls us to use our minds

to shape new lives for ourselves,

transformed lives,

Beatitude lives.

We want to teach them that we don’t expect

and don’t seek uniformity of opinions,

that we will have differing opinions.

But surely we will want to assure

that they are part of a church in which,

as theologian Richard Mouw has put it,

civility trumps all,

that we understand that our call to civilized living,

reconciled living,

supercedes every other concern.

And we will want to help them to learn

that it’s not just acceptable,

but indeed expected,

that they will change their minds

about all kinds of things as they grow up.

If we are open to the transforming spirit of God,

then surely we will find our minds changed

on matters both small and large.

I’ve always liked the way William Sloane Coffin put it

in a letter to a young man,

“It is a good time to change your mind

when to do so will widen your heart.”

Christianity has not been tried and found wanting,

as some like Hitchens might argue,

but rather it has been tried and found difficult,

(W.S.Coffin)

and this is perhaps the most important lesson

we will teach,

the most important lesson any of us will learn.

Our calling to these girls,

to all our children

and to one another

is to teach through our words,

but even more important,

teach in how we live our own lives,

to live the gospel each day.

honestly, faithfully,

even if imperfectly,

for living the Christian life is not easy.

We want to teach them

as Paul taught the Philippians:

Keep on doing the things that

you have learned and received

and heard and seen in me, …”

(Philippians 4:8)

Each of us trying our best to model Christian living

in our own lives.

If we do that,

we will write the history God intended for us,

a history of God’s children living together

in peace, in harmony,

all of us living Beatitude lives, 

lives of goodness and compassion,

not lives of violence and conflict,

division and disagreement.

All of us,

them, you, me,

all us of us living faithfully

showing one another and the world

our choice for Christ.

AMEN