Saturday, June 10, 2017

“Teaching Them Everything” - June 11, 2017



Matthew 28:16-20


            Today we are recognizing the achievements of our graduates, people who have worked long and hard to learn many things that will stay with them for the rest of their lives and many things that will be forgotten shortly.  I can tell you the capitals of all fifty states.  I can no longer tell you the valence of a fluorine atom.  I know that pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, approximately 3.14159265359, and that Julius Caesar was killed on March 15, 44 B.C.  When I am tired I often have to look up the spelling of “balloon” because I have the French spelling stuck in my brain next to it.  All of us have an agglomeration of facts like that tucked inside our brains.  In the long run, though, what a good education does is not so much to fill your head with raw data as teach how to organize it, analyze it, and put it to work.  Sometimes that’s called “thinking”.

            Everyone thinks.  Not everyone thinks well.  To do that takes time and effort.  All too often, we’re asked to do our thinking quickly and when that happens it can become hit-or-miss how things turn out.  Influences that have nothing to do with the matter in hand begin to intrude or pertinent information is overlooked.

            Fortunately, it is possible to do some thinking about important matters ahead of time.  I am not saying to be close-minded or to enter into serious situations with your decisions already made.  I am saying that it is a good idea to consider the big questions first, so that the smaller ones, which can also be important, can get the attention that they, too, deserve.  It’s like when you know that the week ahead is going to be busy and you make up dinners that you can microwave as needed.  It allows time to sit down and eat, and takes some of the general pressure off.

            So, what does this have to do with the gospel passage for today?

            In Matthew, we read what is sometimes called “The Great Commission”, where Jesus gives his disciples a concise summary of what they are to do with the rest of their lives:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”
Teaching (which requires learning, and learning on an ongoing basis) is part of faithfully carrying out Jesus’ directions.  It’s teaching that is aimed at helping people to obey Jesus’ commands, and that takes a lot of forms, which is why our learning takes a lot of forms, too.

            One of the ways that we, as a local church, try to stay faithful to the Great Commission is to provide a variety of resources for learning that are available to anybody who wants to use them.  The rest of this sermon may sound a little like a commercial, and I ask you to excuse me for that, but I want you to realize the wide range of resources sitting right down the hall that are there for you, both to build up your own life in Christ and to know how to help others do the same.  Some of them are from the church library and some of them are found in the staff office.  So, here goes.

            Bibles.  It can often help to read the scriptures in different translations, each trying to catch some of the nuances that are not always easy to transfer from one language to another.

            Bible commentaries.  Some of them are general, like the Interpreter’s Bible (that’s actually on the shelf in the lounge for some reason) or the Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, both of which are good at answering questions like: “Why was Jeremiah mad at the Egyptians?” or “Who were the Samaritans?” or “Was the Song of Solomon written as a song?”  Some are commentaries on individual books of the Bible or even on individual passages, like this one on Psalm 23.  Others look at themes that run throughout the Bible or compare the lives of biblical figures to one another and to us – for instance, this copy of Bad Girls of the Bible. 

            That sort of shades over into biography.  How have other people before us faced the challenges of their own times?  Knowing that can help us when we think we may be the only person who has ever had to deal with some situation or another.  Here’s a two-CD set of lectures on that subject by a professor at Georgetown. 

            A big part of discipleship is prayer.  There are a lot of books to help with that.  Some, like Drawing the Circle, that was used as a study guide by a short-term class we held earlier this year, are designed to help people look at their own prayer life and to strengthen it where it can use the help or to put it to use where it is healthy and vigorous.  Others provide words for prayer when you may find yourself fumbling for a way to express what is in your heart, which is a situation everybody faces sometimes.

            Prayer can take the form of music, too.  Hymnals contain expressions of the soul’s experience of God’s grace in its many aspects.  Instrumental music (and we have some recordings, too) can provide a background for prayer or offer its own form of spiritual encouragement.

            Some of the materials are meant to be general and some of them are age-specific.  We have a whole lot of children’s books that are out in the lounge rather than the library because they are intended to be where a parent can grab them more easily if a child is antsy during church or if a parent is on the move, passing to or from the nursery.  There are shelves that are labeled to show that they are meant to address concerns common to youth or to seniors or that address things that can come up in the course of a marriage.

            Add to this the many times that people share helpful articles or devotions on our facebook page, where there is also a link every morning to The Upper Room (and, yes, we still provide it in hard copy, including a large print edition). 

            None of this takes the place of actual ministry, actual discipleship.  That would be to say that reading cookbooks could take the place of eating.  It would be like what happens when people watch sports but never get even a little bit of exercise.  But cookbooks are helpful in the kitchen and watching Serena Williams play can inspire someone to pick up a racquet, so if a copy of The Screwtape Letters can help you recognize and fight off temptation, it’s good to have on hand.

            Through it all, too, is the greatest resource anyone could ever have.

“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”  [Matthew 28:16-20]


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