Teach Your Children

Proverbs 2:1-5

Beaumont Presbyterian Church

June 13, 2010

The Rev. Susan Warren

Today being the day we recognize our platoon of teachers and others who volunteer with our children, I want to take some time to talk about the importance of religious education.

First let me say that every single thing we do in this church can be classified as Christian education.  Everything we do – from classroom teaching to preaching and praying; laughing and talking with each other in fellowship; working side-by-side at God’s Pantry and the Hope Center; cultivating our crops and our hearts in The Croft; calling on shut-ins and friends who are sick or troubled – all of it involves teaching and learning.  So all of you, even those of you who come here only on Sundays and smile, shake a hand and say hello, are sending forth a message and, I hope, absorbing something of what we all want to teach about the love of God.

Today we’re focusing on our volunteer teachers and our children, about teaching children and about learning from children.  About receiving children into the life of the church and about being received as children into the kingdom of God.  We’re focusing on those of us who have day-to-day relationships with children – parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles and friends.  And on those who focus on teaching adults.  On those who – no matter what age – are not yet done feeling like children.  And those of us for whom feeling like a child is something we barely can remember.

Listen now for the word of God

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The title of this sermon comes from one of my favorite songs during the latter part of my teenage years, the popular Teach Your Children, by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.  Most of you know it.  It’s still popular today because it contains a meaningful message for youth and for adults.  It admonishes parents to teach their children well, to pass along what they have learned about living, and to feed their children with their dreams.  And the song advises children -- those of tender years -- to try to understand what their elders have to say.  It tells young people to teach their parents well, to use their youthful outlook to help grown-ups learn new truths through the eyes of a new generation.

When the song first came out I really liked that last part.  College taught me a lot that I thought I should pass along to my parents. You see, my parents’ generation had a lot of hang-ups.  They either didn’t understand or didn’t believe that the youth of the late 1960s and early 1970s were going to change the world.  They couldn’t quite buy into the era of peace and love – the Age of Aquarius – that we were ushering in.  They weren’t particularly impressed by many of the revolutions going on at the time. In short, my parents’ generation was “out-of-it.”

All that has changed now.  I find today’s parents to be exceedingly “with it.” We know that some of the lyrics to our children’s music are appalling.  We know that they are trying to wear beach attire to school.  We know that they are often too materialistic and self-centered. In short, my generation rightly has grave concerns about the future of the world if we don’t straighten up these kids!

And so, we feed them on our dreams.  The best part of the Crosby, Stills and Nash song is the last part of the refrain, which is directed first to parents and then to children.  It says, “Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you would cry, so just look at them and sigh, and you know they love you.”

I sometimes think that not asking “why” might be the best way to improve adult-youth relationships.  I can’t tell you how many times my “why” questions to my mother received the same answer: “Because it is not proper,” she would say. Or “because it IS proper,” depending on how I had phrased the question.  And so the idea of “proper” began to take on a certain negativity for me. As a matter of fact, it caused me to challenge the whole concept of “proper.”

But I’ve seen the same perturbed looks on the faces of my children when I tried to explain something that they didn’t want to hear.  I confess that my explanations usually have to do with why I’m right and they’re wrong.   I rarely get a satisfactory answer when I ask “why?” Maybe it is best to just sigh.

I wonder. I wonder if God sighs.  My guess is that God does sigh, and I’m willing to bet God sighs more frequently at adults than at children.

In her book called The Religious Potential of the Child, Sofia Cavalletti, argues that children have an innate, delightful relationship with God, even without any religious training. She offers a number of anecdotes as evidence.  In one, Linda, a five-year-old, noticed a butterfly in flight and felt drawn to it.  As she chased it, she became filled with joy and warmth.  She burst into tears, ran to her mother and said, “Mommy, I know God.”

We need to recognize that God works in children independently of adults, planting seeds that sprout with nurturing or sometimes even without it.  We know that children are highly intuitive.  Often they seem to know things that no one has taught them.  And why shouldn’t they? Beyond all that we learn in Sunday School and church, and even for those who profess no religion, I believe that there is a sense of that mysterious Other.  How arrogant of us adults to think otherwise – to believe it is we who introduce our children to God.

But, children do need something very important from us.  They need our help to grow their spiritual natures and grow closer to God.  They need what we need -- the opportunity to worship, to pray, to talk to God and to hear from God.  They need to wonder about the great and mysterious nature of their own being, and of the One who created them.  They need to hear the stories of our faith – the stories of all the wonderful ways in which God has loved and helped God’s people. They need to learn the 10 best ways to live.  They need to learn all of this in words and symbols that they understand.

And isn’t that what we all need, no matter our chronological age?  Are we not all children in the eyes of God?

My mother was in charge of my religious education.  Dad went to church, too, but Mother led the way, teaching Sunday School, leading the church scout troop, taking us to church camp. So it’s not surprising, I suppose, that those who knew her encouraged me through seminary, as if she her church work had somehow laid the groundwork.  And that may be true.  Certainly I’m grateful to her for my grounding in church.

But my parents gave me so much more than an education in the church.  They gave me unconditional love.  And by doing that they gave me a glimpse of the love of God.   That’s really the reason I’m here in this pulpit.  If you have been blessed with unconditional love, or you have felt unconditional love for a child or another person, you know what I mean.  If humans can love and be loved in that way, how much more must our divine creator parent love us? It’s difficult to imagine.

Unfortunately, not all of us have been blessed with unconditional love.  Probably more folks than we realize have not.  Some children are abused or neglected – we hear a lot about them. But others – others we don’t hear so much about -- grow up believing that love is conditional – based on their behavior or appearance, on how well they performs in school or in life, on the choices they make.  That kind of experience sends a different message about God.  It’s a message not easily overcome, one that creates an image of God as a harsh and judgmental parent. Not easily overcome, but not impossible, either.

When we read the story of the prodigal son, when we read the parable of the workers in the field, when we read about Jesus and the lost sheep, we see an image of the divine creator that exceeds all human limitations.  We see a love without limits, without condition.  We recognize that the seeds planted within us at the very beginning draw us, like children, to God.  Those seeds need to be nourished, whether we are 6 or 60, whether we’ve been in church five months or 50 years.  We need to be nurtured by the love and concern and kindness of the church, of all of us gathered together in community.

Next to worshipping God, I believe this is the most important function of the church -- caring for each other with the love that we learn from Christ. More important than creeds or confessions or theology or even mission.  I believe that the church – this church -- is the gift – it’s the vehicle – which God gives us to grow in the way of Christ. That’s what Christian education is all about.

Sisters and brothers, mothers, fathers, daughters and sons, incline your hearts to understanding; cry out for insight; seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures.  Fill yourselves with awe, and find the knowledge of God.  Amen.