B - 25^th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 24 September 2006
Proverbs 31: 10-31; Psalm 1
James 3: 13 – 4:3, 7; ** MARK 9: 30 – 37 **

A couple of weeks ago we recognized those who have participated in leadership in our Christian education program here at First Presbyterian Church. The ministries those people have undertaken for us are among the most important things the church does. And actually, I see preaching, too, as a part of the teaching ministry. All of your pastors take the task of preaching, which is uniquely ours, very seriously.

I am sometimes asked how long it takes to prepare a sermon. That varies, of course, but the general rule of thumb is that it takes about an hour of preparation for each minute of preaching. So if this goes on for fifteen minutes or so, it represents about that many hours to get ready for it.

I enjoy preaching, and while it might be an overstatement to say you enjoy listening to it, I do get enough positive reinforcement to know that some of you take it as seriously as I do.

Jesus and his friends had just returned from a frantic teaching mission. If you trace the geography of their itinerary as described by Mark over the previous four or five chapters, this little band of folks has covered one whale of a lot of territory. When we catch up with them today they are back home. I’ve sometimes heard it said that Jesus did not have a home, but in Mark’s Gospel it is clear that he has a house at Capernium, on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. A great many significant things happen in that house. Jesus goes there often to get away from the crowds, and in today’s reading Jesus and his closest friends are there for a retreat.

Out on the roadway the disciples had been involved in a bit of career evaluation. Several of them apparently were in the process of updating their résumés. One thing led to another, and they got into something of a tiff over which of them was in line for the next major promotion. Of course, they had done their best to keep Jesus from overhearing this discussion, but apparently tempers had run kind of hot and the whispers got too loud at some point. Before they could be hushed up, Jesus caught the drift of what was going on.

So here they were at home, and while somebody put the coffee on Jesus asked casually, "What was that y’all were talking about out there a few minutes ago?" Now, nobody in his or her right mind was about to give the boss a straight answer to that question, right? So they massaged the situation and got the subject changed – or so they thought. "Hey, Jesus, the coffee is ready. Want some?"

While somebody was bringing the cream and sugar around Jesus picked up one of the children playing around on the floor, and gave his friends an object lesson in lifetime learning as the first priority in career development in the Kingdom of God.

We live in a world that claims to value the individual. The fulfillment of needs, rights and abilities of the self is the ultimate goal. If we can just reach the peak of our potential, we think, then we can be really happy. In the Greco-Roman world in which Jesus lived, children were entirely without rights or status. They were entirely dependent on the head of the household, who had virtually the power of life and death over them. And Jesus tells us that such children are the model for how we ought to relate to and treat one another.

Someone has observed that if Jesus were to re-enact this scenario in our time it might not be a child he would use, but perhaps someone with Alzheimer’s, or maybe a person with AIDS, whom Jesus would embrace in this story.

Jesus is calling us to a lifetime of learning about the spiritual values of how to live in relation to one another – not just as individuals but also as households, as communities, as a society – and especially as a community of faith. Because it is in this community – in its worship, its education, its mission, its values, its stewardship of resources – that we are particularly responsible for communicating the faith from one generation to another.

One of the greatest tasks of the church today is to teach the faith in an increasingly secular and pluralistic society – and if we don’t take that task seriously, no one else in our culture is going to do it for us. The truth is that the basic knowledge of the language, the metaphors and images of the faith and the Bible are at great risk in our society. Consequently, our basic identity as Christians is also at risk, for it is from within that milieu that we find our own identity, as we learn to discover our story in God’s story; our place in God’s grand design for us and for humankind.

The task of the church is to make that tradition available to our children, young people and adults, as a resource for faith development and for living in a society where that faith constantly is being challenged by the crises of living. That is why education in the faith is a lifetime adventure. It must start with children, but it must continue through youth and adulthood. Because Christian faith does not so much provide us with facts to be mastered as with insight and clues in the light of which we can understand ourselves and the world we live in.

If you read the announcements in the worship folder and in the church newsletter you are aware of a number of options for adult education. The structure of our Wednesday night program, FOCUS@First, has been expanded to provide opportunities for both adults and children. We seek to offer a significant ministry with our youth, as well. Our newly re-structured Ministry Team for Faith Formation is key to developing and strengthening these ministries. If this is your area of interest, why not consider becoming part of that Team?

All of this requires time, energy and money – a dedicated stewardship of all the resources we can muster as a church. The demands of career, family, human relationships, and the stress of living in this culture: these are all part of the reality of our lives. If we let them, they can become reasons or excuses for not being involved in lifetime Christian learning. But, on the other hand, they may indeed be the primary motivations that help us see why and how we need such opportunities now more than ever. It is exactly when our lives are most frantic and fragmented that we have the most need for resources of the Spirit, and the support of a community of God’s people.

So, then, I want to invite and encourage you to make lifetime Christian education a priority for yourself and those you love. There is nothing more important you can do for yourself, or that you can let your church do with you, than to help nurture you along the path of your journey of faith.

[COPYRIGHT 2006, John C. Bush]

NOW GLORY, HONOR AND THANKSGIVING
BE TO OUR GOD
AND TO GOD’S NAME BE PRAISE
THIS DAY AND FOREVER. AMEN.