Broadway Christian Church ·Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship ·August 28, 2005

Prayer of the Day

At the beginning of a new school year, O God, we offer thanks and praise for the opportunities to learn and to wonder.  In our learning and our teaching, may we grow in our knowledge of you, in our service to others, and in our love for your world, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Scripture
Judges 2:7-15

The people served the Lord through the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the Lord had done for Israel[the people of God].

Then Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110.  And they buried him in the land of his inheritance…

After that whole generation had been gathered to their mothers and fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what the Lord had done for the people of God.  Then the people did evil in the eyes of the Lord and they served other gods.  They forsook [left, turned away from, renounced, didn’t want anything to do with] the Lord, who had brought them out of Egypt.  They did, however, follow and worship a variety of gods of the peoples around them.  They provoked the Lord to anger, and God handed them over to their enemies.  They were in great distress.

Message
God Doesn’t Have Any Grandchildren
Rick Frost

How many of you are glad to see school start?  How many of you didn’t even know it was out?  OK.  It’s a new season of Sunday School here at Broadway Christian Church.  It begins today, as most of you know.  I’m glad to see so many of you here today to teach, and to learn to worship and to serve in the Spirit of the Living God that we have come to know in Christ Jesus, our Savior.

Today’s text is somewhat unusual in that I don’t think we are generally accustomed to listening for the Word of God coming out of the book of Judges.  When was the last time we heard from the book of Judges?  It’s probably not on your reading list or mine.  Yet, when we do go there, as we hope to do today, I think what you will find is there is a powerful message that awaits us there.  Let’s see if we can break it open together.

Now I know there are those of here this morning who operate on a fairly level plane.  Is that not true for many?  We don’t really bounce up and down a great deal.  We are pretty much up most of the time, or we’re pretty much down most of the time.  One husband was described by his wife in this way: “Oh, he is very evenly tempered.  He stays mad most of the time.”

Now if you are one of those types of persons who don’t have many ups and downs in your life, then the book of Judges is probably going to be a little difficult for you to grasp and understand, because it is a book about a people who are on an unending seesaw.  One period of their life as a people is surprisingly high.  Then the next period is discouragingly low.  One moment they are a people of strength.  They are prosperous.  They are living in the state of Shalom, which in the Bible means a state of community and general health and well-being and peace and prosperity.  In the next moment they find themselves living in weakness, struggling in a state of separation, or what the Bible would call sin, chaotic, unruly. 

For 20 chapters, folks, the author of the book of Judges tells us in detail about the wavering of a people.  For over 200 years, up and down, up and down, up and down.  Back and forth between doing what is fundamentally right and good as a people and then periods of doing basically what is fundamentally wrong and not good as a people.  At times they were living in wonderful obedience and relationship to the Creator of all that is, and then slipping back and forsaking, turning from the Creator and living in disobedience. 

In true Hebrew style, the Bible tells us, as it always has, pretty much like it is.  There is violence on almost every page of the book of Judges.  The book of Judges would probably be given a PG-13 rating today because it is so real.  There is betrayal, murder, assassination, massacres on almost every page.  Speaking of which, can you believe that some preacher this week publicly called for the assassination of the president of another country?  What an incredible amount of wavering between obedience to God and disobedience to God, of doing what is good and right and loving, and doing what is wrong and evil. 

The characteristic that stands out in this amazing book of the Bible is the key verse that is repeated over and over and over again.  It is this: “And the people again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.”  Twelve times in the book of Judges this cycle is repeated: obedience that leads to prosperity and justice and peace and then slipping away into separation, distance, sin.  Trouble comes.  Disaster strikes.  The people cry out.  And then a great leader is lifted up.  Restoration occurs.  The people begin doing what is good and right and loving.  Peace, justice, and prosperity return.  “And the people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.”

The question today:  What caused… What led to…  Why were the people obedient to God in the first place?  Why did the people do what was good and right and loving in the eyes of God?  What caused the people to do the very things that led to peace and prosperity, to happiness, to harmony, to tranquility, to the general welfare?  What caused the people to do that?

I think the secret is found in today’s text.  Did you hear it when I read it?  Listen to it again. 

“The people served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him.  People who had seen the great things the Lord had done and was doing for the people of Israel.  And when that whole generation died (I love this phrase: ‘had been gathered to their mothers and fathers’) another generation grew up that neither knew the Lord nor what the Lord was doing for the people.  And then the people did evil in the eyes of the Lord.”

Did you hear it?  “Another generation grew up that did not know the Lord or what the Lord had done.”  So folks, my question today is real simple.  Whose fault is that?  How does a generation grow up not knowing the Lord? 

When one has never been taught about God, when one rarely sees someone who seriously, devotedly, truthfully serves God, it is pretty hard to expect somebody to know God.  Do you see where we are going with this sermon?

Folks, our religious education and the religious education of the people is absolutely, fundamentally, ultimately critical to you and to all of us.  “Train children in the way they should go,” sang the choir this morning from Proverbs 22.  “And when old, they will not stray or depart.”  Folks, our children need to be in Sunday School.  Our children need to be in worship.  Our children need to be in youth groups.  Our children need to be on mission trips. 

You and I, as adults, need it.  This is not just for kids.  Sunday School and religious education isn’t something we did back in the fifth grade.  You and I need to be in Sunday School.  You and I need to be in worship.  Of course, you’re here today.  This is like preaching to the choir.  But, as we heard so beautifully this morning, you and I could be and should be in small groups.  We need to be in deep, depth Bible studies.  We need to be worshipping regularly. 

Why?  One reason: because God does not have any grandchildren.  Did you know that?  Faith always and forever is just one generation removed from extinction.   It doesn’t happen by osmosis.  We either know God, and we serve God, or we do not know God, and we do not serve God.  You either know our story and what God has done for our people, or you do not know the story and what God has done for our people.  You either know the laws and the ways of God, or you do not know the laws and the ways of God. 

If you and your children and your grandchildren know the Lord, then you and your children and grandchildren are going to do what is good and right and loving in the eyes of the Lord.  And if you and your children and your grand-children do not know the Lord, you and your children and your grandchildren are going to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord.  By that, what the Bible means is you, your children, your grandchildren are going to slip away.  It is so subtle.  It’s not like you just make a decision one day.  It is just that you slip away.  You forsake, that’s the biblical word.  You renounce.  You don’t want to have anything to do with the Lord any more.  So what you do is you follow and bow down to a variety of other gods, because everybody bows down to something.  Everybody.  You pick.  Of course, when we do that, it provokes the anger of Yahweh, and trouble comes.  “And the people live in great distress.”

Does that give us any clue today of how important religious education is?  Our Christian education for our children, for our grandchildren, for us, and for others in this community.  Do you know how important that is that we reach out and that we make room in this place?  We haven’t started a new Sunday School class at 9:30 here in ten years.  And you all know the reason why.  There’s not a room to put them in. 

Some of us thought, “Hey, Christian education and Sunday School is just an add on.  It’s an elective, a filler.  You know, drop by every once in a while, fit it in around sports, and leisure, and schedules, and schools.  I mean… it’s probably a pretty good thing for kids.  It probably can’t hurt them.  But an hour every Sunday in Sunday School?  An hour every week in worship?  An hour every week in a youth group?  Building ten new classrooms?  Creating a youth center?  That’s asking a lot.  Isn’t it?”

Oh, my!

Let me tell you two stories.  The first one I found in Anne Lamott.  Anybody ever read Anne Lamott?  Find her books.  They’re great.  She has several.  One of them I’m going to quote from today is called Traveling Mercies.  The chapter I’m going to quote to you today is entitled, “Why I Make Sam Go to Church.”  It caught my attention immediately.  It goes like this:

My son Sam is the only kid he knows who goes to church on Sunday.  And he rarely wants to go.  Well, the truth is, he never wants to go.  It doesn’t help that I remind him that once he gets there, he likes it and that there are people there who genuinely care about him.  All that matters to him, as a young boy, is that he alone among his friends is the only one he knows that is required to spend Sunday mornings in church.

Now you might wonder why I require a young exuberant boy to come to church with me.  The answer is I make him because I can.  I outweigh him by 75 pounds.  That is only part of it.  The main reason is I want very much to give him what I have found in this world, which is to say a path, a path with a little light to see by.  I want him to be around people who have what I want.  Purpose.  Love.  Heart.  Balance.  Gratitude.  Joy.  Trust.  I want him to be around people who have a deep sense of spirituality, a people who pray, a people who live in community, a people who work on themselves, and a people who work for human rights in this world.  I want him to be around people who follow a brighter light than just this little glimmer of their own personal candle.  I want him to be around people who are part of something beautiful.  I want him to be around people who go to shelters with giant platters of food.  I want him to be around people who do for others what they did for me in this church. 

Because there was a day when I was at the end of my rope, and the people of this church tied a knot in it for me and helped me hang on.  This church became my family.  This church became my home.  They not only let me in, they said, “Ya’ll come back now, ya hear!”

“So let’s go, Sam,” I say cheerfully when it’s time to go to church on Sunday.  And he looks at me like a puppy eying the vet with a needle.  But what Sam has yet to grow old enough to learn to appreciate is that the people of this church prayed for him seven months before he was born.  They clapped and cheered when I announced that I was pregnant.  And then they set about providing for us, because we had nothing.  They brought clothes.  They put casseroles in the freezer.  But most of all, the brought me the assurance that this baby was going to be part of a family.

They began to slip me money.  Folks who lived pretty much close to the financial bone would saddle up to me and stuff bills in my pocket so smoothly you would think there was a drug deal going down.  One of the most consistent givers was Mary, in her mid-eighties.  She always brought me plastic Baggies full of dimes.  I was usually filled with a sense of shame taking this lady’s dimes until I remembered that great line in Blake that says, “We are here to learn to endure the beams of love.”  Isn’t that great?  I would take a deep breath, and I would force these words out of my strangulated throat, “Thank you.”

Week after week Mary would bring Sam and I another bag of dimes.  What was so dazzling, what was so painful, what was so poignant, what was so powerful to me about that is she didn’t bother knowing or not knowing my financial condition.  She just knew we needed a bag of dimes.  That’s why I make Sam go to church.

Story Number Two:

When Jan and I came to Broadway, Molly was just three.  We were not, thanks be to God, at the end of our particular rope, but we were beginning a new chapter in our lives by joining a community of faith that intentionally wanted to grow spiritually and numerically.  Some of you remember that.

We never had to make Molly go to church, because not going, for us, was never an option.  Being in church and Sunday School every Sunday is just what our family did.  The good news is most of the time she loved it. 

She grew up with you.  She grew up with several hundred sets of parents and grandparents who knew her, and loved her, and welcomed her, and treated her like family.  She went to Sunday School here for 14 years with people like Darren Day, and Mike Crews, and Sam Bournhauser, and Katy Jane Farr, and Sarah Lanphere, and Wes Walker.  She had a wonderful set of Sunday School teachers.  People like Cheryl Orr, Tricia Volkert, Ed Stansberry, Phil Fichter, and a host of others.  She went to church camps, and girls’ retreats, and Vacation Bible Schools, and youth groups.  Later Kim asked her if she would be a counselor for the younger girls coming up.  She somehow through the years came to know God, through Christ, and what God had done and was doing for God’s people.

Then she graduated.  She went off to college.  She moved to campus.  She lived on her own.  She was old enough and in a position to make her own decisions.  Now if you know my kid Molly, you know she is a pretty social kid.  She never met a party she didn’t like.  OK?  But I tell you what.  I don’t care what was going on Saturday night, on Sunday morning she was right there in the sanctuary.  She chose to come to church for five years at M.U., inviting some of her university friends.  She brought a boyfriend or two along the way.  It didn’t matter.  This is where she wanted and needed to be.  And she knew it.

Today she is living in a wild and crazy place called San Francisco.  She’s probably out shopping this very hour, as she has been for the past few weeks, for a church home until she finds the one where she fits.

The reason is very simple: because she knows who she is, and more importantly, she knows whose she is.  She unashamedly and quite simply knows herself to be a child of God.  And thank you for helping in that.

How important, folks, do you really think Christian education is today?  How important do you think it is for the spiritual health and well-being of individuals, not to mention the overall society?  Our children need to be in Sunday School.  They need to be in worship.  They need to be in youth groups, in summer camps, and mission trips.  And guess what?  So do you.  So do each and every one of us.  And the reason is just this simple: God doesn’t have any grandchildren.  Not a one.  We either know we are a child of God, and we know what God has done, and we serve that God, or we don’t. 

So, please, listen.  Don’t miss it.  Don’t miss it for you.  Don’t let your children miss it.  Don’t let your grandchildren miss it.  Don’t let them miss the most important relationship they are ever going to have in all creation.  Let’s reach out together.  Let’s make room together.  We’re going to address that.  We’re going to do that together, so that someday it can be said here, “that the people of God in this place serve the Lord throughout our lifetime, and throughout the leaders who outlived us, and the people here grew stronger.  They did what is good and right and loving in the eyes of the Lord, and the land had peace for forty years.”

And we all say together… “Amen.”

Benediction

Beloved One, thank you for long summer days and blessed warm nights.  May our light ever reflect your brightness and the breadth of your warming love.  Amen.