Atom“Rallying the Family to Faith”
September 11, 2011
Deuteronomy 6:1-7
<i>“Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.” Deut. 6:6-7</i>
The late 1700’s brought the industrial revolution to England. The industrial revolution brought families off the farms and into the cities. It brought employment and a more stable income. It also brought long work days and long weeks, twelve hour days, six days a week. It brought children – unschooled-because-they-were-poor children – into the factories alongside their parents –twelve hours a day, six days a week. Families ended the week exhausted. At the same time, a very inexpensive alcoholic drink called “gin” became readily available and the drink of choice after long days and long weeks. The result of hard work and heavy drinking was children running rampant on Sundays (their day off) un-supervised by parents.
Methodist church leaders in England saw these unwashed, unkempt hordes of children roaming the streets and – for the sake of literacy and morality, and for the sake of knowing their God –organized a school for them on this one day they were not working. They called it…Sunday School. What we call Sunday School, what we celebrate with Rally Day across this community and country was not originally intended for churched families. Sunday School was for un-churched and de-churched children.
For churched families, faith learning still happened in the home. And for most families, if your children were going to Sunday School in 18th Century England, it meant that you were not doing your job as a parent. Imagine that.
Please believe me when I say, I am not trying to diminish what we do here partnering with families to teach the faith through Sunday and Wednesday School and Confirmation. What I would point to is that until the late 18th century faith learning centered in the homes of believers. And I would suggest that faith learning still has the most impact and long lasting effect when it begins in the family and is supplemented by what children get in the congregation. It is the way faith has been most effectively passed on from generation to generation…
Listen again to the Bible reading from Deuteronomy for today:
<i>“Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.” Deut. 6:6-7</i>
Deuteronomy is Moses’ last charge to a people who have survived the desert wilderness and are heading into the Promised Land. Knowing the dangers ahead and wanting to protect them from the religions of the land…from child sacrifice…and from temple prostitution…Moses, speaking for God, says:
<i>“Keep these things in your hearts…teach them to your children…talk about them when you are at home and out and about…when you lie down and when you rise up.”</i>
In other words, “Saturate your family life with God’s truths, so that you and your children will recognize the false when it appears.” (I have been told that one way of training bank tellers is to saturate them with real money, so they will recognize the counterfeit when it shows up.) Or, as someone else has said, “You can best tell a crooked stick by laying it next to a straight one.”
Our own Martin Luther – the German guy who wanted the church to remember the truths of the Bible and of a God of love and forgiveness and life – lifted up the vital importance of parents living the faith to their children:
"If we want qualified and capable people for both civil and spiritual leadership, we must spare no effort, time, and expense in teaching and educating our children to serve God and humanity. We must not think of amassing money and property for them. God can provide for them and make them rich without our help, as indeed God does daily. But God has given and entrusted children to us with the command that we train and govern them according to God’s will. Otherwise God would have no need of father and mother."
Luther on the 4th Commandment, BC, p.388
If you think that is strong…Luther goes on...
"Therefore let everybody know that it is their chief duty, on pain of losing divine grace, to bring up their children in the fear and knowledge of God…"
Luther on the 4th Commandment, BC, p.388
Rather heavy, but Luther makes the point that passing on knowledge of God is the most important calling of Christian parenting and is not something that can be left to someone else for one hour one day a week…no matter how good the program. Faith learning happens day by day, repeated over and over again in families, because repetition and example are how the brain best learns the truths and habits that sustain life...Moses told as much long ago…
“Keep these things in your hearts…teach them to your children…talk about them when you are at home and out and about…when you lie down and when you rise up.”
Luther also knew this was not an easy task for parents. So he wrote a couple of little books for parents called the Large and Small catechisms as outlines of what truths about God and Jesus to center teaching on. You might remember them. In them are the simple truths of the life of faith: The Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and teaching about Holy Baptism and Holy Communion. These few things alongside the reading of the Bible should be sufficient for teaching and loving our children with the love of God in our own homes – every home, every family, every day.
“Keep these things in your hearts…teach them to your children…talk about them when you are at home and out and about…when you lie down and when you rise up.”
I recently heard the fascinating story of how this sort of family time together gave strength to an individual, and ultimately to our nation. In the late 1800’s, the children of Theodore Roosevelt Sr. – or “Great Heart” as he was called – called “Great Heart,” by the way because, born of a very wealthy New York family, Theodore Sr. spent much of his time and resources responding to the needs of the poor of the city and helping to found charities like the Children’s Aid Society and New York orthopedic hospital for children. “Great Heart” also had a habit of making his way personally into the neighborhoods to sit with the young people of poverty and to listen and dream with them.
Anyway…Theodore Roosevelt Sr.’s children, of whom Teddy was the youngest and frailest (oft described as a sickly, weak child) would gather every morning at the landing of the staircase in their family home, waiting anxiously for their father to appear from his dressing room, and hoping that when he seated himself on the big oak chair for family devotions that they might be the one to sit on his lap, wrapped in his big strong arms. All had their turn, but Teddy, because of his frailty, had more than his share. “Scripture and prayer,” Great Heart would say in these moments together. “Scripture and prayer…life is too dangerous to go out without scripture and prayer.” And they would do their family time and then make their way into their day. Many times young Teddy, who idolized the strength and faith of his father, would go with him into the city as he made his rounds to the places of the poor.
When it came time for Teddy to go off to college – Harvard – and having been home-schooled his whole life up to this point, Great Heart told him, “Take care of your morals first, Teddy, and your studies second, and everything else after that…” Well, Teddy did his best…and did very well at Harvard.
While there, Teddy also did what many other young men of college age might do: he spotted a young woman in the neighborhood that took his breath away. Alice Hathaway Lee was only sixteen and had not yet had her “debut” as an eligible young woman, but Teddy was smitten and determined that she will be his wife. After some amount of sincere courting, this dream happened and following his graduation in 1880 they were wed. Life was like a fairy tale for some time after that. Because of Teddy’s combination of intellect and personality and probably his position as son of one of New York’s elite families, he was elected the youngest member of the New York Assembly. He was a rising political star. His family was among the wealthiest of all of New Yorkers and he was married the love of his life. And she, Alice, was soon bearing their first child. On February 12th, while in the Assembly, Teddy was notified that his wife had given birth to a daughter. His celebration was short-lived, however, for in hours he receives a second notice that his mother has fallen gravely ill and is dying…and then a third notice…his wife is also dying, stricken by a rare kidney disease masked by her pregnancy. Within hours of each other on February 14th, 1884, Teddy’s mother and his wife die in his own home. In his diary he writes, “The light has gone out of my life.” Shortly thereafter, Teddy gave his infant daughter to his sister and went off to a cattle ranch near Medora, North Dakota. While there he is transformed. In the wilderness and in the saddle, he draws strength from his remembrance of those early days spent in the company of his father: “Scripture and prayer…scripture and prayer…life is too dangerous to go out without them.”
In a few short years, Teddy Roosevelt returned from North Dakota and resumed a public and political life that made him one of the great presidents of this country and enshrined his likeness next to Washington and Lincoln and Jefferson on Mt. Rushmore.
A compelling side story to that of Teddy Roosevelt’s is that on school holidays from Harvard, Teddy would come to the family compound and take great delight in playing football with his nephews, among them one Franklin Delano Roosevelt . Franklin in fact idolized Teddy and thrilled to those football games, as well as another little game of leadership they would play called, “straight ahead,” where Teddy would hide out of sight in the densest brush and call out to the others “straight ahead.” Hearing his call, and discerning its direction, they would press straight ahead through brush and thorn and bramble, and scramble to be first to reach him.
Consider then FDR, another of our great presidents, during the darkest days of WW2, his own health fragile and waning, exuding a positive image of leadership, having learned from his cousin and idol Teddy, “straight ahead.”
I tell you these stories this morning to suggest to you the power of family faith time and ritual in shaping not only the lives of our children – but in shaping our life together. FDR would not have been FDR without Teddy and Teddy would not have been Teddy without the teaching at his father’s lap that took him (and FDR) through the darkest days of their lives…
“Scripture and prayer…scripture and prayer…life is too dangerous to go out there without it.” Theodore Roosevelt Sr.
“Keep these things in your hearts…teach them to your children…talk about them when you are at home and out and about…when you lie down and when you rise up.” Moses
"God has given and entrusted children to us with the command that we train and govern them according to God’s will. Otherwise God would have no need of father and mother." Martin Luther
One of my favorite teachers of our present day church, Pastor Rich Melheim grew up in Dilworth, MN and who has taught me a great deal not only about teaching our youth, but also about holding on to hope. Reflecting on stories like those of Teddy Roosevelt and FDR, Rich contends that family faith rituals have incredible power to sustain us and hold us:
"The power of ritual (holy habits) is that it holds you when you can’t hold yourself…"
Next week – yes, this is a two part sermon; you’ll have to come back or catch the archives online – I am going to introduce you to a family faith ritual for all ages that may change not only how we think of being the church, but also how we live as family and church in this community. It’s a way we’ve been approaching Confirmation and Church School ministry for some time now, but is really intended for family life – a faith resource for every family, every home, every night. It’s something called the “Faith 5.”
The simple premise is this: five minutes (maybe a few more) connecting as family and with our God can change not only us by the power of God’s lived out love in us, but can also change our community and world. Five minutes…five steps:
Caring Conversation
Bible Reading
Connecting Concern to Bible Reading
Praying for each other
Blessing
More next week – and later, a complete workshop for parents and any other interested folks…
Let’s pray…
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