Sept. 2, 2012
The Rev. Julie Guengerich Hutson
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Did you know that every year new words are added to the dictionary? New to the Merriam Webster dictionary for 2012, among others, are the words aha moment, man cave, energy drink, systemic risk, and cloud computing. Language. It’s an incredible thing. It is what connects us to one another and to our past. But it is likely that in the future, fewer languages will carry our stories into the future. According to National Geographic magazine, one language dies every fourteen days. So by the next century, nearly half of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken on Earth will disappear. And so will beautiful words like tradzy, which describes a treasured necklace made from precious yellow stones and worn by the AKA people of northernmost India and anayim, which, to the people of Tuvan in Russia means “little goat”, but is affectionately used as a term of endearment for an infant. And the SERI people of Mexico have a word that I am unable to pronounce but which means “one who strongly greets with joy/peace/harmony”. When these languages disappear, in favor of English, Spanish, and Mandarin in most cases…where will words like these go? What will replace them?
The writer of Deuteronomy wrote, in the ninth verse from our first reading this morning: 9But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life; make them known to your children and your children’s children—
I don’t know about you, but things slip from my mind with some regularity these days. It’s part of the reason I am a list maker. But when I read this verse and then when I read the National Geographic article I wondered what words of the faith are in danger of vanishing from our collective memory.
When we think of words of the faith, do we think of words of invitation, words of inclusion, words of love? Or, when we think of our faith, do words of judgment, condemnation, and blame float to the surface? Very often, too often, the first thing people think of when they think of Christianity are words of the latter sort….words that condemn us, words that judge us…or worse….words that we use to judge and condemn one another. In our culture today, Scripture is used to cast blame and to censure others. And in truth, what Scripture tells us is that all of us, every single one of us, has fallen short of the glory of God. What each of us longs to hear are words of inclusion…all are welcome. Words of invitation….come to me all that are weary and heavy laden. Words of love…God so loved the world. Jesus loves me, this I know.
The writer of Deuteronomy is reminding us of the importance of passing on the faith. What we have seen…what we have heard….what we have lived. Faith is to be made known, we are told not just to our children but to our children’s children. The Hebrew people understood that the primary responsibility of faith building, of faith sharing, of teaching and instruction in the faith belonged not to the temple or the synagogue, but to the family.
Parenting is a huge job. Anyone who is a parent knows that. It’s hard. It’s frustrating. It’s tricky. It’s complicated. There’s no way to sufficiently prepare for it. But it’s the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done. And as parents, we teach our children all sorts of things. Don’t dash across the street. Don’t hit your brother or sister. Don’t touch the stove. Say no to drugs. Don’t drink and drive. We teach them how to drive before they get a driver’s license. We make sure they get an education. We help with homework. We tell them stories that often begin with “When I was your age…”
How much more, then, is it critically important that we make known to them what we have seen and heard and known of our faith story?
And so, we share the words of our faith. Words like compassion….and then we tell them the story of Jesus’ compassion. Words like love. Words like forgiveness. Words like mercy. Words like grace.
But more than that….we share what we know. What we have experienced.
I heard a story this week about the voice actor, Jim Cummings. He has voiced many animated characters on television and in movies, but perhaps none is more well known than the loveable, fuzzy ol’ bear…Winnie the Pooh. Cummings takes time out of his very busy schedule to call critically ill and terminally ill children in character…as Winnie the Pooh. Can you imagine what it is like to receive a phone call from the hundred acre woods? His words to those children make a difference. And he says that he does this because of the way he was loved as a child. He is passing on what it is he has known.
So what is it that we have here….in this place…that we pass on to our children and our children’s children? This is the question. What are the words that make up the stories that we have known…stories of our faith, stories of our God?
Do we pass along the love and grace of God, which is good news or do we pass along words that describe a God of judgment and rule keeping? Jesus tells us the answer in the Gospel reading today. He tells the Pharisees, after he calls them hypocrites, that what is important is not keeping a set of rules and regulations. We are not gate keepers of God’s grace. We are vessels through which it is to flow to us and then through us to the world. One of the most profound ways God cares for God’s people is through God’s people. Reformed theologian Lewis Smedes once wrote that a living relationship with God is a good thing but religion will whop you upside the head every time with long tirades about how bad a person you are, how you don’t live up to this or that expectation, and how basically all of life comes down to just one thing: proving that you’re good enough and worthy enough to be accepted (and the incessant worry that you are never quite there yet).
But that is not the message that Jesus gives to us. Jesus told us to let our lights shine. Jesus called us blessed children of God. Jesus said that the least among us would be the greatest and that we should all have a childlike faith. Ask and it will be given to you, Jesus said. Jesus blessed the meek and the poor in spirit and those who are grieving. Jesus reached out to the widow, the orphan, the outcast. And finally, Jesus showed us just how worthy we are….just how much he loves us…and he showed us on the cross.
We are called, sisters and brothers, to pass the words of our faith along to our children and to our children’s children. If we don’t have children of our own, believe me, there are enough children of all sizes in this world who need to have someone tell them and show them that they are beloved in the eyes of God. Because the world spends an awful lot of time and energy and money telling them that they are not. Not good enough. Not smart enough. Not tall enough. Not athletic enough. Not thin enough. Not straight enough. Not white enough. Not rich enough. Not enough. Not enough. All of the children of the world need to hear that they are all they need to be in the eyes of God.
Eventually our children will figure out the rules of the road and the rules of the game and the rules of the church and the rules of society. And granted, some of those rules matter in our lives. They give curbs to our roads. They keep us from harming ourselves.
But what we are called to pass along are the words of eternal life. We are called to bear witness to the living Word. The Word made flesh. Emmanuel. Jesus, who is God with us. And we are to pass it along to our children and our children’s children and all God’s children.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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