Lester Start’s Works

1Roots

November 7, 1979

First Baptist, Kalamazoo

My sermon subject today has been suggested by the Church school leadership. You see, ordinarily, on some Sunday in September, there is some kind of special attention to the beginning of the Fall program in Christian education with special recognition of the teachers and particular classes. Now we did do this in the Belfrey and Bulletin, but not in the church service. Somehow other concerns other themes intervened. But now since this is national education week it seems appropriate to call attention to the role of the Church school and its importance in the life of our church.

Incidentally, I am happy to respond to suggestions of sermon themes or texts. I can’t promise always to comply. Some texts aren’t very promising. For example I once heard an actor from that English group of TV comics called Monty Python’s Flying Circus, do a parody of a sermon on the text “Now Esau is a hairy man.” Not a very promising text to develop. And Paul could say “I hear there is gross immorality among you”, but it would be hazardous to preach on that. But there are plenty of important texts and themes to develop. And I am happy to consider suggestions.

And the Scripture and texts read in today’s lesson are certainly worthy of deep consideration, for they focus on the very heart of our religious heritage, our religious roots, the basic teaching that God is in history, that God is made flesh in Christ, that He is working to reconcile man to Himself and that we experience that redemptive spirit as we reach maturity in the Spirit of Christ. Now sermons can and do highlight this message, but insofar as the church develops the mature Christian character, it is probably do just as much to the week by week careful and dedicated instruction in the roots of our religion that is presented by the committed teachers of the Church School. And we are grateful to the careful study and presentation involved in the many classes offered in the Church School.

There is another reason for highlighting the work of the Church School. Next year marks the 200^th anniversary of what has been widely recognized as the beginning of the Sunday school movement in the modern world. Just 200 years ago an Englishman, a member of the church of England by the name of Robert Raikes, formed the first Sunday school to teach children the rudiments of reading so that they could learn the basic truth of religion firsthand. This was in Gloucester, England. And Robert Raikes was a newspaper publisher. Perhaps as some have suggested, he was worried about future readership figures. At any rate he recognized that many poor children working 12 hour days six days a week were growing up illiterate, uneducated, and unfamiliar with the Christian tradition. At his own expense he hired a meeting room, a teacher and invited the children of Gloucester to the first Sunday School. And from this beginning started the Sunday School movement which quickly spread over the Western world.

It is hard to imagine a time without Sunday School. It is hard to imagine that church leaders often opposed the movement. After all there was great opposition to the movement to translate the Bible into common languages so that the ordinary people could search the Scriptures for themselves. But Tyndale in the 16^th century was martyred for daring to translate the Bible into English. Bishops liked the authority of announcing and interpreting the scripture themselves without any risk of contrary interpretation. And there were plenty in the 18^th century who approved, of course, the reading of the Scripture by the better class of people, but feared that the attempt to educate the children of the poor might interfere with their acceptance of their lot. It is risky to read about freedom when one in an economic bondage.

Interestingly enough, the first Sunday Schools were dedicated to teaching reading and writing. They were specifically designed to educate those who couldn’t attend weekday schools. The first school designed for Christian education exclusively - and not just secular skills - was the 2nd Baptist Church of Baltimore in 1804. Soon, such schools were emerging in all the major cities and towns and after that Sunday Schools carried instruction wherever Americans lived. Missionaries and circuit riders who followed the march of the westward frontier founded Sunday Schools before churches. They became the nucleus for the churches. Education and evangelism developed together.

Soon the denominations developed materials to help lay people do a better job teaching. Interestingly enough, the earliest teachers were paid professionals. But as the Sunday school movement spread, and more and more lay people were involved, materials were provided to give those people something to teach in a clear form. To supply such literature, the American Baptist tract society was formed; this eventually became the Board of Educational Ministries. One wonders always about the nature, quality and value of these materials provided by the denomination. But judging by the titles of some of the earliest tracts, they have definitely improved. The life of John Bunyan sounds okay, but how about “Address to a Sinner”, “The Deathbed of a Medical Student” or “The Dreadful Superstition of the Hindus.”

But seriously, what should be the nature of the materials we use. What should be the goals of Christian education? I remember once asking a young woman in charge of the primary department at the famous Riverside Church in New York what their main goal was in teaching the children. “Oh dear,” she said, obviously distressed at being so pressed. “I guess what we really try to do first of all is to keep them in order and keep them from fighting.” A fundamental goal, I would agree - basically Christian - but surely we aspire to loftier aims. What are they?

We have all seen, I am sure, and appreciated that marvelous TV series, “Roots.” How important it is to see what we are in terms of our heritage, our roots! Many have been inspired to genealogical research by this to find their own familial roots. I would like to think that the fundamental goal of the Church School is to trace the roots, the basic beginnings, the major tenets of our religious tradition. I would like to think that the Church school provides the fundamental truths of our faith, the roots from which our Christian society and our particular religious tradition has grown. Our general education gives us the history of our intellectual tradition from the Greeks, to the Romans to the modern scientific age. But the religious roots must be sought elsewhere, in the Church school.

What are these roots? First of all, I would think, would be the basic conviction of the heroes of the Bible that there is a God who operates through the events of history, that what happens has a meaning, a purpose, a direction. That there is something we call the providence of God, that there is a God in Israel. We tend to forget that this is a Biblical discovery, a Biblical truth. There is not a sense of progressive history in the Greeks - nor in the earlier religions of the East - the Hebrew patriarchs first taught this and expressed it in those famous verses from Deuteronomy read in the Scripture - they bear repeating. The writer warns of forgetting how God saved the people from bondage in Egypt. [Quote versus 10 - 12. Chapter 6].

This view of God operating in history is the fundamental teaching of our faith. The prophets developed it, pointing out that even the harsher history they experienced was the work of God in order to overcome evils for a greater history to come. And a new age is projected where men shall beat their swords into pruning hooks, where they shall not learn war anymore, where they shall sit each man under his vine and his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid. A millennial hope? Perhaps. But it is still the one that encourages and directs us; in spite of the role of terror and hate in our world, it is the hope of the law of love that encourages us for the future - that the rule of love will be the law, the way that men will follow to bring about the new age.

God is moving in history for this end. This is the faith of the law and the prophets which seems to culminate in [Deuteronomy] Israel. But this is only a prelude to the Christian revelation that God was made flesh and dwelt among us, that He became man to reconcile man to God. What more profound expression of the basic Biblical truth that God is in history could there possibly be than the revelation that God himself took human form and dwelt among us showing us the way to the maturity of the spirit that Paul speaks of in the letter to the Ephesians. There is one body, one spirit, one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all.

This is the truth we must keep teaching ourselves and our children. As the writer of Deuteronomy says, “These words shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way.” Etc. It is the faith that enables us to view the future with the calm confidence of those who know that there is a God in Israel.

There are so many things woven together in the roots of our tradition, that many sermons cannot exhaust them. But there is one other root I would stress - because it is placed so prominently with the other, the faith that God operates in history. And that is the fundamental teaching that God covenants with His people the promise of a redeemed age, only on the presupposition that men follow His commandments of righteousness. And this, it seems to me, is something we must teach - not just our children, but ourselves.

It is not fashionable, popular to think that there are commandments, obligations, demands of righteousness laid upon us. We are much more ready to demand our rights and our freedom to feel good about ourselves, to gratify ourselves, to look out for number one, to do others before they do you. And yet, we must know, if we but look about us, the folly of living with no better direction to our lives than this. We may even scorn the work ethic as passé, but it is pitiful to see the shambles we make of our lives if we have no sense of meaningful purpose under God. We must know, if we but look about us, what happens, when we break the commandments - when we kill, when we commit adultery, when we covet what belongs to another, when we worship all kinds of false gods and idols and ideals.

There is a rule of God, there is a law of God and it obligates us all. This we must teach ourselves and our children. God is a God of love and redemption, but He demands righteousness - the rule of love in our own hearts. These are the root teachings we need so desperately to affirm today - Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and with all thy soul and strength - and thy neighbor as thyself - “until we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfected, mature state, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine - - - but speaking the truth in love may grow up into Him in all things, which is the Lord, even Christ.”

These are the fundamental roots of our faith - the teaching of these roots is the function of our church school - we are grateful to those who carry out this function. But remember, this work, this dedication is in vain if we do not encourage our children and ourselves to attend, to learn our roots. Let us by our support, by our participation, pledge to nourish these roots of our faith.