I’m glad they’ve brought "All in the Family" back on TV. I never did see what the fuss was, frankly, when it came out the first time. And now it still seems fresh and insightful and funny.
To me, the best pieces of business in "All in the Family" are those scenes in which Edith starts out to tell some story, and begins to chase rabbits and go far afield, so that before long she’s lost her way completely. Something like, "Archie, I sent Gloria to the store to get you some pills for your headache, because she knows just the kind to get, you know the pink ones with the green spots … I always thought that color was nice on a pill, makes you think it’s sweet like sugar ... and when we was out of sugar last week I put two of them pills in your coffee ... cause I know you don’t never want me to serve your coffee without sugar .."
By this time, as you may remember, Archie is screaming, "Get to the pernt, Edith", and is using his hands to tie an imaginary noose in an imaginary rope, with which he proceeds to pretend to hang himself just to escape the sheer boredom of listening to Edith’s blather!
In all those words, somewhere, there is something important. But Archie can’t find it and Edith can’t communicate it. Too many words that just don’t matter.
Today you and I suffer from something called "information overload." Too many words and too much communication that doesn’t matter. We are swamped by televisions that receive scores of cable channels, radios that pick up signals from around the world, newspapers that print everything from classified ads to horoscopes, and, worst of all, computers that record and store everything imaginable. We gather and store information which seems pointless. Why does the fellow at Radio Shack need to know my telephone number when I go in there and buy a couple of 79-cent batteries? Information overload; too much data, too many words! And what is really being said?
It reminds me of the quotation attributed to Henry David Thoreau, who, when told that a telegraph line had been completed between the states of Maine and Texas, asked, “”Do the people of Maine have anything to say to the people of Texas?" What does all this communication really mean? How do you know what words are important? And when the phone system broke down one day this week, how many of the conversations which were interrupted really mattered?
But information overload may not be new. In the thirteenth century before Christ, Moses knew that people hear too many words and are bombarded with too many ideas. Somebody needs to help them understand which ones are important. Otherwise they act as if none of it is important. And so as Moses, the great leader of the Hebrew nation, neared the end of his career, he faced the task of focusing the people on what mattered, what really mattered. Moses, preparing to turn over the reins of leadership to Joshua, wanted to make sure that the people understood that all he had taught them was important ... vitally important.
And so the Book of Deuteronomy presents Moses, not long before the end of his life, first writing down the law of God, and then Moses saying to all the people, "Take to heart all the words that I am giving in witness against you today; give them as a command to your children, so that they may diligently observe all the words of this law. This is no trifling matter for you, but rather your very life. "
Are you suffering information overload? Are you drowning in a sea of words and you don’t know any longer which ones are important and which ones are just Edith blathering on? "Take to heart all the words [God is] giving .. . give them as a command to your children ... this is no trifling matter for you, but rather your very life."
Taking to heart God’s word ... and giving it, sharing it, with our children ... this is no trifling matter. This is no little task. ’This is no light-duty option. This is important.
For these are the wonderful words of life.
I
First, notice that Moses’ counsel is that we adults "take to heart all these words". If we expect to have anything to share with our children, we have to own this first. It has to be ours, it has to be vital for us. It will do no good to tell our children what they ought to know if it is not life to us first. It will be of no value to share with our children it we do not make it a part of the very fabric of our own lives. "Take to heart all these words ... this is no trifling matter for you, but rather your very life."
There is a terrible mistake making the rounds today; it is the mistake of thinking that religious faith is only for the weak and the powerless. There is a kind of pseudo sophistication that suggests that the only folk who need religious faith are those who cannot make it on their own – those who need a crutch, a prop. The notion is that the truly strong, the self-sufficient, those who have it all together, do not need God, do not need the Scripture, do not need the church, do not need faith.
And so you will find men who think church is for women; adults who suppose that Sunday School is for kids; educated people who see only the ignorant playing around with the Bible; white folk who patronizingly refer to faith as a crutch for disadvantaged black folk; young and middle-aged adults who surmise that only the fading elderly indulge in Bible-reading; and cynical, power-hungry, driven Washingtonians who cannot imagine that anybody but hicks and rubes outside the Beltway would really put energy into learning the truths of the Christian faith.
In other words, as Moses would put it, for altogether too many of us, this thing of owning our faith is a trifle, a nothing, not very important.
I want to say to us this morning that if we think our children ought to have faith -- if we believe that someone who is coming along under us and after us should have faith -- then we’d better cultivate faith for ourselves. It had better become important for us and for our lives. The Scripture says to adults, to responsible people, "Take to heart all the words I am giving ... this is no trifling matter for you; this is your very life." This is your very life.
You see, I would argue that adults need a knowledge of the Scriptures in order to discern and own a purpose in life. Without taking to heart God’s word, you and I will fall into the trap of thinking that we are nothing more than money-making machines. It is only by taking to heart the Scriptures that you will learn that "a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things which he possesses." I suggest to you that learning that lesson is no mere trifle; it is our very life.
Without taking to heart God’s word, you and I will fall prey to a variety of self-indulgences, never stopping to think how destructive they are. If we do not take to heart God’s word, we will indulge in abusive substances, we will gratify our sexual desires wherever and with whomever we will, we will take whatever we want whenever we can get it. If we have not taken to heart God’s clarion command, "Thou shalt not ..." we will think we can do anything we please and get away with it. But again, I suggest to you, that is no trifle; that is our very life we’re talking about.
On and on I could go. My point is very simple: if we have an ounce of concern about the generation which is coming along behind us, then the first task we have is to take to heart God’s word for ourselves. Yes, I know we have our jobs to do. Yes, we have lots of information to digest. Yes, we have many responsibilities coming at us from all sides. But this one is important. This one matters. "Take to heart
all these words ... this is no trifling matter for you, this is your very life."
That is why in this church both your associate pastor and I have started new adult Bible classes on Sunday mornings. That is why I am already in conversation with certain church leaders about starting one and perhaps two additional adult Bible classes. That is why there are a few members with whom I hold regular conferences about the nature of Scripture and its interpretation. This is not intellectual gymnastics; this is not indulging a hobby or a fancy. This is investing in and taking to heart all these words ... for they are our very life.
II
But there is a second part to what Moses counseled the people. Not only were the men and women who heard him to take to heart the words of God for themselves and for their own lives, but also they were then to give these words as a command to their children. Moses saw, as Rev. Arnold put it last week, that God has no grandchildren. No one can find his way into the Kingdom without a personal faith. Therefore some of us must teach, some of us must share. Some of us must give to our children what we have ... again, not just as a trifle, not just as a nice little pastime ... but this is their very life. This is important. Bible knowledge is their very life … not just information overload, with Edith blathering on, but this is their very life.
I cannot stress too much how important it is that children be formed in the thought world of the Bible. The more they know, the earlier they know it, the more it will be life for them when they need it.
A friend of mine likes to tell about how he faced the stresses in his life when, after a long illness, his wife died, and then, a few years later, his daughter also passed away. This friend, who serves as a deacon in a neighboring church, says that in those moments of terrible disappointment, when it looked as though his whole world was coming apart, all of a sudden passages of Scripture that he did not even realize that he knew came flooding back into his memory. They were passages that he had learned as a child ... if you had asked him to recite them, just out of the clear blue sky, a few months earlier, he could not have done it. But they had been learned when he was a child ... they lay buried just beneath the surface ... and when he really needed them, there they were, and, believe me, for him, they were life. They were no trifling matter; they were his very life in those dark hours.
I had almost the same experience myself just a month ago. Some of you will remember that we lost three church members within the space of about ten days. I found myself on a Friday morning conducting a funeral service for one of our oldest and dearest, Mrs. Kathleen Deane; returning from that service to learn the next day of the death of Mrs. Betty Kulda; spending a good part of Monday preparing for her funeral, only to find out late that night of the totally unexpected death of Gloria Lovelace. By that time, I have to tell you, I was feeling some spiritual and emotional stress. Perhaps you do not know that the pastor is a human being who grieves for the losses in this family. And then, of course, there was the overload of trying to prepare all these services and do all of our regular work as well.
I went to bed Thursday evening, thinking about what had to be done the next day. The next thing I knew, I heard myself saying the words of the 23rd psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want ... yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” For a moment I could not figure out what was going on. But then I awoke a little more ... it was 5:00 a.m., and I was waking myself up reciting the shepherd psalm!
Now the message from that incident is not that the pastor sleepwalks through funerals or that by now he can conduct a funeral in his sleep! The message from that incident is that the thoughts and words of Scripture, learned in quiet times, learned in happier times, can come flooding forth for us when we need them. They are, again, no trifling matter; they are our very life.
So hear again the counsel of Moses, across these centuries: "Give these words as commands to your children, so that they may diligently observe all the words of this law. This is no trifling matter for you, but rather your very life.”
I want to plead with you: bring us your children for our Sunday School ... bring them, do not send them. Bring them to our Sunday School, and insist that our teachers teach them. If they do not teach, push them and push me, and we will find a way to make it happen.
But more than that, teach your children yourself. Do not depend on everything getting done in an hour on Sunday morning, and that much only when the weather is good and there isn’t something more exciting to do ... do not depend on an hour on Sunday morning, but teach them yourselves. Memorize Scripture with them. Put books and literature about the Bible on your own family bookshelves. Create an atmosphere in which the great truths of the Bible are discussed and cherished
and talked about. Give them as a command to your children, so that they may diligently observe all the words of this law.
And help your children find excitement in God’s word. It doesn’t have to be as dull as dishwater. God’s word, the history of God’ s activity, is the most exciting story ever told. If you see the grand sweep of what God has done, it puts to shame any of the adventure stories and cartoon shenanigans shown on Saturday morning TV. It’s exciting!
Did you hear about the little boy who came home from Sunday School, and his mother asked him what they learned about. 0h, he said, it was great. We learned that Moses had this big fight with Pharaoh, and there they were on the banks of the Red Sea. The Hebrews were about to be pushed right into the water, but then Moses sailed up in an aircraft carrier and put them all on board, and then the B-2 bombers took off and bombed Pharaoh’s army.
Mom said, "Johnny, I’m almost sure that is not the way the story goes. Are you sure that’s they way they told it?" To which Johnny replied, "Well, no, not exactly, but if I told you the way they told me, you’d never believe it."
Oh, don’t you see; there is excitement enough in the Scriptures to fire a child’s imagination. What a sin if we kill that excitement! Not long ago I heard an educator here in town say that he had noticed that little children come to school in the first grade, bright-eyed, eager to learn -- but that by the time they hit the fourth grade, the juice is all gone. The excitement has died. Our schools, our society, their peers, their parents, some body has killed the excitement. What a sin if we should do that with the word of God!
Too many words, and if Archie can’t find them and Edith can’t communicate them, what a tragedy!
This morning, believe it, there is excitement enough in the Scriptures to fire a child’s imagination; but there is also challenge enough to stimulate a young adult’s mind, there is wisdom enough to guide the movers and shakers of this world; there is comfort enough to soothe an aged person’s anxiety. "Take to heart all the words that I am giving you this day ... give them as a command to your children ... this is no trifling matter for you, but rather your very life.”
For without this book, there are only the destructive dictates of death. With it, there are the wonderful words of life.
