Will this Be on the Test?
Sermon
Show-and-Tell
First Lesson Cycle A Sermons for Lent and Easter
What do you think might be the most common questions teachers in all grade levels hear from their students? You are correct if you were thinking of something to do with passing examinations. Will this be on the test? What do we have to know to pass the test? What happens if we fail? Do we get another chance?
Beginning soon after birth (some folks might say soon after conception) children are measured and compared to arbitrary standards of physical, mental, social, and even emotional well being. Parents and grandparents share pictures and compare achievements. Physicians measure and chart. Professional educators establish entrance specifications and performance expectations. As we progress through life, measurements of what we know and how we grow determine how others relate to us as well as how we view ourselves.
For many, "Will it be on the test?" can easily become the most important question in life. Success and failure are determined by demonstrated performance scores. In many states, schools and teachers themselves are also evaluated by scores made by students on standardized tests.
So, this situation results in an even more challenging question for everyone... students and teachers, school boards and communities; should teachers prepare students to master specific skills and information needed to pass a particular test or should they prepare their classes with more general problem-solving skills and information that will help them pass tests of successful living in the midst of all sorts of life challenges? Of course there is no easy answer.
Both methods of preparation are needed for growth and maturity in life. As you know well, life is a series of one test after another; written and oral, multiple choice and true-false, essay and demonstration.
The way we learn to prepare for and take tests really does shape the way we adapt and cope with life challenges at work and school, in our family and neighborhood, in our nation and world, and even in our congregation.
Hopefully, we have learned how to prepare for and to take tests... not in order to simply survive but to really thrive in the process. Ideally, we have learned that passing one test prepares us to pass the next. However, sadly enough, we often repeat the same preparation mistakes. We wind up barely hanging on, scarcely surviving in an "almost but-not-quite" life.
The season of Lent is a season of preparation for participation in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For many Christians this preparation includes a six week discipline of giving up things such as sugary sweets and salty snacks, watching television, or listening to popular music. Others prepare by placing a coin or dollar bill into a self-denial folder each day. We do these things during Lent to remind us of what Jesus gave up for us and how much Jesus sacrificed for us. And then when Lent is over, on Easter evening, we gorge ourselves on chocolate Easter eggs and salted peanuts while the television competes with iPods for our attention.
We prepared for the test all right. We experienced Christ's death for us, and we survived. However, we did not prepare for Christ's continuing life in us. We did not prepare for Christ's daily dying and rising with us. This Lenten preparation includes learning and practicing spiritual disciplines that will continue beyond the Lenten season; a preparation for an ongoing and renewing relationship that Christ initiated through his dying and rising. So, we are not total failures.
We have this preparation thing partly correct, but we only see part of the whole picture.
Now, let's look at our text in Genesis. Here Eve and Adam only paid attention to one aspect of the five gifts of life God had given them. First, God gave them a beautiful garden setting in which to live. Second, God gave them the freedom to wander around and to share in the garden's abundance. Third, God gave Adam and Eve the gift of each other... the gift of human relationship. Fourth, God gave them a specific and very limited command of obedience; eat anything you want here, but if you eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you will die. And, God's fifth and final gift to Adam and Eve in our text is a gift of vocation that brings meaning and purpose to life... caring for God's garden.
Hey, Adam and Eve! Listen up now! This will be on the test. In fact here is the actual question: Describe the five gifts God has given you and then present a "show-and-tell" demonstration of how you balance these in daily life. Well, we all know that Adam and Eve failed miserably. They ignored four gifts and concentrated on only one: obedience to God's command prohibiting them from eating a specific kind of fruit.
Sadly it is all too easy for us to look at today's text with the narrow focus of Adam and Eve. What does God forbid us from doing? We tend to emphasize this much more frequently than what God permits or encourages us to do.
Don was preparing to attend Sunday worship with his financée Lorna and her family. Since it was his very first time in that parish and not wanting to embarrass himself in front of Lorna's family by saying or doing "the wrong thing," Don asked Lorna to review what would be expected during the service. Lorna and her parents carefully explained liturgical actions such as kneeling and blessing, signing the cross and singing the psalmody.
All went smoothly until the brief time for quiet reflection following the pastor's sermon. Suddenly Lorna sneezed, quite loudly. Immediately she whispered to Don, "Bless me."
Desperately, Don tried to remember what he had just been taught about blessings in church. Nothing came to mind. He started to perspire, knowing that he was about to humiliate himself in front of his financée and most of her family and friends.
Again, this time with more volume, Lorna asked, "Don, aren't you going to bless me?"
Wanting to do things right and still not wanting to offend anyone, Don blurted out, "I can't bless you because I don't know how!"
Poor Don. Exclusive focus on avoiding the wrong often results in forgetting to do what is right. Primary concentration on what is prohibited tends to minimize gifts that are to be celebrated.
On the one hand, like Don, we pay so much attention to these things in order to escape humiliation. On the other hand, we focus so much on what God forbids, well, just because it is forbidden. For example, God's gifts to Adam and Eve were wonderful. Who among us could really complain about receiving a beautiful place to live, delicious food, a life partner, a trusted relationship with God, a purpose for living, and the freedom to enjoy it all?
Sure, trust, vocation, relationships, and freedom are pretty good ideas... but, hey, what is forbidden might really feel great. It can't hurt to find out more, can it?
And thus it begins. As you know very well... when you really want something, you will listen to everything, convince yourself of anything, and wind up with exactly nothing. The serpent made this happen quickly. Do you see how it ignores four of God's gifts and quickly asks what God has forbidden? Eve answers specifically and correctly, but the serpent's seductive trap is sprung. The serpent twists obedience into a barrier to avoid and an option from which to choose. For Adam and Eve, the immediate result of obtaining the very thing that God prohibited was much more appealing than enduring the daily challenge of balancing all five gifts that God had given. They tasted the fruit, failed their test, and fell flat on their faces. We also taste, fail, and fall; forever captive to sin and unable to free ourselves. When we really want something, there's always a serpent around to convince us to do anything so that we wind up with nothing again and again. Forever failures.
Lent is a season for preparing for a test, all right. However, the test isn't ours to take. It is ours to celebrate Jesus Christ who has already taken and passed it with triumphant honors. Our preparation time this Lent is one of paying attention to God's show-and-tell lessons of a cross, a loving splash of forgiveness, a nourishing taste of God's presence, and a living Word of God's promise for our lives... test taken, test passed! Given and shed for you. Amen.
Beginning soon after birth (some folks might say soon after conception) children are measured and compared to arbitrary standards of physical, mental, social, and even emotional well being. Parents and grandparents share pictures and compare achievements. Physicians measure and chart. Professional educators establish entrance specifications and performance expectations. As we progress through life, measurements of what we know and how we grow determine how others relate to us as well as how we view ourselves.
For many, "Will it be on the test?" can easily become the most important question in life. Success and failure are determined by demonstrated performance scores. In many states, schools and teachers themselves are also evaluated by scores made by students on standardized tests.
So, this situation results in an even more challenging question for everyone... students and teachers, school boards and communities; should teachers prepare students to master specific skills and information needed to pass a particular test or should they prepare their classes with more general problem-solving skills and information that will help them pass tests of successful living in the midst of all sorts of life challenges? Of course there is no easy answer.
Both methods of preparation are needed for growth and maturity in life. As you know well, life is a series of one test after another; written and oral, multiple choice and true-false, essay and demonstration.
The way we learn to prepare for and take tests really does shape the way we adapt and cope with life challenges at work and school, in our family and neighborhood, in our nation and world, and even in our congregation.
Hopefully, we have learned how to prepare for and to take tests... not in order to simply survive but to really thrive in the process. Ideally, we have learned that passing one test prepares us to pass the next. However, sadly enough, we often repeat the same preparation mistakes. We wind up barely hanging on, scarcely surviving in an "almost but-not-quite" life.
The season of Lent is a season of preparation for participation in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For many Christians this preparation includes a six week discipline of giving up things such as sugary sweets and salty snacks, watching television, or listening to popular music. Others prepare by placing a coin or dollar bill into a self-denial folder each day. We do these things during Lent to remind us of what Jesus gave up for us and how much Jesus sacrificed for us. And then when Lent is over, on Easter evening, we gorge ourselves on chocolate Easter eggs and salted peanuts while the television competes with iPods for our attention.
We prepared for the test all right. We experienced Christ's death for us, and we survived. However, we did not prepare for Christ's continuing life in us. We did not prepare for Christ's daily dying and rising with us. This Lenten preparation includes learning and practicing spiritual disciplines that will continue beyond the Lenten season; a preparation for an ongoing and renewing relationship that Christ initiated through his dying and rising. So, we are not total failures.
We have this preparation thing partly correct, but we only see part of the whole picture.
Now, let's look at our text in Genesis. Here Eve and Adam only paid attention to one aspect of the five gifts of life God had given them. First, God gave them a beautiful garden setting in which to live. Second, God gave them the freedom to wander around and to share in the garden's abundance. Third, God gave Adam and Eve the gift of each other... the gift of human relationship. Fourth, God gave them a specific and very limited command of obedience; eat anything you want here, but if you eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you will die. And, God's fifth and final gift to Adam and Eve in our text is a gift of vocation that brings meaning and purpose to life... caring for God's garden.
Hey, Adam and Eve! Listen up now! This will be on the test. In fact here is the actual question: Describe the five gifts God has given you and then present a "show-and-tell" demonstration of how you balance these in daily life. Well, we all know that Adam and Eve failed miserably. They ignored four gifts and concentrated on only one: obedience to God's command prohibiting them from eating a specific kind of fruit.
Sadly it is all too easy for us to look at today's text with the narrow focus of Adam and Eve. What does God forbid us from doing? We tend to emphasize this much more frequently than what God permits or encourages us to do.
Don was preparing to attend Sunday worship with his financée Lorna and her family. Since it was his very first time in that parish and not wanting to embarrass himself in front of Lorna's family by saying or doing "the wrong thing," Don asked Lorna to review what would be expected during the service. Lorna and her parents carefully explained liturgical actions such as kneeling and blessing, signing the cross and singing the psalmody.
All went smoothly until the brief time for quiet reflection following the pastor's sermon. Suddenly Lorna sneezed, quite loudly. Immediately she whispered to Don, "Bless me."
Desperately, Don tried to remember what he had just been taught about blessings in church. Nothing came to mind. He started to perspire, knowing that he was about to humiliate himself in front of his financée and most of her family and friends.
Again, this time with more volume, Lorna asked, "Don, aren't you going to bless me?"
Wanting to do things right and still not wanting to offend anyone, Don blurted out, "I can't bless you because I don't know how!"
Poor Don. Exclusive focus on avoiding the wrong often results in forgetting to do what is right. Primary concentration on what is prohibited tends to minimize gifts that are to be celebrated.
On the one hand, like Don, we pay so much attention to these things in order to escape humiliation. On the other hand, we focus so much on what God forbids, well, just because it is forbidden. For example, God's gifts to Adam and Eve were wonderful. Who among us could really complain about receiving a beautiful place to live, delicious food, a life partner, a trusted relationship with God, a purpose for living, and the freedom to enjoy it all?
Sure, trust, vocation, relationships, and freedom are pretty good ideas... but, hey, what is forbidden might really feel great. It can't hurt to find out more, can it?
And thus it begins. As you know very well... when you really want something, you will listen to everything, convince yourself of anything, and wind up with exactly nothing. The serpent made this happen quickly. Do you see how it ignores four of God's gifts and quickly asks what God has forbidden? Eve answers specifically and correctly, but the serpent's seductive trap is sprung. The serpent twists obedience into a barrier to avoid and an option from which to choose. For Adam and Eve, the immediate result of obtaining the very thing that God prohibited was much more appealing than enduring the daily challenge of balancing all five gifts that God had given. They tasted the fruit, failed their test, and fell flat on their faces. We also taste, fail, and fall; forever captive to sin and unable to free ourselves. When we really want something, there's always a serpent around to convince us to do anything so that we wind up with nothing again and again. Forever failures.
Lent is a season for preparing for a test, all right. However, the test isn't ours to take. It is ours to celebrate Jesus Christ who has already taken and passed it with triumphant honors. Our preparation time this Lent is one of paying attention to God's show-and-tell lessons of a cross, a loving splash of forgiveness, a nourishing taste of God's presence, and a living Word of God's promise for our lives... test taken, test passed! Given and shed for you. Amen.
