Sermons & Studies

“TO TEACH IS…?” How would you define what it means to teach? I suppose most of us have dif- ferent ways of looking at the act of communicating values, facts, information and truth (however each may be defined in our thinking.) Perhaps the most meaningful completion of the phrase is one by Parker Palmer in a book on the spirituality of education. Since it be- comes more meaningful over time I’m going to include it so that you can take it away and think of it later. TO TEACH IS TO CREATE A SPACE IN WHICH OBEDIENCE TO TRUTH IS PRACTICED! Today we are honoring those who teach among us in the structure of classes. However, all of us are teachers, whether we realize it or not. We may not have formal classrooms but others are exposed to learning from or through us. As Christians I believe it is our hope that others will learn of God’s love, Christ’s gifts of grace and goodness and the Spirit’s presence through our lives. The passage we are looking at may seem a surprising one for the occasion but as thelectionary Gospel of the day it does show us in an illustrative story some of the truth which we as teachers are called to practice. In Luke 16: 19 to 31 Jesus reminds us that… l. the spiritual life is more lasting than the here and now realities of our physical existence; 2. our physical life offers the opportunity to live by spiritual values; 3. life in the realm of the spiritual comes by faith in its reality; 4. faith comes through hearing and receiving the Word of God (“Moses and the prophets” in the text). If Christ has come back from the dead and people still do not believe, how then do we teach? How do we “create a space in which obedience to truth is practiced?” We’ll think, pray and work to create the spaces where we are obedient to the truth that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.