Difference between revisions of "Sermon for August 11th, 2013"
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==Ten Laws, One Love: The First Commandment== | ==Ten Laws, One Love: The First Commandment== | ||
| + | Before I was a pastor, before I went to seminary, before any of my children were born, and right after Amy and I were married, I was a high school teacher. I taught ninth grade English Literature in downtown Dallas, Texas. It was in every sense an inner-city school, with all the problems of poverty, gang violence, teen pregnancy, high dropout rates, low test-scores, etc. The school where I taught wound up in the Dallas news about as often as all the EPISD schools put together over the past year, and like the EPISD schools, when we were in the news it was rarely ever about something good. Teaching in that environment was a challenging experience...and yet it was also one of the most fulfilling, inspiring, and meaningful experiences in my life. | ||
| + | My first year as a teacher (I was 25 years old) I was a little bit worried about the chaotic environment, and the school's reputation as a "dangerous" school. That changed one morning when I came into my classroom before school had started and a few students were already there, early. They were watching the "Channel One" news program broadcast into all the classrooms every morning (not because they wanted to, but because it's the only thing the class televisions would play!). They were watching a news story about some Columbine-style school shooting that had taken place in an affluent, suburban school somewhere in another state, where a disturbed young man had gone on a seemingly random shooting spree, killing several of his fellow students. I should also mention that about 98% of the students in the school where I taught were minority students, either Hispanic or African-American. They were unusually fascinated by this particular news story, and finally one of them turned to me and said, "Mister...why do white people do crazy stuff like that?" (only he didn't actually use the word "stuff.") Then he said, "If one of us had a problem with you, we'd just slash your car tires, and that'd be the end of it." After that, I felt much safer. | ||
| + | |||
| + | I felt safer, but there was still never any shortage of fights, vandalism, behavioral problems, and general chaos. And where there is chaos...a good teacher makes rules (at least, that's what I thought at the time). That first year of teaching, I had a long list of rules, most of them starting with | ||
1. About Relationship, not ethics | 1. About Relationship, not ethics | ||
Revision as of 19:41, 10 August 2013
Matthew 22:34-40
34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ 37He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’
Deuteronomy 5:1-7
1Moses convened all Israel, and said to them: Hear, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances that I am addressing to you today; you shall learn them and observe them diligently. 2The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. 3Not with our ancestors did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. 4The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the fire. 5(At that time I was standing between the Lord and you to declare to you the words of the Lord; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain.) And he said: 6 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 7you shall have no other gods before me.
Ten Laws, One Love: The First Commandment
Before I was a pastor, before I went to seminary, before any of my children were born, and right after Amy and I were married, I was a high school teacher. I taught ninth grade English Literature in downtown Dallas, Texas. It was in every sense an inner-city school, with all the problems of poverty, gang violence, teen pregnancy, high dropout rates, low test-scores, etc. The school where I taught wound up in the Dallas news about as often as all the EPISD schools put together over the past year, and like the EPISD schools, when we were in the news it was rarely ever about something good. Teaching in that environment was a challenging experience...and yet it was also one of the most fulfilling, inspiring, and meaningful experiences in my life.
My first year as a teacher (I was 25 years old) I was a little bit worried about the chaotic environment, and the school's reputation as a "dangerous" school. That changed one morning when I came into my classroom before school had started and a few students were already there, early. They were watching the "Channel One" news program broadcast into all the classrooms every morning (not because they wanted to, but because it's the only thing the class televisions would play!). They were watching a news story about some Columbine-style school shooting that had taken place in an affluent, suburban school somewhere in another state, where a disturbed young man had gone on a seemingly random shooting spree, killing several of his fellow students. I should also mention that about 98% of the students in the school where I taught were minority students, either Hispanic or African-American. They were unusually fascinated by this particular news story, and finally one of them turned to me and said, "Mister...why do white people do crazy stuff like that?" (only he didn't actually use the word "stuff.") Then he said, "If one of us had a problem with you, we'd just slash your car tires, and that'd be the end of it." After that, I felt much safer.
I felt safer, but there was still never any shortage of fights, vandalism, behavioral problems, and general chaos. And where there is chaos...a good teacher makes rules (at least, that's what I thought at the time). That first year of teaching, I had a long list of rules, most of them starting with
1. About Relationship, not ethics 2. One of God's three "spoken word" gifts to man (decalogue, devarim...others are creation & Christ/logos) 3. Struggle against Empire: the story of God's people (in this case, Egyptian Empire)
-Neal's theory: greatest idolatry is idolatry of the self. Atheism falls into this category.
