Baptized we Live: A Way of Teaching

Sermon Series #3 - June 25, 23

Pastor Deb - BRCC

Her name was Betty Brecto, and she was quite a teacher! When I went to High School, it was considered a high priority to take her “Office Practice” course. In this course, we were taught shorthand; professional letter writing styles; some accounting and especially typing. Under her tutelage, it became a competition to see who could type the most words within a minute with the least amount of errors. And so nearly every day started with a typing test. Betty Brecto with her stopwatch, and determined students typing and concentrating as hard as they could. One of my classmates was a pianist and he had a natural talent. He could type well over 70 words per minute without error. And so, Betty Brecto let him set the bar for the rest of us, and I was thrilled when at the end of the year I had the ability to type 72 words per minute without error! Now it may sound really old fashioned to teach kids how to write letters and type fast, but let me tell you…that skill has been utilized my entire life! I can type as fast as I can think….which is notably slowing down these days ;) BUT, that skill has been invaluable in becoming a competent writer and communicator. Whenever I see today’s young people pecking out words and symbols with their thumbs on their phones…or scratching out an unreadable signature… I feel Betty Brecto turning over in her grave reminding today’s world that they simply don’t know how important it is to TEACH our children practical life skills!

Well…today we continue on our journey toward a fuller understanding of what it means to be Lutheran Christians, baptized into Christ to LIVE a life of faith, love and joy. We learned that our Lutheran faith is not just a system of doctrines, rules…dogma that tells us how we GET to God. But a WAY of seeing how God pursues and finds us in our brokenness through the embrace and victory of Christ’s cross; and a way of Hearing God’s voice into each and every new day and new generation through the HEARING of God ‘s LIVING WORD in holy scripture. We come here to worship and live out a LITURGY…meaning “a shared work” to respond thru hearing the WORD…receiving the SACRAMENTS…And Opening ourselves the power and presence of the HOLY SPIRIT’S call to follow Jesus in Loving the world.

Today we turn to a WAY OF TEACHING: Teaching one another, and our sons, daughters, grandchildren and neighbors a relevant and fresh understanding of what God is doing EVEN today, to pull us together in unity of faith. Teaching involves WORDS…but they need to be words that communicate a living event…and witness to the living WORD alive and active in our own experience of history. Words without relevant experience often fall short.

For example, do you remember the story of Helen Keller? A young girl born blind, deaf and mute. She had no real way of entering into life around her until a determined teacher came into her life. She tried everything she could think of to penetrate Helen’s awareness and one day…Helen finally put together the reality that the wet liquid her teacher put in her hands was connected to the symbols/words her teacher was writing into her palm. As Helen followed the letters and they formed a way of communicating reality, the thrill of living each and every new day unfolded. And from that moment on, Helen raced to her teacher with every possible object or experience she could find and grabbed ahold of the WORD her teacher gave her to name and explain the experience.

So it is with a way of teaching the REALITY and EXPERIENCE of our life with our LIVING GOD. The WORD must be taught experientially…it is meant to change…reform…open eyes, ears, hearts and usher in a new way of living.

But HOW do we teach one another this way? In Betty Brecto’s day it was a matter of discipline, respect, rules, practice and gradual discovery and enthusiasm. You did the WORK…you got the outcome valued. Today…those methods are being continually challenged as teachers and leaders must access human interest and learning through tools like the internet. Tools that so over stimulate and overwhelm that many are left scratching their heads because they can’t keep up.

But perhaps the most challenging aspect of Christian witness today is being heard at all! At the core of our Lutheran understanding of faith we are centered on GRACE (Come and See…Come and love and be loved) rather than a recipe of RULES, GUILT…or INCENTIVES. Today there are many forms of GLORY Theology. “ I do this for God…become this recipe of piety for God…and God WILL reward me over others.” The focus is not on being TAUGHT and learning…but in pointing out the LOG in another’s eye, so I can protect my entitled status.

The “Betty Brecto” style of teaching is no longer valued as effective. Our cultures commitment to the discipline of regular attendance at worship; confirmation training; Sunday School, Adult Education….ALL those methods of gathering, discussing, teaching, informing have gone by the wayside as fewer people today see it as important, or possible given the BUSY state os everyday life. It’s almost as if we need another REFORMATION.

Well….500 years ago, there was such a REFORMATION. A learned, scholarly Monk named Martin Luther watched as Christ’s Church was being drowned in falsehoods, greed and political disunity. The people of God were trapped by poverty and ignorance. The scriptures were only written in Latin or Greek, so only the Religious elite had access to the LIVING WORD. The people were like sheep without a shepherd…and wolves were demanding money to buy indulgences to pay for their sins. There was a well known saying that went like this: When a coin into the church coffers rings; a soul from purgatory springs!” Imagine the hold of a church on your life if you had to bring in $10 dollars for every time you sinned or stumbled, and $1000 for each of your relatives that have died so that they could get into heaven! Stupid…Silly! Yes, of course, but don’t you find yourself thinking how stupid and silly some of the falsehoods and conspiracy theories that float around today are as they “capture” allegiance to people who proudly call themselves Christian?

What happened 500 years ago is a long story of “truth telling,” and confrontation that was meant to SAVE the Catholic Church rather than depart from it. But in those days, church and state were not separate, and edicts and theological trials were set up to wrestle with the WORD of God. Out of that movement came the printing press…which allowed EVERYONE access to what was happening, and the translating of the WORDs of Scripture into the language of the people so everyone could come and be taught the LIVING WORD for themselves. To this day, the Apostolic and Nicene creeds; the ten commandments; the Lord’s prayer and the articles of truth in witness are anchored in what’s called “The Augsburg Confession,” and is the basis of our teaching and passing along the faith to our confirmands and newly converted.

Yet this too…The Augsburg Confession” is not a “dead in the water of history” document. But a living witness that encourages and challenges us to keep on REFORMING as a WAY OF TEACHING. Every year we celebrate the Reformation, and proclaim that we are set free by God’s living Word to be made NEW. To be Lutheran, is to claim that we are old wine skins that cannot hold old wine…but in Christ, we are NEW Wineskins…ready to be filled and fermented and used to nourish a thirsty, hurting, lost and needy world.

Next Sunday, July 2nd, at our Casual Sunday event, we will spend time reviewing in this booklet these three ways of Life with Christ. The fourth aspect…A WAY OF FOLLOWING… will be offered on July 16th (after Bay Days) and we will have a time to gather again on Wednesday evening, July 19th, to complete this series together.

I pray that you can find the time to come…and if you can’t that you will check out the hard copies or video’s of these sermons on our website. For we NEED to be united in our understanding of how we live out our life of faith here at BRCC as we prepare for what God has for our future. As we pray for God to prepare a pastoral leader to serve and lead this community, we also pray that God will prepare US to embrace our identity and future as God’s people here in Finland, Minnesota.

As you go on your way…remember this little story:

When the artist Lenardo da Vinci had nearly finished his immortal painting, the “Last Supper,” he invited a friend to give him some feedback. The friend heaped superlatives on the masterpiece and especially praised the wind cup by the Lord’s hand. Leonardo immediately grabbed his brush and blotted out the cup. “Nothing,” he said, “should distract one’s attention from the Lord.” What a way of teaching! Amen.