Forever Young
Rev. Paul Sprecher
Second Parish in Hingham, www.secondparish.org
June 14, 2009
When I was six or seven years old, I loved to play with the felt story board my grandmother had when she was the superintendent of our Sunday School – the person who supervised children's religious education, just like Rev. Kim does here at Second Parish. There was a big board made of felt and then you had figures cut out of felt that represented people or animals or towns or hills or whatever you needed to tell a story. Did any of you grownups have a felt board in church school when you were growing up?
You could tell lots of stories with the felt story board. For example (play along with me for a minute everybody – use your imaginations!) here's the felt board behind me here; and here's Joseph and a donkey with Mary riding on it and over here is a city – Bethlehem, let's say – and Mary and Joseph are heading into Bethlehem because they have to return to the city of David to be taxed. Here's the sun going down and Mary and Joseph are going slower and slower and slower because they're very tired. Finally they get to the town and knock on an innkeeper's door, but he says....? [Kids: “No Room!”] Right, so you already know that story. After all, you kids all act out that story each year in our Christmas pageant, right?
OK, another story: Here’s little David and here’s BIG Goliath, and David leans down and picks up five smooth stones; the windup .. and .. the pitch. And down goes Goliath! You get the idea. I loved the story board because I loved my grandmother, and because I loved the stories from the Bible that she told. But I also loved trying out telling the stories for myself, partly to make sure I remembered, and partly, I suppose, because I liked talking. I'm a Sprecher, after all – that means “speaker,” you know?
What my grandmother was doing with her felt board had a lot in common with what we do here in religious education. She was telling stories that were important for understanding our religious traditions; she was using pictures to help us understand, and she was giving us the idea that we could tell those stories ourselves. We tell stories from the Bible in religious education here, too, but we also tell other stories from our Unitarian and Universalist traditions – for example, in the class on UU Superheroes. We use materials that allow you to “think with your hands” as well as with your heads, and we give you opportunities to get your hands in clay and dirt and plants and all of the wonderful things to explore around us in this amazing creation of which we're so privileged to be a part.
We think it's really important that you grow up understanding the Unitarian Universalist religious traditions from which we spring directly as well as the Christian and Jewish foundations on which our traditions are built. That's why we teach you stories from the Bible and about our own UU History. But we also want you to know that, proud as we are of our own faith traditions, there are also many other religious traditions in the world which are equally important to people who grow up in those traditions. Some of you experience this diversity in your own homes; you may have grandparents who are Jewish and Catholic, or Protestant and Catholic, or Christian and Hindu. We want you to have a firm foundation in our faith tradition so that you can remain open-hearted toward people from other traditions, and so that you can learn to understand other religions without feeling that they threaten your own faith.
We here don’t use the word “faith” to mean that you have to agree with specific doctrines or teachings that have been handed down over many generations, or that you have to recite a set of words saying that you “believe in” something. What we mean by faith is an understanding that this earth is a good earth; that you have a place here where you are loved and cared for; and that you can grow up to have a meaningful part in helping to make it better in many ways. One of my UU heroes, William Ellery Channing, one of the founders of Unitarianism almost 200 years ago, spoke of what we do in religious education this way:
The great end in religious instruction is not to stamp our minds upon the young, but to stir up their own; to inspire a fervent love of truth; to touch inward springs; to awaken the conscience, the moral discernment. In a word, the great end is to awaken the soul, to excite and cherish spiritual life. [Singing the Living Tradition, 652, passim]
We want to help you learn to live in freedom responsibly. The wisest parents and teachers know that at every age there are some things you can do on your own and some things you need to grow up a little more before you’re ready. Too little freedom and you don’t learn to figure things out on your own; too much freedom and you find that you are making choices that can really hurt you – like touching a stove when you're very young just to find out what it feels like (ouch!).
You all know that part of the covenant we recite together each Sunday when we gather says that we unite “in the spirit of Jesus,” right? So I always like to look to see what Jesus says about things. Jesus talks a lot about the “Kingdom of Heaven” or the “Kingdom of God;” and what I understand him to mean by that is something Martin Luther King, Jr. called “The Beloved Community” – a community where there would be no more wars or fighting or unfairness, where everyone could be happy and at peace. Our whole covenant here at Second Parish is a way of expressing our commitment to build that better community, that “kingdom,” as Jesus put it, right here, together. Once some parents brought their kids to see Jesus, and his students – or disciples – tried to shoo them away. But Jesus wouldn’t let them; he said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” [Matt 19:14] Another time the disciples were arguing among themselves about who was better and who would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven – they kind of squabbled like brothers and sisters sometimes do – and Jesus called a child over and said [Matt. 18:3] “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”
So you kids have a special place in helping all of us understand more about what that spirit of Jesus is really about – what he was teaching all of us to do. And teachers are really privileged to be able to help you learn because they’re learning at the same time; each of us is enriched in our own spiritual journey as we help you kids to work through your own questions and we test out the answers we’ve worked out for ourselves so far. So I hope that many of you who don’t have kids in the religious education program right now will take advantage of the opportunity to share some of that precious time with our children and experience it as a way that you can continue to learn and grow, no matter how old you may be. When I was a middle school teacher, our principal used to say, “We teachers pass on what the grown ups have learned so far, and you – you students keep us young.”
In that spirit, I want to share with all of you the wish expressed in the song “Forever Young” by Bob Dylan, which I know best in a version by Joan Baez. Part of what I love about this song is that it’s meant for kids and grownups, too, because all of us need to keep our hearts and spirits young even if our bodies are getting older on us.
May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true,
May you always do for others
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung,
[and] May you stay forever young,
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung,
May you stay forever young,
Forever young, forever young,
May you stay forever young.
Amen.