A father was passing by his son’s bedroom and was astonished to see his bed was nicely made and everything was picked up. Then he saw an envelope propped up prominently on the centre of the bed. It was addressed, “Dad”. With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and read the letter with trembling hands:

 

“Dear Dad, It is with great regret and sorrow that I’m writing to you. I had to elope with my new girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with mom and you. I’ve been finding real passion with Maxine and she is so nice – even with all her piercings, tattoos, and her tight motorcycle clothes. But it’s not only the passion, dad, she’s pregnant and Maxine said that we will be very happy. Even though you don’t care for her, as she is much older than I am. She wants to have many more children with me and that’s now one of my dreams too. Maxine taught me that marijuana doesn’t really hurt anyone and we’ll be growing it for us and trading it for all the cocaine we want. In the meantime, we’ll pray that science will find a cure for AIDS so Maxine can get better; she sure deserves it! Don’t worry Dad, I’m 15 years old now and I know how to take care of myself. Someday I’m sure we’ll be back to visit so you can visit your grandchildren.

Your son, John.

P.S. Dad, none of the above is true. I’m over at the neighbour’s house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than my report card that’s in the desk centre drawer. I love you! Call when it is safe to come home”.

When we get things out of perspective, we can get very upset indeed. I think we have a fairly good idea of that concept in this part of the world.

I find it amazing that in the year 2006 we are still finding new things. To a naturalist, finding new species of plants and birds in Indonesia must be mind-blowing. To an Egyptologist, finding new sarcophagi in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor must be truly magnificent. To the Muslim, depicting their prophet in a Cartoon has caused tremendous upset and violence.

Today has been named Education Sunday by all Christian Churches; a day of prayer and celebration for everyone in the world of education. We live in the most enlightened and educated society ever.

At no other time has there been so much opportunity and so many windows of possibilities open to young people especially; even since my time, which isn’t a hundred years ago! As Derek Kinnen was teaching me yesterday, ‘to educate’ comes from the Latin word meaning ‘to draw out’ or ‘to develop from within’. So, far from ‘stuffing’ you with facts and figures, education is meant to draw out; I suppose it is meant to help you achieve your potential as human beings.

So how is it then, that in such an educated world as we live in today, where education is meant to ‘broaden your mind’, how is it then, that we can, seemingly more easily than ever, get things so much out of proportion, and behave even more narrow-mindedly than ever before? There seem to be more people with complete ‘tunnel-vision’ than ever before. For me, the equation just doesn’t add up! Has education only helped to highlight how and why we differ from each other, rather than highlighting what we have in common? The words of the highly educated Mahatma Ghandi come to mind when he was trying to unite his people. “I am a Hindu. I am a Muslim. I am a Christian”.

The truth is that whatever about uniting an ever increasingly divided world, we have problems keeping our own Christian Church together. In our vilification, and our outrage at certain ‘stands’ that we are quite happy to make, are we missing out on our true priorities? It’s a bit like the farmer who claimed to have a million frogs in his pond near his house. He arranged with a restaurant owner in the town to bring in five hundred frog legs every week, until all the frogs were gone. And the first week he arrived in the restaurant with just two scrawny frogs. And the restaurant owner said, “Where are all the hundreds of frogs?” The farmer replied, “I must have been mistaken. I could only find these two frogs in the whole pond…but they sure make a lot of noise!” We get upset over issues which are sometimes very small.

Just remember, our God is a very big! The Christian Church has had to put up with ridicule and persecution since the very beginning…and the Church is still here. And, as we were trying to say last week, it’s not ever going to go away. It can be upsetting and hurtful, but God can handle it…don’t you think?

Whenever we are trying to look at the priorities of the Christian Church, we only ever need to look at Jesus himself. “Filled with compassion” Mark Chapter 1 says, “Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man”, that is, the man with leprosy. Let’s not get things out of proportion. James says that true religion is this: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress…to look after! How many times do we hear of Jesus being ‘filled with compassion’ or ‘moved greatly’? The world can say what they like. All we need to do is concentrate on our compassion for a hurting, unjust, hungry and divided world.

There is a lot more to do in our world than get upset over things that really are of little consequence at the end of the day.