Thought for Today
Exodus 18:19 You should represent the people before God, and you should bring their cases before God; 20 teach them the statutes and instructions and make known to them the way they are to go and the things they are to do.
Psalm 25:4 Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths.
Luke 4:14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.
If you don’t know what a cassette tape is (was?), you’re probably too young to read or understand what I am thinking about today. Remember cassette tapes? For a period of time tapes were our primary way to listen to music. Long before streaming or home ‘assistants,’ there were tapes and tape players. Cars came equipped with radios and tape players. There were tape players for runners to Velcro to their arms. Tapes were ubiquitous.
Why, you may ask, am I thinking about tapes today (or ever!)? Tapes gave rise to one of my favorite metaphors describing how we learn. One of our ministers in Houston often referred to the ‘tapes playing in our minds.’ By that, he meant that long after our childhood, we still remembered the lessons inculcated in our minds by our parents and teachers. I often joke that every Sunday, as I dress for church, I hear the voice of my mother asking me, “Are you planning to go to church looking like that?”
Normally, I would never want to publicly admit that I hear voices in my head. However, all of us who are ‘of an age’ understand that metaphor. Every decision we make, irrespective of whether it is earth-shattering or trivial, is influenced by those voices from our past. Adults learn how to be adults by applying those long-ago lessons . . . or, at least we should.
What relevance does any of this have just a few days after we celebrated the birth of the Son of God? Certainly, when Jesus “began to teach in their synagogues,” in addition to “the power of the Spirit,” Jesus also heard those metaphorical tapes playing in his head. Tapes long ago recorded in his youth as Joseph and Mary raised him and taught him. It was not accidental that Jesus used carpentry analogies like “Matthew 11:29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Jesus remembered those lessons he learned in Joseph’s carpentry shop.
Where else would Jesus have learned how to summarize the entirety of scripture with 2 simple commandments, "Matthew 22:37 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'” and “39 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'” Yet, “40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Jesus ‘went to seminary’ at the feet of his parents.
I cannot imagine what went on in Joseph’s and Mary’s minds as the reality of the parental burden they faced became apparent to them. How do you teach the Son of God? How do you teach that babe in the manger what it means to carry the burden of being the Messiah, the Redeemer?
When Greta and I were first married and decided to have a family, I was studying Behavioral Management. I took a lot of night classes on what essentially was psychology applied to business. I learned the then-current idea that a child’s behavior patterns are formed in the first 3-5 years of life. I learned that one could encourage desired behavior by how one responded, what was known as stimulus-response bonding. We deliberately decided to raise our children by encouraging desired behavior and rewarding it, not by punishing undesirable behavior. We rarely had to spank our children or punish them by withholding privileges. Admittedly, we had pretty great children to begin with.
Joseph and Mary were chosen by God. They were chosen because God knew them, God trusted them and God knew that they would raise that babe in the manger to become the adult Jesus.
Not everyone is as fortunate as was Jesus. Some of us have positive and/or negative tapes playing in our minds. As adults, we must choose wisely which tapes to listen to and by which to be guided. Thankfully, like Jesus we too can be “filled with the power of the Spirit.” We just need to listen to that Spirit.
Stay safe, listen and choose wisely, trust God,
Pastor Ray