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"When the student is ready…”
Acts 8:26-35; Acts 10:25,26; :30-33
September 17, 2006

        It’s amazing the situations that we sometimes find ourselves in… the meetings and circumstances that can catch us off guard.  I remember an evening 10 years ago or so when I was working at a news desk… at that station that is all news all the time.   A colleague was there showing her mother around the station.  When they briefly stopped to greet me.   I was producing that weekend and the reporter and her mom just said hello… realizing that I was working against the clock getting ready for the next news cast.  “This is Faith.”  The reporter told her mother… and then without any fanfare they moved on.

I thought nothing of it… this was a reporter who showed no emotion.  She was the one who always worked alone… never got together with others who would meet for drinks and stuff like that.  She was a little aloof actually… in a way that conveyed… “I’m here to work, not to make friends… I hate gossip, and hate corporate politics even more… that what she had written all over her and she and I had never had any conversation before.   She was a person no one disliked… but no one seemed to know well enough to like either… so I thought nothing of it when they said hello with no really banter or conversation and moved on.   But moments later… when the newscast was over… she came skipping back to the desk.  She said my mother knows you… your family and my family go way back.  I thought how would you know that she doesn’t even know my last name.  Next she explained… as soon as my mother walked passed you she said… she’s a Green.  I thought wow how did she know.  She said you look just like the Green’s at her church.  Then she said did you grow up in Blankety, Blank… Methodist Church.  I could not believe it, because while I did not my father, aunts, cousins and Grandparents had and I still had family there.  She started asking me about my parents.  I told her I had been baptized there and then I gave her my mother and father’s name… that’s when she really lit up.  John Albert she said… referring to my father in a way that only family did… he was my Sunday School teacher.

Then this stand-offish… rarely expressive reporter went on and on… about Sunday School and her mission activities when she was a youth… You see, while my father taught Sunday School and after church, when I was a baby, my mother led the young lady youth.

She had all kinds of memories that she shared…

What a lasting impression a good teacher can have on a student.

        In our first scripture reading this morning… we find Cornelius who is excited about his teacher as well.  Cornelius, a Roman centurion, is an important official himself.  But he reverences and highly respects highly this teacher of God’s word.  He realizes that Peter has been sent by God… he is an answer to his prayers and while Cornelius has been studying for some time on his own… Peter has come with special teaching for him.  But Peter gives Cornelius a warning as well he has to remind him that he is only human and the glory belongs only to God.  Good bible teachers should be honored as we have done today… however they should direct all of the praise to God. 

Keeping that in mind… what a beautiful response.  Cornelius, a man who could have been arrogant and haughty because of his high position in the powerful Roman guard, was humbly willing to look up to and sitting under the teaching of a fisherman from a small fishing town… and recognize that he was sent by the Holy Spirit to teaching him things that he needed to know about the Lord. 

There should be something about bible teaching, Christian education and discipleship that exites us and encourages us.  This is what Christian education Sunday is about.

This is a day when we dedicate the teachers… pray over the classrooms and promote the students.  This is the official beginning of a new Sunday School year…  Youth group gets back into full gear and disciple classes greet one another after the summer break.

 Just like the reunion of old buddies and friends… this is a season when we kind of “begin again.”  Consistency in worship attendance builds, as summer ends.  And as students of God’s word it is a time when we should ready ourselves and make a commitment to learning and sharing together… There is nothing wrong with studying on our own… but it’s important to share in community as well.  From the beginning of the church God has used teachers… and tutors to shed light on his word and help us to learn.

Acts 8:26-35 give us example…

 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." 27So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. 29The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it."

 30Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked.

 31"How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

 32The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
   "He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
      and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,
      so he did not open his mouth.
 33In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
      Who can speak of his descendants?
      For his life was taken from the earth."

 34The eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" 35Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

 

Moments ago you heard a story about Cornelius and Peter and just now we read about Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch.  These two scripture readings have several themes in common.  They are both about willing students, men who despite their ethnic differences were open to hearing from able and biblically astute men of God.   The teachers – Peter and Philip - were both open and available to go where God led.  In order to spread the Gospel, and be effective, they traveled… led by the spirit of God to find two men in need of understanding.

These are stories about the powerful spirit of God, and how the Lord will go to great lengths in order to meet our spiritual needs.  These are stories about the lives of those who seek God.

The nameless eunuch was searching.  One gets the impression that for years and years he had searched the scriptures in order to gain a greater understanding.  Although he was not born a Jew… and in fact was from a foreign land, he was so dedicated to Yahweh that he was willing to travel just to celebrate the high holy days and bow in the temple before the great “I am.”  But the Ethiopian eunuch was a little behind.   He had not heard the latest, being so far away.  He was still worshiping the God of the Old Testament… he did not realize that God done something new.   In the form of Jesus, God had become man and fulfilled the scriptures that he was reading about.   Similar to history students with outdated text books… or one who reads yesterday’s newspaper as if it were hot off the presses… He was reading prophesies that had already been fulfill as if they were the latest news… he needed a Gospel update… he had not yet heard the “good news” and that’s what Philip, led by the Holy Spirit, came to share.

How often do you think it is that God sends us a private tutor to tell us more about himself?  Both of the men that we read about this morning obviously spent time in devotion and personal study… and perhaps shared worship time with their families at home.  Round the table with the kids… studying God’s word… Why wasn’t that enough? Couldn’t God just continue to personally speak to them?  What did they need teachers or tutors for? 

It’s for the same reason that we need Sunday School, and bible study, church worship services and disciple 1,2,3 and 4.  Spiritual growth takes place in community.  That’s the way that it has always been, since the inception of the church. 

Not that personal meditation and quiet time isn’t great and religious broadcasting does not have its place… but teachers of the word, in the church, can not be replaced.

Cornelius and the Ethiopian eunuch were ready students, and God sent capable teachers their way.  The teachers were no better than the men that they came to teach… but they were chosen and they had something significant to share. 

Without bible teachers… classes where together we examine God’s word… and structured study groups… just like the men in the scriptures today we are not yet plumbing the depths and until we do so we are missing out.

Devoted and dedicated… committed to biblical  study… these men were still in need of more from God’s word and when these students were ready to move up a little higher, dig a little deeper and stretch their faith, God sent the right teachers along.

When the student is ready… as the saying goes ... the teacher will appear.  When these men were ready, God sent teachers to help them grow and it was an opportunity that they recognized and gladly embraced.

What kind of student are you today?  Are you ready?  Are you at home trying to figure it all out on your own?  Are you thinking about bible study… but have not found the time?  There are classes here almost every day of the week.  Are we ready students?  Because, the teachers are here.  Not perfect people or people that we must look up to… but ready people… willing people… who long to share God’s word with you. 

I myself was not always a ready student.  There was a time that I did not want to go to Sunday School.  But I am glad that my parents in their wisdom did not give me a choice.  I can not tell you anything about my first experience in Sunday School.  I can not remember my first teacher… or the first time I walked into a church school room.  But I can tell you about the week before.  That’s right… I actually remember the week before my first experience in Sunday School I remember it so vividly it could have almost taken place last year as far as I am concerned.  It is the day that I reached a point of no return.  It was the day that I was forced to leave the church nursery and I remember it well.  I remember the crying and the tears.  I remember pulling away from my young nervous mom.  I remember the terrible feeling I had when my mother tried to pull me away from all of the other young kids… leaving my little sister and a room full of wonderful toys behind.  I must have made quite an impression because I remember it in detail.  I put up so much fuss my mother had to leave me there after I pledge a simple promise.  Promise me she said… next week you will go to Sunday School.  Of course I was adamant I said no. But she reminded me I was five… I had to move on… I was a big little girl… there was a better place for me… with kind people who were waiting to meet my needs.  That place she said would be fun too… and that place where the five year olds went was called Sunday School… promise she said and I will let you stay in the nursery one last day… and so reluctantly I gave my pledge. And the week moved on… but as the next Sunday began to draw nigh… my mother dropped hints… remember what happens this Sunday she’d say?  Where are you going…. That’s right!  Sunday School… and this week… you will join a new class…where you will learn lots of good things about God.

 Needless to say all worked out fine.  But imagine if she had left me in the nursery for life.  I would not be one of your pastors today.  There comes a time in our lives as Christians when we must move on from the nursery so to speak.  That is move on from the spiritual level that we have obtained.   At some point we must make the necessary sacrifice to come a little earlier or stay a little later or show up during the week after work to have a deeper encounter with Jesus Christ.  I am not saying that it is not wonderful to study at home… great to listen to Christian radio… and absolutely necessary to read the bible on your own.   But I am saying that is not enough.  We need bible study, we need bible teachers and we need to have all of our children in Sunday School…

Cornelius needed it, the Ethiopian eunuch needed it… and God sent the teachers.   We have the teachers here today… but it’s the potential students that I am speaking to right now.  It’s when the students are ready that the teachers come… if you are not already are you willing to become a student of the word?  There is a class just right for you here at Metropolitan.  We have a new believers study… we have classes of great depth, we have a weight loss coupled with bible study… we have offerings for children, there is youth group coupled with bible study… a biblically based abstinence program and youth confirmation that kicks off soon… we have a special needs class both on Sunday and during the week… there is not much that we do not have… but the students… in some cases.   It is the teachers who are ready… ready and waiting for the students to come.

God must see a need because good teachers are something with which he has certainly blessed us.

Are you ready… are you ready to commit to sending your children and joining a class too?  The apostle Peter, in his letter to early Jewish Christians in First Peter 2:2, says like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk that you may grow up in your salvation.  That milk is the word of God… But the apostle Paul gives a warning to believers that continue to take in only milk for too long… he says to the Church at Corinth I gave you milk, not solid food, because you were not ready for it and indeed you are still not ready… because you are worldly.  Milk is fine at first… but in order to grow spiritually we need more nourishment than a simple meal can provide.   Are we ready in to leave the milk of the word… and take in some meat?  Are we ready to leave the church nursery, in other words? 

Are we ready to give the disciple teachers and the children’s Sunday School teachers someone to teach?  Are the students ready?  Because the teachers have come.  They have made the commitment and they are ready… are we?   We are always in the process of learning.  Bible students are always in the process of growing… we never arrive… spiritual development is a life long process.

We can not afford to remain in an entry level state of development for too long.  Imagine had my mother left me in the nursery for good because of my protests…    Its sounds silly… but realistically we would never leave our children in an elementary kindergarten without encouraging them to graduate to first grade… and beyond.   As it is in the natural, so it is in the spiritual world.  We need to be challenged to grow.  That happens as we learn together and study as a group…

Worship is important… but the main focus of worship is not us… its God.  Lifting our hearts and our praises to the Lord is paramount in worship… second only to that is what we gain from it.   What we glean from the sermon and experience through song… is a benefit of our dedication to making our first priority reverencing and humbly bowing before our God.  

         Sunday School and bible study that’s where our needs are met.   Sunday Service is where we worship.  Sunday School is where we gain a deeper understanding Bible Study is where we learn and small groups and classes are where we develop relationships with one another as believers and gain encouragement from our fellow sister and brothers Christ.  Christian Education is one of the most important things that happen in the life of the church.

It’s where we build lasting relationships, accountability and a sense of Christian family. 

Imagine how shocked I was when a fellow reporter, that I barely knew, began to open up to me with a glow on her face and share the joys of her experiences in Sunday School and church youth group.

She remembered so much about the teachers… and later I learned how much she remembered the lessons too.  Years later, I ran into her again…I had moved on to another station.  And we were two competitors covering the same trial.  Immediately after the verdict we all ran to file our reports.  I was still a novice, not because I was not a good reporter, but because I had not yet learned how to recover when things went wrong.  I was in the hall of the Oakland County Court house when one of the Kevorkian verdicts came down and in the midst of preparing I realized that the batteries on my station issued tape recorded, (called a mirantz), had gone down.  I had no power.  Well, my sister in Christ jumped to the rescue… before I knew it; she whipped… the batteries out of her own recorder and started rushing to place them into mine.  I tried to stop her.  She had her own newscast to do.  She insisted, because my newscast aired immediately at the top of the hour and her station went live 5 minutes after mine… they were coming to her after a national report.

I was flustered because her batteries would not work for my equipment.  But I learned something that day I will never forget.  Because of her Christian upbringing she was a person of deep compassion   – even though she came of as aloof in her attempt to remain above the gossipy-ness and bitterness of the newsroom. 

With a selflessness, that only comes with character she was more concerned for me, than I was for myself.  In her wisdom that came with experience and age she understood that I was going to be in big trouble when she beat me to the punch with the breaking story.  And she wanted to spare me the embarrassment of missing the opportunity to be first with a major verdict, when my station had a live broadcast coming up sooner than any other station represented there.

Due to failed batteries, I messed up that day.  Before I knew it another reporter from my station was on the scene and I was sent downstairs to cover another trial. 

But what I remember most about that day… is her… the reporter who in the midst of a highly competitive environment, where most fierce journalist would have gone for the juggler… thought first about how she could assist a sister in need when there was no benefit for her.

This is someone who gained something from youth group… and Sunday School… yes… years before she told me how much she remembered and appreciated her teachers… but on that day she showed me what she had really learned.  That day she lived out, before a group of reporters from every station in Detroit, the life molding, character developing, faith building lessons that she had learned as a student of the word.  The other TV and print reporters looking on must have wondered “What would make her go that far to help a competitor from another station?”  The answer is only Christ the love of Christ.

These are the lessons that children learn in Sunday School and they are lived out in all sorts of ways… but it is our responsibility as parents and adults to get them there… and when you come there will be a class waiting for you too.

Rev. Faith Green Timmons

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