The Scriptures: Light, Food, Fire

I'm up too late again, but wrestling through some good reading, thinking and praying. These days I am often up late reading church history and responding to student papers (my seminary students and also the diocesan students I'm working with this term). Tonight I'm mainly reading, but finding it hard to concentrate on the academic side of things because I keep getting stopped in my tracks by thoughts from theologians and writers of the past. I find myself wrestling with what they're saying on a personal, heart level, as I consider my own journey with Jesus. And I find myself thinking a lot about the kids we're teaching in catechesis class each week.

I don't know if I've written anything about that here (my blogging has been so sporadic this fall) but my husband and I are co-teaching catechesis for 6 young people, ages 13-18, in our parish. Actually my husband is doing the bulk of the teaching and coordinating, and I'm there for as much of the meeting as I can be (some weeks I have other meetings I have to do first) to help spur discussion, teach a bit of church history, and pray with them. The purpose of our weekly meeting is mostly informational, in that we're providing a lot of teaching content for the kids to chew on -- material about the story of the Scriptures, the story of the church, the creeds and the Lord's prayer. We're basically the classroom while the kids' work with their mentors, outside of the class, is like their lab. It's there where they're supposed to try their wings, attempt some spiritual stretches, engage in inner and outer spiritual disciplines, wrestle with the daily stuff, though hopefully we're helping provide framework and context for all that.

I confess I have never felt as inept as a teacher as I have with this group, except perhaps for how inept I'm currently feeling on Thursday nights where we're working with a group of highly rambunctious K-4th graders, mostly unchurched, who are having a really hard time sitting still. But that's a post for another time.

I know I'm tired, and it's easy (oh so easy) to get discouraged when I'm this tired. It's also easy to fall into the trap of thinking: if we could just come up with teaching methods more creative, more interesting, more relevant, more _______ (fill in the blank) the kids would be more responsive. But I've been wrestling through that tonight and have come to the conclusion that maybe the best thing we can be right now is just faithful. Faithful to pray for these kids, faithful to try to engage them, faithful to prod them or challenge them when necessary, faithful to let them ask questions, faithful to listen.

One thing that's particularly flummoxing me is how to share with them, in ways that are real and authentic, what the Bible can mean in a person's life (and what it means in mine). We've been challenged by the fact that they are not doing the weekly Bible reading we've assigned (or at least not willing to admit they're doing it). We've been surprised by how difficult it is for them to sustain attention or even pay attention when we read passages in class (no matter how we've tried approaching the reading). We've been stumped by how much they're struggling to see this class as something life-giving and real, an opportunity to grow with God, as opposed to a series of things they need to check off if they want to get confirmed. I wonder how much of that isn't just the way our culture sets us up to learn. How many of us are taught to think, from an early age, that we only have to put forth effort to do something if there will be a concrete kind of "pay off" -- will there be a pop quiz? is this on the test? if I don't do it, are there immediate consequences? Instead of learning that it's good to put forth effort, and to build habits, simply because the doing of something is good in and of itself, and is good for us.

Why do you read the Bible? What does it mean to you? I've had all sorts of thoughts about those questions, and all sorts of images swimming 'round my brain this evening. I've been reading Thomas Cranmer's Preface to the Great Bible from 1540, and I actually found myself chuckling a bit because the things he's addressing are almost *exactly* the challenges we're facing. He talks about how people say they don't have time to read the Scriptures because their lives are too full. Or their lives are too complex and messy. Or because they don't understand them. And he addresses all of those in ways that are both simple and helpful.

And then there's this from Cranmer, a description of the Scriptures that really arrested my attention:

…I would marvel much that any man should be so mad, as to refuse in darkness, light; in hunger, food; in cold, fire. For the word of God is light: Lucerna pedibus meis, verbum tuum. (See Psalm 119) Thy word is a lantern unto my feet. It is food: Non in solo pane viuit homo, sed in omni verbo dei. (See Matthew 4) Man shall not live by bread only, but by every word of God. It is fire: Ignem veni mittere in tertam, & quid volo nisi vt ardeat? (See Luke 12) I am come to send fire on the earth, and what is my desire but that it be kindled?

And that's what I wish I could find a way to get across to our teenagers: how the Scriptures are light in our darkness, food for our hunger, and fire in our cold.