Thursday, May 20, 2010

Second sermon to Chino Valley school board (5/20/2010)

Good evening.

In the first of these talks two weeks ago, I briefly set before the four professing disciples of Jesus on this board what the faith requires of those in your position. Mr. Joseph responded with a “commercial,” gratefully received by Mr. Youngblood, in which he spoke of the “delicate balance” you must find between doing justice to any individual kid and the needs of the group as a whole. I already knew that Mr. Joseph is a nice guy, and I’m still more grateful to him for so clearly dragging into the open the bad doctrine that gives rise to your bad behavior.

This “delicate balance” is all about how you have to agonize about aborting the life of this or that individual kid for the sake of the larger interests of the district. We parents of these kids, who do not appreciate your difficulties, just don’t understand.

To paraphrase Caiaphas in John 11:49-50, we parents know nothing at all, nor do we take into account that it is expedient that one kid should have his life wrecked for the convenience of the district, so that the whole district can avoid trouble.

As you know, Caiaphas was explaining why Jesus had to be done away with, because doing justice to this one man would be too much trouble.

None of this is to say that you’re especially bad people, or that your apostasy is unusual. It is only what Paul wrote of your fathers long ago in First Corinthians 2:8: none of the rulers of this age has understood, for if they had understood, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Jesus said, “Whatever you have done to the least of these my brothers you have done to me. You do to the least of kids in this district what your fathers did to Jesus because you believe about them what Caiaphas believed about Jesus – that you cannot afford to do them justice and mercy. In this you are greatly mistaken, knowing neither the scriptures nor God’s power, because Jesus warned you clearly that if you cause the least of these kids to stumble – any single one of them – it would be better for you to have a millstone tied around your neck and be thrown into the sea. The problem is not the failure of Attwood, Higgins, or Keltner to understand the wisdom of this world in which you trust. The problem, as Paul wrote, is your failure to understand the wisdom of the God that you claim to believe in.

There’s more at stake for us than whether we help a school district to get over. Jesus lived and died for kids and other eternal human beings, not for school districts.

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