Practice Makes Perfect

Sermon for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists
for July 21, 2018

Texts: Deuteronomy 11:18-21, Luke 2:48-52

Wednesday morning I reviewed three photos I had taken on Tuesday night at Vacation Bible School here at the church. I counted 30 kids. That’s a weighty responsibility and a rich privilege. 30 kids with eager faces and bubbling energy.

Then I counted the adults in the pictures--23. And that did not include a number of adults and a teenager or two working in the kitchen. That number did not include the five adults leading music. So, if I counted correctly, on Tuesday night there were more grown-ups here than kids.

Which is a beautiful thing. A perfect example of church the way it is supposed to be. Devoted to the nurture of children.

I often cite statements by Jesus highlighting the status of children. This high regard for children is evident in the Bible from the very beginning. Children matter.

The one time God offered an explanation of why he chose Abraham as the progenitor of the Special People, God said, I chose Abraham because he would teach his children. Genesis 18:19.

The Book of Deuteronomy consists of five sermons preached by Moses at the end of his life, a sort of final testament. One of the central themes of the book, is Teach your children.   We heard one of those passages in our Old Testament reading this morning.

Commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these words of mine. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that as long as the sky remains above the earth, you and your children may flourish in the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors. Deuteronomy 11:18-21 NLT, accessed through Blue Letter Bible.com.

This passage ran through my head this week as I spent time hanging with the grown-ups and kids at Vacation Bible School. I saw people investing a lot of time and effort in children--children of our church and others who also joined us. Our kids are perfect. That is they are just right for awaking our intense affection and admiration. And their very perfection awakens in us holy ambitions for them. We want to replicated in their lives the story of Jesus that we heard in our New Testament reading:

Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people. Luke 2:52

As a Christian congregation, a community shaped by the words and ministry of Jesus, we have no higher calling than to support our children as they grow in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all people.

So to all of you who put in so many hours, so much creativity and love, to make this year’s Vacation Bible School happen, thank you. Thank you not just from me. Thank from the congregation. And thank you from the one who sits on the throne of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Thank you to Bryan for leading out. Thank you to Biannca and Brenda and Olga and Beverly and ??? who created the fantastic decorations.

Each evening began with supper. Thank you to LaRene for organizing the suppers and thank you to all the people who worked with her. The food was wonderful. Following supper we had singing led by Gummi and Nancy and Scott. Thank you musicians. Your music bright and lyrical. It was perfect. We had a Bible lesson on video, then the kids split into three groups. The groups moved through a rotation of science lessons, games, and crafts.

Thank you Elyse for the geology lessons. I couldn’t believe it. The first night, each kid got to break open their own geode. That was just the coolest thing ever. On another night the kids fished around in a bin of dry beans to find actual fossils that were buried there-shark teeth, crinoids, brachiopods, ammonites, orthoceras. Karla Walter and her team did amazing crafts. One night they mixed exotic and common ingredients to make cave slime. Another night they made bats.

Karen Baker and her team organized games every night to burn off some excess energy.

Karin did a continued story.

It was a hopping, happy place.

Thank you to all who made it happen.

When I think about what it takes to make Vacation Bible School happen, I cannot help it, my mind also wanders to consideration of the work required to provide all our other kids programming. Every week, volunteers provide high quality programs for children and teens. The faithfulness and generosity of these volunteers makes this a welcoming place for the perfect children God has placed among us. The perfect children who will grow in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people. You volunteers are the hands and heart of God in coaching these young people in their growth.

Thank you.

One of the truisms in every endeavor is practice makes perfect. Last weekend some of our members participated in the STP, the Seattle to Portland bicycle ride. It’s two hundred miles. The day was fiercely hot. They made it.

Some of us are thinking--wow! 200 miles! On a bicycle??!!! Others sitting here are thinking that sounds like a nice day’s ride. What makes the difference? Practice. When a person trains mileage that once seemed daunting becomes merely a description of what you do when you have a free day.

It is the same in spiritual life. When we practice spiritual disciplines, we are shaped by the disciplines until what once seemed like an impossible challenge becomes a normal part of our life.

When we make it a daily practice to pray for people, including our enemies, we find it easier to forgive them.

When we make a daily habit of reading the Bible or other devotional literature, we will find it easier to speak words that are honest and kind.

Through years of practicing meditation, we will develop softer hearts toward others who are broken and unskilled at living.

Practice makes perfect.

Here at church we pour a lot of effort into programs aimed at supporting our children as they grow in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and other people. This is one of our highest callings.

All of us who have children in our homes, let’s pledge ourselves to support our children’s practice. Let’s model and teach regular prayer, attention to holy words, Sabbath-keeping, kindly speech. Acts of compassion.

Let’s practice. And let’s encourage our children in their practice.

Because practice makes perfect. 

Perfect People

When God was figuring out who to pick as the mother of Jesus, he picked an ordinary peasant woman. We can embellish the legend endlessly. We can make up all kinds of fanciful stories. But the facts are very basic: Mary was a young Jewish woman engaged to a man named Joseph. And she was just right to serve as the mother of Jesus, or as we say in Christian circles, to be the Mother of God.

She was perfect.

So, is the height of perfection being a young peasant?

When God was looking around for someone to lead the people of Israel out of slavery across forbidden international borders into freedom, he picked the most highly educated man in the world at that time. Moses was heir to the very best of the highest, richest culture of that time. He was adopted, to be sure. But his adoption was like being adopted into the Bush or Kennedy clan. His education was the equivalent of a degree from Harvard and Stanford and Berkeley and MIT all rolled into one. He was a graduate of the Navy SEAL course.

Moses was perfect.

Some of you who know the story well might protest, but don’t you remember that he killed a man in his rage against the enslavement of his people? Don’t you remember the time when he disobeyed and struck the rock when he was supposed to only speak and God got so mad at him that he refused to let him enter the Promised Land? And don’t you remember that his marriage was problematic? And don’t you remember that he failed to lead his people into consistent, cheerful righteousness? Don’t you remember all that?

Yes. I remember. All those things are part of Moses’ story. But he was perfect. Perfect for the job God called him to. He set his people free. He led them out of Egypt. He was perfect.

Nebuchadnezzar wrote a perfect story.

Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon. When he took over the throne from his father, things were already going very well. Babylon was on the make. Nebuchadnezzar was a brilliant military leader. His armies bulldozed nearly every army that opposed them. The empire spread across the Middle East like spilled milk running for the corners of the kitchen floor. He was a masterful administrator. In an era of city states he built a nation that spanned thousands of miles.

He knew what it was like to be top dog. When he bragged about his prowess and his success, it was true. Except for one detail. He imagined he had done all this on his own. “I did it myself,” he told himself and others. He was the perfect model of arrogance.

Then he went mad and was kept like an animal in a zoo. Seven years later his sanity returned. He returned to the throne, humbled. A perfect model of the mighty brought low.

He wrote the story of his conversion and published it, circulating it across the empire. God thought the story was so perfect, he included it in the Bible.

The king of Babylon was perfect.

Ruth was perfect. She was born in the wrong country. She was a native of Moab. But she married a Jewish man who had come to Moab as an economic refugee. When he died, she migrated to Israel to take care of her mother-in-law. She was so good that God chose her to be one of the great, great, great grandmothers of Jesus, a grandmother of God.

Perfect.

Mary and Moses and Nebuchadnezzar and Ruth were very different from each other. Different nationalities, different genders. They had different social status, different educational levels. They had very different characters. And each was perfect for something.

You, too, are perfect. And I am. Each of us is uniquely shaped for some special task.

In our New Testament passage for today, we read about Jesus choosing his twelve disciples. Twelve guys that were to serve as his inner circle, his cabinet in the kingdom of heaven. At the time of this selection, Jesus was routinely surrounded by crowds of thousands of people. He had no shortage of candidates for the position. He chose these twelve.

They must have been perfect for the job. If they were not perfect, then we would say that Jesus made a mistake in choosing them. Jesus did not have to choose anyone. But he did choose. And when he chose, he chose these guys. So they must have been perfect.

I said this to Hanz as I was working on the sermon this week, and he responded with the standard Christian answer. They weren’t perfect. Rather Jesus chose them so he could make them perfect. Jesus chose them so he could save them.

But I argued that even it is true that they had defects of character, flaws in their humanity, these defects and flaws were part of their perfection. Jesus needed a collection of ordinary people to serve as a model for the church. If this first official gathering of “Christians” consisted of people with no observable weaknesses, they would be useless as models of the church. Their flawlessness would become an impediment to the accomplishment of the mission of Jesus.

Jesus made a perfect choice.

His disciples were perfect.

Just like you.

I hope two things for us this week.

First, that we will savor the glory that is ours. We are perfect. We are perfectly shaped for some task that will make the world a sweeter, better place. Especially today, on the Sabbath, when we remember that God looked at creation and said, “It is very good. I am very happy.” Today, enjoy the truth that you and your children and your cousins and neighbors are perfect.

Don’t start saying, “But . . .” I know all about the “buts.” And so does God. But for today, you are perfect and so are they.

Second. Let’s consider what we can do with our perfection. We are perfectly shaped for some special task. Let’s busy ourselves in that direction. Let’s do what we can to cooperate with Jesus in his mission to extend the reach of the Kingdom of Heaven.