Trinity 14 (Proverbs 4:10-23)

“My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings... For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this morning is the Old Testament lesson read a few moments ago from the fourth chapter of the book of Proverbs. Dear friends in Christ: Who is teaching our children? Right away there seems to be a problem; you would expect me to say, ‘Who is teaching your children?’ Maybe you are single, maybe you are still in college, or a child yourself, maybe the Lord never gave you the gift of a child. There may be no children that you can call your own. But that’s not what I asked. Who is teaching our children? Our children? One of the greatest problems in congregational life today is that we see ourselves as a collection of individuals, not as a community of faith, gathered here together for the good of our neighbors, with responsibility toward one another. The children of this congregation are our common responsibility; we together as the body of Christ are to see that they are raised in the faith. Indeed, that’s what we say whenever a child is baptized at this font, if our words are not empty and false: “We receive you in Jesus’ name as our brother or sister in Christ, that together we might hear His Word, receive His gifts, and proclaim the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

Who is teaching our children? The Bible has an answer that is clear, and it is implied in the first words of our text. “Hear, my son, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many.” The way of wisdom is to be taught in the home, it is to be passed on from generation to generation. In fact, God even gives us a commandment to drive this point home: “Honor your father and your mother.” Martin Luther begins every part of the Small Catechism with these words, “As the head of the family should teach in a simple way to his household.” Who is the head of the family? In normal circumstances, where sin has not wreaked havoc on this order, it is the husband and father. Who should teach our children? Fathers, first and foremost. Part of being a man, a husband, a father, is to ensure that your children are raised in the faith. Studies have consistently shown that when fathers bring children to church, the chances are tremendously higher that those children will become regular churchgoers than if the father is absent from worship. This fact isn’t meant to discourage mothers who faithfully bring their children to church, is meant to call on fathers to be men, to man up and take the responsibility that God has given to them.

But this fact doesn’t excuse the rest of us. These are our children, and we all should be concerned about our children. We are to encourage and exhort parents to teach the faith in the home, giving them the resources they need, we are to teach young men how to be heads of their households, how to man up. Who is to teach our children? We as a congregation, the body of Christ in this place, are to supplement the teaching of the faith that occurs at home. That’s why we have Sunday School and confirmation instruction, and that’s why we have a day school and pre-school, to exhort children as Solomon does in our text: “Keep hold of instruction; do not let go; guard her, for she is your life.” Parents are free to ask other churches, or the government, to educate their children, but if our school isn’t the first option considered—and it clearly isn’t—then our congregation needs to do some hard thinking, for we together, not just the school board, not just the staff, but all of us, have a responsibility to make our school the primary place where the children entrusted to our congregation can be set on the path of wisdom.

For there are others who seek to teach our children, and wherever our children receive their education, there are many seeking to set our children on the path of the wicked. “Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil. Avoid it; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on.” Who is teaching our children? Those in power. Those who control the levers of government education, those who produce the television programs and movies that our children consume, those who are rich and famous. It is no sin to ask the government to educate your child, or to turn on your television at night, but we cannot do so naively, without knowing what our children are taught and countering any falsehood with the truth of God’s Word. “I have taught you the way of wisdom; I have led you in the paths of uprightness. When you walk, your step will not be hampered, and if you run, you will not stumble.”

If you think that our children can be taught that sex is recreation—only be safe!—that the world came into being through chance, or that gender is fluid and has no connection to biology, and that these teachings will have no effect on the faith given to them in their baptism, repent. If you think that an hour a week, or less, of Christianity can counterbalance countless hours of the world’s education, repent. If you think that by sending your child to a Christian school—even our school!—your task of raising your child in the faith is complete, repent. Repent, dear friends, repent, for we are sending our children out as sheep among wolves, and we are neglecting our duty to prepare them for a world that hates them and hates Christ. Repent, for often the last thing we look at when considering colleges for our children is where they will go to church. Repent, for we have made sports—watching and playing—an idol to which we will even sacrifice the salvation of our children. Repent.

The devil wants our children to stumble; he wants them to falter and fall. He presents to them a wide and easy road, shrouded in darkness. He doesn’t want them to know that they stumble, he simply wants them addicted to sin. “For they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong; they are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble. For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.” The devil wants our children to stumble, to leave the faith. He is a master of a thousand arts; he simply changes tactics. He doesn’t care where you send your children to be educated, he just wants them to stumble.

But do not fear, dear friends. There is another power in this world, who has already overcome the devil with all of his wiles. He has put Satan under His feet, crushing the serpent’s head upon the cross. It is He who guides His children on the path of life. It is He who marked His children, our children, with the sign of the holy cross on the day of their baptism, who made them His own and will neither leave them nor forsake them. The way of wisdom, the path of righteousness, is not simply a moral code, a path of right and wrong. It is the path of salvation, the path of the cross. “My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh.” His words are life only if they are the words of the Gospel, the words of the cross, Jesus’ death in our place. A moral and upright life cannot save us, for we always stumble, we enter the path of wickedness day by day. No, His words are life because they give us healing from our sin. As the prophet declares in Isaiah fifty-three: “But He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed.” It is the wounds of Jesus that heal us; He was pierced for our negligence of the children entrusted to us, as parents or as a congregation, He was pierced for when we prioritize other things above the salvation of our youth. He was pierced for your every transgression, and with His wounds you are healed.

Who is teaching our children? Jesus. Jesus teaches His children the path of righteousness, the path of the Gospel, pouring out upon them the grace that He won for them on Calvary’s cross. That is what He does here in this place, bestowing His grace upon us and upon them, forgiving our every sin and reassuring us of our identity as His children. It is He who leads us on a path without stumbling; the words of our text are not really the words of Solomon after all, but the words of the One who suffered and died for you, who suffered and died for our children. “When you walk, your step will not be hampered, and if you run, you will not stumble.” It is Jesus who gave us the faith, who died for us, who baptized us into His Name, but He doesn’t leave us to our own devices after we leave the font. No, it is He who keeps us from stumbling, who leads us on the paths of righteousness, who gives us a way bathed in His light. “The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.” When the Light of the World dwells in us, then we can see the path, and the darkness is driven away. We will not stumble nor fall, because on His path, there is only Jesus, Jesus and His body, the Church.

Who is teaching our children? The beautiful message of the Gospel is that while the children given to us as parents or as a congregation are ‘ours’ in a very real sense, they are even more truly His. They are His children, as you are His children, and He will fight for them. Yes, He does so through you, and He gives you a solemn charge and responsibility toward our children, but the responsibility for His children ultimately lies with Him, they are His. You cannot save another, even one of our children; thanks be to God, that is the work of Jesus. He died for them, as He died for you, He forgives them, and He forgives you, and He has a place in heaven for them, as He has prepared a place for you. He is your life, and He is your healing, forever. In His Name, Amen.