January 9, 2000

Pastor David G. Mullen

Genesis 1:1-5; Mark 1:4-11

We often consider the world a scary, and sometimes dangerous place. But just think how it was for the ancient people who possessed none of our technology. They were completely at the mercy of the elements, helpless against raging oceans and rising floods and in a world with no electricity the darkness of night and the coming of winter conjured up scary visions of threats in the darkness as the eyes of wild creatures gleamed just beyond the campfires. Chaos and violence were always about to break into their little circle of humanity.

In that primal setting God gifted the Hebrew people with the first glimmers of faith in a God who was stronger than the chaos–a God not like the warring gods worshipped by so many in the ancient world, but a God of law, order, mercy–the Most High God who created the everything.

Thus at the very beginning of Bible, right at the start of the story of everything shall we say, the Spirit of this God is pictured as moving over the waters. There isn’t any earth formation yet, and no life, just the Spirit of God, the ruach, to use the great Hebrew word for the primal wind, doing what some older translations called, brooding. Brooding not like a sulky child, but as a mother hen broods over the eggs and later watches over her chicks. This God, the Breath of Heaven, the Father of All and the gathering Mother, is the Spirit who is bringing order out of chaos, and light out of darkness. Believing that, the scared, but faithful people knew they’d be OK in the world.

This is powerful and important teaching. At a Conference Dean’s retreat earlier this week the retreat masters helped us understand how much fear runs not only our lives, but also the lives of many pastors and members of congregations. For us the world is often experienced as a scary place. In our world of high technology our night may be well lit by electricity, but change is so rapid we lose our bearings, and it often feels to us like the world is running out of control. We can know there is a lot of fear around because there are so many angry people around. Anger rise up out of fear. Anger is a defense mechanism, a way of trying to impose our order on a chaotic existence in which many things, if not most things, are beyond our power to control.

When the chaos and confusion and the fear rises up in us, our retreat leaders suggested that we are apt to be reacting to things like five year olds, for that’s about the age when many reactions and primal ideas about ourselves, others, and the world crystallize.

Like five years?! I don’t think that’s any kind of put down but a very compassionate and realistic view of how life is actually lived. I think this is what accounts for the astonishing popularity some years ago of a little essay written by a guy named Robert Fulghum. First passed around the circle of his family, friends and church, this essay soon was being shared in ever- wider circles, even appearing in Ann Landers. What was the essay? "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten."

Here is some of what Fulghum wrote: "All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandpile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt someone. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and milk are good for you…Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.

"Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living. Take any one of those items and …apply it to your family life or your work or your government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all–the whole world–had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap…And it’s still true, no matter how old you are–when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together." (Pages 4-6, All I Really Need to Know… Ballantine Books, New York. 1986)

It’s great stuff, isn’t it? "Everything you need to know is in there somewhere." True, except for one thing, one huge thing Fulghum left out.

Let’s get at it this way. My father died back in 1975. My mother remarried a wonderful man named Bob a couple of year later. It was a good marriage. And then in the early 90s, while I was visiting back home in Wisconsin, Bob walked into the living room and without a word, collapsed right in front of me. I caught him in my arms, and laid him gently on the floor. Mom immediately called the ambulance and I began CPR, but as is so often the case with cardiac arrest, it didn’t work. Not even the paramedics could revive him. What a horrible thing. Mom was devastated and I felt terrible. At the viewing later in the week, many old friends of the family came by to offer condolence and what a comfort that is. Among them was someone I hadn’t seen for decades–someone who didn’t need to be there due to any sense of obligation. And who was that? My first grade teacher! Mrs Vavier! I didn’t even know she was still alive–after all it had been more than forty years since I was in her class. But she came there to comfort me and spent a long time visiting with me. Wondrous love!

And so what is the thing Fulghum left out of his essay on kindergarten? The Teacher! He tells us what the Teacher taught, but he makes no mention of the Teacher. But you see, life is not merely about ideals and morals. Such things need to be fleshed out in a loving presence. What would kindergarten or first grade be without a teacher? And if, as he says it’s best when you go out into the world to hold hands and stick together, well who leads the way? The Teacher!

The Teacher. Never forget the Teacher! My first grade teacher cared enough to enter into the chaos and sorrow we were suffering. She is a picture of Christ. Into the chaos and sorrows of the world came Christ that loving Teacher. He plunged into our fears in the River Jordan. That’s what his baptism means. If humanity in its fears is like kindergarten kids, then Christ is the kind teacher. And what does he do? He gathers us together through our own baptisms into a class called the church.

For "it’s still true," as Fulghum writes, "no matter how old you are–when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together." And leading us and watching over us and bringing order and peace into our foolish, fearful selves, is Jesus Christ, rabbi, great Teacher, and presence of Wondrous Love. Church, then, is a kindergarten in which we get to trust our Teacher and learn we don’t have to be afraid. If we’ve learned that, then, truly, we’ve learned all we really need to know. Amen.