Jesus is not in the Way, He is the Way
It’s amazing how homogeneous the experiences are of pastors all across America. American Christianity is plagued by the same culture that leads to the same idols that lead to the same struggles. There are certain false gods we adore in our country and culture. Patriotism is a big one. So is our work - which is typically our primary identity. So is entertainment. So is sports. And in our cultural context, education is huge - not mainly so that our children will be truly educated in the liberal arts, to live a good life focused on the Gospel as well as the transcendentals: the good, the beautiful, and the true - but rather so that they can “get into a good college and get a good job.” There is the god work and its goddess consort of mammon. And it forms a sort of trinity with the idolization of family and children.
Of course, all of these things are good gifts of God when properly ordered behind our faith and underneath our Lord Jesus Christ: national identity, vocation, joy in life, physical fitness, learning, and the joys of spouse, children, and extended family. These are all gifts of God. But like unto the brazen serpent, all of these gifts can, and do, become idols.
Our Lord used shocking language to denounce the idolization of family and children:
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”
And this idolatry often finds its way into the Lutheran school.
Jesus is too often elbowed out to make room for curriculum, sports, and above all, putting our children at the center of everything: shows, pageants, assemblies, photographs, etc. On the Sundays when children’s choirs sing, often attendance at the Divine Service soars, as people are not coming to church to encounter our Lord Jesus Christ, or to hear the Good News of salvation, but rather to ooh and ahh over the little ones, jockeying to take pictures and shoot video.
It is often in these situations that parents and other family members complain. If a church has a choir loft, parents and perhaps even teachers whine that the children “are in the back” and not up front where they are to be adored. Parents and teachers expect things that might impede their view or “mess up” the perfect picture be moved, you know, things like the Christ candle, the podium from which God’s Word is read, or even the baptismal font or the altar, if they are on wheels (and they should not be!).
We need to get that stuff out of the way so we can see our true objects of worship.
Sadly, the idolization of the school is so common that it is a trope among pastors.
My congregation ran a large Pre-K through 8th grade school for decades. Changing economics and demographics after Hurricane Katrina brought our school to an end. People don’t realize how economically tenuous it is running a school, as one is competing with “free” government schools, which are often laden with the latest and greatest bells and whistles of technology, sports equipment, special education, and other benefits - everything except Jesus, that is. Parochial schools are constantly fundraising, paying teachers a sub-par salary, and trying to find ways for families to not be overwhelmed with tuition.
In our case, the finger-pointing when our school fell into an economic crisis became ugly, including false rumors that the principal and the pastor were engaged in wrongdoing - neither of which were true. Things degenerated to the point that on the last day, when the school was forced to close, some rostered teachers were high-fiving each other on the way out. They had become so bitter that they wanted to see it fail. After our school’s closure, some of our school parents sent their children to a Roman Catholic parochial school, and were shocked to learn that they were being taught that Adam and Eve did not exist, that Noah and the great flood were only fictional stories. The children were confused, and the parents were in a virtual panic.
But the school’s problems began long before our funding woes. In fact, I believe we were judged. I think a former school board member was correct when she said that the school had become an idol. Looking back, how can she not be correct?
Many of our teachers were too busy to come to morning devotions. Some of our teachers and staff would not come to Sunday Divine Service because this was their job, and they had already put in their 40+ hours during the school week. Our school board president (a member of the church’s board of directors) had not attended Divine Service in a year. He was technically not eligible to commune. But he never missed a board meeting. School parents became irrationally angry at me when I once criticized a dance routine by our little ten year old cheerleaders that was, frankly, sexually suggestive. Their attitude was, “Who do you think you are? We have a lady choreographer who knows more about this than you do.”
The school was a headache at times, but I loved teaching classes and leading worship. I loved the kids and the teachers. I taught nearly a full time load and didn’t ask for a penny. I watched children grow up and grow in their faith. I still encounter former students who run up to give me a hug and tell me about their lives with their own children. Fortunately, our baptismal font is a massive structure of marble that is bolted to the floor. Our lectern is a likewise a marble column. Our altar is immovably placed against the “east” wall behind a raredos. But our forms of this idolatry still emerged.
And even in churches without a school, this idolization of children sometimes shows up in the insistence on “children’s sermons” - in which the Divine Service is interrupted as a pastor or lay man or woman “preaches” a “sermon” while sitting down, often with distracting toys, and parents adoring their own children instead of Jesus. It becomes a little show. And how can it not? Children are adorable - and often unpredictable, saying hilarious things - and we love them. And that is reason to not turn them into objects of worship - just as our Lord warned us. There is a time for playing with the little ones, for teaching them and for using object lessons. That time is not the Divine Service. In my practice, I teach little ones right after the service, back in the parish hall, where we can all have our snacks and goodies and have great fun while we learn together - pastor, parents, and children. One doesn’t have to sacrifice Jesus as the focus of worship to make way for your children. You can indeed both teach where that is appropriate, and worship where (and whom!) is appropriate.
The importance of immovable church furniture and the centrality of sacramental grace to our Christian identity is illustrated in the baptismal font at Concordia Theological Seminary - Fort Wayne. The previous font in the chapel was apparently a small removable affair on wheels. During Dr. Wenthe’s tenure as president, it was replaced by a large, beautiful, immovable font that is “in the way” as worshipers enter Kramer Chapel. And from what I have heard, this decision was not without opposition. The font is unavoidable, and along with the altar, is an unmistakable visual confession of Christ and His holy means of grace. Entering the chapel requires a conscious walk around the font, and often people dip their fingers into the water and make the sign of the holy cross in remembrance of their own Holy Baptisms in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Children especially notice such things, and it is indeed an object lesson that neither makes them the center of attention nor encourages them to say something funny for a reaction from the audience. The font is ‘in the way” to point all of us children of the Heavenly Father to the Way!
Pastors, don’t get discouraged. Keep proclaiming Christ crucified and keep the Lord as the center of all that we do in our schools and within our chancels, the alpha and the omega, who is not in the way but is the way. Insist on chapel. Insist on faculty devotions. Insist on prayers, the Bible, and the catechism to be front and center at all assemblies and special events. Use the altar, the font, and the pulpit to carry out your ministry to children of God of all ages.
Parents and teachers, mind your vocation to bring up your little ones in the faith, not allowing the business of teaching to interfere with teaching the one thing that is necessary. And when powerful confessions of the faith get “in the way” of the pictures of your little ones, rejoice! The baptismal font in that school photo is a reminder not only of Jesus, but of His salvation of your little one as a free gift. In fact, the font is where the children come to Jesus.
Jesus is not “in the way,” He is the way, and the truth and the life who said, “Let the little children come to Me and do not hinder them.”