A few weeks ago, my colleague at a local Pre-K–8 Episcopal school invited me to give the homily at an all-school service. He said that the theme for the season of Lent was discipleship, and that he had spent a good deal of his time teaching the community about various religious traditions and teachers, and that I might say a few words about why I have chosen to follow Jesus.
I explained to my young listeners that I had come to talk to them about building something amazing, and I brought something to help me tell the story, a broken piece of brick.
This brick, I said, is going to help me tell you a story about being a disciple. The story has three parts:
The first is for my youngest friends here in Pre-K and Kindergarten.
When I was little, my friends and I were playing by a factory near where we lived. It was a dark night, and my friends Jerry, Kenny and I started kidding about who could hit the factory with a stone. We never thought we could do it. I missed. Kenny missed. Then, to our astonishment, Guess what? Jerry, who was the oldest, threw a stone that hit the factory. Right on a window. CRASH!
And we all ran.
My mother found out, of course. And even though I did not throw the stone that broke it, she took me by the hand to the office of the factory manager and made me apologize and pay for the broken window.
That stone taught me a great lesson. Telling the truth sometimes hurts but it is always the right thing to do. The factory manager was a kind older man. He shook my hand and he forgave me. I remember him saying something that made sense about not playing near his factory, but I don’t remember what it was.
Part two of my story was for my Middle School friends. I said that the brick was a piece of the history of their school. When I moved to our town 26 years ago, the place where the school now stood was a field. It was a really nice field and part of a farm, but there was no school, no gym, no awesome playground—just grass and corn. But with vision and prayer about education on this field, together with the commitment of many fine teachers and leaders, bricks like this were used to build something very special—a school. And not just any school, but a school built on guiding principles.
Like words carved into a stone, I had learned that this school thrived on eight guiding principles including respect, compassion, responsibility, honor, enthusiasm, imagination, worship and service.
This brick, then, was a metaphor for the community’s actions and beliefs. As much as a brick is a real building block for our safety and comfort while we learn, it represents our faith and hope for what is best about ourselves and the good we can do for others.
Part three of my story was about the person Jesus. Jesus was a rabbi in a Jewish community a long time ago. Just about every major religion can trace its beginning to a special teacher. Judaism began with Abraham, Buddhism with Siddhartha, Islam with Muhammad. All of these leaders had followers that I call disciples. Just as building cannot stand without strong foundations of brick and steel, strong communities need solid leaders who know what it means to build on the principles of their founders, and these principles become the building blocks of our personal and community spirit. The brick I brought reminds us that in bad weather or good, in hard times or happy times, in sadness and in joy, we need to follow the path of a good teacher.
As a teacher, I am aware that my students are looking to me for leadership, discipline, courage, and example. If you are a student, try to remember that God does not expect you to be perfect. Holding up the broken piece of brick, I said, Look at this brick. It has a big chip broken off of it. This a visual reminder that leaders like Abraham and Sarah did not believe God’s promise at first. In fact, they laughed. But God chose them anyway. Consider Jacob who stole his brother’s birthright, and Moses who killed someone. Even Jesus ran off from his parents in a big city without telling them where he was. Peter, whose name means “Rock” was a rough and tumble sailor who often gave the wrong answers to Jesus questions, and Paul was a nasty fellow who bullied the early followers of Jesus. And yet God called each one of these, and so many others like them, to be the foundation stones of peace and harmony in this wonderful world of ours.
Now this rock got tossed out during the building of your school, but today it helps me tell your story, our story, a story that is still evolving.
Each disciple, and that means you and me, always has an opportunity to turn ourselves around. How? By turning on to something bigger than ourselves with the help of solid foundations.
The best foundation I know of, and the best principle to live by, is love. With love as our foundation, we can take more risks; we can face danger with courage; and we can make this world a much better place to live.
If we want the world to get better, and we all know it needs to get better, we need to be rock solid in one guiding principle: We need to love and care for others. Doing so will help us face our own problems and guide us on a straight path to respect for and responsibility to our community.
A long time ago, my mom took me by the hand to that factory manager, and she made me apologize and pay for the damage. Later she called my friend’s mother, and you can bet I heard it from him about being a tattletale. But we were true friends, and he forgave me. More importantly, we all felt better because we told the truth. It hurts sometimes, but I’d rather be a chipped brick in the tower of truth than a phony fraud.
My time with you is about over. I came to talk to you about being a follower of Jesus, and about following your school’s guiding principles of respect, compassion, responsibility, honor, enthusiasm, imagination, worship and service. All of these principles are held together by love. To be a disciple of Jesus, we need to practice love. I cannot be his disciple for you. No one can do that except you.
