Parents To Teach Their Child
PARENTS’ RESPONSIBILITY TO TEACH THEIR CHILDREN
A Sermon by Rev. Lawson M. Smith
“And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up” (Deut. 6:6-7).
These words follow right after the great commandment: that we should love the Lord our God with our whole lives, with our heart and soul and strength. Love to the Lord should be in our hearts; and if it is in our hearts, the Lord will be continually in our thoughts and in our speech. We cannot help but teach His laws diligently to our children. On the other hand, the Lord commands us to teach them to our children, so that we ourselves may learn them better. The more diligently we try to teach our children about the Lord, the more we ourselves will grow to love Him, and always have His laws in the front of our minds. Teaching our children is both an expression of love to the Lord and a way by which the Lord can increase our love to Him.
The more we love something, the more we want to share it. And what do we value more than our hope of going to heaven? What greater kindness and service could we do for our children than to teach them the way to heaven? Especially in the New Church, we have something very wonderful to teach our children. It is up to them to receive it, but they need us to help them see what the Lord is offering them.
And so, because we love our children, we want to share with them what is most precious to us in our lives: the Lord’s laws that give us strength to do what is right in every situation, that protect and exalt our marriages, that teach us repentance, and charity, and love to the Lord. Our deepest hope for our children is that they may feel the strength and peace of the Lord’s laws in their lives; that they may live a useful life within their framework, and so find eternal life in heaven. This is the promised land which the Lord offers to each of us.
But in a day of specialization, parents sincerely doubt their abilities to teach their children. They wonder if the education of children is a science which must be left to specialists in education and child psychology, or to others who seem to be more naturally gifted parents, while the teaching of religion is thought of as the job of the priesthood. Besides, we often find other pursuits more rewarding than caring for our children, and feel more successful doing other things. Consequently, some parents abdicate their responsibility to the state or to anyone who will take charge. New Church people sometimes feel that they do not need to worry about family worship, instructing their children in morality, and supervising their recreation, since we have such good schools and such healthy environments in our communities.
But in the face of such confusion and bad examples, we have, first of all, the direct command of the Lord: “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children” (text). Whether it is hard or easy, rewarding or not, the Lord says that it is a parent’s responsibility to teach his children the Divine laws.
And the Lord assures us that it is not difficult to figure out what we should teach our children. “Every man, whose soul desires it, can see the truths of the Word in light” (AR 224). “This commandment which I command you today, it is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the Word of the Lord is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it” (Deut. 30:11-14).
We can learn many things from heaven, and from across the sea of the world’s scientific knowledge, which can help us do a good job with our children. But the basic laws of life are simple and clear, such as the ten commandments, the golden rule, and the two great commandments to love the Lord and the neighbor. We do not need to be specialists in theology or child psychology to do what the Lord asks of us. The Word of the Lord is very near each of us, in our mouths and hearts, that we may do it ourselves, and teach our children to do so.
But the most important reason of all why parents must teach their own children about the Lord is that we ourselves are to love the Lord with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our strength. This goes beyond mere obedience, and beyond love for our children. As the Lord our God is the one Lord, and there is no other, so our whole life is to be united in serving Him. We are to love Him with every beat of our heart, with every breath and with every exertion of our strength. So if we are parents, or grandparents, or educators, or in any way responsible for the care of children, we are to carry out this responsibility, like all other duties, in the fear of the Lord.
The education of our children, at home and at school, is not to be separate from our own life of love to the Lord and love toward our neighbor. One of the great evils of the fallen church has been to make the ten commandments something for children to learn, but for adults to ignore. Religion itself then becomes a specialty, for children and for Sundays; faith has nothing to do with the rest of life.
Instead, our first concern should be that we are obeying the ten commandments and seeking to love the Lord with our whole selves. The Lord says that we are to love Him in every state, and to reflect consciously about the application of His laws to every part of our lives. Then we will readily teach His laws to our children because our own minds and hearts will be so full of them. “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up” (Deut. 6:6-7).
We should talk about the Lord when we are sitting at home, as when we’re having supper. It is good for us to practice bringing the Lord and the things of the church into our conversations more often. We should have Him in the back of our minds even in casual conversations, and in the way we talk to each other around the house. The Lord does not ask that every conversation explicitly refer to Him, but that the thought of Him should moderate the tone of our voice and the things that we say. When we can let the Lord keep a watch over our mouths even in the privacy of home, we will have come a long way toward the kingdom of heaven, for when we sit in our houses, our will and real nature appears.
And when we go out into our day’s activities, we should let the Lord guide us. What does the Lord require of us, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to humble ourselves to walk with our God? In all the walks of life, whether at work or recreation, the Lord Himself is “the Way, the Truth and the Life.” Walking is a good time for reflecting on the course of our lives, thinking and perhaps talking with our married partner about how our families can follow the Lord more closely. The Lord promises that He will show us the path of life, leading to fullness of joy in His presence.
“And you shall talk of them…when you lie down, and when you rise up.” Lying down represents an obscure state, when we are thinking about something, trying to figure out what is right, and what we should do. If we talk about the Lord’s laws in such a state, then perhaps we will wake up with a clearer sight of where the Lord is leading. Ending the day with family worship and reading from the Word turns our thoughts away from ourselves and the passing concerns of the day, and back to the Lord, who gives us eternal life.
Rising up stands for a clear perception of the truth, when we have decided what we should do and are getting up to do it. Ideally, this is a state in which we are uplifted by the Lord, a state in which we are talking about the words of the Lord, in our hearts if not with our lips. If we begin each day by reading the Word, it will be easier to remember the Lord throughout the day.
Thus the spiritual sense confirms the plain teaching of the literal sense that the Lord’s commandments are to rule every aspect of our lives. New Church education–at home or in school–is not a separate doctrine, a separate part of life applying to children and young people. It is simply one of the threads in the fabric of the life of religion. Instruction in the Lord’s laws and conversation about them does not begin or end with formal education, but is a basic requirement of following the Lord, from birth to eternity.
This is reflected in the word used for “teaching diligently” in the text. It emphasizes repetition, because all the important lessons in life require repetition for a person to learn them well. Children love repetition. They love the reliability, consistency and familiarity of hearing the same patterns repeated to them over and over. We too, as adults, love to see patterns of order and consistent laws in the world around us. In learning moral and spiritual laws, where not only our understanding but also our will must be affected, repetition is even more important. How often we see young people seeming to butt their heads against the walls of the established rules and values. It is the only way to test the reliability and certainty of one’s perception of truth, and to refine it, much as a scientist will subject a hypothesis to repeated tests in various circumstances. A mark of a good parent or educator is the willingness to be patient and continue to work with a child through his testing, repeating to him diligently the Lord’s laws to make it clear what they are and why they are. The Lord Himself treats us this way, introducing us to the reality of our fallen nature and the need for change, and to His constant mercy, through repeated lessons, little by little. “For precept must be upon precept, line upon line, here a little, there a little” (Isaiah 28:10).
Parents have the primary responsibility–that is, the primary ability to respond to the needs of their children–in regard to the spiritual and moral life. Instruction in the Word and the life of religion at home, and the example of family worship and conversation about the Lord and His laws and what they mean for our lives, feed a child’s remains and establish a child’s patterns of life in a way that no other institution can match. A home is the peaceful haven where a child is most free to be himself, to think his own thoughts, and so to be most deeply impressed with the good and true things of spiritual life. A child loves his parents more than anyone else on earth. They represent the Lord to him in many ways, especially by their love, their wisdom, and their strength. We are taught that the father’s instruction and example plants the holy things of the church especially deeply with a child (see AC 2180:5).
If there is a vacuum of religious instruction at home, this also sets a deep and powerful example which can be hard for the children to rise above, no matter how good a school or community they may belong to. But on the other hand, if parents are diligent in teaching the words of the Lord to their children, and are just as diligent in seeking this instruction for themselves as adults, then New Church schools, religion lessons, New Church communities and social life can confirm and enrich the lives of the families. Both the adults and the children have a life of moral integrity because their lives are unified and focused on the one Lord.
So let us bind the Lord’s commandment of love upon our hands and set it constantly before our eyes, in every aspect and state of our lives. “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up” (Deut. 6:6-7). Amen.
Lessons: Deut. 6; Matt. 7:7-12, 18:1-5, 28:16-20; AC 1038:1b, 8a
Preached in Mitchellville, Maryland on August 11, 1985