Back To School

 Last week we kept our grandchildren, ages 12, 10 and 6.  Their parents had taken them shopping for school supplies the day before.  It might as well have been Christmas! They were elated to show us all the new supplies for school: pencils, pens, notebooks, dividers, glue, backpacks and new shoes!  White Nikes for the girls, orange Under Armor shoes for our 6-year-old grandson.  He insisted they were superhero, super-fast shoes.  We gathered at the living room picture window and watched him demonstrate, sprinting across the front lawn, an orange streak against a grass-green background!

 It was fun to listen to them talk about all the things they are looking forward to after a long hot summer, their new teachers, schedules and friends who would share the same class.  The same scene is unfolding in families all across our country. 

 I thought of the many children whose parents are short on funds, who are struggling to pay rent, to put gas in the car and food on the table.  I thought of children who will show up on that first day with worn hand-me-down shoes.  So, we went shopping for school supplies, especially nicer new shoes, which we dropped off at a local charity for distribution.  It wasn’t much. Hopefully it meant something to one or more children.  If we all do a little, it can help a lot.

 When my wife was a child, she spent days organizing her supplies anticipating the first day back at her desk.  When she became a kindergarten teacher, she faced the greater challenge of managing preschool children armed with crayons and markers in a room with freshly painted walls.

 It will soon be time to put away the lazy days of sleeping late, TV, video games, camp and vacations.  Kids will wake before sunrise and wait for the bus.  Going back to school is the rhythm of life, as surely as the first crisp scent of fall and the turning of green leaves to gold.  We will soon wake up to the early morning echo of school bands, coaches’ whistles, and the smack of shoulder pads.  

 Jesus’ invitation to follow Him is an invitation to each of us to go “back to school” with all the child-like enthusiasm and wonder of children skipping expectantly across the school yard.   That is the meaning of the word, disciple.  He is the Master Teacher.

 No person ever lived who was as wise as Jesus.  Jesus concludes the Sermon on the Mount by telling the story of two men who built houses, one on the sand and one on rock.  When the storm came, the house on the sand crumbled and the house built on rock survived.  “Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them,” Jesus said, “may be compared to the wise man who built his house upon the rock.”

 We all need to go to school.  We all have something to learn.