The Rt. Rev. Bishop Michael Curry the new president elect of the Episcopal Church speaks about the unity and beauty of the Eucharist.

It has only been a short time, but can you remember the name of the player who collapsed in the Kansas high school football game and died the next day in a Denver hospital?

Do you remember the name of the player who collapsed at a football game in Oakley in 1996 and died? Those of us who intimately knew those young men will never forget their names. Those of us who didn’t actually know them will soon forget their names.

I can still remember the best athlete in my eighth grade class. Mike was a great football and basketball player. For several days in a row he missed school, so one day I asked one of my friends, “Where is Mike?” He said to me, “Haven’t you heard Mike has leukemia?”  Mike passed away a few months later.

My freshman year of high school three guys in the sophomore class and one guy from my freshman class were killed in a car train accident. I can still remember their names and personalities. We honor them when we remember them and we tell their stories to others in our lives.

Think about the disciples of Jesus. They went everywhere with Him for three years. They saw Jesus heal people first hand who were sick, blind, deaf, and diseased and also raised some from the dead. They also saw Jesus beaten badly by scourging and crucified on a cross by Roman soldiers.

Several days later Jesus rose from the dead and walked again on earth appearing to the disciples and others many times. Weeks later he ascended into heaven as they watched. Those disciples and others honored Jesus by remembering Him. They told His stories and lessons over and over.

Do you remember Jesus? Do you honor Him with your memory and your physical presence at church each week? About 76% of Kansans identify themselves as Christians.1 Yet even in my own community only about 20% of the people go to church on any given Sunday.2

I think the great majority of us have forgotten who Jesus was. We instead act like consumers when we think of church. You know, “I don’t like the music.” I don’t like the time they have church.” I don’t like the preacher.” I don’t like the people at church.”

When we go to church we honor God with our presence, no matter what happens at church. When we read the Bible and pray during the week we also are growing our memory and relationship with God the Father. Relationships of any kind are based on giving of your time to each other and getting to know each other. That is true with your friends and family today. It is also true with your spiritual life and your heavenly Father.

Don’t lose your memory of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 7:23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

1. Pew research on religious composition of adults in Kansas
2. ARDA research on Scott County, Kansas

“Any time you go in and you have to change a culture, it’s always smart to start heavy handed, and you can always ease up a little, if necessary.  But if you go in easy, it’s hard to put the hammer down after that.”     Tom Herman, Head Football Coach, University of Houston

Here is a link to where I found this quote. It is a story about how Pastors should come in to new churches.

Philip Rivers on Faith, Family, Football

It is not easy says Rivers to be a man of faith in todays world, it is not easy to raise your family centered on Christ, it is not easy to play football week in and week out, but anything worth something is not easy!

If you are a father, grandfather or want to be, this might be the best 49 minute program ever to learn how to be the father you were meant to be.

7 Secrets of St. Joseph for Dads by Devin Schadt

My sophomore and junior year of Scott Community High School football there were so many guys on the football team (just under 90 counting freshman) that coach had a travel squad list. Every Thursday night, as the players went to the practice field, an assistant coach would put up a list on the field house wall of who was going to travel that Friday night to the game on the bus.

So after practice there was always a mad rush of sophomores and juniors to that list to see who was going to get to go to the game and suit up? The freshman never traveled with the varsity in those days.

When your name was not on the travel list, you were disappointed because that meant you were staying home.

The truth hurt.

Early in the football season of my junior year the head coach offered to give me a ride home from practice one night. So I jumped in his pickup and as soon as he started driving he said to me, “You are good enough to start on the varsity team this year, but I have seven seniors at your position and they have been with me for four years, so I need to figure out how to get them in the game. So you will never be a starter on varsity. Next year will be your year.”

The truth hurt.

Jesus as he stood before Pontius Pilate about to be condemned to death on the cross says to Pilate, “I have come to tell the truth.” Jesus was a radical. He was swimming upstream against the current while most of humanity was going against him and it got him killed.

Today, as Christians, we also are called to be different in our generation. What have you done today that separates you from the non-Christians?

Here is something that will make you a radical in your generation.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Do you not know that the wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

And the truth hurts.

Recently, I thought of this recording from the 1950’s. This is a recording of a football game with Jesus and satan coaching their respective teams in a classic battle.

You will never understand answered prayer, until you have, an answered prayer. And to receive an answered prayer, you first must ask in prayer.

Teacher hunting season is here again.  Every year all across America some teachers find themselves in the crosshairs of spoiled students and angry parents.  Sometimes the teachers fall. They are mounted on the wall, over the fireplace, where they become the proud conversation of well-meaning parents who let the world know they stood up for their child and felled another teacher.  Felled.  Not failed.

Hunters pride themselves on having respect for their prey and following time-tested rules of the hunt.  Except in this season.  In this season there are no rules.  Ladies don’t have to be ladies.  Gentlemen can become terrorists.  Christians can lay down the cross and take up the curse, and feel justified, maybe even noble.  After all, isn’t it an honorable thing to stand up for your child?

Well, actually, no.  Now, before you put me in your crosshair (I’m not a teacher, so save your tag), let me explain a few things.

1. It is not wise to fight for your child.

Follow this line of reasoning carefully.  It’s a subtle paradigm shift.  If you raise your child to think that you will always fight for him, that you’ll always be in his corner, no matter what, your child has not actually learned anything from you except that he always has a back-up, and that maybe you’ll help him get out of trouble someday.  Youtube routinely displays such ignorance, as in the case of the woman who just last week famously stated: “He didn’t do nothin’ wrong; he just shot a cop.”

People have disrupted communities this summer because they were “standing with the kid” who got shot by a cop.  Some people think that’s the right message to send, but it is not.

If your child is wrong, and you think it’s your place to fight for your child, right or wrong, you just create two wrong people instead of one.  If your child is an idiot, and you defend him, you’re a bigger idiot than the child because you perpetuate the idiocy in your family line.  Oops, I may have left subtlety for a moment.

2. It IS wise to fight for truth.

Rather than loyally and blindly fighting for a child, what parents ought to be doing is fighting for a principle, for truth.  If you teach your kids honesty, respect, self-discipline and other virtues, then as they grow they “will not depart” from those values, so says the proverb.  They’ll make mistakes, and then they’ll own up to the mistake and take their correction or punishment.

And in those occasions where they are right, and a teacher is wrong, they won’t seek blood. They’ll seek truth, and they’ll need a parent to help fight for truth.  When you and your child are actually pursuing something noble and righteous and truthful, that’s a fight you can carry with dignity all the way to the courthouse, if need be, because in that instance your target is not the reputation of a teacher but rather the establishment of a principle.

3. It is always right to love your child.

If you haven’t got the subtle paradigm yet, I’ll try to phrase it one last time.  Loving a child when he is wrong is good, but fighting for him when he is wrong simply perpetuates his wrongness.

Love ’em forever.  But lead them.  Teach them.  Show them that the pursuit of honor and righteousness is more noble than a classroom victory.

Good luck this school year.  When the season is over, may the only trophy in your home be a wiser, stronger, nobler child who has grown in grace and dignity.