A sermon in The Other Six Days social justice series Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
February 22, 2009
Exodus 18:13-24; Matthew 4:23-25

Exodus 18 13 ¶ The next day Moses sat as judge for the people, while the people stood around him from morning until evening. 14 When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, while all the people stand around you from morning until evening?” 15 Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God. 16 When they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make known to them the statutes and instructions of God.” 17 Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not good. 18 You will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone. 19 Now listen to me. I will give you counsel, and God be with you! You should represent the people before God, and you should bring their cases before God; 20 teach them the statutes and instructions and make known to them the way they are to go and the things they are to do. 21 You should also look for able men among all the people, men who fear God, are trustworthy, and hate dishonest gain; set such men over them as officers over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. 22 Let them sit as judges for the people at all times; let them bring every important case to you, but decide every minor case themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. 23 If you do this, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all these people will go to their home in peace.” 24 ¶ So Moses listened to his father-in-law and did all that he had said.

Matthew 4 23 ¶ Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. 24 So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them. 25 And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

I. BEGINNING

So. Augustine of Hippo was on a quest. He wanted to understand the world and some of the great questions of existence. He wanted to understand the origins of evil. He wanted to know about his place in the world.

He had tried a lot of things. He had tried philosophy. He had tried Manicheanism, a dualistic religion that believed that good and evil were in a perpetual struggle. He tried Neoplatonic philosophy, that argued that all things were derivative of “the good”–the only real thing. He had tried many things but had not felt that his quest had been satisfied.

One day he is reading St. Paul’s letter to the Romans and a voice wafts in from the neighboring yard. Probably children playing a game. But he hears the words tole, lege, tole, lege… “Take and read… take and read…” He looks down and before him is the fourteenth verse of Romans 13: “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh for its desires.” And he looks up and says, “You have converted me to you.”

Augustine, of course would become one of the great thinkers in Church history, articulating doctrines and theologies that would influence not only Catholic theology, but Western theology, including Martin Luther and other major Protestant reformers. Augustine was put on this path not simply because he was a smart individual. He was put upon this path wherein he would be one of the most influential Christian theologians in history because he could read.

And that is entirely appropriate for our tradition. For we are a people of the Book. We are a people whose story is contained in writings we call the Scriptures, which every week are read and expounded upon. Our story is a written story.

When the Jews were carried off into Exile in Babylon, they were rent from their homeland, their temple, their traditions. In the Exile, they gathered in houses of study known as synagogues where they told and retold their story. And they wrote down the stories they had been told.

When they came back to the land of Israel, they re-formed their community after reading from the Books of the Law and became a people of the book.

When the early Christians sought to understand who Jesus was and what he had done, they read their scriptures for understanding.

As Christianity spread across the Mediterranean world, evangelists wrote epistles–letters–to their churches to provide instruction and understanding.

The great thinkers of the Church read philosophy, they reflected on the Scriptures, they wrote volumes of theology.

In a later century, it would be the advent of the printing press that helped the ideas of the Protestant Reformation to spread. The people had access to their scriptures and their tradition.

And then a couple of centuries later, the Methodists came along and built schools to educate people, to teach people to read.

Indeed, in a very real way, Western Civilization, built upon that Christian core, has been built upon a written, literate heritage.

II. THE CRISIS

And yet when we look at the statistics on literacy in this country, we see some troubling things: [1]

• About one in 20 adults in the U.S. is not literate in English
• 11 million Americans lack the skills to handle many everyday tasks
• Adults with ability to perform challenging and complex reading tasks made an average yearly salary of $50,700 in 2003. That is $28,000 more than those who lacked basic skills.
• 85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illerate.
• More than 60 percent of all prison inmates are functionally illiterate.
• Illiteracy and crime are closely related. The Department of Justice states, “The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure .” Over 70% of inmates in America’s prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level.
• One child in four grows up not knowing how to read.
• Low literacy costs $73 million per year in terms of direct health care costs. A recent study by Pfizer put the cost much higher.
• More than 20 percent of adults read at or below a fifth-grade level – far below the level needed to earn a living wage.
• It is estimated that the cost of illiteracy to business and the taxpayer is $20 billion per year.
• Over one million children drop out of school each year, costing the nation over $240 billion in lost earnings, forgone tax revenues, and expenditures for social services.
• Approximately 50 percent of the nation’s unemployed youth age 16-21 are functional illiterate, with virtually no prospects of obtaining good jobs.
• 44 million adults in the U.S. can’t read well enough to read a simple story to a child.

It is clear from even a cursory glance at the statistics that literacy is a justice issue. Being unable to read is not simple an inconvenience–it is one of the great perpetuators of poverty in the world, a world increasingly dependent upon skilled labor and the ability to utilize new technologies.

Literacy and education are essential to helping people to contribute to and benefit from a community.

III. TEACHING AND JUSTICE

I think something of that sentiment is running through that Old Testament lesson we heard read earlier. Here we encounter Moses in the desert, leading the people Israel. It is after the Exodus, after the provision of manna for the people and Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law sees how it is that Moses is faring. He notices that Moses is sitting all day surrounded by other Israelites who are asking him things. And Jethro asks him why this is so. Moses answers that he is resolving the disputes of the people, that he is acting as judge for Israel.

Jethro’s solution is simple: don’t waste your time with this. Represent the people before God and find some people who are able and teach them how to do what you are doing. Teach them the law and the statutes, teach them the way that they are to go so that they will be able to help you out. They can come to you for the big questions. This way Moses is relieved of a terrible burden in having to decide every last disagreement among the Israelites.

The motivation that Moses is given is that by instructing others, Moses will relieve himself of a burden. In many ways, by instructing others we relieve ourselves of the sole burden of having the necessary information to help the community out. In a way, what Jethro is saying to Moses is: through educating others you strengthen the community. You strengthen other peoples’ ability to participate in the community. You strengthen the whole system of justice in the community so that the burden does not fall solely upon you for the survival of the community–but is shared.

This idea is more relevant than ever. In a society becoming more dependent on trade in information, the ability to participate meaningfully in that society depends more and more upon the ability to read. If people cannot read, they cannot participate. They can neither reap the benefits of the society or contribute to its well-being. In order to relieve the burden on those with functional literacy, it is vital that we take up the cause of teaching others the information they need to help the community out.

This idea found in the Exodus narrative is reinforced by the idea that the Hebrew word for the first five books of the Bible, the law, the books of Moses, the Pentateuch–is Torah . It is a word that means “instruction” “teaching”. So there is something fundamental in our religious language that the way of God involves teaching of other people, whether it is as Jethro is telling Moses to teach others so as to build up the community, or because something about God requires that we teach one another. Something about being God’s people requires that we be educators of one another, we help people to learn and to study.

IV. THE VOCATION OF TEACHING

Teaching has been a part of the Christian story from the very beginning. Jesus was often called “rabbi” or “teacher”. The disciples concerned themselves with teaching. The word “doctrine” is simply a Latin word meaning “teaching”–the pope is called the “Doctor” of the church, meaning, the teacher of the church.

The churches–especially the United Methodist Church–have built Sunday schools, colleges, universities, all with the aim of teaching, of transmitting knowledge.

Teaching is an essential part of our identity as Christians. We cannot look the other way when a people’s lack of education or literacy stands in the way of their wellbeing. As Christian community, we must take it upon ourselves to ensure that people have access to education, that people have the opportunity to become literate.

To that end, economic status cannot be allowed to be an obstacle. Race or nationality, cannot be allowed to be an obstacle. Neither can any other factor. Being able to read is far too important a thing in this day and age for us to allow anyone to fall behind.

V. END

Of all the statistics read earlier, perhaps the saddest one to me is that 44 million adults in the U.S. can’t read well enough to read a simple story to a child.

As Christians, literacy is a justice issue. But it goes beyond simply a justice issue for us–it is a spiritual issue. If 44 million adults cannot read well enough to read a simple story to a child, how can parents read or encourage their children to read the stories of our faith? Will they rely increasingly on the televised cartoon versions of our story? Will they, like the great illiterate masses of the middle ages have to rely on the stained glass windows and the statuaries to explain the stories to them? How can we as Christians share our story with people who lack the resources and ability to understand the story we tell?

Somewhere out there is someone looking for a relationship with God. Somewhere out there is someone whose personal quest for truth has taken them as far as it can. Somewhere out there is someone in need of transformation. When they are sitting and meditating and hear the words coming on the breeze “take and read”–will we have ensured that they will be able to do so?

[1] Statistics found at
http://www.begintoread.com/research/literacystatistics.html, http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006483and http://www.readfaster.com/education_stats.asp