To start out each morning of teacher training, we have a time of worship. The Bible teacher, Mr. Richard, has kindly offered to come during both sessions of the teacher training to help lead this. As he masterfully leads the worship with his guitar, voices are lifted up in united praise. Each morning the music surrounds me as our words of thankfulness flow in Creole, French, and English. In these moments, I recognize anew that our God is the same God. He is the God who created beauty in diversity. He is the God who watched, broken-hearted, as His creation turned to worship and serve other gods. He is the God who stepped into human history to tell the greater story of redemption. And He is the God who, even now in the brokenness of sin and death and sorrows, is making all things new.
After we sing together, we bow our heads to pray. Often times the specifics of the prayer are lost on me as words flow quickly and freely in Creole. The spirit of thankfulness is hard to miss though. It is a fairly foreign thing for me to meet together with teaching colleagues in such a way. Occasionally I have opportunities to talk about faith and to pray with individual teaching friends in New Hampshire. I cherish these moments when we share our hearts and look beyond the everyday busyness and chaos that can sometimes define public education in the States.
The teachers meeting with Mrs. Sherrie to talk about plans for the coming school year.
When heads are raised from prayer, we turn our attention to a book written by Tim Keller, a pastor in New York City. The book is entitled The Prodigal God. It looks at the parable that Jesus shares in Luke 15 in a new light. Here is the paraphrase of the passage that Keller starts the text with...
Now the tax collectors and "sinners" we're all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." Then Jesus told them this parable...
"There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.
Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired me have food to spare, and there I am starving to death? I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men'. So he got up and went to his father.
"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
"The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'
"But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.
"Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.'
"The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'
" 'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' "
This parable, which I had always thought was really a story about one lost son, is, upon closer examination, actually a story of two lost sons. Each morning the teachers open the text and their Bibles and we look at our hearts. We find that in each of us is the thought that we can find happiness and fulfillment and either by seeking our own path, like the younger son, or by following along a moralistic route, like the elder son.
One of the most meaningful insights from the text is that both sons were seeking the wealth of the father, but not actually seeking to be in relationship with him. We have found through our dialogues each morning, that our hearts also long to be satiated. We look to self-discovery or ascribe to traditions and codes in the hopes that there our hearts will find rest. Instead, we find conflict and judgement and turmoil, both within and without. The younger brother and elder brother are at war within us and among us. And all the while, the loving, gracious Father waits with open arms to welcome us home, to place his cloak on us, and to shower us with good gifts at the table.
Miss Guetty has been helping me to prepare breakfast for the teachers each morning. Here they are enjoying her "soup feuille."
I'm thankful for these mornings of "devotion" when I get to sit with the teachers and talk about what it means to be lost, and together we praise the God in whom we are found. I'm also thankful for your willingness to walk together with me through this summer and through other seasons of this life of faith. Love in Christ, Jessie
