REFLECTIONS
May 29, 2005
 
 
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only
James 1:22 NKJV
 
 
Graduating from Sunday School
 
Graduation season this year has caused me to reflect back on my own graduation days. Those were great days. I remember advancing from grade school, graduating from junior high and from high school, all with acceptable grades; and I graduated from college with grades suitable enough to earn a job. But I think I flunked Sunday School.
Sunday School never appealed to me much although as I look back on it now I discover its many benefits. I learned the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, and the 23rd Psalm. I learned many of the Bible stories and I learned of Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross. Through Sunday School activities, I found the love of God and I became a believer in Jesus Christ.  So how is it then that I flunked Sunday School? 
I could argue that the curriculum did little to aim me toward graduation. The curriculum was designed to impart knowledge and to introduce me to Jesus, but nowhere among the objectives of the program did I find one of them focused on awarding a degree that commissioned me to take my knowledge into the world. 
I could also argue that I flunked Sunday School because no one ever suggested that I should graduate. So I did nothing with all I had learned. I just stopped there.
But some people do graduate from Sunday School.  Twelve men had three years of instruction from the greatest teacher of all time, and eleven of them graduated. At the graduation ceremony, the Teacher said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”  (Mt. 28:18-20) 
With those words, the eleven graduates crossed the stage, received their diplomas, moved their tassels to the other side of their caps, and marched up the aisle as fully commissioned disciple makers. Then with their degrees in hand, they did as required. 
Jesus handed me a diploma, too. 
Graduating from Sunday School requires that I do something with the degree.
                     
You are the light of the world,
Richard Ì


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