How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? (Psalm 137:4)

I want you to try and picture the ancient Israelites in this 137th Psalm. They have been captured and taken against their will to exile in Babylon. They are cut off from the familiar places and familiar faces of home. Worse than that, they are surrounded by false gods and pagan values. Somehow, they must try to keep the faith and pass it on the midst of a hostile culture.

The Israelites in exile are broken-hearted. We're told in the Psalm that they sat down by the rivers of Babylon and wept. Bitter tears streamed down their faces as they cried out, "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?"

Picture also an early Christian named John, writing a letter to the church. He's talking about love and light and things that abide forever, but he's writing from a dark, dank prison cell.

Babylon is gone and replaced by Rome, but as John writes, the Lord's people are still surrounded by false gods and a hostile culture. They live in an empire where violence rules, where might makes right and where all that matters is profit and pleasure. This is Rome - proud, arrogant Rome - and the Christians who want to keep the faith still must ask, "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?"

This same question is asked by God's people throughout the Bible, in one way or another. In the Old Testament, it is asked by the Israelites; in the New Testament, by the early church.

Scripture shows throughout that to be God's people is to be a pilgrim people, a restless people who are never quite at home in this fallen world. They try to say "yes" to God when the world is saying "no." They try to say "stop" to the ways of sin when the world is saying "go." It was true in mighty Babylon and in proud Rome and it's true even now. God's people always have to ask, "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?"

Today we are celebrating Christian Education Sunday. It is a good day to consider what we are trying to do with our children here in the church. What are we trying to teach them? What song do we want them to sing? What does it mean to pass on a living, Biblical faith to the children in our midst?

It's a good day to consider that we face the same challenge faced by the Israelites in Babylon and the early church in Rome. They, too, had a faith to keep and children to teach. Like them, we must teach our children to sing the Lord's song, even in a strange land which is fallen and hostile to the ways of God.

Perhaps this will be clearer when we consider what we are up against and who else is out there with other songs for our children to sing. We have a lot of competition, you know. There are many other people who are all too eager to teach their values to our children. Their morality is what sells and they are competing right now for the hearts and minds of our children.

The question is, who will teach values to our kids? Will our children learn the values of the Hasbro-Bradley Company? Not too long ago they sold a Transformer toy called "Frenzy," which came with a motto printed on the box. The motto said, "Sow panic and surrender will bloom." And the Hasbro Bradley Company took the trouble to print something else on the box for our children to read: "If Frenzy needed to breathe, war would be his oxygen."

After you've been to the toy store, you can take your kids to the movies. You can see what being a hero is all about by watching "Rambo," or "The Terminator" or dozens of similar movies which spew blood and mayhem, with everything from laser guns to chain saws.

Or, you can stay home and watch more than 10,000 murders every year on television. And notice how we keep getting violent crime shows every television season! Violence sells, doesn't it, and almost anything is acceptable in our market society so long as it sells. From toys on the shelves to violence as "entertainment" to real-life missiles orbiting overhead, it's hard to escape the conclusion that we are surrounded by a culture of death.

As followers of a non-violent Christ, we want our children to learn that real heroes love their enemies. We want them to know that the biggest Hero of all died on a cross for His enemies. We want righteousness to bloom, not panic or surrender. We want our children to breathe the oxygen of peace, not the oxygen of war. "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?"

And let's not forget what this culture teaches our children about sex and love. They use sex to sell everything from cars to toothpaste to blue jeans. Just the other day, I was shocked while thumbing through a copy of Seventeen magazine. This is supposed to be a wholesome magazine for young teenaged girls, but there in Seventeen was a full-page ad showing two young people, a boy and a girl lying in bed, dressed only in the scantiest underwear and they were selling wristwatches, of all things!

Then you can turn on the television again and watch 9,230 sexually suggestive scenes every year, according to a recent survey. Around dinner time, you can watch "Three's Company," where a man lives with two women, or "Bosom Buddies," where men dress up as women. Then you can watch "Who's the Boss" and see an unmarried couple jump into bed together. And later on in the evening, you can watch "Dallas" or "Dynasty" or any of the other soap operas, where greed and adultery are a way of life.

Are these the values we want our children to learn? Do we want them to learn that sex is casual, without commitment or consequences? Do we want them to learn that adultery is okay because rich people on "Dallas" do it? This is what we are up against! "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?"

And I, for one, resent the fact that I cannot watch a football game with my young children without watching twenty or thirty beer commercials, with their catchy jingles that little children can learn to sing almost before they can talk. These companies want our children to grow up thinking they can't have a good time without beer. "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?"

I tell you, the hearts and minds of our children are at stake. With the problems today of violence and teenaged sex and alcohol and drugs, the lives of our children are at stake. If we don't form their values in the church, others are all too eager to do it for us. If we don't teach them how to sing the Lord's song, they'll learn another and it won't be sweet melodies of faith we'll hear. It will be the noxious noise of a world which says "no" to the laws of God and "yes" to the morals of mammon.

In this struggle for our children's hearts and minds, the first line of defense must be in the home. When they offer our children Rambo, we must offer Christ. When they offer the "pursuit of happiness," we must offer the pursuit of holiness. When they prattle on about the "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," we must talk about the Lifestyle of the Carpenter King from Galilee.

But one family cannot do this alone. There is strength in numbers, which is why we must raise our children in the fellowship of the church. Here in the extended family of this congregation, our children have each of us as mothers or fathers and grandmothers or grandfathers. Here they have a whole society of people trying to sing God's song together. Our children need an alternative to the values they learn in the world and they must find it here in the company of Christ's people, or they won't find it anywhere.

John sat down and wrote our New Testament text from prison. The chains on his legs and the bars on his windows did not prevent him from looking higher to the abiding things of life. He was still able and eager to sing the Lord's song.

"Little children," he wrote, "Do not love the world or the things of this world. If you love the world, the love of God is not in you." It is certain you will live for love, but for the love of what? The love of God and His ways, or the love of worldly ways, the ways of life or the ways of death? (Deuteronomy 30:15-20). Will you live for good or evil, for righteousness or iniquity, for things that abide or things that pass away?

All the things of this world, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life - all the "Rambos" and "Dynasties" and "Miller's made the American way" - all this will wither like grass and fade. All those things which are of the world and not of God will pass away. Live for those things which abide; faith, hope and love, these three.

Sing the Lord's song with courage and joy and teach our children to sing it, too. Teach them what to love and what love to live for. The hearts and minds of the children in this church are precious, in our sight and in the sight of God. So, let us resolve anew today to teach our children well, that they may do the will of God and abide forever. Amen

Pastoral Prayer

Almighty God, Lord in heaven, who has given us Your Word that we may learn it and teach it in the company of others, we pray today for the work we share in Christian Education:

We pray for those who gather in Bible Study and in the fellowship of Your Word. Pour down Your Spirit upon them and fill them with visions and dreams, that they may show Your Word with the deeds of their hands, even as they share it with the words of their lips.

We pray for those who teach our children. Give them patience and good cheer, that they may enjoy the important work they are doing. Give them the whole church as a strength and support, that they may run but nevergrow weary in their labors. Give them children eager to learn, that they may see early the fruits of the seeds they are planting in our young.

And finally, dear God, we pray for all the people of Your church, that we may be good examples to the children You hold so dear. Whether we are young and single or older and retired, whether we have children at home or not, make us today mothers and fathers all, grandmothers and grandfathers all, to the children of this church. Make us one extended family, that together we might sing Your song, even in a strange land, and live for the love of things that abide, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen