You can remember when quite well as long as your mind cooperates. At least you can remember the incident if not the names. That’s the game known as ‘What’s his name? Oh, you remember. ______’s boy. No, not that one. Lived back of what’s his name’s store.” This game continues either until the game players remember the dozen or so names it takes to get back to the original query, or they give up and drink their coffee.
But on our good days we remember good things.Like little Jared Jernagen running rampant through the Agape classroom some 20 or 25 years ago. His mom and dad would get there early, straighten the room and make coffee; and Jared would greet the early birds and entertain us until Mom or Dad would say, “OK, Jared, go to class now.” And with a rather glum expression on his face for having to leave such fascinating people, he would trudge down to Sunday School. Now, he’s trudging off again and I’m sure he will miss all the fascinating people he’s leaving behind.
I miss them, too, the Agape class. For many years we gathered every Sunday morning and just enjoyed one another while we studied and prayed. The class began as a study group in Susan Shryock’s living room as the ‘Second Cup Club’. Several of the young mothers – and a few old fogies – did not attend Church, but they gradually began to talk about wanting to try it. “But is there a class for us?”, was usually the excuse.
So, as the group was getting a bit large for Susan’s living room, we decided to ask for a classroom in the Church building where we could start a new Sunday School class. For the next several years I was privileged to observe first some husbands joining their wives, then staying for the Worship service. It was a joy to watch a newcomer to the class as he or she would sit quietly without entering the discussions and then as the Sundays rolled by, to see them bloom into lively debaters. Soon, they would be missing as they taught a class of little ones in other parts of the building.
I think the best reward of all was to see the young men serving Communion or giving a prayer, and even accepting the roll of Elder. There is no way to measure those rewards for teaching a class. Through laughter and tears and support for one another we bonded as a group and reached out into the community in many ways.
You are the light that gives light to
the world. A city that is built on a
hill cannot be hidden. And people
don’t hide a light under a bowl.
They put it on a lamp stand so the
light shines for all the people in the
house. In the same way, you should
be a light for other people. Live so
that they will see the good things you
do and will praise your Father in
heaven. … John 5:14-16
We are not given the choice of being a light to the world.
John tells us in his gospel that we are the light. When we accept Christ and become part of the family of God, we are put on a lamp stand. We are the city on the hill. People will see us. Our light will shine. The only choice we have is the amount of Light we allow through the cracks in these earthen vessels….
The brilliance of that reflection, the penetrating power of Christ’s Spirit in our lives is His gift to us. As we allow our hearts to overflow with His goodness, mercy, and love; with the knowledge of who He is and what He is, that goodness and mercy and awesome reality somehow manifests itself to those around us. The love we receive from Him flows naturally into our world and into the lives of those with whom we come in contact.
From the introduction to Splinters of Light
So long, Jared, come back often!