Teaching Sunday School

[selenite0]

Our church has asked me to be one of the Religious Education teachers for this year. For the middle school class. So this may be more a matter of my demonstrated willingness to put a testosterone-crazed 13-year old in his place than any teaching aptitude I may have.

Not that I think I'd be a bad teacher, I enjoy teaching. But I'd have to stick to the Unitarian Universalist curriculum for the age group. This Sunday I had a chance to sit down and go through the teacher's manual (despite the efforts of another parent who felt the need to tell me her life story). Which had a surprise for me.

It's something that would only happen at a UU church--a pagan gets to teach Jesus's life story to the kids.

Not that I have a problem with teaching that, there's a lot of good things in the gospels and it's important cultural background. The main worry I had was that there'd be a lot of PC platitudes driving me up the wall. There was actually only one lesson that I had a problem with. The stories of the Young Rich Man ("Sell all that you own and give it to the poor, then follow me" said Jesus) and the Widow's Mite (a small contribution from the poor is a greater sacrifice than a large one from the rich) are used to kick off a discussion of wealth and poverty. The gist is that some people and nations have lots of money, others don't, and the rich should give lots of money to the poor.

My objection to that is not that we shouldn't help the poor but that it creates this image of wealth just being randomly distributed among nations, so fairness demands that the lucky ones share. In reality rich nations such as America got that way with lots of work from many people and the social fabric needed to let them be productive. Most of the third world has lots of natural resources but anyone trying to do something useful with them will have a corrupt government or bandits stealing whatever they produce. That's what keeps them poor. So just parachuting in bundles of cash would help the thieves, not the poor. The same dynamics apply at home--three generations of hard work and investment produces a very rich family. If the same people had dropped all their spare cash on booze and card games they'd be dirt poor. Just handing over cash won't make lives better, it's a lot more complicated than that.

Fortunately Jesus recognized that. When Laurie (the RE director) saw me after the service she asked if I still wanted to be a teacher. I said "I'd want to tell them the Parable of the Talents." "Sure," she said. So I'll be teaching Unitarian Sunday school.

Comments

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

I can just see me telling people about my husband, the aerospace engineer working on a government contract and teaching Sunday school. They are going to get SUCH a wrong impression of you!

re: the parable of the Talents - sure goes against all the ideas of "usury is evil", doesn't it? I wonder where they got that one from.

[technomom]

Sam really enjoyed teaching RE when he did that for a year or two. I'm sure you'll do a marvelous job.

Think of it as a way to inject some sense into the overly-PC curriculum. I'd greatly prefer to have you teaching my kids than the freak who used to tell "stories" in services followed up with totally fabricated "statistics" about environmental issues.

[patgund.livejournal.com]

The funny part is that makes sense. And you're more than likely better qualified from a knowledge standpoint than many who end up being co-opted into doing such.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm thinking it's another step on my quest to be expelled from a UU church for heresy. "That guy's answer to the question is wrong." "GASP! BURN HIM!"

[sambear.livejournal.com]

*hee hee*

They'll burn you for heresy just as soon as they can figure out what it is.

I figure you're pretty safe!

Parable of the Vineyard

[p-o-u-n-c-e-r.livejournal.com]

SO, a grape grower tried to hire workers to harvest his grapes and offered one-twelfth denarius per hour ... so a bunch of guys who had no regular jobs were happy to come take the pay for that job. But after a while he found he couldn't get enough workers so he offered one-sixth denarius an hour, and some guys who'd have rather taken the day off, or had other work to do, decided to go pick grapes instead. But the vineyard owner STILL couldn't get enough workers, and finally to finish getting all the grapes in by dark he would up paying a premium rate of one full denarius per hour. Of course he only paid that rate to a very few skilled workers, most of whom could earn almost as much making shoes or carving wood or something -- but were willing to come pick grapes for an hour at THAT rate ...

Anyhow, naturally the guys working for 1/12th per hour were steamed. They insisted on imposing a "fair wage" set by the central committee of the workers themselves.

But the vineyard owning capitalist said unto them, "Go to hell! Who do you think YOU are, to tell ME how much to pay or how long the workday should be? "



Ot. maybe not.

Anyhow, a point about lucky rich nations...

One thing about personal liberty is that in free societies individuals have the right to be wrong. So, for instance, the guy that invented the Xerox machine Chester Carlson was allowed to pursue his crazy idea, even though everybody else in the entire world knew image copying needed wet chemistry and even though, even if he was right about there being some way to make a dry copy, he was wrong about what people might spend to do so.

The Steves, (Jobs and Woz) were wrong about how many people would want a small personal computer. So said the chief of Xerox.

Jeff Hawkins was wrong about a special purpose handheld computer that could --sometimes-- recognize your handwriting and keep track of your appointments. Hadn't Apple Computer proved THAT?.

The right of idiots and fanatics to pursue their wrong-headedness (and remain un-crucified) is an important idea to drill into little beggars brains.

Re: Parable of the Vineyard

[p-o-u-n-c-e-r.livejournal.com]

Uhm. "That" about Apple should be this instead.

Sorry.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Reference link:
http://www.egarcell.com/Bible/Jesus_Parables.htm

[tygerr.livejournal.com]

Wrong impression, indeed. That's what happened when *I* was a government contractor aerospace engineer Sunday-school teacher.

Nooooo

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

Oh no! selenite, dear, you're going to have to turn down the spot after all. I don't think we can take the risk that it could be the essential combination that's the first step on that path - before we knew it, you could be doing S&M clubs and gay bars, and would have left mild domestic little me for some marxist, and I can't have that. I've just gotten to the point that I can handle me wearing polish on my toes, I don't think our life is ready for you to do it.

Re: Nooooo

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Now, now, dear. The children need firm guidance, I have to be one of the teachers. So we'll just have to take that chance.