On this Pentecost Sunday, when we confirm 7 young women and men, I will use an Old Testament text for our thoughts. And first, there will be a word to adults, and then a word to the youth:

"Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.""

This was the great commandment for Israel and the Jews. That becomes our great commandment too.

To parents, to adults, to anyone who has any kind of influence on any kind of child that is nearby. Because this is what God says to you with this command: "And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart and you shall teach them to your children."

Here is your first word: that you take this most profound commandment, most critical ("to love God" – as clear and as open as that) and you teach it to these youth, your children, these littlest children, or the children you happen to see in the street, that you somehow teach them. That’s God’s word.

Well, that’s not surprising, is it? That you have something to do with who these kids are, or who live next door to you, who they are. That’s not surprising. Only, the Lord doesn’t stop the word there; we have to shape it even tighter.

God is going to tell you how you ought to teach it to your children. "You shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by your way and when you lie down and when you rise, and you shall bind these words as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be like frontlets between your eyes, and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and you shall write them on your gates." That’s a very strange way to teach children.

Talking of them when you get up in the morning, talking about them when you go to bed at night. Talking of the love of God when you are walking along your way. Talking about it when you are sitting in your house. Binding something between your eyeballs so it hangs there. Man, what is the Lord trying to say?

Let me shape it for you. Perhaps you know that we took two years to teach the 7 Confirmation students. Taught them Christian doctrine; taught them stories of Jesus; had them talk about their lives and what God might want for their lives. We put words to some of the thoughts that were already in their heads. Taught them other words: "The Lord Jesus Christ, salvation, redeemer, law, Gospel, commandments." And they’ve done pretty well.

But I want to tell you that when they come to us as the age of 11, or 12, or 13, or so, they are 98% already taught! We have only two percent to work in. That’s all they got. They come to us with concepts and ideas and a shape already in their head and in their selves. Parents, grandparents, neighbors, adults: you are always teaching these children, whether you know it or not, is what the Lord is saying. How you talk when you walk by the way. What you look like when you sit down. The words that are most important to you; the times when you smile, the times when your eyes flare with fire (for one reason or another), all teach these people what is important and who they should be.

That’s what the Lord is saying: Don’t think you can teach these kids of the kingdom of God, what the kingdom is, only sometimes in your existence. God is saying, don’t make the mistake to think that you can pick on certain special moments in their lives, like confirmation, like the death of a loved one, or when the bird was buried in the back yard, and train them all that they need to know about the love of God. But how you are and who you are in the most common times is telling them how they should be and who they should be. That’s why you taught them the love of the Lord when you get up in the morning. That’s when they should be like frontlets before the eyes, so how you look and where you look teaches them the love of God. Is this making sense?

You can’t send us your kids and expect us to make Christians out of them. You can’t stick them in SS and hope it changes them. The moment they appear in this world, the day in which you look, hold, smile upon them, is telling them who to be. It is shaping them from the beginning. That’s why the love of the Lord should appear in all the common things you do.

I know a household when the only times they really earnestly speak about God is either at tragic accidents or deaths. Trouble and tragic accidents. The kids watch, and every time God’s word is used and tacked onto tragic accidents and death, the kid is saying, unconsciously, God has to do with tragic things and death. Shiver. And they have very, very long faces when they talk about God.

How you walk along the way tells them who God is, whether God is worthy of your love, or worthy of only a few minutes when you want to hang on God when there is tragedy and trouble. You teach them all the time.

I know a house where the name of the Lord is used very, very often, but mostly through cursing. Papa gets his words out when he is very mad (there is even a vein that sticks out), and uses God’s name to ask God to do some extraordinary things, like burn something up in hell. But when Dad does it (and the kids are watching – all the actions of that man, father, mother, adult) "wow, this is really important." "He really means it this time." What is he saying? = That

God’s habit is to send things to hell; to condemn them; to curse them. Sometimes this same parent will also use the name of the Lord sweetly in prayer, but never with the same passion as when the parent curses something.

And the kids say, "Ah, God is always sending things to hell. God wants to cut things down," and they have these things in their minds before we ever get hold of them. See? = That God is generally angry.

When you are driving on vacation, what you talk about, what you look at. When does the love of God come bubbling up? Because in those actions you are teaching, their minds are being shaped. And we get them only 2 %

I know a house where the only folks who talk about God are the women. No men talk about God. It is understood that the men believe in God, but they don’t say anything about it. Now when the kids are young, that’s ok, because they are part of their mother so much when they are young. But when they are growing up, and following Dad, what is it that Pappa does? One: he shaves; Two: he never talks about God. Therefore, to be macho and to be grown up means God is for women, and that I, as a male, I’ve got to stand on my own two feet. God can take care of women, girls, grandmas, and perhaps, when they get very, very old, grandpas.

I could go on; but I think the point is made. Here they are, your children, all of our children here. These are ours. And we shape them in our faces, and when we laugh and when we smile, and what we talk about, when we have a decision to made in the family, when we openly talk about God participating in the decision. When we find it peaceful and pray, the kids don’t even think about it, but they are taught it in the common and natural. We are teaching them, in the most insignificant actions of the day the most significant thing is happening. You are shaping them.

One last thing: (I have said this before to you, I think) this is not true; but they used to think it, that when a bear had a baby cub, the mother would lick the cub into shape. They thought that bears were born squeeze-able, and could be pushed into any shape you wanted. And that the mother had to lick him/her into a proper bear shape so it could grow right.

Now, we all say, "that’s foolish. The little cub is born with bones and will get his/her own shape regardless." But there is one truth here. We are licking these children into a certain shape without even knowing it. Shaping them by who we are and what we do. People, for their sake, I plead with you, let the love of God be an open and unembarrassed, clear and shining part of their lives. For their sake. This is the legacy you leave them. This is the will more profound than any will you will write on a few sheets of paper, or any money you will leave them; you will leave them your shape.

Now to the confirmands: You are being shaped, at home, at school, outside, in the church, and this is the shape, this is the message we in the church want you to have, and I will tell it to you in a fairy tale.

Rapunzel was a beautiful, young girl. She was gorgeous, having long, silken hair, and golden complexion, and Little Orphan Annie eyes. She was a knockout. One day a wicked witch kidnapped Rapunzel, and locked her in a tall tower, away from everyone. And every day the wicked witch, who was very, very ugly – you could see that she was ugly, by her pock-marked face, by her vermin infested head of gnarly hair, by the accumulated dirt under her curled up fingernails. Each day the witch would shout at Rapunzel: "Rapunzel, you are as ugly as I am!" After a time, Rapunzel believed the witch, for there was no mirror in the tower, and Rapunzel believed what the witch said. She believed it so much, that after a while, the witch would not even have to lock the door on Rapunzel, for Rapunzel did not want to leave, to have anyone look at her, for she believed she was so ugly.

One day, Rapunzel was looking out the top window of the tower, and off in the distance she saw a prince riding toward her, on a wonderful white horse, and he stopped at the foot of the tower, asked her to unbraid her hair, and he climbed up to the window. And it was one of those moments when they looked into each other’s eyes; have you ever looked deeply into another’s eyes, into that dark spot right in the center, and seen yourself reflected back, like a mirror.

And Rapunzel gasped, and she said, "I’m not ugly! I am beautiful!" And she was free of the witch’s cruel message. Rapunzel and the prince parachuted to earth (after all, this is a fairy tale), rode off, to live happily ever after.

Don’t let anyone tell you, shape you, into believing that you are ugly. And I am not talking at all about how you look, what you wear. But who you are. You are a unique, special, creation of the hands of God, who loves you without limits, who by your baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection, has made you God’s own child. That’s your shape, that you are loved by God, and you belong to God.