Balaam’s Ass links to an article in The Oregonian covering Lutheran confirmation material that’s intended to be funny.
I wanted to see an example of these humorous lessons, so I found The Lutheran Handbook with its “Winking Luther”, published by Augsburg Fortress.
Two examples of this text deal with Law and Gospel (PDF) and The Five Grossest Bible Stories (PDF).The Law and Gospel lesson mentions the First and Second Uses of the Law but leaves out the Third, the commands that we desire to obey as a result of believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and no longer wanting to sin. The second lesson could be greatly amplified by highlighting in these examples what Jesus Christ has done for us. Even in the Old Testament, the Scriptures bear witness about the Christ (John 5:39). Comedic value? Judge for yourself.
.
On the same Winking Luther site is a link to Here We Stand Confirmation materials. On the Samples tab, one finds a sample lesson on the Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt. 6:11 and Luke 11:3).
Luther’s own Small Catechism gives 93 words in explanation to the Fourth Petition. The full plan (no longer available) of the sample lesson is 15 pages. To its credit, there is plenty of audience participation and a hint to review the previous week’s lesson. There’s a Skit, PowerPoint, Opening Prayer, personal testimony, using The Lutheran Handbook as a reference, Bible reading (and in this section, you can “establish a fun routine around volunteer Bible readings by having the reader use the lectern or pulpit while the audience stands”), a Video/DVD, Music (Randy Newman), Small Group Time, Closing Questions, and a Closing Ritual (basically the teacher blesses the students as they leave). Using any or all of these, a lesson can last from 20 minutes to an hour.
Luther’s explanation is God-focused:
God gives daily bread, even without our prayer, to all wicked men; but we pray in this petition that He would lead us to know it, and to receive our daily bread with thanksgiving.
In the preparation of this lesson, we see:
The challenge is, in our contemporary world, that there are many who do not have even the basics. There are far too many people on this planet who go hungry, certainly from day to day, but for some, the famine in which they live, whether food or peace, costs them life itself. If we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” why do some have and some have not?
Where is that focused? What about this:
There is wisdom in this when we look back on the idea of generosity. Think of the parable of the rich farmer, who built new barns to store the abundance of his fields (Luke 12:16-21). Though we need not assume that God’s abundance is somehow finite, we can quickly see that there might have been hungry neighbors who could have benefited from his stores and filled their bellies today.
Thankfully the lesson isn’t completely focused on human behavior. God in fact still provides our daily bread. This is often reflected, though, in interrogative and conditional monologue:
The petition invites us to consider our place and role in the provision of daily bread. If God provides for us all, we are responsible to see that God’s abundance is available to all. How many people of means, when in a community of lesser means, walk away amazed by the generosity found there? It may be that an abundance of daily bread obscures our ability to see that generosity is our way of offering this petition. If we are called to bring God’s will and way to bear in our time, then we are called to be sure all have daily bread sufficient for their well-being.
A presenter can use questions quite effectively to encourage discussion and participation. Yet when it comes to content, a presenter should give “just the facts”. When I am in a position of authority on how to use the software I teach, I don’t ask, “What do you think this does?” They get told what each part does. They repeat the actions they need to learn. There is performance monitoring, summarizing, and evaluation. In the old days of confirmation they would call all this “memory work”.
The content of the Fourth Petition in this lesson isn’t wrong, per se, but it’s diluted with social responsibility and questions that some may feel don’t get answered satisfactorily. When students of any age store only a fraction of the class’s content between their ears anyway, and that retention drops further with time away from class, there isn’t much allowance for diversion.
