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We not only experience life, we rate our experiences as well. This is a major happening, this is minor. This is important, this quite commonplace and ordinary. We do the same with history. Before some events the trumpets sound and the cymbals clang. Before others we stifle a yawn and move on.

I dare say that at first reading the text today would be rated "o" for ordinary. "I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and now, I'm sure, dwells in you." Nothing stellar there. No dazzling miracle. No loud clashing of opposing forces. No big names. Just second stringers, like Timothy, Eunice, and Lois. But on second and third readings, the importance of what is written here quietly shines through.

We live in a world of colossal problems: Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Bin Laden, job cuts and the economy, global warming, Middle East tensions, sub-prime mortgage fiascos, Larry Craig type scandals, etc. With all these that make the headlines, it's easy to forget the home front, which in reality, is of ever greater importance; transmitting the faith, reproducing after our kind spiritually.

St. Paul knew the valued of Christian nurture. He was there on death row, rather sure that soon his flame would be snuffed out. As he reflected back over the years, he became conscious of the good that God had wrought for him through Timothy, the traveling companion and assistant to Paul on missionary journeys, whom Paul called "my beloved and faithful child in the Lord." Timothy was the young man on whom Paul's mantle would presently fall. Paul thanks God intensively both day and night for Timothy's unfeigned faith, remembering that that faith had belonged in turn to Lois and Eunice. Paul was grateful for a mother who told her daughter, and a daughter who told her son.

Let me quickly tell you the story of young John Wray. John Wray was a teenager while I was serving the Waverly Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, PA. John Wray, Sr., his father, was clerk of the Session, had spend years teaching in the church school, and worked with young people in the youth program. But John Wray, Jr. would have nothing to do with the church. Like more than one youth whose parents were active in the church, he rebelled against it. Pat and I, having moved to our next church in Pella, Iowa, heard one day that John Wray, Sr. died. We made the appropriate phone calls and wrote to Mattie, John's wife, but years later when we were back in Pittsburgh visiting Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, we met young John Wray and learned that he had been elected an Elder, and was head of the youth council. I was astounded. I said to him, "John, 10 years ago I never thought you would be doing what you are now doing for the church." I'll never forget his response. He said, "Well, you know, dad put up with me a lot. And even though I never told him so, which I now regret, he was my best example of a Christian gentleman, and the best teacher I ever had. So, what I'm doing in the church is my little way of saying thanks to him." "I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois, and your mother Eunice, and now, I am sure, dwells in you."

WHY DO WE TELL THE CHILDREN? Certainly not to coerce them or brainwash them. A child psychologist awhile ago gave an interesting expression to the public. He spoke of "the pampered child." That is the child whose every wish is so anticipated by the parents that the child doesn't have the chance to develop an ego of his or her own. It works like this. The mother says, "Put on your coat, I'm freezing." Or, "Eat all your supper, I'm hungry." Or, with regard to religion, "Believe in God, I'm afraid." Not that!

You know how it is in the human family. How we practice a shorthand there. Around the table someone says, "Remember that old '75 Dodge. And all the members of the family begin to woolgather and recall. Their thoughts turn to flat tires in the summer, a trip to the farm, a ferry crossing. All one need say is "'75 Dodge", and the recollections come rushing in that help to hold the family together. Sometimes all you have to say is "Thomas Pond", or "Mt. Washington", or "Key Largo", or "the Matterhorn," to touch off a train of happy vacation thoughts. That's what helps keep people together. The shorthand, the symbols, the signs, the gestures, the code words.

In a larger sense, that is what the content of faith is all about. We have as Christians a body of literature, a cast of characters, a set of assumptions, a wonderful history, a heritage of liturgy and music. What we desire for these youngsters of ours, and for all, is that they become familiar with these things.

THERE ARE CERTAIN PROPERTIES IN THE BIBLE THAT THEY OUGHT TO KNOW: Noah's ark, Jacob's ladder, Solomon's temple, Job's ash pit, Joseph's coat of many colors, Adam's fig leaves, Elijah's mantle, Judas' 30 pieces of silver, Pilate's wash basin, Jesus' cross. All of these are highly symbolic.

THERE ARE CERTAIN MOODS THAT OUR YOUNGSTERS OUGHT TO KNOW FROM THE STORY OF THE FAITH: David dancing before the ark, Solomon humble at the dedication of his temple, Jeremiah hesitant about taking on the work of a prophet, Peter in his super-certainly, Thomas in his doubt, Gideon with his courage, Moses with his anger at the idolatry of the golden calf, Jonah with his defiance- "I will not go and tell those Ninevites anything!"

"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place IN ALL GENERATIONS." This is more than a wish. It is a distance possibility. We have to hand it to our Jewish brothers and sisters. They made sure that the faith was passed on and transmitted. "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your ear; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise."