1 Listen, my people, to my teaching;
tilt your ears toward the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth with a proverb.
I’ll declare riddles from days long gone—
3 ones that we’ve heard and learned about,
ones that our ancestors told us.
4 We won’t hide them from their descendants;
we’ll tell the next generation
all about the praise due the Lord and his strength—
the wondrous works God has done.
5 He established a law for Jacob
and set up Instruction for Israel,
ordering our ancestors
to teach them to their children.
6 This is so that the next generation
and children not yet born will know these things,
and so they can rise up and tell their children
7 to put their hope in God—
never forgetting God’s deeds,
but keeping God’s commandments—
8 and so that they won’t become like their ancestors:
a rebellious, stubborn generation,
a generation whose heart wasn’t set firm
and whose spirit wasn’t faithful to God.
Reflection
This scripture has the heading “A maskil of Asaph.” There are different thoughts on what this means but I found that maskil means “an enlightened or wise saying.” Psalm 78 reminded the Hebrews of their past, how God rescued them and fed them as they escaped from Egypt. In an earlier devotion, I talked about how they became frustrated with how God helped them and the provisions God gave them. They were not satisfied with the manna God provided, so God gave them quail, but they continued to complain.
These verses reminded the Israelites to continue to pass down these stories to generations to come so that the people would remember what God did, how people acted, and what we can learn and pass on to our future generations. Hopefully we learn and teach that God is faithful. Although it may not always be what we would want, God provides. Our future generations need these stories and our personal stories to help them figure out see who God is and how God has shown up for us.
There is currently a debate about how any history should be taught. Should we leave out the hard, ugly truths about how people responded (or didn’t respond) to others? Or should future generations learn all of the ugliness as well as the good and resilience people have shown throughout history? I’m not sure we can understand how we got to where we are today without understanding all of the aspects of what happened in the past.
How will young people learn to overcome and trust in God if they feel like they are somehow doing things wrong because things are difficult? The other thing about teaching our young people is that as we know, young people will eventually be in charge, and we want them to have all of the information possible so they can then turn around and teach us about God’s love and work in their lives. When I watch the children’s message, it’s always exciting to see how the children can tell the stories and teach the lesson! Our youth also see things we may miss in a story, so we not only need to teach, but we also need to listen! Joe always has stories about how the confirmands are so thoughtful and really want to get more deeply into the scripture. The wisdom of this lesson is to pass truthful information on to future generations so they may grow in God.
by Janet Waryck
For Pondering and Prayer
When was the last time you had an intergenerational discussion? Whether you are the young one or the old one, try to find opportunities to share with different generations. We can all learn new insights!
Prayer: God of all history, teach us to learn from all generations that we may continue your legacy in our lives and the lives of the generations to come. Amen.
