Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

I easily get sidetracked in Bible study, especially on those Sunday mornings when my study partners are a handful of inquisitive fifth-graders.

That’s exactly what happened a couple weeks ago, when we gathered in our tiny Sunday school room, which doubles as the pastor’s office at the back of our white-sided country church.

I can’t say for sure anymore, but I think we were supposed to be talking about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. As usual, our weekly habit of veering off course kicked into high gear. For most of the hour, my eleven-year-old students wanted to talk about careers and callings.

“All right, then,” I asked the two children in attendance that day, “what job do you think is most important to God: A pastor, a plumber or a teacher?”

Then, I added one more twist: “Or ... a teacher at a Christian school?”

The students—Jordan and my daughter Lydia—bit into their Oreos. Chewing slowly, they gazed into the high corners of the bookshelf, like they might find an answer up there next to the pastor’s thick commentaries. I took a sip of coffee.

We decided to poll a few of the adults. We waved them into our classroom, one by one. A handful of folks felt that the pastor might be the most important of the four jobs, seeing how he had the special responsibility of shepherding every butcher, baker, and candlestick-maker in the congregation. That reasoning certainly had merit.

But most of the congregants we surveyed felt that all the jobs were equally valuable in God’s eyes.

Jordan thought about it awhile. At first, he said, he figured that God would value the explicitly Christian jobs the most. But after giving it more thought, he decided otherwise. He felt it would be wrong to overlook the value of the plumber, for instance, after considering how critical plumbers are to … um … keep things moving along.

“Even pastors need to flush their toilets,” he said, with an impish grin.

Our pastor, who overheard part of the conversation while hanging his white robe behind the office door, agreed with Jordan. He said that God equally values the work of a pastor, a farmer, a public-school teacher, a Christian-school teacher, a stay-at-home mom—and the easily sidetracked Sunday school teacher who remains convinced that she is not, after all, smarter than a fifth grader.

Our class never did get back to the story about Lazarus. But before we left, I asked the students to open their Bibles. We flipped to the verses in 1 Corinthians that urge us to do all things to the glory of God. And then, we turned to Colossians, where Paul reminded us that whatever we do, we ought to do it with all of our heart, as working for the Lord.

It will be a while before either of these fifth-graders will have jobs in the marketplace. But, I told them, they didn’t need to wait until they’re grown-ups to “do all things to the glory of God.”

They could start now, by trying their hardest on science tests, by exercising their creativity in art class, by tackling tough math problems. When they offer their very best, I said, they are giving God glory.

I told them about a 17th-century monk named Brother Lawrence, who was assigned the mundane task of washing dishes in his monastery. Brother Lawrence determined that no matter how tedious his task, he had the capacity to honor and glorify God.

(I winked at my daughter, hinting that she might help me glorify God at the kitchen sink after Sunday dinner. I’m subtle like that.)

A wide, revelatory smile spread across her face, like a light bulb had gone off on the inside. “Huh,” she said, “I was thinking I might play soccer in the yard instead, you know, kickin’ that ball as hard as I can, kickin’ it to the glory of God.”

Post by Jennifer Dukes Lee. Image by Lucas Ninno. Used with permission. Sourced via Flickr.