The following piece is a devotion I wrote for parent information evenings we recently had in our college:

​It is impossible to be the perfect parent. To give our kids the perfect life and a perfect education, a perfect experience of school. We know in our minds that perfection doesn’t exist. But it still doesn’t stop us, as humans and particularly as parents, of putting ourselves under immense pressure to be the perfect parent, the supermum and überdad, successful at everything, trying to give our children only the very best.
 
Way back in 2017, a post from a Facebook page about how to be Mum went viral. In one hundred words the author, a mother called Bunmi Laditan, wrote this; 
 
How To Be A Mom in 2017:
Make sure your children's academic, emotional, psychological, mental, spiritual, physical, nutritional, and social needs are met while being careful not to overstimulate, understimulate, improperly medicate, helicopter, or neglect them in a screen-free, processed foods-free, GMO-free, negative energy-free, plastic-free, body positive, socially conscious, egalitarian but also authoritative, nurturing but fostering of independence, gentle but not overly permissive, pesticide-free, two-story, multilingual home preferably in a cul-de-sac with a backyard and 1.5 siblings spaced at least two year apart for proper development…also don't forget the coconut oil.  

​She then finished her post by saying; How to be a Mum in literally every generation before ours: Feed them sometimes.(1) 
 
This post revealed vividly how impossible and laughable so much of modern parenting has become. Being a perfect parent is unrealistic. It’s bound to fail, to end in a miserable mess of sad tears. But that’s OK, because it is only by acknowledging and embracing our failures that we can begin to see how incredibly perfect the healing love of our perfect parent in heaven is. God’s grace silences all our false expectations, and pressure and guilt we put ourselves under. It's at these times that we are directed to the only true help we have as parents, God's grace for us.
 
My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
2 Corinthians 12:9
 
Prayer; Loving God, teach us to fail. To fail as parents so that we are directed outside of ourselves, to you for strength, hope, and wisdom. Give us your grace, love and freedom when we put ourselves under the pressure of being the perfect parent. Teach us the blessings that flow from our imperfections and weakness. Help us to learn from our failures as parents and for our children to learn from this wisdom too. Give us a strong relationship with our children, their teachers and our school community. We commit into your hands our children, their education, their wellbeing, their lives. May we trust in you in all things, especially in our parenting. Amen.

(1) This quote and the inspiration for this devotion came from the book Upside-Down Spirituality; The 9 Essential Failures of a Faithful Life by Chad Bird.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
2 Corinthians 3:17

Lutheran Christians believe that the human being consists of body and soul. This is not a separating of body and soul like the ancient Greek philosophers did but a holistic view of humans that is deeply embedded in the Old and New Testaments. In the Freedom of a Christian Luther also phrases it as the flesh and the spirit, or the outer and the inner person. Contrary to some philosophies of our time this means that the Lutheran school provides education for the whole student body, mind and soul. Our wholistic approach for the development of children and young people always involves the spiritual, giving time for the growth of the interior life of the person. This interior life or spirituality in which we experience the struggle between what our body wants to do and what our mind wants to do at times.
 
The section of the Freedom of a Christian that we are about to read outlines what is needed for the soul, the inner life of a person. Luther is convinced that one thing alone is necessary for the Christian and for their freedom, that is the word of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our interior life can lack everything except the word of God, nothing else satisfies the soul as the word of God which brings life, truth, light, peace, joy, wisdom, power grace and every imaginable blessing. For Luther this word of God is so much more than an individual reading ink printed on the page of a bible. The word of God is a living active dynamic thing when one person speaks it or proclaims it to another person and primarily that word is the gospel, the promises of God in scripture which deliver Christ to us. When we hear this word and it sinks into our soul, faith is produced in us by the Holy Spirit and we learn to rely on what God has done for us rather than our good works. What makes us right with God is not the good works our bodies can do but faith in what Jesus has done for us. Faith alone, in Christ, justifies, makes us righteous.

A Reading from the "Freedom of a Christian"
Every human being consists of two natures: a spiritual and a bodily one. According to the spiritual nature, which people label the soul, the human being is called a spiritual, inner, and new creature. According to the bodily nature, which people label the flesh, a human being is called the fleshly, outer, and old creature… This distinction results in the fact that in the Scripture these contrary things are said about the same person, because these two “human beings” fight against each other in the very same human being, as in Gal. 5[:17], “For what the flesh desires is opposed to the spirit, and what the spirit desires is opposed to the flesh”
 
The Spiritual, New, and Inner Person
In looking at the inner person first, we grasp how someone may become righteous, free, and truly Christian, that is, “a spiritual, new, and inner person.”
 
What Christian Freedom Does Not Consist In
It is evident that no external thing at all, whatever its name, has any part in producing Christian righteousness or freedom. Nor does it produce unrighteousness or servitude. This can be proven by a simple argument. How can it benefit the soul if the body is in good health—free and active, eating and drinking and doing what it pleases—when even the most ungodly slaves to complete wickedness may overflow in such things? On the other hand, how could poor health or captivity or hunger or thirst or any other external misfortune harm the soul, when even the godliest, purest, and freest consciences are afflicted with such things? Not one of these things touches upon the freedom or servitude of the soul. Thus, it does not help the soul if the body wears the sacred robes set apart for priests or enters sacred places or performs sacred duties or prays, fasts, abstains from certain foods, or does absolutely any work connected with the body. Righteousness and freedom of the soul will require something completely different, since the things just mentioned could easily be done by some ungodly person and since such efforts result only in producing hypocrites. On the other side, the soul is not harmed if the body wears street clothes, goes around in secular places, eats and drinks like everyone else, does not pray aloud, and fails to do all the things mentioned above that hypocrites could do.
 
The Word of God Is Necessary for the Soul
Moreover, so that we may exclude everything—even contemplation, meditation, and whatever else can be done by the soul’s efforts—all of this has no benefit. One thing and one thing alone is necessary for the Christian life, righteousness, and freedom, and that is the most holy word of God, the Gospel of Christ. As John 11[:25] states: “I am the Resurrection and the Life, whoever believes in me will never die.” And John 8[:36]: “If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” And Matt. 4[:4]: “One does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Therefore, we may consider it certain and firmly established, that the soul can lack everything except the word of God. Without it absolutely nothing else satisfies the soul. But when soul has the word, it is rich and needs nothing else, because the word of God is the word of life, truth, light, peace, righteousness, salvation, joy, freedom, wisdom, power, grace, glory, and every imaginable blessing.
 
David in Psalm 119
This is why the prophet throughout Psalm 119 and in so many other places [in the Psalter] yearns and sighs with groans and cries for the word of God.
 
God’s Cruelest Disaster
Again, there is no crueler disaster arising from God’s wrath than when it sends “a famine of the hearing of his word,” as stated in Amos 8[:11], just as there is no greater grace than whenever God sends forth his word, as in Ps. 107[:20]. “He sent out his word and healed them and delivered them from their destruction.” And Christ was not sent into the world for any other office than the word. Moreover, the apostles, bishops and the entire order of clerics have been called and established only for the ministry of the word.
 
What the Word of God Is
You may ask, “What is this word and how should it be used, when there are so many words of God?” I respond as follows. Paul explains what this word is in Rom. 1[:1, 3]: “The gospel of God . . . concerning his Son,” who was made flesh, suffered, rose, and was glorified through the Spirit, the Sanctifier. Thus, to preach Christ means to feed, justify, free, and save the soul—provided a person believes the preaching. For faith alone is the saving and efficacious use of the word of God. Rom. 10[:9] states: “If you confess with your heart that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved,” and again [in v. 4]: “For Christ is the end of the law, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.” And Rom. 1[:17] states: “The one who is righteous will live by faith.”
 
Faith Alone Justifies
For the word of God cannot be received or honored by any works but by faith alone. Therefore, it is clear that the soul needs the word alone for life and righteousness, because if the soul could be justified by anything else, it would not need the word and, consequently, would not need faith. Indeed, this faith absolutely cannot exist in connection with works, that is to say, in connection with any presumption of yours to be justified at the same time by any works whatsoever. (1)

Discussion Questions:

1. Can you think of any contemporary equivalents of “good works”? What modern practices and beliefs do people use to earn the approval of God, their peers or even themselves?
2. According to Luther, what role do good works play in the life of a Christian? Why does he say that the Christian is saved by faith alone yet also required to do good works?
3. How would you describe to a person unfamiliar with Christianity this faith that can free us and make us truly good, righteous and holy?
4. How do we avoid turning faith into just another kind of good work?
5. Are there ways we in a Lutheran school present the Christian faith as being about doing good works?[2]

[1] The Freedom of a Christian 1520: The Annotated Luther Study Edition, translated by Timothy J. Wengert, Fortress Press, Minneapolis: 2016, 11-15.
[2]  Carmelo Santos, The Freedom of a Christian: A Study Guide for Martin Luther’s Treatise, Marking the 500th Anniversary of its Publication, ELCA, Chicago: 2020.