Jesus

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Meeting Jesus, the Great Teacher

In Freeing Jesus, Diana Butler Bass says that Jesus grows in us as we age, not that Jesus himself is variable, but we discover his depth at different stages of our lives, times when Jesus meets us, speaking to our particular needs. I can see that progression in my own life: when I saw Jesus as the only the Son of God, as the Question Answerer, as the fire within us, as an absent betrayer, and as a brilliant teacher. There may be more, but this is what I see this morning.

Today, who is Jesus the Teacher?

At the Tony Awards (2015),  famous performers cited a favorite acting teacher for lifting them toward eventual stardom. Rarely do we hear teachers say, “I made her what she is today.” Yet we hear it from students all the time.

For some reason students are glad to give teachers credit for identity or character formation. If it weren’t so immune to measurement or controlled experiments, we might believe that teaching is more about compassion and example than test score elevation. A classroom:

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?
They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah, and still other Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
“But what about you?”he asked. “Who do you say that I am?
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”
(Matthew 16: 13-18)

Jesus was concerned with unleashing the potential of his followers. He planned a short stay on this planet, and he needed disciples who would seamlessly take up his work after he left. In the verses above he contrived an unstandardized test to measure the readiness of his disciples.
1) Who do people say the Son of Man is?
2) Who do you say that I am?
The first question has several answers, more in the way of reporting than solving a problem. “Who do people say that I am?” ranged everywhere from “John the Baptist” to “Jeremiah.”
The second question “Who do you say that I am?” is clearly the summative measure of their progress, and Peter, the star pupil, steps into the breach with the best answer “the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”

The next move is where the teaching really begins, even as the learning curve often rises in the post-mortem of a test, more than from the test itself. Why do these questions even matter?
Jesus’s first lesson is “this was revealed . . . by my father in heaven.” You get your best answers from God, not man. You learn by listening to God, not those who speculate that Jesus was Elijah come back from the dead.

The next move is lending perspective to what has just happened. Another thing you can’t readily assess: the pupil graduating to a new identity. First, Jesus addresses him as “Simon,” then as “Peter” signifying his growth and potential for growth. And then prophetically, “On this rock I will build my church.”

In my latter years of teaching teachers, I suddenly began to hear myself say “You’re going to be a great teacher” when a student shared a great insight or experience. And I wished I had made such outrageous predictions much earlier in my career. Because I realize now that students remember those moments better than all the professional wisdom I could impart, and the memory may help them later in their careers.

Why did Peter need to hear that bold prediction from Jesus at that moment? First, he had made himself vulnerable by saying what the other disciples were afraid to utter. They were all thinking it. Only Peter was willing to say it. Second, he was about to see the man he called “the Christ” imprisoned and tortured. The whole dream was dissolving. Third, Peter was going to contribute to Jesus’s humiliation with the three denials, something he swore he would never do. The timing of Jesus’s prediction was crucial, because it would carry Peter through his trial by fire.

With the disciples Jesus was interested in the highest form of teaching: the forming of new identities. As Jesus prayed later, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.” (John 16:17-19)
All the other stuff, the interpretation of the Law, the parables, the apprenticeship, much of it did not take until Jesus was long gone. The sanctification, the love, the working together, that was crucial right away.

There is a cliche in teaching that we teach the student, not the subject matter. I have found this accurate, not only in high school, but in college, with students aspiring to teach. Students remember who you are and how you teach, not just what you teach. Research shows that education students often imitate their best teachers in the past more than the teacher we try to impose on them in their teacher education. This is good from the point of view of knowing good teaching, but bad from the point of view of developing your own character as a teacher.

In teaching student teachers I finally learned that how I teach and how I treat students is the curriculum students receive more than the research about best practices and new classroom approaches. I began to realize that Jesus’ effectiveness as a teacher came from his daily actions as a compassionate, inclusive and personal teacher that left the most enduring memory on his pupils.

My conversion to Jesus, the teacher, came late in my life. At least half way through my journey.  But it came in the nick of time, when I was trying to teach teachers, who were desperate for my experience as a high school teacher. What they did not know was that I was teaching more and more by example as I learned what the real curriculum was, what they would carry with them into student teaching.

Jesus shows us that character and identity formation are the heart of great teaching. His teaching was not successful because his disciples had a good grasp of the Law and the Prophets or even impressive faith. He was successful because he taught them as individuals, as much as the curriculum of the Good News.. He was successful because they could take up the cross as they had seen him do it: feed the hungry, heal the hurting, encourage the hopeless. They caught the spirit and the intent of his teachings, the part that would stay with them after graduation. And that’s what made this rabbi a Great Teacher.

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“Go Tell that Fox ”

I have been an evangelical Christian since it was a term of contempt among intellectuals. I have always tried to separate my faith from politics. Politics was divisive; Christianity was supposed to unite.   Today I find it hard to preserve that separation, because politics and faith are deliberately blurred for political gain. “The Devil can cite scripture for his purpose.”

Jesus was careful not to get ensnared in politics. His most famous saying was “Render unto to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” which kept him above the fray.  But neither Jesus nor John the Baptist were cowed by power. If you read Mark 6 you see how Herod, a minor Hebrew governor, arrested John for publicly criticizing his marriage to his brother’s wife. John followed the prophetic tradition of speaking to morality, not politics. There  was no suggestion that John had questioned Herod’s collaboration with the Roman government or any other raging political controversy of the day.

But for all that restraint, John was beheaded on the whim of Herodias (Herod’s wife), who made her daughter request the head of John.  Perhaps a little intoxicated with wine and the daughter’s dancing, Herod recklessly promised to grant her anything (“even half of my kingdom”). The “anything” turned out to be the “head of John the Baptist on a platter” (Luke 6:25).  It has all the ugly details of a political figure seduced by power and beautiful women.

In fact, if you substitute “Trump” for “Herod” in this story, you will see why I believe Evangelical Christians should disown their President, not on political, but moral  grounds.  Morally President Trump and King Herod are a good match.

Similarly, Herod offered political power to a young girl for exotic dancing.

  • The President slanders and destroys his opponents. He believes in loyalty, but not his loyalty to others. He fired the head of the FBI, slandered Jeff Sessions, his attorney general (a longtime supporter), and fired Preet Bharara , district attorney for southern New York, because he would not fire all the attorneys under him appointed by the Obama administration. None of these firings or slanders were for incompetence or Constitutional violations, but only for failing to neutralize the President’s enemies.

The arrest and beheading of John the Baptist shows the price of disloyalty in Herod’s kingdom.

  • He allies with contemptible power. Whatever he says now, he has courted hate groups in the past, only rebuking them under extreme political pressure and the next day saying they are not all bad. Few mainstream politicians, Republican or Democrat, will allow their names to be associated with such groups that slur non-white or non-Christian groups.

Herod supported Pilate’s desire to dispose of Jesus by dressing him in robes and mocking him, sending him back to Pilate. “That day Herod and Pilate became friends—before this they had been enemies” (Luke 23:12). Alliance with contemptible power.

  • He encourages police brutality. Despite high profile cases where a few policemen have been convicted or fired for brutality or manslaughter, the President advocates harsh treatment of people arrested before they go to trial: “When you see these thugs thrown into the back of a paddy wagon. You see them thrown in, rough. I said, ‘Please don’t be too nice,’” Trump said, mentioning observing the prisoners’ heads being shielded. “I said, ‘You can take the hand away.’”  This goes way beyond supporting the authority of the police to supporting brutal acts for which police officers could be prosecuted.

 In the same incident where Pilate sends Jesus to Herod “. . .Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked him. Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate” Luke 23:11. Note that Jesus was an unconvicted criminal during this “arraignment.”

Of course the President is not guilty of arresting and beheading anyone, but he doesn’t have that kind of license. If we imagine King Herod as President Herod, we might see the moral fiber these men shared in common–lasciviousness, vindictiveness, bigotry, and lawless brutality.

We know from Matthew 14:13 that Jesus grieved the execution of John the Baptist, although at that moment he was immediately thrust back into service by a crowd that followed him.

Some time after John’s execution, Jesus gets word from the Pharisees that Herod has resolved to kill him. With uncharacteristic sharpness he replies, “Go tell that fox, ‘I will drive out demons and heal people today, and on the third day I will reach my goal “(Luke 14:32). The next time he meets Herod he is the condemned prisoner sent by Pilate. Herod had the distinction of killing the forerunner and abusing the messiah himself.

With moral conviction, I plead with Christians who elected President Trump by moral certainty to reconsider that choice in their hearts and let the Holy Spirit speak above the political din.  Then echo the indignation of Jesus, “Go tell that fox, ‘ I will drive out demons (hate groups) and heal people (relationships) today . . .” About core principles of love and forgiveness, we should have no division. Our President has failed us all, whatever our place on the political spectrum of Christianity.

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Politics and the Son of Man

Reading the Gospel of John in November makes the mind turn to politics, the dark art.  Politics stakes out its version of the truth, and filters everything through that lens. In John  the political conflict begins with “He came unto his own and his own received him not” and keeps building to the Crucifixion.

John seems to be privy to conversations within the Pharisees and Temple leadership that show the intrigue involved in the conspiracy to capture and nullify Jesus. Especially the second half of the Gospel shifts our attention back and forth between the plotting and Jesus stepping into the path of the plot.

The healing of the man born blind in Chapter 9 runs the whole gamut of a discourse on sin, a physical healing, interrogating the evidence, challenging Jesus’ authority, and a discourse on spiritual blindness. On the one hand Jesus demonstrates he is the “light of the world” through a miraculous healing of the blind, and on the other, the Pharisees show their blindness by challenging the plain facts. The Pharisees ultimately challenge Jesus by saying “Are we also blind?” and Jesus turns their question around by showing that they are not merely blind, but willfully blind. In other words, they have made the world conform to their political vision.

The conflict turns on the Pharisees politicizing a miracle. The first twelve verses of chapter 9 describe a well-documented healing. All kinds of evidence is brought forth: the process of applying the clay to the man’s eyes, the washing in the pool of Siloam, the neighbors witnessing the miracle and verifying he is the same man born blind, and finally bringing the man to the Pharisees for further confirmation.

Here is where the clay hits the fan. The Pharisees cannot accept a healing from Jesus, because he is a sinner: he does not keep the Sabbath. Suddenly we have a political investigation challenging what is manifestly true. This is the true nature of politics. Nothing is accepted at its face value; it is all subject to scrutiny and re-framing. The Pharisees question the former blind man, who says, “He is a prophet.” Wrong answer.

They called the parents, who would at least verify this was their son. Would they affirm that Jesus had performed a miracle? Not to get into the political fray, they say “He is of age, ask him.” Wrong answer.

So they ask the son with more force. “Give God the praise; we know that this man is a sinner.” Now the Pharisees begin to sound like a Senate investigating committee. The son, in response, becomes more strident. “I have told you already and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again?” Then with a touch of irony, “Do you too want to become his disciples?”  Wrong answer. The heat of the investigation is revealed in the growing sarcasm of the man formerly known as “blind.” He begins to argue for the authenticity of Jesus until the exasperated fact-finding committee pulls out their final card. “’You were born in utter sin and would you teach us?’ And they cast him out.” Ironically the whole episode had begun with Jesus denying that sin had anything to do with the man’s blindness.

The next scene shows how Jesus deals with politics. Having heard of the man being cast out of the synagogue, Jesus seeks him out and says,“ Do you believe in the Son of man?” The man ultimately says “I believe” and “worshipped him.” That is how the miracle narrative concludes, or almost concludes. Jesus tends to the man’s spiritual health. He doesn’t go to the synagogue to debate with the Pharisees, but seeks out the outcast man to complete the healing.

This would be the end of the story, but apparently some Pharisees had tracked down the man formerly known as “blind” to see what mischief he would pursue. Jesus antagonizes them with a meaningful indictment.  ”For judgment I came into the world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.”  And when the Pharisees rise to the challenge, Jesus replies “now that you say ‘We see’ your guilt remains.” This distinguishes politics from the spiritual quest. The political stance is to never re-consider, unless for political gain. The spiritual quest is for finding the truth, no matter what it costs.

Jesus did not avoid conflict, but he was more interested in healing. His first concern was for the blind man, not his political and spiritual opponents. He was not apolitical, but he was not distracted by politics. The story shows Jesus focusing on his calling and letting the Pharisees investigate and accuse in their own way.

Politics is all about telling the story your way.  Jesus knew that willful blindness prevented dialogue. There was no use trying to convert the willfully blind, when there was so much more productive work to do.  The parable of the Lost Sheep reinforces this message. Jesus would always choose the single needy person over the battalion of religious leaders. Healing, not politics.

In the entire Bible there are no such stories about the events of a day or few days told over the expanse of 41 verses. This one is reported to show how Jesus dealt with the political firestorm raging around him. He drew boundaries that kept him away from senseless arguments, but never backed off from stating the truth as he saw it. The story of the blind man at the pool of Siloam is a case study of focus on the kingdom of God, while keeping the kingdom of this world at bay.  Healing, not politics.

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The Gospel: Digital, Viral, Crazy

What is the impact of the Episcopal Church’s digital outreach?

Sunday morning in her sermon about the craziness of Jesus and his followers, Beth [Scriven], alluded to an address by the Rev. Michael Curry at the national convention as “going viral.” This transformation of an ecclesiastical address to a viral YouTube file was monumental, Beth said, suggesting that Episcopalians are not intently followed in social media.

Why is this? Is the church that boring or irrelevant that it attracts no interest in the most sensitive of channels that can amplify an offhand remark by a public figure and reverberate it around the globe in a matter of minutes? Why are the considered remarks of Episcopalians grounded in the Twitter-verse before they can fly?

For one, Episcopalians are not power brokers in the secular sense of the expression, so our words would not cause ripples, no matter how inspired. We may not affect the outcome of elections, ball games or the stock market, and that probably dampens the effect we might hope for. But Jesus was not a power broker. Wouldn’t his words reverberate in social media?

Jesus’s reputation surged up Galilee and down through Judea, and crowds swarmed in anticipation of his arrival. Was it something about his brilliant command of the law or his charisma challenging the local authorities? Why was Jesus’s message viral in a word-of-mouth sort of way?

Another reason for obscurity on the net: Episcopalians are not intent on making the biggest noise possible, being heard for the sake of being heard. We are not keeping up with the Kardashians or creating a buzz for a product line. We are not pitching the Gospel. Still, Jesus showed no desire for sensation. Indeed he often told those he healed not to spread the word about his miracles. They re-posted his words in spite of him.

So why is our digital voice muted, when the voice of Jesus was echoing in the Temple and in the governors’ palaces? Are we technologically inept? Are we unplugged in the media? Not at all. The church can be found wherever wireless is radiating. What are we missing then?

Beth also preached about the “good” kind of crazy that shakes Christians out of complacency, along with the tolerance for disagreement that allows us to speak our minds. I wondered if Episcopalians have become too down-the-center to disagree or too wary of conflict to trouble the waters of discussion. I say this with the trepidation of one who always tries to reconcile disagreement and runs from conflict. I worry about division and broken relationships more than the average Christian, having run out on a suffocating cultish experience in mid-life. I am not a risk-taker in most areas of my life, and I recoil at being called “crazy.” Taking crazy pills is not high on my agenda.

Yet I wonder if it is my craving security that dampens the Gospel as Jesus preached it. It muffles the truth, the truth that would cut through diluted common sense, acceptable rationalism, or ultra-moderation. It holds back the protests I might have raised, if I weren’t calculating how many friends they could lose me. It filters my suspicions and doubt, the haunting questions I might have raised but for fear of mockery. No one can question my fidelity, my critical awareness, my fairness, because I walk the “via media.”

The “via media” is one of the best things Episcopal. We are not power-brokers or peddlers of hype, but “people of the way” trying to live what we say and give the Spirit rein in our actions. I affirm this via, but when I consider the digital world, I feel very moderate and tame. I lack the urgency and passion I hear in everything Jesus said. Am I holding back the objections, the questions, the outrage and taking cover in the “via media” for my lack of courage?

Digital media carry a cacophony of voices, but without the piercing impact of the words of eternal life. Am I contributing to the cacophony or bearing witness to the truth? I can adopt every new digital medium, but if my message is muffled or homogenized it can’t compete with this din. Is this just the way of the world or has the world had its way with me? Have I diluted the “craziness” of the Gospel, because I want to be considered sane?

The message and medium are all there, but my digital impress on the earth lacks the conviction that borders on crazy. It was this kind of crazy that made Jesus a viral presence in a low-tech millenium. And this kind of crazy that could be the difference between murmuring on the internet and raising the voices of apostles and prophets.

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“Fair” is not the same as “Equal”

So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it they began to grumble against the landowner. “These men who were hired last worked only one hour,” they said, “and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.”

But he answered one of them, “Friend I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (Matt 120:10-15)

Based on the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, it is pretty clear how Jesus stood on amnesty. The late-arriving workers in the parable are a perfect analogue for immigrants who entered this country later and without legal documents.  In the case of the “Dreamers” legislation which gives the amnesty to the children of these immigrants so they might enroll in college, it portrays the later arrivals as hard-working laborers, who had no role in the illegal migration of their parents.

The latest amnesty controversy addresses whether these children of illegal immigrants should be allowed to drive legally. Most states have granted licenses to the children of undocumented parents, but Arizona and Nebraska have been adamant about withholding that privilege. As the governor of Nebraska declared “policies that reward illegal behavior are not fair to those individuals who do follow the rules.”

These words can hardly be stated without whining. Behind them is the premise that good behavior must always be rewarded and bad behavior should always be punished.  Jesus campaigned against this principle from the beginning to the end of his public ministry.  He favored the condemned and outcast the way the Father favored the Prodigal Son, the way the shepherd favored the lost sheep, the way the Vineyard owner favored the late-arriving workers.  And those who complained of discrimination he scolded for envy.  Envy and jealousy are what drive so many cries for “fairness.”

No parent or teacher can deny that they must favor one child over the other under certain circumstances.  Forgiveness is what allows children to grow up without oppressive guilt.  If they are manipulated by guilt, as some parents feel constrained to do, they are bent or broken in their adulthood, constantly trying to appease the parent who would not forgive them as children. They form adult relationships based on guilt and they retain harsh expectations of their own children. It is a vicious cycle of unrelieved guilt.

That is why “fair” is not the same as “equal.” You have to make an exception to give the offending child a chance to recover and return to wholeness. You may have to allow a privilege that the good child did not receive, as the Father gave a feast for the Prodigal Son, but you know that the offending child needs this opportunity to return to life and restore a broken relationship. So you risk offending the “good” child.

Teachers face this dilemma interminably with grading delinquent students. According to school regulations or to the requirements set down in the syllabus, students should fail your class for non-performance. Maybe the assignment was not turned in, even within a grace period for late work. Maybe the early assignments were poorly written during a family emergency.
Maybe the paper was riddled with errors reflecting a learning disability, but the student recognizes and addresses the problem in later assignments.  Equal treatment would consign the student to a “C” status from the beginning. Hard work and improvement would be negated by poor performance at the beginning.

My students, all future teachers themselves, are often divided on how you treat erratic performances like these. Those who can identify with the contingencies that interfere with school will understand why the student could be cut some slack and given advantages not accorded the best performers in the class. Those who have worked diligently through school with appropriate rewards see equal treatment as the cardinal principle of teaching. If they knew I had allowed the single mother to do make-up assignments long after the work was due, they would be indignant. Everyone gets their denarius, but some get it for working hard at the end of the semester.

Inevitably there are those who arrive to the vineyard late and then expect to get their denarius for a token effort. They should get something for trying, right?  Those malingerers should read the Parable of the Talents, which I interpret to mean that “showing up” is not always enough.  There is always that critical moment in teaching when you decide that the student will have to come back and work in another vineyard and another day.

To those who say, “Our work is degraded by those who get A minuses just for working hard at the end of semester,” I say, “You have your “A,” don’t whine about those who got a break when they needed it.”  And I hope they will teach their future students in the same way.

Fair is not always equal.