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Continuing to Grow
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8 June 2008 When we lived in northern California, I had the opportunity to take a sewing class from one of the top teachers in the nation. She would give us handouts that illustrated a particular technique—like bound buttonholes—and then set up practice sessions where we would go through all of the steps. We took notes, detailing the exact sequence to come out with those beautiful buttonholes bound with two tidy strips of parallel fabric. She had us keep the sample in a notebook so that we could refer to it again when she was not at hand to answer our questions, to guide us through the process. But even though she was the teacher, Rhonda was learning too. She learned from us how to anticipate the steps that would be most difficult—where it was easiest to make a mistake, become confused; she learned how to work with the intermediate and the advanced sewers in the same setting. We were her apprentices, her disciples, learning from Rhonda techniques that helped us do a better job of sewing. That model of apprenticeship is one that we use to a degree in confirmation. Each confirmand is paired with an adult who is chosen not because they necessarily are the most knowledgeable about the Bible or the most engaged in the community, but because they are people we think are top examples of what it means to be a Christian in today’s culture. We ask our confirmands and these adults to spend time together, to reflect on their faith, the ways it finds expression in worship and in service. It is not uncommon for the adults to discover that their own faith has been enriched and strengthened, so that they also become better disciples as a result of the experience. We teach and learn from one another. That’s one of the realities embedded in the stories our scriptures tell us. Jesus, the consummate teacher, invites Matthew, a tax collector, to become his disciple. Matthew accepts the invitation. And as a disciple, Matthew is one of those who eats with Jesus—something tax collectors are almost never invited to do with anyone. Kind of like inviting a porcupine or a skunk to the teddy bear’s picnic. It just doesn’t happen. Porcupines and skunks eat with their own kind—nobody else wants to be near them. Same thing with tax collectors. They are the scumbags of Jewish life in Jesus’ time; they not only collect taxes for the hated Romans, but they also get to keep any extra money they are able to collect as their personal bonus. Compared to the people they collect from, tax collectors usually are well off, but despised. But the tax collector Matthew is counted as one of Jesus’ disciples, learning from Jesus how to be compassionate and generous—and teaching Jesus’ other followers that God’s love is so big, so all-encompassing, that it includes even tax collectors…one of the most offensive groups people could think of. That’s pretty radical stuff. In fact, God’s love doesn’t stop even with tax collectors…God’s love includes children too. Now we may not think of children as being outside of God’s care, but in Jesus’ day, children aren’t just ignored, they mostly are seen as old age insurance, someone to care for their parents when they are too old to take care of themselves. And on top of that, the child in the story is a girl, so she is a nobody in the eyes of Jewish custom and culture on two counts…only there are three. She’s a child, she’s a girl, and she’s dead. Let the dead bury the dead…isn’t that what Jesus retorted to one follower? Dead bodies weren’t touched. The parable of the Good Samaritan is set up so that the priest passes by because the man beaten by robbers is presumed dead. Did you see those wrenching video images from Hartford, Connecticut this week? A car swerves and hits an elderly gentleman who is crossing the street. He is tossed in the air like a rag doll, and the car speeds off. The 78-year-old man lies in the street; people walk across the street; cars drive by. The man twitches, more people walk by, more cars. The man is ignored. It’s the same story in Matthew: the child is dead, she’s beyond help anyway. But the father begs Jesus to come, to touch his dead daughter and restore her life. Teaching and learning: once again, we are reminded that it doesn’t matter to God what human barriers we set up: age, sex, even life, nothing can separate us from the love of God made known to us in Jesus. Do you think maybe Matthew includes this story as that kind of reminder to us? Even then, Matthew wants to make sure we don’t miss the point. As Jesus and his disciples are on their way with the father to the girl, a woman touches Jesus’ cloak. Surely, we think, this can’t be a big deal. After all, she’s just a woman, right up there with the tax collector and the dead girl. Sure, we feel sorry for her because she’s been bleeding for as long as the girl has been alive. So of course, this means she hasn’t been part of the community, because clearly there is something wrong with a person who bleeds for twelve years. In her desperation to be made well, the woman reaches out and touches Jesus’ robe, teaching disciples that hope is vital to faith. Her faith and hope are rewarded—Jesus speaks to her in terms of relationship. She is no outcast, she is a daughter, and she is healed. Jesus’ words and actions teach us repeatedly that as his followers, we are called to see the human being and speak to him or her. He teaches us to reach out and touch those that our culture keeps telling us are not part of the human family—or at least not a part of the family that we are expected to be responsible for. It isn’t rocket science, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. The pressures on us to exclude, to divide, to see people as different from ourselves are enormous. Our laws and customs are loaded with examples: don’t associate with undocumented persons—and just to be safe, stay away from anyone who speaks with an accent different than our own. Fear those whose religion is different—and especially listen to the voices that tell us a particular faith tradition is more violent than our own. Don’t allow people of the same sex to legalize their committed relationship in marriage—it endangers heterosexual marriages. In the face of all of those divisions, Jesus calls us to be disciples, to continue to grow by learning from those on the margins. Jesus calls us to be disciples, and teaches us that God’s love is bigger than our fears and divisions. Today we honor those who have been our teachers this year. Some of those teachers have been with us in the classroom, some have come from the news or from other parts of our daily living. And today we honor the gifts of learning, those times when we have continued to grow because something experience has deepened or expanded our understanding. Together, they are reminders for all of us disciples, teachers and learners both, that “There is yet more light and truth to break forth from God’s holy word. |