ReviewOct06 - page 1 of 7

Redeemer Review

The Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of a teacher. . . . Morning by morning he wakens my ear to listen as

those who are taught. (Isaiah 50:4)

In honor of the new school year, this month’s issue of the Review will explore teaching and learning. Historically,

teaching has been as central to the life of faith as worship. On that first Easter morning, Mary Magdalene greeted the

risen Christ as “Teacher.” The first universities in Europe were founded by the Church. The dream of universal literacy

began when the 19th century Church of England began to educate working class children through its Sunday School

movement. Continuing in this tradition, the new Bishop of California, Marc Andrus, introduced himself to the clergy

with these words: “I come to you as a teacher. My wife is a teacher. My mother was a teacher. My grandmother was a

teacher. My two great aunts were teachers. And now my daughter has become a teacher.”

A desire for lifelong learning called me to the Church. The mystery of God is a subject that can never be exhausted.

Rabbi Arthur Wascow in the book The Tent of Abraham shares a rabbinic teaching “that the Torah was written not in

black ink on white parchment but in black fire on white fire and that the white fire, the ‘blank’ spaces were waiting in

every generation to be read anew.” Although I love secular learning, it has never had the same fire for me as the

spiritual. In my experience, while academic learning stresses excellence and correctness and teaches me to live for

myself, Jesus teaches me to live for others. Jesus’ way is both harder and more joyous. I served in Episcopal schools

for seven years. As I worked with my students and listened to their voices, I began to wonder how the education we

gave them was forming them as people. Or to put it slightly differently, what are we educating our children for?

Jesus was very clear as to the aims of his teaching. All greatness in this world hinges upon the wisdom of compassion.

Living for others becomes the miracle of knowing the living God. It leads to eternal life. Jesus’ greatest spiritual

practices were two: to love God with all my heart, soul and mind and the second, which is like unto it, to love my

neighbor as myself. Except for the Sermon on the Mount (and Luke’s version on the plains), in Matthew, Mark and

Luke, Jesus did not usually work from a curriculum. Life was Jesus’ curriculum. A typical teaching began with an

experience: a question, an illness, a problem, out of which Jesus crafted a response: a teaching, a healing, a parable.

This is in fulfillment of what Isaiah says, that to be gifted with the tongue of a teacher is first to listen, only then to

speak. Jesus taught among people he knew. When he sent his disciples off to teach strangers, he told them first to find

a place to stay, that is, to get to know the people they were teaching.

By contrast, our children are taught as much by strangers as they are by family and friends. That is the challenge of

living in a global, information driven world with six billion people. A friend of mine, brilliant and skillful, told me that

if a child loves her or himself, all the rest will follow. Healthy self love is certainly important, but perhaps it is not the

beginning, but the end. Jesus began with God and neighbor and ended with self. Or as Bishop Marc suggested, when

Jesus spoke of the body, he did not mean the “I” as much as the “we.” How can we learn to know God? How can we

learn to serve one another and find great wealth in doing so? More next month.