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Chapter 3:

School Is

Never Out

There is a better word than “disciple.”

In a recent translation of the Gospels, I have found it most instructive that the Greek word usually rendered disciples now reads students: And Jesus said to his students. Too many current ideas about being Christian have to do with certain things that one believes. I concur that the Christian faith has content, but it is easy to forget that the earliest Christians were called “Followers of the Way.” They believed that Jesus was the long-awaited Christ (Messiah) and confessed him as savior but that was only the beginning. That was step one. It was not Christianity full-blown.

It is unfortunate that one particular way to translate key verses in John 3 has tended to make conversion into a package transaction with the resultant, “Well, now I’ve done that.” I’m talking about Jesus’ command to Nicodemus: “You must be born again.” I believe the much better translation (and one that fits far better into the entire conversation of the chapter) is: You must be born from above; you must be born of the Spirit. Although the first certainly implies the need for growth and learning, the second places conversion in the context of Kingdom ethics and the way of the Spirit. It gives direction and content to the kind of new beginning which “acceptance of Jesus as savior” involves.

The rabbi’s lessons are never finished.

Jesus spent his earthly ministry teaching his students. The primary title for Jesus in the Gospels is Teacher. In the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew depicts Jesus as a rabbi with teaching authority when he tells us: Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. The Synagogue custom was for the rabbi to stand for the reading of Scripture and to be seated for his teaching. Matthew was also picturing Jesus as the new Moses (cf. Moses on Mount Sinai and Jesus on a mountainside).

Jesus never presented any graduation diplomas to his students. To the contrary, he constantly called them to task for so easily forgetting some of the earlier lessons in his curriculum. Even toward the very end of his earthly ministry they were arguing about which one of them was the greatest. His promise was that on his departure, the Spirit (Holy Spirit, His Spirit) would continue to teach and lead them into further truth. He never hinted there would be a time when school would be out. They were to be perpetual learners and discoverers of aspects of the life of faith they never knew existed.

I believe school is never out because we are consistently at a new age and level in life that causes us to be open to new truths and insights. Some complain they were never taught in seminary many of the things they found they needed when they began ministry. (The same probably holds true for all institutions of higher learning.) In my case, I believe most of these things were taught but I simply was not at the place in life where I could hear them. My life experiences were too few and the ups and downs of dealing with church congregations had not yet made me aware of how much there was yet to be learned. My learning continued, my library grew, and my acknowledgment of how little I really knew increased at an alarming rate. It soon became obvious I had a long way to go and I never anticipated a graduation date. The sea was too great and my boat was too small.

Unfortunately, there is something that not only rings the closing bell for classes, but robs us of what we already know.

I only wish that when I had written my last book, Aging is Not Optional: How We Handle It Is, that Tia Powell’s Dementia Reimagined had been available. It was issued in 2019. In my section on Alzheimer’s it would have been one of my must-read recommendations. I give you a few insights from that book simply to encourage you to a secure a copy for a thorough exploration of her subtitle: Building a Life of Joy and Dignity from Beginning to End:

Dementia lasts for years. Most of that time, people with dementia retain the skills, memories, and passions that allow joy and inclusion in the larger social world, if we would but let them in.20

…a great deal of what medicine offers patients is care… Yet medicine is too embarrassed to admit this. Care seems soft and unscientific: we’d prefer to hand out swashbuckling cure. It could have gone the other way. Medicine could have taken seriously the Hippocratic instructions to cure sometimes, treat often, comfort always.21

A distinction needs to be made between dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.22

Powell gives an extended section on how to build “cognitive reserve” and its importance in protecting brain function. Much of it has to do with continued learning in many areas of life.23

The insurance companies don’t want your business. They are getting out of long-term care in droves.24

Today, thoughtful experts work to create dementia care that does not just kill time until death, but offers a way to live well.25

Musings from Hither and Yon

What is education (real learning) anyway?

Education has always been defined as the development of certain capacities (for example, critical thinking and the tolerance of ambiguity) that allow the educated person to live more productively and at peace in a complex and demanding world.26

The reason school is never out and we remain students all our lives is that learning is not a matter of simply coming to answers about the questions life offers. It means using critical thinking (in extremely short supply in the present culture) to enable us to find a way to live “in a complex, demanding, and ever-changing world.”

Followers of the Way are those who are supposed to be able to see things in a different way, who have a new perspective on life and its difficulties. I thought the idea was an original one, but I have discovered that many others have made the same suggestion:

(In the second half of life) the Eight Beatitudes speak to you much more than the Ten Commandments now. I have always wondered why people never want to put a stone monument of the Eight Beatitudes on the courthouse lawn.27

My take on the answer to this question is that the Beatitudes are much more demanding than the list of commandments (in the original Hebrew known as “The Ten Words”). When you read Matthew 5-7 you quickly discover that Jesus’ Way is much more than a list of rules; it is an entirely new way to see ourselves in this world and requires constant re-evaluation and critical thinking. School is never out when the Beatitudes become your directive for the Christian life.

This may be too much for some to take.

Authentic spirituality wants to open us to truth — whatever truth may be, wherever truth may take us. Such a spirituality does not dictate where we must go, but trusts that any path walked with integrity will take us to a place of knowledge. Such a spirituality encourages us to welcome diversity and conflict, to tolerate ambiguity, and to embrace paradox. By this understanding, the spirituality of education is not about dictating ends. It is about examining and clarifying the inner sources of teaching and learning, ridding us of the toxins that poison our hearts and minds.28

Parker Palmer is one of my favorite authors — a Quaker who offers me a way to find many truths that give my faith new depth. He offers again those challenging words: diversity, conflict, ambiguity, paradox. I am convinced that any mature spirituality will embrace these words. The Pharisees Jesus had a problem with were those who had eliminated them from their faith-stance and had no room for anyone who colored outside the lines of their narrow orthodoxy. (It should be remembered that not all Pharisees rejected the teaching of Jesus.)

When Jesus announced he was the Way, the Truth, and the Life, it sent those who decided to follow him on a new path into the discovery of new truths — many times an enlargement of truths they already held. My seeking of truth wherever it might lead has not brought me to a rejection of the basic tenants of my faith but an enlargement and flexibility that I did not find in my early church experience. Unfortunately, I now view that experience as one that was “signed, sealed, and delivered” with no tampering allowed. Certainly, no challenging questions allowed. If the goal is to eliminate diversity, conflict, ambiguity, and paradox from your faith it will mean a closing off to further exploration and discovery. Jesus’ promise of the coming Holy Spirit (His Spirit, God’s Spirit) was the promise of one who would lead into larger truth that at the time his disciples were not equipped to handle. Palmer’s book describes just how challenging some of that new truth was as the Good News made its way into the Gentile world.

It remains a challenge for me to put these into daily practice.

Response takes time, reaction is instantaneous.

So, the trick is to raise your consciousness from the lowest to the highest level of awareness no matter what is going on around you. Remember, reactions are instinctive, responses are thought out. That is, thoughts pushed forward.29

Much too often in my pastoral experience, I found myself reacting instead of responding. I found myself getting on the defensive instead of listening to a complaint to discover if there might be something I needed to work on. Much of this reaction was based on some past experiences that had not been worked though. It is so much easier to react because no thinking is required. (The thinking comes later when we try to figure out how to deal with a situation our reactions have made much worse.)

When James and John asked Jesus if he wanted them to call down fire on a Samaritan village that had refused him hospitality, it was a simple knee-jerk reaction. (I always wondered if this was in their power to accomplish). Jesus’ response was a thoughtful, “Let’s just go on to another village” (Luke 9:51f.).

The nickname “Sons of Thunder” already told us much about James and John. They had no idea that Jesus’ ministry was eventually going to include these despised Samaritans. You wonder why their listening to Jesus’ teaching had not brought them any further along. It is evident they had a long way to go. Question: Can I see myself in James and John? You know the answer to that!

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

1 What disturbed you most in this chapter and why do you think this was so?

2 Do you think that most of us have any idea of just how much more truth the Spirit of Jesus has for us?

3 Why do you think most of us are so uncomfortable with diversity, conflict, ambiguity, conflict, and paradox?

20 Tia Powell, Dementia Reimagined: Building a Life of Joy and Dignity from Beginning to End (New York: Avery, 2019), 2.

21 Ibid, 5.

22 Ibid, 138.

23 Ibid, 156.

24 Ibid, 172.

25 Ibid, 222.

26 Parker J. Palmer, To Know As We Are Known (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), xviii.

27 Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011), 119.

28 Parker Palmer, To Know As We Are Known, xi.

29 Neale Donald Walsch, When Everything Changes Change Everything (Ashland, OR: EmNin Books, 2009), 84-85.