Education Sunday

"Things will never be the same again, but there is much to be gained from facing up to this fundamental, and irreversible, truth. In doing so, we might just create the space in which we can re-cast and revitalise our faith communities."

 That actually is my paraphrase of something said on Thursday last by Phil Wrigley, the chairman of the retailer Majestic Wine stores. What he was calling for was the "reinvention" of high streets.

 What he actually said was, "Retailing will never be the same again, but there is much to be gained from facing up to this fundamental, and irreversible, truth. In doing so, we might just create the space in which we can re-cast and revitalise our town centre communities."

 But I like my paraphrase because I am convinced that we have reached a point in the development of civilisation where there is a major change in consciousness that is changing politics, economics and religion across the globe. Things are changing and we do not know where we are heading. All the certainties of the recent past are quickly disappearing.

 Sadly, as life and the future become more uncertain the tendency for some is to pull back into some fundamentalist view of the past - the 'nothing changes here' attitude. Others just do not know what to do or where to turn to find fulfilment in life. This is the opportunity for all faith communities not to compete but to work together to offer a new understanding and experience of the One God of All.

 And part of the opportunity is offered to us in today's celebration of Education Sunday in the churches in England and Wales. This annual recognition of Education Sunday has been for more than a century a national day of prayer and celebration for everyone involved in the education of others. Today we give thanks for teachers and for those who have taught us in schools; in further and higher education; in the work place; even in the churches.

 But today I want to make a very serious point - it is time that all Christians took responsibility for their own learning in the Christian faith. In my experience, for far too long too many Christian people have depended upon reading the occasional religious book or using their Daily Bible reading notes or, worse still, waiting each week for the Sunday preacher to share pearls of religious wisdom with them.

 But in this rapidly changing and increasingly insecure and unpredictable world, waiting upon the faith wisdom of others is no longer good enough. It is right to listen and to read but then we need to do something more with the information that we are gathering. It is time that we took the well-known Chinese proverb seriously so that we can both understand and live out our Christian faith with integrity:

 "I hear and I forget,I see and I remember,I do and I understand."

 Think about it: I hear and I forget. Isn't that summing up our weekly diet of sermons, or am I being too harsh on preachers and congregations alike? Each week people like me spend hours preparing our sermons and services and congregations come together week by week, perhaps to hear what we have to say. And how much do we remember of what we have heard week by week?

 If I ask you to tell me what your preacher preached last Sunday I wonder how many can remember much if anything at all? That of course may have been the fault of the preacheror it might be a case of individual or congregational selective deafness because the preacher has things to say that confront us or disagree with what we have been told in earlier times.

 But I think it is more to do with the passive learning associated with our sermon format: I hear and I forget.

 And then the Chinese proverb moves to 'I see and I remember'. Seeing, coupled with hearing, certainly helps us to remember. Even PowerPoint is a valuable tool as long as the graphics do not obscure the message!

 But that is not enough either because having all the bells and whistles; having all the knowledge in the world and being able to remember everything that we have heard and seen is pointless unless it changes and transforms us into being more like Jesus in our daily lives.

 What does the Apostle Paul have to say on this in the famous passage from 1 Corinthians 13?

 "Where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part … but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

 And the key to all of this for the Apostle Paul was not in merely hearing and seeing but in living the love of God met in Jesus. For the Apostle Paul that living was in constantly practising selfless love - the continual giving away of self in service and servant hood to others. It is sacrificial and it costs.

 We can see it in Mark 1.33 where we read that people from all over gathered outside the house where Jesus was giving of his love, his wisdom and his healing power to others without exception. He was giving of himself totally to anybody and to everybody. It is in doing; in living selfless love that we will begin to understand what it is to follow the Way of Jesus.

 But isn't there is a conflict here between taking responsibility for our own education and living out the life of Jesus today? Why do we need to learn anything of the increasing amount of contemporary Biblical scholarship concerning the historical

Jesus who actually walked on this earth if all we have to do is love selflessly and go on being servants of others? Why can't we simply live out the well-known statements by one whom I think was a teacher of Jesus, the Rabbi Hillel?

 "Judge not your friend until you stand in his place."

 "That which is unpleasant to you, do not to your neighbour.  That is the whole law and the rest but it's exposition."

 "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman; this is the whole Law. The rest is but commentary."

 The reason why I think that we need to take responsibility for our own Christian education is because to survive in the coming generations the Church and its people will have to unlearn much of what it has held dear ever since orthodoxy of belief was imposed upon the churches across Constantine's Empire by Athanasius and his associates.

 However, I fully accept that the 4^th century bloodletting needed to stamp orthodoxy of belief upon the followers of the Way of Jesus has held the Christian Churches in the west together, at least in some part by its creedal faith.

 When I look closely at the life of Jesus, I see him calling and encouraging others to join him on his journey of personal and communal transformation through the reimagination of what life is all about. And to do this I am convinced that we need to do several things:

• The first is that we need to let go of the creeds and doctrines of the Churches and their denominational variations concerning the Christ of the Church;
• Second, we need to rediscover the historical Jesus and what he actually said and did. And the historical Jesus and the Christ of the Church are not the same!
• Third, we need to study afresh the historical Jesus whose Jewish works of selfless love and servant hood were and remain transformational.  The same spirit of God that indwelt Jesus of Nazareth continues to call us to do and to be transformed in the same way today.
• Fourth, we need to concentrate upon living in the present in such ways that we hope to secure a future for the generations that will follow us.

 On this Education Sunday I encourage all of us to take responsibility for our own sacred education by reading and reflecting upon the translations of the many ancient manuscripts found at Oxyhrencus in 1896, at Nag Hammadi in 1945 and the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran in 1947 - and those are just for starters!

 We need to read the works of the likes of Karen Armstrong, Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Robert Funk, Bishop David Jenkins, Elaine Pagels, Bishop Jack Spong - the list is growing by the day.

 And a good starting point to all of this might be in reading again 'Honest to God' written by Bishop John A.T. Robinson - the 50^th anniversary of its writing will be celebrated in 2013.

 And all of this study must result in actions of selfless love and servant hood or the knowledge gained will be pointless. The outcome of such study and application will help make us and our communities, people and places of justice, peace and compassionate humanity.

 "I hear and I forget, I see and I remember,I do and I understand."

 In conclusion I repeat my paraphrase with which this sermon began: "Things will never be the same again, but there is much to be gained from facing up to this fundamental, and irreversible, truth. In doing so, we might just create the space in which we can re-cast and revitalise our faith communities."

 

Copyright ©: 2012, Rev John Churcher. All rights reserved. Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.