The Episcopal Church of the Epiphany

Proper 19–B–2009

Merciful God, help us to have the courage to persevere in the pursuit of wisdom; and grant that those who teach and those who learn may find you to be the source of all truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

St. James said in his letter, "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness."

I'm pretty sure all of us remember two things about teachers in our lives. And the two things we remember show the power of teachers to form us, for good or for ill. That is why James said teachers will be judged with greater strictness.

We remember the really wretched teachers; the ones who have hurt our feelings, or made us feel foolish and stupid by being negative, demeaning, shaming, scoffing, sarcastic. These teachers were unloving, lacking in empathy and just plain egotistical.

We also remember the really good ones, the ones who challenged us, but never by shaming or demeaning us; never did they use sarcasm or come across in a superior or egotistical manner.

If you are like me, you remember with deep gratitude these fine teachers who were able to combine knowledge with humility, kindness, compassion and gentleness.

I will never forget a teacher I had in college that was like this; his name was Newton Isaac Tennyson. He said we could call him Ike. He was a professor of Greek and Latin. I ended up taking all of his Latin classes.

At first I, along with all of the other students, expected this class to be boring, tedious and hard. But it ended up being one of the most enjoyable and rich classes I had in college. After that first class we all fought for front row seats. We just wanted to be near the man.

We found out rather quickly that Dr. Tennyson was also a Southern Baptist preacher. Now due to my father's experience of being raised in the Southern Baptist church, I admit that I had some prejudice toward that denomination. But Newton Isaac Tennyson was the first to break through that prejudice.

Dr. Tennyson was incredibly knowledgeable about the Bible and also the cultural, social, and theological issues that one encounters in the Bible. This rich knowledge would come through in his teaching of Latin, but never in a restrictive or fundamentalist way that so harmed my father.

And I still marvel at how he made grammar so interesting; in fact, everything he taught he made interesting. We not only learned Latin, we learned a variety of things that surrounded that language, and that was part of its culture. There were no dumb questions for this teacher. He provided the most beautiful safe space to ask anything we wanted to ask.

And if a student scoffed at a remark made by another student, Dr. Tennyson would diffuse the sting, by the most respectful, gentle and kind demeanor toward all. He had a lovely sense of humor. He would chuckle a lot, but never, ever derisively.

I loved this teacher; we all did. I always feel a passionate love for people like him; people who don't need to respond from a lot of ego investment and therefore they are able to be kind, gentle people. This is the kind of person I think of when I think of a person with wisdom.

A wise person may or may not be highly educated like Dr. Tennyson was. As I've said before, a person with an advanced education certainly doesn't guarantee that he or she has obtained wisdom. In fact, I doubt that the educational system as we know it has much to do with wisdom at all.

A person with wisdom embraces paradox, and the greatest paradox concerning the knowledge that comes with wisdom is to know, that for all you have learned and know, you don't ever fully know!

Religious people, people who seek God, need to be especially aware of this. The challenge of religion is to guide us in how to allow the enormity and incredible mystery of God to enter our hearts, and embrace the vast and expanded life that Jesus promises us.

But all to often religion can get caught up in very wrong understandings and go in wrong directions. It can become narrow and small where everything must have concrete and specific answers, often justifying the "human things" of life rather than embracing the mystery of the divine.

To often religions people adhere to a small and narrow system because we like our lives to be comfortable and in order. Who doesn't want a nice conventional life, even a rich, successful life?

But often to maintain a successful life, (in the way the world understands success), we become slaves to positions and beliefs that maintain the status quo, and we maintain that we deserve our way of life, even if it is at the cost of others. Because we believe that our "success"proves our worth and our wisdom.

But true religion, religion as it was and is intended to be, religion at its best should, guide us out of our self-satisfied positions and even out of our comfort zones. It should take us into mystery and into a process of deep transformation.

Jesus asked two questions of His disciples, "Who do people say that I am?""Who do you say that I am?"By and large people understood that Jesus was an important religious figure. Even though they understood that much about him, their knowledge was still very limited.

Peter's answer revealed that he knew who Jesus was. "You are the Messiah,"he said. Peter thought he knew exactly what that meant; he thought he had it all figured out.

He must have thought he, above all the others, was the most wise in how he answered Jesus, especially when Jesus responded in the affirmative by telling the disciples to tell no one about him.

But when Jesus began to tell them exactly what Peter's answer did in fact mean, that he was going to undergo great suffering and be rejected by the highest and most powerful leaders of their religious tradition, we realize that Peter didn't know what he was talking about at all.

Peter had seen all of the powerful, amazing, and miraculous things Jesus did, and had seen the people's reaction to him. He had heard Jesus' criticism of the religious leaders who challenged him. Peter knew Jesus was the Messiah, but still he didn't know anything, at least not yet.

What the person of wisdom understands is that there is a divine reality that is overarching and infusing everything. The divine is the greater reality; the only reality in the end that has worth and gives meaning to life.

The wise person also realizes that none of us can fully grasp this reality. We can only sit before the mystery of it and open ourselves to it and allow ourselves to be enveloped by it.

But the wise person also knows, that while we will never be fully able to grasp the fullness of the divine, we must nevertheless seek to understand the divine mystery; we must give our hearts and souls and lives to understanding and living into this reality, because it is the only thing that gives true life.

What that may mean is submitting to a way that is counter to the way of the world, the way of always satisfying our desires; it is counter to seeking for power, prestige, and worldly wealth.

We may end up being powerful and wealthy, but those are not the ultimate things we seek. And again, we may be called out of our comfort zones.

It means that we must be careful not to fall into the temptation to try to mold Jesus into our own human image and our own human desires. We all have a tendency to fall into the temptation to see our will as Jesus' will.

There is a paradox in this, because the last two Sundays I have said we need to see Jesus, not just as divine, but as also human. There's the paradox.

And further, how often do we think we absolutely know someone, when in fact we probably only know a fraction about another.

It takes a wise person to be able to truly get outside of themselves and their own egos to truly see and know another. It takes great empathy and compassion to see and know that way.

Peter was to discover how little he really understood about this man he was following. But the wise thing Peter did was to accept Jesus' rebuke, and continue to follow Jesus, even though he had been so chastised in front of the other disciples.

And because he didn't quit following Jesus, Peter came to understand what he had failed to understand that day in the region of Caesarea Philippi. He became the rock on which Jesus built his church. This very fallible man became a rock of wisdom.

We are called likewise to persevere–despite our questions, failings, and lack of understanding. The wise ones among us realize that our questions and our doubts are ok. They are part of the process.

The wise ones among us observe and know we all have failings, but they seek to understand what those failings are without justifying or ignoring them.

The wise among us do not demand that their religion explain everything clearly to their entire satisfaction or demand that their religion conform to firmly held positions and beliefs. They do not demand that their religion show preference to those with a comfortable and affluent way of life.

With God's help the wise make the effort to grow up, seeking divine things over those things that ultimately will not last.

They understand that true religion is a God giving structure to help them enter into the vast enormity and mystery of God. Amen.