Readings for the Day:
Sermon:
Original Manuscript:
This is an interactive manuscript. To follow links, click the highlighted words below.
There are many things in our readings today that speak to me personally. After all, they are all about teachers, and priests, as seen in last week’s Faith Fact, are called, in part, to the role of teacher.
As our Old Testament readings speak, that call to teach in the church really stems from faithful listening to God. It comes from a joy at being in God’s presence, wanting to continue in that presence, and wanting to share it. At least, that’s what that call was like for me.
But as James tells us, there is also great difficulty in being a teacher. Part of it comes from the pressure of wanting to be a good example of how to live out our Faith. It is an incredible responsibility.
I’ve often found that the best way to teach is not just in the example we live, but rather in the example of sharing our experiences. This lesson came to me in the midst of my own struggles during seminary. I realized after my second year that I could either keep slogging through my problems on my own or I could find someone to help me through them, and the Dean of Students was kind enough to aid me in finding the right counselor for me.
Now Counseling is something all clergy are familiar with. We have to go through an evaluation at the start and at the end of our discernment process. The two people I went through couldn’t have been more different. One was very excited and affirming. The other was aloof and hard to read.
But this counselor, when I sat down with him and shared all my problems, was different. Immediately he said to me, “yeah, I can relate to that” and told me a story from his own life. This was huge for me. My struggles were being affirmed instead of dismissed. I wasn’t being looked at as “crazy”, but as a normal person going through normal difficult things.
This approach is very similar to what Jesus demonstrates to us in His teaching. The Disciples see pretty much everything that Jesus experiences in His life of ministry. Remarkably for a teacher and leader, as well as for the Son of God, Jesus is very much an open book.
Jesus also doesn’t “sugarcoat” what this life of teaching will be like. Yes, it means being close to God. Yes, it means sharing the good God does for all of us. But it will also lead to a lot of suffering. Jesus is open about His own suffering that He will undergo. He is also open about the suffering His Disciples will face too.
It might seem like this is discouraging, but what Jesus says can actually give us hope. It means that when we go through dark times, we know Jesus can empathize with our experiences. We know we are not along in facing difficulties, even in our Faith.
If we want to look at what the role of a teacher is, that is it. What I have seen in my past 5 years of ministry is that mostly people are looking for a sign that everything will be okay. Unfortunately, there are times when I am struggling, or as scared as you, or cannot give you all the answers.What I can do is share the parts of my Faith journey that can help with your own path. What I can do is point you to those unlikely places where I have heard God’s voice speaking to me, not just in my own life, but through books and shows, well known and less known, as well as in the Gospel according to Superheroes. What I can also do is share the ups and downs of my own Faith, with in pastoral reason of course. I hope that is what I have done for you now. I hope to continue to do so for you in the future.
The author of James tells us we are not all called to be teachers. Many of you might be thinking “thank goodness” on hearing that. However, we are all called to reveal God in our Lord Jesus Christ to the world, which is what we teach in the church and what this week’s Faith Fact is all about. We do that by sharing our Faith in the only way we know how, by being who we are in the world as followers of Christ Jesus. We don’t need to have everything figured out or posses all the answers, but many times that’s not what people need. Many times what they need is the story of our experience in our life of Faith, both good and bad. Many times they need to hear our struggles and our triumphs in order to know that they can get through the ups and downs of their own lives. If we can do that for others, just share our experience, then we can do something very powerful that has the potential to bring others, however slowly, into a deeper and closer relationship with God.