As I was entering the last of my 45 years of teaching, 35 at the small Christian liberal arts college I retired from, I was asked to bring devotions at one of our regular faculty meeting sessions early in February. This was an opportunity afforded me several times over the years despite my infrequent attendance at these meetings.
My decision to retire would come some months later, but as I considered what I would offer to my colleagues at the very beginning of a new semester, when students and teachers alike were full of energy and optimism for what lay ahead, I thought to get as close as I could to the heart of our responsibility. It was a message for the beginning of things, a "mash-up" of familiar passages from the Sermon on the Mount. Although as I rediscovered this piece some years later in retirement, it spoke to me about the broader urgencies of our present social, political, cultural moment. It is, you might say, an exhortation for "the adults in the room."
A Meditation and Exhortation in Story Form
Seeing that many came to Him to be taught year after year, the TEACHER climbed the steps of a campus building where everyone could see Him. And when He had seated Himself, all His students – young and old, those with wide experience and those with none – all who had come to hear what He would tell them -- pressed in around Him.
And he spoke to them, saying: “Blessed are the humble. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are the peacemakers.”
“Teacher!” someone interrupted, “What shall we do to inherit eternal life?”
Smiling despite the off-topic interruption, the Teacher answered, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”
Several young voices answered at once, for they were used to speaking directly, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and [likewise, you shall love] your neighbor as yourself.”
So the Teacher assured them, “You have answered correctly. You have mastered the material; surely you will pass the examinations. Now do these things, and you will live.”
“Teacher!” called another, who perhaps already knew the answer to his question but wanted to look good, “Just who is my neighbor?”
So the Teacher, understanding the moment and patient as always, told a story, and you know that story by heart. It had robbers and thieves and a crucial life-saving act of kindness that exceeded all duty and expectations. There was blood, and dirt, and blunt weapons, and a general thrashing about; but there was also a foreigner who was not offended by the great task of compassion.
Then the Teacher asked, “Who proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among thieves?”
“The one who showed mercy,” offered a young woman to a murmur of general approval.
The Teacher looked at them in the eyes as if individually and said quietly, “You go and do likewise.”
Then he added as if he expected objections and resistance and general complaining, “Love your enemies. And pray for those who treat you badly. By these things you will find harmony with our God who rules from above, for the sovereign God makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”
Here the Teacher paused to catch His breath as if from great exertion, as if he himself had lifted the wounded man onto his pack animal and carried him down into the village. Then, He added, as if He imagined His story might be mistakenly used as an excuse for ignoring the rule of law and the traditions of the church, “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
They were silent for a moment while the great wheels of logic and introspection and objection ground away in their heads.
In this silence, the Teacher continued His original line of discourse,
“Blessed are the pure in heart. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Bless are those whose appetites are for righteousness.”
“Teacher!” a voice from the back interrupted again, “What shall we do to inherit eternal life? Give us something concrete to work with. Give us a three step or a four step plan. We are afraid of the ambiguities of evil on the one hand and of the sharp edges of the law on the other.”
The Teacher answered, “Here is something concrete: Give to the one who begs from you. Do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. To feed the hungry, to cloth the naked, to shelter the dispossessed is to feed me, to dress me, to shelter me.”
“Teacher!” came a puzzled voice from those crowded to the front, “How can this be? When did we see you hungry or thirsty or sick or in prison or wandering about in need of shelter?”
The Teacher, growing weary perhaps of the need to clarify and reiterate, said, “Even as you attended to the least of these – my brothers, my sisters, my children, my wounded and infirm, my wanderers and strangers and aliens – even as you got up from your easy chairs and down from your podiums and tended to this great human diaspora that are the Children of God, you have ministered to me.”
Then the Teacher, indignant at their willful blindness, raised his hand as if to point to each soul and said, “Be careful of hypocrisy. Do not shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in anyone’s face. Let the children come to me in all their simplicity and childishness. Do not raise false obstacles. Do not be an obstacle yourself.”
When He had spoken these words, the Teacher stopped. There was silence again as though a great wind had passed by. In that silence, He spoke again of healing, words to console and to motivate.
“You know already how to follow the law: you tithe, for example, accounting even for pennies and minutes. But in your compulsion to obey these small stipulations, do not neglect the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
“You are not my sword of judgment and vengeance. On the contrary, you are the salt of the earth. You are the light of world.”
Lowering his voice and looking directly to his followers, judging perhaps that the teaching moment was at hand, he charged those pressed close to him, “Turn again to the young who have gathered; they are in your care. Be my voice, yes; speak my words. But be also my hands. Be my heart.”
We who have eyes to see and ears to discern, let us attend to what the Teacher has spoken.
