Loading...I remember Mrs. Hargraves. She was my very first official teacher: Kindergarten. My mom dropped me off in the morning and picked me up two hours and a half hours later. I remember two things that were important to learn. First I had to figure out how to hang up my coat and mittens and hat. That may have taken up fifteen minutes of the day. Second, I remember filling a jar with caterpillars then staring as long as I could before understanding that turning into a butterfly was going to take more time than I was given for staring.
At recess I bypassed the playground to run to the edge of the grass to open the milkweed and pet the pussywillows. Then my mom would pick me up and bring me home for nap time which meant I would read books and play quietly while she slept.
What I appreciate most about how I was treated as a very young child in school is what I appreciate about how I am treated as an adult. I appreciate being treated as if I have something to offer. Don’t you?
I’m gonna use a fancy word here. Those of you who like education will like it: “Pedagogy”. Pedagogy is the science which studies the way people learn. And one pedagogical opinion is that the way people learn forms the way they live.
For example, when I walked into Mrs. Hargraves’ classroom, she wasn’t there to pour knowledge into me as if I were an empty vessel. She was curious about what I was curious about. So I became more curious. Her interest in my interests nurtured a love of learning. The byproduct of her pedagogy is that she built community in the little classroom between both me and other students and parents.
Mrs Hargraves’ pedagogy works the same way with life, a life lived in Jesus. When I commit my interests to the life Jesus lives, a love of life is nurtured in me. The world is my classroom. So when I sit in a leadership meeting, or visit you when you don’t feel well, or ask how your auntie’s lumbago is today, I am looking for life. I am doing those things because I am not a leadership guru or have a magic cure, and I don’t know what a lumbago even is. I want life. And if there’s a chance it’s gonna be spent in heaven, I want eternal life. Thanks to Mrs. Hargraves I know that the interest I commit to community building today gives me eternal life.
Let’s talk about living forever for a just a moment. In John’s gospel, Jesus talks about living forever. And people leave. I am always surprised by this. In my perception, living forever is a very trendy thing for which humans are willing to fight. Did your 10th grade English teacher require you to read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein? My beauty products promise to reduce, defy, or camoflauge age. If you’ve ever met Henrietta Lacks you know that what was once science fiction about medicine creating a world where humans live indefinitely is now science reality.
There’s a big difference between living forever and eternal life. A famous villain in a magical work named named Voldemort wants to live forever. I don’t know why because he sure seems unhappy about it. His is a freakish undead kind of immortality I am not sure I would describe as ‘life.’ Quite the opposite.
What I am about is eternal living regardless of whether I am alive or dead. In John’s gospel, Jesus describes a weird unexplainable science that when I die I live and when I live I die. When I pour out my life into the life of community then I live more, longer, happier. Even when community is a pain in the lumbago. If we are honest, community can feel like that sometimes — You know the kinds of things that happen in community — from who used the last paper towel and didn’t replace it? to why did someone make a choice I can’t abide?
I could use fancy words to describe God’s eschatological consummation of eternal life. Or I could just offer you this bread. If you eat it, you will live forever — even when you die. When we eat Jesus, we are consuming the story that contains all of the mystery, hardships, and community-building anyone could ever ask for.
St James is a life giving community because wonder, joy in curiosity are in the very DNA. What I have experienced here is that each person is valued, having something to offer, something both unique and needed. There is lots of going on here and I could blather on and on about various ministries. But today we celebrate the preschool, this amazing laboratory of eternal love right under our noses.
As one parent says, “When my child is sick and can’t attend school, he feels so sad. I love it when he comes home because I can tell he’s been loved.”
She can say that because a teacher took interest in her child. And because a leader took interest in education and because a group of leaders, years ago, sat in a meeting and crafted a budget and hired some staff and made certain choices. This community exists and there exists a child who feels loved and a parent who feels grateful. Maybe there is someone in this congregation today who was one of those teachers or leaders. Thank you to whoever sat through a vestry meeting or helped make architectural plans or painted the baseboards. Those labors created a classroom where the eternal life known as love happens.
This part of the sermon is for adults or any one else with the same disillusionment of maturity that Paul expresses in his letter to the Ephesians. The world is our classroom. It teaches us lessons, many of which I wish I was still ignorant of. But I am not. And neither are you. And with our knowing comes an added prayer for grace. For Paul, that prayer sounds like suiting up for battle. For me, it sounds like the prayer of a 4 year old. Both prayers contain the fierce hope that the Lord of Life gives life freely. Here’s the prayer I learned in Kindergarten: Lord, give me faith that the caterpillar will become a butterfly even though I am not there to see it. And thank you for Mrs. Hargraves for providing the jar.
