"In The Service Of The Gospel, I Have Been Appointed Teacher"

Well, a great deal has gone on here today, since we began earlier this morning. I have certainly been deeply impressed with the quality of insight, and the effort that has gone into the process of trying to understand more clearly the nature of the community which we have been called to build.

And called, I think is precisely the word to use. Called from the very beginning, as we have said, just by virtue of our creation. God has made us to be members of a community of believers. And called too even more immediately than that by the setting into which He has placed us...the background against which we are to build that community. A school.

I think there is always a kind of a temptation to frustration in efforts of this sort. Frustration because no matter how sincere the effort may be, no matter how committed we may be to the process, there is always a sense I think in which the real fruitfulness of that effort just won't be immediately obvious. The point of it all, the good to be gained, what we've accomplished, may very well not be clear to us, right away.

But if that is a frustration. I don't suppose it is a new one. Not to teachers, at any rate. The parish where I was living just before coming to Fargo was a rural one, and I had a good many opportunities to sit by the side of the road and watch farmers at work in the field. Now, Lord knows, farmers have plenty of frustrations of their own, especially these days. But there was always one thing which I envied them. And that was the chance they had to look back and see exactly where they had been, and look ahead and see exactly where they had to go. There must be something really very satisfying about plowing a field. The effects of what you do are right there, right behind you. The ground that you have covered, and the changes you have made in that ground are obvious, clearly distinguishable from the ground that hasn't been touched yet. At the end of a day a farmer can look at something very concrete and say "This is that I have accomplished, and there is no doubt about it." And that must be a satisfying thing.

Well, I strongly suspect that teachers don't always have the benefit of that satisfaction. I strongly suspect that from time to time every teacher has to fall back simply on his readiness to believe that something good is happening, something valuable. Some changes are being made, even if those changes aren't immediately measurable. I suppose in that sense every time you walk into a classroom it is an act of faith.

But in reflecting on the role of teacher against the background of faith, teaching as an act of faith, we really haven't fallen on any penetratingly new insight. The fact is that the scriptures have been saying just that for thousands of years.

This first reading today is taken from the book of Proverbs (Prv 8:22-31) and it's really one of my favorite passages, I think, in the entire Old Testament. The language is elegant, and the thought profound. Proverbs itself is an interesting book. If you never have picked it up and just paged through, you really should do so. It is full of some of the most colorful and graphic language in the scriptures. The book is made up of just what the title implies. It is a collection of adages, only tenuously related to one another... little swatches of good advice on everything from table manners to good grooming to eternal salvation. In fact it is such a conglomeration of so many different areas of concern and levels of insight that it can be difficult in paging through the thing to really find any consistency there. We can find ourselves asking, "Well does the author really have a point in all of this? Does he really see no difference between table manners and salvation?"

Well, I think really just that question kind of heads us toward the point that the author certainly does have. And of course he does see a difference between the two, but perhaps, after all, not all that terribly great a difference. In everything, in every area of concern, from the smallest to the greatest, the author of Proverbs, and the rest of the Wisdom literature in the Old Testament, is concerned with acting rightly.

Acting rightly for the Old Testament author carried a great deal more weight, meant a great deal more than do good manners, good behavior, for us. The person who acted rightly in any situation understood that situation, saw it for what it really was. He was at home there, he could benefit from it, and be of benefit to it. In fact, so intimately tied up were these two virtues, proper understanding, and right acting, that they really were one and the same. And so all through the Old Testament, that is how wisdom is defined, described... acting rightly. Wisdom is the ability to place proper acts, to respond accurately to reality. So for the scriptural authors, wisdom was not in any sense an abstract virtue…far from it. It was a way of life. A person's wisdom was measured not by what he said but by what he did. It is only much later, with our Greek minds that we began to distinguish between thought and deed, theory and practice, see them as two separate realities. For the scriptural authors, such a distinction was an aberration.

So in the Scriptures, then, wisdom is the crowning glory of the virtuous person. It is the most desirable of all the virtues. It is the virtue that brings a person into the presence of God, and allows him to live there. It is a fascinating thing that wisdom in the Scriptures is personified, pictured as a living being. But far more than a creature, Wisdom is the companion of God. This first reading pictures her as almost playing at the feet of God as He goes about the task of creation. Wisdom witnesses everything that God has done in the world, and delights in it. It is Wisdom that calls human beings into the presence of God. More than calls really, she allures almost seduces us into that presence. Some of the most beautiful romantic poetry in the Old Testament is devoted to the description of Wisdom, and the attraction that she holds for us. And all that imagery is a good deal more than just literary flourish. There is a point being made. And it is that the presence of God is a very pleasant place to be. There is a joy in the Wisdom of God, in knowing what He has done in the world, and responding to it in the way that we live.

So a very desirable thing, wisdom, a virtue that colors very immediately the course of day to day living. That gives a fullness, a pleasure, a joy to that living. So much so, in fact that over and over again in the Old Testament, sin is referred to as simply foolishness, the opposite of wisdom. So beyond the satisfaction of a life lived rightly, there is in Wisdom, since it is she who invites us into the presence of God, opens up to us His mind, calls us to live in the world as He would have us do, there is in wisdom, salvation. Quite a parallel there, a foreshadowing really, between the personification of wisdom, and the personification of the word, the mind of God, in Christ.

And there is in the scriptures a very special class of people who have been charged with the responsibility of stirring up that saving virtue of wisdom in those around them. Those people are called teachers. And very little distinction is made between teaching "religion", and teaching anything else. Teaching was teaching. If it was true, it has Godly, it has wisdom, and it saved. Again the distinction between the sacred and the secular is one of our making. Such a notion would have been foolishness to the scriptural authors. They moved in a sacred world, everything was holy, or should be. I think to be impressed with how true this is, just pick up the Old Testament and page through some of those seemingly endless chapters of the Mosaic Law. In the first five books of the bible, they switch from liturgical regulations, to dietary rules, to construction specifications, all mixed up together. And all for the same reason. Because it is sacred to the Lord. That phrase is almost a refrain in those five books, in the same way that the phrase "It is good" is a refrain in the first of the two creation accounts. Sacred, and Good...interchangeable notions, really.

The word "teacher" is used far more frequently in the New Testament than it is in the Old, but the emphasis doesn't change, at least not radically. It is Paul who speaks most specifically of the teaching ministry. And with his Greek education, he seems to like catalogs and distinctions rather more than did the Old Testament authors. And in one such catalog of ministries, I think it is in First Corinthians, he lists teaching as third. Third after apostle and prophet. The role of the apostle was to preach the basic message of salvation, the kerygma, as its called. The message of the life, death and resurrection of Christ. The apostle was to invite faith in the people. The role of the prophet was to stir up in the people, an attitude, a caste of mind, that would straighten that response.

But then the apostle and the prophet would move on. And the role of the teacher would come into central focus. It was the teacher who would live with the people whom the apostles and the prophets had called to faith. To the teacher fell the responsibility of building up the daily life of the community of believers, the responsibility of guiding the thought, the belief, and the conduct of the community. In a sense the teacher had to do everything the apostle and the prophet did, and do it everyday, in detail, applying it to very real, concrete, living situations. The teacher was the guardian of wisdom in the community. He was to shepherd the progress of knowledge and love in the community, and so the progress of the community itself. To the teacher fell the responsibility of answering questions raised in the minds of the people by the message, easing any anxieties those questions may cause, and constantly reassuring the people that this new way can be lived. It can be followed in day to day living, and it can be followed joyfully, satisfyingly, even if nobody else seemed to think so.

I think this last line is vitally important. It can be lived, it is right, even if nobody else approves or supports what is taught. Paul speaks about this element of teaching repeatedly, and eloquently. A teacher who approaches his people formed with the Wisdom of God will certainly, from time to time, perhaps many times, find himself at odds with what passes for the wisdom of the day. Unlike the Old Testament authors, Paul became very conscious of the difference between sacred and secular wisdom. Being contradicted, being ignored, being outright persecuted, all of these would be a part of the life of a teacher who did his job well.

And Paul was speaking from experience in this. This Timothy to whom Paul writes in the second reading (2 Tm 4:1-5) we heard today was a teacher whom Paul had trained, and left behind in Ephesus to stir up wisdom there. Ephesus was a big and a busy community, and Timothy was having trouble. He was having trouble sorting out his relationship with the other leaders of the church community, and just what his practical responsibility to the people might be. And so Paul, who apparently liked Timothy a good deal, wrote to him twice, and tried to sort out for him all of those issues. In fact, these two letters to Timothy are good examples of New Testament teaching. Detailed, specific, life-oriented application of the basic message of the apostles. And the heart of what he says is just what we heard in this reading. Stick with it. Its worth the trouble. It just doesn't matter whether you are popularly received, or openly ridiculed. You will be both. All that matters is that the truth be taught. I think this advice hits home more deeply, even a little poignantly, when we realize that Paul wrote this letter at a very difficult time in his own life. He was in prison, in Rome, and he was pretty discouraged. He felt abandoned by his friends. In the opening verses of this letters he talks about how people on whom he had counted had forgotten about him.

There is a passage in the First Letter to Timothy that just somehow appeals to me. Apparently teachers were prone to a little bit of compulsion even then. Paul wrote to Timothy, "Don't work so hard. Take a little wine now and then. Your stomach will feel better, you don't get sick so often, and in the long run you'll get more done." Sound advice. Can't argue with the Bible.

Well, again, there is just so much to say. We could reflect on this gospel passage for hours, I think. But we'll have other hours in which to do that. So for now, let's just answer Wisdom's call, and move ourselves into the presence of God. We've talked a lot about the mind of God, the knowledge of God, seeing the world and one another as He does, as an element of our creation, and of our role in that creation. That is wisdom, that is the stuff of our lives as teachers. We must love that wisdom, we must guide it, nurture it carefully, in ourselves, and in our students. And if we do that well, we will unleash on the world a powerful, powerful force. A force as powerful, as sacred as God's own life, the life of the Trinity. And nothing, simply nothing can undo that.

This homily was preached at a Mass celebrated as part of a Shanley High School's Staff Retreat Day, August 26, 1982.