In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This morning, beloved in the Lord, we begin the annual systematic reading of the Gospel of Matthew and start through the letters of St. Paul, as these books lie in the physical sequence of the New Testament manuscripts. Thus we begin with Jesus’ public ministry this morning, of calling his first disciples in Matthew 4; and Paul’s thesis statement near the beginning of the epistle to the Romans.

Now the image of Christ our Lord in the proclamation today is that of the rabbi, the teacher, or in Greek the didaskolos. The final verse of today’s gospel reading said, “Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues.” He went all about; periegen. You hear the word “peri-” there? “Round”? He’s making a circuit. In fact, the Latin translation of that is circuibat: he was circuiting, making rounds. In other words, Jesus is sort of a Methodist. [Laughter] The circuit riders. And the participle there is didaskon, teaching.

I hope this will be especially interesting to you who’ve devoted your life to teaching. Now, a teacher is hardly much of a teacher if he doesn’t have any students! So this morning he calls four students. Students are those who study; that’s what we mean by a student. It’s simply the participle of studeo, to study. If they study, they will also be learners, we hope. In Greek, that’s mathetai. Hear the word “mathematics” in there? “Mathematics” in Greek means “learning.” We’ve sort of restricted it now to numbers, but that’s not what it means in Greek; it means “learning.” You still see some of that in the expression “polymath”: somebody who’s learned in a whole bunch of ways.

Let me show you something about this word, “disciples.” A discipulus is a learner; that’s the way this is translated in the Vulgate: discipuli. What I noticed about that, and I don’t think I noticed it before last year some time—it struck me—that the word is actually a diminutive, if you look at it closely. The -ulus at the end, that’s a diminutive ending in Latin. A diminutive: it suggests that students are small people, young people. And teaching is an exercise in conveying experience to those who don’t have it. The Germans preserve that: die Jungend. Jungend is the word for “youth”; it is also the word for “student.”

Now, those who claim Jesus as their teacher must be students. I won’t ask for a show of hands of those who want to claim Jesus as their teacher. I’m hoping I get a whole forest of hands there. “Student” is an adequate translation of “disciple.” Today Jesus calls four discipuli, four disciples. Anybody want to help me name them? Who are the four disciples called this morning? James, John, Andrew, and Peter. Now, you can change their names if you want to: James and John could be called Flopsy and Mopsy. Andrew could be called Cotton-tail. We’re still stuck with Peter. [Laughter] Do you remember Peter? I’m hoping everyone remembers Peter. He’s the little rabbit who got in trouble in the garden? It’s interesting that his name is Peter, so he gets in trouble in the garden.

Christian discipleship is an enterprise in study and learning, and that’s an idea we inherited from the synagogue, that God is interested in having centers of learning, where people join up and they learn. The temples of the Christian Church are, first of all, centers of learning, and, second, centers of worship, because all our worship is response to God’s word—but God’s word comes first, not our worship. I’ll talk about that more in point three.

The Christian parish is a school. Now, what’s the worst offense against a school? Truancy! Truancy! I want you to think about that expression: Truancy! It means you’re cutting class if you’re not there: cutting class. Truancy. The second-worst offense in school, I suppose, is inattention to homework, at home. You see, what goes on in a Christian school, in a Christian parish, is not what in college is known as “leisure learning.” I used to teach “leisure learning” classes. It was sort of nice to teach because you didn’t have to grade papers or anything like that. In fact, that’s one of the nice things about being a teacher in a parish: I don’t have to grade your papers, and Somebody Else is going to examine you.

But you see, beloved, being a disciple, a student, of Christ is very serious business. Today I hope to make three points about what it means to have Christ as a teacher.

Point one: Wisdom is not accumulative. Wisdom is not accumulative. Wealth is, in principle, accumulative. So is technology. Today, most scientific study is accumulative. There’s vastly more physical and biological information today than there was back when I was a student in the last century, back when I was a student in the first half of the last century. Gosh! I hate to say that. You see, in this sense, knowledge is progressive, because it’s accumulative, for the simple reason that now more information is available. And that’s why my grandson there, by the time he was in fourth grade, knew more math than was ever taught to me. It’s one of those things where you can actually get more exploration, in math.

Now, this is not true of wisdom. See, wisdom is not progressive; it is not accumulative. This morning, I could take some other people for my guide, but I will take for my guide this morning the 19th-century German historian, Leopold von Ranke. Leopold von Ranke—by the way, most of his books—all of his major works—are translated into English, and they’re all available on Kindle, for those of you who do that; those of his works I have, I have only on Kindle. I’m very fond of von Ranke; always have been. He was a teacher of Lord Acton, by the way. I guess what I like about von Ranke most of all is that he married a girl from Dublin, which says a lot, you know. I’m sure that’s one reason I like him: he married a girl from Dublin.

Here’s the quotation from von Ranke: “Every generation is equidistant from God.” Every generation is equidistant from God. In other words, the human race does not get closer to him through a simple historical process. Every generation is equidistant from God. Now, is that true? I believe it is, but I also agree with William Sloane Coffin—a person I don’t quote very often. William Sloane Coffin said that he, von Ranke, may be right, but I think he improved on that famous quotation when he added the comment, “But ours is the closest yet to ultimate extinction.” We don’t get closer to God, but our progress has led us right up to the brink of extinction. So much for progress! We now have within our graps something the human race never had before, and that is the power—and indeed, humanly speaking, the likelihood—to destroy ourselves.

But what did von Ranke mean by the statement, “Every generation is equidistant from God”? In itself, it’s sort of a suspicious-looking statement. For example, it could mean that all cultures are equal; all cultural forms are equal; that there’s no such thing as cultural improvement—it could mean that. I’m quite sure that that is not what von Ranke intended. Von Ranke was way too wise and way too well-informed to be a multi-culturalist. Von Ranke was a Lutheran; in other words, he did not believe that man was progressing. He was no disciple of Teilhard de Chardin; he doesn’t believe we’re ascending and arising and converging. He’s a Lutheran; he means we’re going down like this! He was also a classicist.

Von Ranke seems to mean that all generations, from God’s perspective, are equidistant. Now von Ranke was arguing against popular German philosophy of the time, especially Hegel. You see, Hegel taught that human history is essentially progressive: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. We just move on that way. And in the thought of Hegel you can see that of Marx. It’s one of the worst poisons ever to hit the human mind.

Von Ranke was a classicist. When he surveyed the very proud, self-satisfied European culture of the 19th century, when he compared those cultures to ancient Greece and ancient Rome, when he compared those cultures even to medieval and Renaissance Florence, he saw no historical evidence that Hegel was right. He couldn’t find a shred of evidence that the human spirit had improved, but plenty of evidence that it hadn’t.

The human spirit, as von Ranke saw it, certainly had not progressed from classical times or even from Renaissance times. No philosopher of his time, and certainly not Hegel, was worthy to tie or untie the sandals of Plato and Aristotle. For this reason von Ranke urged his readers to reject the ideas associated with the French Revolution. Remember, the French Revolution was a rejection of history. The Russian Revolution was a rejection of history. In so many ways, the New Deal was a rejection of history.

Von Ranke perceived the danger of every generation to imagine itself as the accumulation point of history, as though all previous generations were only preparatory steps to our own. You see, wise parents do not always raise wise children. With respect to wisdom, every generation starts from scratch, just as each human being starts from scratch. Wisdom is not accumulative for the simple reason that the human spirit is not quantitative.

Christian discipleship involves the submission of the human spirit to the magisterial authority of Christ, and that’s something that every human being has to work out for himself. The Church teaches; it’s important to Christians to learn. But it has to do with bringing every thought into submission to the lordship of Christ. That’s why when we mention the Holy Trinity we bow our heads, don’t we? We bow over. What are we doing when we bow our heads? We’re submitting this up here, this space between our ears; we’re submitting that to the authority of God.

Second point about learning: Learning requires reaching up. Learning requires reaching up. I remember, early in my time here at All Saints, I heard one of the teenagers—who’s not in the parish any more, by the way—one of the teenagers comment about my sermons. She did it with a hand gesture. Waved her hand over her head. Yeah, but notice that you were able to reach up, weren’t you? If it was only this much over your head, you should have gotten it! [Laughter] It wasn’t 20 feet over your head; it was only about three inches over your head—you’re supposed to reach! Education has to do with reaching. We all sort of know that.

You see, we do not learn anything without extending ourselves. But you know it’s a sign of the mercy of God that human beings are wired to do exactly that. And I call on you who have raised children—you know that. You know that. The worst thing you could possibly do to a child—in fact, this should be listed as child abuse, carrying a prison sentence—is talk baby talk to them. That is—you’re going to slow down their education by at least two years if you do that. The time when the child can grab vocabulary is within those first two years, and if you do not speak to them in the first two years the way you would talk to another adult, they’re never going to learn anything, or it would be slowed down.

Someone who understood this was a great educator of somewhat earlier times by the name of Beatrix Potter, whom I’ve already quoted in a point—must be at the end. It is a mistake to dismiss Beatrix Potter. A novelist like Graham Greene, a poet like W.H. Auden had immense respect for her. As a pedagogue, she understood that education demands reaching up. Beatrix Potter did not assume that children would suffer brain damage from hearing things that they did not understand right away. Indeed, her own books were crafted at a level somewhat over the heads of her readers. If you don’t believe that, then look up The Tailor of Gloucester. Read The Tailor of Gloucester.

When I read The Tale of Gloucester, I was an adult, and I had to look up words! She wanted the child to reach up. I give you an example; this is a quotation from a great work. Here’s the quotation:

Pigling Bland listened gravely; Alexander was hopelessly volatile.

Now that book is designed for very small children who are being taught some words. Not exactly common words in the home, like “volatile” or “gravely.” Beatrix Potter did not expect her readers to understand that sentence on a first reading. On the contrary, she assumed that any book worth reading was worth reading at least twice. I give you that, by the way, as a norm. If on the first reading you’re not going to read—you know, “I’m not going to read it again,” then you know it wasn’t worth reading. If it was, you’ll read it again. I want to see who in the world—I don’t care how often they read Bleak House; I don’t care how often—I think I’m on about the fourth time now, seeing things I didn’t see on reads one, second, and three.

You see, and this includes a storybook, a story like The Tale of Pigling Bland. This is why, in the next paragraph of that same work, she wrote—are you ready for this one? This is the quotation:

Aunt Pettitoes gave each piglet eight conversation peppermints with appropriate moral sentiments in screws of paper.

You’ve got to love lines like that! I mean, isn’t that a great line? If you’re jealous, I don’t think I could write a line like that! “Aunt Pettitoes gave each piglet eight conversation peppermints with appropriate moral sentiments in screws of paper.” Indeed, this very sentence seems to be a sort of conversation peppermint. The child is prompted to appreciate the appropriate moral sentiments, even if the child does not know right away what is meant by “appropriate moral sentiments.” That is to say, the learner is expected to reach.

And then, what shall we say of Timothy Tiptoes, the squirrel seduced by a chipmunk into eating great quantities of nuts? Beatrix Potter could have written “lots of nuts,” but, no, she did not write “lots of nuts”; she wrote, “great quantities of nuts.” She was not going to talk down to the kids; in fact, that’s what baby talk is: it’s talking down to the kids.

In the life of Christian discipleship, Christ our teacher does not talk down to us. He speaks in parables, which mean we’re going to have to use our heads to figure out what he’s talking about. He speaks in parables, but they are intelligible. We’re going to understand them better, we hope, the second or third time. There’s not one word of baby-talk in the Bible. God does not talk down to us. He elevates us by the force of his word. The Christian life is a sustained challenge. We already know this if we are assiduous with our homework. Every story in the gospels is an invitation to reach for something above our heads.

Let me suggest this one: Jesus is not only our teacher; he’s our coach. What does the coach say? “Heads up! Heads up!” Or as the deacon says—no, you don’t say it; I say it, don’t I?—“Hearts up! Hearts up.” Or in the Latin: “Sursum corda. Sursum corda. Hearts up. Let us raise our hearts. Let us raise our hearts, and reach up.”

And that brings me to the third point, that in the Christian education, with Christ as the teacher, private instruction is available and highly recommended. It is available and highly recommended. In fact, if we don’t get that, the Christian life is not going to blossom and thrive. It is essential that every day, one on one with Christ, we allow him to speak to us with his word, because what God says in our prayer is much more important than what we say. God takes the initiative. It is important that we base our daily prayer on encounter with the Word of God.

Christian instruction, in this sense, is always remedial education. I think most of you know what remedial education is. It means you have to take non-credit courses when you go to school because you weren’t paying attention in seventh grade. [Laughter] Remedial education. It comes from the Latin word, mederi, which means “to heal.” It’s interesting. I never noticed that until recently, that mederi is a deponent verb; that’s very interesting. It is in English, too, by the way. Doctors heal, but wounds heal. It’s a deponent verb. In Latin, it’s an active verb which is passive in form.

The healer of our souls is Christ our Lord; the educator is Christ our Lord. The most common of our icons is on the iconostas, and that is of Christ the teacher. He’s standing there holding a book. Christ is available to give us all daily tutorials, and we need those daily tutorials. Some Christians pray in such a way that God never gets a word in edgewise. Sometimes when I’ve counseled people, they want to talk to me about prayer. People not even in the parish call me, talk to me about how to pray. I make an appointment with them and say, “Well, tell me about your prayer life,” and they give me a list of all the prayers they say every day. I say, “Does God ever get a word in edgewise? Are you doing all the talking? You see, if you do all the talking, you’re not going to have any friends. Others must be allowed to talk, including God.”

And God certainly talks to us in the sacred Scriptures. A Christian prayer is the response to God’s word. Prayer is listening to God’s word with attention, and then responding. The model we can take for that, I guess, is Mary of Bethany, who sat at the feet of Jesus, contemplative; sat at the feet of Jesus, and listened to his teaching. See, that is open to all of us, to sit daily at the feet of Jesus and commune with him in the truth.