Tag Archives: grace

Heavy Loads vs. Flying Horses

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fledge2

In Matthew’s account of Jesus’ polemic against the Pharisees (my Bible titles the 23rd chapter of Matthew “The Seven Woes”), Jesus says to the crowd and his disciples:

“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.  So you must be careful to do everything they tell you.  But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.  They tie up heavy, cumbersome burdens and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.”

As I imagine most of us (certainly myself) were sitting comfortably in our seats at church this morning, considering just how terrible the Pharisees were, our pastor followed this passage with the question, “Lest we become prideful, we must ask ourselves, ‘On whom am I placing heavy, cumbersome burdens without being a part of the work?'”  Said another way, I am speaking the truth but withholding active love and grace?

Immediately a few of my math students came to mind.  For various reasons each of them is struggling to survive in my class, reasons which can basically be summarized as a lack of willingness to do the hard work that is required to be successful in this class.  After a rough test last week, my plan was to pull each of them aside tomorrow and have “the talk,” which would go something like this: “Suzy, I’m going to be honest with you, this class is only going to get more challenging as the year goes on.  It’s time to buckle up and resolve to do the hard work so that you don’t find yourself drowning a month from now.”

Okay, so I would probably be more gentle with them than that, but regardless of my tone, this is the message they would hear: it’s hard now, soon it will be impossible, and it’s up to you to dig yourself out of this hole.

How Pharisaical of me.  Why do I do this?  Because I get tired.  Because I don’t have time.  Because I have to keep moving and finish the curriculum.  Because I have to prepare these kids for what it’s going to be like in high school.

All of these excuses are at once true as well as invalid.  The real reason I tend to stack burdens on these kids’ shoulders without going the extra mile to help them is because I’ve forgotten about all the people in my life who have not only carried my burdens but have carried me as well. I have forgotten about all the times Jesus has walked with me where either I didn’t want to or didn’t think I could go.

Lord forgive me.

Lest we become like those Pharisees, our instinctive posture toward our students must be one of love and grace. But this need not be a “cheap grace” of which Bonhoeffer speaks. On the contrary, I think it is a good and right thing to invite our students to be a part of their own redemption process.  In his book The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship, Dallas Willard says, “Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.  Earning is an attitude.  Effort is an action.  Grace, you know, does not just have to do with forgiveness of sins alone.”  The “acted faith” is what I believe Jesus calls us to when he says, “Follow me.”  This is discipleship.  It is by God’s grace that we are invited into a life of transformation into his likeness.

God’s grace in my life has looked just like this–it has been an active, transforming grace that is rewriting my story, a revision with which I have been invited to take part. This journey has led me through some seemingly impossible circumstances, but God’s presence has been steadfast, just as it was with Moses, Abraham, Joshua, Gideon, and many others who took an active role in God’s redemption plan.

I am reminded of the moment in The Magician’s Nephew, when Aslan turns to Digory, who by now realizes that it is because of his own actions that evil (in the form of Jadis) has been unleashed in the newly-created Narnia.  Aslan asks Digory if he’s ready to undo the wrong he has done to Narnia, and Digory hems and haws about not knowing what he can do, what with Jadis disappearing and all, to which Aslan simply restates his original question: Are you ready?  Digory answers in the affirmative, but cannot help–despite knowing that the Lion is not someone to be bargained with–but throw in a plea for Aslan’s help in curing his ill mother back home.  The next passage is worth quoting in full:

“Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face.  What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life.  For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes.  They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself.”

Do I pause to consider that something else besides my math class might be going on in my students’ lives?  Do I seek to know them, to empathize with them, to grieve with them?

After this moment of real human connection, Digory finds new resolve to take on the mission Aslan has set before him.  Even though “he didn’t know how it was to be done . . . he felt quite sure now that he would be able to do it.”

Do I give my students a reason to believe that they can do what they don’t quite know how to do?

Next Aslan asks Digory to describe what he sees to the West.  “I see terribly big mountains, Aslan,” Digory replies.  And this is only the first of three imposing mountain ranges that Digory describes.  Quite plainly, Aslan tells Digory’s that his journey will take him straight through those mountains.

Am I honest with my students about the challenges that lie ahead?  Do I invite them to assess the journey, or do I simply describe it for them?

Once Digory is informed of just what was going to be required of him on this journey, he says quite honestly to Aslan, “I hope, Aslan, you’re not in a hurry.  I shan’t be able to get there and back very quickly.”

And Aslan replies, “Little son of Adam, you shall have help.”  Turning to the cabby’s horse, Strawberry, Aslan transforms him into the winged Fledge.

Do I offer help to my students on what might seem an impossible journey?  To what lengths am I willing to go?  Sometimes it takes some out-of-the-box thinking, like putting wings on a horse.  In addition to inviting my students on an arduous journey, am I simultaneously embodying Christ’s active love toward them?  Am I walking alongside them?

Am I working as hard for them as I want them to work for my class?  Or, am I stacking heavy burdens on their shoulders and wishing them the best on their journey?

“But I’m not a miracle worker,” I have found myself saying.  I can’t make a horse fly.  What do I do when I feel like I have done everything?

Our pastor ended this morning by asking the question, “Do we petition the Holy Spirit as fervently as we petition those who we want to see change?”

Do I forget that ultimately it’s not up to me?  How often do I pray for my students by name?  How often do I invite the Holy Spirit into my classroom?

After all, there is a lot more at stake here than my students learning math.  Their time in my classroom is but a very short chapter in a very long book. Nevertheless, their journey at this moment includes my math class and, therefore, it includes me. How will I make the coincidence of our paths count?

Somehow Christ is able to say, “Take up your cross and follow me,” but also say, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  This is the scandalous love of the gospel.  I still don’t really get it.  But I know it.  And I want my students to know it.  And I do not want to miss the opportunity to embody this kind of love for them.  I may not be able to make a winged horse, but–like Polly, who sits right behind Digory on Fledge’s back–I can certainly go with them on this leg of their journey.

A Sheep, a Coin, and a Scoundrel

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sheepandtree

I used to think that classical Christian education was all about rigor and challenge – a “time tested” method by which to best develop intelligent, logical minds.  The “Christian” part came in I guess either when I gave an especially difficult test and students needed an “I can do all things through Christ” kind of prayer or when I needed to remind students that we, of course, do our best on this test to “bring glory to God.”  (Oh, and I made the occasional reference to “the revelation of God’s character in the order and beauty of math and science,” but I’ve only really begun to “get” the significance of that integration in the last few years.)

So students who had a natural aptitude for math and science loved me, particularly those who enjoyed a challenge.  Their parents loved me too.

Those students who worked really hard but just never quite “got it” became acquainted with a new level of frustration in my classes.  I felt bad for them; but hey, hard work in life doesn’t guarantee success (just ask a farmer).  Although I admired their hard work, my attitude towards them could best be described as pity.  My job was to keep the brightest students challenged.  As for those working feverishly in their shadows, well, “I hope they find a tutor who can bring them along.”

And then there were the students who lacked above average aptitude and either didn’t bother working hard or exhibited very poor work habits (granted those cases were the extreme exception).  Well, I just wrote those students off completely.  That was the “just response,” I thought, for not taking my class seriously.  I guess I kind of took their laziness personally.  “They’ll get the grade they deserve.”

Fortunately, not too long into my teaching career, God convicted me through the help of some very wise parents and the Gospel.  If the Kingdom of Heaven is like a shepherd leaving 99 sheep behind to go search after the one that is lost, or like a woman with 10 coins who turns her house upside down when she loses just one of them . . . well, if I am going to reflect the Gospel in my classroom, then I need to be willing to go after those students who aren’t the best, who aren’t staying up with the rest of the flock.

So I resolved to do just that.  Well, sort of.  As it turns out, I fell short of what I think Christ intended by these parables.  I started to pursue fervently those students in the second group above – that is, those who lacked the above average aptitude but worked their butts off.  I adopted the credo: if you’ll give me all you’ve got, I’ll run along side you all the way.  My new class mantra became, “All I want is your best.  As long as you’re giving me your best, I am pleased.”

In other words, I went to bat for that second group of students because I came to value their hard work in lieu of aptitude.  And boy did I come to love working with those students, mostly because doing so made me feel good about myself.  “Give me a hard working student over a really bright lazy one any day,” I would say, with noble affect.

You see, a lost sheep is still a sheep.  And sheep are fluffy and cute.  And, to a shepherd, each one has tremendous value.  Just like a coin.

Jesus’ parables made sense for the hard working student, but that student who refused to work hard or that student who just couldn’t ever get organized enough to be prepared for class – I still dismissed them both.  They weren’t lost sheep or lost coins, they were just lost.  Sure, I “loved them,” but pitiably so.

Last year God began a new work in me.  Okay, that’s too euphemistic.  He hit me in the face with a baseball bat.  He basically said three things to me:

1) Every child bears my Image.

2) You are only as good a teacher as your “worst” student thinks you are.

3) You need to learn to love grace as much as you love the truth.

So this year I set forth to pursue even the lazy student, even the flippant student, even the student who refused to get organized or refused to work hard or refused to assume responsibility for his or her academics.  But because these descriptions only apply to less than 1% of my students, I found that my “new plan” was actually more difficult – not less – to put into consistent action.  After all, it is much easier to serve the overwhelming majority and ignore those on the fringe.  Especially when your job is to “challenge and prepare academically able minds.”

In fact, a couple weeks ago I caught myself acting dismissively towards a student who not only failed to turn in a major assignment but also refused to come talk to me about it.  I finally had to confront the student a few days later.  When I offered an extension on the assignment, I received no gratitude in return.  “Not even an appreciation of my grace!  Why do I bother extending it?”  Yes, that was my actual thought.  Although I would never say it, I once again dismissed this student as feckless and “unworthy of my valuable time.”

So God took the opportunity this past Sunday morning to clarify for me the true meaning of Jesus’ parables of the lost sheep and lost coin.  Enter the story of Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus may have been a “wee little man,” but that is where any potentiality for endearment ends.  A chief tax collector in Jericho, Zacchaeus got rich by taking his own cut of the oppressive taxes levied by the Roman government.  Unlike the sheep and coin, which had practical value to both the shepherd and coin owner, Zacchaeus would have been considered a hated scoundrel by everyone who walked with Jesus that day, and perhaps justifiably so.

So we might expect Jesus, who always advocates for those who are given the short end of the stick, to take the side of the crowd when he encounters the immorally wealthy Zacchaeus peering down from the sycamore tree.  I can imagine someone in the crowd saying to Jesus, “Hey, this is our chance!  Tell Zacchaeus how wrong he is!  Put him in his place!!”  Or even, “Ignore that guy, Jesus, he has gotten rich off of our hard-earned money!”

But that of course is not what happens.  Jesus not only invites Zacchaeus down from the tree, but invites himself to be a guest in Zacchaeus’ house.

“So the people began to mutter, ‘He has gone to be the guest of a sinner!’

The crowd could not believe that Jesus didn’t choose someone “more worthy” to spend the evening with.  Jesus’ decision made no sense in their economy.  So Jesus has to remind them of Zacchaeus’ true identity: that he, too, is a son of Abraham.

Do we judge our students by their true identity (the Imago Dei), or by their academic efforts?

And then the story ends with the real kicker.  Jesus says:

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”

Those words ran through my heart like a bullet.  The “lost” aren’t just cuddly sheep and valuable coins; the lost are scoundrels.

And, when I thought about it, this is very good news for those of us who are scoundrels.  And, if we’re honest, isn’t that all of us?

The very next day I looked at my “problem student” a lot differently.  I pray that my actions towards this student follow suit.  Holy Spirit help me.  I must tirelessly pursue this student, because God has never stopped pursuing me.

So what does it mean to be a “Christian school”?  The longer that I’m on this journey, the more strongly I believe that if we are going to reclaim the integrity of true Christian education, we must aim to reflect the gospel in all aspects of our teaching.  For me that means I have to chase after not only the sheep, but the scoundrels as well.  In other words, I have to chase after the students who are just like me.

What Matters

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Everything in a true Christ-centered education (and, thus, a true classical education) comes down to this: are we nurturing the child’s soul?

The worst thing we can do with this question is to consider it globally rather than personally.  Instead of conveniently asking, “Is our school nurturing the souls of its students?” we teachers need to be continually asking ourselves, “Is that science test I just gave or the way I just admonished that student who didn’t do her math homework or the methods I just used to motivate my cross country team or the conversation I just had with students in the lunchroom – are THOSE SPECIFIC ACTIONS OF MINE nurturing the souls of my students?”

There is no small, insignificant, or neutral action when children are placed under our care.  We are either blessing our students’ souls or we’re cursing them, one action at a time.  I wish I could say that I rarely do the latter, that I’ve learned enough about “what matters” and matured enough in my spiritual journey to avoid such a mistake, but that would be a lie.  All it takes is just enough exhaustion or frustration and the next thing I know I have forgotten that my students are just like me: weak, sinful, and in desperate need of grace.

Lord, forgive me.  Students, forgive me.

The Gracious Classroom: Part 1

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I recently read an article entitled “Five Temptations for Classical Christian Education,” written by Brian Douglas, a teacher at the Ambrose Classical School in Boise, Idaho and adjunct professor at Boise State University.  The entire article is worth reading, and there are many pieces that I would love to discuss, but these two paragraphs really stood out to me:

“It is easy for a classical Christian school to become known more for its uniforms, homework expectations, strictness, and the like, than for its gracious, loving environment. Yet we ought not treat education like a simple input-output situation, in which the right learning environment can program our students to be Christians. While students do need high expectations for their work and conduct, focusing on order becomes hazardous when it overtakes the joy of experiencing God’s grace. When this happens, students may learn to jump through the hoops, obey the rules, do the right things, but they do not learn to love God and others. That is moralism, the worst enemy of true Christianity.

“Creating a truly gracious classroom is much harder than creating an orderly classroom. It is a challenge that requires spiritual preparation far beyond classroom management techniques. But the only Christian education is a thoroughly gracious education. It sounds so basic, but it remains true: Without God’s grace, we can only produce narcissists who are more focused on their own successes and failures than on the eternal reality of God’s love for his people.”

My temptation is to read something like this and say, “YES!  So well stated!” then walk away with this abstract ideal in my head: “the truly gracious classroom.”  I can then easily leave this definitive characteristic of the Christian classroom at the philosophical level.

But what does this really mean in practice?  What does a “truly gracious classroom” look like?  How do our students encounter this “joy of experiencing God’s grace” in our classrooms?”

And to make these questions more pointed, let’s get even more specific.  Take assessment, for example.  What does it look like to be gracious in the assessment of our students?  How do we maintain rigor and high expectations while at the same time give grace?  Should rigor and grace be opposed?  Is allowing a student to retake a test a demonstration of true grace?

Douglas cautions us against moralism, against teaching our students to “jump through the hoops.”  And I have seen these moralistic acrobatics in my students in the past.  Heck, I have held the hoops up for them.  Lord forgive me.

But can grace also be dispensed to our students’ detriment?

I am not going to attempt to answer any of my own questions in this post.  Maybe because it’s almost midnight, maybe because I don’t have good answers.  But I would love to hear your thoughts.

More in a later post . . .