Herald of Hope
Autumn, at least in our part of the world, is the time of the year when children retrieve their school bags from the closet or attic, search out with their parents “back-to-school” sales of clothing and think again of the discipline of (dreaded) life in the regimen of educational institutions. The same mindset may well stretch all the way through university existence, perhaps even through all of life.
As followers of Jesus, we take pride in calling ourselves disciples, which signals that we consider ourselves as perpetual learners, ever open to new information and deeper understanding of both our own hearts or the activity of God in the world within and around us.
By definition, a disciple is a student, seeking understanding rather than mere accumulated facts or bits of information.
The fact that this time of the year finds our young people returning to classrooms after summer vacation only serves to echo and support that title. Whether the level of our age signals kindergarten, high school, university or the larger span of life itself, we still remain students, and we would be wise to accept that title as a lifelong description, including mature adulthood. To disdain the title suggests that we think ourselves no longer needing to find anything worthy of our intellectual curiosity. Only someone who is deceased no longer finds anything worth learning.
The entire human race is constantly seeking to expand the limits of our knowledge. The edges of our universe also expand as we grow in our efforts to understand the larger world in which we live. The very curriculum of our studies in science has expanded enormously over the past century. There seems to be so much more to learn than there used to be. That probably means that more is required of our teachers, too.
Jesus gathered his disciples and taught them how God is constantly at work in our world. He was and remains the Master Teacher and we his students. The Gospels are sacred stories to be mined for greater wisdom and knowledge. Ancient Hebrew lore came in story form, always with an invitation to gather around the story for communal unpacking and discovery of God’s Wisdom. Some things are deemed too important to forget and become Sacred Tradition. They, like the sacraments, are the tradition that we pass on carefully to each succeeding generation. To be a disciple, and to glory in that title, suggests that we live with an open mind to learning something new. The prophet Isaiah long ago suggested that God is our teacher (30:20), even in any adversity that may come into our lives.
It seems to me that a humble and useful morning prayer should always include a personal petition to learn something new and helpful that day, at least new to us.
God has created us to be lifelong learners. To lightly cast the title aside seems arrogant at best, and perhaps contrary to our very nature as created.
It is our mysterious God who remains the origin and ultimate goal of our existence. We remain lifelong learners and should take legitimate if modest pride in that title, which is in fact a way of life, not only a title of respect.
