Carefully Taught

After the November election or maybe before it, someone in the black community said, “Rosa sat so Martin could walk. Martin walked so Barack could run. Barack ran so our children could fly.” Tracing the election of the first biracial President to the civil rights movement. I don’t care what any of you think about the election results, the President-elect, or democratic politics. We must acknowledge as a people that the ability of a nation to elect a leader whose racial profile situates him within a community whose history includes slavery and oppressive poverty, segregation, and disenfranchisement is a revolutionary act. And an act that could not have been accomplished had it not been for the sacrifice of many leaders who demonstrated for Barack Obama and the black community that they are human, divinely made, and worthy of equality, respect, and the best of what this nation, this world, and our GOD have to offer. Demonstrated by Rosa Parks, by those in Alabama who participated in the bus boycott, by Dr. King and those who marched on Washington, by Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson and Hiram Revels the first African American US senator. How can we name all of those people, historical public figures and personal relationships who demonstrated for the world how to exercise compassionate justice toward all people. Being human is demonstrated to us, behaviors are learned and acquired through relationships with other humans. We are socially and relationally taught to behave in ways consistent with those around us. In the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific, a musical about race relations, my favorite song is You’ve got to be carefully taught the lyrics are poignant for us today.
You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

As for race, so with faith. Faith is demonstrated to us through the lives of faithful others. We come to know, see, hear, recognize GOD in the ordinariness of daily life only in so much as others have demonstrated their own belief and trust in that GOD’s presence. The story of the call of Samuel the prophet is a fine example of many call stores in the bible. Samuel did not know the LORD, did not hear God’s voice or see God’s glory before. He was an unconverted child of religion. He was being trained by a priest, Eli. And then the LORD spoke to Him. His ability to understand, recognize, and respond to GOD was contingent on Eli’s realization that God was speaking. Eli’s faith directed Samuel to listen. It makes one think, does God speak to us in ways that we are unable to hear because we have not paid attention to other faithful listeners who demonstrate for us how to hear GOD?
And then in the gospel, we hear the call of Philip to Nathaniel to come and see. IN John’s gospel Jesus’ divinity is demonstrated through signs or miracles and ultimately in His willingness to suffer and die for his disciples, for the world. Nathaniel is invited to come and see, but his ability to recognize in Jesus of Nazareth the very image of God is contingent on Jesus’ demonstration of his identity and on Philip’s capacity to share what He believes. Without Philip’s testimony, Nathaniel does not come, does not see, does not believe. Without Philip Nazareth remains the town out of which come uneducated bandits, prostitutes---salt of the earth, not light of the world. Our faith is contingent on the demonstration of others who in word and deed show us the way. Christ is indeed revealed to the world in the behaviors of the church, in our corporate witness, in our actions and speech. People learn about Jesus through our demonstration of the His way of life. We have to stop thinking about Christian education as something that you attend in Sunday school, a program of the church. Christian education is what we do that demonstrates to others that we are in relationship with the God who raised Jesus from the dead. We have to be careful about what we are teaching others in our silence toward injustice, in our own prejudices unresolved, in our unforgiving attitudes. Do our homes, our checkbooks, our relationships, our work and leisure lives reflect the gospel? Are we teaching others how to love God and the world, and our neigbors as ourselves? Are we grateful for having received it ourselves?
Who first demonstrated for you what it means to follow Jesus, to be a disciple, to live in the presence of God. Who carefully taught you how to love others, including people who are not like you? Who taught you how to give generously, how to care for creation, how to pray? Who taught you how to worship? Who taught you how to serve others? And who are you teaching? Who is your Samuel? Who is your Nathaniel? All of us have been Samuel and Nathaniel—coming to know and grow in faith toward this GOD who speaks and calls us and commands us and forgives us and leads us and suffers with us. All of us have been carefully taught. Some us are still learning. Some of us are also teaching. May you learn and teach the way of Jesus as if the world depended on it, because maybe it does. Amen.