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"Education Without Character"
Mark 10:17-31
A Sermon preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley
March 10, 2002
University Baptist Church
Minneapolis, MN
When one is surrounded by one of the finest educational and research institutions in the world, it is foolhardy to preach a sermon about education without talking with an educator or two. So I went across the street on Monday and spent an hour with Roger Johnson who did what a good educator does. He gave me homework. I’m kidding. He did give me some good resources to read about cooperative learning and conflict resolution, concepts he and his brother have shepherded these past few decades. But he also listened to my perspective and shared his philosophy of teaching. The number one factor in a child’s educational experience, he said, is who her teacher is, not their philosophy—it’s all about the relationship with the student. I think he’s right. I think about the teachers who had the most influence on me: my nursery school teacher Mrs. Drach; my first grade teacher Miss Waterman who also became our second grade teacher after changing her name to Mrs. Gligor. My high school music teacher, Mr. Thomas, demanded the most out of me musically but also demanded that I become not just more knowledgeable, not just a better performer, but a better person.
Good teachers are hard to come by and will not last long if they are not supported by policies which back up strong and positive words about education. We need good teachers. Teachers with character. Teachers who help us to grow and expand not just our knowledge, but our sense of self.
Jonathan Kozol’s 1980 book, The Night is Dark and I am Far from Home criticizes the US public school system for its teaching of conformity at the expense of character. Kozol wrote that children: "go to school to learn to be proficient at mechanical procedures, docile in the presence of all processes they do not understand, acquiescent in the presence of a seeming barbarism. It is not so much that they learn to be "cruel" people. Rather it is, they learn it is not needful to be urgent in compassion or importunate in justice. Not positive desolation, but a genial capability for well-behaved abstention in the presence of despair: this is the innocence we teach our children." (Kozol, 1980:7) Education critic Jackson wrote a number of years ago that three institutions look alike: Prisons, mental Institutions and schools.
The alternative to this is the system championed by Roger and Dave Johnson of cooperative learning. They are teaching our educators that education is all about the development of character. It’s about more than results. It’s about more than learning how to regurgitate little bits of information. It recognizes that different people learn at different rates and bring to the educational endeavor their own personal needs and perspective. It’s about holding each other accountable. It’s about learning as a team and the team taking care of each other.
Learning, education has a lot to do with the development of character. We need to integrate knowledge of facts and figures with our whole selves. We need to integrate our development as a person of faith in a landscape of technological knowledge and how those two worlds interact.
Gandhi left India to go to school in England. He saw his student compatriots losing their idealism and becoming focused only on their careers, often at the expense of their values and character. His grandson Arun wrote: "Our obsession with materialism tends to make us more concerned about acquiring knowledge so that we can get a better job and make more money. A lucrative career is preferred to an illustrious character. Our educational centers emphasize career-building and not character-building. An education that ignores character- building is an incomplete education."
I’m not an expert in educational theory or practice. What I know best is the scripture and I believe today’s passage sheds some light on the concept of education without character.
This story is found in Matthew, Mark and Luke. I like Mark’s version because it is the starkest and for that reason, perhaps the most challenging.
In Matthew and Luke, the story is about a rich young ruler. According to Mark, he is not young or old, a ruler or a peasant. He is simply a man. In other words, he could be just like you or me. See if you can see yourself in this story.
The man ran up to Jesus and knelt down before him and said, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" What a telling sentence. The man wanted to get an education, so he went to a teacher. But not only a teacher, not just any teacher: a good teacher—a teacher with character.
We can be teachers, all of us. St. Francis of Assisi said that we should preach every day. But only if necessary should we use words. We observe each other, We study each other, we interact with each other, we drive each other crazy and in the process we learn. The man saw in Jesus a person where he could get education and character. Jesus was a good teacher. Being a good teacher, he shifted the focus off of himself and piut it on God and the man. Jesus said, "only God is good. Don’t call me good just because I have character. If you follow God, you will be good too because you will have character."
But he asked the question: "What must I do to inherit eternal life." The one asking the question revealed his character, or lack of character. He was interested in his own personal salvation. What must I do to receive my reward in heaven?
Jesus responded, quoting from the textbook, "Keep the commandments". In other words, have a good character, an ethical character.
Jesus started listing the commandments, but the man interrupted him after six. "Yes, yes, I read the textbook. I have done all of that since I was a little tike, but I want more." Perhaps he was saying, "this old-time religion just isn’t doing it for me like it was before. "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" He wanted more, more, more.
People come to UBC in large part because we are not so satisfied with the same old answers churches have doled out over the years. We want more: more depth; more honesty; more integrity; more character.
Jesus looked at him, the scripture says "with love". He said, "if you want to get serious, we’ll get serious.
If you really want to have eternal life;
If you really want to know what real living is all about;
If you really want to know what God is all about;
If you really want to know what faith is all about;
If you really want to be a part of my family, then sell all you have, give to the poor and then come follow me."
That shut him up. It would shut me up, too.
Now, why was Jesus so hard on this man?
Do we want him to be so hard on us?
Is that what we need to do in order to have eternal life?
Is that the only way to become a part of Jesus’ family?
I think the key to understanding this scripture reading is found in verse 19. Jesus lists six of the 10 commandments with a twist. First of all he leaves out the four theological commandments:
You shall have no other Gods before me,
don't make a graven image,
don't take God's name in vain,
keep the Sabbath.
He recites the ethical ones. The Jesus in Mark is interested in ethics. The Jesus in the other Gospels is much more interested in theology. Mark’s Jesus is interested in character. So in Mark, Jesus lists the ethical commandments:
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness.
Honor your father and mother.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s property. But wait. Jesus changes that last one. He does not quote "you shall not covet", he says "you shall not cheat or defraud." In other words, you shall not come about your wealth in an underhanded way: no wealth without work, no commerce without morality. What he was saying to the man is wake up. You shall not delude yourself into thinking that you are holy with your possessions.
Remember, back in those days, it took "riches" in order to be "religious." Remember that the only people who were allowed in the synagogue or the temple were people who were ritually clean, had the proper attire, could afford the right number of animals and grains for the sacrifice. It took money to be religious. But it does not take a cent to be faithful. It doesn’t cost a cent to have a good character.
Jesus identified with those who were left out of the "religious" establishment: the lepers, the widows, the blind, the lame, the diseased, the disadvantaged. In them he saw faith and hope. He gave them the love that had been denied them by the leaders of "religion." He welcomed them into his family.
Gandhi could have ridden first class on trains because of his education as a lawyer, but he realized doing so was a detriment to his character, because it put him above others. He chose to ride third class. He chose to eschew the privilege his education could have bought him and instead used his keen intellect, his articulateness and his writing abilities to begin a movement that has as its core the development of a character typified by nonviolence and the creation of a beloved community.
The man with the possessions wanted the joy he saw in those poor folk. Jesus said, "sell all you have, give to the poor then come and follow me. Oh yes, and don’t cheat." The man wanted to inherit eternal life, just like he had inherited everything else. He was not interested in developing character.
Think of the good teachers you have had over the years. Likely, you don’t remember so much of what they taught you as much as you remember their character—that intangible aspect of them that made them so profound. That part of them that had such an impact on your life.
Gandhi was saying, I believe, that education can fail in two ways. First it can be seen as only a way to get something, like the man’s quest for eternal life. It becomes a means to an end. It becomes a degree or list of degrees behind your name that will get you an entre in to more influence, more money, more a part of the domination system. If this is done without character, then we have people with shallow depth and low ethics making the decisions for our world.
The second way education can fail is if we don’t teach our children and each other ways to be ethical, ways to live in the world, with the power and might that only comes from God.
We have great teachers here at UBC. Some of them get paid for teaching and some don’t. We all learn from the characters surrounding us. A character built upon the pillars of the Christian values nonviolence, compassion, mercy, love and justice is a character that we celebrate and which we work to support here at UBC.
As we educate ourselves, let us do so in a way that develops our character along with our minds. Remember, there are people watching and learning from everything we do and everything we say. What we do and who we are, are joined at the hip. May we continue to educate ourselves and develop our character. May we also be good teachers to others. For people with good character do not succumb to the temptation of
wealth without work,
science without humanity,
commerce without morality,
pleasure without conscience,
politics without principles
or worship without sacrifice.
Instead, we work for more than wealth.
We are humane in scientific activity.
We behave morally in commerce.
We manifest character in education.
We respond to conscience in pleasure.
We follow principles in politics.
And we experience sacrifice in worship.
And through all of this we come closer to God’s way for each of us. We start experiencing eternal life.