Sermon - 2019-03-20 - Learning

This Lenten season, we are entering into a series that reminds us of the marks of Discipleship.  Now, these are outward signs and many of us know that we should be doing these things but it is my hope that we are able to go much deeper.  That we may be reminded of why they are so important. To invite and encourage you that if you have not done these things on a regular basis, please join us.  If you are doing these things, please invite others. For these foundational pieces of faith can strengthen your relationship with God and enrich the lives of others too.

Tonight, our focus is on learning or study.  Now many of us when we think of that, we may think of a research paper or book report or something else that we have done in school. Before you start tuning me out and rolling your eyes.  Before you go back to the days of Mrs. Johnson standing over you looking at you with disappointment. I want you to know this: that is not the only way that we can learn. There are a variety of ways to learn and grow but there is one solid way that I will tell you about in the end.

First I want to highlight the why do we study and learn in a setting of faith in which mostly it is something of the heart.  The simplest answer to this is both the mind and the heart influence in how we live our life, not to be good people but to truly get us to understand that we are made for more in God’s calling and for us to move beyond the logical excuses we tell ourselves so that we get out of the way of ourselves to live by faith.  Yes, believe it or not, people lived before you and you can learn from them. Their life was not exactly like yours but they were human too. They knew heartache, they knew the death of a loved one, they knew the celebration of a child entering into one’s life, and they knew what it was like to feel close to God and feel distant from God.  By studying and learning from others, we can learn what to stay away from because it can harm yourself or our relationship with God but also bear witness to the possibility of how God has moved in their life so that we can see God in our own life.

Now sitting and reading is one way that we can indeed read and study.  However, it is not the only way. Sitting down and having a cup of coffee or drink and talking about what is going on in your life and sharing that burden of life with someone else is an opportunity for you to learn and see where God is at in your life and the life of someone else.  Yes, a simple conversation with someone can be learning and studying what it is we are talking about here in church. In a simple conversation with your parents, grandparents, family, and friends, here you can hear the word not spoken on a page to someone else thousands of years ago but directly to you.  The key here for many of us is that we need to expect and perhaps even name that God is there. Expect that is God is in your life, expect that God can help you with your problems and joys in your life and that God has brought someone into your life as a gift. For this style of learning about faith is something that happens all the time but we do not name it so.  I usually call this unexpected teacher, who comes into our life and unexpectedly teaches us something in our life that has a profound impact without them realizing it.

Another way of learning is to sit in the presence of someone.  What do I mean by that? I mean exactly what you are doing now, going and spending time by listening to someone who you have an agreement with to learn from.  Now, this ranges in names from sermons, to lectures, to conferences, to retreats, and so many other names but the heart is the time is the same. Be gathered together in a room with other people to learn from an “expert” at a set time and place and perhaps for a set reason.  It is here that people will come to take notes and they actually expect to learn something. I usually call this the expected teacher.

Now, these two methods are the ways in which most of us learn and have done so for most of our lives.  But the last way that I want you to think about is perhaps the way in which you have learned the most, in community.  Yes, a combination of the two models before we have the greatest and most powerful when we realize that as a whole we can learn and grow more fully because of the gifts and talents, lessons and love of the people that God has placed in our lives.  It is this group that we can find people who we relate to but also people who challenge us and rub us the wrong way. Here in this group and through conversations, we learn of the diversity and those relationships being woven together by God that we have such a greater understanding of God’s Wisdom and Love in the world.

This community may choose to have a focus on books, lectures, hands-on learning, repetitive engagement, and visual learning for the whole community to understand the complexity and realize that sometimes there is not a simple answer and that we need faith to get to the Promised Land of God. Yet that is truly the focus, focus on God and His Calling for you. Amen.