The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. When they saw him, they worshiped , but they doubted. Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” (Matthew 28.16-20)
Before Pat Conroy became a famous writer with his lyrical words about Southern culture and southerners, he wrote a book about his one-year stint as a school teacher on a remote island off the coast of South Carolina where he taught impoverished black children. Published in 1972, it was his second book and he called it “The Water is Wide.” And, although it never became as famous as his later books “The Great Santini” and “The Prince of Tides,” it did win a humanitarian award from the National Education Association and was made into a popular movie starring Jon Voight.
The book has aged well and it should be read by every teacher. At one point, he admonishes teachers, noting, “I dislike poor teachers. They are criminals to me. I’ve seen so much cruelty toward children.” Later in the book, after many fights with the local school board who cared little for black children stuck on an island off the mainland, officials who he described as “mostly a lot of calories under gray suits, a lot of talk behind bright ties,” he wrote, “Think instead about children. People. Human beings. Feel for once that education is about people–not figures.”
After one year, Conroy was fired from his teaching position, partly because he refused to use corporal punishment on his students. He walked away with a bitter insight about those elected to serve people. He wrote, “I learned that politicians are not supposed to help people. They simply listen to people, nod their heads painfully, commiserate at proper intervals, promise to do all they can, and then do nothing. It was very instructive. I could probably have enlisted more action from a bleached jellyfish washed ashore in a seasonal storm.”
So, why the book review of one of Conroy’s masterpieces of the written word on the Feast of the Ascension that we celebrate today? Actually, there is a good cause. As recorded by the evangelist Matthew, the last words that Rabbi Jesus says to his disciples before he ascends to the high heavens contain this command: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
In other words, the last thing the Galilean Teacher tells his followers before he returns to his Heavenly Father is that they now must become the teachers. Their status as students is done and their status as teachers has begun. They are to do as he has done for them–to teach others. Specifically, to teach others to observe all things that he had taught them.
For Matthew, as we might recall, the principal mission of Rabbi Jesus is to teach. In fact, the word rabbi means teacher, the name by which Jesus is regularly addressed in this gospel. So, at the start of the gospel, we find Rabbi Jesus teaching his followers when he addresses the crowd with his well-known Sermon on the Mount, now considered to be the largest body of Jesus’ teaching in the New Testament. Here, at the end of his ministry, as he leaves them, he teaches them the basics of discipleship. They are to go, to baptize, to make disciples, and to teach.” Taken together, these two bookends provide powerful anchors for the whole of the gospel.
Nor do we want to overlook the fact that the Sermon on the Mount took place on a mountain, Rabbi Jesus representing a new Moses with his new teaching. And, now, as he ascends to the heavens, he meets his disciples on the same mountain for the last time, presented not only as the teacher, but as the Risen Lord, his authority to teach them coming from heaven and from earth.
That this first and final appearance to the eleven after his resurrection as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew should take place on the mountain is more than geography. It is theological, stressing the importance of what the Risen Lord is doing on this occasion, much the same as his earlier sermon was elevated, not geographically, but theologically, by being on a mountain. And the important thing in both instances is found in his teachings.
We are left to wonder how often we see ourselves as teachers with a mandate from the Risen Lord to teach his words and his ways. More often than not, we prefer the image of disciple or follower. After all, a disciple is a student who strives to learn from the teacher. We see ourselves as life-long learners in the ways of Rabbi Jesus.
In itself, there is nothing wrong with that role. Without a doubt, we are students. But, given the words of Rabbi Jesus to his disciples on that mountain in Galilee, at some point we must leave the security of being a student to take on the role of a teacher, a much more perilous role because now we are the ones who are responsible for teaching, not for learning. We assume a more active role, a role that assumes we know what we are teaching and that we are living what we teach.
Rabbi Jesus says, “Go, and make disciples.” Inherent in that command is the supposition that his disciples have completed their apprenticeship, the years with him as he walked the highways and byways of Galilee coming to an end, their time as students completed as they graduate and assume for themselves the role of teachers. In itself, it is a mind-boggling trust that Rabbi Jesus showed in his disciples and that he shows in us, believing that we have learned the lessons sufficiently for him to entrust us with his words, his ways and his mission.
Of course, we want to be clear here that learning as Rabbi Jesus understands it is far more than a mental process where we accumulate knowledge. It also implies putting into practice the lessons that have been learned. Put bluntly, for us to graduate from student to teacher, Rabbi Jesus expects that we have not simply learned the lessons, but that we have lived the lessons.
We have seen throughout this gospel the many instances of Rabbi Jesus’ encounters with the Pharisees and the scribes, religious leaders who held the mantle of teachers of Judaism. They considered themselves experts on the Mosaic Law. But, as Rabbi Jesus made crystal clear, these same teachers failed in the more important task of living out the law. They preached, but they didn’t practice. That failure is inexcusable and impermissible for his followers.
If we are to be teachers as he was a teacher, then we are not only to speak the words, but we are to live the words. The worst condemnation of a follower of Rabbi Jesus would be to say that we are “all hat, but no cattle,” to borrow a phrase popular in Texas that is used to refer to someone who is all bluster, but who has little lived experience to back it up with.
Another fine point that deserves our attention is Rabbi Jesus’ directive that those who would become teachers as he taught are to teach what he taught. He leaves no doubt as to this point when he says that the eleven are to “teach them to observe all things that I commanded you.” He does not say to teach others all things Moses commanded them. Nor does he say to teach others all things that the Pharisees commanded. He says to teach them to do all the things that he–Rabbi Jesus–commanded them.
These words deserve more than a quick fly over or a rushed breeze through. What the Risen Lord is saying to the eleven is that they are to teach what he taught, not what they think. Simply stated, we repeat what Rabbi Jesus taught. We do not teach our personal opinions. This is a strong corrective to our tendency to impose our own point of view on matters big and small.
For example, Rabbi Jesus taught that we are to feed the hungry. If, instead, we teach that we are to feed the hungry who meet some measure that we impose, substituting a sliding scale of deserving and undeserving, then we are not teaching what Rabbi Jesus taught. He said to give food to the hungry, the only criterion being that they are hungry.
Similarly, when he taught that we are to give the shirt off our back to the person who does not have one, he meant exactly what the words denote. Again, if we substitute our own scales of worthiness or unworthiness unto the person who stands in need before us, then we are teaching our own biases and preferences, not the teaching of Rabbi Jesus.
The list of examples is long because our desire to water down or to weaken, to deny or to distort the teachings of Rabbi Jesus, putting in their stead our own opinions or wants, our own peeves and prejudices is equally long. We show no shame in our haste to claim divine sanction for our personal pettiness and for our communal poisoning of the teachings of Rabbi Jesus.
Sadly, Christianity has an unenviable history of excluding or exorcizing individuals or groups of people that it deems unfit or unsavory, all the while maintaining that these dastardly deeds are being done in the name of Jesus. Consider, for example, anti-Semitism, or the Crusades, or the Salem witch trials, or the Spanish Inquisition, to name only a few. Of course, our own present day practice of branding or banishing people is no prettier and no more presentable than those historical events, all of which should disqualify us from teaching in the name of Rabbi Jesus.
Again, we have to be brutally honest with ourselves, determining if what we teach others is based on Rabbi Jesus’ teachings or based on our own likes and dislikes. A solid test is to compare the list of people we dislike with the list of people that we say Jesus dislikes. If there is striking similarity between the two lists, we can be sure we’re dressing up our own grievances in godly apparel, much like putting a silk gown on a pig, an effort that fools no one.
At one point in his book “The Water is Wide,” as he reflects on his failed year as a teacher, Conroy offers this thought. “Christ must do a lot of puking when he reflects upon the good works done in his name.” That is a damnable indictment that we do not want made of us. Similarly, he offered another sobering thought when he wrote, “I was becoming convinced that the world was a colorful, variegated grab bag full of bastards,” another assessment that we surely don’t want made of us and our practice of Jesus’ ways.
One other point we may want to consider when Matthew tells us of the last moments before the ascension of the Lord Jesus. He says that the eleven disciples went to Galilee to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. When he says “the eleven disciples,” he is giving us a not-so-subtle reminder of Judas’ treachery. There should have been twelve who were commissioned to be teachers, but one put his own wants before the ways of Rabbi Jesus. It is a painful reminder that if we want to step up to the plate to replace Judas, then we want to be sure that we are ready to teach in the same way that Rabbi Jesus taught.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 