Teaching by Example
A Sermon preached by the Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce
on the Fifth Sunday of Easter (2nd May 2010)
One of the glorious things about young children is that they are so wonderfully straightforward, and untrammelled by adult notions of what it is (and is not) appropriate to say in public: they just tell it how it is’, often, it has to be said, to the horror and embarrassment of their accompanying adults.
I can remember once travelling on the tube in London, in a carriage that also happened to contain a particularly outrageously dressed and rather fearsome-looking punk-rocker, sporting the most magnificent bright-red ‘mohican’ hair cut. A toddler, who was perched on his mother’s knee immediately opposite him, pointed to the terrifying punk, and in a voice that was perfectly audible throughout the entire carriage declared excitedly: ‘It’s a chicken!’ I was somewhat relieved to be able to leave the train at the next stop.
It goes without saying, of course, that children need to be brought up with sufficient social skills, not only to be able to function properly within a civilised society, but to fulfil their own potential and flourish within it. They need to learn about the proper rules of social engagement; they need to gain a sense of what is, and is not, morally acceptable behaviour. And there are, of course, a range of different ways in which adults can try and enable this to happen for their children, some more successful than others.
I can remember during my own childhood feeling particularly outraged when I was rebuked by my father at the dinner table for speaking with my mouth full. Unfortunately for him, he happened to have his mouth full at the precise moment when he chose to tell me off. When I pointed this out indignantly, the best response that he could come up with was a grudging ‘Don’t do as I do: do as I say!’ which really did not increase my respect for him one jot. Because children do not like double standards any more than adults do; and are sometimes even more astute than we are at spotting them.
It seems to me that there are two basic kinds of strategies that one can adopt with children when you want to encourage them to behave in a particular kind of way, one of which is likely to be far more effective than the other.
The first, is where children are expected to learn what the rules are simply by being told what the rules are, and being required to obey them (which is why this is usually backed up with the threat of some kind of sanction). This kind of approach is one in which rules are imposed, as it were, from the outside: ‘Don’t do what I do; do what I say.’ Which, unfortunately, can prove to be the perfect recipe for generating resentment, particularly in a Child with Views, who wishes to question things, and challenge assumptions. Most children can be forced to obey a given rule, if there are strong enough sanctions to endorse it; but that kind of approach does not teach them to respect it; nor will it necessarily lead them to internalise that rule and make it ‘their own’ once they reach adulthood.
Or, alternatively, a child can learn by example. A child who sees certain kinds of behaviour in action, can come to understand that the same is expected of them, too, without even being told it. And most people would agree that this kind of approach is far more effective and far more lasting in its impace, than the first example I gave you, because far from imposing rules from the outside, it integrates those rules and expectations within the life experience of the child himself or herself. Many of you will, I’m sure, be familiar with the famous passage by Dorothy Law Nolte entitled ‘Children learn what they live’, which goes like this:
If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight.
If a child lives with fear, he learns to be apprehensive,
If a child lives with pity, he learns to feel sorry for himself,
If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy.
But ...
If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement, he learns confidence.
If a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness, he lives with justice.
If a child lives with security, he lives to have faith.
If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship.
he learns to find love in the world.
In this context it is very interesting to reflect on this morning’s reading from St John’s Gospel. It is taken from the account of the Last Supper that Jesus shared with his disciples, immediately after Jesus has washed their feet: a symbolic action that is both profoundly intimate and extraordinarily powerful. And Jesus then describes the parting gift that he is leaving with them: what he describes as a ‘new commandment’.
So, what was this commandment, and what was so new about it? In order to answer this question, we need to start by going back a stage.
If I were to use the words ‘Bible’ and ‘commandments’ in the same sentence, I’m sure that most of you would immediately and automatically think of the ‘Big Ten’: some of you might even be able to tell me what they are (I may test you on this after the service!). As you will recall, God gives to the Israelites, through Moses, a list of ten Commandments: things they must and must not do. And the reason why he gives them this set of rules is very important: the Israelites are a newly liberated people, released from slavery in Egypt; and if they are going to continue to live as free people, they need to know how to live in a way that prevents them from falling into slavery again – because, of course, even as liberated people we can still become enslaved to things other than human beings: idolatry; covetousness; blood guilt, and all the rest. The Ten Commandments are a charter for a freed people.
But there are two very significant things to note about the Ten Commandments, particularly in the account given in Exodus Chapter 20. Firstly, they are imposed as it were, from the outside: God presents the Israelites with a list of things that they must and must not do, and orders them to obey. And secondly, the prevailing emotion that dominates the whole account of the giving of the Ten Commandments is fear: we are told that the Israelites are terrified when God draws close to deliver the Commandments to them; and, Moses explains to them that the reason why he has done so is, and I quote: ‘to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.’ Unfortunately, despite their pledges to obey God and be faithful to him, by the time Moses has come down from the mountain where he has been communing with the Lord, they have already fallen away and are busy worshipping the Golden Calf.
So, that is one kind of commandment: a rule imposed from the outside, sanctioned by fear. But what about our Gospel passage? Here a commandment is issued that is altogether different: the commandment that Jesus gives does not involve rules, or threats or fear. On the contrary: in the context of an intimate setting, a meal in an upper room, shared between close companions, Jesus gives them a commandment that is not a regulation, but a gift. A commandment that is delivered, not by imposition from outside, but by example: the example of a man who had removed his robe and knelt at the feet of his disciples and washed them, as a slave would have done.
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.
Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,
If you have love for one another.
The kind of relationship that Jesus opens up for us, with the God whom he made manifest, is a relationship based solely and exclusively upon love. His commandment to us shows us how to access that; and that kind of commandment does not need fear to endorse it. How could it possibly do so?
But what a strange commandment it is. It is one thing to be commanded not to have graven images, or to commit adultery, or covet one’s neighbour’s ox – but can one really be commanded to love?
Most of us are accustomed to thinking about love as an emotion over which we have no control. You will, I’m sure be familiar with the kind of classic self-justification that you hear from characters in soap operas: ‘I can’t help how I feel’. But what Jesus is talking about is something rather different. Because when Jesus is speaking about love in this context, he does not mean feelings: (It is indeed, impossible to order anybody to feel something that they don’t happen to feel); rather, he is talking about actions; about the way we conduct ourselves to one another; and not merely towards those to whom we happen to feel close, but much more importantly, the people who we struggle with most. And remember that, in washing the feet of the disciples, Jesus washes the feet of Judas, the man who he knows full well is about to betray him and bring about his death.
The love of which Jesus speaks is, in that sense, about actions, rather than feelings. And yet, I can’t help feeling that there is more to this than might at first sight meet the eye. Because, in my own experience, to strive to conduct oneself in a loving way towards another, particularly a person with whom one struggles to get on, because in so doing one is following the commandment of Jesus, can have a very extraordinary and unexpected effect: at a deep level it changes us; it changes the way we relate to the world; and when we are changed in our outlook and our attitude and our behaviour, that has a knock-on effect upon the people round us. The strange paradox is that, having learned how to behave lovingly, because we are commanded to do so; sometimes the emotion catches up in time, and, against all the odds, we come to feel that love also.
The new commandment, that we love another is costly, because it requires us, not to separate ourselves from those whom we find most difficult, but to be in relationship with them. And that is not an easy calling. But the Risen Christ comes to us with his wounds still visible; he asks nothing of us, that he has not done himself already.
In the words of today’s collect:
Risen Christ,
Your wounds declare your love for the world
and the wonder of your risen life;
give us compassion and courage to risk ourselves for those we serve,
to the glory of God the Father.
Amen.