Teacher and Pupil Rodolfo Rodriguez August 8 2010 Before we start, I will tell you that although the name of this sermon is Teacher and Pupil I will be using synonyms as well as parents and kids and perhaps even boss and worker. Also because we ve had some issues between teachers and students here and I don t want that to be a distraction later, let s deal with the hard pill to swallow now, then a joke to break loose and reset our minds and hearts for a sermon free of distracting thoughts and feelings, yes? Romans 12:18 "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." The hard pill to swallow: In life, we will have teachers, bosses or authorities we don t like. In some cases we will have a choice to change to a different class, or to another school or to a different working place or company or to another city or country. In some cases we ll have no choice and will have to learn from someone we don t like or do what a boss we don t like says or have our country governed by a party we didn t vote for. Not liking someone is NO reason to stop learning or for not doing our job, much less for acting against the laws of our country. Sometimes not liking the person will help us learn faster by concentrating more in the subject or matter and less in the relationship. Or by doing our job impeccably well so we get to see our boss the least possible or by focusing more in us and our family life and less in politics. In many cases we will learn to like the person just by knowing them better. In any case the word says we have to obey our masters, authorities and governors. And we also are to love others as ourselves, even our enemies. Matthew 22:36-40 Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?
Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the Prophets. Rom. 12:14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rom. 14:19 Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. VICKY FREIRE was the director of my school and also my teacher 2 years, when I was 13 and 14 years old, then she left to Spain and I moved to a different school for high school. Friday I learned through facebook that she is visiting Mexico City this weekend, 24 years later, and my ex-classmates are taking her to lunch today. My first impression of her, 20some years ago, was not too positive as she was strict and having to deal with some pretty tough groups of teenagers. This is one example 8TH GRADE. But by the time she and her family left, my admiration for her was great. A few drops rolled down my cheeks then and the void she left in my heart is still present today that I m not able to see her and the crowd of students at one of my favorite restaurants, El Caballo Bayo. I ve had many other teachers in life, some of them were funny and friendly but most of them I don t even remember their names and didn t have a significant impact in my life. As we grow we also go through different stages with our parents. First they are everything, then our heroes, then as teenagers they become ogres and unwise creatures, etc. but as we grow older we realize they were right in their appreciations and advice, then comes empathy when we have our own kids, etc. Exodus 20:12 Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
Anyway, we are getting ready for the joke but the point I want to make is that we might not always have a chance to choose our teachers but we always have a chance to choose our attitudes. I will be talking mostly from the perspective of a student from now on but know that it applies to the other ones too. Joke: Venancio returns from asia Ok, please leave Pacorro s face and everything else aside, reset your minds and hearts and let s pray before we start. I saw the new Karate Kid movie the other day and I liked it a lot. Will Smith s kid makes a wonderful job as The Karate Kid. It is about a kid that moves from the States to China, and that alone is interesting and helps the viewers feel empathy with the kid and feel his frustration, fears and impotence. I strongly suggest that you go see it. Anyway, I saw the first Karate Kid movie some 25 years ago and liked it a lot too. In that original one I felt closer to the kid s situation, the bullies, the attraction with the girlfriend and at the same time the not knowing how to deal with it or her, the thirst for learning and doing, the desperation of doing whatever Mr. Miyagi told him to do, which made no sense at all for the first half of the movie or more. I even felt as being taken advantage by him when he had him sand down and paint the fence, floors, etc. of his enormous property and house, etc. Also in the first one, the kid was on his environment and the teacher was an outsider, a foreign master teaching the magic secrets that could solve our overwhelming problems as kids. With this new version, I felt closer to the teacher s situation, the dealing with a kid who is impatient, reckless, wanting instant results, who s rude and disobedient with his mom, etc. On the other hand this teacher is also dealing with a kid who s going through difficult times in his new environment, having to deal with some nasty bullies and discovering too that love is friendship set on fire sometimes. I felt the frustration, the patience and the responsibility of the teacher implied in getting involved with a foreign kid and trying to help him deal with lots of complicated and risky issues, a kid who complaints about everything and questions everything he s asked to do. I won t say more for the sake of the people that haven t seen the movie but you get the picture.
These two movies are 25 years apart and the relationships represented between these two teachers and these two pupils have just been going around in my mind for over 2 weeks now. Those of you who know me a little better already know that my mind is NOT a very stable environment, especially for a stubborn idea to be. Those of you who don t know me very well have probably realized that by now or will before we finish. The first thing that became clear was the enormous difference in the relationship between a teacher and his pupil 25 years ago and now. We see it in our schools, in our homes between parents and kids, in our laws, in the news and in e-mailed power point presentations we all get once in a while. But for me to see it in the big screen was shocking. Maybe they had to shoot the movie on the other side of the world for that reason, to make it less obvious. Today, to put someone else s kid to sand down and paint our home and give a car as a present or payment for it to a teenager like in the first movie could put us into lots of troubles if not into jail, wouldn t it? And if we go back another 10 years to say Star Wars, the relationship between a Master Jedi and an apprentice (even the name) was of total ownership and total responsibility on the master side and total obedience and trust on the apprentice side. No questioning, just doing. Anyway, that was just the briefing so don t think too much about the differences over time because we are not going to talk about them, and because those are things out of our control anyway. What we WILL talk about are the coincidences over time and about concepts that do not change and about things we can do something about. Attention and practice are very important: As students WE are responsible of paying attention to our instructor. That s it. In real life, in the joke and in the movies discussed before, attention and practice were key issues. No matter if we are learning kung fu, math, to swim, to drive, to do surgery or to play an instrument, attention and practice are our responsibility. The joke is just a reminder of what happens when we don t put attention or don t practice enough.
So both karate kids were asked to do things that didn t make sense at first but became key lessons later. The kid did its part by listening and obeying, the master by knowing what the kid needed to work out in muscles and reflexes. Likewise when we are learning to drive in the middle of the dessert it doesn t make sense to put the turning signals on but the teacher is thinking ahead, if the student does what the teacher says, even reluctantly, and makes a habit to put the turning signals on, he or she will NOT forget to turn them on when the driving test comes or ever after. If we want to be surgeons, cleaning, checking, organizing and counting instruments may not make much sense, it may cause us to dislike the teacher or the subject all together but later that habit will help us discover a damaged instrument before we open a body or to discover we re missing one instrument before we close the body with instruments in it. Chores that don t make sense at first become habits that are vital later. The same thing happens with obedience and attitudes: Our obligation as student is also to obey the teacher, follow the rules and have a good attitude towards the team, the classmates, the objectives, etc. Many times that is as important as the knowledge, the attention and the practice or even more. In the army, for example, chores or punishments like doing pushups or cleaning bathrooms are used by teachers to help future soldiers realize that and learn to control their tempers BEFORE dying because of them. Of course a young to-be-soldier will see them as absurd, unjust and a way to ridicule him or her before others. But over time that will help to build character, a good and reliable team member, etc. Heb. 12:6 The Lord disciplines those he loves All these things make us grow and help us become better persons. Sometimes to drop from school or from the army or from college or from a job or from the seminar because we can t stand our teacher or boss or workloads may seem the only option but think twice. Where will I be in 1 years or 5 years if I drop and where will I be if I comply with this teacher and stay? Proverbs 4:23 "Be careful how you think. Your life is shaped by your thoughts."
If our parents, teachers and leaders can see what is good for us and if by putting attention, practicing and obeying with a good attitude even if we don t understand we can learn so much from them, How much more can our Father who is in heaven know about what s best for us Proverbs 22:17-19 Incline your ear and hear the words of a wise, And apply your heart to my knowledge; For it is a pleasant thing if you keep them within you; Let them all be fixed upon your lips, So that your trust may be in the Lord; I have instructed you today, even you. Or our Master and savior Jesus Christ be what s good for us and how much more should we put attention, practice and obey them with a good attitude even when we don t understand? John 15:5 "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. And how much more should we trust in their love for us and their knowledge of what s best for us in particular and mankind in general. Romans 838-39 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. God has given us a clear manual of instructions for us to read and practice. Joshua 1:8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
God also provided us with, a wonderful mind equipped with wi-fi, able to connect on line with Him 24 hours 7 days a week from any spot in the universe, in case we fly outside of the planet or simply are in the moon at any given time a body we can use to pray to Him, to give praises to Him and even to listen by simply being quiet and attentive enough. 2 John 1:6 This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning you should walk in it. We were made in resemblance to Him and are His children and disciples. Let s put attention to His teachings and put them to practice. Let s trust and obey with a positive attitude, trust in His wisdom and the circumstances He surrounds us with, and the teachers, the superiors and authorities He places over us. And let us be good teachers to those around or under us that we can help. Jeremiah 31:34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more When Christ was on earth and even after his crucifixion when He appeared before His disciples several times, teaching was he s priority. John 14:6 "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" Shouldn t ours be to learn? Why did Jesus have to disappear? John 3 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Couldn t he have stayed longer? He could, but he didn t because it s all part of the education of his last 40 days on Earth - how to manage without his bodily presence from now on; exactly the same as we have to do some 2,000 years on. John 20:31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. But he is with us still by his Spirit; he is with us as we fellowship with him in worship and, in obedience to his command, as we remember him. Romans 10:9 That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved And let s never forget that he has a plan. Revelation 214 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away Lets pray: Heavenly father, obedience is not an easy thing. Please help us to do your will and follow your instructions, even when we do not understand what your plan is or what you have prepared for us and what you are preparing us for. Let us be enthusiastic students of your word and disciples of your son Jesus Christ. Let us also comply with the laws of our countries, workplaces, schools, families and teams in obedience to you and to obey our leaders, bosses, teachers and parents in obedience to you. Let us be examples to those around us and let us learn from you and from our earthly teachers. Please also give wisdom to those leading and teaching to do so according to your will, to your love and in obedience to you. We pray in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen
GOD BLESS YOU ALL!!