Sometimes God uses crazy circumstances to change us.
Because sometimes, and I know this will come as a shock to some of you, a few of us are, well, a bit hardheaded.
Sometimes we think we know it all.
Sometimes, we have always done it a particular way, and we are really comfortable doing it our way, and we are not really open to doing something new.
But God wants to show us that there are not only other ways, but that God really likes using ways that surprise us and teach us, and open us up to God’s renewing presence, and enable not only to grow in new ways, but to also reach new people who can’t be reached doing the same old, same old.
As some of you know, my spouse Sue retired from teaching this past year, and on Tuesday will NOT be going to the Superintendent’s day at Minisink Valley Central School System. God help us all!
Sue was trained first as a physical education teacher, a job she never actually worked at, and then after a small inheritance from her parents, and Brian being in High School and Katie in Middle School, she went back to get her M.S. in Special Education.
The reality is that Sue has always and forever been a teacher. She teaches not so much by intention, but by inspiration. She simply desires - deep in her soul - to help others understand how to do things, so they can do them too, and get as much enjoyment out of them as she does.
How to ride a paddleboard, plant a garden, do auto repairs, crochet at 100 miles an hour without looking at the project while being a lefty.
So, working to teach an adult or a child how to learn to do something when they don’t learn things in the same way everyone else does, is perfect.
I remember, years ago, folks talking about one special education teacher who seemed to think that the way to help a special education student understand was to take them to a smaller classroom and give them the same instructions that didn’t understand before, but do it in a louder voice!
Remember: If special education students could learn the way regular education students did, they would be regular education students!
You heard that I assume?
Special education students don’t learn some things in the way that many of us do. To them, the instructions don’t make sense. They would love to learn the traditional way, but can’t for all kinds of reasons. But what is needed if we want them to learn is different instructions!
And I kind of hope you are beginning to see where this is going.
It may be, and I’m just testing the waters here, that in God’s Kingdom, some of us are special ed students. We need the basic instructions delivered in a special way. Kind of like Peter, who God though needed a dream filled with inedible food, non-kosher food, that he was told to get up and eat. “Gross”, he thought! “No”, God said, “yummy and good for you!”
Sue was teaching 7th & 8th grade science and social studies. As a person with a B.A. in History and who’s senior thesis was on the Presidency of John Quincy Adam’s, why social studies. I may have had to write her History Class paper in college. Just saying.
But science? Yeah!
Sue loves earth science, she actually has her own rock collection. She loves biology, even had a bug collection. He mother was a Zoology major in college, her father a Chemical engineer.
And when it comes to explaining concepts to Special Ed students, she excels, particularly when they do their homework, show up to class and have parental support; none of which happen all that frequently.
But her absolute trump suit is laboratory experiments.
You can teach the formula for finding the volume of an irregular object.
Yawn, I’m already asleep. Or…
You can demonstrate it!
God’s people struggle with the very clear teachings of Jesus that we are to go into all the world and invite others, from cultures and languages and nations and lifestyles that are radically different than our own.
We are told, even commanded to call others into discipleship with us, to come and sit at the table with us, to worship with us, to be filled with the spirit with us, and even to show us how to be faithful disciples when we get stuck!
And when we get stuck, God often tries to get us unstuck. Sometimes with a gentle sermon, a thought in prayer, a hymn that we keep singing but don’t seem to notice is asking us to do something.
And sometimes God has to go a step farther and go full Dinozo on us, and sometimes God just has to introduce us to differentiated instruction, understanding the gospel, in a new, vibrant, life-changing way.
Because far too often we think, we have it all together.
Our traditional way of doing stuff is blessed and sacred.
We thinking we are the church when we aren’t being the church!
Because the church filled with the spirit is always in motion, changing with the power of the spirit to be able to reach new people and new generations and invite them to come and follow Jesus with us.
No hiding in cocoons allowed!
No resting on a great history of being out there and doing it - when we aren’t out there doing it now!
So…
Do you know how to measure the volume of an irregular object?
You heard that I assume?
Special education students don’t learn some things in the way that many of us do. To them, the instructions don’t make sense. They would love to learn the traditional way, but can’t for all kinds of reasons. But what is needed if we want them to learn is different instructions!
And I kind of hope you are beginning to see where this is going.
It may be, and I’m just testing the waters here, that in God’s Kingdom, some of us are special ed students. We need the basic instructions delivered in a special way. Kind of like Peter, who God though needed a dream filled with inedible food, non-kosher food, that he was told to get up and eat. “Gross”, he thought! “No”, God said, “yummy and good for you!”
Sue was teaching 7th & 8th grade science and social studies. As a person with a B.A. in History and who’s senior thesis was on the Presidency of John Quincy Adam’s, why social studies. I may have had to write her History Class paper in college. Just saying.
But science? Yeah!
Sue loves earth science, she actually has her own rock collection. She loves biology, even had a bug collection. He mother was a Zoology major in college, her father a Chemical engineer.
And when it comes to explaining concepts to Special Ed students, she excels, particularly when they do their homework, show up to class and have parental support; none of which happen all that frequently.
But her absolute trump suit is laboratory experiments.
You can teach the formula for finding the volume of an irregular object.
Yawn, I’m already asleep. Or…
You can demonstrate it!
God’s people struggle with the very clear teachings of Jesus that we are to go into all the world and invite others, from cultures and languages and nations and lifestyles that are radically different than our own.
We are told, even commanded to call others into discipleship with us, to come and sit at the table with us, to worship with us, to be filled with the spirit with us, and even to show us how to be faithful disciples when we get stuck!
And when we get stuck, God often tries to get us unstuck. Sometimes with a gentle sermon, a thought in prayer, a hymn that we keep singing but don’t seem to notice is asking us to do something.
And sometimes God has to go a step farther and go full Dinozo on us, and sometimes God just has to introduce us to differentiated instruction, understanding the gospel, in a new, vibrant, life-changing way.
Because far too often we think, we have it all together.
Our traditional way of doing stuff is blessed and sacred.
We thinking we are the church when we aren’t being the church!
Because the church filled with the spirit is always in motion, changing with the power of the spirit to be able to reach new people and new generations and invite them to come and follow Jesus with us.
No hiding in cocoons allowed!
No resting on a great history of being out there and doing it - when we aren’t out there doing it now!
So…
Do you know how to measure the volume of an irregular object?
First you get an empty 55-gallon drum that has been used for food and has been cleaned out good…
And then you convince the janitor to put a spout on it an inch or so down from the top…
And then you convince said janitor to put the drum out in a flat, level place and fill it with water so it can warm up and drain off safely when you are done…
Then you recruit a student to put on their bathing suit and come to the class with their swim goggles and a towel…
Because the student, who is an irregular object, is going to slowly lower him or herself into said drum, while the other classmates measure in graduated cylinders the volume of the displaced water until said swimmer is completely immersed…
Because if special ed students could learn the way regular education students did, they would be regular education students!
And sometimes, the church needs to hear the basic biblical instructions in a new way, in order to understand to what we are being called.
And then you convince the janitor to put a spout on it an inch or so down from the top…
And then you convince said janitor to put the drum out in a flat, level place and fill it with water so it can warm up and drain off safely when you are done…
Then you recruit a student to put on their bathing suit and come to the class with their swim goggles and a towel…
Because the student, who is an irregular object, is going to slowly lower him or herself into said drum, while the other classmates measure in graduated cylinders the volume of the displaced water until said swimmer is completely immersed…
Because if special ed students could learn the way regular education students did, they would be regular education students!
And sometimes, the church needs to hear the basic biblical instructions in a new way, in order to understand to what we are being called.
And Peter said, “These Gentiles have been given the Holy Spirit, just as we have! I am certain that no one would dare stop us from baptizing them.” So, Peter ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and they asked him to stay on for a few days.”
Sometimes God asks us to step up and out of our cocoons, so God can use us as the Spirit-filled disciples he has made us, butterflies if you will, ready to make new friends and new disciples in all kinds of crazy places.
But only if you are willing!
So, are you willing?
Amen!
Sometimes God asks us to step up and out of our cocoons, so God can use us as the Spirit-filled disciples he has made us, butterflies if you will, ready to make new friends and new disciples in all kinds of crazy places.
But only if you are willing!
So, are you willing?
Amen!
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