Where The Halls Cross
Sermon
Gospel Subplots
Story Sermons Of God's Grace
I have the two best jobs in the world. I teach social studies at Leon Griffith Junior High School (a fairly small junior high) and I am Sunday School Superintendent at Calvary Presbyterian Church (an enormous church school). Each job is my vocation. I tell people that at school they'll find my room where the halls cross. At church they can look but probably won't find me. I'll be in someone's classroom. At each job I practice what I most deeply believe: it's how you see the world that determines how you respond to it. I'll give you an example, actually, two examples.
A week ago today, Monday, I began a unit with my eighth grade class on describing a social world with an image. Last summer I studied "The Social World Through Metaphor" and I figure if adults can think this way junior high students can too. It took about twenty minutes to get the kids into images (word pictures), similes (comparisons using like or as), and metaphors (comparisons without like or as). Then I directed them to their own junior high social world and asked them to describe what student life is like at Leon Griffith. I wasn't surprised that after the class's sputtering start Josh Lampson snatched the idea and ran. "Our social world is like a video game."
"Can you explain that?"
"Well, it's all bouncing off walls and getting out of someone's way because you have to."
"I see."
"Sure," Andrea said, "if you don't you get gobbled up."
"Yeah," Josh said, "but it's not just banging around. You learn the lines and the moves. Everyone knows the game. We know when to zig and when to zag."
The discussion continued as students built variations onto the image of the junior high social world as a video game. I then asked, "Can you change the rules of the game? If you did, what would happen? What change would result in Leon Griffith Junior High being the best of all social worlds? Since how you see your world shapes how you respond to it, I want each of you to write a page using the image of the student body as a video game, and what rules you'd change to make life here better. Keep asking yourself what the new social world would look like and what image you would use to describe it."
Since Laura Epstein and I both planned a similar unit on the social world through metaphor I couldn't wait for our prep period to tell her about the first class. Mr. Tiner, our Vice Principal, came in during our conversation. "Malcom," I said, "Laura and I have been helping our eighth graders reflect upon their social world at Leon Griffith."
"Good, that's in the instructional goals."
Laura said, "But we're doing it a new way. Marian used a different methodology today. Tell him about your first class."
I related the discussion and the image of the video game. "And it was Josh Lampson who came up with the image first," I said. "The other students grasped it and expanded and explained the image."
"That Josh Lampson. He's smart, but he's a pain. I get tired of him being sent to my office. I wish he'd use his brains out of your class as well as in it. I'm sure he has masterminded pennying the faculty door. I get so frustrated finding it jammed shut and having to yank on it, then all those pennies flying out. And from the pieces of conversation I picked up in the hall last winter, I'm convinced he was the one who jammed open the outside drinking fountain and turned the parking lot into a sheet of ice. Remember that?"
"Can't forget it," Laura said. "I'm sure that will be my most vivid memory of the year -- driving in that morning to find all the cars backed up, and you directing traffic. You fell, didn't you?"
"That Lampson kid!" he said.
"Malcolm," I asked, "if you were going to describe the social world of the students at Leon Griffith, how would you do it? How do you picture student life here? What's your image?"
Mr. Tiner looked at the ceiling while he thought. "Well, I would say the social world of the students here is like a mile long chicken house in a tornado -- all dust and feathers under a giant roar."
I said, "I don't think I'll tell that one to the students." But I certainly remembered it the next day when I took the pupils farther in analyzing the social world of Leon Griffith. "Yesterday in our thinking about the social world here we used an image to describe student life. Today think again with an image -- a metaphor or simile -- that shows what the social world of the students along with faculty and staff is like."
There were a few attempts, not quite getting it into imagery, but then Josh jerked up in his seat and said, "They're like channel blockers." All the kids agreed, but I didn't understand. "They block the channels we want to watch on TV. Don't you watch TV, Miss Gerhard?" And on they went comparing the teachers to electronic technicians who fiddled with the students' televisions denying them MTV. I gave an assignment similar to the day before: "Assuming that life is pretty much determined by how you see it, how can the students change their perceptions and opinions of the teachers that would make this a better school?" Then I was off to the lounge to find Laura and Mr. Tiner. Laura, of course, was interested. Malcolm read a magazine while Laura and I considered what strategy we could use to help the students view adults more as humans and helpers than as antagonists.
Mr. Tiner put down his magazine. "Want to know how I see the adults here?"
"As a matter of fact, I was looking forward to your opinion."
"The faculty and administration together make up the staff of a concentration camp. We are all prison guards in the concentration camp. By law the kids have to come and by law we have to keep them. If they don't come they are criminals. Thus from morning till night we spend our time and energy guarding potential criminals."
I said I wouldn't share that one with my class either, but an idea was coming clear to me. After school I went to Mr. Tiner's office. He smiled, "Hi, Marian, how's the rearranging of the world going?"
"Fine, but I'm wearing a different hat."
"Okay."
"You know I'm Sunday School Superintendent, and since you went off the board of trustees a couple years ago, you haven't had a formal ministry at the church. Would you consider teaching the Junior High Boys' Class?"
"Gosh, Marian, I've got a lot to do, and I'm with these kids every day. I don't think I'm the person."
"I do. You would do an excellent job. I remember when you were a teacher. And by teaching them on Sunday it might change your relationship with them during the week. Would you at least think about it?"
"Yeah, Marian, I'll think about it."
I wasn't going to give him great gobs of time to think. I waited until I saw him the next morning entering the faculty door. He yanked on it and pennies rolled down the hall. I followed him toward his office. "Have you thought about teaching the church school class, Mal?"
"This is not the best time to request I do something for these boys. See the pennies all over? A gaggle of kids flutter by the door and cover for each other as they stick pennies between the door and jam. With a couple dozen pennies stuck in there you can hardly open the thing. You ought to enter that door sometime. I don't know if I can help these kids. And I think that Lampson boy is the ringleader."
"I don't see it that way."
"Well, Marian, I've been thinking about your images. And I've got one for you. These junior high kids are like goslings all trying to be geese. And the Lampson boy is the silliest goose of all."
I left him at that, but during prep period I promised that if he'd just teach one class I would draw up a lesson plan for him -- a simple taxonomy of questions, right out of a social science methodologies textbook applied to a Bible passage -- and he wouldn't even have to prepare. If he'd try one Sunday I'd be with him in the room. I guaranteed him I'd keep quiet if he didn't want help, but if he did I'd leap right in and do whatever I could. He wasn't as happy about it as I wished, but he agreed.
What I didn't tell him, and I was pretty sure he didn't know, was that every Sunday Josh Lampson's parents tugged him by the collar to church school. Well, not quite by his collar, but I'd see them arrive, and Josh would look as though he were a conquered warrior with a rope around his neck leading him into slavery.
I met Mr. Tiner fifteen minutes before class, oriented him to the room and schedule, and handed him the Bible study. Then after I named the rest of the boys in the class and noted the ones from Leon Griffith I added, "Josh Lampson is in this class too. You don't mind Josh being in your class do you, Mal?"
"Why no, Marian, a class without Josh would be like a picnic without ants."
I think I detected anger in his voice, but I said, "I need to greet students. I'll be back just before you start class."
I didn't get back as soon as I planned. I was not there for the introductions and niceties at the beginning of class. But I was pleased Mr. Tiner had started the boys into the Bible study and he followed my questions and rephrased them as though he'd taught the class for a decade. The class went a lot slower than I'm going to tell it; but here is a summary of the progression.
Mr. Tiner: "Okay, we've heard the story read while we followed along in our Bibles. Let's make sure we've got the facts: Who are we dealing with here? How many actors are on the Bible's stage? Especially, who do we have at the beginning of the story?"
"A lawyer and Jesus."
"Okay, yes. So let's set them aside for a minute and just look at the story Jesus told him. So who's in Jesus' story?"
"A man who gets mugged."
"Who else?"
"The guy who helps him."
"Who else?"
"The priest and the Levite."
"Yeah, and it helps to know that back then the priest and Levite were like the church's pastor and music director. Now, there's one more person mentioned."
"The innkeeper."
"The scene is set. Let's look at the church's pastor and music director. What are they like? How would you describe them?"
"They want to be cool. They sit in the stands but don't play the game. They're trying not to get involved."
"Now, the guy who stops. Notice what he's called?"
"Samaritan."
"Heard of good Samaritans? This is the fellow who started it all. And in Jesus' time Jews and Samaritans didn't get along. They had feuded for centuries. That's why Jesus uses the Samaritan in the story. So what can we say about the Samaritan? What's he like? What would you name his kind of behavior?"
"He's okay. He does what he'd want someone else to do for him."
"How are the pastor and choir director different from the Samaritan?"
"They don't care about anybody but themselves. They don't think what it would be like to be robbed and beaten and waiting for help. They might be scared that the robbers are still around."
"Why don't some people get involved in obvious human need?"
"Maybe because they've always been treated bad so they don't know any other way to act. Could be they've been beaten so much they just can't think about others. Or they're stuck up. Or they're self-centered."
"But the Samaritan goes beyond the social rules. He's supposed to hate Jews, yet he does a loving thing. Why? Why do some people love beyond their group's prejudices?"
"Their faith helps them. Maybe something God does within them."
"Can Christians today love beyond their social groups, say, blacks and whites?"
"Yes."
"Can Christians today love beyond their nations -- like Russians and Americans?"
"Some have."
"How about us? What groups are we in every week? What is our social world?"
"Junior high."
"And within the building of the junior high what are the main social groups?"
"Jocks. Nerds. Popular kids. Druggies. Teachers' pets. Quiet kids. The brains."
"Anyone else? Are you missing anyone in the junior high building?"
Josh had not said much, but he came up with this answer, "The adults: the teachers and principals and all them."
"And how can we as Christians be neighbors, and get along with all the different groups, even young and old?"
Some boys made a few one-syllable responses; but after a time Josh, speaking much more slowly than in my class at school, said, "By treating people right, even when they're different."
Mr. Tiner looked at me. I said, "Mr. Tiner, we need to end class in a minute. Do you want to read the last few verses: 36 through 37?"
Mr. Tiner read, " 'Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?' He said, 'The one who showed him mercy.' Jesus said to him, 'Go and do likewise.' "
Class ended with the usual chaos and I was off in three directions at once and just had a half second to share smiles with Mr. Tiner. I was not near him in worship so I did not see him until this morning. I could look down the hall at the faculty door and see him approach. He stopped outside, stretched his hand slowly to the knob, and gently opened the door. He looked down the hall and saw me watching him. He waved, smiled, and went into his office.
From the work I do at the crossing of the halls in Leon Griffith and as the Sunday School Superintendent at Calvary Presbyterian Church I get to see how life works and how God works. Wherever I am I try to see it all through Christ's eyes. I believe that what I have just seen is like Apollo 13 docking the Command Module to the Lunar Module, or the signing of a peace treaty where no one has lost a war, or maybe what I've seen is two wild human males tamed into friendship by their Lord Jesus Christ.
* * *
Receive the blessing: May God Almighty, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, giver of the Holy Spirit, bless you where you study and where you work, where you suffer and where you serve, now and forever. Amen.
Discussion Questions
Text: Luke 10:25-37
1. What immediate responses do you have to the story?
2. If you could have a conversation with one of the characters in this story which would you speak with and what would you ask or say?
3. Do you identify with any character in the story?
4. Has the Bible "spoken to your condition"?
5. Have you studied the Bible in the presence of people you did not like? (Do not mention names.) What was it like?
6. Has Jesus' message of love, mercy, and reconciliation made a difference in your relationships?
7. In that Christ rewrites our lives, what from this story would you like to have happen in your life?
A week ago today, Monday, I began a unit with my eighth grade class on describing a social world with an image. Last summer I studied "The Social World Through Metaphor" and I figure if adults can think this way junior high students can too. It took about twenty minutes to get the kids into images (word pictures), similes (comparisons using like or as), and metaphors (comparisons without like or as). Then I directed them to their own junior high social world and asked them to describe what student life is like at Leon Griffith. I wasn't surprised that after the class's sputtering start Josh Lampson snatched the idea and ran. "Our social world is like a video game."
"Can you explain that?"
"Well, it's all bouncing off walls and getting out of someone's way because you have to."
"I see."
"Sure," Andrea said, "if you don't you get gobbled up."
"Yeah," Josh said, "but it's not just banging around. You learn the lines and the moves. Everyone knows the game. We know when to zig and when to zag."
The discussion continued as students built variations onto the image of the junior high social world as a video game. I then asked, "Can you change the rules of the game? If you did, what would happen? What change would result in Leon Griffith Junior High being the best of all social worlds? Since how you see your world shapes how you respond to it, I want each of you to write a page using the image of the student body as a video game, and what rules you'd change to make life here better. Keep asking yourself what the new social world would look like and what image you would use to describe it."
Since Laura Epstein and I both planned a similar unit on the social world through metaphor I couldn't wait for our prep period to tell her about the first class. Mr. Tiner, our Vice Principal, came in during our conversation. "Malcom," I said, "Laura and I have been helping our eighth graders reflect upon their social world at Leon Griffith."
"Good, that's in the instructional goals."
Laura said, "But we're doing it a new way. Marian used a different methodology today. Tell him about your first class."
I related the discussion and the image of the video game. "And it was Josh Lampson who came up with the image first," I said. "The other students grasped it and expanded and explained the image."
"That Josh Lampson. He's smart, but he's a pain. I get tired of him being sent to my office. I wish he'd use his brains out of your class as well as in it. I'm sure he has masterminded pennying the faculty door. I get so frustrated finding it jammed shut and having to yank on it, then all those pennies flying out. And from the pieces of conversation I picked up in the hall last winter, I'm convinced he was the one who jammed open the outside drinking fountain and turned the parking lot into a sheet of ice. Remember that?"
"Can't forget it," Laura said. "I'm sure that will be my most vivid memory of the year -- driving in that morning to find all the cars backed up, and you directing traffic. You fell, didn't you?"
"That Lampson kid!" he said.
"Malcolm," I asked, "if you were going to describe the social world of the students at Leon Griffith, how would you do it? How do you picture student life here? What's your image?"
Mr. Tiner looked at the ceiling while he thought. "Well, I would say the social world of the students here is like a mile long chicken house in a tornado -- all dust and feathers under a giant roar."
I said, "I don't think I'll tell that one to the students." But I certainly remembered it the next day when I took the pupils farther in analyzing the social world of Leon Griffith. "Yesterday in our thinking about the social world here we used an image to describe student life. Today think again with an image -- a metaphor or simile -- that shows what the social world of the students along with faculty and staff is like."
There were a few attempts, not quite getting it into imagery, but then Josh jerked up in his seat and said, "They're like channel blockers." All the kids agreed, but I didn't understand. "They block the channels we want to watch on TV. Don't you watch TV, Miss Gerhard?" And on they went comparing the teachers to electronic technicians who fiddled with the students' televisions denying them MTV. I gave an assignment similar to the day before: "Assuming that life is pretty much determined by how you see it, how can the students change their perceptions and opinions of the teachers that would make this a better school?" Then I was off to the lounge to find Laura and Mr. Tiner. Laura, of course, was interested. Malcolm read a magazine while Laura and I considered what strategy we could use to help the students view adults more as humans and helpers than as antagonists.
Mr. Tiner put down his magazine. "Want to know how I see the adults here?"
"As a matter of fact, I was looking forward to your opinion."
"The faculty and administration together make up the staff of a concentration camp. We are all prison guards in the concentration camp. By law the kids have to come and by law we have to keep them. If they don't come they are criminals. Thus from morning till night we spend our time and energy guarding potential criminals."
I said I wouldn't share that one with my class either, but an idea was coming clear to me. After school I went to Mr. Tiner's office. He smiled, "Hi, Marian, how's the rearranging of the world going?"
"Fine, but I'm wearing a different hat."
"Okay."
"You know I'm Sunday School Superintendent, and since you went off the board of trustees a couple years ago, you haven't had a formal ministry at the church. Would you consider teaching the Junior High Boys' Class?"
"Gosh, Marian, I've got a lot to do, and I'm with these kids every day. I don't think I'm the person."
"I do. You would do an excellent job. I remember when you were a teacher. And by teaching them on Sunday it might change your relationship with them during the week. Would you at least think about it?"
"Yeah, Marian, I'll think about it."
I wasn't going to give him great gobs of time to think. I waited until I saw him the next morning entering the faculty door. He yanked on it and pennies rolled down the hall. I followed him toward his office. "Have you thought about teaching the church school class, Mal?"
"This is not the best time to request I do something for these boys. See the pennies all over? A gaggle of kids flutter by the door and cover for each other as they stick pennies between the door and jam. With a couple dozen pennies stuck in there you can hardly open the thing. You ought to enter that door sometime. I don't know if I can help these kids. And I think that Lampson boy is the ringleader."
"I don't see it that way."
"Well, Marian, I've been thinking about your images. And I've got one for you. These junior high kids are like goslings all trying to be geese. And the Lampson boy is the silliest goose of all."
I left him at that, but during prep period I promised that if he'd just teach one class I would draw up a lesson plan for him -- a simple taxonomy of questions, right out of a social science methodologies textbook applied to a Bible passage -- and he wouldn't even have to prepare. If he'd try one Sunday I'd be with him in the room. I guaranteed him I'd keep quiet if he didn't want help, but if he did I'd leap right in and do whatever I could. He wasn't as happy about it as I wished, but he agreed.
What I didn't tell him, and I was pretty sure he didn't know, was that every Sunday Josh Lampson's parents tugged him by the collar to church school. Well, not quite by his collar, but I'd see them arrive, and Josh would look as though he were a conquered warrior with a rope around his neck leading him into slavery.
I met Mr. Tiner fifteen minutes before class, oriented him to the room and schedule, and handed him the Bible study. Then after I named the rest of the boys in the class and noted the ones from Leon Griffith I added, "Josh Lampson is in this class too. You don't mind Josh being in your class do you, Mal?"
"Why no, Marian, a class without Josh would be like a picnic without ants."
I think I detected anger in his voice, but I said, "I need to greet students. I'll be back just before you start class."
I didn't get back as soon as I planned. I was not there for the introductions and niceties at the beginning of class. But I was pleased Mr. Tiner had started the boys into the Bible study and he followed my questions and rephrased them as though he'd taught the class for a decade. The class went a lot slower than I'm going to tell it; but here is a summary of the progression.
Mr. Tiner: "Okay, we've heard the story read while we followed along in our Bibles. Let's make sure we've got the facts: Who are we dealing with here? How many actors are on the Bible's stage? Especially, who do we have at the beginning of the story?"
"A lawyer and Jesus."
"Okay, yes. So let's set them aside for a minute and just look at the story Jesus told him. So who's in Jesus' story?"
"A man who gets mugged."
"Who else?"
"The guy who helps him."
"Who else?"
"The priest and the Levite."
"Yeah, and it helps to know that back then the priest and Levite were like the church's pastor and music director. Now, there's one more person mentioned."
"The innkeeper."
"The scene is set. Let's look at the church's pastor and music director. What are they like? How would you describe them?"
"They want to be cool. They sit in the stands but don't play the game. They're trying not to get involved."
"Now, the guy who stops. Notice what he's called?"
"Samaritan."
"Heard of good Samaritans? This is the fellow who started it all. And in Jesus' time Jews and Samaritans didn't get along. They had feuded for centuries. That's why Jesus uses the Samaritan in the story. So what can we say about the Samaritan? What's he like? What would you name his kind of behavior?"
"He's okay. He does what he'd want someone else to do for him."
"How are the pastor and choir director different from the Samaritan?"
"They don't care about anybody but themselves. They don't think what it would be like to be robbed and beaten and waiting for help. They might be scared that the robbers are still around."
"Why don't some people get involved in obvious human need?"
"Maybe because they've always been treated bad so they don't know any other way to act. Could be they've been beaten so much they just can't think about others. Or they're stuck up. Or they're self-centered."
"But the Samaritan goes beyond the social rules. He's supposed to hate Jews, yet he does a loving thing. Why? Why do some people love beyond their group's prejudices?"
"Their faith helps them. Maybe something God does within them."
"Can Christians today love beyond their social groups, say, blacks and whites?"
"Yes."
"Can Christians today love beyond their nations -- like Russians and Americans?"
"Some have."
"How about us? What groups are we in every week? What is our social world?"
"Junior high."
"And within the building of the junior high what are the main social groups?"
"Jocks. Nerds. Popular kids. Druggies. Teachers' pets. Quiet kids. The brains."
"Anyone else? Are you missing anyone in the junior high building?"
Josh had not said much, but he came up with this answer, "The adults: the teachers and principals and all them."
"And how can we as Christians be neighbors, and get along with all the different groups, even young and old?"
Some boys made a few one-syllable responses; but after a time Josh, speaking much more slowly than in my class at school, said, "By treating people right, even when they're different."
Mr. Tiner looked at me. I said, "Mr. Tiner, we need to end class in a minute. Do you want to read the last few verses: 36 through 37?"
Mr. Tiner read, " 'Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?' He said, 'The one who showed him mercy.' Jesus said to him, 'Go and do likewise.' "
Class ended with the usual chaos and I was off in three directions at once and just had a half second to share smiles with Mr. Tiner. I was not near him in worship so I did not see him until this morning. I could look down the hall at the faculty door and see him approach. He stopped outside, stretched his hand slowly to the knob, and gently opened the door. He looked down the hall and saw me watching him. He waved, smiled, and went into his office.
From the work I do at the crossing of the halls in Leon Griffith and as the Sunday School Superintendent at Calvary Presbyterian Church I get to see how life works and how God works. Wherever I am I try to see it all through Christ's eyes. I believe that what I have just seen is like Apollo 13 docking the Command Module to the Lunar Module, or the signing of a peace treaty where no one has lost a war, or maybe what I've seen is two wild human males tamed into friendship by their Lord Jesus Christ.
* * *
Receive the blessing: May God Almighty, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, giver of the Holy Spirit, bless you where you study and where you work, where you suffer and where you serve, now and forever. Amen.
Discussion Questions
Text: Luke 10:25-37
1. What immediate responses do you have to the story?
2. If you could have a conversation with one of the characters in this story which would you speak with and what would you ask or say?
3. Do you identify with any character in the story?
4. Has the Bible "spoken to your condition"?
5. Have you studied the Bible in the presence of people you did not like? (Do not mention names.) What was it like?
6. Has Jesus' message of love, mercy, and reconciliation made a difference in your relationships?
7. In that Christ rewrites our lives, what from this story would you like to have happen in your life?
