Higher Education in a Christian Life
Preached at Hanover Street Presbyterian Church
On August 29, 2004
Higher Education Sunday
By the Rev. Thomas C. Davis, III, Ph.D.
Texts:
Proverbs 4: 7
The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever else you get, get understanding.
Psalm 51: 6-10
You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
Luke 2: 41-52
Now every year his [Jesus'] parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as ususal for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day's journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found hinm in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, "Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.," He said to them, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.
Sermon Text
Last week we honored the scholarship recipients from Hanover and sent them off to school with our blessing. Some of them are in their last year of college, and some are just beginning. I wrote in a personal note to one of the beginners that her college years would probably be the freest in her life. "You will have relatively few responsibilities," I told her, and more opportunities to explore yourself and the world than you will ever have again. Enjoy!"
Maybe some of you can't wrap your mind around that thought: that a person could actually enjoy school. Maybe school wasn't a pleasure for you, but drudgery, something you were just glad to be through with? That's all right. Not everybody's cut out for book learning. But this morning I want to celebrate the value of higher education in a broader and deeper sense. When I speak of higher education this morning, I don't just mean book learning that may lead to certificates or degrees. Rather, I mean any capability that you might wish to acquire not for a credential, but simply because you want to know about something that you don't already; or, you want to be able to do something that you can't yet; or you want to be connected to something or someone, but don't have the understanding needed to make that connection. Hunger for understanding and wisdom -- that's what I mean by "higher education." Anyone who wants to build upon the foundation of his or her schooling is engaged in higher education, not just college and university students. Anyone in search of understanding and wisdom is engaged in his or her own higher education.
This morning, I you to consider with me this question: What role does higher education, thus defined, play in a Christian life? Another way to put the question is this: If you want to be a Christian, why keep learning? Why not just rest on your Sunday school faith? Some people would say that you're better off just sticking with what you were taught as a child. Why run the risk of losing that faith by delving into stuff that some say is too complicated, or else, dangerously subversive? Why not just stick to the "old time religion"?
Well, look at Jesus when he was twelve years old, almost ready for his bar mitzvah. You remember the story. He turned up missing after his parents visited Jerusalem for a pilgrimage. And where did they find him? In the temple, of course, discussing scripture with the elders, engaging in higher education. This was not an unusual thing for a Jew to do. The church is an offshoot of a people who were remarkably literate. I'm speaking, of course, of the Jewish people. Not only did Jews prize reading; they also prized study, questioning, religious debate. If you peruse commentaries of Jewish rabbis from ancient days onward you will notice that they haven't demurred from questioning conventional teaching. The earliest Christians, who for the most part were Jewish, continued this ancient tradition of respectful disputation. They went to great pains to demonstrate that Jesus was their long awaited Messiah. If Peter or Paul had stuck to their old time religion, their new way of reading the Jewish scriptures, the Christian way, would never have gained credibility. Our religion is the product of faithful people who were passionately engaged in higher education. That's one good reason why we should not fear it--because higher education has been integral to the Christian walk from the very beginning.
I'm proud to say that our PCUSA branch of the Christian family has continued this historic commitment to higher education. Presbyterians founded some of the early colleges and universities in America, including Princeton in the mid seventeen hundreds, and Davidson a century later. The Presbyterian motto is "Reformed and always being reformed." This means that we are open to new ways of understanding the scriptures and the traditions of worship which we have inherited. We have a progressive faith, because the Holy Spirit leads us to deeper and broader insights. And we believe that learning strengthens rather than weakens our faith.
Of course, for nearly two centuries American Presbyterians have argued with each other about just how critically we should study the Bible and our religious heritage. A national committee has been formed to help preserve the peace, unity, and purity of our church. The very existence of this committee is proof that we are not of one mind about the role of higher education in our faith. Indeed, if you look beyond our denomination, you will see that religious communities all over the world are struggling in a similar way. Modernism is threatening old time religion. The natural sciences and social sciences have challenged thoughtful people to question the literal truth of their religious traditions; and this challenge is being vigorously resisted by old school proponents in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities alike. This new millennium, which is inflamed by global holy war, is not just a crucial time because of the struggle between radical Islam and the West. No, a much broader struggle is is underway, a struggle between those who want to sustain the educational momentum of the Enlightenment, and those who want to shut it down, a struggle between those who believe that higher education is a good thing, and those who fear it and want either to silence it or at least rein it in to make it serve orthodoxy. This century will probably determine whether the major religions of the world can continue in a progressive direction, or else, be dissipated by secularism, or suppressed by fundamentalism.
Another reason why we Presbyterians should continue our historic commitment to higher education is that if we do not, our beloved church will surely lose the next generation. Indeed, we are already seeing the exodus of our offspring. I am startled by the number of children of my clergy friends who have left the church. Neither of my sons is involved anymore in church. What's going on? The reasons for this exodus are probably varied and complex. But, let me speak about my sons. The main reason they have left is that church doesn't make sense to them anymore. It's old worldish, and they are children of a modern, or some would say, a post-modern era. To them, singing songs or saying creeds or praying prayers that are based upon a prescientific view of the universe seems odd and dishonest. My sons are staunch advocates for social justice. They have definitely absorbed the ethical aspects of the Presbyterian faith in which they were nurtured. But the metaphysical aspects of that faith they have definitely rejected.
Now, some would say that that's good reason to protect our young people from the acids of modernity. They would advise sending our college bound kids to Bible colleges, where their faith will be reinforced and strengthened, instead of challenged and undermined. But, this parent, for one, doesn't believe that that will work. I believe that the only thing that will attract bright and questioning young people back to our church is a practice of the Christian faith which does make sense in a post-modern world. And I believe that the peace and the unity and the purity of our beloved church cannot be preserved by beating the drums of orthodoxy harder in order to scare errant sheep back into the fold. To the contrary, what will strengthen the peace unity and purity of our church is an even greater emphasis on higher education, so that our faith gets reformed in a direction that makes sense to our children and grandchildren.
Now, let me bring this sermon home. What does a commitment to higher education mean to the people of this church? We are supporting our high school graduates by awarding scholarships, and that's a very admirable contribution. But what else could we be doing?
Another major contribution we could make to higher education would be for us to support our adult Christian education program much better than we do. Only a handful of adults regularly attend Sunday school. What's the problem? Is the time inconvenient? Are the classes uninteresting? Or, do grown-ups at Hanover simply feel that they've learned all that needs to be learned, and that Sunday school is just for children? If older Christians show little interest in continuing their religious education, is it any wonder that their maturing offspring are leaving the church because most of the older church people they know seem satisfied with their childhood faith? If we want to retain our children in church, we have to continue learning ourselves, so that we can engage them in vital spiritual conversation.
Another significant contribution toward higher education would be for us to restock our library. We needn't do that all at once. But if our members would see fit to place a new book in the library from time to time, perhaps in memory of a loved one, eventually that space back there wouldn't just be used for committee meetings and summer worship overflow. It would become again an inviting place to read and do research. Thanks to Ollie and Ellen, we now have the capability to connect the computer to the Internet. We have a good start on enabling our library to serve once again as a library.
The final contribution we could make to higher education is very basic. We could set an example for our young people by reading often, and even reading aloud to each other. The ability to speak well and write well is declining in our society, chiefly because fewer people read enough. Reading puts the sound of good language in one's head. There's no doubt about this decline of literacy. Why, even radio commentators and newspaper journalists these days are making stupid mistakes in vocabulary and grammar. This impoverishment of language will surely have political as well as aesthetic consequences, for people who cannot read and write intelligently lose the ability to think intelligently; and in the long run, that will surely jeopardize our freedom, folks.
A good deal of this decline in verbal acuity must be blamed on T.V. addiction. Seven hours of television a day the average American watches! We have surrendered our hearts and minds to the tube, which mesmerizes us with sensational and increasingly violent and vulgar slop. Each of us could make a very significant contribution to higher education by turning off the T.V. and reading more. Of course, that would require us to exercise our critical faculties and our creative imaginations more. And that discipline, church, would help us resist being beguiled and manipulated by gigantic commercial conglomerates more interested in money than truth. Reading helps to subvert systems of domination. Contribute to higher education. Question authority. Read!
The Hebrew people from whom we are spiritually descended cherished reading, writing, charitable and respectful disputation, understanding, and wisdom. We can have none of these if we abandon our commitment to higher education, not just higher education for the young whom we send off to college, but for ourselves as well. On this special emphasis Sunday featuring higher education, let us pursue wisdom and understanding by renewing our commitment to higher education.
