The 19th Sunday after Pentecost
October 4, 2026
We are humans and along with other creatures of God’s creation – we are always learning. We witness this most greatly in the early years of children, as they learn at an astonishing rate how to move their bodies, how to talk, how to share, and how to experience the world around them. Even as we grow older, we still have opportunities for learning and growing as we adjust to other changing conditions – of our bodies, of our capacities or opportunities for new and deeper awareness or creative expression. We can choose to be life-long learners.
The benefits of life-long learning are many – expanding our understanding of spiritual teachings, deepening our connection and solidarity with marginalized communities, and adapting our social justice actions to a quickly changing political climate.
If we get stuck in a rut of thinking, world view, or self-image out of sync with our call, we can become stuck or spiritually bereft. Or as Wendell Berry puts it more bluntly in an essay by Parker Palmer, “We’re always beginning, or we’re dead.” This came to me through the class in the School for Christian Growth that Marjory Bankson is teaching, “What is My Call Now?” Our individual call and our collective call are integrally connected to what we are learning, about ourselves, about others, and our feelings and responses to life, through being in community and with the wider world.
Beginning, as Wendell Berry admonishes us to do, calls us to always be learning and acting for a meaningful life, which reminds me of a Buddhist phrase, “Have Beginners Mind.” Beginning entails opening ourselves to challenge, experimentation and new insights.
Moses too was learning and teaching as the Hebrew people grew in faith, learning to chose God, while they grumbled impatiently. Each time they grew fearful, a new lesson was being learned, however reluctantly. We chuckle out of our own familiarity with their resistance toward learning how to be faithful.
I am convinced that Jesus too was always teaching and learning as he stepped courageously and vulnerably into each new situation. Of course people called him Rabbi, which means teacher! Jesus’ stories, parables and wisdom sayings were taught to disciples and the crowds that gathered showing a new way of life together in community.
As I reflected on the theme of this sermon, I recalled a sermon I preached about six years ago “Training for the Kindom.” Sometimes what we’ve said before still holds true and even in new ways! I preached on the gospel text of Matthew 13 in which Jesus tells stories of what the Kindom looks like through the lens various metaphor-like parables. I was particularly inspired by the enigmatic phrase in verse 52, “training in the kindom.” My take away now is that Jesus was always teaching and learning. He drew from a deep well of wisdom to guide others by his connection with God. To quote from that sermon, “Cynthia Bougeault says, ‘He came to help people awaken.’” And what were they awakening to? She describes Jesus’ Wisdom way taught ‘a vision large enough to contain not only our minds but also our hearts and souls; an understanding of our place in the divine cosmology large enough to order and unify our lives and our planet.’”
This divine cosmology – of how we live and understand our role on Earth and with all creation connects with today’s significance for me: I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that today is the culmination of a worldwide ecumenical Season of Creation, on the Feast of St. Francis, who one of my teachers. Franciscan theology opened my heart and mind to realizing that much of my attraction to Native American Spirituality, of holding Earth as sacred, of listening to the more than human world as teachers, and honoring our Creator of all life, was already deeply rooted in Christian – especially mystical – tradition, in which the whole creation is our first teacher, long before we speak or read words. Franciscans also root theology in experience informing our understanding of God and life in Christ and that resonates with how I learn and grow in my faith. As so much in the world, ecologically and politically is unraveling we are being called ever more to draw from our spiritual roots to resource us for resilience in community as we learn how to face the time we’re living in.
I love learning and teaching. I discovered that most clearly when working for United Methodist Women, 30 years ago. I learned on the job about how to create curriculum for workshops and trainings founded upon teachings of our faith. The approach to teaching I carried with me was that of popular education which holds that with adult learners, there’s wisdom, knowledge, and experience already in the room, and when shared with others can point to new understandings! The role of the teacher is to share relevant information and evoke the wisdom of people’s experience through carefully crafted questions. I was delighted to discover that here at Seekers that pedagogy or way of teaching through participatory learning is practiced in the School for Christian Growth!
My greatest joy of teaching and learning occurs when I or participants experience “Ah-hah” moments when, as if the scales fall from our eyes, I or we see something that was there right before all the time but hidden by our perspective or attitude.
Our classes provide space to practice how to be in community together. One might use the phrase spiritual formation or a catechism in faith life. The classes often address going deeper into spiritual practice or spiritual understanding, while also – and just as importantly – grow us in deeper connection with one another. Each class is a new constellation of people, some we know more fully than others, ergo a new dynamic of interacting, learning from and about each other. And in doing so we grow also in our commitment to this particular expression of God’s beloved community.
Formerly called the School for Christian Living, Elizabeth O’Connor called it a “training ground” for being church.(1) They were and still are lessons in ways to form Christian community. And like mission groups, the classes aim to engage with God, with others and with self. The common denominator is we are always becoming and growing in our spiritual life and actions in the world, the inward and outward journey, to address as she says a “hidden hunger, giving our hearts and minds to discovering what will nurture growth in the adult.” This is what Elizabeth O’Connor cited in Call to Commitment, as “collectedness, which makes irresistible that condition of beng ‘gathered together.’” This she prophetically proclaimed is sorely lacking in our society.
I am a member of Learners & Teachers mission group whose primary task to discern what classes will be offered in the School for Christian Growth based upon the needs of the community, issues in the wider world, and most especially listening for topics or concerns that arise from within our community. We continue the tradition, those expressed in new ways, that Elizabeth O’Connor described that the classes are “grounded in the raw material of everyday… with love, and what it means to be free in the life of Christ.” Jesus taught in this way, rooted in the “raw material of everyday” experiences of the people he preached or spoke with.
Stories are a powerful means for learning and growth and finding meaning for our lives. Hearing stories or naming our own story can be a way that our soul speaks through us about our call or purpose. As mythologist and master story teller Michael Meade says:
Mythic stories weave the divine and natural realms together in ways that become antidotes for our anxieties and fears. …. stories are how we understand our lives and how we make meaning of even the most overwhelming and tragic aspects of life. At each critical juncture or time of change, the story of our soul tries to break through and become more conscious. Since myths speak to each soul differently, they can deliver to each listener the psychic facts and healing factors they most need. In that sense, stories are a form of medicine that can operate at the deepest levels of self and soul.
I believe that wrestling with the stories that Jesus tells can be medicine for our souls. In today’s gospel text we hear Jesus teaching through storytelling again. This story is another of the kindom “is like” parables and ends a series directed primarily at the religious leaders, who are indicted and sentenced to death in hell for their corrupt ways. This harsh ending is hard to make sense of. What I can venture is that Jesus is serious about inviting people, especially the leaders to take his teachings seriously, not as mere words but as an invitation to transforming one’s life in accord with his teachings. It must be viewed in the context of Jesus closing to this and subsequent groups who challenge Jesus and try to trap him in their debate to accuse him of false teaching. Through his teachings, Jesus consistently breaks open the myths and false teachings of the popular culture, which might fit the definition of idolatry that the first commandment we heard today prohibits — that more is better, aspiring materialism and individualism, along with assumptions dictated by the power structures and propaganda taught by empire builders.
As followers of Jesus we are taught to not follow the ways of empire; rather – we are called to commit to an ever growing and nurturing loving and just community, called to learn and live an “alternative orthodoxy” as Richard Rohr calls it, rooted in the experiences – “the raw material” of our daily lives – in community, living the law of love in action.
Gordon Cosby, in those early classes of the Church of the Savior, expressed that cultivation of relationship building is essential for the formation of community, especially through a diversity of voices who are needed to participate and learn together:
- Those well on the way of practicing a life in Christ, as model and guide for others, and with whom we can raise questions to benefit from their experience.
- Peers who share with whom we share common experiences, along with both hopes and discouragements, while offering support and encouragement.
- Those beginning their journey who bring their own experience and questions (2)
As he summed up: “All are necessary to our spiritual development.”
May we continue to grow and learn together, with God’s guidance teaching us how to become the beloved community that Jesus taught and the healing we potently yearn for in this fractured world. Amen
- (1) Journey Inward, Journey Outward, by Elizabeth O’Connor, p. 101
- (2) Ditto, p. 110