Something along those lines, “You can’t learn what you don’t already know,” was one point of an E. P. Sanders retrospective on his teaching career. (Anybody have the link for that? It was a talk he gave at Duke a year or so ago.)
I discovered afresh this weekend that this is absolutely true. We hear what we think we are going to hear. Especially when we’re listening to something we think we already know about.
Have you ever been in a situation where you thought someone was going to say one thing, but said something else? And have you ever then not been able to recall what they actually did say because you remember your own expectation more vividly?
I spoke this weekend to a college group about the resurrection of Jesus. Among the implications of “new creation” that I outlined was that God’s work of redemption occurs not just with respect to individuals but also with respect to communities and also then with respect to the whole created order (natural, social, etc.).
Or, if you won’t take my word for it, “He comes to make his blessings known far as the curse is found,” where “far as” entails everything, starting with the dirt and going on up to God.
Folks were with me, tracking, not watching too many of the passers by on the beach (yeah right)… But then I sent them to talk for a few minutes in small groups about these questions:
- Where is there “darkness” or “curse” or “fallenness” in the corners of the world you inhabit?
- What would new life look like in such a situation?
- How might you [in a cross-shaped way?] be an agent of that new life?
Interestingly, every response I got was looking at the larger setting of the world, or the felt needs, as means to the end of bringing about the conversion of another individual. The corporate and cosmic potential of new creation in the resurrected Christ fell entirely on deaf ears.
What does this mean?
For one thing, it reawakened me to the need to keep working for a transformed idea of what “gospel” means among the evangelicals with whom I run. It’s not just about personal conversion and forgiveness of sins so that I’m in a right relationship with God. It’s also about feeding, healing, restoring so that the world experiences rectification.
For another, it reinforced the fact that teaching and learning are hard work. Maybe this is why teaching is the best kind of learning…
