The next few Sunday's in church will be devoted to understanding the Ten Commandments. The 10 commandments are something that most Christians have at least a symbolic attachment to. But the evangelical conversation about the ten commandments has to do more with their display (in public places and such) than their correct understanding. Correctly understanding the Decalogue (another word for the 10 commandments) is something that most saints, past and present have gone to a lot of trouble to do. With all due comedic props to Mel Brooks, perhaps the following video is more indicative of our attitude towards the law than the reverence of Saints past.
Consider the following:
In the Reformed Community, the Heidleberg Catechism, written in 1563, is centered around the issue of comfort. The gospel is pictured, rather beautifully, as "my only comfort in life and in death." To know this comfort man must know three things (the second question tells us): 1) "The greatness of my sin and misery.", 2) "How I am set free from such sin and misery." , and 3) "How I am to thank God for such deliverance." Towards the 3rd of these ways, about 43 of the Catechism's 129 questions are devoted. The bulk of those come from the Ten Commandments (the rest from the Lord's Prayer).
In the Westminster Standards (written by the more Anglocentric Reformed folks), the 10 commandments are used not as a means of grattitude but rather as a Springboard into indicting man's sinfulness. In subject matter it moves seamlessly from talking about the gospel to the "moral law" as "the duty that God requireth of man." The statement that is "most summarily comprehended in [is] the ten commandments." Though the meaning of the Ten Commandments is essentially the same in the Westminster Shorter Catechism as the Heidelberg (See questions 39-82), there is a vastly different nuance. delivering the final sucker punch of asking "Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God?" The answer, in short, is no. It is at this point that the Catechism begins to speak about the Gospel. The commandments are viewed as a cause of needing the gospel, rather than (as in Heidlelberg) an effect of recieving it. It is important to note that these are not contradictions, just difference in emphasis.
The Anglican tradition weighs in on more of the essential nature of the Commandments. The longest treatment (but perhaps the most useful--even to us WASPY Protestants) of the Ten Commandments in all of the Catechisms is given by the Roman Catholic Church.
Martin Luther, although he is reguarded as the most anti-nomian (against the law) of the reformers, still holds up the importance of the ten commandments, not only continually mentioning them in the preface of the Small Catechism, but also beginning the entire Catechism with them.
I don't know about you. But looking at the documents that have been (and are currently) used to educate young believers in the faith, it seems like maybe we don't emphasize correct understanding of the Ten Commandments as much as we should.
May we discover the riches that lie buried in God's law.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
The Story of My Pencil Sharpener
Many of you know that I am, by profession, a Middle-School Language Arts teacher. In the front right corner of my classroom, on a small cart, there is a wire basket, which students turn their completed work into, a three-level literature rack that contains all of the day's handouts, and a black, “X-acto” brand electric pencil sharpener.
It is the pencil sharpener that I wish to talk about. It is the first in a long line of pencil sharpeners that have had a short but laborious and sordid career before being laid to rest in the Eugene J. Butler Middle School dumpster at the northern edge of the faculty parking lot. Every time that I go to sharpen a pencil and realize that the current electric pencil sharpener refuses to work, I wonder if it, in some previous life, was one of my students. Each time there has been a changing of the guards and a new pencil sharpener has been placed at its post, I give it a little speech before it's first tour:
“You have been asked to serve in the front lines. Many have come before you
and many will come after. You have been given a job that very well may cost you
your life. Godspeed, little guy ...Godspeed...”
The pencil sharpener has come to represent everything that I loathe about a job that I otherwise love. In the world of my classroom, it is a necessity. But while it is necessary, it brings with it a whole set of accompanying circumstances that I must judiciously wade my way through as I teach tech-age adolescents that look at books like they are some sort of nostalgic but unnecessary artifact that people used to have to use (like the hand-crank phonograph or the cotton-gin). Before I taught, the dynamic of teacher-student/sage-disciple/sensei-understudy/jedi-padawan was relatively simple:
- I have information that the students do not. We both understand this.
- We spend time in the same place where I talk about the said thing that I know and they do not know.
While this is the basic gist of the teaching profession, a whole set of circumstances that has something to do with the nature of these unique little snowflakes, that makes this a fraction of what actually occupies my day-to-day activities. What I did not know about middle-schoolers before I taught them in a classroom, is that a love of the written word is not a driving force in their day-to-day life.
This is the case to the point that in a gaunt room with a group of desks, a white-board, a few computers, and some peppy posters, there are literally thousands of other things that you can do besides ingesting and practicing the skills that one needs to master reading and writing the written word: drawing on a desk, text messaging, practicing jamming out break-beats by banging on a desk with your fist, fighting, and so much more. In fact there are some students who, even if it was just me and them in a plain-white room with no distractions, would gnaw their arm off before listening to my clever and insightful instruction.
It is here that I return to the pencil sharpener. At the beginning of the year, I decided that it would be a waste of time to install the hand-crank, district-issue pencil sharpeners that have a working shelf-life of about one hour, before they mysteriously fall apart or are so dull that they sharpen the pencil to where it little more effective than a large hunk of charcoal, or a reed dipped in crushed berries. Because I appreciate how technology improves our lives, and because I am not above dropping some coin on the supplies in my classroom, I spent $20 on an electric pencil sharpener at Wal-mart.
The pencil-sharpener became one of the many areas in which my role was stretched beyond teacher to legislator (creating rules for correct use), judge (deternining instances of misuse), and jury (enforcing penalties for habitual misuse). The infractions centered around three basic areas: disrespect of property, untimely usage, and disorder based around its usage. I am not sure what the “top ten most interesting things in Mr. Steigner's classroom" would be, but I am almost certain that Mr. Steigner would, in fact, be ranked below his pencil sharpener. This would seem slightly less self-abasing if you saw, in fact, how interested my students are in the electric pencil sharpener. Students wanted to use it so badly that I have actually watched some intentionally break the point of their pencil on the sole of their sneaker so that they could approach the holy of holies and sharpen it.
Initially I relied on an unspoken understanding that "this little gadget is part of the class that we all loved, and we'll treat it with respect." My governing assumptions were, as usual, misguided. When I first placed it in my room, I assumed that students would reason:
- This is a loud appliance that is near Mr. Steigner.
- Mr. Steigner wants students to hear him.
- Ergo, I will not use this while Mr. Steigner is talking.
It was soon apparent that I had over-estimated my students ability at formal logic. Logic had to be replaced by legislation:
“When you have to sharpen your pencil, and there is whole
class instruction, raise your hand and ask, and you will be told when the
soonest appropriate time to sharpen your pencil arrives.”
Hence came the first wave of the legislation, prosectution, litigation, and sentencing that would be centered around my pencil sharpener.
It was a week later when I had to replace the Wal-mart pencil sharpener with a mid-level version of Staples' line of X-acto pencil sharpeners (cost: $34) that I had to provide yet another amendment to the pencil-sharpener legislation. I noticed students who, even when sharpening their pencil would bang on the top of the contraption when it was not performing at the desired speed. I had to explain to students that while the “hit something to fix it” method may work with a television that has bad reception, or a puppy that pees on your carpet, it does not work with an electric pencil sharpener. The law was amended to include a clause to stipulate that when using the pencil sharpener:
“You may sharpen your pencil, and you may empty the small drawer of shavings, but under no circumstance may you hit, throw, or shake the pencil sharpener in Mr. Steigner's class.”
Some time later, shortly after my upgrade to the $49.99 version of the X-acto line, I noticed that when students realized that they were free to sharpen their pencil whenever it was needed when they were working independently on an assignment and the whole class was not being addressed, there arose yet another problem. When two or more students had to sharpen their pencil at the same time, there would be a race to the pencil sharpener, sometimes culminating in an argument whether prior usage should be awarded to the student who touched the pencil sharpener first, or the student who actually inserted his pencil into the pencil sharpener first. After this fight had occurred several times with varying levels of severity, I decided that it was, once again, amendment time:
“If person A realizes that their pencil needs sharpening, but they find that
person B is already en route to the pencil sharpener, person A will wait to
approach the pencil sharpener until person B is seated. When person B is seated
person A may approach the pencil sharpener, so long as they do not strike,
shake, or throw the pencil sharpener, or interrupt Mr. Steigner's whole class
instruction.”
As I am writing this, I am on my fifth electric pencil sharpener. I have spent somewhere in the range of $150 on them in the course of this year on electric pencil sharpeners alone. I should probably just get a good manual sharpener, but it sucks to downgrade, and there is something inside me that wants to see utopia bloom from this humble corner of my class. The fiery-eyed children wield their sharp pencils, writing insightful expository essays about our text du jour. I know it can work...just a couple more rules. In fact there are a couple more rules concerning pencil sharpeners that go beyond the aforementioned amendments. I can say, with near certainty, that, though there are only 10 weeks and 4 days left in the school year, there will be yet more rules as we move towards a world where every child has a sharp pencil and every pencil sharpener has dignity and appropriate use. Until then, it's just a dream.
I must admit, I am a bit doubtful that I will ever see a day that the electric pencil sharpener does not pose a problem. In fact, I'm pretty certain that the next edition will be an old-fashioned crank-set that is drilled to my wall. But this ongoing saga has given me some insight into how rules shape the state of a relationship (especially a hierarchical relationship that involves an authority and a subject) and how, in turn, the state of a relationship effects those rules. Up until this point in my life, I have been more on the consumer end of rules. Now (in the world of my classroom) I am a producer. Not only do I make rules, but I must enforce them.
This is hard. I have always been annoyed by litigious pencil-necks and nosy whistle-blowers. My mentality has always been that rules should help ensure an outcome, not be the focus of our every action. I think this is what annoys people about a “suck-up” or a “teachers-pet.” They are, by-and-large people whose merit is based on not breaking the rules. In other words, there accomplishment is not what they do, but merely what they don't do.
As we looked into the first part of Exodus 19 last week in Gardner's sermon, it seems clear that God seems that God feels exactly this way about laws. God's exacting moral laws get so exhaustive and specific throughout the rest of the book. But God is continually reminding his children of the bigger command, the bigger purpose, and the bigger promise. As a teacher infinitely better than I am, God is able to continually infuse his laws with meaning and purpose. He always connects them to our fullest life and our greatest joy. Amazingly enough, we still sometimes only see a dry list of permissions and prohibitions. Still sometimes, we sinfully keep the law, hoping that we can be a cosmic suck-up who earns special privileges. In the first part of Exodus 19 we see the preamble of what is going to be a very long and exhaustive constitution.
My experience, and Jesus' later revelation seem to indicate that God would have been happy to stop at the first commandment. Unfortunately, the human condition warrants a clearer picture of what union with God and bearing the image of God looks like. This is why this book of “boring laws” was worth the tedious lives of centuries of scribes that has now been passed down in the book of law that we now study. I sometimes wish for some of the abilities that Divinity would afford (i.e. knowing people's thoughts, turning water to wine, etc.). But I would never wish upon myself the task of having to come up with an external description for what it looks like when someone has experienced the profound inward reality of a love by God and a love for God. But God graciously and painstakingly does just that.
I have labored tediously to come to a working set of rules that describe what a life of flourishing in my classroom looks like. But in this, I have failed to see myself in the students who either obey the rules in an empty way, or manage to find a way do disobey the rules without actually breaking them. We do this all the time. We skip this precious preamble and jump straight into the letter of the law...because we are sinful. At the core we are God's treasured possession. We have the mission of being his kingdom of priests. The law is a description of people flourishing as treasured priests in a trashed world. It is not a prerequesite of God's favor. Wouldn't it be amazing if during this look at “the law” if we caught a vision how to obey it lawfully? I'm sure Satan trembles at the thought...
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