Teachers and teaching have existed as long as humankind. Early man taught his children how to survive -- how to hunt, how to plant and harvest, how to provide shelter and protection, how to fight, how to raise his family in the tribal ways. Learning and teaching took a great stride forward in classical Greece 450 years before Christ with the arrival of Socrates and his brilliant student, Plato. The radiant light of learning was passed on from Plato to Aristotle, and the world ever since has been their beneficiary. Teaching and learning declined in the so-called Dark Ages and Medieval period, only to be revived by the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment. Public schools, colleges, and universities began to proliferate across the landscape of Western Civilization to cause the general educational level to rise like a giant tide lifting all of life to a higher plane.

Only a few short years ago education was an option in this country, but now it is law. And in this great nation we have more students in college or university than ever before anywhere in history. Learning is a way of life, teaching an honored and powerful profession. But it is an increasingly difficult profession. Some believe a college is best defined as a log with an earnest student on one end and a brilliant, sympathetic teacher on another. Others scoff at such simplistic notions as they proudly point to their highly technical learning laboratories and complex information retrieval systems.

Not only is educational theory debated; educational practice is positively staggering. Think for a moment of the amount of information available. Our federal government, for example, generates over 100,000 reports each year, in addition to over 450,000 articles, books, and papers. Who on earth reads all that? Add to that the 60,000,000 pages a year of scientific and technical literature produced in the world plus the 365,000 books written each year, and you have an absolutely overwhelming amount of information. Furthermore, the information, the amount of knowledge, doubles every ten to fourteen years! (cf. Alvin Toffler, Future Shock, p. 30 ff.)

Who on earth is going to sort all that out? How are they going to decide what to leave out? Who will teach it and how? Furthermore, what possible relevance does Jesus, a somewhat archaic Galilean teacher of over 1,900 years ago, have for us today amidst all our new information? Years ago his hearers were amazed at what he had to say and remarked that he taught them as one having authority, not as the scribes and Pharisees. They all recognized it as a new kind of teaching.

Even amidst the avalanche of information today, I believe his words still come across as a new kind of teaching, and Jesus as a new kind of teacher.

I.

For one thing Jesus' teaching was new because it involved commitment, not just comment.

You probably remember the old definition of a lecture as the process wherein the information in the professor's notes is transferred to the student's notebooks without going through the minds of either! That often is the case with teaching that is mere commentary. It assumes, like the old scribes and Pharisees, that truth is to be found only in the musty pages of the past. Consequently, teaching degenerates into a boring recitation of what someone else thought years ago, adding a little here, subtracting a little there.

Many teachers are mere technicians of information, rearranging facts and opinions in new ways, without ever taking a stand existentially, saying here is where I stand, here is where I stake my life. Colleges, universities, and graduate schools can become mere junctions of information and dispatchers of knowledge without ever being creative and existential, and thus authoritative. When Martin Luther began publishing abroad his new teaching, the time came for him to take a stand and he took it. The gentle and scholarly Erasmus advocated many of the same ideas as Luther, but he had not the courage to take his stand so boldly. Scholars sometimes quip, somewhat inaccurately, that Luther hatched the egg Erasmus laid. Nevertheless, when Luther was called before all the ecclesiastical and political power of medieval Europe to answer for his teachings, as to whether they were his, he replied: "I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. Amen." No wonder Luther's teaching had a ring of authority heard all over the world. He staked his life on it. Amidst the blizzard of information available today, you can be sure we are on to something significant when the teacher begins to stake his reputation, even his life, on it. Talk is one thing, but commitment to the subject matter of the talk is quite another.

As in Luther, so in Jesus we have a man who takes a stand on what he is saying. Many of the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus' time taught dogmatically, which is to say, out of a rigid past and unimaginative present. Consequently, even though they taught dogmatically, they did not teach authoritatively, because they were not themselves existentially involved. They did not really enter into the situation. They gave textbook, stale answers. The hard, agonizing questions of life were referred to superficial solutions of the past, the pat approaches of a dry faith.

Not so with Jesus. He took the risk, entered into the situation, moved beyond the outdated rigidities, and spoke to the present need with clarity, insight, and conviction. When he spoke, you knew he was sincere, and not just mouthing the party line. You had the feeling that, if necessary, he would stake his life on what he was saying. He was not just a spectator-commentator observing the news. He was committed to making the news. His was a new kind of teaching.

II.

Note further, Jesus' teaching had authority because he regarded his hearers with concern, not with contempt.

Once in a while when I am out of the city someone will suggest I record my sermon in advance to be played on Sunday. Imagine that! I never do, because I always am reminded of a cartoon I once saw. The first panel of the cartoon showed a professor lecturing to a full classroom. The next picture shows a full classroom of students, but no professor. In his place was a tape recorder, giving his words of wisdom for the day. In the next picture, the professor's recorder is again giving out his lecture, but this time in place of a roomful of students, we have a roomful of students' tape recorders impersonally recording the impersonal lecture!

College and university students of today have suffered considerably from lack of exposure to top-notch teachers who personally care about them. Frequently students will enroll in certain institutions to study under their renowned authorities, only to discover they rarely, if ever, see them. Usually they are left to the devices of an unknown graduate assistant, or they listen to the outstanding authority along with 600 others in the once-a-week lecture series. Frequently our best scholars are caught up in research and publishing, with little personal contact or apparent concern for their students.

Other scholars show contempt for their learners by being as obscure as possible. They teach in riddles and play games to make learning unnecessarily difficult. This very often exhibits the defensiveness and insecurity of the professor. He may be threatened by the brilliance of his students and thus cloaks his limited knowledge in pretentious sophistication.

Jesus never played those kind of games with people. Rather he manifested a deep concern for all who would learn from him. He used simple stories drawn from the experiences of daily life to illustrate his deepest truths. He exhibited far more concern for the message of the Kingdom than for his reputation. Far from withdrawing to an inner circle of intellectual elitism, he ventured out into the countryside and marketplaces and synagogues to make known his views. He loved people and wanted to help them, so he spoke as plainly as possible. No wonder, then, that "the common people heard him gladly."

Most all disciplines of learning have their own jargon. Technicians, doctors, economists, lawyers, theologians, and ministers have their in-group language. A man once told me he never could figure out what ministers were talking about until he studied a little philosophy. Admittedly, some sermons are like reading an insurance policy or legal contract. You never are quite sure what has been said. Perhaps we all withdraw into the security and protection of our businesses and professions because we are afraid and want to protect our corner on things by being obscure.

But Jesus' teaching had a ring of authority, a newness, because he was concerned about his hearers. He wanted them to understand, to know, to learn. So concerned was he that he risked himself, shared himself with his audience. No phony manipulation on his part. No false, gimmicky tricks to get his people to open up while he remained closed. Rather, with him we find a genuine openness, an inner confidence. When we listen to him, we encounter an authentic person, not a shifty, money-grubbing writer of pseudo-books. No wonder his was a new kind of teaching. It was the authority of his whole loving person behind it.

As New Testament scholar B. Harvie Branscomb puts it: "Herein was Jesus' contribution -- himself. By virtue of the fact that he embodied his ideal, what he said was living and vital and impelling. For religion is a personal thing. It can never become an abstract principle. It is a way of life" (The Teachings of Jesus, p. 368). Seeing his hearers as sheep without a shepherd, he gave himself to them. He communicated personally his love and compassion.

III.

Once again Jesus taught with authority in his kind of teaching because he had a cure for the demons, not just consolation.

I realize it has not been popular to think of the reality of the demonic until recent years with movies like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist which drew record crowds. Jesus took the demonic seriously, as do some present-day psychoanalysts. Rollo May says, "The demonic is any natural function which has the power to take over the whole person. Sex and eros, anger and rage, and the craving for power are examples." Today we sometimes would call demon possession by the word "psychosis." "The demonic," says Dr. May, "becomes evil when it usurps the total self without regard to the integration of that self" (Love and Will, p. 123).

The demoniac Jesus encountered in the Nazareth synagogue was possessed perhaps by a number of demons -- demons of hate, guilt, rejection, passion, revenge. As often is the case with demoniacs, the sensibilities and perceptions are greatly heightened, almost to the point of a divine madness. Consequently, upon seeing Jesus, he shrieked, "What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are -- the Holy One of God" (Mark 1:24). Deeply conscious of the inner workings of the psyche, Jesus named the demon, establishing power over him, and ordered him out of the man. Thus the man was at peace.

Some will remember William Golding's book, Lord of the Flies. A number of small boys are the sole survivors of a shipwreck on a remote island. In their effort to survive, they soon develop a society, rather primitive in form. Evil soon becomes an experienced reality. An old decaying pig's head, surrounded with worms and flies, becomes for them a deity, a god, a "Lord of the Flies." One of the children imagines that the pig head speaks to him. Evil begins to take over as the boys compete for leadership, power and possession of Piggy's spectacles which are used with the sun to make fire. Two boys are murdered by the other boys before they are finally rescued by a British naval ship. Ironically, this ship is prepared for war and bound for battle. One cannot miss the significance: They have left the savagery of their own island for savagery on a larger scale. Whether boys or men, a remote island or countries, we all war with one another.

Humankind, stranded on this space island, has done its share of sacrificing to demons -- the demons of war, hate, revenge, perverted sex, unbridled lust for power, uncontrolled greed, distorted ambition. Like the boys, many of us have been running desperately along the beaches of the world, hoping against hope for the arrival of a rescue party. To free us from ourselves.

As Christians, we now can announce that that rescue party has arrived in the person of the strong man, Jesus. Balanced, integrated, imbued with power, he calls the demons by name, thwarts their power, casts them out, bringing peace out of our demonic frenzy. And to all who submit themselves to his teaching he casts out the demons, calling them by name -- fear, guilt, envy, jealousy, lust, negativism, slander, deceit, revenge, greed. Uncontrolled, these demons will destroy life on this beautiful island in space.

Sociology, history, philosophy, and psychology have a certain kind of power, but not the power of Jesus. Other teachings have authority but not the authority of Jesus' new teaching. Other intellectual disciplines give us self-knowledge, but the more clearly we see ourselves, the more we realize our powerlessness to realize our true aspirations, says Swiss psychiatrist Paul Tournier. "Then it is no longer of healing alone that man stands in need, but of salvation; of the assurance that the world and he have been redeemed," says Tournier (The Meaning of Persons, p. 110-111). We believe Jesus brings that new kind of teaching, the authority of salvation, wholeness, health, and fulfillment.

A woman once came to me to talk about her son in college. He had been getting involved with a rather conservative Christian campus group, and she was worried, fearing the kind of Christianity they were teaching. I advised patience, believing more good than harm would result. Sometime later we talked again. An unbelievable change had come over her son. Whereas once he had been, in her words, a little spoiled rich kid obsessed with his own selfish concerns, he now was generous, thoughtful, outgoing, and determined to help others. What had happened? He had fallen under the spell of a new kind of teaching, the teaching of Christ. The demons of selfishness, contempt, and greed had been cast out by the authority of Christ. He was a new man, and now he is helping make a new world as a missionary.

It's a new kind of teaching -- a teaching with commitment, not just comment; concern, not contempt; cure for your demons and mine, not just consolation.

Prayer:

Almighty God, in whom light and truth dwell eternally, and in whom there is no darkness at all or shadow of turning, we who live in the twilight zone of knowledge come to you for clarity of mind and purpose. Sometimes we have congratulated ourselves for humankind's educational progress. We have pointed to our learned faculties, our hallowed campuses, our impressive libraries and laboratories.

Yet, what are all these but feeble glimpses into the light of thy truth, O God. Your foolishness is wiser than all the Phi Beta Kappa wisdom ever collected. The intelligence of our most gifted geniuses is but a candle in the sunlight of your blazing radiance.

Therefore, we come to you, Lord God, Eternal Mind of the universe, confessing the darkness of our minds, the limitations of our wisdom, the confusions of our ignorance. We acknowledge our readiness to become puffed up with what little we know, our quickness to believe that we have it all sorted out and in order, that we have a good grasp on reality.

O God, forgive our arrogance. Bring into our lives additional glimmers of the light of truth. Break the self-righteousness of our cranial arthritis. Loosen the stiffened joints of our minds and spirits, that we might be freed up to think your thoughts after you.

We pray especially for the thinking of our world leaders. Bless and strengthen all those politicians who place our country's interest above their own. Help them not to be weary in well-doing. O God, help our land, and bring us to good health again. Help us repent of our arrogance and trust again in you, that we would have a teachable spirit, O God.

We pray for wisdom to find new, safe energy sources. Bless our scientists and technicians. Grant them insight into new sources of power. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.