I have been reading the last words of various people this week. Some are eloquent like General MacArthur’s farewell address at West Point:

”The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished — tone and tint. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were…In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield. But in the evening of my memory always I come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, Honor, Country.”

Some are brief and leave us with questions like Steve Jobs whose mysterious last words were: “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow”

Last words in Scripture are varied as well. For example, the last words of Jesus are simply, “It is finished.”

Some, like Paul’s farewell to the elders at Ephesus, leave us fearful for the young church and its vulnerability to false teachers and wolves who are quick to take advantage of Paul’s absence.

“Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again. Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of any of you. For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. “Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I have not coveted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing. You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

It is the final address of Moses I keep re-reading. It’s actually a song.

While it could be the embarrassed farewell of a failed leader or even one who is bitter and angry, it is not. It could have been the aggrieved outburst of a man who had been deprived of what was his legacy due to a momentary lapse of temper. Instead, it is the final gesture of a man whose life was, for better and worse, tied to these people and their future. Yet, the central message is not a reflection of his complicated relationship with them but impressing on them they are now the carriers of God’s name and whatever they have been through has been for the purpose of preparing them for that. He is leaving the honor of God’s name in their hands. In equal parts both promises and warnings, Moses binds them to their inescapable responsibility.  There is no going away gift from the people to him.  There is no celebration for his years of service and leadership.  He is, instead, putting the burden on them.

You know I have often said the most important thing I have done in my life after being a husband and a father is to be a Sunday School teacher. I still believe that and I still believe that the measure of a teacher is as much what they leave behind as whatever they did in the time given to them.

Peter Drucker wrote in the book, Managing in Turbulent Times, “A time of turbulence is one of great opportunity for those who can understand, accept, and exploit the new realities. One constant theme is, therefore, the need for the decision maker in the individual enterprise to face up to reality and resist the temptation of what “everybody knows,” the temptations of the certainties of yesterday, which are about to become the superstitions of tomorrow. To manage in turbulent times, therefore, means to face up to the new realities. It means starting with the question: “What is the world really like?” rather than the assertions or assumptions that made sense only a few years ago.”

I don’t think there is any doubt we are living in turbulent times and what I want to leave you with are some reflections on the role of a teacher in these times.

A teacher is not a harbor or an anchor, a sail or a rudder. We are keels. We help people manage in turbulent times by keeping them stable in the truth. I cringe when I listen to what passes for Biblical knowledge from politicians appealing to naive Christians and the ambitious pastors fawning over them. In times of instability people attach themselves to easy answers, sure things, strong leaders, institutions that promise security, heresies, novelties, cults, movements, extreme beliefs or no beliefs at all.

In Ephesians 4, Paul writes about the various roles in the body of Christ. Apostles were the founders and they had a special function until they died out in the first generation. Prophets were the disturbers who spoke for God. To some extent and for different reasons they also died out as they were the first to die when the persecution came. They spoke out when it was not in their best interests to do so. They continued to disturb congregations that were increasingly unwelcoming to disturbers. The evangelists or spreaders were mostly invisible as they went about their work of introducing the gospel to new areas. There were no newsletters or videos to send home. There were no furloughs or time off for fund-raising. There were no conferences for encouragement or finding new job opportunities.  It was lonely work. They did not have the prestige, authority or influence of the apostles and prophets but they were relentless.

Pastors and teachers are not wanderers like prophets or evangelists but are settled and permanent.  They tend to avoid controversy because they have to live there. They tend to be people-pleasers – unlike prophets – and understand the complexity and paradoxes of people.  They listen with interest. They are not always looking for the next larger congregation or opportunity. They are the bedrock of a community of believers and the keepers of the story of the gospel and the congregation.  They are the keepers of sound doctrine in an idolatrous culture and are the moral guides. People look to them to be examples of their teaching and are discouraged when they are not. Inside the cover of my Bible I have a quote: “He who has learned in order to teach others, while his own soul loathes instruction and wisdom, will find that his lessons will be but mists of empty wind, and showers of dust and earth upon the ground.”

They are often called the protectors of the congregation.  Paul told the Ephesians that his greatest fear was that false teachers and prophets would come in.

“Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! Remember that for three years I never stopped warning each of you night and day with tears.”

All of these are designed to accomplish one thing: to prepare the people for practical works of service.  That is far different from random acts of kindness, encyclopedic knowledge of Scripture or personal piety.

Prepare is the word used for setting a bone, mending a net or putting a ship in drydock.  The basic idea is putting something in the right place to accomplish a purpose.

Why do we set a bone?

Why do we mend a net?

Why take a ship out of water?

It’s not about starting from scratch or a blank slate with people. All three assume we’re imperfect. We’ve been through some wear and tear. As well, each one is a different process. Mending nets is constant. It’s done after every use. It’s daily and routine. Even tedious. Refitting a ship is periodic. Barnacles accumulate. Wood decays. Holes are punched in the hull. Resetting a bone is extreme and a once in a lifetime trauma for most people.

The work of a teacher in preparing people is all three:

It is sitting around stitching. Not just idle chatter but talking and working together.
It is working with people in drydock who are out of service for a time.
It is the emergency room.

But it is not preparing people for being museum pieces, door prizes or merely pristine and pious. It is preparing them for works of service in a turbulent and changing world. A world that is going to bang them up, put dents in their hulls, tear their nets, break their bones, and, sometimes, put them out of service for a spell.

The whole purpose in teaching is (or should be) to guide you into the place of practical service that is a fit for you and if you are not there then the Church is not doing what it needs to be doing in your life – no matter what else the church is doing.  People complain they are not being fed. The problem is they are being fed but not being put to work. We count when people attend or give but little else. All the activities ought to have one purpose – to make you fit for practical works of service. Not more knowledge. Not more worship. Not more community. Not more variety.

Imagine this.  You’ve joined Willowbrook or Hollytree country club and they consider you an employee and not a member with services and privileges like you expected.  You don’t get to play golf or tennis for the first few years. They put you to work cleaning clubs or bussing dishes. They expect you to show up for work and take whatever assignments need doing. What would you do?  Yes, I think I know. How many of us attend or join the church with the same expectations? We don’t expect to be in a job training program unless we are volunteers. We are not here to work. We are here to be fed or help us on our search for meaning.  How can the church do what it is supposed to do if we lose sight of what the purpose is?

But read further because even practical service is not the ultimate goal.  What is it?

It is unity, knowledge and maturity.  It is the parts working together. It is not just growing bigger.  A mature grape is not a grapefruit. An enormous baby is not an adult.

But what is maturity?  There are hundreds of ways to understand it and, most often, it is about individual maturity. We can use Piaget’s stages of cognitive development.  James Fowler studied and wrote about the six stages of faith development. Erik Erikson describes the eight stages of life, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a guide for many, Lawrence Kohlberg’s three levels of moral development, and Scott Peck’s four stages of maturity are widely used.  There are countless tools to help us understand ourselves: Strength Finders, DISC, Meyers-Briggs, Enneagram. The fascination with ourselves is endless. As a result, virtually all of them are focused on the development of the individual and not what Paul defines as maturity.

It is not what we become as individuals but as a body.  We do not mature into the individual we want most to be but “we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.  From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”  Maturity is not independence or freedom or even being wise, discerning, and well-balanced.  It is not being a ship in a bottle. We are not coveted show cars but 18 wheelers carrying freight. We are not priceless jewels but industrial diamonds. One is polished and protected and the other is built to be rugged and enduring.

Our maturity is defined by our contribution to the whole.  It is defined by how well we play our part in the body of Christ and whether or not we are being prepared for works of service.  If there is an American heresy it is this emphasis on the ultimate importance of the individual even in our understanding of salvation and a personal relationship with Christ.  That is not how Paul defines our relationship to Christ, is it? Maturity is our growth in the work of contributing to the whole. Growing up into something more than ourselves is our real purpose and we do people a disservice when we encourage them to find their purpose outside growing up as part of a larger whole.

That is the whole purpose for the structure of the Church – that “we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.  Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds Iitself up in love, as each part does its work.”

See how Paul includes himself in this?  It is not you but we.  He understands the struggle for himself as well as for the believers in Ephesus.  It is a struggle for us all.

What does that mean for you this morning?  Are you a member of a club with privileges or a member of the body with responsibilities and a calling?  Are you focused on personal growth or becoming a better part of the whole? Are you polished and protected or being fitted for work that matters?

Max DePree, Chairman of the Herman Miller company wrote, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you.”

In the end, that is the real measure of my work as a teacher, isn’t it? Have I helped you define reality? Have I fulfilled my part in preparing you for works of service? If so, then I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.

So, all that is left is to say, “thank you.”