Acts 19:1-7: Continuing Education – Day1 series: Faith and Science, part 8

We can learn something new every day. This became crystal clear to me during one academic year at Duke University. A senior Duke student was one of the scripture readers for the Sunday morning service in Duke Chapel. His job was to read the gospel lesson. On that morning, he was assigned to read a portion of the Gospel of Luke. The music played and a hymn was sung as he and others made their way down the center aisle of the sanctuary to go among the people, which is where we read the gospel lesson every Sunday. The music stopped, and it was time for him to announce the reading. He cleared his throat; and instead of saying, “a reading from the gospel of Luke,” he said, “a reading from the gospel of Duke.” Who would have known? A new book of the Bible discovered right there in Duke Chapel.

You learn something new every day because learning never stops–new information, new ideas, new knowledge, even when one thinks one has finally arrived on the mountaintop of intellectual discovery. The disciples in Ephesus, in the scripture you heard, confess, “We’ve not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” These disciples had not even heard of the Spirit yet they were still considered disciples.

They were believers, people of faith, followers of Jesus, church folks; but they didn’t know everything nor hear everything that there is to hear about God. Their learning was unfinished; they had partial understanding because there was so much more to be learned. They came to know God without knowing everything about God and knowing everything God does because they were not called to be gods. They were called to be disciples, students graced with gradual revelation, enrolled in the classroom of God as lifelong learners. They were not called to have all the answers and know everything there is to know, but to keep asking questions as a practice of holy curiosity and faithful Christian discipleship.

Before our particular story in Acts, we hear of Apollos. Apollos, a native of Alexandria, was “an eloquent man, well-versed in the scriptures,” and had been instructed in the spiritual way of God, and his words ignited people’s hearts. But even he, we are told, is taken aside by Priscilla and Aquila, and “explained the “Way of God…more accurately” (Acts 18). No glass ceiling could stop Priscilla. Sociologist Cheryl Townsend Gilkes was right when she said, “If it wasn’t for the women…” If it wasn’t for  women, Apollos wouldn’t have fully understood. Apollos was a disciple already and a dynamic preacher, but even he still had more to learn. He had not arrived at the threshold of knowledge but was open to perpetual learning and growth, continuing his education like a professor who understands the more you know the more you come to realize how much you don’t know.

As an undergraduate in a university setting, you can’t learn everything there is to learn about an academic discipline in four years, but you do learn how to learn. You don’t always have the answers, but perhaps you know where to find them. You don’t have to know but know who knows. There’s something about claiming to know it all that ironically suggests we don’t know it all. Remember what the philosopher Socrates said: “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

We have so much more to learn in the Church and especially to learn how to unlearn the idea that your learning has climaxed with a university or seminary degree. No degree can encompass the vastness of divine mysteries even though divinity schools hand out master of divinity degrees. Even disciples declare humbly, “We’ve not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” You may have attended Sunday School or a small group Bible study for years, but I can guarantee that there will come a time, if it hasn’t already, when you will say, “I’ve not even heard….” There’s so much more to learn. Learning is not just book learning but life learning from God. Some of the wisest people I know don’t even have a degree.

Life has an inexhaustible curriculum, and the lessons are infinite just like God even when it comes to a conversation about faith and science, God and the cosmos, creation and evolution, quantum physics and eternity, imago dei and science, genetics and morality, and health and healing. We have so much more to learn. And as you continue to learn, what you will discover is that you will be surprised many times at the lessons learned, confirming what Forest Gump once said, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.” He’s right.

There are unexpected intellectual and spiritual twists and turns in God’s school of lifelong learning. Your baptism is just a beginning, a Christian commencement, immersing you into an experiential school whose bell never rings to signal the end of classes; there is no recess because God’s school of faith, learning, and worship is eternal. Never let your college degrees interfere with your education because in the Spirit your education continues.

Even if you don’t know everything there is to know about how faith and science inform one another, there are others whom you will encounter to help you understand, develop and gain deeper insight, if you have a willingness to keep learning and are teachable. The Ephesian disciples were just that–teachable.

They recognized that they didn’t have to have all of the answers, every ‘i’ dotted or ‘t’ crossed. “We’ve not even heard….” There’s a humble acknowledgement that the Christian life is one of faith seeking understanding with an emphasis on the ‘seeking.’ The journey. The process of gradually learning, continuing education, growing in knowledge such that we discover things we never knew about science or ourselves, others, the world, or God. At the age of 19 or 90, we can always grow and develop because we only see in a glass dimly now (1 Cor 13).

There’s so much more to learn, and it is an expression of grace that we have the capacity to still learn and the opportunity to be taught by others when we don’t fully comprehend. Continuing education is a gift as we keep inquiring and listening and being curious and open to new ideas and fresh experiences. There’s an implicit lesson here–don’t be so sure you are always right (!). But this takes intellectual and spiritual humility and a mature faith. To think you are always right is an indication that something is wrong because disciples of Jesus know that at times they will be wrong.

These disciples were not afraid to learn from the apostle Paul. They recognized the importance of community and of having mentors. They were not solely teachers but teachable. Robin had Batman. Jerry had Tom. Garfunkel had Simon. Plato had Socrates. Justin Bieber had Usher. The point is to keep learning and seek understanding, even as we allow ourselves to be molded and guided by others, committed to doing life and learning together in the church.

Yet this doesn’t mean that you will learn everything that can be learned during your lifetime. The Ephesians experienced something new through Paul as he laid hands on them–“they spoke in tongues and prophesied”–which means that they didn’t understand and they understood; there was mystery and clarity. The blessing, the gift of the Holy Spirit in this story, was both unintelligibility and comprehensibility. Some things in life you just can’t explain because you can’t exhaust an inexhaustible God. It is a freeing gift not to know everything, and we will always be at a place of understanding and not fully understanding. That’s because we’re human and not God.

We know that we don’t know but can have an open heart and mind, a teachable spirit, to learn something new every day. And we have so much more to learn, and God has so much more to teach us. But do you possess a humble, holy curiosity? Are you teachable?

There’s a story about a young man who went to Socrates asking for knowledge. He walked up to the philosopher and said, “O great Socrates, I come to you for knowledge.”

Socrates led the young man through the streets, to the sea, and ultimately chest deep into the water. Then he asked the young man, “What do you want?”

“Knowledge, O wise Socrates,” said the young man with a smile.

Socrates put his strong hands on the man’s shoulders and pushed him under the water. Thirty seconds later Socrates let him up. “What do you want?” he asked again.

“Knowledge,” the young man sputtered, “O great and wise Socrates.”

Socrates pushed him under again. Thirty seconds passed. Thirty-five. Forty. Socrates let him up and the man was gasping. “What do you want, young man?”

Between heavy breaths the young man screamed, “Knowledge, O wise and wonderful….”

Socrates pushed him under again. Forty seconds passed. Fifty. One minute. He felt the young man struggling and he pulled him up and asked again, “What do you want?”

“Air!” the young man screamed. “I need air!” Socrates looked at the young man, smiled, and said, “When you want knowledge as you have just wanted air, then you will have knowledge.”

Are you hungry and thirsty to learn more? That’s the only entry requirement for God’s school of continuing education. May you be ready, like the disciples, for lessons you’ve never heard.

Amen.

Note: Rev. Dr. Luke Powery’s sermon is part 8 of 8 in a series on Faith & Science from Day1. For more information about the series and a transcription of a conversation between Rev. Powery and Peter Wallace of Day1, see this link.