The Danger of a Little Learning

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
The First Presbyterian Church
Washingtonville, New York
August 29, 2004

The Danger of A Little Learning
Matthew 11:28-30
Ephesians 4:17-24


It really doesn’t matter how old you are.
It doesn’t matter how successful you are.
It doesn’t matter who or what you are.
Every one of us probably shares the same memory,
the same painful memory.

When someone or something triggers it
your heart starts pounding and
your stomach begins to churn.
You remember all too well how your first reaction was to disappear,
turn completely invisible,
there one moment, and gone without a trace the next.
When you realized that that trick wasn’t going to work,
you raced down the path of sudden catastrophic illness.
Something immediate, all-consuming,
and most important,
something to evoke sympathy from even the hardest heart.
But no matter how hard you concentrated,
you were never able to conjure up an immediate case of bubonic plague.

You remember your final desperate act
the only other path left you:
you began to pray.
Your memory here may be a little fuzzy,
but the reality is that at the time you were probably willing
to make any bargain with God,
including spending the rest of your life in cloisters if need be.

All this, because a teacher stood up in the front of a class you were in
and asked, “Who knows the answer to the question?
There is something terribly frightening about sitting in a classroom
at any age - and hearing the teacher ask, “who knows the answer”.
The teacher may not have been the least bit threatening,
or intimidating,
but it didn’t matter.
It is the simply fact that our intelligence,
or what we feared was our lack of it,
was about to be put on public display.

In elementary and high school,
when you are called on it often means having to walk
to the front of the room and write your answer on the board.
There was nothing worse than showing all your work
then turning to the teacher for a sign of affirmation,
and hearing her say to the rest of the class,
“Who would like to come up and help Skip?”

The classroom can often be an intimidating experience.
I think that is why so many of us breathed a sigh of relief
when we graduated.
We were happy to leave the classroom behind.

Now another September is upon us,
and of course, September is Back-to-School month
as our children go back to classrooms in elementary,
middle and high schools, as well as college.
September is back to school month here at the church as well,
as we begin another year of Sunday School for our children.
Russ Martinson and our wonderful and dedicated group of Sunday School
teachers are ready to welcome our children
with new materials and resources.
We will register our children on Homecoming Sunday, September 12th
and then begin classes on September 19th.
I work with our 9th graders in the Confirmation Class
and we will begin our year together with an Opening Retreat
on October 2nd.

In the church, formal schooling ends with Confirmation in 9th grade.
The secular school system also focuses on young people,
with most finishing their formal education
in their late teens or early twenties.
For those of us who left the classroom more than a few years ago,
we tend to think of September as Back-to-school time for our children.
But September should be back-to-school time for all of us.
We should all be looking for new ways for us to learn
so that we can grow in faith.

Jesus calls us to “learn from him.”
Now that doesn’t mean taking a course,
or even spending a few years in Sunday School.
No, learning from Jesus is something we should be doing
all of our lives.

We learn from Jesus by learning with him.
The yoke metaphor that we heard in our gospel lesson is fitting.
Do you know what a yoke looks like?
In Jesus’ time it was a wooden harness that fit over the heads
of two oxen to allow them to pull a plow or a cart.
When Jesus invites us to take on his yoke,
he is inviting us to become his yokemate,
that we are with him in the yoke, and that he is with us.

We are to learn from him by walking with him,
working with him,
listening to him, and watching him.
We become, in effect, his apprentices,
called to work with the master
that we might learn from the master.
In Jesus Christ we have a teacher who is a partner with us.

In Sunday School we begin the process by learning about Jesus.
We learn about his birth in the stable;
We learn about his baptism, his preaching and teaching;
We learn about his arrest and his death;
We learn about his resurrection.

But then Paul helps us to understand that we, as adults,
are to take it to the next level and “learn Christ”
Not learn about Christ – we have already done that.
No: learn Christ.
Learn to follow him.,
learn what he wants from us.

As adults we are to go beyond the stories about Jesus,
we are to take those stories and incorporate them in our own lives
so that we can become more Christ-like,
more like the one who with whom we are sharing the yoke,
more like the one who is with us, teaching us and guiding us.
That’s the process of transformation that Paul speaks of frequently.

You have probably heard the aphorism,
“a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”.
There are lots and lots of faithful who have
a little knowledge about Jesus
a little knowledge about God,
a little knowledge about faith
all because they engaged in only a little learning.
limited to Sunday School as children.

Jesus doesn’t say, “learn about me.”
He is not interested in each of us becoming his biographer.
No, what Jesus says is, “learn from me.”
Working on knowing Christ is what you and I are called to do,
once we know about Christ.
Frederick Buechner helps us to understand that
this kind of knowing is deeper:
“to know is to participate in, to become imbued with,
for better or worse to be affected by.
When you really know something or someone,
the knowledge becomes part of who you are.
It gets into your bloodstream.” (BW, 214)

This is how you and I are to know Christ,
to know the Bible,
to know the history of the church:
it shouldn’t just be a collection of facts
that are there for us to rattle off.
That’s fine for Jeopardy.
No, this knowledge becomes a part of us,
leads us in our every word and every action.

And it is something we should always be working on;
something we never stop working on.
Graduation day is the day when Jesus comes for us
to take us to stand before God
that we might hear the words,
“Well done good and faithful servant.”

Paul uses the phrase, “the constant renewing of our minds”
to remind us that this learning is a process;
that it comes as we take on the yoke
and learn with Christ,
so we can learn Christ.

There are lots of ways you can learn Christ,
Certainly one way is to come to our Bible Study group on Wednesday.
Those who come can testify that we have a great deal
of wonderful conversation as we read and learn together.
If Wednesday is a bad day and you’d like to establish a group
that meets at another time, just let me know and we’ll see what we can do.

Many of you participated in our Year of the Bible program last year.
Did you start and then stop your reading?
Why not pick it up again?
I know many folks found the Old Testament difficult to wade through.
Let me suggest that you start your reading again,
only this time, skip over the Old Testament passages,
and just read the New Testament passages,
along with the psalms and proverbs.
The Old Testament is important and we can’t ignore it,
but save that for the next time and just focus on the life of Jesus
and the creation of the church of Jesus Christ
on your first read through.

Perhaps this is the year for you to join the choir?
Singing hymns and anthems can open your eyes
in entirely new ways as you learn Christ.
Jan has some wonderful new music she is going to be
using with the choir this fall.

Russ Martinson is always looking for additional teachers and helpers
in Sunday School.
Helping our children learn about Christ is a wonderful way to learn Christ.
It is why I love teaching the Confirmation Class:
each year I learn as much, if not more,
than the young people in class.

Our Christian Education Team, under the energetic leadership
of Elder Peggy Wright is turning its attention to Adult Education.
We want to see what we can do to develop new programs
and offerings for adults.
We are looking to the Lenten season next spring,
which begins quite early next year, February 9th,
when we are hoping to offer a weekly program.
We would love your input: if you have ideas or suggestions
for the types of things you would like to learn more about,
talk with Peggy, or speak with me, or send me an e-mail.

As part of my continuing effort to grow in faith and learn Christ,
I am going back to school to work on a Doctorate in Ministry
at Princeton Seminary.
It is a part-time program, which I have already started,
so it won’t affect my responsibilities here.
The program is designed for those who are full-time ministers
to minimize the intrusion on our day-to-day responsibilities
as we seek to find ways to enhance our skills as ministers.
I will be part of a small group, just 10 of us, from a range of denominations,
and we will look to grow not only in our skills,
but more important in our faith as disciples of Jesus Christ.


A little learning,
a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
A little learning, a little knowledge can take you down the same path
as the politician who, back in the 1920s, explained his preference
for the King James Version of the Bible by saying,
“If the King’s English was good enough for Jesus,
it’s good enough for me.”

I want to encourage you to make September back-to-school month for yourself.
Commit yourself to some new way for you to work on learning Christ,
Not learning about Christ,
but learning Christ.

Take on Jesus’ yoke more willingly,
and remember that he is walking with you
teaching you, guiding you,
transforming you, renewing you.
Learn Christ.
I can guarantee you that in his class and with his teaching,
your grade will never be anything less than an A+.

Amen