Learning, Community and the Body of Christ

Over at her place, Kathryn has been talking about holidays, Christian festivals, church attendance and then what it isthat we do that makes us church. Not a complex or tricky topic there then! :-) I've joined in the conversation (as Caroline Too, I always seem to be the second Caroline on every other blog, but not here! :-) This whole conversation reminded me of something that I've been wanting to write about but which, if I'm honest, I didn't quite know what to say.  But there we are; never fearing to tread where ignorance and a half baked idea beckon....

I've been reading Dallas Willard's book "The Divine Conspiracy" recently.  It's a terrific book although it badly need editing; by my estimate it has about 150 pages too many and Willard often loses his overall theme as he circles round a detail, but there we are ... he's a professor and I'm only a lecturer, so what do I know...

Anyway, I've just reached the chapter that I've been looking forward to most, On Being a Disciple or student of Jesus. It's here, I'm hoping, that he'll unpack his wonderful description of us Christians as being apprentices of Jesus. However, he starts the chapter by asserting that if we are disciples we must have a teacher.  He strongly assumes that for every learner there must be a teacher and so rests on a deeper assumption that learners are different and distinct to teachers. (I'm sure that he would retort that teachers can {should} be learners too but that is not my point here.)  What I disliked about this opening argument was the distinction between the role of teacher and learner.  It carried with it another assumption, that we are individual learners, that our learning is done individually, as an intra-psychic process (inside us so to speak).  If you start with that assumption learning becomes a process of transmitting knowledge, skilled practice and/or values from one person to another.  There are all sorts of pedagogical problems with that assumption but I want to focus on just one: the individualism.

Imagine a couple of people getting into a rowing boat, so that they could learn to row competitively.  I'm talking about those long racing boats you see at the Olympics or the annual boat race on the Thames.  The two friends paddle out to the middle of the river.  Then one of them starts to lengthen their stroke, they use their sliding seat, try to feather their blade (I do hope that I'm using the right terms, I can only go on what the commentators say! I've never rowed competitively). Whilst one of the rowers, tries to become a racing rower; the other just continues to paddle along, dipping their oar in the water, looking around at the scenery, enjoying the sights and sounds of the river.  I would suggest that the rower who is trying to develop their rowing skills will get nowhere until the other rower starts to take the learning seriously.

You see learning is a social process, it is not an individualistic process of acquiring fact or skills. Learning, and especially the learning involved in being a disciple of Jesus, is done together, in the body of Christ.  In our little vignette, it was not that the second rower was deliberately stopping the other learn. It was not a failure of teaching.  It was not that anything intentional was done.  Rather, it was just a crucial point: that we do not learn to become on our own.  We have to be a part of a learning community and our every action (from the most trivial to the most profound) will either help or hinder that discipleship.

There are things that I do that hinder others' learning.  For example, I'm quite good at explaining things and I'm very good with words.  I can, to my shame, be a formidable arguer.  If you are sitting in a room with me where you think that I may be wrong about something, I'm not an easy person to argue with.  Additionally, at my worst, I can be very good at giving the answer to problems or issues.  If the answer has been given what need is there to search (learn) for your own answer?  Most frustratingly for me, on the occasions when I'm thinking out loud, when I'm reaching toward an idea but still aware of the muddle in my mind, I can still sound as if I'm giving the answer.  So, sadly, unintentionally, I block the learning of others.

On other occasions, I can help learning.  Passing by someone at coffee, I ask how they are and listen as they talk out a problem. On other occasions, I have got enthusiastic about another friend's ideas and that enthusiasm has been the spur to try out something new. Then again, I've told stories that got someone thinking... or smiled at someone who was just about to give up... or irritated someone who mumbled to themselves, "I'll show her". It is often not my intentional actions or words that help people learn but just my presence, at a particular moment; my presence within the emerging relationship of me, them and God that allowed the learning-to-become to start, continue or accelerate.

We are social 'becomers'.  We are not self contained individuals.  We improvise our lives together, not on our own little stages.  The Xhosa word and concept, Ubuntu, captures this powerfully "I am through your".  This is not a nice, twee "wouldn't it be good if we could all get along", this is just the very nature of us, as created in the image of the Trinitarian God. 

And this, Kathryn, is what I think the church family is about.  and it is for this reason that I so oppose the practice of large gatherings, all facing in the same direction, all facing one or two people who direct our activities. It is also why I'm uncomfortable with the way we currently practise the eucharist in Anglican churches with its centring on the Priest. For in all this, we obstruct the transitory, fragmented, momentary interplay of people enacting learning together; provoking, stimulating, inviting, encouraging each other to do more, to travel a different road, to carry on, to ....

The Russian literary critic, Mikhail Bakhtin, wrote about how Dostoevsky's novels documented the development of a hero as they inter-played (improvised) with other characters.  These were, he suggested, polyphonic (many voiced) novels and at the centre of them, at the centre of the plot, at the centre of the development of the characters was carnival.  And in carnival the rules were dropped and, within some preset guidelines, people could explore and play at different roles. 

Now, don't exaggerate what I'm saying here.  I'm not saying that Christians should overthrow all rules. Rather, I am saying that we should design our moments of relating in ways that promote carnivalesque relations. These relations will not be structured around a preaching programme or a fixed set of liturgical actions.  Instead these relations should be typified by a concern to help the other in their pilgrimage, a desire to encourage, a concern for the other's safety if they're heading down a risky route, an experience of walking alongside, being available to catch your friend falls...  and none of these actions are promoted by the conventional church gathering around a single (monologic) set agenda.

One final word, for this post is already too long. I can almost hear some readers saying that many church goers would not accept the potential chaos that is implied in my ideas above. Many worshippers value a nice, ordered service. I agree.  But the correct response to that point is to ask how we could help such people move from that position or how we could provide for them as we move the overall tenor of church family life away.  It won't be easy and it's likely to be messy but it will, more accurately reflect the three year walk Jesus had with his disciples - sometimes fitting with the conventional ways in the synagogues, sometimes responding to the opportune prompting of a question or event but, for the most part, walking along the highways and byways of first century Palestine.

Comments

[Lornal]

I love what you write ... and I long for the Eucharist to be more of a shared experience albeit in chaos.

As for the learning - I am a teacher - and yet I learn so much from my students - including but not only their questions.

[graham]

And you say you're not a theologian! :-)

You are so right about Willard and the need for editing. Great thinker, bad writer. I've lost count of the number of people I know who started Divine Conspiracy, but never finished it. That's a real shame.

[Jonas Lundström]

I appreciate and share your ideas, if I have understood them rightly. How do you think we should relate to the practises of the established church, for example large gatherings, where 1 Kor 14:26- cannot possibly be lived out, our a priest-oriented, individualistic version of the Lord´s supper? Should we avoid those gatherings and develop new practises, should we stay around and strive for reformation or is it just a matter of adding some practises that better promotes real learning, but still valuing the old ones?

[Caroline]

Thank you Lorna, and Graham... does reading (haven't finished yet) Willard make me a theologian!? :-)

Jonas, I'm not sure of my answer to your questions, which are the really crucial ones. I think that I would counsel going for an end to all our current, large gatherings - because they just obstruct the kind of learning that we need to engage in. I suspect that to make the really big 'symbolic' move we will need to act radical...

but.. (and I can hear Graham coming out of the woodwork to get me! :)

I suspect that the radical plan won't work because people will just vote with their feet. As Christians we are offered worship that is non demanding, just believe the right things, put up with other people in the church once a week, sing a few songs, sit back and be passive and, hey presto! With that kind of undemanding Christian gathering on offer, why should people vote for a pilgrimage, the vulnerability of open relations and the difficulties of a road to holiness?

No, I just dont see it happening, so I guess that I'll just try to shake up the current, dull safe routines every now and again... and celebrate whenever I join up with someone who challenges or listens to me, helping me walk a little "farther up and farther in"