My Year 7 History teacher was a giant of a man – physically, spiritually, emotionally.I recall it like it was yesterday – about a week into my high school career, Mr C was standing at the video tape player (students, ask your parents about this technology) pulling strings and strings of (now ruined) tape out of the machine.
This was NEW technology, and he was one of only three teachers to have one in their classroom. Out of the mouth of one of my classmates came the utterance “this school is a joke – nothing works.”
This was the late 70s – the boy was ahead of his times. He felt he could complain with no consequence – as social media and many other forms of e-communication tend to encourage us nowadays to do. A typical teacher response would have been swift, “don’t argue” and, at times, involved some physical force. Jonno would have to wait another day to learn that lesson – today, Mr C was going to show us all that he was a man, a teacher, ahead of his times. (As I found out over the next 20 years, as a student and then a work colleague, his responses in life were deeply informed by his understanding of Jesus’ example to him … but I digress)
Mr C simply pointed at a sign on the wall – a copper pressing, beautifully handmade – centrally placed above the middle of his blackboard (another now obsolete piece of teaching equipment). On it was the saying “I used to complain that I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet”.
Over the next 10 months, Mr C would point at that sign often – although, I am pleased to say, less often as the year proceeded. To him, our learning this lesson was the most important thing he had to teach us – it was about godly humility, a posture that showed gratitude with a godliness that challenged the world and its attitudes.
The first part of the year we dealt with materiality. When stuff went wrong, when things broke, when we didn’t have things. Jealousy about a peer’s exotic holiday, seeing a new cricket bat in a teammate’s kit on a Saturday. Doing schoolwork and then being disappointed at the resulting grade – wanting to compare ourselves with each other, rather than every other kid our age in the local area, the rest of Australia and, indeed, the planet. We were the privileged ones, because of who we were born to, and when and where we were born. Mr C used his History lessons to unpack this reality.
The latter part of the year saw us move into attitudes of the heart. I have a deep sense of being reminded repeatedly that we all needed to be slow to anger, slow to judge, and quick to put ourselves in the shoes of others, if we were to truly understand the heart. And to ask questions to clarify, to develop shared understandings. I remember Mr C being very clear about our need to look for common ground in all our doings; not to let go our anchors – our non-negotiables – but to seek common good (common unity is the expression I now use).
He made mistakes, we made mistakes, together we made mistakes. He misunderstood, we misunderstood, together we messed things up. We were imperfect and under-formed, so too was he, collectively we didn’t have the skill to do all that we wanted to.
But … increasingly it mattered less, as we trusted more deeply that we had a common purpose and common unity would enable us to achieve far more than fractured disunity.
I’m thankful that Jesus gives us such a great blueprint for how we bring healing where there is brokenness amongst us – if you have a chance this week, re-read Matthew chapters 5-7. As God’s people here together at DCC, this teaching of Jesus has such clarity for us as we consider how we shine for him as his community.
educating 4 life, too 
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