Choosing a Master

Choosing a Master

Matthew 6:24

            For the past fifty-four years I have identified myself as a teacher.  I began teaching the fall of 1964 after graduating from college, and, except for two semesters, have been in the classroom ever since.  During that time I have had a variety of other jobs on the side, but most of them have also involved teaching in some way. 

            For most of those years I taught music.  I have had the privilege of teaching in five states (New York, Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi), and at every grade level from early elementary school through university graduate courses.  I’ve directed bands, orchestras and choruses, taught music classes to elementary and middle school students, and taught college students how to teach music. 

            Four years ago, after retiring as a music teacher, I agreed to teach in the social sciences division of our local community college.  My masters degree from seminary allows me to teach philosophy and religion classes.  It has been an interesting and enjoyable change of pace.

            For most of my career I also directed church choirs.  In many ways this was an extension of my music teaching, calling on the same skills needed for my school choruses.  For the past few years I have been a pastor, first on an interim basis for two different churches, and then as the called pastor of the second church.  Both pastoring and church choir directing have been rewarding.  I’ve learned a lot from both positions.

            My focus is about to change.  By the end of the week in which I write this, I will have finished my last philosophy and religion classes, given my final final (finals are one area in which it is always better to give than to receive), closed my last textbook and posted my last grade.  How do I feel about this?  I’m not sure.  Why did I make this decision?  That one is easy.

            In chapters 5 through 7 of Matthew’s gospel we read Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, a combination of religious and ethical teaching which we need to study more and follow much more.  If every Christian lived these teachings every day, the world would be a far different place.  That may be asking a lot, but I believe that’s what Jesus intended—and why he preached this sermon in the first place.

            In this sermon Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”  He continues: “You cannot serve God and money.”  This, of course, is the crux of the argument.  We have to choose between God and the world—not an easy choice in this worldly-oriented society, but a necessary one if we are to live out the gospel.

            Anyone who knows anything about teachers’ salaries would never accuse me of choosing money over God if I chose teaching over pastoring, so the intent of Jesus’ statement doesn’t really apply to my situation.  But the principle is the same. 

I have found it impossible to serve two masters:  education and the church.  So I say goodbye to the profession which has sustained me for so many years, the one to which I have devoted my life, and the one that has brought me so many rewards and so much satisfaction.  I have reached the place in my life where I feel that trying to be both a teacher and a pastor means I cannot do either as well as I would like, and as well as I know I should.

I know—I’ll still be teaching within the church setting, but it’s not the same.  The classroom has been, in many ways, as sacred a space for me as the church sanctuary, and I will close the door of my last classroom for the last time with as much regret as satisfaction—but also look forward to whatever God has in store for me next.