Last Sunday evening, some of us joined Pearl and Doug Dyck as they celebrated the sale and transition of Quilter’s Jewel to a new owner. As she spoke her farewell to family, friends, and staff, Pearl said: “A new chapter now begins in my life. What it holds, no one knows.”

Many of us come to important transitions in our lives, where we are looking back and looking forward. Here at Covenant Mennonite, this is “Education Sunday” and both students and teachers may have that bifocal vision—thinking back on the past year and looking ahead to the new one with thoughts like Pearl: “What it holds, no one knows.”

When I retired from teaching in 2003, I was invited by G.V.C. students to give the Commencement address. As always, the final weeks and days of a school year are hectically busy, returning end-of-term assignments, marking final exams, emptying the filing cabinets and cleaning the classroom.

The rush of activity is not conducive to deep reflection, and as I prepared to speak to those students, I recall the challenge of looking beyond daily details to the “big picture”—to the life wisdom that under girds our learning and teaching.

At the start of my retirement, I felt like Pearl. I didn’t know what new chapters might open in my life. I hoped that the next year might include more leisure, some travel, and good study. I’m glad to say it did…but it also brought a diagnosis of colon cancer.
For several weeks—until key lab tests came back—I didn’t know what the outcome would be. The time I had left might be very short. Yet, I was pleased I could look back with very few regrets.

I recalled the times that I was told by teaching colleagues that I was working too hard. Someone had put a note over the office photocopier right where a few of us “Night Owls” would read it.  It said: “No one on their deathbed ever wished they had spent more time at the office.”

Even so, as I prepared for my surgery and all that’s involved in dealing with fighting cancer, I felt that the hours I’d given to classroom work and to the needs of my students were hours well spent.

The prospect of one’s immediate demise has a way of focusing life’s meaning. It is not something we wish for, but it can come as a gift to be cherished. That may be why I have been attracted to the story of Randy Pausch, an award-winning computer professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

Carnegie Mellon has a “Last Lecture” series where special teachers are invited to reflect on their personal and professional journeys and to share with their students and the world what wisdom they would impart if this were their last chance. 

When the invitation came to Professor Pausch, it wasn’t just an “academic” exercise. He had been told he had pancreatic cancer and the diagnosis was terminal. He had only months to live. His teaching career was coming to a quick close.

On the surface, Pausch’s “last lecture” is about how to achieve one’s childhood dreams, but in reality it’s about how to lead one’s life. You can watch it on YouTube. It is a remarkable presentation…and very inspiring. And, you can read it in greater detail in the book that followed.

When I watch the video…and read the professor’s book, I am led to think of a “Last Lecture” that is even more remarkable and inspirational—that of Jesus’ to his disciples as described in the Gospel of John, Chapters 13-16. 

As Jesus gathered in the Upper Room with his disciples—today, we’d call them his ‘pupils’ or ‘students’—he faced a great transition in his life. And, unlike Pearl and unlike us, as he faced that new chapter, he would not say, “What it holds, no one knows.” 

When Jesus spoke to his disciples about how to live their lives, he knew clearly what future was in store for him. He talked about his coming “glorification,” and it wasn’t some political triumph he had in mind; it was his impending death. He said: “I am the way and the truth and the life…” [John 14:6]. The “Way” that he was talking about was the Way of the Cross. This was his “Last Lecture.”

This morning, we are all looking ahead to another year of learning--whether as students, as teachers, as workers or as retired persons like me--and I would like to draw from Jesus’ “Last Lecture” three ideas of special relevance.

First is the idea of “servant-leadership.” In our modern world, there are many notions of what leadership can be, but the best one I know of can be seen in the Scripture passage that Leah has read this morning, the account of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.

It’s almost a comical scene. Peter is shocked that his teacher would offer to do the work of a slave, and he protests. (Some of us may remember hearing teachers say, “Clean up behind yourself. Your mother isn’t here to look after you.” But what if our teacher became our servant, our slave, and really did offer to clean up after us? After the novelty wore off, it’d be pretty embarrassing.)

When Jesus makes that offer Peter says, “You’re not going to wash my feet—ever!”

And Jesus tells him, “If I don’t wash you, you can’t be part of what I’m doing.”

Peter--ever impulsive--swings to the other extreme: “In that case, not just my feet. Do my hands! Do my head!”

And Jesus says, “It’s okay, Peter. The feet are enough.”

It may be hard, in our modern day and age, to grasp how shocking this business of foot washing must have been for Peter and for Jesus’ other pupils. This wasn’t what a leader would do. They had come to believe he was a very great teacher—the Messiah, the Christ—the one who would bring liberation from Roman rule and completely change their society.   And here he is, doing work like a hotel maid cleaning toilets or a hospital orderly carrying bedpans.

And then Jesus tells them the moral of his action: If he, their teacher, serves them this way, they too must be willing to serve others. He is establishing the pattern of leading by serving.  As we head into the coming year—as students, teachers, workers, retirees—we will find many opportunities to serve and this can be the most effective way for us to lead.

The second idea I would like to draw from Jesus’ “Last Lecture” to his students (the disciples) is “the community of love.” In John 13, verses 34-35, Jesus says:

“Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” [Eugene Peterson, “The Message.”]

Now, it is no secret that teachers take pride in the achievements of their students. I could talk at length about Chad, and Leah, and Donovan as students. Each of you has many special qualities, and I am honoured to see the adults you have become.

I think of other students--In one of my last years of teaching, the results from the Provincial Exams came back and one of my students had received 100 percent. That felt pretty good…both to her and to me.

In the last couple of weeks of this summer, Morden and Winkler have had a new paper come on the scene—The Voice. And I was pleased to learn that the editor is a young woman who I started in journalism. I still remember the morning when she came to me—as a Grade 10 student—and said she “wanted to write.” She was a good student, a good writer, and I’m confident she’ll be a good editor.

Like most of us, I also could talk about the teachers and professors who became a special part of my life—Paul Ness at Rochert country school, Jack Dueck at Goshen College, Dr. Geoffrey Rans at University of Western Ontario, and Ken Osborne at the UM Faculty of Education.  Sometimes teachers have a significant impact on us, and we say, “You can sure tell they were So-and-So’s student.”

For Jesus, the tell-tale sign that someone had been his student was to be the love that they showed to each other. He says to them, “Love one another…in the same way I loved you.”

At the moment they hear that, the disciples can think back on the past years, as they’ve accompanied Jesus--in Galilee, Judea, and now Jerusalem--and recall how loving he has been to them.  Looking ahead, however, they hardly grasp the act of love that he soon will show for them—his willingness to die on the cross.

He will wash them not just with water, but—as the Lamb of God at Passover time—he will wash them with his blood. And that’s the “put-your-life-on-the-line” kind of love that he is calling them to.

Robert Greenleaf was a business leader who worked for the large corporation, AT&T. During the 1960’s he looked at my generation, which was still in college, and he was disappointed. We thought we were changing the world, but Greenleaf saw much that was missing in the way we conducted ourselves. He began to write about “Servant Leadership,” and in one of his most famous essays [“The Servant as Leader”], he said that “the one who is served should be loved” and should be part of a group where “the liability of each for the other and all for one is unlimited” (52).

Centuries earlier, Jesus said the same thing…and, I think, said it better:

“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” [John 15: 13].

What would my generation have looked like, and what would our schools and community look like today, if we really followed Jesus’ command and showed our learning through our love to each other? 

The third idea I would highlight from Jesus’ “Last Lecture” is the most exciting of all.
I call it “Spirit-Directed Learning.” 

In our schools, colleges, and universities, much of our learning is Teacher-Directed. In our faculty training and at in-services, teachers are encouraged to be the “guide on the side,” not the “sage on the stage.” It is a good ideal, but in practice teachers still direct much of the learning that goes on in a classroom.

When I started to teach students on-line—and G.V.C. was one of the North American pioneers in on-line learning at the secondary level—I noticed that most of the students went through a crisis early in the course.

Even the really strong, confident A+ students started to worry whether or not they would pass. I was surprised, and during the second delivery of my course, I talked with one student who expressed such fears. She said, “I’ve never had a course before where there is no teacher.”

Now, to me that sounded a bit strange, because I’d never taught a course where I was working so hard. But I did know what she meant.  As a teacher, I was no longer highly visible. I had become more of a “guide on the side,” and in her new found independence, she felt very alone.

In our learning, most of us are used to Teacher Direction. My concern, for the next few years at GVC, became to help students—both on-line and in-class—to become more self-directed, to be able to learn independently and with less teacher direction.

At this point in his “Last Lecture,” Jesus wants to prepare his pupils for the time ahead when he’s not there to guide their learning.  In just a few hours, the disciples would be shocked far more than Peter was over having his feet washed. Their teacher, their master, would be put to death like a common criminal, ridiculed and apparently powerless.

Much that Jesus is saying in this “Last Lecture” is confusing to his disciples. I suppose a teacher today might say the disciples weren’t “easy students.” 

These Bible stories are familiar and much of the time we see them through Jesus’ eyes. “Boy, are these guys slow! I tell them again and again and still they don’t get it.”

Of course, as a loving teacher, that’s not the way that Jesus would think. He was probably like my oldest brother’s math teacher.

When Lee was in Grade 9, my mother went to Parent Teacher’s Night. The math teacher told her he never gave up on a student, but in Lee’s case, he had come close. Lee had come in for early morning help with an Algebra problem. The teacher went around the room, filling the blackboards on all three sides.

Finally, Lee walked back to an equation near the start of the process and said, “You mean…?” The teacher nodded “Yes,” and Lee said: “Oh, now I see!” (That was a fortunate moment, because as a contractor, Lee went on to bid business contracts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and he needed all those math skills).

Jesus sees the confusion of his disciples. He tells them he is going to his Father’s house to prepare a place for them. He says that they might not understand now, but they will in the future. And once he is gone, he will not leave them “orphaned” [John 14:17].

(The word Jesus uses for “orphaned” here doesn’t mean to be without a Mom or Dad; rather, it is to be without someone to teach them a trade, someone to help them carry on in life and have a way to support themselves.)

Jesus says that when he goes to his Father, they will send a friend to help the disciples, and that this friend is called “The Spirit of Truth.” This new friend will make things plain, he’ll “teach them all things” [John 14: 26]. He’ll remind them of the things that Jesus has already taught them, and he’ll teach them things that they haven’t been ready to learn.

At the end of Jesus’ “Last Lecture,” the disciples say to him: “Oh, now we see! We get it! You won’t have to put up with any more of our questions.” [John 16:29-30]

They’re quite proud of themselves. But they still don’t comprehend, at least not completely. They have little clue of what really lies ahead—of Jesus’ death, his resurrection, and the coming of the Spirit of Truth.

We now refer to the Spirit of Truth — this special friend—as “the Holy Spirit.”  And he is with us, as he was with the disciples after Pentecost. 

As we approach the lessons of this new school year and church year, we have the gift of something better than teacher-directed learning, or self-directed learning.

We have spirit-directed learning—and that can help us to remember what is most important in our lives, to understand the meaning of the circumstances in which we find ourselves, and to embrace what previously we were not ready to learn. 

May we open ourselves to such learning not only in our schools, and workplaces, and leisure activities, but also in our spiritual study and community worship here at Covenant.

Randy Pausch passed away in July 2008, only ten months after his “Last Lecture.”
I don’t know how long his words and lessons will be remembered—perhaps for the next 15 to 20 years. I do know that Jesus’ “Last Lecture” has been enriching lives for nearly 2000 years. We could spend hours studying it and still not exhaust all that it has to teach us.

Among the lessons are the three ideas I’ve highlighted this morning—

• Servant Leadership: Like Jesus—our Greatest Teacher--we should learn to lead through our service to others

• A Community of Love: We show that we are Jesus’ pupils—or disciples—by the way we love each other, AND

• Spirit-Directed Learning: As Christians, we have a special friend—the Spirit of Truth—to guide our learning and our lives.

May God bless each of us as we write the new chapters that begin in our lives today.

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