“Will this be on the test?”
This is a standard student silly question. To ask it is to raise a different question: are you working to learn the most you can or are you learning to work the least you can?
Here we are on the first day of school. This is a place of learning. But it is easy to deceive ourselves into thinking that we have learned enough rather than that we are just getting started.
A good teacher knows what to expect of his students when they enter his class. He has a vision for what his students should know at the end of the year. He follows a scope and sequence. He uses books and discussions and resources to go step-by-step. His daily lesson plans add up and work to get his students to the next starting point.
Do you not think that the Lord is the great lesson planner? Do you not think that the Lord has particular tests for you to take? He does. (See Philippians 1:6)
One lesson the Lord repeats is that there are almost always higher levels to get to. When you love something, your love will be tested. When you learn to crawl, next up is walking. When you learn to walk, next up is not walking into the corner of the table. When you reliably can walk around furniture, and can hold your own against big dogs jumping into you, then we’ll see if you can do all that and chew gum at the same time.
I’ve been looking for a good name for this phenomenon. One name for it could be the category of a false summit. You’re climbing a hill, you can see the top, you do the work to get there, and once there you see that there is another hill, but it wasn’t visible before. You made real progress, but you’re not done.
Karate (or jujitsu or taekwondo) is a better illustration. Depending on the local teacher, it’s common to identify 8 colors of belts: White → Yellow → Orange → Green → Blue → Purple → Brown → Black. Kyu (or student) ranks get a beginner to “senior brown,” and then Dan (or master) ranks (black belt and above) go from 1st degree to 10th. So 1st degree black belt is an end in one way, and just the start of advanced study in another.
There are things to “master” at each level, but mastery leads to more. The fact of increasing difficulty doesn’t mean you’ve not progressed, it’s part of the process. Another lesson and test is a result of passing a test. Seeing another move, or combo, is not a failure, it is progression.
There are a few parts of our Christ-honoring culture that we identify at ECS, that we have been practicing, and that are being tested to get to black belt and beyond. We call it our enculturation trifecta.
Masculine nerve. This isn’t making everyone into a dude, but it is a kind of backbone that belongs with image-bearers who know what they’re made for. We’re made to glorify God and enjoy Him forever less like kittens just out of the bath and more like lions.
- The Kindergartener sounds off at full volume though he might get the phonogram wrong. He tells the teacher he broke a thing before anyone has asked who broke it. This is good and proper white belt work.
- The 6th grader sings with guts even when others act like it isn’t cool. She doesn’t laugh at a joke that’s critical of a classmate. This is green/blue belt level, when a lot of people give up.
- The senior picks a thesis that’s pokey, not one that’s easy. He asks the girl to dance. First degree black belt is close.
Of course we will be tempted to flop. That’s the time not to.
Tactical laughter. This is knowing when to laugh, and that’s more than knowing not to laugh at a funeral. This is choosing to laugh when all signs point to freaking out.
- The grammar-stage student biffs hard on the blacktop at recess, has blood to prove it, and turns on his laughing tears not his sobbing tears; white belt.
- The logic-stage student bombs the Logic quiz, but laughs at his fallacies while working to get his Ps & Qs in order; green/blue belt.
- The rhetoric student reads the most pages and plans the big events and sings and sweats running the Liden Mile; black belt.
Our school motto is risus est bellum: laughter is war.
Radical company. We are in this together. Raggants don’t go behind another raggant’s back; raggants got each other’s back. We don’t sow discord. We don’t badmouth. We don’t spread rumors. We love getting along, we love working in the same field, we love making our school a destination.
- Kindergartners say, “I was wrong, please forgive me. Want to play?”
- The 6th grader doesn’t take her complaints about a classmate home over the weekend to dump her fussiness on her family, but talks to her friend when it’s hard and doesn’t cut her off.
- The almost-graduate knows the names of the grammar kids. He humbly asks the 6th grader for forgiveness for being annoyed with him. She makes being a senior, and the whole senior class, look good.
The white belt performs the move, the black belt performs the same move smoothly.
Make no mistake, your nerve is going to be tested more than it was before. When it comes to laughing, you’ll be sure that you’ve hit a situation where you can’t. For the sake of fellowship, did it really mean you were going to have to forgive that person? You’ve got to be patient, like, not just immediately?
The Bible says that we will be tested. God’s Word actually says that God will give us many tests, a variety of tests. It also says we are supposed to be excited about test day. We’re exhorted to “count it all joy” when we face various trials (James 1:2) because the tests are actually working on us.
One of the objectives in James 1:4 is that we be complete, and it means something like: ready for any situation or equipped to meet the expectations. This progress happens on a grade-by-grade level but it is also part of our school’s responsibility. Overall we are trying to give you what you need to carry and advance Christ-honoring culture.
I referenced The Horse and His Boy on the first day last year, but fits today’s call as well. Shasta barely makes it to the old man’s house when the old man sends Shasta immediately out on a more urgent task. The narrator says,
“He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another and harder and better one.”
Will all this be on the test? Yes, all of the above. God is calling all of us to go further up and further in. He is teaching us and testing us so that we will be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. Is it your time to watch a good example? Your time to learn by trying and failing and trying again? Your turn to pick someone else up off the mat?
You don’t sign up for karate because you just want to wear the belt. You want to kick butt. Good, it’s time to robe up and become black belt raggants.