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"If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them."
*Gospel of Mark 6.11 (NTPIV)
Bill stood waiting for Susan, the other member of the new meditation class at my church, to exit. He had told me before the class that he would need to leave immediately after the session for a meeting. I did not understand his silent wait while Susan and I conversed about the just-finished session.
After Susan left enthused about the class, the about 55-year-old man and pastor of a nearby church, looked at me with fearful eyes. He spoke in an apologetic tone and with an odd smile. "I don't think I'll be able to stay in the group. I don't think I can handle this right now. I think it best for us just to part kinda as friends," were Bill's words.
I inquired into Bill's readiness to forfeit participation in the meditation group after only one meeting. Bill had, less than an hour before, said he had waited for a group like this for years. He told how he had studied contemplative meditation for years and wanted to sense more of the Presence of God. All he shared during our introductions convinced me of his readiness for this group experience.
Bill proceeded to explain a reason for leaving the group. He disagreed with me on the Bible. "In other words," I asked, "you believe we should stay with exactly how the Bible says things?" He affirmed that position and walked away.
Various emotions and thoughts arose in me while walking to my truck and beginning my trip home. Years before I would likely have felt guilty. I would have looked to discern how I had provoked Bill's reaction. I sensed, now, an affirmation that he chose to turn from the offer given him. I reminded myself his choice was not a reason for my adoption of guilt feelings. Bill was likely saying more than he had meant to tell me, was my conclusion. Bill was likely saying such things as, "I'm not ready to change," "I’m afraid," and "I'm sorry, but I don't want to complicate my beliefs."
One impression that came into my mind while driving away was Jesus telling his disciples to wipe dust off their sandals if a town refused their teaching. I mentally saw that wiping of sandals in my mind. Jesus noted that the wiping off dust would be a witness against the town. It would signify the community had the opportunity to hear the Gospel but chose not to listen.
Spiritual teachers do a lot of wiping off dust. The dust wiping is not, hopefully, a condemnation in self-righteousness against the person or group refusing the teaching. We can release our grasping to teach another when the person is not ready or prepared for the teaching. We, like Jesus' disciples, do not leave town grumbling about our being rejected. No, with compassion for the other, we surrender our self-focused compulsion to teach one not ready to be taught. We know he or she is our brother or sister. We realize to try to teach that one would be violence. We likely will hurt, not for ourselves, but for the loss of that one to the teaching.
I am somewhat uncomfortable with the wiping off dust to be a witness against anyone. However, that reference by Jesus of Mark's Gospel has some truth. We are not in malice to witness against others who do not receive spiritual teaching. Lack of receptivity is sufficient witness itself. We can rarely, maybe never, know the motivations surrounding refusal of spiritual truth. I am, thus, comfortable with a more compassionate attitude toward one turning from such teaching. I may have liked it better if the Jesus in Mark had not said "against" them. And, indeed, the saying may reflect the early churches' frustration, not what Jesus would say.
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Wiping the dust to me is more a matter of admission of being unable to teach an unteachable person and a need to teach the teachable. Why spend energy trying to give someone something he or she is unable to receive or pridefully refuses to receive.
The ideal of teachers found in Confucianism, Analects 7.8 speaks to me. "The Master said, 'Only one who bursts with eagerness do I instruct; only one who bubbles with excitement do I enlighten. If I hold up one corner and a man cannot come back to me with the other three, I do not continue the lesson.'"
This openness by learner and teacher allows the Buddhist ideal, beautifully voiced in Vinaya Pitaka, Mahavagga iii.1, to evolve in reciprocal edification between teacher and disciple. The teacher and disciple "joined" in "mutual reverence and deference," "dwelling in community of life," and having shared "increase," "growth," and "progress."
I have often felt the opposite of this ideal when being placed in situations of teaching persons who did not want to be taught. However, I have often felt delight when there was a shared enthusiasm between students and myself.
To teach freely the spiritual Wisdom, we must be open to both reception and rejection. We dare not personalize either. The teaching itself--the Dharma, the Torah, the Gospel,…--contains power to evoke reception and to provoke refusal. The true Teacher surrenders to the Teaching; he or she is the servant, not the master.
Also, to teach spirituality wisely, we are judicious. When one is not ready, we might well not seek to teach. When one is ready, we might well proceed happily in that ripe moment. The student will always show readiness or lack thereof. Perception on our part means humble openness to discernment of where the student is in the lessons of Wisdom Herself.
Ironically, by setting the other free to respond with reception or repudiation, we set ourselves free. We settle into joy of sharing teaching. We embody teaching. We know that by embodying letting go, we leave a trace of compassionate witness inviting return to the teaching later.
Thus, being a spiritual teacher is a truly humble vocation. The Teacher is servant of the Inner Teacher of other and self and, thereby, only Means of Wisdom Herself: the Holy Spirit.
*OneLife writings are offered by Brian K. Wilcox, a United Methodist pastor serving in the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church. He writes in the spirit of John Wesley's focus on the priority of inner experience of the Triune God; scriptural holiness; ongoing sanctification; the goal of Christian perfection (or, wholeness). Brian seeks to integrate the best of the contemplative teachings of Christianity East and West, from the patristic Church to the present. Brian lives a vowed contemplative life with his two dogs, Bandit Ty and St. Francis, in North Florida. OneLife writings are for anyone seeking to live and share love, joy, and peace in the world and in devotion to God as she or he best understands God.
**Translators of quotations in this article are not available to the author.
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