Today’s gospel story from Luke describes the dramatic scene that concluded Jesus’ earthly ministry. After Jesus’ resurrection, the gospel tells us, he traveled with the disciples, and he taught them much the same way that he’d done before his death. But after his resurrection, the disciples paid closer attention. Suddenly his teachings about life and death meant something entirely new. Before his death, Jesus’ predictions about the future confused the disciples, and they often misheard him. They just didn’t understand what he meant. But the resurrection placed his words into a new context. Though he taught them the same lessons, after the resurrection the disciples understood Jesus’ teachings in a whole new way. Jesus “opened their minds to understand the scriptures,” Luke says. Suddenly they recognized the promises of God that they’d seen fulfilled before their very eyes. They were witnesses that God’s love conquers death itself. They were witnesses that God’s love endures all suffering and rejection, still to remain constant in caring for all people. The disciples recognized that God wasn’t just a character in a story about the past. They realized that God was in the world, walking and working among them. They saw more clearly than ever how the story of God’s love was being written in their lifetimes and in their lives. And after he opened his disciples’ minds, Jesus lifted up his hands. He blessed his friends. And while he was blessing them, “he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.” Once the disciples’ minds were opened to understand all he taught, Jesus left them with the instruction to await the coming of the Spirit to inspire them further.

What we think we know can be our greatest obstacle to learning something new. The stuff that we take for granted is the stuff that sometimes stands in the way of a new discovery. I love the commercials for the oldies radio station, with people singing what they think are the right lyrics to old songs. Like the little girl who sings the Beatles song, “Ticket to Ride.” The song actually says, “She’s got a ticket to ride, but she don’t care.” But the little girl in the commercial sings, “She’s got a chicken to fry, and it’s in my hair.” When I was a kid, my oldest brother played Beatles records, and I sometimes misheard the lyrics. Like in the song “Twist and Shout,” there’s a line where they sing, “Shake it up, baby, now, shake it on out.” But I heard “Take it off, baby, now, take it all out.” I thought it was sort of a striptease kind of song. And I heard it that way, and I learned it that way. And that’s the way I knew the song until I was a freshman in college. I was singing along to the song when my college roommate started laughing at me. He explained that the lyric was “Shake it up,” not “Take it off.” But I didn’t believe him. He made me listen to the song carefully, and still I heard what I thought was right. It wasn’t until he found the lyrics in a book, that I finally recognized that I’d been singing it wrong for years. Once we think we know something, it’s hard to learn something different. The things that we know can stand in the way of us learning something new.

Learning requires that we be open to the possibility that there’s something to learn. New understandings can only sink in when we’re willing to let go of old understandings. We can only learn when we’re open to the possibility that someone has something to teach us. I had a professor who said that she preferred teaching second career students. Most of her younger students tended to come to class with the attitude that their job was to defend what they already knew. Most of her younger students let their preconceptions and assumptions get in the way of learning. Whereas my professor found that most of her older students had a better grasp of all that they don’t know. Life has taught them just how little they comprehend, and how much they have yet to learn. It’s what we have yet to learn that determines our limitations and possibilities. About six years ago our bishop encouraged our conference to enter into a season of discernment about the topic of homosexuality and the church. The bishop taught us the classical model of Christian discernment. He encouraged us all to get into small groups to work through this process of opening ourselves up to learn something new about God’s will. The first step to discernment, we were taught, is for each of us to get our biases and preconceptions out on the table. Right or wrong, rational or irrational, the first step to learning what God may be trying to teach us is to own up to our assumptions. And then the next step is for us to prayerfully listen to one another with the expectation that we’ll learn something new. Too often we debate. We try to present our opinion and defend our opinion in order to persuade someone else to believe like we believe. When we debate, we often focus on what we have to tell, what we have to teach, what we have to convince others of. But in the discernment process we remember that all of us have something to learn. Our task isn’t to persuade or defend, but to be open to learning what God’s trying to teach us through the stories and sharing of others. There’s humility in recognizing that all of us have more to learn. There’s gentleness in the discernment process that’s not like Robert’s Rules of Order or the classical rules of debate. Sometimes we need to set aside what we think we know in order to learn something new. John Wesley reminded the first Methodists that the community of faithful isn’t built on our opinions. Opinions are secondary, Wesley taught. Opinions can get in the way our relationships with God and with each other. So Wesley taught the Methodists to loosen their tight grip on their opinions, and instead share with one another the love in their hearts. Our opinions will never bring us into unity with the will of God. Only our love for one another can bring us into unity with the will of God. We must approach life open to learn. In order to discover something new, we must be willing to let go of old assumptions. We must be in a constant attitude of awaiting further inspiration from the Holy Spirit.

Disagreement is part of community. In our homes, with our families, where we work, in our classrooms, wherever we find ourselves in community with others we can’t avoid disagreement. Even in church, we encounter differing opinions among people who share the same faith. God calls us to be open to learn. In the midst of disagreement, God calls us to set aside our assumptions, to set aside our need to be right, and instead to prayerfully listen for what God has to teach us through others. When we find ourselves rising to prove someone wrong, God calls us to first consider what we have to learn from this person. God’s wisdom isn’t a matter of history. God’s wisdom isn’t contained within any book. Instead, God’s wisdom is written in our lives and in our lifetimes. And God has promised that the Holy Spirit will lead us in the path of joy, if we remember that it’s not being right that matters as much as being loving. We come closest to the will of God not in holding correct opinions, but in sharing in the love of Christ. Amen.