Today we begin with a story that takes place at the Education Support Centre in Hertfordshire where I worked as a specialist teacher, and an episode where something seemed to change. Between December 2003 and October 2004, and again between February 2005 and February 2006 I taught at an Education Support Centre in a city north from London. In very much an oversimplification this was a school for secondary aged students who had been expelled from their “normal school”, or who were in danger of being so, for violent or illegal behaviour. Onsite I taught one class of year seven to nine students and another class of year ten and eleven students. I taught a broadly defined subject called Humanities, which was made up of bits of the Geography, History, Civics, and Religion curricula as stipulated in the National Curriculum for England. Offsite or on “outreach” I went into local high schools and worked 1:1 with boys (because I’m a boy) from those same age groups who were on their “last chance”. At outreach I was liked, and the boys looked forward to my sessions. Onsite I was disliked, and I was regularly sworn at, spat at, threatened with violence and arson, and I was assaulted on four occasions. (And that was just in the staffroom!) The onsite cohort called me “Squeak” because my large front teeth and my then goatee beard made me look like a mouse, apparently. There was a loose confederation of students charged with the responsibility of “getting Squeak out”, trying to bully me into resigning. Eventually they gave up, I wasn’t going anywhere, and they had run out of ideas. They still didn’t like me, they found my resilience unnerving, but the conspiracy and the all-out attacks died out. So, there’s your background.

And here’s the story. One Friday afternoon, when classes for the week had ended and the students were about to go home; as was our regular practice the whole school gathered in the big classroom to count up the week’s merits. Merits earned you points, and points bought you food. So anyway, we’ve added up the merits and points, and determined who has earned and who will be rewarded; and then there was a race for the kitchen were the food it kept. One of the year eleven girls was in there, into the cupboard and grabbing for the bags of potato chips. I was the first staff-member into the room, and seeing her there I called out, “Sarah (not her real name), please don’t take all those chips, we need to share the flavours.” Sarah (not her real name) rolled her eyes, gave a big huff in the way that only a sixteen-year-old girl can do, and said “Oh my god Sir, this is England not Australia, they’re called crisps!!”

I was shocked: are you shocked? Did you catch it? Sarah (not her real name) had called me…sir. Not “Squeak”, not “effin’ Stuart Little”, (which I once copped in class, with “effin’” given its less polite pronunciation). Sarah (not her real name) had called me “sir”.

“Umm, Sarah, did you just call me ‘sir’?”

“Umm, ummm…”

By this time the kitchen’s other inhabitants were laughing at the joke. “Oh, my effin’ word Sarah, you showed respect for Squeaky innit?  You has brought discredit upon your entire family.”

I can’t say that the ice entirely thawed that day, or that Sarah (not her real name, she was actually called Melissa) and I became bestie mates after that, but it did mark a positive change. Even so, when I read James 3:1 where Jacob writes not many of you should aspire to become teachers I do not think only of the added responsibility that God places upon the shoulders of pastors and preachers. Teaching is a rewarding job in church as well as school; but it is insurmountably treacherous at times, in church as well as school

In the first twelve verses of James 3 set for us today we are called to pay attention to leadership in the community of faith. If we accept that The Letter of James was written by Jacob the brother of Jesus, the second son of Joseph and Mary and possibly Jesus’ first ever best friend, we remember from the gospels how Jacob along with his younger siblings thought that Jesus had lost the plot. Now we find him with a fresh revelation of the Messiah and undertaking pastoral responsibility for the nascent Church in Jerusalem. Jacob is a solid man to write about leadership and teaching, and he unpacks what it means to be a leader.

True wisdom, true discipleship is shown by speaking well; not just as a discipline in itself but also as an indication that what else is going on in the Christian’s life is under the blessing of God. One of the things that really messed with Sarah (not her real name) and her cohort at the ESC was that I was generally kindly spoken. Anyone can say nice things, many people can be nice even in the face of meanness, but something about the way that I seemed genuinely unfazed by the ways in which the students plotted my downfall over six months of their best efforts, unnerved them. These teens knew that I was a Christian, in fact of the five classroom teachers onsite three of us were strong in our faith, but there was something else about me, something they couldn’t break, something they needed to destroy because it was a threat to them. That they didn’t destroy me or the thing inside me has everything to do with the grace of God, which of course was the thing inside me. I am not claiming anything other than a vast supply of grace from my Lord in this one; but when unbreakable kindness, even in sadness, confronted them, even violently vicious bullying was left undone. As a teacher, as a leader, as an adult, I was a grace-bearer; carrying grace inside me and sharing it with my students.

The scriptures teach that a fool cannot speak wisdom and a sinner cannot teach righteousness. Again, almost anyone can fake pretty much anything for a short time; but longevity and perseverance cannot be built upon weakness and falsehood. The wise and good can make mistakes, but that is seen as an aberration: the stupid and evil cannot speak true wisdom by accident. As a pastor-teacher living alongside you for this season, I invite you to look for the signs of grace in yourself and in your leaders: and if you want to be a leader then be ready for examination. Maybe the examination will come (as it did for me) with violence and hatred, maybe it will come in seduction and flattery, maybe it will come as damned hard work and lots of it. If you’re not ready for the test amongst the people then you’re not ready to be their teacher or a leader. If no one is ready for the test then the whole community will be leaderless, teacherless, and heading for calamity.  So pray for your leaders and teachers, and if you don’t know who they are then pray that God will give you wisdom to discern who to tap.

In the last portion of  James 3:6 Jacob sets out a frame for understanding how the ways in which members of a congregation, the local experience of The Body of Christ speak about each other can destroy The Church for generations. Maybe this is a mixing of theologies; Paul writes more about the body as a metaphor for the Church, it’s perhaps not Jacob’s first thought, but it rings true for the big-C Church, the whole collection of Christians from Jacob to now, and it rings especially true for the local church. I have been in congregations where there is implicit and explicit enmity; these congregations did not grow, they died. Gossip, whispers, half-truths, complete lies, all are destructive to friendship communities, how much more so the people of God? If Paul’s metaphor is good, and we are the body where Jesus is the head, and some of us are hands and some of us are feet, if you are a tongue then Jacob warns you to be very careful.

One of my commentators suggested, and I agree, that Jacob’s key learning outcome in this short passage is consistency. Consistency in purity for sure, no one wants a consistent evil, although at least that would be easier to manage because there’s no deception if the evil is plain to see. But no, speak with the voice coming up from your depths, from your heart and guts, be consistent with yourself. If you like what you hear, then honour God and stay on course, and consider offering yourself to the church as a teacher or leader. If you don’t like what you hear, then honour God and seek healing. “I don’t like the way I speak,” or, “I don’t like how I get so angry so quickly”, or “I don’t like that I use so many swear words without thinking,” are all good opinions of yourself, if they are honest.  Seek God, and look for the teachers and leaders who can help you; that’s why God has raised them up amongst you. As was read to us this morning from Proverbs 1:20-33, heed wisdom’s warning; in other words let yourself be taught by the best teachers.

Lest you think me worthy of a double portion of Frequent Martyr Points following my story about Sarah (not her real name) and her classmates, let me tell you about one of the times I stuffed up. Sarah (not her real name) was in the room on this, an earlier occasion, back when the scheme to destroy me was still underway. There were five students from the older group, so 15 or 16 years old, and two of them were heaping the insults on me. “Oh, my days Squeaks why is you even here? No one likes you, no one respects you, no one is listening to you, your whole life is a mess man.” Maybe it was late in the day, or late in the week. You know, Thursday afternoon when it’s not yet Friday and it’s been one of those days for the last nineteen days in a row. Anyway, I snapped. Not angry and shouty snapped, just let my guard down. “You have got to be joking,” I said, in my normal classroom voice, “I am the most sorted person here.” That was all I said, and I said it and didn’t yell it, and I said it and I didn’t sneer it. In hindsight I probably said it more for my own benefit that theirs, a reminder to myself that whilst the first three points were undoubtedly true amongst the kids themselves, and some of the staff, (that I was not liked, respected, or listened to), my whole life was not, in fact, a mess at all. All I did in fact was annoy the other, silently hateful, students. Suddenly all five of them were shouting, “Oh my days man, I was just sittin’ here and now you says I’m a mess?  You’re an effin’ mess you effin’ rat look-alike. An’ why can’t you even speak English and why don’t you jus’ go back to effin’ Australia,” and so forth. I didn’t lose any friends, I didn’t have any; not in that room anyway, but I lost my teacherly and leaderly for a moment. One slip in my internal dialogue and I was set back a few weeks’ worth of slow progress toward shalom.

So, I urge you, heed Wisdom’s advice and the wisdom of Jacob. Look for leaders amongst you and pray earnestly for them, especially if your search for a leader points to you. Do not lose heart, stay close to God and follow God’s way as Jesus did and as Jacob and Paul and the Proverbalist taught.

And above all else remember this: in England they are called crisps.

Amen.