Luke 6:39 - 45
During my medical education, there was a saying -- and I suppose it’s still a saying -- “See one, do one, teach one.” Medical education is a lot of book learning, but there is a lot of practical stuff as well. And the only way to learn the practical stuff is to watch someone else do something, try it yourself until you can do it without much thought; then teach it to someone else. In fact, when you teach something to someone else, it reinforces your own knowledge of what you tried to teach.. And it doesn’t just apply to medicine. I was reminded of this the other day when the turn signal in my car stopped working. I knew it needed a new light bulb, but I had never replaced this on this particular car. The manual wasn’t much help. So I found a youtube video that showed me how to do it. I’m not a quick study, so I would go in the house and watch the you tube for a minute, then go out to the car and try to do what I watched. Over the course of a half hour or so I managed to change the bulb. I was so proud of myself, and I had gotten a lot of exercise going back and forth between the car and my computer.
You and I are the sum total of seeing and doing; from the time we are infants we model our behavior on others. But we often forget that we are, by necessity, models for other people. It’s kind of flattering to see yourself reflected in other people. I remember during the last couple of years that I was in practice, a phrase I had never heard before became widely used in the Baystate culture. “At the end of the day” was shorthand for “after we take into account everything, this is my conclusion”. The phrase was first used by people who held a high rank in the hospital culture, and before you knew it you began to hear it in conversations all through the hospital.
Today Jesus makes a number of straightforward statements that it’s hard to disagree with. A blind person leading a blind person? That’s a recipe for disaster. Can a disciple surpass his teacher? Jesus means that you can’t learn more than your teacher can teach you. Who could disagree? And it’s good advice to make sure you can see before helping your brother see. Good trees bear good fruit; bad trees bad fruit. Simple statements. But here it is in the gospel, straight from Jesus’ lips. What’s the point?
I think it’s this. “See one, do one, and teach one” is the saying. We have to be conscious of the fact that our behavior is being watched; people around us will pick up on how we act, what we do - and incorporate some of that into their own personalities.
But it works in the other direction as well. Some of those vibrations that we cast off and that others pick up on push away rather than attract.. If I see someone who appears angry all the time, or depressed, or humorless, I might not pick up on something good about that person that would aid my own spiritual growth.
We can’t help learning from each other; and what we learn best is non-verbal. Jesus could have simply instructed his disciples to serve each other, but he acted this out at the last supper when he washed their feet. And while we are rightfully concerned about our own spiritual health, we need to take a positive interest in the spiritual health of those who watch us -- especially people close to us like our children, our spouses, our best friends.
Saint Paul said to the Corinthians, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” He was conscious of the fact that he was teaching by example as well as words, but also that if his followers imitated him, they would be on the right track, because he knew he imitated Christ.
Lent is coming. It’s a good time to take stock of our spiritual lives and what we need to do to draw closer to Jesus. And it’s also good to ask, who among our friends and associates is influenced by my behavior? And likewise, who do I imitate? Because our ultimate goal is to imitate Christ and to live in such a way that others who see us will be influenced to be more like Jesus. During Lent make a resolution to learn more about Jesus so that you can model your own behavior more completely on him.
