Teacher’s Talking
Talk 4 – Grace & Justice – Hand in Hand
In the movie ‘Aladdin’, when Jasmin and Aladdin fly on the magic carpet, they sing a song called “A Whole New World”, about how love has changed everything. A Christian school aims to provide the context that embodies the nature of God’s love, the very heart of the new creation. It looks like Jesus who loves us, and “ laid down His life for us”. (1 John 3: 16).
Christian teachers are not called to just explain the Bible to our students in the culture they inhabit but must explain that culture through the lens of Scripture, for “the Bible contains not only a set of truths, stories and doctrines, but also what we might call recurring structures, patterns, or shapes of thought. We read the Bible not only as a set of ideas and stories to think about, but also a set of patterns and dispositions through which we live the whole of life.” [1]
In our society’s culture, a wedge has been driven between love and truth, where feelings of love expressed in any kind of human relationship are seen as a person expressing their own truth and is therefore okay. Not only do we struggle with the outworking of this understanding in the lives of the students, but we often struggle in Christian schools, with the false cultural dichotomy we may hold about the relationship between grace and justice.
Author Chris Watkins [2] calls the two parts of this dichotomy as either ‘loveless justice’ or ‘justice-less grace’ and then we accept ‘an unsatisfying compromise of part‑justice, part‑love’. [3] A misunderstanding of grace leads to permissiveness, which damages a community by embedding patterns of disobedience and alienating students. A distorted view of justice leads to mindless legalism that focuses merely on the outward appearance and not the heart. Trying to compromise leads to confusion and inconsistency.
Christian spiritual formation is our long‑term goal, and there are many difficulties and challenges along the way in the battle to help students to live God’s way and to not be influenced by a world that has rejected God’s way. Micah 6: 8, “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” gives us insight into a third way. To do ‘what is good’ is to act in love which involves the exercise of justice, grace and mercy in the context of walking with our God in humility. A teacher whose life is characterised by worship, gentleness and care, firmness and consistency and the ability to listen will, over time, establish respect from the students and embed life‑giving patterns and practices in the class. The gift of the Spirit empowers and enables us to be part of God’s mission to reset all areas of life to bring flourishing and restoration. God’s love is extended to us for our formation into the likeness of Christ. Likewise, to love our students is to be both intentional and demonstrated in discipline. It liberates them from persisting in childish characteristics and nurtures them to love their neighbour.
Justice is part of loving. Dr Cornel West aptly said, “Justice is what love looks like in public ….” [4] God’s justice is about putting things right as He designed them to be. Love is not simply giving but it is judicious, withholding as well. It is judicious praising and judicious critique. ‘Judicious’ action requires judgement (not the condemnation kind) but evaluation that is thoughtful and wise. It is about consequences that reveal the right way to go. All discipline for correction causes a measure of pain and so teachers need to know their students and be sensitive to what is required. Grace – receiving what you don’t deserve and mercy – not receiving what you deserve, are also part of love.
How does this work in practice? A student who entered Year 7 had been adopted by a family where the wife had become a Christian. He had many years of abuse from his biological parent and foster‑carers. Consequently, he had little or no understanding of what real love looked like. He was focused in on himself to protect and survive in his broken world. His primary schooling had been seriously disrupted and hence, he was below the academic standards for his age. He lacked any self‑control and so when he joined his Year 7 classes, it was like throwing a rock in a pool which sent out many ripples. No matter what strategies teachers tried, he still acted out in class. If students said something he didn’t like, he would lash out verbally or with a punch. How did grace and justice work hand‑in‑hand for him?
It was a challenging and complex process for teachers to love him in ways that contributed what was needed for him to grow and at the same time to value the life of the community. Over and over it was stressed that he belonged to our school community, that he was valued and we would treat him with the dignity that held him responsible for his own choices. His past did not give him the right to harm others. He received many detentions and in‑school suspensions. During these times, dedicated teachers provided him with assistance that would help him overcome his learning difficulties and achieve well.
Only those in school leadership and the Counsellor knew about his shattered past. Whilst he would experience consequences for his poor choices and behaviour toward his teachers and other students, he would receive pastoral care and counselling support alongside this. His peers who teased and taunted him were disciplined, and he saw that he had intrinsic worth because the school took seriously when others mistreated him. He was involved many times in setting things right with teachers, peers and his adoptive parents. He learnt to tell the truth without the fear he would be rejected. In his life at school, he experienced justice, grace and mercy, receiving new opportunities to grow after failure and struggle. But there was always a spark of growth. He heard the Gospel proclaimed and experienced the love of Jesus demonstrated through his teachers. What a joy it was when he graduated in Year 10 where he expressed gratitude to his teachers and went on to use his gifts in training for an apprenticeship. Did his teachers feel frustrated at times? Did they almost give up? Did he make their lives difficult? The answer is ‘yes’ to all of these but each year growth was visible and by God’s grace we were able to persist. It needs to be acknowledged that part of grace is allowing students who show over time a hardness of heart toward discipline, to be eventually given over to the consequences of their choices both for their own journey and for the well-being of the community. But leaders must trust the guidance of the Holy Spirit to do this with much wisdom and prayer.
Re‑creation comes through a strange and slow process of sowing the seeds of self‑giving love that reflects grace and justice. For we can engender an unshakeable hope in the lives of our students because our final restoration awaits us, and it comes through Christ. For in Him we are learning a new way to be human, the imprint of God on His creation. We discipline as an act of faithfulness, trusting the Lord with the outcome.
“Discipline your son and he will give you peace, He will bring delight to your soul.” (Proverbs 29: 17)
Grace & Peace
The Excellence Team
[1] Chris Watkin, Thinking through Creation: Genesis 1 & 2 as tools of cultural critique, (Phillipsburg: P & R Publishing, 2017), 3
[2] Ibid, 16
[3] Ibid, 19
[4] https://traffickinginstitute.org/incontext-cornel-west