lenten blog | April 2, 2025

To unlearn is a part of to learn

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for April 2nd:  2 Kings 4:1-7; Psalm 53; and Luke 9:10-17.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Chess grandmaster Maurice Ashley, author of “Move by Move:  Life Lessons On and Off the Chessboard,” offers:  “In the art of true learning, the ability to unlearn can be the most powerful skill.”  (BG, 7/14/2024, p. K8)  I truly enjoyed the television miniseries the Queen’s Gambit, which focused on a woman chess phenom.  Spoiler alert if you have never seen the show and are planning to in the future.  In the character Beth Harmon’s championship game against a Russian Grandmaster, both players prove their exceptional abilities by altering traditional tactics mid-game.  There is the inherited wisdom that they have both mastered, but to win they need to adapt these tried and true methods and create new tactics.  In other words, they need to be able to unlearn in order to win. 

In Bible study, we had an interesting discussion about Gideon, one of ancient Israel’s judges.  The Midianites are harassing some of Israel’s tribes.  In those days prior to kings, charismatic leaders would emerge, unite and lead Israel against its current enemy, and then the people would return to a very loose confederation.  Gideon was one of these charismatic leaders.

Gideon is toiling away at his farm labours, constantly worried that it all may be brought to naught if the Midianites attack.  His work is interrupted by an encounter with the divine.  The “angel of the Lord” calls Gideon a “mighty warrior.”  Gideon’s reply is rather cynical:  “‘If Yahweh is with us, why then has all this happened to us?  And where are all his wonderful deeds that our ancestors recounted to us, saying “Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?”’”  (Judges 6:13)  Gideon is looking for God to act miraculously, to take matters into God’s own divine hands, to do to the Midianites what God had done to the Egyptians.

In God’s reply, Gideon is being asked to unlearn what he knows:  “‘Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian.  I hereby commission you.’” (6:14)  God will act miraculously, but it will not be independent of Gideon.  It will be through Gideon:  “‘Go in this might of yours.’”  What Gideon had learned from the accounts of his elders was that God acts miraculously.  What this morphed into was that since God acts, then God’s people can be passive observers.  God needs to jolt Gideon out of this torpor.  God needs Gideon to unlearn this passive reliance on God to handle all of life’s problems.  God needs Gideon to learn the new lesson that God will work with and through God’s people.

Both of today’s readings share wondrous stories of miraculous abundance.  Such accounts are meant to convey the power of God, but they are not meant to be the template people of faith turn to every time there is an instance of economic hardship or need.  If a household can be threatened by such poverty and its consequences as told in the Elisha story, then thank God for the miracle, but realize simultaneously that such a system is inherently unjust and must be changed.  Such change will not be a miracle per se.  It will be accomplished by people who are commissioned by God to create a fairer and more humane alternative.  This does not imply that God is not involved.  It promises, instead, that God is involved through us.  This may involve unlearning what we may expect of God, unlearning expectations that may have been instilled in us since Sunday School days.  This unlearning may be the most important skill in learning.

When the disciples approach Jesus in their concern about feeding the thousands of people, Jesus turns the question back on them:  “‘But he said to them, ‘You give them something to eat.’”  Jesus is pushing His followers to take the initiative.  This is to unlearn an utter dependence upon God’s miracles to fix what is broken in our lives and in our world.  It is Jesus pushing us as His disciples to act because we have been commissioned by Christ, which promises that we act with Christ.  This in and of itself is miraculous. 

May we unlearn so that we can learn our responsibility to make a difference through our initiatives and through our efforts, and all done in Christ.

If you would like to join us for our online Bible study, please send an email to [email protected] for the Zoom logins.
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If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.