What is maturity? It is often described as a good characteristic and often, especially in this country... Japan, age is very closely linked to maturity. But we may not be becoming better people as we age. If so, how does someone become mature in the good sense of the word? I should explain:
Usually, for the English classes I'm teaching, I'll partner with a church member to lead the class. Basically what happens is that I'll teach the English time for about 50 minutes... and the last 10 minutes are a Bible study/introduction to Christianity time led by the church member in Japanese. This passed week, however, due to a series of circumstances, I also had to lead the "chapel times" for a couple of the classes because the "chaplain" couldn't make it to the class. The two classes were the housewives' class on Wednesday and the high schoolers' class on Friday.
For both classes we read Mark 12:30-32. Basically, it's the passage where Jesus describes the first and second most important commandments of God. The first is love God with everything you've got. The second is love others like yourself. Last week, we focused on "love others." I had only one question, "What does it look like to obey this commandment?" In other words, "If you say, 'OK, I'm gonna obey this commandment', what will you do?" My thinking was... brainstorm ideas on how to "love others" for 10 minutes, challenge the people there to then go out and do those ideas for a week, and talk about how it went the following week... that is this week.
Maybe I should start with the high school students on Friday. The three people who attended last week thought of a ton of ideas, practical ideas, loving ideas. At the end, they were excited about the possibility of putting these collective ideas into practice.
The housewives, however, were very different. Instead of starting with the brainstorming, they thought of reasons why they'd fail at "loving others." Instead of thinking about the different ways we can show love to others, the topic of discussion transformed into "Why it's so difficult to love others." Excited at the immediate possibility of sharing the Gospel, I started talking about sin and how the Bible says that it keeps us from doing what God wants us to do... like love others. But it soon became apparent that the discussion of "Why it's so difficult to love others" was merely used as an out... a way to push away the responsibility of obeying the commandment.
"Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it." -- Mark 10:15