What does it mean to be a Christian Professor at Handong? This question poses an even more profound inquiry. What does it mean to engage one’s profession in a Christianly manner? Within the context of Handong, the question could also be asked, what does it mean to be a Christian student here? Or, what does it mean to be a Christian administrator at Handong? How does the reality of our life in and through Christ impact the way in which we serve others in our respective callings?
In each of our callings, the life and teachings of Jesus should be the rule and guide showing us what it means to be a Christian who teaches, who studies, and who leads and administers. Jesus’ teachings about leadership are especially applicable to being a professor who is truly seeking to follow Christ’s example. When his disciples were bickering about who would be the greatest among them, Jesus said, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10: 42- 45, ESV).
A Christian professor should embody the reality of the life of Christ by serving his students rather than dominating them from some position of claimed cultural or intellectual authority. Christ turned his disciples’ view on “being the greatest” completely upside down. Some have even described the “Kingdom of God” that Jesus both proclaimed and lived as “The Upside-Down Kingdom” It’s true! To follow Christ authentically in our callings, especially in the vocation of a professor at a university such as Handong where Jesus is claimed as Lord, we should be living a life that runs against the flow of this world, and dare I say it, against the flow of every human culture.
The flow of this world says that one who is in a position of power and authority in the eyes of others (i.e. the professor/teacher) should readily assert his position through control. The flow of Christ, to the contrary, seeks to serve and to be at the service of those to whom we have been charged to teach. The Apostle Paul, whom many regard as the greatest teacher of the Church, embodied Christ’s life of service to others. He did not teach in order to get something from his students. Rather, in response to God’s gracious call, he served others through his teaching.
Paul lived the reality of the “Upside-Down Kingdom.” We see it clearly portrayed in his letter to the believers at Thessalonica. “We never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us” (I Thessalonians 2:5-8).
Because this sort of self-sacrificing service is true to the life of one who lives in and through Christ, a professor who professes to follow Jesus at a university where God is claimed to be in the center of all things (or at least in the center of its name) should be yielding his life for his students rather than demanding that students give their time and lives at his convenience. This means that the professor will be so submitted to the sovereignty of God in her service to students that she will allow her schedule to be interrupted because the needs of others are viewed as the professor’s most important task. We serve the best by giving our lives to listen to and seek to understand the needs of our students.
Through yielded service and a readiness to give of his time and attentiveness, the professor who draws his life from Christ at Handong should be not only led to teach his students in a professional and scholarly manner but also to live a life before and for his students that authentically demonstrates the love of Christ by sharing and even bearing their burdens. “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). A professor can only bear those burdens he knows, and so he must take the time to get to know what weighs down his students so that he might be of some measure of help in lifting them up.
If our students would learn anything of lasting value from us as Christian professors at Handong, then may it be this – that we live in constant acknowledgement of our need for Christ’s mercy and forgiveness and that we then seek to be professors who are serving, giving and bearing them through this time together here as we are continuing to be formed by the work of Christ’s Spirit into the whole persons that he has designed, called and equipped us all – professors, students, and administrators – to be.
