A Life of Curiosity
Our theme today is “Cultivating a Life of Curiosity.“
As much as I thought about that, I could not get myself past the show, Ted Lasso on Apple TV. I will play a clip so you have a better idea of what I’m talking about. To set up the clip, Ted was a soccer coach in America who was hired to coach an English football team. In this scene there are two of the main characters, Rupert, who used to own the team, and his ex-wife. Rupert has just acquired significant ownership of the team and he has just announced that his new wife will be joining him and his ex-wife in the owner’s box every game. He bought enough stock in the team that he could set the line up if he wanted to, because he doesn’t like the way Ted’s coaching the team. They ended up making this wager that if Rupert wins, he gets to set the lineup for the rest of the season. But if Ted wins, Rupert doesn’t go near the owner’s box and he lets his ex-wife alone.
Are we curious? Do we ask the questions?
The point that Ted was making is that too quickly we become judgmental just as Rupert was, but unless we ask the questions, we will never truly understand one another. It is far easier to judge, to make snide remarks, and to write people off than it is to get to know them and try to understand them,
That’s not how Jesus lived. Jesus went to people and he asked questions. He asks Zacchaeus, why are you in the tree? He asked the Samaritan woman at the well, why are you at the well at this time of the day? He asked the questions of people because he wanted to get to know those people. He wanted to hear their story because when we hear each other’s stories we understand each other so much more and can have more grace for one another. That’s where our empathy comes from, our compassion.
We have these Proverbs, these wisdom teachings of Jesus in Matthew 7:7-14. Remember I said context matters. This is what Jesus was saying to those who believed in him, who followed him, and for them this was his expectation. They were to do unto others as they would want to be treated. We have to remember that.
Jesus is Jewish, he’s talking to a Jewish audience, and it’s about how they are different from the rest of the community. That’s a huge part of Judaism. What makes them distinct? That may be harder for us to know in this context. If you don’t know a lot of people who are Jewish, we might be able to answer the question of how Amish people make themselves different in our community. That might be an easier question for us to answer because they do the same thing. They have ways about them that make them distinct.
Christ was calling us to be distinct. In our world, we should live differently. We shouldn’t blend with society. Here are some things that we are to do.
Ask, Seek, and Knock. We have to be looking for God, asking for God’s help. But this scripture gets taken advantage of. I think it’s because of the descriptions that he gave because it sounds like we should just ask for material things. I don’t believe that God is some type of ultimate Santa Claus. That if we ask for a beautiful house, somebody’s just gonna call us up and give us a beautiful house. I don’t think it works that way.
This is where people sometimes lose their faith when there’s a diagnosis and they ask for healing, but they don’t get a cure. I wanna say that we don’t know what healing looks like and sometimes maybe being whole is joining eternity. That’s a hard one and I know that.
But I do think if we ask for the gifts of God, think back to our last season with “The Economy of Jesus.” The gifts of God, are love, grace, compassion, empathy, self-control, and patience. Those gifts, if we ask for them, God will help us find them. If we look for a way forward, if we ask God, to help us to figure out where we are to go or what we are to do, the path will become clear to us. It may not be where we wanna go or it may not be what we wanna do because God doesn’t work like that.
I think that leads us down to the narrow gate. So the easy road is the wide gate. Do you remember where it said? it leads to destruction. It’s the narrow gate and the hard road that leads to life. That’s not what we wanna hear. We wanna hear that we can just ask God for a nice, easy life and it will all be roses and sunshine, and everything’s going to work the way we want it to. We’re always gonna be happy and we’re never gonna experience sorrow or pain, but that isn’t it. That’s not the story of Jesus. Jesus was the one who was willing to die on the cross for us because of his love. That is not an easy road.
But in order to do all of this, I think that there is a level of humility that Jesus is also calling us to.
It didn’t say that in the scriptures. It did not say, you must be humble. But, I think that there’s a humility and a vulnerability that is also needed. We don’t like either of those words. Our society says when people are vulnerable, then they’re weak, or they’re losers.
I disagree and I think that Jesus modeled for us letting go, and being vulnerable to meet people where they are. I think that we are called to meet each other, to get to know each other, and to ask questions.
We have to be willing to acknowledge that we don’t know everything. We don’t know everything that we think we know. We have to own that. We don’t know everything and we don’t have everything that we need. Not really. You may have the physical comforts that you need, but if you look within yourself, do you have all of the love, grace, compassion, patience, and peace that you need? My guess is if we’re honest, none of us do.
That’s where we can be more curious. We can be curious within ourselves, what is that within me that drives me to act like that? What is it within me that makes me think that I’m not loved? Maybe that’s an old story you need to reexamine.
Meister Eckhart’s quote invites us to approach life as a child because they haven’t lost their curiosity yet, and we can work on building our curiosity muscle. We can work on being more curious and asking more questions.
That’s actually how we’re going to bring ourselves together because none of us holds the real truth. But the truth is in the midst of our stories. With humility and a sense of curiosity, we can seek to understand and have more empathy.
This past week on Thursday night, we had the Clatterbucks here for Mocktails & Meaning.
The Clatterbucks lost their transgender son to suicide almost a year ago. They named the pain and sorrow that they still carry around. He was surrounded by people who loved and affirmed him for being who he was. But the rhetoric in our county, state, and country was so hard. It told him that he was not welcome. It wanted to erase him, and so he did.
How we treat others matters.
What we are called to do is to love. What are the two commandments? Love God with all of our being and love our neighbor as ourselves. There’s a third because that means you have to love yourself.
The next thing to do in every moment is the most loving. What is the most loving thing I can do in this moment? That’s what God wants us to do. And I told you I was going to end every sermon with these words because I think we need to be thinking about this right now. We need to be thinking about what we are telling the children by our actions and our words. What are we teaching them that they are learning for when they are adults? The wisdom of Stephen Sondheim.
“Careful the things you say, children will listen. Careful the things you do, children will see and learn. Children may not obey, but children will listen. Children will look to you for which way to turn, to learn. Be careful before you say, listen to me, children will listen.”