Tag: bias

Unlearn What You Have Learned

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Sermon for Sunday, April 3, 2022 || Lent 5C || Philippians 3:4b-14

Last week we talked about beginning again. I want to stay with that theme this week and talk about a fundamental piece of beginning again. This fundamental piece is the action of “unlearning.” Sometimes we learn something wrong (or at least incompletely), and we operate under that wrongness so long that it seems right due only to longevity. When we recognize this, the mature step is to unlearn what we have learned, and this means beginning again.

When I was writing this sermon, I accidentally quoted Yoda in what I just said, so I figure I might as well just present the whole scene from The Empire Strikes Back to set up this sermon. (I haven’t used any Star Wars references yet this year!) Luke Skywalker is deep in his training with Master Yoda on the planet of Dagobah. Luke is doing a handstand while levitating rocks, but then R2-D2 whistles a warning, and Luke loses his concentration. Artoo was warning him that his X-Wing starfighter is sinking completely into the swamp.

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What We Will Be

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Sermon for Sunday, April 18, 2021 || Easter 3B || Psalm 4; 1 John 3:1-7

One of the challenges of growing as human beings is expecting perfection when we try something new simply because we are pretty good at something else. I thought I could pick up the violin because I’m a fairly good guitarist. Not so much. We humans do not like doing things we are bad at because our egos get in the way. The older we get, the more solidified becomes the subset of activities that we think we are good enough to engage in. Does that resonate with you? I can still play soccer because I’ve been playing it since I was a kid. But don’t expect me to pick up lacrosse any time soon. I don’t want to feel foolish when the ball stubbornly fails to stay in the little net for the hundredth time.

All right. So why am I talking about this? The innocuous music and sports examples are one thing. But we need to grow in so many ways so we don’t become static and stagnant – ways that we naturally resist because growth takes energy and focus. We need to keep growing in kindness and compassion so we outgrow selfishness and callousness. We need to keep growing in the desire to be of service to others while also understanding our own healthy boundaries and limits. We need to keep growing in all facets of our identity – as spouses, family members, friends, neighbors, citizens, and followers of Jesus.

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Renewing Our Minds

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Sermon for Sunday, August 23, 2020 || Proper 16A || Romans 12:1-8

When I was a kid, I was a know-it-all and proud of it. I spent two and a half years at Hillcrest Middle School in Tuscaloosa, AL, making sure everyone knew I was the smartest kid there. I mellowed a bit in high school, but my know-it-all nature still asserted itself all too often. One time in tenth grade, I got into an argument with my English teacher about the proper pronunciation of the word “conch,” as in “conch shell.” We were reading Lord of the Flies, and I was an idiot. (Turns out, both konk and contsh are correct.*)

It wasn’t until the summer of 2006 – between my first two years of seminary – that I understood that thinking you are a know-it-all is really dumb. First off, it’s never true. Second, thinking you know everything makes you completely impervious to new information and, for that matter, personal growth. Thanks be to God for a summer of hospital chaplaincy that showed me in excruciating detail the vast expanse of things I didn’t know. After that, I no longer conceived of myself as a know-it-all, but a lifetime of inhabiting that identity made it hard to shake. Nearly 15 years later, I find myself lapsing back into it all the time, and so I try constantly to inject myself with the viewpoints of people who differ from me in order to remember there’s always something more to learn.

I mention all this because of a verse we heard this morning, one of the most important sentences the Apostle Paul ever wrote. Paul says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

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New Questions

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Sermon for Sunday, March 8, 2020 || Lent 2A || John 3:1-17

We humans have a tendency to fall into patterns. Sometimes these patterns are life-giving, like eating healthy and exercising. Too often, our patterns are destructive, especially on a societal level: we do the same things over and over and wonder why we achieve the same results – results that do not promote justice and dignity for all. Now, our loving God invites us into the fullness of life, which will not happen until such fullness is available to all people and all creation. But when we keep arriving at the same set of answers that do not lead to fullness of life for all, we need to start asking different questions.

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Better Questions

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Sermon for Sunday, November 25, 2018 || Reign of Christ B || John 18:33-37(38)

One enduring characteristic of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as we have received it is this: Jesus almost never answers a question directly. If you examine the way he responds to questions, you realize he answers the questions he wished people would ask him, not the ones they actually do. For example, when a legal expert asks him, “Who is my neighbor,” Jesus could have responded: “Everyone! Next question.” Instead, he tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, which answers the question he wished had been asked: “How can I be a neighbor?” The answer to that is by showing mercy to those in need, no matter how different from you they might be. This happens over and over in the Gospel – Jesus answering deeper questions than the ones that were asked.

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