“Ask Why”
Rev. Alison
Longstaff, May 31, 2015
Bath Church
of the New Jerusalem
Deuteronomy 4: 32-40;
Matthew 10:22-30; TC 508
Judgment comes from
fear. Curiosity comes from love.
When you find yourself
judging, see if you can be curious instead.
True Christianity #508
One day there appeared to me a magnificent temple. It was square in form, and its roof was in the shape of a crown, with soaring arches rising on high all round. Its walls were continuous windows of crystal and its gate of a pearly substance. Within on the south side, and facing the west was a pulpit on the right of which lay the open Word, surrounded with a blaze of light whose brightness enveloped and illuminated the whole pulpit.
When I approached nearer I saw this inscription over the gate, "Now it is permitted" which means that it is now acceptable for people to explore with intelligence the deep questions of
faith. - Emanuel Swedenborg
Today is “Trinity Sunday” in mainstream North American Christianity. Many Christian preachers across the continent are
tackling the topic of how God can be both three and one at the same time. I sat through a Lutheran classmate’s sermon one
Trinity Sunday back in Canada and felt deeply grateful to be Swedenborgian. What a challenging theology!
Swedenborgians simply don’t do the trinity the same way most Christians
do. We are solidly anchored in the
belief in one God. There is one God, and
Jesus was that one God come down to earth.
That is orthodox Swedenborgianism, (and yes, it has gotten us into
trouble with other Christians through the years).
Why do we believe what we do about the trinity? That is a great question!
But I am not up here this morning to argue for or against the various
interpretations of the trinity through the ages. I am here to support the questioning.
“Judge
a man by his questions rather than by his answers,” said Voltaire.
Who here has read, The Shack by William P. Young? I experienced a squirming discomfort with the
representation of the trinity (as three distinct people) when I read it. That representation of the trinity was simply
“wrong” in my mind. But fortunately I
also felt curiosity. Having walked
beside and come to love fellow seminarians who had to work within the
trinitarian model, I had developed a curiosity about how they navigated that
whole puzzle. I had seen and heard quite
a few creative and redemptive interpretations, and I had to admit that The
Shack’s speculative representation had a certain appeal. I still prefer the Swedenborgian resolution
of the Trinity, but within its paradigm it is a strikingly creative solution to
a sticky conundrum.
Prejudice closed me to anything good that The Shack offered. Curiosity opened me up to the story it had to
tell, and left me in respect for the storyteller and the courageous tackling of
some very challenging material. In the
end it was of no consequence if I “agreed” or “disagreed” with the interpretation
of the trinity. Compassion for the heartbreak and deep wrestling in the story
is what mattered. Doctrinal differences
over the trinity became irrelevant before the deep questions springing from the
main character’s broken heart.
Fear and judgment shut us
down. Love and curiosity open us up.
“Curiosity
is a willing, a proud, and eager confession of ignorance,” said S. Leonard
Rubinstein.
If you are willing, raise your hand if, at some point in your life, you
felt shamed or reprimanded for asking a question. If you were asking a spiritual teacher, spiritual
guilt was probably added to the shame and the reprimand. I personally think that shaming someone for
asking a theological question is a form of spiritual abuse, especially if it is
a child.
Children are born asking, “Why?” I
suspect that we would keep asking “why” all through life if we were not taught to stop asking. Somewhere along the
way, we get the message that it is not okay to ask so many questions.
Too many of us were made to feel guilty if we questioned what we were
being taught in church or in Sunday School. (Perhaps not in this church, but in all too many.)
A lot of that silencing probably came from tired and frustrated teachers
who thought they were supposed to have
all the answers. To stand at the
front of all those questioning eyes and NOT know the answer can be
terrifying. But it is terrifying only if
you believe you are supposed to know. No
human can have all the answers, but
somehow too many teachers and leaders feel shame if they don’t have all the
answers.
Let go of certainty. The opposite isn't uncertainty.
It's openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than
choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we
are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.” Tony Schwartz - writer and business
productivity leader
Oh the relief when I was taught that I
didn’t need to have the answers to all the questions children would
ask when I taught them. Children are not afraid of not knowing; it is adults who
are. Children are okay when a grown-up
says, “Huh. I don’t know! Maybe we can find out together,” or even
better, “I’m not sure. What do you
think?”
It is amazing what you can hear when you ask a child what they think. It is remarkable how satisfied a child can be
with their own answer, even if it sounds a bit eye-brow-raising to us. Children
don’t necessarily want an authoritative factual response from adults. They like to explore the answers for
themselves. And it is okay if they come
up with a “wrong” answer because sometimes we grownups are looking at the
answer through the “wrong” lens. With
the right lens, the child’s answer would make perfect sense.
At age four, “Because it wanted to,” is a perfectly sensible answer to,
“Why did the ball roll down the plank?” It
isn’t until much later that “the law of gravity” is developmentally more
satisfying. What answers make sense to
us will fit with where we are on a spiritual, mental, and emotional continuum,
and therefore there is no “right” or “wrong” about having different
perspectives. It is okay to allow each other to be somewhere different than we
are on the spiritual journey, (even if we are sure they are “wrong.” It isn’t about where they are anyway).
Fear of asking questions shuts us down from learning; it shuts us down from
a bigger world perspective; it shuts us down from practicing walking on our own
spiritual feet and becoming spiritual grown-ups.
Carved over the entryway of the temple seen in Swedenborg’s vision was,
“Nunc Licet,” or “Now it is permitted.”
(Actually, it would have been written in a spiritual language, but as
Swedenborg wrote in Latin, “Nunc Licet” is what the Latin says.) What is
permitted? “To enter into the mysteries of faith.” In other words, “It is okay
now to ask theological questions;” “You are allowed to explore it all now;” or
“You no longer have to be afraid of challenging the things you don’t understand.”
And so it is a foundational teaching in Swedenborgian theology that we
don’t have to be afraid of probing into any aspect of faith. Intelligent questioning and a genuine desire
to understand is valued here. My job as
a spiritual leader is to support and advise, to walk beside and encourage, to
offer tools and ideas and different perspectives. My job is not to judge people or tell them
how they ought to think or feel.
Fear judges and controls, while love is curious.
My yoga teacher in
Canada taught us to pay attention to our inner self talk during our practice. Were we judging ourselves for not doing the
poses better? Were we beating ourselves
up or feeling frustrated that we hadn’t made more progress from the week before? Again and again she invited us to be curious
about ourselves, not critical. She
invited us to explore and be playful with how we were approaching a pose,
especially if it seemed too hard.
This invitation to
be curious rather than judging continues to teach me. When I find myself judging myself (or someone
else or something) if I can just bring
curiosity to the table too, the inner dialogue transforms. Instead of thoughts that criticize and
condemn I can begin to ask things like, “What is going on underneath this
judging?” “What am I afraid of?” and,
“How else might I move through this with more compassion?” From negative inner attacks it shifts to
compassionate problem-solving; from a passive, blaming place it shifts to a
creative optimism.
When
we can become conscious that we are judging, and instead of judging, become curious, whole new
possibilities and solutions open up. Fear underlies
judgment and fear shuts us down while love underlies curiosity and love opens
us up.
“Curiosity
will conquer fear even more than bravery will,” said James Stephens.
“Seek,
and you will find,” said Jesus.
“It
is okay to ask the questions now,” is apparently carved on a temple in heaven.
May
we become like little children and return to fearless curiosity and never stop
asking, “Why?” Amen
The Readings
Deuteronomy 4:32-40
For
ask now about former ages, long before your own, ever since the day that God
created human beings on the earth; ask from one end of heaven to the other: has
anything so great as this ever happened or has its like ever been heard of? Has any people ever heard the voice of
a god speaking out of a fire, as you have heard, and lived? Or has any god ever attempted to go
and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by
signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by
terrifying displays of power, as the Lord your God did for
you in Egypt before your very eyes? To
you it was shown so that you would acknowledge that the Lord is
God; there is no other besides him. From
heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his
great fire, while you heard his words coming out of the fire. And because he loved your ancestors,
he chose their descendants after them. He brought you out of Egypt with his own
presence, by his great power, driving
out before you nations greater and mightier than yourselves, to bring you in,
giving you their land for a possession, as it is still today. So acknowledge today and take to heart
that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the
earth beneath; there is no other. Keep
his statutes and his commandments, which I am commanding you today for your own
well-being and that of your descendants after you, so that you may long remain
in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.
Matthew 10:22-30
Then came the
Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and
Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. The Judeans who were there gathered
around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the
Messiah, tell us plainly.”Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in
my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not
my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal
life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them
out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
But ultimately, I was powerless. Once I had done everything I could reasonably do, the rest had to be surrendered to the whims of chance. This was made especially clear to me when, upon checking back in, the various managers all told me that my profile was "locked." Apparently the original manager (that said I was hired my second day in the city) not only didn't have a job for me, she hadn't released my profile back into the Starbucks hiring pool. She had made it impossible for any other Starbucks to hire me either!
It is the paradox embodied in yoga. It is the paradox of life---to seek the union of things that seem diametrically opposed---strength and relaxation, taking action and surrendering, effort and ease.
