Curiosity vs. Control

An interactive sermon on John 6:35, 41-51

[Note - this sermon involves the congregation engaging in a conversational activity. Those elements of the sermon are indicated with elipses.]

You each should have a blank name tag and something to write with.

In a minute, I want you each to write something OTHER than your given name… something that describes at least a part of your identity.

Those are the only parameters I require. Not your name. Something that feels like a statement of identity.

You can go with something simple like a role you play, if that’s what feels comfortable: a familial title, or job, or a hobby that ignites your passion.

Or you can go a little more conceptual or existential: define yourself as a “lover of beauty” (or whatever it is that you love); or by a characteristic of your personality.

If that’s too hard, consider any nicknames you have been given by others, or the name you were given in your baptism: Child of God.

You don’t have to wear this name tag beyond today’s worship service, so don’t worry about getting stamped with the “perfect” statement of who you are… just choose anything that feels true.

Hopefully you have thought of something now, so go ahead and write it.

I have had time to think about what I want my name tag to say, so I am writing “Poet of Peace” – it claims my love of written words and the peace that I seek to create in the world, so that’s an identity I am happy to claim.

OK. Once you have your identity written down, I want you to stick the nametag on yourself, in a minute we are going to “introduce” ourselves to someone else.

When I say go, I want you each to find someone nearby (or you can group in threes, to make sure no one is left out).

When you are introducing yourself say, “Hi. I am (and then say what you wrote on the name tag).

And then in response, say to each other, “thank you for sharing that identity with me.”

OK. Go!

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One more step. I want you to try the introductions again, maybe with someone new. But this time. The response is different: When you hear your partner introduce themselves, say, “No. I know your name. It’s (fill in their given name).

Try that.

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Let’s reflect for a minute:

How did it feel to be heard and thanked for sharing a part of your truth about who you are?

...

And how did it feel to be corrected, when you were sharing a part of yourself?

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I know this little experiment was a bit contrived, but in some very real ways it re-creates what is happening in today’s gospel.

Jesus shares with the people an unexpected identity: “I am the bread of life that came down from heaven.”

And, in response the people say, “Excuse me? No. You’re Jesus. We know your parents. We know where you come from, and it wasn’t heaven. You can’t fool us.”

On the one hand, they are correct.

He IS Jesus. They have always known him as Joseph and Mary’s son. His claims of divine origin and mystical identity are confounding.

We can hardly blame them for being confused.

But there are at least two ways to respond when someone shares an identity that we did not expect: Curiosity or Control.

Curiosity is an orientation of openness.

When I instructed you to thank each other for sharing your name-tag identities, I was having you practice a curious mindset: a perspective that receives new information as a gift that helps us to learn something we did not know before, and sees that learning as a good thing, something about which to be excited and grateful.

In contrast, Control is about being closed off, rejecting the discomfort of not knowing by claiming there is nothing to learn.

When I told you to correct your introduction partners and double-down on the name you already knew for them, that was an exercise in asserting control.

Rather than embracing the chance to learn something new, the controlling response claimed you already knew all you needed to know… which ends up meaning you don’t actually want to know the person in front of you.

And I think that this contrast between curiosity and control has everything to do with Jesus’s teaching in this passage.

Because immediately after Jesus calls out the crowd’s offended whisperings about Jesus’ identity claims, he shifts into a discourse about those whom God the Father calls to follow him.

And do you know how Jesus identifies this group? He quotes the prophets, saying, “And they shall all be taught be God.”

Taught.

Not called.

Not blessed.

Not even fed, in keeping with the whole bread of life theme.

Taught.

And he goes on to proclaim, “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.”

Clearly, an orientation toward curiosity, a willingness to be taught because we know that we have something to learn, is essential to hearing God’s call and following the one whom God has sent.

Because if we think we already know… if we want to be in control of the ways God’s plan unfolds… we cannot follow God’s leading.

And this links back to Jesus’s identity as the bread of life as well, because in order to receive the heavenly nourishment that Jesus offers, we need to admit that we are hungry for it.

We need to confess our lack and our longing.

We need to be open to receive.

We need to be curious enough about what God has to offer that we will ask for it even though we don’t already know exactly what it is.

Willingness to receive God’s gift of eternal life probably sounds obvious. Anyone would be willing for that, right?

Except the people who wanted to define who Jesus was were NOT willing.

And a lot of people in our context who want to be in charge of declaring what is and is not of God are NOT willing.

Sometimes I’m not willing. Not in the honesty of my soul.

Because I too like to think that I already know.

(I’ve kind of made a career out of explaining what God means to other people… control of the message is a bit of an occupational hazard).

And so, I know just how hard it is to stay curious … to let go of control, and of mastery, and to let myself feel hungry for the new thing God has to teach me that might just change me… that might push me out of what’s comfortable and ask me to be vulnerable.

But I also have come to understand that learning is how Jesus feeds me the bread from heaven that leads to eternal life.

That’s how it’s always worked so far. Every time Jesus has surprised me by what he writes on his nametag, I have learned something powerful and good.

Something that has helped me to get more curious and less addicted to control.

Something that has fed a hunger I had been trying to suppress.

Something that has taught me more about who I am as a broken and beloved child of God, or about how to love the other broken and beloved children of God around me.

So, whatever you wrote on your name tag today, I hope that you can add one more thing: curious learner, hungry for whatever God wants to teach me.

For that is eternal life.

Thanks be to God.