Be Curious

View on YouTube

​Lent III
March 7, 2021
 
For some of you, who have encouraged, aided and abetted my latest obsession, the starting place of this sermon will come as no surprise.  I am speaking of my newly acquired devotion for the television series, Ted Lasso.  You can, and should, watch it for yourself.  It can be streamed on Apple TV.  The first week’s subscription to that streaming service is free and you can watch all ten half-hour episodes in a week, or even a few days.  I am not being compensated for this endorsement, but we might consider that as an alternate source of revenue for the parish someday.
 
Ted Lasso is about a successful American Football coach from nowhere in Kansas who wins a national title and, is then recruited to coach an English Premiere League Soccer Team in London.  To say that the Brits are maniacal fans for soccer is an understatement.  They make any American football fandom seem timid at best.  The fans are bewildered by management’s choice and they are none too kind to Coach Lasso, hurtling constant insults as only the British do so well.  At his first press conference, Lasso proclaims that he is excited to be there, but says they could fill two whole internets with what he does not know about soccer.  All through the whole first season, he is learning the rules.
 
But Lasso is indefatigable.  He is generous and loving and forgiving.  He makes friends with many who have no interest in liking him.  He may not know soccer, but he knows people.  Though everyone underestimates Coach Lasso, together with the unwitting participation of so many great characters, he leads the team to deep growth and some athletic success.  To the aging and injured former star, he is loyal and understanding.  To the upstart truly gifted but hot-headed star, he gives gentle lessons in humility.  When he consults the lowly and picked on equipment manager for strategy, he shares and gives power to one who is neglected and overlooked.  While I could fill this sermon with Ted Lasso-isms, and analyze each episode as a master stroke of writing and truly soothing balm for our contentious times, I will save that for a forum series in the future.  Whereas in 2020, I was consumed with the character and generosity of Dolly Parton (and I still am), in 2021 I am digging into Ted Lasso and its lead actor and writer, Jason Sudekis.
 
So, is Coach Lasso sounding familiar?  He comes from nowhere, meets people where they are, responds to anger and threats with gentleness and self-control.  He surprises everyone with his wisdom and ability to bring people along with him.  He tells the truth even when it hurts, and sacrifices fame and glory to make life better for all he encounters.  He puts up one sign in the locker room and invites others to live into its simple encouragement: “Believe.”  He is a Christ-like figure, for sure.
 
Of course, Lasso is not Jesus.  He is going through a divorce and trying hard to be a good father to a kid who is half way across the world.  But the Lasso character creates an archetype that is largely missing our self-obsessed culture, and all that goes with the worship of fame, fortune, and winning at all costs.  He is a reluctant, self-deprecating, self-sacrificing hero, but he is no pushover.
 
This is much like the Jesus we come to know in the gospels.  What stands out about Jesus against our vast human history of power, vainglory, and achievement, is that God’s way is not always our way.  Jesus is like none other.  He is human and divine.  He upends all preconceived notions, and calls everyone, everyone, to God’s almighty love.
 
Of all of the passages in the gospels, the story of Jesus turning over the tables and driving the people out of the Temple courtyard, we hear of an atypical raging Jesus.  Like nowhere else, he is visibly angry.  This is not Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild hymn, or the old Sunday School poem kids used to memorize.  This is a picture of Jesus we do not find in stained glass.  This is a story we only tell well into Lent because, in this time, we are challenged to contemplate the hard truths as well as the softer ones.  
 
As we look into the Temple incident, beyond what it looks like on the surface, we discover that Jesus has good reason for some righteous anger.  The courtyard of the Temple was a place where folks could buy and sell animals for ritual sacrifice.  A big Temple event looked more like a slaughter house than a worship service.  Rich folks sought to be more holy in offering lambs or fat cattle.  In return for their largesse, they got to go inside and get close.  The poor were relegated to the outside where the best they could offer were doves or pigeons.  Of course, all of the sacrificed critters had to be “without blemish,” meeting certain standards of, you guessed it, the sellers of critters in cahoots with the priests.  Thus, the people get fleeced. They had to pay a Temple Tax too, but they could not do it with regular currency, so they had to exchange it for Temple approved currency, thus, the money changers made a market with large margins of markup, again, in cahoots with the priests
 
While the Temple was built to the glory of God, it had long strayed from its mission, becoming an idol to be worshipped, threatening folks with an angry God who demands sacrifice.  This is why Jesus let them have it.  This tirade gets him into trouble because, well, follow the money. 
 
What Jesus insists that God is not the resident of a building.  God is not most accessible to the well-heeled.  That old model was steeped in pagan sacrifice.  What Jesus comes to do is offer himself for the world with the central sacrifice: unconditional love.  Jesus shows God is not to be used for a scheme, or coopted to make some better than others. As God, Jesus is everywhere and for everyone.  He becomes the Temple through which we come closer to God.
 
We see all kinds of anger these days.  I do not need to enumerate the power of rage to divide and destroy our bonds of affection.  Self-serving anger is a major stumbling block insofar was it consumes us in judging others.  Jesus will show us and tell us, that judgement is for God, not us.  But there are times when God’s cause of love need our anger energy to hold fast to what is good and of God.
 
Returning to Ted Lasso for a moment, at one point in the show, Ted reflects on people who have under estimated him for his entire life.  And it used to bother him, he says, until one day he saw a quotation from Walt Whitman on the walls of his kid’s school.  “Be curious not judgmental.”  Then he realized that all those folks putting him down were not curious.  They thought they knew everything and had everything figured out, “so they judged everything and judged everyone.”  Then he says that “if they were curious, they would have asked questions.”
 
In our gospel today, we might like to look past the unpleasantness, and figure that Jesus was having a bad day, or throw judgement on the priests and on all religion as corrupt.  But if we are curious, we might ask questions like “What is our role in going along to please others?”  “What does God desire for God’s people?”  “How can I help?”  Getting riled up is not a bad thing, it is just a tricky thing.  When we get there – and we should - it is good to ask questions and consider how can we be curious and not judgmental.  Amen.