The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost- The Rev Melanie Lemburg
The Very Rev Melanie Dickson Lemburg
17th
Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 19B
September 15, 2024
I’m
currently reading the book High Conflict:
Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out by Amanda Ripley. In the book,
Ripley distinguishes between healthy conflict, which we all need-like the
warmth of fire—to grow and change, and high conflict which is a system in which
participants become entrapped, fully ensnared in a self-perpetuating mentality
of good versus evil/right versus wrong. Ripley
uses the image of the LaBreya tar pits to talk about high conflict. Scientists have discovered more than three
million bones, the remains of thousands of animals (including two thousand
saber-toothed tigers) who became trapped in the La Brea Tar pits, which is only
one, small, dark lake. Researches believe
that thousands of years ago, a large creature like an ancient bison stumbled
into the Tar Pits. It quickly became stuck
and began making sounds of distress, flailing around and getting more and more
stuck. The bison’s distress attracted
the attention of predators, like dire wolves a pack of whom came to investigate
this easy meal, and then they got stuck.
They howled out in their distress, drawing more and more animals to their
eventual doom.[i]
Sound like anything you’ve experienced recently?
One
of the hallmarks of high conflict systems or situations is that people lose the
ability to listen to the other side, to employ the necessary practice of
curiosity to help get underneath the highly simplified surface issues to below
the surface where complexity and story dwell.
Our
gospel story for today from Mark is a fascinating example of this phenomenon. Jesus and his disciples are on the
road-traveling around the Judean countryside.
Jesus has been teaching and healing; the Pharisees and the Herodians
have pushed back on some of his teachings, arguing with him and then beginning
planning how to destroy him. Sides have
been chosen; the conflict is high and entrenched. Jesus asks his disciples two questions: who do people say that I am, and who do you
say that I am? Peter proclaims Jesus as
the Messiah, and Jesus continues on to teach about what being the Messiah
entails, predicting his suffering, rejection, death and resurrection. Peter takes Jesus aside and rebukes him. Is it because Peter can’t fathom that such
would be the fate of the long promised, long-awaited Messiah? Is it because tensions are rising and Peter
can’t fathom this sort of loss of their side/victory by their enemies? Is it because Peter doesn’t want to believe
this is the future for his beloved friend and teacher?
Whatever
the case, Jesus rebukes Peter publicly, and Jesus goes on to teach more to the
disciples and all who have gathered about what following him, what true
discipleship, entails. It involves a
sort of unfurling, of looking outward, an opening up to life beyond our own
expectations and desires.
Peter
is so caught up in his own expectations for Jesus as Messiah that he is unable
to listen deeper, to be curious about how Jesus could so willingly embrace his
own suffering and death and about the implications for that to which Jesus
hints.
Our
Old Testament reading from Proverbs personifies Wisdom as a woman calling
people to listen. She (Wisdom) proclaims
that those who listen can often avert disaster, while those who don’t listen
often face destructive consequences of not heeding her.
And
the passage from James for today is all about speaking and about the damage
that occurs when we don’t speak wisely and carefully. The book of James is
written as a letter, but it’s unclear who the audience or intended community
is. It also belongs to the category of
Wisdom literature that was wide-spread in the Middle East in that time (the
mid-1st century). The book of
James emphasizes the main point that faith must be exercised and expressed
through good actions.
Both
the wise, curious listening of Proverbs and the wise, careful speaking of James
are aspects of how Jesus calls us to practice discipleship. They are both, in fact, spiritual disciplines
or spiritual practices we are called to develop or deepen as people of
faith.
We
talked about listening at our Wednesday healing service this week. One of the members of that congregation
shared a saying that she used to teach to nursing students: “Some people
listen. Other people wait to talk.” Another, who is a retired librarian,
reflected on how the first question people would ask at the library reference
desk was never the question that they really wanted an answer to. She learned she had to ask more questions, to
be curious, to burrow deeper, peeling back layers and listening beyond what is
said to the essence of the exchange.
One
of the parts of the book High Conflict that I’ve been intrigued by is
the data that most of us think we are better listeners than we actually
are. We are quick to make assumptions
and to apply meanings which are often inaccurate. And the data shows that when people don’t
feel like they are being listened to, they stop sharing and what speaking they
do share becomes more simplistic and less nuanced.
In
High Conflict, Amanda Ripley follows the story of attorney and conflict
mediator Gary Friedman. Gary worked in a
groundbreaking way to bring inter-personal mediation into the practice of law
in the 1970’s starting when his friends asked him to mediate their
divorce. Gary developed a technique of questioning
which he teaches to mediators about how to go deeper into conflict, beyond the
surface; he calls this going down the “Why trail.” If he is mediating between a divorcing couple
who are fighting over a crockpot, he investigates why the crock pot matters so
much.
“…Gary
might ask the wife, with genuine curiosity, what [the crock pot] means to
her. It was from the couple’s wedding
registry…it was a shiny version of the one her own parents had used in her
childhood home, where as a little girl she could smell a pot roast cooking all
Sunday afternoon. She and her husband
had not created that home in real life.
They didn’t even like to cook, let’s be honest. But she wants the crock pot anyway. Her husband, hearing this, feels a sadness,
one he shares with his wife. He admits
that he only wanted the crock pot because, well, she seemed to want it so
much. This is hard to confess but it
comes as a relief. She is the one who
wanted the whole divorce, he says, and since he can’t stop the divorce, he
supposes he’s trying to make her at least feel some of the pain he’s
feeling. They start to see the
understory of the crock pot. And that
means they can loosen their grip on it.
And on other things. They get
unstuck, little by little.”[ii]
This
way of discipleship, of listening, requires courage and curiosity, a willingness
to hold our own perspectives and expectations a little more lightly, being more
open to the ways that the Holy Spirit shows up in our lives and invites us to
listen.
This
week, I invite you to think about a time when wisdom was revealed to you by
listening? What was that like? What did you learn from it? Pay attention, this week, to the ways you
listen and the ways that you speak, and be mindful of how you live out your
discipleship of Jesus through wise, curious listening and wise, careful
speaking.
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