Rock the Boat

Scripture:  Matthew 10:24-39

In the late 1990s, show business insiders largely considered the game show format to be dead.  Sure, there was still Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy but those venerable classics with established audiences were the only bright spots in the genre.   That all changed in 1999 when ABC premiered a new game show hosted by popular daytime talk show host Regis Philban.  Who Wants to be a Millionaire is credited for single handily reviving the gameshow genre, and while it is now where near as popular today, the game show is still going.  One of the reasons for the show’s success is it had a strong “I could do this feeling” because the contestants had a series of lifelines.   This meant that even if they did not know the answer themselves, they could rely on a lifeline to pull them through. 

The most dependable lifeline was poll the audience.  In the history of the show Who Wants to be a Millionaire the majority of the audience picks the right answer 91% of the time.  That is crazy to think about.  Presumably the average audience member is roughly of equal intelligence to the contestant.  Each individual person is just as likely to know the answer as the contestant who is struggling, so why then as a group does the audience get it right so often?   This is a well-known social science phenomenon called group intelligence.  It was popularized and shown to be a real thing by a well-known experiment in 1987 involving jellybeans.  Students were asked to guess how many jellybeans were in a container, and everyone was wrong.  Most people were wildly wrong.  However, the average of all the guesses was only 2.5% off the right answer.

  This experiment has been replicated many times with similar results.   In general, we tend to trust crowd wisdom.   Most people instinctively know where the majority falls and tend to fall in line as not to be an outlier.  This morning’s scripture thought is a bold and honestly uncomfortable challenge to that way of thinking.  This morning’s scripture points out that following Jesus will sometimes make us an outlier.  To faithfully follow Christ means we will sometimes go against the flow of the culture around us, and even though it probably makes us uncomfortable being a disciple of Jesus means we will sometimes rock the boat. 

This morning’s scripture can be a difficult one for us, because parts of it feel a lot different than the types of sayings from Jesus we usually emphasize.  It comes from the middle of a major teaching discourse in the gospel of Matthew.  Jesus is commissioning his twelve disciples to be sent out on his behalf, and he is telling them what they can expect to encounter.  What he tells them is not good news.   He tells them they will be insulted, they will be threatened, they will be hurt, and they will experience discord.   What is worse, is that the Jesus tells his disciples that this is not just theoretical, but it is something that they will experience personally and close to home as following Jesus will set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother.”    Jesus tells his disciples that following him will cause conflict in their life because it will make them an outlier.  It will put them at odds with the culture around us.  Despite that Jesus urges his disciples to follow in his footsteps boldly.  Three times in this morning’s scripture Jesus declares “do not be afraid.”   Jesus told his disciples to make bold proclamations in the light of day and to proclaim truth from the rooftops.  He dramatically and passionately urges his disciples to follow him, even when it rocks the boat.

Throughout the course of Christian history, this is exactly what faithful disciples did.  In the early centuries of Christianity, disciples of Jesus stood for their faith under persecution that was sometimes intense and led to death.   Generations later when corruption had begun to seep into the church, faithful reformers sought to return God’s people to holiness and passionate faith.  They did this despite immense political pressure and in some rare instances burning at the stake.   Still later, it was faithful Christians who took on many of the social ills in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.   It was faithful Christians who went against the grain to abolish slavery as a moral imperative.  It was faithful Christians in the United States who willfully broke the law to help slaves escape and move to safety along the Underground Railroad.  It was faithful Christians who sought to educate poor children as a way of freeing them from a life of poverty, and it was these same Christians who campaigned tirelessly to protect the rights of children and create child labor laws.   It was faithful Christians who were at the forefront of the civil rights movement.    In these instances, the faithful Christians rocked the boat for the sake of the gospel.  They picked up their cross and followed Jesus.

One of the uncomfortable truths that this scripture causes us to face is that when Jesus said “Do not be afraid of them” he was referring to the Pharisees, the respected religious leaders of the day.  Unfortunately, whenever one group of followers of Jesus strived to follow Jesus boldly, there has always been another group of religious people who opposed them. While some Christians were working to abolish the evil practice of slavery, others were twisting scriptures to explain why slavery and white dominance was the God-ordained way of things.   While some Christians were seeking to end poverty through education and compassion on children, others were chiding and belittling their efforts by criticizing that God only helps those who help themselves.   Today, while there are Christians advocating for the inclusion of all people and the fair treatment of all, there are others writing books with the absurd premise of calling empathy a sin.  By nature, most of us are conflict adverse, but this scripture states, and the history of faith illustrates, that when we seek to follow Jesus faithfully there will likely be opposition.

Almost from the beginning the saving grace of Jesus Christ has challenged the status quo.   It has gone against group wisdom.  It has caused faithful followers to seek to reform the way things are, and a lot of times these changes were real fights.     This does lead us to an important question.  When it comes to living out our faith, how do we know the group wisdom is wrong?  How do we know when we should rock the boat? How do we know that the action we wish to take is God-inspired and spirit led?  By looking at this scripture and considering some of the failings of group wisdom we can find ourselves on solid ground. 

Following Jesus will often lead us to take steps in faith that stretch us and that is an area that group wisdom is not the best at.  Further research on group intelligence or group wisdom has found that it somewhat limited.   Group intelligence is excellent at getting trivia answers correct, but it is significantly worse at innovation.  For instance, one study had a group of people pick between four food options.  One was plain chicken and rice.  The others were much more exotic and creative featuring flavors like garlic, jalapeno, and ginger.  The majority picked plain chicken and rice.  However, the people were also asked to rank the dishes, and chicken and rice was the least favorite.  Despite being the least liked option, it was the most picked because group wisdom tends to move to the safest choice.  Group wisdom tends to be averse to change and it will resist anything that challenges the way things currently are. Group wisdom often bends towards maintaining and defending the status quo.    The status quo tends to make sure those that have security, have privilege, and have power keep it while not caring about the experience of those on the margins.  The status quo of this world is that it is broken and fallen in sin, the Kingdom of God is not the status quo.

 Jesus most certainly challenged the status quo during his time on earth.  He had compassion on those considered undesirable.  He loved those who were considered unloveable, and he forgave those who were considered unforgiveable.  When Jesus did this the religious leaders of his day, tried to exert pressure on him and Jesus pushed back.  Jesus opposed them and opposed the status quo so that the good news of redemption, reconciliation, and acceptance by God could be experienced by all.  If challenging the status quo means more people have the opportunity to say yes to Jesus, then it is always worth rocking the boat. 

In this morning scripture Jesus states, “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven.”  To acknowledge Jesus, we have to acknowledge all of his message, all of his life, and all of his teachings-not just the bits we like.  This means we acknowledge Jesus by showing compassion for the marginalized.  It means we listen to, empathize with, and have compassion for people whose life experience is different than our own.  It means we seek to include those who have been made to feel excluded.    When we stand by the type of people Jesus stood by and we oppose the type of people that Jesus opposed, then we will find ourselves pushing against the status quo.   We will find opposition, just like Jesus said we would in this scripture.  

Given that, what is our next step?   What should we do?   If seeking to follow the example of Jesus makes us a cultural outlier, if it puts us as one against the group wisdom, then we should do it anyway.  Not only should we do it, but we should do it with boldness, because Jesus himself said “do not be afraid of them.”   In verse 25 Jesus encourages the students to be like the teacher or the servants like the master.  He encourages us to be like him.  If we truly take that seriously, then we will do world transforming things that will make tangible and eternal difference in the lives of others.   We will be doing something significant.   I am reminded of a quote from Canadian pastor Carey Niewhof.   He once wrote, “The best way to incite zero opposition is to do nothing significant.”  Whenever we put our faith into action, we will be doing something significant and that will always bring opposition.  The message though of this scripture is clear, do it anyway.  

A good example of what this looks like can be found in Methodist history.  In 1938 Lea Joyner was ordained in the Methodist Protestant Church.   However, in 1939 the Methodist protestant church re-united with the Methodist Episcopal church and the Methodist Episcopal church South, and one of the compromises of this merger is that the reunited Methodist Episcopal Church would not ordain women. Because she was already ordained Lea Joyner was granted full connection as ordained clergy, but she was not appointed. For more than a decade she asked and petitions for the opportunity to serve  She was told flat out by her superintendent that no church will have you, and the best the conference would be able to do is offer her a vacant lot outside of Monroe, Louisiana if she wanted to try and start her own church.   Despite a clear calling to be a preacher she met opposition because she was a woman, but Lea Joyner preached anyway. 

She took the offer of the vacant lot, preached the good news of Jesus Christ, and in two months that lot had a congregation with 120 members.  She was the pastor of that church for 33 years until her death.  At that time in the 1980s it had over 2,000 members and it was the largest church in the world to be pastored by a woman.  Thankfully, the Methodist Episcopal Church finally followed the Spirit’s leading and challenged the status quo of the time by changing course and recognizing the full ordination of women in 1956, 70 years ago.  However, for more than a century before then there were women who challenged the church’s stance on the prohibition of women preachers and did it anyway. 
When we encounter someone else who is seeking to bring the impossible into the world, when we encounter someone who is seeking to join God in transforming the world, when we encounter someone who is seeking to follow the example of their master and teacher Jesus Christ may we not be among the opposition.   May we seek to encourage them.   May we go a step further though, may we acknowledge before others our Lord Jesus by loving the people that he loved and serving the kinds of people he served.  May we not be afraid to take risks, even if that means taking up our cross.  May we follow Jesus with such a reckless abandon that it can only be described as faith.   May we may not be afraid, even if following Jesus leads us to challenge the status quo.  Without fear may we seek to faithfully follow Jesus and acknowledge him before others.  Even when it feels like we are going to rock the boat we do it anyway because this is how we will make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.