Alright. Have you ever been in a disagreement with someone about what Jesus taught? You ever had a little conversation with somebody, and maybe you saw it a little bit differently than they saw it?
Tonight I want to talk about not what he taught, but how he taught. Right? Because how it taught … like, that’s important. Right? Because if you’re called to be the Messiah, how you get your message across you would think would be important, right? It’s not only just what you say, but it’s how you say it; how you do it; how you convey the message that God has given him. So I want to talk about the ways that Jesus taught. How did he do that?
And the first way that really strikes me is that Jesus spoke by his own authority. You know, other teachers quote credible teachers or teachings, and they borrow from other authorities. Jesus could have come in and said, “Well, this rabbi said this, and this rabbi said this, and this teacher said this …”
But what Jesus said over and over again: “You’ve heard it like this, but I tell you …” And Jesus taught based on his own authority. Like, Jesus never used anyone else for authenticity of his teaching. He just said, “This is what you’ve heard, but let me tell you the way it really is.” And you’ve got to appreciate a teacher who just gets up there and just says it from his own authority. He just gives it to you!
And when I realized that Jesus never quoted anybody else — he just said what he came to say — it changed the way that I started speaking a little bit. Because it was like less and less important about what other people had to say, and more important: What was God saying in me?
And I really want you to hear the difference in that. Because God speaks to each and every one of us; that our own inner authority is our guide. It is our teacher! And Jesus never apologized for that. He never said, “Well, go read this book and then you’ll know.” He said, “You’ve heard it like this, but I tell you it’s like this.” And I love that! Right?
Jesus used stories. And he would tell stories to try to describe the spiritual life. He talked about a boy who disowned his family and partied away his inheritance. And came upon hard times and went back to his family and begged for mercy and was surprised by the welcome that he received and the open arms of his father. Right? And it was a story about how much God loves us. And he used stories over and over again to describe and to create feelings and depth, and to remind us of God’s infinite love for us.
And he crafted memorable sayings like “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given unto you.” He had these things and he used words in such a way to put little messages that we just wouldn’t forget. Over and over again, “Judge not, lest you be judged.” Like, he said it in such a way that you would remember, and it would become important.
And then he used moments. He would see a moment, and he would teach into it. He would use object lessons. He would take the moment that God had given him, and he would teach into it. Like the woman who comes and gives a few coins in the offering, and the widow. And he teaches them about generosity — about what true generosity is all about. Or the child that comes to him and he teaches about childlike faith. Or the moment when he washed all his disciples’ feet before the Lord’s Supper to make that moment even more powerful. Here was the great teacher washing his disciples’ feet.
And Jesus empowered people. There’s a couple of stories in the Bible that just always get me, where he sent his disciples out into the countryside two by two to do the works that he was doing: to heal; to teach; to do his ministry out into the countryside. And my understanding is it worked so well that then he sent just followers out there and said, “Go do the work that I’ve been doing.” And they were empowered to do that work.
And Jesus practiced what he preached. He believed in prayer, and he demonstrated that every day. He would pray throughout the day; he demonstrated his belief in prayer. He demonstrated that we should love the sinners among us, because we are all that. And so he would eat and dine with the hospitality of people that people were aghast that he would eat in their homes. They were troubled that he would hang out with these people. He knew who the fun people were, right? [Congregation laughs] Just sayin’, right? He wasn’t hanging out with the religious elite; he was out hanging out with the people who knew how to party, right? Oh, just let that one go … Don’t email me that one, alright?
And Jesus was shocking! He used words and teachings that were confrontational. In Matthew 5 we read, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.” Like, that wasn’t literally to be understood, right? That many times we read the Scripture and we hear people say that the Bible is the literal word of God. And Jesus’ greatest teachings were in parable!
In Luke 13 we read, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven or yeast placed in bread, and a woman took it and mixed three measures of flour until it was all leavened.” Or until it all rised. And in our culture, that doesn’t seem funny. You know, we’re used to yeast in the bread. If you go to the bread aisle in any grocery store, you see loaves of bread now that are like enormously tall. Like a foot-tall loaf of bread, or whatever! Because we’re used to putting as much yeast as the bread will hold and rising it and taking it as high as it will go.
But in Jesus’ time, that was unholy; that was defiled! You couldn’t bring that bread into the church. You couldn’t use it during the sacred and the holy times, because it had yeast in it. It had risen; it was impure. It was awful! And he used that as a metaphor for the kingdom of heaven. Like, people were supposed to be shocked by that! They were supposed to think, “What is he talking about? Like, that is defiling the bread; that is not the sacrament! The sacrament is the unleavened bread.” The flat bread; the bread that is just flat and boring! And Jesus is talking about this bread that is rising to give a metaphor for our spiritual life. But for the people that were in Jesus’ culture, it was a radical thought!
And then Jesus did these miracles to shake us up. And I really want you to see that I believe that every great teacher was here to shake us up. They were here to cause us to look at life differently than we were used to looking at life. They were causing us and inviting us to see things with new eyes.
And over and over again, if we just look at the world the same way, it’s very hard to have a spiritual experience. Because you just look at it through the eyes of your ego. You look at life the way you’re used to looking at life. And we have to be willing to allow ourselves to see it from a radical point of view; from a different point of view; from a way that’s different than we’re used to looking at life.
So tonight I want to finish this series on Adam Grant’s book, Think Again. I want to finish it by his last section on “Escaping the Tunnel.” Moving out of tunnel vision and beginning to see the kingdom of heaven and the infinite possibilities that it is … not in the limited way that we see our lives. Because we see our life the way we were trained to see our life. But it’s not the kingdom of heaven! The kingdom of heaven is radically greater than the way that we’ve been taught to see life. And every great teacher came to shake us up — for us to see it again.
I want to read from page 229 in Think Again. And the section’s called “Going into Foreclosure,” which is confrontational in and of itself, right?
“When we dedicate ourselves to a plan, and it isn’t going as we hoped, our first instinct isn’t usually to rethink. Instead, we tend to double down and sink more resources into the plan. This pattern is called exaggerated commitment.
Evidence shows that entrepreneurs persist with failing strategies, even when they should have pivoted. NBA general managers and coaches keep investing in new contracts and giving them more playing time and greater drafting bonuses. Politicians continue to send soldiers into war, even though it’s not working.
And it’s not just the sunk cost that is the factor but, more importantly, it appears to be the psychological rather than the economic factor. Escalation of commitment happens because we are rationalizing creatures constantly reaching for self-justification for a prior belief in the way it should work; to sooth our ego; shield our image; and to validate our decisions.
Escalation of commitment is a major factor in preventable failures, Ironically, it can be fueled by one of the most celebrated engines of success, which is grit. Grit is the combination of passion and perseverance. And research shows that it can play an important role in motivating us to accomplish long-term goals.
When it comes to rethinking, though, grit may have a dark side. Experiments show that gritty people are often more likely to overplay their hands in roulette, or more willing to stay the course on a task which they know is failing and makes success impossible. And research has even suggested that gritty mountaineers are more likely to die on an expedition because they’re determined to take the extra step to the summit.”
So here’s what I want us to do tonight. I want you to be willing to look at life from a brand new way. When it’s not working, I actually want you to stop! Because we’re not here to be in service to our ego. Like, if you look at all the times when you’ve been in service to your ego, that’s probably the majority of your life! But when we really make that shift and we begin to be in service to the Spirit of God within u, over and over again, we have to stop — even in the middle — and ask ourselves a question: What is God guiding me to do? What is the vision that God wants me to have right now? And our ego wants us to continue to push through to the other side, even when it’s not working. Especially when it’s not working!
You know, one of my favorite stories is Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave.” Plato was born right around 428 BC in Athens, Greece. He died in 348 BC at the age of 80. And “The Allegory of the Cave” is probably one of the most famous teachings. And if you haven’t read it, I absolutely think it’s worth your time. And I want to share it with you.
The “Allegory of the Cave” begins with an image of prisoners chained to the wall of a cave: so much so, that they can only see the wall of the cave in front of them. And behind them is a fire: a great fire. And between the fire and the prisoners are the guards. And the guards walk around and they make noises, and sometimes they have images and even like puppets, or whatever. But all the prisoners ever see is the reflection against the wall of the cave. And since they’ve been raised since they were small, all they see is the reflection. They never see the fire; they never see the guards. All they see is the wall of the cave. And the wall of the cave is always a distortion of what’s behind them. They never really see what’s really going on; they just see the reflection against the wall of the cave.
And then Plato asks the question, “What would happen if a man escaped from that cave?” And he said the first thing that would happen is that he would turn and look, for the first time, and see directly into the fire. But, he said, his eyes had grown so accustomed to looking at the dark reflection against the wall of the cave he wouldn’t be able to look directly into the light. It would take him awhile to actually adjust to see the fire for what it was, and to adjust to see the guards the way they were. And it would take him awhile.
And he said imagine what he would be going through as he would be seeing for the very first time the reality of what was going in the cave: how much that would change his understanding of all that was happening.
And then he said, “Well, what would happen if he actually then escaped out of the cave?” And he said for the first time, he would see sunlight; and he would see nature; and he would see rivers and mountains. And he would see life as it is, and he would actually see life in its reality.
And then — this is kind of a summation, and I’m kind of speeding through this thing … Butt then he said, “But then what would he do?” And he thought, well, he would go back. And he would try to tell the people that were chained to the wall of the cave what life was really like. And he would want to share with them what rivers and streams and mountains and flowers and trees all looked like, that they’d never seen. And he would go back into the cave to try to set the other prisoners free.
And he said, but he would go back into the cave, and the cave would be so dark, because his eyes had now adjusted to sunlight. That if he goes back into the cave, it would appear that he would be blind. And the other prisoners would see him blind and, as he would tell them stories about the world that he had seen, they would dismiss him as crazy — as blind — and think, “Look, if he escaped and you come back and you’re blind and you’re crazy …” And no one would want to leave the cave, because the cave is the only reality that they’ve known.
And I think about how many spiritual teachers have left the cave that we know and have peered into the kingdom of heaven. Have seen the infinite possibilities of God and tried to tell us what life is really like. And we shut them up. We stone them; we burn them; we crucify them. Because what they’re saying to us is so radical and makes us feel so uncomfortable that our ego demands that they be silenced.
And we rarely ask the question: What if it’s true? What if what they’ve seen is not only possible for them, but it’s possible for all of us? What if all of us can leave the darkness that we have known and venture into the sunlight as if for the first time, and see a reality that is greater than we’ve ever experienced before?
There’s a study that was done with kittens. And they raised two groups of kittens. And one group of kittens: they only had horizontal lines. So everything they saw was black-and-white horizontal lines. Even the people that they would send in to care for the kittens all dressed in black-and-white, either horizontal or vertical lines. And from the day their eyes were open and they could begin to see, everything they saw was either horizontal or vertical …
And so the world that they had created was absolutely this black-and-white either horizontal or vertical. And then what they would do is they would introduce something into their environment that wasn’t that. One of the first things they did was they put a chair into their environment. And the kittens that were raised in a vertical world could see the legs, but they could never see the seat. And so they would walk around the legs, but they just literally could not see the seat. And the other kittens, when they put the chair in, could see the seat, but they kept walking into the legs, because they literally couldn’t see the legs. And they would jump up to the seat, but they would actually literally walk into the legs.
And we could look at that and think, “Wow! What dumb cats!” [Congregation laughs] Like, “We gotta get smarter cats!” Right?
But think of the world that you’ve been trained to see. And what if the world that you’ve been trained to see has been passed down for generation upon generation of limitations that was never part of God’s plan? You see it because your people have taught you to see it for generation upon generation! And your world may be slightly bigger than the generations that have gone on before you, but is it really as big as God has created it to be?
Reading from the Gospel of Mark, Mark 8:
“In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, there was nothing to eat.”
And this is the story when Jesus feeds the 4,000 … not the 5,000, but the 4,000.
“And he called his disciples to him and said, ‘I have compassion upon the crowd; please give them something to eat, because they have been with me now for three days, and there is nothing for them to eat. And if I send them away they will be hungry, and they will faint; and some of them have come a very long way.’
And the disciples said to him, ‘How can we feed all these men with bread in the desert?’
And he asked them, ‘How many loaves do we have?’ And they said, ‘Seven.’
And he commanded the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set them before the people. And they ate. And then there were small fishes. And when he had blessed them, he commanded them to take them out and set them before the people. And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, and there were seven full baskets. And there were over 4,000 people.
And he sent them away, and immediately they went into the boat.”
That was Verse 10. Now Verse 14, they’re in the boat:
“And they had forgotten to bring bread; and they had only one loaf between them in the boat. And he cautioned them, saying, ‘Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.’
And they were discussing among themselves saying, ‘But we only have one loaf of bread.’”
And I want you to hear that they’re murmuring, right? They’re murmuring that all these men are in one boat and they only have one loaf of bread. Right? And they’re …
Like, have you ever gone on a trip and you forgot the snacks? [Congregation laughs] And for us it’s not really such a big deal; I mean, pretty much every off-ramp has a Circle K or 7-11. Right? So it’s not like we’re going to starve driving across the country, because there’s always a McDonald’s or whatever it is.
But these guys are all in the boat, and they’re murmuring that ‘We have no bread. And Jesus became aware of this and said to them:
‘Why do you discuss the fact that we have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? Having ears, do you not hear? Do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves to feed the 5,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did we take up?’
And they said, ‘Twelve.’
‘And the seven for the 4,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did I take up?’
And they said, ‘Seven.’
So then he says to them, straight up:
‘Do you not yet understand?’”
He’s saying: “Like, you just saw it! You just saw the kingdom manifested right before your eyes! Like, it wasn’t 30 minutes ago! That right before your very eyes, we fed the multitude; it was right there! It just happened; you all witnessed it! And now we get in the boat and you’re” — and this is a paraphrase – “you’re freaking out!” [Congregation laughs]
My Jesus would say that, but I’m not putting words in his mouth, right? “Like, you’re freaking out here, people! What’s going on?”
And I want you to see that, over and over again, he was trying to give them a bigger world than they believed was possible! And over and over again, even though they witnessed it, they couldn’t always believe it. They couldn’t always hold it.
Like, most of us — the most successful people learn to cope with life. They do! There’s a problem; there’s a challenge. They learn to cope with it and they keep going. From a spiritual point of view …
Now, it’s better to cope than not cope. Can we agree with that? But if we cope, oftentimes it takes us from having a spiritual experience. Like, if you live with a limitation over and over and over again, and you learn just to cope with that limitation; and you just settle into that limitation; and you pass that limitation down generation after generation after generation, we actually look at that as success! Because you’ve found a way to cope with that limitation!
But when spiritual teachers come out, they’re about popping open and not settling for the “less than,” but settling for the kingdom of heaven that is infinitely greater!
And tonight, I want to challenge you to pick one area in your life where you’ve settled for a life that’s not big enough for God. That’s truly not big enough for your soul. That is not big enough for your life. And your exercise — your homework; your opportunity — is: “Spirit, let me see this in a new way. Not just let me cope with it, but let me see it in a new way. How do I transform this limitation into something greater?” And to really allow yourself to take on the work of seeing the kingdom of heaven. Not just seeing the world that you know but seeing the world that God has created for you. That we truly do live in two worlds: the world that we know and the infinite kingdom of heaven that’s all around us.
And over and over again, we really have to kind of decide: “Am I going to cope with this limitation and get my arms around it; settle in. The shoes don’t fit but, you know, they look nice.” Right? “Or am I going to transform this situation so that my life gets to be bigger than it ever has before?”
Tonight, pick one area in your life: just one where you know that you’ve settled. Where you’re just coping with the limitation. And ask God to come right there. And ask Spirit to let you see it in a new way; to live it in a new way. That what does the kingdom of heaven look like right there?
Will you pray with me?
I invite you to open your mind, your heart, your soul to the activity of God. Take a deep breath. Tonight, we’re going to see life in a new way: in a brand new way. In a way that’s bigger and greater and more beautiful, more prosperous, more loving, more kind than we’ve ever seen before. That we can cope with the world that we see, or we can step into the kingdom of heaven.
Tonight, I invite you to gather your courage and your faith and to step into a bigger world: the world of God. The kingdom of heaven. Jesus said it was at hand; it’s right here, right now. And it’s waiting for us! It was created for us! So tonight, we step in and we see all the good that God is. In the name and through the power of the Living Christ, we give thanks. And so it is. Amen.