"Our Fascination With Flaws"


Sermon Delivered By Reverend Richard E. Stetler – August 26, 2012

Centenary United Methodist Church

Ecclesiastes 11:1-8; Luke 13:10-17

 

    Many of us have recognized that we are blessed with a sense of balance and beauty when it comes to evaluating the uniqueness of people, experiences and various aspects in our material world.  It is from this gift of insightfulness that we become attracted to flaws in what our senses tell us.  Test yourselves this week when you are with people or find yourself in a new experience.  What are some of your first thoughts?

    For example, do we ever find ourselves at one of our popular beaches thinking, “Anyone with such a mature figure should never wear a bathing suit like that.” Or, “How did that guy attract such a gorgeous wife?”  Have we ever gone into someone’s home and found a picture or two that needed straightening?  Why is it that we could have admired their cedar furniture or some of the rare collectibles, but we chose instead to focus our attention on crooked pictures?

    Women always have a field day with me.  I think I must awaken their maternal instincts when they are around me.  They are forever picking a hair or lint off my sport coat when I’m talking with them.  Sometimes they say, “Here, let me fix you up” and they proceed to adjust the knot in my tie that had slipped. One Sunday morning one of the church members said, “Dick, I notice by your tie that you have finally entered the 20th century.”  That one made me laugh because we were already in the 21st century.  I concluded that she had been evaluating my ties for quite some time.   

    Inside of us is a finely tuned sensor that is drawn to noticing flaws in people.  I was not in my office for two minutes when my secretary asked, “Did Lois see you before you left the house this morning?”  I had to confess that she had not.   She said, “Please go home and let her look at you.”  I learned upon my arrival that my color blindness was more than shading difficulties.   

    You may have noticed from our lesson in Ecclesiastes that the author had a habit of lifting up an aspect of life to celebrate and then ended the passage by a thought that canceled it. For example, “No matter how long you live, remember that you will be dead much longer.  There is nothing at all to look forward to.”  (Ecclesiastes 11:8) 

    We have to remember that such words came from a writer that had no hope of surviving death. His words, however, may reflect the way a lot of people today think about their lives.  Most of us have been raised in an environment that assumes that we survive the death of our physical bodies.  When that understanding is absent, people have no resource that helps them to think otherwise.  There is something about such pessimism that is humorous.  Listen to another one of this author’s insights:  

Go ahead and eat your food and be happy, drink your wine and be cheerful.  It is all right with God.  Always look happy and cheerful.  Enjoy life with the ones you love, as long as you live the useless life that God has given you in this world.  Enjoy every useless day of it, because that is all you are going to get for your trouble. (Ecclesiastes 9:7f)

    This same perception surfaced in our Gospel lesson today.  As you may recall, Jesus summoned a woman to come to him that had been suffering from a severe spinal disease.  He laid his hands on her.  For the first time in eighteen years, this woman that had severe curvature of the spine was able to straighten up. What could possibly be the flaw in such a healing?  Again, we are dealing with a difference in how people perceive events.

    One of the officials in the synagogue watched what Jesus did and became overcome with anger.  The official said in a voice that could be heard throughout the synagogue, “There are six days in which we should work, so come in here during those days if healing is what you seek, but not on the Sabbath!” (Luke 13:14)  From all the possible interpretations we might give to this event, this official found fault with Jesus because he viewed the healing as working on the Sabbath.   

    flaws we notice in others are more reflective of our values and our preferences than of anything else.  This was obvious with the synagogue official because many of the religious leaders were feeling threatened not only from seeing Jesus’ miracles but also by the size of the crowds that surrounded him. They were looking for ways to bring an end to his ministry. They wanted to discredit and disgrace Jesus. 

    There is no other time in the society of the United States when the fascination with flaws is more acutely visible than around the time for national elections.  With the miracle of electronics, opponents can dredge up every public comment ever spoken by those running for office.  Americans verbally crucify their politicians by holding them to a standard very few human beings could maintain. 

    The practice of pointing out flaws is ancient.  Even Jesus became weary of such judgments.  He said, “You nitpick at each other.  You strain the fly from your soup while you swallow a camel. (Matthew 23:24)  You should first remove the log out of your own eye before you attempt to remove the speck from the eye of others.” (Matthew 7:5) 

    Gifted men and women fall from grace because of an affair that surfaced, because of a partial truth they once told, or because of an allegation of misusing funds for an unlawful purpose. In fact, this fault-finding practice is so widespread and it goes to such mean and cruel depths that people with remarkable leadership qualities would never dream of running for office.  They would not put their families through such public scrutiny just to gain a seat in government. 

    Who are the real losers because of this practice?  Think of what we miss when our attitudes about people hinge on their perceived flaws.  One of the fascinations we have with Jesus is that he loved flawed people and preferred to be with them instead of with those that had taken their religious practices to great heights of faithfulness.  How many colorful, engaging personalities have we missed because flaws blinded us to their remarkable qualities?

    When I was in high school biology, pupils in my class were linked with a partner for the semester.  My partner was a girl that was not physically attractive.  Some of the guys teased me about who I got stuck with.  They had a lot of unflattering things to say about her.

    As we worked together, however, I became blind to her physical features.  She had a sparkling personality.  She had depth and insight. We laughed all the time as we dissected various creatures or placed slides of microscopic protozoa under the microscope.  We became good friends and frequently we sat together during lunch.  She was one of those fascinating spirits that people could easily miss because of what they valued.  We do not perceive others as they are; we perceive others because of who we are.

    There was a time when the well-known pastor, Peter Marshall, was approached by several laypersons in his church.  They had just caught a couple kissing very passionately in their sacred chapel.  They demanded that Dr. Marshall remove them immediately.  He refused.

    The group became incensed with his refusal.  They reminded him in no uncertain terms of his responsibilities.  They also demanded to know why he would turn his head once they told him what was going on in their chapel.  He politely allowed them to finish their comments and then he said,

I just performed their marriage ceremony.  They have no other time to be together because the groom has to be at a staging area in two hours to join the Allied Armed Forces in Europe. (World War II)  Please be lenient in your judgments of them and forgive the method they were choosing to say good-bye. The possibility is there that they may never see each other again.

    The point of my message today is that Jesus in many respects was like the rest of us.  As we have said, Jesus was also attracted to the flaws in people.  However, what he noticed did not evoke his passion to criticize, belittle or judge people harshly, but to perceive others with love.  He saw flaws as an opportunity to be helpful.  In this case he brought healing to a woman with a badly diseased spine.  Jesus never taught his disciples to monitor one another’s behavior from a superior, self-righteous attitude.  He said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” 

    All of us are at different stages of development during our life’s journey.  A number of us have matured quite well in several areas.  While this is to our credit, such growth should lead us to exhibit patience with those that are still learning and have remained open to change.  Such differences will always be present in everyone because all of us have grown up in the midst of different influences.   We have had different teachers and role models.

    The beauty of our diversity is that we can learn from each other.  As we engage in teaching one another from a loving spirit, many of their rough edges can be made smooth, their choice of words can become more supportive, compassionate and less toxic, and their hostilities can be tempered by the insights and guidance that we provide.  

    During one of my classes on Spirituality at my former church, we were discussing the reasons for offering course corrections to others even when they are unsolicited.  A woman in the class told us that her supervisor was a wonderful man.  She felt badly for him, however, because frequently he engaged in behavior that was out of character.  In fact, his actions were childish. People had to be guarded around him because of his practical jokes that were neither practical nor funny.

    At the risk of being misunderstood, she went into his office one day and told him about the feelings of his office staff.  She said,

We all love you and enjoy working for you but there is something about you that has us on guard everyday.  Because we never know what you are going to do next, all of us remain distracted waiting for something to happen that you find funny. We don’t understand why you feel the need to do these things. No one knows I am coming to talk to you about this.  However, it would be a wonderful change for all of us if you put your practical jokes to rest. 

    The change was immediate.  He confessed that he had no idea that his attempts to bring comic relief to his staff were being so misunderstood.  He thanked her profusely for telling him.  The course correction was made and an entire office was grateful.  No one knew what brought the change.   She did not tell anyone the advice that she had shared with her supervisor.

    We all make judgments of one another.  The fact that we are drawn to the flaws of others can become a very powerful and useful gift.  When we use this gift through a spirit that is compassionate, our observations can offer to others a different way of communicating, a different attitude to use when their world is not the way they want it or a different spirit to navigate through the painful episodes with which some phases of life are filled.

    While Jesus healed a woman of severe curvature of the spine, think of the positive changes we could bring to others by words offered in kindness.  We all need course corrections but how wonderful it is when our observations help someone to choose a different path that helps them to become more of what God designed them to be.