Lessons from the Zax

Lessons from the Zax

Or Listen to it Here after reading the scriptures.

Exodus 13:15a

And God instructed Moses to tell the people… “When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed every firstborn in Egypt, both man and animal.”

Isaiah 46:12

And through the prophet Isaiah, God told his people, Listen to me, you stubborn of heart,
you who are far from righteousness.

Jeremiah 18:12

And God’s people responded to his prophet Jeremiah, “But they say, ‘That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’ And so they did.

Hosea 4:16

And through the prophet Hosea, God told his people, “The Israelites are stubborn, like a stubborn heifer. How then can the LORD pasture them like lambs in a meadow?”

Mark 3:4-6

When Jesus was in the synagogue, the Pharisees watched to see if they could accuse him of something and he said to the man with a withered hand, “Come here.” Then Jesus asked them, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they remained silent. He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.

Mark 16:14

And after the resurrection… Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

Philippians 2:2

Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

Zechariah 7:10-12

Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.' "But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry.

            Good morning. I’d like to say a welcome to our visitors in case I don’t get a chance to later because this is a particularly challenging topic and sermon. I want to tell you that Wellshire seeks to be a very welcoming and accepting place, as well as a challenging one. And this community of faith will accept you for who you are, and challenge you in your thinking constantly… as will this sermon. And my hope is that you are seeking that. Because otherwise, the next few minutes could be very hard indeed.

            This morning, we read the Zax, our final installment in the summer Seuss series and by far, our shortest read. It’s timely that it landed this week. Not only does it come on the tail end of our denomination’s General Assembly and the front end of a long national campaign season, but it lands right on the week of the culture wars over Chick-Fil-A. I’m sure you can identify North-going and South-going Zax in the denomination and in the national political arena. It’s not hard to find shining examples of those stuck in their tracks. You could do the same for the Chick-Fil-A debate. But we’re not here this morning to identify characters and culprits. We’re here to glean lessons from the wisdom in Seuss and Scripture.

            I hope I’m not about to burst anyone’s bubble. But if you read the Zax as a story of two brave Zax who stuck to their roots, stuck to their principals and forced the rest of the world to literally “bypass” them to make any progress, you missed the good Doctor’s point. It’s not a story of example, but a cautionary tale… a tale far too familiar. One always goes North and the other goes South and puffing his chest up with pride, “I never,” said one,“take a step to one side.” The Zax are not a victim of unfounded convictions necessarily. Perhaps they have very good reasons for always going North or South. Perhaps in the Prairie of Prax, this has to do with migration, survival, or it’s cultural, perhaps religious. Maybe it’s a symbolic observance they don’t fully understand, but which gives meaning to them. You’d be hard-pressed, even with theological training, to defend communion or Easter or Advent or Ash Wednesday any better than a South-grooving Zax.

            But what Seuss stresses… and so do our countless prophetic voices from scripture… is that it’s not the belief, it’s not the conviction, it’s not the zeal that leads us to our demise. It’s the stubbornness. What is the measure of prophet’s success? Whether people LISTEN… Whether people HEAR. Time and time again, the prophets implore the people to LISTEN. Time and time again, Seuss implores us to listen. Listen to the Lorax, he speaks for the trees! Listen to Horton’s Whos because a person’s a person… [no matter how small]! Listen to the Whos down in Whoville celebrating in spite of all they’ve lost! Listen to poor Yurtle the Turtle or Sam I Am or a Star-Bellied or a None-Upon-Thars or a Zax (regardless of orientation), or any of the countless Seuss characters.

            Or just stay stubborn. Stay stubborn like the Israelites! Stay stubborn like a Sneech or Thneed-Maker or Horton’s friends. Refuse to listen. Shout your own well-informed, Biblically backed, personally proven, annecdotally approved opinion at the top of your lungs! After all, being loud is the next best thing to being right!

            OR… instead of rushing to your Facebook page to post, tweeting your every thought and berating your opposition in every form of public domain… slow down… find someone with whom you disagree, really listen… ask them to do the same… pray for and expect the Holy Spirit to show up, and see what happens. Am I promising you’ll both walk away agreeing on some sort of brand new middle ground? No. Am I promising they’ll come around to your point of view? DEINITELY NOT! But it beats the alternative. Do not, I beg you, be the person who causes others, who causes the next generation, to have to build roads around you to make progress.

            Rachel Held Evans, author and blogger, wrote an infinitely wise post this week, in which she addressed both Chick-Fil-A protestors and supporters. I’ll make the link available on my blog today when I post the sermon. I’m going to share some of her main ideas. To the protestors, she surmised several points… She said you can choose not to patronize Chick-Fil-A without…calling those who support Chick-Fil-A bigots and homophobes… without… making scenes that make life miserable for its employees… without… promoting one civil right (marriage), while trampling another (free speech)… and most importantly, without… focusing all our efforts on a boycott to the expense of more productive conversations and actions. And she makes the same point to the supporters. Droves of support ignores the pained cries of those who are so deeply offended by this, people who are also believers, who also children of God. Your time could better be spent.

            I think what she says here is profoundly insightful. She starts by addressing the vocabulary used in engaging this issue. We too often label people, dehumanizing them in the process. They don’t deserve for me to listen to them because they’re close-minded, they’re operating with half a heart or half a brain and why should I waste my time? But brothers and sisters, that’s not what we are called to do by the loving Lord who took time to listen to the people everyone considered worthless and who took time to listen to people of authority who wanted to kill him! We cannot dismiss people. And we cannot use words that make it impossible to listen or which mis-represent our opposition.

            There are many of you in this room who would consider yourself mature, open-minded, even enlightened. I won’t ask you to raise your hands. In my youth group, we had a saying, “we do not use gay and stupid interchangeably.” You would never use the n-word with a black person or the s-word with a Mexican. You’d never call a gay person the f-word. And that’s good! But you might still call the CEO of Chick-Fil-A a homophobe. And you’d be horribly wrong to do so. The word literally means to be scared of homosexuals. And while I do not deny that the basis of most hatred is fear, it is wrong to assume that someone’s deeply held conviction, right or wrong in your eyes can only be a result of fear. It is just as wrong to call a gay person or advocate a heterophobe. It’s just as wrong to call a Muslim or even an atheist a faithaphobe (not a word in spell check) just because they believe differentlythan you do. Not all beliefs and deeply held convictions stem from fear. We have to change the discourse. We have to change how we approach one another.

            Do you approach people as a member of the homophobic and bigoted vast right-wing conspiracy? Do you approach people as immoral, permissive purveyors of the gay agenda? If you do, I’ve got bad news for you. You’re a Zax. You are stuck in your tracks in the Prairie of Prax. You’re not going anywhere and neither is your cause, your agenda, your message or your world. It’s small, it’s unimaginative and it’s un-Christian.

            NEITHER of those Zax would LISTEN, and if they had, perhaps they could have found enough room for at least ONE of them to step sideways for a moment. It only takes ONE of you to step sideways. And I’ll tell you something else… grace… is not making your opponent step to the side. Grace is whenyou step to the side. (PAUSE) And stepping to the side does not mean stepping down, stepping back or changing your heading, though maybe if you listen, your heading could be altered… Stepping aside may just be enough to help someone else see the image of a loving and grace-filled God in you that they missed until now.

            If you read the story of the Zax over and over looking for a way to win arguments, you’ll search in vain. If you read your Bible from cover to cover for years, looking for ammunition to take down your ideological opponents once and for all… you’ll come up empty. The story of both isn’t how to beat your enemy. The story of both is how not to become trapped by your own stubbornness. The Bible won’t yield the talking points you’ll need to convince your brothers and sisters they’re wrong about gay marriage or anything else… Scripture will show you how to love, how to listen, how to be led by the Holy Spirit… how to step sideways… in other words…how to extend grace to others… as God has extended grace to us.

            Evans concludes her article with these words… As Christians – conservative and progressive, gay and straight, activists and slacktivists – we must direct our efforts instead toward bridging this divide, which is going to take a lot of hard work, a lot of disappointment, a lot of tears, a lot of compromise, a lot of honesty, a lot of mistakes, a lot of apologies, a lot of listening, a lot of forgiveness, a lot of meal sharing, a lot of gospel. In other words, it’s going to take a heck of a lot more effort than either eating or avoiding a chicken sandwich.

            But the point of any Dr. Seuss book, any lesson we’ve read this summer, and any lesson you’ll find in scripture is not to simply depress you about the evil state of the world. The point… is to learn and to grow and to make this world different. Brothers and sisters, I can’t tell you what to do. I can’t use your imagination for you. It’s up to you to find the opportunities in your life and to invite God to be present. Un-stick yourself from your tracks and find a way to listen, to love and to extend grace… even when it’s not offered to you. Amen.

*Rachel's Blog