Sermon begins at 17:15
Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure.
My kindergarten teach taught me a song, when I was 6 and I still remember it.
“Love is something if you give it away, give it away, give it away. Love is something if you give it away, you end up having more.”
This will all be relevant in the end.
Have you ever heard a preacher go on and on and you’re not sure what they’re even talking about,
but they seem to have some imaginary time limit of talking in their head and they’re going to hit it even if they don’t have something to say?
You can hear them circling around an idea, but it never quite hits?
They hit a salient point, but the rhetoric is so convoluted that you’re not sure they even understood what they said?
Have you ever heard me do it?
Okay, don’t answer that…
Now, have you ever heard the phrase “speak it plain, Preacher?”
Well, “why don’t you take a minute just sit right there, I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air.”
That was irrelevant, but a good segue to the rest of the sermon.
I’m moved to preach to you today about Relevance and how to see Envy at the root of our public discourse.
I’m going to lay out how the rest of this sermon is going to go really quickly, so you don’t have to guess or wait in suspense about how I’m going to tie this together.
First, we’ll talk about Relevance, the idea that when someone communicates something, they think that it will be relevant to their audience, and that they will do the best they can to explicate and implicate a meaningful message.
Second, we’ll talk about envy. Both our epistle from James 3 and our Gospel lesson from Mark touch on this idea of envy.
Finally, by looking at how social media influencers are reporting on the manufactured crisis of Springfield Ohio, we will see how envy is at the root of what is deemed relevant, when we put all of our focus on earthly things.
So, let’s start with Relevance.
In 1986, Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson wrote a book together called Relevance.
I could go into more details about revisions, editions, and the background of Relevance theory, but for our purposes that isn’t relevant.
The main ideas of Relevance theory – as described by Sperber and Wilson – are that first, it takes people mental energy to process information.
When I speak, your brain has to do work to make meaning out of what I say.
Second, people who communicate convey information that they think is worth their audience’s effort to process.
And, if you’re listening to someone, then the reverse holds true. You’re listening, because you think that I’ll eventually say something that was worth your time and energy to hear.
The third thing is that to the best of my ability, I will “preach it plain.”
Meaning that - being aware of how much energy it takes to listen to me - I will tell you things as simply as I can, so that your brain doesn’t turn off.
Finally, when I tell you all of these relevant things, part of my message is explicit; They’re the things that I actually say, “Have you ever heard a bad preacher?”
But, quite a lot of my message is implicit. Meaning that I want you to hear what is encoded in my message without me having to say it.
The things that lay behind my message that you’re supposed to intuitively understand, “Fr. Chris is not a bad preacher, because he always says things that are relevant, he never carries on too much, I can count on him not to make me late for brunch.”
There is explicit and there is implicit meaning, when we communicate.
Sperber and Wilson describe the dichotomy like this, humans can infer more conclusions if what is spoken contains information that is related to what people already know or believe, the literal meaning is just one piece of evidence.
But let me make it plain;
Have you ever had someone try to hint to you what they want you to do something for them, but they didn’t actually tell you? I’m looking at all the husbands around the room.
This is why Proverbs doesn’t have a chapter dedicated to… “the Good Husband, who can find? He remembers his spouse’s birthday and all the subtle hints she gave about doing the dishes and putting the toilet seat back down.”
You heard the words, but the relevant part remained “a great mystery” as “Zee Great Willmowitz used to say.”
See, I didn’t have to go into that much detail and all of you know what I mean. That’s why you’re chuckling.
So that’s a funny one, but you know me, so here come some real ones.
Jesus’ disciples heard Jesus’ explicit words, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
They didn’t get his implicit meaning.
And so they did what many of us do when are brains are over-taxed, husbands, they moved on to arguing about who is the greatest, Patrick Mahomes or Joe Burrow.
But, the best illustration of the explicit vs. implicit divide in relelvance theory communication is probably the hottest commodity in our political discourse; the racist dog whistle.
A politician says x, y, or z, but what they really mean for you to hear is a, b, and c.
“I don’t want to say the overtly racist thing,” they seem to say, “but I do want you to hear it.”
Dog whistles are short-hand ways of expressing BIG racist ideas in a way that doesn’t make your brain tired.
And that is Relevance Theory in a nutshell.
We communicate information that we think is relevant to our audience in a way that they can hear it best without over-taxing their brains.
Now to Envy.
Envy is a fact of life.
If you are a human, at some time or another you will feel those bitter pangs hit your heart.
The crazy thing is, we think that when envy hits us, we’re going to want what that other person has.
That is how envy is usually portrayed; as a type of jealous coveting
But actually, there is an even more sinister side to envy.
Medieval writers understood what envy was.
Dante Alighieri, who wrote the Divine Comedy, also known as Dante’s Inferno, says that those who suffer from the sin of envy, don’t just want other people’s things, or their good life,
But, believing that there is not enough to go around, they actually seek the downfall of those whom they envy.
Have you ever known someone, who despite themselves just can’t help gossiping about other people, especially when something bad happens to them?
People (and let’s be honest, we can all get sucked into this trap), who seem to find joy in other people being taken down a notch?
And sometimes, not being content with watching others get knocked down a peg, they try to expedite the process either with words or actions behind the other person’s back?
This is called being passive-aggressive and it is one of the hallmarks of envy.
And the truth is, we don’t always want what the other person has, we’re just envious that they seem to have more than us.
More money and more things, sure… but also more certainty or more privilege…
If I’m really really honest, the one that hits me the most is when I see one of these mega church pastors, who seems to speak irrelevant non-sense, or debunked and harmful biblical interpretation, or even worse when they say something relevant and meaningful.
My brain and heart say, how can a message of toxic masculinity, intolerance of LGBTQ+ people, or worst of all neo-Calvinism (am I right, Neil?)
How can these things garner so much attention, when I’m sitting here trying to teach and preach Jesus’ love, acceptance, and embrace of difference?
I’ve got to say, I get a little kick of Schadenfreude when I hear a news headline, “Pastor … of 15,000 person church in … of doing … in a … and it wasn’t his Proverbs 31 “A Good Wife, who can find” that he preached about last week.
That’s envy, I admit it, I feel bad about it, I fight against it, I’m human.
The thing is, if we know what that feeling is, then when it hits, we can fight against it.
But so many people in our nation and our world, don’t know that what they’re feeling is envy, they think it’s righteous indignation.
What else could possibly explain the media and political situation surrounding our brothers and sisters in Springfield Ohio right now?
NPR reported this week that social media influencers have been descending on the town to gain notoriety by the continued spreading of the false rumors about the Haitian population there.
I’ll put the link in my sermon transcript, which will be uploaded to our website tomorrow. Also, worth noting, I’ve been posting all of my sermons on the website. “If you don’t know, now you know.”
The situation began with a few people posting things on facebook and speaking at the Springfield city council meeting.
It got picked up by certain high ranking politicians and spouted on national television.
Since that time, one woman who thought her cat, Ms. Sassy, had been stolen by a Haitian neighbor later found Ms. Sassy in her basement and retracted her Facebook post;
And other people who started “animal cannibal” rumors have confessed that they either made it up, or had no first-hand knowledge of the incidents.
The truth is that people in the town have been feeling pressure by an admittedly quick relocation of thousands of people to their town, who needed to escape from the political gang violence of their homeland.
We should admit that this situation would be shocking to a system.
We should also admit that envy has played a large role in the responses that have come out both locally and nationally to this situation.
First, there is a “not enough to go around” mentality combined with a “this is our space.”
And so, rather than being self-aware and honest about their envy of these new people getting a shot at the American Dream, they sought to undercut them and take them down a notch.
The fact that it got way out of hand is now beginning to dawn on them.
Because the other people who are showing their envy-face right now are the people who continue to spread the lies long after they’ve been debunked.
The politicians know that talking about this crisis will play well with specific white audiences, who are scared that people of color could somehow become their equals in privilege.
They don’t have to explicitly state this, they just have to connect a black immigrant community with a weird social practice, and whether it’s true or not, the implicit message is received.
“these people of color and immigrants are as bad or worse than you feared.”
They go back to the racist dog-whistling over and over, because it continues to be relevant to a people who don’t know the depth of their envy;
For this type of envious people, they feel like their culture, place, and way of life is a finite commodity and they have to protect it.
But, in truth, culture is always changing. Our faith tells us that life is a series of deaths and resurrections. Every time a new generation is born, something from the past is left behind and new things are gained;
Because of technologies, new understandings, new opinions…
Culture is always adapting, and not just because different “others” are coming in. but because we are always changing too. This doesn’t have to be a continual regressive game of, “if your culture wins, mine loses.”
We’re all creating the future together.
What is finite, and the reason these tactics born of envy continue to have traction, are votes in electoral politics. Someone wins, and someone loses.
And so, politicians are literally willing to “fight like hell,” if it means they’ll win;
Which is why James calls Envy a “devilish” thing.
And so we see that Envy is one of the real reasons that our politics continues to get more and more mired in siloed identity politics, racial animus, and falsity.
So, Fr. Chris, this is bleak. Is there any Good News?
Why yes, I’m glad you asked.
What I want to leave you with today is the idea that Envy is Relevant, and that Envy can be overcome if we can put away our anxiety “about earthly things,” and relearn “to love things heavenly” as our collect so eloquently said.
In our letter from the biblical author James, he says “if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be boastful and false to the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.”
We know that Envy is destructive, but we don’t always know that we are experiencing it.
I would say to you, name your envies; be aware of times that you yourself are bending the truth of a thing, be mindful of times when you are boasting to puff yourself up or put someone else down.
Envy hates nothing more than to be exposed for what it is. It thrives on hiding behind self-righteousness and self-justification.
As James puts it, “Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly.”
Keep your focus on abundance.
God has surrounded you with everything you need, and if you don’t have it; ask yourself if you need it.
Like the famous aphorism says, “if you can’t have what you want, want what you have.”
Be content that your heavenly creator has made you for heaven, and that nothing God intends for you to have can be taken away.
Remember that we are placed among things that are passing away and to hold fast to those things that will endure;
You are meant for eternal life, and only you can give that away, no one can take it from you.
And finally, I’d like to leave you with a relevant quote from Canto 15 of the aforementioned Dante’s Inferno.
“But this is the point he was making: in your envy, you men go to any length to attain the goods of this world, which lessen the more they’re shared, and envy makes you sigh because of this diminishment. However, if you had a desire for the things of Heaven, then you would focus on attaining them, and you wouldn’t worry about sharing or losing them. You see, in Heaven the more people speak of ‘ours’ instead of ‘mine,’ the more they possess, and the more love there is as a result.”
You see! Love really is something if you give it away!
And that is the most relevant thing, I can think of.
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