Allowing Our Assumptions and Judgments to Destroy Our Joy
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
September 4, 2024
Good morning, Friends and welcome to Light Reflections. This morning I am concluding my series on joy. The scripture I have chosen is from I Corinthians 12:25-26 from The Message version.
“The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.”
When I was in my doctoral program, I had a professor who started his first in-person class by having us listen to three different versions of the Star Bangled Banner. He started by playing the now infamous version by Roseanne Barr at the San Diego Padres game in 1990, where after singing out-of-tune she closed by grabbing her crotch. The second version was the famous 1969 Jimmy Hendricks version played solely on his guitar live at Woodstock. Finally, he concluded by playing a very traditional acapella version by Take 6 also from 1990. Each rendition was unique and clearly prompted different responses.
Yet, it was clear, the professor had made some assumptions and judgements about our class and what we would find the most moving out of the three. He thought sharing these three versions in this order would move us to find the last version the most satisfying, patriotic, and overall appealing. This was his opinion. Even while he played the last version, he did not show a poker face but instead clearly identified it as his choice.
As he moved to teaching about our experience, he shared an assumption that he had expected to be true. He stated and asked, “I bet you liked the last one the best, why is that?” Being a generation younger than most of the people in my class, I watched as all the Boomers in the room, to his surprise, spoke out vehemently that they disagreed. The tension in the room rose quickly. In his shock he began to push back a bit, but quickly was backed into a corner by most of the room.
As expected, no one really liked the Roseanne Barr version, but the Jimmy Hendrix version brought about a much different discussion than the professor expected. What he did not understand was there was more behind this song than just a really good guitar player. The professor’s assumptions and judgements were exposed as the Boomers in the room shared how this version somewhat defined their generation. They shared how it spoke to an era of activism, protest, and communal Christianity. There were deep emotions shared and some even shed tears. It was clear our professor did not know his audience.
One person in our class had a son who was an accomplished guitar player, and he shared that the artistry in the Hendrix version for those in the guitar world is a standard; that Hendrix’s version is difficult to replicate for most good guitarists.
Clearly the room of about 30 students was beginning to expose the professor’s opinions and judgments and sadly, he did not handle it well. The joy of listening to these various songs soon slipped out the door, the smile evaporated from our professor’s face, and hurt feelings even anger emerged, all due to the professor’s lack of awareness.
Finally, one of my friends in my cohort, who is a Boomer and very activist oriented, finally called our professor out and said, “You expected us all to think the Take 6 version was the one we would most gravitate towards because that is the one you like, but you clearly did not read your class.”
And after a bit more push back he finally admitted that he had made assumptions and judgements about what we would think. Because of this, most found this opening experience completely tainting the rest of the class, and our professor lost the respect of most of us students. Sadly, he never recovered from that moment in the class.
This may be the best example I have ever seen of how our assumptions and judgments of others can quickly steal our joy and leave us at odds with one another.
To begin the teaching portion of my message this morning, let’s take a moment to explore what judgements and assumptions actually are.
According to a quick search on Google, an assumption is:
“a thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof” or “the action of taking on power or responsibility.”
And a judgment is:
“an opinion or conclusion”.
Let’s start by focusing on “accepting something as true without proof”.
When we assume, we’re usually making judgments based off our own beliefs and experiences, NOT anything factual.
For example, when our oldest child was in grade school, their teachers had made an assumption about the length of their hair and their ability to learn. Year after year, we went to parent-teacher conferences where the focus was weirdly on the need to cut or child’s hair, how it was distracting them, and keeping them from learning. We even found that they were removed from class on occasion and put in the hall, as if their having longer hair, would rub off on the other children.
Honestly, it was infuriating because as educated people we knew there was no proof that the length of one’s hair caused one to struggle academically. This was simply an outdated opinion of some conservative Christians that men should not have long hair. And sadly, in this parochial school, instead of aware teachers helping to address our child’s ADHD, anxiety, or the need for a more conducive workspace to stay focused, the teachers were blinded by their opinions and simply wanted to blame it on our child’s long hair and their unwillingness to conform.
Looking back now, it frustrates me that those teachers accepted as truth something that has no proof or bearing on our child’s academics. If they could have overcome their biases and opinions and just accepted their hair, and actually been aware of their neurodiversity, our child may have thrived instead of being put down and separated for their personal grooming choices.
And just replace hair in this situation with tattoos, piercings, colored hair, or a plethora of other things and you quickly see how often this happens in our society and world.
Even though that happened in a religious parochial school, the same too often happens within the church. It makes me sick the stories I have heard from many of you. While I was growing up, the church told us we needed to give our best to God and that means we need to dress up for church. No jeans, no shorts, but rather button shirts with ties (even sports coats) for men, dresses and pantyhose for women. You know, just how Jesus walked around Nazareth and Jerusalem with his leather bound KJV Study Bible under his arm.
I observed as a child people in the pews judging their fellow church attenders as they went up for communion because of the way they were dressed - not knowing those people’s financial situation or the struggles in their families. The irony of a table of welcome that people were being judged for partaking in. Folks, dressing up for church was an opinion and often a judgment, it wasn’t biblical or even doctrinal.
In my last meeting, I had a man who pulled me aside one Sunday and said, “I want to thank you for not being one of those pastors who wears a suit and a tie. That was one of the biggest reasons I stayed for worship, today.”
I wanted to understand more, so I asked if we could sit for a moment, and I could hear more about this. He then through tears shared the abuse he endured in the church he was raised in by what he labeled the “men in suits” at his church. Their suits became the symbol of power, abuse and conclusions that could not be questioned. He never thought church could be a safe place again until walking into our Quaker Meeting in Oregon.
Folks, our judgements and opinions can create a lapse in empathy and perspective and not just steal our joy, but leave us and our neighbors hurting and struggling to thrive.
One of the places this has become greatly distorted is in our media and it is not just influencing a younger generation, it is actually affecting all of us on a daily basis.
No matter if it is social media sites, news networks, or the newspapers we read in print or on our iPads, they all like to put certain people on pedestals, while punishing others for being imperfect.
Take for example, a celebrity can do the vilest thing, but if they’re pretty, popular, have a lot of money, or are the right race or gender, they can get a pass. And people will willingly spin the truth to help others accept their behavior without taking responsibility.
Yet when someone who’s not in the public eye makes a minor infraction, they often end up plastered all over social media or the talk of the neighborhood gossip group and are shamed and slandered for being an awful human being.
And let’s really get honest, we’ve gotten accustomed to adding our own opinions to things that have absolutely nothing to do with us. So much so that we often don’t stop to consider the perspective of the person we’re projecting judgment onto.
I am just as guilty as anyone on this, but the more I study this and experience this, the more I want to part ways with what we call gossip, judgment, assumptions, and opinions, and we should rather name it for what it actually is - ABUSE.
Have we ever considered, the person we spewed our opinions and judgements about, what might their day have been like prior to the incident that made us feel we needed to share?
What is their backstory? Do we care about their backstory?
What is going on in their life that they made this mistake, this infraction, this poor decision in our eyes?
Was their intention actually what media alluded to, what I thought, or someone told me, or was the footage or my thoughts exaggerated in order to generate views or keep me looking good?
The collective response has sadly become to attack and assume negative intent, rather than to pause and try to see both perspectives. The more we do this, the easier it becomes for us to condemn versus building stronger connections with our neighbors.
Something that has been said a lot lately has been that a “harm against any one of us, is a harm against all of us.” Some may be quick to say this is political rhetoric, but actually you heard almost those same words in the scriptures for this morning.
“If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance (or as we have been saying, joy!)”
Ponder with me for a moment.
What if instead of partaking in making assumptions, judging, gossiping, assuming and condemning, we stopped and asked our neighbor how they are doing? What they need? Why they are struggling? Do they need support or help?
And like I said last week, really listen to what they have to say. Instead of putting words in other people’s mouths, we must allow their words to be theirs and most importantly to be heard.
Most of the time when you and I do the opposite of these things we fill in the blanks for others or make assumptions or judgments from our own experiences.
Folks, my experience is much different than your experience and I may have completely different ideas of what is going on because of my life experiences. And that may not be fair to my neighbor if I assume I understand.
As well, there is nothing worse than overhearing someone tell another person how they think you feel or why you are in the situation you are in. Like I said last week – not only are you responsible for your own change, but you are also responsible for speaking your own truth.
Just maybe we have gotten to the point in our society when the threat of knowing our neighbors has escalated to the point of us thinking it is easier to assume we know what others think and believe and not waste the time to get to know them.
And if that is the case, we are in deep trouble because relationships are key to our survival. We need each other.
With loneliness and isolation on the rise, and the elderly being left and forgotten in nursing homes, with youth feeling they have no one in their life because social media has them guessing, with neighborhoods becoming prisons of HOAs and like-minded people, with gentrification making people of color homeless and displaced, with counselors and therapists with waiting lines up to 4 months, we have a lot of hurting people, folks.
And so “If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance (or joy!)”
So, who TODAY do we need to reach out to without our assumptions, judgments, or opinions and seek to hear THEIR truth, THEIR backstory, and where are we walking with them so they may flourish and find some needed exuberance and joy? Let that be our query for today.