Inspired by curiosity, we approach Christian practice with open questions, authenticity, and grace (Luke 8:16-18; James 1:19-20). This value remains notable because it’s not something that appear in many church mission statements. And yet, I believe that curiosity was baked into the very ministry of Jesus - who told curious stories, asked inquisitive questions, and authentically and attentively engaged people with a sense of delight, good humor, and wonder. Jesus was curious, it turns out, and as his disciples, we are called to be nothing less.
Jesus inspires curiosity.
We wish to be a curious people because Jesus was a curious person who spoke in a curious way. One of the more unique features of Jesus’ own ministry is the way he most often chose to talk about God, spirituality, or himself. I’m, of course, speaking about his use of parables. Mark 4:34 says that Jesus did not speak to the crowds without a parable. And in Luke 8 we are introduced to Jesus’ parable on parables (the parable of the sower, the seed, and the soils) which gives the reason Jesus spoke in parables and offers an interpretation of the parable. The word literally means, “that which is tossed alongside,” implying a comparison, an analogy, an elaboration, or an illustration. At its simplest, a parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness in order to tease them into active thought about its actual point. Parables are dig deeper stories, cliff-hanger tales, curious sketches which surprise and jostle, beg for questions, invite curiosity, and demand personal investment. It’s interesting to consider how parables are not the type of speech used by bullies or those who wish to control people by telling them exactly what to think and what to do with clipped commands. In fact, by using parables Jesus relinquishes a kind of control because parables invite investigation and interpretation. Because they require curiosity, they resist authoritarian control that doesn’t want to be questioned or authentically vulnerable.
In the TV show Ted Lasso, we meet an American college football coach who is unexpectedly recruited to coach a professional English soccer team, despite having no experience with soccer. The team's owner, it turns out, hired Lasso hoping he would fail as a means of exacting revenge on the team's previous owner, her unfaithful ex-husband. In the following scene, the ex-husband, who has brutally been bullying Ted, is challenged by Ted to game of darts to determine who would control the team. Let’s take a look Click HERE for Ted Lasso clip
“Be curious, not judgmental.” The bullies, Ted tells us, “thought they had everything all figured out. So they judged everything, and they judged everyone . . . If they were curious, they would’ve asked questions.” After telling the parable of the sower, Luke tells us that Jesus cries out: “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.” And then in response, he writes, “His disciples asked him what this parable meant.” Parables are curious, non-bullying stories. They are artistic renderings of the truth that demand only one thing – listening curiously, attentively, actively. And disciples are curious, question-askers. This is what Jesus means when he says: “Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they think they have will be taken from them.” The “whoever has,” when placed in context doesn’t refer to money, or education, or status, or piety, but attentive listening. The “whoever does not have” very well may be someone with money, or education, or status, or morals, but who has not approached Jesus with an attentive engagement of curiosity and questions. By saying this Jesus is trying to inspire us to curiosity and tell us that some truths are not available to the casual passer-by. But curiosity is more than questions, curiosity is also caring.
Curiosity is caring.
Now it is helpful to introduce the origin of the word - curious. The etymology of the word comes from Latin curiosus and originally mean “careful, diligent;” and a little later involved “inquiring eagerly, asking questions, investigating” and its root cur means “careful” or “artful” (e.g. the word cure, in English).
To perhaps gain a better appreciation of the layers of meaning signaled by curiosity, consider the following words with the same Latin root cur. What is revealed when we use its root in the definition?
- accurate: done with care
- inaccurate: not done with care
- secure: free from care of dread or danger
- manicure: caring for one’s hands;
- pedicure: caring for one’s feet
The point is that all these words carry the sense of ‘care’ in them. The curious, in other words, are those who care – care to listen well, care to ask questions, care to be authentic, care because they value truth, care because they love God and others, and remember that Jesus asked questions all the time. So we want to be curious about Scripture because we care. We want to ask questions about people’s stories because we care. We want to be inquisitive about theological concepts because to treat such thinking inaccurately would mean that we don’t care. It’s hard to be angry when you’re curious and listening well. We don’t ask questions to win, or manipulate, or harm but because we wish to love others. It’s because we care.
What’s curious is that the word has been trending downward since the 19th c. - take a look.
It’s starting to make a slight rebound but maybe one of the ways that we as Christians can help live out God’s kingdom in the world is to carefully, artfully, lovingly be curious. And not with prefab questions that try and solicit premade answers but questions which aim to help us better care for others. I’m in a Bible study that meets at the Governor’s Cup every Thursday morning and on one occasion we were surprised by one of the employees who approached us wanting to share a story. She told us that she had been stopped by four teenagers on Liberty who gave her a pamphlet with the question, “What’s Wrong with the World?” She told us they had pressed her for an answer and understood that they were trying to convert her but that she escaped by telling them that she had to get to work. She showed us the tract and asked us what we thought but I was mostly struck by what she said next. Rather than being angry, she grew a little sad and said, “I’m not mad. They were just kids and they weren’t unkind. But the sad thing is that I think it’s a good question. I just wished they had cared enough to actually listen to my answer.” She sensed that they didn’t actually care because they weren’t curious. The capacity to give our attention – fully – to another human being is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle (modifed quote of Simone Weil).
Grace is curious.
We will never be able to be curious, however, if we cannot be authentic in our relationships, acknowledging our frailties, our fragilities as well as our strengths and gifts. In Christian thinking, such an authenticity can only occur through the work of God’s grace. My wife is a “light” person. She demands good, natural light and hates harsh, fluorescent ones. The light – she says – shapes how and what you see. Grace is truly a curious light that shines so that we can see ourselves, others, and God honestly and lovingly. It’s a gift from God that reminds us that we are loved whether we do right or wrong, loved whether we succeed or fail, loved whether we know or not. There is a fluorescent spirituality that will illuminate everything around but casts deep shadows of pain, shame, and embarrassment. Such light kills curiosity. Jesus, however, speaks of a light that fills the house and beckons others to warmly come. It reveals but doesn’t expose. It will disclose but openly and warmly knowing that healing means taking what has lain destructively in the dark and bringing it to the light. It affords us the ability to not have to hide, to ask questions, to be ourselves. Isn’t it curious that the first act committed by Adam and Eve after they sinned was to hide? Grace as a light doesn’t aim like a spotlight to put you back into the prison of shame, hiddenness and loneliness. It doesn’t set out to expose you but to express love. Grace warmly calls to us with those child-like invitations from games of hide-and-seek, “Olly olly oxen free.” Have you ever wondered why we said that? Amazingly, it derives from Old English and means all ye, all ye outs in free, all the outs in free. That’s the curious light of grace, my friends. It calls out to us, “Come in, come in, all outs in free!”
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