A sermon by Noel Anderson for First Presbyterian Church of Upland, Jan 3, 2021
Text: Isaiah 55: 3-9
Kierkegaard’s Parable of the Geese
“A certain flock of geese lived together in a barnyard with high walls around it. Because the corn was good and the barnyard was secure, these geese were quite comfortable.
One day another goose came among them. ‘My friends,’ he would say, ‘can you seriously imagine that this barnyard, with great high walls around it, is all there is to this life? I tell you, there is another and a greater world outside, a world of which we are only dimly aware. Our forefathers knew of this outside world. They stretched their wings and flew across great expanses of land and ocean, across continents and over mountains. But us we remain in this barnyard, our wings folded and tucked into our sides, as we are content to stand in the mud, never lifting our eyes to the heavens which should be our home.’
This goose spoke of the advantages of flight, calling on the geese to be what they were. After all, they had wings, he pointed out. What were wings for, but to fly with? Often, he reflected on the beauty and the wonder of life outside the barnyard, and the freedom of the skies.
The other geese listened attentively. They hung on his every word. They discussed his ideas in their homes and thought about them deeply. All this they did. But one thing they never did. They did not fly! For the corn was good, and the barnyard was secure!”
A variation of this parable tells of a goose in that comfortable barnyard who, whenever the autumn geese flew overhead, heard their honking and longed to be with them. He would look up at the skies an honk away flapping his wings, but because there was plenty of food, he never flew up to join them. In time, when the geese flew overhead, he lost that feeling, didn’t even bother to look up, but just kept pecking the corn below.
Both versions are tragedies because the geese fail to be exactly what God made them to be. They are flyers who had given up flight.
We are meant for flight. Faith, discipleship, and mission are all a matter of using the wings God has given us and getting off the ground.
Wing Pride
The problems begin with what I would call “wing pride”—people who are really into their “wing identity.” Being a member of their party is not a basically rational choice based on careful observations, but a seething enthusiasm, like with rabid sports fans. Winning is everything, and “Our wing is BEST!”
In sports as with political fever, fans project enormous emotion into their team loyalty. That’s why political conventions look a lot like high school pep rallies. There’s no deep discussion; there is just the rah rah of team spirit and the exaltation of the austere dignity of our team or party.
Each side has become like rabid fans for their home team—so rabid that the rules no longer seem to matter.
Two Wings Required
Both planes and geese require two wings in order to fly. One wing won’t cut it. What is more, you must have both a left wing and a right wing. Imagine a plane or a goose that had two left wings or two right wings? It doesn’t work.
Imagine those wings themselves had a will, each thinking: “We should be turning more left/right!” Either wing, if so empowered, will send the plane into a downward spiral.
American Politics 2021
This seems to be the American situation. American politics, 2021. “America needs to steer more left/right!” Our wings seem to fight against each other to pull the plane one way or another. Wing pride becomes a kind a megalomania, wherein we come to think our side can do no wrong.
Even worse, the sides can end up using faith, religion, and even God to support their side:
“Jesus wants us to be a more progressive nation!” or “Jesus wants us to preserve our traditions!”
Both may be somewhat true, but both are wrong to say God is on their side.
I say Jesus doesn’t want us to be more left or more right. It’s not about left or right; it is about Up or Down. vv8-9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Jesus wants us to step UP. He wants us to use our wings to get off the ground and fly. The very point of having two wings is that we might actually learn to fly again.
This is what we’re exploring in this Learning to Fly series. It’s not just politics, but virtually everything has this same right/left tension. Seeing it is a key to moving forward.
I remind you of the dimmer switches you have in your homes. They are superior replacements for the simply-on-or-off, binary switches we’re used to. The light is merely on or off, but on by 10, 20, 55, 86, or 94 percent. There is a rich difference in the lighting unavailable with the old on/off switch.
POLARITY
A polarity is the connection of opposing ideas held in tension with each other. It’s not the either/or of the end points, but all the points along the line in between that make up the whole. We must get beyond certain polarized ideas and attitudes if we are to live in unity.
Again: it’s not about left or right; Up and Down
At their respective poles, contradictory ideas one of two things:
1. They can cancel themselves out like a double negative, or
2. They can persist by maintaining an unresolved tension.
Unresolved Tensions
This idea of unresolved tension is crucial to this series. We don’t really like unresolved tensions; we prefer things to be either left or right, A or B, black or white—we prefer things in simple binary because it is simple and easy to grasp.
Think of stretching a rubber band between your two thumbs. The further you spread them apart, the stronger the tension; the closer your thumbs, the weaker that tension. The left thumb wants what is left and the right thumb what is right, but the strength and the energy is found only in the both/and of the unresolved tension between them. Critical to this series is understanding these unresolved tensions—this is crucial!
What I’m saying is that in many things—particularly in things of the faith, that binary, either/or nature must surrender to the mysteries of both/and.
Toxic Extremisms
Now a brief aside about fanaticism and the toxic extremism before our final point. Fanaticism is a loss of perspective of the whole. A fanatic so far out on a limb—either to the left or the right—that he can neither see nor understand the larger tree he is on.
It is the prevalence of fanaticism that makes us all long for more adults in the room.
What does it look like when real adults are in the room? We can think of them as referees and umpires (everyone hates them, right?). When there are no adults in the room, you have only the worse, most biased, southern, small-town referees, making every call for the home team.
Today, this is politics and worse, this is the press. And it is a national tragedy.
Fanatics are those who love refs and umpires that are biased for their own home team. Ask them what are good referees like? “Those who make every call favoring my team!” If that’s you, in regard to either sports, politics, or journalism, then you’re clearly one of those try to fly with one wing.
Good refs are objective, fair, and as unbiased as possible. Referees and umpires obviously have a very different perspective from the fans in the stands. They are not at the game to see their favorite team win; they are there with a much bigger picture on the whole game. That game is their living and livelihood, not their pasttime. At a core level, they really don’t care who wins the game; they care that the game is played fairly and according to the rules. A successful game, to them, is one in which the calls were accurate and as unbiased as possible.
I’m saying we Christians need to adopt some of that bigger picture attitude regarding our community and nation, and we need to do it quickly.
Scriptural Truth has 2 Wings
Finally, I want to say that scriptural truth has two wings as well. Jesus teaches in many paradoxes—you know them well already:
Matthew 16:25 “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”
Matthew 20: 26-27 “It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave.”
Luke 14:11 “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Luke 6: 37-38 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you…for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
Theology lives in the balance, in the unresolved tension of paradox like these. And here is the crux of the matter: Perhaps truth is better contained in these paradoxical statements than terms of either left or right. Spirituality requires that we have both wings in the air. This is the only way we can get off the ground, fly, and come to understand the entire landscape from a higher perspective.
This series we’ll be looking at these paradoxes of our faith, and rather than dumb them down or oversimplify them, we will allow them to remain in their native state as unresolved tensions, like that tight rubber band.
The noble life is a matter of learning to live with unresolved tensions, and for those unresolved tensions to be okay with us.
We were not meant to be grounded; we are made for flight—meant for flight—and that is impossible if we insist upon using one wing only.
TO THE TABLE
Scripture says: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Brothers and sisters, we were meant to fly, not to be caught on the ground.
As we approach the table, let us be mindful that god has made us to be something for his glory. Let us pray that we find our wings, and through this meal find the strength to take to the air.
QUESTIONS
- What was Kierkegaard trying to say to the Church regarding the geese?
- What are the correlations between sports fanaticism and political fanaticism?
- Why do people prefer simplified answers over more complex ones? Why is this potentially dangerous?
- How are referees and umpires like mature adults? Who are the “children” in this analogy?
- What makes us less-than-comfortable with paradoxes, as those used by Jesus?