May 18, 2010
Dear St. Paul’s Family,
Have you ever felt overwhelmed with too many choices? You’re not alone. Satellite dish owners flip through over 1,000 television channels. Sirius/XM radio subscribers can listen to 200 stations. Feel like a pork tenderloin sandwich here in town? Five restaurants sell them. How about ice cream for dessert? Blue Bunny sells 84 different flavors, including 28 varieties of chocolate alone. Then after dinner, brush your teeth, using any one of 26 national brands of toothpaste. After negotiating the daily barrage of choices, it’s a wonder we don’t just collapse into our beds at night. (Firm mattress? Plush? Pillow top? Latex? Innerspring?)
Psychologists have coined the term “decision fatigue” to describe our weariness with too many choices. It emerged from a landmark experiment 25 years ago by Columbia University professor Sheen Iyengar. Dr. Iyengar and her research team invited people to survey two tables of jams. The first display had twenty-four flavors to choose from, and the other had only six. As the team expected, more people were initially intrigued by the group of twenty-four varieties. But when it came time to choose which jam to actually purchase, people preferred to select out of the smaller sample of six jams.
Professor Iyengar said the study “raised the hypothesis that the presence of choice might be appealing as a theory, but in reality, people might find more and more choice to actually be debilitating.” [1]
Debilitating is a strong but appropriate descriptor for what happens when people are paralyzed by a plethora of options. Our defense is to streamline our choices and stick with our decisions with as much consistency as possible. We think that “black and white” seems clear, and that “gray” is too unsettling. As much as we claim to enjoy the freedom of choice, we are just as prone to over-simplification, stripping away any ambiguities and complexities.
It’s one thing when we’re dealing with ice cream and toothpaste. But it’s just as true when it comes to weightier and more consequential matters:
· We approach political decisions with either blind party adherence or single-issue loyalty, rather than thinking for ourselves or embracing the complexity of an issue.
· We subject ourselves to television talk shows that espouse balanced opinions but more often bring in polar opposite viewpoints, often from the extreme right and left.
· We too often assume an “Us vs. Them” mentality, in a number of contexts. We tend to draw circles to define who is “in” and who is “out,” and usually draw those circles around ourselves.
· We reduce our understanding of the Christian faith to a handful of simple, handy platitudes, rather than pushing ourselves to deeper exploration of the mysteries of God.
Against this backdrop of over-simplification, we encounter the story of Pentecost, the Bible’s antidote to decision fatigue. Often, we read this text and move quickly through the unpronounceable names. But work through the list of people carefully. They’re there for a reason:
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’
The text says it clearly: God loves diversity and complexity. When the Spirit touched the earth and the church was born, Luke went to great lengths to describe just how multifaceted and varied the body of Christ is. There would be no room for simple labels, or easy-to-manage categories. The sounds of people speaking in indeterminate languages was a glorious cacophony, the sound of a Spirit that works not in tidy boxes, but with wonder, amazement, and surprise. The advance of the gospel would not be clean, neat, and tidy. It would have to negotiate the intricate nuances of different cultures and the constant flux of changing times. The church’s need for adaptability is as true today as it was then.
Of course, it’s not the only place where the Scriptures embrace complexity. Want to know how the world began? You’ve got different creation stories to choose from in Genesis. Want to know what happens when you die? You’ve got a plethora of perspectives among the Hebrew scriptures, the gospels, and the epistles. And how about learning something about Jesus? Well, for goodness’ sake, you’ve got four different versions to choose from. It should therefore be no surprise to us that when the church was born, God declared that complexity is a divine characteristic. And when we are tempted to settle for easy answers and convenient labels, God challenges us to expand our viewpoints, widen our gaze, and become all-inclusive in our love for others.
This Sunday, join us for the holy day of Pentecost, as we experience the power, imagery, and drama of the arrival of the Holy Spirit. To mark the occasion, we invite you to wear red, the liturgical color of the day. And be sure to come with an expectant heart and open mind, to see what God will reveal to us.
See you Sunday,
Magrey
The Rev. Magrey R. deVega
St. Paul's United Methodist Church
531 W. Main St.
Cherokee, IA 51012
Ph: 712-225-3955
http://www.cherokeespumc.org
[1] “Too Many Choices: A Problem That Can Paralyze.” New York Times, February 26, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/your-money/27shortcuts.html
PEACE POLE DEDICATION
Join us at Sanford Museum Park at 11:45am this Sunday for a brief dedication ceremony for our new Peace Pole. This was a joint project between St. Paul’s and Immaculate Conception Church and is a wonderful testament to peace in our community.
SPECIAL CHURCH-WIDE MEETING JUNE 6
Following the 9:30 worship service on June 6, the Building Committee will be giving an important update on the status of the upcoming renovation and capital campaign. You will have the opportunity to give the committee critical feedback that will guide its recommendation later this year.
SAVE YOUR OLD SHOES!
We are participating in a new community missions project called Soles 4 Souls, which delivers used shoes (of any style or condition) to people in need around the world. You can bring them to church, and Sheree Hausmann will collect them and deliver them to the regional collection site.
RETIREMENT COFFEE
Join the Cherokee school community in congratulating Jan Cook on her retirement, at a reception on Wednesday, May 19, from 3:45-5:00pm at the Washington High School Commons.
No comments:
Post a Comment