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Recently, I’ve had some folks, in both National Church and UTO (United Thank Offering) circles, mention Brené Brown, a fellow Episcopalian, to me, which led me to her book Dare to Lead. One of the concepts I found in her work was Curiosity.
Curiosity leads us away from perfectionism and leads us to confront our vulnerabilities. Being curious means accepting we have a lot to learn still, that we don’t know everything. Being curious means realizing that we might not always be right or correct.
Thinking through Curiosity, particularly in how Brown presents it, brought me back to one of the greatest scenes in Ted Lasso: the Darts Scene. In it, Coach Ted Lasso is up against series villain, and Ted’s boss’ ex-husband, Rupert Manion. “Rupie” has found a way back into the owners’ box at Richmond, and Ted decides to make a bet with him over darts: if Rupert wins, he gets to pick Richmond’s starting lineup for the end of the season, and if Ted wins, Rupert has to stay away from the owners’ box for good.
At the end of their match, Ted has steep odds to overcome to beat Rupert, who scoffs and responds, “Good luck.”
Ted then goes into a great speech. He starts by saying “guys have underestimated me my entire life, and for years, I never understood why. It used to really bother me.” Then Ted remembers driving his son to school and seeing a mural with a Walt Whitman quote: “Be curious, not judgmental.” All of a sudden Ted sees the problem in these others because, as he states, “if they were curious, they would ask questions. You know? Questions like: ‘have you played a lot of darts, Ted?’ Which I would have answered, ‘yes sir. Every Sunday afternoon at a sports bar with my father from age 10 till I was 16 when he passed away.” And with that, he scores the final bullseye he needs to win the game.
This leads me to our Scripture today, for Curiosity is a necessary tool for leadership, as Brené Brown states, for life, as Ted Lasso shows us, and for Faith, as we see with Thomas.
Whether we immediately see it or not, Thomas’ skill is that he is ultimately curious. Now he is the only Disciple not present for Jesus’ Resurrection appearance among them, so he, understandably, doubted his fellow Disciples when they said Jesus had returned. ‘Jesus raised from the dead? Forget it. That sounds crazy!’ And the only way that he is going to believe that is if he physically examines Jesus’ wounds from the Cross.
But when Jesus actually returns, something different happens with Thomas. Jesus “digs” at Thomas a little by suggesting that he should, in fact, touch his wounds, showing that Jesus was listening the whole time, even though He wasn’t physically there. Yet, in spite of many artistic works trying to suggest otherwise, there is no mention in John that Thomas does so. What we do hear is Thomas saying to Jesus, “My Lord and my God.”
The whole of the Gospel of John points to this fact. At the start of the Gospel, we learn that Jesus is the Word at the very beginning of Creation that brought all things into being. This Word not only was with God, It was God. Jesus later is chased away after using the Greek for “I am” to refer to Himself, a phrase taken by those around Him to relate to the Holy Name God gave to Moses in Ancient Hebrew, the name which no one should try to say, as our Jewish brethren are good to point out (instead, we say “Adonai” or “Lord”). And finally here at the original intended end of this Gospel, we hear Thomas declare Jesus not only as his Lord, but as God too.
Yes, Thomas was skeptical, as the vast majority of us would have been. Yet he was open to be proven wrong. He was curious and not ultimately judgmental. That openness, that willingness to accept his need to learn, that realization of his imperfections led Thomas, in being proven wrong, to be the first to accept the truth and declare what the Beloved Disciple has been trying to prove to us for the entirety of the Gospel according to John: Jesus is Lord and Jesus is God.
We need more curiosity when it comes to our Faith. We cannot come to the Truth if we cannot first be vulnerable and accept the times when we are wrong. We cannot listen if we are not open to hearing. We cannot hear what God has to say if we are not ready and willing to learn from our Lord. We cannot believe if we are not open to change, that is, the change that comes directly from the Lord.
Be like Thomas. Be open, even in your doubt. Be curious, not judgmental. Know that you are not always right, and listen so that you can learn from the Truth when it approaches you. In all these ways through your openness to God, be like Thomas. Come to believe.