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[Male Speaker] From Unity Church of Christianity in Houston, Texas.
This is The Awakened Life with Reverend Howard Caesar.
Unity is a non-denominational Christian church providing
a positive, practical, and progressive approach to Christianity.
Let's join the service in progress with the Reverend Howard Caesar.
[Reverend Howard Caesar] At some churches—at this particular church I want to tell you about—
the minister would, once a month, have some of the younger children
come down front, and he'd give a little mini-lesson for them.
And then they would go on off, and he would usually address the children about something
familiar from home—some gadget he'd use—some visual aid.
And, anyway, one Sunday he had a smoke detector.
And so the kids were all lined up below, and he began by asking the
children if anyone knew what it meant when the alarm sounded from a smoke detector.
And one little child spoke up and raised his hand and said,
"It means Daddy is cooking dinner." [laughter]
That's not fair guys—is it? It would be true of some of us but not all of us.
Some of us—some of you are—I shouldn't say us and include myself—are good chefs.
Anyway—that's what this little boy said.
Today, I want to talk to you a little bit about dealing with the idea of different—different—the word different.
And—you know—there is that saying, "Dare to be different."
Well, it sounds like you are being encouraged to be different
and that it is okay somehow, but the truth is,
in many instances, different is dangerous.
You know—different can single you out; different can set you apart.
It can place you under scrutiny.
It can cause you to risk judgment or labeling or rejection—
being different in various ways and dimensions.
One of the biggest lessons that we all have to learn on our spiritual path is the idea of having to do with judgment—
you know—making judgments about others and other things around us.
And—you know—Jesus taught that, and all the masters and mystics taught it.
And Jesus said, "Judge not lest ye be judged."
He says, "Judge not by appearances because oftentimes we don't know—we don't understand.
And so though it is simple—we have heard it a lot—it's a biggie.
It is really a biggie because I really believe that all of us have, to some extent,
judgment going on that we still need to get beyond.
There is a story that was sent to me about a pastor.
It's a true story actually—fairly recent I guess.
It's a pastor who went to take the ministry of a 10,000-member church.
And he was to be introduced that particular morning as the head pastor.
But he decided to kind of pull a trick or give his congregation a test.
And so, essentially, he dared to be different.
And what he did was he disguised himself as a homeless person.
And, I mean, he really did a good job because they had a picture
of what he looked like, and he was really dressed shabbily.
He had really old, wrinkly holes in jeans kind of thing
and an old t-shirt that was dirty and everything, and he had tennis shoes.
And he had a ski hat on or cap on his head and looked really—a little bit—you know—questionable—I guess.
And anyway—he walked around this ministry that he was supposed to take over and be introduced that morning.
And he got there about 30+ minutes before.
And as people were filling in he just kind of walked around that ministry
and tried to connect with people, and there were only 3 people he says
out of the 7,000 to 10,000 that were coming to the service that day
that actually said, "Hello," to him.
He asked some people for some change saying he needed some food.
And he said no one accommodated that one.
And he went to the sanctuary to sit down.
And he wanted to sit down in the front.
And the ushers came and escorted him to the back. [laughter]
And he said they were very nice about it, but they asked me to go sit in the back.
He tried greeting people prior to him being seated—you know—
and all he got from people were basically stares and some dirty looks
and people clearly looking down at him and judging him.
And so he went and sat at the back of the church
where he was told to go, and he listened to the church annoucements
and the preliminary aspects of the service.
And when that was done then the elders of the church got up
and said, "And now it is time for us to introduce to you our new head pastor.
And we would like to introduce you to him—please welcome Pastor Jeremiah Steepek."
That was his name, and so all the people applauded in anticipation, were looking around,
and they couldn't see anybody, and they were applauding.
And then all of the sudden this homeless guy gets up from the—
stands up at the back of the church and starts walking down the center of the aisle,
And all of the sudden people started seeing him, and the applause started.
And mouths start dropping open.
And their eyes get big, and basically he went up to the podium
and took the microphone from the elders, and he, from there, said that he
wanted to recite something from scripture.
And it is actually from the 25th chapter of Matthew—
some things that Jesus said, and you are familiar with them, but I'll share with you what he went to say.
And, keep in mind, that this was—the elders were al in on this obviously—
ahead of time he said, "This is what I am going to do."
And so he read this passage which goes, "Then the King will say to those on his right,
'Come you who are blessed by my Father.
Thank this inheritance. The kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.
I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink.
I was a stranger, and you invited me in.
I needed clothes, and you clothed me.
I was sick, and you looked after me.
I was in prison, and you came to visit me.'
Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord—when?
When did we see you hungry and feed you?
Or thirsty and give you something to drink?
When did we see you a stranger and invite you in?
Or needing clothes and clothed you?
When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
And the King will reply, 'Truly, I tell you whatever you did for the one of the least of these,
brothers and sisters of mine—you did for me.'"
And after he recited this he looked towards his new congregation,
and he told them all about what he had experienced that morning before the service began.
And some people began to cry, and others—many bowed their heads in shame.
And then he said, "Today, I see a gathering of people but not a church of Jesus Christ," he said.
The world has enough people but not enough disciples.
When will you decide to become disciples?"
And that was the question he gave to them.
And do you know what he did next?
He dismissed them.
I mean, what pastor does that without an offering? [laughter]
I don't know if the elders were happy about this, but anyway—he dismissed them.
He said, "I'll see you next week."
So—first I want to promise you one thing—I am not going to dress as a homeless person anytime.
And I am actually not going to do anything that would teach you—
and this feels—I am trying to be judgmental here too—
it feels a little shaming—the method.
But there are ways for us to learn.
And there are two things I want to emphasize as a result of sharing that story and the scripture.
And one is that I really, really want to emphasize where Jesus says,
"Truly, I tell you—whatever you did for one of the least of these
brothers and sisters of mine—you did for me..
In other words, he is saying we are all brothers and sisters of him.
All right? And so we talk about Jesus being our elder brother in way shore.
And he is there defining that very much as we being his brothers and sisters.
And he is really talking about, again, emphasizing how important oneness is—
that we are really not just one little family, but we are a universal family.
And the boundaries go on and on.
And so that really it is an idea that we are all in this together
and that we are all one family and that we are the creation of that one God
and that we are all brothers and sisters of the same spirit.
And as we do for one or another, we are doing for ourselves and the whole really.
So it is a very powerful teaching, and I don't want us to overlook that It is very important.
The other point that the story seems to point out, to me,
is that it, indeed, can be somewhat dangerous to be different—
at least it can be risky—you know?
There are indications in our society that that is true,
and maybe it doesn't happen here in this congregation—I hope not—
but the truth is that—you know—probably anyone would be a little bit leery or cautious
of a person that was so extremely appearing different like that
to give some sense of balance to that analogy there.
There are those in the world who are so quick to judge and so quick to label based on appearances and based on what happened.
Some of you remember or may have heard in the news about Oprah Winfrey who was in Switzerland.
She went into a store, and she wanted to buy a handbag.
The clerk there—it was a very expensive—I do not know how many thousands of dollars handbag—it was big. Thank you Diane—don't buy one of those.
Anyway, the clerk said she would not even get it. She said, “You can’t afford it.” How wrong she was. Bless Oprah.
There was also in the news, some of you may have noticed recently, about the TV show Duck Dynasty.
I know it is some of your favorites. Some of you have never heard of it. But I never knew about Duck Dynasty.
My son came over one night and brought it up on the TV. We watched a little bit, and it was very interesting.
This is a reality TV show that has just been recognized as the Number 1, nonfiction series telecast in cable history.
It is the most successful in cable history.
It is about a family, a backwoodsy, hillbillyish kind of family, and they live in Louisiana in sort of the backwoods area,
and they had gotten rich on having created and invented and sold a duck call. You know, for duck hunters?
And so from there, it evolved into this reality show in which they are becoming more wealthy of course.
But anyway, they were in New York in a big fancy hotel; I think it was the Trump International Hotel, in fact,
and they were promoting the fourth season of their series, and all of these guys in the family,
if you have not seen this, have beards to down to their belt buckle. They probably dress a little rugged.
And anyway, so one of the stars of the show went to one of the employees of the hotel and said, “Where is the men’s room?”
And the employee, instead of showing him to the men’s room, escorted him to the door.
And tOhe actor, this guy from Duck Dynasty, said, “He was very nice to me. He walked me all the way to the door.
He pointed down the street and said, ‘Good luck. Have a nice day.’”
And he jokingly said it was not racial profiling, but facial profiling. I do not know if that is any better.
So my point in all these examples is only to say that we all may struggle to some extent with different, different, in varying degrees and varying ways.
Some people make, it is said, rather poor artists in life, because all they can draw is negative conclusions in the things that they see.
The world is full of differences, though. There are so many, even in the common variety.
You know, we dress different, we look different, we talk different.
We have different cultures, different backgrounds, different races, different sexes,
different education, different religions, different diets, different views on politics.
Different views on everything. Different perspectives, different attitudes, different personalities that have been developed—on and on.
So the big question that I would like for us to ask ourselves is, “What room do we have in us for different? What room do we have in us for different?"
Because we will bump into different over and over and again and again, and how do we deal with that?
Are we quick to judge? You know it can be an unconscious thing.
And it is so big and so important in all of the teachings of all the masters and mystics and certainly was emphasized by Jesus.
It is important to really get a hold on that and become conscious, because the tendency is to make different wrong.
Or to make different, bad, or to be afraid of different—you know.
I am not saying that all of different is good and okay and safe and so forth,
but I am saying, let not anything that is different somehow be bad or wrong.
We are spiritually in the mode of moving to the place where we have greater acceptance for all. Right?
And especially, the key is, “Is it hurting or harming anyone, however a person is, appears, or is doing?”
Whatever it is they are like among the likes and dislikes that are multitudes among individuals and can be different.
You know, if you grew up in Greece, it is a very natural and accepted thing for
men and women to go to the beach topless or in the nude at a nude beach. For them, it is not a *** thing—you know.
It is just getting in touch with the forces of nature without having any barriers and things that they are accustomed to there in Greece.
It is very natural. They are harming no one. You got awful quiet. [laughter]
No, I have not been to the beaches of Greece. [laughter]
It is not harming anyone, right? It is not for everyone.
A lot of things are not for everyone. But, do we make it wrong, you see? Do we make it bad? Do we do that?
Let us take an easier topic: music. You know, music is so varied and sometimes in a church, to keep everyone happy.
You know, they want this hymn or that hymn. You are very happy with us, I think, or else you are not telling us.
But anyway, music, people identify with so many different likes and dislikes.
I may not like the music that you like. You may not like the music I like.
I may not go to a concert with you to witness or experience acid rock or maybe rap. It is just not what I identify with.
But, I do not make you wrong. I do not throw the whole out with a part. Some of society does that.
We hopefully do not do that ourselves, and if we are, we need to catch ourselves, because it is totally inappropriate.
It is the same way with religion. I may not identify with your religious beliefs.
You may not identify with my religious beliefs. We have differences within family members and within coworkers.
A person may not want to go and attend another person’s church, but that does not mean that
that person’s church is wrong or bad or one should stand in judgment of it, ever.
It is totally inappropriate.
A person or other people may find value in what it is that is their choice or their decision. It is for them to decide.
And so we should never forget the whole on the basis of a part or a portion of what a person is about or what their makeup is.
There are families and workers that have totally judged and created chasms between one another.
You have told me about it in some instances through the years that different people that
you are not aligned with their particular views. They do not want anything to do with you.
And they have made you wrong and bad and dangerous and that is not right.
So, I guess I am talking to the choir, because none of you do that. I do not know.
There is a great quote that I came across by a lady named Shannon Adler in some of her writings.
And what she said is this—she wrote, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, but I chose neither one.
Instead I set sail in my little boat to watch a sunset from a different view that could not be seen from the shore.
Then I climbed the tallest mountain peak to watch the amber sun through the clouds.
Finally, I traveled to the darkest part of the valley to see the last glimmering rays of light through the misty fog.
It was every perspective I experienced on my journey that left the leaves trodden black.”
In other words, left a path where I had been, and that made all the difference.
The beauty of that writing and the way it spoke to me was, you know, sometimes we are given two roads, two choices.
Yes or no. Good or bad. Right or wrong.
And she said, “No, I am not going down there. I am taking neither of those routes.
I am going to experience some other angles and some other perspectives.” You see?
She broadened herself and that is what she said, and that is what she was about.
We all need to be open to something that is new and fresh, you see, and different perhaps.
And different, you see, can be good. Different is not always bad.
Different is not always wrong. Different can be good. It needs to be your mantra.
When you have a resistance to something that is not necessarily something you identify with or might not be your choice,
but they are not harming anyone, or as who they are. Different can be good. Different can be good.
And some would say that all advancement, really, for humanity, has been about some blend or blush of different.
New things, new products, new inventions, what have you, and even there, humanity, much of it,
will resist and hold onto what is familiar and what is comfortable.
You know, Van Gogh, Vincent Van Gogh, in some of the letters that he left behind from the 1800s, he said this, he said,
“If one wants to be active, meaning to grow and evolve, one must not be afraid of going wrong.
One must not be afraid of making mistakes now and then.
Many people think they will become good just by doing no harm. But that is a lie. That is the way of stagnation and mediocrity."
He has a point, you know, we have people in history, Galileo who offered something different,
having had a telescope where he could see into the heavens and found that actually the Earth was not the center,
but the Sun was the center, and the planets and the Earth rotated around.
But he had to retract that in order to maintain his life. He had to retract it for years and years by the church. There are things like that.
Ralph Waldo Emerson is another interesting guy who was always open to transcending what is and what was,
wanting to stretch the boundaries. Maybe move outside the box, or at least invite people to do that.
He was always experiencing what was next in the evolution of consciousness, and he was quoted to say,
“In man, the perpetual progress is from the individual to the universal and from that which is human to that which is divine.”
There was always that movement, you see. He was not afraid of different.
He was the one who was a graduate at Harvard University Divinity School, and he gave the famous Harvard Divinity School address.
I have referred to it before, but the one little thing that I would like to share again is where he said,
“Let me,” and this is to the body, and there were other things that he was talking about that were out of the box at the time.
He said to the graduating class, “Let me admonish you first of all to go alone.
To refuse the good models, even those sacred in the imagination of men.
To dare to love God without mediator or veil. Cast behind you all conformity and acquaint men firsthand with deity.”
He was telling them as they went out as ministers, as graduates of the divinity school, to cast aside all conformity,
and to create a firsthand experience with God and be open to whatever it is that would lead people to that.
Another way of saying it, as someone has said,
“It is better to be a nerd than to go the way of the herd.” So, different is often made wrong.
Emerson, you may or may not know, was banned for decades from his alma mater. Banned for decades.
He was labeled a rebel, and he was asked to return 28 years later
as a celebrated public figure to receive an honorary doctorate from his school. It just shifted.
Where they once called him a rebel and did not want anything to do with it.
Different was bad. Different was wrong. And now they embraced him, you see.
There are alternatives in life, and we get to choose.
Like some people choose alternative medicine. It is more holistic; it is unconventional.
It doesn’t mean conventional is bad at all. It is just an add-on.
It is not abandoning, not making anything wrong. So again, we have alternatives that are there.
Emerson was banned for different. Jesus Christ was crucified for different.
Jesus was about spiritual transformation, not stagnation.
He asked people to stretch. He asked people to think anew.
He asked people to consider a new perspective.
He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” but what he was saying is,
“I am bringing to you a new way, a new truth, and a new life.” It is expanded.
It is not exactly as it has been. It is different. It is different.
He said and asked that we were not to think that he had come to destroy the law and the prophets,
but that he had come to fulfill them, which means to fill them full.
To make them more complete and even what he shared, he had not even shared it all because there is a passage where he says,
“I have yet more things to share of which you are not ready.”
Essentially what he was saying in that was, “Why feed to a group advanced algebra when they are still
still having trouble struggling with understanding and living basic math.” You know? Makes sense.
What I get from that is, there is even what Jesus taught were delineations of even deeper
and further things that some mystics have even delved into it, and we make them strange or weird.
Some people do as opposed to embracing what has been their experience, and you cannot argue with an experience.
As we move into even progress as a people on a planet, there will be things
that reveal themselves to us that are new and different.
They are validated by an experience by those who had it.
So are we quick to say different is bad? We need to ask ourselves that.
There is something that Jesus said that is so important.
He said, “Let your light shine, and the bushels," he said, that we should remove from us
is basically sometimes the bushel of our lack of understanding
and our lack of willingness to be open and to see and consider all.
I personally am working on not being afraid of different.
I am looking at what are the corners of my consciousness
where I bump up against something that I am unconsciously judging different. You know?
I do not know if I make it bad or wrong or experience a discomfort to some extent, or what. I am looking at that.
I hope you will too because it is so important for us to move beyond judgment.
We are here opening ourselves to what is next. That is why we, the founders of Unity, Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, were about that.
They studied all isms, all paths, and they blended together East and West.
They took the best of them all. We open ourselves to a vast number of speakers that have different ideas and insights.
You do not have to buy them all. You do not have to accept them all.
We do not endorse everything they say, but we should not be afraid of different and make it wrong or bad.
Different can be good. Different can be good. That is part of why I have gone even to taking people to John of God or Experiencing India.
I do not want to be closed off. I will always be loyal to Unity.
I will always be about Unity, but I am not going to be afraid
of what there is that can help facilitate and accelerate a person’s growth and consciousness and make it available for those who are ready and wanting.
Different can be good; so as we live our lives —as we go forward from this day,
let us remember not to be too quick to judge anything in our world that comes before us,
and remember that we need to create some space.
How big is your room for difference? Not difference—for different.
Different can be good. God bless you all.
[Male Speaker] Thank you for joining us for today's message.
We invite you to be with us again next Sunday.
At Unity, we believe that God's presence of love and goodness is everywhere
and that life is meant to be good.
You can find out more about Unity and our teachings at UnityHouston.org.