CPCBA Sermon - Be Curious, Not Judgmental

In “Be Curious, Not Judgmental,” Rev. Ralph Lowe invites us to reconsider the assumptions and snap judgments we make about others—and to approach one another instead with what he calls “holy curiosity.”

Reflecting on 1 Samuel 16:1–13 and Luke 19:1–10, Ralph explores two biblical stories in which appearances fail to tell the whole story. Samuel learns that while people look at outward appearances, God looks at the heart. And when a crowd sees Zacchaeus only as a sinner and tax collector, Jesus looks up into the sycamore tree and sees a person.

Through scripture, humor, and a moving story about confronting his own assumptions about a stranger, Ralph challenges us to trade labels for stories, judgment for relationship, and isolation for a place at the table.

As you read, consider:

• When have you discovered that your first impression of someone was wrong?

• What labels or assumptions make it difficult for you to remain curious about another person?

• What might it mean to remember that God sees more of another person’s heart and story than we can?

• How can curiosity help us listen across differences without ignoring harmful behavior?

• Where might you be called to choose relationship and “table fellowship” rather than distance?

• How could practicing “holy curiosity” help build a more loving and beloved community?

The Sermon

As I mentioned earlier, it’s truly a joy to be here with you today. And now it’s the time when I make you very uncomfortable in your seats.

I hope you will help me declare the theme for today. So do me a favor. I want you to look at your neighbor. I can see eyes looking at me still. You need to look at your neighbor and say, “Neighbor, oh neighbor, oh neighbor, be curious, not judgmental.”

That was really good. That’s great.

Okay, look at your other neighbor, probably someone you didn’t come with today, and say, “Neighbor, oh neighbor, WWJD.”

Thank you.

Does anyone remember WWJD? What would Jesus do? It was a phenomenon that actually started way back in the early 1900s through a book, but it was a phenomenon in the late ’90s, if I remember correctly. What would Jesus do?

It was a cultural cornerstone because it offered an instant mental checkpoint before reacting to life. Amen.

I remember the time distinctly because at my home church, which is Calvin, we had gotten a new pastor. That pastor’s name was Rev. Dr. Graham Standish, and we formed a bond right away. I had a young family. We had just gotten married. And so he offered me this book, and I looked for this. I even searched online. It was almost 30 years ago. It was called Radical Jesus something, something, something.

But what I remember from the book was that it was a comparison to Jesus’ teachings for his time and what it would look like here in present time. So if you can imagine all the parables, all the things you’ve heard and listened to about Jesus, and then it also correlated that to what it would actually look like in present, modern times.

Now, I had that as a backdrop for the “What Would Jesus Do?” phenomenon.

And I thought to myself, “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Because what would Jesus do is radical.

And if we did it today, people would look at us like, “What are you doing?” Because it takes radical love, radical grace, radical passivity—to be very, very passive.

So I experienced the “What Would Jesus Do?” phenomenon very differently, because counterculture does not begin to describe the Son of God’s posture in the world.

Does anyone here—or have you watched Ted Lasso?

Oh man, we’ve got a good amount of people. For those of you who have not watched Ted Lasso, if you don’t hear anything I say for the rest of the 10 minutes I’m going to be up here, please get yourself a free subscription for seven days and binge-watch Ted Lasso for your soul.

It is wonderful. The free subscription, seven days, binge it, and then tell Pastor Heather all about it whenever you do that.

Okay. So, if nothing else, what I wanted to talk about was there was an episode—I think it was episode eight in the first season—and that episode’s called “Diamond Dogs.”

Diamond Dogs. Yeah. See, if you watch the show, you would understand what I meant when I bark like that.

Anyway, the main character, Ted Lasso, is in an attempt to disarm this man who was manipulative and a narcissist and pretty much a bully. He describes how he looks at the world. And Ted says, “I look at the world like this: to be curious and not judgmental.”

Now, he said this to the bully because if the bully had simply been curious, he would have learned something that would inform Ted and the narcissist’s relational reality.

Be curious, not judgmental.

It challenges the easiest, most destructive human instinct: hear something someone said or look at someone for two seconds and decide we already know everything there is we need to know about them.

Judgment operates on appearances and assumptions. Curiosity pauses to ask what lies beneath the surface.

When we ask what would Jesus do, we do find a consistent pattern throughout the Bible. God repeatedly disrupts human snap judgments by looking straight into the hidden realities of our human hearts.

Curiosity opens us up so that Christ can work through us, helping to shape our relational realities toward a beloved community.

So, if we look at our Old Testament passage for this morning, Samuel is in deep depression. He feels like he made the biggest mistake of his life. God had him anoint Saul, and Saul didn’t listen to God.

Now, we could have a whole sermon on what he didn’t listen to God about, but he didn’t listen to God.

So Samuel was upset. And then God says, “Hey, I get you’re upset, man. You need to get up and go out now.”

So he travels to Bethlehem to anoint Israel’s next king from among the sons of Jesse.

Samuel is a seasoned man of God, yet he immediately stumbles into the trap of outer perception. When Jesse’s oldest son steps forward, Samuel looks at his impressive height and royal bearing and thinks, “Surely, this is who the Lord is going to anoint.”

This man checks every box on the world’s checklist for leadership. But the Lord interrupts Samuel’s internal monologue with a foundational principle.

Humans judge by external appearances and superficial affirmations. But the Lord looks at the heart.

Seven brothers pass by. We heard the story. Each rejected.

Samuel finally slows down enough to ask a question of curiosity: “Are these all the sons you have?”

Jesse admits that there is one more son, the youngest, out keeping the sheep, practically forgotten. We know this disregarded shepherd boy as David.

Disruptive judgment relies on immediate visual and audible data and cultural pedigree. Curiosity makes room for the possibility that God’s presence and potential reside where we least expect them.

There’s this thing that Pastor Heather and I read when we were in seminary—and that was enough. It was called The Confessions by Augustine.

Has anyone ever read The Confessions? God bless you if you have. We spent a whole year Bible study doing it. It was a year.

Amen.

In it, he reflects on what pride does to individuals and what pride specifically does when it comes to sight. Augustine observed that human judgment is inherently crippled because we can only ever see the outer mask of another person, never their hidden inner life, their heart.

Augustine warned that whenever we rush to condemn someone based on what is visible, we usurp the role that belongs solely to God. For Augustine, genuine love requires intellectual and spiritual humility, acknowledging that we do not see the whole picture and allowing God’s charity to govern how we view our neighbor.

Every year we have the pleasure as a family to go on vacation. We go to Virginia Beach for a week. My favorite place in the entire world. I get to read. I get to sit in the sun. And I get to get wet. I mean, what’s better in life, right?

So this year, our kids are older. I’ve shared with you we have four kids, and they’re older, and they can all drive. So we kind of make our way down there separately because they have lives and work and all the things.

So myself, my wife, and one of my sons drove down together. And on our way down, we had to stop and get gas, which, you know, we always have to do.

So we stop, and I get out of the car, and I go in to use the restroom. And right in front of the door is a table with a man next to it. And on the table, it has a cover. And on the cover, it’s kind of falling over, and you can read on the front. On the front of this cover of the table was a picture of Jesus with a thorny crown and the words, “Jesus is alive.”

But on top of that table were long, sharp knives. There was a bullet. There were other long, sharp knives.

And as soon as I saw that, I got an attitude.

And I mean, I got a strong attitude.

How dare you?

How dare you put those things of destruction on top of a table with the face of Jesus on it?

So I took my attitude right into the store.

I went to the bathroom. I came out and got chocolate, because road trips and chocolate go together. Amen.

So I got my chocolate, and I’m still mad. But: curious and not judgmental.

I had done a wedding two weeks prior, and I use many different scriptures and verses whenever I do the homily for a wedding. But this particular wedding, I added a few things.

I usually say three things to the bride and groom. Always say, “I love you.” Always say, “I’m sorry.” And ask, “Can I help?”

Right, baby? Yeah.

Always say, “I love you.” Always say, “I’m sorry.” And ask, “Can I help?”

And then I expound upon what that really means, to say those things.

But then I added, for this particular couple who were on their second marriage, “Be curious, not judgmental.”

So I was like, “Oh man, this is a word for me, too. I need to be curious and not judgmental.”

So here I was with my Twix and my Snickers and whatever chocolate we had. And I’m walking to the counter. I’m like, “I’m trying, Lord, but I’m having a hard time.”

So I pay for my stuff. I come outside. And then, you know what you do when you see something you don’t like: you just try to ignore it.

So I have my shield up, and he’s right there, and he’s talking to someone. And as I walk by, the man says, “Excuse me, sir.”

And I’m like, “Oh, darn.”

“Could you, by chance—do you have a minute?”

Now, I want you to understand the look I had on my face when I turned around and looked at this man. Because when I turned around, my face definitely said, “Do you know I’m a pastor? How dare you desecrate Jesus Christ like this on this table?”

That’s what my face said.

So I turn around and the guy says, “Hi, my name is Josh.”

And he explains to me his ministry.

I’m going to get a little emotional, so I apologize.

So he had given up his six-figure career to start a fellowship community for convicted felons, for convicted abusers—all abusers—to introduce them to Christ, to teach them, an education for all those individuals.

This is for men, by the way. For all those individuals who were outcasts to the world, he set up a community within the compounds of rural Virginia for those individuals.

Then I really noticed the other things that were on the table. Because, you see, I saw the things, and I had a judgment.

There were first-aid kits, oil lamps, waterproof matches, tarps.

Friends, the question I need to say is: Who really was disgracing Jesus in that moment?

Talk about “What would Jesus do?”

He was doing what Jesus would do.

He was doing what Jesus would do.

So I got back in the car, and I’m all emotional, and my wife says, “What’s wrong with you?”

I’m like, “I’m okay. I just need a moment.”

And then I tell her what has just occurred.

And he really wanted to ask for some funds. So I gave him $20 because I felt so bad that I judged him so quickly.

He was doing what Jesus would do.

You see, Jesus does these things for us.

Jesus passes through a crowd on the street, and this is where he encounters Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector, a man whose wealth came directly from collaborating with the Roman occupation and exploiting his neighbors.

The crowd had already evaluated him and sentenced him and written his epitaph: traitor, cheater, irredeemable, sinner.

When the crowd looked at Zacchaeus, who was curious himself, by the way, they saw a label.

When Jesus looked up in the sycamore tree, he saw a person.

So I want you to notice the difference as I close up today. You always have to be careful when a Black pastor says he’s closing, because it means it could be another 20 or 30 minutes. It’s not the case here, but you’ve got to be careful whenever you hear that.

The crowd uses judgment to create distance.

They murmured and complained that Jesus went to be the guest of a sinner.

But Jesus used curiosity to build proximity.

He invited himself into Zacchaeus’s home for a meal. Jesus didn’t ignore who Zacchaeus was or his wrongdoings or minimize his sin. But instead of throwing stones of condemnation from below a branch, Jesus engaged him relationally.

That posture of open, inviting presence dismantled Zacchaeus’s defenses.

Repentance and restitution and salvation entered the house not through public shaming, but through Christ’s transformative welcome.

So what does it look like for us to practice this “be curious and not judgmental” kind of a portion of “What would Jesus do?”

So first: stop trusting the first glance or people’s first words.

Stop trusting your first glance or people’s first words.

When you encounter someone else’s lifestyle, personality, or their demeanor, or their rhetoric that might rub you the wrong way, remember Samuel at Bethlehem.

You see the surface. You hear their words sometimes. But remember, God sees their heart.

Number two is: trade the label and judgment for the story.

The crowd called Zacchaeus a tax collector. Jesus called him by his name and named him a son of Abraham.

Whenever you are tempted to reduce someone to a political tag, an annoying habit, or a past mistake, remind yourself: there is a backstory here that I may not know.

Number three: choose table fellowship over isolation.

Condemnation builds walls to keep people out. Holy curiosity builds up extra chairs in the kingdom, in the beloved kingdom.

If you want to know what Jesus would do when confronted with difficult, frustrating, broken people like we all are, the answer is clear.

Just be curious.

Not naive, because I want you to hear that, or accepting of bad behavior. Because sometimes that curiosity leads to an affirmation of who and what people really are. Amen?

Amen.

In those moments, praise God for the clarity and affirmation, and pray for yourself, pray for that person, and pray for the community—that Christ can work in all three for the common good.

Just be curious.

Open yourself up for Christ to work through you to create a beloved community and the common good.

Because only Christ through you can look past the mask, ask about the heart, and offer grace where the world offers contempt.

I pray and hope, for our community’s sake, that we can sometimes try to take off the lens of judgment and put on the shades of holy curiosity.

A curiosity where Christ enters and judges the heart of an individual rather than their appearance or the things that they’ve said.

Amen. Amen. And amen.