Believable - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

Sermons from the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

I'm a very cynical person. You don't know that. Cause I get up here and talk about love, which I believe in. But the power of love is something that has overcome me and has to fight daily with my cynicism. So for instance, you know, you'll meet people who have kids, or maybe they're a teacher that teaches and they go like, man, those kids teach me more than I'll ever teach them. I'm like, well, that's not true. You taught them math. You're way smarter. I get really cynical about this idea because I'm up here in my head thinking you have a set of information that you are imparting to these people. What I forget is how much we learn, how much we learned from people, not just sets of data, but what we learned from people by simply sharing life with them. Other than the names of dinosaurs, my eight-year-old son has taught me nothing. Like I was, when I was in school, I have probably forgotten all the names of dinosaurs unless they were in the Jurassic Park movie, I still remember those. Except, he needs me to slow down sometimes and listen to him. I don't like to slow down; I want to go. He doesn't say, oh, father, I need you to slow down because you're moving at a pace that I can't handle, and I need you to work with me in a different way. That doesn't happen, but I love him. And so, I'm learning how to slow down and listen differently. I'm learning because I'm willing to listen differently and listen to someone that I wasn't ready to learn from before. Who do we assume we know all about, and we don't need to learn from who are we not listening to? And I don't just mean listening to the words they have to say. Although that is part of it. I also mean who could be transforming our lives for love if only we'd let them. If the male disciples had just believed what the female disciples had said, their lives would have been transformed that much sooner.