When Speaking Of Faith Goes Wrong

Summary

In this episode of Speaking of Faith, Bishop DeDe discusses the importance of speaking about faith in a compassionate and understanding manner, especially in the context of political discussions. She emphasizes the need for humility, the importance of listening, and the necessity of acknowledging when we are wrong. The conversation also touches on how to support those who are grieving and the significance of sharing our faith without the pressure of having all the answers. Ultimately, the episode encourages listeners to engage in faith conversations with love and courage, recognizing that God is always at work in our attempts to connect with others.


Takeaways

-Speaking of faith means discussing what is important to us.
-Our allyship is with God and God's people.
-We need humility and curiosity to make a comeback.
-Compassion is essential when discussing faith with others.
-We must apologize when we have been wrong.
-Listening is key to sharing our faith effectively.
-We should not try to fix others' pain with words.
-Grief should be honored through storytelling.
-Blessed are you when you're trying to speak about faith.
-God is always redeeming our failed attempts. 


Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Speaking of Faith
01:28 The Intersection of Faith and Politics
03:49 The Importance of Compassion in Conversations
08:41 Humility and the Need for Apology
10:41 Understanding Grief and Loss
19:13 Listening and Sharing Faith
24:09 The Journey of Trying and Learning in Faith

AI Disclosure: To support our staff in their limited time, many of our episode summaries are first generated by AI and then edited by the Communications Director to accurately reflect and preview our podcast episodes.

Transcript

Bishop DeDe (00:02.049)
Hey friends, welcome to the podcast, Speaking of Faith. Now on this podcast, I haven't said this before, but speaking of faith means we're talking here. We're talking about faith, we're talking about what's important to us. This is an opportunity to talk and speak about those things we think are most important. And part of that is learning to use our words as it were, to talk about things that are very important to us.

My name is DeDee Duncan-Probe. I'm the Episcopal Bishop of Central New York, and I'm joined by Adam Eichelberger, who is our Director of Communications. And we are here to speak about faith. Now, the last few weeks, we've talked a bit about when we are speaking of our faith. And in the Diocese of Central New York, I've encouraged the clergy and those who preach to preach the gospel at all times and to preach about Jesus.

which by nature means at times it's going to be political, not partisan. I always draw a very sharp line on this. I don't want any clergy or anyone in leadership to be allied with a candidate or party or platform. Our allyship is with God and God's people. And so we work for the kingdom of God and proclaim that to this hurting world. And that means at times it can seem like we might be advocating for a party.

but actually we're speaking of our faith. Now last week I talked a bit about how we maybe build bridges and speak of our faith in times of challenge. And this week I'm gonna be talking about when that goes wrong, which I have a lot of experience with. I have a story history of trying to speak about faith and not getting it 100 % right. One of my favorite stories to tell is once I...

was at a parish and I preached a sermon about holy love. It was a time when marriage equality and conversations about LBGTQ plus dignity were being talked about. And so I preached a sermon not about specifically, I don't think I ever mentioned LBGTQ plus dignity. I talked about holy love and being God's beloved people. And I really zeroed in on what it is to be about loving one another.

Bishop DeDe (02:24.714)
and that marriage is about a calling of dignity and love. So in the line after the service, a woman came through who was sobbing and very clearly emotionally upset. And as she said, and as I greeted her and she said hello to me, she said, thank you so much for that sermon. I think you're right. I need to divorce my husband. And I thought.

Adam Eichelberger (02:50.85)
boy.

Bishop DeDe (02:53.388)
How did that go so wrong? I was talking about how we, what? And I said, you know, maybe we should have coffee and talk. And so we did have coffee and I sat down and I listened to her. And what had happened is that in my talking about what love can be, it highlighted what her relationship was not. And so she did end up divorcing her husband and went on to really find love and.

Adam Eichelberger (02:55.317)
Ha ha.

Bishop DeDe (03:22.324)
a new way and it was a good change for her. But for me, was a learning that sometimes when I'm talking about something and think I'm being very clear, it may not sound clear to the person hearing it. It may be going through a filter of their experience or their life that I can't know about. And so whenever we're talking with someone about something as important,

as our beliefs or our values or especially God or what we hold dear, there is a tenderness and a compassion and an attentiveness we need to another person. And I think that's especially true when we may be speaking of our faith with someone with whom we do not agree about either a partisan issue or a life issue. They may have strong feelings, we have strong feelings.

It's tempting to get into positions. I am for this you're against this Therefore we have no ability to talk you're one of them, you know and this bifurcation this thing that's happening in our world where it becomes personal and dehumanizing and very very divisive as People of God we don't have that option We like to have that option. We want that option

But if we believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, we do not have that card to play because Jesus always, always, always calls us to forgiveness and restoration and reconciliation and relationship. Ultimately, I believe and you, don't know, listener, what your belief is. Our Christian faith is about relationship, relationship, relationship. And I think this in my own life because of

the commandments of Jesus to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourself, and because of our baptismal covenant and the teachings of the church. So when I am in a conversation with a relationship with someone who holds very different opinions or viewpoints than I do, I seek first to understand what's important to them, what this means for them.

Bishop DeDe (05:46.41)
and why they may feel so strongly about something. I try to understand their fear or their concern or their anxiety about it. This doesn't mean I change my mind. There are things that we will not agree on. I support the dignity of all human beings. If I'm in a conversation with someone who truly feels that there are people who are less than human or who do not deserve dignity.

That's non-negotiable for me. I'm not gonna be able to get to a point where we're agreeing on something. But it doesn't mean I can't talk with a person with dignity and respect. It also means that sometimes I may say something and then as I learn about what it means to another person, I realize I need to apologize. I thought when I said what I said that it was a good thing or a right thing or a true thing. But as I listen to and appreciate

what another person is going through, I realize that maybe I still feel strongly about that. But in that relationship, I was wrong because I need to listen to and appreciate what other people are saying. In our present partisan time, when you look at why people voted for whatever party they voted for, they maybe have very compelling reasons.

But I think there's also very likely some of our shared values that we can agree on. You know, I've said before, we want our children to be safe. We want to be able to work on Honest Day's work and have that result in a life where there's a house or a home and an ability to feed our children and our families, where we can live lives of peace and prosperity in those ways.

And we want equality, we want there to be fairness and justice. And so in a world that has struggles with fairness and justice, where greed is so prevalent, it is important that we be speaking about our faith and advocating for peace and justice. But when we get it wrong, what do we do? And I think we do the same thing that we do anytime in our spiritual life. When we get it wrong, we apologize. We seek

Bishop DeDe (08:13.016)
to make amends, we seek to understand. When we have gone too far and when we're looking at the person across the aisle from us metaphorically, when we see them as somehow derelict in their duties or not understanding or just pejoratively have names for them, then we need to repent and say, you know, I'm talking about someone God loves. God's beloved is my enemy.

Adam Eichelberger (08:33.567)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (08:41.846)
and God's beloved is me. There are ways that we need to be with each other where we honor that difference. So I think when we get it wrong to be, know, the blessing that is very popular and I really like, be quick to love and make haste to be kind. I would add to that to make haste to forgive and to make haste to be willing to be wrong. There are things we think that are wrong. There are things that we think that may not be

the full truth, we may have part of the answer, someone else may have other parts of the answer. A lot of the things that face us in this time and in the world are very complex, whether climate change, the human dignity of all persons, it is true that we're gonna have places where we have to make hard decisions. And that means we have to be more informed. So I said last week and I will say it often, humility and curiosity do need to make a comeback.

We need the ability to recognize what maybe we've been wrong when we probably did the wrong thing. We all know that feeling, think at this point, unless you're listener, if you're younger, you'll come to this where you look back at the school yearbook and you think, my gosh, what was I thinking with that haircut? That was not a good idea. And all of us have thought something at one point where we've been so certain it was right.

Adam Eichelberger (10:02.017)
Hahaha!

Bishop DeDe (10:11.35)
And then when we learn more, we mature, we realize we've been so wrong. Repentance, that wonderful word that has been so misused, but we need to reclaim it. To change our mind, to turn with sorrow back to the ways of God. To recognize God's supremacy, not our own. And to have the humility to apologize when we've been wrong, when we have not seen clearly.

when we've been so caught up in seeing one thing that we did not see another. And I have made many mistakes in my life, but I try to be quick to apologize and quick to take responsibility for them. I am not responsible for what someone else does or someone else's opinion. I am responsible for the words that I say, for the ways in which I live that may have harmed someone.

I think we haven't paid enough attention of late. We talk a lot about race and LBGTQ plus some of us, but we also need to be talking about people as they age and the elderly in our midst. People who are really afraid and struggling and confused, dealing with things we don't understand. think the same can be said for people who have certain, whether physical challenges or mental or emotional health challenges.

We don't really understand. And if we haven't walked that path, we may not have compassion. So in order to get past where we've made mistakes, it starts with compassion and grace. And I'll close this time by talking about one of my favorite books by Henry Nowen is In the Name of Jesus or In His Name. And he talks about when he went to L'Arche, the center for people with

disabilities and special needs and his surprise that they were not very taken by his degrees and all of his knowledge and what he learned was to really change his mind to repent of that idea of superiority and to become a person who relates with with human dignity to to really appreciate and respond to the humanity of another person first.

Bishop DeDe (12:34.956)
before anything else. So Adam, I've talked a lot about this topic. I don't know if we have any questions for last week or thoughts that come to your mind about this.

Adam Eichelberger (12:43.489)
you

Well, Bishop, can tell you this, something about our last episode about politics and the pulpit and about sharing the gospel and your question and your posing when we get it wrong, must have resonated with some of our listeners because I have a bunch of questions and we're not going to be able to get to all of them listeners, but I do want to tackle a couple of these because they kind of intersect with these topics that you're talking about when we address politics and the pulpit and how the

Bishop DeDe (12:58.008)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (13:13.183)
the intersection and the necessity of politics and our Christian faith. But these ones tend to lean a little bit more in a different direction and it goes towards more, how do we talk about our faith with folks? And then when we mess up or it seems like there's like a barrier, how can we address that? So this first one I have is from a listener named Anna who lives in Oswego. And she said that she had a conversation with a coworker and the topic turned to faith.

And this coworker responded with a lot of anger about how they feel that religion, especially lately, has been used to justify harm. How can we respond with grace in those situations?

Bishop DeDe (13:57.717)
Well, I think listeners, y'all may all have ways in which you have found to respond. And again, we're speaking of faith, so this is not, you know, I don't have all the answers at all. I have all the questions. I think I have a lot more questions than I have answers. But in this question, I think there's really an important opportunity for humility. I think we can agree that there are ways that the church has failed people, has harmed people.

Adam Eichelberger (14:08.64)
Right.

Bishop DeDe (14:26.422)
while trying to do the right thing, while intending to be a safe space, sometimes our churches are not. Because our churches are filled with people who've come and who are imperfect and who are not, not always, don't always do the right thing. So when someone is angry and says, I'm really mad at the church because the church has really harmed people, I tend to say, I really appreciate that. I think that's very true.

Because then once we acknowledge the truth of that, we can have a conversation about what we hope the church can be. I also hear in the question from the other person, or the anger, a desire that the church be better. That's something I think we share. And so when someone says to us, look how terrible this is, I don't think we need to defend the indefensible. I think we can stop and say, yeah.

You know, the church is always trying to repent, is not a perfect organization or institution. We're doing our best and so how can we make it better? How can we seek forgiveness for the ways we fail people? So I think we start with the humility to just acknowledge that there's real truth to that.

Adam Eichelberger (15:45.377)
So the next one that we had is there's a listener named Rachel who said this, when someone is struggling or grieving, it's really easy for me to get into the habit of saying things like God has a plan or everything happens for a reason. But I feel like those words often wind up doing more harm than good. What's a better way for me to be a witness to my faith?

Bishop DeDe (15:52.622)
All

Adam Eichelberger (16:14.611)
especially in difficult moments.

Bishop DeDe (16:17.196)
Rachel, what a wonderful question. Because one, you're acknowledging that there's something wrong. Please don't ever say that to people. I mean, I just have to say, I think, you know, we, we were intending it for good. We want to say, God, you know, you're, you're not alone and God's with you at these things. But what, sometimes what we're doing is we're trying to make it better because we're uncomfortable with their pain. And we feel like we're supposed to say something that'll fix it. And boy, when someone has suffered a tremendous loss of it.

Adam Eichelberger (16:23.937)
Yeah

Bishop DeDe (16:47.17)
parent, a child, a pet, a loved one, a friend, there are no words to fix that. These are just losses. And so to be compassionate, what would we want someone to say to us when we've had those griefs? We want someone to say, you know, I am so sorry and I love you. And to let us cry and not to try to fix it, but to be present to us and to ask questions. Can you tell me about

Tell me about what you loved about your mom. What was something, know, what was a favorite memory you have, a cherished memory? Often we're afraid to talk about people who have died because we don't want to make the grief worse. But one of the sacred aspects of someone dying and the way to honor their life is to tell their stories. It's what we do in our Eucharist every Sunday. We tell the story of Jesus. We tell the story of God. It's a sacred way of honoring. The person may not be ready.

to talk about their loved one and that's a good entry to say, I'm so sorry. What a terrible loss. If you would like to, whenever you like to, I would love to hear stories because I really am grateful for your mother, for your friend and the love that you shared to invite them to be able to talk to you. I think we can set aside our need to fix and our feeling of, I need to say something that will make it better.

I think we always are made better by companionship.

Adam Eichelberger (18:19.425)
So this last one I wanted to ask you, Bishop, this comes from a listener named James. And this is kind of an interesting one because you talk all the time about how our diocese goes from Canada to Pennsylvania, Utica to Elmira. And James is actually not a member of our diocese. James actually lives just over the Pennsylvania line. So maybe they may be sneaking in and possibly coming to church with us on the weekends sometimes. I don't know. But James, we're really thankful.

Bishop DeDe (18:37.55)
you

Adam Eichelberger (18:47.841)
for the question. The question that James wanted to ask you was this. What are some ways that I can be a better listener when sharing my faith? Because I feel like when I talk about issues or when I talk about Jesus, I feel like I get it wrong a lot and I feel like I don't have all the answers.

Bishop DeDe (19:13.954)
Well, first of all, James, welcome. know, come on over. don't know, no need to sneak. You're just welcome. And you don't, you don't have to cry. mean, listening to the podcast where everyone's welcome. we have some listeners I know that live far, far away from central New York. but you know, it's such a good question, you know, to say, how can I get, I don't know everything. I think we admit that I can tell you, James, I don't know everything.

And I don't think anyone does. I think there's this problem we need to, this is something we do need to repent of is the know it all issue. We don't know. Even the most knowledgeable scholar in the world, and I love to talk about the Eucharist when it comes to this, even the most knowledgeable litanist, theologian, biblical scholar, when it gets right down to it, we don't know what the Eucharist is. We know what the practice is.

We know what the history is. We know what we think we're doing. We know the words. We know the theology we think are behind the words. But how the Holy Spirit utilizes that sacred space, what God is doing in the hearts of the people gathered, how God is alive in the community, always a mystery, always an unknown. And so one of my favorite writings, and it was the book that I actually was the basis of my dissertation.

was the book, The Cloud of Unknowing by an anonymous middle ages author. But to know God is to unknow everything else. And because God is bigger than us, God's greater, we can't even conceive of God. So I think when we talk about Jesus, to try to offer that unknowing, to be like, you know, this is how I, this is what resonates for me, I don't know what resonates for you.

And you're right about the listening. We can have a very clear sense that we really like Jesus as our best friend, but for someone else, what they really love is Jesus as Lord and Savior. And so to have the humility to listen and appreciate that and learn from the Christ in another person that we in our baptismal covenant, we say we seek and serve Christ in all people to be instead of trying to convert by

Bishop DeDe (21:36.44)
coercive, you know, like that coercive thing you mentioned last week in the podcast, Adam, where we're trying to change someone, we're actually speaking to offer an invitation and embodiment of a soul that's seeking God. I'm looking for this come search with me. These are the things I've always loved about faith. But these are things I've never been able to comprehend.

that God has existed as long as God will ever exist. The eternal nature of God just blows my mind. You know, I'm very human and mortal and then things begin and end, but God is eternal and everlasting. And so God has existed and will exist beyond anything I can comprehend. So I think one of the ways we can help ourselves to not have to get it right is to recognize we won't. We're always wrong about something theologically.

And that doesn't mean we give up. It doesn't mean we just say, then you don't think about it. No, that's a reason to think about it. You keep being in a posture of learning, the humility to assimilate new information, have it destabilize us. I love in the Gospel of Thomas, one of the Nag Hammadi texts, this is, listener, if you're like the what, don't worry about it. Look at it. It's big, just, yeah, just took a little left.

Adam Eichelberger (22:57.257)
It's big nerd stuff, listener.

Bishop DeDe (23:01.676)
But it is fun, and so if you have the chance, look for the Gospel of Thomas. But there's this wonderful, in the Gospel of Thomas, it's written, Jesus said, Jesus said, there's no story, there's no narrative to it, but it says, seek and you will find. And when you find, you will become disturbed. And I love that that's in there, because I think that's the way we are. We learn, and then when we learn something about God, it unsettles us.

And then we have to relearn stuff, we have to unlearn to learn God. So I really invite you, I think it was James, be part of the church in whatever place you are or want to be. Come on over to some of our churches. We're all here trying to learn together. We're trying to speak about something we're learning.

Adam Eichelberger (23:50.027)
Yeah. And it's important to remember for me when I think about that, because I can think of all the times that I have when it's talking about faith or issues, whatever it is. I can't remember who, a much wiser person said it than me, but the opposite of faith is not doubt, it's certainty. And remembering that we don't have all the answers. And it's okay that when we share honestly from a posture of prayer and faith, we're doing the best we can. And God really gets that.

Bishop DeDe (24:05.358)
Mm-mm. That's right.

That's right.

Bishop DeDe (24:13.667)
Yeah.

Absolutely. absolutely. I think that Merton prayer about, you know, help me Lord that in that my desire to please you pleases you and to know that God isn't God isn't judging us like, my gosh, you messed up. cannot believe it. That's why Jesus came. That's why God saving us is because we mess up. So we have this idea. mess up. Well, I'm out then like we're playing a game of baseball. No, God has already provided for us to mess up.

Adam Eichelberger (24:32.563)
Right.

Bishop DeDe (24:46.536)
It's not how many times you get knocked down, how many times you get up. That is very, very much how our faith is. And I do want to say one of the things that I meant to say earlier, and I have in my notes here, but, you know, when Jesus preached, upset people. And when Jesus talked, it upset people. Now, I, in my faith and my understanding of Jesus, don't think Jesus was ever wrong.

I think Jesus was always speaking truth and was whole in Jesus' proclamation of truth, where when we speak, we are not. We are speaking our best attempt to talk about truth, our best attempt to talk about holiness as people of unclean lips. So we are not in the same posture as Jesus. But when we speak the words of Jesus or talk about what Jesus has said, it is not

possible that it will for that to not upset someone. Because if when Jesus said it, the whole the son of God, the wholeness of God spoke truth and humans were incensed. When we as people of unclean lips repeat the words of Jesus, that's going to happen too. And Paul tells us, blessed are you when you reviled, reviled and persecuted for my name's sake.

Not because we've lorded our faith over each other, not because like the mistakes the church has made of harsh judgment and exclusion. But when we are trying to speak the words of Jesus and people are incensed by it, blessed are you because you're trying. You're engaged in that endeavor and to give it to God, to lay it down before God and say, Lord, I did my best. I'm sorry, you know, for the ways I may have messed up.

but I offer it to you as my holy sacrifice that you may heal it, renew it, and use it in ways I would never know. Which, and I wanted to also say, there was a, I remember distinctly a sermon I preached that I thought was really terrible, and I didn't think it was very thoughtful. And the week later, as I was rereading the scripture, I felt bad about it, and so I was kind of re-looking at it, and I just thought, my Lord, you know.

Bishop DeDe (27:11.84)
Lord, forgive me for, mean, that was just what was I even thinking. And I should have preached a better sermon. And I was really chewing on myself pretty hard about it and thinking I messed up. should have said something different and I didn't really get the theology right. And I went to church and one of my parishioners came up and said, I just want to thank you for that sermon you preached, you know, last week, because I'd never thought about how God loves me no matter what. But I heard that in your sermon.

And I just want to thank you. Now, I'm fairly certain that in that sermon, I never said, you know, God loves you. But the person heard it and the humility to say, you know, sometimes God uses us in ways that we're not feeling that great about, but God's like, don't, I got it. I got your back. I'll fix it. I'll fix it in the, in the rewrite and, to trust that even in our

Adam Eichelberger (27:50.389)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (28:03.392)
Hmm.

Bishop DeDe (28:07.458)
broken sinfulness that when we're seeking to proclaim God, God is at work.

Adam Eichelberger (28:15.305)
I like that you accidentally kind of wrote an additional beatitude there. Blessed are the trying. Blessed are those who are trying. I think we can adopt that.

Bishop DeDe (28:20.43)
I think, well, I think it's in the Beatitudes, you know, because we're just thinking it's like a, I know I used to read those and be like, blessed are the peacekeepers. Have I been keeping peace? Blessed are the, have I been doing that? And to see that what it is is blessed are you when you're trying, because God's, God's just rooting for us and wants us, God just wants us to open our mouth and allow ourselves to speak about faith and trust.

that if somebody's upset with us and we realize that we've been rude to apologize and seek to make amends, if someone's upset with us because they didn't like what Jesus said in the first place, we forgive them and we say, you know, it is hard to be a Christian. It is hard to be a person of faith. We wanted our way. We like our things. But God is always saying not your way, but mine. God is always saying it's not what you think is right. It's what I'm calling you, the rightness that I'm creating in you.

Well, dear people, speaking of faith and love, I hope that this day you will know that God loves you. I want to say that out right out loud and that God is calling you that in our brokenness and our our failed attempts that God is always at work and God is always redeeming our failed attempts, redeeming our broken words and redeeming us. May you be blessed and be a blessing and may you speak of faith with courage knowing that

Forgiveness is with you. Godspeed, and I look forward to speaking with you soon.