Fools & Laggards: A Sermon by Helen Ryde

Delivered at Allendale UMC (St. Petersburg, FL) on Sunday, 18 August 2024

In this model, congregants are separated into five groups. These groups are: 

Innovators	Early Adopters	Early Majority	Late Majority	Laggards
2.5%	13.5%	34%	34%	16%

When you plot these percentages on a graph, you get a bell curve: narrow to start, curving up to a peak right as the early majority shifts into the late majority. And way over to the right, on their own, are the laggards. 

It’s kind of a derogatory sounding term, isn’t it? “No one should bother trying to persuade the laggards. They are not going to change.” The “laggards” are those who are entrenched in a worldview opposed to the worldview you want to proclaim. 

But here’s the problem.

In my life, I find myself drawn over and over again to exactly those whom the world would tell us are hopeless cases: the laggards. The ones who are “never” going to change. 

In our scripture today, we hear Solomon asking for wisdom – for a discerning or hearing heart. This seems like a very good thing to want. Who can argue with that? 

Now, it is true that Solomon already had the things others might ask for if God showed up asking in their dream. Solomon had great wealth, he was the king, he had great power, and he had whole armies who followed his command. In terms of privilege, he was overloaded. The only things he lacked were age and experience. The Common English Bible translation has him saying: “But I’m young and inexperienced. I know next to nothing.”

So in that context and with the desire to lead his people well, he asked for wisdom. This was a sensible move. You could even say it was a kind and thoughtful move. He did not ask for more of what he already had. He asked for something that he hoped would benefit his community. Something to enable him to lead well. 

Wisdom elsewhere in Scripture

As I’ve been thinking about wisdom this week, I was reminded of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. In that letter, he talks about human wisdom vs. God’s wisdom. He writes:

Hasn’t God made the wisdom of the world foolish? […] The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom.

1 Corinthians 1:20, 25

So when we talk about wisdom, we have to tread lightly. We have to pay attention to the source of that wisdom. We might find that some so-called “wisdom” is not so wise after all. 

Revisiting the Rodgers model: wisdom or foolishness?

So, what might God’s wisdom say about our friends, the laggards – the ones all the way over on the right side of our imaginary bell curve, those we should not bother with if we want to create change in a meaningful way. The hopeless cases. The ones who will never change.

In the Everett Rodgers resource I mentioned earlier, the laggards are described in this way:

Laggards can be resilient, but do not give them more energy than they deserve. They are a small percentage that will sound like they are the majority. They are not. You should hear them, but do not let them control the process.

Everett Rodgers

When it comes to organizing, this is true. But when it comes to compassion, kindness, and relationship, I think we have to have a more nuanced approach. 

Let’s say the laggards are those who are the farthest away from us, theologically. But if we are convinced that the gospel, the good news of Christ, needs to be good news for everyone, then surely we need to pay attention to the laggards too. 

We are not supposed to follow the values of the world. Each person, even the ones we consider a lost cause, is a child of God. 

Each person. Including the ones in the MAGA hats and accompanying t-shirts and paraphernalia… They, too, are beloved children of God. What do we do about them?

We will become them, from another direction, if we don’t discipline ourselves to continue to see them as our siblings, as our neighbors. Some of them literally are our neighbors. 

When I was a laggard

I am still very aware of the season in my life when I was convinced that the path for LGBTQ+ people was to deny who they were, and to seek God’s healing and release. I, too, was a laggard once. I was not an innovator, I was not an early adopter. I advocated for harmful practices. I could not be convinced otherwise. 

We are not supposed to bother with those folks; they can’t change, we are told. It would be a waste of energy. 

But I can’t turn away. 

Back in February of 2024, I was driving back from St. Louis to Lake Junaluska, and I decided to take the back roads and revisit the churches I had visited on my prayer pilgrimage to the disastrous special General Conference in 2019. 

In 2019, I had stopped at 35 churches. At each church, I prayed and left a letter expressing my hopes for the UMC and my prayers for their church and the LGBTQ+ people who had been present there over the years. 

As I retraced my steps this year, I learned that:

• 24 (of 35 churches) remained United Methodist
• 11 (of 35) had disaffiliated
• 3 of those disaffiliated churches (11) have joined the GMC

There’s not time to recall all the conversations I had, but I attended a Sunday School class at one GMC church. It was a little awkward, to be honest, but I was able to leave the leaflets with the pastor. At another disaffiliated church, I chatted for an hour with one of the lay leaders. We had a fascinating conversation, and I was able to give him the information too. I encouraged him to read them and remember them when the next member of their church has an LGBTQ+ person come out in their family. 

Then, a few weeks back, Haywood County (where I live at Lake Junaluska) had its first-ever Pride parade and festival. 

Neighbors and fools in Waynesville

A little background on Haywood County: in the 2022 municipal elections, the county elected a 21 year-old college student to be our tax collector just because he was running as a Republican. The incumbent, a Democrat, had been doing the job in exemplary fashion for 10 years, but that was not enough for our electorate. Although the margin of his win was significantly lower than the other Republicans running, there were enough voters who just voted Republican down the ballot to get him elected. 

So, you can imagine, then when folks found out we were having a Pride parade, there was much angst, especially among the church folk. Haywood Baptist Association decided that a prayer meeting was necessary to protect people from our liberal agenda. The notice went out on Facebook: 

Coming this weekend, there are many Gay Pride events coming to Haywood County, especially in Waynesville. There will be a prayer meeting in front of the Waynesville County Courthouse this Friday at 6 PM. Men are encouraged to attend, but of course, women are welcome. There will be no preaching, just praying. Our intention is not confrontation, but intercession. We need spiritual awakening. God is our only hope.

Haywood Baptist Association via Facebook

I decided I wanted to be there too. 

I turned up. My friend Mitzi, who is Buddhist, was there too, with a sign about the Bible’s instruction to pray in secret. It was a great sign, but these folks were already determined to pray in public. After a while, she had heard enough and left. I stayed. 

Several men got up and shared a Bible passage and then led the group of about 80 in prayer. As I was listening to them, and listening to the passages they had chosen to share I began to get a nudge that they needed to hear another Bible passage – one from Acts 10. 

I brought the Bible up on my phone, read it through a few times and became more convinced that I wanted these folks to hear it. After about 30 minutes or so, it seemed like their gathering was winding down. I didn’t want to be seen as disruptive, so I waited until it was clear they were done. Then I moved to the front of the group, to the steps that the leader was standing on and asked if it would be okay for me to share a scripture. I was wearing my green Love, Justice and Service Deaconess/Home Missioner t-shirt. 

To my surprise, the leader said yes. And more surprisingly, many stayed to hear what I had to say. I read a passage from Acts 10, when Peter has a vision and essentially changes his mind about what kind of foods are considered clean and unclean, which led to the early Church welcoming Gentiles into their community. 

I told the Baptists that I understood there are many ways to interpret that scripture, but that I wanted to offer it to them with an open heart, to ask them to consider that – perhaps – God doesn’t call “unclean” those they call “unclean.”

One of the chaps there started getting a little mean, and the leaders shut him down quickly. Then, one of them asked to pray with me. I said “sure,” so long as he would not pray for me to be straight. And next week, he and I are going to have coffee together. I’ve no idea where the conversation will go, but I remain convinced that these are always conversations worth pursuing. 

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So, why tell these stories? Well, I’m pretty sure doing that kind of thing is not for everyone. We’re not all called to the same path. What is wisdom’s guidance for one of us might not be for another. That’s fine. 

I also acknowledge that as I embark on these adventures, I carry a lot of privilege with me. I am white, I am employed, I have housing, health insurance, a partner, a supportive community, and an English accent – which for some reason seems to make people want to listen to me more. 

The wisdom of the world says: don’t waste your time with the laggards. Don’t spend your energy on the ones who are determinedly opposed to your values, your hopes, your dreams of an equitable and love-centered world. 

But the Bible tells us that the wisdom of this world is foolishness to those who follow Christ, and the values of the kin-dom we seek are a mystery to those who have no understanding of that kin-dom. 

There are many ways to be fools for Christ, to follow God’s wisdom and not the world’s wisdom. 

The world would have told you to turn away those seeking housing – that no good can come of it. But that’s not how you all responded, [Allendale UMC]. You responded by following the foolishness of Christ – the abundant and generous love of Christ. 

The world tells us to turn away from those we can’t understand, those whose values feel anathema to us. But that is not God’s way. God’s way is to turn toward them, maybe even to seek them out, the way the shepherd went after the one lost sheep. 

There’s a hymn I love called “The Summons.” It has many memorable lines, but the verse I want to leave you with this morning is this:

Will you leave yourself behind if I but call your name? Will you care for cruel and kind and never be the same? Will you risk the hostile stare? Should your life attract or scare? Will you let me answer prayer in you and you in me?

John L. Bell, et al

Will you seek God’s wisdom? The foolishness of following Christ into places and toward people that the world says are a hopeless case…

Let’s just see what God might do.