The Gorilla You Didn't See: How Fear Shrinks Your World and Awe Widens It | Passed By | Chad Belew

Yeah, you are... See? See? Confirmation. Anyway, where was I at? So nobody knows

what he says. We are continuing our talk on this emotion of awe. And I've got some

stuff that I want to talk about today. Oh, man, I don't have to... But I want to do

something first. So let's... Let's do this. I have all kinds of stuff on this table. I

want you to be able to see... There's like one thing... Well, two things that will

be on this screen that I want you to be able to see. And I'm in the way. So I got

it. Just... Just preach from the side. They used to... This is what like old school

church, the youth pastor would have to like preach over here because he couldn't

use the pulpit. Still feel like... That's why I wear a hoodie. Still feel like the

youth pastor. I literally every time I get... I get dressed in the morning, come to

church. I'm like, all right, dress like an adult chad. And then I grab my hoodie. And

like this morning, I was putting... I had a sweatshirt on, but I just didn't like

it. So I put the hoodie on. And I had a video on TikTok that kind of like... I'm

just got a lot of views. And there's a guy on there that was like, I don't take my

theology from someone wearing a hoodie. And Mottie like clap back at him. And I

was like, yeah. But every time I put a hoodie on to come to church, I'm like,

people aren't gonna hear me today because they don't listen to theology. But

hopefully you do. So I'm gonna show you a short video clip. And in this clip, some of

you may have seen this. In this clip, there are people passing a basketball

back and forth. All right. You've got a job to do. And it's a simple job. There are

people in white t-shirts and there are people in black t-shirts. Your job is to

count the number of passes that the people in the white t-shirts do. Okay.

Which t-shirts are we counting? White t-shirts. There's a prize. Count how many

passes the team in the white jerseys makes t-shirts. That's it. Just count them

ready. Let's see if this works. Hopefully this works. Not out loud.

All right. How many did you count? Oh, I got 16. 15. 10. Some of you guys can't

count. Correct answers. 15 passes. Yes. Yes. So if you if you said 15, you get free

coffee. All right. Here we go. 15 pounds. Oh, man, I'm I'm gonna be in the way again.

I'm I am. This is what happens when Marty goes out of town, guys. This is it. This is

what happens. It's not her fault. I just it's not her fault. I'm sorry. I shouldn't

say okay. Sorry. Oh my gosh. So all right. So 15 passes. Now I got another question.

All right. How many people raise your hand if you saw something unusual in the

video? Okay. Put your hands down. How many people did not see anything unusual in

the video? Raise your hand. Come on. Put it up. So you didn't see the gorilla in the

video? No gorilla. Yeah. Raise your hand again. If you did not see the gorilla, about half

the room. Okay. Um, there was a gorilla. Oh, see. So he saw the gorilla. So raise your

hand if you saw the gorilla and you counted the passes correctly. Like, like six of

you. All right. Cool. All right. We're gonna, I'll re show you the video so you can see

the gorilla. You ready? Here we go. There he is. Look at him. There he goes. Oh, he didn't

just walk through stops, beats his chest, keeps walking. And some of y'all didn't

even see that. That's scary. Um, so this is a psychological experiment. Oh, it has

been done for a long time. Thanks, Britney. What? Yeah, it's an experiment that's happened

where, and that happens every time about half the people will not see the gorilla. And there's

a reason for it. The psychologists call this in attentional blindness, inattentional blindness.

And what it is is when our attention is narrowly focused on something, we are trying to count

these, these passes, we can completely miss something. There's obviously happening right

in front of us. This happens all the time with Mottie. I save her life weekly. She said,

I knew you're going to bring this up. We'll be walking. I'm like, stop. That's a car coming.

Like, you're going to die. I think she does. It just to make me feel good. But, uh, yeah,

we'll miss. That's what it is. We'll miss something. The gorilla, it isn't invisible.

It was in the video. Half of you saw it. But our attention just isn't available to see

it. Turns out that this isn't just the funny psychological experiment. I think it points

to a lot of things in our lives and how our life works out in a lot of ways. It's a, actually,

really good picture of how, like, anxiety works. You're experiencing anxiety, your, it,

your mind focuses, like, it focuses in. When you're, you're anxious, when you're worried,

when you're afraid, your attention kind of narrows, the brain shifts into this, like,

threat detection mode. You're trying to scan for danger and figure out what is happening.

What could go wrong? What might we lose? Who might hurt us? Where's the threat? What did

I do wrong? Right? And researchers studying anxiety have found that when the brain is

operating from fear, our perception shrinks. We become hyper focused on problems, threats

and urgency. We begin missing other things that are still present. We just miss them.

When we see this happen in a story in scripture, that I think we've looked at from a different

angle before. And so I want to, I want to look at it and point this out. There's two

sisters, Mary and Martha, and Jesus comes to their home to visit them. It's in Luke 10,

and it goes like this. Luke 10, verse 38, "As Jesus and his disciples were on their way,

Luke 10:38

she came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister

called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said, but Martha was distracted

by all the preparation it had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you

care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me." Martha,

the Lord answered, "You're worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed,

or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from

her." So Jesus is visiting this home, and it's one of those moments where Mary's like,

"All right, we got to get this stuff together." But if Jesus is in your home, you want to

be fully present for that, right? You want to be present for Jesus, but Martha is moving

through the house. She's trying to hold everything together. She's like hospitality, food, preparation,

expectations. You guys have had parties at your house before, right? The Greek word used

in this story that Jesus says to Mary, it means to be pulled apart, dragged in different

directions. Sorry, not Mary, Martha. Her attention is fragmented, and her mind is everywhere

while Jesus is sitting in her home. And eventually the frustration spills out, like, "Lord, don't

you care that she is not helping me. Tell her to help me." You can almost, you can hear

this, right? You can hear this conversation, and hear the exhaustion in that moment. Jesus

answers her in a way that is incredibly gentle. He's like, "You're worried. You're distracted

by so many things. He's not shaming her. He's simply naming what's happening. Your attention

has been captured by your anxiety." And some of you in here are like, "No, no, no. She

needs to get this stuff done." But does she? That's the question. Does this really matter

right now? Mary, he says, has chosen the better thing. For a long time, this, I think this

story has been interpreted as if Jesus is saying that contemplation is more spiritual

than work. But I don't think that's what he's saying here. Mary and Martha are living inside

the exact same moment, same house, same evening, same Jesus, but they're experiencing two completely

different realities. Martha's attention has collapsed into urgency. Again, let's say this

about Martha. I don't think this was just something she thought up. I don't think it's

something that she's like, "I'm going to make sure that I'm worried about everything and

anxious and I'm going to do this. This culture has taught her, would be my guess, that this

stuff needs to happen. There's a level of expectation that I must meet Jesus' in my home."

And then Mary's attention is wide enough in this moment to receive the moment. And when

your attention is widened like that, something else becomes possible, curiosity. When you

sit down and you listen, curiosity becomes this place that you are living. Researchers

that are studying, they've discovered something that's pretty fascinating. People who regularly

experience awe actually become more comfortable with uncertainty. Their brains become less

desperate for quick answers. They're less reactive, they're more open. The opposite,

fear demands certainty. Fear wants simple explanations. Who's right? Who's wrong? Who's

good? Who's evil? Fear wants clear enemies and wants clear answers. But awe does something

different. We talk about this every week now, awe expands the mind. And psychologists say

that when this happens, when we encounter something vast, you've heard this definition,

and when we encounter something vast, so beautiful, so unexpected that our normal mental framework

can't explain it. And instead of panicking, the mind expands. Curiosity then replaces

certainty. And that ship turns out to be deeply connected to Scripture, as we've talked about

for months, where the writer of Proverbs in the wisdom literature says, "The fear of

the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," but the Hebrew word we've talked about doesn't

really mean terror or fear. It means awe or wonder or reverence. This kind of overwhelming

realization that you are standing inside something bigger than your current understanding. And

when you think about it, this is exactly where wisdom begins. This has been the deep dive,

because it makes sense, because to me fear doesn't leave the wisdom. In fact, we know

that fear closes us off. I need certainty. I can't be curious, but awe does the opposite.

Because wisdom does not start when you think you understand everything. Wisdom begins when

your perspective becomes wide enough to realize that you don't. And that shift, I think, matters

because fear and awe produce two very different ways of seeing the world. Fear simplifies it.

Fear turns people into categories, into enemies, outsiders, threats. We see this happening constantly

in the world around us, even in the church. I think about it. Right now, our country is

talking about an "in" a conflict with Iran. And you hear voices, political voices, even

religious voices, that are framing this conflict as spiritual. They're using spiritual terms

to frame what is happening in the country of Iran. As if it's part of some prophetic

script, part of the "In Times" timeline. Anybody else? Left behind? Red moon? Part of a holy

war. Between the good and evil, right? We've separated. Who's good? Who's evil? And when

that lens becomes dominant, the people living in the other country, they stop being human

beings. They become symbols. They're enemies. They are characters in a prophecy chart.

Their lives are just a means to an end, like that. They've got to die so that Jesus can

come. But here's where, for me, this intersection happens in my life. You guys know this. I did

two tours in Iraq. Spent 27 months in the Middle East. I was a linguist that studied Persian

Farsi, which is spoken, that's the language spoken in Iran. I spent years learning about

the Persian culture, Persian history, Persian poetry. My professors in my language school

were all from Iran. They had all left at the fall of the Shah in 1979. They would bring

home-cooked food to our class, and we'd get to eat incredible Persian meals. And once

you start learning those things, something shifts. Because suddenly, Iran is not just

a headline. It's people. Their families, their artists, their parents, their kids, people

trying to build a life, people laughing around the dinner table, people worrying about the

future of their children, just like us. But fear turns people into symbols. What we keep

talking about this thing of all, the hope is that when we experience awe, knowing what

it does for us, that it will restore humanity for us. It will restore the idea that these

are human beings. Jesus did this constantly throughout the gospels. Right before this

story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10, you get the story of the Good Samaritan. Today, the

word Samaritan sounds positive to us. There's charities named after it. But there were centuries

of religious hostility between the Jews and the Samaritans. In Jesus' world, Samaritans

were the enemy to the Jews around him. So when Jesus tells a story about compassion, the

hero of the story isn't the priest, it isn't the religious leader, it's the Samaritan,

the outsider, the enemy. In Jesus' story, the enemy becomes the neighbor. And that's

what awe does. It brings us back to a place where we realize the connection that we all

have. It widens the frame enough to disrupt the categories that fear creates, that we

continue to hear. And that perspective, it reaches its peak in something that Jesus says

now at the end of Matthew, that I don't understand how we miss this. That's not true, I do understand.

Because whatever lens you're reading through dictates how you understand it. In the end

of Matthew, Matthew 25, verse 35, it says, "For I was hungry and you gave me something

Matthew 25:35

to eat." This is Jesus. "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, "Lord,

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 clothes you? When did

we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?" The king will reply, "Truly I tell

you. Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine you

did for me." He's telling the story about final judgment about the end, right? And he's

telling the story of, "Hey, when I was hungry you fed me." And they're like, "What do you

talk? No, we didn't. You did the loaves and the fishes thing." That wasn't us. People

were asking him, "When did we do this?" Jesus answers with one of the most shocking lines

in the entire gospel if you really look at it, like whatever you did for the least of

these you did for me. Now, the line gets quoted a lot, right? But sit with what Jesus is actually

saying. He's collapsing the distance between himself and humanity. He's saying, "When you

care for someone who is suffering, you're encountering me." And I think there's something

even deeper happening here. Jesus is reminding us that humanity is not a collection of disconnected

individuals. We are part of a shared whole, a shared humanity. And when awe widens your

attention, you begin to see that. You begin to realize that the suffering of another person

is not separate from you. But their dignity is tied to yours. That their flourishing is

tied to yours. When we care for the least, we are caring for the human family that we

belong to. And maybe that's why the ancient wisdom writers said, "The awe of the Lord

is the beginning of wisdom." Not fear. Ah, because awe changes the lens through which

we see everything. We have choices to make when we encounter things in life. How do we

receive them and how do we perceive them? And then what do we do with that? Fear lifts

our eyes constantly toward the next threat, the next disaster, the next enemy. Fear keeps

scanning the horizon to see what's coming. But awe does something different. All will

lower our gaze. It brings us back to present moment, back to the people in front of us,

back to the humanity that we share with the stranger, back to the neighbor, back to the

least of these. And when that shift happens, our vision changes, literally everything.

You see the world differently. Fear teaches us to look for enemies, but awe teaches us

to recognize family. I think about this. I talked about this a while back. When Jesus

says to love your enemy, love your enemy as yourself. Just like in this part of Matthew

25, I think He's doing the same thing there. Love your enemy as yourself. What Jesus is

saying is, you are the same. There are enemies. Humanity is humanity. If we're enemies of

each other, then we're hurting each other. We're hurting ourselves. Like, this is not

how this works. When we are one, you can't be an enemy with yourself then. Jesus reframes

this constantly. They are part of you. Do you see this? They're part of you. Yeah, they

speak a different language. They look different. They eat different food. They live somewhere

else. They might even be a different religion. They are still part of you because we are human

beings. It is what allows us to see Christ in places that fear has told us He could never

be. When we learn to see the world that way, we begin to live with the kind of wisdom

the Proverbs we're talking about all along because awe doesn't change what we feel. It

changes what we see. What we see then shapes the kind of people that we become. We start

living differently. We start loving differently. We start seeing differently. And every once

in a while, we may even find ourselves doing things that once felt impossible. We talked

about last week stepping out of the boat. To walk on water is the miracle that all cause

us to. It doesn't make sense. Why do you, what are you doing? Why do you love this person?

Why are you doing? It doesn't make sense. Because the concept of the gospel does not

make sense in a fear driven mindset. But when you step back and you allow awe and wonder

to take over and you allow your perspective to change, you allow your vision to change

how you see other people. We get to live from a place where loving others just seems natural.

And this is where Jesus, I hear this quite a bit in churches right now. The scripture

says that they're going to hate you. Because they hated Jesus. The scripture says they're

going to hate you. Because you're coming and you're talking about what holiness actually

looks like. That's not why they killed Jesus. Not because he was being perfect in his behavior.

Not because he was showing that he was so much better than other people. No, they killed

him because he was loving people that they said he wasn't supposed to. Yes, they will

hate that. Because when they tell you that this is an enemy and you go, no, no, no, that's

my brother. You're now siding with the wrong team. But when you operate outside of that

mindset, there are no teams. I don't, I'm not on a team. We love each other. That's what

we're supposed to do. That's what Christ called us to do. That is the, the call of the gospel

is to understand that you are now one with Christ. His prayer in John 17 to, to his father

is at God. I pray that they would know that as you and I are one, that we are one and

they are one. The idea is that we are supposed to just be loving each other. But we've turned

this thing inside out. And so dropping bombs on schools full of little girls gets brushed

off. It's a casualty of the war, which is, which is really, really easy to say when you

haven't picked up human remains off the ground of the Middle East. But when you have, you

realize that this is no different than me. They are no different than what are we doing?

Fear will allow us to distance ourselves and call people enemies. The call, the gospel,

the call of the life of Christ is to pull us back and say, no, no, no, widen your vision.

Look at all that is happening. And when you do, you will experience this emotion called

awe and awe will call you into a place where you are more curious and more kind and more

generous and more caring because you understand that to love my neighbor is to love myself,

which is why every single week our call here is to say arsenal go love well because that

is who you're made to be. I love you guys. We'll see you next week.