A “trope” is a common theme used in creative arts, especially in story telling.

Common tropes are:

• The Chosen One: films like Star Wars have a person who is set aside,
  like Luke or Anakin Skywalker
• The Quest: ideas like “to find the Holy Grail” or “to destroy the One Ring.”
• The Ticking Clock: Sometimes it’s a timed explosive.
  Other times it’s getting to the airport on tine, or to the wedding before the vows are said.

One trope in monster movies is “Feed It with Fire.”

In these stories, every weapon used against the monster only makes it larger, stronger, or both.

How can we defeat something that becomes more difficult to overcome as we attack it?

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Let’s go to God in prayer.

God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.

Amen.

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There is a movement – or maybe a set of movements – in this country that seem to be resistant to information.

This phenomenon is not restricted to one group of people. Most, if not all, experience this in their lives.

“Belief perseverance“ is a kind of cognitive bias that causes us to hold on to a belief even after we have evidence that it is not true. In fact, sometimes that evidence makes us believe more strongly. It’s called “The backfire effect.”

There are many people who believe the earth is flat, and more who accept that the earth is spherical but believe it is the center of the universe.

There are many videos on YouTube where evidence that the earth orbits the sun is dismissed. Images of the earth from space are said to be faked. Some even claim that the so-called fake images are proof that NASA is misleading us.

When we hear information that challenges our beliefs, we can experience cognitive dissonance: an uncomfortable feeling where what we believe is true conflicts with evidence that appears to be true.

Given the choice of letting go of a deeply held belief and discarding evidence that our belief is wrong, we find it more comfortable to say the evidence is faulty, or even proves our belief.

We know that Halloween is a time when children’s candy may be poisoned.

But this has been repeatedly debunked. The cases when people thought this happened are:

• A five year old ate his uncle’s heroin and the family blamed it on poisoned candy.
• A man wanted to collect life insurance on his child
  and planted poisoned Pixy Stix in his own child’s candy
• A two year old died after eating candy, but no poison was found in his blood.
• A girl died while trick-or-treating, but her death was due to an already diagnosed enlarged heart.
• A four year old died after eating candy, but it was from a step infection.

But even when we learn this, we still want to check our children’s candy, because we have that nagging fear that “this could happen.”

When we hear or see evidence that supports our beliefs, it’s easy to accept. We may not do as much work to verify it because “of course it’s true!” But when something challenged our beliefs, we may give it extra scrutiny, because “that can’t be true!”

This is cognitive bias: that we tend to believe what supports what we already believe.

For example: there is a common idea that lemmings follow each other off cliffs.

In 1958 Disney released White Wilderness which showed lemmings jumping off a cliff. In fact, they were repeatedly shoved off a cliff by filmmakers. People watching the film accepted this as true because this idea had been around since at least the late 19^th century.

Later, when people are told lemmings do not, in fact, follow each other off cliffs, that argument is easily dismissed because it challenges what people already know.

It seems like beliefs are hard to change. As Rufus, the thirteenth apostle in the move Dogma said about Jesus:

He said humanity took a good idea and, like always, built a belief structure on it.

I think it’s better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier…
– Smith, Kevin, dir. Dogma, 1999.

You might be feeling overwhelmed now. If people’s brains are busy telling them that Muslims, immigrants, transgender people, and the press all all the enemy, and any evidence to the contrary will only make them believe even more fervently, all is lost.

Don’t believe that.

Seriously, if you believe that, it will be harder to overcome.

What we can do is act. We can act in love toward all people: oppressed and oppressor alike.

It’s hard. We will come up against our own belief perseverance. We will experience cognitive dissonance. We will have to fight our own cognitive biases.

But we can also be fed with fire.

In our gospel reading, Jesus tells the disciples

As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Acts 20:21b-22, NRSVue

Just as the disciples were sent, so we are sent. And we also received the Holy Spirit.

But what does the Holy Spirit do?

Our reading from the first letter to the Corinthians tells us some of the gifts of the Spirit:

• wisdom
• knowledge
• faith
• healing
• powerful deeds
• prophecy
• discernment
• language

Does any one of us have all the gifts? No.
Do each of us have at least one, if not many gifts? Absolutely yes.

And as our call to worship from Acts tells us, this is for everyone of us.

I know it’s easy to get discouraged when cruelty and greed seem to have all the power. But don’t believe it. Instead, have an idea of something that can help.

One such thing is the Disciples’ Pentecost Offering or the UCC Strengthen the Church offering. If you can give even a little to either of these offerings, it will help to strengthen the broader church.

Another is the Bold Day of Giving this Friday. Even if you can’t give, you can share the event with others who may be able to.

And there are many practical things we can do:

• supporting causes and protests that move toward more freedom for all
• caring for people who are struggling
• being courageous enough to say “that’s not true” when people say false things
  about Muslims, immigrants, transgender people, and the press

So my challenge this week is to let the fire of the Spirit of Pentecost be in you, and for you to be fed with that fire.

As God sent Jesus, so Jesus sends us.

Go.

Amen.

Let’s sing CH 249 Spirit

* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue

* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.