The Power of Being the Odd One Out
/“And as he sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples—for there were many who followed him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.””
The term “echo chamber,” is thrown around a lot these days. What it refers to is a group of people, all of like mind on a particular topic. A group where no one disagrees with one another in a substantial way, and as such, common beliefs get strengthened, reinforced and solidified, and any beliefs that are not commonly held by the group either are ignored, downplayed, or simply dismissed.
Echo chambers are not a new phenomenon in the slightest. For as long as human civilization has been a thing, people have gravitated toward groups of somewhat like-minded people. Typically those groups have been family, but as towns and cities grew, it became easier to find new people that agreed with you about more and more things, and so echo chambers grew. Flash forward to the era of the internet, where email, social media and the algorithms that underpin them make it easier than ever to find birds of a feather, and the size and number of these echo chambers exploded, becoming more niche than ever.
And by no means is this sudden increase in the number and size of echo chambers fully a bad thing. People have always liked spending time with other people who like similar things to what they do. In the era of the internet, this has allowed for groups of friends to be worldwide in scope, instead of just whoever happens to be in the town around us. Because of this, new things, interest and ideas have spread like wildfire, bringing the world closer together like never before.
But there are also a number of places where these echo chambers do become a real problem. One is that if everyone believes in the same way as you, it becomes very easy to begin to see others who don’t look at the world in the same way as you as simply dumb. You don’t need to look too much further than the current state of politics to see this in full swing. Listen to the pundits on either side of the left/right divide and it is not just that parties disagree on some matters of policy, it is that the other side is a bunch of idiots too blind to see that their policy will destroy the country, a sentiment that unsurprisingly causes a lot of harm, as all talk that seeks to dehumanize others always does.
And while there is a lot to unpack in that thought alone, it is another function of echo chambers that is not as thoroughly discussed that I find more distressing still, and that is how they seemingly unconsciously work to silence their members.
The passage above, Mark 2:15-17, takes place soon after a new disciple is called by Jesus. Jesus goes to this disciples’ house for dinner, to which also in attendance are a whole host of people who at that time and in that place, would have been considered as “the wrong sort to be around.” This is a fact that some of the more “pious” people surrounding Christ, the Pharisees, were quick to point out. But to the Pharisees pointing out the presence of “sinners”, Jesus answers in a simple, but also a very valuable way. ‘It is the sick who need a doctor, not the healthy.’
Typically, how this verse has been applied to the Church is a reminder that there is more need in the wider world to hear about who Jesus Christ is and what he has done than there is in the group of believers who gather faithfully every Sunday morning. However, I would say to limit this passage just to a pro-evangelism application would be to sell the brilliance of Jesus’ simple response short.
Because I ask you, what real value is there in your voice, your thoughts, and your opinions if you spend your time solely among those you fully agree with? What do you truly accomplish if when you talk about your musings on politics, government, faith, religion, race, economics, money, management, gender or any other hot button topic, if who you know in advance that the people you are talking to are just going to say “preach it” and nod along?
The term, “preaching to the choir,” summarizes Jesus’ same thought here, as does “trying to convert the converted.”
There is some value to be found in this sharing of ideas with others who think like you to be sure. In the conversation between you and those who think like you, there will be some amount of honing or refining your thoughts or the thoughts of the group, which of course has some value in it, as does the fact that there is always that wonderful rush of happiness-inducing endorphins that accompanies others agreeing with us. This is saying nothing about how spending your time only with others who agree with you makes for a much easier and stress free life. But, that is where the benefits of preaching to the choir largely end.
If you only talk with others who think like you, the likelihood is that you will never impact those around you in a noticeable way. You will only ever reinforce what has already been said. There is value in that to be sure, but know that in all likelihood, that is where your impact will end, not with minds and lives changed, but with people nodding along, slightly harder than before, to something they already agreed with.
There is no single more surefire way to ensure your thoughts, beliefs and opinions matter for less than they should than to only share them with other people who are completely like you. Think of it like this, to understand the words of a soloist is easy, but to understand the words of the 100th singer in a choir, is next to impossible, even if that voice does add a little more oomph to the whole. It is not that there is anything wrong with being in the choir instead of being the soloist, but you should be aware that is what you are doing.
If, however, your want is to impact others, to be the odd one out, in that position, there is a far higher likelihood. Even in a worst-case scenario, where those you disagree with take one listen to what you have to say, balk at it, and run the other way, while it may seem like nothing of value happened there, at the absolute least it caused that person to hear a different side of an argument in a form likely more fleshed out than they were otherwise used to hearing. It also more than likely caused that same person to recognize that the people they disagree with are not just idiot caricatures, but are real people as well. There is a lot of value in that. There is the doctor’s medicine in that.
To be the odd one out means your voice stands in contrast to all that is going on in the background, and while that can be tiring, stressful and even lonely, it will make what you have to say far more noticeable than before. There is a real impact to be found in being the doctor bringing medicine to the sick, while there is little to be found in being the one trying to horde the medicine for the healthy.
