Ep. 375 Leonard Sweet - Living into the Imagination of Jesus, the Maker, Mender, Minder, Master

In this episode, I’m joined by theologian and storyteller Leonard Sweet for a deep conversation on the imagination of Jesus and why imagination is central to faith, discipleship, and what it means to be human. We talk about how Jesus doesn’t simply explain reality but reshapes it through story and metaphor, and why Jubilee sits at the heart of his vision for the world. We also explore what it means to move beyond fear-based, information-driven faith toward a life where Christ is formed in us. This conversation is an invitation to move from knowing about God to truly knowing God, and to live with an imagination shaped by goodness, beauty, and truth.

Leonard Sweet is one of the most prolific Christian authors in the world today, with over 70 books to his name—and a dozen more on the way–and 2000 published sermons. A theologian of imagination, a semiotician of Bible and culture, and a prophetic voice to the church, Sweet defies easy categorization. His works span genres and generations, challenging readers to see the world—and the gospel—with fresh eyes. While others chase bestseller lists, Sweet charts a different path: one defined not by sales, but by depth, creativity, and theological daring.

Len's Book:

Jesus: Maker, Mender, Minder, Master

Len's Recommendation:

They Flew: A History of the Impossible

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Transcript

Leonard Sweet: 0:31

The whole story of the Bible is God is calling us out of our hiding places to come into the light of God's presence and to enter into that relationship, that true knowing God that we were afraid of you. It.

Joshua Johnson: 1:00

Hello and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create and the impact we can make. We long to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host, Joshua Johnson, in this episode, I'm joined by Leonard sweet for a rich and wide ranging conversation on the imagination of Jesus and why imagination is not optional to faith, but essential to what it means to be human. We explore how Jesus doesn't simply explain reality, but creates a way of living in the world through story, metaphor and beauty, rather than offering abstract ideas or religious systems, Jesus invites us into a transformed imagination that reshapes how we see God ourselves and the world. Len challenges the church to recover its creative vocation, to move beyond fear based and information driven faith and to rediscover discipleship as Christ forming in us. We talk about Jubilee as the heart of Jesus' vision, the healing and mending of the world and what it means to live in Christ in a way that is embodied, relational and alive. This conversation invites us to move from knowing about God to truly knowing God, and to inhabit a faith marked by goodness, beauty and truth in an age desperate for all three. So join us. Here is my conversation with Leonard. Sweet Lynn, welcome to shifting culture. So honored and thankful that you're on so

Leonard Sweet: 2:25

thanks for joining me. Hey, great to be with you, Joshua. I'm going to

Joshua Johnson: 2:29

start with a little bit of a preamble. When we're talking about imagination today, yeah, I think that in the story of God, He is Creator. So he imagines us. He imagines this world. He creates. We, as humans, are made in the image of God, and so we also can create. We're co creators with him as we create in the garden. You move this as the story progresses, we come into Jesus. Jesus, the incarnation of Jesus, comes on the scene. You talk about how Jesus's imagination is really crucial and important for us to understand that he doesn't just explain reality. He creates reality lived in why is the imagination of Jesus so important?

Leonard Sweet: 3:19

Yeah, that's the ultimate question of the whole book. And what does it mean? You've set it up perfectly, although I would argue a little bit with your co creator language. I don't really like that, because I'm not co anything with God. You know what I mean? I'm a and Tolkien suggested the language of sub creator. And so I really like that. I'm a I continue God's creativity. I'm not, if the old bumper sticker, if God, you're co pilot, somebody's in the wrong seat. And so I'm not a co anything with God. I'm I'm a sub creator. I continue God's creativity. In other words, the whole thing about the book is, what does it mean for us to continue to live out of the imagination of God and to continue the imagination of Jesus, who revealed God's imagination in his own life? I also wrote a whole book on his one little distinction, Joshua, that is really so important. It's called Jesus human. And his favorite description for himself is son of man. But that's a really bad translation. It really should be the human one. And Jesus came to show us how to be human. He's the last Adam that did what the first Adam couldn't do. The essence of the first Adam, if you look at the creation story, our Genesis story is that you can't be human without the divine, the divine, and this is the paradox. The Divine is what makes us human. This is where I argue with some, with a lot of people out there included they including David Bentley Hart, who has this you are God's book. No, the divine doesn't make us God. The Divine makes us human. That's the uniqueness. So to say to somebody's only human, are you kidding me? We were created a little lower than God. It's not the angels, the angels. That's a bad translation, a little lower than Elohim. So we were created a little lower than we are above the angel. So God created us with this imagination that what it means to be created in God's image. And so we continue lit to live out of that imagination. And for me, the church is one. The least. I mean, who should know the Creator better than the church? And we're that's our specialty, is to know the Creator. What does the Creator do? Create? Where's the least creative place you expect that you find in the culture is the church, you know. So we're bastions of boredom. We ought to be bursting with energy, creativity, imagination. So it makes you wonder whether we really know the Creator at all or well enough at all. So to live out of the Jesus imagination is to live out of this creativity and imagination that our Creator gives us, and it's it's the divine spark in us to let that grow to let that be inspired. Inspiration, the Inspire it that spirit. So that's the whole purpose of the book is to really look at imagination, which I think will be the cultural currency of the future in an AI age, the one thing that AI cannot reproduce is imagination. And so this will be our major distinction between the world of AI and the world of the human.

Joshua Johnson: 6:40

So how do you think then imagination and Jesus's imagination then created reality that it bridges heaven and earth. It bridges the actual like, Hey, this is the facts that AI will give us to in this is where we're headed in this story of God and man.

Leonard Sweet: 7:00

Well, the key to imagination is, is metaphor, and this is what the church is so another thing the church is so bereft of Joshua is, is is the ability to communicate a metaphor, and this is one of the greatest discoveries. First 25 years of my life, we lived out of we explored outer space. We went to the moon. We did all this stuff. The last 25 years, 30 years, it's been about exploring inner space, and the ultimate in inner spaces, we've been mapping the micro circuitry of the brain. This is called cognitive science, cognitive studies, psycho, neuro, linguistics, whatever you want to call it. And the biggest discovery so far of cognitive science is that your mind, and my mind, the mind, the human mind, is not made of words. It's really the last thing that the mind comes up with, that the human mind is made of metaphors. Your mind, your brain, thinks in metaphors, and then those metaphors turn into narratives. And at the end of a long process, you get words, but metaphors, narratives are the way in which the human mind thinks, and you prove it every time you sleep. You don't sleep, you don't dream in words. You dream in stories built on a metaphor. You'll never have a dream of you reading a book, because words are not a part of how your brain thinks. And since the Protestant Reformation, we've been all about words, points, propositions, all that stuff. But we're now back to the Jesus imagination, which is Jesus. His imagination flowed through metaphors and narratives. He did not say, let me give you these seven habits of highly effective discipleship. Write these down. He goes, the kingdom of heaven is like. And then after the light came a metaphor, lost coin, around which he he he kind of wove a little narrative, and then he even mixed metaphors, lost coin, lost sheep, lost son. I mean, the thing that we were never told to do, Jesus did all the time, mixes metaphors. Now the mixing of the metaphors was around a thread which was lost, lost. But the point is the Jesus imagination, if you if you look at how he imagined the world, it was all through. It was a metaphor. Metaphor is metamorphosis. In my preaching, I don't exegete words, I execute images, exegete metaphors. And instead of leaving people with points, you leave them with a metaphor. And these metaphors are healing. I mean, you even got a form of therapy now, psychotherapy, which is just narrative therapy, you just give people new stories, new metaphors to live by. That's the whole healing. And so he, he heals the world. He heals people. He he creates a whole new world. Gapes a whole new world. How you have heard it said, but I say, and then comes, what? Not a new doctrine or a new point or a new word, it comes. It's a new metaphor and a story. And so it's out of this storied imagination of Jesus and His, his well Storied Life, if you will, that we are called to, to live out of the Jesus story and the Jesus metaphors.

Joshua Johnson: 10:25

How does he do that? So for for us, he, he kind of names reality. You. You have heard it said so he names what people believe is the story that we are living in. And then he moves into giving us an imagination for a new story, a story that this is like, what is actual reality underneath our perceived look at the world exactly like when he comes on on the scene and he pronounces like this Jubilee passage from Isaiah. What is he trying to say that's different than what people are living in at the moment?

Leonard Sweet: 11:02

Well, the big thing is he's announcing himself as Jubilee. Jesus is Jubilee. In fact, I use Jubilee increasingly rather than kingdom, because if you look at his inaugural sermon, he's got five, you know, themes, you know, I've come and his last one is, I am the, you know, to the day of the Lord's appointing the time. And that's the, that's the Shibboleth for Jubilee. And Jubilee is when everything starts over again. You begin new. All the prisons are open, the debts are forgiven, the the land goes fallow so that it can replenish and heal. And so he's actually announcing himself as Jubilee, and and he becomes Jesus, becomes himself Jubilee. And that's, that's what really, in some ways, what got him killed was that he by saying he's Jubilee, saying he's the Messiah, he's the red heifer. I mean, all that goes with that understanding of Jubilee. So, yeah, I mean, it's a, it was a radical notion. But to to live in Him and to live in Christ. And this is, for me, the key thing here is that discipleship formation is really Christ formation. What does it mean for Christ to form in us? I wrote a bunch of books with Frank Viola, who and I disagree about most things, but we agreed on Jesus because we found out that. So we said, let's show the church that people that disagree about most things can, if they agree on Jesus, can write some books together. So we did. But the key was we both what came to this awakening that it was that I know there's a Colossians two, but I can't get there, because I can't get past Colossians. One, the secret that has been kept hidden has now been revealed. Christ in you the hope of glory. What does it mean that we are to live in Christ, and Christ is to live in us, that we are to share his resurrection life. I mean that Jesus is alive. How is he alive? Well, he lives, you know, the old song he lives. I know He lives because he lives in in me. And what does it mean to let Christ so even a metaphor. I mean, I'm not a big leadership guy, because I'm all about followership. What does it mean to follow Jesus? But even that Joshua has some distance to it. But we're talking about something more, that no Christ wants to live His resurrection life in and through us. So you find in Christ this language. In Christ 100 over 100 times in Paul's writings, just what does it mean to live in Christ, and He Himself in as much you did on the least of these you did it to me. I mean, so this constant sharing in his his life. So it's all for me about and that's really what the word Christian means, a little Christ. What does it mean for us to become little Christ? It doesn't mean we become Christ. There's only one Christ, but we become there's only one big J We're all little Jays. You know, one Christ, but we're to become little. Christ, and so he can, he can live his life. And this is, for me, why the ascension is so important. You know. I mean, nobody celebrates the ascension, but Jesus said it's good for you that I go away, because I'm going to become present in a whole new way. I mean, if Jesus had not ascended, and he was still here in His resurrected body. All right, can you imagine the lines? I mean, how long would you stand in line to have a moment with the resurrected Christ? But he said, No, that's why it's good for you. I go away because I'm going to be present. Only way I'm going to send my Holy Spirit, which is going to Bring me to life in every one of you. And so this is part of what does it mean for the the human imagination. Understand that Christ wants to live His resurrection life and all that it entails, and to release that, imagine that image of God in us as we become little Christ.

Joshua Johnson: 15:13

Help me in this space where it's not you don't go as far as David Bentley Hart does and calling us like little gods, but we are in Christ whose resurrection power is in us, that we get to live in Christ's imagination. And to reveal the image of God into this world, so that we can actually, actually with Christ, and in Christ, we could help repair the world as well, right? And different things help me with that, that distinction what in Christ really means for us as followers of Jesus and humans in our little christness,

Leonard Sweet: 15:54

yeah, yeah. Well, that's where the Greek word that we translate, save Jesus come came to save us all right, is Sozo. And sozo, in its original, truest form, means heal, health, wholeness. In fact, William Tyndale, Joshua, the first time he translated the Bible into English in 1524 he's translating all the books of the Bible. He does not use the word save. Jesus came to save us. He uses, he translates Sozo as heal, make us whole. And so what we are called to do is to is to Sozo Jesus. I mean to release his healing. Even this word salvation has a healing component to it, salve, to release his healing energies. And this is where the language of the Eastern Orthodox has uses the language of energy a lot more than the Western Church did. And I think we've got this where David benley Hart is right, we've got to rediscover the metaphors of the Eastern Church, which is, what does it mean to release the energies and not be called New Age and talking about it? You know, for me, New Age is sewage, but you release the healing powers and energies of Christ on the world and and it's not, it's not me doing it. It's, it's the resurrection, presence and power of Christ doing it. For me, it's a, it's a really exciting, empowering, emboldening understanding of what it means to live out of the imagination of Jesus.

Joshua Johnson: 17:35

And this book that you're you're talking about maker, mender, minder, Master. Those are four components of the imagination of Jesus and what he is. Can you just like portray this, this portrait of his creative hearts through these four moves, yeah, yeah,

Leonard Sweet: 17:54

that's a thank you for asking that question. That's really good. One maker, of course, is God the Father, the Creator. Mender is God the Son, but the one who heals and mends and repairs as you as you put it, in very Jewish sense, minder is the Holy Spirit, which is the mind of Christ. So you get all three together. You got them, then you got the master, mastery of all three. So it's a Trinitarian it's a quadrifoil, but it's a quadrilateral. But it's really based on how Jesus himself revealed God the Father and live the God the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit without all were present in in his life, as they all were present at His baptism. Think about it. I mean, they all showed up with his baptism. It was just a beautiful What a beautiful image. God spoke, the dove descended, what a beautiful image. So it's the Trinitarian. So the book is very Trinitarian, and getting us to think in Trinitarian categories.

Joshua Johnson: 19:39

How do you think that that shifts and changes the way that we view our role in the world, our role with God and Jesus, if it is, we see this Trinitarian aspect, yeah, of Jesus and his imagination, yeah.

Leonard Sweet: 19:55

And that's where I have a 10 year old son right now, and he's the most creative person I know. He begins every day with, I need to create. That's exactly how he begins every day I need to create. Well, that's the that's the the maker, you know, and we aren't making things Joshua, I mean, we and this is where Makoto Fujimura is the artist is really calling us to. What does it mean that we're called to, to make? Now you can by making. We're talking about whether it's making food or making community, or May, whatever it is we are called to be makers. And that's the reflection of God, the Father, the Creator. We're also called to be menders. We're called to heal, to the Sozo mission of of healing and repairing the world, and healing brokenness, and in a world that's more polarized than ever, we need this mending. But then what does it mean? And this is where the eight more and more as we enter this AI world, to put on the mind of Christ, which is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, and so to be minders of the Spirit we're entering on our watch. Joshua, we're going to be celebrating the 2,000th anniversary of the church. How are we going to celebrate? It. And what does it mean that we enter a third millennium? And in many ways, I see it, and this I get from yoa, Kima fior, 12th century, Calabrian Abbot. But the first millennium the age of the Father, the second millennium the age of the Son, I really think this third millennium is the age of the spirit and the releasing and unleashing of the of the energies of the resurrection, energies of the Spirit, which is always the Spirit of Christ. You never divorce the Spirit from Jesus. And so we're what does it mean for us, then to mind the spirit, to put on the mind of Christ, as revealed to us by the spirit and the scriptures, because you can't separate that either. So that's the that's the excitement of being a disciple of Jesus. And I'm using that language more than Christian that. I mean, I've always wanted to do a book Joshua. Will there be any Christians in heaven? Because Jesus was not a Christian. You know, Jesus did not die on the cross to make us to start a new religion called Christianity. Christianity is what we did to Jesus. What does it mean to live out of to you can use the word Christian if you look like Christ, but the in fact, the first convert in heaven was a convict who wasn't a christianhood at all. He just accepted Jesus's forgiveness and love and grace. So this whole living out of the the life of Christ and and as I said, you know, faith, formation, discipleship. Formation is Christ. Formation as Christ forms in us.

Joshua Johnson: 22:59

If you're looking at Jesus's imagination aspect of the of the spirit, and you're talking about the new millennium, the third millennium is gonna be the one of the spirits. We need the mind of Christ and the Spirit to see what is what is happening, and where we're going in the imagination of that you talk about how Jesus Is Jesus really pays attention, and that that attention is really important. You've long been a student of semiotics and theology. You talk about theodics, merging the two together, seeing the signs and symbols. What does it look like to have the mind of Christ be the minder with the spirit seeing what is happening, what is reality? What are the signs of the time and where we're going and opening up a new imagination for the future?

Leonard Sweet: 23:51

That's the big question right there is, how do we partly, it's a pivot away from the idea that we take Jesus anywhere, to realizing that Jesus, how do we recognize Jesus where he already is? That's a big we believe in the Omni presence of evil the more than we believe in the online presence of the Spirit of Christ. And what is it? What it means for us, and this is where I get in a lot of trouble. I mean, because people just can't everybody I meet, I look for the presence of Jesus in their life. It's not as if Jesus did not arrive in their life until I got there, you know. I mean, like I'm carrying Jesus like a football and I'm bringing him to you. No, this is called. Every tradition has this prevenient grace, common grace, long before you and I arrived on the scene and any scene, God was already there, bringing Christ to life. And Christ was already so the very fact that I'm meeting somebody for the first time, even a stranger that's in some ways, I look at as a providential moment. It's an it's a moment that has been appointed in the mystery and sovereignty and Providence of God. And that my job is not to say, can I tell you what Jesus means to me, but to look for what is Jesus already doing in your life that led to this moment you and I can be so it's recognizing Jesus already there, not my bringing him to to you. So that's why evangelism is always a two way street. Is that I'm learning something and you're learning something from that. There's a reciprocity here. So the first step of evangelism is not show and tell it. Shut up and listen. Bring out their story. Listen to their story. And from that story, you go, wow, God's really been up to something in your life. What do you mean? God's been up something in my life, yeah. Can't you see it? You know, can't you see what the Spirit's been doing? I feel Christ right there, and you're What do you mean? Christ is in my life, you know? So it's a whole different it's a really huge semiotic shift to to looking for the signs that are already signs of the spirit, that are already there around us, that we just haven't connected the dots and put. A pattern together, and that's our job, is to say, You know what the Spirit's really up to something? And look at, look at what's happening and, and, wow, that's amazing. So it's a whole huge kind of revolution in our thinking of, first of all evangelism, which is, oh, I'm going to take, I'm going to take God to or Jesus out there into somebody's life. No, I'm not bringing Jesus anybody. I'm discovering what he's already doing. And then I wrote a whole book on this called nudge. Then you nudge what the Spirit is already doing that person's life, and nudge it forward. So everybody you meet, you can nudge the Spirit of Christ in them in some way, even if it's just a compliment, a smile, just nudge that sign of the Spirit in their life.

Joshua Johnson: 27:05

That's why I like Luke. Chapter 10, as Jesus sends out is 72 the first thing he says, when you find this person of peace and they let you in, you eat. And he's talking about eating around a table a meal. It is in those moments where eating the first thing he says to do is when I can ask questions, I could learn people's story. I can we could actually share something together, where I could notice what Jesus is up to the table for you is, is, I think, key to our story with Christ and our story with God. How does the table, how does food? How does this help us actually see the what's happening, what Jesus is up to, and what, what's this, the the mystical aspect of the table that could help us relate and commune with God.

Leonard Sweet: 28:00

This is the heart of my semiotics right here, Joshua, is this? This idea of the table, and to bring back the table, both to our homes, our churches, our neighborhoods, and to the world itself, and the the tree of life? You got two trees in the garden, got the tree of knowledge, which is know about God, and then you got the Tree of Life, which is knowing God. And God said, is not it's not important you know about me. It's more important you know me. And that's the and that breathes, that tree breathed that spirit into us that made us human, the initial breath, God, there was an initial breath, but there's a constant breathing of that divine breath into into Adam and Eve, through that breathing of that tree of life. And I look at the table, and even we have language for it, think about we have leaves of the table. You know, the table legs for me are the trunks of the tree. I mean, so for me, the table is the new is the new is the tree of life that God has given us to gather around. And this is where the word sobra mesa. Have you ever heard of that? Sobra Mesa is a Spanish word. It's one of my favorite words. I thought it was I wanted to do sobra mesa.com lock it in, but I found out that when I went there to get it, a cigar company had already because they're making cigars for the table. And what it means is, sobra Mesa means Mesa means table. Sobra means over the table. And sobra Mesa in ancient cultures, even Mediterranean cultures today, you would never think about sharing a meal, and then when you're done eating, get up, because you owe that table something more than just eating your food. You owe it sobra Mesa, yobra, conversation, relationships. So it's table time is, is, is huge in in Eastern cultures and in ancient cultures, because that's where people communicated, they connected, they told stories. This is where learning took place. Where did Jesus teach? He didn't teach from a pulpit or a lectern. He taught from the table. Most of his stories were told at tables. So it is a and he said, meet me at the table. You can't get more. Do this in remembrance of me. Meet me at the table. So for me, the table is the tree of life that breathes the spirit into our families, our communities, our neighborhoods, and we've we've lost the the table. We've lost the essence of of what it means to be in relationship with God and each other.

Joshua Johnson: 30:52

It seems to me that that's a that's a move of our life, that we move from a stage where we all we want is to know about God, and we want to know the facts and the figures of God, and we study those things into a place of knowing God. You know, I talked to Ron rohlheiser. He talks about the images of God falling away. And we just live in the reality of who God is. So we because we can't really grasp who God really is through the knowing about him, because he's infinite, like there's you just can't get him. We can't encompass him, fine. I cannot comprehend infinite. Yeah, so how do we what does that move look like for us in our lives, to moving from the knowing about to knowing God,

Leonard Sweet: 31:44

and that's the that's the ultimate in in what the word know means is that that the Hebrew word yada, you know, which is meaning the intimate relationship that you have with a spouse, with the most important people in your life. That's the kind of knowing that God wants from us. Is that knowing, that relationship of of knowing each other in that kind of intimate way, and this is really you know the meaning of the word truth is where we know the truth is a word. But again, every word is based on a metaphor and a story. If you look at the word truth in its Greek form, it literally means, in its basic sense, to come out of hiding and so to know God in this in a truth sense, to know the truth about God is not an intellectual ascent and concept. It's to realize that you are hiding. We're all hiders. I mean, that's the add up. That's the garden story. We're hiding from God. That's our original sin. Is hiding, and we're hiding from God. And then so the the whole story, the Bible is a hide and seek story. But that's why, that's why I hate the language of seekers. No, we are not seekers. We're the hiders. We shouldn't have been doing seeker sensitive worship. We should have been doing higher sensitive worship. God's the seeker. The whole story of the Bible is God is calling us out of our hiding places to come into the light of God's presence and to enter into that relationship, that true knowing God that we were afraid of. And that's where the most sacred, the second most sacred word in Hebrew, most sacred words you can't say, which is Yahweh. You know it's so sacred you don't speak it. But the second one is henani, H, I, N, E n, i, which means when you come out of hiding, or God calls us out of hiding, we come into the light of God's presence. And we say these words that that Abraham said, and Isaiah said, and Jeremiah said, and they all And Moses said, Hanani literally means, here I am. So you're saying to the great I am, here I am. And that's that's truth. That's the truth of knowing God, not knowing about God Joshua, but knowing God. And the power of that moment of being in the light of God's presence and realizing that the only hiding place then we have is in leaning on the arms of Jesus. Is in the is in the bosom of Jesus, in the presence of God. That's our only hiding place. And so to come out of all the places that we're hiding, we're all hiders. We're hiding from God, we're hiding from each other, we're hiding from ourselves, we're hiding from creation. And to come out of that hiding into that relationship, that numinous relationship of knowing God, that's that's the life of truth that's beautiful.

Joshua Johnson: 36:07

It reminds me of the story of the lost son as he goes into hiding, right? He's like, I'm broken. I'm going to hiding. And then he turns back and says, Hey, even the servants have it better with my father. So he turns back to the Father, comes out of hiding, and he finally receives the embrace of the Father. Gorgeous story, and that's the perfect thing that Jesus tells the story of this, the hidden one into this now relationship of knowing the father, by

Leonard Sweet: 36:41

the way, that you go to any Literature Department in the world. I don't care whether it's you know what continent you're on, but if you ask, what is the greatest short story ever told? And Mo they're most likely to tell you the most perfect short story ever told is the story of the prodigal son. I mean Jesus, the master storyteller tells us the greatest tells the greatest short story ever in the history of language and literature. It's how beautiful that story is.

Joshua Johnson: 37:11

How do you do this? So as somebody who is immersed, you're immersed in work. So writing over 70 books, you're immersed in words. How do you get to a place of moving towards narrative, metaphor, story, so that you can get to a place of knowing God, and not just knowing about God, trying to use all your words to try and figure him out.

Leonard Sweet: 37:39

I have a former student that is now in charge of a publishing company called invite resources. His name is Len Wilson, but he coined a word. I used to see myself as a word Smith, Joshua, somebody played with I'm now trying to be an image Smith. That's his that's his word, and it's a major shift in in thinking. So I don't see myself immersed in words. I see myself immersed in metaphors and stories. In fact, I don't in my house. I refuse to how loud nothing in my house that doesn't have a story, because when you just I don't have stuff. I mean, my house looks like it's stuffed, but for me, there's no stuff. It's all a story. So you immerse yourself in stories. Here's where the rubber hits the road. Here that rankles some people when I say this, when we talk about the Bible, is the authoritative quote Word of God. All right, the Bible is the inspired Word of God. But we got to change our we got to start thinking about, these are the inspired metaphors of God. These are the inspired stories of God. These are, forget about the words. These are authoritative, inspired. I don't I don't have a problem with infallible. I have problem with inerrant. But these are these metaphors that Jesus gives us that are in our story, these stories that he gives us, these are authoritative, inspired. So we need to look at metaphor and story and narrative as we used to look at word and understand the power is not the power is not in the Word. By the way, the worst translation of logos is word. That's why David Bentley Hart refuses to translate logos and anything other than just got to learn the word logos. He said there's certain Greek and Hebrew words you just got to learn. And I agree with him on that, but it is really what does it mean? I believe in the inspired, authoritative and fallible story of God, which is a whole different way of of kind of thinking about so I don't see myself as a wordsmith anymore. Is I love words. I love to play with words. But for me, the words are embellishing and embroidering and embossing a metaphor and a narrative.

Joshua Johnson: 40:15

One of the things that you you write, you said the kingdom, which now you may be using some Jubilee language, but the kingdom is not built but entered, and its doorway is the imagination of the human one. So what does it look like for us to inhabit the imagination of the human one of Jesus, to enter into

Leonard Sweet: 40:38

His kingdom. Well, this is where the Jesus is a Jew. He lives out of a Hebrew imagination. That's where Andy Stanley and I part here. This is part of our imagination, too. The whole first testament, the word that we we translate as right in Genesis one. It is good. The word Hebrew word is tow, T, O, V, but it's, it's a complex word, and it's, I think here about the word Maranatha. You know, we we translate Maranatha as Come Lord Jesus, but it actually Maranatha in Aramaic, which is an Aramaic word, has three tenses. It means the one who has come is coming now and will come again. So it has past, present, future in it that one word, so you can either say grace, you and peace, brothers and sisters from one who is the one who was the one who is to come, or you can just say Maranatha. And it's the same with that word Tov, that Hebrew word Tov TLV, because it means not just good. It means beautiful and true. It has three different meanings. So you've got all three of them at the same time, and we just translate it as good. But for Aquinas, supposedly the greatest theologian in history, Christianity, he The big question is, how do you know Jesus is present? How do you recognize Jesus? Which is what the disciples couldn't do in his post resurrection appearances. They every time they could, they fail to recognize him. So Thomas is totally obsessed with, how do we recognize him today? And he came up. Up with these, what he calls the three transcendentals of being. But really, all he's doing is rediscovering Tov and his three transcendentals of being is, are that Jesus, you would look for the good, the beautiful and the true. And when you find the good, the beautiful true, you find Jesus, but wait a minute, you got to find and they called it the correspondence of the transcendentals. You got to find all three together. Because the the beauty is not a Hollywood beauty that's by itself. You know, beauty has got to be good and it's got to be true as well. I mean, so the same week, Mother Teresa and Princess Diana died. Who's the most beautiful person in the world? Well, everybody said Princess Diana, but in a toe sense, no, the most beautiful person in the world was Mother Teresa. Because it's not a Hollywood beauty. It's a beauty that's good and it's a beauty that's true. So part of what it means to live out of the imagination of Jesus, who's always looking for Tov I mean, so you're looking to bring beauty and goodness and truth into the world, and you're looking to bring them all together as one. And so you're really living out of a Tov imagination. So are you making for me, every annual report ought to be a Tove report. Is not what don't tell me your statistics. Tell me your stories, your stories of where did you bring goodness and beauty and truth into your neighborhood? Where's the beauty and goodness and truth you brought into your church? What did the church do to Tove the world forward this year? So it that's the imagination of Jesus. It's show me the beauty. And I do think, for the apologetics of the of the 21st Century and our 22nd century kids, the ultimate apologetics is not a rational one anymore, Joshua, it's a an esthetic apologetics. The ultimate apologetics today, isn't esthetics. Show me the beauty of Jesus, show me the goodness of Jesus, show me the truth of Jesus, not rationally, comprehend and understand who Jesus is. No, show me. Show me the esthetics. That's the ultimate apologetics, and that's what it means to live out of a Tove imagination.

Joshua Johnson: 44:44

What do you think the church would look like if we actually inhabited the creativity and imagination of Jesus? Where should we go from here as the church?

Leonard Sweet: 44:58

Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in us. Let the truth of Jesus be seen in us. Let the goodness of Jesus be seen in us and live out of out of that imagination. So what does it mean to become beautiful again and good again and true again? And so that's where I think Jesus leaves us, and he has an artisans, if you will, a gardener's imagination. I mean, he's the last Adam. And so what does it mean to garden your life, to look at your life as a garden that grows things of beauty and goodness and truth, and to live out of that gardener's imagination. That's the world of profession gardening. And what does it mean to rediscover by the way, Mary didn't recognize him because she thought he was the gardener. He In other words, as a semiotic flair. We're back in the garden where we can walk and talk and and be with God again like never before. And the veil was he himself took the became the veil his body was rent and broken so that we could enter that inner Holy of Holies again and know God. I just know about God.

Joshua Johnson: 46:07

This has been fantastic. Lynn, I have a couple of quick questions at the end. I like to ask people. One, if you go back to your 21 year old self, what advice would you give

Leonard Sweet: 46:18

live each moment as if it were your first day the rest of your life and your last day of the rest of your life. Hmm, that's good advice, Alpha and Omega every day.

Joshua Johnson: 46:27

Yeah, that's really good advice. Anything you've been reading or watching lately you could recommend.

Leonard Sweet: 46:33

I just was reading this morning. This is a book written by a Yale professor called they flew, a history of the impossible. And he looks at stories of any it's a post critical approach Joshua. And so he doesn't take it and say, okay, these people that supposedly lived out of the miraculous didn't really do it. Let's give a modern critique of it. He just lets them tell their story, and tells the story of those who told stories about them. And so that's the one that I was reading this morning. So they flew

Joshua Johnson: 47:10

so this book that is going to come out, maker mender, minder master, when's it going to be out for people to get? And how can people connect with what you're doing and you're for Christmas before? Christmas before? Yeah, all right, so

Leonard Sweet: 47:27

you have a Christmas week all by the way, called the star still beckons. It's my first advent Christmas, New Year's book. So it's a little, little, tiny thing. It makes a great gift to book. So that's a my first advent Christmas tide book.

Joshua Johnson: 47:44

The star still back. It's already out, and that's out. Could get that? Where would you like to point people to so they can get your work they can buy your your whole library of books? Yeah?

Leonard Sweet: 47:56

Just go to Amazon. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. Or our hearts and minds bookstores is my favorite indie bookstore, hearts and minds. So either hearts and minds bookstore, hearts and minds.com or just go to Amazon and they'll get it to you. It's been great being with you. Joshua, thank you for

Joshua Johnson: 48:13

inviting Lynn. Thank you. Thank you for this conversation. Really enjoyed it, really going deep into the imagination of Jesus and what that looks like for us. So thank you. Lynn, it was fantastic.

Leonard Sweet: 48:23

Thank you. Thank you. You.