The Light in Every Thing
Deeper conversation on the mysteries of Christianity with Patrick Kennedy and Jonah Evans, directors of the Seminary of The Christian Community in North America.
In this podcast we engage the great questions of life and do this through a spiritual approach to Christianity made possible through contemplative inquiry and the science of the spirit known as Anthroposophy.
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The Light in Every Thing
Re-post: The Path of Discipleship, The Disciples Path--Both Shepherd and Sheep; Ep. 3
As the summer winds down, we are busy at the seminary preparing for new students. We are also quite excited by plans for expanding what we do with the Patreon. Before the new content arrives to you, we are reposting these two episodes from the early years of the podcast. We selected these episodes to align with the announcement that the audit option for the Distance Learning Program is now open. If you wanted the chance to receive weekly instruction about discipleship from Rev. Kennedy, followed by discussion with fellow auditors, then this is what you've been waiting for. Click here for more information. Registration closes September 15, 2025 and the course begins October 7.
In this episode, we join Jonah Evans and Patrick Kennedy in the middle of their discussion of discipleship. Here we begin by exploring the third gospel reading in the series: Luke 15: 1 - 32. Through the parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin and the Prodigal Son, Jesus reveals to his disciples the dynamic loving effort the divine world is making to find every human soul that has lost its connection to its true home as well as the inner transformation of heart and mind each person can make to turn again towards the ‘Kingdom of God’.
The Light in Every Thing is a podcast of The Seminary of The Christian Community in North America. Learn more about the Seminary and its offerings at our website. This podcast is supported by our growing Patreon community. To learn more, go to www.patreon.com/ccseminary.
Thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed our theme music, “Seeking Together,” and the legacy of our original show-notes and patreon producer, Camilla Lake.
Good morning, Patrick. Jonah, good to see you. Glad to be here again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, get into this. Get into this beautiful next step of our journey in discipleship, through the pericopes, the gospel readings through the summer, these 10 gospel readings that guide us along a path to show us the archetypal steps of discipleship in Christ. We are so glad to be with you all and have you listen in to our podcast, the Light in Everything © BF-WATCH TV 2021.
Speaker 1:We'll start once again with our reading from the Gospel of John that describes this light in relationship to discipleship, this light in relationship to discipleship. And Jesus spoke to them again, saying I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is so good to always hear that and to remind ourselves that it's really the light of life that is the hope and the aim and the direction of Christian life and discipleship with Christ. And so we can just use that picture or thought or feeling of the light of life and remind ourselves of where we've been. We started with this light of life awakening in our encounter, recognizing Jesus as Peter did, but then also having to recognize this part of us that's in us as well, this satanos, this dark part that would deny what this light of life is leading us to as the first steps of discipleship. And then this call to take up our cross, to take responsibility for the challenge and the difficulty that comes into our lives and asks us to die and become new. And then the second step we looked into this beautiful, also a call to become active in a kind of morality, a kind of spirit activity, where first we're practicing non-reactive, quick judgment and trying to also find the log in our own being, the darkness in our own being, before we discern, to try to help our brothers and sisters. This passage from the Sermon on the Mount, which we read last time, gives us a kind of organism of moral activity to begin to work with, on this path of discipleship culminating in this picture of the narrow gate, the path to life through the narrowness, through the intensity of what that means.
Speaker 2:And today we'll work with the third pericope, the third gospel, which I'm excited about. It reveals a parable, a couple of three parables. So we go from recognition, taking up our cross, to practicing moral activity in the light of Christ. And now comes Luke 15. And now comes Luke 15. Luke 15, revealing the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son, or the prodigal son as it's more popularly known. But perhaps before we dive into it, patrick, we can just give a little grounding and context.
Speaker 2:Parables are like stories. They are stories, they're pictures from the earthly world that are kind of like windows into a higher reality. And the parables that Jesus works with. They always reveal two things they reveal how the kingdom of God works on earth and or how something called repentance works.
Speaker 2:And repentance is a difficult word, but its Greek word is metanoia, which means the transformation of heart and mind, the changing of the heart and the mind, the changing of the heart and the mind. So these parables that we're about to dive into are not primarily revealing the kingdom of God, but the nature of repentance, metanoia, transformation of heart and mind which leads into the kingdom, which leads into the life of the light of life, another word for it. So this all has to do with this primary proclamation of the gospel, which is the kingdom of God is at hand. Transform your heart and mind, repent, so that you can enter the kingdom of God. So we'll begin with the Pharisees and the Sadducees actually challenging Jesus, saying you see, he eats and is around and socializes with sinners, and that was not a good thing. And Jesus responds with these stories, these parables about the importance of repentance, the importance of transforming your heart and mind, which you can only do if somehow you've lost your way somehow you've lost your way.
Speaker 1:This is interesting, jonah, by already bringing in that interpretation of what they are about, I realize I see it very differently. I think we'll see that the three parables are actually mostly about God and there's only one that's a little bit about the human being's activity, which I find very striking, that there's an activity of repentance that happens inside us and it seems to be in these three parables that there's an activity coming from the divine relative to each human soul, which is so stunning, absolutely to each human soul which is so stunning.
Speaker 2:Absolutely and I don't so I would say absolutely that was what was going to come out of it.
Speaker 1:I see, these are not only activities of repentance of the human being, but God's activity in relationship to that, I see, because when you said it's not about the kingdom of God, I was like, wait what?
Speaker 2:Oh no, not primarily. I said primarily, Primarily. These are how, because repentance is how to enter the kingdom of God. So that's why Christ says and we'll see that the kingdoms of God rejoice when repentance occurs. So they're primarily about this, turning this entering through the door, this entering through the narrow gate, in a way Also, this is another way to understand the gate, but I love that you brought that in already, because it also reveals to us how God acts in our lives in three different ways. Shall we dive in? Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if we're going to keep talking about it, it's good to have the whole thing there. It's a longer one, it's a longer reading, so it's good to just kind of inwardly.
Speaker 2:Get ready to hear three images of one thing. Now. The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to him and the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying this man receives sinners and eats with them. So he told them this parable. What man of you having a hundred sheep, if he lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And then, when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home he calls together his friends and his neighbors saying to them Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost Just so. I tell you there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently under until she finds it. And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors saying Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost. Just so. I tell you there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. And he said there was a man who had two sons and the younger of them said to his father Father, give me the share of property that falls to me. And he divided his living between them.
Speaker 2:Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took his journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in loose living. And when he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country and he began to want. So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into the fields to feed swine, and he would have gladly fed on the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said how many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to spare, but I perish here with hunger. I will arise and go to my father and I will say to him Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him. Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet and bring the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and make merry For this. My son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is now found and they began to make merry Now.
Speaker 2:His elder son was in the field and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the servants and asked what this meant and he said to him your brother has come and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has received him safe and sound. But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father. See, these many years I have served you and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a goat that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf. And he said to him to make merry and be glad for your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found.
Speaker 2:so that's a lot there, but we can see these three, these three pictures, three pictures of transformation of heart and mind, but also three pictures of how God is active in our lives. I think that's really important too. And this path of discipleship, patrick, now maybe we can pick a place to dive deeper, but this path of discipleship now, you could say, brings us to these two activities. How are we to wake up to how God once is working in our lives and the nature of this transformation of heart and mind, of this transformation of heart and mind?
Speaker 1:Or perhaps you see something different. That no, I mean these three are so revolutionary it feels like, just in their spirituality, their description of the nature of heaven and its relationship to us, the description of the nature of what it means to draw near God, to be distant from God, and reward and punishment, and it just kind of addresses so many things out of this, one simple question that stirs up, with these Pharisees Seeing the teacher of spirit, the supposed one who is close to God, associating with those who are far from God, sinners. Right, you could say that's a technical definition that gets described if you're a sinner, you are far from God and worthy of punishment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's good to clarify.
Speaker 1:It's a wise God spending time drawing near. Yeah, what are you doing there? And this isn't. This is you must be a sinner. If you're going to go spend time with sinners, then you must be enjoying the sinful life, right? This is the worldview that they're confronting him with and they're confronted by him. He's doing something different, Isn't he sullying himself, dirtying himself by drawing near to those who are fallen and far from God? What are we looking? At in seeing Jesus at the table with sinners.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Right, right, so that I think that points maybe to us one of the primary gestures that we're now called to get more way we see God's activity in our lives that he is actually wanting to draw near to us, no matter who we are, where we are, and we see that drawing near in these three pictures. At least the first two are very strong and the third is kind of an interesting other type of drawing near.
Speaker 1:Yeah, three different pictures, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right. So we have the first drawing here, which is that God wants to find us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a shepherd figure in relationship to sheep. So the divine world as shepherd, a shepherd feels extremely responsible. Like whose fault is it that the sheep is strayed? Can you really get upset at a sheep? Let's just find out. So a shepherd comes home to the people and they had 100 sheep in their care and one went missing. Who's going to get in trouble? The sheep? No, it's the shepherd's responsibility to make sure that all sheep are accounted for. Therefore, if one got lost, he leaves the rest, goes searching over hill and dale until he finds that lost one comes back say hey, everybody, I found it was on the shepherd to make sure that not one sheep was lost.
Speaker 1:So this picture of responsibility lying with the divine for the fact that a sheep is lost and all the effort needed to rescue it and bring it back in, so that's a radical image rather than just well, you know, god is good and if we have fallen, fallen it's all on us. And that takes us back to genesis to say well, wait a second, who put the snake in the garden? Yeah, right, is it really all on human beings that we are far from god? Is it all thanks to personal responsibility that I can't see the angels in the room right now. I can't actually take ownership for that. Things have taken place way beyond my pay grade that have caused a situation that I am far, that I am lost. It's not all on me.
Speaker 2:That's in this picture right here. That's totally in this picture. So it's such a picture of grace in terms of the activity of God that he is actually looking. So it's such a picture of grace in terms of the activity of God, yeah, that he is actually looking, regardless of what.
Speaker 1:Right leaving their realm to come, searching within the lost realm for those who got lost Exactly.
Speaker 2:Very powerful, so it's also very comforting and spirit comforting. Yeah, so this is part of the discipleship path, then, is to start to know and see God as someone who is actually constantly seeking us, knocking on our heart's door. And yet there is this other part where we can say, well, what is the metanoia, what is the transformation that is also important in this picture.
Speaker 1:Well, that comes strongest in the third right, it comes strongest in the third. How?
Speaker 2:do you?
Speaker 2:see it in the first or second, I think the first one we can see also in our own lives. When I feel found, can I be carried? He picks up the sheep onto his shoulders and carries him. So I think, if we look closely into the heart of the disciple, there's this now step where we we actually need to practice learning to to allow ourselves to be carried, to allow ourselves to be found, to allow ourselves to be helped. And this receiving of grace is also a metanoia. It's also a transformation of heart and mind. It transforms the feeling I have to do it all on my own Right.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's what, for me, shines through so radically, strongly and, I think, begs the disciple to look back at your life and say, okay, so how have you found your way to Christ? Was it like all your searching? How did it cross your path? Yeah, you know, were you born into a world where you grew up in a family and they led you to images of his life and pictures of his life, and it's shown through. Was that your doing? Yeah, or was it not brought to you who you, or did you meet some person in your life that was decisive, who represented him right in the world and spoke a word or handed you a god? You know the bible I got on my confirmation day, or the priests I met, or the parents I had like that that was decisive in his me finding him. Did I find he found he came towards me in my life? I responded right, there's a response. That's it. Response.
Speaker 2:And that's I find that to be this interesting weaving together of of God's coming toward us. But we also have to allow. We don't have to, but we're called and this is part of the changing of heart and mind. It's a big inner step to allow yourself to be carried. It takes a deep faithfulness to allow yourself to be held and carried by him Right, which isn't hard.
Speaker 1:If you go oh there's my shepherd Like, if you've recognized from our first step you are the Christ, the son of the living God, that is a natural next step to see him as my shepherd. That's kind of what I'm experiencing. And then I become a sheep and then I'm ready to go home and all that right it starts that whole process.
Speaker 2:Totally. And yet I find in my person there's a persistent self-will. Ah, yeah, there's an inhibiting. No, no, I got this, I got this, I got this Ah yeah, that is, they're inhibiting.
Speaker 1:No, no.
Speaker 2:I got this, I got this, I got this, I'm good. You know, it's like this, and I think that's part of this third step of practicing this also, this surrender, active surrender in a good way, that that's also a kind of changing of heart and mind. My mind is changed when I go from I got this to I'm allowing myself to be carried by your will.
Speaker 1:And I think for me, although I totally recognize that and I don't want to take anything from that, please don't misunderstand me but in the picture we don't get a story about a sheep struggling with that. No right, it's true. So you could say, in this image, in this portion of the image, it is a being that that sees itself as a sheep and lets itself get picked up by its shepherd well, I hear that, except that at the end he says what the heavens rejoice over is repentance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's pointing to not god's repentance, not god's transformation of their heart and mind, but the it implies the sheep yeah so that's an amazing thing.
Speaker 1:So I think that's also about the activity of the shepherd right, and then it gets described as repentance.
Speaker 2:So I think there, at least in the gospel, is where we're pointed to, there's an inner, even though the picture doesn't show it. The point is that a human being has changed their inner being and allowed themselves, so to speak, to be carried. So that's just an interesting mystery there, that it shows primarily a picture of God's work. And then the word says but God is rejoicing over your change, your inner change Right, and that's what I think.
Speaker 1:I think there's a secret to the fact that all three images come one after another. So it's like, really, it's all based on one question and we get three pictures of one event really, yeah, a repentance, yeah. And when we get to the third story, really Yep, a repentance, yep. And when we get to the third story, we're on the inside of the person Good point and we actually get to hear some of the thoughts and feelings and the little inner turn that happens. We get to be from the inside more, more Than we get to hear in the beginning, which is so much more on that other side to hear in the beginning, which, which is so much more on that other side.
Speaker 1:And but this, this, uh, inhibiting the work of the shepherd because of my own um, yeah, what is that? Um, yeah, what is that Attachment to my own leadership, my own self-leadership, to not being willing to recognize that I'm lost and I need some help, I need guidance, I need to be gathered in. Also, I think that lesson, that self-knowledge, and how that can increase my experience of his grace. That's why I didn't want to take away no, no.
Speaker 2:It's so important because it's just in my own experience and I'm sure you can relate to that, patrick so many of my kind of falling downs as a priest, as a human, have been where I am just not willing to let go and allow myself and others to be carried by the Good Shepherd and this kind of insistence on my own way shepherd and this kind of insistence on my own way.
Speaker 2:And so that's that's. That's something that we can take up inwardly, but we can also take up this other primary picture that God is constantly ready to pick us up Leaving everything actually to find those who are lost?
Speaker 1:I think that other element you've just brought in, which is my concern for others, so do. I think I'm the only one who can make a difference here, oh yeah. And how often have I fallen prey to that ridiculous assessment situation?
Speaker 2:And it's so tempting, especially in our work, if I'm not there, if I don't do it. It's just such a human challenge, human challenge, and yet the sheep consciousness changes into this hearing the voice of the Good Shepherd and allowing ourselves to be carried and feeling that gift.
Speaker 1:And just to, to cultivate the consciousness that the shepherd is actually actively seeking everyone and is actively responsible for every human soul and wants them all to be together. Yeah right, these are all in this picture. That's a good point. It's a profound image of the incarnation of Christ. Why does God leave the throne of heaven to come and live as a slave on earth? Why would that? Why would you leave the world of pure goodness, truth and beauty to come down here? We're trying to get out of here to go to you. Why would you come down here? The're trying to get out of here to go to you. Why would you come down here? The answer is simple he loves the sheep, he loves those who are in his care, not sheep in any kind of. You know down speaking of humanity, as we will see, he actually we are sons. That's it right. The sheep is equated to sun and I. That, I think, is really, really key.
Speaker 2:That's very important. I think there's also another really important word that you just said I want to highlight, which is God wants to bring us into community. He wants to bring us back into a community of sons, a community of sheep. So that's also really important.
Speaker 1:This isn't just an individual question. This is about the whole flock.
Speaker 2:That's right. The light of life is also a community, and then that it's not about transcending this world, but God comes down into this world and the light of life is working here. I think that's another Shepherding. Shepherding, yeah, that's a very important gesture that can help us on our way of discipleship, and that therefore immediately comes back to the core image of discipleship.
Speaker 1:Why be disciples? Right, we come back to that. I think we need to return to it again and again. Why be disciples? It is that we could become like god, that we be imprinted with his nature, so that we more and more in our thoughts, feelings and and actions manifest God's nature. That's what our calling is, and discipleship is simply the work towards that, the steps towards that, the path to it.
Speaker 1:So that means, if we see how he leaves everything for the ones who are lost and contrast that with the attitude of the Pharisees, they're like what are you doing, associating with the lost? We see an. We see such a healing balm, for our constant temptation in our spiritual life, which is a moral life, is to look that those who are straying hate them, condemn them, want to not be associated with them. He says no, no, that's not how I work. I mean, if you want to be that way, that's fine, but I'm just letting you know that's not how god works. And then you're convicted again. You have a chance actually to change and repent, and change your heart and mind like you know what.
Speaker 1:How dare I, how dare I look at my brothers and sisters who are far, yeah, with the eyes of the Pharisees? I am to look with his eyes and that I have to do everything in my power to gather. That's my only job. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, because even the way the gaze of the Pharisees destroys the community, yeah, right, yeah. It's like, oh look, he left the community. Condemn, condemn Well, okay, separated, yes, what are you doing to reunite? You think your condemnation is helping anybody? No, it's not. So the theme from the first one, the moat and the splinter, comes back in a real, concrete community way. Right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Very important. So there's also moral activity here and a kind of again as you said an imprinting of the activity, the nature, the life of christ on the disciple to become more and more in his image and likeness. This is what it means to be a disciple.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. So the two images there, the first step of allowing myself to responding to the voice of the shepherd who's seeking me, recognizing him, letting him bear and carry me Very important. And then imbuing myself with his shepherd nature Right and bearing and carryinging myself with this shepherd nature Right and bearing and carrying my brothers and sisters Right.
Speaker 2:So this is priest, shepherd, sheep. Priest is shepherd and sheep, or you could say, the priestly heart which is in all of us, the Christian heart, the disciple's heart, is both shepherd and sheep.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, both shepherd and sheep. So would you say there's like a danger in the one, then, who only wants to shepherd, so to speak Definitely, and doesn't have a shepherd? Yes, right.
Speaker 2:So important Because he's the good shepherd.
Speaker 1:So both have their danger. So a person who would meet a good priest would meet a person who's been lifted, yes, and put on his shoulders, who's been carried and who's looking with the eyes of the shepherd out for those who have been lost.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, I mean we could say that's the essence and whole point of the seminary work is those two things. How can I allow myself to be carried by God so that I know what it's like to be a sheep?
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right. Beautiful pastoral images. Just absolutely beautiful pictures. So what in the world is this woman in money Coins? How do you, you know? Are we God's money? Is that the image? Here the second picture the woman has 10 coins, loses one, turns over the house, lightens the room, increases the light in search of the lost coin until she finds it and then celebrates at the reunion of her full wealth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, amazing.
Speaker 1:What's going on with this picture, Joe?
Speaker 2:Well, one thing I really love, and what we highlighted in our confirmation class last year, was that now the picture of God transfers from a shepherd, a male shepherd, to a woman. Yeah, god's a woman. God's a woman Householder, a householder, and this is a beautiful picture. Very often, the Holy Spirit is pictured as a feminine, female image, and this Holy Spirit then comes into symbolic form in the woman. That part of God is seeking us in a new way and it's seeking something in us which is symbolized in money, which we can ask ourselves what is the money, the root of all evil right what in jesus.
Speaker 2:Jesus, saying we're coins, we're god's coinage god's coinage which, I don't know what coin. Her coinage? Yeah, her coinage which and this also relates to other parables where money, the money that a human being has, or even the symbol of money itself, refers to the capacity to create, the capacity to be generative, the capacity to be a creator.
Speaker 1:What in the world are you saying? How much money has to do with creativity, right, right? I mean, I grew up in a Christian household and heard things like money is the root of all evil.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, and so we have to really get clear that that is actually the love of money is the root of all evil, not money itself. But yeah, I mean, of course these symbols can be used for different things, but I found it to be very productive and connecting to other like the talents, other parables, where this picture of money has to do with the capacity in me to be a generative being. So we could say that then here, if we look with the eyes, symbolic eyes, that the Holy Spirit is hoping to find the generative human, to find the generative human, the human that can create, the human that can be a creator, and use the money, so to speak, for something new, use the money power in ourselves for something new. But something has to be done.
Speaker 1:What's the money power? I mean like if, in life, working with, I mean somehow, when, yeah, did this symbol for creative power, or what you call the money power just now, how is? How do I see that in money? Can you help us see that?
Speaker 2:Well, I would say that when you have money, you have a potential. You don't have anything yet really no thing, a bunch of paper or metal Value but you have the capacity, at least in symbol, to invest something, to go and build something, to go and acquire something, to invest someone else with their power. All of these things can then have the potential to make manifest something in the world. So in a way, you could say the money power is the potential, the capacity to make manifest something that wasn't there before Capital, capital. So it's so interesting to see that this feminine figure of God is interested in that this wealth, this money, this spiritual potential.
Speaker 2:Spiritual potential.
Speaker 1:Spiritual because it's not visible. Its visible part doesn't mean what it is. You don't use coins to build buildings. You don't use coins to make dinner. You don't use coins to create a school, but you can transform it into whatever you attach to it. It's like pure potential. Spiritual because it is invisible. Potencia, yeah, and whatever intentionality you connect to it can suddenly make things visible in the world that weren't there before. And I think we need this understanding of money. And if you go through the Gospels, it's like he's using these pictures about money and human beings, their soul, essence, all the time. Yeah, and God giving money. And we're about to hear the third story is about wasted money. Wasted potential of money is, as you're saying, spiritual potential. Creative, create pre pre, you know, create creativity before it starts creating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the creative force that's a good word, creative force, yeah and so apparently sprinkled over the earth are little coins of creativity, little single coins that belong. Actually. They're all inside the house of god in this picture, right? No, what this lost is so different, right? It's like that sheep, who knows. It's like over far, far away, some little creek. This is the house, yeah, inside the house of God, the house of the woman.
Speaker 2:Right. And so you could say this house has different pictures, but it's contained. You could say, even in our hearts there's this potential that God is interested in this capacity, this creative force. So it's not far.
Speaker 1:It's not like the distance is different, right? Now it's lost, but it's like it's near. Yeah, it's just not.
Speaker 2:It's not grass falling and crack the couch, that's it. Got a lot of coins down there.
Speaker 1:How would you know? I remember how rich I used to get. Just go and dig it around in my household for the lost coins, so I can turn that spiritual potentiality into a Tootsie Roll. That's it.
Speaker 2:Go on to AMPM. Fill your pockets with Skittles.
Speaker 1:Revealing you grew up in California. That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this potencia golden coins. The wealth of God is human spirits which are of the nature of creativity. That's powerful.
Speaker 2:That's powerful and that God is again looking for that, turning on the lights, cleaning up the whole house, the whole house, the whole house. And what a different but beautiful combination. To put with that, we are also sheep, that we're being Right. So the creator, the least creative. Passive, just following around, the least creative passive following around image no no no, wait, let's add another picture.
Speaker 1:Let's add another picture.
Speaker 2:We're also meant to be generators. God's wealth, god's wealth.
Speaker 1:And again striking in the picture is so coins don't even run away, like at least the sheep you, you know they've got feet, they can get oh, look at that grass over there and they go go, get lost. That's right. It's really on the householder if the coins have been misplaced. Again, just looking at the responsibility, if a coin gets lost in my own house and it's my money, it makes sense that the householder would take on all the work of finding that lost money.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so this picture that comes again and go back to genesis where adam and eve eat of this, this fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, and they cover themselves and they hear the footsteps of god and they hide and god says adam, where are you? They're in eden and hidden from god. I think we get that picture there again of the coin in the house but missing, not visible to the Godhead. But God asked the question and is looking for Adam when are you? I mean this absolutely pierces my heart to think that God is asking every human heart when are you? I'm looking for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a powerful feeling.
Speaker 1:Become visible to me.
Speaker 2:Right. And so in this sense, in this sense we can have the feeling that there's a creative capacity that is dormant in our being that God is trying to shed light on and find there's also an interesting activity on the part of us as well to say how can we participate in that seeking, how can we do our part? What do we need to transform change into to allow that potential, allow that creative force to be found and find expression?
Speaker 1:But of course, both of these, the lost sheep and the lost coin weave beautifully into this final yeah this final one, I mean maybe just to carry as a question too, like well, what activity of god is the increase in light? So, if we take that image back to our lives and experiences, what is this increase in light which helps us find the coin? And what is this cleansing of the, of the household? How does that take place? In the course of history and my biography, where we see the activity of the divine entering into history, into human lives, cleaning the world around us. What is that? And increasing the light around us, that we become visible, does feel like very important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, should we go go into there or?
Speaker 1:either. Either way, we can also just hold them and move on. Maybe our listeners want to respond.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that would be good to hold and maybe right, maybe our listeners have some depth there to share. So now, this third picture of the sinner, this third picture of us, this third picture of the activity of god yeah, so incredible.
Speaker 1:So I mean what strikes me particularly strongly about the first two?
Speaker 1:they're short very short, right, real quick and very imaginative. It's so clearly a picture, an imagination. The third one is a little play. It's such a relatable human drama and no one is so much a picture of something as much as a biography becomes a picture you can imagine. There are brothers, there's an estate, there are sons of a father who's running an estate. You go fully kind of into a human story. So we reach this human story level right in the character of the, of the picture itself. And the main character is this son who does what? Right striking, right away now from the gate, the activity. The actor in this is the human yeah, right, everything's fine up at the estate, there, life's happening, and he steps forward one of the sons.
Speaker 1:I want my inheritance before you die. It's also really striking. I don't want to wait to be able to do what the coins can do. Like, I want my creative potential now, before I come into my full responsibility for the estate. Like when you die, father, that will fall to me. I want it now to spend as I choose.
Speaker 1:The first kind of shocking thing that he does is to approach the Father and say hand it over, I want my share of this state.
Speaker 2:How does the Father respond? Well, that's what's so beautiful about this one. It's like this. Like you say, the human now is front and center and the Father has, but the Father has this activity as well. That's very helpful on the path of discipleship. It's like the Father is is gives, just gives, without question, just gives.
Speaker 1:And this here you go. Here it is. What will be yours, what will be yours, what will be yours, what will be yours and then the son takes it and does what he wants and leaves for a distant country. So now we don't hear like oh dad, I got lost, I took a wrong turn. Like, oh dad, I got lost. You know, I took a wrong turn and you know.
Speaker 2:No, he's on his path. He's certainly spending it.
Speaker 1:He knows what he's doing. I want to go to a distant country and I'm deciding how the wealth of my being will be spent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it says he squandered. Squandered his potential and spent his capacities on all kinds of realities that you could say don't bear fruit, fruitless pursuits.
Speaker 1:Fruitless pursuits, and how well we know those as humans. Just like and for for the enjoyment in the moment that has no leads to nothing. Yeah, it literally leads him to nothing, to a nothingness experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's where he finds himself with the pigs and would gladly eat what the pigs were eating so he's far away in a distant country.
Speaker 1:There's a famine, so there's no nourishment. He's, he's, he's working in the worst you know. Job from that, from that area of the world. Right to think that you're doing pig. You are feeding pigs and pigs being the lowest animal with their ravenous appetite and their nose in the filth. Yeah, this image, if you've ever fed a pig, I remember when I first did it not too long ago pig and the piglets. It was frightening. It was frightening. It was like unleashed desire, absolutely fully unleashed. You know, just like you know, zero check. You know, like our dog, it's like you know A little bit.
Speaker 1:I'd really love to do that, but I'm going to hold myself back. No, pigs just like awful, unravenous appetite, and not even he gets so low he can't even feed himself from that.
Speaker 2:And then this amazing thing One line, one line, and then he came to himself. One line, and then he came to himself. This is so important that this story, this gospel, this parable, reveals that the disciple also, maybe even primarily, finds our self at the bottom, finds ourselves, our self, really, our self-experience is at the end of our rope, so to speak. When we've made all of our own efforts, as much as we can, and come to the place where we step into, this place that we can call powerlessness, perhaps, then he comes to himself in that moment. He comes to himself in that moment, and then then he remembers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those are the two steps. In the Greek, the preposition is even eis ton auton, which means into himself, he, he, he comes into his selfhood, his autos and, in so doing, remembers his father.
Speaker 1:yeah, so this relationship between our nature and the father's nature, the ground of existence. We are his coinage, in this case his son. We are of the same blood, actually. Let us create again back to Genesis. Let us create the human being in our image. That's what parents do. They create children in their image. They pass on the image of God in lineage. That's it. We're in divine lineage in this picture.
Speaker 2:Right. So let's just fully picture that the picture is in the pigsty. Yeah, in the pigsty, in absolute famine, in absolute hunger and famine, no possessions left. That's where this coming into yourself occurs, which opens up this remembrance of our divine heritage, heritage. So you have this awakening to my divine being in the midst of a pigsty. That's what we're being shown here. It is the picture of the human path, of the disciple path. It's just very, very important that the Christian path is one of finding the light in the darkness, that the pigsty is the field on which awakening occurs and if we take seriously this picture, how does this image of distance from God awakening occurs?
Speaker 1:And if we take seriously this picture, how does this image of distance from God and emptiness and nothingness and bottom disgust, self-even revulsion heating bottom? How is that also the shepherd finding us? How is that also the woman finding the coin? Isn't that amazing? How is it? Is it the same moment as the father who allows that all to take place?
Speaker 2:right with you, could say, even with the deep hope of this turn, of this awakening, would you?
Speaker 1:say jonah? I mean, I just feel like right. One of the great questions you could, we could ask, of course, is why is the world the way it is right? The world has a lawfulness to it. It is it, it it is the way it is. Uh, water, when it is cooled down sufficiently, becomes ice. When it warms, that ice melts it. Everything has embedded into this reality as a whole bunch of lawfulness. When the father is approached by the son who says can I have my share in the estate? Do you think he has some clue of what's coming? I do.
Speaker 2:I do and I think he has. It's this whole, it's whole gesture of the father to allow something to unfold that is free, the deep, deep hope and picture of what could be. But he cannot direct it, he can't control it, because then it wouldn't be free, it wouldn't be free, it wouldn't be free. So this also reveals to us what the Father is doing. He's allowing His substance, his resources to be used in freedom, and he's also waiting, and he's hoping, waiting and he's hoping for the return.
Speaker 1:So, if we go to the final image we were given in the last step of discipleship we took in Matthew 7, we're given. The teacher comes to us and says there are two roads One is hard and the gate is narrow, but it leads to life, fullness, abundance, nourishment. And there's another path, and it's wide and it's easy, and the gate is wide too, and it leads to annihilation and despair. And it leads to annihilation and despair, and despair. Yeah, but he doesn't grab them and prevent them and force them on the good path that leads to life. He just describes these two paths. This is where they lead, lead.
Speaker 1:And now we get this picture at the end of this passage pericope of lived choices Totally here. I will. In fact, I will let you waste my nature, the Father says. I'll let you hurt the earth, poison the rivers. I will allow it. I also have built into reality the lawfulness that will show you where that leads. My love for you, however, is so great. I'm not here to stop you and protect you from that choice, and this is where I think the image of the Father is again teaching us what does it mean to love as God loves? I am not here to prevent you from the nothingness and emptiness and the wasteland and the wasteland. But I will build into life the feedback loop that will let you know you have chosen the wide path and destructiveness. It's where it leads.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that through giving us Christ Jesus, through loving us, by giving us his son, he's also built in this capacity to, at the bottom, find the memory, find the life, find the awakening to ourselves, beautiful so the the last, the last thing you have left after you spent it all and wasted it all, is yourself, is yourself, and when you come to that last thing, you come also to the possibility of finding the road back incredible and the picture he reminds himself of where the father is, what his nature is what he has, that's where life is there's food there.
Speaker 2:I've lost all my value.
Speaker 1:That's it, and I'll just go there and I'll serve maybe he will be willing to take me on at least as a hired hand and I want to work.
Speaker 2:I want to work, I want to serve. We can see there, through powerlessness, into recovery. We see the key of true humility that the discipleship path leads us into and through, and then yet through that gate. While he's coming home, his father rejoices. It's one of the most moving, touching pictures of the entire gospel. He sees him coming, he sees him coming From afar and he embraces him, him. So this is so important that we we develop the feeling as disciples that the father is waiting for our return and ready to embrace us. But what about the punisher the one who's going to.
Speaker 1:You know, punish us for our deeds. That's it. That's. We don't see that. It's not there In all of these pictures. None of these pictures contain a punitive God at all. The punitive experience is in distance. It's in the far country. It's its own hell. We don't need an extra punishment station. Yeah, we receive the fruits of our choices in this world and in this life, and they are our. That's it. Things that we are to experience. We are the generators of punishment.
Speaker 1:We participated in this distancing On the one hand, right On the one hand.
Speaker 2:So there's three.
Speaker 1:We have at least a third of the responsibility. In this picture we get the first two. God has lost us. The sheep has gone missing. It's God's responsibility to make sure they are together as the shepherd again, it's the snake it's in the garden that deceives humanity, and the snake is lucifer, which is a being much higher than human beings. It's not fair. It's not a fair fight. So that's on god, so to speak, to rectify in the incarnation of christ. Well said, we could never, ever have just returned without those right the first two images. The holy spirit has to come and bring light and find us. The sun shepherd has to come and find us, and then we too also can participate in the return. Yeah, and the return is so joyous. It's a festival, a festival in heaven. Remember that's what we were also told in the beginning. Make no mistake, angels throw a party. They are rejoicing. There is joy in heaven.
Speaker 1:That's right, and they're rejoicing in this turning, in this process of finding, of return and that you could say right is religion that's right, we religion religion, all the work we do, god coming towards us and us responding to return to our true nature, which is also what this is revealing.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, so we can say. This third step of discipleship really has to do with this interaction, this how are we participating in the activity of God? The activity of God who is searching for our hearts, who is turning the light on cleaning house to find our capacity to create, who is patiently waiting with deep hope, ready to embrace us when we return?
Speaker 1:Enclothe us anew yeah, the ring on our finger, a cloak. Return and clothe us anew yeah, the ring on our finger, a cloak on our shoulders and sandals on our feet, and creates a meal in his estate in honor of our return. So beautiful, so beautiful, and in honor of our return, so beautiful, so beautiful. And he returns then to the Pharisees. There's another son, who never left the estate. He's been a good boy, but there is something in his heart which is not of God and it is the condemner. And it is the condemner, and it is the one who wants to have a punitive system and a reward system Good point A behavioral system.
Speaker 1:And Jesus turns that all, throws it out. That's not how actually heaven works at all. Heaven will even make everything available for those who wish to waste it. That's how much love is in heaven and how little love is in your heart. When you look at your brother that way, it's so confronting and it's such ridiculous levels of love. It's just so enormous. This patience, this suffering and bearing what was done with what was given, but ultimately this embrace. You are alive and that's what matters. You made the turn on your own, yeah, and so there's a status. He comes back, longing maybe to be a lowly servant, and God, the Father, elevates his status higher than when he left.
Speaker 1:Yeah, into kingship Beautiful. So that's all in these three parables. It's all in these three parables it's so beautiful.
Speaker 2:So to be a disciple here means not to just be good and follow the rules. This shows us. To be a disciple means to get lost and be and learn how to be found. Means to to feel powerless and then to have helped to find that inner potential that can create something new. To be lost or to be dead and to become alive that's what he says to the son. He was dead and now is alive. So to die and to become new through the pigsty, finding the light in the darkness these are the pictures and images that we find on the third step of discipleship.
Speaker 1:May we just also include that other aspect, or re-say it Imbue yourself with the love of the Trinity. Beautiful, don't become a Pharisee. As a disciple, yeah, super easy. You start down the spiritual work and self-development path. You very quickly could lose your love for humanity because of our choices. They are making choices. Our brothers and sisters make any given day, those who seem lost in our estimation. If you want to be in right relationship as a disciple of God, if you want to be like God, we're going to show you what God does, how God relates to the lost, and it's very different.
Speaker 2:He's seeking. He's seeking us, he's bearing us.
Speaker 1:Increase the light, bring wisdom where you can, bring truth where you can, and clean and cleanse.
Speaker 2:Clean and cleanse. Find the capacity in every soul.
Speaker 1:Find the creative potential. In every human being, in every human being and the gift in every human being, and patiently create opportunity, bear the choices and trust in the long story of the path, Because you know the thing that's going to matter is when they come on their own and not because you've forced them. Freedom, an atmosphere, total freedom and total love. Amen. Can you believe there's anything ever written? Maybe it's all in these three?
Speaker 2:It's all in these three Beautiful Well, thank you for your presence and attention, dear friends, and we look forward to any comments and questions and insights that you are also already sharing and will continue to share. Take care everyone. ¶¶, ¶¶ ©. Transcript Emily Beynon.