Episode 52: Genesis 32:22-31

Translation: Alter

3 Questions:

What word, phrase or image strikes you in this text?

Toward what is God calling you in this text?

What are you wrestling with?

Additional texts:

Psalm 121

2 Timothy 3:14—4:5

Luke 18:1-8

Jeremiah 31:27-34

Psalm 119:97-104

Transcript

00:00:02.27
Kevin Shock
Friends, Nathan says it's go time. So we're here to talk about the texts.

00:00:07.85
Nathan Pile
Vamos!

00:00:08.84
Kevin Shock
ah we're Yeah, we we both say it's go time. Anywho, um ah scripture is a balm to our souls and so is being with one another and um hashing some of this stuff out.

00:00:23.83
Kevin Shock
We hope that it's the same for you, ah that you find life in reading scripture and discussing it with other people. And so that's what Nathan and I are going to do right now at this point in the day and whenever you're listening to us.

00:00:37.89
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:00:40.31
Kevin Shock
So today we are looking at maybe a familiar text to you, Genesis chapter 32, verses 22 through 31. Those are going to be the verses in the edition that you're reading. ah Nathan and I are looking at the Robert Alter translation.

00:01:01.89
Kevin Shock
And um in that translation, the verses are actually 23 to 32.

00:01:09.21
Kevin Shock
Sometimes verses get numbered a little differently depending on the translation and how it's happening. But um in any case, what we're reading is in most Bibles known as Genesis 32 verses 22 to Jacob wrestling with

00:01:26.62
Kevin Shock
figure it of water I don't want to um give an answer as to what exactly this man spirit, whatever is, um because different people have big, big different ideas about it.

00:01:42.44
Kevin Shock
But Nathan and I are going to read it. Maybe we'll talk about that a little bit. Our three questions. What word, phrase, or image strikes you in this text? Toward what has God calling you in this text? And what are you wrestling with?

00:01:55.20
Nathan Pile
um Some information about your hosts. We are men married to women in financially stable households, white, firmly in middle age, college and seminary educated. We work in the Lutheran Church and were born and raised in Western Pennsylvania.

00:02:10.54
Nathan Pile
All of this affects how we read scripture and discuss it, but none of this makes us better able to read scripture and discuss it than anyone else. We believe the wisdom of the scripture is the whole community's compiled interpretation for life with God and one another.

00:02:24.81
Nathan Pile
So we want to know what you hear and think from your experience as you hear scripture.

00:02:32.79
Nathan Pile
um And so the ways you can do that, social media and our email address, tendbiblegateway at gmail.com.

00:02:42.67
Nathan Pile
so No, I didn't say that right.

00:02:44.55
Kevin Shock
No.

00:02:46.02
Nathan Pile
Tend, Tend: a Bible podcast. There we go. Bible gateway.

00:02:49.42
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:02:50.06
Nathan Pile
Yeah, I'm stuck the other way.

00:02:50.19
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:02:52.44
Kevin Shock
Wait.

00:02:52.54
Nathan Pile
It's Tend: a Bible podcast dot 10 to dot Bible podcast at gmail.com.

00:02:54.03
Kevin Shock
Dot.

00:02:58.79
Kevin Shock
Just Bible podcast, right? Not a Bible podcast.

00:03:01.94
Nathan Pile
Yes. Sorry. Yeah.

00:03:03.95
Kevin Shock
Yeah. It's tend dot Bible podcast at gmail.com.

00:03:07.79
Nathan Pile
Bible podcast. There we go. There it is. There it is.

00:03:11.70
Kevin Shock
Nathan and I never send an email to that address. So,

00:03:14.01
Nathan Pile
It's true. We don't, ah we do look at them, however, so feel free to use it.

00:03:15.39
Kevin Shock
there's no reason for us to know it. It's like,

00:03:19.63
Nathan Pile
Um, we don't,

00:03:21.83
Kevin Shock
we do look at them. Yes, we absolutely do that. Yeah. Yeah. We read your emails, but,

00:03:28.09
Nathan Pile
all right, here we go. um Genesis 32, 22 to 31.

00:03:37.59
Nathan Pile
And he rose on that night and took his two wives and his two slave girls and his 11 boys and he crossed over the Jabbok Ford.

00:03:47.93
Nathan Pile
He took them and brought them across the stream and he brought it and he brought across all that he had. And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn.

00:04:00.46
Nathan Pile
And he saw that he had not won out against him, and he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip socket was wrenched as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for dawn is breaking.

00:04:14.44
Nathan Pile
And he said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, not Jacob shall- Not Jacob shall your name hence be said, but Israel, for you have striven with God and men and won out.

00:04:36.65
Nathan Pile
And Jacob asked and said, Tell your name, pray. And he said, Why should you you ask my name? And there he blessed him. And Jacob called the name of the place Peni-

00:04:51.09
Nathan Pile
Peniel meaning I have seen God face to face and I came out alive. And the sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel and he was limping on his hip.

00:05:06.89
Nathan Pile
If you're meeting with a group, you can pause the podcast now and engage the questions on your own. um Or you can listen here as Kevin shares his response to what word, phrase, or image strikes you in this text.

00:05:22.82
Kevin Shock
Uh, really, this is not, this is not a content thing. I think this happened last time we read the altar translation too. It's the amount of times that the word and is used and the amount of times the word he is used.

00:05:34.00
Nathan Pile
Mm-hmm.

00:05:37.83
Kevin Shock
And it's really, I don't know if there's intended to be mystery in this reading. i mean, there's a lot of mystery in this reading.

00:05:49.40
Nathan Pile
Yes.

00:05:49.57
Kevin Shock
We don't really know the identity of this. yeah like The only clues that we get to the identity of this mysterious figure is that um is that Jacob receives a new name, Israel.

00:06:02.23
Nathan Pile
Mm.

00:06:03.59
Kevin Shock
and And for you have striven with God and men and won out.

00:06:10.81
Kevin Shock
Which is also a different translation that we're used to than we're used to hearing.

00:06:15.18
Nathan Pile
Right.

00:06:15.21
Kevin Shock
um But striven with God and men doesn't really... ah doesn't clarify who it was that Jacob was wrestling with exactly over throughout the course of the night.

00:06:30.71
Kevin Shock
Was it God? Was it men? what What Alter alludes to in his commentary is that Jacob is in a Jacob's in a pretty harsh point in his life right here.

00:06:44.55
Kevin Shock
He's about to encounter his brother again from whom he stole his birthright and Jacob's preparing himself for battle. I mean, he's he's like, this is like, Jacob's not getting any sleep ah anyway.

00:06:59.60
Kevin Shock
This is real like

00:07:03.81
Kevin Shock
the middle of the night, I can't sleep. Like I'm having these nightmares, that kind of stuff that Jacob's in here.

00:07:09.62
Nathan Pile
Mm-hmm.

00:07:09.83
Kevin Shock
and um And so, you know, the the reality of what happens is even called into question. Although we, you know, this is, I- Okay, I'm, I'm going way beyond what but my initial answer was here.

00:07:25.35
Kevin Shock
I think if anyone if anyone listening to this has had the experience of being completely anxious, anxiety riddled by something that's going on in your life,

00:07:40.06
Kevin Shock
a fitful night's sleep can feel like this. And and I'm not, I'm not so, I'm not saying that Jacob didn't wrestle with questions god or an angel or a man or or even like uh alter alludes to here in his commentary referring to Midrash that this could have been a demonic presence as well um i'm not saying that he didn't do that um obviously he was he was forever afflicted by this whatever happened in the dead of night but

00:08:14.44
Kevin Shock
But also I know what it feels like to have a fitful night of sleep and to wake up and to just feel like, to feel like you have been wrestling with something. but your your Your mind has been wrestling with something, but to physically feel like you've been wrestling with something because you're tired and your sleep was fitful. And yeah, so I, I think um

00:08:41.02
Kevin Shock
all that is to say, The and he said, and he said, and he did this and he did that. And we don't know whether it's referring to Jacob or this figure that he's wrestling with all of the he's. It's not entirely clear.

00:08:55.23
Kevin Shock
I think it just adds to the mystery of what's going on. There's language.

00:09:03.10
Kevin Shock
but The way that language is written. can evoke certain emotions. And what I hear in this reading is that this is a, this is an urgent situation.

00:09:14.49
Kevin Shock
I mean, the first, when we look at this, the first,

00:09:19.69
Kevin Shock
I, the, yeah, like the first five, six sentences start with the word and. And within those sentences, the word and is also used.

00:09:32.08
Nathan Pile
Mm-hmm.

00:09:32.16
Kevin Shock
And he rose and he took and he brought and Jacob was left alone.

00:09:38.89
Kevin Shock
And he saw. I mean, it's just like it's it's it's continual action. And. um And so it's urgent and it's mysterious because then we get into this.

00:09:54.49
Kevin Shock
And he said, and he did, and and it's not entirely clear. is this the Is this Jacob that's being talked about? Or is this the figure that's being talked about?

00:10:01.64
Nathan Pile
Right. Like, yeah Even as I was reading it, that was a apparent.

00:10:03.30
Kevin Shock
and And so,

00:10:05.91
Nathan Pile
Like, who's he?

00:10:07.16
Kevin Shock
yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:10:08.01
Nathan Pile
Like, we're, it's being left ambiguous.

00:10:08.49
Kevin Shock
Usually we can come, yeah, we we through context clues can come up with the he that's being referred to in a lot of literature, but here it's, and and to know even Hebrew,

00:10:23.70
Kevin Shock
even for people who know very little about Hebrew, uh, pronouns aren't used. So what's happening here is there are just verbs here, but we don't do that in English, uh, so that we need to put a pronoun into it to complete it.

00:10:38.47
Kevin Shock
But in Hebrew, the word he isn't even in there. It's just that he is understood because it's the, it's the male form of the verb that's being used. So you know that it's, yeah, it's a, he, um,

00:10:56.39
Kevin Shock
Yeah, so there's yeah there's ambiguity, there's urgency. i I feel like the the way that the way that this is written, because Alter tries to stick so closely to the original Hebrew in the way he translates it, there's this there's a sense of urgency and ambiguity in this that I just think feeds the content that is in this story as well.

00:11:26.03
Kevin Shock
Yeah. What about you, Nathan? What word phrase or image strikes you in this text?

00:11:29.74
Nathan Pile
Well, like I like the idea for that the that whole piece of the ambiguity and mystery that is in this text. Part of the thing that stuck out to me as I was reading it is is we're talking about the same place in 31 and in 32, but we spell it two different ways.

00:11:49.66
Kevin Shock
Yeah, yeah, right, right.

00:11:50.25
Nathan Pile
Um, so Peniel and, uh, Penuel, um, it's a, it's a simple I for a U And so, ah the, the part here is is this, ah over the course of time, is this translator error that has just been continued over time?

00:12:00.54
Kevin Shock
Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:12:11.10
Nathan Pile
is this, um

00:12:15.19
Nathan Pile
you know Or or what is there something else, something that we've we've lost in understanding translations um that that they you know the I has become a you less than a sentence later or a sentence later?

00:12:32.91
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:12:34.21
Nathan Pile
So... So, like, again, there's all of this, and maybe that's part of the author's attempt to continue the mystery around this verse. That might be what all, you know, and that just might be a part of the the pronouns of he, kind of laced everywhere and and really not giving a name to the the other wrestler.

00:12:44.09
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:12:55.04
Nathan Pile
um Like, that might justify it by itself. But as I read it today, that one that was the thing that stuck out to me was we're talking about the same place with two different names.

00:13:08.37
Nathan Pile
um

00:13:08.42
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:13:09.74
Nathan Pile
And so um that mine is a simple one. I would continue your theme of mystery. seems like the most logical reason that it's there, but is there some other reason? Maybe, I don't know.

00:13:23.75
Kevin Shock
Yeah, I mean, I looked in the commentary here and we don't get a good answer to that. Peniel, the name builds, this is what Alter says, the name builds on face to face, which in Hebrew is Penim El Penim.

00:13:39.07
Kevin Shock
and ah And then he just says in verse 32, Penuel is ah is an alternate form of this name. So, ah yeah, but so why use the alternate form?

00:13:50.31
Kevin Shock
That's right, right.

00:13:51.68
Nathan Pile
but but But it has obviously happened because even in the NRSV, if ah my memory serves me right, they use both.

00:13:58.17
Kevin Shock
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:14:00.72
Nathan Pile
They use both. And so we've kept we've kept this happening in in Scripture.

00:14:01.39
Kevin Shock
that

00:14:06.68
Kevin Shock
Right, right. Yeah, and I'm not sure. um So even in Hebrew, I, you know, biblical Hebrew is a mysterious language anyway. And I don't know when it, I can't, historically speaking, I can't tell you when it happened.

00:14:21.14
Kevin Shock
But now if you look at ah a Bible that's written in biblical Hebrew, it has diacritical marks to show you how to how to pronounce the words, what vowels to use.

00:14:33.47
Nathan Pile
Yeah. yeah

00:14:35.64
Kevin Shock
In Hebrew, in ancient Hebrew, those did not exist because it was not, it was a written language, but it was not, it it was, people were writing down things that were said.

00:14:49.48
Kevin Shock
Like, you know, the, the, all of these stories were handed down orally. This was all oral tradition until finally someone decided to write it down. And, and the way that it's described in scripture being written down when it comes to the Hebrew text, well,

00:15:06.01
Kevin Shock
God carved it onto stone and handed it off to Moses who brought it down from the mountain. um

00:15:15.39
Kevin Shock
But in any case, even even if that were the case, it did not come with all of these instructions about how to pronounce things. It was it was already the stories of the people. And so

00:15:30.67
Kevin Shock
so there's so all I, I say that to say at some point, whether it came to the people who put the diacritical marks under and in in between the words, um or it was ah an early translation decision, right, that Peniel Penuel has been happening for a long, long, long, long time.

00:15:54.92
Kevin Shock
So...

00:15:56.09
Nathan Pile
Yeah, I just looked into one of my other Everett Fox translations of the first five books. It's usually my other Old Testament translation, and and he uses them too.

00:16:10.59
Kevin Shock
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:16:12.27
Nathan Pile
So it is a...

00:16:12.99
Kevin Shock
But, but I, like I like what you say, that it just it it continues to add to the ambiguity and the mystery of this reading.

00:16:20.15
Nathan Pile
right.

00:16:21.06
Kevin Shock
you know it's It's as though by using those two different names, the author is saying, it could be this, it could be that. and

00:16:29.26
Nathan Pile
Right.

00:16:29.63
Kevin Shock
and But also, I think that that's what the author is saying too about or the editor about um the the person, the figure that Jacob is wrestling. well it could be this, it could be that.

00:16:44.00
Nathan Pile
Right. Could be God, could be men.

00:16:45.78
Kevin Shock
Right, maybe maybe it doesn't matter.

00:16:47.88
Nathan Pile
Right.

00:16:48.49
Kevin Shock
It could be Esau.

00:16:48.64
Nathan Pile
Or Esau.

00:16:51.02
Kevin Shock
It could be a spirit of Esau.

00:16:51.06
Nathan Pile
esau

00:16:52.42
Kevin Shock
It could be a demon. It could be God. It could be an angel. It could be any of these things. And the bottom line is, maybe the important thing, if it were important, the text would tell us who it is.

00:17:04.93
Nathan Pile
Right, yeah

00:17:08.27
Kevin Shock
What's important is that Jacob has this fitful night of sleep and he is affected by it, afflicted by it for the rest of his life. And it changes the way that he goes through the world.

00:17:22.73
Nathan Pile
Yeah

00:17:28.40
Kevin Shock
Well, anything else?

00:17:32.53
Nathan Pile
no, no.

00:17:33.44
Kevin Shock
Okay. All right. Well, I'm going look at it a second time then. From Gen- Genesis 32, 22 to 31. And he rose on that night and took his two wives and his two slave girls and his 11 boys, and he crossed over the Jabbok Ford.

00:17:54.01
Kevin Shock
And he took them and brought them across the stream, and he brought across all that he had. And Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn. And he saw that he had not won out against him, and he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip socket was wrenched as he wrestled with him.

00:18:12.42
Kevin Shock
And he said, Let me go, for dawn is breaking. And he said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And he said to him, What is your name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Not Jacob shall your name hence be set not Jacob shall your name hence be said, but Israel, out.

00:18:29.94
Kevin Shock
for you have striven with god and men and won out And Jacob asked and said, Tell your name, pray. And he said, Why should you ask my name? And there he blessed him.

00:18:42.57
Kevin Shock
And Jacob called the same the name of the place Peniel, meaning I have seen God face to face, and I came out alive. And the sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, and he was limping on his hip.

00:18:58.01
Kevin Shock
Nathan, toward what is God calling you in this text?

00:19:02.27
Nathan Pile
um Well, there's two things I want to talk about here. And the first one isn't that have anything to do with the question.

00:19:09.33
Kevin Shock
Okay, that's great. Good, good. Go for it. ah

00:19:13.00
Nathan Pile
So this time, as you read this, I was just trying to listen about he did this and he did this.

00:19:14.04
Kevin Shock
I'm curious.

00:19:20.76
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:19:20.93
Nathan Pile
And and then um the mystery figure asks the name. and And Jacob, who becomes Israel, asks the name.

00:19:34.93
Nathan Pile
But the mystery figure will not give it.

00:19:38.63
Kevin Shock
Right.

00:19:40.13
Nathan Pile
And so there was a part of me that wonders, does Jacob think he too is to bless the other?

00:19:40.18
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:19:48.69
Nathan Pile
um the The mystery figure. Because... Like just just the way that this is, as you were reading it, this question popped into my head.

00:19:59.87
Nathan Pile
Is Jacob also trying to do what the mystery figure has done? And the mystery figure says, no, no, that's not for you to do. um

00:20:08.67
Kevin Shock
ah

00:20:10.60
Nathan Pile
Yeah, I don't know.

00:20:11.35
Kevin Shock
man, Nathan, I don't know. I don't know.

00:20:12.98
Nathan Pile
Yeah, I'm not asking you for that.

00:20:13.19
Kevin Shock
You're, you're like, you're blowing my mind here.

00:20:14.50
Nathan Pile
Yeah, I'm not asking.

00:20:16.07
Kevin Shock
Yeah. I don't know.

00:20:16.85
Nathan Pile
um Because the mystery figure is saying, why are you asking my name?

00:20:19.24
Kevin Shock
ah

00:20:21.61
Nathan Pile
Well, the mystery figure asked Jacob's name, right? So they've wrestled all night long. Like you think about going back and forth, whether it's a wrestling of of words, a wrestling of ideas, or just physical wrestling, right? They would be there.

00:20:37.16
Nathan Pile
The mystery figure would make a move and Jacob would make a move and they're countering back and forth.

00:20:40.88
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:20:42.76
Nathan Pile
Who's the dominant one in the fight? um And when it comes and and And the mystery figure will allow the wrestling to continue until it comes to blessing.

00:21:01.29
Nathan Pile
And he just doesn't, he won't respond um with the answer would that would be most typical in a tug of war. What's your name? My name is X. Instead, the mystery figure's response would be is, why should you ask my name?

00:21:19.54
Kevin Shock
Right.

00:21:20.24
Nathan Pile
So I don't know. It was something as you were reading, I was like, oh the tug of war is continuing. It's continuing. And Jacob even tries to continue the tug of war of you asked me my name and I gave it to you and you actually give me a new name.

00:21:37.07
Kevin Shock
Why? yeah

00:21:38.73
Nathan Pile
Now it's my, you know my role must be that I'm going to ask you your name. um And the mystery figure says,

00:21:48.11
Nathan Pile
No.

00:21:48.20
Kevin Shock
Why?

00:21:48.70
Nathan Pile
And then and what why? And then actually blesses Israel.

00:21:49.94
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah.

00:21:56.18
Nathan Pile
so um So that had nothing to do with what do I feel God um calling me toward in this passage.

00:22:02.57
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, good observation.

00:22:03.00
Nathan Pile
um

00:22:04.68
Kevin Shock
And and I think um we have the advantage of reading this and we have the advantage of pre-knowledge of translations that have given us enough information that to um

00:22:21.23
Kevin Shock
to interpret this text.

00:22:23.31
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:22:24.06
Kevin Shock
But if you're hearing this story for the first time and like you did listening to it, your mind is full of questions. Wait a second. Wait, who touched whose hip?

00:22:34.47
Kevin Shock
Wait, who asked whose name? Wait, who?

00:22:36.11
Nathan Pile
right Right.

00:22:36.79
Kevin Shock
Yeah, because it's not, it is not clear.

00:22:37.17
Nathan Pile
yeah

00:22:39.94
Kevin Shock
It's not clear. I mean, it's not clear upon first listen, at least. yeah You really have to you have to go back through.

00:22:44.51
Nathan Pile
Right. Yeah. Right.

00:22:46.61
Kevin Shock
And yeah, it's the man is named, I mean, as the man. And then from there, we go on two more complex sentences where only he is used.

00:22:52.65
Nathan Pile
Mm-hmm.

00:22:59.17
Nathan Pile
Correct.

00:22:59.86
Kevin Shock
and and And it gets to the point where you don't know if it's talking about the man or if it's talking about Jacob, if you're just listening to it.

00:23:05.33
Nathan Pile
which would be Which would verbally be very similar to a wrestling match, right?

00:23:10.02
Kevin Shock
it yeah Yes, yes, yes.

00:23:12.26
Nathan Pile
You know,

00:23:12.30
Kevin Shock
Thank you for saying that. Yes. Yep.

00:23:15.74
Nathan Pile
like, from ah from a word's perspective, it feels like wrestling. and And I think that's the thing that, that like, they're still wrestling even...

00:23:20.53
Kevin Shock
like

00:23:25.48
Nathan Pile
you asked me my name. Okay. And I've given my name to you and now I'm going to ask you your name. And that's when, that's when this gets to you know, that yes, we've already hurt the hip, but that's when, um,

00:23:41.64
Nathan Pile
that's when the, kind of the, um, the end is, is, you know, the, the wrestling match is brought to an end.

00:23:50.17
Kevin Shock
Yeah, this is this is total, um well, from our era, WWF. I mean, just add a couple of oohs in there. Oh, he's he's grabbing him. Oh, he won't let him go.

00:24:02.53
Kevin Shock
Oh, he's touching his hip. Oh, now he's now he's he's wrenching his hip. Oh, that's got to hurt. I mean, it's all like, it's it's it's play by play. It's color commentary on a wrestling match.

00:24:13.88
Kevin Shock
That's what it is.

00:24:14.07
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:24:14.52
Kevin Shock
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:24:15.07
Nathan Pile
yeah Yeah. So.

00:24:18.25
Kevin Shock
Well, okay, great. um'm Yeah, I'm glad you really brought that out. Yeah.

00:24:21.40
Nathan Pile
Yeah. Um, the, the, what I'm called toward is that in no way does this wrestling

00:24:34.44
Nathan Pile
feel inappropriate in this passage. Um,

00:24:38.69
Kevin Shock
ah Okay.

00:24:41.33
Nathan Pile
um, like, it's not like the mystery man says at the end, why did you do this?

00:24:53.56
Nathan Pile
um or you shouldn't have done this, or any of those things. Instead, the the wrestling is a, and I think that's one of the things, Genesis um and and Exodus were some of my early, um part of my call story. and We've talked from time to time. It took me a long time to go to seminary, and then once I was in seminary, it took me some time to go to seminary full time. And then it took me a while to finish seminary.

00:25:23.98
Nathan Pile
Um, so like in all, it took like nine years, I think when I started the candidacy process till the time I was done. Um, so that was a long time, but I used, I used the story of Noah a lot in those years of describing wandering around in the wilderness, not quite sure really what God's calling me to.

00:25:41.77
Nathan Pile
um and I would talk about that language of wrestling because of this passage. Um, And so there that for me, it still fits that that as a um as a follower of Christ, ah I still wrestle with, and I'll get into that, one I'm sure, when we get to the third question, but I still wrestle with um my call and and and wrestle with what you know God might be calling me towards.

00:26:12.86
Nathan Pile
And so it doesn't ever feel...

00:26:17.10
Nathan Pile
it's not a, it's not a peaceful process. The wrestling or the discernment would be the word that we use a lot in, in the church when we're talking about call, we're discerning a call.

00:26:28.37
Nathan Pile
Um, but it's never to me, it has never felt to me like I'm just sitting on a beach somewhere and the waves are coming in and I get divine inspiration. It's always feels more like a wrestling. Like I'm struggling. I'm having conversations. I'm, I'm staying up late at night and, and can't sleep well.

00:26:47.78
Nathan Pile
Um, and negative voices and positive voices so fighting in my own head. Um, but all of that to say, ah there was reassurance you know years ago when I read this passage and continues to be reassurance that, that, um,

00:27:06.60
Nathan Pile
Some people don't like the idea of wrestling with God. It makes them feel like they're they're doubting or don't have faith in God. And that's, again, each of us have our own systems. But for me, I...

00:27:17.81
Nathan Pile
the discernment of call never felt calm as a calm process. It was always felt like wrestling. And so this passage kind of says, it's okay to wrestle with God.

00:27:29.50
Nathan Pile
It's okay to go back and forth, have a tug of war, you might say, um or whatever image you want to use there um as a part of that. So that's um a long way of of kind of summarizing that there at the end the,

00:27:47.25
Nathan Pile
like that it's okay to wrestle. It's okay to be wrestling with God and and then it be something that is unsettling.

00:27:50.59
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:27:57.88
Nathan Pile
keeps you up at night. the Hopefully it's not multiple nights in a row and you can able to get some sleep, but um but that wrestling is is is a part of my life. And so this passage helped me to kind of feel like I'm not alone in that process. Jacob, in his own ways, wrestled with the mysterious figure.

00:28:24.41
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah. Well, um I'm just, I'm just, yeah, I'm just going to answer in reflection to yours um because mine's right alongside it.

00:28:28.57
Nathan Pile
What about you? Toward what?

00:28:36.71
Kevin Shock
ah my My quick answer to the question itself is um God is calling me to not give up the wrestling match, ah to not let go of it and And something you said, you know, you used the term call, which you and you and I use a lot.

00:28:54.22
Kevin Shock
Churchy people use it a lot. We talk about our roles in the church as a call, our vocations as a call. um That's our understanding of it. We don't we don't believe in the Lutheran tradition.

00:29:10.15
Kevin Shock
ah We greatly value the idea of vocation. And so there's not just a job, there's the thing that I think was ah Frederick Buechner who said, so I'm going to misquote him terribly, but something, and I don't i don't think used the word vocation, but ah but I'll use vocation here to paraphrase, that your vocation is the place where your passions meet the world's needs.

00:29:38.99
Kevin Shock
um

00:29:41.49
Kevin Shock
And so... um

00:29:45.40
Kevin Shock
Yeah, so we talk about ah pastors, deacons, church musicians, you know people who minister in different ways. so We talk about this as a call. This is something that's more than just, I'm not just doing this for a paycheck.

00:29:59.71
Kevin Shock
um but that's But it's not in the Lutheran understanding. It's not limited to people in church work. teachers, ah yeah educators, but even plumbers, um you know, anybody, anybody who does work that serves people in some way, and it's something that they're good at and something that they love farmers.

00:30:24.04
Kevin Shock
ah ah You know, I mean, I could just I could just go down the list. I'm not I'm not trying to like pick and choose necessarily. and just having trouble thinking of careers and vocations. But um

00:30:36.44
Nathan Pile
Well, but I think your quoting of Buechner, I think, is good for us.

00:30:36.76
Kevin Shock
all of

00:30:41.89
Nathan Pile
Anywhere where our passion intersects the world's need is, you know, that is that is a place of vocation, a place of call, we might say.

00:30:45.07
Kevin Shock
Yeah. yeah

00:30:50.18
Kevin Shock
yeah and it may not Yeah. And it may not actually even be the thing that you do for money.

00:30:58.07
Nathan Pile
Right?

00:30:58.69
Kevin Shock
you you may

00:30:58.74
Nathan Pile
Oh, absolutely.

00:30:59.96
Kevin Shock
You may do something for money so that you have you have funding and room and time to engage your call. um

00:31:09.34
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:31:10.15
Kevin Shock
That could, that can be another way to look at it. I think of, I think of Lisa, my spouse, her, her job, her career is a calling. It's a, it's a call.

00:31:21.47
Kevin Shock
I mean, that's, I don't know that she would describe it that way, But she brings great love and passion for what she does. And there's a great need for it in our community and most communities.

00:31:33.65
Kevin Shock
and um And she's committed to it. She's dedicated to it. And um it it it fits like it checks all of the boxes of call.

00:31:43.84
Nathan Pile
Hmm. Hmm.

00:31:44.32
Kevin Shock
so Anyway, ah but I think used that word call. um And what I heard as you were talking about call is that this wrestling isn't just about our career or our job. It's about our place in the world.

00:32:00.28
Kevin Shock
It's about figuring out where the place that God has created for us in the world. and and where we fit in, in not just job-related stuff, but in our relationships with one another, in our place in the church, in the in the community of God's people.

00:32:19.60
Kevin Shock
um Yeah, this this wrestling is about figuring out our place in the world. And here for Jacob, it's about figuring out ah when I meet Esau, because I know he's coming, is he going to be is he going to be upset with me?

00:32:37.60
Kevin Shock
Like, is he, has he been carrying this his whole life? Is he going to try to kill me? Or is there going to be a different outcome? And, and Jacob is erring on the side of, he's going to try to kill and pillage him.

00:32:51.10
Kevin Shock
That's why he separates from his wives, his, uh, as it's translated here, slave girls and all of the stuff he owns.

00:32:54.13
Nathan Pile
Hmm.

00:32:59.35
Nathan Pile
Yeah, put them on the ah the safe side of the river.

00:32:59.85
Kevin Shock
He doesn't, he, right, right, right. He's right. He's trying to create a, ah a space of safety for everyone, everyone else and everything he owns.

00:33:11.65
Kevin Shock
um But spoiler alert, that's not how the story goes.

00:33:19.76
Kevin Shock
Esau instead brings reconciliation, but nevertheless, I don't- would, would the reconciliation have happened without the wrestling? Maybe. um But the wrestling is a crucial part of it.

00:33:32.74
Kevin Shock
Because this is Jacob trying to figure out, okay, what's my what's my relationship with my brother? since i Since I did something to destroy that relationship, what's what's my place in the world? I don't think that Jacob says necessarily, what's God calling me to do in this? Although that may very well, that may not be explicit, but it may be implied.

00:33:53.15
Kevin Shock
um And so, yeah, I think that this is this is about, the wrestling match is about finding your place in the world. And there may be times of your life where the your place in the world or your place in your family or your place in your church or however you want to think about it might be very easily defined. It might be obvious to you and to other people.

00:34:17.46
Kevin Shock
But there are also going to be times where it's not. and and And you're going to have to do some work on figuring out, okay, what who am I in this group of people? and and who and And therefore, then, what is God's Where is God calling?

00:34:34.42
Kevin Shock
What's the place that God is giving me? Where am I being called to go and how am I being called to interact and and all of those kinds of things? So, yeah, I think for me, it's not giving up the wrestling match. And I, and I have seen that in my life.

00:34:48.86
Kevin Shock
I don't think...

00:34:51.80
Kevin Shock
ah but From the time that I like made the

00:35:02.33
Kevin Shock
From the time that it became, and I'm trying to think of how to say this the best way, an option for me to go into public ministry, I don't think that there has been a period of more than six months where I haven't constantly been thinking about, okay, is this where I'm supposed to be?

00:35:20.80
Kevin Shock
Is this what I'm supposed to be doing? Is this how I'm called to be among these people? For me, I think it's a constant thing.

00:35:30.99
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:35:31.64
Kevin Shock
I think I think making the decision to go to seminary was a part of it. I think all through seminary, was asking that question into my first call. And then, you know, every, every little bit during my first call, I was asking that question.

00:35:45.49
Kevin Shock
Not like I was constantly looking to leave, but but I wanted to stay on top of what God was actually calling me to do there. so um and And it's been the same for me into my second call as well.

00:36:02.99
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:36:04.02
Kevin Shock
So, yeah.

00:36:04.67
Nathan Pile
Well, and, and we'll probably get into, well, let's just get into the third question. That way I don't feel like I'm launching us someplace.

00:36:09.26
Kevin Shock
Okay. All right.

00:36:10.91
Nathan Pile
So let's do a third time and then we'll, um because I think I would completely agree with you that, that it's not like I had discerned a call, you know, in 2000, er, in 1998 when I graduated college um and then, you know, discerned another call.

00:36:11.94
Kevin Shock
Okay. All right.

00:36:30.12
Nathan Pile
four years after that or you know anything like that.

00:36:31.44
Kevin Shock
Right.

00:36:32.20
Nathan Pile
So, all right, let's this for a third time.

00:36:32.18
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm. Mm hmm.

00:36:37.38
Kevin Shock
okay

00:36:41.09
Nathan Pile
And he rose on the that night and took his two wives and his two slave girls and his 11 boys and crossed over the Jabbok Ford.

00:36:52.44
Nathan Pile
He took them and brought them across the stream and he brought across all that he had. And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn.

00:37:05.12
Nathan Pile
And he saw that he had not won out against him. And he touched his hip socket. And Jacob's hip socket was wrenched as he wrestled with him. And he said, let me go for dawn is breaking.

00:37:17.89
Nathan Pile
And he said, i will not let you go unless you bless me. And he said to him, what is your name? And Jacob, and he said, Jacob. And he said,

00:37:29.20
Nathan Pile
not Jacob shall your name hence be said but Israel for you have striven with god and men and one out and Jacob asked and said tell your name pray and he said why should you ask my name and then he blessed him And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, meaning I have seen God face to face and I came out alive.

00:37:56.60
Nathan Pile
And the sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, and he was limping on his hip.

00:38:07.28
Nathan Pile
Kevin, what are you wrestling with?

00:38:10.92
Kevin Shock
and I mean, I think I answered it already. I'm wrestling with my place in the world. ah um but Not in the world. ah My place in the church. I'm wrestling with it.

00:38:21.77
Kevin Shock
um um You know.

00:38:24.40
Nathan Pile
Do you find, big this is the ah direction that I'm curious about, you have already said that you feel like that that discernment, that wrestling has happened all of the all of the time since you've discerned a call to public ministry.

00:38:40.04
Nathan Pile
um Do you find that that discernment gets, um like I think the way I would describe it would be in cycles, there's always some discernment happening.

00:38:52.65
Nathan Pile
But do you have you found in your time of this of public ministry, does it feel like there are maybe waves instead of cycles?

00:38:53.22
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:39:02.94
Nathan Pile
That there's a high high points where you feel like you're doing a lot of discernment right now, and then ah then then maybe you're coasting a little bit, and then um and then you're back into that high the high part of a wave again, and you're doing a lot of discernment.

00:39:18.16
Nathan Pile
How would you describe this This flow of um of discernment, of wrestling.

00:39:29.88
Nathan Pile
Because maybe you have a different way of describing it than a wave.

00:39:30.06
Kevin Shock
Um,

00:39:31.96
Nathan Pile
Maybe there's some other way you might describe it.

00:39:33.62
Kevin Shock
no, no. I mean, I think, I think that's a fine way to describe it. I, yeah, I mean, I'll be honest, ah external circumstances cause waves of discernment.

00:39:43.88
Nathan Pile
Yeah, yeah.

00:39:44.98
Kevin Shock
Um, you know,

00:39:48.11
Kevin Shock
a, a spouse is looking at another job, um, ah you know, for some people, things aren't, things aren't going well at their current place of employment or call that would, that would kickstart the cycle if it weren't there already.

00:40:05.82
Kevin Shock
Um, I think, ah

00:40:12.46
Kevin Shock
yeah, I mean, you know, but let's not talk around it anymore. We're heading into a Bishop's election in our Synod, um, assembly at the end of the... Well, it'll as this podcast drops, it'll just be ah a couple of weeks away.

00:40:27.86
Kevin Shock
ah And I um,

00:40:33.74
Kevin Shock
four years ago, opened myself to the call of Bishop and was incredibly relieved when I didn't, when I didn't get it.

00:40:44.84
Kevin Shock
um But that was a, um that well, I had a ah had a sleepless night. ah I'll be honest, during that assembly, I had, I had a sleepless night.

00:40:55.72
Nathan Pile
yeah

00:40:57.38
Kevin Shock
I had a I had what I would describe as nothing less than a Jacob night. um Where, o yeah, it was, you know, what if this happens?

00:41:10.60
Kevin Shock
Am I the right person? What will I do if I'm called? You know, um but then it's not just my place in the world. It's a... it's a It's, you know, there are all kinds of other people who will be affected by this. So I, I think since um, since our previous bishop, Paula Lebo, announced her resignation, I have been wrestling.

00:41:39.05
Kevin Shock
And it's and it's in fact, it's more than just... Am I supposed to be the next bishop or is it somebody else? It's more, it's more than just that. It's, um, it's, I've, I've run the gamut of wrestling with, should I open myself to the call of Bishop to, should I still serve in the office of the Bishop or should I go back to serving parish ministry to, I'll be honest, there have been times where, um, what are my other options?

00:42:12.29
Kevin Shock
ah Like, like,

00:42:13.39
Nathan Pile
yeah

00:42:13.66
Kevin Shock
and no no I mean, I'll, I'll be honest, ah where um where outside the church am I called to make money right now so I can keep doing ministry?

00:42:15.32
Nathan Pile
Meatpacker.

00:42:22.57
Kevin Shock
um And that, and yeah, no, that I don't say that lightly because that has that has happened in this past year for me. there were There were times, there have been times when I've seen myself as being at least a decent candidate for the office of for the role of Bishop times when I've seen myself as being, yes, that my, my role is somewhere in the office of the Bishop and times where I was ready to just leave ministry entirely for, for at least a season so I could reset.

00:42:57.70
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:42:58.53
Kevin Shock
Um, oh, and, and congregational life, it was in there too. Um, So, yeah, it's like, obviously, that's what I'm wrestling with now. I'm still wrestling with it. And and i I have never been a person who gives up the wrestle. I've never been a person.

00:43:15.46
Kevin Shock
I can't make a decision. I'll be honest with you. that's Some people see that as a good thing and some people see it as a bad thing. My wife, I think, is frustrated with me right now because, you know, one day I'll be like,

00:43:27.82
Kevin Shock
yeah, I'm, I'm probably just going to leave the office of the bishop after someone else gets elected. And then you know a week later, it'll be like, well, I think I might be open to the office of the bishop. And she's like, what happened? Where, what changed?

00:43:41.63
Nathan Pile
It's a roller coaster, honey.

00:43:42.00
Kevin Shock
what What changed?

00:43:42.74
Nathan Pile
It's a roller coaster.

00:43:43.15
Kevin Shock
Yeah, no, it is a roller coaster. And it's OK if I'm on the roller coaster.

00:43:44.93
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:43:46.27
Kevin Shock
But when the roller coaster, when we pull into the station and I say ah to all the people who are on board with me, OK, let's just go.

00:43:47.97
Nathan Pile
Includes others.

00:43:54.51
Kevin Shock
Don't get off. We're going another round. ah I can imagine it gets a little frustrating. But Lisa and I had a conversation yesterday that I said, I don't want to have this conversation right now because I don't feel like I'm prepared for it.

00:44:08.60
Kevin Shock
And then we had it anyway. um And it was another, well, what changed? What's different? What's different from a week ago when we had this conversation? and And for me, the difference was Bishop's Convocation.

00:44:23.31
Kevin Shock
And I said, nothing specific about the, the office has changed necessarily. But for the first time in the past year, I, I was, I was in the presence of 35 other people who were all talking about this.

00:44:38.59
Kevin Shock
And so I was hearing feedback, not just for myself, but for the you know feedback on the office. I was hearing what peo- what other people were thinking. I was hearing what they were wrestling with themselves.

00:44:49.87
Kevin Shock
ah you know it like and it And that changes the landscape for me.

00:44:54.92
Nathan Pile
Hmm.

00:44:55.32
Kevin Shock
And so the wrestling continues. and And I will,

00:45:01.01
Kevin Shock
and until 10/15, the morning of October thirty first when the first ballot is cast and I have to make a decision as to whether to leave my name in or not, I will be wrestling with this.

00:45:19.18
Kevin Shock
And then depending on what I choose in that moment, I will ah be wrestling one way or another it still, still after the fact.

00:45:25.13
Nathan Pile
Sure, sure.

00:45:28.95
Kevin Shock
So yeah, I, yeah, I mean, but but that's, but it's more than just, it's more than just, will I make a good Bishop? It's, it's show me what, you know, the the questions that I want to ask the mystery figure aren't just, I want to ask them their name, but I also want to ask, you know, what, where's the church headed? Show me like, you know, give me a direction.

00:45:51.63
Kevin Shock
um Who are the other people that you're, that you're wrestling with right now? I mean, that's an important thing for me to know. Like this just isn't, this isn't like a one-on-one wrestling match. This is a I don't know. The wrestling matches ah amongst a whole bunch of people.

00:46:10.98
Kevin Shock
Like we each individually might be wrestling with God or the angel or ah or the spirit of the human who plagues us or some kind of demon even, but, but there are a lot of people wrestling.

00:46:22.49
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:46:23.56
Kevin Shock
And I'm just talking about this one particular situation. I think that everybody is wrestling with what their place in the world is.

00:46:33.57
Kevin Shock
So what about you, Nathan?

00:46:34.42
Nathan Pile
yeah

00:46:35.36
Kevin Shock
What are you wrestling with?

00:46:35.40
Nathan Pile
Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm in, first, to just off of your reflection, I would absolutely agree. I think 100% we are all wrestling. And I hope we see it as wrestling and even in the hopeful light of this piece of scripture.

00:46:44.37
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:46:50.35
Nathan Pile
And that we don't see it as, I'm a bad Christian because I, I'm, I'm wrestling with God. But and rather be that it that it is a positive thing, um the wrestling. the the and And you said at the very beginning of your reflection, you used ah public, there was public something, public...

00:47:16.75
Nathan Pile
um essentially public support, but people kind of, the public, eventually you you shared that there was an election of Bishop, but it's, it's like, um, public, um, come on.

00:47:27.34
Kevin Shock
Hmm.

00:47:31.03
Kevin Shock
I'm trying to think of what I said.

00:47:31.76
Nathan Pile
I use it. I use it myself at times. Um, but essentially somebody from the outside world comes up and says to you, I think you could lead us in this way. Um, um,

00:47:44.09
Nathan Pile
ah kind of a thing. And so it's, it's an outside person coming and, uh, uh, I almost had it. Um,

00:47:54.20
Kevin Shock
Well, I mean, in, in our tradition, we call it external call.

00:47:58.45
Nathan Pile
external call. There we go. Thanks.

00:47:59.86
Kevin Shock
Okay.

00:48:00.40
Nathan Pile
Um, so the public external call, I think it was the way that you phrased it at the beginning.

00:48:00.42
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:48:06.26
Nathan Pile
it And I think for all of us, hopefully there's public external call. Um, and, and,

00:48:12.32
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah. Like someone, someone even, even as basic as someone else saying, Hey, you're good at what you do.

00:48:18.40
Nathan Pile
Right. Right.

00:48:19.21
Kevin Shock
Yeah. That like, that's, that's external call.

00:48:20.04
Nathan Pile
Yeah. Yes.

00:48:22.47
Kevin Shock
That's affirmation.

00:48:22.87
Nathan Pile
um And we should be and we also should be a part of that with others in our lives.

00:48:23.15
Kevin Shock
Sure. Yeah.

00:48:27.57
Kevin Shock
Absolutely, 100%.

00:48:27.69
Nathan Pile
yeah

00:48:28.33
Kevin Shock
Yeah, yeah.

00:48:28.69
Nathan Pile
um Figuring out ways that that we can be part of that external call, telling others, hey, you're good at this.

00:48:36.25
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:48:36.29
Nathan Pile
Or I think you have some of the gifts that we need to be a leader of XYZ.

00:48:36.96
Kevin Shock
yeah

00:48:42.03
Nathan Pile
It could be the local nonprofit down the street that feeds ah the hungry neighbors.

00:48:45.48
Kevin Shock
Yeah, it

00:48:47.43
Nathan Pile
it could be It could be your profession and it could be your hobby, um whatever that would be. um

00:48:55.38
Kevin Shock
yeah it could be even more than that.

00:48:55.50
Nathan Pile
But that piece of, right, it could be more than that. And so any of that that is a public service So there's a part of public call that I think is, is, is important. um

00:49:07.94
Nathan Pile
As we do this and, and I appreciate your vulnerability, both sharing with all of us. um As I read your questions today, I was like, well, there's no way I can get around this. I too have to, I do have to publicly say something.

00:49:19.70
Kevin Shock
I thought, I thought it was too obvious not to ask. I don't, I don't know.

00:49:24.35
Nathan Pile
Yeah, well, it is.

00:49:25.10
Kevin Shock
ah

00:49:25.19
Nathan Pile
I think it's true.

00:49:25.86
Kevin Shock
I just, I just kind of, I, I, I wrestled with whether even to write that question.

00:49:26.50
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

00:49:30.43
Kevin Shock
and I thought, no, that's just that's just the question.

00:49:31.10
Nathan Pile
Sure, because it would have been a lot safer.

00:49:33.21
Kevin Shock
It would have been a lot safer.

00:49:33.56
Nathan Pile
Kevin and I wouldn't have to say anything.

00:49:34.33
Kevin Shock
You're right.

00:49:36.41
Nathan Pile
um Because I, too, wrestle with

00:49:37.03
Kevin Shock
Right. and Yeah.

00:49:38.74
Nathan Pile
with discernment in this time. I've, you know, I've been at Sequanota for 13 years um and before that, three years before that.

00:49:41.22
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:49:46.26
Nathan Pile
So we've been around 16 years as a, as a director of some sort in this location. And so um it doesn't seem like that long, but it, but you know, you look on a calendar, it, it, you know, racks up after a while.

00:49:58.51
Kevin Shock
that long. Sure.

00:50:01.99
Nathan Pile
But, but yeah so I'm in my ah own discernment and, and I would say that I've run the same gambit, that you've run um of, you know, in ministry, in the synod.

00:50:13.75
Nathan Pile
um I also serve in in Lutheran Outdoor Ministries. and And so I've discerned whether or not, you know, do I put my name forward? We have a position in our national network of ah someone leading that.

00:50:22.80
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:50:24.47
Nathan Pile
And so I've been in discernment about that. And and do I go back to the parish? Because we know if you're a regular listener, you know, Kevin and I talk about that the church, church is shifting and our congregations are shifting. And so um might I be able to support a congregation in a different way in this time that rather than just camp?

00:50:46.98
Nathan Pile
um and And then as as you share, I too have looked at, well, maybe there's it's time to be a season outside the church now. Um, uh, and so, uh, those pieces of discernment, I think one of the things in my discernment, um, that someone asked me again, an external person came up and was talking to me about this, but the question that they asked me has, has continued to ring in my ears.

00:50:57.19
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:51:14.96
Nathan Pile
Um, what voice do you feel God calling you to share for the next 10 years?

00:51:20.75
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:51:23.00
Nathan Pile
Um, and, um, And that fits about right. 15 years would be, you know, if if I'm smart about everything, I, I might be able to retire 15 years, but I'd really have to be good with my investments, I guess.

00:51:40.59
Nathan Pile
but But like, ah what what do i really want to say? um and does that, do these different contexts also provide a place to do that? Because I don't want to go into the wrong context if I feel like,

00:51:56.84
Nathan Pile
Um, you know, one of the things that, that working at camp, um, and, and really since I was a young man and, and, um, grew up in the family that I grew up in, I've always had a connection to our natural world.

00:52:10.66
Nathan Pile
And so I do feel strongly about our natural world. When I went to college, I was a conservation biologist along with ah a religion major and, um, And so I learned about you know climate change and everything back then Then we called it global warming because we were still trying to figure out what, what, what, what the right name was.

00:52:29.61
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:52:29.86
Nathan Pile
um But we only have one planet and I'm pretty passionate that we need to do a better job of caring for that one planet. A, because I have a kid and I want my kid to be able to live on the planet um long after me and then her family to also be able to live on the planet long after me.

00:52:48.25
Nathan Pile
Um, and so we, it's, it's uncomfortable. It's inconvenient. The, the realities that we have to decisions we're going to have to make. Um, but we need to make some of those decisions so that we can protect the planet that is, has for all of life protected the rest of the planet.

00:53:10.12
Nathan Pile
Uh, the natural world has allowed life to occur in this place.

00:53:10.55
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:53:13.92
Nathan Pile
Um, And so when we're doing so much damage to that natural world, we have to make different choices. And that might mean some uncomfortableness for us, some other changes, maybe it's more expensive, whatever.

00:53:29.05
Nathan Pile
um But that's one of the things that in the last month and a half, two months that I've come back to saying, this is really important to me. And so wherever I discern to be called, I have to be able to talk about that.

00:53:42.92
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:53:43.61
Nathan Pile
Um, and community is another one of those pieces. Um, and so those, so those are the things that I've wrestled with figuring out what, what voice, um, or what do I want to, um, you know I think God gives all of us, uh, the gift of voice and, and that we're, each of us are gifted in in certain ways to be able to say certain things for people, uh, so that others can hear it.

00:54:06.90
Nathan Pile
Um, and so, um,

00:54:10.72
Nathan Pile
you know, what is it, what are the things that I feel passionate about? And, and again, the great, that, that your quote earlier, you know, what, what is it that I'm passionate about that I want to intersect with what the the needs are of this planet.

00:54:24.87
Nathan Pile
And and I think, um, the natural world and our relationship with it, it's one of those. And our relationship with each other is another big part of that. Um, one of the things that I have discerned is,

00:54:38.02
Nathan Pile
um is that I, I know um the idea of being a meat packer sometimes or a butcher sometimes is very very appealing to me um but i've i've realized that through some of this discernment is the reality is that I love god and and i want to make sure to be able to share that message that god loves others um

00:55:05.24
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:55:05.55
Nathan Pile
has kind of boiled to the top for me. um Like I can't, and I don't wanna stop doing that.

00:55:08.27
Kevin Shock
here

00:55:12.75
Nathan Pile
And so even if I guess I could be a butcher and do something else in some way of telling, um I find that ministry continues to be one of those outlets.

00:55:13.39
Kevin Shock
yeah

00:55:21.56
Nathan Pile
So I've been able to check off one thing of like, I know I wanna continue to be in ministry of some sort. um um those other The other things, community, the natural world, that's still some discernment about.

00:55:34.93
Nathan Pile
how and what that looks like. Um, but, but the, uh, being able to to talk about, um, the relationship that I have with God, um has all, you know when I discerned my first, um, call to ministry, that was something that, that happened, you know, I might've shared this in the last three years, some point in time.

00:55:58.35
Nathan Pile
Um, one of the I had one of these decisions right after college that I needed to make of of whether or not I was going to go work at a camp that was not a Christian camp. They offered me a job um to be a program director.

00:56:12.39
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:56:12.67
Nathan Pile
And so I could go and work with them immediately after college or... I could do something else. And so they offered me a job.

00:56:20.67
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:56:21.49
Nathan Pile
And one of the things that came up for me was I happened to be, well, it wasn't right after it was supposed to start in the fall. So I had a summer and I was, I served in an ah an outdoor ministry.

00:56:32.37
Nathan Pile
in upstate New York that summer. And one of the things that came clear one of those nights was that I was leading worship and playing the guitar. And you know, the moment um that discernment process, all of a sudden it ran over me that in this new job, I wouldn't be able to talk about God.

00:56:51.11
Nathan Pile
And I realized then and there that I couldn't take the job in the middle of that worship service.

00:56:56.79
Kevin Shock
Yeah, sure.

00:56:57.51
Nathan Pile
um And so that that has impacted me. And and you know now, how many later? Over 30. Over 30 years later, still...

00:57:08.75
Kevin Shock
yeah sure

00:57:09.21
Nathan Pile
um ah the i still wrestle with, you know, is that a piece? and And I've come back around that that answer is still the same as it was, you know, 30 years ago um of being able to to talk about my relationship with God is something am I'm going to want to do.

00:57:32.82
Nathan Pile
And I don't want to be in a job that says you can't talk about it.

00:57:36.44
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:57:36.74
Nathan Pile
um You know, because that was one of the things we talked about in the interview was I was like, well, no I'm a Christian. Can I talk about my relationship with God? And They said, well, you can talk about spirituality, but you can't talk about God. And so that became, I didn't know it until that moment, standing and leading worship that night down by the lake.

00:57:48.18
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:57:54.53
Nathan Pile
But when it happened, it, you know, it helped to kind of put all the pieces, but ah but it was a lot of discernment leading up to that moment in time to get you there.

00:58:01.11
Kevin Shock
yeah yeah

00:58:03.18
Nathan Pile
And so um

00:58:06.44
Nathan Pile
that discernment, you know, continues for us. And I appreciate the idea. that idea To me, it does feel a little wavy. that Hence the reason I picked that image that There's times that I feel like I'm really, like right now feels like a time of, of um there's there's external call and other other things that are kind of causing me to have to do a little bit more discernment.

00:58:29.19
Nathan Pile
I'm always discerning, as you as you shared earlier. There's always some level of discernment of, you know, maybe it's a new program, we're running a camp or, ah or an idea, should we run that new program?

00:58:37.73
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:58:40.21
Nathan Pile
Um, or is it a new way to kind of get to gather people together? You know, is this the right way to go about that? Or, you know, so there's always those kinds of discernments that that's constantly happening, but, um, every now and then there's these bigger, these bigger, um, cycles of discernment, um,

00:58:59.03
Nathan Pile
And, and each cycle, I would say gets a little bit more complicated because there's, for me, there's more family on board than, than, you know, when you're 18 or 21 25 kind of thing.

00:59:10.90
Nathan Pile
So, um, so.

00:59:11.44
Kevin Shock
sure right right yeah

00:59:12.26
Nathan Pile
Hmm. twenty five kind of a thing so um

00:59:18.57
Nathan Pile
so

00:59:19.29
Kevin Shock
yeah well thanks Nathan I mean I yeah that's yeah I think we both have been pretty honest and clear about the ways that this wrestling match occurs in our lives um and and i And hearing you talk, you said something I can't remember exactly what it was, but two things I kind of want to end with before we look at our um other readings.

00:59:49.37
Kevin Shock
One, ah the Buechner quote I did, it was easily Google-able.

00:59:54.45
Nathan Pile
Findable. Yeah.

00:59:55.14
Kevin Shock
Yeah, um his his quote is the place, and interesting that he uses place because that's something that I was talking about.

01:00:01.88
Nathan Pile
Hmm.

01:00:02.64
Kevin Shock
So place and vocation, I think are interesting. deeply related. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

01:00:14.87
Kevin Shock
And that, yeah, I mean, I think, again, that can be, that can be all kinds of different calls, vocations. So a little, I want to give our listeners a little piece of homework this week.

01:00:29.89
Kevin Shock
And you can let us know via email or social media, how it goes for you or what what you did to complete this homework. um But, you know, in that talk about your talk about external call, Nathan, you use that word affirmation.

01:00:47.00
Kevin Shock
And I think that um I think that affirming other people is a gift. ah It's a gift that we can give to somebody else. And I think what it does, what that gift does is it allows us to affirm the place where someone is, the the work that they're doing, the the vocation that they have taken up.

01:01:10.03
Kevin Shock
um And it does not have to be related to their work. So some ah some examples I can think of, um

01:01:18.43
Kevin Shock
I can see that you're such a good mom.

01:01:23.48
Kevin Shock
that's it That's a great affirmation of vocation. Or you bake the best cakes. but That's a great affirmation of vocation. Or ah thanks for helping me with this project.

01:01:32.13
Nathan Pile
yeah

01:01:34.54
Kevin Shock
I never would have been able to get this done on my own. that's like That's a great affirmation of vocation. um Even something as simple as I always enjoy spending time with you.

01:01:49.59
Kevin Shock
because Because friendship is a vocation too.

01:01:52.50
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

01:01:52.97
Kevin Shock
um So yeah, so go out there listeners and give someone, affirm someone in their calling, however you see it to be. It doesn't have to be complex. You don't have to overthink it.

01:02:03.42
Kevin Shock
Give someone a compliment um that that draws a little bit of light to the person they are and and what they do in the world. So, all right, well, let's look at... ah Let's look at some additional texts if you want to keep talking about all this kind of stuff.

01:02:20.80
Kevin Shock
um Psalm 121, my help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. 2 Timothy 3, 14-4, 5, in the presence of Christ the judge, proclaim the message.

01:02:36.21
Kevin Shock
ah Luke 18, the widow begs for justice. God grants justice to those who cry to him. And then our text from the the broad reading of Hebrew scripture, Jeremiah 31 verses 27 to 34, the Lord promises a new covenant.

01:02:55.52
Kevin Shock
And Psalm 119 verses 97 to 104, your words are sweet to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Well, Nathan, I really, I mean, I always appreciate the reflections you shared, but, um, uh, since we were talking about wrestling matches today, I really and grateful for hearing what you have to say and what you have to share. And, and friends, we hope that our reflections, uh, cause you to have some deep reflections of your own. And, and in addition to the affirmations you share, we would love to hear some of the wrestling matches that you're involved in.

01:03:31.92
Kevin Shock
Um, I think even that helps ah to affirm one another that this wrestling is not an unusual thing, but it's ah it's a good and a holy thing too.

01:03:42.04
Nathan Pile
now.

01:03:42.60
Kevin Shock
So we hope to tend our faith with you again soon.

01:03:42.74
Nathan Pile
Yes.

01:03:45.88
Kevin Shock
Grace to you.

01:03:47.59
Nathan Pile
And peace.