S4 Episode 18: Ephesians 5:8-14

Translation: Common English Bible (CEB)

3 Questions:

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

Toward what is God calling you in this text?

How do you determine what is pleasing to the Lord?

Additional texts:

1 Samuel 16:1-13

Psalm 23

John 9:1-41

Transcript

00:02.34
Nathan Pile
Dun dunna dun dun dun da 

00:06.46
Nathan Pile
Welcome back to Tend: a Bible Podcast. This week we'll be hosted with Bishop Kevin Shock. I would say newly, but it's not really new. It's like two weeks old now.

00:19.73
Nathan Pile
Almost two weeks, not quite.

00:22.78
Kevin Shock
Well, as of the...

00:23.93
Nathan Pile
But as of the, as of the actually dropping of this, yeah, as the dropping of this, it'll be like a month and it'll be old hat by then.

00:23.98
Kevin Shock
No, it's more than two weeks as of the recording.

00:31.78
Nathan Pile
Um, so kind of like, kind of like my friend, he's kind of and like an old hat because by then he'll have a, yet another birthday.

00:37.08
Kevin Shock
Like an old hat. Mm-hmm.

00:39.29
Nathan Pile
birthday So, um, so he'll be, he'll be a very old hat by then.

00:41.66
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:45.02
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

00:45.18
Nathan Pile
Um, we'll have to change, we'll have to change our intro again.

00:46.20
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

00:49.75
Nathan Pile
um

00:50.78
Kevin Shock
No.

00:54.30
Kevin Shock
Yeah, an old hat. like old So, old hat. Comfortable. Uh, Broken in.

01:01.60
Nathan Pile
Hmm.

01:02.13
Kevin Shock
Fraying at the edges.

01:03.96
Nathan Pile
Sweat stains. It's got sweat stains.

01:05.78
Kevin Shock
Well, yeah, but that doesn't, I'm looking for more general descriptions instead of something so specific. um but I was going to say a little smelly too, but that's, yeah, yeah.

01:16.98
Nathan Pile
A little smelly. There we go. There we go. All right. um So it is, ah Kevin and I are overjoyed to ah be back together and chatting this week. We have kept it to an hour and 15 minutes of time.

01:34.92
Nathan Pile
pre-conversation before we actually started to record. So, um, cause now we're on a deadline.

01:38.74
Kevin Shock
Right. Yeah.

01:40.21
Nathan Pile
We really have to get things done. So, um, but it is good to be together.

01:42.87
Kevin Shock
yeah

01:44.33
Nathan Pile
This, um, this week's reading is Ephesians chapter five. Um, and we're going to be looking at verses eight 14. um Bishop and I will be reading from the Common English Bible translation.

02:02.87
Nathan Pile
And you can use whatever Bible is close at hand or, or you can find it on BibleGateway.com or the Bible Gateway app that you can look up the Common English Bible.

02:17.05
Nathan Pile
ah Three questions, which is our tradition to look at the passage from three different perspectives or three different questions. I guess we're really only looking at it from two perspectives, Kevin's perspective and my perspective today, but, but three questions to help us dig a little deeper into it. So what word, phrase, or image strikes you in this text toward what is God calling you in this text?

02:41.37
Nathan Pile
And the third question this week, how do you determine what is pleasing to the Lord? Oh, geez.

02:50.75
Kevin Shock
Hey, it comes right out of the text.

02:51.70
Nathan Pile
Great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:54.20
Kevin Shock
ah here's Here's some information about your hosts.

02:55.38
Nathan Pile
That's...

02:58.02
Kevin Shock
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.

03:09.37
Kevin Shock
All of this affects how we read scripture and discuss it, but none of this makes us better able to read and discuss scripture than anyone else. We believe that the wisdom of Scripture is the whole community's compiled interpretation for life with God and one another.

03:22.78
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

03:26.42
Kevin Shock
So we want to know what you hear and think from your life experience. As Pastor Nathan said, Ephesians 5 verses 8 through 14 from the Common English Bible.

03:42.01
Kevin Shock
You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. So live your life as children of light. Light produces fruit that consists of every sort of goodness, justice, and truth.

03:55.17
Kevin Shock
Therefore, test everything to see what's pleasing to the Lord, and don't participate in the unfruitful actions of darkness. Instead, you should reveal the truth about them. It's embarrassing to even talk about what certain persons do in secret.

04:09.56
Kevin Shock
But everything exposed to the light is revealed by the light. Everything that is revealed by the light is light. Therefore, it says, wake up, sleeper, get up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

04:24.09
Kevin Shock
If you are meeting with another person or a group, listening with another person or a group, you can pause the podcast and ah talk about those three questions on your own. Nathan, what word, phrase, or image strikes you in this text?

04:40.22
Nathan Pile
um Well, there was two

04:46.71
Kevin Shock
Okay, I guess you can talk about two things.

04:47.22
Nathan Pile
here. um Well, I'm, I'm, I'm going to use the the second one first because I want to use the first one in a larger conversation with you, my friend. the...

05:01.94
Nathan Pile
ah the test everything to see what's pleasing to you is is the phrase that caught my ear. um And and um we've talked about this from time to time that you know my first my first area of academic study at college was biology. And so I was, ah and still am in some ways, a scientist.

05:25.24
Nathan Pile
And so that idea of test of testing everything, um it kind of gave me ah an interesting thought of like test everything to see what's pleasing to the Lord. And so then again, I also know where your third question now comes from. um the But that idea of how do we test that? How do we,

05:49.59
Nathan Pile
um as as disciples of Christ, as followers of the way, what are ways that we... test that and then get data back from the test. And so I just had my, my head kind of spinning and thinking about not so much test tubes, but um one of the, I took several classes on animal behavior in my biology degree.

06:14.14
Nathan Pile
and um And so we were constantly looking at at animal behaviors and things that they would do and things that would cause them to do other things. Some of those animals that we studied were humans.

06:26.36
Nathan Pile
like like I can remember it was an interesting experiment. I sat in the in the ah cafeteria at the at the college. I went early. I was supposed to go early and be there the whole dinner period.

06:40.95
Nathan Pile
And all I did was watch how one person would sit down and then how would another person interact with, with them when they sat down at the table. Would they sit directly across from them? that Would they sit next to them?

06:54.07
Nathan Pile
you know, was it, you know, and and then to try to understand what kinds of, you know, what kinds of social behaviors they were and you know, you know, were they close friends, were they not, you know so what kind of assumptions could you make from their behavior as they, as they sat down together and if they sat at rectangular tables and round tables and, So it's just interesting. so, So all of that kind of says, like, okay, so what are the things that we're, you know, if we're to test everything, um you know, we're to be watching for those reactions to to the things that we do and how we, you know,

07:39.26
Nathan Pile
you know if we do something and we hurt somebody else that might be considered not a a pleasing thing to the lord right ah from what we know about god from scripture itself when we hurt each other it's probably not a it's probably not pleasing um so what are those you know how do we watch the things that we do again as a scientist you, I, you know in this scenario, I sat by myself, right? and

08:10.36
Nathan Pile
And it was hard because I'd have friends that would want to come and sit down with me and I'd be like, I'm sorry, I'm doing homework. you know and that So we have that, but like I had to kind of keep myself separate, right? I had to keep kind of stay out of what was happening so that I could observe what was happening.

08:29.60
Nathan Pile
It's hard to be in the midst of living life and I think testing are we hurting each other? Because sometimes we're not, you wouldn't be as focused, right? if If my friends all sat around me at the table, I would not have been focused enough to be what was happening for other people, observing what other people were doing.

08:47.75
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah.

08:49.48
Nathan Pile
And so, so that makes life hard, right? If we're supposed to be testing everything to see what's pleasing to the Lord, but we're we're in the midst of living life, sometimes we're not going to be able to to self-differentiate, especially our own behavior. It's easier when we're observing other people and doing it, but watching our own behavior, analyzing our own behavior is hard.

09:15.32
Nathan Pile
So that would be my, um so it was just kind of ah like, how do we test this? How do we how do we live into that idea of, of seeing what we're doing that is pleasing to the Lord?

09:26.58
Nathan Pile
What about you? What word, phrase, or image

09:29.88
Kevin Shock
Yeah, also a couple of things, but I just want to reflect on something you said right there at the end. The thing that I struggle with in this verse is how much of this is about what other people do and how much of this is about what I do.

09:48.83
Nathan Pile
Mm-hmm.

09:49.62
Kevin Shock
um Because I do think I think it's important... to call out um leaders, be they political in the church, ah whatever it might be in the community, when they're doing when they're doing things that are not good to be doing. like I think it's important to call that out.

10:13.11
Kevin Shock
I also think that we exist in a culture now that sometimes is too quick to call things out before we've properly assessed what the situation actually is.

10:24.09
Nathan Pile
Yeah. Yeah.

10:24.22
Kevin Shock
Um, and, and, and frankly, I'm not saying that there aren't things that shouldn't be called out. Um, but my, concern honestly, my primary concern about that is that if we start calling out everything, then nothing seems as bad.

10:42.65
Kevin Shock
And, and it kind of becomes, you know, the, the, the boy who cried wolf, um, people quit listening if you're calling out people and, and things all the time.

10:52.47
Nathan Pile
Everything. Everything.

10:54.44
Kevin Shock
Uh, and, and again, I'm not saying don't call out the things that need to be called out, but, but I do think that we're, I don't know how, i don't know, it's trust the job that we do of assessing the complexities of a situation.

11:10.46
Kevin Shock
um So I, that for me, that's just the question is, is this about testing everything that other people are doing? Is it about testing everything that we're doing? Um, is it a balance of the two? I think maybe it's a balance of the two, but I, I do think that it probably is more,

11:34.33
Kevin Shock
um we're probably more effective and it's, and it's, I'll just say that we're probably more effective at actually testing the things that are closer to home than the things that are that we're hearing about in the news. or um And it doesn't just have to be ourselves, although it should be ourselves, but but our families, our circles of friends, like like those... ah

12:09.85
Kevin Shock
those are the things that should be tested, I think. um

12:15.54
Kevin Shock
Yeah. I, so my reflections one, and I know we've talked about this in the podcast before. I don't like the way I wish there were a better translation. I don't like the way that darkness is used here.

12:27.34
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

12:28.09
Nathan Pile
Yeah, that's where I wanted to talk a little bit today.

12:31.04
Kevin Shock
I mean, I know we've talked about it before in the podcast, but ah darkness is, the darkness has too many connotations and, and especially when it comes to things like people's skin color.

12:46.52
Kevin Shock
Um, uh, and, but also darkness is something that in scripture, good things happen in darkness too.

12:46.87
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

12:57.62
Kevin Shock
Um, the, the grave that Jesus was planted in and rose from is dark. Um, the, the,

13:07.67
Nathan Pile
Shepherds hearing the announcement of

13:10.22
Kevin Shock
the shepherds hearing the announcement in the right. Um, the, the, the formation of creation happened whenever darkness and void were a part of what everything was.

13:17.63
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

13:22.48
Kevin Shock
Um, yeah, there. So anyway, I like, I, I under.

13:27.32
Nathan Pile
Well, we've, we've used light and dark in many different ways since the writing of the scripture. And unfortunately, as human beings, we've taken and and added meaning to these things that didn't have those meanings,

13:35.64
Kevin Shock
Sure. yeah, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

13:48.06
Kevin Shock
Correct.

13:48.25
Nathan Pile
you know you know, 2,000 years ago when Paul was writing this.

13:51.64
Kevin Shock
Correct. Right. Right. Right.

13:53.18
Nathan Pile
Or at least not, it wasn't... um

13:57.69
Nathan Pile
you know Paul's writing wasn't broad- broadcast everywhere and so again this idea of light and dark um we human as human beings have added baggage onto those words it's not that the words them you know it's it's that we've done it other human you know we as humankind have said and and used the words in ways that are not pleasing to the lord um

14:24.18
Kevin Shock
Exactly. Yeah.

14:26.07
Nathan Pile
and and so um

14:30.65
Nathan Pile
And so now and, and I think we have to talk about it. you know as As I listened to you read, I thought, oh, you know will people be annoyed that we're going to talk about this again?

14:41.06
Nathan Pile
But I think every time it comes up, we have to talk about it, at least this port this way of it, to be able to say, yes it's we as part of humankind, we have

14:44.46
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

14:58.15
Nathan Pile
have made this light, dark reference messier, um, in our, in our own desire to, um

15:06.08
Kevin Shock
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have, we have, yeah, yeah.

15:11.83
Nathan Pile
in our own desire to, uh, you know, uh, live in the world, dominate in the world.

15:24.18
Nathan Pile
um you know, I'm Again, I'm not an expert of, of,

15:33.14
Nathan Pile
of all things you know racist, ah but you could very easily read this passage and see why a white supremacy group might take it and say, this is this is why we are able to do this.

15:49.85
Kevin Shock
Right. Right.

15:51.33
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

15:51.99
Kevin Shock
the Yeah. And, and I, I can say personally that I've, I've grown a lot. um Probably 20 years ago when I became a pastor, i would have said something. Well, maybe not, maybe a little bit longer than that. I don't know. I don't know when the, the change in me really took hold. But um I would have said something a like along the lines of, well, it doesn't it doesn't really mean that.

16:17.62
Kevin Shock
or when I say it, I'm not meaning it that way. Well, it I've learned over the course of time, it doesn't matter what my intention is. It matters how people receive it.

16:26.48
Nathan Pile
Right.

16:27.54
Kevin Shock
And if people have, if people have been, um if people either misuse, like you give one example of how that might happen. um If people misuse the text, then we have to address it.

16:43.67
Kevin Shock
If people, um hear the text as this is denigrating who I am as a person, not, not my behaviors, but, but who I am because of my, my background or my skin color or, or,

17:01.72
Kevin Shock
things like that, then we have to address it. So that, yeah, this is, i you know, unfortunately I, out of the translations that we normally use in this, I, I didn't really find one that didn't have this word in it.

17:16.85
Nathan Pile
Didn't, language in it

17:19.06
Kevin Shock
And, and again, the word, the word itself is not bad. That's the whole point is that we have humankind has used it in ways that to make it bad when it's not bad.

17:30.87
Kevin Shock
And, um and Paul certainly lived in a different world where all of like a lot of this other, it was just a different, it was a different understand. I don't know, a different understanding of the word or um like, I think people knew what Paul's context and content were.

17:53.37
Kevin Shock
So it it just makes me, it makes me, I don't know if it makes me uncomfortable, but I feel like it's something that we can't just say it and not address it in some way.

18:04.78
Kevin Shock
So that that's the first thing.

18:05.72
Nathan Pile
Right.

18:06.50
Kevin Shock
my My second answer, now I hope that I remember what it actually was. um

18:17.69
Kevin Shock
No, I don't remember.

18:21.43
Kevin Shock
ah Because I, um, No, I don't remember because i was talking I was reflecting on what you were saying. I probably got it out there somewhere then. um Oh, I think it was just the... um Yeah, it it it was first for the verse 13. Everything exposed to the light is revealed by the light. I just like the notion of what once, once something is brought to light, it can't be hidden again.

18:51.00
Kevin Shock
and I think that that... ah I like it in terms both of... bad things. Like once they're out there, they're out there and we can't ignore them anymore. But I also like it in terms of good things. Like once, once you see the what are the words that this translation uses? The goodness, justice, and truth that the light shines on.

19:14.36
Kevin Shock
Those are, those are a part of who you are and what you receive always.

19:20.63
Kevin Shock
So I like that, that once, um, Once the, once the light takes hold of something or shines on something, the, the, the shadows can't conceal it again. Yeah.

19:38.17
Kevin Shock
Yeah, that's, that's pretty much, yeah, that was pretty much what I wanted to say about that second piece.

19:44.41
Nathan Pile
ah um Just to go back and finish up, not finish up, but maybe talk, um we talked about light and darkness um and the baggage that we have with that. Have you found in your time and in the circles that you work in um

20:05.78
Nathan Pile
have you found alternative language when around this light and dark stuff? Cause it's, Paul's not the only one that uses this theme, right? Of light and dark.

20:13.83
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

20:14.26
Nathan Pile
um So is there, has there been ways that you have found to be ah successful? Maybe that's not the word, but um compassionate around um helping all, any, anybody that we're talking to, anybody that's hearing the things that we're saying,

20:36.79
Nathan Pile
yet that allows us to still

20:42.42
Nathan Pile
work in that area where Paul is writing from.

20:48.15
Kevin Shock
I, um, I don't know where I picked it up at some point because I don't feel like I can credit myself with this. whenever like i don't I don't like to change translations of scripture, but if I'm if I were preaching on this text, I wouldn't use the word darkness. or um But i what words that I might use is a word I already used in this podcast, and that's shadow.

21:14.01
Kevin Shock
Shadow to me is concealing. Shadow hides. You know, the people who do evil things lurk in the shadows. Like, I think shadow is a way to talk about this.

21:25.75
Kevin Shock
um In in other kind another connotation that I don't know that I would use with this reading, but that I've heard um I've heard other people use, and I've used it when sometimes parts of scripture that are translated as darkness, I've used gloom.

21:45.46
Kevin Shock
Um, like the, like the cloud that hangs over your head kind of thing.

21:45.69
Nathan Pile
Sure.

21:50.97
Kevin Shock
Um, instead of talking about, you know, the, the, the, um, well, uh, who, who is it? St. John of the cross used, I think that's St. John of the cross. Someone can, um, correct me if I'm wrong. Um, but use that, you know, made that phrase famous, the dark night of the soul.

22:12.47
Kevin Shock
um, Yeah, yeah. ah Like, we understand what he's talking about. But again, it gives a bad connotation to a word that might be important for other people to use for goodness.

22:24.02
Kevin Shock
And, um or belovedness, at least. So, you know, we we can talk about that in terms of gloom. um

22:33.82
Nathan Pile
Well, those are two good words. Gloom and shadow, I think would, would help.

22:36.18
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

22:37.85
Nathan Pile
um Because I, I'm, I'm with you with that idea of how do we, again, the current generation um hasn't maybe been the person that has packed the word darkness with some negative connotations.

22:54.57
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

23:03.74
Nathan Pile
but I do think it's this generation's responsibility to b a thinking about the theology that Paul is trying to teach us but maybe we use words again that that don't get in the way of others hearing Paul's theology and so I, I appreciate the, that, that,

23:24.15
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

23:28.63
Nathan Pile
you know, as we read something like this to say, well, in does does this, the imagery that he's trying to create, does shadow fit, does gloom fit, or is there some other word of that might be um

23:47.77
Nathan Pile
able to be used to kind of talk about the hindrance of of not being able to see as clearly.

23:57.40
Nathan Pile
So,

23:57.52
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

24:00.82
Nathan Pile
yeah. All right. Sorry, I, but I did want to kind of finish that that part of it.

24:04.70
Kevin Shock
Yeah, no, that's, that's good. I appreciate that. I'm there's a book, There's a book that I, Okay, I think I finally found it. I was just looking for it. um

24:20.73
Kevin Shock
Yeah, okay. So there's, there's a children's book that I need to find where you can actually, what what the name of it is.

24:32.57
Kevin Shock
Oh, it's called God's Holy Darkness. And it's, um, it's written by, well, it yeah, it's a children's book. It, it, it, I mean, here, the right here, it says the, uh,

24:51.10
Kevin Shock
In God's holy darkness, Sharei Green, I'm not sure if I'm saying her first name right, and Beckah Selnick deconstruct anti-blackness in Christian theology by celebrating instances in the story of God's people when darkness, blackness, and night are beautiful, good, and holy.

25:06.68
Kevin Shock
Yeah, God's Holy Darkness. And it can be it, it can be purchased at i'm all your booksellers. But Beaming Books is the publisher.

25:17.78
Kevin Shock
And I'm not sure if that's connected to the ELCA or not. um

25:21.42
Nathan Pile
Mm-hmm.

25:21.94
Kevin Shock
That name sounds familiar to me, or to Augsburg Fortress. But I do know that, um so Nikki Faison, who's the illustrator of it, she's a pastor in the ELCA.

25:30.36
Nathan Pile
Mm-hmm.

25:33.30
Kevin Shock
Um, and Beckah Selnick is, uh, Bishop Emeritus Eaton's daughter. So these are written, these are written by people from a Lutheran, uh, understanding.

25:46.07
Nathan Pile
Standard, sure.

25:46.55
Kevin Shock
Um, the first author, Sharei or Sherry Green, I, I, her name's not familiar to me, but, um, yeah. So anyway, I,

25:57.10
Nathan Pile
Everybody, just so you know that, you know, this is going to be now he's Bishop. He's going to be doing some name dropping. That's what he does. um You know, he's got.

26:04.28
Kevin Shock
These are people I knew of well before I was bishop. This is not, I'm not, no, I'm not name dropping.

26:09.34
Nathan Pile
oh here we go Here we go.

26:11.20
Kevin Shock
I'm just saying, I'm not name dropping. I'm just saying that these are, these are names that are not unheard of in our Lutheran circle. That's all I'm saying.

26:19.16
Nathan Pile
Well, that's good. Well, I asked the question because I knew. you would have some resources for us. So I i don't do not have a copy of God's Holy Darkness, but I will be purchasing one so that I have it moving forward.

26:34.10
Kevin Shock
Yeah, I think, I think it's probably, I haven't read it ever. I think it's probably a small and powerful book. Yeah.

26:43.22
Nathan Pile
Well, and again, it's, it's how we help the the our so our our own generation and the generations to come to recognize that if if we're going to say all are welcome, if if God, you know, if that's the intention that we're trying to share as we share the gospel, that all are welcome, we have to recognize that our language has to also match that invitation. And so, yeah, that means we have to change a little bit. Yeah, we might be annoyed by it. But

27:19.86
Nathan Pile
but

27:23.06
Nathan Pile
us changing a little bit of our language to help other people feel like they belong and are connected to the Holy, I think are as well worth the little bit of change that we have to make to help them to feel included.

27:39.35
Nathan Pile
So.

27:40.39
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it is. um The book's available on AugsburgFortress.org, so it, it is somehow connected to Augsburg Fortress and our Lutheran publishing companies.

27:50.41
Nathan Pile
Augsburg.

27:52.81
Nathan Pile
Hmm.

27:53.87
Kevin Shock
yeah

27:57.43
Kevin Shock
Anywho.

27:59.93
Nathan Pile
Alright, let's do it a second time.

28:02.62
Kevin Shock
Yes. um

28:07.11
Kevin Shock
That's my turn, right? Yeah.

28:08.66
Nathan Pile
No, no, it's my turn.

28:09.34
Kevin Shock
Oh, it's your turn. Sorry. Go ahead.

28:12.14
Nathan Pile
Yeah, my turn. You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. So live your life as children of light.

28:23.51
Nathan Pile
Light produces fruit that consists of every sort of goodness, justice, and truth. Therefore, Test everything to see what's pleasing to the Lord. And don't participate in the unfruitful actions of darkness.

28:37.88
Nathan Pile
Instead, you should reveal the truth about them. It's embarrassing to even talk about what certain persons do in secret. But everything exposed to the light is revealed by the light.

28:50.90
Nathan Pile
Everything that is revealed by the light is light. Therefore, it says, wake up, sleeper. Get up from the dead. and Christ will shine on you.

29:04.98
Nathan Pile
Kevin, toward what is God calling you in this text?

29:10.74
Kevin Shock
um

29:16.44
Kevin Shock
I, There's a sense for me in this reading, and I think it it really comes together for me in that last that last line.

29:28.10
Kevin Shock
Therefore it. I'm not, I'm not exactly sure what it is. um Oh, these are all... These all hearken back to Isaiah, what Paul is writing here.

29:38.34
Nathan Pile
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

29:39.37
Kevin Shock
um Therefore it says, wake up sleeper, get up from the dead and Christ will shine on you. ah This is calling me toward an a way of not taking everything at face value.

29:55.96
Kevin Shock
And not maybe not just, not just accepting everything.

30:07.03
Kevin Shock
not taking for granted or accepting the way that things are or the way that things seem to be, but recognizing that working that God is working to expose the things, the embarrassing things that are done in secret, the shameful things that are done in secret, um and to bring to bring light to the the good the goodness of people and the good things that we accomplish together with God.

30:39.00
Kevin Shock
um I think it just like it just becomes so easy to go through life

30:49.78
Kevin Shock
like an automaton.

30:53.37
Kevin Shock
but like you you can just You can just coast through life. Robotically and not ever question anything, not ever change anything, you know, and that or not, not let yourself be challenged.

31:07.13
Kevin Shock
And I don't think that that's a, I don't think that that's a healthy way to live. I think that we become more aware of.

31:19.51
Kevin Shock
The world and the truth about humankind, good truth about humankind. the more we call things into question, but also pay attention to the people and things around us that that if we were just if we just cared about ourselves, we wouldn't ever pay any attention to.

31:42.94
Kevin Shock
Let God shine light on people and things and let that affect how we live, I think is what I'm thinking about in response to this question.

32:00.18
Kevin Shock
Um, what about you? What toward, what is the text calling was God calling you in this text?

32:06.37
Nathan Pile
Uh, yeah, I'm not, I'm, I'm where you're at. I, you know, recognizing, um

32:17.88
Nathan Pile
being able to see that, um, our actions, our words, um, can either bring about good or harm.

32:33.07
Nathan Pile
Um,

32:36.57
Nathan Pile
in this and, and, and recognizing and noticing

32:42.39
Nathan Pile
that for ourselves. and, And I think a part of it also of of recognizing that we can also um deceive ourselves at times as human beings, um that we can hide our secrets.

33:02.65
Nathan Pile
when we've harmed each other at times we might try to hide that.

33:14.40
Nathan Pile
And sometimes we don't hide it, I guess. And then, then I would say that that our,

33:23.86
Nathan Pile
you know, I would call it a question, I guess, of, of are we really

33:33.82
Nathan Pile
Hold on a second here. The dog is being the dog. um

33:43.54
Nathan Pile
Are we like, if we're not embarrassed by how we've hurt each other, and I think there's a place that we have to get back to, to seeking the way, the way of Christ of, you know, so there's, there's the, there's that piece of, um,

33:49.30
Kevin Shock
Oh.

33:57.68
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah.

34:01.62
Nathan Pile
that we, if we've done something to hurt each other, that we try to hide it because we're still trying to live in the way of Christ. But sometimes we might get so far off the path that were we're not even, we're not trying to keep it a secret anymore.

34:07.30
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

34:18.53
Nathan Pile
We're just doing harm because we're after power or we're after, you know, you know, money, whatever it might be, greed, some of the other, you know, sins that we can, that that can be the most harmful to one another kind of a thing. So, um so I think that those, all of that kind of is where I'm bouncing around and you've, you know, you kind of talked about the same thing. So that's where I am.

34:45.75
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah. um You said something that just made me reflect in my own head that I want to say out loud. And that is that like there are Well, what did you say about, we're we're like, we're not embarrassed about the ways that we've hurt one another, or something along those lines.

35:03.29
Nathan Pile
Well, sometimes, yeah, I think sometimes even, I guess I look more at our our public world, um specifically leaders of the public world, and we don't we don't seem to be ashamed of our treatment of one another, our bad behavior.

35:03.62
Kevin Shock
that's

35:11.73
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

35:22.17
Kevin Shock
Yeah, our bad behavior. Mm-hmm.

35:24.94
Nathan Pile
And, and to me... this is me looking from the and making judgment from the outside necessarily. But when I see that, and to me, I say, well, it's about power. It's about that person wanting to be, to have more power or to show that they're powerful or that for some other benefit that they get from it.

35:46.04
Nathan Pile
So they're, they're,

35:46.18
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

35:51.32
Nathan Pile
when we get so caught up in, in our ways of living, And it's all about us, which is opposite of what God's vision for the world is.

36:06.71
Nathan Pile
Um, like we can get so lost in, in our process that we, um, are so, so lost in living our life for me that it really becomes, um,

36:24.63
Nathan Pile
you know, the the way we hurt other people can be disgusting. And I think it just shows how far off path we can be. We've left the idea of being secret, hiding the things that we think might be wrong to, it doesn't matter if I'm wrong because it's only about power and prestige and and money for me.

36:49.24
Kevin Shock
Right. Yeah, right.

36:50.96
Nathan Pile
So.

36:51.80
Kevin Shock
Right. Yeah, I, I was, I just want to say that um i there are there there are things there are things that people are ashamed about that the world tells them they should be ashamed about.

37:04.69
Kevin Shock
that they should not be ashamed about, things about how God made them and who they are.

37:07.48
Nathan Pile
Right.

37:10.07
Kevin Shock
And then there are things that we, we seem, as you allude to, we seem to show no shame whatsoever for the ways that we talk to one another or the or the the judgments that we rush to or whatever it might be.

37:10.58
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

37:22.08
Kevin Shock
And those are absolutely things that we should be ashamed about. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I like the way that that Paul writes it. And I like the way that this translation renders it, that it's embarrassing to even talk about what certain persons do in secret.

37:39.86
Kevin Shock
Like, good, it, it is, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't talk about it.

37:41.25
Nathan Pile
Right.

37:45.71
Kevin Shock
um but But it is like, I, you know, did I, I think, I think each of us is probably familiar with that feeling of,

37:46.22
Nathan Pile
Right. Right.

37:57.06
Kevin Shock
I'm just embarrassed for that person. Like, I can't believe they're acting that way. And, um, it's, that's, yeah, I don't, there are, um I don't know. When I look at the world in a real general sense, I think to myself, ah there are there are a lot of people who carry shame that have nothing to be ashamed about. And there are a lot of people who have no shame at all that should really be ashamed about the things that they say and they do. um It's just like we get it backwards because we honor success, power, wealth.

38:35.00
Kevin Shock
And though those are things that hold high value in the kingdom of God. Yeah.

38:41.29
Nathan Pile
Right, right.

38:42.42
Kevin Shock
yeah

38:43.29
Nathan Pile
and we And essentially, unfortunately, our culture reveres it so highly that some people have said, I'm just fully focusing on those things.

38:58.94
Kevin Shock
Right, right.

38:59.54
Nathan Pile
Nothing else matters.

39:00.15
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah, right. Nothing else matters. Right, right. I mean, let's let's let's be honest that we're in a, we exist in a situation right now in our nation where our own president has said, if the full text of the Epstein files are released, society as we know it will collapse.

39:19.70
Kevin Shock
And my response to that is good. Let's let it. Let's let it. Because honestly, there are days that I feel like we need we need something to, not not literally, I'm not advocating violence here. we need We need something to blow up so that we can rebuild it in a healthy way.

39:36.42
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

39:36.53
Kevin Shock
Because we're just not, there's, there's so, there's so much that we are not ashamed about that we should be.

39:45.21
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

39:48.92
Kevin Shock
And I'll, you know, then I'll also say, there are There are probably a lot of things that um I don't want other people to know about myself.

40:00.89
Kevin Shock
um

40:01.27
Nathan Pile
Sure, sure. That's why they it's still secret. right

40:04.79
Kevin Shock
Right, right. And I will also say that i I like to think that I have myself enough in check and others have me enough in check that I, I don't, I don't utilize secret or shameful things. as you know I don't, I don't abuse my power to get my way.

40:24.25
Kevin Shock
Yeah.

40:28.99
Kevin Shock
So I'm not thinking about anything specific in case anyone is wondering, oh, what are these secret shameful things that Bishop Kevin is talking about?

40:33.82
Nathan Pile
what is

40:36.62
Kevin Shock
but I'm just saying, I know I recognize that I am not a perfect person and I have, and I have hurt people and I have done wrong.

40:42.20
Nathan Pile
Sure.

40:44.14
Kevin Shock
and that's, That's what I'm saying.

40:45.20
Nathan Pile
Right.

40:45.54
Kevin Shock
Yeah. And I try, I try my best not to utilize my power to hurt people or go out of my way to create pain or, or cause grief. Yeah.

40:58.17
Nathan Pile
Yeah. Well, and yeah, I think we're like, I was going to use the word all and I probably should not. but you and I are, uh, kind of saying the same thing of of that that piece of we've hurt people and and it's not something we're proud of it's not something that we necessarily sought to do um but it is something that you know we're not also walking around and saying naming it out loud it's with that secret piece here again that Paul um alludes to again i appreciate the way that he's worded it in some ways because it

41:35.81
Nathan Pile
It's embarrassing to talk about. it makes us feel

41:41.69
Nathan Pile
like we're not, what we did isn't something that we want to do to others.

41:48.25
Nathan Pile
You know, we make mistakes.

41:50.01
Kevin Shock
who

41:50.17
Nathan Pile
Our sinful side causes us to make mistakes and, and we need to, you know, appropriately apologize and then move on and, and, and, and seek not to do it again.

42:02.07
Nathan Pile
um

42:04.95
Nathan Pile
So, yeah, I don't need to belabor that point, but I think it was well made, well made, my friend.

42:08.63
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah.

42:12.61
Nathan Pile
So.

42:14.97
Nathan Pile
All right, want to a third time.

42:17.24
Kevin Shock
Yes, sir.

42:20.87
Kevin Shock
Okay, Ephesians from Ephesians 5. You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. So live your life as children of light. Light produces fruit that consists of every sort of goodness, justice, and truth.

42:34.79
Kevin Shock
Therefore, test everything to see what's pleasing to the Lord. And don't participate in the fruitful in the unfruitful actions of darkness. Instead, you should reveal the truth about them.

42:45.19
Kevin Shock
It's embarrassing to even talk about what certain persons do in secret. But everything exposed to the light is revealed by the light. Everything that is revealed by the light is light.

42:55.89
Kevin Shock
Therefore it says, wake up, sleeper, get up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

43:03.97
Kevin Shock
Nathan, how do you determine what is pleasing to the Lord? Not being the Lord yourself, how do you figure it out?

43:11.42
Nathan Pile
yeah yeah

43:13.16
Kevin Shock
okay.

43:13.50
Nathan Pile
I call my friends.

43:15.73
Kevin Shock
oh okay

43:17.53
Nathan Pile
No.

43:23.58
Nathan Pile
Well, I think it is a bit of an experiment. I think

43:31.26
Nathan Pile
like at times, you know, this is the hard part of living, right?

43:31.46
Kevin Shock
Thank

43:36.06
Nathan Pile
It's when we try to take a risk and maybe we haven't thought the whole way through how risky that risk is. Yeah.

43:47.10
Nathan Pile
Sometimes it's, you know, so that that that that creates one avenue of, you know, going back to this idea of experimentation, right? We're supposed to try to take risks in this adaptive leadership world, right? But sometimes we make a choice and it hurts somebody um because we didn't think it the whole way through. we didn't, um we didn't

44:15.99
Nathan Pile
you know, think, think about all of the people that might be connected, or we forgot somebody. And so that's one avenue of it. ah Another avenue of it is, is our own selfishness gets in the way, right? And so, um but being able to determine what is pleasing, I think, to the Lord is, um you know, it maybe to to, I don't want to make it too simple because it's God and and I find God to be mysterious and sometimes hard to pin down to exactly, but does it bring life for all that that are involved? Does it feel like love?

44:58.17
Nathan Pile
does it feel like love

45:02.10
Nathan Pile
those things to me, I think would be ways of being able to say, oh, this would be um pleasing to the Lord. and and And because as I read scripture, those are two of the things that um that resonate about who God is. Does it bring justice? um That would be pleasing to the Lord.

45:27.96
Nathan Pile
And so um I guess my determination has more to do with the end result. Again, I guess I'm looking at this from a bit of a testing, experimenting kind of, but when we make our choices in life, because life is a bit of an experiment, relationships can be a bit of an experiment. We're still, you know, it's not that we're using each other to be, to experiment on, but it, well, I hope not.

45:59.00
Nathan Pile
But it is

46:02.95
Nathan Pile
relationships are hard. They're, uh, we're, we're figuring them out. Um, you know, as Kevin and I started our conversation this morning, it was about one, one aspect of the larger conversation was about that idea of, of, um, you know, figuring out how we, relate to each other as human beings, um, and, and the challenge that is there and,

46:28.95
Nathan Pile
in my own judgment way. Some people get it and some people don't. um so but But that part of relationship is,

46:35.94
Kevin Shock
Oh,

46:39.64
Nathan Pile
um

46:42.55
Nathan Pile
I think, again, is is that's a part of the experiment of figuring out what is pleasing. you know I don't, I don't seek to hurt other people, but when I look in the rearview mirror of my life,

46:58.46
Nathan Pile
I recognize places in my journey where I've hurt other people.

46:59.58
Kevin Shock
yeah. Yep.

47:02.42
Nathan Pile
um And sometimes it was ignorance.

47:03.10
Kevin Shock
Yep.

47:07.26
Nathan Pile
I didn't know. Sometimes it was, they hurt me, so I hurt them. Vengeance. um

47:13.67
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

47:13.75
Nathan Pile
You know, sometimes it was... um the only way I could see my way through a situation. um I don't know what I would call that.

47:26.87
Nathan Pile
Um, I had titles for the other two, but, but again, a part of relationships I think is, is that feeling of you're figuring it out on the go and that's really uncomfortable, but, but relationships are like that.

47:42.52
Nathan Pile
Um, And so again, ministry moves at the speed of trust and trust moves at the speed of relationships. And so when we're trying to determine if, if, if, if the end result seems to be bringing life and love and justice into the world, then I think we're moving in the right direction.

47:51.46
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

48:03.32
Nathan Pile
And if it's not, then, then I need to, to shift change. I need to go back and make amends.

48:14.90
Nathan Pile
with those that I've engaged with. But I again, I think it's under, when I talk about God being the mystery, it's me also being connected to the mystery of God so that I might have a ah fuller, better understanding of what is pleasing to God.

48:31.94
Kevin Shock
Mm-hmm.

48:32.09
Nathan Pile
Continuing to read and engage in scripture helps make my box that I've identified as God bigger. God gets bigger when I engage in scripture either by myself with a group of people with my friend on a podcast.

48:51.70
Nathan Pile
My understanding of God gets bigger and thereby um

48:57.82
Nathan Pile
what is pleasing to God gets bigger. think

49:03.10
Nathan Pile
You know, I think my image of God when I was a kid was one size of a box.

49:03.16
Kevin Shock
Yeah. um

49:07.18
Nathan Pile
It's now much bigger. And so there are things that probably now I would appreciate that God is pleased with that I wouldn't have thought about when I was 12 year old.

49:08.94
Kevin Shock
Yeah. Yeah.

49:16.40
Kevin Shock
No. What.

49:17.18
Nathan Pile
So go ahead. Sorry.

49:18.52
Kevin Shock
yeah no um what ah I'm not going to remember the quote I just read last night and I can't remember who, because even the person who said it said, no well, this is actually someone else's quote. It's like, um, uh, Kierkegaard. Oh, I know where I could find it, but I don't, I'm not going to take a lot of time. Essentially we, um, life is the thing that we live forward, but only learn backwards or something like that.

49:44.50
Nathan Pile
m

49:45.37
Kevin Shock
um,

49:48.09
Kevin Shock
And I think that, know, that was a Kierkegaardian concept.

49:55.45
Kevin Shock
That makes me think

49:59.42
Kevin Shock
of how, like, I look, I look back at my life and I can clearly see the times that I've hurt people. I don't know that I could name them, but I know, I don't know that I could always name them because maybe I didn't even, I didn't even know that I'd hurt someone.

50:15.70
Kevin Shock
But there are certain, certain, ways that Ways that I have been in my life that I know were potentially more harmful and hurtful than how I am now.

50:27.47
Kevin Shock
And it's because I've learned. And I know I've, know I've mentioned it on the podcast before that like I used to value. this is the way I can articulate it now, having learned life backwards. I used to value being funny or witty more than I would value other people's feelings.

50:45.91
Nathan Pile
Hmm. Hmm.

50:47.09
Kevin Shock
And. I don't want to say that's how I lived exclusively, but I but that I recognize that that was a part of who I was. and, And like I said, and now I'm able to articulate that in a way that really encapsulates what the issue was. And I can also say clearly, I did that out of self-preservation.

51:07.42
Kevin Shock
That's the bottom line. Bottom line. To make myself feel better about myself or to or to put myself in a position where other people weren't looking down on me, but they saw, you know, oh, Kevin's funny. He's witty. You know, like, like they wanted to be around me, essentially.

51:22.97
Kevin Shock
But I now recognize that that very thing is the kind of thing that would make people not want to be around me as well. Because there were times when I could hold a higher value on that, on wanting to be liked,

51:35.33
Kevin Shock
than how I cared for other people. um I've learned from that. I don't value those things the way that I used to. I, kind of, those, Those are gifts that as a as a public figure, and I mean even just as a pastor, not necessarily a bishop, I can use those gifts that I have for good and not for my own self-preservation.

52:03.22
Kevin Shock
And I, so I think that this is something that comes back to me in answer of that third question, is that Paul gives us a litmus test right there in Ephesians.

52:15.16
Kevin Shock
are, it, the, The things that you're doing, do, do they produce fruit that consists of every sort of goodness, justice, and truth? And if they don't, then maybe, maybe they're not up to that standard of being pleasing to the Lord.

52:34.97
Kevin Shock
If it's something that only benefits me or benefits the people like me or, or ignores, you know, the the experiences and, and, and, uh, backgrounds of whole groups of other people, then, then that's, yeah, that's something that isn't pleasing to God.

52:57.82
Kevin Shock
Um, so anyway.

53:02.40
Kevin Shock
That's, yeah, that's what I've been thinking about as, as I've heard you talking and reflecting on my own life and thinking about the scripture. um I appreciate that you said that, you know scripture helps give that that bigger picture of God because scripture is a...

53:21.40
Kevin Shock
is one of our roots, uh, one of the legs that we stand on, so to speak. And I like to think of scripture as we're having, when we engage scripture, even by ourselves, we're having a conversation with people from the past.

53:35.33
Nathan Pile
Hmm.

53:35.45
Kevin Shock
We, we, we heard in the, in, uh, our readings for the feast of the transfiguration a few weeks ago, um as as you hear this, not as we record it just two days ago as we record it, um that Peter was talking about, and we we did the podcast on this on this reading too, that Peter's talking about him and the other eyewitnesses.

53:57.43
Kevin Shock
um Like, Scripture gives us a window to the conversations that those eyewitnesses were having. and that the early church was having. And that's and that's good for us to be a part of those conversations. And then what we do is we have, what we talked about in that podcast episode, we find partners to interpret those conversations and to bring that conversation into a contemporary context.

54:25.69
Kevin Shock
we We need to have other people that we talk to um in order to test to see what's pleasing to the Lord.

54:25.89
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

54:28.81
Nathan Pile
Yeah.

54:33.94
Kevin Shock
um to participate in the in the fruitful actions and live as children of light. we Yeah, we need we need those other voices. We can't find it Well, it says it right in that Peter, the first Peter too, that the interpretation of scripture is and not, not one person.

54:54.62
Kevin Shock
Like it's, I can't, now I'm not going to remember exactly what it says, but not one person by themselves cannot properly interpret scripture. it's, It's communities who have listened to the Holy Spirit who do it right.

55:09.91
Kevin Shock
I think that goes along with this reading too. It's communities of people led by the Holy Spirit who participate in the actions of light and um and test everything to see what's pleasing to the Lord.

55:32.06
Nathan Pile
Anything else, my friend?

55:34.36
Kevin Shock
I don't think so.

55:37.72
Nathan Pile
Some additional texts this week. First Samuel chapter 16, verses one through 13. David is chosen and anointed. Psalm 23, anoint my head with oil.

55:50.20
Nathan Pile
um And then the gospel reading is from John chapter nine, verses one to 41, the baptismal image, um the man being born again, or but being born blind, sorry. Um,

56:07.74
Nathan Pile
And so additional texts to kind of dig into for this week, as always. Kevin, thanks for your reflections. And for those listening, we always encourage you to send an email or if you see one of us in person sometime, just you know share with us some of your thoughts as well.

56:31.51
Nathan Pile
Email or social media is a way for us to kind of hear your thoughts and reflections on, on this scripture as well. We hope to tend our faith with you again soon.

56:42.94
Nathan Pile
Grace to you.

56:45.14
Kevin Shock
And peace.