Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: Actually, before you sit down don't sit down just yet I want to read you just a couple of passages before what we just heard Michelle read, and this comes just a few verses earlier.
Speaker 1: So this is like the prequel to what she just read, and again, it's by.
Speaker 1: Marcia Faulk is the one who did this translation.
Speaker 1: It's just beautiful.
Speaker 1: This is the Song of Songs, the poems found in the ancient scriptures of the Hebrew Bible, and this is what the writer of the Song of Songs says.
Speaker 1: You can close your eyes and read it.
Speaker 1: Just close your eyes and imagine whatever comes to mind.
Speaker 1: Let the images and the sounds and the thoughts just rise up.
Speaker 1: This is how it was meant to be read, this ancient Song of Songs.
Speaker 1: It's meant to be read out loud and to enjoy it as one long, flowing poem.
Speaker 1: Here's what the writer of the Song of Songs says you can close your eyes Until the day is over, the shadows gone.
Speaker 1: I'll go up to the hills of fragrant bloom.
Speaker 1: How fine you are.
Speaker 1: My love, my perfect one With me, my bride of mountains, come away with me, come away, come down from the peaks of the mountains, from the perilous Lebanon caves, from the layers where lions crouch hidden, where leopards watch nightly for prey.
Speaker 1: Look down, look down and come away.
Speaker 1: Ah man, you can be seated.
Speaker 1: Would you give Michelle some love this morning?
Speaker 1: Reading the Song of Songs out loud in front of your peers is not an easy task.
Speaker 1: I leaned over to the doostrum and said it's not too erotic or essential, is it?
Speaker 1: Then we began to notice the words like thrust and dripping and soaking.
Speaker 1: Oh, maybe it's a little.
Speaker 1: There's a ladybug up here too.
Speaker 1: I don't know where it went, but I don't want to step on it.
Speaker 1: Anyway, welcome to Central.
Speaker 1: My name is Ryan.
Speaker 1: I'm the pastor.
Speaker 1: We are in our third week of our Song of Songs series, which you're like.
Speaker 1: Why on earth are we doing this series through a book of erotic poetry, which is what it is.
Speaker 1: If you haven't noticed, or if you're just joining us and we've got a few guests here this morning, which is wonderful Welcome to Central, where we talk about erotic poetry every week.
Speaker 1: We don't normally do this, but there is this ancient text wedged in between the book of Ecclesiastes and the book of Isaiah, this great prophet, that's called the Song of Songs and it's this book of poems.
Speaker 1: It's quite amazing If you read it, and if you're shy, you can read it quietly by yourself or put it out in the car as you're, but it's this book about a man and a woman and their love for each other, their desires for each other, how they long for each other.
Speaker 1: There's this absence and presence of each one.
Speaker 1: There's a third set of voices that are a mixture of voices, that kind of chime in here and there, and there's this story between these two lovers and it's in the Bible and it's meant to be read, this book, the Song of Songs, out loud, and it's meant to be read as poetry out loud, not to be dissected or taken apart.
Speaker 1: If you've noticed, I haven't done a single sermon on like a deep dive on verse 5, or chapter 7, verse 2, because that's not how you read this book.
Speaker 1: What I've tried to do is do a whole sermon on the whole book each time, because this book is meant to be read and studied and just enjoyed out loud as one long, flowing, overall book, and we enjoy it as such.
Speaker 1: The question then still stands how should we interpret this ancient book of poetry?
Speaker 1: And if you're like maybe someone was in here like I don't really get poetry, I don't really understand, I'm not a poetry guy or woman.
Speaker 1: I'm not my bag, fair enough.
Speaker 1: Thanks for bearing with us and just sort of coming along for the ride.
Speaker 1: But even for you, how can we read this?
Speaker 1: What does it mean that this Song of Songs is in the Bible?
Speaker 1: Well, week one we talked about maybe we read it literally that for some reason, there's a book between a man and a woman and their desires for each other.
Speaker 1: Literally, this man and woman, they write back and forth about how much they love each other and how much they long for each other, and they talk about these things in very sensual ways, and that's in the Bible.
Speaker 1: Then, last week, we talked about maybe it's an allegory and we shared how the Jews oftentimes actually not right away, but later on in history began to use this book, the Song of Songs, in all kinds of ceremonies and rituals, certainly in weddings.
Speaker 1: They would read it at weddings.
Speaker 1: It's a great wedding book.
Speaker 1: Also, they would read it at Passover, like Passover, this festival of Passover.
Speaker 1: Why would you read it then?
Speaker 1: Well, it's the story of God and how God loved Israel and refused to give up on them and promised to save them and redeem them, that he'd be their God and they'd be his people.
Speaker 1: He won't let go of them.
Speaker 1: So they began to read this book as an allegory between God and Israel.
Speaker 1: And this is love poetry, back and forth between God and Israel, which is a little bit weird if you think about it.
Speaker 1: Some of the more anthropomorphic parts, which is where God becomes sort of like a human, those are getting a little bit weird.
Speaker 1: But they sort of soften the edges and you say it's a story between God and Israel or the modern church.
Speaker 1: Many of them read it as a story between Jesus and the church, which is not how the original author would have intended that, because that hadn't existed yet, of course but between God and Israel.
Speaker 1: So it was literal or allegory.
Speaker 1: Today I want to offer maybe a third way to look at this book and why it's in the Bible at all in the first place.
Speaker 1: Why is a book about erotic poetry in the Bible, our sacred holy scriptures?
Speaker 1: Why is it in there?
Speaker 1: I think, at least in part it could be because this book offers us maybe a peek behind the curtain or really just a glimpse, a clear glimpse, a focused glimpse, although just a snippet of life.
Speaker 1: This is a book about life and what life might entail, and all the layers and the nuances of life and the human experience.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 1: This book is full of emotions, ups and downs love, desire, longing, loss, grief, even the absence and presence of the beloved one.
Speaker 1: It's about romance and sex and wonder, and even nature.
Speaker 1: You heard this nature mentioned throughout this book.
Speaker 1: The song of songs like why is it wild?
Speaker 1: It's all in there, and it's all in there because it's all part of the human experience.
Speaker 1: These are all elements of life as you live them, as I live them, as just ordinary moments of life that somehow, because they're in this book, might speak to this sort of like the sacredness of human life and even the more I don't know ordinary, everyday parts of human life.
Speaker 1: The song of songs, I would argue, maybe because it's in there, and I have no idea why the original authors wrote the book.
Speaker 1: They didn't say greetings 2024 readers.
Speaker 1: This book was written because they don't say that.
Speaker 1: Now, I don't know why the sages thought it was good to put it in the canon of scripture and the holy, you know.
Speaker 1: I don't know why they didn't say that.
Speaker 1: Either there's some dialogue around it and it's all really good stuff, but I think the fact that it's in there does give us an idea or a picture that this book affirms what it means to be a human, like all the bits and pieces and the nuances of what it means, that these are good and beautiful longings, desires, loss, romance, nature, absence, presence.
Speaker 1: These are all beautiful and good things because they're a part of life and they're mentioned as such in the Bible.
Speaker 1: It's life.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 1: The Bible, after all, is a book, among other things.
Speaker 1: It's a book about what does it mean to be a human?
Speaker 1: I mean, think about it.
Speaker 1: Why does anybody care what the Bible says in 2024?
Speaker 1: Well, some people don't care, so fair enough.
Speaker 1: But why do any of us care?
Speaker 1: Why does it matter?
Speaker 1: Why do we still read it?
Speaker 1: Why is it the most widely read and produced, printed, sold book of human history?
Speaker 1: And it's super old.
Speaker 1: It's very antiquated.
Speaker 1: You read some stories in there, like what in the world?
Speaker 1: There's a story about a guy who gets stabbed and his belly's so big the sword gets swallowed in his belly.
Speaker 1: Why are we reading that today?
Speaker 1: It's weird.
Speaker 1: Well, because the Bible speaks to and addresses what it means to be a human, and most of us in this room, most of us, are first and foremost human.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of you I'm not so sure about, but we can chat later over coffee.
Speaker 1: And we're human.
Speaker 1: We're asking ourselves what does it mean to be a human?
Speaker 1: What do I do with my life?
Speaker 1: How do I live like the fullness of my humanity?
Speaker 1: What does it mean to be a human?
Speaker 1: And the song of songs speaks, I think, to that, at least in part, what it means, after all, to be alive.
Speaker 1: See, these are, I would argue, god-given expressions of what it means to be a human and to be alive, and they're good.
Speaker 1: Which now brings me to my title.
Speaker 1: You ready for my title of my sermon?
Speaker 1: Today, we're going to talk about these three things temples, erotic poetry and why all things are yours.
Speaker 1: So God comes to Moses and then, at the end, I'll tell you why all this has to do anything with why this is in the Bible.
Speaker 1: God comes to Moses in the book of Exodus and he tells Moses Moses, I want to live with you, I want to dwell with you in your midst, which is not like what God's would say or do.
Speaker 1: And he says Moses, you're going to build me a tent and I'm going to tell you exactly how to do it and when you do, make it this big and this tall.
Speaker 1: He tells Moses this is in the book of Exodus.
Speaker 1: Look it up if you don't believe me.
Speaker 1: He says this is how tall you'll make it, how wide it will be.
Speaker 1: These are the colors and the fabrics you'll use for this tent.
Speaker 1: This is working way better than the service in the last one.
Speaker 1: It was a bit of a disaster at the first gathering.
Speaker 1: And God says here's how, here's the cubic feet and the kind of materials you use for this tent called the tabernacle.
Speaker 1: And then God tells Moses and, by the way, you're going to take this tent with you wherever you go, because they were kind of a roving, roving roaming band of people.
Speaker 1: They traveled all over and they didn't have a permanent home just yet.
Speaker 1: And God then said, most importantly then, I'm going to dwell in that tent.
Speaker 1: When do we make it?
Speaker 1: You're dead.
Speaker 1: Okay, share all your in charge of that part.
Speaker 1: I'm going to live in that tent and you'll bring me with you wherever you go.
Speaker 1: I will be your God and you'll be my people.
Speaker 1: Do us your man's, don't muck us around.
Speaker 1: All right, bert.
Speaker 1: And then, years later, when the people of Israel find their promised land, you know, maybe you know the story.
Speaker 1: God gives them a bit of land and tells them that'll be your land, you can move in there permanently and I'll fulfill my promises to you in that land.
Speaker 1: How are we doing over here?
Speaker 1: Good to see you.
Speaker 1: And God tells them I'm going to dwell with you.
Speaker 1: And then a king comes along whose name is Solomon, and Solomon says you know what?
Speaker 1: That tabernacle, that tent, that's temporary, it's not good enough.
Speaker 1: I want to build God a house, a permanent dwelling place.
Speaker 1: So he builds God a temple.
Speaker 1: You've ever heard of a temple?
Speaker 1: Okay, good, god says I will.
Speaker 1: Then I'll dwell in that temple, in that space, in this building.
Speaker 1: And Solomon spends lots of money and energy and human hours and effort.
Speaker 1: This is an extravagant temple, stones are bigger than automobiles and they build this house of God.
Speaker 1: And God says I'll dwell in that place, like I did in the tabernacle, in the tent, and you'll come there and you'll worship me in this space, in this sacred space, this holy and divine place that we call.
Speaker 1: That we call now the temple.
Speaker 1: And for thousands of years people did this, not just the Jewish people.
Speaker 1: Lots of folks built tents or mosques or teepees or prayer closets or sacred spaces to then go and sort of house the divine and to go and meet with the divine and dwell with God in that space.
Speaker 1: And that space was holy and sacred and the divine dwelled there.
Speaker 1: And so people then would gather there in these religious communities with their faith people.
Speaker 1: They would gather and they would have practices there and they would meet with God there.
Speaker 1: They would have all kinds of fellowship in these temples and these tabernacles, in these places, and they would go there to meet with God.
Speaker 1: And they did this across culture and across time.
Speaker 1: I think for this reason, because people intuitively sense that we're not alone in the universe, that we're somehow an echo of a larger sound.
Speaker 1: Our sound is like an echo of something larger, more grand.
Speaker 1: There's something bigger than just us going on, and I know that reductionist materialism says, oh, you only need to.
Speaker 1: You know your meaning is found inside of yourself.
Speaker 1: But I think we intuit there's something more and deeper going on, that we're part of some.
Speaker 1: My story is a part of a bigger and grander story.
Speaker 1: Are you with me so far?
Speaker 1: And so then they build these places where the divine rests and lives and dwells, and they go there and meet with God and in doing so they learn that this is what it looks like for something or a space or a place to be holy and to be sacred.
Speaker 1: They can conceive of it, because God says I will dwell in that place, I will live in that space, that space is dedicated to me.
Speaker 1: And so now you can kind of have an idea, a concrete idea, if you will, of what it means to be in a sacred or holy or divine space.
Speaker 1: And they would go there and they would have all kinds of faith practices and they would have this physical space and they understood what it meant for a thing to be holy.
Speaker 1: How else could they have otherwise known the ethereal or the divine, the transcendent, which is entirely other?
Speaker 1: How would they ever know unless that ethereal or divine became practical, became concrete, became particular, specific?
Speaker 1: How could we know what a holy thing means unless we had a concrete example of like oh, that's holy, right there.
Speaker 1: So Leviticus if you've ever read Leviticus, it's riveting nighttime reading.
Speaker 1: Leviticus is all about how to live and behave and relate to God in that space.
Speaker 1: So, like you wanna know how to relate to God, who's divine and transcendent and ethereal and other.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, I'm gonna give you a very detailed book about how to then operate in this space that's sacred and holy and divine.
Speaker 1: That way you'll know, because how else would you know?
Speaker 1: We don't know how to relate to the divine unless someone tells us.
Speaker 1: So the divine tells us here's how you're to operate.
Speaker 1: So we get Leviticus.
Speaker 1: Rituals are simply a concretization of the ethereal, so it has everything to do with goats and blood and crops and sprinkling stuff and drama and a priest who wears all kinds of clothing, and these practices are a concrete picture of what it means to live with the divine and the other.
Speaker 1: So now we have this idea.
Speaker 1: Okay, then that means this, that, okay, god is in there, this is the house of God, the dwelling place of God, and fair enough.
Speaker 1: And so all the things that belong in there are sacred and holy and divine.
Speaker 1: Are you with me so far?
Speaker 1: And that means then, perhaps, and that things that are not in there, well, out here, if God is in here, then perhaps we could conclude that God is not out here, that out here are, like the things that are not holy or not sacred and not divine.
Speaker 1: No offense, everybody here, I'll join you that the things out here are just things that are, I don't know, ordinary, secular, profane, and so we have to get the secular or the sacred and the divine lives in here and the secular and the profane and the ordinary lives out there, and we get this idea and this picture throughout all of the Hebrew Bible and scriptures.
Speaker 1: This is holy and sacred and divine, and that is not holy or sacred or divine.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: So, over the course of years, you have this divine, which raises a good question though what things belong in here?
Speaker 1: What things don't belong in here?
Speaker 1: So I need your help.
Speaker 1: So this is, of course, not Solomon's temple, but what might belong in this temple, in our temple, and here the space that's sacred and holy and divine.
Speaker 1: How about holy and sacred scriptures?
Speaker 1: Okay, that was an emphatic.
Speaker 1: Yes, I heard.
Speaker 1: Yes, all right, conviction, I like that.
Speaker 1: Right or wrong, we're gonna just say it loud.
Speaker 1: So, presidents deal.
Speaker 1: By the way, okay, how about this?
Speaker 1: Oh, hang on, hang on, lynn's trying to steal my thunder.
Speaker 1: How about the ordination certificate of pastor Ryan Allen Brailey?
Speaker 1: This is holy, sacred.
Speaker 1: I had to dust this baby off too.
Speaker 1: It was down on the bottom shelf of my office.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, the order of the pastor, the office of the pastor, maybe a sacred, holy, divine thing.
Speaker 1: I'm not a priest, but one time when I was coaching baseball, our good friend Quinn I'm looking at Garrett and David or Garrett and Hayden my good friend Quinn.
Speaker 1: It must have been like 11, 12 years old.
Speaker 1: Quinn was like he didn't grow up in the church.
Speaker 1: But Quinn was like, hey, coach, he had an idea of what I did for a living.
Speaker 1: He goes hey, coach, how was preaching today?
Speaker 1: Ah, preaching was good, quinn, thanks for asking.
Speaker 1: Preaching was good.
Speaker 1: How about the holy meal, the communion meal?
Speaker 1: By the way, just so you know, when you gather around the table at Central, if you're a new guest or a first time, kind of checking it out, we always say all are welcome at the Lord's table.
Speaker 1: If you wanna come forward to me, you coming forward and putting your hand out as an act of faith, and I will give you a wafer and juice and wine.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be a member here, you don't have to be a Lutheran, you don't have to confess all the right things, you don't even have to know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: If you come forward and hold out your hand, we'll serve you.
Speaker 1: It's just so you're always welcome at the table.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I heard yes, so we'll put that up here.
Speaker 1: All right, now it's Sunday, so football?
Speaker 1: I heard A-no a few times.
Speaker 1: Where's Darryl?
Speaker 1: I thought I saw him.
Speaker 1: Oh, did he leave?
Speaker 1: Oh, that's gonna throw him the ball.
Speaker 1: What about football?
Speaker 1: Okay, but you're gonna hold that for me?
Speaker 1: Fine, we'll put it outside the box, outside the temple.
Speaker 1: There was no football in the temple in the ancient world.
Speaker 1: How about, though?
Speaker 1: I mean, come on my record collection Now, before you sit, let me just show you what I've got, because this might belong.
Speaker 1: I've got Money Jungle, duke Ellington and Charlie Mingus and Max Roach.
Speaker 1: Have you heard this album?
Speaker 1: This is a baller album, you know you guys.
Speaker 1: Okay, how about this one?
Speaker 1: Oasis, the greatest album of all time.
Speaker 1: What's the story of Morning Glory?
Speaker 1: I said, maybe it's a great song.
Speaker 1: We should play it right now.
Speaker 1: I'm kidding.
Speaker 1: Okay, how about Sam Cooke, greatest hits?
Speaker 1: You're a yes or no?
Speaker 1: Daft Punk?
Speaker 1: This is the homework album, mind you.
Speaker 1: This is around the world.
Speaker 1: Only three songs, or three lyrics in the whole song.
Speaker 1: What Taylor Swift?
Speaker 1: How did that get in there?
Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh, oh, no, that must be my daughter's.
Speaker 1: Fine, I listen to it all the time.
Speaker 1: It's a good album, okay, fine, where does it go Out there?
Speaker 1: Okay, fine, I'll put it with you, claes.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, taylor Swift outside of the temple.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, is this a plumbing wrench?
Speaker 1: In case you've never used one or seen one, where does it go, trevor?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have you hold it again.
Speaker 1: Pass it to Trevor.
Speaker 1: Trevor is our resident plumber.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, of course, the quintessential church debate Drums.
Speaker 1: Oh, now you're drawing your line in the sand.
Speaker 1: Where's the in or out?
Speaker 1: Which generation are you?
Speaker 1: Okay, pete, you can hover them over.
Speaker 1: Okay, how about erotic poetry?
Speaker 1: Ooh, a bunch of teenagers we are.
Speaker 1: Listen to us.
Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh, I'll leave it there for now.
Speaker 1: This is sacred, holy, divine, which maybe makes us think that out there is not sacred or holy or divine, it's the ordinary, the mundane.
Speaker 1: But then God tells Moses, hey, moses, just so you know, I don't have any boundaries or edges.
Speaker 1: Unlike other divine beings in the ancient world, I'm not confined to a statue or a building, I'm not confined to time or to space.
Speaker 1: Those things are like, those don't characterize me.
Speaker 1: They're not really what I'm all about.
Speaker 1: You can't do that with me.
Speaker 1: Huh, there's no edges to this God.
Speaker 1: This God has no boundaries, no borders.
Speaker 1: What does that even mean?
Speaker 1: Can that kind of a God go inside of a temple?
Speaker 1: And then Solomon, after he spends all this time, energy, money, manpower, womanpower, by the way he builds the temple.
Speaker 1: This is one of the greatest kings of Jewish history.
Speaker 1: He builds the temple using slaves.
Speaker 1: He's from the kingdom or from the family of Israel.
Speaker 1: This guy among everybody should know better.
Speaker 1: He was delivered from slavery, not personally, but his people were delivered from slavery.
Speaker 1: And here he is using slaves to build this temple, the house of God.
Speaker 1: How ironic.
Speaker 1: But that's another sermon for another day.
Speaker 1: But here, at the dedication of the temple, they're going to pray over it.
Speaker 1: Here's what Solomon says.
Speaker 1: Praying over the temple, he says but God, will God really dwell in there?
Speaker 1: The heavens, even the highest heavens, can't contain you, god.
Speaker 1: How much can this temple that I've built, that I've spent hours and millions of not dollars, but monies and people, and I recruited slaves.
Speaker 1: This temple can't hold you.
Speaker 1: Now, if I'm one of those people, I'm like what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Excuse me.
Speaker 1: We just spent years building this thing.
Speaker 1: Now you're saying that God can't even live.
Speaker 1: That's why we built it to house God, that we could contain God.
Speaker 1: We could go there and visit God, pray, offer our sacrifices, maybe earn some favor or some blessings from this God.
Speaker 1: And now you're saying that God can't even live in there.
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 1: And then David writes this in the Psalm Psalm 24, says the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, everything in the world and all who live in it.
Speaker 1: What here's what David and Solomon are getting at, that perhaps Moses knew the whole thing is is God dwells on all of it.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is a temple.
Speaker 1: The whole earth houses God, which means the temple.
Speaker 1: Of course God is there and God dwells there.
Speaker 1: And so God dwells out here In your school.
Speaker 1: God is there and dwells there.
Speaker 1: In your workplace, god dwells there and is there and present with you there.
Speaker 1: Dare, I say, in traffic, in your car, god is there.
Speaker 1: That's sort of a temple.
Speaker 1: It's the dwelling place of God is also there.
Speaker 1: When you're at the gym lifting weights, don't forget that God is also there.
Speaker 1: In the theater, God is there.
Speaker 1: There are no sacred and unsacred places.
Speaker 1: There are only sacred places and desecrated places.
Speaker 1: Desecrated means things that were sacred, that have become marred or muddied or used for the wrong purposes, distorted.
Speaker 1: There's no such thing as a sacred and non-sacred place or division.
Speaker 1: Just all the things are sacred, but some have just been misused.
Speaker 1: Years ago I worked with teenagers.
Speaker 1: I loved it.
Speaker 1: I loved every minute of it Well, most minutes of it.
Speaker 1: And what would happen is, when I worked with middle school kids, invariably they'd come into this space.
Speaker 1: A lot of them were not from the church, they were living in the neighborhood and they didn't know all the rules and all the rituals of the place.
Speaker 1: And they would come in here and, in case you didn't know it, middle school kids swear and they would swear.
Speaker 1: They'd come in here and they'd swear, they'd say a cuss word or two, and then they would almost group correct.
Speaker 1: They'd be like yo, you can't swear in here.
Speaker 1: That's what they would say.
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 1: That's temple thinking.
Speaker 1: They're thinking this oh well, god is in there.
Speaker 1: We can't swear in there.
Speaker 1: The sacred, the divine, is in there.
Speaker 1: We can't do that in there.
Speaker 1: That isn't appropriate.
Speaker 1: And so I would say to them things like got it, got it.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is not appropriate, things to say, violent language, abusive language.
Speaker 1: But also, if God is in here, that means that God is also out there, which means you shouldn't probably use that language out there either.
Speaker 1: And they would just stare at me with their eyes really big, because the whole thing is a temple.
Speaker 1: God is the same out there as God is in here.
Speaker 1: God dwells out there too.
Speaker 1: So we don't gather in here to get out of the big, bad world and do our things and meet with God in here.
Speaker 1: Instead, we gather in here to together remind ourselves that God can be found wherever we are, whatever our activities, whatever we're doing, that God can be found there, that we can wake up to God in all parts of life.
Speaker 1: So when we build temples, it's important to remember that when you're building them, god can't be housed in a box.
Speaker 1: So we don't really need a temple.
Speaker 1: In fact, the whole thing is a temple.
Speaker 1: Years ago I was at a twins game with my sons, logan and Gavin.
Speaker 1: They must have been, I don't know, 10, 11, 12 years old.
Speaker 1: We sat down at the twins game and right next to me there's these two young dudes like in their 20s, and they were two or three, two beers in.
Speaker 1: We had a great conversation almost from the jump.
Speaker 1: We're talking I love talking to young guys and we're chatting away about all kinds of stuff, and then finally they go hey, what do you do for a living.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh man, I don't want to ruin the conversation, gentlemen.
Speaker 1: So I go, well, well, I work at a church.
Speaker 1: And they're like oh man, you are in a pastor, are you?
Speaker 1: And they start laughing.
Speaker 1: Well, yes, I am.
Speaker 1: And they hide their beers.
Speaker 1: No, I'm kidding, that doesn't happen to me.
Speaker 1: For many pastors, that's what happens.
Speaker 1: It doesn't happen to me.
Speaker 1: You know what happens.
Speaker 1: People start confessing their sins to me, or like their darkest secrets.
Speaker 1: It's happened a number of times.
Speaker 1: Like it's odd, my wife laughs.
Speaker 1: You can ask her.
Speaker 1: So they're like you're a pastor At the twins game, middle of the 30 thing.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, like dude, we've been, we grew up in the church and we walked away from all of it and here's why.
Speaker 1: And they start confessing and like we've been doing all these things these last many years, like, whoa, here we go and they start confessing.
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding, right there.
Speaker 1: And so of course I said to them gentlemen, gentlemen, we're at a twins game, we are in ordinary space, we are not in there.
Speaker 1: Keep your confession for later.
Speaker 1: Some see me on Sunday in the building.
Speaker 1: Sorry, this is baseball time.
Speaker 1: No, I didn't say that, because I think the whole thing is a temple, it says, oh yeah, let's go.
Speaker 1: We're going to have some confession and absolution right here and right now, and my boys get to watch that.
Speaker 1: This is kind of how we do life, it's just part of normal life.
Speaker 1: So, trevor, you got the plumbing stick over there, or the plumber, you can hang on to it.
Speaker 1: Is Trevor's job sacred or divine, or is it ordinary and secular and meaningless?
Speaker 1: How about your job as a teacher?
Speaker 1: Is your job as a teacher a sacred, divine act?
Speaker 1: Many of us would try to prop up the temple and the temple space, which I get it.
Speaker 1: But we ask and he's like well, is this really?
Speaker 1: Is that really Christian?
Speaker 1: Is that book a Christian book or a Christian song, which I get?
Speaker 1: What is that a Christian job?
Speaker 1: A plumber, my job?
Speaker 1: Look, you might say to yourself, my job's not in the temple, my job's out here.
Speaker 1: I'm just a plumber, I'm just a stay-at-home mom or stay-at-home dad, I'm just raising kids.
Speaker 1: It's nothing special.
Speaker 1: I'm just an engineer, married to an engineer.
Speaker 1: That's nothing.
Speaker 1: I just do whatever, my job's not in the temple, like yours, pastor Ryan.
Speaker 1: What do we make of these things?
Speaker 1: What's that?
Speaker 1: Okay, there you go.
Speaker 1: I have two sons and one of them is going to college right now.
Speaker 1: He's a sophomore and he called me and he goes.
Speaker 1: He was studying actuarial science.
Speaker 1: What do you want to do?
Speaker 1: That, which I have no idea what that even means.
Speaker 1: Still to this day, I don't know what that even is.
Speaker 1: Not my lane.
Speaker 1: He's like dad, I think I want to declare my major.
Speaker 1: He's a sophomore and it's not actuarial, it's not math or statistics.
Speaker 1: I go yeah, what do you want to study, buddy?
Speaker 1: He goes, long story short, I love to study religion and double major in philosophy.
Speaker 1: I was like well, all right, let's go, brother, let's go.
Speaker 1: That's one of my lanes.
Speaker 1: I can talk to you about that.
Speaker 1: My other son wants to be a mechanical engineer.
Speaker 1: So of course I told him well, buddy, you can be a mechanical engineer, but my man, that means you're outside.
Speaker 1: You got to stay out.
Speaker 1: You got to get a tent and sleep out there, buddy, me and Logan will be in here.
Speaker 1: Good luck, pal.
Speaker 1: No, I'm like let's go.
Speaker 1: You want to study philosophy Great.
Speaker 1: You want to study engineering?
Speaker 1: Awesome.
Speaker 1: You want to be an actuarial scientist?
Speaker 1: Whatever it is, go ahead.
Speaker 1: You're a stay at home parent Fantastic.
Speaker 1: You want to be an actor Wonderful.
Speaker 1: You want to be a teacher.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 1: That's great Because God is not confined to a box.
Speaker 1: I'll close with this.
Speaker 1: Paul, there's a church, he starts, in Corinth.
Speaker 1: Now, if you can imagine this might be a little stretch for your imagination.
Speaker 1: Paul finds out that in Corinth there's all these different leaders of religious organizations imagine if you will and they all gather a following and they have rivalries amongst the religious gatherings.
Speaker 1: I know it's hard to stretch your imagination to think about that.
Speaker 1: I'm glad we don't have that problem today where we gather around a religious leader and then we all have these rivalries Anyway, and he writes him a letter, like you do, to kind of correct him.
Speaker 1: And he says to him hey, you knuckleheads original Greek there, by the way, If it's true, it all belongs to you.
Speaker 1: He tells them.
Speaker 1: So stop warring over which religious leader you're following and who's got the right and best church on the block and which denomination has it down pat and which ones are in and which ones are out.
Speaker 1: Stop doing that.
Speaker 1: He says look, all things are yours.
Speaker 1: Paul writes all things, all things yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, some of these religious leaders or the world.
Speaker 1: Wait, he goes from all things yours Paul, apollos, cephas and even the whole world is yours.
Speaker 1: What it's?
Speaker 1: A big leap.
Speaker 1: Then he says life or death, the present, the future, all of it's yours and you're of Christ and Christ as of God.
Speaker 1: It all belongs to you.
Speaker 1: It's all yours to be used.
Speaker 1: Of course there are things that are desecrated and misused or abused or sort of you know they're marred and not the way they were intended to be like.
Speaker 1: So Song of Songs is about romance and sex.
Speaker 1: We can point any direction and find a number of misuses of those things, but romance and sex is a gift from God.
Speaker 1: So all of these things are yours.
Speaker 1: You can use them and enjoy them and listen to your Taylor Swift album and play football and discover God and the sacred in and amongst those.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because, I would say because there's erotic poetry in the Bible.
Speaker 1: So if someone ever asks you like, hey, is being a teacher a sacred and divine job?
Speaker 1: Yes, it is because there's erotic poetry in the Bible.
Speaker 1: My pastor told me the fact that there's erotic poetry in the Bible makes me think that it all is good.
Speaker 1: Enjoy all of it.
Speaker 1: Of course there's desecrated parts and portions, and stay away from those kind of things or redeem them, but God can be found in all those places.
Speaker 1: We no longer have to prop up the temple.
Speaker 1: We can find God Central.
Speaker 1: May you know that God has no boundaries or edges or borders.
Speaker 1: Thankfully, god can't be confined by space or time.
Speaker 1: God is bigger and more grand than that and we can experience God in these comedy ways awesome.
Speaker 1: But life is full of beauty and wonder and loss and longing and desire and romance and sex and nature and leopards and football and plumbing and my Taylor Swift album and all these things are all good and you can enjoy them and you can redeem those lost things and bring them back.
Speaker 1: May you know that, because there's this wonderful book called the Song of Songs, that the whole thing is a temple, amen.