The Pew Podcast

Everybody Has a Hungry Heart

Asbury Bham

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0:00 | 32:32
SPEAKER_03

Hi, everyone. Welcome to The Pew, Asbury's Roundtable Podcast, where we chat with our pastors, missions partners, and church family to explore faith, community, and what it means to embody the way of Jesus together. I'm your host, Liz Dial, and I'm here today with the Reverends Maggie Dunaway and Michael Bowman. Hey guys, what's up?

SPEAKER_06

Hi, Liz.

SPEAKER_03

Hi, Liz. We're so glad you're here today. Sitting in the pew. In the actual pew. In the actual pew.

SPEAKER_06

Not around a round table.

SPEAKER_03

Not around a round table. Um that is true. But it is spirit.

SPEAKER_05

It is a pew. And here we are. And that's the name of the podcast. That's correct. Welcome. Welcome to the pew. Welcome.

SPEAKER_03

We're glad you're here. Um uh no, this is so exciting. We're um we're pumped to be doing the pew. We've done two episodes so far, and you guys are third, and we're talking about Lent. It's coming up. Technically, when this episode airs, it will have happened. You're right. Yep.

SPEAKER_02

You're 100% right. Forget the way these things air. Hey, no worries. No worries. All right.

SPEAKER_05

You're inland.

SPEAKER_02

You're inland.

SPEAKER_05

Right now. Here we are.

SPEAKER_02

You're fasting from something, perhaps. You're not going to be able to do that. Or have you added something? Perhaps you're pondering the wilderness of your life. Right. Okay, that was heavy. And then you have questions.

SPEAKER_03

Well, today we're going to do a deep dive into the Lent sermon series. So uh Hungry Hearts was the name of this series, um, which I love an alliteration. Right?

SPEAKER_06

Who doesn't? Also love Bruce Springsteen.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02

I thought you were gonna say that. Anyway, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03

I know you have questions. Uh yeah, no, I do. Uh I'm gonna check. Uh, how do you understand the concept of spiritual hunger in your own life? And I guess what inspired this series um in particular for Lint. I know you want to talk first.

SPEAKER_06

No, you're up.

SPEAKER_02

I know you want to talk first.

SPEAKER_06

I mean, I can, but I figure you might have a good idea.

SPEAKER_02

Let's go. No, go.

SPEAKER_06

Uh well, spiritual hunger is always a good time to kind of focus on such things. Um, what are we kind of filling ourselves up with? What are we lacking? Where are the places um in our life that are keeping us from God? Uh, what are some areas in our life where we can include God? Um, when I think about Lent, of course, we do talk about fasting quite a bit, um, which isn't necessarily like a Methodist practice, but plenty of people in our church um choose to fast from something, be it a food item or a kind of food or soda or candy, kind of the fun stuff. Some people will fast from social media like Facebook or Instagram. Um, I know people fasting from the news right, you know, right now. Um, and most of the time it's because uh those things often get in the way of our true hunger, and that is for God and for one another. And so when we talk about spiritual hungers, I mean, there you go. We're we're removing the other things, the idols as they are, in order to make room for God in our lives even more.

SPEAKER_02

I think it's an interesting, excuse me, question too, because um, you know, we don't deal with uh boredom or space very well. So I don't know that many people even know what it is that they're hungering for, um, because they're, you know, I and I'm just as guilty of standing in the grocery store line and having to look at my phone because I can't just stand there. Um, but I think if we sort of take a step back, what we are yearning for, what we were created to be, was to be in communion with God. And um that feels like a lot of different things for a lot of different people. I've been having to talk a lot about my call story because I'm coming up for ordination and I talk about before coming to a realization of God and who Christ was, I felt um what I can like only. I I've called it loneliness, but also maybe like a yearning or like a something is missing. Um, and I now know what that was, but I think I still feel that way. I was talking to somebody the other day that I was really hungering for more with God, more depth, more time. And so, you know, I love Lent because it doesn't really expect us, there is no tidy ending doesn't expect us to fix that, but it does expect us to delve into it and to face it.

SPEAKER_06

So Yeah, and I think I mean you're you remind me of like Blaise Pascal's famous quote about there's a God-shaped hole in our hearts and that only God can fit. Well, sure. But it's because I mean it's true because you know, part of what we remember every year is we kind of place ourselves in the situation of these great teachers and um who go before us. So of course, Jesus, I believe, is more than a great teacher, but Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness, which is also very much mirroring the Israelites' experience in the Exodus story out in the desert 40 years. Um, I say 40 years of Jesus, I meant 40 days. You said 40 days, okay, good. But then, you know, you even see Moses is out there with them, all these folks go out into the wilderness, into the lonely places to use some of the language, Maggie, you're using there. And that's where they kind of encounter reality as it is. And I think all of us, and when I say reality, I mean encounter God and in God's fullness. But they also not only encounter God in these spaces, we also encounter ourselves. It's like looking in the mirror, those places uh of ourselves that we don't like, the places that we do, uh, the blemishes, um, the faults. Um, and then I think if we kind of spend time in these spaces even longer, we start experiencing even evil itself, which is what Jesus encounters in the devil um uh out in the wilderness. And so in these spaces, they're necessary though, because they transform us. Uh, Lent is supposed to be a transformative season leading up to Easter, which is going to be a feast season that we can celebrate. Uh, and so I mean, all of this is necessary and good. Um, but this year, this particular sermon series, I think we kind of came up with it as a pastoral team together because we had just come out of these pretty long conversations and sermons about the God we thought we knew, kind of reorienting our image of God in our head, um, replacing kind of the distorted views of God with a more beautiful, loving image of God instead. And we dove right into then a sermon series on the you you thought you knew, these that we were um nothing more than what we do or what we have or what other people say about us. And so Lint just kind of seems like this appropriate time to be like, okay, well, what are we actually hungering for? That makes sense. So it's there is like a method to our madness, I guess.

SPEAKER_02

Did you notice he couldn't just let me answer the question? Like he had a good and answer again.

SPEAKER_06

I was answering the second part of the question.

SPEAKER_03

I mean she's offended. I'm just gonna let y'all fight. Okay. This will just be the pod. Um move us along. This is every day. No, this is uh this is it, it's such an interesting, because I feel like, yeah, especially like I don't want to be a person that's like, ugh, these kids and their dang phones. Like that's every time I talk about something like this, that's what it feels like. Um like everybody's so distracted, scrolling all day. But that's how I feel. I mean, literally, like last night, I was I was on my phone and I was like, someone has to take this away from me. Someone has to take this away from me. Um, so it's interesting that like removed from distractions or um and going into the wilderness, as it were. Um, you can start to kind of see like, okay, what do I actually want? What do I actually like yearn for?

SPEAKER_02

I actually saw this um one of our, you may have seen this. She a mom posted it of her son. Um, and they go to church here, and I love he's in eighth grade, and he just uh got a flip phone instead of a smartphone because he was like, I just find myself like completely distracted by it. Like maybe when I'm driving I'll rethink that. But like he's like text his mom like T9. Yeah, exactly. So um, but I I think if we find ourselves sitting there for an hour, an hour's gone by and we're scrolling. Um, I don't know if if we can make ourselves stop, it's worth exploring what it is we're really looking for. And the phone's just an example.

SPEAKER_03

Right, 100%. It's just like one of those things a thousand million trillion distractions that can kind of get in front of us and what we really want. And trying to like tell us what we want, I think is interesting.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's very much so very advertising. Nefarious. You want this and you must have it now.

SPEAKER_03

Right, exactly. And this will make your life better and you're gonna be a better person because of it. Your skin will be better, right, and you're gonna have more friends, and we could go on. Yeah, right, exactly.

SPEAKER_06

And then, however, though, I wonder how many times have you asked your question like, wait, isn't there more than this? And that's where these practices, I think that's part of the wisdom of the church and the church calendar, not only just following Jesus' life, and then of course six months of ordinary time and living out as expressions of Jesus in the world as a church, but the wisdom is that we understand the human condition. And before there was an iPhone, there were other distractions, there were whatever. And all of them aren't necessarily bad. Right. But I think what we find, especially during Lent, if we allow ourselves, is that this world is really noisy, not just audibly, but even visually. Um, this world is really good at telling us who to be and who we are. Um, and and we keep, I think that's part of the reason why we doom scroll or scroll or shop or what have you, is because we keep trying to give ourselves a sense at least of the answer to the question, isn't there more? And I wonder what would happen if we did observe a holy lint, as the liturgy says, and just got still, got quiet, got alone, even attempted to just sit with our thoughts in the presence of God and just see what happens.

SPEAKER_03

But Michael, that's scary.

SPEAKER_06

Well, I was gonna actually say that is a terrifying thing.

SPEAKER_03

An absolutely terrifying motion.

SPEAKER_02

There's a quote that Dallas Willard um Oh my gosh, again, like just like we haven't even been in this podcast for 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_06

So Dallas Willard said uh once that um when you get still, he was talking about the practice of solitude, that when you get still and silent, um, you might even discover that there is very little between you and God. And for some of us, that might be a really comforting thing, but I think most of the time, if we're honest, that's a really scary uh idea that there isn't actually this mountain or this chasm between us, but that God is more near than we could even imagine, which I think is a gift of Lent, but also is a scary part. And I think like you, I mean, we were joking, but I think that's part of why we don't enter into stuff like this.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, yeah. It's absolutely terrifying to be alone with your thoughts.

SPEAKER_06

Absolutely. Where are they gonna go?

SPEAKER_02

You know, actually, Henry Nowen says that um without silence, you can't actually um transform your heart and mind without that silence and space with God. Um, there's really just no space or room to do.

SPEAKER_06

What book was that in?

SPEAKER_03

Wounded heart.

SPEAKER_06

You know, going off of that Henry Nowen quote, he also continues to say I'm gonna that silence.

SPEAKER_02

Rain it in, Liz. Rain it in the box. No, this is really good. I do want to hear these quotes. This is uh you know, I don't remember it like that. I wanna I want to add to I can't remember which book it is.

SPEAKER_06

So now also to that point talks about solitude and silence as the uh furnace of transformation. It's where you go to have those scary thoughts, the lies that you tell yourself, the thing that she said to you in third grade that still hurts, you know, um, the way that you were brought up, your upbringing, whatever, but even just like the distractions themselves can all kind of be burned off so that you can come out more of who you are intended to be, transformed. It's not just for the sake of information that we go in and we get all this head knowledge, it's that we come out as a different person, a more loving kind of person who looks and acts like Jesus.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Um it's interesting. We're talking a lot about like kind of internal transformation and internal, but it's like I feel, sorry, I said like um, I feel that so often, maybe when we do have that silence and we do have that moment of reflection, what we are hungry for a lot of the time is like is community and connection. Um, so why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_01

I'm I'm curious about that where like we as humans crave that or yearn for community and not just solitary change. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um, I think it's tied up, and I know Michael have a probably better, deeper answer, uh, in the fact that we are made in the image of God and that ultimately our um sort of role on this earth i is to be in community with God first uh but also with one another. Um, I mean you know, there's not there wasn't just one of us. There there were two of us. And um I think that that innate knowledge, that innate need to be with one another is has been there from the very beginning. And I also think that um you know, we continue to be, even though weirdly connected, more and more isolated. Communities don't function like they have, or certainly not not like they did in the day of you know, uh Jesus, where your community was just a huge part of your life. And um I don't know, I think people are really, really searching. I think you're spot on, people are searching for community, for connection in a world that feels very fragmented and very broken. So But I I feel like it's tied to how God made us as humans.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, I would say I would only echo it. I mean, I think of you know the whoever the poet is writing Genesis not quoting someone, well, our Bible. But you know, we see God saying that it was not good for man to be alone. And it still rings true that this there is this deep desire, I think both of you are nailing it on the head, to be in connection, to be in community with one another. I mean, if God is the Holy Trinity and in constant loving relationship and God made us in his image and likeness, then we are only invited into that type of community ourselves, yearning for that community ourselves, wanting that um in the world in which we live. And I think you know, we're we're seeing it to play out, right? Because I don't know, uh maybe it's because I'm a pastor in a church that I can say this, but I don't know if the church as of late has done a very good job with this whole community and relationship thing. We like talking about fellowship, but it looks a lot like one person talking in front of a crowd of other people. And I think we find a lot of folks in their 20s, 30s, 40s, maybe even beyond, looking for community elsewhere. And they're finding it, they're finding it at their local bar or pub, they're finding it in their improv groups, they're finding it in, and would love to hear more about that, like what real connection and community looks like. I mean, we've heard the stories, yeah, but in their CrossFit and their what have views, and it is an interesting trend to notice because as Maggie was pointing to, at the same time, though, we're growing so much more isolated, and I actually think that's because of this distortion we have in our head of we can do this on our own.

SPEAKER_03

And want community.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_01

I don't I I it's like being self-sufficient, I think is is lauded as a as a good and strong and moral thing.

SPEAKER_03

And so when so asking for help or asking for community is the scariest thing in the world because you feel like you've failed.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, there's a vulnerability in that. Absolutely. But it also goes against everything you've been taught, at least here in America. Right. The American way is an individual way.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. And I don't think we realize how distinctly American that is. Right. Um, and that, you know, historically, that's not the way America functioned. This is really more of a product of probably coming up into the 1940s, 50s really is when it just completely, you know, took hold the whole pull yourself up by your bootstraps and um, you know, the Rockefellers, you're if all you can, you know, if you can work hard enough, you can make the money, you can do the thing. Um, we have become completely individualistic as a society, which then causes us to um not only be isolated ourselves, but to forget that caring for our neighbor, caring for one another, uh, is a huge part of who we are in Christ, who Christ made us to be.

SPEAKER_03

Um and that we're probably wanting and yearning for.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

It's not to say it's all bad to be individualistic. It's just that I think we forget and a lot of the c world doesn't function this way. Right. And you know, there you go. Sometimes it's a better thing, sometimes it's probably I was watching a video yesterday.

SPEAKER_03

I actually sent it to I'll send it to you too, but I sent it to you. Um and the guy at it was talking about how in America work has become a spiritual practice.

SPEAKER_04

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And that just kind of blew me away because I was like, oh yeah, like people are worshiping the work. We've we worship all sorts of things. Yeah, all sorts of things, but it's it's they're not got it. This is a very interesting. I think I hadn't heard that point before.

SPEAKER_06

Well, and I think that speaks to the vulnerability thing. If I can work is something I can control, work is something that I can uh manipulate and feel secure. And so if I work 60 hours, I can feel accomplished, I can feel like I'm doing something. If I can make the paycheck because I'm working so much, even better. If I can provide for my family, there's a security, there's an identity piece to that. The vulnerability really at its core is it's it's vulnerability because we feel unsafe. We feel laid bare. And instead of asking for help, or instead of reaching out, what we tend to do unfortunately, whether it's anxiety or what have you, is we turn inward, which only isolates us even more. So we can't ask for help because we don't think we deserve it, or what have you.

SPEAKER_00

And yeah, it's a vicious cycle.

SPEAKER_03

And to that point, when asking I I think y'all would agree, but like asking God for help or asking to be in community with God is not a thing that you can ever deserve. I don't know. I I think we do deserve it. I mean, I think interesting. Yeah. I'm just thinking like he he wants community even though we don't. That's correct. Even though we often don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And not in a like, I'm bad in a sinner kind of way, but just like, you don't have to deserve this love. Correct. Yes.

SPEAKER_06

You're already worthy.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06

Going back, going back to the poetry of Genesis again, the the very first thing that's said about you, when God looks at humanity, he doesn't just say good, he says very good. And what we tend to do is start with Genesis three and say, well, when God looks at us, he thinks broken. And so we start saying things like, Well, when God looks at you now because of Jesus, he sees Jesus. Well, that's not the relationship with God I want. I want the relationship with God, and I love Jesus, but when he looks at me, I want him to see Michael. I want him to see me. And I think he does. I think what Genesis 1 says is God looks at you and says, very good. Or we've talked about recently in our sermon series, Luke 15, when the father comes out to get the older brother. The favorite line in all of scripture is he looks at the older son and he says, Son, you are always with me. This isn't about deserving. This isn't about fairness. He says, Everything I have is yours.

SPEAKER_02

That's one of Michael's favorite stories, by the way. And that's the truth of the matter. Well, and hopefully you see there has been some method to what we've been trying to do as a pastoral team and um and what we've been seeing with people and people who are hurting in our congregation. You know, the starting out with the God you thought you knew, and then following that up with the you you thought you knew, that you are more than the job that you do, that you are more than the 10K that you ran, you are more than than the um you know what the achievements that you have, the bank account that you have, how what does it look like to live in that identity of beloved, whether you deserve it or not? Right. What does it look like to live from a place of that love? Because it doesn't look like scarcity or isolation or loneliness. It looks like abundance and unity and love. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

And what does it look like to look and act like Jesus and turn that around to your the people around you as well.

SPEAKER_02

And I think that the story the prodigal son, I mean, there is no it's not that there's not enough love for both of the sons, for the one that rejects the father, for the one that is jealous. There there is enough love for them both. The father is never out of love. Yeah, it's not a finite resource. Yeah. Regardless of what they do and how they react.

SPEAKER_06

I have a question.

SPEAKER_03

I know you're the question asker Yeah, and I knew this was going to happen.

SPEAKER_06

So we're talking about all these things this vicious cycle, this wanting not being um what others say about you, what you do, what have you, the 10K, the 401k, the what have you? I don't know if y'all feel this way, but this is kind of my question. Like when you think of all those things, doesn't it kind of make you anxious?

SPEAKER_03

Oh totally.

SPEAKER_06

When you're trying to define yourself, when you're trying to find worth in all that other stuff, right? No matter what it is. I mean, we all have our own things, but to me, that's why I was kind of talking about that question like, isn't there more? What would it look like if we were just content? If we could actually be content um I'm gonna bring in another quote because Maggie loves it so much. Dallas Willard again was sitting across from a student of his at lunch and he asked the student, Do you have a word? If you could pick any word, what would it be to describe Jesus? And the student didn't want to like look foolish in front of Dallas because he loves Dallas Willard and he thought of all the things maybe a little more. But love joyful whatever all the things biblical things you would think of but he said I don't know Dallas, what would you say? And Dallas was known for his long pauses so he paused for a while and then he looks at the guy and he says relaxed to me what lent lent itself okay and all the practices that we're talking about the spiritual hungering the the fasting every bit of it are means to an end. They're not the end and of them in of them they're not the goal. We don't want you to fast to be really good at fasting.

SPEAKER_05

Right.

SPEAKER_06

We don't want you to read your Bible so that you can be really good at reading your Bible or praying so you can be the best prayer. That's not the point. The point of Lent in these exercises that we're going to be talking about or preaching on is communion with God. And I think when we can be vulnerable before God, when we can be still and silent before God, when we can allow ourselves the space to get there and to somewhat grow in some comfortableness to grow comfortable in God's presence it's difficult, it takes time. But if we can get to that point we might even find ourselves becoming relaxed. And from there, you know, returning back to the world from those spaces we will notice how noisy it is it's like when you go off to the cabin for the weekend and then you come back and there's like a stack of paperwork.

SPEAKER_05

Right.

SPEAKER_06

There's the emails to respond to your mom called you like 17 times wondering where you were the social media stuff is going crazy. You're like what did I miss? Right? But then you ask yourself again like wait what did I miss? I didn't miss anything.

SPEAKER_03

The world kept on turning. I'm fine yeah exactly and it will with or without you with or without you you too we uh we shout out Bono we don't have the rights to that song you cannot sing more than that thanks Bono don't sue us um let me look through my questions please do Maggie do you want to do a do op while she looks through her questions yeah go ahead and do a song do a quote more Dallas Willard like really just do it for us. Please don't quote you at your quota okay I have a question podcast I have a question.

SPEAKER_02

What uh turning this to the practical I guess what practice or spiritual discipline could we as the audience we as the world um kind of employ in our lives to uh hold on to stay attentive to our hungry hearts this season during Easter and beyond well I mean literally he's just spent at least 10 minutes talking about it silence three minutes of silence I mean how do you as much as he does if he he's not that silent I'm gonna say um how do that probably how do you do that?

SPEAKER_03

Because I think I think when people picture silence or solitude or meditation it's okay I'm gonna sit in this chair and I'm gonna close my eyes and I'm gonna breathe I guess yeah you should breathe I mean if not that meditation will end up in you passing out but um it is a practiced discipline and there is no short way around it.

SPEAKER_02

Uh I mean it can be as simple as setting your timer for two minutes if you can only do it for two minutes. It's not a perfection thing. It is simply a continuing to try to do it to also not be annoyed with yourself when your mind starts um going to a different million different places um it's getting away getting out in the world in nature away from people I mean these are practical things but you're asking there are 8,000 million apps but it's really not about getting the app you have to actually just do it.

SPEAKER_03

I think the point I wanted to make was just like there are a thousand ways to do it.

SPEAKER_02

But in terms of practices, I wouldn't actually agree with Michael on this one that is the most important thing that you can do is learn to be quiet with yourself and allow God And you have to allow yourself to be bad at it at first let yourself be real bad at it real bad at it. I mean I don't know he may be perfect but I I'm I'm not and I've you know some days where great and some days where it's terrible Yeah I I think everything you just said is exactly what I would say there's no there's no right way.

SPEAKER_06

Um it is as simple as finding a chair and sitting down and closing your eyes and breathing. Sometimes it's just focusing on the fact that you're breathing. Um there was a season in my life where I couldn't pray I didn't I didn't have words anymore. And that was a little disheartening growing up in a church that taught me how to pray with words um Santa Claus God and all that you know just a list of things to hand over and hope that God blesses or does something with and in this season of uh whatever you want to call it I didn't have words anymore which is why I think the church itself is a gift um to those of us in it just because when you can't pray there are other people praying um holding you up. But what I found was the words weren't necessary and that all that was necessary in that moment was my attention and my presence. I I tell the story a lot of this morning with my little brother um when we first moved to Birmingham about eight years ago now where we were just in each other's presence at 4 30 in the morning he's about to go back to Chattanooga and it's dark in the house Sarah's pregnant and asleep and we didn't want to wake her up. And so I was making coffee and for about three to five minutes we just enjoyed being with each other. And it hit me about a year later like this is all God wants just a recognition that we're together in this. And so yes we will have monkey brain and we will constantly be jumping from limb to limb looking for the next distraction or unfocus and what have you but the time is well spent because it's spent in the presence of God. And if that's your intention going in, I think God honors that and you might not know it in the moment but a year later a week later an hour later it might be oh that's what that was for. And what you're doing is you're carving out that space and you're reteaching your brain like oh I can calm down I can be still I can stop everything's okay the world does still go on without me that connection is possible that I didn't think was possible. And in a world where attention is getting smaller and smaller and smaller it is a bit countercultural to say wait I actually want a longer attention span than 20 seconds.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah you know yeah absolutely I think that's a great uh button to this episode yeah no this was um leave them with some practical advice well I mean it you do have to do it you have to yeah I mean it's it's a practice it it has to happen has to happen um but yeah not about just coming up with a plan right right but hungry hearts hungry hearts we love them gotta have them gotta have them gotta have those hungry hungry hearts not hungry hungry hippo anyway I'm gonna do my intro now thank you for listening to the pew we are so excited to be releasing this podcast along with our 2026 sermon series so make sure to subscribe to wherever you get your podcast and check out asberrybeham.com to find out opportunities where you can worship serve and grow together it's dot org it is dot org isn't it I didn't say dot com last time did I no surely not worship serve grow shout out to Amy see you later bye