The Expansionist Podcast
Shelly Shepherd and Heather Drake invite you to listen in on a continuing conversation about expanding spirituality, the Divine Feminine, and the transforming impact of living attuned to Wisdom, Spirit and Love.
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The Expansionist Podcast
Returning to Wholeness: What if We Simply Laid Sin Down?
What if everything you thought you knew about sin and separation from God was based on a misunderstanding? What if the true spiritual journey isn't about managing sin but remembering your divine nature?
Shelley Shepard and Heather Drake dive into a spicy conversation about religious labels that have historically limited our spiritual experience. Through exploring Mary Magdalene as "the new Eve," they uncover a powerful alternative narrative—one where humans were never truly separated from the divine in the first place.
Shelly and Heather challenge listeners to question inherited religious frameworks with the same question God asked Eve: "Who told you that?" This simple query opens the door to examining how certain theological constructs may have disconnected us from our birthright of divine communion. Drawing from both biblical narratives and apocryphal texts like the Gospel of Mary, they reveal how Mary Magdalene understood a profound truth—that transformation comes through presence with the divine, not through moral perfection or religious rule-following.
"Sin is what separates you from God, but there isn't anything that separates us from God," Heather explains, offering a radical reframing of traditional theology. This perspective invites listeners to put down the burden of sin management and instead embrace what Jesus actually taught: oneness with divine love.
The conversation weaves between scripture, personal reflection, and spiritual insight to illuminate a path beyond religious trauma toward wholeness. Their message is ultimately one of liberation—that we can release limiting labels and experience what Mary Magdalene knew in her bones: we are "made of God, made of love," and nothing can separate us from this fundamental truth.
Visit expansionisttheology.com to join our community and continue exploring how returning to divine wholeness transforms not just our spiritual lives, but our entire experience of being human.
Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with Shelley Shepard and Heather Drake. In each episode, we dive deep into conversations that challenge conventional thinking, amplify diverse voices and foster a community grounded in wisdom, spirit and love. Good afternoon, heather Drake. Good afternoon Shelley Shepard. I am so happy to be here with you in the studio recording, having a moment together to bring light and love to each other and to the world.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it's great to see you.
Speaker 1:It's always fun just to gather and prepare our thoughts to share with the world, our little conversation over here in the corner of our world, where we love to talk about Mary and Eve and sin and all the things that stir us and light and spirituality and, yeah, all the things that make us women, that make us in the image of God and that allow us to expand our thoughts and expand our intentions and hopefully be brighter lights and bigger carriers of God's kind of love.
Speaker 2:Amen to that. We talked a few weeks ago about Mary is the new Eve. We dipped into ago about Mary is the new Eve. We dipped into sin in some different places and I think our heart is still stirring around that.
Speaker 1:What would you say? I would agree. Now, certainly we cannot cover everything that everyone has ever talked about about sin in a podcast, and really I think the portion of it that captures our attention right now is the idea of how often we have been handed something like a label and then we have used it to frame our own lives or our own thoughts. And the invitation, I believe, from Mary and from Jesus and from love's way is telling us to remove the labels from things. Examine them at least, look at them, turn them around upside down and say is this the truth, Is this the light, Is this the way? And I think that Mary's way, the way of love, the way that we're being given some truth to uncover, I think there's hope and there's a whole lot of mercy. There's a whole lot of mercy in that way.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I want to read to us a blessing from the Magdalene Jan Ritzerson. You hardly imagined standing here. Everything you ever loved suddenly returned to you, looking you in the eye and calling your name. And now you do not know how to abide this hole in the center of your chest where a door slams shut and swings wide at the same time, turning on the hinge of your aching and hopeful heart. I tell you, this is not a banishment from the garden. This is an invitation, a choice, a threshold, a gate. This is your life, calling you from a place you could have never dreamed. But now that you have glimpsed its edge, you cannot imagine choosing any other way.
Speaker 1:So let the tears come as anointing, as consecration, and then let them go. Let this blessing gather itself around you. Let it give you what you will need for this journey. You will not remember the words, they do not matter. All you need to remember is how it sounded when you stood in the place of death and you heard the living call your name. Wow, I think the living is calling our name, and the blessing and the anointing is all pointing to another path, another way of considering things, another way of living through the heart, with the eyes of our heart, seeing things with the ears of our heart, listening to the Spirit. And this invitation to think about it, consider it, to honor the Lord with our intelligence. I think this is an invitation to reexamine and to look at something and then, like God, call it good.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love that. I love that invitation and what a beautiful blessing. Thank you for sharing that with us here today and the remembering. I think that's a big piece of the bad news possibly is that we're forgetting that we're divine. Possibly is that we're forgetting that we're divine, but the good news is the remembering that we are divine, that there is no separation in us, between us, that we've never been cast out of the garden. We were included in the garden. We were given something expansive to hold and to grow and to nurture.
Speaker 1:And to have conversations with. I think we miss sometimes part of the story. The story is that in this beautiful garden, at least part of the story is that people walked with God and have a conversation with God, and this is the invitation for our whole lives is to walk about this world and to have a conversation with spirit to have a conversation with love, to have a conversation with creator, to have a conversation with each other, and this oneness, this unity of spirit and of love, this unity of even calling into presence the other.
Speaker 1:This is, I think, where all the freedom is, where all of the goodness is. This is where life happens and we get distracted by parts of the story somebody highlighted to us or didn't highlight to us, or we had flannel ramp pieces for, and this becomes you and I were talking just recently and I think it was on the other podcast about Eve and I was reminding you that in some Jewish texts there's an even earlier text and there's a woman in the story and her name is Lilith, adam's first wife, and so Adam has this wife and he tells her to obey and she invokes the name of God, which is my favorite part of this particular story. She invokes the name of God and then she just simply leaves the garden. Absolutely not, I'm not doing this.
Speaker 2:She doesn't want to have anything to do with it Immediately. No.
Speaker 1:Immediately, it's a no for me. He doesn't want to have anything to do with it Immediately. No, immediately it's a no for me. And so I think the hope for the whole world, for us, is to still say what is it like for us to invoke love's name? What is it like for us to say if the story that you've been told is limiting, if the story that you've been told tells you that you have to stay under this label or in this particular corner, maybe you need to invoke the name of God and walk out of that garden and walk into bigger light and walk into more. You know there's a bigger world than this, and I think the idea of you know gates or things that keep us behind places again just reminds me of the words of Jesus, who said I have sheep in another fold that you don't even know anything about.
Speaker 1:If you're so worried about what this gate is and what sheep are in and who is out, jesus is like yeah, I've got other things that you don't even know anything about. So if where you are in your life feels Black sheep, speckled sheep multicolored sheep yeah. For every sheep we have a good shepherd.
Speaker 2:We have a good shepherd, yes, and I think we often get trapped, as you said, heather, behind these doors or in these boxes or under these labels that keep us from experiencing not just our truest identity in Christ, but the ultimate reason that we were created was for oneness with God, to be with God, and I hear people often in church, out of church, at different tables, wanting to take this word sin. That started somewhere in the beginning. It's interesting that it wasn't in the beginning beginning. It only happened after people got involved. But we take this word and we stretch it and place it over nearly every aspect of our lives and I just see the harm that we're doing, not just as people of faith and of the church, but also how, in our minds, we have to wrestle that and we have to separate it, and I think that maybe you see this, maybe as a pastor, more than what I do, but sin is the stumbling block. Well, I think that the idea of sin.
Speaker 1:and, firstly, it's a good idea to ask the question that God asked Eve in the beginning, since we're starting there who told you that, Sure? Who told you this was sin? Who told you that you were naked? Who told you that you were not enough, that you had to cover this or be this?
Speaker 1:I love that first question that tells me how separation that somehow our egos have convinced us, other people's egos have convinced us that we are separate from that there is a separation, that there is distance between us and God. I mean, in fact, that is the lie, I think, of what sin is. Sin is what separates you from God, but there isn't anything that separates us from God. In fact, the Apostle Paul worked tirelessly to say that there's nothing that could separate us from God. Now, are there things that we do that are sinful, that are harmful, that are hurtful? Yes, but at the core of us, at the place of who we are, there is wholeness, there is holiness, there is oneness, and the call of love, the call of Christ, the call of apostles like Mary, is reminding us return to the good, return back to those places that are whole and holy, that there is no way that contamination of any kind could get.
Speaker 1:In fact, one of the ways that the holy spirit is described is as a seal, something that comes upon us. We are sealed by the holy spirit. That means no contaminations can come into us. There is nothing that could change this. This is ultimately holy and pure before the Lord and before each other, standing before each other naked and unashamed and going. This is who we are made in the image of God, and so I think it deserves a lot of questioning and it deserves a lot of debates, and it deserves a lot of inward time of going. Am I bringing something to this to myself, to my relationship, to others? Am I bringing a label that someone else gave me, and am I trying to cover everything with this label when what we're invited into is an expansion of grace, more grace between us?
Speaker 2:Yeah, if we jump from the garden to Mary Magdalene as the new Eve, we get this similar story where immediately well, I don't know how immediate it was, but there was this conversations around Mary Magdalene that the you know Jesus loved her more than all of us. There was this inner circle with her and Jesus. There was this intuition that she understood and that she had somehow connected with what his message ultimately was that the good is within you, the kingdom is within you. And then from that inner sanctuary, that inner kingdom, is how my love expands, how the world is touched, how life is transformed.
Speaker 2:And then she becomes demoted by Peter and others as sinful, as a sinful woman, as a prostitute. That label was carried by her and by the church and by second testament for a very, very long time. And so when you say the labels are are keeping us bound, the, the constructs, the systems, the patriarchy, those things, the structures that we have been handed, are the pieces that are keeping us from a transcendent life, a deeper spiritual walk, a deeper understanding that I am loved and beloved beyond all measure. Like, how do we go from a posture in the garden to this knowing story that we have with Mary Magdalene, to our own understanding that there is no separation.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, shelley, it feels like there is a separation, or sometimes other people have told us that there's a separation, or sometimes we don't know what there is and so we assume it's a separation. I was thinking so much about the fact that, in fact, the apostle Paul says this when I was a child. I thought as a child that I considered things as a child did, and one of the things that following and faithfulness and community and communion actually intend to produce in us is transformation that allows us into love's maturity. And so as we mature, we begin to think differently, to consider things differently. Very often, as children, we consider silence, absence, and anytime there's silence, we're convinced it's absence. And then we're thinking you know, what did I do? How did I separate? Am I lost? I mean, our brains go through these gymnastics to make connection when really there is such incredible wholeness in the silence To be with someone fully, when you do not have to fill the sound around you or the air around you with sound, to just be present, to be fully loved and fully seen and not need noise.
Speaker 1:And I think that as we age or as we grow, we're able to see that, in this beautiful presence that the Spirit gives us the silence doesn't mean that absence doesn't mean anything is wrong, doesn't mean we did something bad or that we are somehow disconnected.
Speaker 1:In fact, it's an invitation into a further connection. We want to pause and take a moment and let you know how glad we are that you've joined us. If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a friend, and if you found the conversation intriguing and want to know more about what we're learning or how you can join our online community, visit our website at expansionistheologycom. And I think that's one of the things that Mary offers is reminding us that the way of love connects us even more deeply to spirit and to ourselves and where, as before, if we're focused on what people have told us about sin or sin management, sin or sin management we miss the invitation to go inward with Christ, to go inward and to find the love that is already there, the love that we're seeking for, that is already present there. That we find the practice that Mary did of anointing, of presence, of giving, and we find hope in that practice that brings us to true holiness, that brings us to wholeness, that brings us to that place where the divine and our humanity meet. It's interesting.
Speaker 2:I read last week, I don't know, meet. It's interesting. I read last week, I don't know, maybe it was, maybe it came from you, I'm not. I'm not sure where I heard this, but what you just said is that absence, silence is not absence, it's presence, and I yeah, finish, I was just going to say.
Speaker 1:but in love's presence always liberates us always liberates us does not bind us.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. Cornered off or not allowed to speak or not allowed to teach or preach or bring a message, that that silence felt like absence, like absence of God or even absence of spirit. But I believe the divine, feminine spirit within us is just beckoning for us to release that, Put those things in the past and find the voice that maybe was left in the garden or maybe was left with the brothers somewhere else along the path, to bring it now and, as you said, to turn what we thought. You know, as children, as younger people, as growing up, we've learned some things now about this relationship with who God is to us, with whose spirit is to us. It's not the same and I'm not saying that God changes. Maybe she does, Maybe they do, I don't know but there is some kind of shift that has happened when we allow the Spirit of God and the anointing presence of God to lead us and teach us and guide us and nurture us into this deeper way, into this deeper understanding that I believe Mary Magdalene knew in her bones, she knew, and I believe Jesus knew that she knew as well, and that is that's hope to me, that is hope that you know, even if the Catholic Church.
Speaker 2:I was talking to someone yesterday. The Catholic Church doesn't, you know, isn't allowing women to lead mass, and then this woman went to a church where the woman was leading mass and maybe she was a deacon or some other title and I just said her comment was spirit will never be stopped, Spirit can never be stopped. And my comment to her was spirit will find a way, Spirit will find a way. So keep pressing in, and I feel like that's what we do every time we come here. To record is you know, spirit is wanting not just us to embrace you know what we're feeling, what we're sensing but to invite others.
Speaker 1:But then to be able to look back at history and be able to go when you shared that story right there. It just reminds me of Paul and thekla, and thekla who says can I be baptized? Not now, not now. She's like that's okay, I'll do it myself. You know this idea of it's. Fine. If you don't want to include me, I'll, I'll find a way. I will. That's right.
Speaker 1:I will engage the spirit, I will take my birthright, I will assume my position as son of god, daughter of god, right you, as person made in the image of God, and be able to say that is my right as a spirit to be connected with God's own spirit, to allow my thoughts to enter the thoughts of God and to be one, because this is what Jesus prays for us. Father, make them one. Yes, prays for us, father. Make them one, and not in conformity, but in all of our beauty and diversity, to allow us to bring ourselves, our whole selves, into the presence of love and then stay fully connected to that divine love. To stay fully connected to that I think that's one of the things that we see in the witness of the testimony of Jesus is that he stayed connected to the love of the Father and it allowed him to be a miracle worker, to do the miraculous, to really live fully human and this is the witness of Christ is that we would be fully alive. And the kingdom that is so close to us that it's even in our mouth, the kingdom right here and now.
Speaker 1:The invitation of Jesus is as it is in heaven, is not for when we die, it's for now.
Speaker 1:And it's this invitation into living fully in the present for us living and allowing the love that has already been shed abroad in our heart, through Christ Jesus, to be the love that we love ourselves with, to be the love that we love our neighbors with, to be the love that we love the world with. And this love, this staying in this particular presence of love. I think that Mary shows us such a beautiful way to do that, and it is return to the good, return to love. Every time it feels like your brain has gotten off or your mind has gotten into somewhere else, bring it back under. This idea of love is the way Love, is the way that we transcend. Love is the way that the Holy Spirit speaks to us, and the Spirit of God, which is the agent of transformation, invites us to not only be ourselves transformed, but to be able to have a hope for the world, that this world has hope because the power of God's incredible love it's a beautiful story, heather, it's just a beautiful.
Speaker 2:It's a beautiful way to uh, to live our lives in the world is is through this uh connection with the divine and creation and this expansive love and knowing that that we are one. Um, and I feel like, not feel like. I believe Mary Magdalene had that feeling and that knowing and the intuition that she had been transformed by what. What was she transformed by? He hadn't yet ascended, he hadn't resurrected, he hadn't moved on. What was she transformed by?
Speaker 1:I think the presence of spirit, the presence between them, yes, the scripture that reminds us that where two or three are there in fact it is a First Testament promise as well when two or three are together and they read Torah, the Shekinah is there between them. And this Shekinah, this or Shekinah, or however you want to use that word, but this presence of spirit, this is the agent of transformation. This is our, our, our link to the, to the eternal that we are all looking for. And the invitation into spirit is not an invitation that is given to us because we earned it or because we're moral enough or because we have followed enough rules, but the invitation to spirit is our birthright. Are you breathing? You're invited into spirit. Are you alive? Is there consciousness at all? You're invited into spirit.
Speaker 1:This is the practice of communion, the Eucharist, the table. This is the practice of friendship. This is the practice of holy brotherhood, sisterhood. This is the practice of the church. This is the practice of when it talks about. True religion is caring for widows and orphans. That this religion is, that we are going to love the world and make it a better place. This is how the dead are raised.
Speaker 1:This is the practice of resurrection, but I think that often we forget that resurrection wasn't the final step, that it is the ascension, it is the transcendence that, yes, we need the dead to be raised, but that's not enough. There is for us an invitation into the holy life place of transcendence.
Speaker 2:And I think for me it boils down to remembering, to remembering that I'm loved, that I've never been separated, that, no matter what labels people have tried to place on me or to hand me as a woman, that the remembering is, that for within me is a spirit holy, intelligent, manifold, subtle, active, incisive, unsullied, lucid right. It's this book of wisdom, chapter seven in the New Jerusalem Bible, that just elevates the remembering. And so when you forget who you are, pull it out, the New Jerusalem Bible, chapter 7, verses 22 to 30, it's a remembering Like we've forgotten. We have forgotten, and I think Mary Magdalene is reminding us, I think her presence in Second Testament is a reminder that there was something buried that we need to excavate, that we need to understand my mom. The other day she's like what is this thing with you and Mary Magdalene? And I said oh, don't you know, mom, she's my new girlfriend.
Speaker 1:But she's a way, a beautiful light. In fact, if people look and do the research, find Mary, the Tower, and find the beauty that is there in saying, what does it look like for us to follow the way that Mary showed us to have communion with Christ?
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah, and can we just put sin down? Can we just lay it down? Do we have to keep talking about it?
Speaker 1:I think we do, because how would I know how to judge you if I didn't know what the sin was?
Speaker 2:Well, I know you can't lay it down.
Speaker 1:but I'm wondering if I can lay it down. I want to lay it down, I want everyone to lay it down. I feel like you know, if you get a pile of naughty like little kids together and they all have sticks, you're like at least take the sticks away from them. You know, and so it feels the same way, like at least take away the things that they're harming each other with. I mean, they'll still pull hair and do those kind of things, but we have these ideas that have been given to us. We didn't make them up ourselves.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:They've come to us through principalities. They've come to us through culture. They've come to us through ways that people have meant to harm us or to keep us from truth, and there has been trauma and injustice.
Speaker 2:There's been sinful acts on people. There's no doubt about that. But to perpetuate that, we come from sin. I'm pretty sure I was born in love. How about you? I was forged through love, so I don't know. At some point, heather, I just feel like I just want to lay that word down. I never want to say it again. I never want to say it again. Why do I need to be reminded?
Speaker 1:I don't need to be reminded. Not when there's a way out, not when there's an escape, not when there's a wholeness, not when there is a greater magic, still Not when there is a miracle, not when there is a transformation, still not when there is a miracle, not when there is a transformation. We do not need to be spending any time with that. When there is a way of living, when there is a way of uniting with Christ, when there is a way of uniting with ourself, that leads to holiness.
Speaker 2:Don't you think Peter in the gospel of Mary was trying to trap Mary Levi and everyone else that was standing around there by asking the question Master Jesus, tell us what is sin. Tell us what sin is Well.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know what Peter was thinking. I don't it was a trap Well, that could be. I don't know what Peter was thinking. I don't it was a trap Well, that could be. That could absolutely be. But I also know that people want to know how can I avoid this or how close can I get to the side of this before I also am in this trap. So I can't begin to say why he asked that question, but I know what Jesus said. Tell us yeah. And according to that particular translation, that particular book, jesus said sin is not what you should be worried about. There are sinful things that you do, which is like harm a brother, commit adultery, but that is not who you are Through your actions.
Speaker 2:yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes. And so Jesus is telling us that the truth of what we already know, that we are made in the image of God, not just the image of, but we are made of God, that we are made of love. That is what God is. God is love, nothing less but this incredible, radical love, and we ourselves are made in that love, and Jesus says that is the way home.
Speaker 2:And I say unto you, miss Heather, Sound like King James. Give me more of her spirit, give me more of her anointing, give me more of that, uh, that peace, that, uh that Mary Magdalene knew um when she met him in the garden that morning and he said go and tell them. Yeah, he knew, she knew. And there we have it she's the apostle.
Speaker 1:And Jesus said go and tell them what you have seen, what you have witnessed, and this idea that we also are to say what we have seen. We have seen love be greater than death. We have seen love remind us of things that we have forgotten.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:We have seen love breathe life into places that are devoid of breath. Here is the breath of spirit again. Here is the Ruach, here is the spirit who creates out of chaos, here is the life giver. And spirit herself tells us there's more further up, further in.
Speaker 1:There's more, there's more. There's more than the labels that people have given you. There is things to put down so that you can receive all of the riches of the goodness, of the gifts that God has given us, and the gifts of light, the gifts of love, the gifts of peace and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said it's better for you that I go, because I'm leaving with you the Spirit. You have the Spirit with you and the Spirit will teach you everything that you need to know. So our job is how do we find the fragrance? How do we find?
Speaker 1:the frequency of the Spirit.
Speaker 2:Well, we had this conversation, a short conversation, that it can't be learned, that it must be experienced, and so I think that might be a different podcast, but it's a beautiful question maybe for us to end on and to think about is how do we move further up and further in into the presence you know, moving past silence and absence and things that maybe we were told that we couldn't experience or hold you know, into that greater knowing, into that greater understanding of that oneness with Christ?
Speaker 1:I don't think we could capture in a short amount of time, but I do think that you could hear us both say taste and see. Yes, it is sweet, it is good, it is worth. Jesus told this parable. There was a man who found a pearl of great price and who went home and sold everything for the pearl and his neighbor said what are you doing? That makes no sense. And I'm telling you there is a treasure, there is something worth selling everything for and going after and saying we'll give up the dirt and the play and we will hold the precious and we will be the precious and we will return to the good. It was our joy to have you listen to our conversation today. If you would like further information or for more content, visit us at expansionistheologycom.