Something Feels Off

Ever catch yourself thinking, “I just need to get through this week… then life will feel better”? Or “once that thing changes, then I’ll finally feel okay”? This week, we’re going straight at that feeling - the quiet sense that something’s off, something’s missing, something about your life (or you) just isn’t quite enough. And instead of trying to fix it or outrun it, we’re going to unpack it.

Because what if that feeling isn’t a problem to solve… but a signal worth understanding? What if - even more provocatively - it’s what some scholars have suggested is "sin"? Not something to fear or run from, but an indicator that we’ve drifted from an abundant life.

In this talk, I’ll give you a surprisingly practical way to navigate those moments - so you’re not stuck waiting for life to change before you can actually live it. If you’ve been feeling that low-grade “not quite right,” this one’s for you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Um, we show up today in snow. How many, and again, I'm gonna ask you to put up your hands. How many of you are going like, oh geez, enough of the snow already? That's like almost universal. Do you know that feeling where you're going like I can't wait for this to be over? You know, the snow, the gas prices. And then when I filled up my truck, it was like$114. I spoke, crap, my pants. I'm like, when is this gonna be back to like$80 where it's supposed to be? I was um, my wife owns a flower shop, and so she asked me to build her a temporary cooler. Instead of temporary, I use the word janky, which means like the pores put together, half ass. It's gonna work, but does not look ugly and does not represent my skill as a human being. I can do better than this. And so on Friday, I start building the janky cooler, and I I find myself running all over the city trying to find a certain installation. Oh, they don't have it. Then I'm trying to get a rental truck, and then I need an air conditioning unit to make it the cooler. And I find myself just going, I can't wait for this stupid day to be over. Like this is just everything is going wrong, nothing is working. I'm so annoyed. And as I'm driving my U-Haul back down south because that's what I had to do, I have this moment where I think to myself, I'm literally preaching a message on this in two days. Why is it that these messages are always like right then? How many times in our lives are maybe let me say it this way. If you look at your life right now, are you thinking to yourself, I can't wait for this part to be done? I can't wait to be finished school. I can't wait to get that job that I want, the raise I was hoping for. Now, parents, do not put up your hand, but how many of you are thinking right now, I can't wait for my kids to be past whatever stage of life they're in right now, just driving you freaking bananas? You're not allowed to tell your kids that, but you're thinking it. I can't wait for a certain diagnosis to be done, the treatment to be over, the test results to be back. How much of our life is spent in this? I can't wait for. I'm looking forward to this part being over. Whatever I'm dealing with right now, I'm looking forward to that being done. Our spiritual ancestors actually spend a lot of time talking about that piece of life. And how that feeling can rob you of so much. It changes your life from this thing that goes one way, and you you end up just focusing on if I have to drive this bloody rental truck any further in this bloody city, I'm gonna drive off the road just for something to do. There's a moment there that'll rob your life huge. And if you're not paying attention, it'll do it without you knowing. Now, we started this series. What did I call it? The The Freedom from the Fear of Sin. Me and one of the uh Mexico team were sitting on a plane for six hours, grounded in Calgary, and we're like talking through this. So if it goes really well, it's hers. If it goes really poorly, this is on me. We started to ask the question, what is sin? I grew up with this idea that sin is this horrible, horrible thing that you do. And if you do it, there's a consequence. In my tradition, sin makes certain conceptions of God angry, which leads to me burning in hell. My brain skipped the middle part and just went, sin hell. Sin became the thing that I was scared of. Because I didn't want that. My entire spiritual journey started to get focused on this idea of how do I avoid that? I don't want that. There's no sense of where I was going. I just didn't want that. After the service, when I did this last week, the number of you came up to me and told me about this for you. This is how it looked in my tradition. Oh, in my tradition, it was like this. Oh, oh. The idea was sin is the thing that you should be scared of because it has a consequence. And last week I asked, and I used the story of Jesus. Jesus has this story where it's this convoluted story with sheep and shepherds. Again, I had to call farmers to understand this. But essentially at the end, he says, Jesus says, I did not come for fear. I came to bring you abundant life. I came to live in a way that showed you a way of living that was good and beautiful and fulfilling, and it made your life better, and it made the lives of the people around you better. And that's completely different than this sense of don't do that or you're gonna burn in hell. It's a sense of like, well, what do I do? I did not grow up with that idea of sin. Now, if you grew up with that tradition or part of that tradition, probably what you're thinking right now is Vince, clearly you don't know anything. Sin is this. There's no other options. So a couple weeks ago I spent, it was two and a half days straight. I read every instance of sin in the Bible, cataloged them all, defined them all. Your faces are funny. That's just how geeky I am. So if you actually want to know what sin means, because there's no single definition. It's not simple. Anyone who says sin is simple, they have not read the Bible. They're talking from a tradition that says, we've told you what sin is, just listen to us and ignore the Bible. If you read the Bible, this is an incredibly complex word. And if you're as geeky as me, I'm actually gonna run a class on May 17th where we're gonna go deep and go like full geek into this sucker. Original languages, it's gonna get crazy. So if you were like, another brand like, yeah, bring it. I am just that geeky. Because it can't be boiled down. People say, well, it's just doing against the Ten Commandments. Well, Jesus goes against the Ten Commandments. How's that work? Sometimes, yes, sin is a willful act against something that makes some conception of God angry. Other times, sin is just the people we don't like. Sometimes sin is used as a weapon. Sometimes sin is something that happened. No, how do I say this? If you're sick, the answer to why you're sick is sin. What did you do? We have no clue. But you're sick, therefore, sin did it. Does anybody like at the hospital? Do you walk into the hospital and someone just sits at the door? Sinner, sinner, sinner, sinner, sinner. Now, again, I'm being a bit facetious. That's part of our tradition. Jesus even says it. One guy's um I'm gonna use the colloquial word, lame. He can't walk. And Jesus says, well, essentially says, you've sinned. If you didn't sin, this wouldn't happen. Or your parents sinned. That was their conception back in their time. We don't use that conception. So even the ones that are saying, like, this is what it's all about, no, it's more complex than that. Now, this is the thing I want to try and do. This is always hard. Whenever I do this, you guys fight me on it, but help bear with me. I want you to take the word sin and open it up to something bigger than that. I am gonna try to show us how to live. No, that's not how I want to do this. I want to create inner awareness of the things that are undermining living abundantly. The things that undermine that, I'm gonna call sin. It's not this kind of sin where it's like, you know, burn in hell kind of stuff. Sin is used in the way I want to use it is things that get in the way of us living abundantly. Things that undermine bad practices, ways of being in the world. They're not making some conception of God angry. It's not sending you to hell kind of stuff. It's little subtle things that you go, my life could be better if I did this work. Joe just gave us a masterclass. Where's Joe? There's Joe. Joe just gave us a masterclass in this. He's talking about these different parts that undermine us, and when they take us over, our lives go to crap. Uh-oh. What he said. He, she, she, what she said. Uh-oh. But essentially, Joe is saying there's a way of looking at our life through this language of parts, that if you don't handle them well, they undermine living abundantly. And we're stuck in this place. So I, this series is about using the word sin in a new way. In a way that's not just what sends you to hell or what creates some conception of God, gets angry, any of that stuff. But says, what are we doing that's making our lives negative for us? This is way more subtle. You have a list of sins, and by the way, there is no list of sins in the Bible the way you're thinking there are. I checked. If you disagree, I had so many notes I had to get AI to summarize them for me because my notes were so long. It's about 30 pages of notes of what does sin mean? If you think this is simple, that's just your tradition talking. That's not the Bible. There's these little things that I'm going to call sin that undermine living abundantly. And if you don't see them, those are easy, right? My tradition said, don't drink. When I drank, I knew I was sinning. When I didn't drink, I wasn't sinning. That's easy. Things that undermine living abundantly, oh, that's subtle. What undermines one person's life doesn't undermine the next person's. So you have to follow the Friends Church value of unique spiritual journey where you have to go deep and figure out, okay, what is what is undermining my life? To show you the one I want to do today, we're actually studying it. This originally came from um Freud through one of his acolytes named uh Lacan. I didn't actually read the original stuff, full disclosure. I didn't read Lacan. It's really boring. I read Peter Rollins. He wrote an incredible book. Can you throw up the title for me? The Idolatry of God: Breaking Our Addiction to Certainty and Satisfaction. How's that for a title? You guys think I pick titles that poke a little bit. Check that one out. The Idolatry of God. In it, he explores this idea of sin as something that undermines living abundantly. And it's subtle. You don't always see it. I saw it while I was driving the U-Hole after it was already done. And my abundant life was in the toilet. Now let me show you how this works. But to do it, I want to use the Bible to do it. So I'm going to tell you the second, there's at least three different creation stories. There's two right at the front of the Bible. I'm going to talk about the second one. Anyone heard the characters Adam and Eve? Throw up your hands. I just want to get a sense of how much Bible school. Okay. If you watch The Simpsons, I'm sure you've heard of Adam and Eve. If something is good, it's Eden, right? So Adam and Eve, which are euphemisms, their names can either be Adam and Eve, like proper names. They're also mankind and mother of all. So the story is like characters, and then the meta story is this is our story. They're in the Garden of Eden, which is basically that we use that word Eden meaning perfect, beautiful. When you go to a spa, it's probably called Eden because it's gorgeous, right? So they're in Eden. Everything is perfect. It's wonderful. There's trees everywhere, there's fruit, they have everything they can eat. They're naked, which is awesome. They don't have to spend money on clothes. It's probably warm. And then one day, they're sitting there and a snake walks up. Now, I always wonder, should I poke like this? For anybody who's a literalist, and again, French, you can be anything you want. But for literalists, I think you have to argue why does the snake walk and talk? Because the snake walks up to Adam and Eve, actually walks up to Eve, and says, Hey, how's it going? As snakes do. I wonder, does he have a lisp? I don't know where that came from. Too many cartoons. Okay, back on point. The snake walks up to Eve and the snake says, Are you allowed to do anything you want in this garden? And Eve goes, actually, no, we can do anything we want, but we can't eat from that tree. It's called the tree of the knowledge of a good and evil. The snake's like, Oh, really? Well, what happens if you eat of that tree? And she says, Well, the character God, and God in this story is plural, God or gods. The gods say, if we eat of that tree, on that day we will surely die. But it's it's interesting, she kind of almost talks about it factually, like, whatevs. And now the snake says, Well, would you really die? Again, why are snakes always bad characters? Would you really die if you ate that fruit? And in the traditional reading of sin, in this reading of sin, this is how this part of the story goes. Eve does one of these. Yoink gives it to Adam. That's the sin. The character God or gods has said, you don't get to eat that fruit of that tree if you do that sin, right? That's this version of sin. And so the moral of the story when you read it this way is if we ever find the Garden of Eden and we find the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, do not eat that fruit. Now, the interesting part of this story is this, and I don't know why the author kept this in. The character God says, on that day that you eat of that fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die. The serpent says, No, you won't. They eat, again, traditional sin. That's the sin. But they don't die. The serpent's right. Now again, unless I find the garden of evil, who cares? Now, this is where Peter Rollins in his whole Freudian nonsense comes in and says, actually, there's something here. If we can let go of this, if we can blow this out, there's another way to look at sin that shows you something here that's applicable to every part of our lives. You see, let's back it up. Eve is standing there all naked and stuff. Serpent walks up, says, Would you, you know, what are you not allowed to do? She says, Well, we can't eat of that tree. If that on that day we'll surely die. And the serpent says, actually, no, you won't die. On that day you will become like God. If you eat that apple, you will become like God. That's well, actually, it's not even that moment. It's the moment, and I'm gonna personify or guess what Eve does. Eve is like God, you say. Does God have bad hair days? No. Has God ever annoyed at Adam? No, everything's probably perfect. Does God ever have those days when you're driving a U-Haul down the deer foot and angry as hell because nothing is going well? No. God never has bad days. God never struggles. God never has to work hard. And you are not those things. Suddenly Eve goes from, my life is good, everything's fine, to wait a second.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

I'm less than God?

SPEAKER_01 18:31

My life is missing some things? I could have more than this. You've got to be kidding me. You're telling me that I've walked around naked all this time, eating all the fruit I can, but I could have had better? My life could have been better? Everything could have been better? Screw that. She eats. Rollins says, the sin is not the eating of the fruit. The sin, again, we're not using that definition, right? Wider definition. The sin is believing that she is lacking something. That's the beauty of the serpent. The serpent says, You think your life's fine. Actually, no. It could be better and you don't have it. Your job could be better. Someone else is getting paid more than you, right? That's you went from, oh, I like my job to, sorry, buddy next door is making more money than me, doing the same job. You do the same job, but suddenly you went from I love my job to what? The actual you've experienced lack, but it's not even experienced. You believe that your life is now missing something. That's the sin. The belief that if I could just find insulation for the right price and get it to the studio, everything would be okay. My life would be better. And the fact that it's not, I'm sitting in this sense of lacking something that could make my life better. Don't put up your hand, but how many experience going, if only this was different, my life would be better.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

If only my job was different.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

If only gas was cheaper. If only the weather was better. If only my partner was different, if only my kids were in a different phase of life. If only my my career was doing what I was hoping it would do, whatever the lack is, whatever the thing you're going, if only I had that, this would be better. And so now you're stuck in this place of going, but I am not that.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

And when Eve says, I am not that, Rollins says, that's the sin.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

The technical term is living with lack. I lack whatever. And if I just had that partner, or if I just found that person who would love me, or if I just had enough money in my bank, or or or if I just didn't have that lack, then everything would be okay. I realize after studying Peter Rollins that I'm guilty of living in lack often.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

It's not something that's gonna.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

But man, does it undermine this? Suddenly I'm no longer going, how is my life abundant right now? I'm going, what am I missing and how do I freaking get it? I'm building a Cooler from my wife. That's going to make her life better. Yeah, it's janky as hell. Whatever. It's not my best work, but it's temporary. But I'm doing something good. I love solving problems. I love building with my hands. I love at the end looking at something going, I built that. When I'm living in lack, all I care about is why is this so freaking hard? Why is nothing coming together? If this just would be done, I'd be so much happier. Do you know the author of the Bible whose name is Paul? I I've I'm a bit of a Paul hater, I admit that. Um, thanks to Ted on the Mexico trip we were driving through Tijuana, he made an excellent case for Vince to rethink Paul. So I have been. Can you throw it up for me, Nathaniel? I've discovered this principle of life that when I do want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I've showed you this quote before, but I want to move on. There's another power within me that is at war with my mind. Oh, what a miserable person I am. Let me ask you, what lack does Paul want to get rid of? That if he could get rid of that, his life would be better. Just yell it out to me.

unknown 23:23

Self-hatred.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Self-hatred. It's a great one. What else do you see in there?

unknown 23:30

Judging others.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Judging others. If you know this, the metaphor, can you throw it up for me again, Nathaniel? There's another power within me that is at war with my mind. If you know this passage, he's saying, if only I could be rid of that power, then I would be the spiritual person I want to be. In classic tradition, sin. There's no problem here. The problem is what that thing's causing him to do. In our version of sin that we're exploring today, the sin is in believing that the war that's in his mind is something that he needs to get rid of. Instead of doing what he should have sat here. Paul should have been here this morning to hear that set. Because Joe would have told him, hey, maybe you shouldn't be at war with that, because that just gives it more power. Maybe you should befriend that part, come to grips with the part. Realize that your life can be abundant and beautiful with that part still there. How many of us are guilty of going, if only I didn't have those urges, if only I didn't have that peace, then I would be better, then my life would be better. That, according to Rollins, is living in lack. That is undermining abundant life.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

That's a bit sobering for me.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

When I sat with it long enough, I realized there's incredible power here, though. Let me let me try and take what he's saying and apply it to our lives. Social media. How do you know when social media is causing problems or when it's helping you live abundantly? That would be good to know, wouldn't it? Now, growing up, I grew up in this model of sin. The way they would tell me how social media should be judged is if you go on social media and a picture of a woman, I'm a straight man, so a woman who's dressed in less than full coverage, you are now sinning because you're looking at a woman who's attractive and wearing less clothes. Hard stop, sin. I remember one lady, she she first came to Friend Church and we had a coffee a couple of months later. She was like, I was like, How is Friend Church going? She's like, This place is crazy. I'm like, Well, what do you mean by that? And she says, Well, when I first came to Friend Church, a friend of mine was coming here, she invited me. And so she came to my house and picked me up. And I came out, and it was it was a sun uh summer morning. I came out in my church clothes. My friend was like, What the hell are you wearing? And she's like, What? She grew up in a traditional Orthodox community. She was wearing a black dress that started touching her chin, covered her shoes, it went right to her ear. This so there's literally her hands and this part of her face. And she's like, What? I can't go to church wearing anything else. I'll get struck by lightning. Or if I can use this language, that would be sin. Now, let's use Peter Rollins and have him look at my social media feed. If I'm looking at my social media and a picture of a woman who's wearing an attractive woman who's wearing less than complete full coverage, that version of sin says, I'm sinning. Peter Rollins says, is that undermining you feeling like you're gonna live abundantly? Are you feeling like you're lacking something because of it? Think about it. What social media ties into lack for you? Is it the person with the beautiful car? When I see, I'm a huge fan of dirt biking. If I see dirt biking stuff on my social media, and that's basically my social media feed is basically dirt biking, mechanics. I'm super into diesel mechanic repairs and like problem solving and uh cooking like that too. Whenever I'm hungry, I see that. Watching dirt bikes, no lack. It just gets me stoked. I get excited. If I show up at my dirt biking area and my buddy buys a brand new 2026 dirt bike and he says to me, Hey, do you want to give it a ride? My answer is hell no. Because if I get on that thing, my nine 2019 dirt bike will not be good enough. I will be living in lack instantly, and I know this. One time I lifted my buddy's bike and I was so much lack I had to buy a new dirt bike within a week. I know I cannot ride somebody else's new dirt bike, or I'm gonna be going, Dave Bass Butter sells dirt bikes. I will be at Dave's place the next day, going, Dave, hook me up, dude. That's really hard on my credit card. Like really hard. Do you know the things that you see on social media that are really hard on your credit card? Do you know the things where somebody is invited to a party and you're going, I didn't get invited? Can you feel that lack? If only I was invited. If only I had people like that in my life. The attractive person isn't a problem unless it goes, oh wait, if only I had that in my life. Did you see? Just scan through your life right now. Where do you see that lack? If only I had, if only that feeling, if only this was over, if only it's a different phase of life, if only. Peter Rowland says those places in our lives, that's where we have the greatest risk of losing abundant life.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

We're no longer here. We're no longer enjoying this moment.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

That lack just has us focused elsewhere. Can I do something different? Hey, Bryce, uh, can you guys come up? I want you to play that last song again here in a minute. Can you do that? Just take some water. Drink some water. His he sings really high and his voice gets shredded, so I apologize. If he bleeds from his mouth, that will be me. I completely apologize. It'll be worth it though, right? Uh I got Bryce. Anyone seen Dave? Do you have another bass player? Did Dave leave? Hey Dave, come on over. Come here. Sorry, Vice. There he is. Why is he so late? Could it be that this model of fear, where we're running away from it, isn't serving us? But if we look at this thing of what are we trying to get towards? Abundant life, life where we're fulfilled and we fulfill the people around us. What if there's things that are undermining that part of our lives? Peter Rowland says, watch very carefully where you're living in lack. If only this was different. If only I could change this, if only I wasn't this size, if only my brain worked this way. If only business looked like that. Could it be that that, defined as sin, is the thing that's undermining our abundant life? We can't sit and enjoy the janky cooler that we built and the process of building we're stuck on if only. If only if only go through your social media feed this week. Check it against that sense of lack. I started to unfollow the people that connected to that lack feeling. The people that carried stoke inside of me, that's all good. The ones that create lack. Oh, my life is missing. If only. Could it be that that's the very thing that's robbing our sense of eternal life or abundant life? As we leave here today, just let that sit in your mind. Like me driving that U-Haul. Oh wait, I'm stuck here again. I'm stuck in if only things would be different. I'm stuck in sin. I said we would use sin as like an indicator or a mentor. Not in this, but in things that are robbing us from a redundant life. The last song they sang, I thought, was bang on on this. But let me end with this. May we be very mindful of those things that are creating us that sense of sin that we call lack. If only my life would change, be different, move on, then I'll be happy.