SPEAKER_03: It's not a good idea.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed be God's family.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: All wonderful God, whom all hearts are open, all desires know.
SPEAKER_00: When these thoughts about us, by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, let me perfectly love you and worthyly magnify your holy name through Christ in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_00: Grant to us, Lord, we pray, the Spirit to think and do always those things that are right.
SPEAKER_00: And we who cannot exist without you may by you be enabled to live according to your will.
SPEAKER_00: Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: As you're being seated, do children want to come up for a children's sermon.
SPEAKER_00: It's great to see you, and I'm glad you're here.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody know what this is?
SPEAKER_00: What do you see?
SPEAKER_00: Just tell me, what do you see?
SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna be wrong, what do you see?
SPEAKER_00: It looks like a rug or a tapestry, right?
SPEAKER_00: Some kind of cloth, right?
SPEAKER_00: Now look, does this help you know what it is?
SPEAKER_00: No, right?
SPEAKER_00: Do you think there's something under here?
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's find out.
SPEAKER_00: Turns out there's something under here every week, are you ready?
SPEAKER_00: Now it isn't.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, in fact, we call it a chalice, right?
SPEAKER_00: Now look.
SPEAKER_00: It's hiding, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's hiding.
SPEAKER_00: There's probably something under here, because you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I can't hold a garment stiff with just my hand, right?
SPEAKER_00: You see the square?
SPEAKER_00: Turns out what's making a square is this little card, right?
SPEAKER_00: There's this really special word.
SPEAKER_00: In church we use.
SPEAKER_00: This is called apocalyptic.
SPEAKER_00: It means I pick up and look what's inside.
SPEAKER_00: Apocalyptic means what's under there.
SPEAKER_00: Or another way of saying it is what's under the veil.
SPEAKER_00: This is actually called a veil.
SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to cover the chalice till we're ready.
SPEAKER_00: Now you'll always see if you're in here, the veil matches the chasuble and it matches the hanging.
SPEAKER_00: And we're in green season because we're supposed to grow.
SPEAKER_00: So we use a veil.
SPEAKER_00: We know the chalice is there.
SPEAKER_00: But we're supposed to not see the chalice just yet.
SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to see, ah, the chalice is going to help us grow.
SPEAKER_00: And when we pick it up, you'll see it.
SPEAKER_00: When we get ready for communion, I will unveil the chalice, I will take the veil off, and all you'll see is the cup.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
SPEAKER_00: That word is apocalyptic.
SPEAKER_00: Really long word.
SPEAKER_00: Can you say apocalyptic?
SPEAKER_00: Well, of course you can't hold because you're cold.
SPEAKER_00: Apocalyptic means I unveil and I see what's hidden.
SPEAKER_00: Can your eyes see the cup right now?
unknown: No.
SPEAKER_00: Not yet until the apocalypse happens, and then you can see what's been there all along.
SPEAKER_00: So I want you to remember that it's too long to use in scrap, but you could use that word with your teachers starting Wednesday, and they would be like, hold, you know what apocalyptic means?
SPEAKER_00: Of course you do.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, go back to book six.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about apocalypticism in a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for your questions, Rob.
SPEAKER_02: And how it was that the word of the judge of all flesh was upon me, Son of Lord, if a land sins against me by acting unfaithfully to commit a faithless act, and I stretch out my hand against her and break her staff, and send famine upon her, and I cut off from her humankind and animal.
SPEAKER_02: And were these three men in her midst, Noah, Daniel, and Job, they, through their righteousness, would save only their lives.
SPEAKER_02: The utterance of God whose name is Lord.
SPEAKER_02: If there were barbarous beasts that I sent through the land to bereaver, so that she became a desolation without anyone passing through because of the beast, these three men will lay in the midst as I live, the utterance of God whose name is holy.
SPEAKER_02: They would say neither the daughters, their daughters, or their sons, their law would be saved.
SPEAKER_02: The land would become a desolation.
SPEAKER_02: Or if I brought a sword upon that land, and I said, Let the sword pass through the land, and I cut off from her humankind and animal kind, these three men, were they in permits as I live, the utterance of God whose name is holy, they would say, Neither daughters nor sons, for they alone would be saved.
SPEAKER_02: Were they a pestilence that I sent into the land and poured out my wrath upon her in blood to cut off from her humankind animal kind, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in their midst, as I live the utterance of God whose name is holy, they would save neither their Lord nor their son.
SPEAKER_02: They to their righteousness would save their own lives.
SPEAKER_02: For thus says God, whose name is holy.
SPEAKER_02: More so than these things, my former judgment ascend upon Jerusalem the sword, and Barbara's beasts, and her sons, to cut off from her humankind and animal kind, and look, there remain in her solar in her survivors who shall be left in her, bringing forth daughters and sons.
unknown: They shall come out to you, and you all shall see their ways and their deeds, and you all shall be confident in a kind of the healing that I have brought upon Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_02: All that I have brought upon Jeremy.
SPEAKER_02: Were it not the divine warrior who was for us?
SPEAKER_02: Were it not the divine warrior who was for us, then still alive, they would have swallowed us up.
SPEAKER_02: Then the waters would have swept over us.
SPEAKER_02: Then he said over us.
SPEAKER_01: By faith the walls of Jericho fell, having been in the circle for seven days.
SPEAKER_01: By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish, but those who did not believe, because she had received the spies with peace.
SPEAKER_01: And what more should I say?
SPEAKER_01: For time would fail, need to tell of Gideon, Deborah, Barak, Samson, Jeff, David and Samuel, and the women and men who were prophets, that they who through faith subdued monarchies, did the work of justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched mighty fires, fled to safety from the raven of sword, we were strengthened from weakness, became strong in battle, and failed encamped foreign armies.
SPEAKER_01: Women received their death by resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: Others were tortured, not willing to receive release, in order a better resurrection to obtain.
SPEAKER_01: Yet others received the test of mocking and whipping and even chains and prison.
SPEAKER_01: They were stoned and cut apart in the slaughter, they died upon the sword, they traveled around in sheepskin and goatskin hides, impoverished, oppressed, afflicted, persons of whom the world was not worthy.
SPEAKER_01: In deserts they wandered, and in mountains and in caves and holes in the ground.
SPEAKER_01: Yet all of these, martyrs of their faith, they did not receive what was promised for God for us, but provided something better so they would not, apart from us, be made perfect.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, since we have surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also every weight throw off, along with the sin that distracts.
SPEAKER_01: Through patience, let us run the race that is set before us.
SPEAKER_01: Looking to Jesus, the foundation and the fulfillment of our faith, who for the sake of joy that was set before him endured the cross, in shame and despising, and at the right hand of the throne of God be seated the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Glory to you, Lord Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Now, just as it was in the days of Noah, thus shall it be in the days of the Son of Woman.
SPEAKER_00: Women and men were eating, drinking, marrying, being given in marriage, till the day Noah and his wife and daughters and sons and daughters-in-law entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed all of them and their children.
SPEAKER_00: Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, women and men were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.
SPEAKER_00: But on the day that Lot and his wife and daughters left Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from heaven and destroyed all of them and their children.
SPEAKER_00: Accordingly shall it be on the day the Son of Woman is revealed.
SPEAKER_00: On that day, anyone on the roof who has belongings in the house must not come down to gather them up.
SPEAKER_00: And likewise, anyone in the field should not turn back.
SPEAKER_00: Remember Lot's wife, the one who seeks to preserve their life will lose it.
SPEAKER_00: But the one who loses their life shall save their life.
SPEAKER_00: I tell you all, and that night there will be two in one bed, one will be taken, and the other left.
SPEAKER_00: There will be two women grinding meal together, one will be taken and the other left.
SPEAKER_00: And then they asked him where, Rabbi.
SPEAKER_00: He said to them, Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Praise to you, Lord Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, the compiler of the Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, which is what we're using this year, and we used it last year, has really given us apocalyptic summer.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to make sure you hear that there is an entire cottage Christian industry that has quite a bit to gain financially, and certainly through membership, about one version of the word apocalypse.
SPEAKER_00: It's probably the one you're most familiar with.
SPEAKER_00: And this idea is less than 250 years old.
SPEAKER_00: I want to make sure you hear this.
SPEAKER_00: The earliest Christians did not hear that the apocalypse was the end of the planet.
SPEAKER_00: The earliest Christians did not believe that the apocalypse was when Earth went to hell in a hand basket.
SPEAKER_00: The earliest Christians did not have strange, bizarre maps of end times, prophecy, so that they knew how to get out unscathed.
SPEAKER_00: Did not.
SPEAKER_00: And it's based on this idea.
SPEAKER_00: That faithful people won't have to suffer.
SPEAKER_00: It's a funny thing, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus was like pretty faithful, right?
SPEAKER_00: And boy, did he suffer.
SPEAKER_00: Strange that we think that God would deliver us from pain, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: It's worse than strange.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to tell you it's heretical and idolatrous.
SPEAKER_00: And the scriptures today remind us of that.
SPEAKER_00: So, apocalyptic, you already heard me say this to the kids.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about when precisely the world will end.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus himself, when asked, says, I don't know, and I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: That's up to God.
SPEAKER_00: No, apocalyptic, and I can only do this.
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm wearing clothes, is when we lift the veil and show what's underneath.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we think, oh, you know, what's underneath is like the typical code that we can crack and we'll know when to invest and when to go live in a hole so we don't have to experience nuclear winter.
SPEAKER_00: I just don't really think that's why we have the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, I think what we're trying to hear is what's underneath when it's hard.
SPEAKER_00: And to be honest, a better agency of apocalypticism than a diagram with seven-headed monsters coming out of the ocean is what happens when somebody cuts me off in traffic.
SPEAKER_00: That's when the veil is lifted and I see what's in here.
SPEAKER_00: Or what's in here.
SPEAKER_00: A better agency apocalypticism is not reading between the lines to get in source code.
SPEAKER_00: Nope, it's what happens to me when my kids do a thing I've told them a thousand times not to do.
SPEAKER_00: Lifts the veil on where my heart is, and where my virtue is, and where my faith is.
SPEAKER_00: Heck, sometimes I can't even find my keys, and that is very apocalyptic.
SPEAKER_00: Who do you become when you can't find your keys?
SPEAKER_00: I didn't think Jesus is really that worried about whether or not we suffer or not, because the truth is he did.
SPEAKER_00: I'm worried about that.
SPEAKER_00: He's not.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna tell you this.
SPEAKER_00: If your faith, prayers, church attendance, give money to church, helping other people is all based on how you get out of suffering for free.
SPEAKER_00: I just don't think it's gonna work.
SPEAKER_00: I really don't think it's if it's working for you, tell me later.
SPEAKER_00: But I just don't think it's gonna work.
SPEAKER_00: Nope, I think the scriptures are asking us to go ahead and lift the veil a little bit on ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm convinced, actually, that the reason we have this Ezekiel reading, it was really long.
SPEAKER_00: And gosh, it's written in a weird English, so thanks, Robert, for taking that on.
SPEAKER_00: Um I hope you hear the theme of it.
SPEAKER_00: Gosh, it lifts the veil on me.
SPEAKER_00: I really wish I could be generous all the time.
SPEAKER_00: And you know how I'd like to get there?
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to take a pill.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to take a pill that would fix me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do the work.
SPEAKER_00: I just want it to be done.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, I think that's part of the problem we're having in the world now, is we're saying we need a savior.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've noticed, but in countries that are becoming increasingly autocratic, and there's more than a handful, sadly, the rhetoric is, I will save you.
SPEAKER_00: I will do it.
SPEAKER_01: Me.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you heard this thing in Ezekiel where Ezekiel said, if you were the most righteous person on the world, you'd save yourself, and that's it.
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear that?
SPEAKER_00: Like, think of the best people you know.
SPEAKER_00: Noah and Daniel and that other guy.
SPEAKER_00: And Ezekiel says, they wouldn't save you.
SPEAKER_00: They'd save themselves.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like Ezekiel saying this thing, I'd rather not hear.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody's coming.
SPEAKER_00: You are the ones you've been waiting for.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wait, I'm waiting for somebody else to do it for me.
SPEAKER_00: I really want that.
SPEAKER_00: And Ezekiel says, ha ha ha, lift the veil.
SPEAKER_00: It's you.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to tell you right now, Kamala Harris is not going to save you.
SPEAKER_00: She can't save herself.
SPEAKER_00: Donald Trump is not going to save you.
SPEAKER_00: He can't save himself.
SPEAKER_00: We have one Savior and it's Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And we are called, not asked, we're called to say, y'all do the work.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I wish God didn't trust us so much, but Ezekiel says, I trust you so much that if it doesn't work out, it's on you, not on me.
SPEAKER_00: Lift the veil.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't work in quick pills.
SPEAKER_00: I'd even swallow a jagged pill, folks.
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to do a surgery.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I could endure that pain of God says, you want to do it day by day.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all are going to do it day by day if you want to thrive.
SPEAKER_00: Here's some great news about what kind of people God uses to thrive.
SPEAKER_00: We read this letter from Hebrews, and you know what's great about it?
SPEAKER_00: It's got this litany of what kind of people are heroes and sheroes in faith.
SPEAKER_00: And it says, the world turned on their acts.
SPEAKER_00: Man, I wish we had people like that, like a prostitute.
SPEAKER_00: Like somebody who is a serial killer.
SPEAKER_00: Like somebody who is scared to do what God asked and made some idols.
SPEAKER_00: Like somebody who is so scared to do what God asked that he phoned a friend.
SPEAKER_00: Like somebody who broke every vow his parents made for him.
SPEAKER_00: That's Samson.
SPEAKER_00: Like somebody who killed their own daughter because they thought that God would enjoy that.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's Jeffha.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I hope you're hearing the comments, Lee.
SPEAKER_00: These people are way worse than you.
SPEAKER_00: I really make sure you hear that.
SPEAKER_00: Because I've been here long enough that I know you, you're way better than these people.
SPEAKER_00: You are, because none of you are serial killers or sociopaths.
SPEAKER_00: We get a laundry list of people, not because they're perfect, but because maybe for one moment they said, fine God, if you'll just leave me alone, I'll do this one thing.
SPEAKER_00: If God can use them, God will use you.
SPEAKER_00: The question is, are you waiting for them, or are we willing to say, fine God, if you'll leave me alone, I'll do this one thing.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody read the Bible in here?
SPEAKER_00: Like, I grew up reading the Bible because I'm not Episcopalian originally.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we did in the Baptist church.
SPEAKER_00: We read the book.
SPEAKER_00: And boy, we sure thought these people were heroes.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, David raped his best friend's wife and then killed his best friend.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all didn't do that.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're not in jail.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: God can use that.
SPEAKER_00: God can work at that.
SPEAKER_00: God can work with you.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the real crux of the argument.
SPEAKER_00: And this is a tough one.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you this is why I went to Summer King in just a second, too.
SPEAKER_00: For the sake of the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, it's shame despising.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't know if you know this, but being executed as a common criminal is relatively well shameful.
SPEAKER_00: Particularly when that mode of execution, that being the cross, typically lasts for several days.
SPEAKER_00: And look, you've seen the arch, right?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus has a loincloth on.
SPEAKER_00: That's just in a part.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't have a loincloth.
SPEAKER_00: His mother was there looking on her naked adult son nailed to a piece of wood.
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't you call that well shameful?
SPEAKER_00: Beyond that, if you were Jewish, you had the conviction, hang, if you cut your head off, that was sad.
SPEAKER_00: But if you were hanged on a tree, that was a curse.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus saw the shame of those things, and he despised that shame.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't accept it.
SPEAKER_00: He said, to heck with your sense of shame.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I told you, so I'm modeling what I said.
SPEAKER_00: You may wear hats in church, and as a man, I mean you can do whatever you want, but traditionally, men have worn, have covered their heads in the worship space.
SPEAKER_00: And in the Christian tradition, when we say not just Jesus or Christ, when we say Jesus Christ, the hat comes off and it comes back on.
SPEAKER_00: That actually is the oldest rule about hats, even baseball hats.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm wearing this one because I was just a Camp Allen.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, there is a Camp Allen Sunday every year in which they want me to hand out their propaganda.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, I'd rather give you like the best propaganda, which is I was just there for a week with incoming seventh and eighth graders.
SPEAKER_00: Now, school starts on Wednesday, right?
SPEAKER_00: So it's the end of summer break, and boy, you go away somewhere and you get really, really tired, plus you've got this kind of nerve-wracking thing coming on, even if you think class is fine.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, let's be honest.
SPEAKER_00: I always look going forward to school.
SPEAKER_00: I always did, because I was bored.
SPEAKER_00: And there was always anxiety and nervousness, especially when I was going to, well, middle school.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone been in middle school?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Right, so we got.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why I think we do it as a church, and I think we really believe in it.
SPEAKER_00: And I think we do this as adults too.
SPEAKER_00: We just don't realize this is what we're doing.
SPEAKER_00: When you take somebody on a retreat or you go on a pilgrimage, when you leave home for an extended amount of time, it's sort of like this opportunity to leave behind what you're familiar with so that you can tinker a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, if the tinkering goes well, you've kind of done some transformation in yourself that is durable, so that when you go back to the home life, which is no way different, you are.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this makes sense.
SPEAKER_00: It's part of why I travel.
SPEAKER_00: I travel so I can grow and change and see how other people do it and appreciate that, and then come home slightly different.
SPEAKER_00: I go on pilgrimage for that reason.
SPEAKER_00: We definitely believe in youth retreats because we say, here's what I think we say.
SPEAKER_00: You are so used to cultural values that frankly are shameful.
SPEAKER_00: We want to take you away from what's actually shameful so that you can go back and despise that shame.
SPEAKER_00: What do I mean?
SPEAKER_00: Well, this is actually pretty well researched and documented, and my own experience rhymes with this.
SPEAKER_00: The cool kids in middle school are cruel.
SPEAKER_00: Major research studies show this.
SPEAKER_00: The ones who have unwieldy power over others, the merchants of cool in middle school, are cruel.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because they know it is shameful to be cruel, and they embrace that shame because they start to think that there is power in it.
SPEAKER_00: I really don't think I'm wrong.
SPEAKER_00: My power is based on doing what we all know is wrong, but I've shown I'll do it.
SPEAKER_00: Oddly enough, if you are made fun of in middle school, odds are if no one else steps up to support you, you will give power to your oppressor.
SPEAKER_00: You will say, they have power I don't have.
SPEAKER_00: Very few middle school kids say, cruelty is not okay.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not defined by your cruelty, I'm defined by God.
SPEAKER_00: Very few middle schoolers do that because it's hard.
SPEAKER_00: Curiously enough, if you're a friend of somebody who is targeted by the cruel kids, you will either despise the shame of speaking up for your friend.
SPEAKER_00: You'll either despise it and say, we don't treat people like that.
SPEAKER_00: That's my friend.
SPEAKER_00: Happens rarely, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: You've been to middle school.
SPEAKER_00: Or we'll say, ha ha ha! I mean, we used to be friends.
SPEAKER_00: Lived experience says this is true.
SPEAKER_00: So what do we do?
SPEAKER_00: We take kids to Camp Allen and we say you're in a different place, and we hope you'll transform so when you get back, you can despise the shame you have been taught.
SPEAKER_00: Is it easy to stand up against a power broker who's cruel?
SPEAKER_00: No, it feels like there's a lot to lose.
SPEAKER_00: It might even feel like suffering.
SPEAKER_00: What about when it's not happening to me?
SPEAKER_00: Well, shoot, I don't have to get involved.
SPEAKER_00: Why would I want to suffer for somebody else?
SPEAKER_00: And the reminder is Jesus despises the shame of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: What about when I think that person is kind of a loser too?
SPEAKER_00: That means I need to despise my own shame.
SPEAKER_00: We go to camp for a week so that we can come back and not be weak, so we can be strong.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we do.
SPEAKER_00: And unless you are really different from me, it's not just middle school.
SPEAKER_00: This still exists in my adult bread.
SPEAKER_00: Worry about not being enough.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you've had kids, I trust you have at some point in your parenthood worried about not being enough.
SPEAKER_00: And here is Jesus despising that shame.
SPEAKER_00: Here's Jesus despising the shame of being crucified as a parent, because every parent I know has spent some time on a cross.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says it's not supposed to be easy.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, love hers.
SPEAKER_00: It hurts.
SPEAKER_00: And I also hear Jesus saying in my workplace, I work in a really good place, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to say I'm called to stand up or march, but for crying out loud, I can do something for my employees and my friends, even when I don't feel like it.
unknown: Ah.
SPEAKER_00: But suffering means you don't have enough faith.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, I think suffering often is because we've chosen to be faithful.
SPEAKER_00: We've chosen.
SPEAKER_00: These people who are heroes and heroes, I'm telling you, they weren't faithful very much, but just for the moment they said, fine.
SPEAKER_00: God, if it's what it takes to get you to leave me alone, I'll just do it.
SPEAKER_00: And what if we said, God, fine?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't even want to because I'm a good human, but if you'll just leave me alone, I'll do the right thing.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that'd make you a hero.
SPEAKER_00: That'd make you a shear.
SPEAKER_00: The world turns on these moments that say, I've had enough, God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm willing to lose the life I'm used to to save myself.
SPEAKER_00: It feels like dying to lose the life we're used to, which is probably why we get to hear about the cross so much.
SPEAKER_00: Not just a historical event, but as a metaphor for what it's like to be made new.
SPEAKER_00: Dying to what we self, despising the shame we're so participatory in, so that we can actually become alive.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care if you're going back to school this week, you're going back somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: You're going back home today.
SPEAKER_00: And my prayer, right, is that just from home and it may just be one time this week will say, you know what, I'm gonna despise the shame of doing that.
SPEAKER_00: And because there's life there.