SPEAKER_07: But I mean it's it's like it's everything comes through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_07: He didn't say anything about it.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, to me though I thought he pretty much stayed with a purpose, which was Jesus.
SPEAKER_06: It seemed to me that that's what that was more of his purpose.
SPEAKER_06: I was telling what Jesus was there for, what was his purpose.
SPEAKER_09: I think that's really helpful.
SPEAKER_09: Remember, these letters are mostly trying to tell people what difference Jesus makes.
SPEAKER_09: You don't get any stories.
SPEAKER_09: Only one Corinthians has a story about Jesus.
SPEAKER_09: The question is, what is what does that mean?
SPEAKER_06: Right.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: That's the way it seemed to me.
SPEAKER_09: Can I ask about, you know, so the theme this week was about ancient letter writing, which is sort of a genre that's we're not familiar with.
SPEAKER_09: And we got to read Salutations and Thanksgivings, we got to read the body of one, which for me is the most interesting part.
SPEAKER_09: I'm just going to tell you, maybe it is for you or not.
SPEAKER_09: But I want to ask if there was anything that stood out from us, um, either from him or from the readings, about ways uh you see um the ancient letter writing, things that are of interest, things that didn't make sense, and greetings or conclusions, and what that's doing for you.
SPEAKER_09: And if you say nothing, that's fine.
SPEAKER_05: But uh I was struck that a lot of the letter writing um format, I mean it hadn't changed all that much.
SPEAKER_05: And it's still that way, and that the fact that every now and then um there were personal stories to try to make things more interesting.
SPEAKER_05: And a lot of that just continues to this day, except for text and sure.
SPEAKER_06: That's a way what struck me was that that was so much more interesting and intimate and purposeful than the way we the way we communicate now with with a quick text or you know a however it is.
SPEAKER_06: We don't we just don't write, we write thank you notes or send a birthday card, but you just say kind of da-da-da-da-da, you know, love you, hope you're having a great day, yeah, kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_05: And um we've been going through lots of old papers that you can see.
SPEAKER_05: And I found letters from my mother and my brothers, and it yeah, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_05: I mean, and it's still more or less this format you know, the greeting, the setting, you know, the body of a letter, and that and so on.
SPEAKER_06: I found that fascinating.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and I remember in my early training in junior high or high school when you first learned to write letters.
SPEAKER_06: This this was the exact format that that you were taught.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, how to be polite and how to be proper and what is the capital and what when you put the comma and all that was very definitive.
SPEAKER_04: So that's we kind of just go, dear Mike, and jump into our purpose now.
SPEAKER_04: And I wonder why he would he kind of introduced himself or he gave them readings you know that were some of them were more informal and more personal than the others, yeah.
SPEAKER_04: Some of them were turned out a little bit monument, but one in particular, but I thought that I thought no, we don't do that.
SPEAKER_04: I just say dear so-and-so, and I get to my point.
SPEAKER_09: On an email discussion, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04: But um and then I like the way he was supposed to with kind of a with cries, you know, kind of tied it to what he had said at the beginning.
SPEAKER_06: Thank you.
SPEAKER_06: The one thing I thought about, which was I I hadn't thought about in ages when I was a principal and I would review lesson plans, so I had lesson plans, so I'd make notations and I'd say things I and put some few things without without really messing it up, but or I'd say put a note extra, an extra note for the future.
SPEAKER_06: But I did stuff like that about congratulations, oh, this is gonna be good or put a smiley face or something, or or let's talk, or uh we can expand on this if we something, but we we don't do that kind of um more intimate communicating.
SPEAKER_09: Well, I do think it's interesting to think about how forms and how forms change, and I hope what you noticed that was neat about reading them side by side is how they aren't all standard.
SPEAKER_09: Like there is a format, but they get varied quite a bit.
SPEAKER_09: And you mentioned Galatians.
SPEAKER_09: Galatians has very, very short salutation, it has no Thanksgiving, right?
SPEAKER_09: I mean, he is taking those people to task.
SPEAKER_04: That's right.
SPEAKER_09: Right?
SPEAKER_09: Um, I would say this, and that we that we it's helpful to thrive in here.
SPEAKER_09: Um I do think social media like Facebook and texting and email is changing the way we kind of write letters, but do consider that the frequency of those media is way higher than a letter.
SPEAKER_09: So you're getting this stuff daily, and I would put to you that might be why we're losing the form here.
SPEAKER_09: However, if I were going to write an email to my bishop, um, I wouldn't do it quite like Paul, but I also wouldn't write in the text.
SPEAKER_09: Now I have colleagues that do that.
SPEAKER_09: I have colleagues who treat the bishop like they treat everybody else, and maybe that's changing.
SPEAKER_09: But at least for me, when I know something is going to be read or kept, I'm more careful in how I write it.
SPEAKER_09: And I want to make sure we all know that these letters were not private correspondence.
SPEAKER_09: These letters were not written to a church so that people read them and passed them on.
SPEAKER_09: The way these letters work is there's probably one literate person in a group of ten and they read it out loud.
SPEAKER_09: Which means Paul has to be careful what he says because everybody's going to hear it.
SPEAKER_09: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_09: So if you know, like on a text, I could write a really nasty text to somebody, and I don't know that everybody's gonna read it.
SPEAKER_09: But if I'm writing an email to the St.
SPEAKER_09: Thomas community, I'm going to be much more careful with what I write.
SPEAKER_09: Just I hope that makes sense.
SPEAKER_09: That's what Paul's doing.
SPEAKER_09: He's writing a public letter, not a private one.
SPEAKER_09: Sometimes we forget, we think, aha, these are just things people read the Bible at home.
SPEAKER_09: No, they did not.
SPEAKER_09: Because literacy was lower than 5%.
SPEAKER_09: Now, what that means is that there have always been elite people in churches.
SPEAKER_09: It's really important to remember.
SPEAKER_09: Sometimes we get concerned with is are churches just for elite people?
SPEAKER_09: Some are and some aren't, but without elitism, that is education, none of this works as it's being practiced.
SPEAKER_09: Does that I hopefully that makes sense what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_09: Um we read um particularly Philemon, you'll see that in reading it out loud, he's Paul is kind of being really naughty because he's asking an Esimus to do him like a personal favor, but he's asking that favor in the context of a church.
SPEAKER_09: Like 15 people are hearing this ask, not one.
SPEAKER_09: And that influences how we read a letter, I would put to you.
SPEAKER_09: So just remember, all of this is read out loud.
SPEAKER_09: So when he names names, you know, when you name names in a public email or a public letter, you walk through that carefully, I believe.
SPEAKER_09: Now, some people in politics don't believe in that anymore, and we're having a cultural issue about that.
SPEAKER_09: Like, should you make public things that we would normally reserve for private?
SPEAKER_09: Like, I'm gonna take, I have no doubt that lots of other publicly elected officials, be they senators, congressmen, president, presidents, have said very nasty things to other people in private.
SPEAKER_09: Now we're seeing it happen in public without an apology or sensitivity to what used to have been held behind closed doors.
SPEAKER_09: I think maybe in some ways that's great because hey, there's no secrets now.
SPEAKER_09: We know exactly what people are like.
SPEAKER_09: But we're we're struggling with that.
SPEAKER_09: I hope that's okay to say.
SPEAKER_08: Oh yes.
SPEAKER_09: I would tell you, you know, I used to work at a church and somebody was really disappointed with something happening, who worked at the church and sent the text to the wrong person.
SPEAKER_09: They meant to send it to their confidant and they sent it to the person that they were complaining about.
SPEAKER_08: Whoa.
SPEAKER_09: These things happen.
SPEAKER_09: It was nasty, by the way.
SPEAKER_03: It's like hitting a return to all rather than a business.
SPEAKER_09: You've got it.
SPEAKER_09: And in that way, I think we this is still current for us.
SPEAKER_09: Maybe we could look at each part though, and look at some of the changes, and and we'll start to get an idea about what Paul does in these letters that's different, so that as we get to each specific one, we have a more idea of what the variety of options are.
SPEAKER_09: Is that okay?
SPEAKER_09: So, um, like in Romans, we think Paul is probably writing to a group of people he hasn't met.
SPEAKER_09: I just want to give you a heads up.
SPEAKER_09: So he introduces himself as a servant of Jesus, but in Greek that's the word doulos, and it means slave.
SPEAKER_09: It doesn't mean slave like African slave trade.
SPEAKER_09: But it does sort of mean chattels to be dispensed with as you'd like.
SPEAKER_09: In Corinthians, Paul is not a servant, he's an apostle.
SPEAKER_09: So this is a group of people he does know.
SPEAKER_09: So he introduces himself differently.
SPEAKER_09: In Galatians, Paul is sent by God.
SPEAKER_09: In Philippians, he writes to the saints.
SPEAKER_09: To the saints.
SPEAKER_09: Remember, saint is really the word holy ones, holy ones, and holy means extraordinary, set apart.
SPEAKER_09: Now remember, this is being read in public.
SPEAKER_09: So either he's only talking to some really good people in the room, or he's using the word for everybody.
SPEAKER_09: We can talk about that later.
SPEAKER_09: In Thessalonians, he writes to the church.
SPEAKER_09: And that word church is the Greek word eklesia or ecclesia, and it really just means gathering.
SPEAKER_09: So maybe you've heard the word synagogue before, which means gather together.
SPEAKER_09: It's a similar idea.
SPEAKER_09: It's a gathering of people.
SPEAKER_09: Do not think public buildings with crosses is not, these don't exist.
SPEAKER_09: We went to the oldest church in the world in Jordan that's ever been discovered.
SPEAKER_09: As in, not in someone's home.
SPEAKER_09: Like a standalone place.
SPEAKER_09: It dates from about 75.
SPEAKER_09: Paul is writing 30 years before that was built.
SPEAKER_09: And by the way, it was like in a basement because it was not publicly acceptable to have.
SPEAKER_09: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_09: They built a secret church.
SPEAKER_09: And we went there.
SPEAKER_09: In fact, there's a communion picture by the phone, and that's where we had communion.
SPEAKER_09: And it seems kind of weird, but I'll tell you the hairs that my neck stood up, like in a good way, being there.
SPEAKER_09: And I'm like skeptical, so like it's really sweet.
SPEAKER_09: But when you hear church, remember these are home meetings, and it's about people who choose to come together.
SPEAKER_09: In Philemon, Paul is a prisoner.
SPEAKER_09: And that's going to influence what he says.
SPEAKER_09: So, look, we get a lot of different things.
SPEAKER_09: He's an apostle, he's sent by God, he's a servant, he's writing to saints, he's writing to the church, he's a prisoner.
SPEAKER_09: All of these are different titles.
SPEAKER_09: Are they all true?
SPEAKER_09: Yes.
SPEAKER_09: And each one sets the tone for what he's going to do next.
SPEAKER_09: He's a prisoner, so he's going to milk that.
SPEAKER_09: He's sent by God, so you better listen to him, you foolish Galatians.
SPEAKER_09: Okay?
SPEAKER_07: How is he getting feedback from these churches so that he would know what issues to address?
SPEAKER_09: It's a great question.
SPEAKER_09: So I think we have to sort of conjecture about that.
SPEAKER_09: He's got personal relationships, and perhaps he's getting the personal letters.
SPEAKER_09: The ones that say you wouldn't believe what so-and-so is saying.
SPEAKER_09: He does revisit some of them, right?
SPEAKER_09: So he goes not once, not twice, but three times to some of them.
SPEAKER_09: So out of that interaction, perhaps he ruminates and then gives this thing that can be not just spoken one-on-one, but can be read in the assembly of that church, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_07: And I'm also curious, and I was curious last week, but I forgot to ask, how did they go about transmitting these letters?
SPEAKER_07: I mean, how long did it take to get one to another?
SPEAKER_09: Well, you know, you'll get the maybe you've heard about this before if you've been in an evangelical tradition, the Roman road.
SPEAKER_09: And it is true that Romans were road builders.
SPEAKER_09: Now, uh, Roman roads are actually really nice.
SPEAKER_09: You wouldn't want to drive on them.
SPEAKER_09: Uh they're very cobbly.
SPEAKER_09: Our roads are way superior to Roman roads.
SPEAKER_09: I'm just going to tell you right now.
SPEAKER_09: Um, however, uh, if you want to know what it was like before Roman roads, you can go and visit Haiti.
SPEAKER_09: And you need a land cruiser.
SPEAKER_09: And if you don't have one, too bad.
SPEAKER_09: You will not be driving any uh Toyota product other than a Highlander or Land Cruiser in Haiti because it will break your axle.
SPEAKER_09: If that makes sense.
SPEAKER_09: So what the Romans did to facilitate essentially interstate commerce is build these roads.
SPEAKER_09: And um, I've seen maps, interestingly enough, like when I went to Croatia, Diocletian's Palace, there's a map showing you the Roman road system, and it's divided in how many each mile mark, each marker on the map represents a day's journey.
SPEAKER_09: So it tells you how many days it will take you on the Roman road to get from here to here to here to here.
SPEAKER_09: And did they have to use ships to transport the did use ships if they could, but the Mediterranean in some places is a fickle body, like we read last week.
SPEAKER_09: There's this wind called the Nor'easter, and when that blows, it can blow a hundred miles an hour.
SPEAKER_09: And that'll that'll sink a boat.
SPEAKER_08: You know.
SPEAKER_09: So in general, they try to stay very close to the coast.
SPEAKER_09: Don't think of them going out in the middle of bodies of water.
SPEAKER_09: Um, they would use that for shipping, but we sort of think in general these letters go by Roman roads.
SPEAKER_09: Now, now keep in mind most of these churches are not super far apart from each other because Greece and Turkey, if you put them in the United States, they easily fit within Texas.
SPEAKER_09: In fact, when you put Texas on Europe, it's like appalling how small Europe is.
SPEAKER_09: I I hope that makes sense what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_07: They had certain people that carried the mail or seems like it would help out by taking some mail when they went.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, you wouldn't don't think of a postal service, but yes, so there's people that Paul knows, and there's commerce happening and there's messages coming back and forth.
SPEAKER_09: And Paul himself is a trade worker, right?
SPEAKER_09: He identifies himself as a leather worker, although a better understanding is he's somebody who helps make awnings that go in Roman forums.
SPEAKER_09: So those are business places.
SPEAKER_09: So Paul might have made belts, but he also might have worked canvas to be shade, just like when you go to the farmer's market and they pop up tents.
SPEAKER_09: You gotta make things like that and a say canvas.
SPEAKER_07: So what do you mean we're gonna do that?
SPEAKER_09: He practiced the trade.
SPEAKER_09: There's other tradespeople, people come and go as they uh do commerce.
SPEAKER_09: How regularly, I just depends on whether or not they're in the merchant class or they're in the farmer class.
SPEAKER_07: I mean But if you're in a prison, are you handicapped getting your mail?
SPEAKER_09: Well, no, because remember, prisons aren't like we have now.
SPEAKER_09: In general, they're house arrest, and you have to house arrest.
SPEAKER_09: House arrest.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
SPEAKER_09: Remember, there's not there's not police, there's no wardens, there are dungeons, but those are temporary.
SPEAKER_09: You know, they don't you don't stay in a dungeon for years.
SPEAKER_09: That would cost the state too much money.
unknown: Yeah.
SPEAKER_09: And then interesting to think about.
SPEAKER_09: The Roman government was not willing to pay for correctional institutions that supported life sentences.
SPEAKER_07: Well, they could put a tracker on your ankle, so they just said you need to stay home.
SPEAKER_09: Well, you run away, they kill you.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, that's sort of a deal.
SPEAKER_09: You better run way far away.
SPEAKER_09: And if you do, then you're no longer a problem for them anyway.
unknown: Okay.
SPEAKER_09: You know, I mean, no loss.
SPEAKER_09: If you want to go, you know, run outside the Roman Empire and live, well, we don't have to deal with you anymore.
SPEAKER_02: How were they able to date the letters?
SPEAKER_09: Great question.
SPEAKER_09: Um, part of it has to do with themes.
SPEAKER_09: And uh sometimes we'll see Paul's own thoughts develop over time.
SPEAKER_09: So some seem to be earlier.
SPEAKER_09: Um we don't have the original that we know that's from any of these letters.
SPEAKER_09: Reminder, we have copies of copies and we don't know, none of them would say, I'm the original letter.
SPEAKER_09: Um, so that's our best, that's our best guess.
SPEAKER_09: The other way we try to do it is by tracking acts where Paul goes, and so then we kind of short up the writings through that.
SPEAKER_09: So as we read these letters, we'll return to Acts each time to see what Paul's interface was according to Acts.
SPEAKER_02: The um the biographical information we have on Paul do they come mainly from the letters or and and and the acts are a backup or yeah, that's a real problem for scholars because acts is a secondary source.
SPEAKER_09: Right?
SPEAKER_09: It's about Paul and not by him.
SPEAKER_09: Um the letters would be primary sources, but as I identified last week, scholars are not clear.
SPEAKER_09: They're pretty in consensus about which ones Paul did write, but some people disagree about which ones his students wrote.
SPEAKER_09: Um so that's how it parses out.
SPEAKER_09: Do we have external sources about the guy?
SPEAKER_09: No.
SPEAKER_09: So those are our two sources, primary and secondary.
SPEAKER_09: And remember, like I told you in Acts, Paul's conversion story is told three times and it differs each time.
SPEAKER_09: That doesn't mean it's wrong.
SPEAKER_09: Any good storyteller does not tell the same story twice.
SPEAKER_09: Any good storyteller changes the story to fit the audience.
SPEAKER_09: Doesn't mean changes the facts, but all storytelling is contextual.
SPEAKER_09: Always.
SPEAKER_09: Sometimes we think in this postmodernist area, no, there's one correct version of a story, and that's ludicrous.
SPEAKER_09: Because if you don't have sensitivity to your audience's vocabulary, then you can share a story that's completely unintelligible.
SPEAKER_09: Try reading Finnegan's Wake, for example.
SPEAKER_09: James Joyce wrote that.
SPEAKER_09: It's a combination of like three languages and a made-up one, and there's 20 people in the world that can read it.
SPEAKER_09: So what?
SPEAKER_09: I mean, you know, like it's inaccessible.
SPEAKER_09: It may be a wonderful story, but you can't read it.
SPEAKER_09: So what?
SPEAKER_03: And you use, if you're a good storyteller, you use examples that are congruent with the history, the culture, the mindset of the people you're telling the story to.
SPEAKER_03: So that's what it has meaning to the end of the day.
SPEAKER_09: That's what I think.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, and so part of our task has to be to retrieve some of that.
SPEAKER_09: Again, when we hear Jesus talk about shepherding, none of you have been shepherding.
SPEAKER_09: Before.
SPEAKER_09: I don't know you very well, but I know that.
SPEAKER_09: Because we did away with that in the 1930s in this country.
SPEAKER_09: So we make presumptions about shepherding that, frankly, are usually false because we don't do that.
SPEAKER_09: Same with the agricultural lifestyle.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, my parents are two generations a generation older than they actually are, and they're really not in the agricultural get-go.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, they grew up in rural Kentucky, they grew tobacco when that was profitable, it's not anymore.
SPEAKER_09: My great my grandfather was sort of like a sharecropper, but not quite.
SPEAKER_09: But my mother wasn't.
SPEAKER_09: So that's even secondhand lifestyle to her.
SPEAKER_09: I hope that makes sense what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_09: The farming lifestyle is nostalgic for us.
SPEAKER_09: And some people think it's real sweet and cute because they didn't do it.
SPEAKER_09: And don't exactly understand what it involves, but these people, that was that's what they did.
SPEAKER_09: And they didn't own big farms, but they were subsistence farmers.
SPEAKER_02: And he seems to not have had a lot of contact with the impossible Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_02: A lot did he hear stories about what Jesus did in his preachings or we have to take for granted he knew something about Jesus.
SPEAKER_09: But what he knew, the only thing we know for sure, is that on the night before he died, Jesus took bread.
SPEAKER_08: Right.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, that's our one story.
SPEAKER_09: So what else did he know?
SPEAKER_09: We're not sure, but he did sure make meaning about Jesus being wounded and Jesus being resurrected and what that means for us.
SPEAKER_09: We don't know if Paul was familiar with the parables of Jesus.
SPEAKER_09: We don't know if he knew any of that.
SPEAKER_09: We don't know if he was familiar with Jesus healing that guy on the mat.
SPEAKER_09: We just don't know.
SPEAKER_09: Because he never says.
SPEAKER_09: That's how they made it into the Bible.
SPEAKER_09: Did he write other letters we don't have?
SPEAKER_09: Probably.
SPEAKER_09: And those either weren't considered helpful to everybody else, or they got rid and lost, you know, and we're not we're not sure.
SPEAKER_09: It was he some kind of um, you know, Billy Graham figure.
SPEAKER_09: We don't know.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, the the church is the church, like the Christian movement starts really small, probably.
SPEAKER_09: We get these numbers in Acts that are probably not credible.
SPEAKER_09: I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_09: Like they're just probably not credible.
SPEAKER_09: What most people think is Christianity grew like the Mormon Church at a steady rate of like 10% a year.
SPEAKER_09: Well, sure enough, if you keep doing that over time, right, within 300 years, you get to be pretty big.
SPEAKER_09: Like the Mormon Church, which is 200 years old.
SPEAKER_09: And sizable now.
SPEAKER_09: And it continues to grow 10, 12% a year worldwide.
SPEAKER_09: It's a pretty good return on investment.
SPEAKER_06: It seems to me he would have had to possibly have some kind of education because I'm kind of talking about.
SPEAKER_06: He claims he did.
SPEAKER_09: He claims he did.
SPEAKER_09: We get that in Acts.
SPEAKER_09: He claims he's educated by Rabbi Gamaliel, who was a well-known rabbi.
SPEAKER_09: Um in Acts he speaks Hebrew.
SPEAKER_09: That's a dead language.
SPEAKER_09: So if he can communicate in a dead language, he's educated.
SPEAKER_09: His family, he claims, he's a born Roman citizen, which means someone bought in a while ago.
SPEAKER_09: So they've got resources.
SPEAKER_09: When he goes back to Tarsus, you know, he has this conversion, goes back to Tarsus, he's there for a couple of years before he does any of these journeys, presumably studying.
SPEAKER_09: So we think he knows how to study.
SPEAKER_09: So I think that's really fair.
SPEAKER_09: He writes a conclusion in his own hand.
SPEAKER_09: I don't know if you noticed that, but most scholars think he wrote just the conclusion, not the whole letter.
SPEAKER_09: So he's literate.
SPEAKER_09: This is the things that we believe.
SPEAKER_09: He can speak Greek, probably spoke Aramaic because that's what people spoke, and he can speak Hebrew.
SPEAKER_06: It just seems to me, just from living today, that he would have had to have work people with other men with him.
SPEAKER_06: He had to make, but but maybe not.
SPEAKER_09: Nope, nope, he definitely does.
SPEAKER_09: Remember, um we we get to hear in one of them, this is written by a scribe, he talks about um he's riding with Sosthenes.
SPEAKER_09: We get to hear he's also with Timothy.
SPEAKER_09: So he's got these compatriots, absolutely, who were who are with him, and those are the people on his vestry.
SPEAKER_02: Does he have a friend to Luke?
SPEAKER_09: No.
SPEAKER_09: But that doesn't mean he didn't know Luke.
SPEAKER_09: He just didn't mention.
SPEAKER_09: Okay, that's our salutation.
SPEAKER_09: Notice it is contextual, and again, the way he describes himself depends on the tone and tenor of the letter.
SPEAKER_09: How about Thanksgiving?
SPEAKER_09: Notice, he's not thankful for the Galatians.
SPEAKER_09: This is really important to remember.
SPEAKER_09: He says things like, Your faith has been proclaimed through the world.
SPEAKER_09: So the world knows that the Romans are faithful.
SPEAKER_09: Paul wants to mutually encourage them.
SPEAKER_09: So he wants to give them something.
SPEAKER_09: He tells the Corinthians, you're enriched in every way by Jesus in speech and knowledge.
SPEAKER_09: God will strengthen them to the end.
SPEAKER_09: He tells them again in 2 Corinthians, God considers your afflictions, and please know we are suffering on your behalf.
SPEAKER_09: So you're not the only ones we're suffering for you.
SPEAKER_09: That's a funny Thanksgiving, isn't it?
SPEAKER_09: He tells the Philippians, God will finish a good work in you.
SPEAKER_09: I hold you in my heart, and I long for you.
SPEAKER_09: And he tells the Thessalonians, we constantly remember and thank God for you, be imitations of us.
SPEAKER_09: So that's nice.
SPEAKER_09: What's nice to note is because he doesn't feel that way to the Galatians, he doesn't include that.
SPEAKER_09: So in some ways we can say, hey, some of this is formulaic, but please notice it's adaptable to.
SPEAKER_09: We had to read a monograph a week, which was a lot when I had 18 hours of classes.
SPEAKER_09: So I was reading like a 200-page book and having to write a paper on it every week.
SPEAKER_09: That was my entrance to class.
SPEAKER_09: And uh I will tell you, my spiritual gift is probably criticism.
SPEAKER_09: If I wanted to call it positive, it would be analysis.
SPEAKER_09: I was super good at reading a book and saying, this is wrong, this is specious, and etc.
SPEAKER_09: But what we had to do in this class is we had to start with an appreciation for what the author was contributing that was new or different.
SPEAKER_09: Sometimes I thought, well, that's just buttering somebody up for what's going to come next.
SPEAKER_09: But I think it actually was a really great spiritual discipline to do, and I sure have, as I've reacted with employees, found it very helpful to do both, not as a way of buttering them up, but just to let them know that I am both appreciative and concerned.
SPEAKER_09: So I would put to you that Thanksgiving is an interesting spiritual practice, and we could say it's formulaic, but I would I would say whether it is or not, it's an interesting spiritual practice that Paul invites us to do ourselves.
SPEAKER_09: Especially when we're upset.
SPEAKER_09: Again, it doesn't show up with the Galatians because he's so mad.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, I mean, that's just one of those emails.
SPEAKER_09: Galatians is written in all capital letters.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, that's that's the deal.
SPEAKER_09: By the way, they're all written in all capital letters in Greek.
SPEAKER_09: Um but this one especially.
SPEAKER_09: So I just want to raise to you that's a way we could take this home, right?
SPEAKER_09: Is to make sure we're mindful, particularly in moments of criticism or critique, what the person is trying to do as we perceive.
SPEAKER_03: I think it's a spiritual practice that that is really validated by human ability to hear or not hear criticism.
SPEAKER_03: I like to teach the sandwich technique of if if you've got something that's gonna be hard to hear, say something that aligns you with them first.
SPEAKER_03: I appreciate how you do this.
SPEAKER_03: I'm concerned, and then the third step is something positive.
SPEAKER_03: I think we can work together on this because you have the ability to do conference.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: So I think that's what it opens our heart, yeah, it it keeps us from going like this to begin with.
SPEAKER_03: So we're connected, we hear what we don't want to hear, and then we connect again.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
SPEAKER_09: You mean Brene Brown offers this way of doing it that sort of says, here's this gift I see in you, and here's this challenge that that gift is expressing, and let's think of ways you could use that gift to overcome that same challenge.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06: That used to help me as a principal when I had lesson plans.
SPEAKER_06: Yes.
SPEAKER_06: When I was going through people's, I mean, I'd say, let's talk, you know, or I'll be it in your class, you're off time, let's do something together so that we can talk it out more.
SPEAKER_06: And that kept the staff kind of more co- you know, together and more connected to me, uh, I hoped.
SPEAKER_09: And this is why I would rather do things myself than work in a group.
SPEAKER_08: I'm just gonna let you know.
SPEAKER_09: Because I trust my own work ethic and I don't trust anybody else's.
SPEAKER_09: Sorry.
SPEAKER_09: So there we are, and we all have areas we get to grow into, you know?
SPEAKER_09: Because when we don't trust the work ethic of others, we create something that's not sustainable without ourselves.
SPEAKER_09: And that's no good, right?
SPEAKER_09: I mean, we end up becoming piepers in ministry or in life, and there's certain things I don't need other people to help me in, like how to build my kitchen cabinets that can die with me.
SPEAKER_09: But when it comes to ministry, that's not great.
SPEAKER_09: So how it is that we get there is tough.
SPEAKER_09: It's really, really tough.
SPEAKER_09: And particularly in church where there are structures, and I hope this is okay to say because church is not just a business, even though we sometimes run business like, we are a mission and ministry, school is like that.
SPEAKER_09: There are many people you know in your lives that you might employ that are like that.
SPEAKER_09: So I'll just give you an example.
SPEAKER_09: If I know somebody is under financial duress and I'm not happy with their performance, it's much harder for me to dismiss them.
SPEAKER_09: As a church.
SPEAKER_09: If somebody worships at my church and they also work here, I have to treat them differently than if they don't.
SPEAKER_09: I hope that makes sense.
SPEAKER_09: Sometimes we say the blowback's worth it because this is so not good.
SPEAKER_09: I've done that once.
SPEAKER_09: It was really unpleasant.
SPEAKER_09: Really unpleasant, if you know what mine is saying.
SPEAKER_09: Even though I'm going to tell you it was the right decision, people didn't think about the rightness, they thought about the relationship.
SPEAKER_09: And this is something we we struggle with.
SPEAKER_09: Um Thanksgiving is helpful, but but um life is still tough.
SPEAKER_09: I hope that's okay to say.
SPEAKER_09: Sometimes I'm not super satisfied with my house cleaner, but I know if I change house cleaners, I uh we'll have to start over.
SPEAKER_09: And she shows up, so I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_09: Okay.
SPEAKER_09: She's super honest, and if I say please do this, she will.
SPEAKER_09: You know, but sometimes I feel like I shouldn't have to say a little more attention to the floors, would be nice, you know.
SPEAKER_09: But that's something I don't like to do, and that's one of my growing points.
SPEAKER_09: Okay.
SPEAKER_09: Um body of the letter.
SPEAKER_09: Are we ready to move on to the body?
SPEAKER_00: That's that's when it comes tofering um constructive criticism, if you will, is so much easier to do on an email than it is a day.
SPEAKER_00: It can be.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way it is, and that's the way the way we are operating today.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: People can say some really ugly things in an email that they never say as ugly today.
SPEAKER_09: Or on their Facebook post, and I will tell you, I almost wish I weren't friends with parishioners on Facebook because I see some of their postings and I'm appalled.
SPEAKER_09: And I think, how could you write something like that?
SPEAKER_09: It doesn't even sound like you, but like it's hateful and like awful.
SPEAKER_09: Um and this is one of those things we get to we get to deal with, you know.
SPEAKER_09: We're still living between public and private, and I will say um there is something really tough about confrontation, and um, this is one of those interesting thoughts that Paul keeps, I think it's good to keep our finger on.
SPEAKER_09: And I'm gonna say Brene Brown does this again.
SPEAKER_09: She says that we should choose the discomfort of setting a boundary over the resentment that will happen if we don't.
SPEAKER_09: And those are just such tough words because I don't want to have a confrontation.
SPEAKER_09: My worst confrontation, so when I'm gonna tell somebody they're not doing something they should already know to do.
SPEAKER_09: The shoulding you should know is dreadful for me.
SPEAKER_09: Because I don't know how to even explain to them if they're not already doing it, is tough.
SPEAKER_09: But by the way, these letters are like that.
SPEAKER_09: Philemon is something you should already be doing.
SPEAKER_09: Galatians is a should letter, like you should know better.
SPEAKER_09: Um so Paul has to do that too.
SPEAKER_09: And keep in mind, really, what this is about is how do we communicate within this body that grows together?
SPEAKER_09: What do we communicate about what matters most?
SPEAKER_09: All of this is church communication, all of it.
SPEAKER_09: And let's have a peek by looking at the body of 1 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_09: Is that okay?
SPEAKER_09: We're not reading the whole thing because he has other themes that are super interesting.
SPEAKER_09: 1 Corinthians is our great study in what churches do with grace and freedom.
SPEAKER_09: It is.
SPEAKER_09: Notice that we get to we get to hear right off the bat no divisions, no divisions.
SPEAKER_09: So some of you follow Apollos, and some of you follow Paul.
SPEAKER_09: Please tell Chloe's people to quit that.
SPEAKER_09: Hey, listen, not a lot has changed.
SPEAKER_09: We do this from church to church.
SPEAKER_09: Well, my pastor says this and my priest says that.
SPEAKER_09: We do this within churches, especially if we've got two clergy people.
SPEAKER_09: We all pick our favorite clergy person, and that's who we go to, and that makes sense because hey, I went to my mom with things that I didn't go to my dad with, and vice versa.
SPEAKER_09: We figure out and we'll tell us what we want to hear.
SPEAKER_09: This is sort of the deal, right?
SPEAKER_09: So, but Paul says, hey, like that's fine, but let's just not be divided, folks.
SPEAKER_09: You know, like let's avoid the divisions.
SPEAKER_09: I would tell you there will probably be more division about what color the new carpet should be than about whether or not we have a female in ministry here.
SPEAKER_09: Isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_09: How we handle divisions of the church is a really interesting thing.
SPEAKER_09: Really, really interesting.
SPEAKER_09: But they come.
SPEAKER_09: And Paul is trying to say, let them come, fine, but let them go.
SPEAKER_09: Let them go.
SPEAKER_09: And quickly.
SPEAKER_09: He talks a fair amount about the foolishness of the cross and of Christ.
SPEAKER_09: And essentially what Paul says is there's human wisdom, and that's foolishness to God.
SPEAKER_09: God's wisdom is very different.
SPEAKER_09: And I think what would be helpful, returning if you were in the study last year, we talked about the difference between wisdom and shrewdness.
SPEAKER_09: So I think this is a really helpful piece.
SPEAKER_09: Human wisdom is really shrewdness.
SPEAKER_09: What's the difference between shrewdness and wisdom?
SPEAKER_09: Empathy.
SPEAKER_09: That's what we decided last year, anyway.
SPEAKER_09: When we study wisdom.
SPEAKER_09: The difference between shrewdness and wisdom is empathy.
SPEAKER_06: Wisdom is empathy.
SPEAKER_09: Wisdom has empathy, shrewdness does not.
SPEAKER_03: So does that come down to how you express that wisdom like we were talking earlier?
SPEAKER_09: I think so.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, one of the things we talked about last year is that wisdom is the ability to use knowledge, and shrewdness is about knowledge.
SPEAKER_09: So consider knowledge includes how to split an atom.
SPEAKER_09: But knowledge is not inherently good or bad.
unknown: It's how you use it.
SPEAKER_09: It's how you use it.
SPEAKER_09: Splitting an atom is great to know about, however, it can be really awful.
SPEAKER_09: And that's the difference between wisdom and shrewdness.
SPEAKER_09: Who pays for it?
SPEAKER_09: That's the difference.
SPEAKER_09: We in general are very skilled at shrewdness.
SPEAKER_09: We know how to land on our feet, how to think worst-case scenario, how to make plan B.
SPEAKER_09: I think so.
SPEAKER_09: I think we're reasonably good at that.
SPEAKER_09: Um essentially, Paul's trying to say the cross is foolishness when your mentality is shrewdness.
SPEAKER_09: Because it means you lose.
SPEAKER_07: But in God's plan, it's actually why I'm saying you're saying basically what that means.
SPEAKER_07: Are you other people yourself?
SPEAKER_06: Or are you intellectual strictly knowledgeable knowledge, or is it about how you're heart?
SPEAKER_07: I don't know, but you know it when you see it.
SPEAKER_07: It's like that's I mean, that's why that's a good word.
SPEAKER_07: What wisdom is I mean, Solomon was wise.
SPEAKER_07: He was considered to be wise, and particularly in that case of you know, let's divide the baby up.
SPEAKER_07: It worked.
SPEAKER_07: He wasn't being shrewd.
SPEAKER_09: Oh, I think he was shrewd.
SPEAKER_09: I don't think Solomon had any wisdom at all.
SPEAKER_07: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_07: Well, I'm wrong then.
SPEAKER_09: Well, no, I mean, what he engineered an outcome, but I would tell you, I think Solomon was willing to cut the baby in half.
SPEAKER_09: But the king I think he would have because the rest of his life was was awful.
SPEAKER_07: Oh, yes, that's I I acknowledge that.
SPEAKER_03: But I I do admire that the way he handled that decision.
SPEAKER_03: Again, it comes down to empathy because how do you use that knowledge to help others without hurting them?
SPEAKER_03: I mean, you can give them it's the same thing.
SPEAKER_09: But I I think what we don't know about, and I appreciate you bringing that incident up, because I think it could fall either way.
SPEAKER_09: And part of it is like, how do you choose to perceive the guy?
SPEAKER_09: Do you think he really would have cut the baby in half, or do you think he was playing at it?
SPEAKER_07: I assumed he was playing at it.
SPEAKER_09: And I fall on the other side where I think he would have cut the baby in half.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I think he was who he was, and he would have cut the baby in half.
SPEAKER_02: Because if he didn't, yeah, if he didn't follow through the example, would be very bad.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: And based on his behavioral history.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: And and and who he was.
SPEAKER_06: He was King Solomon.
SPEAKER_06: He wasn't just some common person who was.
SPEAKER_06: He lose faith if he didn't.
SPEAKER_06: Completely lose faith.
SPEAKER_09: I I and I and I and I listen, I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong.
SPEAKER_09: I think it's a great example to kind of consider because this is supposed to be the wisest man ever, and he does, he has the most foolish foreign policy and domestic policy that had hithertofore been seen.
SPEAKER_09: He builds a navy on.
SPEAKER_09: The Sea of Galilee.
SPEAKER_09: What a waste.
SPEAKER_09: It's a lake.
SPEAKER_07: They ultimately attribute a lot of his decisions to the fact that he had too many women.
SPEAKER_09: Which would be the root of shrewdness and not wisdom.
SPEAKER_07: Yes.
SPEAKER_09: And ultimately, the Bible criticizes him for being shrewd.
SPEAKER_09: He acquires all of these wives and concubines so that he can have treaties and land mass.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
SPEAKER_09: And at the end of the day, those sow the seeds of his own religious corruption because he's a polytheist.
SPEAKER_07: But he he probably started out to be wise.
SPEAKER_07: I'm still nitpicking this point.
SPEAKER_09: No, no, actually it's a fair point because I don't know that I mean I think wisdom can be cumulative, but I know wise people who fall off the wagon and just become shrewd.
SPEAKER_09: And I know really shrewd people who once in a while surprise the world and make an empathetic decision.
SPEAKER_09: Like Nikita Khrushchev.
SPEAKER_09: What a surprise that when Kennedy sent the Bay of Pigs invasion, he didn't shoot the nuclear warheads.
SPEAKER_09: Thank God for that, right?
SPEAKER_09: In that one moment, he had wisdom on behalf of the world, whereas if he'd only been thinking shrewdly, he would have shot the warheads.
SPEAKER_07: I don't know that much about Khrushchev, but I have heard that they had a little quid pro crow going on in there where we had some stuff way out there that nobody knew about that he didn't want, and it was an agreement between the two of them we won't shoot you if you don't shoot us.
SPEAKER_09: But at a certain point, I would say quid pro cros, they can reveal empathy because I know some people who will say we're gonna get revenge and I'll be damned what the consequences are.
SPEAKER_09: I hear people talk like that.
SPEAKER_09: That's the root of shrewdness.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: I think you would think of it in with your own personal life, you raising your children and interacting with your husband, there's all kinds of that kind of break dividing, and not that you're always on the on the wisdom side, but you I I think that you try to work towards that.
SPEAKER_09: This is such an interesting topic for like all of church.
SPEAKER_09: I really think so.
SPEAKER_09: Are we pursuing shrewdness or wisdom?
SPEAKER_09: And part of the gut is do we engage in church so that we can benefit exclusively, or are churches there for the benefit of the world?
SPEAKER_09: Do we pursue politics that protect what we have without empathy for other people?
SPEAKER_09: I mean, these are tough decisions.
SPEAKER_09: I've met lots of people who say I don't understand how a Christian could be a Democrat.
SPEAKER_09: And of course, I've heard many Christian Democrats say, because we're considering empathy for people who don't have insurance for us.
SPEAKER_09: No, it's not like you have to be one or the other, but you know what's interesting is there's two sides who don't start with thanksgiving for one another, and that results in a rift, and there shouldn't be divisions, even though we're allowed to disagree, we're not supposed to be divided.
SPEAKER_06: You know, I I've got to give you a personal example.
SPEAKER_06: I was thinking this morning, I love being at St.
SPEAKER_06: Thomas now that I'm that I'm gonna be able to do lecturing because I'm I'm a good lecturer, but I but I didn't come here to be a lecturer, and it just happened that somebody said, Yeah, and I do it well.
SPEAKER_06: But then I got to thinking, well, wait a minute, why am I at St.
SPEAKER_06: Thomas so I can lecture?
SPEAKER_06: Uh or is am I there because I love the inclusiveness, the welcoming, the you know, so it becomes it.
SPEAKER_06: Does that does that?
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, and the good news is it gets to be both, right?
SPEAKER_09: Uh you what gets included are your gifts.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09: And not just for you, although I would say sharing my gifts is enjoyable.
SPEAKER_09: I like sharing what I'm good at.
SPEAKER_09: I don't like sharing what I'm not good at.
SPEAKER_06: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_06: Oh it is a question about so many things.
SPEAKER_09: Aren't they great questions?
SPEAKER_09: These are great questions.
SPEAKER_07: So let me say that the Galatians were more shrewd wise, as I think.
SPEAKER_09: I think you could make that argument.
SPEAKER_07: You could be selfish.
SPEAKER_09: And when we read Galatians, you're really going to see what's wrapped up in that that we are so drawn to.
SPEAKER_09: You're gonna say, what a silly thing.
SPEAKER_09: And then when you get to the core of it, that's absolutely who we are.
SPEAKER_09: As human beings.
SPEAKER_09: We'll have to save that because we didn't read the body of Galatians.
SPEAKER_07: Okay, well, I mean, he was obviously angry.
SPEAKER_09: Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09: We'll talk about that.
SPEAKER_09: Give us a couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_09: Let's move on to the foundation.
SPEAKER_09: I built the foundation, others built on it.
SPEAKER_09: So don't think that somebody did everything.
SPEAKER_09: Think that we're in this together.
SPEAKER_09: So Apollos might have laid the seed and I watered it or vice versa.
SPEAKER_09: And that's the thing to remember.
SPEAKER_09: We're in continuity and mission.
SPEAKER_09: And I do think it's really helpful to remember because I've been in churches before that did not have what I would consider the most diligent clergy, not that I consider myself to be that.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, I don't, I can tell you, like, I really struggle with um whether I'm doing my job or my call very well, but I will say that even like what I would consider to be very like malfunctioning clergy, they laid the foundation for me to come in and do what I do well.
SPEAKER_09: And so I'm grateful for that.
SPEAKER_09: I don't mean that their gift was embezzling.
SPEAKER_09: What I mean is they had other gifts that they offered to the community, and when I arrived, it was able for me, I was able to do what I do well.
SPEAKER_09: Or what I perceive I do well.
SPEAKER_07: You are one of our better speakers.
SPEAKER_09: Well, I would tell you I'm good at that if you like the way I do it.
SPEAKER_09: Not everybody does, but but listen, I'm not much open to reform because I I feel pretty comfortable in the way I do it.
SPEAKER_09: No, I do, and I don't want to sound that I'm not claim that arrogantly.
SPEAKER_09: I I you know I don't.
SPEAKER_09: I I know people who are naturally better pastoral care givers than I am.
SPEAKER_09: I do.
SPEAKER_09: But I also know that I show up.
SPEAKER_09: So these are interesting things.
SPEAKER_09: I know people who are great givers, they were willy-nilly with who they visited.
SPEAKER_09: So, again, like we all do this differently, and essentially what Paul goes on to say is that's fine because whatever gets built up that's a false work is going to get tested by fire.
SPEAKER_09: And don't think the way you test by fire is not like, hey, if it's flammable, then it's no good.
SPEAKER_09: Testing refers to a touchstone, right?
SPEAKER_09: Or to metal refining.
SPEAKER_09: When you heat up fine metals hot enough, you burn up the dross.
SPEAKER_09: So the way this works is we have mutual ministry together, and when we make mistakes, the gift of God is that God will refine our mutual ministry and burn up the dross for our benefit.
SPEAKER_09: Sometimes we don't like it because the healing process isn't pleasant.
SPEAKER_09: But it's not God arbitrarily testing us or, you know, whipping us or taking us to task.
SPEAKER_09: It's God pulling the junk out of us.
SPEAKER_09: That's right here in 1 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_09: Tested by fire does not mean like a test you take to prove something, it means refinement of precious metals.
SPEAKER_09: There will be things after I go, whenever that is, that need to be refined out of this place.
SPEAKER_09: I have no doubt about that.
SPEAKER_09: For your good and for my own.
SPEAKER_09: That's the promise, though, is that it's for your good.
SPEAKER_09: It's for my good, it's for our good.
SPEAKER_09: Because Paul goes on to say, don't you know that your bodies are a temple for the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_09: And unlike the church I grew up in, that does not mean Bonnie Ryan's body is a temple for the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_09: It means all y'all, to use the text expression.
SPEAKER_09: Because the church means gathering, so y'all are the living blocks in the church that hold the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_09: We have distorted that to mean lots of things, like, oh, if you destroy God's temple, if you commit suicide, you're going to hell.
SPEAKER_09: And I've just got to tell you, that's that's not what Paul's saying at all.
SPEAKER_09: And it leads us to being like extremely judgmental and cruel to people who that's the last thing they need.
SPEAKER_09: I know clergy used to be that if you committed suicide, you couldn't have a funeral.
SPEAKER_09: What a sad state.
SPEAKER_09: That's the difference between shrewdness and empathy.
SPEAKER_09: I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_09: Shrewdness, again, is saying, hey, listen, if you don't meet our standards, you don't get the church goodies.
SPEAKER_09: That is not empathetic.
SPEAKER_03: If you don't see things my way, my interpretation.
SPEAKER_09: Boy, I mean, I'll tell you what's ironic is we had a priest here a long time ago who um had been divorced and remarried, but if you wanted a second marriage, he wouldn't do it.
SPEAKER_09: Because he didn't believe in that.
SPEAKER_09: Paul goes on to say, this and we're all stewards of the Lord.
SPEAKER_09: We're all stewards of the Lord.
SPEAKER_09: I don't even judge myself, though, because my own judgment is so flawed.
SPEAKER_09: Now I don't want you to hear the word judge as like I'm not analytic, I don't think about it.
SPEAKER_09: I think Paul is really saying is I make it my business not to condemn other people because they don't work for me, they work for God.
SPEAKER_09: I can judge them, but I don't condemn them.
SPEAKER_09: Now, if you can't judge without condemning, don't do either one.
SPEAKER_09: But but I'm going to tell you, I can't help but judge other people.
SPEAKER_09: The question is whether or not I condemn them.
SPEAKER_09: I can live with that.
SPEAKER_09: I can't live with not judging.
SPEAKER_09: I can't, because I'm like a type A math brain in general.
SPEAKER_09: But this is part of the deal.
SPEAKER_09: You see, if you're all bricks in God's temple, and you say that other brick sucks or is ugly or I hate it, you don't get to do that.
SPEAKER_09: You're you're a brick.
SPEAKER_09: You're not the architect.
SPEAKER_09: The architect, Paul says, is God.
SPEAKER_09: He says another really interesting thing to the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_09: You have everything you want already.
SPEAKER_09: If we could just practice that.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, I personally need to practice that.
SPEAKER_09: And lastly, he says, listen, the imitators is me.
SPEAKER_09: If you're not sure what to do, follow my example, and I'm coming soon.
SPEAKER_09: So do you want me to come with a hug or with a whip?
SPEAKER_09: It's nice to know, by the way, that Paul wrote that.
SPEAKER_09: I hope you don't mind me saying this.
SPEAKER_09: Paul is not saying God is coming to Corinth with a hug or a whip.
SPEAKER_09: Paul's saying he is.
SPEAKER_09: It's really important to hear the distinction.
SPEAKER_09: It's a little bit of the body, is that okay?
SPEAKER_09: As an introduction.
SPEAKER_09: Do we want to talk about ethical instruction and exhortation, or do we want to talk about some of the body of the letter?
SPEAKER_09: I know I glossed over it really fast.
SPEAKER_09: Correct.
SPEAKER_09: Because Paul is writing to he's just, he's absolutely lost his mind with the Galatians.
SPEAKER_09: We'll get there.
SPEAKER_09: I would tell you why today, but it won't make sense because next week we're reading one Thessalonians, not Galatians.
SPEAKER_09: Ethical instruction and exhortation, right?
SPEAKER_09: This is at the close, right?
SPEAKER_09: So to the Philippians, he says, hey, stand firm in the Lord.
SPEAKER_09: Don't give up.
SPEAKER_09: Don't get tired of doing good.
SPEAKER_09: I urge you over to get in Sentiche.
SPEAKER_09: He's reading this in public to get along.
SPEAKER_09: You know, in the Episcopal Church, I'm allowed to withhold communion from you if I think you're a notorious sinner.
SPEAKER_09: And the whole reason that I'm allowed to do that is to coerce you to confess or be reconciled.
SPEAKER_09: And I read stories where priests do this and they say, I won't give communion to Bonnie or Jane until they start talking to each other.
SPEAKER_09: And then they say, Good morning, Mrs.
SPEAKER_09: Ryan.
SPEAKER_09: Good morning, Mrs.
SPEAKER_09: Flynn.
SPEAKER_09: And then they get to have communion.
SPEAKER_01: We had a Catholic priest that did that when I was a child.
SPEAKER_01: And to anyone, women were not allowed to wear v-neck or sleeveless or oh, he was unbelievable.
SPEAKER_09: So we gotta think about using sacraments as sticks.
SPEAKER_09: I just really think we've got to think hard about that.
SPEAKER_06: You had to wear a shawl or something before you went to go to communion?
SPEAKER_06: And something on your head.
SPEAKER_06: Well, and in the old way, way back when I remember even a Kleenex on top of my head.
SPEAKER_06: Yes.
SPEAKER_06: It was silly.
SPEAKER_06: It was totally silly.
SPEAKER_09: And to coerce somebody out of that.
SPEAKER_09: Like I recently was talking to a colleague in ministry of mine who was doing premarital counseling for me because a couple I was going to celebrate the marriage of lived there several hours away from here.
SPEAKER_09: He was willing to do it, although he said, like, have you made these people join your church?
SPEAKER_09: And I was like, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_09: He said, Well, you know, the policy is we can't perform marriages for non-members.
SPEAKER_09: And I said, I'm sorry, like maybe I don't know that policy, but I would never impose that on somebody.
SPEAKER_09: Because then they're just gonna have to jump through a hoop to get something that they don't even have to ask me for.
SPEAKER_09: You don't need me to marry you.
SPEAKER_09: You can have your friend get like a like an internet license and do it.
SPEAKER_09: You can go to a judge.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, this is an interesting thing for us to think through.
SPEAKER_09: My own thinking is when people want the church involved in their lives, we should show up.
SPEAKER_09: We shouldn't make it really hard.
SPEAKER_09: Like, hey, you've got to appease me.
SPEAKER_09: Now, look, I'm not gonna celebrate a marriage where there's nothing to celebrate.
SPEAKER_07: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_09: Well, like two people, they have no business getting married, I'm not gonna marry them.
SPEAKER_07: Well, my priest wouldn't marry me to Frank because he said he didn't think it would last.
SPEAKER_07: And that was uh 1973.
SPEAKER_09: I tell you, I've never I've never celebrated marriage to this date where there was nothing to celebrate.
SPEAKER_09: Now we all have feelings about who's gonna outlast who, but all of my authority are still together, to my knowledge.
SPEAKER_09: And uh beyond that, if I weren't really sure, I'd send somebody to like a real counselor, because I'm not one of those.
SPEAKER_09: I had marriage counseling one-on-one in one class in seminary.
SPEAKER_09: Fortunately, I've invested in more education, but I mean, again, I think this is like really important for us to think through.
SPEAKER_09: We like to think sometimes, oh, you're not dressed appropriately for communion, or well, I don't know, maybe they're not baptized, so we shouldn't let them have communion.
SPEAKER_09: And I just put to you, do we use sacraments to enforce conformity to our level or are sacraments God's invitations that we get to celebrate or not?
SPEAKER_06: You know, I was gone from the Catholic Church for 15 years, and when I went to I happened to go see a priest who was something, and he said, Rice, like why aren't you part of the St.
SPEAKER_06: Bernadette's?
SPEAKER_06: And I said, I've been divorced twice, and you know, I I don't belong.
SPEAKER_06: And he said, Oh, that's not true, you couldn't get an annulment.
SPEAKER_06: And somebody that dies is will help you, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_06: Well, I I I will say I went through, I did the annulment, and actually at the end of the year that it took me to do it, but I was also a principal, so I was working and doing lots of stuff.
SPEAKER_06: I was probably more um he because I had to do a lot of exploration of myself.
SPEAKER_06: I do a lot of writing, and maybe that's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I've had women say to me, Oh, I would have never wasted my time.
SPEAKER_06: But it was very important to me, and it worked that out well, and it really brought me back, and now I'm here, and but but this church is not very different from a Catholic church in terms of the mass.
SPEAKER_06: So I feel very much in communion, and but I I'm glad I did what I did.
SPEAKER_06: Um just my story.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, and I I think that's where like part of what Paul is gonna say is we have to be really careful about what we universalize.
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09: My experience may not be yours, but I do think the other thing that Paul's inviting us to consider is what do we universalize?
SPEAKER_09: Do we make people jump through hoops or not?
SPEAKER_09: And which ones are worth jumping through?
SPEAKER_09: I mean, these are these are tough.
SPEAKER_09: Like if somebody said, Hey, I want to be a priest, I don't think we should say, Great, I'm glad you want to, the church will be there for you.
SPEAKER_09: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_09: Like there has to be some accountability.
SPEAKER_09: But I do think saying, hey, I want to baptize my kid, well, you have to come to eight hours of baptismal instruction and sign a covenant that you're going to attend for the next year.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, I I can't do that to somebody.
SPEAKER_09: I just can't do that.
SPEAKER_09: I'm glad they want to baptize their kid.
SPEAKER_09: Because they don't have to.
SPEAKER_06: I think I think to me, baptisms and holy communion and entries, those kind of entries, and for especially for children.
SPEAKER_06: Um there's just for me, I was I was an adult woman who knew exactly what I was doing.
SPEAKER_06: And I'll just say, finish by saying, the first time I went to confession, I said, I have not been to confession in 25 years, and Father Tom said, Rasilah, you're here now.
SPEAKER_06: I don't need to hear any of your sins.
SPEAKER_06: God knows you're here, just go and say in our father, Hail Mary, you're it's fine.
SPEAKER_09: But but but please hear that's not the official Catholic position.
SPEAKER_09: So that's the thing, right?
SPEAKER_03: It comes down to wisdom again.
SPEAKER_09: On behalf of the clergy, who we have an enormous amount of power in our own institutions, and we can be wise or shrewd, and we're always some mixed group, always.
SPEAKER_09: Yes.
SPEAKER_09: Um okay, let's look at conclusions, and then there's one last thing I want to offer to you.
SPEAKER_09: Just really quickly.
SPEAKER_09: In Romans, we hear that Phoebe is a deacon.
SPEAKER_09: That's a woman, that's a deacon.
SPEAKER_09: The word is deacon, like we use the word deacon.
SPEAKER_09: Uh Frisca and Aquila, she comes first, like we mentioned last week.
SPEAKER_09: We hear there's this guy called Tertius, he's the scribe.
SPEAKER_09: So Paul's talking, not right.
SPEAKER_09: We also get to hear this really great phrase: Satan will be crushed under your feet.
SPEAKER_09: And I just want to take a moment and remind you that at the time there's no red guy with horns and a tail.
SPEAKER_09: Nope, that doesn't come till later.
SPEAKER_09: Satan means accuser.
SPEAKER_09: Diabolos, devil means slanderer.
SPEAKER_09: And boy, there is so much power of divisiveness and destruction and accusation and slander that we decided we could even personify those.
SPEAKER_09: But Paul is not talking about the root of all evil as a red guy.
SPEAKER_09: He's saying the power of accusation that threatens to destroy your community can be crushed under your feet.
unknown: Stop accusing other people.
SPEAKER_09: We get to hear in 1 Corinthians to greet each other with a holy kiss.
SPEAKER_09: This is unique to Christians.
SPEAKER_09: It doesn't mean they gave each other French kisses.
SPEAKER_09: But the fact is, kissing others in greeting or in farewell is something that happened in the ancient world, as in the modern, between family members.
SPEAKER_09: So the Christian community greeted one another, even strangers with holy kisses, because they believed they were God's family.
SPEAKER_09: So they took a cultural practice and expanded it to include people culture wasn't including.
SPEAKER_09: Really, really important.
SPEAKER_09: Because the early church gets slandered as being a sex cult.
SPEAKER_09: But this holy kiss is expanding the family.
SPEAKER_09: Okay.
SPEAKER_07: So because of the holy kiss they were slandered as a sex cult.
SPEAKER_09: Promiscuous, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_09: So we'll hear more why in when we do one printing.
SPEAKER_07: I mean, kissing people in greetings has been going on a long time.
SPEAKER_09: You don't do it in this church.
SPEAKER_07: Well, they may not be doing it as much, but why?
SPEAKER_07: I mean, after the channel, depends where you're from.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
SPEAKER_07: It was customary in the 1800s and the 1700s.
SPEAKER_09: With your family, but not with strangers.
SPEAKER_09: So Paul is saying you greet strangers in the church with a holy kiss for leaving it part of your family.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
SPEAKER_09: I have a Spanish brother-in-law, they do this on each cheek.
SPEAKER_09: He doesn't do that to the barista at Starbucks.
SPEAKER_09: Not in the family.
SPEAKER_09: But you know, because I'm I'm a brother-in-law and a half, I'm in the family, so I get that.
SPEAKER_09: I hope that makes sense.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: And it's not even a kiss kiss.
SPEAKER_06: It's an air kiss kind of.
SPEAKER_06: That's right.
SPEAKER_06: It's an air kit.
SPEAKER_06: It's an air kiss in the kid.
SPEAKER_09: Depending how old you are.
SPEAKER_09: Or how attractive you are.
SPEAKER_09: Okay.
SPEAKER_06: The French do that sometimes.
SPEAKER_09: We get to hear in Galatians: I bear on my body the marks of Christ.
SPEAKER_09: The marks of Christ.
SPEAKER_09: That's the word stigmata in Greek.
SPEAKER_09: That's come to in tradition mean he literally bled out of his wrists and his side.
SPEAKER_09: You can make your own decision about that, but probably what Paul has in mind is he's been beaten and stoned and whipped, and all of that is on behalf of Jesus.
SPEAKER_09: If he walked around bleeding out of Jesus' wounds, I don't know the answer to that.
SPEAKER_09: Supposedly Francis did.
SPEAKER_09: Okay, the last question I want to ask.
SPEAKER_09: They asked this in the book.
SPEAKER_09: If you could write a letter, who would you write it to?
SPEAKER_09: And what would you put in it?
SPEAKER_09: Not a personal letter, like a church letter.
SPEAKER_09: What would you, to whom would you write, and what would you put in?
SPEAKER_09: And I was wondering if that question did anything for you.
SPEAKER_06: Actually, I read it and proceeded to think, do that, and then I proceeded to not do it.
SPEAKER_09: I thought hard about many letters I would want to write.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
SPEAKER_09: I'm willing.
SPEAKER_03: My conclusion was I need to not write that letter.
SPEAKER_09: Because it would sound like Galatians.
SPEAKER_03: It would sound like Galatians.
SPEAKER_03: And I have gone over and over in my head recently wanting to write a letter.
SPEAKER_03: To somebody who's not here.
SPEAKER_03: Not here, but other people.
SPEAKER_03: Another church.
SPEAKER_03: And my conclusion is I need to not write that letter.
SPEAKER_03: Because I think it would come off sounding like oh, rather than this is what I wish for you.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: It would not be wise.
SPEAKER_03: It would not have wisdom in it.
SPEAKER_03: And so I'm working on letting go of something.
SPEAKER_09: I think it's really fair.
SPEAKER_09: I would want to write a similar letter, and not only to specific places, but like people who ring my doorbell to evangelize me.
SPEAKER_09: And part of the letter I would really want to write is I wish you would take time to listen without condemning.
SPEAKER_09: And if you could do that, I think I could agree that it's worth us getting together.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_09: That's a tough letter to write.
SPEAKER_09: It's a tough letter to write because I'm positive any letter I wrote to this group wouldn't actually be listened to.
SPEAKER_02: Also, it's when you write a letter and you send it off, and you can't take it back.
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like an email, you know.
SPEAKER_02: So that's why you have to be less impossible.
SPEAKER_02: If you write an email, you need to save it and think about it overnight before you ever do anything.
SPEAKER_03: And let somebody else read it to make sure.
SPEAKER_09: I I do want to I want to disagree with you slightly, if you don't mind.
SPEAKER_09: And and I have this story in mind, and I I might have mentioned this before that this is a Gandhi story, and uh one week he was advocating position A.
SPEAKER_09: And then within two weeks, like in Parliament, he changed to position B.
SPEAKER_09: And somebody said, Look, you're inconsistent.
SPEAKER_09: And he said, Well, my friend, since then I learned something.
SPEAKER_09: And I wonder, I mean, I'm not excusing impulsivity, but sometimes we're so afraid to make a commitment because it might not be the right one, that we don't leave room for apology and repentance.
SPEAKER_09: I don't know if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_09: I um I'm I'm I'm I'm impulsive, especially in meetings in which I'm feel like I'm informed.
SPEAKER_09: And uh I I do try to circle back when I go way over the line.
SPEAKER_09: Um and I'm hopeful, I'm hopeful actually that that's that that's alright.
SPEAKER_06: Well, usually for to me, for a leader, that is alright.
SPEAKER_06: It's better than alright.
SPEAKER_06: I think the followers are can be more accepting.
SPEAKER_06: It's like he's a real person.
SPEAKER_09: Well, I do think though that the church is a ministry of laity, deacons, priests, and bishops, as our prayer book says, which means the number one leaders in ministry ought to be lay folk.
SPEAKER_09: And then after them comes deacons and priests, and bishops come last.
SPEAKER_09: Now we usually work it the other way.
SPEAKER_09: But the prayer book is written, revised, in that order, in order of importance.
SPEAKER_09: And and I and I do think, as long as I think we're, you know, if we make a public comment, then it needs to be a public apology.
SPEAKER_09: If it's a private one, it probably is a private apology.
SPEAKER_09: Sometimes, even a private one needs to turn public.
SPEAKER_09: And this we have to discern.
SPEAKER_09: Um, but I do think sometimes that's an interesting thing in writing, and I don't and I don't know.
SPEAKER_09: I don't know about it.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, I I um I certainly have changed my mind for the good sometimes.
SPEAKER_09: And I'll tell you, once upon a time when I was a parent, I would tell my kid, hey, if you do this, the following conclusion, consequence will happen, and I should not have done that consequence, but in order to be consistent, I did it.
SPEAKER_09: And and you know, okay, like I think you can argue it either way, but maybe there's a good point where it's saying, you know what, I probably shouldn't have said that, so it revised the consequence.
SPEAKER_09: I think that is a good teaching for kids.
SPEAKER_09: Um if I did it every time, then I need to learn to be less impetuous.
SPEAKER_09: But if I don't say anything because I'm worried about it, might not be right.
SPEAKER_09: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_09: I think there's some some some balancing here.
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think it's how you know yourself.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, and George George H.W.
SPEAKER_09: Bush said, I have a lot of opinions, some of them are very strong.
SPEAKER_09: I often disagree with myself.
SPEAKER_09: And I I have a ton of respect for that position.
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, you know?
SPEAKER_09: I mean it's silly, like you could mock it, but I I think there's a lot of wisdom to that.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
SPEAKER_09: Anybody else's letters to the churches or groups?
SPEAKER_05: I write one to earlier.
SPEAKER_05: Because I worked there a long time and I've said they do such a lovely job with their kids and their teachers.
SPEAKER_05: It was truly a wonderful place to do that.
SPEAKER_09: A gratitude letter.
SPEAKER_06: Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_06: Oh, that would have been so joyful for those people like that.
SPEAKER_06: I had to have a lot of respect for you.
SPEAKER_06: That's special.
SPEAKER_06: That's thrilling.
SPEAKER_06: That kind of thing is done so rarely, not just for schools, but just for any workplace.
SPEAKER_05: I I said things when we had a retirement thing, but um I never really put it down anywhere.
SPEAKER_05: So yeah.
SPEAKER_09: So this would be an interesting practice to leave with.
SPEAKER_09: Maybe we ought to consider writing a letter like this that has a salutation and a Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_09: Maybe the Thanksgiving is the body, and then we conclude it, but maybe it has a body as well.
SPEAKER_09: And maybe it isn't to a church.
SPEAKER_09: Maybe it's to a place you were in the past.
SPEAKER_09: Or maybe it is to a church and you don't send it, but you write it with all of these parts.
SPEAKER_09: I wonder how that would feel for you.
SPEAKER_09: If any of you do it, would you let me know?
SPEAKER_09: I'd be curious to know.
SPEAKER_09: It's an interesting spiritual discipline to include all of these elements and leave none of them out.
SPEAKER_09: Okay, next week will be one Thessalonians.