SPEAKER_04: She seems to really sweet like with arrows and and I liked her.
SPEAKER_05: But I bet you didn't do your homework in her class.
SPEAKER_06: The day of the Lord was every test.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, no kidding.
SPEAKER_06: Well, well, what do you say?
SPEAKER_06: Do you have we read a bunch of different books, really?
SPEAKER_06: Uh short ones, mind you.
SPEAKER_06: But um were there items that stood out to you again, like I don't know about this, or okay, or um things that you're kind of chewing over from our reading this week?
SPEAKER_04: I have a question which is not prone to very much of anything around here.
SPEAKER_04: It said Nineveh was the capital of Syria?
SPEAKER_04: Nineveh?
SPEAKER_06: Nineveh.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, so Nineveh is the capital of the of the Assyrian Empire.
SPEAKER_06: Syria and Assyria are different.
SPEAKER_06: They're not cognates at all.
SPEAKER_06: Syria is this region kind of like Syria is today.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: Assyria would include modern day most of Iraq and we'd impinge there upon Syria because it grows, but Assyria is the bigger one.
SPEAKER_06: Syria's capital is Damascus.
SPEAKER_06: Assyria's capital appears to be Nineveh.
SPEAKER_06: In some references, it's the city of Ashur.
SPEAKER_06: A-S-S-H-U-R.
SPEAKER_06: But Nineveh, Ashur is the older city, and Nineveh is like the new sort of capital.
SPEAKER_04: Is it still there?
SPEAKER_06: Nineveh, no, it's sort of wiped out.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, there's there's broken pottery and things like that, but nothing like um.
SPEAKER_06: I'm the same with Jericho, ancient city totally wiped out.
SPEAKER_06: Uh Babylon uh is the replacement.
SPEAKER_06: You can actually see more of ancient Babylon in in Berlin than you can if you go to Iraq.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, the Germans stole the things that were worth cooperating.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: Well, at the risk of being obnoxious, sir.
SPEAKER_06: You had a question you wanted to ask for a couple of minutes.
SPEAKER_01: Well, we'll get to that.
SPEAKER_01: Um because it's let's I want to concentrate on.
SPEAKER_01: Well, anyway.
SPEAKER_01: Um gosh, you I don't remember what I was gonna say.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was the question.
SPEAKER_06: The question was if there was something that stood out to you as we got ready, that we, you know, it's not just about questions, but it's about comments or things that you, you know, that are leading with the guide in your thinking this week.
SPEAKER_01: How much of what we have read here is I'll say historically accurate?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Um well, I'm thinking about with respect to the kings, not so much the prophets, but the kings.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I mean, it's hard to know all of that, but but no reason um to discount what we have.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, I think the thing that we have to remember that we often I think have a skewed perspective is that this is like a country the size of Rhode Island.
SPEAKER_06: And sometimes we we think, ah, this is like the most splendiferous place in the world, and actually that would be very incorrect.
SPEAKER_06: So you've heard that Solomon was the richest man in the world, perhaps.
SPEAKER_06: That is so false.
SPEAKER_06: And the proof is Solomon marries one of Pharaoh's daughters, and she finds his palace a pig stock.
SPEAKER_06: So he has to build her a special room because it's not nice enough.
SPEAKER_06: Her room is nicer than his.
SPEAKER_06: And the temple that Solomon builds to the Lord in Jerusalem, God's house, is smaller than our sanctuary.
SPEAKER_06: This is really important to have in mind.
SPEAKER_01: For instance, Josiah.
SPEAKER_01: Is there a historical record that he was killed in the battle?
SPEAKER_01: Or more killed in the battle?
SPEAKER_06: Historical record is a really interesting phrase because ancient people didn't have history as we do it now.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, sort of modern history really starts in the 1800s.
SPEAKER_06: Um but yeah, there's no reason, I think, to be suspicious that Josiah is killed on Nikko's way to the Battle of Karkimesh.
SPEAKER_06: So this is a thing, is you've got Egypt, which ultimately swallows Ethiopia, and Egypt is a relatively wealthy country, and part of it is it's compartmentalized from the other people of Mesopotamia.
SPEAKER_06: So Egypt had Ethiopia as an Ethiopia was a strong kingdom, actually.
SPEAKER_06: Egypt subdues Ethiopia, and then there's no more natural predators, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_06: Because you've got to go across Canaan.
SPEAKER_06: And Canaan is diversely populated and peopled, so it's really the Assyrian Empire and the Neo-Babylonian Empire that start to push down on that buffer.
SPEAKER_06: Um Egypt really had never been tested on a scale outside of North Africa, and the test comes in 609, apparently, at the Battle of Karchamesh.
SPEAKER_06: That's where Pharaoh Nico goes up and attacks the Neo-Babylonians under the general Nebuchadnezzar, who's the king, and soundly loses.
SPEAKER_06: So Egypt is like a defeated world power that used to be important, but will really not, will really be a second-tier country here on out, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_06: Um, and so this is part of what you hear in the prophets, is like, what, first of all, why do you keep going back to Egypt?
SPEAKER_06: Because you were in slavery there, and it's like you're seeking to be in bondage to them again.
SPEAKER_06: So God delivered you once and for all, don't go back under bondage.
SPEAKER_06: If it's second, it's not even pragmatic to return to Egypt because they're a second-tier country.
SPEAKER_06: It would be like something like, hey, um the Nazis seem real powerful, let's throw our allegiance in with France.
SPEAKER_06: Well, that didn't go very well, right?
SPEAKER_06: Because it took about six weeks to run that country over.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, that's that's sort of what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_06: But Nico is a real person.
SPEAKER_06: The Battle of Carkamesh is a real battle.
SPEAKER_06: Um, but you gotta think Josiah didn't even make it to the Battle of Carkamesh.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, it's like a little script, he's kind of like a gnat on Egypt's army, and they just squat him, and that's the end of that.
SPEAKER_01: Nico even said, you know, don't bother with me.
SPEAKER_06: Nico says that in Chronicles.
SPEAKER_06: See, this is important.
SPEAKER_06: We we we have two accounts.
SPEAKER_06: We have kings, which to be honest with you, is a little more like history as we're we're familiar.
SPEAKER_06: It's more the events.
SPEAKER_06: Chronicles is a little more editorializing that sort of says, uh, this happened because the people did this bad thing.
SPEAKER_06: And so in Chronicles, you get honestly a little more, don't take this the wrong way, but you get a little more embellished story.
SPEAKER_06: I didn't mean fictionalized, you just get an embellished story.
SPEAKER_06: So in the Kings, Nico didn't have to say anything to Josiah.
SPEAKER_06: In Chronicles, Josiah is a really good guy, so how is it that God didn't deliver him?
SPEAKER_06: Well, I mean, Nico himself said go away, and Josiah was stubborn and didn't listen.
SPEAKER_06: So there you have it.
SPEAKER_06: Because I think when you read it, you gotta wonder if Josiah is the best king, really, ever.
SPEAKER_06: Really, then how come he just all of a sudden is slaughtered in a battle?
SPEAKER_06: There's gotta be some reason.
SPEAKER_06: This becomes really important.
SPEAKER_06: There's gotta be some reason because life and faith are linear after all.
SPEAKER_06: Uh I disagree with that phrase, even though at my core I believe that to be true, along with the rest of us.
SPEAKER_06: And I think this is part of the deal, right?
SPEAKER_06: Is Chronicles is trying to make sense of why do bad things happen to good people.
SPEAKER_01: And again, I was like, if you believe Chronicles, you're not almost as if Josiah was asking for it.
SPEAKER_01: Because if it is true that he both said, don't tap me, I'm I'm way more powerful.
SPEAKER_01: And Josiah said, I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna do it anyway.
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, as you said, up to that point, Josiah was he's he he was following the covenant.
SPEAKER_06: See, this always becomes a really interesting thing, and she said in the video the problem is pride, and I disagree with her.
SPEAKER_06: I think we have really taken pride, uh, we've mapped pride into a negative category theologically, and I think really the word we ought to use is hubris.
SPEAKER_06: Hubris and pride are really different things linguistically.
SPEAKER_06: Um, and and if you don't mind me saying the definition of humility that's sort of my ground, my baseline is humility is being exactly who God created you to be, no more and no less.
SPEAKER_06: So humility really is about proper pride, being more than you are is about hubris.
SPEAKER_06: So it would be hubris, I would suggest, for the island nation of Haiti to think that God has put on their side such that they can militarily conquer the United States.
SPEAKER_06: And that's a clear, and we laugh at that, because we're Americans and we believe in the American military machine, and we all know that Haiti is a fundamentally impoverished nation that has no weapons.
SPEAKER_06: So this is actually makes quite a bit of sense.
SPEAKER_06: That analogy is pretty similar to Josiah trying to overrun Egypt.
SPEAKER_06: Israel was sort of like Haiti or Portugal.
SPEAKER_06: We just have to put this in perspective, right?
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: And so you can say, well, like the Lord's on your side, you can do anything.
SPEAKER_06: Maybe, but that phrase could also lead you into a hubris mentality.
SPEAKER_06: And I think this is something to lift up.
SPEAKER_06: So I used to teach it at school, and I used to learn this bit.
SPEAKER_06: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, which is quite arguably the most abused verse in the New Testament, because that verse in context is that Paul is suffering on behalf of the message.
SPEAKER_06: He's getting beaten and starved, he's been stoned a few times.
SPEAKER_06: And uh what we learned as teenagers is if God's on your side, you can do anything like get gold medals in the Olympics when you've never trained.
SPEAKER_06: And all of that I think is theoretically possible, but hogwash.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, I you know, I guess God could make me a professional basketball player, but I don't really believe God works that way, so I don't think so.
SPEAKER_06: I you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_06: It sort of lends us to magical thinking and to hubris, and in general, I um people who buy into that thinking, I think, fall into the hubris trap.
SPEAKER_04: So that's what happened to Josiah?
SPEAKER_06: It's what happened to Josiah, and Nahum says that's what's gonna happen to Assyria too.
SPEAKER_06: Assyria is so into themselves, and the truth is when you're the best, uh, it doesn't mean you can sit around because there's always somebody else who is contending for your position.
SPEAKER_04: I'm really surprised that Tampa Bay has been able to ask those.
SPEAKER_04: You're kidding.
SPEAKER_04: I'm kidding, I wouldn't make that up.
SPEAKER_06: So I think that hubris really makes quite a bit of sense when we think about sports teams.
SPEAKER_06: And I think if we wanted to take the message seriously, the hubris message really has to do with things like when does nationalism become like jingoism and patriotism and inherent hubris.
SPEAKER_06: So when do we mistake our civic duty for world dominance?
SPEAKER_06: If if that makes sense, I think that's the analog.
SPEAKER_06: I I think we could say, oh look, this is about countries that are evil, like Assyria and Nazi Germany, good thing we're not like that, and then I think we missed the hook here.
SPEAKER_06: The hook is to beware of hubris.
SPEAKER_06: So if I were gonna preach this, which I'm not, because it's not an electionary, we have to be aware of things like saying an American life is worth more than every life in Southeast Asia.
SPEAKER_06: Which Barry Goldwater said during the Vietnam War.
SPEAKER_06: Or we have to think that American, be careful when we say American interests outweigh South American democratically elected leaders, so that we can assassinate them through the CIA and protect ATT, or protect American oil interests by overthrowing Mosadek and installing the Shah.
SPEAKER_06: This is American hubris.
SPEAKER_06: Now, I don't mean, hey, we're worse than anybody else.
SPEAKER_06: I mean this is, I think, is what the prophet has in mind.
SPEAKER_06: The Assyrians believe that their gods are gifting them with victory, and if we worship America as a god, it's hubris.
SPEAKER_06: And that's the analog, I think.
SPEAKER_06: I hope I didn't sound too controversial there.
SPEAKER_04: So it says here on 58 that the goddess Ishtar protected.
SPEAKER_04: So they ever just states that.
SPEAKER_04: So these gods that they were always turning to, they apparently had something to do.
SPEAKER_05: That was a problem.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's it.
SPEAKER_04: It's so inexplicable to us nowadays.
SPEAKER_04: I love the Lord, okay.
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna go down the street and burn incense, which he seems to dislike a whole lot, you know, or sacrifice to this pile of rocks, although I would want to I gotta hedge my bets.
SPEAKER_06: I think we've got to, I I I think uh I think that's fair, and I think there's also this tendency of us to look at these silly people that are worshiping rocks, and once again, I think idolatry is really about a system more than it is worshiping an image.
SPEAKER_06: So it has to do, I think, with hubris and transactionalism, and these are things that we find ourselves caught up in, I think, regularly.
SPEAKER_06: I didn't know anybody that carves poles and offers food to the poles and thinks that's somehow appeasing God.
SPEAKER_06: I really don't know anybody who does that.
SPEAKER_06: Um and if that's my definition of idolatry, whew, I'm free and clear.
SPEAKER_06: But it but again, I think idolatry has a lot to do with the sort of messy ways in which I put value, either through my money or my time or my mental energy, in things that come at other people's expense or aren't life-giving.
SPEAKER_06: And that's really hard to preach about because geez, how do you really quantify that?
SPEAKER_06: We always want quantities, we want clear definitions, and I'm not sure life is always so clear.
SPEAKER_06: For example, taking on a running regimen could be really healthy.
SPEAKER_06: It could also be terrible for your body.
SPEAKER_06: So if you're doing this great exercise, but you're hurting your body, I would tell you it's idolatry.
SPEAKER_06: And that's not always clear because for some people it isn't, and for some people it is, and that's that's just really hard.
SPEAKER_01: Well, what I essentially I think you're saying is in a sense, addiction is idolatry.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and you know, again, I think our our our problem is that we like to pinpoint addiction to things like drugs and alcohol abuse.
SPEAKER_06: And um what we often miss in the idolatry category is that being workaholics and perfectionists actually is comes from the same brain dysfunction as those other things.
SPEAKER_06: They're just socially acceptable, right?
SPEAKER_06: Or an alcoholic who's able to be high functioning, ah, not so bad as somebody who can't function under the influence of alcohol.
SPEAKER_06: So we make these gradations instead of saying that the root illness, which is actually identifiable in a brain scan, the root illness is the same, the symptoms are different.
SPEAKER_06: We much more comfortable with an exercise bulimic.
SPEAKER_06: That's somebody who either makes themselves vomit or they eat and they make themselves exercise those calories off.
SPEAKER_06: We're way more comfortable than that than we are with somebody who is addicted to marijuana.
SPEAKER_06: Or tobacco or bathing or whatever else it is, right?
SPEAKER_06: I mean, and and and this is I think these are ways we get ourselves off the hook sometimes because we pigeonhole idolatry.
SPEAKER_04: Well, not for everybody, but those people make their choices.
SPEAKER_04: But I'm saying at some point in time he's providing for a beautiful world with all nice people in it.
SPEAKER_06: This becomes a really interesting thought, and it's in each one of our books, and it's called The Day of the Lord.
SPEAKER_06: Right?
SPEAKER_06: See, and Amos talked about the day of the Lord, and I might have told you this, but here's a fun anecdote about it.
SPEAKER_06: I had a professor when I was in seminary, he's actually now the dean of the seminary at uh Baylor.
SPEAKER_06: Uh he wasn't back then.
SPEAKER_06: He'd gone to Scotland to Aberdeen to write his PhD, and he spoke in iambic pentameter.
SPEAKER_06: He was a native Texas, but he spoke in meter.
SPEAKER_06: And he uh he was this tall, I mean he looked like a Scottish man, actually.
SPEAKER_06: He's tall, thin, and pale.
SPEAKER_06: And uh he was a little bit awkward, but always with so much poise.
SPEAKER_06: And he was talking about the day of the Lord, and I remember this to this day because it did it didn't come out in meter.
SPEAKER_06: The day of the Lord is when God opens up a can of whoop-ass on the world, was his definition.
SPEAKER_06: Now, uh and this is what the prophets sort of say, and the images are right, that's when God will sweep away all corruption.
SPEAKER_06: This is when God is going to sort of take apparently uneven scales and get even.
SPEAKER_06: The wicked will perish and the righteous will flourish.
SPEAKER_06: And it's interesting because I would tell you the day of the Lord, the prophets say you shouldn't want that, by the way.
SPEAKER_06: Have you noticed?
SPEAKER_06: They say don't want that because it's not gonna work out well for you.
SPEAKER_06: And we let me rest there for a second and go on to the next thing, which is that the best-selling fiction series ever is not Harry Potter, it's left behind.
SPEAKER_06: Because it speaks to this cultural mythology that people who believe the right things are on God's team, or rather, God's on our team, and faith has a real reward, and we won't suffer, and all those people who don't think like we do, who are evil and wrong, they'll all go to hell in a handbasket, and it'll suck to be them.
SPEAKER_06: So even though you're miserable with your faith right now, hang on.
SPEAKER_06: Really, all it is is a way of karma thinking.
SPEAKER_06: You get what you deserve.
SPEAKER_06: And by the way, you don't even have to be a good person, you just have to believe in Jesus.
SPEAKER_06: And and I want to suggest to you actually that what the prophets are asking us to do is to not look forward to that day.
SPEAKER_06: Not because not just because it won't go well for us, but I want to I want to ask you to consider because God's not actually like that.
SPEAKER_06: We're Like that.
SPEAKER_06: The way we work is you hit me, I hit you back.
SPEAKER_06: The way we are is we get even.
SPEAKER_06: So what we often imagine is when people do bad stuff to us, we didn't deserve it.
SPEAKER_06: Because it's from our own perspective.
SPEAKER_06: So God is our big brother or sister in the sky with a big paddle to whoop your butt.
SPEAKER_06: And if it doesn't happen now, it'll happen when you die because God will send you to hell.
SPEAKER_06: And I want to suggest to you the prophets are saying that way of thinking is so foreign to who God is.
SPEAKER_06: And the way they say it is, if you really want to buy into that, it won't go well for you.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, because not to interrupt you, he seems to be awfully patient with these evildoers.
SPEAKER_06: And I I want to suggest to you the reason that is, is because God isn't like us.
SPEAKER_06: God's greater than we are.
SPEAKER_06: Now, I think the church that raised me said, God isn't like us, God's better at being petty and getting even than we are.
SPEAKER_06: Which I'm going to tell you, and this I think is at stake here.
SPEAKER_06: If you believe in eternal hell, that's exactly the God you believe in.
SPEAKER_06: Because I've got to tell you, eternal hell for something you do on earth, what we do on earth is not eternal.
SPEAKER_06: I don't know if you thought about this.
SPEAKER_06: You could be a really bad person, but the badness ends with you or in the next generation.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, the things we do, they don't last forever.
SPEAKER_06: So why would God punish us forever for something that doesn't last forever?
SPEAKER_06: That'd be disproportionate punishment.
SPEAKER_06: So I think one of the biggest challenges to grace is the doctrine that hell is real and people go there forever.
SPEAKER_06: Hell can be real.
SPEAKER_06: People can go there.
SPEAKER_06: But if people go there forever, God isn't fair.
SPEAKER_06: Sorry, a child understands that.
SPEAKER_04: Where does it say that?
SPEAKER_06: It doesn't say it anywhere.
SPEAKER_06: Hell isn't mentioned in the Bible anyway.
SPEAKER_04: So where'd it come from?
SPEAKER_04: Where did it come from?
SPEAKER_06: It came from our fantasy to make the world logical and to make God like we are.
SPEAKER_06: That's what I think.
SPEAKER_06: Hell isn't showed up in the Bible.
SPEAKER_06: No.
SPEAKER_04: Somebody else made it up.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: And by the way, I think the Reformation, when the Catholics said that you can pray to get out of things and then it didn't need to be.
SPEAKER_06: The Catholic folk came up with this understanding that I think is much more fair than what we Protestants have settled for, which is there's a place called Purgatory.
SPEAKER_06: And you go to purgatory to have a limited punishment for the things you did wrong that were limited.
SPEAKER_06: So even at our worst, you hurt somebody, again, why would you be punished for that forever?
SPEAKER_06: Now you don't get off scot-free.
SPEAKER_06: Because that wouldn't be fair.
SPEAKER_06: That's why you go to purgatory for a bit.
SPEAKER_06: And when you've been punished, you leave.
SPEAKER_06: It's actually a lot more gracious than what we've settled for.
SPEAKER_06: Don't you think?
SPEAKER_06: And I even grew up that if you were a good person, like an Aboriginal Australian, and you loved your brother and your neighbor, but you didn't know Jesus Christ by name, when you died, you'd go to hell.
SPEAKER_06: Because that's what God demanded.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, that's I'm a better person than that.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, God would be worse than me if that's true.
SPEAKER_06: Because I understand, hey, relative ignorance, you're not responsible for that.
SPEAKER_06: But we we bought into this fantasy that really is just about nationalism.
SPEAKER_06: It's about our way is the best way.
SPEAKER_06: God's on our side, God does things the way I do things, and I'm the most important person in the universe.
SPEAKER_06: So when people do something to me, they've in front of God.
SPEAKER_06: I think that's really what it amounts to.
SPEAKER_05: Because it says in the Bible that God ultimately is the judge of who goes, you know, who goes to heaven.
SPEAKER_05: If you haven't, you're not going to go to hell just because you're not a Christian.
SPEAKER_06: The other thing that becomes really, really important that we often miss is that when fire shows up in the Bible, it's never an instrument of torture.
SPEAKER_06: Fire is an instrument of refinement.
SPEAKER_06: So it burns away draws so that the metal can become pure.
SPEAKER_06: Sort of like in a threshing floor, wheat is separated from chaff.
SPEAKER_06: And I think we have the decision: are people completely chaffed and some are wheat?
SPEAKER_06: Or quite honestly, are we full of wheat and chaff?
SPEAKER_06: And in the end, God's going to separate that for our sake.
SPEAKER_06: So is hell where God puts those parts of us that we're afraid of and that separate us from God?
SPEAKER_06: Or is hell where it puts God puts whole people groups?
SPEAKER_06: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_04: What comes into my mind is God saying, you can do it my way or the hard way.
SPEAKER_04: That's what I'm thinking.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and I think then we have to decide if we do it the hard way.
SPEAKER_06: Is God mad and punishes us?
SPEAKER_06: Or does God, I mean, quite honestly, at my good moments of parenting, when my kid, at my good moments, they're not all good, when my kids do stuff I've trained them not to do, I will tell you, I I I grew up with a logical model that said, I hope you get punished because you didn't listen to me, which is so self-centered and so unempathetic.
SPEAKER_06: Or do I say my heart's breaking because I see you're in pain.
SPEAKER_06: And I I think this is gonna sound crazy, I didn't sometimes we're really sure the scriptures point God is that exacting judge in the sky, watching everything we can do, like Santa Claus and making a list of naughty and nice.
SPEAKER_06: But I think in that way the scriptures have read us, and I'm not convinced we've read the scriptures.
SPEAKER_06: Again, the prophets, I think, are saying, do not yearn for the day of the Lord.
SPEAKER_06: Do not yearn for God to vindicate everything.
SPEAKER_06: It won't go well for you.
SPEAKER_06: Jesus said this a different way.
SPEAKER_06: You get really upset about that speck in your neighbor's eye, and you ignore the log in your own.
SPEAKER_06: I know this sounds like a very different read, but but I want to suggest it's it's here.
SPEAKER_06: Now, hubris, I think, has its own reward.
SPEAKER_06: And we can say that hubris, God punishes hubris, but I think another way we can understand it is hubris has natural consequences.
SPEAKER_06: And they're usually not very good.
SPEAKER_06: So I think we have to pick when something bad happens to us, and it it depends each time, is it God doing it to us?
SPEAKER_06: Or does some stuff just happen?
SPEAKER_06: Or do we get to have natural consequences for what we do?
SPEAKER_06: Because that's all bound up together, right?
SPEAKER_06: Sometimes we just don't remember um, and I I've had this interesting journey with my teenage son who taught me what kind of questions to ask.
SPEAKER_06: And if you've ever had kids or a spouse or parents and they did something that was egregious to you, and you asked them why, did you do that?
SPEAKER_06: Did they ever tell you anything that satisfied your anger?
SPEAKER_06: Have you ever asked why you do that?
SPEAKER_06: Got an answer and said, I get it now.
SPEAKER_06: In my case, whenever I asked why, either my kiddo didn't know or gave a reason that was so dumb, I just got more upset.
SPEAKER_06: There was nothing kiddo could do to justify because I'd showed him what to do.
SPEAKER_06: So there came this point where I realized asking why questions hurt the relationship every time.
SPEAKER_06: And therefore, maybe I was asking the wrong questions.
SPEAKER_06: And I think these are good analogs to help us figure out how God's mind and heart might work.
SPEAKER_06: See, I think God has to be at the center of our best moments, not at our most vindictive or self-satisfying moments.
SPEAKER_06: I don't know if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_06: My kiddos can be Tasmanian devils, but if I want to see God, I look at them asleep in the bed.
SPEAKER_06: And I wonder when God sees us asleep in the bed, if God doesn't also go, oh, there I am.
SPEAKER_06: You know.
SPEAKER_06: I don't know why it's easier to see God when they're asleep.
SPEAKER_06: It is.
SPEAKER_04: And they're quiet.
SPEAKER_04: That's what's nice.
SPEAKER_06: I hope I haven't come off the deep end here.
SPEAKER_06: Again, I hope what you're hearing me say is this urge for the day of the Lord and for retribution and for us to be vindicated, I think the prophets warn us against it because God isn't that way.
SPEAKER_06: And I think really it ties into the um the bit that Nahum warns us, Assyria gobbles people up, it's full of this hubris.
SPEAKER_06: And in the evangelical church I grew up in, we had so much hubris.
SPEAKER_06: We knew we were the best people in the world, we were God's chosen people.
SPEAKER_06: And if we gave money to the church, God was going to give us money back.
SPEAKER_06: It was really not a gift, it was an investment.
SPEAKER_06: God was testing us.
SPEAKER_06: Um we got a speeding ticket, it was because God wanted to teach us a lesson.
SPEAKER_06: And I think all of that, sorry, it's hubris and it's idolatry.
SPEAKER_06: And I think the prophets are warning us about that.
SPEAKER_03: So when you see someone doing something that you think they wrong, is it okay?
unknown: Is it hubris to try to tell them what you don't think it's fine?
SPEAKER_06: I I you as you know, I think um this becomes really, really difficult because it's not if we do it, I think how we do it is probably the most important thing.
SPEAKER_06: You know?
SPEAKER_06: And I think sometimes we have to look on ourselves and try to figure out whether something is actually wrong or just an affront to the way we decided the world should be.
SPEAKER_06: You know?
SPEAKER_06: We often I think get those things confused.
SPEAKER_06: And if you don't mind me saying, when we read the Torah, particularly in the book of Leviticus, there's something called the Holiness Code.
SPEAKER_06: And the Holiness Code says you have to behave different from the Egyptians just so you can be different.
SPEAKER_06: So in Egypt, they wear garments made out of two kinds of fabric.
SPEAKER_06: You can't do that.
SPEAKER_06: If you do, it's an abomination.
SPEAKER_06: It's gross.
SPEAKER_06: In Egypt, they eat shellfish.
SPEAKER_06: You're not gonna do that.
SPEAKER_06: That's gross.
SPEAKER_06: If for no other reason, then you under the then then you're gonna do it to be different.
SPEAKER_06: And I don't want to say Leviticus is wrong.
SPEAKER_06: There's a point when we teach our children this is our way, in our house, we don't use words like that.
SPEAKER_06: And I think that's good and right.
SPEAKER_06: When they're children.
SPEAKER_06: But if culture is the way we do things around here, right, and that becomes so tight that if you don't follow, you lose your value.
SPEAKER_06: I'm afraid we've missed it.
SPEAKER_06: You know?
SPEAKER_06: So I I think part of what we have to remember is we grow in moral stages, and what we eat at different stages depends on where we are.
SPEAKER_06: Well, that sounds like everything is relative.
SPEAKER_06: Well, a lot is relative.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, doesn't your own experience tell you that I guess I'm just really struggling right now with the country, and the divide now just seem to be erupting into this chaos, and what do you do?
SPEAKER_06: I I think it's really, really hard.
SPEAKER_06: And this this I think is an interesting thing because um I'm gonna tell you, I I personally became slightly disenfranchised with politics a long time ago.
SPEAKER_06: Um and I try to hold room, but I don't know everything because I don't.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, honestly, when people talk about the new tax plan, all I really know is whether my taxes went up or down.
SPEAKER_06: And they went up, but I don't like that because it costs more money.
SPEAKER_06: And I'm suspicious about where my money's going.
SPEAKER_06: These are the kinds of things, but as a big policy, I mean, I know how to solve um multivariable uh equations and you know, and do derivatives and things like that, but I'm no economist.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, I don't really know.
SPEAKER_06: I've got limited data.
SPEAKER_06: What I think though, and I hope what you hear me say from the pulpit is we have decided that um we're allowed to talk about people we disagree with as if they're non-human beings, and and that's absolutely wrong.
SPEAKER_06: But sometimes people say things that are so the way we do things around here, they have our economic, fiscal uh same values or something like that.
SPEAKER_06: So when they call other people animals, we say, well, I agree with you more than I disagree, so I guess we'll just tolerate that.
SPEAKER_06: And and my thinking is in if you don't mind me saying, in the last election, we had two people whose use of language was evil.
SPEAKER_06: Both of them.
SPEAKER_06: And we've had dynasties in both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party who are fundamentally misogynist, and we have ignored it when people had charisma or they were successful, and when we don't like them, then we call out what we really don't like.
SPEAKER_06: So I don't think our current president is any more of a misogynist than Bill Clinton was.
SPEAKER_06: And in both cases, it was absolutely wrong.
SPEAKER_06: And I didn't think they're evil people, I just think we make this weird thing where we say a person's a liar.
SPEAKER_06: Well, that's not right.
SPEAKER_06: A liar means everything you say is a lie, and I don't think anybody does that.
SPEAKER_06: When people tell lies, I think we say we like the truth.
SPEAKER_06: And when people say that you can grab a woman by the whatever, or that, hey, sh she's my intern, and it was consensual, that's not consensual.
SPEAKER_06: It's not.
SPEAKER_06: And we say it's wrong.
SPEAKER_06: But because somebody does something wrong doesn't mean they're evil.
SPEAKER_06: We all do things wrong.
SPEAKER_06: The question is, how do we have accountability without demonizing people?
SPEAKER_06: I think what we've lost is the ability to have conversation, even when we disagree about small things.
SPEAKER_06: And to be honest, like that's on display in the media, and and we just drink it down.
SPEAKER_03: So I So what do we do to stop?
SPEAKER_03: I mean, are we wrong to say it's gonna stop, throw them all out?
SPEAKER_03: Start over.
SPEAKER_06: No, I think I I don't again, I don't think it's about the people, I just think it's this sort of sense that hey, it we're not gonna buy into a way of speaking and acting that we believe to be wrong.
SPEAKER_06: So verbal, I mean just support that, each other saying and I think it's okay to say, listen, uh I just I'm calling this this thing in the speech bothering me.
SPEAKER_06: Well, you believe blah blah blah blah blah.
SPEAKER_06: Wrong is wrong, that's that.
SPEAKER_06: And I'm trying to grow in this way myself.
SPEAKER_06: Because again, I think the thing is, if we say, oh, this person's evil, God'll get them, we're we're we're ignoring the opportunities we have in our in ourselves, right?
SPEAKER_06: And and this I think is this really interesting thing that we have as a church going on.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, again, the churches I grew up in, if you didn't have the party line or if you asked a question that sounded doubtful, like, you know, so so like my hope is that we come together and know we're going to disagree and we choose to respect each other.
SPEAKER_04: I think we were more alike in 1955.
SPEAKER_04: And I think what's going on now is a lot of stuff is being reported or said or lied about in the media, which in the news, which back in the day they would never have said or reported.
SPEAKER_04: You know, our residents were all adulterers.
SPEAKER_04: You know, maybe not.
SPEAKER_04: Eisenhower was too.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, his girlfriend.
SPEAKER_04: And uh, but it was too polite to speak about it.
SPEAKER_04: And now, I mean, you spit on the grass and and you're you know, able.
SPEAKER_04: So, objected to this assault on our sensitivities.
SPEAKER_06: Part of me really enjoys watching Downton Abbey because the way in which they speak, the manners they have are lovely, and then that show reveals exactly how objectified women are.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: So, in some ways, I think we've made a little movement on real opportunity, even though we've held on to prejudice, you know, and sometimes we like to pat ourselves in the back, we've come a long way, and we don't realize we still are holding on to this fundamental prejudice.
SPEAKER_06: By the way, I think that's what idolatry is.
SPEAKER_06: Or hubris is.
SPEAKER_06: And we like to get ourselves off the hook by thinking it means back down to a statue, and really it's that stuff.
SPEAKER_06: I I don't know if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, easy to think that this is just a United States issue, it's not it was absolutely worldwide.
SPEAKER_01: So the only way we do it is to make sure that we don't know how there's a situation to cause our cause our friendships to dissolve.
SPEAKER_06: So I think and I think the thing that's really hard what you're saying is often this thing we don't realize and the scriptures.
SPEAKER_06: We don't realize that the scriptures talk very little about that and are very interested in that.
SPEAKER_06: We're really just meeting this and more.
SPEAKER_06: Like we don't know why.
SPEAKER_06: So this category is racism and sexism, and patriotism.
SPEAKER_06: Which is the fundamental better than you are.
SPEAKER_06: Different from civic duty and national pride, national humanism.
SPEAKER_06: No one of us can defeat racism.
SPEAKER_06: You can choose to not be racist, but it's so a part of our social fabric that it out moves anywhere.
SPEAKER_06: Of us.
SPEAKER_06: Right?
SPEAKER_06: And so what's interesting is when the Bible talks about repentance, it talks about changing your course or changing the lens through which you see the world or making right for what you did wrong, that's penance.
SPEAKER_06: But there's this other weighty word in Hebrew that really has to do with just fundamental grief.
SPEAKER_06: Grief that this thing is bigger than I can control.
SPEAKER_06: And again, I not everybody agrees with this, but I'm just going to tell you, as a white man, I have more privilege than anybody in the United States, particularly because I'm a Protestant white man.
SPEAKER_06: I didn't ask to be born male.
SPEAKER_06: I didn't ask to be born white.
SPEAKER_06: I didn't ask to be born American.
SPEAKER_06: By the way, I'm grateful for all of those things.
SPEAKER_06: But at the same time, I know that a black man with all my credentials is going to get 90% of what I make, and that there are neighborhoods that person can't even move into, even if they have the means.
SPEAKER_06: And how do I handle that?
SPEAKER_06: It becomes really difficult.
SPEAKER_06: Do I demand to get paid 90% of my wage as a way of showing solidarity with black men?
SPEAKER_06: Do I try to live in a historically black neighborhood so that I can sort of go against the grain?
SPEAKER_06: I mean, I don't know that there's a silver bullet to that, right?
SPEAKER_06: And I hear a lot of people, this is really interesting because I had this teenager, he came, he came home one day and he said, We are so I'm I'm so tired that we're so poor.
SPEAKER_06: I just laughed at him because some of the kids at school had$200 shoes and we refused to buy him$200 shoes, so we were poor.
SPEAKER_06: But then six months later, he came in and said, We live in such a rich neighborhood, like with so much disdain.
SPEAKER_06: And I was like, And are you gonna say you're welcome?
SPEAKER_06: I mean, because that really I think it's a good response, right?
SPEAKER_06: So I I think there's this weird thing where like faced with sin, we can say the world sucks and I hate it all, but I don't think that's the right response.
SPEAKER_06: I think there's this mixing between gratitude and grief and repentance, and um boy, trying to live into um authentic speech and changing what I can, knowing that I can't change everything.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, this I think is really, really hard.
SPEAKER_06: Like, how do we respond to prophetic oracles to say you're missing the mark?
SPEAKER_06: I mean, you want to try to buy products in which the laborers are paid fair and ethical wages, good luck to you.
SPEAKER_06: I don't know where you'll shop.
SPEAKER_06: I don't I really I don't know.
SPEAKER_06: Um, and that doesn't mean I think that we just say, well, we can't do it, who cares?
SPEAKER_06: I I think it's something we hold on to knowing that we have to live in that broken reality, but we don't have to settle for it.
SPEAKER_06: I I don't I I hope that makes sense.
unknown: Yeah, it makes great sense.
unknown: And I just I just wonder what I personally.
SPEAKER_03: I mean it really is it really is hurting me to see what the hurting against.
SPEAKER_06: I think what can happen against I think we it seems to me like we have to hold on to the fact that all that something is wrong in Denmark, but we are citizens of Denmark.
SPEAKER_06: And I think, like John said, I think there's something really there's this natural urge to fix the whole system that I would tell you I'm not sure is fixable.
SPEAKER_06: Um it's helpful to say there's something wrong with the system, but there's also something really helpful when we find ourselves having a conversation with our friends or reading Facebook or whatever to say no.
SPEAKER_06: No, I don't believe we should talk that way.
SPEAKER_06: And it doesn't have to be an abrasive way.
SPEAKER_06: People don't like to be told no, myself included.
SPEAKER_06: So we we take a boundary like an abrasion, but I think there's this thing, Brene Brown says, that um we can either choose the discomfort of setting a boundary or the resentment that happens if we don't.
SPEAKER_06: And many of us have settled for resentment.
SPEAKER_00: There's a brace I use that helps me speak up without being abrasive, and I like to say I'm uncomfortable with that kind of joking or I'm uncomfortable with that language.
SPEAKER_00: It puts it on me, it doesn't say you're bad.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a tool that I use to help me have the courage to speak up and not feel so guilty about pointing at somebody.
SPEAKER_06: And it's really, really hard, I think, and I I didn't mind me saying like there's at one level there's like how we vote, and and I I see people, I kind of wish I weren't friends with parishioners on Facebook because I see what they write about political people and it it just makes me sad that there's so much hatred and vitriol because I mean I think the scriptures are really, really clear.
SPEAKER_06: We say it um two longs don't make a right, but Jesus says that you can't drive Satan out with Satan.
SPEAKER_06: So by being satanic and being evil, you just make things worse, right?
SPEAKER_06: It's one thing to say hate speech is not acceptable from the president or the Congress or anybody else, and so I'm working on not buying into hate speech.
SPEAKER_06: That's a very different message than this person is evil and blah blah blah.
SPEAKER_06: You know, and that I think part of it has to be what we choose to live into, knowing that that may not influence everybody else's choices.
SPEAKER_06: I and I just I think this is part of like again, why the day of the Lord where God gets even with a stick won't go well for us, because we're embedded in that.
SPEAKER_06: What does it really mean for God to get even with the world?
SPEAKER_06: Because listen, for like what are we, 5% of the world's population and we consume 33% of the world's resources?
SPEAKER_06: If God got even on us for that, it wouldn't go well.
SPEAKER_06: You know?
SPEAKER_06: And if we say we deserve it or we got there first, that's that's the idolatry these people are talking about.
SPEAKER_06: I didn't despise being American, but I think we just have to be honest.
SPEAKER_06: We consume a disproportionate share of the world's resources, and we think they're our birthright, and they're not.
SPEAKER_04: We didn't start that.
SPEAKER_06: This and this is where sin comes from.
SPEAKER_06: You got it.
SPEAKER_06: Sin is something we didn't start.
SPEAKER_06: We were born into that.
SPEAKER_06: We were born into it.
SPEAKER_06: And it's so funny, right?
SPEAKER_06: Because the number one category of people who make comments about my daughter that I don't want her to grow into are women.
SPEAKER_06: They talk about how pretty she is.
SPEAKER_06: And so a woman is defined by whether she's pretty or not.
SPEAKER_06: This is true.
SPEAKER_06: Look at how people talk about little boys.
SPEAKER_06: They don't talk about them as being pretty, they talk about them as being clever, or they talk about them as being having motor skills, or as have being energetic.
SPEAKER_06: But little girls are pretty or they're not pretty.
SPEAKER_06: And I know people don't mean the wrong thing, but I know what you hear is what you internalize.
SPEAKER_06: So, what do I do as a parent?
SPEAKER_06: You have the prettiest hair.
SPEAKER_06: She's also really good at spelling.
SPEAKER_06: And is that is that what I do?
SPEAKER_06: I don't I don't know.
SPEAKER_06: Because I don't think there's a solution to that.
SPEAKER_06: What beautiful red hair.
SPEAKER_06: It is true, her red hair is beautiful, but my daughter is more than that.
SPEAKER_06: What a wonderful dress you're wearing.
SPEAKER_06: These are the kinds of ways we address children, and what we teach them, right, is to be so interested in how they look, and then we wonder why it is they don't like how they look when they're teenagers and why they hate their bodies when they're granted women, or they've had a baby and their body changes and look, they're no good anymore.
SPEAKER_06: And and it's not our intention, that's the thing.
SPEAKER_06: But that's why sin with a capital S is what I think God is really concerned with.
SPEAKER_06: The little S we can change.
SPEAKER_06: Look, I I cannot tell lies.
SPEAKER_06: If I worked really hard, I think I could avoid telling lies.
SPEAKER_06: I don't actually need God to help me with that.
SPEAKER_06: I don't need God to help me not kill other things.
SPEAKER_06: I can make that choice.
SPEAKER_06: If I make that choice, other things are going to die.
SPEAKER_06: God is worried about that.
SPEAKER_06: I hope that makes sense.
SPEAKER_06: This is when Pat Paul talks about powers and principalities.
SPEAKER_06: He doesn't mean like demons and archdemons and the Wicca cult.
SPEAKER_06: He means that stuff that's bigger than any one human being.
SPEAKER_06: And we don't we don't know what to do with it.
SPEAKER_06: And part of it is we we want the world to be so linear that here's how we raise up this valley, and the world isn't linear.
SPEAKER_06: I just it's not.
SPEAKER_03: So the fact of sin is fruit everything, and the little sin is a good idea.
SPEAKER_06: I think so.
SPEAKER_06: And the group thing is so big that it's almost like a spirit, like it almost has its own identity, right?
SPEAKER_06: And if you've ever been in a mob or been around a mob, normal people lose their minds to sin.
SPEAKER_06: And they can the mob mentality can actually be really good.
SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, but I mean I can control racism.
SPEAKER_03: I just can't control it.
SPEAKER_06: I think that's I think I think you have much more control over the little one than you do over the big one.
SPEAKER_06: And the thing is, you could do like Saint Anthony and go live on a pillar, but even still, even as remote as you go, you still are part of that bigger product.
SPEAKER_04: If you went to South Africa, then you might feel that you were being discriminated.
SPEAKER_06: It's unlikely.
SPEAKER_06: The Afrikaners still have all the power.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, this is the thing.
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04: Uh when we were in England.
SPEAKER_04: It seemed that the blacks were exactly all the whites.
SPEAKER_04: There was no difference on the white, you know, they were just and we said, what's this?
SPEAKER_04: You know, and we concluded that it was because they had no history of slavery that they were regarded as just the black and the whites didn't seem to have any problems.
SPEAKER_04: No difference?
SPEAKER_04: I don't know how anyone's ever.
SPEAKER_06: The thing is we do that wasn't very long.
unknown: I mean in England.
unknown: Yeah.
SPEAKER_04: They have a lot of problems.
SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04: Well, we just didn't see it.
SPEAKER_06: There were things that are invisible.
SPEAKER_06: I would tell you, I lived in Atlanta where uh 55% of the population was black, so white people were in the minority.
SPEAKER_06: I'm not going to pretend like we didn't hold all the power.
SPEAKER_06: When I moved to San Diego, there weren't very many black people in San Diego.
SPEAKER_06: A lot of black people live in LA.
SPEAKER_06: In San Diego, there was less racial tension between black and white people simply because it just weren't black people.
SPEAKER_06: The major tension was between Anglers and Hispanic people and access to things like health care.
SPEAKER_06: And what do you know?
SPEAKER_06: We were right on the border with Tijuana, the world's most dangerous city.
SPEAKER_06: It was more dangerous to go to Tijuana than it was to go to Mosul statistically.
SPEAKER_06: And sure, there were a lot of those folk around, and we lived in great tolerance.
SPEAKER_06: But tolerance is not the opposite of racism.
SPEAKER_06: Respect is.
SPEAKER_06: And it becomes really darn hard because I, if you didn't mind me saying, right, I can say, well, I'm gonna just gonna have more black friends.
SPEAKER_06: That's how I'm gonna deal with this.
SPEAKER_06: But I don't run in circles where I naturally meet black people.
SPEAKER_06: I'm just gonna be honest with you.
SPEAKER_06: And if I try to become your friend because you're black, that's a token friendship.
SPEAKER_06: There's nothing subjective about it at all.
SPEAKER_06: It's objectivization, right?
SPEAKER_06: Now, hopefully we could grow into subjects, and I have to put myself into places where I can have exposure.
SPEAKER_06: But I mean, again, it's really hard.
SPEAKER_06: It's really hard.
SPEAKER_01: I think this generation is less um uh prejudiced or racist, if you will.
SPEAKER_01: Um I I say that because um I mean my my son's best friend is black and uh and they're roommates.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I think we struggle with other things.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I grew up in the South, so I see black differently.
SPEAKER_01: Um and uh so he didn't see things like that at all.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_05: Pardon me?
SPEAKER_05: The Star Trek generation.
SPEAKER_06: He's a millennial, that's what we call it.
SPEAKER_06: Yep.
SPEAKER_01: Why I have a question.
SPEAKER_01: Um you've said this before.
SPEAKER_01: This is basically what we're reading is the Hebrew Bible.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to call it Bible, the Hebrew books.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, but that's what Bible means.
SPEAKER_06: Books.
SPEAKER_06: Plural, plural.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, very so.
SPEAKER_01: Um how come so many Jews are atheists?
SPEAKER_06: Um it's a great question.
SPEAKER_06: It really has to do with exactly what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_06: After the Holocaust, after programmes, they say, aha, one of three things is the case.
SPEAKER_06: Either God's not good, because how could God allow that to happen?
SPEAKER_06: God's not powerful enough to stop it, so in some ways our piety doesn't matter because God doesn't have power, or just keep God in around.
SPEAKER_06: And I think to be honest with you, if we believe in a linear world and we believe in karma, I think atheism should be our conclusion.
SPEAKER_06: Well, if you get what you pay for, which is how we pretend to function, and if God's like that, the world makes no sense.
SPEAKER_06: If, on the other hand, God isn't interested in transactions, if God operates a different way from that, which by the way, grace, I think I said this a couple of months ago when I'm still trying to struggle with this, grace is not an investment.
SPEAKER_06: God doesn't want a shareholder's report.
SPEAKER_06: Grace is a gift, you can do whatever you choose.
SPEAKER_06: You can squander it, you can never have it, but God gives it to us.
SPEAKER_06: Well, that's very different from the linear world.
SPEAKER_01: Well, isn't this somewhat transactional?
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I think I think one way to read it is you're getting what you pay for, but I think another way to they start out, everybody starts out with uh let's say a blank slate.
SPEAKER_06: Sure, this is very American of us, tabula razor.
SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking about this, I'm thinking about this now.
SPEAKER_01: So, so Josiah, he's born, he does good things.
SPEAKER_01: God is happy with that.
SPEAKER_01: Um Manasseh?
SPEAKER_01: Is that how you pronounce it?
SPEAKER_01: Manasseh starts off doing bad things.
SPEAKER_06: In Kings, Manasseh never changes.
SPEAKER_06: In Chronicles, Manasseh changes.
SPEAKER_06: They disagree with each other.
SPEAKER_06: This is important.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: But but assuming that the fact is that I guess God is saying, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna wait until you do something, and then I'll judge.
SPEAKER_06: Oh, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_06: Um tell him, just just tell him to give me 10 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: He said there was no problem.
SPEAKER_06: Thank you.
SPEAKER_06: Um look, I think there's a difference between natural consequences for our actions and God punishing us.
SPEAKER_06: And I think this is something we have to separate.
SPEAKER_01: Is God waiting for us to take the first step?
SPEAKER_01: Whether it be down the road of righteousness or down the road of the world.
SPEAKER_06: I'm not a mystical guy.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, I'm an academic guy.
SPEAKER_06: But here's what I think mystically.
SPEAKER_06: A lot of times we say, Boy, you know, I pray and I don't get an answer.
SPEAKER_06: So why isn't God answering my prayer?
SPEAKER_06: He said no.
SPEAKER_06: And I read a really interesting book, which is that God was the one who spoke first.
SPEAKER_06: So when we pray, we don't start a conversation, it's when we answer God.
SPEAKER_06: Prayer is our answer, not our question.
SPEAKER_06: Because God was first.
SPEAKER_06: It was sort of an interesting way to flip that on its sort of on its head.
SPEAKER_06: Um, so is God waiting for us?
SPEAKER_06: Um I don't think so.
SPEAKER_06: I think God is fully present in us.
SPEAKER_06: I think we're we're waiting to live into that.
SPEAKER_01: So these folks didn't live in?
SPEAKER_06: No, and I and I think the thing is too, you have to look at what happens to righteous people in the Bible.
SPEAKER_06: They don't end up wealthy, they usually end up in a lot of pain.
SPEAKER_06: And I I think um the thing is, parenting my kid with empathy instead of with outcome mentalities hurts my heart a whole lot more.
SPEAKER_06: I just would much rather live that way.
SPEAKER_01: Well, if all the not all, but let's say if the righteous people end up in a lot of pain.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Why would you want to be righteous?
SPEAKER_06: It's a great question.
SPEAKER_06: You know what's interesting is we we have kind of had this the gospel we read for Sunday is Francis' gospel, right?
SPEAKER_06: It's come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
SPEAKER_06: Well, geez, how could Jesus say his burden is light?
SPEAKER_06: I ended up on a cross.
SPEAKER_06: And I think maybe the difference is the authentic person doesn't have to carry around all the pretending and the shields that frankly are really exhausting.
SPEAKER_06: And sometimes we think, hey, if we could just be invulnerable, we would never hurt and things would be great, and you really can't have love without vulnerability.
SPEAKER_06: I think in general, what we we confuse is that armor is strength and that and the vulnerability is weakness, and really it's just a lot to bear.
SPEAKER_04: Something you just said to him that gave me a question.
SPEAKER_04: I'm sorry if I'm like way all over the place.
SPEAKER_04: We're all over the place together.
SPEAKER_04: Did they have the Holy Spirit in the eastern before?
SPEAKER_04: Is that what you're saying?
SPEAKER_06: Why not?
SPEAKER_04: Did they?
SPEAKER_04: I mean, I mean, Jesus said, I'm giving you this Holy Spirit, and he's gonna come to you and be in you.
SPEAKER_04: And then you had a question about do these people have God in them, or something or something you said they didn't.
SPEAKER_06: No, I think I think actually we get this wrong when we say there's places God isn't.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, quite honestly, again, I'm not a mystical guy, but um when when God makes the world, the first thing God makes is not the sun and the moon and the stars.
SPEAKER_06: God actually makes time, and at the end, God rests in time.
SPEAKER_06: Rest doesn't mean sleeps, rest is like that moment where you kind of sprawl down and fill it up.
SPEAKER_06: In the Kabbalah, the Jewish mysticism image, God is like a pregnant mother and the earth shows up in God's womb.
SPEAKER_06: We say that in Christian language, Holy Spirit in whom we live and move and have our being.
SPEAKER_06: It's not that God is inside us, it's that we're moving around inside of God.
SPEAKER_06: That's the mystical image.
SPEAKER_06: And so what we like to do is say, God's not in that person.
SPEAKER_06: That's fine.
SPEAKER_06: That person is completely moving around inside of God.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, again, it's a it's a it's a mystical inverse, but see, logically it must be true.
SPEAKER_06: Because if God is everywhere, then God must be in the people you hate the most.
SPEAKER_06: And the people that you love the most.
SPEAKER_06: And that presence may not be overwhelming them.
SPEAKER_06: We might wish it did.
SPEAKER_06: That um this becomes one of those, there's this great African proverb that says, God created us because God thought we would enjoy it.
SPEAKER_06: I think it's a great proverb, actually.
SPEAKER_06: It's a great proverb.
SPEAKER_06: And I think what the prophets are saying is we enjoy it most when it doesn't come at somebody else's expense.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: We enjoy it most when it doesn't come at somebody else's expense.
SPEAKER_06: So we need to be very careful how we live into this, and when it comes at somebody else's expense, it's idolatry, and idolatry has consequences, not just hey, you get your fingers uh hit or your bottom swatted.
SPEAKER_06: Idolatry has consequences for joy.
SPEAKER_06: Because happiness and joy are different things.
SPEAKER_06: And I think we come back to like why would we want to do this if it ends up being painful?
SPEAKER_06: Happiness can't handle pain, and joy is bigger than pain.
SPEAKER_06: So I think the armor is about happiness, and it's very contingent upon circumstance, and I think joy has no regard for circumstance because it's so much greater than circumstance.
SPEAKER_06: Of course, all of this is about choice.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, again, the thing is, as a mathematician, you need infinite examples to prove a law.
SPEAKER_06: You're never done.
SPEAKER_06: One counterexample disproves it.
SPEAKER_06: So, does your spouse love you?
SPEAKER_06: They can never prove it to you, and they can easily disprove it with a single word.
SPEAKER_06: We make a choice about what we believe.
SPEAKER_06: And there's a lot of choices that we read about, right?
SPEAKER_06: Priests profane God, judges devour widows, prophets are reckless with what they speak.
SPEAKER_06: Again, our political leaders are reckless with what they speak.
SPEAKER_06: Um, I probably profane God.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, this is like I'm supposed to be somebody who represents God.
SPEAKER_06: It's really important how I treat people, especially when they ask things on behalf of the church.
SPEAKER_02: Right?
SPEAKER_06: Uh really important.
SPEAKER_06: Again, because of what we represent.
SPEAKER_06: Judges devour people.
SPEAKER_06: Boy, I'm glad I'm not a judge, but I sure like being judge.
SPEAKER_06: I really like being arbitrator for people whose business is none of mine.
SPEAKER_06: And in that sense, I devour them, right?
SPEAKER_06: And I think it's an interesting thing, whether you're on the bench or not, our judgment can give life, it can give restoration, or we can devour each other by saying, you hillbilly, you democrat, you feminist.
SPEAKER_06: These are ways we devour people with our own crap, right?
SPEAKER_06: Josiah is a really interesting guy.
SPEAKER_06: We get to read all this stuff he does, like defiles graves, he digs up their bones and peas on them.
SPEAKER_06: I mean, really, this is the kind of stuff you can't undo that, right?
SPEAKER_06: Um and again, it it isn't enough because in the end, faith, I don't think, is a transaction, and that's why Hezekiah, I mean Habakkuk says this really interesting thing, right?
SPEAKER_06: The righteous will live by faith.
SPEAKER_06: The just will live by faith.
SPEAKER_06: Just and righteous are synonyms for us.
SPEAKER_06: I I hope we didn't ignore the scriptures too much.
SPEAKER_06: I uh we have to call a close today because the symphony's here.
SPEAKER_06: Um if we missed something, we'll return to it, but otherwise we'll start Jeremiah next.