SPEAKER_09: Okay, I want to do a little departure from normal and actually start by telling you about the word believe.
SPEAKER_09: Is that okay?
SPEAKER_09: So believe is this pretty solid bit in English, and usually what we do with it is I don't know why I didn't clean this board.
SPEAKER_09: Usually what we do with it is make it a cognitive category about assent, right?
SPEAKER_09: So believe has to do with do you think something is factual or not?
SPEAKER_09: Right?
SPEAKER_09: Did it happen or no?
SPEAKER_09: That's usually how we use the word believe.
SPEAKER_09: Even when we're telling a story, we say, Don't you believe me?
SPEAKER_09: Don't you think the fact pattern is true?
SPEAKER_09: And again, that's a box that we usually check.
SPEAKER_09: So we believe George Washington was the first president of the United States.
SPEAKER_09: We believe his birthday was on February the 15th, right?
SPEAKER_09: These are belief bits.
SPEAKER_09: But think about how different that is, because we only have this one word we use from believing in Jesus.
SPEAKER_09: Now we could say we believe Jesus was a historical person, but isn't that way of thinking very different in believing in the larger life he came to bring?
SPEAKER_09: And just think about how different those are.
SPEAKER_09: So it turns out, and and this is a little bit from Latin, we get there's three words in Latin that each get translated into English as believe.
SPEAKER_09: And one of them is visio, like vision, right?
SPEAKER_09: You hear the this is belief as vision.
SPEAKER_09: So again, this is like a way of looking at the world.
SPEAKER_09: The education word would be schema, world view.
SPEAKER_09: And think then that when you change your belief, you really altered the way you see the world, like you got new wineskins, to return to that terminology.
SPEAKER_09: Or like Piaget says, you've accommodated your worldview to fit new information.
SPEAKER_09: So belief is not just about a fact, it's just a way of seeing the world.
SPEAKER_09: So I just to consider is the universe neutral, negative, or good?
SPEAKER_09: These are beliefs.
SPEAKER_09: Well, the facts say life is short and full of calamity.
SPEAKER_09: That's actually a way of believing.
SPEAKER_09: Another way of saying, of believing, is that uh our bodies are great, the universe is good, the universe conspires towards you meeting your personal destiny, to quote the alchemist, right?
SPEAKER_09: Different beliefs, different visions.
SPEAKER_09: Um another uh word that gets mapped to belief is the word like fidelitas.
SPEAKER_09: You know, this this one's pretty easy.
SPEAKER_09: We get fidelity as belief, whether that's in marriage or otherwise, this is you know, sort of being faithful.
SPEAKER_09: What do you know, to a vision or to a person.
SPEAKER_09: So if you believe something, then uh then you've got this this faithfulness, this perseverance because it's in your core, right?
SPEAKER_09: And then the other one that gets mapped is something like fiducia, which you you get is like a fiduciary responsibility.
SPEAKER_09: This is a stewardship term.
SPEAKER_09: It's very similar actually to uh to fidelity in a sense, right?
SPEAKER_09: You you you are sort of managing, I mean again, these are all ways of orienting your life and your values.
SPEAKER_09: So again, we often say we just in English we've got this one word, but in Latin there's three.
SPEAKER_09: And all of this is really coming to this idea about where do you put your where do you put your heart, right?
SPEAKER_09: And and the the cour in French, that's where that's our heart, right?
SPEAKER_09: So all of this is is belief.
SPEAKER_09: What I want to say is that most of um my early church experience, belief was an intellectual ascent more than anything else.
SPEAKER_09: Do you believe in Jesus?
SPEAKER_09: Didn't necessarily mean I reoriented my vision and lifestyle.
SPEAKER_09: It was really, did I have an intellectual ascent that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and was my personal savior?
SPEAKER_09: That's what belief meant to me as a teenager and a kid and in my early 20s, much more so than reorienting the way I interact with myself and the world.
SPEAKER_09: John is much more interested in these deeper categories than an intellectual ascent.
SPEAKER_09: That's what I want to put out first.
SPEAKER_09: So I hope that's I hope that's okay.
SPEAKER_09: Because again, we usually look at belief and it's a confusing word.
SPEAKER_09: Like salvation's a confusing word.
SPEAKER_09: Salvation for me was you go to heaven or you go to hell when you die, and that was it.
SPEAKER_09: That was getting saved meant you didn't go to hell when you died.
SPEAKER_09: But John is much more interested in larger life, both now and later.
SPEAKER_09: And this is so ingrained just in our language, because we don't have a word that means all of that at the same time.
SPEAKER_09: Again, belief is like, do you think it's true?
SPEAKER_09: This is just the limits of our language that we almost have to constantly remind ourselves is not what the Bible is interested in.
SPEAKER_09: The Bible is not interested in you getting um factual history correct and being done.
SPEAKER_09: The Bible is interested in reorienting your life, the way you treat and understand others and yourself.
SPEAKER_09: And if we stop at the first, we've missed the whole reason for the endeavor, which is fundamental transformation.
SPEAKER_09: That was very assertive of me, but I want to see if that brings up any questions or comments in you, either on its own or as you've read what is going on here in John.
SPEAKER_07: You mentioned intellectual understanding.
SPEAKER_07: So when you were being raised in your 20s, you the way this is the way that the story people as true.
SPEAKER_07: Factually true.
SPEAKER_07: Factually true, because it actually happened just that way.
SPEAKER_07: And then after that, you changed.
SPEAKER_09: Well, I'm trying, it's really hard.
SPEAKER_09: I don't know if I'll ever change.
SPEAKER_09: I don't know that you necessarily need to, because the thing is, something can be factually true and also true with a capital T.
SPEAKER_09: But one of the weird things, having got a degree in math, and this is I should never have done this, is that you know, math is true, but but it isn't at all.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, it's all completely made up.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, this is what you learn in number theory.
SPEAKER_09: Everything works in our digit system because we've decided the digit system.
SPEAKER_09: But if we change the digit system, it doesn't work at all.
SPEAKER_09: You know, so everything works in in mod 10, but when you've got mod 60, it's all recalibrated and it's all different.
SPEAKER_09: Addition, subtraction, multiplication are all different when you change the standard.
SPEAKER_09: And who set the standard?
SPEAKER_09: We did.
SPEAKER_09: It's not inherently true that things come in tens.
SPEAKER_09: Babylonians count in 60s because they count all of their knuckles.
SPEAKER_09: It's called the hexagesimal system.
SPEAKER_09: So all of their ratios and fractions are totally different from ours, and they're not wrong.
SPEAKER_09: This is different, they have the different bases.
SPEAKER_09: And this is an interesting thing, right?
SPEAKER_09: I believe in the Pythagorean theorem.
SPEAKER_09: I believe it works.
SPEAKER_09: With our gravity and our situation, you know, I mean, there's just so many assumptions based on that.
SPEAKER_09: Now, math people out there who are listening to this may say, you got that all wrong.
SPEAKER_09: That's fine.
SPEAKER_09: Um, I wasn't, I should never should have been a math major.
SPEAKER_09: But there is, frankly, some um presuppositions we have to put in place even for our mathematical values to hold.
SPEAKER_05: Um I think for me, being raised Hispanic and speaking Spanish before I spoke English, um, and being raised in the Catholic Catholic and Probably told that there was more emphasis on the to me, and it seemed like it was more about love and the terms of the terms of Jesus and his sacrifice and um but but in embedded in that also was the heaven and hell.
SPEAKER_09: I think that's what makes it really hard, is that we've got this heaven and hell bit, and it complicates everything.
SPEAKER_09: Because I think we can say, oh, Jesus loves you, but you'll go to hell if you don't get it right, and then and then, my God, what kind of love is that?
SPEAKER_09: You know, I mean, but at the as a kid, that was our definition, is that Jesus loves you, so you don't have to go to hell if you get it right.
SPEAKER_09: But but then what we learn, right, is that love isn't a gift, it's really a reward for having done the right thing.
SPEAKER_09: Well, you don't have to do much, you just have to believe.
SPEAKER_09: But if you don't believe, you go to hell.
SPEAKER_09: So I mean, again, it's not a gift.
SPEAKER_09: If you have to do something, it's not a gift.
SPEAKER_09: Gifts are free, wages are earned.
SPEAKER_09: So salvation is a wage in the way I grew up.
SPEAKER_09: Now, again, we didn't hear it that way.
SPEAKER_09: We were told, no, no, it's a free gift from God, you just have to open it.
SPEAKER_09: But that's not how gifts work.
SPEAKER_09: If I'm given a gift, I don't have to open it, and I still get to keep it.
SPEAKER_09: It's mine.
SPEAKER_09: That's the definition of a gift.
SPEAKER_09: If I have to open it, well, I had to do something.
SPEAKER_09: I had to do something.
SPEAKER_09: And that's a wage at that point.
SPEAKER_09: If I have to do something, it's no longer a gift.
SPEAKER_09: But see, it's so ingrained in me that you don't get a gift until you open it.
SPEAKER_09: Really, what we should have said is you'll enjoy it more if you open it.
SPEAKER_09: But you don't have to because it's yours.
SPEAKER_09: And this is where I think if you're if you're feeling a little bit like, oh, Mike, you do have to open it, I just want you to think through that intellectually, that's not right.
SPEAKER_09: But we were so instilled with that mentality that it's changed the way we think about gifts, all kinds of gifts.
SPEAKER_09: What do you believe about gifts?
SPEAKER_09: You see what I mean?
SPEAKER_09: This is really deeply ingrained church business.
SPEAKER_09: And we taught our kids one thing, but we spoke out of both sides of our mouths, and I'm still living into this two-sided bit.
SPEAKER_09: God helps those who help themselves.
SPEAKER_09: Maybe, but that's not a gift.
SPEAKER_07: A gift to me, and I guess this is the way I was raised, is was always transactional.
SPEAKER_07: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_07: I got a gift, it was my responsibility at the very least to send a thank you note.
SPEAKER_09: Yep.
SPEAKER_09: I I I'm I'm not the king of thank you notes, but I'm at least a duke of them.
SPEAKER_09: I'm a duke.
SPEAKER_07: You're a very good thing.
SPEAKER_07: I'm horrible.
SPEAKER_07: Next level down.
SPEAKER_07: I'm good.
SPEAKER_09: Listen, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, I'm at least in the petty nobility when it comes to thank you notes because gifts also were transactions for me instead of deposits.
SPEAKER_09: And I'll tell you, it drives me crazy with my own children if they don't say thank you, because thank you completes the transaction.
SPEAKER_09: Don't you see?
SPEAKER_09: Now listen, it's good manners and it's helpful, but it's it's not a gift.
SPEAKER_09: And I get so mad when I don't get the transaction that I've taught them to, when really, if there's any transaction at all, the fact that they enjoy the gift, that should be the transaction I'm looking for.
SPEAKER_09: Or they don't even open it, but I was thrilled to give it to them.
SPEAKER_09: You know, I mean, I think these are the higher values we're trying to get to, and we have to accommodate the way we view the world.
SPEAKER_09: I get gifts from people sometimes, and I'm like, okay, mental note, on their birthday, I must give them something.
SPEAKER_09: Because they gave me something.
SPEAKER_09: Transaction.
SPEAKER_01: But that's just like this human and how we live on earth.
SPEAKER_09: So this other is like which is why I think we've got to rethink how we view God, because quite honestly, I often think God's in it for the transaction.
SPEAKER_09: So I think I've told you this before.
SPEAKER_09: Um Meg uses the phrase personal relationship with God a lot, which I really appreciate, and it's really loaded with baggage for me because the image I got for God as a teenager was that God loves you and is sitting at a restaurant waiting for you to come on a date called prayer.
SPEAKER_09: And God sits there and you don't show up, you're late, and you break God's heart because you don't spend enough time with God, and that's a transaction.
SPEAKER_09: And I love that you emphasize it, and I I it it it bristles at me because that's my core image.
SPEAKER_09: And I had to do spiritual direction with this nun for a long time.
SPEAKER_09: You know, in my my prayer life was I would I would spend 30 minutes a day or whatever, and I finally got to this place where you know I would sit down mentally and be like, God, I'm so sorry, I've made you wait all day, I don't pray enough, and then I sin and I do all this wrong, and my brother, you know, he's sick, and would you help him out?
SPEAKER_09: Like that's what I did.
SPEAKER_09: And then after like two years with this little nun, I was able to reimagine the scene where I would start doing that, and God would go, shh, shisten, if we're only gonna spend 10 minutes together, let's spend it together.
SPEAKER_09: But you doing all that is not us being together.
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09: Well, see, that's a very different image about a personal relationship.
SPEAKER_09: You you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_09: My prayer was transactional.
SPEAKER_09: If I spent the right amount of time, then God would give me what I wanted.
SPEAKER_09: Sick people would get better.
SPEAKER_09: If I went enough in prayer, then, you know, I'd be happier.
SPEAKER_09: Like I was just looking for these transactional values.
SPEAKER_09: And I want to say, in some ways, it goes two ways.
SPEAKER_09: The way we treat each other informs the way we treat God, but I also think the way we think about God is how we think about each other.
SPEAKER_09: And this I think is the biggest complicator about hell being an eternal consequence.
SPEAKER_09: If you believe that, I'm not saying you shouldn't, but if you believe that, I think the notion of gift is completely ruined.
SPEAKER_09: Because you can't because there's a con there's a wage.
SPEAKER_09: Now, I'm not telling you not to believe in hell, I just if there is eternal punishment forever, then where is there any gifting?
SPEAKER_06: I don't remember that the theologian beloved.
SPEAKER_06: But they said that hell is an empty place.
SPEAKER_09: Well, Augustine says evil is not real, it's an illusion.
SPEAKER_09: And Augustine believed in hell, but this person is taking Augustine more seriously than he took himself.
SPEAKER_09: And it may have been Rob Bell.
SPEAKER_09: Now, I will tell you an interesting idea uh comes from C.S.
SPEAKER_09: Lewis.
SPEAKER_09: I've mentioned this in the Great Divorce.
SPEAKER_09: He says, hell is this place of just utter loneliness and despair, and God asks us to leave every day, and it's only eternal if we stay there.
SPEAKER_09: But I had this really interesting professor who said, listen, you know, um, if God's everywhere, then God's in hell, or better way of thinking, hell is inside of God.
SPEAKER_09: So hell is like the ulcer in God's stomach.
SPEAKER_09: There's an interesting way of thinking about this, and God beckons us out of hell all of the time, not because we have to earn our way, but but but frankly, it's an opportunity to enjoy God's gift.
SPEAKER_09: We don't have to.
SPEAKER_09: It's ours, whether we enjoy it or not.
SPEAKER_09: And I will tell you the interesting thing about transactional gifting, it makes gifts very unenjoyable or less enjoyable.
SPEAKER_09: Because every day is a gift from God, but I better make the most of it.
SPEAKER_09: This is a wonderful trip, and I better see everything.
SPEAKER_09: I'm going to get to go to school, and I better get great grades.
SPEAKER_09: You this is my way of thinking, and it has served me very well in the sense that I've done a lot of stuff.
SPEAKER_09: How much of it have I enjoyed?
SPEAKER_09: Don't ask me that question.
SPEAKER_09: What I've enjoyed is being productive.
SPEAKER_09: But that doesn't mean I enjoyed any of the things.
SPEAKER_09: I enjoyed the produce.
SPEAKER_09: So this is, I think, really helpful to think up front about what believe means to us and what it might actually mean in John.
SPEAKER_04: That's kind of scary in terms of the production because I tend to look at my head and think, ah geez, I'm so productive.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
SPEAKER_04: And but that's wow.
SPEAKER_04: That's a question.
SPEAKER_04: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_04: I really enjoy it.
SPEAKER_09: Wow.
SPEAKER_09: It's really hard.
SPEAKER_09: And you know what's hard is because I suspect this is true for most of us, we sort of think, well, yeah, but if I just thought about enjoyment, I would never do anything.
SPEAKER_09: Because our system is so shakily built that if we think, oh, you know, I don't have to be a workaholic, then I won't do anything.
SPEAKER_09: It's an either-or.
SPEAKER_09: We've bought into an either-or mentality.
SPEAKER_09: And it and actually it's not true at all.
SPEAKER_09: But I just said that it's not true, but I'm like, oh yeah, I think it actually is pretty true.
SPEAKER_09: If I rested, I wouldn't do anything.
SPEAKER_09: So I can't take breaks.
SPEAKER_09: I have to make the most of every opportunity.
SPEAKER_09: When I go to Rome, I have to see every sight in a day.
SPEAKER_09: I did that, by the way.
SPEAKER_09: I'm like the king of checking off the whole itinerary.
SPEAKER_09: I enjoyed being productive.
SPEAKER_09: See, again, this is it.
SPEAKER_09: I enjoyed being productive.
SPEAKER_09: But I will tell you what I also don't enjoy about being productive is in my mind I'm like, maybe I missed something.
SPEAKER_09: Damn it, I might have missed something.
SPEAKER_09: There was that chapel I didn't go into, and what if I missed something?
SPEAKER_09: Instead, I know people who will go to Rome and they don't go to anything.
SPEAKER_09: They sit in a cafe and they like have it like a like a like a cannoli, and that was their trip.
SPEAKER_09: And I think, what a waste of a trip.
SPEAKER_09: Except like that was what they wanted to do, you know?
SPEAKER_09: And I and I say, well, you wanted stupid things because you should have wanted to check out the whole itinerary.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, this is like but I want you to hear.
SPEAKER_03: You're you're what you want.
SPEAKER_09: This is the definition of being a type A person.
SPEAKER_09: And I think it comes back from, frankly, not just the Protestant work ethics, but about us justifying our existence.
SPEAKER_09: It's really, really.
SPEAKER_09: This may not be core stuff for you, and I may just be doing group therapy.
SPEAKER_09: But I I but I think some of this is inherent in the way we view God and view other people.
SPEAKER_05: When you put this book out here, I thought immediately I had to go home and read it every single day.
SPEAKER_09: Listen, we're not the only thing, and I'll just tell you, because I'm this person, we're taking this pilgrimage to this trip.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, we're going to Jordan.
SPEAKER_09: And if you go on this trip to Jordan, you are not going to miss a single thing except for going to the Red Sea Riviera.
SPEAKER_09: And I just can't even justify that at all.
SPEAKER_09: Even though it would be enjoyable.
SPEAKER_09: I can't, I can't justify it because it's got no historical significance whatsoever.
SPEAKER_09: It's zero.
SPEAKER_09: Um, and then I think we maybe we should have done it.
SPEAKER_09: But uh we're gonna go as a group and we're gonna do these fun things, but but we also have to hit check all the important things, and in some ways I do like that.
SPEAKER_09: So it's this tension we live into.
SPEAKER_09: I I I didn't want to take a trip, a group pilgrimage to Jordan and have canoes in a cafe for twelve days and say that was that.
SPEAKER_00: Um no, but if you went by yourself, you could do that.
SPEAKER_00: I would you're responsible for
SPEAKER_09: If I went by myself, I still wouldn't do it.
SPEAKER_09: I would be pounding the pavement.
SPEAKER_09: Oh, I would.
SPEAKER_09: Again, I would leave no stone unturned because I don't know when I'll be back.
SPEAKER_09: Again, that's my mentality.
SPEAKER_09: But again, like I'm around interesting people who take these trips and they don't have objective except to just be in the place.
SPEAKER_09: And there's probably some middle ground.
SPEAKER_05: But like the heart is not, the heart and the head are not decorated.
unknown: It's not wrong.
SPEAKER_01: It's the way you feel.
SPEAKER_09: See, it's this is what you've said is it's not wrong.
SPEAKER_09: It's it's a different way.
SPEAKER_09: And really what's what's wrong about my way is if I'm not enjoying it and if I'm not present, then it is wrong.
SPEAKER_09: Not sinful, it's just missing an opportunity.
SPEAKER_01: But in that is when you feel inside you yourself.
SPEAKER_01: That's because you're not happy, you're not really happy unless you do these things.
SPEAKER_01: So you would have to have a conversation with yourself to hold off, and then you wouldn't be happy.
SPEAKER_09: Well now I full attention.
SPEAKER_09: And you've said this interesting thing, right?
SPEAKER_09: Because I what I'm trying to say is I think there is a certain core about this way of being in the world that will never make you happy.
SPEAKER_09: Because you could have missed something.
SPEAKER_09: And if your goal is to do everything, you will never meet your goal.
SPEAKER_09: Never.
SPEAKER_09: It's not possible.
SPEAKER_09: And I know I'm talking about tourism, but I'm really talking about God.
SPEAKER_09: I'm really talking about how we relate to God.
SPEAKER_05: And that's life.
SPEAKER_05: Would you have a view?
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, I mean, again, if this is the way I view the world, in some ways this is my whole theology.
SPEAKER_09: God expects me to not miss anything.
SPEAKER_09: And I had an opportunity to help somebody with a bag lunch, or to listen to somebody who was broken and I was so busy and I missed it, or I could have given another 3% to the church last year, or I could have, I could have, I could have, and how disappointed I've made God.
SPEAKER_09: This really comes back to do we disappoint God or not?
SPEAKER_07: I have always felt, and even at 68, I still feel somewhat this way, and that's that to use kind of a math analogy.
SPEAKER_07: There's the X or the Y and the X-axis, and then there's there is a zero point.
SPEAKER_07: And that zero point is below it you are failing, and you're gonna be punished by God.
SPEAKER_07: And above it, you can celebrate, but you better not, you better be careful because because you behind you is that that that step change that drops you back below zero.
SPEAKER_07: And so I've always I've always felt that about all I can do is get up to zero and just try to stay there.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, because even if you do something great, what are you gonna do next?
SPEAKER_09: Well it's not like you can sit there and enjoy what you just did, because you've got to do something else now.
SPEAKER_03: You've got to beat your own love.
SPEAKER_09: And see, I didn't, John, I don't want to tell you that you're wrong.
SPEAKER_09: I just want to say that's exactly what I'm talking about with our belief.
SPEAKER_09: What do we really believe?
SPEAKER_09: What do we trust about God that we are inherently disappointing?
SPEAKER_09: That we have to keep treading water to stay afloat in God, or do we trust that if we stopped, we would float?
SPEAKER_09: Is that our culture?
SPEAKER_09: Well, everybody's culture.
SPEAKER_09: It's clearly not everybody's culture.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, now listen, I think this is part of the difference between type A and type B.
SPEAKER_09: I think this is part of a difference between whether you're a saver or a spender or somewhere in between.
SPEAKER_09: I think this is the predictor based on the Stanford marshmallow test.
SPEAKER_09: Will you hold it for 15 minutes or will you eat it immediately?
SPEAKER_09: I think it's all of those things, but I think all of that comes back to how do we understand God?
SPEAKER_09: It's not just culture.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, our culture tells us who God is.
SPEAKER_09: And we buy it or we spit it out.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, I this I think is part of our deal.
SPEAKER_09: And so um I hope I've gotten time too off track, but I think John is really asking us to think about what do we believe.
SPEAKER_09: What do we believe?
SPEAKER_09: And I'm gonna do one other thing with you about a couple of words, and then let's come straight back to the reading and see if this was all a waste of time or not.
SPEAKER_09: Um, I got these three words, and I still remember them from 19 years ago when I was uh what was I a senior in college?
SPEAKER_09: I was a sophomore in college.
SPEAKER_09: Now, if you know your prayer book, you're gonna be disappointed that I changed this up.
SPEAKER_09: These are words that we often use, and John talks about signs.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, I rem I remember this as from a 19-year-old.
SPEAKER_09: My professor told me, when the thunder claps on the night get up and say, a sign points to a reality deeper than itself.
SPEAKER_09: That's what a sign does.
SPEAKER_09: Points to a reality deeper than itself.
SPEAKER_09: Street sign is a name, but it's deeper than the actual signpost, right?
SPEAKER_09: It points to a reality of nomenclature and orientation in the world.
SPEAKER_09: Jesus does these signs, and if we just think about him bringing a dead person back to life, we missed the reality deeper than itself.
SPEAKER_09: Jesus is not interested in resuscitating dead people.
SPEAKER_09: So, what's the reality?
SPEAKER_09: It's about new life.
SPEAKER_09: You don't have to be dead to get new life.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, if if we just think about it that way, we missed it.
SPEAKER_09: Symbol, if you're an Episcopalian, this is your definition of sacrament.
SPEAKER_09: A symbol is an outward sign of an inward reality.
SPEAKER_09: An outward sign points to reality of an inward reality.
SPEAKER_09: Now, if you know your prayer book, a sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
SPEAKER_09: That's a s but that's really a symbol in the nomenclature I memorized as a 19-year-old, and I think it's right.
SPEAKER_09: Because a sacrament is a way of participating in God without exhausting participation in God.
SPEAKER_09: It's a way of participating in God without exhausting what it means to participate in God.
SPEAKER_09: So think about our sacraments.
SPEAKER_09: There are ways in which we participate in God, like we have the Eucharist, and we have anointing with oil, and we have marriage and ordination and reconciliation and confirmation.
SPEAKER_09: But none of those things exhaust what it means to be in God.
SPEAKER_09: In fact, I would tell you, I think teaching and learning are sacramental.
SPEAKER_09: There are ways of participating in God.
SPEAKER_09: There's other ways, there's more than that.
SPEAKER_09: I don't know that we ever get the whole deal.
SPEAKER_09: So these are just ways.
SPEAKER_09: They're also symbolic and they're signatory.
SPEAKER_09: I want to put that up in front of you because we're gonna look at those today and next week.
SPEAKER_09: Signs, symbols, and sacraments.
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to do things because I just want to you know, I don't it's not uh it's not something that uh uh that I have to do at all.
SPEAKER_02: But I don't have to kind of know where I probably would have been.
SPEAKER_02: Um I think aging, one of the benefits of aging is that you can look back on things and say, you know, that really wasn't worth the effort.
SPEAKER_02: You know, so I don't want to think that again.
SPEAKER_02: Um but the thing about God is yes, the key word is trust.
SPEAKER_02: And I think a second keyword is thank you.
SPEAKER_02: Um when I uh I felt like oh my god, like when I had as an adult decided thank we're gonna go.
SPEAKER_02: And um felt like I wanted to be a relationship.
SPEAKER_02: And so um what you suggested to me is to make a box for Thanksgiving, you know, and just thank God for the son and all this other stuff, and that sort of opening up.
SPEAKER_02: But they're also getting a day when over now.
SPEAKER_02: I want a conscious loving relationship.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I believe in God and I know learn God and I go to church on Sundays and I participate in classes and so on, but I want something deeper.
SPEAKER_02: I want a consciousness.
SPEAKER_02: During the day, I want to be able to think of it.
SPEAKER_02: I want to be able to remember that God is with me.
SPEAKER_02: So I asked for God for a spiritual card.
SPEAKER_02: I got one, and that one day I was at church, and the lady who was in the bookstore, she came and brought me a card.
SPEAKER_02: And this man said, and she said, This man likes to call me.
SPEAKER_02: And I know who that man was, and he ended up being my spiritual character, and he helped me learn how to talk.
SPEAKER_02: But the thing is this, is that the life that God is a man, and it's one that I feel like we one of the ways to force is to be consciously aware of God, not just a God of all the time.
SPEAKER_02: And um the key is right.
SPEAKER_02: And that's a hard thing to learn.
SPEAKER_02: And uh and when you know, and when we get to these different levels of spirituality, uh, that doesn't mean all these other things go away, you know.
SPEAKER_02: I still deal with, am I doing enough?
SPEAKER_02: You know, maybe uh, you know, because you know, when you're my age, you ain't got a lot of time left.
SPEAKER_02: So you better be you know examining some things thinking, am I doing enough?
SPEAKER_02: And uh because, oh I know the good game of song.
SPEAKER_02: But anyway, uh so and um, you know, it's I also have to deal with this, I have got to have something to do for God.
SPEAKER_02: You know, I can't just sit around and do nothing.
SPEAKER_02: But the other alternative would be I could spend more of the day in prayer.
SPEAKER_02: But I'm not a that I I do have definite times.
SPEAKER_02: But there are also times that I want to be present, too.
SPEAKER_02: You know, so all I'm saying is that just becoming consciously aware of God of that is that we need a ton of science every day that all you can spare is ten minutes and starting.
SPEAKER_02: Whereby it's just you like to have a cup of tea or a cup of coffee, and you know, you can have prayer with you, or you can sit and listen and you can go on.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's your time.
SPEAKER_02: And God takes that, and you have gone and you're being faithful to that time, even though you feel like nothing's happening.
SPEAKER_02: God honors that and brings about changes to the individual.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_02: And then you find, you may find that well, you want a little more for a time.
SPEAKER_02: You know, so so these things have a way of working themselves out.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: We say, okay, I really do want to see God.
SPEAKER_02: You know, I want to know more about God.
SPEAKER_02: It's a two-way street.
SPEAKER_02: God's gonna be kept calling you in all kinds of different ways.
SPEAKER_02: And things is are we in the hearing?
SPEAKER_02: You know, you get this idea, or you get this feeling of what you're God, or somebody says something to you, and you think there comes a time when we have to make a decision one way or another.
SPEAKER_02: And when we make the decision to go for God, well, then that's when our reality begins to really change because God's right there in the wheels helping us to do that.
SPEAKER_02: And uh there are times when I have uh uh just been told, I noticed things in myself, and I have just been told it, gee, we have to be God, you know.
SPEAKER_02: So anyway, I'm gonna say, but the thing is, I I think you know, you talk about the cross, and you know, I think when then you say, Five mic, that when the outstretched arms represent God is with us, but uh vertical being is transcendence.
SPEAKER_02: And I think what we're missing out on a lot is the transcendent part.
SPEAKER_02: And that uh, and of course we all get there, but so a lot of people don't know how to do it.
SPEAKER_09: I think that the the difficult thing about it though is which God are you spending 10 minutes with?
SPEAKER_09: The transactional God or the one who actually enjoys you like you are.
SPEAKER_03: Can I ask a question?
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, was it John?
SPEAKER_03: Was it I I maybe making this up, but it was either something you said or in the videos kind of near the beginning of this.
SPEAKER_03: Somebody brought up John wanting us to see that we don't have to wait to go to heaven to have eternal life.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we can have eternal life now.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: And that's what this is reminding me of.
SPEAKER_03: Are we living not we?
SPEAKER_03: I am I living like I have eternal life now, or am I going through hell on earth?
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: Because I think for me in my life, there are times where I've experienced things that I'm pretty positive hell couldn't be much worse.
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
SPEAKER_03: Than what, you know.
SPEAKER_03: And I've spent time particularly with kids who have been what I can only call living in hell.
SPEAKER_03: So I think, you know, the whole transformation, the the believing um for me really is, it kind of makes me laugh because I'm thinking, well, no wonder the Pharisees didn't want to believe what Jesus was saying, because maybe in their they they somehow got that they were gonna have to transform their lives if they believed in him.
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: And why would they want to do that?
SPEAKER_03: They would live in the life, you know.
SPEAKER_03: Um, so I know for me, belief is more about not necessarily the checklists and the um if believe is what I'm talking about, or maybe almost gratitude.
SPEAKER_03: And I I was thinking about this all the way to work today.
SPEAKER_03: You know, some people are gonna get it, some people aren't.
SPEAKER_03: And I was stressing about the people that aren't, and I kind of got this in my head.
SPEAKER_03: You know what?
SPEAKER_03: You know you are a child of God.
SPEAKER_03: So what are you gonna do with that?
SPEAKER_03: What are you gonna do with that?
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, are you going to keep it all to yourself and look at other people and go, for whatever reason, he's let me know he loves me, or are you going to, you know, um, and I also before that watched this video about a bunch of very well-known um fashion people who were told they were going to a boutique of designer shoes and they were spending hundreds of dollars on them and they were actually all shoes from Payless.
SPEAKER_03: So I thought, what do what what when we say we're gonna believe something, yeah, how much effort do we put into that?
SPEAKER_03: Am I making any sense in that?
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, I mean, I think.
SPEAKER_03: Are we just gonna go along with the, you know, um, or how much am I willing to invest?
SPEAKER_03: I don't necessarily not believe Jesus or not believe that God loves me.
SPEAKER_03: To me, it's more like, what am I gonna do with that?
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_09: And I think I think that there's an opportunity to think about like when we find ourselves very disappointed with our kids, we can either believe they need to turn it around, or we can believe there's something wrong with the way I'm perceiving them, but it's so disappointing.
SPEAKER_09: It's these are options here, and and I think the first one of these options that we see today, just dead on, Jesus says, I and the Father are one, and they get ready to stone him, and he says, For which miracle are you stoned yes?
SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_09: And they say, No, we're not doing it for that, we're doing it because of what you said.
SPEAKER_09: It's just sort of an interesting thought to think about because I grew up hearing not only were all Muslims going to hell, but all Catholics were, because they didn't really believe in Jesus the right way.
SPEAKER_09: And so I met these Muslims when I was living in a youth hostel, and they had this like glow to them, like they were actually like really peaceful people, and I was really confounded because they were going to hell, but they seemed much happier than I was.
SPEAKER_09: And the question was for which miracle was I stoning them?
unknown: Right.
SPEAKER_09: Right, right.
SPEAKER_09: For their peace and happiness?
SPEAKER_09: No, because they said the wrong thing.
SPEAKER_09: And I know you may say, Mark, that's not what this is about, it's not world religious, but I think it is.
SPEAKER_09: Yep.
SPEAKER_09: Are we stoning people because they think the wrong things, even if their life is bigger than ours?
SPEAKER_09: And I think that becomes this real criterion that we're invited to consider is is life larger because of what we think or because of how we live?
SPEAKER_07: Well, if we are all monotheists, do we believe in the same God that Muslims and and um um Hindus and and on and on and on believe in?
SPEAKER_07: Or are they different?
SPEAKER_09: We could.
SPEAKER_09: It depends what you believe about that.
SPEAKER_09: You know, I mean, and to to to to be honest, right?
SPEAKER_09: I mean, I don't think the question's limited to monotheism.
SPEAKER_09: You know, I mean, do Hindus believe in a different God than we do?
SPEAKER_09: The traditional answer is yes, but I think the question is, is it necessarily yes?
SPEAKER_07: Well, are we are we monotheist in that we believe in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_09: Uh that's you know polytheism?
SPEAKER_09: Our Jewish brothers and sisters and Muslims say it is, but we say not.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, this becomes really interesting.
SPEAKER_09: So do we settle at that debate or do we settle about this?
SPEAKER_09: Is really interesting.
SPEAKER_09: Paul says the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control.
SPEAKER_09: So, for which one of those miracles do we stone people?
SPEAKER_09: So if somebody's got those, but their theology's wrong, which would you rather have?
SPEAKER_09: Wrong theology and all that, or right theology and none of that.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, I actually think the the first incident of Jesus is inviting us to think about that.
SPEAKER_09: For which miracle are we gonna stone him?
SPEAKER_09: Oh, but you, you know, you didn't cross yourself before you took communion, or you, you know, you took a little bit of grape juice, or you, you know, you these are how we normally think about belief instead of thinking about the invitation to live bigger.
SPEAKER_09: And we're interested in stoning people for their own belief instead of thinking about how it is we can live bigger.
SPEAKER_09: This is another interesting thing, right?
SPEAKER_09: Jesus says I and the Father are one.
SPEAKER_09: Well, I don't think that at all.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, I know God's everywhere, but I make mistakes all the time, and I could do more.
SPEAKER_09: Do I really believe that I and the father are one?
SPEAKER_09: No, Mike, that's just about Jesus.
SPEAKER_09: Is it just about Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: It's about the fact that we are one.
SPEAKER_09: Whether we want to be or feel worthy or not, our faith says God is everywhere at the same time.
SPEAKER_09: So aren't we and the Father one?
SPEAKER_09: Well, we are, which means you better be really careful about what you do because you're dragging God's name through the dirt.
SPEAKER_09: Transactional thinking 101.
SPEAKER_09: Don't you see?
SPEAKER_09: This is really about what do we believe?
SPEAKER_09: How do we live?
SPEAKER_02: But the thing is, this what's different about a relationship about God is the love.
SPEAKER_02: In other words, you get to the point where you just do it.
SPEAKER_02: When you show practice, you can take a lot of people.
SPEAKER_02: There's a love that develops there.
SPEAKER_02: And then you don't worry so much.
SPEAKER_02: At least I don't worry so much about all the dudes and don'ts, another word.
SPEAKER_02: I cannot write the songs, I'll change it when I can write a thing here.
SPEAKER_09: See, I agree with what you're saying, except in my mind, it takes me to if if then thinking.
SPEAKER_09: If I will start practicing the virtues, then this will happen, and that's not gift thinking, that's transactional.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, I I think you're right.
SPEAKER_09: I just want you to say in my mind what that does to me, and once I do this, I've missed that.
SPEAKER_09: What I what I usually think is I am the father could be one.
SPEAKER_09: We could be one if I would d instead of I could be a low-life, dirty scumbag who chooses to be harmless, and I am the father are one.
SPEAKER_09: Well my god doesn't seem right.
SPEAKER_09: I know it doesn't seem right.
SPEAKER_09: This is the thing to think about what we really believe.
SPEAKER_09: No, I I I'm not telling my story to be therapeutic.
SPEAKER_09: I'm I'm telling my story to to to hopefully get you to think of your own.
SPEAKER_06: No, and I'm being.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, no, I know, I know.
SPEAKER_06: I take it more than I think it helps me.
SPEAKER_06: He knows who I am.
SPEAKER_06: I know who he is, so all this transaction now be like, no, he's he's there, so that's and I know he's there because that's fine.
SPEAKER_09: I I I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_09: And I think actually the story about Lazarus is a great opportunity for us to think about well the both end.
SPEAKER_09: To think about intellectually what's going on and what we're choosing to live into.
SPEAKER_09: I hope that's okay to say.
SPEAKER_09: So so let's have a look at that if you don't mind.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, one thing is Jesus stays three days on purpose.
SPEAKER_09: Like he he lets Lazarus die.
SPEAKER_09: This is his idea, which is sort of like, I mean, damn it, Jesus, get down there and stop that guy from dying.
SPEAKER_09: I'm sorry, but like really, and that's kind of their response to him.
SPEAKER_09: Like, it could have been done, you know, and he's like, Yeah, I could have.
SPEAKER_09: Would it be better now?
SPEAKER_09: I mean, no, it's not better, he died.
SPEAKER_09: Like, it's not better.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's still like we always had great conversations about it because the kids were like, those sisters were kind of mad about it, weren't they?
SPEAKER_03: And I was like, yeah, they were a little bit.
SPEAKER_03: They're a little irritated.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: Because what the heck?
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, we're supposed to be like your best friend, and you know, you could and and it's what's interesting, right?
SPEAKER_09: Look how dashed the disciples are.
SPEAKER_09: Oh, our friend is asleep.
SPEAKER_09: Oh, that's good, he'll get better.
SPEAKER_09: Look, he's dead.
SPEAKER_09: He's dead.
SPEAKER_09: He's really bad.
SPEAKER_09: And we're gonna go down there, and then Thomas.
SPEAKER_09: This is good, Thomas, and this is just a fun fact to you, he's called the twin.
SPEAKER_09: Thomas, Thomas means twin.
SPEAKER_09: It means that.
SPEAKER_09: Uh Didymus, the Greek version of the Aramaic Thomas means twin, and he's called the twin.
SPEAKER_09: So this is twin called the twin.
SPEAKER_09: Of course, that's what he's called.
SPEAKER_09: Whose twin is he?
SPEAKER_09: Do you know the answer to this?
SPEAKER_03: Uh-uh.
SPEAKER_09: This is Jesus' twin.
SPEAKER_09: Now, there's an old version that says could be literal, Syriac, comes from the 300s, but in general, he's so like the spirit of Jesus that he's called the twin, and that's bearing out in the story.
SPEAKER_09: This is Thomas.
SPEAKER_09: Doubting Thomas.
SPEAKER_09: He's not doubting Thomas, he's the patron saint of the scientific method.
SPEAKER_05: Yes! Look what he says.
SPEAKER_09: All the other disciples are like, Oh, I'm going down there, they're gonna kill us all.
SPEAKER_09: And Thomas says, Well, let's go and we'll die with him.
SPEAKER_09: This, this is like courageous, Thomas.
SPEAKER_09: We'll talk about the scientific method later, because that's actually a great story, I think.
SPEAKER_09: So they they're gonna go down there, right?
SPEAKER_09: They're gonna they're gonna do this.
SPEAKER_09: And then Martha meets Jesus, and I want to tell you, we say, like, oh, Martha confesses the faith.
SPEAKER_09: I don't think so at all.
SPEAKER_09: I think what Martha does is she lives in this one intellectual thought way of belief and not the holistic way.
SPEAKER_09: Because they talk past each other completely.
SPEAKER_09: Lord, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died.
SPEAKER_09: But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask.
SPEAKER_09: Your brother will rise again.
SPEAKER_09: Well, I know that at the last day.
SPEAKER_09: You hear they're talking past each other.
SPEAKER_09: Well, I'm the resurrection and the life.
SPEAKER_09: Whoever believes in me will live though they die.
SPEAKER_09: Do you believe this?
SPEAKER_09: Oh, I believe you're the Messiah.
SPEAKER_09: Which is sort of like, maybe.
SPEAKER_09: But notice when he says roll the stone away, she's the one who says, he stinks.
SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
SPEAKER_09: Does she believe what he says?
SPEAKER_09: Not at all.
SPEAKER_09: She believes in the box check, but she does not have a new vision or a fidelity or a fiducia response to Jesus at all.
SPEAKER_09: This is an intellectual Christian.
SPEAKER_09: She has all the right theology and none of the joy.
SPEAKER_09: That's what I think.
SPEAKER_09: Mary, on the other hand, and by the way, I'm not privileging intellect or emotionality, because the truth is we're all of those things.
SPEAKER_09: We live into only one part of our bodies, we're missing the rest.
SPEAKER_09: Right?
SPEAKER_09: So I think, you know, this is helpful if you're Jewish, on your doorpost, you say, love the Lord your God with all of your.
SPEAKER_09: Well, in English we say your heart, your soul, and your strength.
SPEAKER_09: That's not how it reads in Hebrew.
SPEAKER_09: It says, You'll love the Lord your God with all of your heart, which is really the center of your will.
SPEAKER_09: I'd say that's your brain with all of your soul.
SPEAKER_09: You don't have a soul, you are one.
SPEAKER_09: That's everything.
SPEAKER_09: And then in Hebrew it says, and all your exceedingness.
SPEAKER_09: So you'll love God with the center of your will and all of your being.
SPEAKER_09: And if there was anything left over about you after that, you'll love God with that.
SPEAKER_09: Right?
SPEAKER_09: So if we only live in one part of ourselves, we're missing what it means to be embodied human beings.
SPEAKER_09: Right?
SPEAKER_09: And again, my faith as a kid was all about facts.
SPEAKER_09: It wasn't about loving God with my breath, with my soul.
SPEAKER_09: And anything after that.
SPEAKER_09: So look how different it is with Mary.
SPEAKER_09: She says the same thing.
SPEAKER_09: She says, Jesus, if you've been here, my brother wouldn't have died.
SPEAKER_09: And then the tone must have just been very different, right?
SPEAKER_09: Or the relationship must have been different because Jesus doesn't say, hey, your brother will rise again.
SPEAKER_09: He says, Where have you laid him?
SPEAKER_09: Now this is interesting because if we deal with this story at the fact level, where have you laid him?
SPEAKER_09: Come and see, oh, did she say come and see?
SPEAKER_09: And then Jesus weeps.
SPEAKER_09: Lord, come and see.
SPEAKER_09: Now you need to know come and see is a really important phrase.
SPEAKER_09: I think we talked about this three weeks ago.
SPEAKER_09: Come and see is like the gospel invitation.
SPEAKER_09: Andrew is the one who sees Jesus and says, Jesus, uh, oh, actually he says, Jesus, where are you living?
SPEAKER_09: Where are you staying?
SPEAKER_09: And Jesus says, Come and see.
SPEAKER_09: And he doesn't mean check out my hotel room.
SPEAKER_09: It's about vision of belief.
SPEAKER_09: Andrew tells Simon, his brother, Peter, come and see.
SPEAKER_09: Vision, belief.
SPEAKER_09: Now they say, Jesus, come and see, come and see where we put dead people.
SPEAKER_09: Come and see the tombs we wrap people up in.
SPEAKER_09: Could be literal, but I think we're missing the point.
SPEAKER_09: If Lazarus is about somebody who dies and gets their life back, and it's just about their heart, their heartbeat, and their brainwave, I think we've missed the story.
SPEAKER_09: This question asks us who do we say is so sick and dead that we wrap up and put in tombs?
SPEAKER_09: Whether those are prisons or labels that we put, like, oh, you're just bipolar schizophrenic, or you just have Alzheimer's, or you're just a dumb kid.
SPEAKER_09: Who do we wrap up and put in dead places and have no hope for?
SPEAKER_09: None.
SPEAKER_09: We have so little hope for them that their spirit is gone.
SPEAKER_09: And if Jesus ever asked us to go in those places, we'd say, but God, it stinks there.
SPEAKER_09: I was just gonna say that.
SPEAKER_09: And look what happens when he says Lazarus come out.
SPEAKER_09: He says, you unwrap him.
SPEAKER_09: You take your trappings off of this person you thought was dead so that they can come and live an uninhibited life.
SPEAKER_06: And what's interesting, um what's interesting is that when Capus comes out of the tomb, they unwrap.
SPEAKER_06: But when Jesus comes out of the tomb, the burial clock stays in the tomb.
SPEAKER_06: I don't know.
SPEAKER_09: That's because our trappings don't hold the resurrected Jesus.
SPEAKER_09: We'd like to.
SPEAKER_09: We'd love to wrap him up because then we'd be safe.
SPEAKER_09: Swaddle, swaddle the resurrected Jesus.
SPEAKER_09: That's what we'd love to do.
SPEAKER_09: But see, and this is this interesting thing, right?
SPEAKER_09: I mean, I don't want to overdo it, but I think this story is about somebody who ends up on Megan's list.
SPEAKER_09: Well, they they abuse somebody, or maybe actually they were an 18-year-old who had sex with a 17-year-old, and the rest of their life they can't live 500 yards away from the school and they deserve it.
SPEAKER_09: And Jesus says, Lazarus come out, and you unwrap him.
SPEAKER_09: If you knew somebody who cleans your house, had been incarcerated, if you found that out, it might affect whether you continued to employ them, right?
SPEAKER_09: And that's logical, except how on earth do they get another chance to live?
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_09: Now, listen, I got a kid.
SPEAKER_09: I don't want any babysitter on Megan's list babysitting my kid.
SPEAKER_09: But the question is, while that's logical and makes sense, and I'm not saying we should change that, what do we let these people do?
SPEAKER_09: This is like the same story in Mark about the guy with the thousand demons.
SPEAKER_09: He lives in a cemetery and they chain him up and he breaks the chains and he runs wild and he's naked all the time.
SPEAKER_09: He's somebody who's like half dead already.
SPEAKER_09: And do we think he can ever have life again?
SPEAKER_09: No, those bones stink.
SPEAKER_09: And when Jesus heals them, he says, You stay here.
SPEAKER_09: You don't come follow me, you stay here in your community, which is the hardest place to stay.
SPEAKER_09: Because they know your mistakes.
SPEAKER_09: And who's gonna hire you?
SPEAKER_09: This is what Le Miz Rob is all about, right?
SPEAKER_09: John Baljean does this crime, but he's a dangerous man and he can never get a job.
SPEAKER_09: And what hope does he have?
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_09: I mean, I think this story is about what do we believe?
SPEAKER_09: What do we believe about people and about God's presence and about resurrection?
SPEAKER_09: I don't mean when we die, what do we believe about second chances in new life and ourselves and another people?
SPEAKER_09: And and Jesus' instructions are really clear.
SPEAKER_09: Unbind him.
SPEAKER_09: Take these people out of the tombs.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, it's really interesting to think.
SPEAKER_09: What's the worst thing I could do as a parent?
SPEAKER_09: I guess my kid, my kid could kill himself.
SPEAKER_09: That's probably the worst thing.
SPEAKER_09: And I would feel so bad.
SPEAKER_09: But but um what's the other thing?
SPEAKER_09: I guess he could go to jail.
SPEAKER_09: He could commit a crime, or she could commit a crime and go to jail, and that'd be a failure as a parent.
SPEAKER_09: Or maybe they could end up homeless and that would be a failure.
SPEAKER_09: But what if they picked to do those things?
SPEAKER_09: What if they picked to be homeless?
SPEAKER_09: That's what they actually wanted to do.
SPEAKER_09: Oh, Mike, nobody wants to do that.
SPEAKER_09: Most homeless people in Houston want to be homeless.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, they want to.
SPEAKER_09: Oh, that's so bad.
SPEAKER_09: Well, that's what they picked to do.
SPEAKER_09: So maybe it's actually not that bad.
SPEAKER_09: Maybe it's just a choice they make that we would never make.
SPEAKER_09: So the question is not just about I mean, it really invites us to consider what we believe.
SPEAKER_09: Are homeless people bad people?
SPEAKER_09: Is homelessness bad?
SPEAKER_09: It is when it's imposed, but what if we pick it?
SPEAKER_09: Well, you should never have to pick it.
SPEAKER_09: It's because you're mentally ill.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, these are things I think the gospel invites us to think about.
SPEAKER_09: Really, seriously, think about.
SPEAKER_09: How do we view I and the father of one in that homeless person with the sign?
SPEAKER_09: In our kid making decisions, oh my god, they knew better than to make.
SPEAKER_09: How do we view ourselves when our kids make those decisions?
SPEAKER_09: And you told them.
SPEAKER_07: And you know they're gonna do it.
SPEAKER_07: They're gonna do it anyway.
SPEAKER_07: It's just there's just this.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: Change is certainly.
SPEAKER_09: Or when your kids have a rock bottom that's way lower than yours.
SPEAKER_09: My rock bottom was getting an 85 on a test.
SPEAKER_09: That was rock bottom for me.
SPEAKER_09: That was good for me.
SPEAKER_05: I'm making bottom.
SPEAKER_09: Well, what about when your kids' rock bottom is lower than they've even found out yet?
SPEAKER_09: You know, I mean, these these are the hard things.
SPEAKER_09: And is that wrong that they have a lower rock bottom than you?
SPEAKER_09: All of this, like, oh Mike, you're just making about this psychology.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, I think I am.
SPEAKER_09: I think I'm making about this how we live in the world, and I think the story's asking us to think about that.
SPEAKER_03: And we want second chances for whatever our mistakes are.
SPEAKER_09: Sometimes we do.
SPEAKER_03: Sometimes we're not very generous about giving them.
SPEAKER_09: What's funny is I think we're often really loath to receive them because we have so much guilt about them, and when we get a second chance, we don't take it as a gift, we take it as a transaction.
SPEAKER_09: Now I really have to pay this back because I didn't deserve it.
SPEAKER_09: Sometimes we give it to people, but we give it with the other gift called you didn't deserve this, and I'm giving it because of who I am, not because of who you are.
SPEAKER_09: I give gifts like that, by the way.
SPEAKER_09: It's called back-handed dirty gifts.
SPEAKER_09: Um, one other thought here, or two other thoughts maybe because we read this.
SPEAKER_09: Um, this is the same Mary who anoints Jesus.
SPEAKER_09: Now the stories happen backward, because when we hear about Lazarus, it's the Mary who anointed Jesus, but then we don't hear that story till afterward.
SPEAKER_09: This is a really interesting story because Messiah means anointed one, and you gotta use oil.
SPEAKER_09: John the Baptist does not anoint Jesus, Mary does.
SPEAKER_09: And she anoints him.
SPEAKER_09: We don't even have something like this in the world.
SPEAKER_09: 300 denarii, that's a year's wages.
SPEAKER_09: She pours$100,000 on his head.
SPEAKER_09: And the moment she does it, it's like she just made it rain.
SPEAKER_09: It's gone.
SPEAKER_09: It has no value anymore.
SPEAKER_09: $100,000 to zero in one second.
SPEAKER_09: And Judas gets upset because I would get upset.
SPEAKER_09: I mean, Jesus, don't you care about poor people?
SPEAKER_09: What are you doing putting$100,000 perfume on?
SPEAKER_09: You could have sold that and fed a lot of people, and that's true.
SPEAKER_09: And in all the other gospels, Jesus says, the poor you'll always have with you.
SPEAKER_09: He didn't say that here.
SPEAKER_09: By the way, that's a quote from Deuteronomy, and that quote from Deuteronomy is connected to this bit that says, the poor will all you'll always have with you because you're greedy and hard-hearted.
SPEAKER_09: And when we think about other people's gifts and how they shouldn't have given them, it's proof that we're greedy and hard-hearted.
SPEAKER_09: Because, frankly, that's the way we view God.
SPEAKER_09: God shouldn't be so extravagant and give people larger life when they don't deserve it.
SPEAKER_09: This comes back to our core beliefs.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, our core beliefs.
SPEAKER_09: So in the story, are you Mary or are you Judas?
SPEAKER_09: Now, John says Judas is a thief.
SPEAKER_09: The other gospels don't say that.
SPEAKER_09: And I actually think when you when you do that, you actually ruin the story.
SPEAKER_09: You know, Judas sells Jesus for 30 denarii for a tithe of this.
SPEAKER_09: Judas is so caught up in social justice that he forgets about grace.
SPEAKER_09: Is that you in the story?
SPEAKER_02: It also says he's so true.
SPEAKER_09: I know, but that comes later.
SPEAKER_09: That's a later.
SPEAKER_09: John adds that.
SPEAKER_09: The earlier story does not say that.
SPEAKER_09: And listen, if he's a thief, then it's a thief and he's just, I mean, he's a shithead.
SPEAKER_09: Sorry, and that's what he is, and there's nothing to learn here.
SPEAKER_09: But if you remove that just for a second, I mean I share Judas's question.
SPEAKER_09: And to be honest, what's funny is sometimes I'm really stingy and I'll be really concerned about how churches spend their money on stuff they shouldn't without thinking about how I spend my own.
SPEAKER_09: So either way, there's an opportunity to think, how are you, Judas?
SPEAKER_09: How is it that you betray Jesus even if you're thinking about good things, you're not thinking about the right ones?
SPEAKER_09: Being really preachy, I hope that's okay.
SPEAKER_09: Last bit here is this this deal about Palm Sunday.
SPEAKER_09: Now, if you read these, um John has palms.
SPEAKER_09: Um well, Matthew doesn't, and neither does Luke.
SPEAKER_09: They just put their clothes down.
SPEAKER_09: Have you noticed that small difference?
SPEAKER_09: One of the things you don't know is that this happens on the very day that Pontius Pilate comes into Jerusalem with an army and with gold standards and with pomp and circumstance and purple and chariots and horses.
SPEAKER_09: Pontius Pilate is like a Nazi rally at Nuremberg with tanks and goose-stepping Roman legions, and Jesus comes in riding on a donkey, and what you have to know is a donkey has zero value in warfare.
SPEAKER_09: Zero.
SPEAKER_09: You are better off on foot than you are on a donkey.
SPEAKER_09: So, what's this business in Zechariah about, hey, you know, riding in on a donkey?
SPEAKER_09: You only ride into a city on a donkey when you've already taken it.
SPEAKER_09: It's a symbol of peace because you'd only go on a donkey if you've subdued it.
SPEAKER_09: David rode a donkey because they didn't know how to ride horses back then.
SPEAKER_09: They thought that if you put a bit in a horse's mouth, you'd suffocate it.
SPEAKER_09: Turns out horses only breathe through their nose.
SPEAKER_09: Oxen breathe through their mouth, not through their nose.
SPEAKER_09: So if you put a bit in an ox's mouth, you will suffocate the ox.
SPEAKER_09: Riding horseback was only really discovered in like the 700s BCE.
SPEAKER_09: And if you read, if you read 1 Kings, the Assyrians mock Israel.
SPEAKER_09: They say, Here, we'll give you all our horses to ride, and you can't even do it because you're just too dumb.
SPEAKER_09: It's kind of like saying, here, um, we'll give you our tanks to drive, um, but you'd probably just throw rocks at them.
SPEAKER_09: Because you don't even know what it is.
SPEAKER_09: They knew that you could hook a harness to a horse.
SPEAKER_09: That's old technology.
SPEAKER_09: You could do that to an ox.
SPEAKER_09: When you think about Egyptians with chariots, that's all they knew how to do was hook a harness to a horse.
SPEAKER_09: The bit in the mouth came much, much later.
SPEAKER_09: Same with the saddle.
SPEAKER_09: See a donkey, you don't put a saddle on.
SPEAKER_09: You ride it, you straddle that donkey.
SPEAKER_09: And you know, donkeys, well, I mean, they're ornery.
SPEAKER_09: They're uh I mean they're not quite as bad as mules, but they don't give you a height advantage or a huge speed advantage like a horse does, right?
SPEAKER_09: See, just think through this.
SPEAKER_09: When you come into Jerusalem on a donkey, you're saying you've already won.
SPEAKER_09: And these people are coming in with tanks, and you're coming in on a scooter.
SPEAKER_09: And here's our map over here where Jesus comes in.
SPEAKER_09: He comes on Palm Sunday.
SPEAKER_09: Here's the Jerusalem Temple, and over here is the Mount of Olives.
SPEAKER_09: You come down through the Kidron Valley and up into the temple right here at this gate.
SPEAKER_09: Everybody would have seen this.
SPEAKER_09: Pitiful, pitiful display compared to the pomp and the strength of the Roman display.
SPEAKER_09: Jesus goes down the hill and up the hill, and it's a way of saying, I've already won.
SPEAKER_09: That's the message of Palm Sunday.
SPEAKER_07: Isn't the Kidron Valley also where they threw everything?
SPEAKER_09: They throw all the blood, and then that the blood and the trash rolls down the Kidron Valley here to the Gehenone.
SPEAKER_09: This is hell on earth right here.
SPEAKER_09: This is the bottom of the Kidrone, but here's the Kidron right here.
SPEAKER_09: So Jesus cross is not at the bottom, but up in the middle.
SPEAKER_09: I mean it's cognitive dissonance, right?
SPEAKER_09: A guy on a donkey, a guy on a donkey is our hope, not a tank display.
SPEAKER_09: Um I think that's maybe it.
SPEAKER_09: Oh, there is one other bit, right?
SPEAKER_09: Jesus says, I'm gonna draw all the world to myself, all of it.
SPEAKER_09: It's sort of like when we hear about Jesus going fishing at the end, Peter going fishing and he catches all, so it's gonna burst.
SPEAKER_09: He uses a dragnet and he brings in rocks and eels and little snakes and all kinds of things you'd never want because Jesus is drawing all of it to him.
SPEAKER_09: Even the dead stinky people drawing to himself.
SPEAKER_09: Not because uh he so he can clean them up later, you know.
SPEAKER_09: This is about being drawn exactly as you are.
SPEAKER_06: I read that in the original Greek version of John, there was no mention of the sacraments.
SPEAKER_09: Of the sacraments?
SPEAKER_09: Uh we're gonna take pick that up next week.
SPEAKER_06: Okay.
SPEAKER_09: Yeah.
SPEAKER_09: Um okay.
SPEAKER_09: Um thank you.
SPEAKER_09: I hope you're uh if you have time, the symphony's here this morning, and there's a lovely concert scheduled, uh, Sparky's Jazz Express.
SPEAKER_09: It's really quite lovely.
SPEAKER_09: Um and we'll do chapter 20 or lesson twenty two next week.
SPEAKER_09: Thank you guys.