SPEAKER_02: Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God's family, now and forever.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Together.
SPEAKER_02: Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.
SPEAKER_02: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name through Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Let us pray.
SPEAKER_02: Let your continual mercy, O Lord, cleanse and defend your church.
SPEAKER_02: And because it cannot continue in safety without your help, protect and govern it always by your goodness.
SPEAKER_02: Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: Please be seated for the lessons.
SPEAKER_02: I now invite all of our kiddos to head on out for Godly Play.
SPEAKER_02: Miss Courtney is in the back.
SPEAKER_02: So if you want to go to godly play up to fifth grade, here we go.
SPEAKER_02: Rock and roll.
SPEAKER_01: A reading from 1 Samuel.
SPEAKER_01: Samuel said to Saul, I was sent by the dread God to anoint your ruler over God's people, over Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Now then, hearken to the call of the words of the inscrucible God.
SPEAKER_01: Thus say to the sovereign of heaven's vanguard, I will punish Amalek for what they did to Israel, setting against them in their ancient, in their ascent from Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: Now go and smite Amalek, and put to holy destruction all they have.
SPEAKER_01: Do not spare them, and put them to death from woman to man, and from infant to nursing baby, and from ox to sheep, from camel to donkey.
SPEAKER_01: Saul seized Agag, the ruler of the Amalekites, alive, and put to holy destruction all the people at the edge of the sword.
SPEAKER_01: The word of the sovereign God to Samuel was, I regret that I crowned Saul as ruler, for he has turned away from me, and my commands he has not instituted.
SPEAKER_01: Then Samuel was angry, and he cried out to the God who hears all, who appears all night.
SPEAKER_01: And Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, and it was told to Samuel Saul went to Carmel, where he erected a monument for himself, then turned around and passed by going down to Gilgal.
SPEAKER_01: Now Samuel came to him, and Saul said to him, Blessed are you by the Holy One of old.
SPEAKER_01: I have instituted the command of the Holy One of Sinai.
SPEAKER_01: Then Samuel said, What is this sound of sheep in my ears, and the sound of cattle I am hearing?
SPEAKER_01: And Saul said, They brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spare the best of the sheep and cattle, to sacrifice to the holy one, your God.
SPEAKER_01: But the rest we have put to holy destruction.
SPEAKER_01: Then Samuel said to Saul, Stop.
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you what the ancient one said to me last night.
SPEAKER_01: Saul replied, speak.
SPEAKER_01: Samuel said, Though you are small in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel?
SPEAKER_01: The Holy One anointed you ruler over Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the utterance of the dread God and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.
SPEAKER_01: Now then I pray, pardon my sin and return with me, so that I may worship the Holy One of old, the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Our psalm is from Psalm seven.
SPEAKER_01: We will read responsibly by the half verse.
SPEAKER_01: Faithful one, my God, in you I take refuge.
SPEAKER_01: Lest one of them rend me like a lion, dragging me away.
SPEAKER_01: Just one, my God, if I have done this.
SPEAKER_01: If I have repaid one at peace with me with evil.
SPEAKER_01: And trample my life to the ground.
SPEAKER_01: Rise up, dread God, and in your anger be lifted up against the fury of my enemies.
SPEAKER_01: Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered around you.
SPEAKER_01: The righteous one judges the peoples.
SPEAKER_00: Each of you is without excuse when you pass judgment, for in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself, because you the judge are doing the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: We know God's judgment is on those who, in accordance with truth, do such things.
SPEAKER_00: Do any of you think when you judge those who do these things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you despise the riches of God's kindness and clemency and patience?
SPEAKER_00: Are you unaware that the kindness of God should lead you to repentance?
SPEAKER_00: For through your hard and unrepentant heart, you are accumulating wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, and the righteous judgment of God will be revealed.
SPEAKER_00: For God will repay each one according to their deed.
SPEAKER_00: To those who with patience do good, seeking glory and honor and immortality, God will give eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: But for those who are contentious and disobey the truth, choosing wickedness, there will be wrath and fury.
SPEAKER_00: There will be anguish and distress for every human soul who does evil.
SPEAKER_00: The Jew first and also the Greek for Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good.
SPEAKER_00: The Jew first and also the Greek for Gentile.
SPEAKER_00: For God shows no favoritism.
SPEAKER_04: Jesus said, You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder.
SPEAKER_04: And whoever murders shall be subject to judgment.
SPEAKER_04: But I say to you all that if you are angry with a sister or brother, you will be liable to judgment.
SPEAKER_04: And if you call a sister or brother an idiot, you will be subject to the counsel.
SPEAKER_04: And if you say you fool, you will be subject to the hell of fire.
SPEAKER_04: Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar, and you remember that your sister or brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go.
SPEAKER_04: First, be reconciled to your sister or brother, and then come and offer your gift.
SPEAKER_04: Come to favorable terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way with them, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, to the judge or the court officer, and you will be thrown into prison.
SPEAKER_04: Truly, I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
SPEAKER_04: This is the gospel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_04: The word of the Lord, thanks be to God, or the gospel of the Lord, praise you, Lord Christ.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, there's Sundays where I'd really like it to say the word of the Lord, doggone it, Lord Christ.
SPEAKER_04: Or maybe you've changed your mind, Lord Christ.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, let's just be really clear.
SPEAKER_04: Like, if you heard that and you didn't hear Jesus speaking to parts of you, read it again.
SPEAKER_04: Because there just feels like there's parts of me that feel like, shoot, you got me.
SPEAKER_04: So here's what I would have suggested to you.
SPEAKER_04: I want to give you like a general opportunity for maybe a way to hear Jesus.
SPEAKER_04: And then I want to back through the gospels and then talk back through the other readings and talk about how I think Jesus is doing something other than I want to tell you now.
SPEAKER_04: So around the time of Jesus, and this is still true, there was this like tradition, and many scholars say this is probably what Jesus was trying to do.
SPEAKER_04: It's called building a fence around the Torah.
SPEAKER_04: So the Torah is sort of the law given to Moses on Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai, depending which book you're reading, that's written down.
SPEAKER_04: We call that Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_04: And then there's another oral Torah that tells you how to interpret that.
SPEAKER_04: And if you think about it, like the Torah says, don't do this, do that.
SPEAKER_04: And sure enough, as human people, I mean, there's nothing wrong with this.
SPEAKER_04: I often find myself liking to walk right along the edge of the rule.
SPEAKER_04: Of course, when I stumble over the edge, it's a precipitous drop.
SPEAKER_04: So what the rabbis were trying to do around the time of Jesus and certainly after, is something called building a fence around the Torah.
SPEAKER_04: That is to say, instead of me being able to travel right on the line, it's, well, let's create a buffer zone.
SPEAKER_04: And that way, if I do stumble, I won't fall off the edge.
SPEAKER_04: Let me just give you an example that's gonna sound ludicrous to you, but I but it's facts.
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you realize this, but when our Jewish brothers and sisters talk about the word meat, they're only referring to mammals who are ruminants and have a cloven.
SPEAKER_04: Fish are not meat.
SPEAKER_04: Birds are not meat.
SPEAKER_04: This is this is facts.
SPEAKER_04: You probably know that if you're trying to keep kosher or kosher food law, you cannot combine meat with a dairy.
SPEAKER_04: No case birds.
SPEAKER_04: No buttering your birds.
SPEAKER_04: So in order to keep us away from falling off that Torah injunction, the rabbis have said, look, we all know that birds aren't meat.
SPEAKER_04: A chicken and a turkey are not meat.
SPEAKER_04: But the rabbis have also said, you can't butter and fuse your Thanksgiving turkey.
SPEAKER_04: Because even if you did that, you might think it was okay to butter the meat.
SPEAKER_04: So even though it's technically not wrong to butter the turkey, it could lead you into the false assumption that buttering meat is okay.
SPEAKER_04: I know that sounds ridiculous to our ears, but if you really want to keep the Torah, this is like life or death.
SPEAKER_04: So don't even lean near it.
SPEAKER_04: Lean away from it by even things that you might think are the case.
SPEAKER_04: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_04: So you've heard it said, don't murder, but I tell you, don't be angry and don't call somebody an idiot.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, could be building a fence away from murder.
SPEAKER_04: Because if you're not angry, well then, and you murder somebody, you're probably a sociopath.
SPEAKER_04: Or, you know, if you call somebody an idiot, well, maybe you've sort of assassinated their character, and the next thing you could do is not care about their life.
SPEAKER_04: Could be a fence around the Torah.
SPEAKER_04: But I actually think it's going a lot deeper than that.
SPEAKER_04: So let me back into the Samuel's story.
SPEAKER_04: Now, reminder if you look at the citation, you'll see that this is portions from a narrative.
SPEAKER_04: It's not the straight narrative.
SPEAKER_04: In some ways, it's lovely that the compilers of the lectionary think you're fluent with the Bible.
SPEAKER_04: They do.
SPEAKER_04: They think you've read the whole block.
SPEAKER_04: So that when they give you an excerpt, you know the rest of the story.
SPEAKER_04: I think most of you don't know the whole block.
SPEAKER_04: So let me tell you a little bit what's missing and what's going on in the story.
SPEAKER_04: Saul has this commit holy war.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you know this.
SPEAKER_04: Holy war is an idea in the Hebrew Bible that has never once been practiced in the history of humankind.
SPEAKER_04: Holy war goes like this.
SPEAKER_04: You're going to completely commit genocide.
SPEAKER_04: You're going to kill every male and female and child, all of them.
SPEAKER_04: And not only you're going to kill the people, because we've done that before.
SPEAKER_04: You're going to take all the resources and you're going to burn them.
SPEAKER_04: There will be no profit in doing this for you at all.
SPEAKER_04: So just imagine during the first, you know, Gulf War that not only did we kill all of the Iraqi people, not just the soldiers, but all of them.
SPEAKER_04: Then when we got to the oil fields, we burned them all in front of us.
SPEAKER_04: Now you might be saying, who would do that?
SPEAKER_04: And maybe that's the point of holy war.
SPEAKER_04: Why would you do this when there's nothing in it for you?
SPEAKER_04: Which is actually probably an argument against there being a holy war.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, would you send your son to die when there's no gain?
SPEAKER_04: Would you be willing to send your father into a battle where he's going to commit genocide and burn all the prophets?
SPEAKER_04: I don't think so.
SPEAKER_04: Here's the kind of war we practice we kill who we think are the obstacles and we take their stuff.
SPEAKER_04: Sure, we might lose our lives, but we get wealthy.
SPEAKER_04: You read through Joshua, he never commits holy war, not once.
SPEAKER_04: There's always somebody who says, geez, if I'm at risking my life, I should get something out of this physically.
SPEAKER_04: It never happens in the scriptures that people do it.
SPEAKER_04: This is no exception.
SPEAKER_04: So Saul is commanded, commit holy war.
SPEAKER_04: And actually, if you read the part that's missing, Saul thinks he's done it.
SPEAKER_04: He kills everybody, man, woman, children, except for the ruler.
SPEAKER_04: He kills all the cattle except for the good ones.
SPEAKER_04: If you read the part we're missing, Saul says to Samuel, I've done it because I'm going to bring Agag and all the good cattle, and I'm going to kill them in the presence of the people.
SPEAKER_04: I'm going to make them an offering to God.
SPEAKER_04: Now, you might quibble because it's true that when you holocaust a sacrifice, that means burn it completely, no one gets any.
SPEAKER_04: Whereas if you sacrifice it, you can eat it.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, so what's Saul getting out of it?
SPEAKER_04: A meal.
SPEAKER_04: But if you just give him a little bit of compassion just for a second, he actually thinks he's doing it.
SPEAKER_04: He's going to bring them back and sacrifice them all, and he's going to publicly execute Ag so everybody can see.
SPEAKER_04: Not just hear the story.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, they want proof of Osab bin Laden being killed.
SPEAKER_04: Do you all hear this?
SPEAKER_04: So that's his intent.
SPEAKER_04: There's this interesting phrase.
SPEAKER_04: God says to Samuel in the middle of the night, God says, I regret from making Saul key.
SPEAKER_04: And I want to make sure you hear that the Hebrew is actually way more ambiguous than that.
SPEAKER_04: God says, I repent from making Saul key.
SPEAKER_04: Not in the sense that I wish I'd never done it.
SPEAKER_04: This word of repentance is, I am aggrieved.
SPEAKER_04: I am aggrieved that Saul in a position of power did not follow my word to the letter.
SPEAKER_04: It's really important you hear that.
SPEAKER_04: Because God says nothing about Saul being rejected.
SPEAKER_04: God says nothing about Saul being an incomplete or an unfaithful or bad human.
SPEAKER_04: God just says, I've got grief over what happened.
SPEAKER_04: This is what I want to suggest to you happens when we go to school and university.
SPEAKER_04: We go in order to become better judges.
SPEAKER_04: I got a math degree so I could judge more effective ways of solving problems and judge whether their answers made any sense at all.
SPEAKER_04: College trained me for judgment.
SPEAKER_04: I am a strong judge of false information regarding interpretation of the scriptures because I went to seminary to be a more competent judge.
SPEAKER_04: God judges out God grief.
SPEAKER_04: Samuel hears judgment and turns it to condemnation.
SPEAKER_04: I did not go to college ostensibly to be better at condemning people.
SPEAKER_04: I was already really good at it.
SPEAKER_04: And so this interesting part that we know is socially valuable, rendering respectable, considerable judgments is so often tied in us to this very socially destructive and not just outside, inwardly destructive force of hearing a judgment and turning it to condemnation.
SPEAKER_04: Here's just a minor social example.
SPEAKER_04: Somebody tells a lie, we judge, you told a lie.
SPEAKER_04: That is very different from the ruling that often comes.
SPEAKER_04: You told a lie, therefore you're a liar.
SPEAKER_04: By definition, a liar is somebody who only lies.
SPEAKER_04: You've never met that person in your life.
SPEAKER_04: There is no one who only tells lies.
SPEAKER_04: We might say there are people more prone to telling lies than others, but I hope you hear the difference between telling lies and being a liar.
SPEAKER_04: That is the difference between judgment and judgment-informed condemnation.
SPEAKER_04: I don't think God has any problem with us judging what is life-giving from what isn't.
SPEAKER_04: I think God is actually very aggrieved when we take our judgments and take life from other people.
SPEAKER_04: And it's hard not to, because after all, if we don't enforce the rules carefully, there could be disorder.
SPEAKER_04: Therefore, the disorder that we often render for telling a lie is death.
SPEAKER_04: This is how we talk about politicians, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04: You told them the lie once, you deserve not to be in office.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, that's crazy.
SPEAKER_04: Who could even live by that standard?
SPEAKER_04: And we revel in that standard, I'd like to suggest.
SPEAKER_04: And I don't just mean about the way we talk to other people.
SPEAKER_04: I mean usually how we talk about our experience.
SPEAKER_04: So many of us, probably in elementary school, had this really interesting experience where we were drawing a thing.
SPEAKER_04: And maybe it'd be somebody said, probably an adult, either a teacher or a parent, that doesn't look realistic, or that's not very good.
SPEAKER_04: As if art existed to be realistic.
SPEAKER_04: That's why we have cameras, friends, right?
SPEAKER_04: We have cameras to be realistic.
SPEAKER_04: Art allows us to express what's in there.
SPEAKER_04: And so if you heard that message like I did, and maybe I didn't even hear it, maybe I just looked and I did comparison and I judged myself not only in keeping with my peers, but worse than them, then I got this narrative.
SPEAKER_04: I'm not good at art.
SPEAKER_04: And that's the difference between a judgment, this doesn't look realistic, to I'm no good.
SPEAKER_04: I see that happening in the Samuel story, and I actually think that's what Paul is calling out in Romans.
SPEAKER_04: I don't think Paul is just loosey-goosey and saying, never have an opinion about anything.
SPEAKER_04: I think actually that Paul might be saying something like, we can't live up to our own condemner.
SPEAKER_04: So why would we do that to other people?
SPEAKER_04: Because it makes us feel better about how bad we feel about ourselves?
SPEAKER_04: It's a timeless tactic that results not only in failure.
SPEAKER_04: But if we're going to talk about murder, let's just say this.
SPEAKER_04: You in the room have probably not murdered somebody, but I am sure you have heard it said, or maybe even said yourself, so and so is dead to me.
SPEAKER_04: Now, isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_04: We can decide you're so bad based on two or three betrayals or trivialities, it's as if you were dead.
SPEAKER_04: We know not to murder, but isn't that a different way of doing it?
SPEAKER_04: When Saul when when Paul says to us in Romans the reward for this kind of condemning judgment is excruciating wrath, he didn't even have to be talking about what happens when we're dead.
SPEAKER_04: He could very well be describing the reality we all are blissfully too aware of.
SPEAKER_04: That is, that our own judgments that result in condemnation result in our death now.
SPEAKER_04: So I'm not sure Jesus is building a fence around the Torah.
SPEAKER_04: I think Jesus might be trying to build a fence around the judgment that leads to condemnation.
SPEAKER_04: And Jesus says this really interesting thing, which is why I wish I could say something like dog on it.
SPEAKER_04: When you're offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your neighbor has something against you, you hear that?
SPEAKER_04: He doesn't say if you remember you have something against your neighbor.
SPEAKER_04: If you remember that your neighbor has something against you, leave your gift and go get reconciled.
SPEAKER_04: Don't wait till church is over.
SPEAKER_04: Don't wait until you've had Sunday lunch.
SPEAKER_04: If you remember, get up and go.
SPEAKER_04: Now I will tell you this.
SPEAKER_04: Oh, by the way, the gift of reconciling, being reconciled, is apparently what God refers to anything else we have to give.
SPEAKER_04: I just I just wish God liked my prayers better.
SPEAKER_04: Because they would cost me less.
SPEAKER_04: And I'll tell you, because many of you are frankly more upright people than I am.
SPEAKER_04: If I took this scripture literally, I would never even be here.
SPEAKER_04: I would spend the rest of my life being reconciled with people who hold things against me.
SPEAKER_04: My list is that long.
SPEAKER_04: I'm glad you resisted, but mine is that long.
SPEAKER_04: And Jesus says that's preferable.
SPEAKER_04: Now, here's where it gets really, really hard because a couple of times in my life I've really tried to be bold.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, really take Jesus at his word and go get reconciled.
SPEAKER_04: And I tried and they wouldn't have it.
SPEAKER_04: And boy, I wish they were dead then.
SPEAKER_04: Have you ever tried this?
SPEAKER_04: Apologize to somebody that they and they wouldn't hear it, and you hated them more than when you tried.
SPEAKER_04: Actually, this is why it's so hard.
SPEAKER_04: Because Jesus doesn't demand anybody else to be reconciled.
SPEAKER_04: He just says, You want to really give a gift to God that's pleasing?
SPEAKER_04: Try it.
SPEAKER_04: And boy, you know, when it doesn't work, maybe the best gift I can have is being reconciled in my heart and my brain, even if they won't allow it between us.
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes I say, Well, I tried that, so I'm done.
SPEAKER_04: Maybe God's saying, Why don't you try again?
SPEAKER_04: Why don't you try more than one time?
SPEAKER_04: And don't try in such a way that they're going to have to owe you something.
SPEAKER_04: They have the right of refusal.
SPEAKER_04: That's what it means to be injured.
SPEAKER_04: You don't have to be reconciled.
SPEAKER_04: But boy, don't I live in hell a little bit more every day when I take their refusal to be reconciled and condemn them further?
SPEAKER_04: What if I say, you've got the right to refuse, and I still want to be reconciled with you in my being?
SPEAKER_04: Even if it never plays out.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, I don't want to thank God for that, even though I know that's where real life is to be found.
SPEAKER_04: And when Jesus says this bit about, hey, on the way to the judge, I mean, that may not be a literal judge, because I'm always on the way to the judge in me.
SPEAKER_04: Boy, that judge in me usually thinks it's me, even though it's just a part of me.
SPEAKER_04: On the way to the judge.
SPEAKER_04: Get reconciled favorably and quickly.
SPEAKER_04: Otherwise, you're gonna be thrown over to the court officer and then prison, and you'll never get out until you pay the last penny.
SPEAKER_04: And boy, friends, I have spent most of my spiritual life continuing to pay every last penny of living into that condemnatory judgment.
SPEAKER_04: And at the end of the day, even if I settle the debt, there will be no life.
SPEAKER_04: I'll just be broke.
SPEAKER_04: What if Jesus is saying, take the investments you've got and look for reconciliation instead of getting even as you understand it?
SPEAKER_04: I don't think Jesus is asking us to judge our judgment.
SPEAKER_04: I think he's asking us to judge the way we turn judgment into wholesale condemnation against others, against ourselves.
SPEAKER_04: Now, here's a story about the judge and me this past week, and I'm gonna say this: it was really lovely to spend a bunch of time at Camp Allen.
SPEAKER_04: I was in charge of 45 senior high kids delivering their program and making their whole schedule, and it's this beautiful ministry.
SPEAKER_04: We purposefully take kids away from their phones and we put them together and we try to build a capsule in which they get to know new people and new relationship skills, and yes, we try to teach them a little bit of wisdom we've recruited over the years.
SPEAKER_04: And it's lovely, and it happens for eight weeks.
SPEAKER_04: So I was here week eight.
SPEAKER_04: Condemnation budget based in judgment is like my native tongue.
SPEAKER_04: I am so good at it.
SPEAKER_04: And so sure enough, I was doing my thing, and you know, I've learned since being a fundamentalist that we don't have to turn the lights out in order to worship God.
SPEAKER_04: And I've learned since being a fundamentalist that I can find God in folk music and radio songs along with what we consider hymns and praise songs.
SPEAKER_04: Like I've learned that.
SPEAKER_04: And one of our counselors said, Well, you know, we just think the kids would like more of the worship experience.
SPEAKER_04: And boy, the judge in me got real excited.
SPEAKER_04: Because I knew better than them.
SPEAKER_04: You know, I mean, that's it.
SPEAKER_04: That's why I went to seminary so I could know better than you.
SPEAKER_04: And and I found this innocent request.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, it was so innocent.
SPEAKER_04: We just want what we're used to, don't you?
SPEAKER_04: I want what I'm used to.
SPEAKER_04: This very innocent request.
SPEAKER_04: The judge in me was throwing books everywhere, throwing them at them, throwing at me, throwing them at the camp, throwing them at the Lord.
SPEAKER_04: I mean, I'm just throwing books everywhere.
SPEAKER_04: Because all you were asking was something simple.
SPEAKER_04: But the judge in me here is behind in a request condemnation.
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if your spouse has ever asked you to do a thing, and you were like, You're judging me completely.
SPEAKER_04: When they were really just saying, could you flush the toilet?
SPEAKER_04: Like we me, my brain just loves to link all of it together.
SPEAKER_04: And maybe that's what Jesus is offering us.
SPEAKER_04: Who can live by that standard?
SPEAKER_04: You can survive, but who can live by that standard?
SPEAKER_04: I don't live very well by that standard.
SPEAKER_04: So why do I want to keep doing it to me and to you?
SPEAKER_04: Why do I want to keep doing that to people I don't know?
SPEAKER_04: Because it makes me feel a little bit better about myself, that we're all bad.
SPEAKER_04: I don't really think that works.
SPEAKER_04: So I just want to invite you to join me this week and trying to little build not a fence around the Torah, but a fence around between the judge in us and the sentencer in us.