For People with Bishop Rob Wright
For People with Bishop Rob Wright
#11 We Believe!
The heat of Jesus’ public life wasn’t condemnation but redemption that actually changes people and communities! Luke 19:1-10 teaches us that every sinner has a future and every sinner has a past. Zacchaeus’, a corrupt tax collector, turnaround begins when Jesus comes near to him and shares a table. turnaround in Luke 19 as a living case study. The scandal isn’t just that Jesus notices a corrupt tax collector; it’s that he moves toward him, shares a table, and sparks real repair. That grace and mercy extended created a future for Zacchaeus and his community.
In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright have a conversation about redemption. They name the hard part: communities often resist grace. It’s easier to exile than to accompany, to watch from a distance than to risk relationship. They discuss the tension between telling the truth about harm and still seeing the person as more than their deed, a distinction that keeps justice honest and mercy strong. Listen in for the full conversation.
Read For Faith, the companion devotional.
We are better than our worst day. And so in God, somehow, God can use and stirs all up in a big bowl and can use that. And so I think that's what I want to highlight. And I think that's why I say that Jesus' politics, our redemption. You know, Jesus seems to think as he talks and preaches and does his walking around ministry in uh in Galilee that you and I can turn around, that alignment with the divine is possible for any of us, for all of us, and that new life can spring out.
Melissa:Welcome to For People with Bishop Rob Wright. I'm Melissa Rau, your host, and this is a conversation inspired by For Faith, a weekly devotion sent out every Friday. You can find a link to this week's For Faith and a link to subscribe in the episode's description. So Bishop has been framing his devotions through the lens of what we believe. And today we're talking about how we believe every sinner has a future.
Bishop Wright:That's right, that's right. We believe every sinner has a future. We also believe every saint has had a past. In both statements, I believe you can see God's fingerprints. If Jesus was political, his politics were and are redemption. That's the source of our hope, personally, relationally, and societally. We believe because of the mercy of God lived out enigmatically in Jesus, we are not trapped in our misunderstandings and our misdeeds. Look at Zacchaeus' turnaround, a tax collector, a colluder with the oppressor. He got wealthy on the backs of his own people. But Jesus brings him near without condition, and it's a scandal. But that grace and mercy extended, created a future for Zacchaeus and his community.
Melissa:Yeah, you can find that story in Luke chapter 19, verses 1 through 10. But Bishop, the big question that I've got, and I'm hoping you can speak into, is what even what even is redemption?
Bishop Wright:Oh my gosh. Well, I mean, quite literally, it is to be bought, you know, bought back, bought, you know, bought out, um, to be redeemed, rescued, saved, pulled back from the precipice, all of that. I mean, all those wonderful words and ideas. And so, you know, my point here is that, uh, and I think it's critical to remember uh that uh in Jesus' economy, uh every every sinner can have a future, right? You're not damned, you're not walled off, you're not buried, that no matter how how much and how how much, how often you have missed the mark, um, there's a way out, there's a possibility, there's a way back, second chance, third chance, fifteenth chance, nineteenth chance. It's amazing God's patience. It's amazing God's love, it's amazing God's mercy. And I think since we are thinking about the saints of the church now uh, you know, this week, I think it's important to say also that every saint has had a past. Right? So the men and women that we venerate uh and are deserving of veneration, lifting up a spotlight on how they have inspired us to live morally and ethically, I think we should remember that none of them were any elite spiritual superathletes, that all of them were flesh and blood, all of them fall short just like we we do and we have. And so there's this wonderful um tension in God, uh a delightful tension in God, that all things are possible with God. Uh we are we are better than our worst day, uh, and our our best days are made up uh in many ways of the ingredients of our worst days. Uh and so in God, somehow God can use and stirs all up in a big bowl uh and can use that. Uh and so I think that's what I want to highlight. And I think that's why I say that Jesus' politics, our redemption. Um, you know, Jesus seems to think uh as he talks and preaches and does his walking around ministry uh in uh in Galilee, uh, that uh you and I can turn around, uh, that alignment with the divine is possible for any of us, for all of us, and that new life uh can spring out.
Melissa:I love that. You know, I've got so much imagery going on in my mind right now. I'm thinking of that silly little song, Tacius was a wee little man. You know that one? Everybody knows a wife. Anyway, I just I I keep thinking about the fact that Jesus, and we're called into this, by the way. It's not just Jesus. We're called to see people as worthy even before the redeeming. They're redeemable before they've done anything, right? So I think of Zacchaeus up in that tree, a tax collector who must have had so much shame because he knew what he was doing. He knew he was taking advantage of his own people, and and yet he was still curious about this guy, Jesus. And so when Jesus passes and looks up and sees Zacchaeus, sees Zacchaeus's curiosity, he calls him down and treats him like the human being that he is already. And I can't help but wonder if that is what brought Zacchaeus into that redeeming way, uh simply because Jesus didn't look away, uh and gave him the opportunity so that Zacchaeus already had worth.
Bishop Wright:Yeah. Yeah, and and Jesus points this out, and and I want you to notice in that story, it's the community that doesn't dig that, right? The community is not happy, the fact that Jesus saw him, heard him, and then welcomed him, right? And so, and so I think what's also operative in this story is the tension that we have with Jesus' approach to redemption, right? And so uh some of us, many of us perhaps, harbor a hardness of heart. Uh, and it may come out of wound, it may come out of judgment, it may come out of wanting to be punitive, but we just notice that Jesus doesn't. Um, Jesus doesn't lambast him, doesn't scold him, doesn't finger wag at him. Jesus knows full well who he is, what he is, what he's done. And yet that does not stop him from welcoming uh Zacchaeus. Um and he sees Zacchaeus, but what he sees, which is interesting, what he sees is not one who has fallen so low that he can't get up, right? And uh what the community sees, and we understand the hurt that he's probably caused in the community, he has been an agent of abuse in the community, and we don't know how long he's been that thing. But Jesus walks right into the situation, sees him, hears him, speaks to him, and then welcomes him down. Maybe Zacchaeus thought that uh, given his history, uh, that up in a tree far away was uh as as close as he could get to the divine. And so there's that other point there is that God can see us uh closer to God than we can see ourselves uh close to God. And that challenges our image of who God is, right? You know, the high and lifted up uh bends over backwards to get close to us even when we're still in the mud pit. Um, and that's a picture of redemption. You know, Desmond Tutu uh tells that wonderful story about uh, you know, Jesus the good shepherd. Uh, you know, he doesn't, we we portray him in stained glass and in architecture as Jesus who goes after the fluffy little lamb who, because of their innocence, is lost and they're just cute and fluffy. And there comes Jesus, you know, who looks like he's from Scandinavia. There comes Jesus who brings back the little lamb to the fold when actually uh little lambs don't stray far from their mommies. It's the obstrupuous ones, he says. It's the uh it's the it's the sort of um the arrogant ones who want to go their way, who want to depart the flock, who want to leave a shepherd behind, who end up in in the mud with their uh with their coats torn uh and in stinky water and smelling to high heaven. That is the one that the shepherd leaves the 99 fluffy ones for and goes after. And so if that is true, I think Desmond Tutu has given us such a great image, then Zacchaeus's story makes all the sense in the world. You know, the Samaritan woman with the checkered past, uh, Zacchaeus, Matthew, the tax collector, and on and on and on and on. Uh, what's interesting uh is that the community uh stays reluctant to embrace the redeemed. And uh I think that's something we have to think through. Now, we stay reluctant uh until it's us who is redeemed, right? Once we are, and then of course Jesus tells the story about that bifurcation, right? So it's cool for you to be redeemed, you just don't want everybody else to be redeemed, right? And forgiven. And so I, you know, we have to confront that. And these stories uh in scripture are worth their weight in platinum because they they keep us in, I think, a tension that we need to be in. Um, because it's easy for the church, I think, sometimes, uh to find to think of itself as the group of the good people and the group of the perfect people. And when I think our ad value to the world uh is the group of people who come together who have all fallen, and that's what we have in common. We've all fallen, right? We've all been Zacchaeus in one way or the other, all been duplicitous uh or worse in one way or the other. And so when we keep that in front of us, not because we're bad, but that we've been redeemed, that this is a community of the redeemed, then I think we actually have something to offer people. Um, and so we're in a perpetual battle with our own egos. Uh, and so these kinds of stories continue to pry our hearts open and remind us that we've all been Zuchaus uh on one day or the other.
Melissa:Yeah, and it doesn't it's not lost on me that the church has done a really great job of um I think the shame game. And something stuck out to me when you were just talking, Bishop, is that it's not that we're redeemed and then go to church and stay redeemed. Oftentimes we fall back and we lapse and need redemption again, right? And again. And so the shame cycle can often interrupt that community.
Bishop Wright:Yeah, and and what we again we don't want is shame to have the last word, right? Um you know, I I think this is why the faith is so important, the words of Jesus, the stories of Jesus, because they give us something to say back to these impulses, to think that I'm nothing, to think that I'm bad. Um, and you know, as I've said before, what we need to do, a better thing to do would be to adopt Jesus' words uh about who we are, right? And so I am redeemed. You are redeemed. Uh, I'm in constant need of redemption. I am not quite what I'm gonna be, but I ain't what I was. I'm on a journey of grace. Uh, thank God for God's mercy in my life. Uh, thank God who uh for people who've come in my life who have reminded me that I can get up, that I can turn around, um, that I'm better than my worst deed or day. Uh thank God for those people inspired by these stories uh like the one we're talking about today. And so it's a community project that we do. And uh it's important uh to remember this because I think even in the modern church, I mean, I've been a bishop now, I'm in my 14th year, and it's interesting to see how the church has developed around this idea. Uh, and in some places, um, one wonders what kind of church have we become? Um, where we're so titillated by sin uh and uh and forgotten that we're supposed to be the church that uh continues to stay in relationship with people even though they fall. Uh I have been in situations in the church uh where uh people who have fallen publicly uh, you know, are uh are anathema. They are cast into the outer darkness. And it's it's hard to know, it's hard to um it's hard to be in those moments and to think, uh, you know, are we the church of the prodigal son? Are we the church of Zacchaeus now, or are we something else? Um and so if we are uh hostile to sinners, then then perhaps we are not the church of Jesus Christ. Uh and so we've got to make sure that we stay in our lane and remember our founding, uh, our founding DNA. Now, uh when we've fallen in sometimes publicly, yeah, you may lose the responsibility or the role of authority. Of course, I understand that. Uh, but it doesn't mean you lose your status as a member of the body of Christ, right? And it doesn't mean that now we castigate sinners or we we we put you in the cone of silence uh as sinners. And I as I look around the church, lots of different churches, my own church, uh, we've got to do better in this regard. We've got to go the extra mile uh to make the distinction between the deed and the soul. So this the the deed was is the deed is no good. Uh the deed may even have harmed the community. We've got to say that uh with a with you know with a clear with clear words, and at the same time, you know, we've got to continue to live in the tension uh that Jesus' example sets up for us, which is though you have fallen, uh you are still my sibling.
Melissa:Can you speak more into that whole responsibility thing? Because I do think sometimes people get confused and it's like when we mess up, we we got to take responsibility. And sometimes that means losing, I don't want to say status, because it's not about station or status, but leadership. If perhaps we as a leader messed up big, is it punitive? What is it? What's it for?
Bishop Wright:Well, I think that if we find that someone is in a role of authority where the layer ordained, um, and uh and they have harmed the body of Christ, right, with their behaviors, I think it is appropriate that they lose that role, right? That they they lose that authority, right? They have proven unworthy of that authority and of that role for whatever reason. Um, but I think the tightrope walk that we've got to pull off is that while you've you've you've uh you don't deserve the role anymore at this time, uh, you are nevertheless my sibling. And so, you know, and so uh I think we don't do a good job there. And so what happens too often in the church, and I'm specifically now talking about leaders in the church, um, is that that person just goes into the cone of silence. Uh, they are not contacted, um, they're just sort of on an island all by themselves. And uh, I just think we can do better in figuring that out. Uh, and it's it's twofold. Uh the community uh doesn't quite know what to do with you. Uh, and then sometimes we uh can't bear the shame of having to look we who have fallen uh have a hard time of bearing the shame uh in the community. And so we just find that it's easier for everybody to just disappear. Uh however, uh that just lives in tension with Jesus' model, right? Uh he doesn't Jesus just doesn't throw a blessing up to the tree for Zacchaeus and keep walking, right? Or he doesn't just say, hey, Zacchaeus, uh, resign your position. He says, Hey, we're gonna have fellowship, table fellowship, intimate. I'm gonna bring you closer. I bet there were some people in the crowd who had lived spotless lives, right? Who had kept all the rules, have been good boys and good girls. And Jesus now wants to have a meal with this dude, right? I mean, can you just imagine the scandal, right? And what he does is he sets him on a path, Zacchaeus. That is, he sets him on a path because he's been welcomed by Jesus. Now Zacchaeus feels deeply that he wants to make reparations uh to the community. And it's because he's not distance, because he's actually brought close and he felt the warmth of the love of God in the community, you know, I imagine around the table, that now he wants to respond in kind. So just to send people out, banish them, uh, I think also defeats and works against the works of reconciliation.
Melissa:And that's not much of a future, and we believe that every sinner has a future.
Bishop Wright:Amen. Thank God for that.
Melissa:Amen. Bishop, thank you so much. And listeners, thank you for listening to For People. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Bishop Rob Wright, or by visiting www.forpeople.digital. Please subscribe, leave a review, and we'll be back with you next week.