For People with Bishop Rob Wright
For People with Bishop Rob Wright
Manipulate
The story we tell about Jesus often sounds suspiciously like the story we want to tell about ourselves. We pull his words toward our preferences and mistake charisma for character.
In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright have a conversation about what Jesus actually says. They unpack how the “identity theft of Jesus” happens in public life and in our own hearts. Rather than wag a finger at politicians or rivals, start with the mirror: integrity begins by acknowledging the gap between what we say on Sunday and how we live on Monday. Bishop Rob Wright lays out a simple but demanding path back to center—read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John slowly, let Jesus speak for himself, and test every claim by long-term fruit. Listen in for the full conversation.
Read For Faith, the companion devotional.
Jesus calls you into the inner ring of honesty, a courageous honesty, even a scary honesty, about our own motives and our own what some people call shadow side. What's liberating here is to acknowledge that I'm not perfect. I fall short. And I am a sinner in need of God's light and God's mercy and God's path. And when we acknowledge that, now we can have a true fellowship one with the other.
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. Bishop, you entitled this week's devotional "Manipulate."
Bishop Wright:Yeah, it's manipulate, and it's from the fifth chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew. Ever since Jesus walked the earth, people have attempted to hijack his authority and manipulate his message. We put words in his mouth, arguing he hates who we hate and loves what we love. We seem to prefer the Jesus that is the possession of a nation state and a cheerleader for military might. The only firewall against this attempt at identity theft of Jesus is to let him speak for himself. What Jesus actually blessed was the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those persecuted for righteousness' sake. Any version of Christianity does any version of Christianity that does not center what Jesus actually said has no integrity whatsoever.
Melissa:Mic drop. All right, Bishop. So I'm looking at all the beatitudes. That's what we call them.
Bishop Wright:That's exactly right.
Melissa:That's the first part of the Sermon of the Mount. I think many people might interpret the Beatitudes or those who are blessed a little differently.
Bishop Wright:Yeah, sure.
Melissa:I'm curious, rather than reiterating them, can you put into your own words how you think people have manipulated Jesus' words?
Bishop Wright:Well, the easiest way to start here is that uh what we have done uh you know over the millennia to Jesus is that we have centered uh the opposite uh the opposites of what Jesus actually said. Jesus centers the poor, we keep the poor on the fringe. Um, you know, Jesus centers mercy, forgiveness, um, sharing, um, gentleness, uh, use of power for mercy, uh, and we keep all those ideas as quaint ideas, lovely notions to be talked about on Sunday. But in the real world, uh, or what some people call the real world, we talk about force and might. Uh, we talk about that. And so, and so um we have centered sort of charity, and Jesus has centered much more, uh uh much more giving of ourselves, uh, not just uh tipping, if you will, you know, uh those who are least fortunate. And so, yeah, we flip Jesus' message on his ear, and we like him dead, frankly speaking, uh, because when he's dead, he's less um, he's less uh inconvenient for us. Um, you know, we like our prophets dead, we like our savior dead, um, and what a scandal it is for uh Jesus to just not refuse to die. I mean, he he comes back and he and he goes on 2.0. Uh he meets the disciples after the resurrection and he insists on this way of life. And so, you know, to really follow Jesus uh is to flip the world's notion on its heads and then you know, and on its head. And that's what's so hard about following Jesus is that uh at the center of what he said uh is very different uh than the center of how we actually live.
Melissa:Yeah, and yet I think some people would say, no, I am blessed because I hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Bishop Wright:Yeah, I mean, I think I think you know, that's the the seductive part of Jesus' life for us is that uh you know, we just try to bend Jesus into all these amazing yoga moves uh so that he can um uh fortify the way we're already living. Um, you know, uh Jesus' grace is cheap. Um we we priest we preach niceness and not uh amendment of life uh and not repentance and not turning around. Um you know, Jesus started a movement, uh, the church has become an organization, and there's, you know, always there's something going to be lost in the translation. And so, you know, look at uh modern sort of political landscape these days. Uh, you know, we start off meetings with prayer, um, and uh we say that Jesus is the center of our lives. Uh, we call him Lord and Savior. And yet, um, you know, many of these very same politicians and even religious leaders um don't center his actual words. Um, and we act like Jesus said uh blessed are the rich, uh, blessed are the wealthy, blessed are the powerful, uh, blessed are the arrogant, uh, and so on. And uh that's why I say the best, the best corrective for you know identity theft of Jesus these days is to let Jesus speak for himself. Uh, and the best thing that we can do is read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John slowly. I think when you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John slowly, uh, and and not try to fit yourself into being a good boy and a good girl after you've read it, then I think you begin to see him actually emerge from the stories that he told, from who he included, um, from the questions he answered, from the questions he deflected. And then now you have a Jesus uh of Nazareth and not the Jesus of our own imagination.
Melissa:Okay, so integrity is one of my personal core values, and that matters to me a lot. But I I looked up the in the Oxford dictionary that the word integrity is defined as the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles or moral uprightness. And I'm concerned, Bishop, because there are a number of people, especially in the political arena, where so many people are calling them morally upright. And I don't understand it. So how are we coming at this so very differently?
Bishop Wright:Well, this is exactly the point of the meditation. And I'm no, I'm no better than anybody else. Let me just say uh if we're all very honest thinking about the word integrity, we all know that there are gaps between what Jesus says and how we actually live. And we don't condemn people for that. We just uh we just invite everybody to acknowledge that there's a gap between what I say on Sunday and how I live on Monday. Now, today, these days, um, it's easy to sort of uh continually skewer politicians and uh and and maybe uh and maybe behave as if uh we don't suffer from the same thing. The truth of the matter is that they may have the microphone and they may have the camera, and uh if the camera and the lights shined on our lives and our gaps became evident, how would we look? Um so so I I think um you know the the exercise here uh is not to uh condemn anyone in particular, uh, but to acknowledge the gaps between how we live uh you know and what we say. I I think that's integrity. Integrity is acknowledging the fact that I fall short. Uh integrity is uh having the courage, finding the courage to look at myself, uh warts and all, in the mirror, recognize that God loves me, recognize that I'm not condemned for the warts, but also that uh I want to be in alignment. I mean, this is this is where faith is. Faith is the yearning to want to be in alignment with who God says we actually are, our better selves, and then to take that slow walk, that slog towards uh the words that I proclaim as words of life on Sunday. So, so I don't want to castigate anybody in particular. I can't acknowledge the contradictions, however. I do think that's what I'm supposed to do. I do think that's why we killed Jesus. Killed Jesus because Jesus told inconvenient truths and he exposed contradictions. That's an uncomfortable um sort of congregation to sit in. I mean, can you just imagine that Jesus uh, you know, sees your flaws, calls them out, but doesn't castigate or condemn. I think this is why, you know, Jesus talking to the woman by the well is so critical. The woman caught uh in the act of adultery, um, telling the Pharisees and the scribes, uh, if you are without sin, then go ahead and throw the first stone. I I think Jesus shows us that his work was not to sort of uh bury us in our bad doings uh or our bad intentions, but was to offer us a way out of them. And I I think that is so, but to stay stuck in them and to celebrate your stuckness or refuse to look at it, I think that's the offense.
Melissa:Okay, so later in this same Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will caution his followers to be wary of those who appear harmless like sheep, but are destructive like ravenous wolves.
Bishop Wright:Yeah.
Melissa:And then later in the 24th chapter of Matthew, he warns that there will be, you know, bad actors, false messiahs, false Christ, false prophets who will quote produce great signs and wonders. So how do we then, Bishop, discern which is the sheep and which is the wolf?
Bishop Wright:Yeah, no, I well, well, first of all, I think we have to let's start with us again. Let's acknowledge that uh we may say we're a sheep, but many of us have wolf tendencies. So I so I think there's that part of the journey. But I think Jesus actually is, you know, this is why I like Jesus. He's a wide, eyes wide open kind of fella. He's looking around his community and he's realizing exactly the point of this meditation, that there are people who manipulate even, you know, holy books and holy words and holy intentions for personal gain. Um, you know, I think that uh we've got to acknowledge if we're going to be spiritually mature, that sin abounds. Um, that, you know, never underestimate humanity's ability to wrangle even the good in service of evil and egoism and uh you know megalomania. Never underestimate that. So I think Jesus is saying, hey, uh keep your eyes open, uh pay attention. And actually, here again, I think we are called back, you know, to use as a as a rule or as a measurement, Jesus' own words. Um, if you watch folks over time, are they kind or is it a performance? If you watch over time, uh, are they generous and selfless or is this just a performance of piety? Jesus says this in other places again, too. He acknowledges that even people like me, maybe even especially people like me, who live and work in the church uh and get up in front of people and talk, um, make sure that you pay attention to the gaps between what we say and how we actually live. Uh are we just sort of ravenous attention seekers? Uh, or are we um are we people who are administering the graces of our tradition? Um, you know, and so I think the invitation here when Jesus acknowledges all of this is for us to keep our eyes open, to pay attention, and to use, you know, what Jesus has actually said and his example as our yardstick. Now, you know, the tricky part, of course, and you're calling attention to it is when we use that yardstick, is it just so that we can beat up on other people and feel better about ourselves? I mean, you know, let's be honest. I mean, you know, this is the thing about Jesus, man. Jesus calls you into the inner ring of honesty, you know, a courageous honesty, even a scary honesty about our own motives and our own what some people call shadow side. What's liberating here is to acknowledge that I'm not perfect. I fall short. Uh, and uh and I am a sinner in need of God's light and God's mercy and God's path. And when we acknowledge that, now we can have a true fellowship one with the other, right? So there's a fellowship even available here to us, uh, which is more than just uh uh the performance of being, quote, good people, whatever the hell good people are. Uh I like redeemed people. I like people who know they've been forgiven and know that they are now duty bound out of the out of uh, you know, in a response to the grace of being forgiven to then be forgiving. Those are the folks I like. And it really just starts with centering again Jesus' words.
Melissa:Okay, so say we do recognize that we are manipulating.
Bishop Wright:Yeah, we can be, sure. Right?
Melissa:Or that we have been manipulated.
Bishop Wright:Right.
Melissa:My question isn't so much what we do about it. I guess I'm I guess what I'm asking is how do we be about it?
Bishop Wright:Again, how to be about it? It's a lifelong slog. It is day to day. It is making sure, you know, I like to joke and say, you know, every day is it what my wife calls an integrity audit. Every day is an integrity audit. So is my mind and my behind in line? Uh, you know, if am I the person I say that I am? Uh, and again, I don't have to, I don't have to, you know, uh flog myself when I miss the mark. What I can do is acknowledge, right, and seek to move from that. I mean, look, uh, we talk about hypocrisy, right? And hypocrisy is just wearing a mask, right? And so the liberation here is to be able to put the mask down. I don't have to carry a mask around. I don't have to perform. I don't have to perform what it means to be good or nice. I can be, I can be exactly what I am, and I can bring all of that to Jesus. And, you know, in his genius, his mercy, um, uh, there are steps that I can take day to day which move me out of the imprisonment of a sort of a falsehood and a megalomania and being a slave to ego and moves me into a place where I am kinder, gentler, clearer, more receptive, more grateful. And I think this is what changes the game.
Melissa:Good word, Bishop. Thank you. And thank you, listeners, for tuning in 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.