Disciple Bible Study, 12-11-19, Haggai & Zechariah Part 2

Okay, well uh it's an interesting reading that we got to do, particularly because of where the Video wants to take it, which is what was the New Testament doing with it.

But maybe it would make the most sense for us to take it because we read essentially out of four different books, for us to have a look at each one maybe more thoroughly.

Does that seem okay?

Yes.

So Obadiah, the New Testament's not using that very much, except we will see it in Paul, and there's a particular sentence that's used, which is Jacob I loved, Esau I hated.

And um Paul ends up using this to sort of say, listen, um God has always, well, I wouldn't say a bad read of Paul has used that to fuel, if you know uh John Calvin's writings, that there are some people that God chooses to save, those are called the elect, and some people that God chooses not to save, those are the damned.

And there is nothing the damned can do to alter their course.

Nor is there anything the elect can do.

God chooses who gets saved because Jacob I loved, Esau I hated.

Now, um, that I want to tell you is taking Obadiah so literally that it fails to take Obadiah seriously.

So I want you to consider what's really happening.

Um Esau is a cipher.

Esau is a cipher for the nation of Edom, and you get some different um uh locations.

In fact, um Mount Seir, S-E-I-R, is also called Mount Esau.

Well, there's no such thing as Mount Esau.

There's Mount Seir, and Edom is in modern-day Jordan.

So we actually went through Edom.

It's in the north of Jordan, like where Amon would be, if that makes sense, or up toward um the Golan Heights, right?

So that would be the nation of Edom.

They're a Semitic people, so they have their language is very related to Hebrew.

And what Obadiah is basically saying is bad things happened in Judah, and the Edomites did not come to the aid of their family members.

They rejoiced.

Uh, when they were fleeing, uh, they cut them down.

So they basically picked allies who were not in their family.

They allied against their family.

That's a real event.

If you go back to Genesis, it's very clear that Isaac loves Esau more than he loves Jacob.

It's extremely clear.

Rebekah prefers Isaac.

Rebecca gets Isaac the blessing.

If you read the story, Esau's not really a bad guy.

He's just not a successful hunter.

But he's not going to do anything bad.

And that's why it's really, really important, I think, to think through this.

Uh, essentially, Obadiah's trying to say that Judah comes from Jacob, not from Esau.

And that Judah are these people that God has stayed in communion with for whatever reason.

But that again, if we read this and say, oh, God hates the descendants of Esau, I think we made a grave mistake.

I hope that's helpful.

He was a farmer, not a hunter.

No, Esau was the hunter, Jacob was the far Jacob was essentially the farmer.

Esau was, you know, sort of yeah, yeah.

He's the hairy one.

Esau actually means red, and he was born in Genesis covered with hair like a goat.

Which is not possible.

It's a caricature.

They used to have red-headed giants.

Maybe.

Was he red?

Yeah, folks were all red-headed.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's where I got it from.

Oh well.

Um, but but to again hear the indictment, and again, like really Obadiah is written against a people for doing a particular thing at a particular time.

And if we universalize that, then we've got God hating people because of who they're descended from, which is not logical and does not make sense, right?

And I would tell you, um, I completely reject Calvinism because God, it's hopeless.

You know, it's just hopeless.

And uh beyond that, the idea that God would arbitrarily choose some people to go to heaven and some people to go to hell is so outside my understanding of love and grace that I just can't go there.

So I just I can't even I can't read it that way.

I can't.

Can I ask you a question?

Please.

Alright, so were the Edomites part of one of the twelve tribes?

No.

But they were still so the twelve tribes.

But they were all they were relatives through Esau.

They're cousins.

Our cousins through.

I got it, I got it, I got it.

And that actually becomes a really interesting way to read this, and you could choose to take that literally, or you could choose to say, at the end of the day, and I want to even go greater than our cousins, our cousins, at the end of the day, we could look at our family versus your family, or we consider humanity as the human family.

That's really interesting because sometimes we want to tribalize and say, How could you do this to my family?

And we can have this feud between different families.

And I think another way to view it is it's a feud between one family, it's an inner family feud, because at the end of the day, what Adam and Eve tell us, whether you believe that story or not, is that we're all part of the same family.

And God got mad at the Edomites just because they were happy, because the Judeans and the Israelites were suffering, and he punished them for having that attitude.

So that's one way to read it.

Another way to read it is that's what Obadiah says.

Well, you don't think it's right.

I just didn't think God gets mad.

I mean, I you know, I just think that's a human thing.

And punishing, I mean, this is a funny thing I've realized, and this is really helpful in a parenting video.

I wasted a lot of my time being mad at my son for doing what I said but with the wrong attitude.

Don't look that way.

And you know, I realized I was watching this video, every American has a right to protest.

We have a right to protest.

We do not have the right to be disrespectful and we don't have the right to be defiant.

But think how much parenting time you wasted because the kid did what you asked, but didn't do it like with a smile on their face or didn't do it immediately.

What a waste of our life that was, is if we behaved like that.

Americans have the right to protest.

Now, if somebody says, I'll do it, but I hate you, that's not gonna work, right?

That's disrespect.

That doesn't work.

But going, God, and then doing what we asked, that's that's an American fundamental right.

I mean, really, just think about that.

We believe in that right.

If a police officer gives us a ticket, I mean we know better than to mouth off, but we could say, geez, why'd you pick on me?

American right to protest, right?

Guaranteed ticket.

Probably.

But you may be getting one anyway, you know?

Yeah, they try to give me a ticket out in the parking lot here.

Yeah.

Yeah, because I my handicap sticker was on the seat.

Yeah.

And I was inside waiting to pick up my grandson, and one of the mothers came in yelling, you better get out there, they're gonna give you a ticket.

I went out and I said, What's the problem?

You have you're in a handicapped spot.

Uh-huh.

Well, there's no sticker.

I said, I forgot to hang it, it's right there on the seat.

And he got snippy.

And I got snippier.

And I said, Besides that, this is private property.

How can you come up here and give me a ticket when this is private property?

And he got.

Well, I have the right.

I said, okay, this is your, I've seen him before.

I said, this is your right, right?

He said, I said, I am here Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday with my grandson.

I'm here.

Sunday going to church, sitting in exactly the same spot, in exactly the same car.

And you mean to tell me that all the times that I hung up my thing that you did remember seeing me sitting there with my sticker.

And he looked at me and I'm thinking, oh, shut your mouth.

You know what I mean?

And he looked at me and said, Well, I won't give you one this time.

Okay.

I opened the door and hung my sticker up and thought, I'm here every single day in that one little spot, and there's nobody else parked a hobby.

Yeah.

So I think I think we have to use a sports analogy here.

This would be sort of like when the Oilers move to Tennessee, and then we got the Texans, and the Texans go and play in Tennessee, and the Titans win, and the Titans fans are happy, and then God's mad that they're happy and it's gonna punish them.

It's just that's crazy, right?

I mean, we just it's crazy.

So a lot of this is about feeling language, and boy, if we go much past feeling, I I this is really tough.

You know, I just think it's really, really tough.

Again, think about how we began this morning, right?

I mean, there's no way that God rejoices in getting even.

God rejoices in justice.

That's the clear message.

So I think we have to hold on to this really carefully.

I hope that's okay that I said that.

And maybe I'm pushing my perspective on the rest of you.

Thanks for putting up with it.

It's true.

I think it I think it's true that uh the difference between justice and revenge.

Revenge and revenge and feeling.

I mean, listen, this is where I think the Bible is a very powerful book because it doesn't always say here's how you have to act.

It does a very good job telling us how we already behave.

We already know how this feels.

You're gonna get you're happy that I got a ticket and you didn't.

I hope you get yours.

Well, who isn't happy that someone got a ticket and you didn't?

I mean, I mean, that's the thing, right?

You're not glad they got a ticket, you're just glad you didn't get it.

So, keep in mind the military situation was really dire.

So again, you've got Rhode Island and you've got Maryland against California.

Oh, you should have thrown in with us, Maryland.

Together, we could have beat California, get real.

I mean, again, that's that's the deal, right?

But I do think it puts feelings really strong, and it does offer us, right?

I think if we take it really well, we don't think about God is gonna get you if you're grateful you didn't get a ticket.

But I do think there's an important thing, and I think in this police situation we talked about this morning, there's great, there's gratitude we didn't get a ticket, but there's also sorrow that person got it.

Knowing that anybody can get a ticket if you drive for five minutes.

Or two, I've heard, right?

There's sorrow, there's sorrow in this situation for this loss of your life, but also for this person who's going to lose their life.

I hope that makes sense.

There's a corrective here about our attitudes and not being gleeful about revenge, but having this thought, hey, but by the grace of God, there I go as well.

I hope I hope that's a good way to read Obadiah.

It's not a face, a surface level read, but I but I'm not sure a surface level read is always healthy, if if that's okay.

Remember that Jacob and Esau struggle as brothers, and there's no way God is excited about sibling rivalry.

I mean, there's no way.

There's no way God wants a parent to blatantly favor one of their children, which is what happens all through Genesis.

There's no way.

Am I remembering correctly?

I'm probably not, but I'll throw it out anyway.

That Esauch was born first.

Yes.

And Jacob was holding on to Esau's heel.

Which is medically impossible, but yes, that's how the story goes.

Okay.

Again, if you took that.

What is the um meaning of that?

So um they were fighting in the womb for who got to be first because the understanding was the firstborn child was more important.

And Jacob lost.

And he spends the rest of his life trying to be first when he never can.

I mean, I remember I told my Emery when she was like four that her brother would always be older than her, and she just could not accept that.

She was gonna be older than him, you know, and that was a really tough thing as there's no way she could win that competition.

And there isn't.

And that's why it shouldn't be a competition.

But see, in the olden days, the firstborn kid got 90% of the goods, and Jacob refuses to accept that.

So he spends his life in this kind of um Quixotean way, right, like Don Quixote, on this quest to be the firstborn, and he will never be successful.

At being the firstborn.

He never can.

He does trick his brother Jacob into being the uh, I guess the uh inheritor, correct?

He tricks his brother out of the birthright, he tricks his father out of the blessing, but at the end of the day, he's still not the firstborn kid.

And what he has supplanted is not just his brother's rights, he supplanted the entire family.

It depends how we read the story.

We could read the story and say, look at that, the underdog won.

And that would be a very American reading.

And what we fail to realize, the underdog wins at the expense of the whole family.

Jacob doesn't beat a brother, he loses a brother.

And when he comes back to Esau, Esau is willing to like even forgive him.

And Jacob refuses to trust his brother, refuses to trust his brother to forgive because Jacob himself can never forgive.

You said Jacob spent most of his life hiding from Oh, he spent his life tricking and being tricked.

That's his deal, right?

Everything was by Hooker Crook.

And he ran away from his brother, because his brother said, I'm gonna kill you.

Well, listen, I mean, if we ran away from our brother every time they said that, well, there wouldn't be nuclear families.

If we are not supposed to put the brother against the brother.

Against their brothers.

Now you've read this history, right?

Look what favoritism looks like.

It looks like exile.

Right, right.

So I think the only way I can understand that, right, is that for whatever reason, this group of people were not the only ones God interacted with.

They were the ones who responded in such a way that there was this constant conversation.

Um God was welcoming to all people.

Not just the Jewish people.

Is that a right read?

I I think it's a great read that's explicit in things like second and third Isaiah.

You hear God's gonna restore Zion and that that's gonna be a draw to all the nations of the earth.

So I think it's a tr it's a difficult thing to understand, like God choosing a people.

And so I I my best way that I try to handle that is that God says to Abraham, I'm gonna bless you so that you can be a blessing to the world.

So the way God's favor works is we're meant to be satellites, and we're supposed to take whatever nourishment and energy we get from God and share it to people who, for whatever reason, don't have that explicit direct connection yet, so that they can't.

And can we understand the prophets as each of them takes the paradigm and changes it a little bit, the same message throughout?

I think I think that is a great way to do it.

I think another way to understand it is that they're having a conversation about what it means to be chosen.

Does it mean we offer sacrifices at the temple, or does it mean we practice social justice?

Does it mean both things?

Does it mean it's just us, or is God trying to draw all people?

Who counts in all people?

Foreigners or eunuchs or orphans or widows?

What about Edomites?

And I think there's back and forth, and this is an interesting way to read Abadiah is he's a voice in a conversation, not a conversation stopper.

I don't know if that makes sense.

We continue to have this conversation, and I'll just be very upfront.

I I know that there's a difference between holding out gay rights and when you imagine your child's future, imagining them being gay and you're being okay with that.

Those are different things.

I'll tell you, I've crossed that threshold.

I'd be fine if my daughter's a lesbian.

I really I believe that about myself.

If she were transgender, I'd struggle.

I'm just not there yet.

And that's not because I think it's bad.

I just am not there.

I I know I would struggle, particularly if she changed her name to Henry, because I named her Emery.

And listen, I've always wondered, would my life be different if I had a different name?

Because I know what my short list of two names was.

And I wonder if my life would be different if I had a different name.

But at the end of the day, my parents named me, and I didn't name my parents.

So I've given my kid this name, just like my parents gave me a name, and for her to change her name, it would be hard for me.

Well, it's interesting the term you use, given the name.

That's almost like a gift.

I hope it's a gift, and it's certainly one I guess she doesn't have to receive.

And again, I believe in rights and all of that business.

I just I know it would be hard from me.

And I'm sorry, if we had to do it, we'd probably do it, but I'm not actively imagining my daughter changing her gender.

I can't imagine her being happy with a woman.

I can imagine her being happy with a man, and what I care about is that she's safe in a mutual relationship and that she's happy.

I've crossed that threshold.

I hope that makes sense what I'm what I'm saying.

Um God gave uh the Adam the product to maybe the animals, is that not right?

That's correct.

And so that is a privilege that you have to do that.

And it means something.

I don't know what it means.

Well, it means when you give somebody a name in the Bible, you have power over them, but not as to dominate them, but as to care for them.

This is an important thing.

We don't have dominion over the earth, that's a mistranslation.

We have stewardship over the earth.

And when you name something, like when you name your pet, you can name it whatever you want to.

And and in some ways the name implies you have power over them, but you have power over them as their caretaker.

And if you were to abuse the pet you've named, there's something really wrong with that relationship because you've given them a name and an identity, and now you're hurting that.

It'd be better if you didn't name it.

Does that make sense what I'm saying?

You know my dog's name.

I do.

Let's talk about Joel, shall we?

Joel is one that we read every Ash Wednesday.

And the line that we get to hear is uh blow the trumpet in Zion, sound the alarm.

Now they didn't blow trumpets, they blew a ram's horn that's twisted, it's called a shofar, and you blow that on the high holy days.

And really it's a call to prayer and to growing closer to God.

So this is a twist of the image.

You blow the high holy ram's horn because God is coming near, and you'd better be afraid.

Because God is coming to deal with your bullshit.

I mean, that that's the deal, right?

God is not coming to give you a hug and to make you feel good about all your ways.

So you've been spending time thinking that being God's chosen people means God's on your side, and that's wrong.

God's not on anybody's side.

You choose to be on God's side or not, and since you're not making that decision, God is going to give you the natural consequences of your choice.

I mean, that's Ashwin's Day completely, right?

God is not on our side.

We are on God's side or we're not.

And if we're not, we're punished.

Like everybody else.

And by the way, when we're on God's side, it may doesn't mean we get everything we want in the world.

It doesn't mean you win the lottery and you drive Bentleys or any of that business, right?

It doesn't mean that.

We don't.

We we use one here.

Well, that's good.

At the Easter Vigil, we play one.

That's right.

That's right.

When we make the great noise.

Yeah.

We've replaced the shofar with bells, they're much louder.

And we don't use bells much anymore.

Um, you notice that the whole book is about this punishing army that is really a bunch of locusts.

I mean, it's like the Uber plague of locusts.

There's so many of them, it blackens the sky.

So don't think this is like the heavenly host or the Chicago Bears under Mike Ditka.

It's it's not that.

It's it's oh, this is a plague of locusts.

And um, you know, this has happened historically that they eat everything.

Again, it's an uber plague, and that's very rare, but it but it but it happens.

What's interesting is the prophet says, hey, return to God, and who knows, God might forgive you.

Isn't that interesting?

Who knows?

There may still be hope.

Like the sky is blackening and God might pull that back.

Who knows?

It's worth a try.

It's really, really interesting to think that God might deliver us from the natural consequences of our actions and even honestly from things like the earth is is engineered to do this stuff.

You know, like the earth is engineered to have earthquakes.

God made it to do that.

It's like saying, hey, if we could repent and live justly, who knows?

God might even like stop the earthquake on our behalf.

That's really interesting to think about.

Um, this is where we get that image that is the entire message of Acts.

I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh.

The reason I say Acts is because the disciples keep encountering people and wondering whether or not they belong in God's family.

There's a group of people who are Greek speaking and not circumcised.

The Holy Spirit falls on them.

Then there's a eunuch, crushed genitals.

Can I be baptized?

The answer is yes.

Then there's people who were baptized by John, but they didn't get the Holy Spirit.

The answer is yes.

Then there's people who are Samaritans, Yucky people.

Yes.

So every time people say, okay, I went with God here, but surely that's it.

God says, oh no, there's this other group of people.

Oh no, there's this other group of people.

Uh and Luke relies on this image.

I'm gonna pour out my spirit on all flesh, even children, even women, even eunuchs, even Babylonians, even Assyrians.

That's in the middle of this whole locust business.

I have been in the center of a locust thing.

Uh it's gotta be one of the scarier things.

I was it happened, and I had to walk out to my car, and they were everywhere.

I can't describe what horrible thing it is.

No, but I I had to step on them as I went.

Yeah.

I mean, imagine I mean, you know, like it's very possible, L the clothes off your body if they're made out of natural fibers.

If you're wearing wool, a locust will eat your clothes.

They were everywhere.

Yeah, they're very thank you.

And that becomes this this idea for like the army of the Lord because there's something supernatural about this quantity, right?

Isn't it a great line though?

Who knows?

God may forgive you.

I mean there's a connection between them, obviously.

But that was the kind of thing, you know.

What is it that they say?

Oh, when you leave a Jewish person and they say God willing.

I swear my mind's gone.

It's gone.

It's all right.

Anyway, God willing.

God willing.

Yeah, we'll see you God willing.

Yeah.

And you know, but that means something different to them, I think, than it does to you know, actually, I agree with being a Christian church and we would say, like, I'm gonna do this tomorrow, God willing.

Yeah.

It's an interesting thing.

Um, and it's a very common Arabic expression, you say inshallah, which is also like God willing.

It's very Hispanic.

Is it?

See see the Ospo, oh see, exactamente.

I I I know it most from Arabic.

Our tour guide, my first tour guide in Jordan would always say, Inshallah, tomorrow we will go here and here and here, inshallah we'll have dinner.

And I actually thought it was really lovely.

That's a really lovely phrase.

You know, and and I I think I I I don't know, I just had this sense of the Arab culture impacting the Spanish.

Yeah, through Spain, yeah, yeah.

Big time, yeah, big time.

And it the fact that Hispanics eat goat and cabrito is very common.

And it's not my own.

It's a tasty animal.

It is, it's a delicious animal.

Yeah, and uh, and that's to me very very Arab.

Um there's a lot of there's a lot of Spanish words that actually come directly from the Moors.

Yeah, directly from the Moors, yeah.

A couple interesting bits in Joel.

God hears us and is going to come to comfort.

I don't know if you notice this, comfort the land, the animals, and the people.

God is going to comfort the land itself.

That's really interesting.

Um we we do get to read the sins.

Joel says there's there's basically two things you've done that are not okay.

One is you've divided the land, and that may or may not make sense to you, but again, keep in mind that a family inheritance was absolutely guaranteed through land.

So when you divide an inheritance, you're you're sort of cutting off a family's identity.

Identity is tied to land more than it is just to name.

Right?

And ours, our family, we think about our bloodline, but blood is only as good as the land that's the original gift.

And when you lose that land, you lose your identity.

So when you divide that, you're you're cutting off a family's fundamental roots in their tree.

We don't think like this as Americans, we just don't.

But the idea that the plot's been in our family for a hundred years is very nostalgic.

Imagine it's been in the family for 700 years.

I mean, that's essentially what we're we're we're talking about.

And these are farmers, not factory makers.

So that the tie to the land is really, really important.

It's maybe more helpful if you think about Bordeaux grapes.

You know, Bordeaux grapes are valuable because the vines are 800 years old.

And if you've got a brand new grape vine, sorry, it won't be making the same caliber wine.

Right?

The older the vine, the better, and that's kind of what we're talking about.

The other thing uh he talks about is men being sold as prostitutes, prostitution and slavery.

I mean, to put a modern day name on it, it's human trafficking.

So God is outraged at human trafficking.

Well, he's got a lot of words.

I mean, we do too, don't you think?

How can human trafficking?

If you're just talking about human trafficking, apparently it's random, but we don't see it.

It's bad.

It's pretty bad.

Well, I think I think we do around us again.

Human trafficking takes a form.

So I think we see it, we just don't recognize it.

But if you if you have Hispanics that come from Mexico, families that are working for you.

Um they don't speak much English at all.

Right.

At all.

And um they with me, with us it's different because well I'm not.

But um they live in the shadows.

And they live very carefully what they do and how they say it, what they say when they show it.

It's an interesting thing to introduce this thought, and I don't want to be offensive politically, that we get very upset about illegal immigrants when we didn't do anything to deserve being born here.

So we have to think about it, I think, very holistically.

I don't mean, hey, everything's okay and whatever, but I mean we often forget we did not earn our American birthright, and we just were born here.

And it doesn't mean sometimes we think, oh, God blessed us because we deserved it, and that's false.

And you know, for for I think for all of us, that people that come in to do your yard work, your cleaning, a lot of the plumbing, you know, uh carpentry, you know, for me, they'll come they would come in or they were doing some work in the bathroom, they were senora, cabula, que hagamos.

It would be easy for them, but they wouldn't do that in other homes.

They couldn't.

They wouldn't.

Like, I hate that I learned German in high school.

Did you learn what?

German in high school, because there's very few German migrant lawnmowers, you know.

Yeah, anyway.

Um do you notice this is a funny thing in the prophet, Joel?

It's really different from Isaiah.

God roars from Zion, like a lion.

A lion is the strongest thing there is, and God is gonna come and devour you crappy people.

So go ahead and turn your pruning hooks into spears and turn your plows into um swords, it's all pointless because nothing's stronger than a lion.

And there's this really interesting thing about the futility of the ways we resist God's justice.

I mean, it's anyway.

That's Joel.

So when you hear it on Ash Wednesday, reminder the shofar is being blown in an ironic way.

It's not, hey, God's coming to be close to us.

It's oh my god, God's coming close.

We'd we'd better get ready.

In some ways, that's why we have Advent, right?

God's gonna come close.

We should be prepared.

Not because God's gonna come.

I think the spin on it is God's not coming to get even.

We just want to be ready so we don't miss what God's able to do.

And that and that we forget that sometimes, especially if you for me raised Catholics, when it was there was so much about the punishment and all that.

Well, see, and this I think goes really strongly not just to Catholicism, but to the myths we tell our children.

So if you don't mind me saying this, um, and every family makes their own choice, but um, Saint Nicholas is a real guy who looked after people, noticed they were poor, and gave them means to come out of poverty.

Right.

Jolly old Saint Nick is watching to see if you're good or bad and will punish you if you're bad with coal or give you toys.

And we give our children, frankly, this spritely figure who's petty like we are when the real Saint Nick is paying attention to you to help you rise out of poverty.

What if we told that Santa Claus story to our kids?

Well, in Europe they have crap stuff.

Yeah, I I mean I just it's it's just funny.

We tell our kids this elf on the shelf stuff to keep them in line and they'll behave, and we don't have to deal with their attitudes, and I get that, but um, you know, again, our kids identify Santa Claus with God, and God's making a list about whether you're good or bad, and you're gonna get your reward in the end.

And and again, that's that's a perversion of Saint Nicholas and God.

And God.

And God.

And that's where Catholic guilt comes from.

I mean, you know, and Jewish guilt comes from that too.

And so does Baptist guilt.

It comes from the mothers, the best guilt givers.

Yeah, who were kept in their own place, unfortunately, by that.

Okay, better talk about Malachi.

Malachi is a real interesting one, right?

Um, because there's a big lobby against the clergy.

They're corrupt, um, abusive priests.

They're offering sacrifices, but they're taking advantage of worshipers, they're giving blemished sacrifices, you know, they're giving God their second-rate stuff.

And the the message is uh, hey, repent your perish.

I mean, God's not gonna continue to maintain priestly lineage if you're gonna be bad people.

The lips of the priest are meant to guard knowledge, like to keep it safe.

And then, you know, I just I told you this before, not because I'm any kind of great person, but I'm always really loath to tell people what I do because I know they're gonna judge me as soon as they hear it, based on what they think about church or their childhood religion or whatever, you know, and I I don't like being judged like that, even though I like judging other people that way.

I don't like it.

Um you know what's so sad about what kind of sad about that is for me when I would say it was a principal and then say, where, you know, surely at Clear Lake.

You weren't in Clear Lake, but you live in Clear Lake, how come you're not in Clear Lake?

I'm in the inner city.

And the silence that comes back, like, oh then the other piece of it is like, oh yeah, you're Mexican.

Which I'm not Mexican.

I'm 10th generation.

But um yeah, and that's so there's it's interesting how educationally she's an educator, so I tend to want to say a lot of educator.

That's right.

I don't think that's what we're doing nationally either.

I hate to say that.

Clarify?

Well, okay, I'm gonna pick low-hanging fruit like um prosperity gospel preachers.

I don't think they're safeguarding any real truth there.

Um Jerry Falwell saying that God punished us on 9-11 because of the ACLU and NAACP.

I don't think that's guarding any kind of truth.

I think that's you know, stomping on it.

That's inaccurate.

Saying that any American president is God's chosen one is really leading to some kind of misunderstanding fundamentally.

I know that could mean a lot of things, but the words are really not clear.

You know, I don't care who the president is.

Um this idea that God is engineering social situations is really tough for me to accept.

Um things like, hey, God took this police officer's life is not guarding the truth, you know.

Uh saying that God is going to, you know, punish this person in hell because of what they did to the police officer is not guarding God's truth.

Like I just think when that's a criterion, words really, really matter.

And we all kinds of diarrhea comes out of our mouths, you know, it's just awful.

You've probably said this many times before, but what do you might start to define as God's truth?

Well, I don't I don't know that it's clear and flat, you know.

I mean, I think that's the thing, you know, and and and uh if I did think it was clear and flat, I wouldn't be an Episcopalian.

Or maybe I would.

I mean, that's not to say you're one or the other.

But I grew up that truth was very black and white, and and like I started out with, you know, I see that there's a whole really big, robust, complicated nature to the world.

I think that's probably true, you know?

And uh, you know, I'll tell you the gospel itself when people say, What's the gospel?

I used to say Jesus died for your sins, but you know, I just think it's so much more complicated than that little phrase.

You know, what does Jesus mean to me, and what does it mean to be even a priest?

I'd probably tell you something different every day of the week, you know, and and I will tell you, like I've chosen sometimes for better or worse to try to be really upfront that boy, there's people in this parish that are way better people than I am.

Uh and I and I absolutely believe that.

Uh I am just wearing this uniform and they're not.

Um and I choose to believe that's okay.

You know, there's times I can say things that are I can do the liturgy and not feel it at all.

There's times I can not feel it at all.

And there's times it can grip me so I can barely talk.

And I'd be lying if I told you any different from that.

Um that happens to all of us.

Well, I don't know.

I just I choose I choose to believe that, and I choose to believe that doesn't disqualify me from being a priest, but in some ways that normalizes priesthood.

Um but I do know that I have to be careful with what I say.

Um and and I'm not always.

Um I try to be when I'm on stage, I try to be really careful.

I'm trying to be better about even when I'm not on stage, you know.

I try to be even more careful about what I write.

Um it's tough business though, you know, it's tough business.

I I'm in a tough business because I'll I'll tell you, I spend half of my time doing not priest stuff as I understand the priesthood.

And I'll just give you an example.

I had my first three here years here, were really great years.

I mean, really smooth and great.

And last year I dismissed an employee for really great reasons, and it was really gross what happened.

It was really gross what happened.

And you know, I'll just tell you as an employer, I can't tell anybody why I dismissed my employee.

I cannot do that legally unless I want to be liable.

And people made all kinds of assumptions, and boy, it was dreadful.

And listen, managing employees, how many classes do you think I had in seminary about that?

I'll show you.

None.

I didn't have a single class in that.

All my classes were about.

Hey, how do we read the Bible?

And how do we give pastoral care?

And how do we preach?

Uh there's no employee management 101.

I sit over a budget.

I mean, listen, if I change the color of the floor, people will probably leave the church.

I don't have any training in that.

You know?

I asked us to fix our roof and roof, and people got mad.

That's not a priest's business to do.

Well, whose business is it to do?

It's our building.

You know, I mean, this is the tough sort of business, right?

And I don't want to say, well, people will never be happy.

It's true, people will never be happy, but this whole business about how it is we guard truth is complicated and hard.

You know?

Your next priest will probably not be as into the school as I am, for better and worse.

Your next priest.

We'll probably not know as much about building and construction as I know.

It's just very unlikely, and therefore we'll not be involved in it like I am and have been.

What's right or wrong, it's just different stuff.

How do we be guardians of that?

It's tough stuff.

That's what I think.

So there I am on truth.

And I'll tell you, most priests, I meet them, and I automatically don't like them because I buy into the stereotype too.

I think most of us are jerks and scumbags, and we won't even be honest about it.

That's what I think.

There's a couple couple good gals out there and a couple good guys, and I always say, Bob Flick's one of the good guys.

I think he is.

Bob Flick's a good guy.

Um, but I wouldn't tell you about that, tell you that sentence about every priest in our clericus.

And they probably are good folks.

I just naturally don't trust clergy, which is funny because that's what I am.

All right.

I'm pretty sure they don't trust me either.

I'll just let you know.

My cousin went to a Catholic seminary, ended up not being a priestess and doctor, but um he took a short detour around the curve when he married my cousin, and that disqualified him from being a Catholic priest.

But his best friend, who is still a priest and has been for all these years, is an atheist.

How do you how are you a Catholic priest and an atheist?

And according to Tom, he's not the only one.

He's practicing.

I'll tell you, it's funny.

I'll what's funny is I don't have a great explanation for that, but because you asked, I think this is really, really important.

Um maybe I should just be a little more personal and say that I met my wife in seminary.

She's been to church here about three times.

There's lots of reasons for that.

She's supportive of what I do in principle.

I don't know how she feels particularly.

And I think, to be honest, one of the things that's important in this role, if I based it all on how I spiritually felt, I would have quit already.

Because I don't always spiritually feel great.

I'm just, you know, I don't.

There's times where it's not even just days, it's like months.

Um but I but I do believe I believe my role matters in the community.

And and in that case, when the traditional words f f fail me or don't resonate, I do think that's a higher power orientation.

There's something really important about people who show up in hospitals.

There's something really important about having somebody in a uniform say, God absolves you.

There's something really important about baptizing a child because of what it means to the community.

I think there's more to it than that, but that's a pretty high minimum standard anyway.

You know?

I mean, I used to teach math, and I thought it was really important, and then there were lots of months where I thought, this doesn't matter at all.

My job is to trick students into thinking what I say is important.

And um that's somewhat the case, right?

I mean, are is your average American gonna understand conics and why a hyperbola is important?

No.

Sorry, do any of you know why it's important?

I mean, you know.

But what was important, because I'm an educator, was your who you were as a human being with them, what whether what the stuff you were teaching had nothing, I mean had you know what I'm saying?

And the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is important to yes, yeah, and that and that that's what so and I you as a as a priest, there's that piece of what you do that is very important for the people.

Just who you are it's important, as as it's it's it's all of it, it's it's the whole thing, and maybe that's how we safeguard truth is we be human beings and we're really up front.

I mean, if I ever start doing a sermon series where I'm the hero of my own story week after week, you owe it to me to say you're you're practicing idolatry, right?

Now, I don't always have to be the villain because I'm not always the villain, but I am sometimes, and you'd better hear that.

You know, you'd better hear that.

So, what do you think of Malachi?

Well, I mean, again, I'll I here here's some interesting thoughts, right?

I mean, just to go through here, I I think he's right on.

I mean, I do think there's a special standard for us who think that we're entitled to privilege and position because we're priests, and father knows best.

And boy, I'll tell you, sometimes I want to claim that.

And in some ways, it's my episcopal right.

Here's this funny business, right?

This property belongs to the Bishop of Texas, Andy Doyle.

It is his.

I am his absentee landlord.

I can I can give notice of trespass legally to anybody on my property.

Now that's wild.

I want to make sure you heard what I just said.

Yeah, I'll say it again.

I can go to the police and say, Tim Kavula cannot come on my property.

If he does, I want you to arrest him as trespassing, and I have that authority as rector of this place.

That's crazy.

So there's this like you represent the bishop.

I do.

And so you would by saying that as a representative of the bishop, he's empowered you to represent him as the as a uh as the owner, because he's the owner.

That's it.

And so you can say, Tim, you have to leave.

Um and but it's it's it's really the bishop's right.

The bishop has already given me that power, though.

Yeah.

And by the way, if I do that willy-nilly, the bishop can't do anything to me except say, I wish you wouldn't do that.

This is what I mean about sometimes we get in this position.

Man, it's so nice to be called the father, and for people to say, Oh, the father's going to speak, you know, and to have this positional authority.

But we all know real authority is relational and it's earned.

And and we sometimes jockey between the two.

I mean, sometimes when people are having, I'll just tell you, you know, if I was going to pick the color of the walls in here and I had a committee of five people, and four of us said, Yes, we love the color green, and the fifth one said, Well, I don't like it.

Boy, I would love to use my positional authority and say, Well, I'm picking and too bad.

You know, I just, because it's easier and it's more efficient, you know, and sometimes people want us to do it for that reason.

And and listen, I mean, we we um for us to talk about, oh, how hard this everybody already tells me how hard this job is.

This isn't a job, isn't hard.

It's a job.

You know, it's if we didn't know what we were signing up for, God help us, you know.

But but I mean, you know, it's a life we've chosen.

Nobody made me do this.

Um I just think that's important to be up front with, and in so we have to weigh that really, really carefully.

Again, like to say God ordained us to do this holy work and don't get in our way, I'm not sure that's guarding the truth.

And I think Malachi is offering this really important corrective for both of us.

And at the same time, Malachi says, bring your full tithe into the storehouse.

This is not a monetary economy.

This is people who are giving crop shares to clergy because they don't have property.

They can't grow crops because they don't have land.

I have land, I happen to have a very fine piece of property.

I don't grow, well, I do grow vegetables on it, and I won't need a tenth of your garden share.

So, in some ways, this is a little bit antiquated.

Um, we've settled on tithe, I think, as a way of thinking about how do we give resources to support the work of church?

Because, hey, 10% is really easy to calculate.

12% is really difficult to calculate, if you don't mind me saying, right?

A tenth is a basis.

I'm grateful to God, there's people who give more than 10%.

I'm aware that not everybody gives 10% to the church, but they might give 10% between all the organizations that they support.

I would tell you something funny.

In general, people who give 10% make less than$75,000 a year, which means they have less capacity to tithe.

And people who make lots of money tend to be terrible givers.

I'm just gonna let you know.

It's a bizarre phenomenon.

That's a fact.

I don't know how you preach on this because I didn't think God says you have to give 10% of your money to the church.

I don't believe I grew up hearing that, and I will tell you, Baptists are much better about giving 10% of their money to the church because we got told that.

They listen to the whole thing, you know.

Sell our Muslims test me and see if I don't pour out the blessings.

So, you know, you emphasize that all the time.

And I'd be not be guarding the truth.

Or I could say, listen, God's blessings have come to you, but they're not going to be material.

But that's not what you need.

That's I mean, God has things better than physical blessings.

That's what I think.

But I think it's hard for people to understand that.

That's pretty easy, because here's what I think, though.

I think God is not trying to do some kind of money exchange or swap meet with us.

I think the truth.

Well, I think God loves a cheerful giver, and I think the truth is if you decide to give grace to people, that's rewarding.

If you, on the other hand, try to invest in some grace, I think it'll be really disappointing.

You can't, you money can't buy me love.

The Beatles knew that, right?

So if we've got strings attached to gifts, guess what?

They're not gifts, they're traits.

Well, you know, we always tip 20%.

I was just thinking about that.

Well, we never get anything back from that.

I mean, really, you you don't get anything back for that.

You just do it.

If you give 30%, you might give some next time you showed up, they'd be happy to see you.

I mean, that might be a blessing.

You know, my approach to um to to uh that um is that I think that when I tip somebody 20%, and I usually tip them at least 20%, sometimes a little more.

My thought is they need that extra whatever way more than I do.

So that's why I do it.

I used to be a waiter, and you know a waiter is going to make minimum wage no matter what.

At the end of the day, we have to declare our tips, and if we didn't get enough, we'll get paid minimum wage.

We will.

Um, I think we all understand though that uh, hey, I mean, I hope we understand, um people are not explicitly getting paid minimum wage.

And so even if I have a bad server, I give them 15%.

If I have a good server, I might give them the extra.

Um, but to me that's not really about grace.

To me, that's about a social contract.

You know, tipping waiters is really a social contract.

It's not about giving.

If you give more than 20%, then that might be about giving.

But it's still not, they earned it from you, right?

So gifts are not connected to earnings.

My kids, my girls were waitresses, like only I was a single mom and they did everything.

It can be a tough job, but you know, and having waited, if I get a real sour one, boy.

Well, yeah.

I but I'm I'm generous because I know a lot of them are just it's kind of interesting.

This is off topic, but if you go down to Mexico, you tip 10%.

That's about what they expect.

If you go to New York City, you probably better take 20%.

Yeah.

Or more, more than 20%, or they're gonna look down on you.

So what's up with that?

I just well, it's different social contract.

Again, to me, tips are social contract.

I have to tip my guide when I go to Jordan and when I went to Croatia.

The agency told me to do it.

Yeah, how much?

And they gave me a approximate range, right?

But even if they did a great job and I heightened the tip, please understand that's not a gift, it's a wage.

So the question is: do we give God gifts monetarily, or do we give wages to God?

Like you gave me happiness, so I'll give you money back.

That's an exchange.

Gifts are not about exchanges, they're one way.

Here you have it.

Not about earning at all.

They come from, and to be honest, you can give wages happily, but you can't give wages joyfully.

You can only give gifts joyfully.

That's what I think.

So um Paul ends up saying God loves a cheerful giver.

Well, God loves, you know, happy exchangers too, I'm sure, because God loves everybody.

But how we live into 10%, whatever your threshold is, I think the question is, can we be generous and can we be joyful while we're generous?

And can we not expect when we give something, can we just be grateful and joyful to give what we chose to give?

Now sometimes it takes work, I'll tell you.

Having grown up with the expectation expectation of 10%, that's in my bones.

And 10% is my minimum, it is, and I'm, you know, uh, it actually has nothing to do with my income level.

Uh I mean I make twice as much money as I did, boy, seven years ago.

And uh, if what's sad is I can think, oh, it's harder to give 10%, and that's crazy.

How can it be harder to give 10% when I am making twice as much money?

And I was doing it back then.

So I give more than 10% away now.

Uh it's great that we're a two-income family and that we manage our money separately.

It makes it easier for me to do that.

Um, but but we do, and and um I don't know that anybody's obligated to do it.

I know that because of the way I was formed, it's important to me to practice generosity even when I don't feel like it.

And in that sense, it can be joyful.

I don't feel like it, and I do it anyway.

Uh joy isn't about feelings, joy is about what we what we do.

Yeah, that's funny.

That's funny funny.

We we have we have the homeless bags that we give our.

Yes.

And Tim came home the other day and he said, hi, I gave you four homeless bags today.

And and it it it how can I explain it?

It was just the joy that he and it's I mean he didn't both homeless bags don't talk as much.

But you give him and and they oh thanks.

I mean, they just there's a real sense, there's just a little thing, but those senses of gratitude and just there's this little piece of love that goes out, and you just know it.

Yeah, you know, and you feel very comfortable giving as opposed to money that you might not feel comfortable giving.

And when you have it to give, you look for someone to give it to instead of oh god, they're asking me for money.

I hope they don't see me.

It's a totally different relationship.

Yes, yeah.

What I I think I've told this before, but one time my phone fell into a homeless bag.

I I just had the phone in it to fill, and I thought, oh, and I gave it to him, and he he he looked and I saw it, and I said, Tim, my phone went in there.

And he ran under the freeway, under the freeway with my phone, waving my phone.

We turned around and came back, and he gave me my phone.

Yeah.

Moments of joy, right?

Where your expectations get defied.

Yeah, and I'm gonna do it.

And gifts are like that.

Gifts are about defying our expectations by giving something away.

He could have taken the phone and sold it, put it, I don't know, whatever.

Anything.

He could have done anything with that phone.

And he stood out there, waving my phone.

Um I think that's what Malachi's about.

That's the full tithe.

It's not just the 10%, it's how we bring it.

Well, you know, we uh uh had a plumbing problem in our house, and I had to dig under the house, and it was hot, and I was watching this with one non-English speaking person, and I thought, you know, he's been out there for hours when it was lunchtime, and I had overcooked, so I had so I went outside with a bottle of water and a plate of food because I felt he deserved it.

I mean, he was working and he just looked at me and I said, lunch?

And the look on his face, I don't know when he had a good meal last, but I mean it was a good meal, but I felt so good when I say I felt selfish because I had it to give, but it I felt like I felt good that he actually appreciated it.

Sure.

And I think that's part of the problem in a lot of this giving is that people don't appreciate it.

And that but that's what makes a gift different from an investment.

An investment it matters what they do with it, and a gift it doesn't.

I know with my tipping, I go to a lot of the same hush cuts.

Yeah, and I have litters everywhere that I've dealt with for years.

Yeah.

And I tip them 20% because I know they have to share their tip with the bartender and the bus board.

Yep.

But at Christmas, I give them a big bunch of money.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, we pay our cleaning level cleaning lady an extra clean at Christmas, you know.

I mean, and that's important.

Um, okay, we'll finish Zechariah next week 'cause we're out of time.

Thank you.

I'm gonna be gone.

I leave next Wednesday.