Disciple Bible study, 9-25-19, Micah

Well, okay, we've got two things we can do.

Some folks did not get to talk about Hoshea, and some did, and then some got to talk about got to read Micah.

So why don't we talk a little bit about Hoshea first?

Because only a few of us made it last week, and um, and then we'll hop right into Micah.

Does that seem good?

Um we didn't quite get to mention up front last week, Hosea is actually the only book written to the north that is to the ten tribes of Israel by somebody from those tribes.

Which means it has different diction syntax from any other book in the Hebrew Bible.

Because it's northern style.

So just imagine a Yankee writing to a Yankee instead of a Southerner writing to Yankees.

That's the equivalent, right?

You can still read it, but there's a little bit of weirdness.

Part of that weirdness, as I mentioned to you, is that the Southerners call the north Israel, the northerners call themselves Jacob.

And that shows up in Hoshea.

Um couple of weird things to mention is the sort of the names of the kids, right?

So he names his kids kind of terrible names.

Not my people, I don't have any pity.

And then Jezreel is kind of ironic.

Jezreel is like one of the most fertile places if you're there.

Uh we went there, uh, and it's lush and green, uh, and it means God will sow, like God has done the planting.

But because um Hoshea's wife is a temple prostitute, you can also take those names at face value, which is Jezreel the child, could be a child of one of the gods.

Not my people could be Hoshea saying, not my son.

And that could be true.

And I don't have any pity, could be, I don't have any pity.

So there's kind of this double entendre going throughout everything in the book.

It is unfortunately very tough, right?

Because it this could be a really harsh reading against women, but I don't think that's the goal.

This is a strong cultural religious practice, this temple prostitution, and it's just being addressed directly.

So it's really important that Hosea is not saying women are prostitutes and women are sexual property.

But Gomer is sexual property, and Gomer is a sexual, is a temple prostitute.

So he's not universalizing, he's speaking particularly, and that's just a tough bit for us to balance because plenty of other people have universalized those themes to our detriment.

A couple things.

How does a female become a temple prostitute?

And secondly, is Hosea speaking metaphorically that the temple prostitute would be the people of Israel.

Yeah.

So first, first question.

How how we're not completely sure because we haven't found the bylaws for temple prostitution.

However, it appears there's a couple of ways that could happen.

One is through conquest, so that attractive women come or take into the temple.

And if you're really interested, you can read James Mitchner's book, The Source.

And uh particularly a high priestess would be a virgin, so you can only be a high priestess for a very short time, and that actually lying with the high priestess could have been a prize to people in villages to incentivize growth, like crop growth and things like that.

That's how it comes across in James Nitcher's book.

As a high priestess becomes a priestess, meaning she's laying with the man, her status sort of can fall as she goes down, as her virility seems to descend as well.

They could have been purchased.

So it could be that somebody with no marital prospects is able essentially to sell their daughters to the temple.

Remember that women are property, they're chattels.

So you can sell your daughters when there's no suitor to buy them.

So it could be something like that.

It's not like a woman could say, I want to be a priestess, because women, of course, have no agency.

So I think it has to do with either sales or acquisition.

Interestingly enough, notice when uh Hosea takes Gomer, he had to buy her.

And when she goes back, it's sort of this weird thing like, hey, I paid for you, and you've resorted to your original owner, and we don't tolerate our property going like that.

Like, I've got the deed to you.

Curiously enough, he buys her again.

Which would be which would be the fall for Jesus on the cross?

Well, I I can tell you Hosea was not thinking about Jesus at all.

Like I have a hundred percent certainty.

But I do think one way to understand redemption is as a sort of not like God actually redeems, but a way of understanding what it means.

There is no link God would not go to in pursuit of us.

If you hold on and say, yep, that's what it means, then you have to start to wonder, who did God have to redeem us from?

We decided that must be the devil.

How did the devil get all that power?

Well, we made it up so that Jesus could be our redeemer.

Does that make sense what I'm saying?

Instead, think of it as a poetic device.

There is no link God would not go to in pursuit of us.

And that's where you can read Hosea as like this really beautiful idea about love.

Now the truth is you can be a redeemer for your spouse or your children, and in so doing be their chief enabler.

So if you hold it too hard, it's sort of like you should always pursue your alcoholic spouse, but actually AA will tell you there's a point you should say no, and in doing that, you're showing greater love than if you enable them.

So I think what's really helpful when we come to these images is that we not say this is the one way to do it, always do it.

Instead, it's this is an invitation into a way of being, knowing that there might be other ways of being that are life-giving as well.

Um his wife going with God.

I'm gonna take you out of here.

And at the same time, the people kept going back and back and back and became back again.

I think that's really, really helpful, and I would tell you that um it gets hard.

Again, I'm gonna give you another one of those images, don't hold on to too tight.

But um I would tell you, I think hell is uh is a very concrete reality.

Not after I die, but right now.

And I say this because I've worked with addicts, and addicts live in hell.

I believe that, because their brain doesn't even work anymore.

The addictive switch is thrown and they don't even have their own mind.

It's easy to talk about addicts, but I've lived in hell in my life.

Um things like PTSD is a little bit like living in hell, I'm just honestly, and so is sort of like not low self-esteem, that's that's not quite right, but um poor self-image or lack of self-compassion, those are really painful and torturous.

Sometimes we can get out of those places, and I'm gonna tell you, you get out, and it's not like hey, uh you'll never you're all done with that.

I feel like we can get out of these places and have life, but boy, the door to those places is well marked.

In fact, I know right where that door is, and there's a lot of knocking at those doors, and strangely enough, I'll open them.

In fact, it takes a lot of work to not open those doors that go to misery.

I know they go to misery.

I know that.

However, boy, I will open them again and again and again because it takes so much work to not open them.

Um hold on to this image softly, not too tight, right?

God is somebody who, even though we open those doors and go back in, invites us out.

Over and over and over again.

I don't think God carries us out.

Because if God carried me out, I would run right back through as soon as God put me down.

God invites me to come out without enabling me.

You know, so I think you've got to put these kind of caveats.

All this is poetry.

It's all poetry, and I think it has to be, because God is not a physical being.

We don't know if God has feelings like we have feelings, or thoughts like we have thoughts.

We don't know that.

So all of us are sort of struggling to understand, and I think because of that, if we hold one image too strong, whether it's redemption, as we understand it, well, it that can easily turn into idolatry.

It is idolatrous to enable somebody.

That's the definition of idolatry.

And if we worship enabling as redemption, I think we've got God all wrong.

And that means we've kind of got ourselves all wrong.

So part of what we see in Hosea is actually not enabling.

God says, I am going to let these people are pursuing other gods for those benefits.

I'm gonna make sure they don't get any benefits so that they won't keep pursuing those gods.

And then once that's happened, I'll allure them back.

That's like tough love in the AA world.

It is, it is.

Right?

By the way, that strategy doesn't work.

And Hosea is really clear, but Hosea's trying to figure out how God works with this stuff, you know?

God isn't doing these things to be punitive, God's doing these to present learning opportunities.

Allowing natural consequences is about God letting us learn, not about God being mad as hell.

Now, some prophets will say God is mad as hell, and God is gonna whoop your butt.

I felt like that as a parent before.

You know?

I thought, boy, I'm supposed to only give consequences to be teaching, and in a moment, I'm like, I don't care if you learn anything, it is time to get even.

And so, I mean, again, I don't, because I have that feeling, doesn't mean God feels that, but we're trying to imagine.

And if God was only like that, right, if God was only like that, then we have to really be worried about the big paddle in the sky called hell that's got seven circles and fire and stuff like that.

So if we hold on to one thing too strong, it's idolatry.

I just I this is this I think is right.

There's a couple of weird things in here.

Jose and a few prophets will talk about how the people run after raisin cakes.

Um, for whatever reason, raisins are this raisins are this great treat, you know, they're wonderful.

But raisin cakes somehow seemed to be involved in these Canaanite fertility rituals.

So it wasn't like you could just have a raisin cake because you enjoyed it.

It was this cultural religious symbol, right?

So raisin cakes are fine.

You make them at home, it's great.

But they were involved in Canaanite fertility rituals, so they're never fine.

You know, it's sort of like have a goblet of blood.

I mean, you can do that, I suppose, but that has so many nuances for us that it's just sort of yucky.

Maasai people, they drink blood all the time.

But in this country, if you were like, hey, come to my house, we're having the blood tasting, you would say, like, that's really strange.

Stay away from that name.

Yeah, absolutely.

Um unless it's healthy.

Even then, I just don't think so.

I mean, I think it's like we're so in our in our Judeo-Christian heritage, you don't drink blood.

Now, Irish folk, they did that before.

Yeah, they did it before they were Christian.

The Celts did that stuff.

Maasai people do that.

They'll drink pig's blood and stuff too, which is like, oh my god, the trichinosis.

Anyway, but um, you know, they this is the thing.

We get other images in here.

Again, don't call on them too strongly, but God says, hey, I'm gonna be like a lion.

And a lion is an image for like the strongest, deadliest thing there is.

So, hey, um, you're interested in bulls, no, no, I'm not a bull, I'm a lion.

And I'm gonna tear you to pieces.

But then I'll allure you back together.

I mean, so you you sort of get this this and this, you get this consequences, and then you get second chances.

And second chances don't work like, hey, I'm gonna put I'm gonna sell you into slavery and you'll have no income.

But you can buy your freedom anytime you earn the money.

Well, that doesn't work because you can't earn the money.

So I'm gonna take away privileges or let you have consequences, but I'll put you in a place where you can earn your privileges or consequences back.

Um we talked a long time last time, and it might have been it might have been nonsense.

But uh Hoshea really talks a lot about idolatry, and I think sometimes we are really we we flatten idolatry to like, oh that's like making a statue and bowing down to that.

I didn't struggle with idolatry at all.

I don't bow down to any statues.

If we're if we're thoughtful, we think, okay, well, maybe we don't bow down to things like money and power and beauty as culture defines it.

We may not have a shrine to those things with candles and to kill animals to them, but we do spend a lot of our thought time and put a lot of our own value in those things, and boy, we know not to.

And we do.

And that's what idolatry is.

It's messy.

I think idolatry is just really, really messy.

I know money won't buy happiness or love, but I don't act that way, and that's idolatry.

Because I think about acquisition of things.

I know not to get even.

I know that.

But I think about it.

I know when somebody says a remark that I find to be challenging or critical, I really ought to hear that in the best possible way and let it wash over me if there's no growth point in it.

Like if they're just being snarky and cruel.

But I usually don't.

That's idolatry.

So I think, again, if we say, oh look, these dumb people, they just bowed down to wood things, and we're so much more advanced, Jose is not talking about that at all.

I don't think so.

That's an image for what we do all the time, which is put value in things that not only don't lead to life, but lead to death.

Those are advertisements.

You look at that stuff all the time.

Pictures of, oh but if I just had that car, you can add that car dress, that sofa, that dress.

That nose.

Yeah.

That midsection.

And yeah, that nose.

You get it, and then you're stuck with it.

Um, like but of course that happens, and you see this isn't produced what I want, but maybe the next thing will.

Yeah.

And that addictive brain, that kind of living in hell is kind of what I mean.

That's a real hell to live in because no quantity is satisfying.

The more you have, the more you want.

And the less you have, the more you want to.

Alright?

I mean, there's sort of this interesting song called Mo Money Mo Problems.

Yeah.

And I was working in a restaurant and this came on, and the lady's like, well, let me tell you what else, no money mo problems.

And I so, so there you go.

But I I and I don't think there's always like, hey, you do this, it's the silver bullet.

You own a hundred things, like that Japanese lady says, and you'll be happy.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

I I I think because idolatry doesn't have flat solutions.

Idolatry is flattening.

That's that's part of I think the difficulty.

Yeah.

A couple other images in Hoshea, I want to make sure we don't skip.

Um, there's this talk about the threshing floor, and this shows up in Ruth 2.

The threshing floor is a place where you work hard, it's also a place where you play hard.

Um so kind of like in Shakespeare, where you you know Hamlet tells Ophelia to get to a nunnery, and we realize that might mean a brothel.

A threshing floor can be a brothel.

Which fits the double entendre of Hosea, by the way, maybe too well.

This is why the Roman Catholic Church doesn't want their people to interpret the Bible.

Well, there's something really interesting about that claim, and this was a really big claim during the Reformation, and I had a professor one day who said this too: like, there's something really dangerous about people giving people this without any kind of guidance.

Unfortunately, the guidance that we often get, so again, as an evangelical, this was the most important thing, but I didn't just memorize this, I memorized what my preacher told me it meant, and in general, they were wrong.

And I know they were wrong because they didn't lead me to any larger life.

And that's my criterion for whether or not we've interpreted correctly.

Does it lead me to larger life, and who does it cost?

If it costs anybody but me, I'm doing it wrong.

That's what I think.

And I have to be willing to pay the cost.

If I'm not willing to pay the cost, I shouldn't do it.

Because otherwise it's imposing suffering, not me choosing it.

I don't know if that makes sense what I'm saying.

That's actually one of the critiques in Hosea.

The people go around gashing themselves with this understanding, right, essentially, that they're sh when they hurt themselves, they're showing devotion to God.

Well, hey, that's in the Christian tradition a bunch, right?

Monks flagellating themselves.

And I want to say that's a really sick and twisted thought.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, we know probably not to whip ourselves, but we often think, God, I hate going to church, but I'm gonna do it to show you how much I love you.

And I just do think that's a healthy approach, you know?

Hey, God, I'm gonna do something I hate to prove I love you.

It just doesn't seem like you've got anywhere to grow doing that, you know.

We all did this bit in high school or junior high.

Boy, I did not study for this test.

So God just help me get an A and I'll become a nun when I grow up or something like that, you know?

I mean, all this is transactional, and it is like God wants, essentially, God wants us miserable instead of I think a different opportunity, which is like, hey, um, it's a little bit painful to give up the habits that we've habituated ourselves up.

It takes a lot to change a habit.

But some of those habits are really self-destructive.

So God would like us to go through the pain of giving that up.

It's painful, but in the end, you get you get something bigger.

The way Lent is really supposed to work, I'm gonna tell you, this is how it's supposed to work.

You give something up so that you have time.

To take something new.

Or you give something up that has always been hurting you anyway.

Discipline takes time.

I would tell you the first three weeks of an exercise program, boy, you've got to really talk yourself into it.

However, once you enter the exercise program, to give it up is really painful.

Yeah, it becomes addictive.

It is addictive.

It becomes addictive in some good ways.

If you're doing it and hurting your body, give that up.

But I will tell you at a certain point, like I'm a morning exerciser.

If I don't do it, it takes me a long time to wake up.

But if I go out, first thing, I'm awake real fast, and boy, that's a life-giving benefit for me because I don't like being tired all day.

It gives you energy, yeah, it gives me energy all day long.

I mean, whatever.

But I would tell you too, I've been real healthy and I've pushed myself and hurt myself.

And that's too much.

So this is one of those things we have to fill in, right?

Because exercise can give you life, it can also take it away from you.

So you know, like this is where it's hard to balance in, and when I do it to the point I hurt myself, that's probably idolatry.

I'm sorry, but I think it is.

Um this does kind of lead into the next chapter.

Absolutely.

When you're talking about sacrifices, and these sacrifices are the same thing.

It's God, I'm gonna kill a thousand cows here for your benefit, and you're going to bless me with a thousand more cows.

Ten thousand.

I should get more than I gave.

Or whatever.

It's all transactional.

Transactional.

And we do that now.

We do that when we tithe, if we tithe, it depends on your heart.

Which we don't always do.

Right.

But when you do that, that is a transaction.

It it can be.

I think that's the key.

So, and and and it's maybe helpful.

So it's not a transaction?

Well, it depends.

I think it depends on you.

Because I don't want to say something wrong.

No, well, no, I think it's a deal you make.

I will tell you this: Creflow Dollar on TV says the more you give to God, meaning the church, meaning Creflow Dollar Ministries, the more God will repay you.

So tithing is an investment, it's a great investment strategy.

Um but it would be the same thing if you gave to the poor or you know, sacrificed for something else, not to change the topic.

No, no, I think this is completely appropriate to talk about.

Like, what does it mean to sacrifice?

Really?

Because Hosea says, look, I would much rather have, Hosea says, on account of speaking for God, steadfast love, in Hebrew the word his Hesed, in Greek we would call that agape love, you know.

Hesed is more important than sacrifice.

But I want to tell you, Hesed is sacrifice.

Sacrifice is when you make something holy.

You don't have to lose it to make it holy.

You don't have to die to make something holy.

Firefighters sacrifice themselves when they go into burning buildings and come back out alive.

That's a sacrifice.

My mother made sacrifices for me all the time.

She is still very much alive.

It is a sacrifice for me to say hello to somebody when I don't feel like it.

It is.

Small things are sacrifices, and those kinds of sacrifices are ways we show steadfast love.

They're not different.

Now, there is a kind of sacrifice where essentially I make trades.

Like I'll give you this in expectation for reward.

Those are my worst, most frustrating moments in relationships.

I'm doing this, horseback riding lessons, so you will be a master equestrian and go to college.

When I want that to happen, I'm gonna tell you I'm living in hell because I rarely get the outcomes I want.

And sometimes that results in me no longer giving gifts.

Sometimes the whole thing when it's transactional is all about investments, not about gifts.

Now there are outcomes I want for my children.

But if I only give them things with expectation of return, I am no longer giving them anything.

I'm making investments and obligations.

I know folks who give 10% of their monies to the church expecting God will bless them.

I will be honest with you, I don't know that that's inappropriate as long as you think, depending how you think.

I I give 10% of my income to this place.

I do.

Um, and I do it not because I think God's gonna reward me, but essentially because I believe in what we do here.

I believe if you're doing that, and I mean you don't look at it this way, but God can provide for you things you can't provide for yourself.

That's that's the deal.

Well, you don't we could take that a lot of ways, and that is exactly why I do put money here, so that we can provide for people who can't provide for themselves.

And my reward is not always in the outcome.

Sometimes I look at the way money gets spent and I think, oh my good lord.

Actually, my reward is in giving.

I believe in this place.

I do.

I believe in what we do.

Do we sometimes do things I wish we hadn't done?

Yes.

But in general, I really believe in this place.

And I'm really happy to put my financial value where I put my heart value.

That's why I fell on a fledge card.

10%, I'll tell you the reason there was 10% back on the old days.

It wasn't money, it was a pre-monetary economy.

You had to make sure that the priests who could not own any land were able to feed themselves.

So you shared 10% of your grain and your meat.

Well, look, we're a little bit different.

I own property, I have an income.

Um so tithing is whatever.

I mean, I think the reason for the tithe is that we've got 10 fingers, and 10% is really easy to figure out.

Do people give 10% to the church?

Episcopalians, very few do.

Southern Baptists very much do.

But Episcopalians give money to other places too, like universities and charities, right?

So again, I don't know that there's a hard, fast rule.

Once you hit 10%, God's gonna reward you.

I think part of the reward is are we living into our values as a place, and do I support that?

So I think it's all kind of rather nebulous, to be honest with you.

I see giving as an act of worship, as an act of gratitude.

Everything I have in my thinking has come from God.

All of my gifts.

All of my gifts.

Yeah.

And I just want to give back to say that.

And I try to give it in places that will help others, that will glorify God.

So I just have a different view of it.

I don't think so.

I think that's a perfect view of it.

I think it's actually all of these are.

I think if we make one view giving, of giving, we hold on to something a little hard and it becomes idolatry.

So I think our giving is about gratitude.

I think it's about putting our money where our mouth is so that actually our heart can grow into it.

Sometimes we say, oh, I value this, I value this, I value this.

And one of the ways we show value as Americans is with our resources.

Sorry.

It's not wrong, it's what we do.

So if we value things and don't put our resources behind them, I would tell you as Americans, we don't value them at all.

I really want to be a generous person.

Then I had better give.

I want to.

So giving follows generosity or nourishes it or creates it.

You know, all of those things are probably true.

Do I think God will bless gifts?

I think so.

But I may not get money back.

Instead, what I might get is more satisfaction with my life.

Or what I might get instead of more money.

I mean, giving might actually put me financially on a hard place, but I do sort of believe in what we're doing on account of other people.

I didn't say this Sunday morning, but the reason I believe in me having this job is that I do more funerals for people who have never been in this church than for people who come here every week.

I believe they deserve that.

And the fact that I am not distracted with a math teacher job and am able to just hurry up and go do that, I'm really grateful for that.

And that's why I try to make sure I do that.

Because I realize there's people when they come and they say, I don't know, are we allowed to have a funeral here?

I think it's really worth me being able to say, you're invited to have a funeral here.

You're not allowed.

And that takes somebody's time, you know?

It takes somebody's time.

Sometimes I wish I still taught math.

But I believe in this other thing enough.

You know, no, I mean I do.

When I taught, to me it was a gift that I I was had the opportunity to teach.

Yeah.

And then there were children there who wanted to work.

Some days.

I would tell you, the reason the reason I went back is because I got paid, you know, and and that's still part of the deal here, right?

Like we we need to be paid in order to come back every day.

Because if we just do it for fun, it'll last about two years.

But um sort of like our marriages, right?

If it's only fun, then you've got a short shelf life there.

And most of life is like that, then most of life is that way.

That's the way it is.

And that's where gifts and investments go together.

Yes.

They go together, and investments aren't wrong.

It's just if we only ever invest, we miss the opportunity to give.

And if we only ever give, we may not be making the most thoughtful gifts, which turn out to be investments.

So they just they go together.

I uh saw a man sleeping on the sidewalk on Baerie Boulevard yesterday.

And you know, you see that it maybe doesn't hit everybody home.

But I mean, you can give to the church, but I'm disturbed by the fact that there are people starving to death in this country, and one of these people is a friend of mine.

I can't help.

I send him food occasionally, but I feel guilty all the time because I'm not helping you.

That's off the topic, but it kind of reminded me then when you speak of the marriage vows, that's like the other thing is like, you know, you're in sickness and hell, and then you've got this person on your hand who is completely helpless and draining everything.

I mean, people do get to that point.

Now I think what you said is.

But you have a promise there.

I mean, something is wrong.

Something is wrong in this country.

I think you said something really helpful because the indictments here that we're reading are not about, I would tell you again, they're not about bowing down to wood poles.

That's not it.

That could be involved, but that's not it.

Part of it, like you're saying, is hey, there's problems with justice and equity.

And maybe it's helpful to say really fast, there's a couple different kinds of justice and I think this is really important to Micah as well, and to the rest of like what we're talking about when we talk about the prophets.

You know, there's justice is a funny word for us because in general, what a judge does is tries to come up with some kind of remedy, right?

And often remedies like sending somebody to prison, the question is, does prison make right what was done wrong?

So I would tell you prison in general is the kind of justice that we call retributive.

And and the whole the whole uh court system in general is about retribution.

You stole five dollars from Mike, you must pay it back with interest.

You killed somebody, you go to jail for the rest of your life.

Retribution is really about getting even.

It's not just about revenge, but it's just about getting even.

But there's other kinds of justice in the world.

We just don't think about them very often.

One is distributive justice, which is making sure everybody has equal access to justice.

I'll give you an example of how there is not distributive justice in the state of California.

It's gonna sound nuts when I tell you this.

If you own any property in California that's worth more than$25,000, which means if you own a postage stamp, because land in California is ridiculous, and you die with a will, a will that you paid money to make, your property has to go to probate court in order to go to your heirs.

The average probate court cost in California, the average, is$35,000.

If you make a trust, your assets do not go to probate, they go straight to your heirs.

Net savings to you,$35,000.

How much does a trust cost?

$2,000.

How much does a will cost?

$1,000.

My wife went to law school and took a class called Trusts and Estates and did not learn that in the state of California.

Who knows that?

People with money.

Let me tell you when I learned that, we went and made a trust.

Because otherwise, I'd be passing on a$500,000 mortgage to my young children who would have to pay$35,000 to assume my mortgage.

So the whole trust business, I'm sorry to say this, this could be wrong.

I'm not a tax-prep person.

Is a loophole made to benefit wealthy persons who have this insider knowledge.

So trusts and wills in probate court do not represent, in my opinion, distributed justice.

I'm not so opposed to it that I didn't make a trust.

Because my children would suffer without one.

This is part of the pickle that we're in.

That's really wrong.

They didn't teach your wife that in class.

That's very discriminatory.

Well, I don't think so.

I mean, it's just a certain part of the law.

She knows what a trust is, that's what she learned.

She knows what a will is and kind of what it does.

You know, in the state of Texas, just to put you to use a little bit, you if you got a will, the probate court cost is about$2,000.

That's about it.

But in my head too, it's sort of like would I rather my heir my heirs pay it, or would I rather pay it now?

I paid it now, I've got a trust.

There will be no probate court in my family because I know this.

Make them co-owners and you're gonna pay a fancy.

Yeah.

Well, that's right.

But I'm not gonna put my son's name on my checking account.

Right.

Not yet.

Because I don't trust him.

In fact, the way I set it up is my kids don't get anything until they're 30.

And if they need it earlier, the guardian can make that decision on their behalf.

So I hedged my bets.

This I think is the kind of justice we practice the least.

Restorative justice.

It's not just about getting even, it's about taking care of circumstances that cause crime in the first place.

So if somebody steals bread, the retributive justice is to remove their thumb or hand or incarcerate them.

Restorative justice is about making amends, but also trying to consider why it is that people need to steal bread and what can be done about that.

Again, we don't do that very much.

Now, this word, justice, in Hebrew, is really the word righteousness.

Righteousness has zero to do with acts of highly disconnected from restorative and distributive justice.

Righteousness is in the beat justice.

Righteousness isn't here because the prophets are saying, I will not accept your sacrifices while you are oppressing folks.

So don't stop sacrificing, but connect worship of God with taking care of folk.

By the way, that's how we're different from the Red Cross.

The Red Cross believes in helping folk.

We believe in helping folk because we are members of God's family.

The Red Cross can never give you the because it's not our job.

Our job is to really highlight the because and make sure that we do those yes, if that if that makes sense.

Hebrew is a language with 10,000 words only.

That's not a lot of words.

We have 600,000 words in English.

And um, Hebrew is actually kind of like kind of cute in a way, it's sort of like my grandma uh really likes to use euphemisms for things instead of direct words.

So there is no word in Hebrew for sexual intercourse.

There's not.

There's three euphemisms.

One is to know somebody, right?

Adam knew Eve and they had a child, but you know, sometimes Adam just knew Eve.

So you gotta figure out on context, right?

And if you're ever not sure, have a middle schooler read it to you and see what interpretations are possible.

There's another word that says in Hebrew, it really just means to lie down together.

And you say, well, that's clear euphemism, but sometimes it isn't.

Sometimes it just means you lie down.

And then there's another one, and this one's pretty clear, but it's to play the prostitute, but but that doesn't always mean physical sex act.

That can be like a like an analogy for pursuing another deity.

Or kind of for um doing whatever it you doing whatever to get something, you know.

This is what it's saying, like there's there's no word actually for genitals in Hebrew.

The word feet is what's used, and sometimes your feet are your feet, but sometimes your feet are clearly your genitals.

How did they uh discuss circumcision?

Um there's no discussion of it, you just do it.

And and the reason they don't have to discuss it, it wasn't a new invention.

Abraham was not the first person to be circumcised.

Egyptians and Canaanites were already doing it.

The Hebrew people just cut more skin off.

More.

Hebrew uh Egyptians might have only cut the bottom flaps of the bottom hemisphere, or Canaanites might have cut some of that foreskin off, but we think perhaps Hebrew folks cut all of the foreskin off, which is different.

And and I mentioned this to you a little bit last week.

This is this petty difference, right?

But in the Bible, covenants aren't made, they're cut.

Circumcision is how you cut a covenant, and it really is cutting.

Again, in Hebrew, you cannot make a covenant.

Linguistically, you can never say that.

You have to say cut a covenant.

And covenants, the first covenant is cut not with circumcision, but Abraham cuts a heifer in half, like nose to tail, and the pieces flop sideways, and you walk between the pieces and you say, May this happen to me if I break the covenant.

So you can never undo a covenant because of the city.

Well, you can.

If you break it, then you're going to get split in half.

That's sort of how it goes.

I can make a covenant with you, cut a covenant with you.

You can call anything cut.

Yes.

You can't back out.

That's what I'm saying.

You can't back out of it, but you can get the consequences of being cut yourself.

And this is kind of how it worked in the feudal system.

The king cuts a covenant with the with the people.

The people don't keep their end.

They get cut in half.

And that really did happen.

Like, cut in half.

You can just watch Game of Thrones.

I mean, that was happening in the don't watch Game of Thrones.

Okay, that's Hosea.

Is that alright?

What's interesting is you get all of this justice piece and all of this like messy bit, and then you get God, like, again, going into the hells that we've put ourselves in and saying, come on out.

Question we had last week.

Did God really tell Hosea to do all this stuff?

Or did Hosea feel led to do this stuff and say, aha, God must be like this?

I don't think there's necessarily a right or wrong answer to that.

I prefer to think the second.

Because I would have a hard time with God like making us do stuff, period.

I would really have a hard time with that.

Mainly because I'm an Armenian person and sort of believe in free will.

And I don't really believe in divine puppetry, you know, because that just has a lot of bad consequences for me.

If God makes me do anything, then then God should make Hitler not gas safe knowledge.

You know what I mean?

So if God makes you do something, then God should make you do everything.

And then there's no point.

I'm doing way too much talking, I'm sorry.

We'll come to Micah.

Does that sound good?

This is one of those wonderful memory verses we got, Micah 6.8.

And it's so good, right?

What does God require of you?

To go to church and to give 10% of your income and to be really nice to the priest.

I wish that's what it said.

I wish that's what it said because I think I could do that.

Instead, what do we get?

Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

And maybe it's worth unpacking this three.

Do justly.

Don't be retributive with your justice, though.

I think that's a warning.

Be restorative with your justice.

Part of that means, right, when somebody says something really icky to you that you know you didn't deserve, is to stop and think, maybe they're having a really bad day.

To consider the circumstances out of which their apparent assaults came from.

Once upon a time, I had adopted a little boy who had not been treated really well, and so um he had what I wanted to call a stealing problem.

The right therapist helped me understand that it was a taking problem, but before it was a taking problem, it was a survival mechanism.

Because when he wasn't fed, he had to, of course, feed himself and he had to have stores.

And what's interesting is that survival mechanism ended up getting in the way of him making relationships.

But you know, when you have to pink pick between the two, you're hardwired to survive.

Right?

So we have to grow out of those businesses, and that what that meant, right, was that what would have been for me wanton theft was for him rooted in survival.

And navigating those differences is about restorative justice.

It's also about, this is where these become synonyms, it's also about mercy.

But mercy is one of those weird words.

Honestly, mercy has less to do with pity and more to do with compassion and empathy.

Yes.

So don't love being magnanimous.

Love being in solidarity with other people.

Ignatius Loyola says this in the spiritual exercises that um this is a spiritual exercise.

Whenever someone says something to you, you need to hear it in the best possible way.

So what you have to hear, right, when somebody says, you rat bastard, you have to think, what's the best possible intention?

It's an exercise.

That one, you need and start small.

You may not want to start with a 500-pound exercise.

Maybe we start with five-pound ones, you know.

One thing that helps me to not take it personally is to think what pain inside that person is this coming from.

Yeah.

What is the pain they're experiencing that creates the need to hurt me?

It's really hard to do that.

When you work with young teachers who take things personally, it it's a a while before they can get to the point where you know they realize it's them.

You know, it's hard to not take it personally.

And of course, what we can all do is that there's moments in our lives or our profession where we can do that work very well because we stealed our wills or we've practiced professionalism, and then our Aunt Ruth will say something like, I just hate your haircut.

And this stays over here, and now it is us versus Aunt Ruth.

Yes.

The third bit about humility, uh, again, I grew up as a so I told you this in church.

I think it's I think it's right.

I grew up as a good southern area where you self-deprecate because pride means thinking too much of yourself and it's really dangerous.

Um, humility is about leaving this margin, you may not be good and just inviting people or inviting yourself to say, I made this five-star cake, but it was a fluke, maybe it won't turn out next time.

That's all poppycock.

Um I had a teacher who told me humility is being exactly who God made you to be.

No more and no less.

No less.

I think no less is the most important part for Southerners who self-deprecate.

No more.

I do know people who could really work on the no more sum.

You know.

What was the third thing you said?

Live justly love mercy.

Oh, okay.

And walk humbly with God.

To walk humbly with God means to be exactly who God made you to be.

And in some ways, I think that's this interesting, like, sort of gateway to like what forgiveness means.

This really terrible thing happened to me when I was a kid, and yet uh it's made me who I am.

And I'm grateful for who I am.

That's really hard.

Especially when the thing that happened to you was like trauma that you didn't earn or deserve, and you've had to work through it, or you're still working through it.

And there you are.

There's this little thing in Harry Potter, there's this mirror.

And uh it's it's this mirror, and when you look in the mirror, you see exactly your heart's desire.

And Dumbledore says, right, the best person would look at that mirror and see themselves exactly as they are.

It's an interesting spiritual.

It's the mirror of Areset, if that matters to you, anyway.

And Harry looks and sees his parents because they died when he was a baby.

And Dumbledore says, look, you could spend your whole life staring into that mirror and you would miss all of life.

Interesting thought.

Humility must be something like that, I think.

Notice that there's nothing in there God requires of us about offering sacrifices or reading the Bible.

This is an interesting thing.

I think Bible study is meant to reinforce those, and if it doesn't, we're doing it wrong.

Tithing and being part of church, if it doesn't reinforce those, we're doing it wrong.

That's what I think.

That's the core of Micah, and that's the memory verse.

Like every everybody who does a wana is gonna win Micah 6-8.

There's a song about it.

This is the song, these are the words.

Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God.

Do justly, and then notice when you love mercy, you can't love retribution because it's not merciful.

Getting even is not merciful.

For a minute.

What's funny about it, right, is that we typically judge other people the way we judge ourselves.

And many of us, if one of our friends came to us, we would give our friends way more compassion and empathy than we would ever give ourselves.

And what a sad way we choose to live.

Part of the problem with living under retribution is that we will always punish ourselves instead of restoring ourselves.

The worst part.

I think so.

I think so.

At least we're fair.

In general, we treat ourselves just like we treat other people.

So when you see ugly people, it must be really hard to live with themselves.

And that's one of those thoughts I had this therapist one time.

She said, you know, I used to have this client who was really ugly physically and every other way, just an ugly lady.

And one time she was yelling at me like she often did, and she got up and she pointed at me and said, You can't stand to be with me for an hour, and I have to be with myself all the time.

And the therapist said that's when I found empathy for her.

And she was right.

She had to be with herself all the time, and how sad that is.

You know, I mean, it's an interesting thing.

It's a great way to look at ourselves in the mirror.

Well, I thought it was a really great story.

It's a great story.

And I sometimes have to do that as a pastoral caregiver.

You are really hard to be with, and it must be really hard to be you.

It must be really hard to be you.

Yeah.

It doesn't mean I can fix it, it means I can be compassionate.

It's hard being me sometimes, I'll tell you.

I make it really hard to be myself.

I think we can all relate to that.

That's humility, that's mercy, and that's real justice.

And at the end of the day, that's what will help the person who said that we can't be with yourself.

Yes.

It's only because the counselor would respond in accepting you.

Yeah.

That's who you are, and that's who I accept it.

That's the starting place of a therapeutic relationship, yeah.

It's where it starts.

She said it did.

Because she she, as a therapist, was able to have real empathy for this person who otherwise was just so abrasive all the time.

Yeah.

Huh.

It's like with raising children sometimes when you have a child.

So I want to say it through a work.

Well, I tell you, I'll tell you a funny side story about that.

We're we're doing this curriculum right now called Becoming a Love and Logic Parent.

And I was trained with this before we adopted our son.

And I will tell you, I think what appealed to me about this was becoming a logical parent.

So I was really good at connecting a behavior with natural consequences.

And I was really good about, I mean, this is gonna sound nuts when I tell you this, but um, there's these kind of mock conversations that they stage between parent and kids, and sort of like, hey, you know, Johnny, I love you so much, and uh, we have to go shopping.

But last time I went shopping, it was really challenging because you were like screaming and running all over the store, and boy, it was just so stressful for me.

So I need to go shopping, and um, you know, I love you so much I don't want to be worn down when I'm around you, so I'm gonna get a babysitter while I go shopping, and you're gonna pay for that.

And um, we'll talk about how you can earn a chance to go shopping with me.

And I was like, ah ha ha ha, that's so silly.

No parent should ever do that.

But it's so logical.

We showed this video this week, and many of our people were like, that's nuts, which is sort of like, hey, we're on vacation, and vacation's supposed to be fun, and all of a sudden it's not fun.

So um, there's a lot of options.

Like, I'm gonna send you home and then I'll see you at the end of the week.

And they were like, Oh, you can't do that as child abuse.

Well, you can if you've got somebody there to pick them up and take care of them.

Most of us would never want to do that because we weren't parented that way, and then part of me is like, why not?

You'd do that one time and they'd really figure out boy, you mean business about how we're supposed to interact, you know?

Very logical.

Kind of traumatizing.

It's traumatizing if you only have logic.

If you have empathy, it's the best.

The empathy is I really wanted to spend this week with you, and I'm really bummed.

And I get you had a hard time, but I care about myself too much to have my vacation ruined.

Well, I think parents feel guilty when they think of themselves and think I'm not supposed to be this way.

And then what we do is teach our children not to consider themselves.

And that's exactly why we all have problems, not with guilt, but with shame, because we were taught to be ashamed of ourselves.

And you know, it's really interesting that what these people say is you should treat your children like you treat your friends.

And if friends are not fun to be around, you will spend less time with them.

And that's a natural consequence.

It's sort of interesting.

Now, what they wanted to say though is that I'm very good at the logic part, but the part that was often missing for me is the empathy part.

So it's very logical that when you buy expensive junk, it's going to break quickly.

That's logical.

I want to teach that lesson, but you know, if I'm not willing to connect with my kid when they do that, because I've bought junk and it's broken and I've been really disappointed, if I'm not willing to have that empathy, what I will teach them is that I don't love them, I'm just logical.

And this is where I think it comes together.

I have people who ask me for handouts, and I can't always give it, or I give diminished amounts.

And to be honest with you, it's probably more important how much love I show than how much logic I give.

So in Micah, God starts out not as a judge, but as a witness.

God is going to testify against you.

So there's going to be a trial.

We sort of know that God's the judge, but God is also the witness.

And the test of testifying goes against north and south, right?

What's the high place of Judah?

Jerusalem.

Well, that's the temple.

By the way, it is the high place.

It's a relative maximum.

It's not the absolute.

The temple is the relative is a relative maximum in Jerusalem.

The Mount of Olives is taller than Mount Moriah is.

But you do have to go up to get there because it's on a hill.

And calling it a high place is not a good thing.

High places is where you go worship Canaanite gods, right?

The temple is corrupt, and of course, in Samaria, it's well, Samaria is the high place in Israel.

So the centers for your worship are the centers for your idolatry.

That's a tough claim.

That'd be like God saying the most unjust place in your life is the sanctuary of St.

Thomas.

What?

We need church.

It's amazing people kept these books around.

It's amazing.

It's like a minority report.

It is.

And we kept that.

It's a church thing.

We kept it.

Yeah.

There's these other images like you're gonna walk around barefoot and naked.

And that's what happens when you become a captive of Assyria.

They don't take you away with your finery, they take you away naked.

And barefoot.

Because, hey, if you're clothed, you still have some dignity.

And if you've got shoes on your feet, well, you've still got some dignity.

So they take all your dignity away when they enslave you.

You've made your wages from prostitution is the claim.

Again, that's that double entendre, right?

About pursuing the wrong, it's really about pursuing the wrong things.

Did you see that there's a melting pot in uh Micah?

The melting pot is that the accusation is you're making a stew out of people.

You're chopping them up so you can consume them.

Priests serve for a price.

Oracles are bought.

Judges are susceptible to bribes.

Those are the specific indictments.

So if there's two people in the hospital, and one pays no pledge to the church, and one is the biggest pledger.

Seems right, doesn't it?

Order the one who called you first.

Or the one who you perceive to be sicker.

Yeah, right, sure.

Sure.

It doesn't work that way.

In this church it does.

In the church.

It doesn't work that way not to work with uh well.

I spent a lot of years working on it again.

And you took care of the nuns' families before you took care of anybody else.

And they gave a lot of money.

They were first.

And when we went on affiliations and went to a town that was, oh my god, they told us, don't try and light your one little candle for equality, because it was a first side.

You walk down the street and black people got off the sidewalk.

And it was awful hard for us.

We didn't feel that way, you know, to see that that was an accepted problem.

But those patients in the hospital with no air conditioning were nicer than the patients at home with all the air conditioning.

And this actually was the point I wanted to come back to that I actually forgot when you said, you know, it's really hard that there is just systemic poverty.

And there's this great phrase, right?

Nobody can do everything, everybody can do something.

And there's this other really great part of the word repent that has to do with grief.

In Hebrew, there's a strange, it's a it's a word poor language, but there's two words for repent.

One is you change your heading, and the other is this really deep grief in being complicit in systems you cannot overcome by yourself.

So, like I I'm gonna be really clear, I cannot stop racism.

I cannot.

I I actually have racist tendencies in myself, all of us do.

And if we don't think so, I think we probably need to look in the mirror a little bit closer that we can diminish them.

But I can't stop them in the world, right?

And to be honest, I could say, well, it's too big of a problem, so I quit.

Can't do anything, so whatever.

Or we could say, I may not have a solution to that problem, but it's a problem.

I'm gonna maintain it's a problem that needs a solution.

There's this great guy who said it says, you know, look, because something is a problem doesn't mean you have to fix it.

But we have to be aware it's a problem and not give up on it.

And we can do more together.

I mean, I think it all comes back then.

Way right, so to be honest, sometimes I might be able to do more than I'm able to, but in general, I can only do what I can do, and this is the worst part about being a parent, is you can say I could have done this, I couldn't do this.

The truth is, I could not have done anything what I did because I didn't have the emotional maturity or I didn't have the sense of where my resources were going when I made those choices.

And and now, right, I don't talk myself out of helping, I'm able to help where I can, and that's part of the restorative justice is no one person can do that because it's about systems.

So it doesn't help to say that in Houston many people are homeless because they choose to be homeless.

That is true.

Many people in downtown Houston can have beds, can, and choose not to.

And the reason they make that choice are things like mental illness and confinement.

We talked about this before.

Different in Clear Lake than in downtown.

It's a problem though.

Mental illness is a problem.

And we do very little for it because honestly, we don't know what to do.

We can say there should be more of this than that.

Nobody knows how to treat mental illness.

I can tell you right now, nobody knows.

There's not like a quick, easy fix, there's not a silver bullet.

I know folks that have had twin kids, and one of them comes out with all their same values and motives, and the other one struggles their whole life to even just do proper things.

These weren't adopted kids, there's no trauma.

This is part of the deal, right?

So, how do you handle mental health for these kids?

Well, you put them in therapy, you put them in rehab.

Maybe that helps.

Maybe darn expensive.

Just to give you an idea, if you're an alcoholic, it takes you, on average, three and a half inpatient rehabs.

Three and a half inpatient rehabs to get sober for ten years.

Those rehabs cost in general more than a thousand dollars a day, and they take 90 days.

So I'm not saying we shouldn't invest in mental health, I'm saying part of what's really hard is the metrics, the treatment.

And I'm not a mental health expert.

So I don't think God's calling me to fix that problem.

But I think God wants me to be aware that it's a problem.

And I'm involved in the problem.

What do we can't fix this is?

What we can do is have compassion for the individual who has an awareness or who is in a headache, or who isn't there and can't make hands meet when it comes out of he or she.

So so I I totally agree with the system frustration and inability to say.

But there's still that compassion that you have when you see somebody laying on the street.

That's right.

To me, that's a part of restorative in a way, because you restore some dignity at least for the moment.

Yeah.

And I would tell you, even if we choose to say no, we can say no in a dignified way.

Absolutely.

Yes, sometimes no is the best thing you can't say.

Yeah.

In America, I think we do that by making eye contact.

When I travel around the world, I purposely don't make eye contact because it sends a signal that I ought not to send sometimes.

You know, but if a vendor is trying to sell me something and I don't want to buy it, I don't look at them in other countries.

Because if you do, you're saying I'm ready to to barter with you.

So it's best to ignore.

Here, if you ignore somebody, the message is you're a piece of shit.

It is.

No, it is.

Ignoring is the cultural worst response to somebody in this country.

So if we look at somebody and say, I hear your story, it must be hard.

I'm not willing or able to help you today.

Oh, but that's that's harsh.

No, that's actually telling somebody your truth.

I'm not willing or able to help you today, one or the other.

I daddy.

South America said when I give to the poor, they call me the saint.

When when I ask why they're poor, they call me the poor.

That's right.

And I think that's and I think that's at the that's at the heart of a lot of our problems is we don't ask, when we ask those questions, we call socialists.

Yeah.

No, no.

But those questions have to be asked, why does happen anymore?

And I think, like you're saying it too, is it's much easier to treat symptoms in medicine.

Socially, it's easy to treat symptoms, it's really hard to treat sources.

Like systemic poverty is really hard to treat.

And giving people socks and underwear is really easy to do.

I I buy the socks, I give them, done.

There's room for both places, for sure.

Um, but but I think this is part of the difficulty.

And and becomes, I think, part of the vexing thing.

So I'm not ashamed, I can't help everybody.

Well, sometimes I am.

But it's critical we not be ashamed of that because we can't.

We can't.

What we can do though is acknowledge the problem and the dignity of the person and the situation.

And sometimes if we're doing that, we get ideas and we make connections that that really do start to treat systems as well.

Did you see the other list of things that they they're they're they're called against here?

They lay in their beds and devise wickedness.

Like they covet fields and they try to figure out how they're going to seize them.

They want other people's stuff and they try to think, how will I get them?

I don't think that means they want to pay fair market value.

I think what that means they might pay fair market value as long as they can have it, whether the person's willing or unwilling.

It'd be sort of like an imminent domain for private citizens.

Don't color net, don't color net.

They strip robes from the peaceful.

So, so again, like when you take somebody's clothes because they owe you money, what you've created is a system where they can never pay you back.

I don't know if that makes sense.

You can't take their loincloth, but you can take their robe.

When Jesus says if somebody asks for your robe, give them your tunic, what he's saying is if somebody sues you for your coat, which they're legally allowed to do, give them your underwear too.

Why would you want to do that?

Then you'd be naked.

Yeah, and you'd be showing the world who just made you naked.

And nobody likes people who make other people naked.

So I think so.

You oppress women and children.

Now remember, those are the weakest people in society, they have no rights at all.

Until a hundred years ago, that still was pretty much true, right?

Not only can they not end property, they don't like make their own decisions at all.

There's no school, children can work in coal mines at the age of six, you know, this sort of business, right?

So you're using people like commodities, not as family members together.

I don't know if that sort of makes sense.

You're telling empty falsehoods.

You're skilled in evil.

Uh you practice violence, you tell lies, you've got dishonest scales.

Those are the reasons Assyria is going to overrun you.

It kind of sounds like nowadays too.

Yeah, and there's this really interesting image in in the second part of the book where Micah says, I'm gonna make a remnant of the people who will live in Zion.

Zion is a place, it's it's Mount Moriah, but it's like the heavenly version of Mount Moriah, like it's the good version of the temple, right?

And they're gonna be lame people.

And I was trying to figure out why, and I think it's because lame people can't fight each other.

And they know that.

Lame people can't fight.

It doesn't mean you actually have a disability, it means you can't fight somebody else.

God's gonna use not fighters, God's gonna take not fighters to occupy the heavenly Jerusalem.

Which is an image, not in heaven.

I mean, like the one God intends is the one where we have made ourselves lame, not literally, but figuratively, so that we cannot be violent against one another.

Now you know lame people can be violent because there's a game called Murder Ball where you get in wheelchairs and you and you run into each other and and this is a lot of fun or whatever for these people.

I mean, actually, I think it is.

I I don't think they purposefully try to hurt each other at all.

It's a way of like actually having dignity and playing contact sports like they used to.

But again, you you can you can hone in on something so much you lose the whole point of it, which is that again, these are people who in general cannot hurt other people, and that's that's who God has in mind.

God's gonna draw all people to the holy mountain.

So that the Jerusalem God intends is a draw not just for the chosen people of Israel, because God has chosen all people.

It's in a prophet.

And maybe the difference between the chosen people and the not chosen people is the chosen people choose to listen to God.

So they think they're special, but but really God's broadcasting everywhere.

Beautiful image that you notice, they'll beat their swords into plowshares and they'll change their spears into pruning hooks.

We had a clergy conference, this Mennonite guy come two years ago, and part of what they were doing is gathering up assault rifles from the community and turning them into hoes and shovels because they were welders.

It was this really interesting thing to see like this AK-47 with like a hoe end on it, and imagine people actually gardening with an AK-47.

It was that's kind of what he's saying, right?

Yeah.

It's a really interesting image that will turn the weapons of war into means of justice.

Let's give him our email about that.

He probably did already.

Um course, I mean that's an interesting thing, is a lot of our innovations we enjoy were made for war.

I mean, super blue was a wartime application that was developed, right?

And so were jets.

And we use these things.

Yeah, duct tape was, absolutely it was.

We use these things to create peace, and they were made from war, but I think the goal is let's not justify the war with the applications.

Let's be thoughtful about human life without the conflict.

Okay, I've run out of our time.

We can talk about Micah some more next week if you want to, but otherwise we'll do Isaiah.

Is that okay?

Are we gonna do the next chapter?

Yes.

We're going to do chapter six, which is judgment.

It's the first Isaiah.