Disciple Bible Study 27, Revelation Part II

Yeah, it's dramatic.

Well welcome back.

Um and uh hopefully um drilling down on these seven uh churches was um was interesting and worth your worth your reading.

Uh as always terrible question.

Um where did your where did your thoughts go this week?

Were there um sort of questions you had or comments or okay I had an aha moment about what this is maybe really about?

Any any opening thoughts here?

What I was thinking when I was reading through all the seven churches and they were talking about all their sins is nothing's changed.

That's why I mean we may be higher tech, we're still committing the same sins they were committing.

Would you say more about that?

Well, it's just when they talk about um, and now I won't remember the details of exactly what it was, but as they went through every church, and mainly when I was looking at the at the um the commentary, you know, and they went through each city and they talked about, you know, um one was judgmental and you know, demanded that people follow rules, and the other was, you know, and particularly the one that said that they believed in God and they they wanted to follow and they wanted to be accepting, except they didn't really want to follow any of the rules, so they just they wanted their own rules and they wanted to do what they wanted to do.

And I thought we're not a lot different now.

You know, we want what we want.

Particularly that one, but maybe that's because that's my yeah, that's my own.

I I really appreciate it, and I I definitely want us to come back to that as a reflection piece if we can.

How about other observations or you know, again, questions or insights this week?

Well, I guess one of the thoughts that I had that um that they brought up in the piece here, and sometimes it takes somebody else to jog my my mind, if you will, is why is John, and this is of course not John the Baptist or or the John Gospel, but um why is John so certain that um that uh it's not that if people don't start practicing the teachings of Jesus that that um that something's well something's gonna happen now, but why is he so concerned about persecution later?

I mean, what evidence does he have?

Not evidence so much, but I guess he must see something on the horizon that causes him to do this.

Or um it's kind of like like um when you when when something is new, um it uh it takes off and then it can plateau and actually start to decline.

And so I'm wondering if maybe he's not writing that to this period of potential decline.

People have they heard the stories uh verbally, maybe even sung in writing, um, but now they are thinking he's thinking things are starting to climb.

So I've got to I've got to kick it up uh or uh uh to uh re-um invigorate the uh the the the believers to to to continue to practice and grow.

It's an interesting question, and I think probably the you know this is I don't know that I have the the answer, but I think particularly since um 70 when the temple was destroyed, the differentiation between Judaism and Christianity, remember, grew much tighter.

Uh Christians had tried to identify with Jews so that they could be a tolerated religion because of their antiquity, but now they didn't want to identify with Jews who were a rebel force.

And um, well, the Jews denied that identification as well.

Um so there's really a bifurcation of the two groups, which meant, right, that that um Christians were sort of getting treated um at a minimum like L.

Ron Hubbard's people or Scientology, people very skeptical, you know, and uh this is a cult, that sort of business.

Put on top of that, they were considered antisocial, like against the grain and hurting the empire.

So, like things go bad, here are your witches, right?

So this is sort of at that level, and probably you see that as that grows, as people become a scapegoat group, it seems like that's only going to increase and not diminish.

I mean, in some ways, maybe that's the handwriting on the wall that that this John is identifying.

Um, you know, again, I I I told you there's been a lot of research that there's not empire-wide persecutions going on, and I still think that's right, but um there's some localized issues, and then I think what you said that's really interesting that um Max Weber, if you know that guy, um he's a um philosopher, psychologist, uh he know a guy named Ernst Trolsch talk about how a movement changes into an institution.

And so a movement, of course, is very dynamic, it's charismatic, people are opting in, but then they raise their children in it, so the kids don't opt in, they're sort of institutionalized.

And um, you know, you can notice this in anything, like when a movement starts, like let's say the civil rights era, um, initially Rosa Park was like a leader, she wasn't just a bus lady.

Well, as momentum grew, um, the movement became institutionalized.

So, what do you know?

Women were subjugated again because that was culturally normative.

So, in the beginning, women enjoyed these places of like leadership, they were called apostles, deacons, etc.

But um, that starts to become so countercultural that cultural normatizes some of the movement as it becomes an institution, if that makes sense.

Um, John's not writing at the time of Constantine, but um most scholars, I write historians say that the church changes more during the reign of Constantine than ever before or after.

And what year is that era, is that?

Uh early 300s.

Um, you know, this is when Christianity is tolerated, priests aren't taxed, vestments are imported from sort of Roman uh uh cultic affairs and and civil magistrates, um, buildings are appropriated, and that's where we get like the rotunda, uh the you know, and things like the apses are added on.

All that's a really big change.

The Nicene Creed comes, so there's this desire to like normalize doctrine.

Um so we get big changes like that as movements become institutions.

Does normalizing doctrine mean to a degree that now the leaders have more control?

Um in some ways, yeah, there's thought there's thought police, and there's less toleration, and toleration is probably that word instead of acceptance of diversity.

And and this continues uh today.

I think it's actually one of those interesting things about Christianity is that we've become very, very, very, very dogmatic within denominations.

I was checking in at the at the doctor the other day, and I had my collar on, and the security guard was like, hey, like what what kind of thing are you?

And you know, I think I said, well, I'm an Episcopalian.

He's like, Oh, I'm an Anglican, and my priest said Episcopalians don't even have to believe in the resurrection of Jesus.

Is that true?

And I was like, Well, that's just such a strange question to ask.

I mean, I'm not really sure I have to believe in anything, you know, but that is sort of like the core story, you know.

Do I have to believe it's a historical fact, or can I believe, I mean, is I didn't take that on with him.

I was like, huh, I don't think so.

I mean, I I think we're like a resurrection church, you know, but but but apparently the Anglican priest had said this, that like we're these sort of liberal Christian people.

And so I I'm not just raising this uh to to chase a tangent.

I mean, that's sort of what's happening in here.

The Nicolaitans are people who are saying, well, there, you know, some of these rules are negotiable, in fact, many of them are.

And John sort of saying, seems like, well, not these two, not not um, you know, meat sacrificed to idols and not of sexual immorality.

And maybe it's helpful to say up front, right?

All meat is sacrificed to something.

You read this in um the 1 Corinthians, and Paul essentially says, some people are mature enough to realize that those idols aren't real, so it done matter.

But some people think that you if you eat that meat, you're recognizing those idols as real, so you shouldn't do that.

And and and Paul's really like ambiguous about what to do.

He said they're not real, so it doesn't matter, but you don't want to offend other people by doing that, and he sort of says, don't um destroy somebody else's weak faith because you're more mature than they are when you're on practice.

But if we live like that, really, if you push that to its logical conclusion, well, you don't really have any freedom.

You're constrained by the weakest believer in the world.

So uh I think this is an ongoing conversation.

And so Paul, I don't think, really comes to a good conclusion in 1 Corinthians.

And again, meat sacrifice to idols, um, I just it's a tough thing.

But boy, I think there's probably bigger issues in the world than that.

Sexual immorality, when you read that phrase, you probably start thinking, oh, that's like that must mean people are having um, well, I don't know what you think that means.

Sexual immoral could mean orgies.

You know, Christians for a long time have decided, uh, I mean, especially over the last 50 years, this is a censure about um homosexual behaviors, never run packs what sexual immorality is.

Have you noticed that?

Never.

Never run what?

The author never says what that phrase means.

So when we hear that and we say, oh, that's this and this and this, that says more about who we are than about that.

Remember, if a woman or a man divorces their husband or wife and marries another person, that's adultery.

But I wouldn't call that immoral at all.

I would call that appropriate.

Before you get in another monogamous relationship, you sever the one you were in.

I think that's pretty thoughtful, actually.

Um but that would be immorality.

Is he talking about that?

Maybe.

You know, here's the classic case in um in 1 Corinthians.

Again, we see a lot of this in Corinth, actually.

Um, there's a guy who has married his stepmother.

So his father remarries, um, stepmother, and Paul says, no pagan would even do that.

But from the Corinthian perspective, let's consider dad could be 72, he's married a trophy wife, he's maybe consummated in the relationship, maybe not.

Sons of grown-up, wife could be the same age as the son.

They have no real relationship.

She didn't raise him, she's not his mother.

So they say, okay, listen, like we have freedom in Christ, so why not?

And if it's the situation I just described to you, would you be more um would you be less offended by that situation?

Particularly if it's if the if the father died.

The father did die.

Absolutely, the father died.

Yeah.

It's not like he took his dad's and it's it's clearly not his mother.

Yeah, it's his stepmother.

Well, you know, if you think about it, what isn't there a law that says that you cannot marry your second cousin, but you can marry your third cousin?

Yeah, I think that's in general how we do it.

But remember, Abraham marries his half-sister.

So all of that's been and all that's really culturally determined, right?

So so, you know, is it morally wrong or does it result in, you know, lack of genetic variance to the point that there's birth defects?

But is that a moral issue or is that a biological issue, or are they the same?

You you you you get what I'm saying is this category is so uh fluid depending on the time period.

Remember that most states have anti-sodomy laws, whether you're hetero or homo.

And you know, I think um part of it is that remember that that sodomization at this time is really a show of dominance.

I don't want to defend the practice, but I mean, we often forget how these things were were bundled up and nuanced.

They didn't think that same-sex couples could have mutual relationships, they thought that was about dominance.

Um and I would say if it's about dominance, I do think it's wrong.

Whether you're straight or gay or, you know, that's why I think pedophilia is essentially wrong, is it's about dominance.

It's not a relationship between equals and it will never be.

And so it is it's not okay.

You know, they children are not sexual beings, so anything you do to them is dominating them, if if that makes sense.

Well, can we back up here a little bit uh to your question, you know, is about why John did this.

Why he wrote it.

Why he wrote it.

Well, you know, John was a man who was very deep with God.

In other words, he thought in other words, he was very deep with God.

There was a very strong relationship there.

So he's looking with the eyes that eyes that see things that other people don't see.

One thing.

And then the other thing is that uh John knows the history of the ancient people.

And we go back to the Bible and we read there, and that you know, when they when they were worshiping God and honestly God and doing what God asked them to do, that went pretty well for them.

But then when they started straying away from God and did not follow the warnings of the prophets and so forth, then tragedy or war or whatever came to them.

And also, uh, so John looks and sees history in a way repeating itself before in his current time because we can look into our current time, oh, this is applying us applying to us today, and so he evaluates where the Christians are versus the cult the requirements of the cultures, which one serves God more.

Well, the culture sure is not doing it, and the people they're beginning to wonder.

So I think that's why he won't help them get back on track.

I I I actually think John's doing something a little different.

I think he's challenging the idea that when you do the right thing, you get physical rewards.

I think he's actually challenging that because he says to the church in Smyrna, you're poor and you're persecuted, but uh God notices what you're doing and and you will be rewarded later.

And then there's Laodicea, who is very wealthy, apparently, but they're getting it's it's not like they're earning their wealth through their faith.

I mean, I think she I think John's actually writing because uh he's trying to overthrow this assumption that you get what you pay for right now.

And so there's these really faithful people who are suffering quite a bit, and John is trying to say, it's not all is not as it seems, right?

Actually, God notices that, and it's going to work itself out later.

So don't give up on your faith because you're being persecuted, double down on it.

And I think that's probably the number one relationship is life is not linear.

You do you don't, you know, because you give money to the church, God's not going to grow your 401k.

It doesn't work like that.

But double down on discipleship and generosity because it's sort of the right thing to do and will lead to life later.

And he does, and he does that because he sees what's happening with the people and needs to call their attention to it so that that they have the choice of doubling down.

Yeah, well, and I I think this is sort of like the thing you get where sometimes people say, Well, I prayed about that and it didn't make a difference.

And I think John is saying, prayer doesn't work that way, and it does make a difference, so don't quit.

Change the way you view it, but don't change that you do it.

I think that's part of the book.

Yeah.

Now we don't actually know his name's John, do we?

Um I don't remember.

But we assume it is.

But you don't, because there are several other guys that could have written.

And was it written by more than one person?

Yeah.

Plus the fact there's no.

Oh no, no, his name's John.

It happens in Revelation 1.4.

Okay, it is John.

Do you think it it from time to time when I was reading this, it appeared to me like there would be these places where it's like, well, this has ended, now this is starting up something new.

Um, almost as if it was they took these letters and stitched them together.

Stitched them together.

But was he a leader?

Was there a leader in Christianity at that time, somebody that they were looking to besides Jesus?

There's many leaders, and it's important to remember there's many schools of schools like in the Athenian way, like there's many groups.

So remember, in the earliest church, there's like the Jerusalem church headed by James, and then there's this group who says, now Paul is our guy, and Paul does this himself.

I follow Paul, I follow Peter, I follow Apollos, I follow Jesus.

So there's these things, and we still are doing that.

Um, and really what I think it means is there's like schools of thought as how we're to live into this sort of new way of life, and there's variants.

You know, the fact that people preserve the letter means it had to be influential to people that would have crumpled it up.

Um we don't know which John it is: John the Baptist, John the Gospel writer, John the other.

We don't know it's not John the Baptist, because he's dead.

Well, he seems to be dead.

That's very fair.

It could be John the Baptist's disciples, but probably not.

I mean, I don't think anybody would tell you this has anything to do with John the Baptist.

And he says, I am what uh been thrown out of.

That's why I'm here.

I'm in exile.

Yeah, in exile.

So that sort of points to somebody.

And again, I think we in our head we often think, oh, this is the disciple John.

Probably not.

But but probably had influence over a community, and it's and it's observing based on that community.

Um, hey, there's this cognitive dissonance.

People are practicing faith and their lives are getting worse.

So, how do you encourage that?

I mean, I think that's the number one point of the book is to stay faithful regardless of what's happening.

Because faith is not a game of you get what you pay for.

It's not transactional.

I don't think so.

I think that's I think that's what John's really trying to ask us to consider more than anything.

I know I really digress talking about sexual immorality and about um and about food to idols, but notice those are the two charges he brings to these churches.

And again, we don't really know what they mean.

I mean, that's really important.

In some places he talks about Christian Jews that are following the Torah.

Yeah.

And then he's talking about uh essentially Jezebel who is who is saying, you know, it's okay, follow the rules, but by the way, we're gonna add a few more, we're gonna loosen those rules and you can do this.

Yeah.

Um, it you don't have to go as far as as as um um sexual immorality.

I mean, there are other rules that you can.

You can follow them that that are just as uh not just as but are are not good things to do to people, but they're not that bad as as as as you said.

So Yeah.

It's really amorphous, and Jezebel is a really interesting thing, right?

And I think that's where they had us read about Jezebel.

It's really like a corruption of the true faith.

And this is where I think it becomes really interesting because I think it's very easy to read Revelation the way I grew up.

I was taught that this is exactly censoring like the Episcopal Church.

That's what we're doing.

We're ordaining women, we're ordaining gay people.

This is what the book warned us about.

Sexual immorality, idolatry, letting women preach.

This is the kind of thing not to do.

That's how I was taught to read the book.

Because it's deviating from the rules.

And that's why I think it becomes really important to think about this stuff is not clearly defined.

You know, as an Episcopalian, I would sort of say, oh, look, we're being persecuted because we're actually being faithful to human to God being invested in all human beings.

And listen, we've we've lost as a denomination, we've lost people and resources.

I mean, I when I went to San Diego, uh there were five churches that had more than 300 people that over this Gene Robinson issue were down to 30.

They'd broken away.

I'll tell you here, we we decided we'd be open and inclusive.

Three or four couples left who'd been here a long, long, long time.

That was a shocker.

Shocker to me, because we had relationships.

Many had left earlier, and that's why I thought, why would you leave now?

We'd already gone, you know, y'all knew this was where the church was going, right?

I mean, we we called this a sacrament in 2015.

The national church did.

So I I was surprised, I have to admit.

I knew not everybody agreed, but we had relationships, and that's part of the Episcopal Church.

I think is you don't gotta agree with everything.

But we agree we're gonna worship together, you know?

So that one issue could be read completely differently depending on your outlook, right?

If you've decided that's wrong, don't compromise.

If you decided it's right, don't compromise.

And how do we how do we really discern?

I think that's a really great question, you know.

There are times when I really wish it would be easier if we just had a set of rules that we knew for sure.

You know, sometimes it gets complicated.

Well, and that's and that's honestly that's why we had the Reformation.

We did have a set of rules, yeah, and they were rightly abused.

Yeah.

I mean, and and I I tell you this, and I'm not I'm not throwing rocks.

We we all live in glass houses here, but I recently had someone essentially join the church who's a lifelong Roman Catholic, and the person said, you know, I'm a teacher, and I will be put in jail for doing what is happening in the Roman Catholic Church, and I cannot worship there anymore.

It had nothing to do with theology, it had zero to do with um the Pope, it had everything to do with covering up pedophiles.

When I came here from my other Episcopal church, in between, I was going to Catholic Church on Wednesday nights with a friend of mine who's very Catholic and was really pushing that, you know, you need to come back, you need to come back.

And, you know, it was kind of a comfortable thing to do, it was the path of least resistance for a little bit.

And I I thought about it and I thought, I can't do this.

I mean, it betrays every single thing I believe in.

I can't do this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I and I I I will say I don't know if this came out already, but I wrote this blog.

I don't want to ever do the blogs because I wrote it, it's in my head.

There's a story in Luke that says when an unclean spirit is driven out, it goes around looking for somewhere to go, and when it can't find anywhere, it comes back and brings seven unclean spirits worse than itself, finds the house in order and occupies it, and so the final state is worse than the first.

And I really struggled to know what that meant.

And yeah, I mean, you read this in the blog, and I'm gonna sort of give it away, but I I did meet people in AAANA who had given up their drinking addiction, but they'd picked up smoking and exercise bulimia, and they really hadn't dealt with their final state, and sure enough, they went back to drugs and alcohol pretty quickly, but they had extra addictions on top of it, so their state was worse.

But I don't think it's just about addicts, I think it's about sometimes we have insight into what's right or wrong, and then we go back on it.

And I think our final state is worse than if we never even knew it because we've betrayed our brain too.

We betrayed not just our principles, but our brain.

And when you do that, it makes it that much harder to change and grow the next time around.

I don't I don't know.

Get away from it.

I mean you can temporarily get away with it from it with drugs and alcohol and other things.

But you know, like I found for me personally, when I try to get away from things, I sometimes wind up dreaming about them, you know?

And then I'm like, yeah, great, now I I should have just why did I not just fix this so that I could sleep and move forward?

And it's like I think I'm ignoring things, but they're still there.

Because they're still here.

Yeah.

And when I'm betraying myself, that's the final states worse than the last.

I cannot get away from that.

Yeah.

And and so I don't know, and that's I think part of the thing that to tie this back to Revelation.

I think that's part of the warning, particularly with the the group that's going back under the law, is to say, listen, like you, you can't go back on you know, you know better than to do that.

So when you go back, it's not like you're just okay, I'll do this instead.

You really are going backward and facing backward as well.

So face forward, I think is the goal.

Other other thoughts or reactions here.

Nitpicking.

Yeah, nitpick, by all means.

That's what we're here to do.

Okay, it says it says, with the key of David, Christ will unlock the door.

Jesus Christ, descendant of King David, born in David's city.

Yeah.

To my mind, David's city was Jerusalem.

Jesus wasn't born in Jerusalem.

Now, David was born in David was a Bethlehemite.

He was.

Now, in some ways, David's city is Jerusalem because he's the first one to conquer it.

You know, the Jebuzites own that and he takes it from them.

But but David is a Bethlehemite.

Oh, interesting.

It is funny though to remember, and I think we talked this was in the blog too, and Jesus is not related to David at all.

Joseph is, but Joseph's not his dad.

So he is no biological relationship, and that's I think a really important reminder about how we read the Bible.

It's not about facts, it's about fulfillment.

He represents Davidic lineage even though he doesn't have it.

This would drive my fundamentalist friends crazy.

But see.

What do they believe?

Do they believe he was somehow?

Of course they do, but what they fail to realize is is you know, like when you're a when you're a biblical literalist, there's just things you gloss over.

And again, like I'm I'm taking the Bible real seriously.

Joseph is not Jesus' dad.

He's not.

That's fine.

Joseph is the one related to David, not Mary.

What they'll say is, oh, Mary is also a descendant of David.

Show me where it says that.

Nowhere.

Or they infer that because he's a he's a descendant of David, but that's not a safe inference to make.

Isn't Mary a descendant of the priestly branch?

We have zero lineage from Mary because women don't matter.

Now we've concocted it and we've we've created we've made up Saint Anne, but she's made up.

There's no Saint Anne.

Sorry.

Really?

Mary had a mother.

Yeah.

Was her name Anne?

Unlikely.

That's not a Jewish name.

Immaculate Conception?

Made up.

Nowhere in Scripture.

Now maybe the Pope received insight that the Bible didn't have, but I'm a Reformation guy myself, and I'm real skeptical about that stuff.

Yeah, they did that because God couldn't.

Because of original sin, that's why.

Yeah.

Be born of a sinner.

Would you would you elaborate on what you just said?

So remember, Augustine is the one who decided when Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden, Adam's sperm shriveled.

Augustine believed that sperm was tiny men.

Complete people.

There was no egg in a woman, it was all from the man.

And so, how is it that human beings are formerly are born sinners?

Augustine believed this is true because babies are selfish.

All they ever do is think of themselves.

They cry when they're hungry, they cry when they're dirty, they cry when they're tired.

Me, me, me, me, me.

Typically cry when the person they love is is hurt and crying too.

This is typical man behavior, and of course it ignores our entire evolution that this is what mammals do.

Right?

Mammals do these things.

So, whatever, he decided that this is selfishness, and where does it come from?

Well, you're born with it, is what he decides.

And you're born with it because Adam's sperm shriveled by the nascent human beings that just enter into the womb without an egg are somehow compromised.

And so, okay, well, well, geez, then that would mean Mary has like a set of sinful genes.

Well, she would pass them on to Jesus.

Ah, except Mary was immaculately conceived.

That is Saint Anne's Mary.

The Immaculate Conception is not Jesus.

We often get this wrong.

Um, the Immaculate Conception is that when Saint Anne was impregnated by her husband, God regenerated his sperm to be like the whole human being.

That ended up being Mary.

So Mary doesn't have any original sin with which to contaminate Jesus at his birth.

Keep in mind, they didn't understand reproduction, they don't understand DNA.

Yeah.

Right?

That comes 1500 years later.

But that's essentially what the doctrine does.

So it says that then I actually I actually want you to hear that that whole doctrine is absolutely counter to Scripture because Hebrews says Jesus was like us in every single way.

Which means if Jesus was not born with original sin, then we can't be either.

Otherwise, he doesn't work for us.

So where did the little man that became Jesus come from?

His dad.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, ah, from well, there's no quiet answer to that.

Just God grew Jesus in the womb.

Now, the gospel writers are really clear.

God did not have sex with Mary.

I want to say that's really important because in Greek religion, gods did have sex with people.

So there's a virgin birth, but without God having a body and having sex.

So it's similar to Greek religion, but it's also very different.

So both Mary and Jesus were conceived without original sin.

You got it.

Interesting.

All that's strange.

Um, okay.

Well, maybe it's good to say, you know, I I hadn't read this before, and this is where, again, I really like this book more than the red book.

There's these little notes about these cities like Laodicea had water piped in.

Um, I hope you found those helpful and interesting because I I I'd never read that research.

I mean, I don't know if it's true, but why not?

You know, it makes some sense.

It makes sense.

Yeah, it was Laodicea that was built on the uh fault lines.

Yeah.

But you know, I was looking at that map long ago, and I thought, well, how were the others not affected by that because they're all so close together?

They would be really close, yeah.

I mean, that's where I think you you take it with a little bit of grain, but I but I do think this there's this interesting bit about Laodicea about the pipelines and how the water can't, the aqueducts essentially, and what that would end to water temperature.

I think that's interesting.

Um, we we don't always um realize this, this there's a couple of remnants, you know.

They do mention this.

Ephesus has this temple to Artemis that's one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

You can still go to Ephesus, and the ruins are in pretty good shape.

Like they have one of those Roman amphitheaters, akin to what they have in Jordan, where you can stand and like snap and everyone can hear it, uh, and you can talk in a normal voice and it and it carries acoustically.

So they've got that going on.

Um, you know, Pergamum, interestingly enough, also had this huge temple complex that the Germans uh quarried and took to Berlin and put it inside a museum.

It's called the Pergamum Altar, and it's in the Pergamum Museum along with the Ishtar Gate from Babylon.

So it's a huge altar complex.

If you're ever in Berlin, this is arguably the best museum in the world.

The Pergamum Museum is amazing.

Um, and you'll see this huge altar.

The Temple of Artemis totally ruined, we think, by an earthquake, destroyed.

Uh so we don't have remnants of that, but we know one of the seven wonders.

Honestly, I don't know much more about the other cities.

Those are are, I'd say, the two that we've got some of the strongest records of.

Um I think Bonnie said something super interesting at the beginning, which is, and I think the book asks us this question, you know, um, hey, nothing's changed in some ways, but I'd ask you to consider that.

I mean, if if um, and I'm going to be over personal here, but um if John was writing a letter about St.

Thomas, what do you think he'd write?

Or if John was writing a letter to churches in general, what do you think he would write?

Talking about today.

Yeah, today in a contemporary context.

How how would how would John update it for us?

One thing.

And um, which ones do you think you'd use?

I think that's a great question.

If you could only pick seven cities, which ones do you think you'd pick?

New York, New Orleans.

Los Angeles.

In this country.

Well, usually the fourth largest city in the nation, so ahead.

Well, the question here really at the end is which of the seven churches does your congregation most closely resemble?

And when I was reading through this, now I see a little bit in all of it, but the one that just stood out to me was Let Ocea.

Yeah.

That's the one that stood out to me.

Not completely, but I mean we are a we are a well-to-do community.

We are.

So so thoughts on that.

Do you know what the wealthiest entity in the Episcopal Church is?

Does anybody know this?

Yeah.

An entity meaning uh congregation or congregation or diocese.

Trinity New York.

Trinity Wall Street, which is a parish, has more money than any diocese in the Episcopal Church.

Number two is the Diocese of Texas.

Uh number two is Virginia Seminary because of their endowments.

Number three is the Diocese of Texas.

Now, allegedly, St.

John the Divine is the number two wealthiest parish here in Houston behind Trinity, but you know, Trinity owns most of Manhattan.

So Columbia University, the land is owned by Trinity Wall Street.

They they they lease the land in an elaborate ceremony every year by writing a$1 check.

A dollar is the deal.

The president of Columbia must present it to the rector of Trinity Wall Street.

So maybe that's Laodicea.

But the third wealthiest institution is the Diocese of Texas.

So maybe this is Laodicea.

I don't know the answer to that.

Well, we certainly have these problems.

Some of them, yes.

I was thinking specifically about this congregation.

Please do.

I think because we can bounce back and forward, please do.

Because, you know, maybe we're not a center of banking uh and and uh what is it uh medical and what have you, but we are certainly close to it, and we are certainly a congregation of of I'll say technocrats.

Fair now.

We're really diverse, I want you to name it.

And there's a lot of money here.

I mean the congregants have a lot of money.

They maybe they're not millionaire, maybe they're not billionaires, yeah, but they have a lot of money.

I I I would say that St.

John the Divine is probably the millionaire congregation.

So we're definitely a step down from that.

But I think it's fair.

Diversity.

We had a meal, I had a meal at my house, and there were um six different engineers there.

That's how diverse we are.

There was an aerospace engineer, an environmental engineer, a um mechanical engineer?

Anyway, two other engineers.

And people, that's how diverse we are.

We've got all kinds of engineers.

But what would you say?

Is John would John say, uh, hey, y'all y'all are rich people at St.

Thomas and you're not licking after the gospel?

Would John say you're sexually immoral people and you're eating meat sacrificed to idols?

Would John say, you know, keep up the good work?

What how do you perceive us to be?

Beyond descriptions, you know, of I mean, in general, let's be honest.

We're an educated parish, like you said, we're technocratic.

We're I don't think we're homogenous, but we're mostly white folk here.

You know, we are.

Um I don't think it's because we mean to be, I just think we are.

Um that has to do with simply location.

I agree, agree.

I mean, I'll tell you this is a white neighborhood.

But you know I think the only thing one of the things because I don't know the parish that uh for most people is that you know, in other words, you know, they're calculated.

And um you know Americans in general agreement because you have first in your life is your life whether it's money or whether it's power and whether you sacrifice yourself to serve you know and you know and usually this money are really it's something that you is supposed to help us.

So there's God in that you know now if you're walking with God and you're trying to better yourself, there are deals you're not gonna make with people who are that that will not feed into what your relationship with God is.

In other words, you if you're a Christian, you the guidelines are the teachings of Jesus.

Alright, you want to make this deal with this company over here, right?

Well they are unethical.

You know, they don't maybe they're not fair to their employees and things like that.

So don't do business with those people because if you do, then you're enabling them to do what they do which is wrong.

There has to be some decision making here about what really will contribute to my life and my family and what it doesn't.

I I think that's a fair critique, but I would probably say that applies to every single American that there is.

Uh because um and and I do think uh I tried really hard to live the ethical life and in some ways I had to give up because it's not possible.

I mean I you you say it's not possible to do it a hundred percent.

Yeah, I I just I don't think it is because uh listen, if you have an investment, it's unethical.

I'm just gonna tell you that all investments are unethical.

There's no such thing as purely ethical investments, and if you buy things, it's unethical.

Because uh everything we buy is unethically sourced.

I don't care how much they tell you they're ethically sourced, they're not.

I bought the most ethically sourced car I could, but the battery is like is awful.

The battery for the Toyota Prius is dreadful, but I sure think it's I mean, these are all, you know, I don't know that there's black, I and part of me makes me circle back and say, well, I don't know that there is black and white purely.

You know, in some ways I was taught that there is, but I didn't know that there is.

Um and I think that's a real struggle.

I don't think that means, ah, well, hell, you know, let's not think about it at all uh because we can't win.

But I do think there's a grain of we gotta do the best we can and sleep at night because I, you know, good luck buying something made in America that's purely made in America and pays right wages.

Uh it's you you can't.

Sorry, you can't.

And listen, not everybody can afford to shop at Whole Foods and Whole Foods, it's not all organic and locally sourced anyway.

So I hope that was okay what I said.

I don't want to uh dismiss you.

I think it's really hard.

And I I I tell you, as somebody who works for the church, you know, we're a nonprofit, but we also have to operate like a business.

I think.

Um I don't know what that does to me to be like the CEO of a business.

Um I I never really thought about that, but that is what I do.

And I I plan parties and I'm a fundraiser, and sometimes I'm a theologian.

But you know, I I think probably what it starts small with an individual.

In other words, just like for example, a line.

So you know, it comes along and something that uh you got caught doing something that you shouldn't have done you laugh.

Okay, and you don't acknowledge it, you don't repent, or then it makes your life easier the next time and the next time.

So I think it's these little things that gradually lead us astray to where we do because it impacts us on the inside, and then we then we need to look at some point in life and say, okay, what kind of person have I become?

Am I satisfied with who I am?

Most people are not, you know, people may ask themselves that question, I don't know.

But there comes a time in life when you look at say where I've been and where am I now and where do I want to go?

And so we are all the results of our decisions.

Can I be a complicator again?

I think you're right, but can I be a complicator?

Well, try.

So um my dad would my dad was my dad was visiting me a couple of years ago, and uh they were giving me some child care coverage while my wife was out of town because I was doing a wedding, and I sort of complained.

I was doing this wedding for a couple, you know, they they asked me 10 days before they needed to have this ceremony if I'd marry them, and I said, you know, sure, if you do the premarital counseling, and they got it done.

And um, not doing that again.

Anyway, um, we they had this wedding at the beach, it was all they were really poor and they needed to do it, it was fine.

The wedding was supposed to start at 3.

Well, it didn't start till 4.30.

Of course, I've been there since 2.30.

And uh, you know, I I don't charge for weddings, and that's right, you know.

But I think I came home and said, you know, how was the wedding?

It's like, well, you know, it was like strange I've never done a wedding like this before that was an hour and a half late, so much so that some of the wedding party left.

And I think my dad said something like, Well, of course that's better than doing any kind of gay wedding.

You hadn't done one of those, have you?

And I said, Not in Texas.

That was true.

So I told the truth, and then he was like, Well, you haven't done one at all, have you?

Because if you have, you're going to hell.

And listen, this was not the time for me to have the finer theological points.

So, what did I do?

I think I was like, like I said, I haven't done one here.

And I think he pushed again and was like, you don't need to worry about that.

I I had done a gay wedding in California, I absolutely have.

And if I'd told the truth, completely told the truth in the austere way, I actually think it would have hurt my dad more than anything.

So in some ways, I think I evaded full disclosure.

But I think I did the right thing.

And it's complicated.

I I've done that, you know, by dad.

By him.

And I do that with my kids sometimes, quite honestly.

Well, there's any things you say at certain times and things you don't say, that doesn't mean you're you're just not going to talk about it.

But I didn't tell the truth in the fullest sense.

I kept information back.

But that's all right.

You didn't have to tell the whole thing because you just said I haven't done them in Texas.

But if I'm going to come with you and I want to go with you, I do, and I also want it to be complicated to go with you because it is, right?

You start doing that, and where do you end up?

And and I hope where we end up is thinking really carefully and compassionately about others when we make these choices that are not really ever black and white.

You know, I think it's okay to lie by omission if the lie is designed to ensure that by lying you prevent somebody from feeling pain or some free.

It's almost more compassionate.

When my mom was really ill, um, and in the last couple of months of her life, um, we absolutely did a lot of omitting with her.

Um my sister was pregnant with twins, there was some really scary stuff going on, you know.

Um she would say, Did you talk to your sister today?

Yes.

How's she doing?

And I'd say, She's okay.

You know, okay.

I didn't say, but my mom just wanted to hear she was okay.

And, you know, there was no way I was gonna add one more thing to her.

You know, she was in the process of dying.

So there was no now.

If something really had happened with my sister or the twins, of course, we would have told her.

Or sometimes we'd tell her my dad was a church, he was a choir director and a musician because we didn't want to tell her that he was necessarily going out to make final arrangements and stuff like that that needed to be made that would just, you know.

So I felt in those instances, and some sometimes that my husband's had some struggles.

I kind of, when my k children were young, I had to kind of I would call kind of fudge or or just same thing, just giving little bits of information because it there was no way it was gonna benefit anybody to hear and in fact, because it is all about me.

Sometimes with my kids, if they had heard the whole thing, that would have been more trauma for me.

Yeah, because then I would have had to deal with that.

So it wasn't just compassion for them, it was it was also compassion for myself when I was already, and what you said about that was not the time for you to have the finer discovery.

Sometimes I've withheld things, and then when I felt like things were more comfortable and we could actually sit down and converse about the situation, then I'll say, Okay, you know, this is but it's it is tricky.

You know, it's a difference if you have integrity or not.

Well, this I think though is what you're raising that I want us to go is sometimes we can so believe in our own integrity that we don't realize we lost it a long time ago.

And I think that's I think that's probably fair of anybody in the world because as we all know, the road to hell is lined with good intentions.

Uh and we compare ourselves to other people all the time.

Of course we do.

It's a lot easier for me to look good to myself when I'm looking at other people.

I mean, in my mind, not in God's mind or anybody else's mind.

And in and so for as a fundraiser and CEO here, I'd say, boy, sometimes I wish we had more money.

People aren't giving enough.

But I didn't believe that's true.

Uh I didn't believe that's true because I didn't think that um the the church, St.

Thomas, is the church that the Bible talks about.

I didn't think that they're equitable.

I mean, I think we're an organization, and I'll be quick to tell you the Episcopal Church has many warts.

I know them, many of them well, and I still choose to be here.

Like I appreciate the beauty along with the words, warts, but I don't think by upping your pledge you're currying God's favor and therefore you're being more faithful.

I do think for this place to work, we have to do that.

But this place does not equal God.

So I, you know, I think this is like a hard bit.

So I don't know.

I've really been kind of racking my head with with what the letter says to St.

Thomas.

I mean, I I perceive that people in general are pretty like generous and responsive when we ask for things, you know, within within reason.

We didn't we didn't raise$1.5 million with the capital campaign, and we haven't paid for the organ.

But the organ's not God, and neither is the capital campaign.

So it doesn't mean that people are stingy.

It means they choose not to support those initiatives like we uh hoped we might do.

But I still think people are pretty generous here.

So um it's it becomes really for me, it becomes, and I get to say I know, I know things you don't know.

Like I know how much people pledge, and I I know how much they have pledged, and and um maybe I shouldn't shouldn't know that.

I don't know, it's like whatever.

Um I try not to treat people differently.

I think I'm pretty successful at that.

Um I I I will say, curiously enough, that the people who pledge the least are the ones who criticize the most and ask for the most from the clergy and the church.

Um, all the time, pretty much.

But I don't hold that against them.

That's what I'm here to do.

I I I believe that.

I believe people pay me to do what they don't have the time and training to do on behalf of people they've never met.

And I and I think if I identify that clearly, it helps me orient that that's what I'm supposed to do with my time.

You know, and frame that to other people.

Um so I don't think we're stingy people.

I think people here are very willing to be educated, you know.

I think we we're trying to pursue what's right, you know.

I consider you all doing that.

I mean, look, you spend an hour and a half a week for 32 weeks to read some weird book, you know, that is difficult to sift through.

Um you know, I I I think we appreciate variety, and you know, we we we build relationships with our community.

I don't think that we have some watered-down worship here, but maybe I'm self-serving because I'm the one who does a lot of that.

I mean, I I don't I don't know what the letter says to us.

Yeah, listen, I've had seen a variety of liturgical uh prayer here that I have not seen any place else.

It's interesting, it's informative, it speaks to me.

So don't as far as that, you know, don't worry about that.

But you know, about this lying lying thing, there's a difference between being lying and and uh omitting information.

Yeah.

It's not the same thing.

When people lie, they do that pretty deliberately, you know, for the simple reason that it either it serves them some way or that's just the kind of person they are, or whatever.

But when you're not giving information uh, you know, because of your concern about the other person, and even a healthy concern about yourself, that's a different matter, you know.

So but lying is something that is done just for the benefit of because you don't want to face the truth or you don't want to help that person uh you know or it may be directly to your benefit.

Yeah.

So can admitting, but so can admitting the truth be to your benefit.

And sometimes sometimes we judge we're doing it for the other person, and that's the way we justify that, frankly, we just didn't want to do that.

But it's still in mode.

I s I I think that you can you can say you can omit something that brings no value by not by adding it.

Yeah, it's brings no value to the conversation, it's no value to the person who you are emitting it from.

Yeah.

If it brought value, that's a different issue.

And sometimes I omit things because quite frankly, they're not the other person's business.

They're just not, you know, they're not they're not a person I'm willing to go to there with.

What I want to say is this is exactly what Bible study is supposed to do, is send us into a rabbit hole of how it is we're meant to live.

I absolutely think this is right.

We you know nothing in life is, or very little, is black and white.

I mean, there are shades of gray everywhere, and determining which shade of gray is the most um is the best thing to do, you know, logically and the most spiritual way.

I don't think we even figure that out retrospectively, you know.

Because apparently there's not only 50 shades of gray, I think now there's 59 shades of gray.

I will tell you when I was teaching and I taught religion, the kids that had the hardest time in my class, especially the older kids, were the ones that were black and white thinkers.

Yeah.

They would absolutely freak out when gray was thrown in there.

Because, you know, this was they were excellent at math.

They were really good at something brain.

But they would see me coming and they'd be like, oh my gosh, like they would they would say, because I was not big on giving scripture to memorize, I I really didn't do that.

They would ask me, can I just memorize the scripture and you can give me an A?

I don't want to have to do the one of the things I would have them do is do a skit where um when Jesus went to dinner and the kids' house.

We know they had a conversation, but we don't necessarily know.

All we know is that the conversation completely changed the kids' life.

And so they would write a skit in pairs of three about what that conversation from what they knew about Jesus so far.

What did they think happened?

What and it was hilarious.

One of them, Jesus, would you like some chicken?

I'm vegetarian.

I have two cookies.

But but the black and white kids couldn't do that because they'd be like, but it doesn't say.

Yeah.

We don't know what it said.

And because you raised it, and we read it this week, remember in Numbers, Numbers is the black and white book.

And there's this immorality at the you know, worshiping the Bale of Piore, and somebody is doing this in front of Moses, and Phineas like runs them through publicly and is a hero.

And I think Numbers believes that, and I sort of think that's I mean, that's exactly what Al-Qaeda would do.

Right.

That's that's like jihad in the most manipulated sense of the word.

That's like that guy who went into Episcopal Church three years ago and in the middle of the worship service shot an abortion doctor in the back of the head to do God's will.

And um in some ways, I think moral purity is probably immorality at its worst.

Well, I think the key is that you know we walk those who say we are Christian, then we focus on that.

In other words, and constantly ask God's help and guidance.

You know, it's just uh because uh God is some person a long time ago said fall as you wish, dear God, you leave me and I will fall.

I don't know what that is.

But anyway, but you know, there has to be some conscious awareness of God during the day, you know, just to remind us of what we say we believe in.

And I I I think part of what this book invites us to do in these churches that I think is really, really hard from an, you know, is I have no doubt Jerry Falwell prayed that prayer every day of his life.

And and I believe that Jerry Falwell thought he was doing God's will.

I just think he was completely wrong.

I think he's one of the most hateful people to speak on behalf of the church publicly I've ever heard.

But I would tell you, I think he believed he had integrity.

I believe I believe the man had a devotional life.

And I think he served an idol.

And the son that's produced.

And I but I but I think he would say the same thing about me.

And you know, and so I think what's important is um when you say he served an idol, what was the idol?

Um God hated the same people he did.

I apologize.

This idol was a god for that.

Of wrath and retribution, and um who believed if you got the answer wrong, you failed the test and went to hell.

And um as a result, if you were gonna go to hell when you died, you could go to hell now because your life was a waste.

And you know, I remember his his bold assertion after 9-11 that God did that to punish us for things like gay rights in the NAACP in the ACLU, the National Association of Colored People.

God punished us for that?

Well, that's like after Katrina hit New Orleans.

I had people tell me that that was absolutely because of sin.

Because New Orleans was so mired in sin.

Well, I'd tell you didn't work.

Go back to New Orleans today.

Didn't work.

God decided to just wipe the whole city out.

That's what that was about.

Yeah.

And again, not effective.

And I and I bet and I would tell you, I believe those people believe that they are listening to God and they're praying.

And in some ways, who am I to say they're wrong?

I just I think they're wrong, and I think part of this book and part of Bible study is really, I think, to call us out of verifying our own prejudice and and really to get us to consider.

And if we I mean, my my understanding is that life is supposed to be shared at no one's expense.

So if it's costing somebody life, I'm doing it wrong.

That's a really hard thing to evaluate, especially with the way I spend money.

Period.

Um but you you you know uh that's my criticism of Jerry Falwell, is he's very comfortable with life being at other people's expense.

And I'll tell you, I was just thinking about it this week.

That's one of my biggest criticisms with calling Friday Good Friday.

I didn't think there's anything good about Friday.

No.

I mean, it is a perversion of justice, and a man is crushed.

That that used to come up in my classes a lot too.

They were like, what is it?

It's a Protestant title.

It's a Protestant title.

Now, listen, people for a long time have believed that Jesus took our punishment, and I can't believe that personally, but they still called it Black Friday, not Good Friday.

And um, but maybe I'm wrong.

You know, I mean, I think that's the hard thing, right?

Is is how we live into this as a worshiping community.

Hey, I hope you enjoyed the discussion.

Next week, we'll talk about woa woa woa, I think.

Yep.

So, so because.