Podcast: The realities of wrestling with difficult passages and parables (Luke 16: 1-15)

Hey friend, welcome to another episode of the podcast Happy

Post Easter. We are jumping into hopefully a

new rhythm and regular weekly recordings of these podcasts now

that we're through Easter. So it was fun to relaunch with

Easter, and now our plan is to continue with the weekly

recordings that, as we've done, follow the sermon series that

we're in. So we're back into Luke, which

means every week we're gonna jump into a deeper conversation

around a few specific things from the text.

This week we started Luke 16. Doozy right after Easter to

like, jump into just like one of Jesus's most confusing parables

just just for fun, you know? This is this is the thing that I

said on Sunday was like, if you are just back because it was

Easter and you're new to church and, you know, maybe you came on

Easter or went somewhere on Easter or maybe, you know,

something has kind of been nagging at you.

I would say that that's God. But you know, something's been

kind of in the back of your mind.

I need to go to church. And like yesterday was the first

day you showed up. I love that you were there.

And it's a hard, it's a hard passage to jump into, yeah.

But I think the thing that I want people to know just as we

begin is, uh, you know, like the, the reason why I think it

matters that we address the difficult conversations in

Scripture and we're going to get more into that later on, I think

today. But the reason why I think it's

important to just not gloss over or jump through or skip over or,

you know, just like pretend like they don't exist.

These types of passages is because we really actually at

the end of the day, like we say things like the gospel matters,

Jesus matters for your everyday life, like the practical way you

live your life out. But then we talk often like the

church, we get so stuck talking in spiritual, I say like realms,

but like in in spiritual conversations or emotional

conversations, which are all great.

We say it's practical. But then when it comes to money

or some of the most practical topics that we think the

Christian faith should impact, we're like, that makes me

uncomfortable. Let's not talk about it.

So we like hyper spiritualized stuff for the sake of not

talking about. No, like just the brass tacks of

it. Like what does this change for

the way that you spend your money?

So if it was your first Sunday, I love that you were there.

If you know somebody, if you're listening and you met somebody

on Sunday who's, you know, who's there for the very first time,

like I think it actually matters to continue to have these

conversations in the church. And that's what we hope this

podcast does on a larger level as well is encourage you to have

conversations. So don't let it die.

Like I know you're listening, some of you are listening on

your commutes or while you're exercising, you know, walking

outside, inside, like a whole lot of different places and

spaces. Don't let it die there.

Like don't let it die in your earbuds just by listening.

Try to have one more conversation.

I think that would be my my challenge to you.

Well, and I, and I think that, so I mean, sort of tying into

where I was hoping to go today is to talk through like how we,

how we intentionally lean into harder passages and, and get

into, you know, like, so there's, there's two

conversations that I'd like to have.

And it may go in a few different directions, but there's a kind

of a meta conversation, a higher level conversation around what

we do with passages like the parable of the shrewd manager

and, and the difficulties that it raises, the tensions it

raises. And there are tons of passages

like that, you know, innumerable.

We could, you know, go through, we could spend days going

through the scriptures and, and highlighting, man, this, there's

a lot of tension in this, in these passages, a lot of things

we don't know how to answer or deal with.

So there's sort of like a higher level conversation that I, I'd

be interested to get into. How do we press in rather than

check out? And and then and then a little

later on, I want to get more out of personal level and, and OK,

but also there is a conflict our own selves and how do we how do

we deal with that? But let's start at the higher,

higher level first. And, and so, yeah, like when

scripture is a little confusing, when it's unclear the the the

meaning that we're meant to derive.

And I think that's very true here is that it's, we were, you

know, sitting there, you and myself and Allison last

Wednesday, I think it was we were sitting there just like,

OK, what, what do we do with this?

How does this preach? What like what, how do you go?

And, and then at even even like an hour and a half later, it was

like, OK, Grant, bless you, go, go have fun.

You know, like that was that was part of the challenge, right?

And so like when, when the, the, the meaning we're supposed to

derive is a little unclear. How, how do we read it?

How do we learn and grow from passages like this?

And how do we press in rather than checking out?

And I'm kind of giving a whole bunch of questions that you can

latch on to whichever way you feel.

Yeah, so, so I think I said this when we were meeting for some of

the sermon prep conversation is like, I'm weird.

I love these passages. Like actually I enjoy these

ones. They're they're so much fun to

preach. And like, I had a pretty good

idea of where we were going to go and we were going to land.

I think I interestingly, I say interestingly, not ironically,

but interestingly, the answer to both of your questions, I think

is the same. So I, I think the answer to both

of your questions, and we'll get there, like we'll get to the

second part is community. And that, you know, I think one

of the things that we've done in sort of like the post

enlightenment era of information and formation is we've made it

very personal. So what's happened in, uh, you

know, certainly like more really more recently, even the last 100

years is that information formation and spiritual

formation has become radically individualized so that the, the

narrative is how am I growing or being shaped or being formed?

Even to ask that question is like, I think a little bit

further along down the road, most of us are being formed by

something without even realizing it.

And so we consume and we watch, we read, we, you know, hours of

it inputting all of it, shaping us, informing us.

O I think we need just to simply say that's happening.

Formation happens and what you consume is either gonna form you

or to a certain extent deform you into more of I would say as

a pastor, as a Christian, as a follower of Jesus into more of

the person that Jesus is creating you to be or less of

the person Jesus is creating you to be.

Another way to put that is, you know, Christ likeness is the way

Scripture talks about it. So how am I being shaped more

into the likeness of Christ? How am I being shaped less into

the likeness of Christ? How am I being formed more to be

like Jesus? How am I being deformed to be

unlike Jesus? That's happening all the time,

like unless you're really good at silence and solitude, it's

happening like almost 24/7. And so that is something that

that's something that we need to name now.

I think where it becomes really problematic for us is that we

think about our formation from a, the individual's perspective,

like from my, my formation, whether that's spiritual,

psychological, emotional, relational, intellectual, it

it's, it's often and, and almost always about my, how am I being

shaped and formed or how am I shaping and forming someone

else. But we think about that being

shaped and being formed at an individual level.

It's me, it's you. Those are different.

Like we're, we're different. You're being shaped and formed

one way. I'm being shaped and formed in

another way. And, you know, occasionally we

have conversations, but like, you know, maybe parallel tracks,

but we're we're, you know, completely separate.

And I think that is it's something that's that's new.

Now bring it back to scripture where it comes in for us as we

read Scripture is for a long time.

The church has now spoken about like my time in scripture, which

is good. Like don't hear me say like you

need to spend time in insert If your take away is don't read the

Bible, you're you're wanting to hear that like you're trying to

hear. That you read the Bible in

church and community, right? You know, like that's not yeah,

that's not the take away. You're trying, you're trying to

hear something that I'm not saying, but you know, I, I do

think we, we have this greater emphasis on my personal time

with Jesus, my reading of Scripture, my prayer, my

individual spiritual formation. And that's where, where passages

like we dealt with on Sunday about the shrewd manager become

problematic because it's so easy to do what we said we don't want

to do, which is either ignore it and jump over it and skip it and

just be it makes me uncomfortable.

So I don't want to deal with it or it it puts me in a place

where like, I don't actually understand what's going on here.

And I'm not sure what we're supposed to get from it.

Either you make a bad like this is the thing I'm supposed to get

from it, or you just, again, you move on because it's hard to

understand. And so, you know, these

passages, more than any other passage in Scripture, are these

invitations into community and into this community formation.

How are we being shaped and formed together and how are we

participating in that? Like, even I think about Justin,

these conversations that you and I have are, you know, are are

fun and encouraging and, you know, hopefully helpful to other

people, but it helps shape and form you and I.

Yeah. To have these conversations.

Like we talk about Scripture and that shapes and forms us

together differently than if I were just reading it by myself

in the same way. And I'm glad you brought up our

preaching meetings. It's the exact same approach

there. I can hole away and think and

pray and then go for walks and write and edit and think and

pray and write and edit and read and input from authors that are

maybe some alive and some dead and like, I can write an entire

sermon by myself without talking to anybody.

Is that a better sermon than one that was sort of at least either

initially crafted and formed and shaped in community with you,

with Allison, with others who are preaching and teaching, if

not at the beginning, kind of part way through the process.

Is it better for me to bounce ideas off of people who are

living inside of the same community and feeling the same

things and reading the same news and going like we're reading the

same passage now and wrestling it out?

No, the the first option, me holding away, you know, might be

necessary a few times, you know, in a preaching cycle.

But vastly more helpful is the community formed and shaped

message where you know, there there are these conversations

that are happening. So you know, I, I think just to

kind of summarize the the danger is to make everything radically

individualistic, radically about only yourself and how you

approach Scripture and these passages more than any of them,

but all of them are an invitation toward community.

I'll give you a really quick example.

I had somebody come up to me after the sermon on Sunday and I

love this, absolutely love this. It is like, it's bold and brave

and like, you know, not everybody has the, the, I think

to do it all the time. Did they say they disagreed?

With you. No, that that would have been

awesome. Like that would have been great.

And I'm waiting. You know, those are fun

conversations, but no, this person is so, you know, I was in

the kitchen. We were kind of packing up some

of the stuff from communion and somebody came up to me and said,

hey, I still don't like, I get this and I get this and I get

this. I still don't understand this

one point. What's this one line here?

And it interestingly was actually a line about community.

It was the line about friends. And this person was just, I love

that this person was able to say, hey, I, I get this, I get

this. I still don't get this one

piece. And so we had a great

conversation and it wasn't long and it wasn't me just saying,

well, it's this, let's move on with our day.

It, it was just a quick, short, but meaningful exchange.

And at the end it was like, oh, yeah, this is it.

Of course, this is it, but we got there in conversation

together, and that's the invitation of difficult passages

that we'd rather skip. If I'm left on my own, it's like

you just easily skip over it and not think twice.

I'm gonna go read something else that's better and easier and

make me feel happy about myself. But it's when we get to passages

like this that we need to feel and need to wrestle with and

need to be challenged by community.

Like holds you there in the passage.

Well, and even at A, at a very practical level, you know, going

back to our, our preaching planning meeting, you were

toying with an idea. I hope it's OK.

Yeah. OK, cool.

Yeah. You were toying with the idea

of, of bringing in not just this parable, but the following

parable, which you're gonna be preaching from this Sunday.

And Allison and I were both like, I'm not, I'm not sure you

want to do that. You know, like, and not in like

obviously we have a good trust amongst each other.

And it was a it was a a healthy conversation.

There was, it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't like harsh

pushback. It was just like, oh, like

that's a lot to, you know, that's a lot to handle.

Are you gonna be able to do that?

Are you gonna give these passages the full weight and

justice they deserve? Right.

And and and clearly, based on, you know, where you went, we you

persuaded yourself or some mixture of of all of the things

or but like you did, you did it and I think it was the right

call like to stick with the one and and to dive a little deeper

into it. I still, I joke with you and

Allison in those meetings, like I'm still waiting for one of you

to say, no, that's not it, you're wrong.

Like I'm still waiting for that moment to happen where, you

know, a in, in an outline or in a point or instantly say, you

know, Nope, that's not it. You've lost it.

I'm still waiting for that moment.

And it'll be fun when it happens because it will.

But yeah, it, it was, it really was, it was a great, I think it

was a great conversation where I, I had one outline sort of

applauded out and, you know, was starting in the middle and then

work both in both directions dealing with both the parables.

And what we ended up doing was starting in the middle and

moving backwards toward the first parable.

And and this coming Sunday, we're gonna start in the middle.

We're gonna work forward toward the next parable.

And that outline didn't change. But yeah, you, you both were

able to say, hey, like, that's that's a lot.

That's a lot to deal with. We've got communion.

And I did, you know, I walked away going.

Yeah. I wasn't fully certain still

whether it was going to be one or two when we left that

meeting. But as I started writing, it was

it was became very clear like, no, there's too much here.

You know, those guys are right. There's too much here.

Just listen and be done with it and.

Perhaps a little bit of divine Providence, since there was also

some illness that had befallen your, you and your family that

that that I think would have put pressure on seriously, they'll

put pressure on trying to make something cohesive out of the

whole package. Right, for sure, yeah,

absolutely, absolutely. So in in community, it has to be

the way we do it. And and please again, I want to

say this, you need to spend your personal alone time with

Scripture, in prayer with God. You need to allow God to

challenge you as an individual. Please hear that.

But I do think that there's something so significant about

community that happens when we vessel out difficult texts like

this together for exactly some of these reasons.

And one of the other pieces of that that I think is just worth

naming is that because we can do this in community, you know,

through Bible studies or through things like, you know, obviously

our situation with sermon prep is a bit unique to us

specifically. But for others in small groups

or when we do like community Bible studies and things like

that. But also when you are

individually reading, like there's also a wealth of, of

people from Christian history from like thinkers and

theologians and scholars and commentaries.

And like there is so much material out there that can help

us understand better. Almost at the point where we

gotta be careful because we gotta know that what we're

looking at is going to be a, a healthy and helpful and, and

thoughtful resource versus just like something that is maybe

potentially even dangerous or heretical or whatever.

So that's again, where I think community can help with the, the

discernment process there. But just in general, like when

we're wrestling with a passage and we don't know where to go

with it, we don't know what we're supposed to learn from it.

Like, I think even you said one of the, you know, one of the

main threads from all of the commentaries you read from this

passage was like, yeah, it, it, it seems a little bit unfair

with the way the shrewd manager has dealt with deal with it.

You know, like that was, that was one of the the common

threads that you had pulled away.

Yeah. And it's like, OK, well, that's,

that's interesting to pay attention to that.

There are multiple theologians, serious heavyweight kind of

people that are like, hey, this is probably one of the things we

need to glean from this is like, life's not fair sometimes.

That's one of the hardest things about this this parable and just

to name it right, is the fact that this shrewd manager who is

soon to be fired because of probably like unethical or at

very least like delinquent work habits, is praised by his

manager for his shrewdness, but not not only for his shrewdness

in in it feels like for acting in further unethical ways.

You know, he's he's overly generous, but did he have the

authority to do the thing? You know, some say yes and some

say no and some argue about what actually he's doing and who he's

cheating. Some people say he's cheating

himself. You know that what he cuts out

of there, out of their bill would be actually like the

managers percentage that he would be entitled to.

But that's like, you know, most people disagree that that like

50% is not like that's not the kind of realm of percentages

that they would have been dealing with calculation.

Absolutely. A lot of speculation.

So, you know, it really is a passage where we see Jesus.

And I think I said it, it's like if if it's hard for us because

it feels like Jesus is praising this, this manager for an

unethical practice. And he is.

And that is what the commentaries say, like most of

the commentaries basically say literally deal with it.

One of them said literally deal with it.

And you know, a few others are are essentially like we, we

wrestle this out. It's just attention that's

there. You can't, you can't resolve it.

You can't make it feel good. You can't, you know, explain it

away. It in fact, it loses its meaning

when you do try to explain it away.

And that's the beautiful thing about parables.

And that's why I think parables were always so here's the thing

about parables. Parables were always meant to be

experienced in community. Jesus never tells a parable to

one person. Yeah.

And I need to like Fact Check me on that one because that's,

that's like I don't have like a, you know, I'm not 100 and 10%

certain on it. But it's either usually his

disciples, his followers more broadly, or the Pharisees.

It's the disciples. The crowds are the Pharisees.

Yeah, it is always community. And he tells it like they're not

resolved. Jesus.

There's barely a parable that Jesus explains right in its

entirety. But sometimes they go after him

and like Jesus, can you? Explain about this or this.

Yeah. And and that's like that's the

whole point of a parable is to encourage your participation in

it and for it to be something that's wrestled out together,

which just he's not telling parables just to communicate,

you know, a three-point truths that everybody can walk away

with. Be like, well, we all heard the

same thing. Great.

Like, no, he would have, he would have given lists of

things, you know, like parables are meant to be.

They're meant to hold tensions. They're meant to be hard.

They're meant to have these aha moments that flip everything

upside down. Like, I thought this was the

direction we're going. And now it's just so upside down

or right side up, however you wanna, you know, describe it.

That it it has to be done. It has to be done inside a

community. And community is going to be the

ones to say to you those things like, yes, it's attention, deal

with it. It's just there.

And in fact, it loses its weight if you explain it away.

Even this guy gets it. How much more?

That's the implication for us. Should we also get it?

Yeah, and, and so like even even within that, there's something

uncomfortable for us of just like some, some parts of

Scripture, this one included the, the full scope and meaning

of it. We may never fully know all the

answers to. And as I, you know, I would say

in my early 20s, that was a real challenge for me.

I remember like wrestling through some things and like, I

think it was particularly in the Gospel of John that I was like

struggling to reconcile with like, you know, what certain

scholars thought and said. And, and, and it was like this

existential crisis of, of like, hey, I'm, I'm, I don't know what

to think and believe. I remember wrestling through as

one of my friends, like leaned more into like Reformed

Calvinist theology and I and I was never raised in that and I'm

ironically now working at a Presbyterian Church.

But like, and, and, and had like deep existential crises over

certain aspects of, of, you know, that understanding of, of

faith as I've gotten older. I'm, I'm turning 40 next month,

which, you know, I feel like, you know, some, some of the

elders in the church would probably be like, you're still a

baby. You're.

Halfway to 80. Right, but but like, I think for

me, one thing in my in my mid life, if I can call it that, it

feels dramatic. But like, I've, I'm learning to

like, just be OK and just like lean into like certain elements

of like mystery and not like a cop out way.

Like there are times of like, I know, I, I wanna know the answer

to this, like this, this is dissatisfying and I and I might

not find the answer, but sometimes there are answers.

Sometimes genuinely, truly, there are answers to some of our

questions that we can find through study and further

research. Sometimes there's not right.

And, and just for me, as I, as I grow, just learning to like let

it kind of roll off my shoulder a little bit.

You like, you know what? I know the most important things

that I believe and the most important things that I hold on

to and cling to, and the full meaning of the the parallel of

the shrewd manager isn't the top of that list.

Isn't one of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah. I love the way Paul puts it

right. He's like we know now in part

and we see in part and he's got this beautiful vision for like.

But then we will know fully and be known fully and see fully and

be seen fully like he's got this, this, this great, you

know, analogy that you think about ripples in the water where

you see a reflection that is partially distorted.

And you know, I think that's the challenge for for human beings,

I think especially that's the challenge for followers of Jesus

is, is to live in that reality. And, and we are less good at it

in our earlier years for sure, And hopefully with time become

better at it, but don't always. And so I think there needs to be

like there needs to be a conscious effort.

And I'm going to forget the, the philosopher, um, who talks about

this, but like, anyway, stages of faith, there's different

language for it, stages of spiritual development, there's

different languages and different writers.

And that's totally fine. But one of the ways that I've

heard it talked about that has been helpful is that, you know,

in our, in our early years, we grew up with, you know, this,

this naivety. And then we go through seasons

of, of difficulty and deconstruction and questioning

and wondering. And that can lead you down a

couple of different paths for sure.

I think as Christians, like, we're free of that word, like

deconstruction. Oh no, we can be afraid of it in

unhealthy, unhealthy ways. I think every person needs to go

through that season of asking difficult questions of

themselves, of their faith, of God, of the Church, of reality,

of the world, of what's after it.

I. Don't know how you can have a

deep faith without some of that. Right.

So, so, and, and I want to come back to that point.

So you go through this, this first naivety and then you go

through this season of wonder and deconstruction and

questioning and exploring and, and I see it as this like

incredible opportunity. I think some people become

scared and that's fine. Those are different reactions to

the same thing. But then we come to this like

second naivety. So another way of talking about

it is there's a like, there's an enchantment about faith as a

child. And it's like, why do we tell

the stories literally? Like exactly as why do we tell

us, you know, kids, the stories in the Old Testament as, as

literal historical, like this happened and how amazing is

that? And, and, and now I want to be

careful because within the Old Testament, there's a ton of

different genre happening. And you and I can have that

conversation. We know even within our

congregation, there's different, there's different thoughts and

approaches to the like literal approaches to scripture and

stories within it. So I'll just use one that is

debated. And I'm just saying that it's

debated. I'm not saying where I stand on

it and I'm not saying where you stand on it.

The walls of Jericho. So Joshua and the walls of

Jericho marched around the walls, you know, blowing horns.

Those walls come tumbling down. Well, some people say that that

happened literally exactly as it's written in Scripture.

And other people say, well, there's no evidence of walls

around Jericho. And then other people say, no,

there's no evidence ground walls that were around Jericho that

did fall around the top. Like, like there's there's,

there's competing evidence. We're still learning and

exploring in the archaeological record is difficult and hard to

understand. And we're a long way out from

it. But that's, I just named that as

one. But when we're teaching kids

about it, we don't go into, hey, you know, some people believe

this happened and some people don't believe that this

happened. And like some archaeology

archaeologists say that there are walls and they did fall, and

other archaeology archaeologists say that there weren't.

There's like some theologians that that think that passage in

particular or that book book of Joshua was like basically like

war propaganda, right? Try to explain that to a nine

year old, No. What do we do?

We teach them that Joshua led the people to walk around

Jericho and they blew their horns and those walls came

tumbling down. And how amazing is it to see

what God does to his like for his people when they worship and

when they respond in obedience and right.

So we we grow up and and you know, ideally and hopefully you

come out of childhood with this enchanted faith.

This is another way to talk about it.

So you, you have this wonder filled vision of what God can do

inside of the world. Well, that enchanted needs to be

taken through seasons that are difficult and that do allow you

to ask questions and express doubts and curiosities.

We go from enchantment to disenchantment, but you can't

stay at disenchantment because disenchantment is cynicism and

it can lead to bitterness and resentment and you need to move

through. Hopefully we encourage people to

move from disenchantment to re enchantment.

And that's the place where we sit with the complexity and the

tension of passages like this or those walls around Jericho and

go, Could it have happened? Yeah, definitely could have

happened. And what is God trying to say to

us in the midst of that tension, whether it did or didn't in the

exact way that it happened in in Scripture?

So for me, I just want to say this one thing, the one, the one

place that I trace my faith back to in all of these conversations

is the resurrection of Jesus. So we're just on the heels of

Easter. Jesus body literally raised from

the dead. Not a figurative resurrection,

not like an emotional spiritual resurrection.

Not a spiritual body. Not a floating ghost movement

like physical body raised from the dead.

That is the one nonnegotiable for me for Christianity.

And for the majority? For the, absolutely.

Some that would say no, but I they're allowed to be wrong.

Exactly. For me, that's the so if that

happened, everything else inside of Scripture is possible.

And so you go, OK, if Jesus's body was literally raised from

the dead, then I go, it's game on.

Anything and everything is possible, but the way we

approach those tensions can change.

Yeah. And that's that.

Like that's that re enchantment of faith where it's like,

imagine what could be possible. Yeah, imagine what God can do.

So, so enchantment, disenchantment, re enchantment,

naivete to like second naivete and the however you want to

describe that trajectory, that's the, the life of discipleship is

from here to there. Um, and that's what we're

invited into. That only happens in community

though. Yeah, I agree.

Agree. And just using that language

around reenactment, like I think what happens when you are

disenchanted versus say, re enchanted with with with

scripture is when you're disenchanted, you'll look at a

passage like this and and you'll see it, you know, through the

well, this this manager, he didn't deserve to be, you know,

praised like this, this, this, this sucks, this is stupid.

This is like, what's even the point?

And you can get down this like sin as cynical sort of unhealthy

route versus you know, I feel like we enchantment should

provoke just like a lot of questions and curiosity

excitement about like, OK, what what's what's God doing here?

What's God saying here? Right.

So re enchantment, re enchantment sees yourself as

that manager, right? Or at least very least allows

the manager to hold a mirror. Up to you to say, man, this dude

is a mixture of selfishness and generosity.

And you know what? At the end of the day, so am I

and So what? Why like, if there's nothing

praiseworthy about him, why should there be anything

praiseworthy about me? Now, at the end of the day, is

there anything praiseworthy about any of us?

Like we can go down that rabbit trail of, of, of depressing

Calvinism and, and we don't have to do that today.

Like Total Depravity is a different podcast episode and

but like, you know, I think the rein chanted faith allows

yourself to see some of these complexities not only in the

people in scripture, so in this manager, but in yourself as well

and go, oh, OK, so this dude mixture of selfishness and

generosity must mean I know, like I know I'm a mixture of

selfish and generous, intense. I love to be generous and I

fight being selfish and you know, like that's attention that

that Jesus is resolving in me and I think wants to resolve

hopefully to greater degrees in all of us.

But it's gonna be around forever.

Like that's, that's part of humanity, part of the human

nature. Well, you've already let me to

cough drops today that I won't give back to you, so you're

already on a good footing on a Monday morning for your

generosity. So perfect.

I appreciate 3 actually. You know what?

You're right. Three but.

You. You're gonna make me cough?

No. Don't.

Please don't. There.

Yeah. So that was like a beautiful

like just segue into kind of just the last thing I wanted to

touch on was was this idea of like, yeah, OK, so that raises.

I'm just as I'm thinking aloud here, when we are seeing

scripture through that like re enchanted lens through that,

that like, you know, we're just asking, we're asking questions

for, you know, what could this mean?

Then it shifts to you, what what could this mean for me?

And then and then you're actually willing to do that hard

work of, of looking in the mirror and saying, OK, that's

me. What do I need?

What do I need to address? Yeah.

You know, and, and as you were, as you were preaching and kind

of going through this example of particularly the shrewd manager,

I started thinking about examples in my own life where I

was like, man, I did something that was outwardly altruistic,

but inwardly I it was gonna help me get what I wanted.

Yeah. And I, I felt that like I, I, I

was, I was grappling with that reality of my dualistic nature.

And that is, I wasn't going to solve it that that's gonna be a

that's something that we, I and we carry with us to the end of

our lives. And hopefully we make forward

progress as we lean into, you know, God forming us and

community forming us and all these things.

But it just, yeah, that confronted me and, and I, I hope

I think in a good way because I didn't feel this like, I think I

didn't feel this like deep, like condemnation.

It was more like, oh, oh, yeah, that that's me.

That's me guilty, you know, and I hope for others as well like

that, that is the, the, the right approach wouldn't be

toward like this heaping, heaping self condemnation and

and shame and all these things, but rather, oh, OK, I need to

lean into that. I need to, I need to listen to

that and say ask myself some hard questions and maybe ask my

family and friends some hard questions about me.

Yeah, So I just want to name a couple things.

So like, I love, I love that you share that because that's

exactly what we hope for. I think when we're preaching and

sometimes, like sometimes you're preaching and it's you're

preaching yourself, right? It's like, Oh yeah.

Why is why did this message land your end up the way it did?

Is because it like God's working some real things out in our

lives that eventually work their way into sermons.

Not probably in real time, because that's, you know, an

unhealthier view of. Everything I learned this week

that I'm going to preach to you exactly.

Exactly. Here's the thing.

That's still this big open gaping thing, right?

Like, yeah, no, not that. But you know, 11 of, well,

someone I respect says scars, not wounds, like not open

wounds, but scars. And so I, you know, I like that

language, but I, I just want to name a couple of things.

One, I, I love that you're, you're sharing this here in this

forum because it's exactly what we want people wrestling out in

their own lives. Like for me and my life, you and

your life and for everyone in the congregation is to feel

that, that tension and go, oh, I'm going to sit here.

I'm not going to ignore it. I'm not going to push it away.

I'm not going to numb it or distract myself away from it

like we are so good at doing. I'm going to sit in it.

I'm going to feel it. I'm going to name it, you name

it like naming the thing the church is called for generations

confession. And I think we've lost that

rhythm in that habit of just now listen, like we're not gonna put

up a confessional in the in the in the sanctuary at the back of

the sanctuary and have like a curtain and you can come and sit

and confess your sins. But there's something just

profound and beautiful about being able to say, hey, that was

something that I wrestled with and I'm still wrestling with

and. Tells you can ask me about it.

And, and, and to say you, you took that a step further, which

is OK. Now I'm going to have

conversations with my family and friends.

So now no longer are you confessing this.

It's just, you know, you and God, yet God, you're doing

something in my life and I need to name this thing.

And I know that you're, you're tapping into something here.

That's, that's really, you know, impacting me.

Now you're including a small group of people with it.

And what you're not doing is like, hey, podcast listeners,

this is the thing, right? Like that's not what you're

doing, but what you're naming a process for people that is just

so helpful in, in terms of dealing with the tension.

Because again, there are a couple different there many

different ways we can deal with it, but there are two principal

ways. One, we can feel it and then do

everything we can to ignore it or to we can feel it and do

everything we can to understand and, you know, and move forward

in it and through it and because of it.

And, and I think you've laid out a really good, just a really

good simple process for people. So like, feel it, sit with it,

name it, name it to somebody else and go like that's the

Christian sort of Arc of confession that has been around

for a lot longer than any of us. So and, and lots of other, lots

of other like spheres of, of the world have also caught on to

that. I know that like something like

Alcoholics Anonymous, which has a lot of Christian roots in it,

one of their one of their main steps, and it's also been

borrowed by like Christian programs like Celebrate Recovery

is to admit to God and to someone else the exact nature of

your wrongs. And it's like, boom.

To just to say it, you have to say it as it is.

Yeah. And to say it not without

emotion, but almost without emotion.

It's like no this. Is what I did.

This is it, yeah. So, yeah, we hope that this has

been a helpful conversation. I think this is a great place to

end. Yeah.

To encourage you to sit with the attention and to encourage you

to sit maybe even in the attention of needing to name

something and wrestling out what that next step might be.

So again, wherever this episode finds you, we hope that you are

encouraged, and we hope that you're challenged to live a

little bit differently between Sundays.

So again, we hope to see you on Sunday and in other areas of our

church life, and then again next week for another.

So do the podcast.