Latest / Red Couch Theology / When Loving Your Neighbor Feels Impossible

Transcript

When Loving Your Neighbor Feels Impossible · Red Couch Theology

• 0:00
  Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Red Couch
• 0:02
  Theology podcast. Hey, this week we talked about
• 0:05
  Sunday's sermon where Alex kicked off our neighboring
• 0:09
  series, and we talked about how difficult this actually can be
• 0:13
  to learn to love our neighbor as ourselves.
• 0:16
  What if our neighbor is the worst?
• 0:18
  And if, like we learned on Sunday, our neighbor is anyone
• 0:21
  around us, in proximity to us? Are we really expected to love
• 0:24
  people that harm us or abuse us? What's that even mean?
• 0:28
  And what happens if we don't love ourselves?
• 0:30
  How are we supposed to love our neighbor if we don't love
• 0:33
  ourselves in the 1st place? We deal with some of these
• 0:35
  questions along the way and let's dive right And we're live.
• 0:46
  We're live. Well, two minutes delayed.
• 0:51
  Welcome to the Red Couch Theology podcast.
• 0:57
  What do we do here? Theology on a red couch?
• 1:00
  Well, you do theology on a red couch.
• 1:02
  I do theology on a far more comfortable white chair.
• 1:06
  Yeah, you know, it's been a while since we've talked about
• 1:09
  how bad this chair is. Oh, it's terrible.
• 1:13
  But the last time we talked about it, all the time, people,
• 1:18
  a few folks, sent me pictures of alternate couches that they
• 1:22
  could pick up a thrift store for me.
• 1:24
  They're like these big cushy, like maroon couches.
• 1:27
  Yeah, the maroon. So couch, you are loving Red
• 1:32
  Couch theology community. If you would like to find me a
• 1:35
  more comfortable couch, here is my requirements.
• 1:41
  Form definitely wins over function.
• 1:43
  Why? Because I've been sitting on
• 1:45
  this couch for five years. Because it looks cool.
• 1:48
  That's quirky. It's very truly red.
• 1:53
  I actually just was looking for something the other day and I
• 1:56
  found the original Christmas Eve video that we used this couch
• 2:01
  for. Yeah.
• 2:03
  Yeah, and my daughter at the time was in the little, the
• 2:06
  little skit things we did. And you know, she was probably
• 2:10
  like 6 maybe. No, she must have been older
• 2:13
  than 6. Dude, that's crazy.
• 2:15
  She was 8. Yeah, she was 8.
• 2:20
  She's dancing around and she's so happy and you know, yeah,
• 2:24
  beautiful stuff. Yep.
• 2:26
  Anyway, anyway, if you would like to get us a new red couch,
• 2:29
  it needs to be really cool looking on camera.
• 2:32
  It's clearly I'm willing to sit in a horrible couch until we
• 2:35
  find her and it has to be truly red.
• 2:38
  Yeah, yeah. There you go.
• 2:42
  So your mission should, should you choose to accept it.
• 2:45
  I actually. Had someone tell me I can find
• 2:48
  you that couch if you give me $7000 and I was like whoa whoa
• 2:53
  whoa. Our budget for this show is 0.
• 2:55
  Was that my wife that said that or your wife?
• 2:58
  That's no, no, no, no. So there you go.
• 3:01
  For less than $7000, preferably less than $100.
• 3:05
  Yeah. I might be willing to spend $100
• 3:07
  on a new couch. I might be willing to match
• 3:10
  that. That would increase our budget
• 3:12
  by $100 for the last six years for this podcast.
• 3:18
  Isn't that scary? Our average budget over the
• 3:20
  years is 0. Oh, that's not entirely true.
• 3:23
  I bought these lights. Oh, that's true.
• 3:25
  This year. This was our big upgrade.
• 3:28
  Worth it. It was worth it.
• 3:29
  I. Actually used these lights to do
• 3:31
  my kids passport photos. Yeah, yeah, what great did they
• 3:34
  get approved? Yeah, I believe so.
• 3:36
  Still waiting, but they they on the passport metric for the UK.
• 3:41
  It has like a a dial that goes from low to to good and it was
• 3:47
  right at the end of good. It was like the extreme of good.
• 3:52
  That's money well spent on these lights, I think.
• 3:54
  So saved me like, you know, $60.00 at the the passport
• 4:01
  photo. Place these were about worth
• 4:03
  $60.00. All right, so we're supposed to
• 4:08
  talk about the Bible or theology or something other than passport
• 4:11
  photos? Say something about the.
• 4:13
  Bible rumor has it's ready set. Go say stuff about the Bible.
• 4:18
  What'd you what'd you talk about this last Sunday?
• 4:20
  Well, I. Started a new series.
• 4:22
  Yeah, well, you started a new series, the neighboring series.
• 4:26
  You ended with a very so like this this week was a lot of
• 4:29
  series setup right and then, but you you did end with the first
• 4:35
  and you said the easiest and the hardest and the well.
• 4:40
  I said it was the least we could do, but also, surprisingly, the
• 4:44
  most we can do. So that's a good line.
• 4:46
  Yeah. That might preach, yeah.
• 4:48
  Have you? Thought about preaching be
• 4:49
  preaching before? Have you considered this as
• 4:51
  vocation? You know, I I'm still, I'm still
• 4:54
  weighing it up. The jury's out.
• 4:59
  How many years into this are you?
• 5:01
  20 something. 20 years in you're like, I'm not sure if I if I
• 5:05
  want to do this. No, no, no, no.
• 5:07
  Not sure if I want, not sure if I can.
• 5:10
  Oh, OK, fair enough. Anyway, yes, I I wanted to spend
• 5:17
  the first half talking about just neighboring in itself on
• 5:20
  the invite of Jesus, which is quite extraordinary.
• 5:22
  Yeah, yeah. Especially when you look at like
• 5:24
  the history of Leviticus 19 verse 18.
• 5:28
  And for Jewish people around Jesus time of yes, neighboring
• 5:34
  is important, but it's very much done among your people.
• 5:37
  So you get to, you know, pick your people or they get picked
• 5:40
  for you as a clan, a family, a tribe, whatever.
• 5:44
  And you're like, well, yeah, I, I those are the people are
• 5:47
  careful, right? They're they're the ones I treat
• 5:49
  well. So, so when Jesus is asked this
• 5:56
  question or he's asked a question about the law and and
• 6:03
  this I assure, I always assume this teacher is young, but I
• 6:07
  have no reason to assume that. Like I always picture him in the
• 6:11
  conversation being younger than Jesus.
• 6:13
  But again, massive assumption. Jesus says to him, well, how do
• 6:18
  you read the law? How do you interpret it?
• 6:20
  What's your like way of that evaluating it And he's says 2
• 6:25
  brilliant things like he has the two the perfect answer for
• 6:29
  Jesus, because it's the same answer Jesus has given himself,
• 6:33
  you know, and he may not know that may know that, but he like
• 6:35
  you're almost parrots back Jesus reply.
• 6:38
  I like to think he does know and he's just like, I know what
• 6:41
  you're going to say. Love your.
• 6:42
  Neighbor like yourself. Yeah.
• 6:47
  Oh wow, this guy is not only young, but he's super snarky.
• 6:52
  OK, got it. Got it.
• 6:53
  And then that follower, like you imagine, like him like half
• 6:58
  turning away, he like starts to walk off like, OK, yeah, yeah, I
• 7:02
  had this conversation. And then he's like, wait, but
• 7:05
  who's my neighbor? And Jesus is like, aha, yeah,
• 7:09
  let's talk about that. And so and then Jesus, as he so
• 7:13
  often does, tells a brilliant story to illustrate.
• 7:15
  I have this theory that Jesus 2 most important parables are the
• 7:20
  Parable of the Prodigal Son and the parable of the Good
• 7:23
  Samaritan. And the parable of the Prodigal
• 7:28
  son tells us that we are loved by God and can love him in
• 7:31
  return. And the parable of the Good
• 7:33
  Samaritan tells us to love our name.
• 7:37
  I like it. You told me, you told me that
• 7:40
  like last week in the hallway conversation or something.
• 7:44
  I think it's good. I don't know if it'll qualify as
• 7:46
  a hot take. It's it's got some good good
• 7:48
  data set. Yeah, Yeah, I think.
• 7:50
  I think so. You should write a book.
• 7:54
  Jesus do most important. Jesus said, what about this?
• 7:58
  Just some kind of yeah, so. So I, yeah, I spent probably 20
• 8:05
  minutes going through the parable of the Good Samaritan,
• 8:08
  which is, I mean, it's such a fun parable to teach, has all
• 8:12
  these little quirks to it, all these different like
• 8:16
  understandings of a character and how they they operate.
• 8:21
  It's, it's, it's a shock parable, like maybe a little bit
• 8:25
  more than any of the rest of his parables, like, like Jesus
• 8:30
  parables are generally like agricultural stories.
• 8:34
  And for the most part, they make sense.
• 8:36
  And this is one of the ones that's particularly shocking.
• 8:40
  You know, it, it reminds me, I nearly told this like joke that
• 8:44
  I think I've told before. And there's there's a story that
• 8:49
  someone told in the middle of a sermon where a guy comes up to a
• 8:54
  pastor afterwards and says, Hey, pastor, Like I just heard about
• 8:57
  this situation. It's really sad.
• 8:59
  Like, we really need your help or the church's help.
• 9:03
  There's this lady, this widow, and she's gonna get kicked out
• 9:07
  of her apartment. Like, she's got no money left.
• 9:10
  It's a desperate situation. And the landlord's just
• 9:12
  merciless. He just won't, like, allow any
• 9:15
  kind of grace. And so, like, what can the
• 9:17
  church do? And so the pastor says, well,
• 9:20
  OK, don't panic. We've got a food bank.
• 9:22
  We've got benevolence. We're gonna find a way to help
• 9:24
  her. Like, you know, just thank you
• 9:25
  for bringing this situation to us.
• 9:27
  Like, it really means something. And then the man turns to walk
• 9:32
  away, kind of satisfied with the pastor's answer.
• 9:34
  And the pastor says, oh, just before you go, like, you know,
• 9:36
  how do you, how do you hear about the situation?
• 9:38
  And the man pauses and goes, well, well, I'm the landlord.
• 9:42
  And you're like, oh, like, that's so like, you don't know
• 9:45
  whether to laugh or whether to go Like, oh, I don't like.
• 9:48
  Brutal you. Know, because this guy's clearly
• 9:51
  missed the point, like, and assumes it's the church's job to
• 9:55
  neighbor, not the, his own job to be a good neighbor.
• 10:01
  And so Jesus in a slightly different way, he's, he's kind
• 10:04
  of poking that kind of shock value.
• 10:07
  Like you can imagine like, like the, the way that the verses
• 10:10
  breakdown the, the priest and the, the Levite are introduced
• 10:16
  much more gently in the sentence.
• 10:19
  And that the, the sentence that introduces the Samaritan just
• 10:25
  starts a Samaritan enters the scene and you're like, whoa,
• 10:29
  Samaritan, what's he doing here? What's he going to do?
• 10:32
  Like beat the man more like. And then, of course, he's the
• 10:36
  hero of the story. Yeah, as Jesus does often.
• 10:42
  Yeah. We actually got several really
• 10:45
  intriguing questions that I think might take the bulk of our
• 10:48
  time. OK.
• 10:49
  So like if, if you're really, I think maybe if, if we have
• 10:55
  additional time, we can get circle back around to maybe some
• 10:57
  like reminders. But I think even some of the
• 11:00
  reminders you might offer people will be reminders that show up
• 11:03
  inside of these questions. So we had a question that came
• 11:08
  in. There was a note, actually no
• 11:11
  one labeled it or anything. There was a note jammed inside
• 11:14
  one of our offering boxes on here and it just says this how
• 11:19
  do you love someone as yourself if you don't love yourself?
• 11:23
  Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, this is very, it's
• 11:25
  a very good point. Like, I think it, yes, the, the,
• 11:31
  the, the command is to love your neighbor as yourself, not more
• 11:36
  than yourself. And so I think in theory at
• 11:39
  least, in not loving yourself, it makes it very unlikely that
• 11:43
  you'll love your neighbor. Really.
• 11:45
  You might be able to put on a show, but it's not genuine care
• 11:50
  and attention if if you don't believe you're worthy of that I
• 11:53
  would guess. Yeah, and I guess I think this
• 11:58
  is a hard question to even grapple with without a lot more
• 12:04
  context. Because I think even someone who
• 12:11
  would think of themselves as as I hating themselves or someone
• 12:19
  who looks down on himself or whatever, maybe I'd want to like
• 12:25
  pick like dive into that and say, well, why?
• 12:32
  And then why behind that? And then why behind that and why
• 12:35
  behind that until you get to the bottom of of the actual story of
• 12:41
  what's going on in someone's life.
• 12:42
  Like I, you know, someone might say I was told my whole life if
• 12:48
  I wasn't good at these list of things, then I wasn't worth
• 12:51
  something and I'm not good at those things, therefore I'm not
• 12:54
  worth something. Is that self hatred or is that
• 12:57
  believing in narrative that's not true in the 1st place and
• 13:03
  that actually the thing you're do, that the emotion you feel
• 13:07
  about yourself is some way of trying to protect yourself?
• 13:14
  Even to say at least I acknowledge how bad I am.
• 13:17
  I don't. Know is it possible to actually
• 13:21
  hate yourself fully? I don't know.
• 13:24
  The answer might be yes. Yeah, I, I don't know if I have
• 13:28
  answer based on feeling or data about that specifically.
• 13:33
  I, I do think it's very easy to like 1 like to your point, like
• 13:39
  I feel like early on in my Jesus journey, I liked to feel guilty
• 13:46
  because it almost felt if I was guilty, God hadn't given up on
• 13:49
  me. Like if I felt like a failure, I
• 13:51
  felt like I wasn't living the way of Jesus or even close to it
• 13:56
  at times. I was like, well, at least I
• 13:57
  feel bad about it. So that's like this like, oh,
• 14:00
  like I'm not as bad as the person that doesn't feel bad
• 14:03
  about it. I, I, I think, and I think I
• 14:08
  mentioned this in a sermon the other week.
• 14:10
  I am fairly convinced that we live in a world today that's so
• 14:17
  in touch with our feelings about stuff that if we don't feel
• 14:22
  loved by God, we, we actually start to believe we're not.
• 14:26
  So it becomes less a, like a, a truth that we know and more
• 14:31
  something that we're trying to feel that changes with like
• 14:34
  whether we ate well, whether we slept well, whether it's sunny
• 14:38
  outside, like, you know, all the different things going on.
• 14:42
  And we're actually, I think at times quite confident that we
• 14:46
  know better than God does about the situation.
• 14:48
  We're quite like, well, I'm not worthy of this.
• 14:50
  I'm not. And, and of course, the
• 14:52
  beautiful truths in Scripture are like, well, while we're our
• 14:54
  enemies, Jesus died for us. And it's very easy for us to, to
• 15:01
  like, disagree with that. I, I had a moment with someone
• 15:06
  just recently where they called me to ask for advice and they
• 15:12
  said, well, is this thing going on and this thing going on?
• 15:15
  And I'm worried about this. And, you know, and, and I kind
• 15:19
  of listened to them and like within 30 seconds gave them a
• 15:24
  bunch of answers that I feel like were absolutely true
• 15:29
  scripturally and really helped them in the situation.
• 15:33
  But I was like, oh, I would never have believed all those
• 15:36
  things to myself had I been in that situation because I would
• 15:39
  have been messing around with feelings and messing around
• 15:42
  with, you know, I'm not like, I'm not entering into feelings.
• 15:45
  I'm just telling you what's true.
• 15:47
  And that's easier to do for someone else than it is for
• 15:50
  yourself. And so you, you have all of
• 15:51
  these like people that experience this deep sense of
• 15:56
  discard love me. And if anyone else were to ask
• 15:58
  them that, they'd be like, well, of course he does.
• 16:01
  You're a ridiculous question, but again, because we're allowed
• 16:04
  to enter into it in that like deep place of emotion, it, it
• 16:07
  means we can get a little lost in it, I think.
• 16:11
  And so so I've had this kick recently and we've talked about
• 16:15
  this of my like third person faith of like, it's not about
• 16:19
  me. It's about what Jesus did.
• 16:21
  So I'm not interested right now for me in answers of like, well,
• 16:24
  I did this or I think this or I believe this.
• 16:26
  I'm actually interested in, well, Jesus said this and Jesus
• 16:29
  did this. And so I actually to go back to
• 16:33
  that prodigal son narrative, I am pretty convinced that the
• 16:38
  first step to loving yourself is actually believing God loves
• 16:41
  you. Yes, absolutely.
• 16:45
  I I think that that's now getting to that place is, is
• 16:50
  shockingly difficult. Shockingly.
• 16:52
  Because it's a kind of love that you've never encountered
• 16:57
  anywhere else in your life. Yes.
• 16:59
  Like the best possible experience a person should have,
• 17:04
  could have in this world without God is really psychologically
• 17:11
  and emotionally healthy parents that were highly engaged and had
• 17:16
  no problems themselves. That's not a thing.
• 17:20
  And so like even incredible parents who are like deeply
• 17:25
  surrendered to their own journey and their own brokenness, and on
• 17:28
  a journey with Jesus in their own brokenness will inevitably
• 17:34
  show you just a fraction of the purity of the love of God.
• 17:38
  So. This is actually why I in
• 17:40
  parenting like try to keep really short accounts with my
• 17:46
  kids and their failure. So if I have to tell them
• 17:50
  something strongly severely, I had to do that with one of my
• 17:53
  kids just a couple of days ago. They did something that was like
• 17:56
  like way out of line, super dangerous like, and, and like
• 18:03
  what I said to them was really like out of the character of
• 18:08
  most that most people have seen. Me.
• 18:13
  But I always want to make sure within a couple of minutes at
• 18:18
  the latest, I'm calling them over and I'm telling them why I
• 18:21
  love them and why I believe in them because I never want them
• 18:26
  in their older years to think, oh, I let God down.
• 18:30
  And now I've got to go through some like penance process.
• 18:34
  Yeah, some, some hours or days of feeling like he's ambivalent
• 18:39
  towards me until he finally comes back around and, you know,
• 18:43
  yeah, yeah. And so I think when we're,
• 18:45
  we're, we're parenting like when we're silent on stuff, when
• 18:50
  we're just like, OK, I was mad. I'm just going to try and forget
• 18:53
  it. I don't think that's enough.
• 18:56
  I think we actually have to enter into the closeness and the
• 19:00
  This is why you're still loved. Even though I might still be
• 19:03
  actually raging mad, at the moment I'm like, yeah, I I'm not
• 19:07
  as emotionally regulated as God is.
• 19:09
  Yeah, Yeah. So I think it's a great
• 19:12
  question, whoever it is. That's some sort of, and I don't
• 19:15
  even know if it was intended to make it on the podcast because
• 19:18
  this was just jammed inside the offering box.
• 19:20
  Yeah. It did though.
• 19:22
  And I just thought it was an appropriate question to ask.
• 19:24
  I I might venture to say, and I don't know how you feel about
• 19:27
  this, it might be harder to quote UN quote love yourself
• 19:35
  properly than to love your neighbor.
• 19:39
  Oh, yeah, I thought, yeah, I, I think, yes.
• 19:48
  And I, and I, I think if I had to guess why that was, is I
• 19:53
  think when we think about loving ourselves, we often think about
• 19:55
  feelings. And when we think about loving
• 19:58
  our neighbor, we often think about actions.
• 20:02
  And so it's, it's actually easier to say, well, regardless
• 20:06
  of how I feel, I'm going to do this thing, you know, in the
• 20:09
  context of last week, I'm going to pray for my neighbor because
• 20:12
  I believe they're worthy of, of, of God's attention, goodness
• 20:17
  and. Like relationship with him, like
• 20:19
  I long for those things. And so however I feel in this
• 20:22
  moment, I'm going to pray for them.
• 20:24
  And this week we'll talk about listening.
• 20:26
  And, and like that's an action we say like regardless of how
• 20:29
  busy I am, I'm not just going to hear them.
• 20:31
  I'm actually going to intend intentionally enter into
• 20:34
  listening. Yeah, yeah.
• 20:36
  But there's so much of our judgement on do I love myself is
• 20:38
  well, how do I feel about myself?
• 20:41
  Yeah. And that those things that you
• 20:43
  like though you, you can't control feelings.
• 20:45
  You know this that actually actually circles back around to
• 20:48
  what I asked you before about is it truly possible to not love
• 20:51
  yourself? And you know, this, this breaks
• 20:57
  down at some point, But interestingly, I think the
• 21:02
  majority of people there are people who who harm themselves,
• 21:08
  which would be like an, an expression of like almost of a
• 21:13
  self hatred. But for the most part, even if
• 21:18
  you feel really bad about yourself, you still tend to try
• 21:23
  and prioritize nurturing yourself in some way, shape or
• 21:27
  form. Like and even even coping
• 21:30
  mechanisms with related to super bad emotions like eating or
• 21:36
  drinking or or exercise or whatever are like self-care
• 21:43
  activities that you do to try and take care of yourself even
• 21:50
  if you don't like yourself. That's interesting.
• 21:55
  It's almost the opposite. Like I feel bad about myself but
• 21:58
  I do do actions that nurture myself and then the opposite
• 22:03
  with my neighbor might be like I I feel fine about them and don't
• 22:11
  do actions towards them. I don't know and.
• 22:14
  I think, I think that like someone said to me years ago,
• 22:18
  that love isn't a weak emotion, it's a strong action.
• 22:23
  Like it's a but, but I think I think like because our emotions
• 22:28
  are internalized, like how we feel about ourselves
• 22:32
  particularly feels to us in a given moment, like the most
• 22:37
  significant thing, You know, it doesn't matter whether we've
• 22:41
  been exercising and taking care of a body or feeding ourselves
• 22:44
  the right thing or giving ourselves rest and permission to
• 22:47
  do that and sleep and, you know, all those different things.
• 22:52
  If we don't feel good about ourselves, I think that's really
• 22:57
  easy to say we don't love ourselves.
• 23:00
  And so I think like one, it's, it's useful to be able to look
• 23:04
  at the way that we've cared for ourselves, our body and our soul
• 23:07
  and say, Oh yeah, I do those things because I do love myself,
• 23:12
  just as I might do those things for a neighbor that I also love.
• 23:16
  And realize that feelings tend to follow in those in, in those
• 23:19
  cases, they don't tend to be able to drive.
• 23:21
  Like actually letting them drive is usually a terrible thing.
• 23:25
  They get to go on the journey, but they can't drive.
• 23:30
  And so I, yeah, I wonder, I wonder how much the modern world
• 23:38
  nudges us towards like, more introspection than we can handle
• 23:42
  at times. And then at the same time, I
• 23:45
  wonder whether we're just like, it's easy to like be
• 23:47
  anachronistic and say like, you know, oh, of course I didn't
• 23:50
  worry about that. Like, you know, how many 100
• 23:53
  years years ago? But but there are some
• 23:55
  differences. Like, you think even like even
• 23:59
  like 400 years ago, like the average person couldn't tell you
• 24:07
  what they looked like. Like they, they, they'd maybe
• 24:10
  seen their reflection in the water, but the average person
• 24:14
  didn't have a look in glass to be able to stare into.
• 24:16
  They didn't have the ability to look at themselves like longly
• 24:20
  longingly and introspectively playing with every particular
• 24:24
  wrinkle that they could see in the mirror, like figuring out
• 24:28
  how their teeth looked when they smiled.
• 24:29
  But they didn't actually, if you look at the first photos of
• 24:32
  taken taken by people that didn't hadn't seen a camera
• 24:37
  before, they just stand very like, you know, like openly
• 24:42
  stomach sticking out like no particular like, you know, way
• 24:46
  of like. Propping themselves up.
• 24:48
  Yeah, no, no smile, just a a stare into the camera,
• 24:52
  completely uninterested in how they looked like because the the
• 24:57
  thing was new. Yeah.
• 24:58
  So that's why I just wonder whether that has become like
• 25:01
  whether that didn't become increasingly like the benefit of
• 25:04
  those that were rich and now he's extended to everybody
• 25:08
  because everyone has the capacity to do that.
• 25:10
  I wonder how that's changed over the years.
• 25:12
  Yeah, fascinating. Yeah, I feel like, like in some
• 25:19
  sense we're splitting hairs, but This is why the these greatest
• 25:22
  commandments that Jesus gives us are so simple and so
• 25:27
  complicated. So like, like you just said,
• 25:31
  step one to loving your neighbor might be why don't I love myself
• 25:37
  and why am I wrestling with my own thing?
• 25:39
  Step one to loving your neighbor might be dealing with your
• 25:43
  childhood issues like, and I think maybe it's a little easier
• 25:48
  for us to quantify like to to to bridge this to a different
• 25:52
  relational context, like parenting, for example, one of
• 25:55
  the most important parts of becoming a good parent is self
• 26:00
  regulation. Like if you as a parent can
• 26:05
  learn how to regulate your own emotional reactions to your
• 26:09
  kids, it's not your kids behavior.
• 26:14
  It's not your kids disobedience or obedience.
• 26:17
  Like the, the the amount of stuff that parenting relating to
• 26:24
  the kids is a fraction compared to the requirement of a parent
• 26:28
  to to deal with their own issues.
• 26:31
  So that they can parent in a way that is steady and calm and
• 26:35
  strong and loving and gracious and stern.
• 26:39
  All these things simultaneously without slipping into a place of
• 26:42
  destruction and. Yes, you like.
• 26:44
  As a parent, the goal is always to be acting, not reacting.
• 26:48
  Yes, so you're supposed to be choosing not responding.
• 26:54
  Like I I often say like I feel like especially my role in the
• 26:57
  house is to be a non anxious presence like to be like, it's
• 27:00
  OK, you know, we're not going to stress about that because it's
• 27:04
  going to be OK. Like to be that the the rock for
• 27:08
  for like especially my kids. Yeah, yeah.
• 27:14
  That, that, that, that actually requires not overly worrying
• 27:23
  about how I'm perceived or any of those different things.
• 27:25
  Actually it requires. The thing that's interesting is
• 27:28
  like the idea of the non anxious presence that like blipped on my
• 27:32
  radar maybe six years ago, seven years ago, something like that.
• 27:38
  And I'm like, yeah, great. I'm good at this kind of thing.
• 27:41
  I will just be a non anxious presence.
• 27:43
  And the problem with that is people read our affect more
• 27:47
  powerfully than our words or actions, like our our conscious
• 27:52
  actions. So like what I found was I'm
• 27:56
  actually a highly anxious presence that behaves in a from
• 28:01
  a distance. If you're not deeply in
• 28:03
  relationship with me, or if you were like, watching us on
• 28:07
  camera, like circling our household, you might think that
• 28:11
  guy is cool, calm and correct, collected all the time and
• 28:16
  steady as a rock. But if you're in deeper
• 28:18
  relationship with me and you know my subtleties, you know,
• 28:21
  that guy's falling apart and he's exuding like, like,
• 28:26
  overflowing with anxiety and the whole system's broken because of
• 28:30
  it. And so like, I had this idea
• 28:32
  like, yeah, just be a non anxious presence.
• 28:34
  And I would just sort of suck it up, try to pull up myself up by
• 28:37
  my bootstraps in that space. And then I find out, oh, step
• 28:41
  one to being non anxious presence is to is to notice that
• 28:45
  I'm actually anxious. Step 2 go to a counselor.
• 28:48
  Step three, meet with the guys group.
• 28:50
  Step 4, pray through it. Step 5, confess sin.
• 28:55
  Step 6, talk to my mom about a childhood brokenness that I had.
• 28:59
  Step 7. And finally, oh, do breathing
• 29:02
  exercises, like finally, on occasion I show up as a non
• 29:06
  anxious presence, but it's like, it's a lot of work.
• 29:09
  Yeah, it's a lot of work. All right, well, we have a
• 29:11
  couple more questions. So it it Yeah, we're not
• 29:15
  claiming that this whole process is easy, unfortunately.
• 29:19
  So how does shame actually get healed?
• 29:23
  Some of the things I just said? I'm actually.
• 29:28
  So that's from the week before. Oh yeah, maybe.
• 29:32
  Maybe it is. Yeah.
• 29:35
  Yeah, I, I mean, I, I, so I actually, I'm talking about this
• 29:40
  again this week, so maybe a little like Easter egg or
• 29:44
  whatever, you know, whatever you call it.
• 29:46
  Like I actually, I actually think listening is a hugely
• 29:50
  powerful device in the ending of shame.
• 29:54
  Like actually being able to share a story and have someone
• 29:56
  listen without judgment is a huge thing for people.
• 30:01
  Like, like I think it was Brené Brown that said, like where
• 30:04
  where shame is heard and the person who's embraced like that
• 30:09
  kind of environment shame just can't exist in.
• 30:13
  Like the, there's a vulnerability, it's opened up
• 30:16
  and it's on full display and, and it can't live there anymore.
• 30:19
  It's not because shame only lives in the dark.
• 30:22
  And so as soon as that light, that kind of light is shone on
• 30:25
  it, it actually starts to disappear.
• 30:28
  Like shame is far more powerful when you think your story is
• 30:31
  unique and no one will ever see you the same.
• 30:34
  If they only knew. Yeah, or everyone's going to
• 30:36
  reject me if I if they knew this and then you and then they know
• 30:40
  it and they don't reject you. It's like powerfully healing.
• 30:42
  Yeah. I'm reading the book the the the
• 30:44
  soul of shame right now as part of my journey trying to be a non
• 30:49
  anxious presence. And yeah, he answers very
• 30:53
  similar, similar like he talks about this is Kurt Thompson.
• 30:58
  He talks about the need to be to define yourself in a community
• 31:04
  where you have embodied acceptance and embrace in the
• 31:13
  with shame exposed. So like for one is someone else
• 31:20
  has to know about the thing that you feel shame about and then
• 31:24
  they embody empathetic. Acceptance.
• 31:30
  And the reason he uses the term embodiment is that it's this
• 31:34
  very complicated relationship between our literal physical
• 31:38
  bodies and their effects, between the brain science,
• 31:42
  between the individuals, all these different things that make
• 31:45
  this like beautiful sort of Kingdom cocktail of healing that
• 31:51
  allows for for shame to lose it's power.
• 31:55
  It's in the light and the people who are seeing the the
• 31:59
  brokenness actually embrace rather than reject.
• 32:05
  It just destroys shame. I'm trying to remember who said
• 32:07
  this about David. It might have been Frederick
• 32:10
  Beatner because a lot of stuff I like, can't quite remember who
• 32:16
  said it turns out to be Beatener.
• 32:18
  But there was this comment on David's life that when David has
• 32:24
  failed and experiences something like shame, when he tries to
• 32:31
  cover it up, he finds, surprisingly, he ends up
• 32:36
  exposed. Nathan turns up and you know,
• 32:40
  asks him this or like tells this like terrible story about
• 32:45
  imagine this guy has 1 sweet little lamb that he deeply loves
• 32:48
  that shares his food and lies in his bed.
• 32:51
  And and then this rich landowner that has thousands of sheep has
• 32:55
  to feed a friend. So he goes and kills this little
• 32:58
  lamb and you're like, Oh my goodness, I think this story's
• 33:01
  worse than the actual story. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 33:03
  Plays out of emotions in that way.
• 33:05
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 33:06
  And then he has this moment where he's like, oh, you're the
• 33:08
  man. So in Psalm 32, I think it is
• 33:11
  David's deeply trying to cover up the story.
• 33:16
  And then in Psalm 51, like allows the story to be uncovered
• 33:22
  and surprisingly finds that he was covered all along.
• 33:27
  Like like surprisingly finds that God hasn't covered.
• 33:32
  And that's the surprising expectation, I think of a
• 33:35
  vulnerability. We think vulnerability will be
• 33:38
  the death of us, and in graceless organizations, it is
• 33:44
  the death of you. Yeah.
• 33:45
  Yeah. In a space where grace doesn't
• 33:48
  exist, being vulnerable will kill you.
• 33:51
  Being vulnerable will will kill you.
• 33:54
  Yeah. It will.
• 33:56
  It will be the end of you. But in a grace space,
• 34:00
  vulnerability is the healing of you.
• 34:03
  Yeah. It's the making of you.
• 34:05
  And so like that, that's why we desperately need those spaces of
• 34:10
  grace, those those friendships, those, you know, in Kurt
• 34:15
  Thompson language, confessional communities, all those sorts of
• 34:19
  things where when vulnerability is shown and the, the, the, the,
• 34:24
  the, the terrible truth is revealed, It, it encounters
• 34:28
  grace and it can't survive it. You know, it's like a it's, it's
• 34:32
  actually in, in Harry Potter world.
• 34:34
  The, the Bogart. Do you remember that story?
• 34:36
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the thing that's the worst
• 34:39
  thing that the thing that you fear the most.
• 34:41
  And and it comes and shows itself and then when you reveal
• 34:45
  it to be something silly, silly it, it disappears.
• 34:49
  Yeah. So yeah, if that's something you
• 34:55
  feel like you're experiencing, a great book that actually I'm
• 34:59
  going through with some some friends of mine right now is
• 35:01
  called The Cure. It's a short little read, but I
• 35:05
  think it's a powerful book that helps like at least start a
• 35:10
  journey towards living out of or moving out of a space of shame.
• 35:16
  There's an image in this book and I think it's one of the more
• 35:20
  helpful images and it won't be nearly as powerful if I just
• 35:23
  describe it to you without you reading the context of it.
• 35:26
  But there's this, there's this moment in the book that I think
• 35:29
  is probably the most iconic in this, the whole book where the,
• 35:36
  the author's imagining his sin as this.
• 35:40
  He describes it as this heaping, like smoldering smoking pile of
• 35:47
  trash, right? That's his sin.
• 35:50
  And then he imagines the the potential location of where
• 35:53
  Jesus is at in this thing. And you know, you could imagine
• 35:58
  Jesus being on the other side looking across it being like,
• 36:02
  deal with this. And then you we can talk
• 36:03
  afterwards these different potential scenarios.
• 36:07
  But the scenario that's actually true is he he turns to the next
• 36:11
  to him. He's staring at this pile of
• 36:13
  trash and he turns next to him and Jesus is standing there kind
• 36:16
  of like, huh, that's a lot of sin.
• 36:20
  And like, playfully like. Huh.
• 36:24
  That, Yep, there it is. And we're side by side, we're
• 36:27
  kind of crossed our arms and there's the sin.
• 36:30
  And then he says, we'll, we'll get to that.
• 36:33
  Maybe because the reality is God is God.
• 36:38
  This, this might sound heretical.
• 36:39
  God is less concerned about your sin than you think in the sense
• 36:47
  that God's not in the, in the business of behavior
• 36:51
  modification for behavior modification's sake.
• 36:55
  What he's interested in is you. Yeah.
• 36:58
  And so like sin is a, is a barrier that damages you.
• 37:02
  And so he really, it's like really important to deal with,
• 37:06
  but it's like if you get it, it it, if you think it's a barrier
• 37:10
  between you and God, then you and God can't work on it
• 37:13
  together. Well, it's, it's similar to the
• 37:15
  yeah, you know what we, what we've talked about before in
• 37:18
  terms of confession. Yeah, confession is to say the
• 37:23
  same as. So that's actually once sin is
• 37:24
  confessed, once we can agree with God that it is what it is
• 37:31
  like. So the worst case scenario
• 37:33
  actually I think in terms of our relationship with God is that
• 37:36
  we, rather than naming sin as the trash heap it is, we call it
• 37:44
  like special and precious and gold.
• 37:47
  Like this is like this is a valuable thing to be kept like
• 37:52
  under the bed, Like this is like this is this is my life.
• 37:55
  This is everything. Like, you know, the the metaphor
• 37:59
  that got used for years that I I don't know how literally true it
• 38:02
  is in terms of animals, but but was a great illustration was the
• 38:08
  difference primarily between sheep and pigs is that sheep
• 38:12
  will actually happily wallow in the muck.
• 38:15
  But when they've done it, they bleed to and long to be clean,
• 38:20
  whereas pigs will just delight to be in it and will stay in it
• 38:25
  without any real particular concern for it.
• 38:28
  And so somewhere like Jesus wants us to be sheep.
• 38:32
  Like it's not that necessarily has an expectation that will
• 38:37
  never never get messy again, but the he longs for us to return to
• 38:42
  him and. You know, and I think that that
• 38:44
  place, the pig place is maybe it doesn't produce shame.
• 38:49
  No. But shame comes from the place
• 38:51
  where you like, I know it's a problem.
• 38:53
  Agreed. And I can't deal with it because
• 38:55
  I'm, I can't even be in the presence of God or any other
• 38:58
  human being with my sin. And God is just saying, no,
• 39:01
  let's like stand next to it and be like, Yep, there it is.
• 39:05
  You know, why don't we hang out together And then maybe
• 39:09
  eventually we'll get to that pile of, of, of crap there.
• 39:14
  Excuse me French. So one last question.
• 39:18
  Hey gents, it's a long question so I'm going to abbreviate it a
• 39:21
  little bit. Love the message on Sunday about
• 39:24
  loving your neighbor. I struggle with the subject as
• 39:26
  my neighbor is one of the meanest, cruelest people you
• 39:31
  could ever meet. And then they go into great
• 39:34
  detail about he is he's ridiculed me, made fun of me
• 39:43
  generally seems to enjoy being the word that I cannot say that
• 39:48
  I cannot say I I've tried to figure out how to love this
• 39:53
  person and I still pray for them sometimes, but I no longer seek
• 40:01
  him out or and ignore him when I see him.
• 40:09
  So here's now when we get to the core of the question.
• 40:11
  What I've learned is that trying to love your neighbor out of
• 40:13
  your own strength leads to frustration, anger, burnout.
• 40:17
  And the closest thing to hatred I've felt for another human
• 40:20
  being ever. How do I change my heart to love
• 40:24
  someone who despises me? Or is it OK to just let it go
• 40:30
  and spend my efforts elsewhere? That's such a difficult
• 40:33
  question, like because on one hand I actually sent someone a
• 40:35
  message about something similar the other day.
• 40:39
  I'm trying to see if I can dig it out.
• 40:40
  Was it about me? Yeah.
• 40:42
  How do I love Aaron? Sorry Aaron is so difficult.
• 40:50
  Where is my sent sent messages? I just.
• 40:56
  Thought you were playing Tetris over there.
• 40:58
  So explain Maria. It's not loading, so it must be
• 41:08
  something wrong with the Wi-Fi. So, so one, I think I wonder
• 41:15
  whether we assume that when we have a neighbor like that, that
• 41:21
  something has gone wrong. You know, so the person I
• 41:26
  responded to this question was struggling similarly in terms of
• 41:30
  like people around them. And they're like, you know, how
• 41:34
  they understood them. And dot dot dot.
• 41:37
  And I said, I wonder whether actually like the thing we're
• 41:41
  supposed to do first is to realize God might have put them
• 41:44
  there to form us in the way of Jesus.
• 41:48
  So like Paul actually talks about this, right?
• 41:50
  You know, when, when Paul says I think is, is is in First
• 41:53
  Corinthians, second Corinthians, where he says, you know, there
• 41:55
  was given to me a thorn in the flesh.
• 42:00
  And, and a fair number of commentators on this passage
• 42:04
  have suggested it might be a person like others have had
• 42:08
  other suggestions. But yeah, Aaron's a thorn in my
• 42:12
  flesh. So, so and then he talks about
• 42:16
  at other points, like this person and this person did me a
• 42:19
  great deal of harm. And our assumption is, yeah,
• 42:23
  that's a floor, a bug in the system.
• 42:27
  But I actually wonder at least whether at first we have to
• 42:30
  consider that it isn't there by design, but it's not actually
• 42:34
  there to help us become more like Jesus.
• 42:37
  Who said what? Like we actually talked about it
• 42:39
  this week. Like he didn't say pray for the
• 42:41
  neighbors that you like. He said, love your enemies and
• 42:45
  pray for those that persecute you.
• 42:48
  I, I, I meant to say this on Sunday, but I think I forgot it.
• 42:51
  Maybe I said it, maybe you remember.
• 42:53
  It makes me wonder when he says that whether I'm not supposed to
• 42:59
  believe that when a neighbor is the worst of my neighbors,
• 43:04
  they're supposed to get most of my attention in prayer, not the
• 43:08
  least of my intention in prayer. Now, I'm not saying that's not
• 43:11
  terribly hard. Like I'm not saying it's fair,
• 43:14
  like I don't think it's fair at all.
• 43:16
  But I at least think there's a consideration where like we
• 43:20
  might say he's got interested in fair and then like Paul, like to
• 43:27
  go back to Paul again, like some of those people that are the
• 43:31
  worst opposition actually make the best followers of Jesus.
• 43:36
  I mean, that's exactly the poor story, right?
• 43:38
  Like I was the, the most opposed to the church, like getting
• 43:42
  Christians locked up, even having them killed and God
• 43:46
  planned to turn me into something for the Kingdom.
• 43:50
  And so I, I think actually renewing that endeavor of prayer
• 43:55
  and saying, no, I actually am going to enter into this more
• 43:59
  intentionally than ever, believing that it won't change
• 44:03
  my neighbor necessarily, but it will certainly change me and
• 44:08
  that it's an invite to become more like Jesus.
• 44:11
  Yeah, I don't. Yeah, in interestingly, like
• 44:14
  maybe I could be wrong. I sense maybe the tiniest bit of
• 44:18
  shame even in this question. Yeah, I tried and I failed and
• 44:23
  I'm I'm maybe I'm looking for. Yeah.
• 44:27
  A little bit of a reason why I can get out of this particular
• 44:30
  weight that I'm carrying. And maybe some of the things we
• 44:35
  said earlier on is all, all applies.
• 44:39
  Yeah. Remember, like, if like God's
• 44:44
  primary goal for this neighbor of yours isn't that you're the
• 44:49
  buddiest buddy with them and they love you and you love them
• 44:52
  and they've accepted Jesus because of your influence in
• 44:54
  their life. Like that's a lot of pressure
• 44:56
  for you to carry. His primary goal is to get after
• 45:02
  your heart and your neighbor's heart.
• 45:05
  And he can do that with or without you.
• 45:07
  He can get after your neighbor's heart.
• 45:09
  He he can transform you. But so to take some of those
• 45:13
  pressures off, like, like, am I doing it right?
• 45:16
  Have I prayed enough times? All those sorts of things.
• 45:19
  And instead just go on a journey with Jesus and say, Hey, Jesus,
• 45:24
  I'm going to, I'm going to pray for this person.
• 45:28
  And I'm also going to be wide open honest with you.
• 45:32
  I don't feel anything for them. If anything, I feel hostility
• 45:36
  towards them. And so if you would like me to
• 45:39
  not feel that, then I would like you to help me with that
• 45:41
  journey. And then but but take some of
• 45:44
  the like shame out of it and just say like this God, this is
• 45:48
  how I'm actually feeling. Yeah.
• 45:50
  Maybe even like the psalmist, praise some in preparatory
• 45:53
  prayers, some like psalms of vengeance crushes.
• 45:56
  Their teeth. Yeah, so this is how I'm
• 45:59
  actually feeling. If you want me to feel
• 46:01
  differently than this, then you're going to have to do a
• 46:03
  miraculous work. And so and then maybe God will.
• 46:07
  Well, we've talked about this brilliant Walter Brueggeman.
• 46:11
  Click Yeah. So you can find a line about
• 46:13
  imprecatory press. And he has this great cadence
• 46:16
  that I actually used in the sermon a while back when I was
• 46:18
  preaching somewhere else because I was like, Aaron's not there
• 46:21
  and he's not going to shame me by using the exact same game.
• 46:24
  And and he has this almost like pause and his thing where he
• 46:27
  says, you know, like he says, the problem with these prayers
• 46:30
  for us today is like, we're like, well, I'm not supposed to
• 46:32
  feel this way. And then he kind of poisoned
• 46:35
  says, the problem is, what if you feel that way?
• 46:38
  Like what? What if that's the genuine
• 46:40
  emotion? And and again, to talk about the
• 46:43
  shame and the uncovering of it, it's to reveal and to put your
• 46:46
  hands up and say, yeah, that is genuinely how I feel.
• 46:48
  And I suspect that Jesus never felt that way, but maybe he did.
• 46:54
  And maybe he prayed and prayed to repress.
• 46:57
  I don't know. So it'll be, so pray for them.
• 47:01
  And maybe Step 1 is just to be honest with God, say like, all
• 47:04
  right, Lord, if you want me to feel something for them, you're
• 47:07
  going to have to do a miraculous work because here's all the
• 47:10
  things that I feel about them. Well, that the beautiful part of
• 47:13
  the Good Samaritan chapter is the sparkling.
• 47:16
  No, Yeah. Is the something moved inside
• 47:20
  him, like God moved. Something changed in him, you
• 47:26
  know, and, and, and it almost captures him off guard.
• 47:29
  And so I, I think, you know, and I think I said this to this
• 47:35
  other person I was writing to recently.
• 47:40
  I suspect that one of the most helpful things Jesus ever did
• 47:43
  was pray father forgive them. They don't know what they're
• 47:46
  doing. Because I like my take on most
• 47:50
  people is like, well, they know what they're doing.
• 47:55
  And yet, like, no more than the the soldier that swung the
• 48:00
  hammer at the nail. No more than than than Pilate,
• 48:04
  who decides to try and get rid of a problem, you know, rather
• 48:08
  than actually do what he knows he's supposed to do deep in his
• 48:10
  heart. No more than the Jewish League.
• 48:12
  Like they all knew what they were doing.
• 48:14
  And Jesus kind of looks at them all and says, yeah, but they
• 48:16
  didn't really know what they were doing.
• 48:17
  Yeah. Somewhere like that to me has
• 48:20
  become such a helpful prayer when I'm super mad at someone
• 48:24
  because I'm like, oh, they really don't know.
• 48:27
  Like not really. Like they're a broken image of
• 48:32
  God that has their own scars and their own wounds and perhaps
• 48:36
  their own open source. And there's all sorts of stories
• 48:40
  behind their story and the story of the parents and the parents
• 48:44
  before that. And, and, and I have to believe
• 48:47
  Jesus invites me to believe that though it seems like they really
• 48:50
  know what they're doing, they don't actually know what they're
• 48:53
  doing. Yeah, even when they're trying
• 48:55
  to hurt you, they don't know how big it is.
• 48:58
  Yeah, that they've hurt you. And so somewhere that's actually
• 49:00
  like, I think Jesus gives us that because he knows how
• 49:03
  important it is that we know that.
• 49:05
  And then we actually get to see them a little bit like more out
• 49:10
  of pity than than anything else. Yeah, I think it's important to
• 49:16
  say at this point, like, OK, you're talking about literally
• 49:18
  your physical neighbor. Yeah, but there's like some
• 49:22
  other relationships, like let's say you have a strained
• 49:24
  relationship with a parent or an abuser in your in your life or
• 49:30
  something. You've separated.
• 49:31
  And the invitation of Jesus is to love your neighbor as
• 49:34
  yourself. And as we learned from Alex on
• 49:35
  Sunday, your neighbor is anyone, anyone that happens to be in
• 49:40
  proximity. And so you're like, well, am I
• 49:41
  supposed to like rekindle a relationship and learn how to
• 49:44
  love my abuser? And, and the reality is love
• 49:51
  doesn't always have to include interaction.
• 49:58
  It doesn't have to include a sense of responsibility to
• 50:02
  repair that relationship, to be buddy buddy with them again or
• 50:09
  to not have boundaries ever with a person.
• 50:12
  In fact, the even harder loving thing to do sometimes is to cut
• 50:17
  the cut a person out, but then to deal with your emotions
• 50:22
  around a person in the prayer space with God so that you can
• 50:27
  get to a place of loving them without ever having to talk to
• 50:30
  them again. So.
• 50:31
  Yeah, they they might still go to jail.
• 50:33
  Yes. Like they may never get a key to
• 50:35
  the house again. Yeah, like there might be all
• 50:37
  sorts of consequences. There might be boundaries that
• 50:40
  you say I can't be around this person ever again, but I'm still
• 50:44
  going to pray and I'm going to ask God to give me their heart,
• 50:46
  His heart for them from a distance.
• 50:50
  Primarily because loving your neighbor is not just about your
• 50:55
  neighbor thriving. If you don't love your neighbor,
• 50:58
  your soul isn't as alive as it could.
• 51:00
  Be and so so one of the one of the the hard things for us to
• 51:03
  understand here, I think, and I say this, you know, you know,
• 51:05
  with all the carefulness of someone that has never had that
• 51:07
  awful abuse and awful, you know, experience of someone.
• 51:11
  I've had my, you know, my problems with people, but not to
• 51:15
  the level that we're often talking about with people
• 51:17
  sometimes talking about with people.
• 51:20
  I think it's so hard for us to understand that the mystery of
• 51:27
  the Christian story is hidden partly in Jesus saying forgive
• 51:34
  them. They don't know what they're
• 51:35
  doing about a group of people that clearly know what they're
• 51:38
  doing. Yeah.
• 51:39
  You know, that that's been the thing that's caught people off
• 51:41
  guard for years, that sense of wow, that's the story.
• 51:45
  That's what Jesus invites us into like, you know, you know,
• 51:49
  and, and, and the like, it seems unfair at times.
• 51:54
  You know, I've, I've been convinced for years that
• 51:56
  sometimes in a story where someone's the victim and
• 52:02
  someone's the perpetrator, sometimes it's the perpetrator
• 52:06
  that finds grace easiest because they know desperately that they
• 52:09
  need it. Yeah.
• 52:11
  You know, you know, so, so the, the, the, the, the murderer is
• 52:14
  the one that comes running. It's like, Oh my goodness, I am
• 52:18
  desperately in need of grace and there is nothing I could do to
• 52:21
  undo what I've done. It's the prodigal son that comes
• 52:23
  home. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 52:24
  The the son that doesn't leave. And shame his father doesn't
• 52:30
  come home. Ironically, he never left home
• 52:32
  physically, but he was never home.
• 52:35
  Deeply insulting to his father publicly in a way that the
• 52:38
  prodigal never is like he's outside the circle and his
• 52:43
  father comes out of the circle to him.
• 52:46
  And I think that's what God does to lots of us in the moments
• 52:48
  where we feel like we're the victim.
• 52:49
  He comes out of the circle to us and says, like, this is what I'm
• 52:53
  inviting you to like I, I jokingly said that those were
• 52:56
  the two most important parables that Jesus taught.
• 53:01
  In actual fact, like you get to the parable of the unforgiving
• 53:05
  servant, like in, you know, the central message of that is like,
• 53:09
  well, which which system do you like?
• 53:12
  Do you like the grace system, which requires you to show grace
• 53:17
  to others as well? Or do you like the book system?
• 53:20
  The, the like, the measuring system, the like, because you
• 53:24
  can play that system if you'd like, and then we get to measure
• 53:29
  all your stuff as well. Or would you like the Gray
• 53:32
  system where we, we just, we let it go.
• 53:36
  And of course, like most of us would say like in our honest
• 53:38
  moments. Well, I really want the Gray
• 53:40
  system. But I want everyone else to
• 53:43
  have. But, but I want those around me
• 53:45
  to, I want them to pay. I want, I want let let's, let's
• 53:48
  count the stones. Let's, let's count it up and see
• 53:51
  where the, the scales fall. And, and I think Jesus in that
• 53:55
  parable is really like that. That's actually not an option.
• 53:58
  Like we either play the book system or we don't.
• 54:03
  And it's really hard to hear at times.
• 54:06
  But that's what he's inviting us into.
• 54:07
  And he doesn't invite a scene in a sense of light.
• 54:13
  I I don't know that it was supposed to hear it with a sense
• 54:17
  of judgement. I think it's supposed to be an
• 54:21
  invite. Like I think it's supposed to be
• 54:23
  an invite that says, oh this system is so much better than
• 54:28
  any system you could devise up. Yeah, that's, I mean, that's the
• 54:33
  irony even in the in the context of this question is like God
• 54:36
  doesn't need you to love your neighbor.
• 54:40
  Like he has enough love every single human being.
• 54:43
  He invites you into a journey. Why not?
• 54:47
  Because like, if, if you aren't doing your thing, they're never
• 54:52
  going to meet Jesus and they're going to go to the to hell.
• 54:55
  And like, that's a lot, like I said, that's a lot of pressure.
• 54:58
  And that's like, that's shame inducing and stuff.
• 55:00
  Because again, that's not the the agenda that God's on.
• 55:05
  And yet he might very well be inviting you to a journey where
• 55:10
  the final destination is. He works in and through the love
• 55:14
  that you experienced from him in your life that then gradually
• 55:18
  overflows into a genuine heartfelt love for your
• 55:20
  neighbor, which gradually turns into a softening and a
• 55:24
  restoration between. Now he doesn't need any of that.
• 55:28
  He can reach your neighbor with it without you.
• 55:31
  So you can take the pressure off.
• 55:33
  But don't forget to ask the question, do you have an
• 55:35
  invitation like you just said? Are you inviting me into this?
• 55:39
  And if so, I'm game. But you're going to have to do
• 55:41
  some serious work because here's all the things I would like you
• 55:44
  to do. I would like you to.
• 55:46
  I would like their house to burn down and their dog to die.
• 55:50
  And this is how I feel. This is the starting place.
• 55:52
  But I'm open to a journey if you would like me to end in a
• 55:55
  different destination. And so so one of the one of the
• 55:57
  things I think it's hard for us to to remember.
• 55:59
  And I think this is a beautiful invite in the Christian life.
• 56:03
  Most of the time when we're fearful of the future, like
• 56:08
  overthinking the past or angry in the present, we imagine, we
• 56:15
  rarely imagine Jesus with us in those moments, you know, so, so
• 56:19
  like, you know, take the future as like a, a momentary like
• 56:23
  point. Like I imagine the worst things
• 56:26
  might happen. And I imagine Jesus is absent in
• 56:30
  the moment when I'm deeply angry with the person who's offended
• 56:32
  me, I imagine he's asking me to navigate that all alone.
• 56:37
  And and, and, and actually what he does is he's like, he's
• 56:42
  gently navigating me those through, through those systems,
• 56:45
  maybe like humorously reminding me of, you know, what did I tell
• 56:50
  you? Like a student is not greater
• 56:53
  than his teacher. If they persecuted me, they'll
• 56:56
  persecute you as well. And it doesn't feel good.
• 57:00
  And I know there's all sorts of emotions there, but I haven't
• 57:04
  left you in the middle of this. Like, I'm with you, even when
• 57:07
  this is hard. And I think that's the beautiful
• 57:10
  invite. When we take it that way, it
• 57:11
  actually draws us closer to Jesus.
• 57:15
  When we think we're fighting something without him, it makes
• 57:18
  us feel further away. And so I think the invite in the
• 57:21
  Neighboring series is to remind ourselves over and over again
• 57:24
  that we don't do this alone. We actually do it with Jesus and
• 57:28
  become closer to Him in the process.
• 57:30
  And that your relationship, your personal relationship with Jesus
• 57:36
  and your delight in that is, can be enhanced and blossom more
• 57:44
  fully when you're engaged in his strategy for the world.
• 57:49
  So like, yeah, he, he doesn't need us in one sense, but he
• 57:55
  does invite us into a big, grand, beautiful story where you
• 57:59
  get to participate like Paul does all the time, where he's
• 58:02
  like, you know what, I'm so you know what I boast about?
• 58:05
  You know the thing I'm prideful about that God picked me to
• 58:09
  participate in your faith. And that's a beautiful gift that
• 58:14
  he, that God gives us. He wants that for us.
• 58:19
  Yeah. Anyway, so any final thoughts as
• 58:22
  we come to a conclusion? I think that it'd be a great
• 58:26
  week to praise the people. Yeah, you know.
• 58:29
  And so that's that's the ending for me.
• 58:32
  Yeah, let's do it. Jesus, I I pray for our friends
• 58:37
  that listen, that check in because they're deeply committed
• 58:40
  to living in your way with your heart.
• 58:45
  And I think of those that are putting their hand up and
• 58:47
  saying, I don't find myself lovable, perhaps even likable,
• 58:52
  certainly find my neighbor intolerable.
• 58:55
  All of the different spaces in between.
• 58:58
  And you are leading us on a journey where you make us more
• 59:01
  like you. And surprisingly to us, that's
• 59:05
  that's your big goal for us to shape us in your image.
• 59:09
  And that means that we might engage people that man, they're
• 59:13
  they're they're a lot of work. And so I pray that you would
• 59:17
  help us to see ourselves as you see us as valuable, loved, sure,
• 59:25
  broken in our own ways, but none of that dissuades you from your
• 59:29
  love and care for us. And also that the same is true
• 59:32
  for our neighbors, that you love them deeply, care for them
• 59:37
  deeply, and long them to for them to be made in your image as
• 59:40
  well. And so help us not to play a
• 59:44
  system that requires on everyone paying for what they've done,
• 59:49
  but to receive the invite into your good system where we don't
• 59:53
  play by the books, we play by the grace system.
• 59:57
  Yeah. Thank you, Jesus, for that
• 59:59
  invite. Help us to remember it when life
• 1:00:03
  is hard and when you feel far away.
• 1:00:07
  Amen. Amen.
• 1:00:10
  All right. On that note, let's we'll see
• 1:00:13
  you next time. Thanks for tuning in.
• 1:00:14
  Next time. Bye.