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Podcast: Behind the Scenes: I Love You, but I hate your politics (1Peter 2:9-10) · North Raleigh United Methodist Church Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_02: Good day and welcome to North Rawls United Methodist Church Behind the Scenes Podcast, where we sit down weekly and discuss this week's scripture and sermon.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Kevin Van Hall.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: I serve as the group's moderator and host.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: And joining me today is our senior lead pastor here, Laura Johnson.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, Laura.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, glad to be here.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: Glad to have you.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: So last week Kevin was here and he introduced the new series that we are in.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's a six-week, I believe six weeks.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: I love you but.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: And last week we were in Matthew and we talked about the greatest commandment.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: I love you.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, who do you love?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: Who's that?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, first of all, love God and then love your neighbor as yourself.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a little bit more general, and we're going to continue with that theme, but today we're going to get a little maybe a little bit more specific.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: A little, I don't know, alleyway versus the highway.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we're going to talk, dare I say, politics.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: Or yes or no.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we're not going to talk politics, but we're going to talk about the subject of how politics or different ways of seeing things or believing or thinking separates us in a way that we should not let it separate us.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: We'll say that.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the general start of our podcast for today.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I hope that didn't turn anybody off, but I wanted to give everyone a heads up of what we're going to be doing.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to be in uh New Testament still, we're going to be in uh first Peter, and I'll have Laura explain to me what is going on that caused Peter to write this in the message that he's trying to send.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: But before we get too farther along into it, how about a word of prayer?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh Lord, as we jump into the muddy waters of discussing how politics are impacting our relationships and how your call to love others is unequivocal, we ask that you would guide us in this conversation, guide all of us in our relationships as we consider your call to love our neighbor as ourselves in light of the various ways we are divided in this world.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: In Christ's name we pray.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: So first, Peter.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: We know the author is Peter, the dec uh the Apostle Peter.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: Who is he writing this to?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: So he's writing uh early on, probably like in the 50s or 60s, um, and he's writing to Christians who are kind of scattered throughout the diaspora, uh, like the empire, who are usually kind of in smaller groups together in a world that is turning hostile towards Christians.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: And they were turning hostile towards Christians for a variety of reasons.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Once a person became a Christian, uh, especially if they had been a Gentile, a pagan previously, that suddenly meant they no longer went to the pagan festivals, the pagan celebrations, which was the core of the communal life together.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: So they were suddenly kind of ostracizing themselves from what was expected that everyone would do.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then they were also doing strange things like eating body and blood, right?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Bread and wine, but they would talk about it being Christ's body and blood.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that kind of made people a little uncomfortable in the early days.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they just lived in ways that were very different from all of their fellow Gentiles, their fellow pagans around them.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't practice the same kinds of ethics, they had different values, and so they just appeared very suspicious.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: And and the big thing was that they would not worship the emperor, which was a part of the pagan culture, that you would worship the emperor.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they refused to do that, and that made people very antagonistic toward them, even to the point where they eventually, under Nero, would be martyred for their faith.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it first started as kind of localized people would just pick on them a lot or or not do business with them or malign them, all sorts of things like that.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: So is this a general letter?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: Because uh so often in the New Testament, uh Paul is writing to a specific church, uh Corinth or in Ephesians.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um this is just called one Peter, it's a general letter.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: So is this just for out to be circulated?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: They letters used to be sent out in circulation to the different people.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: And you mentioned it the way.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: They were known as the way at the time because they believed in Jesus, Jesus says I am the way.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: So they were they were a cult.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: They looked very odd to people.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Could before Christianity was mainstream, they looked very, very odd.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: A true pacifist.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: Because Roman soldiers had no problem with, we know, torturing and killing people.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: The Jews had no problems with their genocidal acts early in the Old Testament as well, fighting evil.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: If it was no problem at all, they would not pick up weapons.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: They were pacifists.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's correct.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: So Marcus Aurelius talks about them in his great book, The Emperor's Handbooks, and could not understand it.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: They were not understood.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: Why how could you be pacifists?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: And there was there it scripture points to the fact that they held things communally, too.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: So they weren't capitalistic uh either.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: They were they were very odd.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: They looked very odd to the people who and they, of course, claimed a resurrected savior, which also is a bit odd to the average pagan.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where we are, uh trying to set the stage in the time.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: So this is long before the Romans uh for Constantine brings Christianity into the political realm.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: So they are outside, we talk about politics, they're outside the political realm.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: And the Jewish people wanted Jesus to overthrow the Roman government and take over and be king.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: And he didn't do it, couldn't understand it.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: So they are separating themselves from the leadership role of running the company, just trying to teach people to follow this new way.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: Very odd.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: I could imagine at the time I try to picture myself there if if I could have been easily convinced or not.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because part of their claim, too, was that, and and this is part of the passage we're about to read, is that they belonged to a different kingdom that was not of this world.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: They the the term resident aliens is one that comes from 1 Peter, this idea that Christians belong to the kingdom of God, which has not been fully made manifest on earth as it is in heaven.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so we are all immigrants.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: We are all kind of just passing through this world because our true home, our true allegiance is to the kingdom of God.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: Excellent.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where we are, uh set the stage, more or less.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: First Peter, second chapter, verses uh nine and ten.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: Laura's gonna reforce.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: All right, Peter writes You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: So very short um section there, but I guess Peter is trying to explain to them that now that you were part of the way, the cult, the Christian family, you are been chosen.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Think of yourselves again as being that royal priesthood, and you talked about the kingdom of God, versus concentrating on what's going on in the world exactly as it is today.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: And at that time, you just said 50, 60 A.D.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: time period, Christians are being persecuted quite severely.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: So Peter goes on and talks about uh ways of being submissive to uh try to prevent everyone from being completely slaughtered, but there's encouragement that he's trying to put off.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: What is he trying to say here in these two verses?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think it it's a little it's a snapshot of a letter that's not very long.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: You can go read it yourselves on on your own time.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I think this these two verses are a good snapshot of his thesis, and that is that we l we are we are transient in this world, and this world is gonna ask for our allegiance in lots of different ways, whether that be to our partisan views or to our favorite sports teams, or to, you know, our view of how the economy should work or whatever you want to name it, that our allegiance is being asked for in lots of different ways.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: And Peter is telling them that the the world has is is persecuting you because you are placing your primary allegiance in the king who is not of this world, that you are belonging to a different nation, that you as Christ's body are a separate race, he says, a whole separate people that are claimed by God, and that that is your primary identity, primary allegiance above everything else.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: And there's hope in that because no matter what happens in the world, it's not that they should disengage from the world, as he tells later.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Don't disengage, but remember it's like the Lion King, right?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: When Mufasa meets Simba in the clouds, and Mufasa's like, remember who you are, you're the true king.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: This is that moment.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Peter is saying, remember who you are.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: With all that you're experiencing, with all that could happen to you in the politics of the day, remember that you are God's chosen people.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: So you're not well, we won't we won't say left or right, blue or red.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: Let's fast forward into today.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: The majority of people are or claim to be Christians, versus back in this time, it was a very small group of people.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: So we as a chosen people, a lot of times people claim America is a Christian nation.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, it was founded where there was no one single religion around it, but they people lose that.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: Where it was actually written in the Constitution to where you were free to practice whatever little religion you want.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: They wanted to separate the religious from the leadership.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: Unless England is separated themselves from the Catholic Church, and the king turned around and what did ALC do?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: He also made himself head of the church.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: But everyone doesn't understand that history lesson that's going on there, King Henry VIII.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: So he's saying you're a chosen people, but so what do you say to people today?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: We call them Christian nationalists.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: They almost put country, the flag, in front of God or God's moral and ethical teachings.
• 11:25
  unknown: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, those who who so not everyone who's a Christian nationalist will call themselves a Christian nationalist.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Some do, but the the distinction is that their understanding of being God's chosen people is inseparable from their understanding of their national identity.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: And there's not just American Christian nationalists, there's there's religious nationalists everywhere in the world, right?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: With whatever religion, whatever country.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, exactly.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: But the idea is that instead of saying my primary identity is in God's kingdom, they're saying it's God's kingdom plus this place.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: That that that is God's intention, that that is God's kingdom.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's not what Peter is saying here.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: He is not saying you are God's chosen people connected with the Roman Empire, right?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: He's saying you are God's chosen people.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that can exist in any time and place in any in any political entity, in any sphere, in any country, that the kingdom kind of over over like I'm I'm not I'm not my words not coming to me, but the kingdom is able to exist in every single different place.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: So we uh might attack other people for not believing the same way we do.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um right now, this country is a truce, but it's been at war with another country for a different religion, worried about nuclear weapons.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have your political views that might decide whether that's right or wrong?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: But then, Laura, there's moral and ethical views here to where if you're a Christian, I don't know how you can support someone that speaks of genocide.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: Is that anti-Christian?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: Is that anti-Christ-like?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I think so.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think the let me circle back to kind of the point of this sermon.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: I love you, but I hate your politics.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: We're setting up a a straw, a straw man, right?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: The I love you but is a straw man.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: There is no but.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: We are called to love no matter what.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so the idea of I love you, but I hate your politics came from Kevin and I, over the last 10 years, have known many, many, many, many people whose relationships have been strained or ruined by the political discussions they have with folks who vote differently from them.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I could tell you story after story of marriages, family relationships, friend groups, of of just this the divisiveness that we see in our culture bleeding into the the primary relationships that we have in our lives.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think we have to think through like, yes, of course, there are moral and ethical convictions at stake here that are essential.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: But the point of the sermon is not going to be getting into what my view is politically or what our church's view is politically.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to get into how do we navigate these difficult relationships in a divided world so that we don't have to say, oh, you voted for that person.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you're you're evil and I don't want to be friends with you anymore, right?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Or or you don't you don't have to say, I'm not sure I can be a part of this friend group anymore because when you know I know that these folks believe that particular, they believe this about name whatever hot topic it is, war or abortion or whatever, right?
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like how do we maintain our relationships when everything feels like explosive?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's against you, like in Peter.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: So everything is against you.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: So Peter calls you are the chosen, so he's trying to get them to be happy to celebrate that they are being the chosen people.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because everyone is against them of persecuting.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I brought up the fact of us against a different nation of a different religion.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: You bring up the fact the inner turmoil in this country where everyone's your fellow neighbors agree and are fighting, but they're supposed to be Christians.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: We're supposed to be celebrating that fact together.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: However, we are not.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: Why?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I I think what he's trying to say, he's trying this this passage I see is is about identity.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's about how do you understand he he's trying to help his the people he's writing to place their primary identity as God's people, not as folks who live in this town, not as folks who, you know, send their kids to that school or not, whatever, or whatever we might mark ourselves with identity.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: He's trying to form their identity primarily as God's people.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think that is a key place for us to begin when we're thinking through our own relationships, especially with others who are Christians, is remembering that we may disagree immensely on certain things, but there are also certain things that we hold together.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: And whether we like it or not, we are in the same family.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that God has constituted us as the same family.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: And next Sunday, we're gonna start talking about theological differences.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think the topic is I love you, but how can you believe that?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll kind of get into like how we as Christians can believe such very different things and how can we love one another in those instances?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a little sneak peek for next week.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: But the idea is that our our primary identity has to be Christian first and foremost.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: And as that starting place, it informs the rest of our conversations, right?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron Powell Okay, so starting place.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna be a little antagonist here.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's you didn't know that.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's your job.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's my job here.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: What happens when the people that are claiming to be Christians aren't acting very Christ-like?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, come on, we have our commanders.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: We know love God, love your neighbor.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: We know even Jesus says love your enemies.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: We know that we don't have to necessarily agree, like you say, your political views, but I bring it brought up something earlier, moral and ethics have nothing to do necessarily with politics, even though people will claim that, oh, that's a different political view.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: No, there's uh there's a difference here in uh whether you believe uh the prime interest rate should be higher or lower, you might want to throw in the trade differences, that might be political.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: But when it comes to waging war or attacking your own citizens or aliens that might be in your country, um, there's moral or ethic views come into place here.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: Are we not Paul says we're supposed to call people out, rebuke them, bring them back.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Are we just supposed to love them even though they're acting that way because they're family and they're fellow Christians, or are we supposed to be trying to point out that that is not the teachings of Jesus?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I think what I would say is that the key to any relationship is honesty and authenticity, right?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think too often the world in which we're living right now, it wants us to be divided.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: It wants us to go to our own corners and live in anger or in fear of one another because we don't see things the same way.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that that allows for the divisions to profit the folks who want to gain power from it, right?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think when we're looking at like a relationship level of person to person in our own lives, um the I oh gosh, I lost my train of thought.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: What was your question?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: So how do we how do we talk to people that are claiming to be Christians and be part of our family that are not being very Christ-like?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: So so I think the the challenge is that the way that we have on a person-to-person level tried to manage those differences has become too much imitating what we're seeing on TV, the divisiveness.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's become a very much like, I'm right, you're wrong, and let me tell you how right I am and how wrong you are, which does not allow for an authentic and honest relationship.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: It might help you get things off your chest, but it doesn't necessarily allow for good, for good back and forth or at least understanding.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think one of the challenges that we can receive from the Christian tradition is that every single one of us is made in the image of God, right?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: All of us have a reason in our brains.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: We have reason that we can use, and we're always going to disagree on something, right?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Some of those things are huge, and they are huge convictions that matter a whole lot to the safety of the world, to the safety of people we love.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're they're big things.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: And yet the posture with which we talk to others will allow us to be able to treat someone with the respect that they are God's beloved child, made in God's image, in such a way that can at least open up for understanding.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think oftentimes when I've seen things go real wrong, it's when each side has decided that they have to change the other side's mind on every single point.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so the dial, there is no dialogue.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's just this is my view, this is my view, okay, we've done, we've set our parts, we've done what we have to do, let's clean off our hands and go to our different corners, as opposed to we're gonna we're gonna be honest and respectful of one another and try and remain in this relationship so that we can refuse to allow the whatever question of the day dictate this relationship that God is in together.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, this is easier said than done.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Absolutely.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: And there's still dialogue.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: Some people I'm right and you're wrong, or and since you're wrong or don't believe with me, you're evil, so there I have to fight you and win at all costs.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: This win-win at all cost mentality is coming into everything from college sports to uh politics to everything else.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and it bleeds into our relationships.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: It does.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: It does.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I separate myself.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: Laura, I've I've had I I just separate I've decided to separate myself from my own mental health from these toxic people.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of trying to talk to them, open dialogue, and love them, I found out that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: That I can't.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: They won't listen to me.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'm done.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm separating myself from these toxic people, and I hope and pray that someday they can come back and see the truth.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: If they ask for forgiveness, love to.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: But until then, I cannot contain a relationship with some of these people.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: Am I wrong for doing that?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the key with this topic is that there is so much nuance, and it's there's not a one-size-fits-all answer.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know the specifics of your circumstance.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: But what I would say is, and I've seen this in my own life, if I want to be heard, I have to listen to, right?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I have learned that there are people who I disagree with who I can have respectful conversations with because I can listen to them, they can listen to me, and and there is a we there's a mutually agreed upon humanity that we're gonna see in one another.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say that that may not always be the case for everybody, and and you know yourself better than anybody.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: But what I but I would say is the call is to love everybody, and loving doesn't always look like being best friends with somebody, right?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it does call for us to have a soft heart towards them.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: And and however that works out in your life, you know, that's that's part of God's work in you, right?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, I have to say that we're all human, we're not perfect.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Jesus called us to be peacemakers.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Peter goes on later in the rest of his letter asking and telling people to be submissive to the rulers and masters.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um and a lot of people are like, wait a minute, we this is but then you have to remember Peter's trying to keep people alive.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean the scriptures have to be read within their historical context, right?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: So you can understand what the part that we picked out was a chance for them to celebrate their coming into the light and gaining an understanding.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: I could back up to a little bit before then, and uh Peter makes reference to uh Psalm 118 in verse 7.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: So now to you who believe this stone is precious, but to those who do not believe, the stone the builders rejected has become this capstone and the stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: So not everyone is gonna believe.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: Not everyone's gonna come over to your point of view.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: So do we just let God cause them to stumble?
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: Or are we supposed to help them up?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: I mean the people that are stumbling or falling that don't believe that they are.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: Do they?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we all think we're right.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: Does anybody ever want to admit wrong here?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess what I would say is I don't know if that's always the always been the case.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like I feel like, at least in the Christian tradition, it has been a virtue to be humble and to admit that you don't know everything and that we don't see all the things, and that we have a limited perspective of a very fine or a very large picture, right?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I think that's also part of the problem of today is that we feel this pressure to have it all figured out and have our very concrete black and white answers all the time, which does not also allow us to have nuanced relationships, right?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and we always have to have a scapegoat.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, again, no one's ever no one ever wants to admit fault.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: So if things aren't going perfectly your way, um God's not tripping you up.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's the illegal alien that's stolen your job or the evil other political party that's caused this problem.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not your fault.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: And no one will look at the mirror and go, maybe it is.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Which is part of the the like intentional division that's happening is the more you go in your corner, you're not gonna go look in a mirror.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: You're just gonna look across the room and be like it's all their fault, right?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's why we got to get out of our corners, or to at least occasionally, in order to not allow us to demonize folks on the other side.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because they're just humans like we are, and we're all complicated, right?
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: None of us have if we any of us wrote out all of our belief systems, we would find all sorts of contradictions and all sorts of things that don't always add up because we're complicated.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: People are complicated, and we forget that.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and it just makes things worse and uh trying times.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_02: You don't always see well, sometimes you see the best in people, a lot of times you see the worst in people during trying times.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly right.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: So we are in the middle or no, the second week now of I Love You, but Laura's gonna be preaching this Sunday on how do we deal with this political division, or how I guess I I'll ask you, how are you gonna be preaching your sermon on keeping the peace?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: More is gonna be kind of helping us remember how to root our identity in Christ, first and foremost, but also thinking through how does this call to love everyone.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: How does it influence the way that we re we interact with the people in our lives that see things differently than we do?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not going to be talking about any political issues.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's more of it's going to be a relational approach of Kevin and I have known lots of people throughout our ministry that have experienced great suffering in their relationships because of seeing things differently on a political level.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so just thinking through how we can maybe learn from that and live a little bit differently.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, excellent.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'll look forward to the sermon this uh Sunday, how you're going to solve all the problems and uh political problems in a 40-minute sermon.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: Good drop.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: Let's manage our expectations here, Kevin.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I've got I've got high expectations, actually.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: I I do.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: Much better person than I can, um, and much more patience than I have.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'll just admit that and say that.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: So but I wanted to mention some upcoming things here at uh at North Raleigh.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: We are past Easter in the middle of April, and the end of the year will be upon us before you know it.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: So, Laura, what's coming up?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: We got a lot coming up.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: So this Friday, of course, is our men's chicken barbecue and the women's bake sale.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: So come enjoy that.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: We have a mission and a meal tomorrow night.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want to come, I think it's too late to register for dinner, but you can come and join us for the mission part of things.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: So tomorrow night being Wednesday, because we're we're doing this on Tuesday.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Wednesday, April 15th, mission and a meal.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then this coming Sunday, it's preschool Sunday, so we're gonna have a bunch of preschoolers singing for us.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be awesome.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: Come and join us for that.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then on our our following Wednesday, which was what, the 22nd, we'll we'll re-kick off our Wednesday night programming.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: So um Tuesday with the pastors, and our Wednesday night programming will start next week.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna return to Genesis to finish it, and we're gonna talk about Joseph's story this time.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: We'll do the code of many colors and you know, his dreams and all those, all those fun things.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: So come and join us for that.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, excellent.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then uh May will be here in summer too, and before you know it, we'll be out on summer.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: But it feels like summer already hit 90 degrees.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sure it does.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what happened to the rain.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: But it April showers have not appeared.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we'll pray for rain, everyone.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: We need some rain.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: We're in a drought.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: So and pray for our nation and for each other, I guess.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: We need a little bit of patience and understanding all the way around for everybody.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 29:56
  unknown: All right.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Laura, thank you so much for being with us today.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_02: Enjoy the uh podcast.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: I guess Kevin will be back next week as we continue on the I Love You butt.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: So join us next week and figure out how we're still going to be loving each other after this week.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: Talking about politics.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: So until then, may the love of Christ be with you always.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: So goodbye, everyone.