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Turning the Tables: Conversation · Beyond the Sermon

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You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast the First
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Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
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On our podcast, the goal is not just to share our sermons, but
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to go beyond the sermon and talk about what we're learning and
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what God is doing in us and in our community.
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This fall, we're living in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke,
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and John and learning how to live from our model, Jesus.
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This conversation was inspired by our series The Gospels.
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You can find more information about our church at
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fumccollingswood.org. Thanks for joining us for this
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conversation. Also, Rebecca make cookies for
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the staff, she said. We're all looking too skinny,
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but. That is clearly not true.
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I call BS. And that's the podcast today.
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How are you feeling today, Limpy?
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I'm doing OK. I pushed it a little more
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yesterday for church than I had to date, which didn't result in
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a lot more pain, but it did mean that I pretty much planted
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myself on the couch when I got home and stayed there till I
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went to bed. That's.
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Dinner on the couch. Yeah, that was that was pretty
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much the rest of my day. Yeah.
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Have you been able to adjust the angle that you're allowed to?
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Move it yet? No.
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I see the surgeon on Wednesday, which yesterday, yesterday,
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yesterday, in two days, yes. Yeah, well, you made us all feel
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dumb. Or at least I felt dumb.
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You didn't know that the mitten was different.
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That was good. That was really good.
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I did tell Rebecca I was like, depending on the day I might
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prefer that over an apple, but but no earlier than that.
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OK. When you're like, how many years
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of ministry was Jesus in? And then it was like 3 years.
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And then you're like, so how many times if he was a good Jew,
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did he travel to Jerusalem for Passover?
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And we were like, uh, and then like, well, obviously three
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years. But I think the hesitation was,
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even if we all know that Passover is annual, Yeah, we
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didn't know the expectation of going to Jerusalem.
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Cause some voyages are, or pilgrimages, Yeah, ours every so
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many years or once in a lifetime or that kind of a stuff.
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And so does that mean like all the Jews that could afford it
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would go to Jerusalem for the Passover?
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Yeah, that was the ideal. Oh.
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See, I know that. Apologies.
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Is that still the ideal? No, I don't think so, because
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the temple doesn't exist anymore.
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So up until the destruction of the Third Temple.
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Yeah, Herod's temple. Yeah, to the best of your
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knowledge, yeah. Yeah.
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So my, I didn't mean to to make people.
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I was just trying to I, I figured people knew it was an
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annual thing and. Yeah, I think what what least
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tricked me up was the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover.
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Yeah. Because then I was like, oh, I
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don't know. Do you have to go every other
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year? Every three years?
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Yeah. Yeah, well, that was not my
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intention. You succeeded.
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Congratulations. No more just the idea like, I
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don't know, I, I grew up knowing that Jesus ministry, I was
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taught, you know, all along three years, very consistently 3
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years, three years, three years. But then in most of the Gospels,
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he only goes to Jerusalem. He only celebrates the Passover
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once. Yeah, they don't even talk about
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him celebrating the Passover somewhere else.
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And that's why I think it's more of a theological and thematic
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orientation and arrangement of things in the synoptic Gospels.
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In the first three, yeah. Matthew, Mark and Luke.
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Yeah, because you talked about the rearranging of the gospel
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stories in those first 3 for more of like a theological track
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to get us to the cross and resurrection, right, And not a
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chronological timeline like we're used to with biographies,
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right? I don't want to be the devil's
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advocate. That's fine.
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I will be the atheists advocate for or unbeliever like.
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Or the skeptic. The skeptic where you Well, I'm
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already a skeptic, but trying to make all of the inconsistencies
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have a more plausible reason as to why.
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Whoa, these are all flipped and flopped and rearranged and now
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you're saying some of these are the same stories.
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Some of these might not be the same story, but they sound
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extremely similar. Are you just twisting it to make
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it more plausible or realistic of A?
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Story. That's a fair question.
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And I, I think what I'm trying to do there, what I'm, what,
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just what I believe, you know, this is not a salvation level,
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you know, point of belief. This is.
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In parentheses it is. You know, we could disagree
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about this and still be just fine, but to me that makes, I
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don't know, saying it this way seems kind of crude, but it like
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it makes the best sense of the data, right?
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That if these three do it this way, somebody else does it this
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other way. But we know that there's a
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certain time frame that they're all working with.
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How do we make these fit together?
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Yeah, yeah. And that thematic biography was
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not an uncommon form of writing back then.
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No, no, the Gospels very much fall in line with ancient
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biographies and biographies. So it's not like, oh, we're
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arguing that they created a new literary style.
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No, and and it just fits the narrative of.
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But the questions they were bringing to the life of whoever
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they were writing about weren't necessarily questions of or
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purely of chronology and, and timelines.
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And, and if I get to heaven and I ask Jesus about this and he
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says, no, I actually did it twice.
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Great, no problem. Like.
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And when if you get to the gates and they said you were wrong and
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then they pull the lever. Well, that's that's up to Jesus.
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Like when I said on a podcast, it wasn't salvation depending.
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I'm not too worried about that. And then this is a very, for
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you, especially a very multimedia sermon, not only with
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the eating mittens, right, but also with the picture rendition
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of what Herod's temple would have looked like at that time.
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Yeah, Excuse me. And he kind of walked us through
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it. And even if it wasn't the main
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point of what you were showing us, because you were showing us
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how large the courtyard was for the Gentiles and that any
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believers, even if you weren't of Jewish descent, could go.
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And that's where they were selling the animals and all that
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kind of stuff. You mentioned the women's
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section where they weren't allowed in the Holy of Holies
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area, where the men, the Jewish men could go, the core.
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Of the the core of the Israelites.
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Yeah, Court of the Israelites. It's like Holy of Holies, the
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once a year thing. Court of the Israelites.
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Women's Section. Gentiles Courtyard.
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Almost, Yeah. Holy, Holy.
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Then the holy place, then the then the court of the
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Israelites. OK, yeah, gotcha.
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Missed a step. This is why we still need to go
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to Lancaster. And so I was curious, why can't
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women go into the other section? And after you talked earlier on
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about God being angry against gender inequality and then there
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being this split and difference, why?
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I I think it comes down to the fact that even though God is
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eternal, we as people in the world exist within time and
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space. And when God was giving those
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instructions about the Tabernacle, about the temple and
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those things, He was meeting the Israelites in the midst of, of
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what was at that point a very patriarchal society, not just
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within Israel, but across the world, right?
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That's that's those were just the realities.
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And compared to their counterparts were very feminist
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like feministic. Feministic.
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Is that the word? Like they put women in higher
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positions and respect than other cultures around them?
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Yeah, right. So I, I think all throughout the
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story of Scripture, we do see just that we see God, we see
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Jesus elevating women above what the the cultures around them
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would do. So I think the fact that there
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is even a place for women within the temple was God bringing them
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up higher than they would have been in the cultures and
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religions around them. Why couldn't they go in where
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the men could? I'll have a good answer for
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that. I think it just goes back to the
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cultures. Well, I have a great answer
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that's based on absolutely nothing.
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OK. Well, I won't say nothing based
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on scripture, but I don't have any other cultural context
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history because you I think you also mentioned that the
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sacrifices happen in the part. The Court of the Israelites the.
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Israelites, the one right where the Yeah men can go.
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Right. They had the not the women, the
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tables for slaughter and they had the altar there in that so
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yard. In my mind, when we think of
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like positions that that God's assigned and what things
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represent, and I think of what does man and wife represent,
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Right, Husband and wife. So you have the husband being
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Christ and the woman being the church.
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Yeah, and for me, I saw it as we can't make the sacrifice
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pleasant enough for God. So we are being the church,
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being the bride, being the women in the situation can go and
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worship, but we can't make that final sacrifice and that
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ultimate sacrifice. Only Christ can go before God
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and make that sacrifice on our part.
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And so that's where I was like, OK, so that's where they go to
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the offering sacrifice place while us, the church, stay in
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worship. But we could never atone for our
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own sins the way that Christ could.
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Maybe I'd never considered that aspect of it.
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I didn't until you brought it up.
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I think in. I think in the Old Testament
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context the the priest stands in more in that mediatorial role.
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I mean like when they go in the holy of holies once here or
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saying for the sacrifice. Even within the sacrifices, but.
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And who's the Who's the high priest?
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Isn't that a title for Jesus? Yeah, the great high priest.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like that's where I think
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like on multiple levels, you're getting closer and closer to
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that. And again, I have nothing to
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back this up besides how we talk about Christ and the church and
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husbands and wives. That was the first image that
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came to mind where like, we as the church, yeah, couldn't do
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that for ourselves. Yeah.
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Yeah. But I do think it was
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significant that there was even a place.
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For them for sure. Yeah, yeah.
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That's why yourself is more validated and mine just sounds
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pretty. I don't know about that, but.
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For sure. And as we're getting into the
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and the gentle courtyards and the story focuses more on Jesus
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flipping the tables, braiding the whip and using the whip.
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And you're talking a lot about anger and righteous anger and
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godly anger. But the word anger isn't used in
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the Scripture for that story. And we even looked into other
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translations and like 80% say zeal, a good amount say passion.
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Yeah, for that part where it's quoting from Psalm 69.
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Yeah. And then it's always like about
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yeah, we'll consume. We'll.
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Eat him up. Yeah, has eaten me up.
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And then there's some odd ones that make me less likely to
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trust them, where it's like I'm on fire with passion.
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Some say devours me once this burns in me like a fire.
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But that doesn't yeah, come up. Those are much more rare out of
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the dozens that I looked up. And so if the word anger, unless
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we're misunderstanding how they understood zeal, why?
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Why did you focus so much on anger if it's not in the text
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directly? Well, I think it starts for me
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by not redefining anger, but in and getting clear about what
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anger is today. We tend to think of anger in a
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lot of contexts in relation to hate, right?
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It's, it's our hate for another person or another group or what
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they've done to us that, you know, stirs up this anger within
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us. But I think, I think that's the
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negative side of anger. But I think there's a positive
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side of anger too, that's driven by love, right?
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And anyone who has ever been a parent can understand that
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pretty easily, right? There are sometimes your kids do
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something and it makes you so angry because you love them so
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much and you know that there's so much better that there could
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be for them. Tim's girlfriend.
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Not that I'm aware of, but you throw up, throw off my game.
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And, and like I said in in the message, right, anger is the
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appropriate response to injustice, right?
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When things are unjust, that should evoke anger within us.
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And unjust according to what God deems just right.
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Well, I think that's where we need to get to, but I think it's
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anytime we experience something as unjust, even if it's not
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anger is what rises up within us.
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And so I, I think right as, as Christians, as people who are
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following Jesus, who desire to be made like Jesus and to have
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his nature formed in us, we should get angry about the
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things then that God gets angry about.
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I think where I get anger from in this story is a couple
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different places. You could see it almost as an
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anger arising out of the zeal like it talks about, right?
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Like this passion to do something on behalf of God,
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right? Like that leads to a display of,
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of anger, right? Or it could be, you know, you
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could say, well, it's jealousy for jealousy in the positive
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sense, right? Again, of, of fighting for the
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beloved. I don't know what other emotion
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within myself aside from anger could compel me to make a whip
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out of rope and chase people out of anywhere to, to chase
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animals, drive them out of you know, I, I can't see.
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And so maybe I'm reading into it a little bit, but I can't see
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Jesus kind of being like, all right, let's go.
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I'm passionate about this, but yeah, we're just kind of walking
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out nonchalant. Zippity Doo dah.
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Passionate frolic through the market.
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Yeah, thing. Yeah.
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I mean, I think, I think that passion can justifiably be
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expressed as anger. It's not rage, right?
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I don't think Jesus lost control of himself.
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I don't think this was a sudden impulse.
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And. That's where I think the
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braiding of the whip is so important, because it's not like
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he sees it. He's disgusted.
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He grabs the closest thing and just starts going crazy.
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Yeah, it's like a calculated meditated upon right instance.
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Yeah, and that's why I made such a point in the sermon that, you
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know, this wasn't the first time Jesus was going to the temple.
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This wasn't the first time he had seen this or experienced
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this. Yeah.
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And even in I think it's Mark's gospel, it says that after the
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triumphal entry, he goes into the temple.
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But because it was late in the day, he went back to Bethany for
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the night and then came back the next morning and did this whole
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driving out. It's like he knew what he was
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coming to do. And by the time he got there
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after the triumphal entry, it was too late in the day.
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Too many people were gone. It wasn't going to have the
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impact that he wanted it to have.
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So sorry, come back tomorrow. And so it goes back the next day
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and does it. Yeah, I appreciate your
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clarification on how much you read into scripture.
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I mean, that's part of it, right?
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One of the things that you had mentioned was talking about the
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dwelling place of God being a House of prayer for all nations.
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Yeah. And if we are to be that
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dwelling place of God now, and you challenged us with, is it a
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House of prayer for all nations, maybe it's better to get
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context. How did the Jewish people
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understand what a House of prayer was to then look at what
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that looks like when it's embodied as a person versus a
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physical place. If you have any additional input
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on that that maybe wasn't delved into.
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Oh, getting some Bible. Yeah.
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So, so that phrase that my house or my temple will be called a
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House of prayer for all nations comes from Isaiah 56, the same
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passage that we read as part of our call to worship yesterday,
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right as we read those same words from Isaiah.
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And I think in the context of that because.
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You know, anytime somebody in the New Testament is quoting
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from the Old Testament, it's it's good to also look at the
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context that they're quoting from.
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Because just because they quote a certain phrase or sentence or
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verse from an Old Testament author, it probably means
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they're thinking about the larger context that that was
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quoted from. Especially with how educated
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people were of Torah and understanding that, that when
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you just make one reference, they understand the section that
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you're talking about. Yeah, not just that specific
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phrase, right? And so in this whole section,
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it's this whole chapter, it's it's about God bringing the
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Gentile nations to faith in him and them becoming a part of more
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or less come to become part of the covenant people of God, even
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though they're not Jewish by descent, right.
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And so, yeah, so he talks about blessing the foreigners who
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commit themselves to him, those who serve him and love his name,
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who worship him and do not desecrate the Sabbath day of
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rest, who hold fast to my covenant, said I will bring them
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to my holy mountain of Jerusalem and we'll fill them with joy in
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my House of prayer. Right.
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So this was, this is what Jesus has in mind as he's seeing all
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this stuff happen. And so your question was about
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what does it look like for us to embody that kind of a reality?
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What does a House of prayer look like?
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Was that also part of it? Yeah, yeah.
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I was curious because if we don't understand what they
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understand, because when I think House of prayer, it's a building
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you go and pray in, right. And so that just means when you
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say we're a House of prayer, we should pray more.
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And so is that the limit or is there a deeper understanding to
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what that is to the Jewish people?
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And therefore it's broader than just pray more?
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Yeah. So I think it is broader than
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that when, when they talk about going to offer sacrifice, it can
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also be, you know, they, they went up to the temple to pray.
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It's, it's about being in relationship with God, right?
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And for the Jewish people, that happened primarily through the
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temple, that place where God's presence, where God had
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committed to dwelling among his people so long as they kept
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their part of the covenant too. And so, so I do think it is
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broader than just prayer, but I did includes our idea of praying
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as well. And then I think how we embody
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that. Were you thinking individually
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or corporately? Go nuts, go nuts.
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I think whether you're thinking about it individually or
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corporately, so it. Didn't even matter which one I
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picked. I.
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Just wondered if there's any direction.
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I think it means how are we creating space?
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Not just physical space, but metaphorical space for people
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who we see as outside the church.
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And we can still think of that very literally as the nations
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like those nations that don't yet know God, unreached people
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groups, those kind of things. We're talking about nations.
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We're not necessarily talking about like nation states.
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We're talking about groups of people.
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That's that's relevant. The Ethne the the people groups.
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So I don't know if there's any, you know, political nation in
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the world today that doesn't have some representation of a
24:23
church within some group of people there.
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There might be, But what? Do you mean by representative
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like a physical church? Or or some group of believers
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within the. Everyone's got.
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Political. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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But not every people group does. And so that's the difference, I
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think, you know. Yeah.
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But I think we can also think about it in terms of the groups
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of people we see in the world all around us who don't know
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Jesus, right? And, and are we making space for
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them? Are we creating opportunities
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for them to be able to come into this saving relationship with
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God? Are we creating space where they
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can enter into God's presence and be transformed?
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Not only a space, but I feel like God's giving me an image
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metaphor, I don't know it fully calculating it out, but like a
25:30
bridge to him in the sense of like if we just tell them where
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God is and not understanding where they are, then our
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directions might not be as helpful as we think.
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Where it's like the last door on the left, but you don't even
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know what building people are. People are in.
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They're like, OK, so then they're wondering and they might
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be even seeking that truth, but you're not even looking or
25:58
understanding where they are to then help them get to God.
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You're just saying he's over here and they don't have a
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framework or navigation of where to go.
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What that is? It's just this is right.
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Yeah. So going back to that Isaiah 56
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passage, do you remember the story in Acts where the story,
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the story in Acts where Philip gets like transported onto the
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Gaza road and he sees the Ethiopian eunuch in a chariot
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and the he, you know, the spirit tells him, go walk beside that
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chariot. And he hears somebody reading
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from the prophet Isaiah. And Philip asks him, this is in
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Acts chapter 8. Around verse 30.
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Philip asks him, do you understand what you're reading?
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And the man, how can I, unless somebody helps me, unless
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somebody instructs me? And he urged Philip to come in,
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sit down with him. And the passage he had been
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reading was this. It says he was like a sheep to
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the slaughter, as the lamb is silent before the shearers.
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He did not open his mouth. He was humiliated and received
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no justice. Who can speak of his
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descendants, for his life was taken from the earth.
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The eunuch asked Philip, tell me, was the prophet talking
27:25
about himself or someone else? And so it says, beginning with
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this same Scripture, Philip told him the good news of Jesus.
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He met him where he was at. That's a quote from Isaiah 53.
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And I wonder what it would have been like if as Philip begins to
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explain the the fullness of the gospel beginning, you know, from
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I don't know where he started creation, the law of Moses,
27:53
Exodus, whatever. But I wonder if by the time he
27:58
got done, he said, let's unroll that scroll a little further and
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unrolling it a little further, he gets to Isaiah 56 right 53 to
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56, not too far. And it says don't let foreigners
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who commit themselves to the Lord say the Lord will never let
28:16
me be part of his people. Don't let the eunuchs say I'm a
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dried up tree with no children and no future, for this is what
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the Lord says. I will bless those eunuchs who
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keep my Sabbath days holy and who choose to do what pleases me
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and who commit their lives to me.
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I will give them within my walls of my house a memorial and a
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name far greater than sons and daughters could give.
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For the name I will give them as an everlasting one that will
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never disappear. If you know anything about
28:47
eunuchs, right, they were. I know one thing about eunuchs.
28:52
And that is? Continue.
28:55
They Yeah. Dried up trees.
28:56
Dried up trees, right? They had been castrated, right?
29:00
And that was part of how they could serve within the Royal
29:03
Courts because there was No Fear of them, you know, doing
29:06
anything sexual with the women in the courts or the Queens,
29:10
those kind of things. But because of that, there,
29:14
there were laws in the Old Testament in in Leviticus and
29:18
Deuteronomy that said that people who had been crushed or
29:23
cut off couldn't enter into the temple.
29:27
So imagine he had been there in Jerusalem where he got this
29:30
scroll of Isaiah and he'd come to worship.
29:32
And you've been told, no, sorry, you can't, you can't come in.
29:36
You're cut off from God because you were cut off, you know, And
29:42
so he's, and then he's reading all this stuff.
29:46
Phillips explained the whole gospel to him and he says, but
29:49
there's even a place for you, right?
29:52
And this isn't something new God was doing.
29:53
This is all the way back there in the prophet Isaiah, God was
29:57
saying he was going to give them a name and a legacy, even though
30:03
they would never be able to have their own children to pass on
30:06
their name too. And that's the kind of bridge,
30:10
that's the kind of space I think we're talking about when we talk
30:14
about building that bridge or making that space for those who
30:17
don't yet know Jesus. Well, lastly, as we wind up
30:22
here, what time are we at? 36.
30:27
You were talking about the difference between God and God's
30:31
anger and world anger and how we can get kind of roped in and
30:37
what the world wants us to be angry at.
30:40
And also, I think sometimes it comes out even if we have godly
30:44
anger, it turns into worldly rage.
30:47
And as you already clarified earlier that that's not
30:49
necessarily the reaction, right? I think godly anger would then
30:53
followed up by godly behavior is what we're seeking.
30:58
How can we discern anger that is brought up or stimulated by the
31:05
Holy Spirit versus by the world's influences?
31:10
Easy softball. Yeah, yeah.
31:14
I don't think this is 100% true, but I think it's generally true.
31:20
But I feel like godly anger is often on behalf of someone else.
31:30
You know, all through Jesus's life, and especially in his
31:35
Passion Week, we see him not fighting back, right?
31:42
People come at him, maybe he has some questions, but by the time
31:45
he gets arrested, he's not resisting arrest.
31:48
He's not fighting against the Romans.
31:50
He's not striking back. He's not even defending himself
31:55
when he could have to pilot to get off the hook, right?
32:01
When, when other people's anger was directed at him, he didn't
32:09
get angry, but when the disciples wouldn't let the kids
32:13
come to Jesus since he became indignant, right?
32:18
And he said, let the children come to me.
32:22
And, and he talks about, you know, like, if, if someone does
32:25
anything to harm kids like this, it would be better for them to
32:29
have a millstone tied around their neck and jump into the
32:32
sea, you know? Millstones are heavy.
32:35
Millstones are heavy conscious. Thanks for that, Jeremy.
32:39
You're welcome. So I'm here.
32:42
So, so I think that's a, that's an initial spot.
32:45
Am I just personally being offended, or am I seeing
32:50
injustice on behalf of another and that's stirring something in
32:55
me? And then like we talked about
32:58
with godly action, am I then trying to be Christ in the
33:03
situation or am I trying to find a worldly solution to that
33:07
injustice? Because I think the world not
33:10
only pushes what we should be angry about, but also pushes the
33:14
quote UN quote, obvious solutions to those injustices.
33:19
And that's not always the case. Especially we even see people
33:23
throughout Jesus's ministry. We're like, well, Jesus, this is
33:27
how you should take care of it. This is how you should like,
33:30
when are you going to bring down Rome?
33:31
Because that's the biggest injustice we feel like we're
33:33
facing as a people. We're seeing this injustice of
33:37
you on the cross. Why don't you bring yourself
33:38
down like all of these ways in which we may be pushed on.
33:44
Well, if you're righteously like Bible says you should be upset
33:47
about this, then here's the world solution to it.
33:51
And if you're a Christian, why wouldn't you want this worldly
33:53
solution to the problem? And I think that's kind of what
33:59
we navigated with our youth at Sunday school this past week.
34:02
But also I think it's vague enough for a reason, because you
34:05
can apply it to almost any dilemma that's coming up as if
34:10
we were to get more specific, then I think it gets a little.
34:14
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. More dangerous, but also less
34:16
applicable to whatever may be on people's hearts.
34:21
But the other thing I would say is I think that godly action in
34:26
the face of injustice, godly action that's spurred by anger,
34:32
is probably going to cost us something as well.
34:35
It's not a matter of an easy answer or a simple solution or
34:40
my anger actually being enough to accomplish anything right.
34:45
It's it's probably going to take an investment of myself over a
34:50
period of time to be able to affect any kind of real change
34:56
on behalf of another. Well, that's our conversation
34:59
for today, but that doesn't mean the conversation is over.
35:03
We'd love to hear your thoughts on these topics as well.
35:05
To ask a question about anything we've discussed in this episode
35:08
or to join the conversation, you can head over to
35:11
fumccollingswood.org/podcast. Thanks for being part of this
35:17
conversation.