WEBVTT 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:24.300 good. This morning, I also spent some time in a room with groups of people that look 00:00:24.300 --> 00:00:31.220 just like you, but we were actually in Catholic church. Part of what I do, first of all, is 00:00:31.220 --> 00:00:37.460 there any ex-Catholics, current Catholics in the room? Any in the room? A few of us. 00:00:37.460 --> 00:00:50.300 They sat in the back like good Catholics. I'm part of my story in where I land. Honestly, 00:00:50.300 --> 00:00:59.020 it started a long time ago. I started when I was a kid. I just want you to know who's 00:00:59.020 --> 00:01:10.340 speaking to you, because I'm not a professional. I got my degree in theology from St. Mary's 00:01:10.340 --> 00:01:15.580 University. But on my heart of hearts, I've always had a real connection to coming and 00:01:15.580 --> 00:01:23.860 be, as Jesus says right, that if you want to come to me, come to me as a child, amen? 00:01:23.860 --> 00:01:29.500 If you really want to understand who Jesus is, you have to put yourself in that. You 00:01:29.500 --> 00:01:36.260 go to the next slide. I just need you to see who I am first and foremost. I mean, no matter 00:01:36.260 --> 00:01:42.060 what I say today, I am just Tigger running around in the 100 acre woods trying to figure 00:01:42.060 --> 00:01:49.860 out life. This is great. Mom, did you make that? Oh, we bought it. Sorry. I tried to 00:01:49.860 --> 00:01:55.220 bring him a lot more credit. No, Mom, you're supposed to say, yeah, I made it. So good. 00:01:55.220 --> 00:02:01.300 I think that's who I've always been and how I hope to speak to you today. I'm not a despite 00:02:01.300 --> 00:02:07.780 whatever I've learned through my courses in theology and despite what I've learned through 00:02:07.780 --> 00:02:14.180 my only 31 years of experience in this short life. I think what's so paramount first is 00:02:14.180 --> 00:02:18.940 if you really want to come into a room and be authentic with individuals and share with 00:02:18.940 --> 00:02:24.180 them who Jesus is, you have to come at it first through that lens as Jesus called you 00:02:24.180 --> 00:02:34.420 to come to, innocently and simply as a child. And if we would do that more, I think in church, 00:02:34.420 --> 00:02:41.300 I think there'd be far less division. If we all just realized that we were all that kid 00:02:41.300 --> 00:02:47.620 at one point, amen, we were all little and small and a lot of us to this day are still 00:02:47.620 --> 00:02:53.300 trying to figure out how to get that kid out and how to take care of the kid who was 00:02:53.300 --> 00:03:00.420 hurt and how to be tender to that child. And unfortunately, a lot of us had to grow up 00:03:00.420 --> 00:03:10.660 really fast. Amen. We had to go so fast that we lost what it meant to be a child. Whether 00:03:10.660 --> 00:03:17.620 that's through abuse, whether that's through socioeconomic status, having to raise your 00:03:17.620 --> 00:03:24.980 brothers, your sisters. I had the grace and the mercy truly to have a wonderful family 00:03:24.980 --> 00:03:30.900 and have the opportunity to be brought up by my mom and my dad who were together in my 00:03:30.900 --> 00:03:38.100 whole life. I have four older brothers, so don't let this rough man be exterior for you. 00:03:38.100 --> 00:03:44.340 I am the youngest. I am the baby. And I'm a mama's boy, so I am more nervous. I am 00:03:44.340 --> 00:03:48.820 nervous to speak to y'all. I am more nervous to speak to my mother because I just want 00:03:48.820 --> 00:03:55.540 to make her proud. And I know she is. And I'll talk a little bit about my dad later because 00:03:55.540 --> 00:04:02.980 dad was involved. But there's something about, I think when we come to that idea that we're 00:04:02.980 --> 00:04:07.940 all just kids and sometimes my brain, if I'm all over the place, forgive me because my 00:04:07.940 --> 00:04:12.660 brain is like Toy Story 3, I think it's Toy Story 3. I think the best Toy Story in the 00:04:12.660 --> 00:04:19.140 daycare where Woody and the boys are just standing there and then all of a sudden all 00:04:19.140 --> 00:04:29.540 the kids come in. Bam. That's how my brain operates. It's all over the place. But I grew 00:04:29.540 --> 00:04:36.660 up the youngest four and I had the opportunity to go to Catholic school my entire life. Born 00:04:36.660 --> 00:04:42.740 and raised Catholic, the term we would say is cradle Catholic. Just meaning that that's 00:04:42.740 --> 00:04:55.540 what I knew from the very get go. And for me, I never, whether it was, I'm not sure, I still 00:04:55.540 --> 00:05:02.420 to this day, I'm very much still a Catholic, which is a little taboo in Christianity currently. 00:05:02.420 --> 00:05:08.580 Being able to sit here and speak to you as well. And you could say non-denominational 00:05:08.580 --> 00:05:16.900 church, you could say just a Christian church. It's not really the thing Christians do for 00:05:16.900 --> 00:05:21.500 some reason. We don't go to both services. You got to choose one and you got to choose 00:05:21.500 --> 00:05:28.660 the other. And part of me coming to want to share my story, the question for me at the 00:05:28.660 --> 00:05:38.580 very beginning was, well, why? Why is it always so one or the other? You know, it's, it, for 00:05:38.580 --> 00:05:45.460 me, it, I was informed growing up by went to Catholic school. I did the whole thing. I 00:05:45.460 --> 00:05:51.460 got all my sacraments for the Catholics that know went through baptism, went through reconciliation. 00:05:51.460 --> 00:05:58.620 I got my first communion. I did confirmation. I did everything that you can as a Catholic. 00:05:58.620 --> 00:06:04.860 And, and, and, and for me, I really enjoyed it. I didn't deconstruct from it very much. 00:06:04.860 --> 00:06:12.260 I think the word I would use is I've demystified the experience a lot. I demystified it a little 00:06:12.260 --> 00:06:17.740 bit. I made it a little more real. And I think that started to happen as I begin to interact 00:06:17.740 --> 00:06:24.860 a little more with people that weren't necessarily Catholic. I did that in my interactions every 00:06:24.860 --> 00:06:30.620 single, every single time. And, and, and one of the experiences that informed me the most 00:06:30.620 --> 00:06:38.380 was partly college, as I started to really dive into the theology of it all and why Catholics 00:06:38.380 --> 00:06:41.980 do what they do, why Christians do what they do. And even the broader religions, you know, 00:06:41.980 --> 00:06:48.380 why Islam operates, the way Islam operates, why Judaism operates, the way Judaism operates. 00:06:48.380 --> 00:06:58.820 And, for me, one of the first experiences that I, I really interacted, and I, I said it last 00:06:58.820 --> 00:07:04.380 week at the, the, no, last, no, the week before last, when we were sitting at tables, right? 00:07:04.380 --> 00:07:11.500 I mean, that was intimidating. That kind of scared me. I have to talk to strangers. My 00:07:11.500 --> 00:07:16.980 social anxiety is at an all-time high. But you're not strangers, I meant, like, because 00:07:16.980 --> 00:07:23.300 you and I are one in the mystical body of Christ in men. We were sitting at the, you 00:07:23.300 --> 00:07:30.220 know, there and, and, and I forget the question, Chad posed. But I talked about my experience 00:07:30.220 --> 00:07:34.820 when I went to this camp in college, I had the opportunity to go to this camp called 00:07:34.820 --> 00:07:41.860 Deer Creek Camp. It was non-denominational camp out in Medina, Texas. It's a heck of 00:07:41.860 --> 00:07:46.940 a place. I loved it so much. It was so much fun. I was so young and full of energy. 00:07:46.940 --> 00:07:56.700 I know a back hurt, uh, my knees are, my hips are at 31. Um, but, um, I, uh, I loved being 00:07:56.700 --> 00:08:02.260 in that space, and one of the activities that we did pretty regularly was that we went to, 00:08:02.260 --> 00:08:07.740 uh, we had Bible study. We called it Devo, and I, I love, yeah, Christians love little 00:08:07.740 --> 00:08:16.820 acronyms. Devo, we just went to Bible study. And, um, one of the things we did, it was, 00:08:16.820 --> 00:08:21.340 once a week, everyone would do it. And then every morning, the guys would do it and the 00:08:21.340 --> 00:08:26.580 girls would do it. But once a week, we got everyone in the room, probably about 40 counselors. 00:08:26.580 --> 00:08:31.380 And the cool thing was, is that we were all different denominations. We were all completely 00:08:31.380 --> 00:08:37.660 different backgrounds, completely different people. Um, which was fascinating and just 00:08:37.660 --> 00:08:44.580 the perfect kindling for, for debate. Um, and for heated discussion, we weren't angry 00:08:44.580 --> 00:08:51.820 at each other. He did discussion. Um, and we sat in a room and we broke open the Bible 00:08:51.820 --> 00:08:55.940 and we just started chatting it up. And the awesome thing, because I, I think it's awesome 00:08:55.940 --> 00:09:02.900 because it's cool. The guy who led, um, our Bible study, he was a Calvinist. Um, so Calvinism 00:09:02.900 --> 00:09:10.500 is very popular for the idea of, um, predestination, right? Or, uh, sorry, not predestination. Um, 00:09:10.500 --> 00:09:14.900 it's the idea, it's the idea that, uh, that there's a pre-elect. There's the elect. There's 00:09:14.900 --> 00:09:18.220 already a chosen few that are going to get to heaven. If you're not part of the elect, 00:09:18.220 --> 00:09:22.740 you're not going to get there. That didn't, the Catholics didn't like it. The, the Baptists 00:09:22.740 --> 00:09:27.780 didn't like it. The Nazarene's in the room didn't like it. Uh, everybody in this room 00:09:27.780 --> 00:09:34.180 just had vastly different ideas of how to interpret the Bible. Every single one of us had vastly 00:09:34.180 --> 00:09:40.980 different ideas. And we had different backgrounds and informed that idea. And it was, you would 00:09:40.980 --> 00:09:46.260 think it'd be, it'd be kind of a dumpster fire here and there, but it was one of the most 00:09:46.260 --> 00:09:52.940 effective ways for us to get over ourselves. For us to get past what we thought and what 00:09:52.940 --> 00:09:59.460 we believed and we just sat there with the Bible. And, and, and the, the great thing about 00:09:59.460 --> 00:10:06.740 Deer Creek for me that really pushed me through, um, was that I, I still had so much fun with 00:10:06.740 --> 00:10:12.980 the individuals in the room. That even after we had a heated discussion or a heated debate, 00:10:12.980 --> 00:10:17.860 we still had the opportunity to walk out of that room and get on the zip line to get in 00:10:17.860 --> 00:10:22.460 the river, to get in the pool. We went to those places and we had so much fun talking to these 00:10:22.460 --> 00:10:28.780 kids about Jesus. And one of the things we said every single time we walked out of the 00:10:28.780 --> 00:10:36.020 room, no matter what, we would pray, come together, we would, uh, we would have, uh, we 00:10:36.020 --> 00:10:41.860 pray, come together and, and the saying, the motto was, uh, go love them till they ask 00:10:41.860 --> 00:10:51.060 why. That was the motto every single time. Go love them till they ask why. And, and at 00:10:51.060 --> 00:10:54.700 the time, I didn't realize how profound of a statement, because I said it every day and 00:10:54.700 --> 00:11:00.100 you know, like all things, the big, the routine becomes mundane, right? And, you know, say 00:11:00.100 --> 00:11:06.020 stuff like that all the time, but, uh, as I reflected and realized the impact of that 00:11:06.020 --> 00:11:11.580 statement and I connected it to, oh my gosh, isn't that what we say here? Right? It's the 00:11:11.580 --> 00:11:20.980 same, it's the same thing. It's the same thing. Go love well. And, and for me, as I made that 00:11:20.980 --> 00:11:28.620 connection, um, I, I realized and, and, and from that experience, I kind of said, wow, 00:11:28.620 --> 00:11:34.660 okay, why, why, I love them despite, you know, the Calvinist being the Calvinist. He was 00:11:34.660 --> 00:11:41.420 one of the coolest dudes ever met. He, he had llamas. Like, I was so excited about that. 00:11:41.420 --> 00:11:44.660 You know, I was more excited about the llamas than the fact that he believed in the elected. 00:11:44.660 --> 00:11:50.100 I wasn't getting there, but didn't matter to me because I love him. And, and, and the 00:11:50.100 --> 00:11:54.940 same way the Nazarene and the Baptist, I love them. But my friend Thomas, who's Southern 00:11:54.940 --> 00:11:58.620 Baptist, who's so cool, he hiked. He knew everything about birds. He taught me about 00:11:58.620 --> 00:12:03.780 the American Turkey vulture, which is one of the coolest birds of all time. All those 00:12:03.780 --> 00:12:09.860 people met more to me than what they believed. And, and one of the things that we realized 00:12:09.860 --> 00:12:16.940 is that we didn't need to believe all the same thing to belong in the same place. Amen. 00:12:16.940 --> 00:12:21.700 It's not a pre pre pre pre rec, right? It's not a pre rec to enter this room. You don't 00:12:21.700 --> 00:12:27.340 got to believe what I believe to belong in this space. And for me, I thought it, I believe 00:12:27.340 --> 00:12:31.780 it to be true in the Catholic church, and I believe it to be true here. Now, Catholics 00:12:31.780 --> 00:12:36.940 could argue that left or right. That's, that's why there's a lot of them leaving, but I truly 00:12:36.940 --> 00:12:42.780 believe that. And, and one of the first verses that really informed me of that idea is from, 00:12:42.780 --> 00:12:49.860 one John, one John four, seven, eight, four. Yeah, one John four, yeah, one John four, seven 00:12:49.860 --> 00:12:55.100 to eight, and then eleven to twelve. Yeah, and it says, dear friends, let us continue 00:12:55.100 --> 00:13:02.580 to love, love one another for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and 00:13:02.580 --> 00:13:10.660 knows God, but anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. Dear friends, 00:13:10.660 --> 00:13:16.700 since God has loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever 00:13:16.700 --> 00:13:25.020 seen God, but if we love each other, God lives in us and his love is brought to full expression 00:13:25.020 --> 00:13:30.620 in us. The eric person that is, no one has ever seen God, no one has ever touched God, 00:13:30.620 --> 00:13:35.540 but if we know that God is love, we know God by the way we love one another. Your first 00:13:35.540 --> 00:13:41.700 and primary experience of God doesn't necessarily have to be in the book or has to be at church. 00:13:41.700 --> 00:13:47.720 It happens in the human experience of loving the person next to you and loving the person 00:13:47.720 --> 00:13:55.300 behind you, you don't know. That should be for every Christian, in my opinion, the first 00:13:55.300 --> 00:14:04.820 and foremost place you should be finding God. The church, the Christian, has done a really 00:14:04.820 --> 00:14:15.120 good job of making it the place where you find God. Amen? For me, I learned that in Catholicism. 00:14:15.120 --> 00:14:19.700 In order for me to get to God, there are certain things I have to meet. I have to go to those 00:14:19.700 --> 00:14:25.300 sacraments and then I have to come in a certain way and I have to do certain things. And they're 00:14:25.300 --> 00:14:30.460 all well and good intentioned. I'm not going to see here and be a critique of Catholicism 00:14:30.460 --> 00:14:35.460 because I love Catholicism. But like anything, like every family, we're not going to sit 00:14:35.460 --> 00:14:41.180 in the room and just agree 24/7, right? Because that's not relationship. Relationship isn't 00:14:41.180 --> 00:14:46.620 wanting and liking the same individual for the exact reason for this X, Y, and Z. Because 00:14:46.620 --> 00:14:53.580 you filled X, Y, and Z, I love you. I love you despite X, Y, and Z. My momma can speak 00:14:53.580 --> 00:14:58.060 for it myself. I didn't agree with her on everything. I gave her a hack for a long time 00:14:58.060 --> 00:15:03.500 for places here and there. But she still loved me. Not so loved her. We didn't have to believe 00:15:03.500 --> 00:15:12.220 the same thing or think the same thing to belong to each other. Amen? So yeah, I take 00:15:12.220 --> 00:15:20.660 so much into that. And I think that Jesus, Jesus kind of, for me, I think he hits home 00:15:20.660 --> 00:15:31.260 in John 17, 2321. Of this idea of how us loving each other and experiencing each other can 00:15:31.260 --> 00:15:37.180 bring us into this sense of oneness. I don't necessarily agree with the fact, well, I shouldn't 00:15:37.180 --> 00:15:45.740 say agree, disagree. Well, it's hard for me to sit with and feel and because seeing it 00:15:45.740 --> 00:15:51.380 in Deer Creek and seeing it in all the denominations, it's hard for me to say, gosh, but I love 00:15:51.380 --> 00:15:57.540 those people. So, you know, the popular Christianity has done really well in saying not done really 00:15:57.540 --> 00:16:01.700 well. I think it's hurt a lot of Christians in saying, look, you have to be this denomination 00:16:01.700 --> 00:16:05.300 because this denomination knows right and this denomination knows wrong. This has the 00:16:05.300 --> 00:16:09.540 answer. This doesn't have the answer. And if you're not there, then sorry, you're not 00:16:09.540 --> 00:16:16.140 going to make it though. And I think that's, I think that's so wrong. I think that hurts 00:16:16.140 --> 00:16:19.860 so many people. And I wouldn't say it's the institutions itself as much as it is the people 00:16:19.860 --> 00:16:25.460 and institutions. I'm not understanding how to love well. And I think Jesus, I think Jesus 00:16:25.460 --> 00:16:29.260 makes the same statement when he's talking to the Pharisees. He's always correcting the 00:16:29.260 --> 00:16:35.260 church people first. He's always saying, you know, I hit me hard. I mean, and I don't know 00:16:35.260 --> 00:16:39.040 everyone's scrolling and seeing the chosen. Have you guys seen the chosen come up? Every 00:16:39.040 --> 00:16:43.380 time the chosen comes up on my Instagram feed, on my TikTok feed, I'm balling. I'm balling. 00:16:43.380 --> 00:16:49.260 And it does such a good job interpreting how Jesus moves, but he's yelling at the Pharisees. 00:16:49.260 --> 00:16:55.340 He's saying, you're whitewashed tombs with filled with dry bones. You're a brood of 00:16:55.340 --> 00:17:00.140 vipers. And he's getting on them because they care more about church things. They care more 00:17:00.140 --> 00:17:04.900 and, again, I'm not trying to make an enemy of the church, but they care way more about 00:17:04.900 --> 00:17:09.900 things that don't have as much effect on them. They care so much more about the rules, the 00:17:09.900 --> 00:17:14.340 laws and regulations and not loving people where they're at and trying to feel them where 00:17:14.340 --> 00:17:23.380 they're at. And I think Jesus kind of makes it kind of clear on how we are to start. He 00:17:23.380 --> 00:17:31.740 says, I'm praying not only for these disciples, talking to the disciples, talking to the people, 00:17:31.740 --> 00:17:35.840 talking about his relationship with his father, I am praying not only for these disciples, 00:17:35.840 --> 00:17:39.580 but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they 00:17:39.580 --> 00:17:47.540 will all be one, just as you and I are one. And as you are in me, Father, I am in you, 00:17:47.540 --> 00:17:53.340 and may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. That this idea that Jesus 00:17:53.340 --> 00:17:59.980 is laying on thick is this idea that we were always called to be one. So that's what kind 00:17:59.980 --> 00:18:04.900 of confused me at first initially, because we have all these denominations thinking different 00:18:04.900 --> 00:18:09.020 things, doing different things, having particular rules, laws and regulations to how you should 00:18:09.020 --> 00:18:15.260 come in and come out. And Jesus is saying, but I watch everybody to be one. So you see 00:18:15.260 --> 00:18:20.260 how it's like contradiction? See how the church is operating and then Jesus is operating, didn't 00:18:20.260 --> 00:18:24.820 make sense in my head as I understood what it meant to be Catholic, as I understand meant 00:18:24.820 --> 00:18:32.300 to be Christian, and then living up and growing. What did it for me that kind of makes the 00:18:32.300 --> 00:18:40.700 example a little more abstract? I mean, who in this room loves Lord of the Rings? And you 00:18:40.700 --> 00:18:49.140 can say it. I am currently obsessed with Lord of the Rings. I love Tolkien and he's kind 00:18:49.140 --> 00:18:56.220 of shifted my ideas that are very much abstract and, you know, about theology. And what Tolkien 00:18:56.220 --> 00:19:01.540 does really well, I think, is he brings it into and makes it a story, which is really 00:19:01.540 --> 00:19:06.180 what all we are, right? You know, the beauty of us and the beauty of this series is that 00:19:06.180 --> 00:19:11.260 we're just a collection of stories, right? But the beauty of Jesus is that he gives your 00:19:11.260 --> 00:19:16.900 story more meaning, because there's your story, there's my story, there's our story, the arsenal 00:19:16.900 --> 00:19:21.140 story, and then there's the story, the story that's in Scripture, amen? And it's because 00:19:21.140 --> 00:19:29.620 the story in Scripture that all the other stories can make sense. All the other stories matter 00:19:29.620 --> 00:19:34.740 because of what Jesus did on the cross for you and for me. Tolkien, I think, does a really 00:19:34.740 --> 00:19:40.980 good job of using all these theological themes and kind of making this grand adventure, which 00:19:40.980 --> 00:19:47.140 of the life should be. And it starts off like this. It's, to give you context, Frodo, their 00:19:47.140 --> 00:19:53.540 hobbits, their little guys with big feet. Oh, fun! Little guys with big feet. For those 00:19:53.540 --> 00:19:57.380 of you who don't know, I'm going to, for those who love Lord of the Rings, I'm going to chop 00:19:57.380 --> 00:20:03.940 this up and you can yell at me later for this. Frodo and Sam take on this journey of taking 00:20:03.940 --> 00:20:12.060 this ring. Tolkien uses the ring as a representation for sin, essentially. And it's the all corrupting 00:20:12.060 --> 00:20:21.340 power. And so they take this adventure through the fellowship to take this ring to Mordor 00:20:21.340 --> 00:20:29.180 to destroy the ring. And Tolkien uses the idea of the hobbits. The hobbits are inconsequential 00:20:29.180 --> 00:20:33.380 and they don't want to hang out with anyone. They just want to stay inside and eat. Stay 00:20:33.380 --> 00:20:39.940 inside and eat and sleep, which is me right here. So I relate to the hobbits. But Frodo 00:20:39.940 --> 00:20:45.140 and Sam take on this task, monumental task, they do it by themselves, hundreds and hundreds 00:20:45.140 --> 00:20:49.940 and hundreds of miles, to take the ring. And they, if you haven't looked at watch the 00:20:49.940 --> 00:20:54.100 movies, don't watch the extended cuts, because you're going to watch the extended cuts and 00:20:54.100 --> 00:20:59.700 fall asleep. It's just a second word. But, so they take this ring on this adventure in 00:20:59.700 --> 00:21:06.300 order to destroy it. And Frodo, Sam, they're at a point where it's just bad. It's just bad. 00:21:06.300 --> 00:21:10.540 It's not going to go well for them. They've been beat up by orcs. They've been beat up 00:21:10.540 --> 00:21:17.180 by spiders. They have no food and they love eating. They can't do that. And Sam is trying 00:21:17.180 --> 00:21:22.220 to talk Frodo up, because Frodo's holding the ring. And it's getting heavier and heavier 00:21:22.220 --> 00:21:28.220 and heavier. And Sam starts with this. He says, "It's like the great stories, Mr. Frodo, 00:21:28.220 --> 00:21:35.140 the ones that really mattered, full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't 00:21:35.140 --> 00:21:42.700 want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back 00:21:42.700 --> 00:21:50.020 to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, 00:21:50.020 --> 00:21:59.440 the shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it 00:21:59.440 --> 00:22:08.540 will shine out even clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, 00:22:08.540 --> 00:22:14.660 even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I 00:22:14.660 --> 00:22:21.060 know now folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back. Only they didn't. 00:22:21.060 --> 00:22:27.300 They kept going, except because they were holding on to something that there is some 00:22:27.300 --> 00:22:39.980 good in this world and it's worth fighting for. I mean, Tolkien just mic dropped on him. 00:22:39.980 --> 00:22:44.820 And so it's this idea that if you're reading this story, and I didn't think of this perspective, 00:22:44.820 --> 00:22:50.540 this kind of Malcolm Guy thought of this, he's so cool. He has a big beard and long white 00:22:50.540 --> 00:22:57.020 hair and he has a cool British accent and he's a pastor at Oxford. He's so cool. He's 00:22:57.020 --> 00:23:02.020 writing this book right now about the Knights of the Seven, sorry, the Knights of the Seven 00:23:02.020 --> 00:23:10.940 Kingdom. I was thinking Game of Thrones. Anyway, yeah, I have my high fantasies all together. 00:23:10.940 --> 00:23:14.700 Because I just want to be a dude running around on this award, on a dragon, and then 00:23:14.700 --> 00:23:23.380 fighting Sauron. Yeah, anyway. So he's talking about this idea of, you know, Sam, you know, 00:23:23.380 --> 00:23:26.500 he kind of gives you that perspective. And the reader is reading this and be like, no, 00:23:26.500 --> 00:23:30.940 no, no. Like, the way Malcolm says it's like, he's saying, no, no, no. Like, I'm telling 00:23:30.940 --> 00:23:34.260 you, I've read the story. I'm reading it right now. When you survive, you're going to be 00:23:34.260 --> 00:23:39.340 fine. It's going to be okay. You don't have to worry about it. And in the same way, I'm 00:23:39.340 --> 00:23:43.180 going to read a little bit kind of what he said. He said, it's the idea that God is speaking 00:23:43.180 --> 00:23:48.740 us into being, telling this great story of creation, fallen redemption, and himself is 00:23:48.740 --> 00:23:55.140 embodying and enacting it in Christ. And then he lets us not admire the hero from afar, 00:23:55.140 --> 00:24:00.860 but actually allows us to be a part of the story, literally Christ in Christ, in Christ 00:24:00.860 --> 00:24:06.420 in us. It's an astonishing thing. And I think for somebody who felt they've fallen out of 00:24:06.420 --> 00:24:11.580 any ever good story there was, and that there is, there's no connection, no thread in their 00:24:11.580 --> 00:24:19.780 life, no meaning to random pattern, or just happening. If you know that there is a story, 00:24:19.780 --> 00:24:28.060 the idea that Tolkien is using the fact that this story, just for a moment, if you pan 00:24:28.060 --> 00:24:33.060 out, hey, there is something happening when you realize you're part of something bigger 00:24:33.060 --> 00:24:39.180 than yourself. There is something happening if, for the longest time, you thought you were 00:24:39.180 --> 00:24:47.460 the only person reading your story. If there's for a moment, you could pan out of where your 00:24:47.460 --> 00:24:54.380 life currently is. And realize that you're part of something bigger than yourself, and 00:24:54.380 --> 00:24:59.380 you're not the only one reading the story, you're not the only one experiencing the hurt 00:24:59.380 --> 00:25:03.980 and the pain and the ups and the downs of your current story. Because if you look to 00:25:03.980 --> 00:25:11.100 the right and look to the left of you, there's people experiencing a story very similar, 00:25:11.100 --> 00:25:15.980 that they're suffering just like you are. We could be strangers in a room that never met 00:25:15.980 --> 00:25:20.460 each other, that came from different places, different backgrounds, different experiences, 00:25:20.460 --> 00:25:26.900 and your story and my story, they matter. And your story and my story are connected to 00:25:26.900 --> 00:25:35.900 the story. And Tolkien uses this idea to kind of give us this understanding that there is 00:25:35.900 --> 00:25:43.220 a unity that we can experience when we look at each other's stories. And we realize that 00:25:43.220 --> 00:25:58.100 it's all part of this story, this moment. And Richard Rohr makes it a little more theological. 00:25:58.100 --> 00:26:04.980 And it's this idea of the incarnation. The word incarnation simply means it's a general 00:26:04.980 --> 00:26:15.380 term for any inflation of the spirit. And he talks about this idea, and he makes this 00:26:15.380 --> 00:26:23.060 idea of us being part of the story. Theological in nature. He talks about this idea of the 00:26:23.060 --> 00:26:28.180 first incarnation and the second incarnation. The first incarnation is when God joined in 00:26:28.180 --> 00:26:33.620 unity with the physical universe. The popular understanding of incarnation is that Jesus, 00:26:33.620 --> 00:26:42.340 God came down and became flesh in Jesus. That God, fully God made himself fully human. Amen? 00:26:42.340 --> 00:26:48.620 Do you agree on that? He made himself fully God, fully human, into this moment called 00:26:48.620 --> 00:26:55.140 the incarnation. That's a popular understanding. But Rohr, Rohr suggests that there is a first 00:26:55.140 --> 00:26:59.900 incarnation, and then there's a second incarnation. The first incarnation is when God joined in 00:26:59.900 --> 00:27:05.020 unity with the physical universe and became the light inside of everything. The second 00:27:05.020 --> 00:27:08.700 incarnation is, most of us think about the birth of Jesus who personally demonstrated 00:27:08.700 --> 00:27:15.140 God's radical unity with humanity. And he puts it like, excuse me, he puts it like this. 00:27:15.140 --> 00:27:21.740 The incarnation then is not only God becoming Jesus, it is a much broader event, which is 00:27:21.740 --> 00:27:27.700 why John first describes God's presence in the general world flesh. John is speaking 00:27:27.700 --> 00:27:35.100 of the ubiquitous Christ. We continue to encounter in other human beings. A mountain, a blade 00:27:35.100 --> 00:27:41.660 of grass, or starling. It's this idea and the same way Tolkien is simply trying to get 00:27:41.660 --> 00:27:46.340 us to realize that we're part of this big story. Rohr uses this idea of the incarnation 00:27:46.340 --> 00:27:53.020 to make, allow us to realize we're actually a part of this entire body from the very moment 00:27:53.020 --> 00:27:59.940 of creation. From the very inception of creation, we are part of the story would become one 00:27:59.940 --> 00:28:09.860 flesh within in this idea that God is in all things at all times always. And so you have 00:28:09.860 --> 00:28:17.140 the opportunity to experience God in all things always. And that's why when John makes sense, 00:28:17.140 --> 00:28:20.580 no one has ever seen God, no one has ever touched God. But if we know that God is love, 00:28:20.580 --> 00:28:25.700 we know God by the way, we love one another. And for me, it didn't make sense why we separated 00:28:25.700 --> 00:28:34.220 ourselves into the denominations. If this was true, if this idea that God is in all things 00:28:34.220 --> 00:28:42.020 always, and he desired for us to be one, why are we arguing semantics about this idea or 00:28:42.020 --> 00:28:47.780 that idea? Scripture is clearly, Jesus is clearly saying he's always meant for us to 00:28:47.780 --> 00:28:58.780 be one, never meant for us to be separated. And I think that's so powerful. And do I really 00:28:58.780 --> 00:29:04.300 know, I mean I, I have no idea what God is trying to figure out. This is not me saying 00:29:04.300 --> 00:29:08.900 I know, hey, this is what it's supposed to be. But from what I'm reading in Scripture, 00:29:08.900 --> 00:29:14.100 it's pretty clear that he wants us to be one. Richard Rohr says that the opposite of faith 00:29:14.100 --> 00:29:21.420 is not doubt. It's absolute certitude. The opposite of faith is not doubt. It is absolute 00:29:21.420 --> 00:29:26.020 certitude. That's why you sitting in this room, just trying to figure out what this 00:29:26.020 --> 00:29:31.820 church thinks about. Why do we come to Sundays? It's so important. This is faith in action. 00:29:31.820 --> 00:29:36.540 Faith in action, sometimes it's simply just showing up. And then allowing God to do his 00:29:36.540 --> 00:29:44.580 work, amen. One of my favorite idea of prayer is that prayer is simply presence, right? 00:29:44.580 --> 00:29:51.060 For me as a Catholic, I kind of fell into this falsehood that prayer was transactional. 00:29:51.060 --> 00:29:55.220 If I pray the Alpha, the Hail Mary, and I do the Rosarich, I'll be good. I'm going to 00:29:55.220 --> 00:30:02.820 do anything else, I'm saved. But it kind of missed the point. And I'm criticizing Catholicism 00:30:02.820 --> 00:30:07.140 in that idea. But you could also criticize Christianity in that idea, where, okay, if 00:30:07.140 --> 00:30:13.740 I come up, show up on Sundays, do the altar call, I'm good. But you never take the time 00:30:13.740 --> 00:30:18.860 to explore your story, to break down your trauma, to your pain, and to nurture the little one 00:30:18.860 --> 00:30:26.300 that's in you, the little Tigger, the 100-acre woods, the kid, and heal from that and learn 00:30:26.300 --> 00:30:37.340 from that. I think to land a plane, I think for me, in this current season of my life, 00:30:37.340 --> 00:30:45.380 I learned the oneness, and I think we learn not in religion as much as we learn in relationship. 00:30:45.380 --> 00:30:53.580 When my dad, we can pull up the picture of my dad, look at the little guy. Isn't he great? 00:30:53.580 --> 00:31:01.060 I lost my dad a year and a half ago to a stroke, unfortunately. A year and a half ago, I lost 00:31:01.060 --> 00:31:06.940 my dad to a stroke. He fortunately had a stroke in, I don't remember the time. Anyway, he had 00:31:06.940 --> 00:31:12.900 a stroke. Unfortunately, he, the first one got him, and then he was in the hospital he 00:31:12.900 --> 00:31:17.260 was recovering, and then he had another one, and then he just kind of had a bunch of them. 00:31:17.260 --> 00:31:29.980 And there was no stopping it. Sorry. And I think that was the single, this is so weird. 00:31:29.980 --> 00:31:40.260 I don't know how to say it. The idea of experiencing that pain, he was bedridden. We had to do 00:31:40.260 --> 00:31:46.060 everything for him. You know, we had to wipe him up, we had to feed him. He got frustrated. 00:31:46.060 --> 00:31:49.640 He got mad at us sometimes, but his brain wasn't working because he was having a stroke. His 00:31:49.640 --> 00:31:57.780 chemistry had changed. It was hard. When did I lose my dad? Did I lose my dad when he died? 00:31:57.780 --> 00:32:09.100 Or did I lose my dad when I lost his thought process? It was such a struggle, but I think 00:32:09.100 --> 00:32:15.100 Roar speaks on it like this. He says that the true spiritual transformation happens in 00:32:15.100 --> 00:32:20.700 one or two ways. It happens through love or it happens through suffering. And I think 00:32:20.700 --> 00:32:27.060 Jesus understands it because the greatest moment of love is the moment of his death, 00:32:27.060 --> 00:32:33.260 which for a loving God in my human brain doesn't make sense. How could the most important, 00:32:33.260 --> 00:32:39.540 most pivotal, most foundational moment for any Christian, for any man to experience be 00:32:39.540 --> 00:32:47.620 in, or man or woman, could be in death? And as the Bible says that, "Unless the grain 00:32:47.620 --> 00:32:52.460 of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains mud a grain of wheat. But if it falls 00:32:52.460 --> 00:33:01.880 to the ground and dies, it can bear much fruit." And only Jesus can do that. And in my Catholic 00:33:01.880 --> 00:33:08.780 minds, in my Christian minds, if I put myself aside, he's the only one that can bring those 00:33:08.780 --> 00:33:17.900 opposed ideas together, that in this idea of death, it is life. And as I experience the 00:33:17.900 --> 00:33:27.340 suffering of my father and watching him die, I was still in the same moment experiencing 00:33:27.340 --> 00:33:31.980 my father in a way I never knew I could. I'm a very touchy, touchy, lovey, lovey, huggy 00:33:31.980 --> 00:33:40.580 eye. If you want to hug me after this sermon, hug me. My dad was not. But in taking care 00:33:40.580 --> 00:33:44.180 of him, if any of you have been a caregiver before, God bless you. If you're a caregiver 00:33:44.180 --> 00:33:49.740 in this room, a no caregiver, God bless you. I love you. I appreciate you. Keep doing it 00:33:49.740 --> 00:33:56.700 and know you're doing everything that Jesus is. Because that's what he really cared for, 00:33:56.700 --> 00:34:00.300 care for the widow, you know, care for the orphan, care for the hurt and the poor, right, 00:34:00.300 --> 00:34:05.660 and the beatitudes, you know those. But in taking care of him, we had to move him around 00:34:05.660 --> 00:34:09.300 a lot, right? And he was completely paralyzed, sorry, from the left side of his body, so 00:34:09.300 --> 00:34:15.140 we can't move. But I got to hug my dad more and he couldn't stop me. I know that sounds 00:34:15.140 --> 00:34:20.620 bad. I know that sounds bad. I know that sounds bad. He couldn't stop me. I was hugging him. 00:34:20.620 --> 00:34:26.980 And that was the, and that's the joy in it all, right? Like it is, yes, for the grief 00:34:26.980 --> 00:34:31.780 and the process, it's hard and it's awkward. And like Chad said, two weeks back, it's hard 00:34:31.780 --> 00:34:37.100 to when someone approaches you with that and having a deal with that, I stop too. You know, 00:34:37.100 --> 00:34:42.380 but we, if we put ourselves aside for a second, right, and we allow ourselves to just be human, 00:34:42.380 --> 00:34:49.180 the experience that we have in that can be so fruitful. Because as my dad was experiencing 00:34:49.180 --> 00:34:53.020 the worst thing in life, my worst thing in life, worst experience ever, do not recommend 00:34:53.020 --> 00:34:58.700 whatever, want anyone's experiences. But experiencing that moment with my father, although it was 00:34:58.700 --> 00:35:03.780 hard, it was one of the most transformative, amazing moments I had in my life. Because 00:35:03.780 --> 00:35:08.940 I saw a shift in my dad being in a moment where he's absolutely at zero. There's no 00:35:08.940 --> 00:35:13.580 answer for him. He can't do anything. There's nothing. He can't, he doesn't can't say, talk 00:35:13.580 --> 00:35:16.140 his way out of it because he was a talker. That's all he wanted to do is talk his way 00:35:16.140 --> 00:35:20.500 out of things. Couldn't talk his way out of it. Couldn't move his way out of it. Couldn't 00:35:20.500 --> 00:35:25.140 finesse his way in any way. And you're kind of left at absolute zero. And I think that's 00:35:25.140 --> 00:35:29.180 why Jesus uses the example of death. Because unfortunately, that's the one thing we all 00:35:29.180 --> 00:35:35.500 have to get to. There's a zero, there's a hundred percent chance we will have zero power 00:35:35.500 --> 00:35:44.420 over that happening. So why does a good loving God do that? Because he's good in loving, right? 00:35:44.420 --> 00:35:49.660 He does that for a meaning. He does it for a purpose. And he knew we're going to have 00:35:49.660 --> 00:35:52.980 to experience it. So he said, okay, if you're trying to understand it, I'm going to send 00:35:52.980 --> 00:35:58.100 my son first. I'm going to show you. It's hard, but he's going to be suffering with 00:35:58.100 --> 00:36:06.460 you in it. And I realized that in loving my father in the worst place that he was at, 00:36:06.460 --> 00:36:12.300 I experienced the truest sense of love I ever could with him because I could hug my dad 00:36:12.300 --> 00:36:19.980 and he didn't stop. Something in his brain shifted and he started to hug me back. And 00:36:19.980 --> 00:36:25.900 I'd walk into that room and I put my head on his chest. And God used the worst moment 00:36:25.900 --> 00:36:32.580 of my life. And he made it one of the single most powerful moments of my life. And that's 00:36:32.580 --> 00:36:40.140 how God works. And that's how unity happens. He takes your story. He takes all the ways 00:36:40.140 --> 00:36:48.540 that no matter where you've been, God loves diversity. Look around you. He loves the separate. 00:36:48.540 --> 00:36:56.260 He loves the things that look different. And then he makes it one. He makes it one in his 00:36:56.260 --> 00:37:01.260 life, his death, and his resurrection. He takes all the differences and he says, I'm 00:37:01.260 --> 00:37:06.660 going to die for all of you. Every single one of you, no matter what you believe, no matter 00:37:06.660 --> 00:37:11.780 what you think. He looks at the thieves on the cross. I'm going to land this here. He 00:37:11.780 --> 00:37:17.540 looks at the thieves on the cross. I skipped a lot of slides that I had. They're gone. 00:37:17.540 --> 00:37:20.980 He looks at the thieves on the cross. We call it the good thief and the bad thief. I don't 00:37:20.980 --> 00:37:24.020 think they're good and bad. I think they're both hurting and they're both sad and they're 00:37:24.020 --> 00:37:29.780 both scared that they're going to die. But one just stops and looks at the story in front 00:37:29.780 --> 00:37:38.660 of them. And he says, will you remember me when you enter my kingdom? Jesus doesn't turn 00:37:38.660 --> 00:37:46.340 around and stop and say, wait, did you do your sacraments? Did you do the altar call? Wait, 00:37:46.340 --> 00:37:51.860 do you believe that babies aren't supposed to be baptized first? He doesn't do any of 00:37:51.860 --> 00:37:59.220 that, right? That's all a joke. He doesn't do any of those things. He just says, you'll 00:37:59.220 --> 00:38:05.340 be with me. Because he looked at the story. He looked at his story and he said, oh, that's 00:38:05.340 --> 00:38:11.940 my hope. That's what's going to get me out of this mess. That's what Sam was trying to 00:38:11.940 --> 00:38:18.100 get Frodo to see. They're all the hopelessness and all the hurt and all the pain. Just hold 00:38:18.100 --> 00:38:24.660 on to it. Because I don't know you don't know. I do not have certitude of what's supposed 00:38:24.660 --> 00:38:31.220 to happen, but I do have faith that I could experience love in this place. Because I 00:38:31.220 --> 00:38:35.700 walk into Catholic Church this morning and I felt love. And I walked into Christian Church 00:38:35.700 --> 00:38:43.060 this morning. This church, I've been walking into Arsenal and I felt loved. Despite Dogma 00:38:43.060 --> 00:38:48.500 and whatever you think or what about. Sorry. That's all right. That's my pessimism kicking in. 00:38:51.300 --> 00:38:58.660 Us loving each other was always the point. That's why Jesus came and flashed. God came 00:38:58.660 --> 00:39:03.220 and he came flash so that we would not know death but have eternal life. 00:39:04.660 --> 00:39:09.060 So we would end it as Arsenal ends it, but I'm going to end it as your creek ends it. 00:39:10.740 --> 00:39:15.460 Go love them till they ask why. And I'll be here if you want to talk to me. Thanks guys.