John 2 - Water to Wine, Tables Flipped

[00:00:02] Speaker A: From Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. This is behind the message. In this podcast. We take you behind what we teach here at Westside. I'm Ben Fleming. [00:00:17] Speaker B: I'm Evan Earwicker. [00:00:19] Speaker C: I'm Lindsey Parnell. [00:00:20] Speaker A: I'm Lindsay Parnell. [00:00:22] Speaker C: I didn't know we were doing that, but Evan motioned to me very dramatically, so I. [00:00:26] Speaker A: That's great. [00:00:27] Speaker B: Oh, I'm not on the camera, but there it is. [00:00:30] Speaker A: There it is. Yeah, you jumped on that pretty quick, though, Lindsay. That was a good job. [00:00:33] Speaker C: Out of my peripheral vision, too. [00:00:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:35] Speaker C: I'm impressed with myself. [00:00:36] Speaker A: Amazing. [00:00:37] Speaker B: I talk a lot with my hands. You guys know this. How do you. How do you get more centered, Ben, when you're preaching so that you're not too jittery or too much movement? [00:00:47] Speaker A: It's a good question. [00:00:48] Speaker B: Do you have a method or it just comes. You don't worry about it. [00:00:51] Speaker A: It happens naturally. I feel like I'm fairly in tune with. When I start getting all twitchy and stuff like that. Maybe I'm not. I'm always suspicious that I'm not, but I. Yeah, I don't have a method necessarily, but I think about it quite a bit. How often am I putting my hand in my pocket? How often am I walking around and moving side to side looking down? I think about those things quite a bit. But a method I should come up with. [00:01:14] Speaker B: I did note, I think a lot of people noted with the length of your beard and your hair right now, you really leaned into the kind of the throwing of your head and beard for comedic effect yesterday, and it was brilliant. [00:01:27] Speaker A: Did my beard move? I could feel my hair move for sure. Sure, bro. [00:01:30] Speaker B: Yeah. When you were. You were. Well, tell the story. You were about hockey and all that. [00:01:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Just talking about the sounds that the kids make off the side of whatever they're playing, and especially basketball and hockey. There's a lot of puck handling and there's a lot of dribbling. The basketballs and the constant noise. I can't. I can't deal with it. You guys, like. And I think I've always been this way. I don't think this is me just getting older, but. Yeah. And so I. I made a really big, dramatic deal out of it and yelled and shook my head. I think in one of the services, a couple people left right after that, but that's fine. [00:02:03] Speaker B: Really. Yeah. [00:02:06] Speaker A: Maybe it was coincidence, but I doubt it. [00:02:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I remember there was this very specific time when I hadn't been preaching too much yet around here, and I remember one sermon, and I Said something. I saw them get up and leave. And I'm like, well, there it is. And then, like three months later, ran into him randomly. He's like, we just love it when you preach. And I realized I'd been harboring this sense of, like, they hate me, they hate me. Wasn't true. [00:02:31] Speaker A: I can never tell who it is, you know? So I just go, yeah, that was. That was loud. That was a. [00:02:36] Speaker B: It's too much. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Yeah, that was like an eardrum kind of an issue. Hearing aid issue, potentially, you know, And I'll own that. That's my mistake. Yeah, you. I don't feel like you talk with your hands a lot, though. [00:02:47] Speaker B: I do. Really? Yeah, I do. But it's okay. [00:02:51] Speaker A: I haven't been paying attention to you, Evan. [00:02:52] Speaker B: I'm at rest with myself. It's fine, you know, it's not getting better now. No, I mean, how much can we improve? Obviously, content can always get better delivery. You know, like, there's probably other speakers and preachers listening, maybe some. How much can we hope for as far as, like, we're going to get better at this? [00:03:15] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a tough one, too. I think you can get rid of the ticks and things like that that can be rectified in a few different ways. I think about. I think a lot of guys that do use their hands a lot are using headsets. You notice this. And then I noticed over Christmas Eve when I had to use the headset, I felt obligated to, like, use my hands all the time. [00:03:32] Speaker B: Because you're like, what do I do with my hands? Yeah. What do I do? [00:03:34] Speaker A: Yeah, you want to hold on to something. So I think you can fix a lot of that delivery, though. Like, are we talking about humor? [00:03:40] Speaker B: I was thinking less content and more just like, how you stand, how you sound. [00:03:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:46] Speaker B: All that. [00:03:47] Speaker A: Yeah. How you stand. I think you can improve. There's, like, delivery and sound stuff that. I don't know. It seems to come pretty naturally. And I feel like it's. [00:03:55] Speaker B: Can't break out of concreted. [00:03:56] Speaker A: And I say that not being like, oh, you can't improve. I'm saying that being like, there are so many things that I've tried to change or just be different since I was 23, 24, 25. And I'm like, man, I'm so bad at getting away from those little habits or those pathways that I go down. Sometimes it works, and a lot of times it doesn't. But, yeah, it's tough. What a good question. [00:04:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Lindsay, as a worship leader, I remember always needing a guitar, otherwise feeling completely like I don't know what to do with my hands. But you lead a lot without a guitar. [00:04:26] Speaker C: I prefer leading without a guitar. [00:04:27] Speaker B: Why is that? [00:04:29] Speaker C: It's how I started. I was kind of forced into leading with a guitar. And through necessity, I still do, I think. And I don't know, I think I. I would choose it over. Not actually now, but I'm very comfortable leading without a guitar because it's how I started and mostly how I've led throughout my career. [00:04:52] Speaker B: Yeah, we've heard positive feedback when you leave without the guitar. Really, because you're able to like. It's one less barrier between the people and the worship leader. [00:05:03] Speaker C: I'm glued to my mic. If I want to kneel, I cannot kneel. I have to play. I can't. My mic's up here. If I want to lift my hands, I cannot lift my. You know, I do feel actually quite limited by it, which is why I prefer without it. But it does help me communicate musically with the congregation as well as my band, which is why I would probably choose it. Because I'm a control freak, so I need it. [00:05:28] Speaker B: Well, you're the only one. None of us care about control at all. [00:05:31] Speaker C: You guys can't relate. Yeah. [00:05:33] Speaker A: So, I mean, I can relate less, which would surprise nobody. [00:05:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know. [00:05:42] Speaker A: I can. I can have some control freak stuff. You guys remember when it was only straight stands were the cool ones? Do you remember this? [00:05:48] Speaker C: No. [00:05:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. There was a thing, a movement where if you were leading at the front, the boom stands were not very cool. It was the straight ones. And so I remember doing my best to be cool for a little while. Leading worship with a guitar with a straight string. [00:06:03] Speaker C: Oh, that's awful. [00:06:04] Speaker B: Strings are buttoned up again. [00:06:05] Speaker A: Oh, my. [00:06:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:06] Speaker A: The amount of times I like knocked it into. That's cool, right? Making a little extra string noise on the stand. [00:06:11] Speaker B: So stupid. Yeah, I remember because if you think about the least cool worship leading setup, it was a boom stand, a full on music stand. The black kind with the metal, the giant ones. And then you had your keyboard as standing. And if you had all that in place, it was the nerdiest form of worship leading. So keyboard is always sitting. No music stands straight. Yeah. [00:06:34] Speaker A: I insisted that my musicians not have music stands too. [00:06:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:38] Speaker C: You made them memorize the music. [00:06:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:41] Speaker A: Or you had to put them on the floor. And again, talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face kind of thing. There's nothing better than having backup singers Looking straight down at the ground where their feet are. Golly, how many mulligans. I would take. [00:06:57] Speaker B: Just my opinion. I do feel like if all your doing is singing and not playing chords and we have the words on the back screen, I know they don't come up on time sometimes, but I would say you can probably. You could probably not have a stand. [00:07:13] Speaker C: That's true, actually. And if I'm not leading with a guitar, I don't need my iPad. Like, I can just do the back screen. Yeah, but God bless it, the back screen. [00:07:23] Speaker A: So it's really all about training the screen people. That's what we're talking about here. [00:07:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:27] Speaker A: That's who's at fault. [00:07:28] Speaker B: And they refuse to be trained. Justin. Your people, they just won't. They won't listen. That's not true. Honestly. Lyrics. People are about the sweetest, most faithful behind the scenes people you can ever wish for in a church. [00:07:41] Speaker A: Actually, 100% true in every situation because it is a. [00:07:45] Speaker B: There is no glory. And when you screw up, everyone. Everyone is frustrated with you. [00:07:51] Speaker A: You feel like they could play puppet master back there and just do the wrong ones. Just watch the reaction. [00:07:56] Speaker C: They have a lot of power. They have a lot of power. [00:07:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:01] Speaker B: There's an SNL sketch in there somewhere about the music or the lyric person that got spurned as a worship leader, but they still want to choose which verses you do. [00:08:14] Speaker A: I would go for. I would pay at least $25 for a collection of short stories of pastors reacting to their slides not appearing on the screens fast enough. [00:08:23] Speaker C: Ooh, it probably exists. That's probably an Instagram account, right? [00:08:27] Speaker A: Like little Reader's Digest version. Give me 20 of the best stories of pastors freaking. [00:08:32] Speaker B: That might be the most accurate barometer of a senior pastor's emotional health. You think is how they react when their slide person doesn't get it right. [00:08:42] Speaker A: I could go for that. [00:08:43] Speaker C: Fascinating. [00:08:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:08:45] Speaker A: Or when there's like a child causing a disturbance in the worship center. That's the move. Have somebody come in and guest speak and then mess with the projector, you know, and then see how they respond to it. And that's your hire or it's not. [00:09:04] Speaker B: I remember not at this church. I was working at a different church and there was this one event that would happen every year and they'd always bring in this one, like evangelist style traveling preacher. And he was notorious because he would do multiple. And you do quad shot espresso, but he would do like two. Like order two in the morning and then you have two more brought to him. And so by the time he got to noon these all day conferences, I mean, he was hopped up on caffeine and it showed. And so he would be one that, you know, you'd be like, well, who's he gonna yell at this service? Who's he gonna. And it was always drama, always drama. [00:09:40] Speaker A: Coffee doesn't make me twitchy like that. I don't think. I don't never. I never feel this big energy bump. Sometimes I just feel hungry, you know, had two quad shots in the morning and I'm like, need a burger now. [00:09:54] Speaker B: 8:15. When is it allowed to get a burger? Okay, what's the earliest you've ever eaten non breakfast? Like truly non breakfast food? We're talking, you know, pot roast, cheeseburgers. What's another non. Like, you can't have this for breakfast? [00:10:16] Speaker C: Spaghetti. [00:10:16] Speaker B: Spaghetti. [00:10:18] Speaker A: In college, I had a pretty solid few months before early morning baseball practice of like 5:30 in the morning. Lasagna. [00:10:27] Speaker B: There you go. That qualifies. [00:10:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Was that in. And that was a little bit like I had a bunch of lasagna and in college didn't have a lot of other food. And then the money was tight at the time and it was like, well, shoot a cube of this before 6am practice every day for the next month. And I'm good. So I just kind of kept going through that. [00:10:48] Speaker B: Oh, I love a cube of lasagna in the morning. [00:10:50] Speaker A: Oh, what else did you call it? [00:10:52] Speaker B: That's fair. [00:10:53] Speaker A: But that's like reheated and stuff too. I wasn't waking up and making spaghetti. [00:10:58] Speaker B: I would give reheated pizza a pass for breakfast, but lasagna feels like a bridge too far. [00:11:06] Speaker A: Yeah, that's dinner for sure. A lot of people have pizza for breakfast. I can't. I don't love that. I've never been the cold pizza guy. Especially cold pizza. No good. [00:11:14] Speaker B: Well, you could heat it up, right? Just like your cubes. [00:11:19] Speaker A: But cold pizza is a breakfast item, right? Isn't that what people say? You could have a. I think there was literally a show called cold pizza that was a morning show. [00:11:28] Speaker B: Well, some people really, really like the cold pizza. [00:11:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I can't. It's all cheese, right? Put a little extra. Did you ever do the Totino's frozen pizza and then put more toppings on it before you put it in the oven and then cook it? [00:11:45] Speaker B: No. [00:11:46] Speaker A: Oh, boy. Well, it's never too late, guys. That was a Glendale special right there, baby. [00:11:54] Speaker B: There's a lot of ideas coming out for Ben Fleming Breakfast Buffet, Cuba lasagna. If we ever do a men's event, we're gonna have to do all the breakfast foods that you've eaten in college. Yeah. As the buffet. That'd be a continental breakfast. [00:12:07] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I've got a list of that. [00:12:09] Speaker B: Are you guys pro continental breakfast or no? Would you. So you're staying at a one of these, you know, corporate style hotels. Continental breakfast. Do you skip it and go eat breakfast somewhere else or do you just go for it? [00:12:21] Speaker A: If they have peanut butter and oatmeal, I'm in. I will do the continental breakfast. Some of the cereals can be fine and whatever, but if you got like a waffle maker. If I'm with my family, you got a waffle maker and you got some oatmeal, I'm in for the continental breakfast. But if continental breakfast is like fruit bowls and orange juice and cereal, like, it's not enough. [00:12:41] Speaker B: How about you? [00:12:42] Speaker C: Agreed. Free breakfast. I'm in. [00:12:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:46] Speaker B: Good. Well, do you have a particular item. [00:12:48] Speaker A: You'Re looking for us to explore? [00:12:50] Speaker C: What about you, Evan? [00:12:51] Speaker B: I thought you guys were going to really pick up the conversation there. I've been really. [00:12:55] Speaker A: That's two weeks in a row. [00:12:56] Speaker B: I've really been carrying this thing on my shoulders. [00:12:58] Speaker A: You have? [00:12:59] Speaker B: You were facilitating. [00:13:01] Speaker A: I can facilitate. John Chapter two. There we go. Transition for you right there. [00:13:06] Speaker B: Well, and with John Chapter two, I do feel like I don't like to wait for the waffle maker machine. If there's a long line, I'll just. I'll. What I'll do is I'll use if they're scrambled eggs and then if there's stuff for like salsa, I'll make like my own, you know, salsa scramble. [00:13:24] Speaker A: Nice. [00:13:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Cheese salsa. That's probably my go to at a continental breakfast. [00:13:28] Speaker A: Continental. [00:13:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:13:30] Speaker A: It's a hit and miss one, though. You can tell the ones that are a little too powdery. Powdery. That's the word. [00:13:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:36] Speaker A: I was going to say frothy. Frothy eggs. Yeah. [00:13:40] Speaker B: It's probably just the ones that come out of a carton, right? The pourable eggs. Yeah. [00:13:44] Speaker A: Has to be. [00:13:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Rubbery. [00:13:49] Speaker A: No, maybe I skip it. Actually, now that I think about it. [00:13:52] Speaker B: Maybe we're just skipping it. [00:13:53] Speaker A: I like the Starbucks egg bites. That's what I'm going for. If there's one close by, that's the jam. [00:13:58] Speaker B: They are good. Yeah, they are good. All right, John Chapter two. You did a great job this week taking us into chapter two of John. And it was a reminder again, of kind of the richness of this book. John really goes for it right off the bat with what he chooses to tell as Jesus first sign, first miracle with the turning of water into wine and then right into the cleansing of the temple. Talk us through that. [00:14:24] Speaker A: Yeah. The whole idea behind the broad nature of the message is that there's abundance that's available, and it's available for everyone. And the filling of the wine, keeping the party going is this beautiful picture that John is trying to paint, that this is the light of eternity with Jesus as our savior, the true Messiah has come. And now abundance will continue on and on and on. And this wedding between God and his people, the bride of Christ, will continue to go on because of the abundance of Jesus. And so that's. It's an interesting story. Right. And maybe that's our Western context, specifically. The idea that Jesus first miracle is creating more alcohol to keep the party going is. It's just. It's weird, kind of on its front end, like, you didn't heal someone. There's a lot of options available to you, Jesus. And for this to be the marker of the first one is strange, but not when you consider it through the eyes of John, who, as we've talked about in this podcast and these sermons, is really giving everything he has to, like, this incredible depth of theology and every story that he tells. And then it makes sense. And that beauty really does come out of that. [00:15:35] Speaker B: The texture of the passage and you referenced in Revelation, also written by John, it really is the bookend of Jesus ministry. It starts with a wedding and it ends with a wedding. And that's the picture that we have of eternity is the wedding of the lamb. And so to frame these things kind of at John's level, which, as we're going to see over and over again, is more cosmic than it is human. Right. So if Matthew, Mark, and Luke are really, really diving into the humanity of Jesus and how that played out through his ministry, John is kind of going a layer higher into this. The cosmic effect of the Son of God, the Word made flesh. And so, yes, he's telling these stories of the humanity of Jesus, Jesus attending a wedding. But the imagery that we're going to find in those stories points to, like, this bigger, universal cosmic picture of what God has been up to for all time. [00:16:29] Speaker A: Is one way to say it, that John sees things almost like, forc. Dimensionally. Maybe that sounds corny, but I think about. And this is kind of corny, I think about, like, the frank Brady Books that we would read and Piercing the Darkness. And there's this like, the whole story is about this. This dimension that is unseen by humanity and kind of the spiritual warfare and things that are going on. And this isn't specifically about spiritual warfare necessarily, but it's the idea that John is seeing these stories through this lens of. And let me take you up through the clouds to another thing that's happening as all this is going on. Would that be a good way to describe it or. Okay, yeah, yeah. [00:17:05] Speaker B: It's a spiritual reading of the ministry of Jesus for sure. You know, I don't know how you take anything else from it except that like, oh, this is. He's talking about the spiritual nature of what was going on. And he's using. He's almost using the account of the ministry of Jesus to illustrate his larger theological points, which I don't know if you could say that's true as much with the other Gospel writers. [00:17:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:32] Speaker B: So it gives a richness. And this is where I think it's super helpful for me to understand as you read through the New Testament, like, what are these different authors doing? Paul is very concerned and constantly talking about doctrine, pastoral issues within churches. And look at what he's doing. He's going around planting churches and fixing problems. So of course that's going to be his concern. John is not planting churches and he's not fixing problems. In olden age. He's sitting looking out over this gorgeous valley, reflecting on 50 years prior what happened that was so impactful to him, you know, so. Yeah, so it takes a different tone. [00:18:13] Speaker A: Yeah, really different perspective. And then the tone changes even with the stories inside of chapter two. So we make something out of John taking this story that happens much more toward the end of the life of Jesus. And he puts it right at the beginning of his gospel and the cleansing of the temple. And this one, if I'm being totally honest, is like a natural, easy skip for me in terms of the kind of the temperature of Jesus at the time. I don't naturally draw to the violence of the scene a bit. The overturning of tables and the fashioning of a whip. And there's a lot of things in here that just feel like they're a pop out compared to a lot of the rest of the conversations. The way that we see Jesus, of course the way is not to discard the story and skip over it and edit it out. It's to dig deeper into it and begin to understand, think some of that comes from this has been One of the more misused pieces of scripture that I've heard from the evangelical movement, especially of like this kind of righteous anger that gives me the right to perform violence over anybody that I consider an oppressor, to help save anybody that I consider the oppressed. And you can do that with lots of different pieces of scripture. But I kind of walk up to it really gently and gingerly. But of course, coming around to this idea that Jesus is making peace in this place and standing up for a group of people that don't have anybody to stand up for them as the kind of religious system begins to push people out and keep very specific people in. [00:19:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And if Jesus was just angry all the time and always out to rage and be violent against oppressors, we wouldn't see what we're about to see, which is he's going to heal this Roman centurion servant. And they're not too far apart in the account. And to me, that says something uniquely angering has to happen for Jesus to lash out in this way. And you said it yesterday. What is it? Well, it's taking the Lord's name in vain. It's creating these systems and these methods that actually keep people out and then calling them. This is how we worship. This is God. This is the system by which we get forgiveness. But then everything within that system is designed to keep hurting people out of it. Something about that makes Jesus just absolutely, you know, fly off the handle, so to speak. Not because he's an angry person and he's not doing this against Rome. He's not doing this when he stands before Pontius Pilate. He's not doing this. When I think some of his disciples, Simon the Zealot, Right, would love for him to rage against the empire. He doesn't do that, but he does in the temple. So I think it's a clue on what are those things that are absolutely unacceptable to the heart of God. Well, it's when the systems that are designed to reveal him actually keep people out. Yeah. [00:21:10] Speaker A: It's the religious people. It's the brood of vipers, which is the Pharisees, and it's get thee behind me, Satan, which is Peter, who's following closely after him. It's this taking the Lord's name in vain. Yeah. Like we talked about yesterday, that clicked. I remember, for me, it was sometime in college understanding this, taking the Lord's name in vain. I always thought it's a little funny that we get so deeply offended by, you know, the phrase oh, my God or something like that which, like I said in the sermon, I teach my kids not to say that I don't talk like that and whatever, but this is really the heart behind it, that we would not parade around this idea of this is how we worship and this is God in order to manipulate people around us, to change their behavior, to prove to them that they don't belong and we do. And that comes my favorite illustration of this, and we were talking about a little bit this Morning, is the C.S. lewis book the Last Battle, which is all based around this donkey and this ape that find a lion skin. And then the ape has this great idea to put the lion skin on and parade around or to give it to the donkey to put the lion skin on a parade around as Aslan as God. Then he marches around and giving all these orders and things. That's the same idea, right, that we're going to parade this thing out here, which is really a jackass, and we're going to call it a lion. And that's what Jesus is encountering in this temple, is a donkey. It's not the same thing. [00:22:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And for everyone who would send a note in or talk to us and wish that we would be more aggressive in condemning the outside world, I would remind all of us, Jesus, Paul, they're always pointing the critique inward to these systems, these religious spaces, these churches, these. And so I think we have to understand that our job is not to judge the world, but our job is to allow God's word to speak and inform where we've misrepresented Christ. [00:23:09] Speaker A: Yeah. What is the harshest thing he says about Rome? Nothing like pops to mind immediately to. [00:23:14] Speaker B: Me, I'm sure Jesus specifically. [00:23:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Because Jesus is going after the religious folks. And then even Paul's critique of the churches that he's talking to, he's trying to minister to those people that are deciding to be followers of Jesus and are claiming to be followers of Jesus. John does the same thing in the Book of Revelation. There's scathing rebukes of religious people. It just doesn't pop up that much. Which makes it interesting to me that it seems like a lot of the current Christian movement wants to spend all of its time condemning Rome and a lot less time looking inward. And it's not to say that we can't have critique, of course, and we want to be participants in our national and our local governments and things like that. But it certainly does seem like an over indexing in scripture on who we're talking to and who we're trying to keep in line, so to speak, with the way of Jesus. [00:24:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And if the answer for the early church was, well, the way that God is going to encounter the empire is by absorbing the empire, then they got it in the Holy Roman Empire. And for sure nothing has ever had a stronger effect in spreading Christianity throughout the known world. For sure. And nothing has had more corrupting power maybe than when Rome and the Church became one of the same. And so, yeah, there's, there's a lot of mixed feelings when we talk about, like, Christianity taking over. Right. [00:24:46] Speaker A: Yeah. What do you do with that? Because I think we would all agree if someone said, well, you can have Rome back and you can have this national faith, we would be like, yikes, please don't do that. And we're also be able to thank it for the massive spread of Christianity. What do we do with. With all of that? [00:25:04] Speaker B: I don't know, Lindsay, what did we do? [00:25:06] Speaker C: Save the tough one for me, I think of. I've seen a couple of TikTok videos over the past couple of years, and there was a gal who was pretty passionate about saying, like, I don't want your religion. Like, stop pushing it on me. I'm not interested in your Bible. I'm not interested in your God. Like, keep that to yourself. Let me kind of choose my own thing. Stop forcing it on me and her. It became like a sound people were using for their own videos and it was kind of replicated again and again. And I just think about how we've all been given the choice that it was never forced upon us. And that's actually kind of a pillar of our faith, a marker, something that defines our faith. And we talk about a lot about how God has given each of us free will to choose. And I think when we come in with our sweeping ideologies and we want to make it a national enforced type thing, we're losing the heart of God in that, in that move. And we're imposing views, imposing our interpretation of things on people who don't want it and are not interested. And I just, I'm not aware of any time where people came to faith and sustained their faith in Christ when their hand was forced or when they had no other option. That's not true conversion. That's not true faith. That's not it. And so I think we take our cue from God and how God has allowed us to live in the midst of our current times and to choose to make our own decisions. And I think as the church, we kind of have to follow his Lead in that and trust that God is good enough and convincing enough and loving enough and all of these things, that the things that first drew us to faith are powerful enough to draw somebody else who's in a place that we maybe don't agree with or wish was different. Like, who are we to force someone to that when God himself doesn't do that for us, you know? [00:27:26] Speaker B: Yeah, it's really good insight. I think this whole forcing people into Christian faith has been tried again and again and again over history. And at first there's good parts about it, I think, Right. Like, we don't want to incentivize bad, ungodly behavior. We don't want to create tax breaks for prostitution. I don't know. You know, like, you don't you want policy that points people towards health and wholeness, but play that out and it's like, okay, Christians are in charge now. Okay, so that means we're going to have laws that enforce our beliefs. Okay, so what happens when people then break those Christian laws that you've put in place? Well, we're going to penalize them. Okay, so we're going to arrest people who don't obey. And what if they keep disobeying? We're going to kill them. I mean, you know, like, this is historically, this is actually how it goes. This is how you get at the Inquisition and all these horrible crusades and all these moments is because if you play it out long enough, you realize like, oh, now we are taking the words of Jesus or the Sermon on the Mount, and we're going to enforce them at the point of us order down the barrel of a gun. And then what do we become? Well, it's nothing like Jesus. And so I don't like slippery slope language, but what starts as like a. Oh, this would be great if we could just get Jesus and his instruction, like to inform our policies. There's some good in that, but keep on playing it out. And you put yourself in a place where you are the Inquisitor and you are on the firing squad. Yeah. [00:29:01] Speaker A: And history would tell you that every time it has to get to that point where, well, they're still not listening. So let's kill them. You forced your hand all the way to that. And I remember having a college professor talk about Lord of the Flies as a, an examination into what unchecked religion can do. And it's pretty quick that you, you agree on these really basic kind of ideologies and this is the best thing for the entire group. And then all of A sudden you have the alpha that comes up over here and then the hierarchy is built over here. And then the rules change just a little bit and we lose sight of what we were originally trying to accomplish. And then before you know it, there's these guys are good and these guys are bad. And if this behavior continues, then we have the right to kill you or persecute you or be the Inquisition. And yeah, it's a runaway train really fast. [00:29:47] Speaker B: And our history books of the Christian faith are just filled with people who died on the opposing side of the majority in power Christian group. Whether it be the nation of Spain in the Inquisition or the Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Roman Empire. The ones that we celebrate are the ones that stood against that kind of corruption. And so we should take note of that. Anytime we're like, okay, we're going to get together and we're going to take over and enforce our Christian values, we get on the wrong side of history. And not just like the wrong side of history. Like that's not cool anymore. Like, there will be Christians in the future devout following Jesus, who look back on the people that we killed and say they are the heroes. And I never want to, obviously never want to put us in those positions. [00:30:38] Speaker A: Yeah, some of the genius of the founding fathers is that freedom of religion kind of idea. Right. That they had been in situations that were a bit more dogmatic about a lot of these issues that we're talking about. And we're like, no, we're going to broaden this out. Even though a lot of us have pretty firm beliefs in this specific direction when it comes to our faith, we're going to broaden this out to allow, I think, Lindsay, the process that you were talking about of can the Holy Spirit convict and be convincing enough and can we figure this thing out together from all of our different perspectives and find God in the middle of all of it. [00:31:09] Speaker C: I think the heart of it too is we want health and wholeness across the board, you know, and so I think if that's the motivation to use policy to try and implement that, I think we have to take a few steps back and think, well, what is the driving motivation behind this? And we believe that the way of Jesus leads to the ultimate health and wholeness and thriving and flourishing as human beings. And I think we just have to make that distinction. Like the heart is the same, I think behind all of it, but one is the runaway train and the other is a slow, patient way of Jesus who allow it, allows people to make the decision in Their time, which is so important and in my opinion, the loving thing to do for those who don't know Christ. [00:31:55] Speaker A: Yeah. And the trick that we have seen over history is that we discovered that it was a really bad thing that only some people had access to the ancient text in order to interpret this. And thus they wielded all the power. And that created a lot of corruption and nastiness. And so let's go ahead and get to the Protestant Reformation. All of a sudden, everybody's got the ability to access the Bible, we're learning how to read, and all this wonderful thing is happening. And then you do have a massive broad spectrum of people that are reading Scripture with no training or understanding, and then they're interpreting it however they want and then running away with that. It really speaks to humanity. Right. And not just these systems and functions that we set up. [00:32:34] Speaker B: And that's why in our tradition, the Holy Spirit is not a side character because of those issues. Like, pre Reformation, you have manipulative, corrupt power structures that are manipulating the people. Post Reformation, like you're describing, you have this sola scriptura. Right? Like only the Bible, that's all we need. And then it kind of has its own issues and problems. And so in our tradition, and coming out of the Pentecostal movement in the early 1900s, it's this emphasis on, like, we need the Holy Spirit to be alongside with us to bring to mind everything that Jesus taught in a way that leads to wholeness and not further manipulation. Now, it's not some bishop manipulating us. It's your pastors and your Bible study leaders and your volunteer leaders. And they can all manipulate everybody because we all have access. And that's wrong, too. And so it does put more emphasis, I think, on the need we have to have someone who guides us. And if that has to be some brilliant PhD pastor, that's great. But I hope that the Holy Spirit comes alongside each of us as we're seeking. [00:33:51] Speaker A: And even that person, you'll never know fully the intentions of their heart or their integrity in how they're going about it. Right? So there's even faith in the middle of all that. There was some, I still don't know exactly what happened, some other pastor scandal or something that happened recently. And I was reading in the comments of some posts about it, and someone said, we need to really get rid of this, using this word or phrase. He was a man of integrity. We just really need to throw that out because we have no idea if they actually are. We have no clue. We can't read someone's heart. And that's always that place that you have to come up to of they're a leader and they're doing this right. And we'll never actually fully know their intention or their thought behind it it. But yeah, you're right. But we require good leadership that is humble and open handed and listening to the Holy Spirit. We have to trust at some point. [00:34:44] Speaker B: In there to bring it Back to John 2. This idea of manipulation and using religious structures to hurt people is compared and contrasted so beautifully to the first miracle of, of the celebration that Jesus at first is reticent to get involved in. And he's like, okay, fine, I'm gonna throw the best party with the best wine. And it's just this picture of like when the kingdom arrives, which we believe it has in Christ, it doesn't look like systems where forgiveness costs more than you have. It looks like when you're empty, he fills it. And it's the abundance you're talking about. And if that could be the policy that we want for our country or our city, I'm all in. Like, yeah, let's elect people that have this heart of abundance and these wide open arms like Jesus did in the world that he lived in. But if it's like, let's enact these rigid systems of control, then it's more like how we cleanse the temple than it is. Yeah, that he brings. [00:35:56] Speaker A: It's really good. And you brought up in preparation for this last Sunday and it was great talking about seeing Jesus who gets all these names. He's a king and he's a high priest and he's a rabbi and he functions in all of these things within the story. But in a way that's just so different from what you're usually seeing. Somebody wielding authority in the temple would be a high priest and he wields authority, but he wields it through the turning over the tables. And he's a king present at this wedding, but all of a sudden he's doing the bridegroom responsibilities and creating his own wine and all those things. It's this, yes, Jesus fits all of these things that are expectations and then he fulfills them to a greater level. [00:36:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And we're going to get to the end of the book and he's going to be the teacher with his young school of disciples and they're going to sit down for their biggest holiday feast of the year and he's going to get on his hands and knees and pull out the towel and wash Their feet, you know, so he's always reversing how he should act if he really has the kind of authority that John wants us to believe. And in that great reversal, I think is the heart of Jesus. [00:37:03] Speaker A: Yeah. How stunning all of this would have been. [00:37:06] Speaker B: Right? [00:37:07] Speaker A: And I continue to be so in love with how, how it's been framed over the last couple weeks of John. And I don't know how sweet he was, I guess, but being an old, sweet, pastoral, thoughtful man who just so wants to share this heart of what he's seen in the middle, it just, it comes off so much more just gentle and pastoral this time around than any other time going through John for me. And that continues to make these stories even bigger and greater in my mind. [00:37:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you think he knew when, like when he finishes chapter one, do you think he's like, wow, that's awesome. That was really good. That one's going to play. I'll tell you what. [00:37:49] Speaker A: How much time do you think he spent on chapter one and the poetry of it compared to the rest of writing out the chapters? Yeah, yeah, it's like 90%. [00:37:58] Speaker B: Once it gets to 5, 6, 7, he's like just kind of cruising through. [00:38:02] Speaker A: It's like, oh, the cleansing is a little too early in the start. [00:38:04] Speaker B: I don't care. [00:38:05] Speaker A: In the beginning was, let me go back again, rewrite some of those lines. [00:38:10] Speaker B: How impressed was John with himself? And then he's writing Revelation and who knows what he's thinking. He's like in some kind of trance state, you know, because there's some wacky imagery in that one. [00:38:23] Speaker A: And we talked about this a little bit this morning too. But is it helpful to view Revelation when you consider the minds like the CS Lewis's of the world? And we're about to start a class, class called Christian Imagination and we read Lewis's allegory and how he tells the gospel through these different stories and you go, oh yeah, this is a cool way to view it. [00:38:43] Speaker B: Right. [00:38:43] Speaker A: Would it be helpful for those who are going to go from John to Revelation to stick with the author, to look at it as the beauty of the Christian imagination retelling the gospel and the saving of the world through this Messiah? [00:38:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think if your approach to biblical prophecy is that prophecy exists to tell the future or tell my future, be a fortune telling device. That's when you get into guy in his basement with a revelation board and red thread connecting all the dots. That's kind of the worst, I think, way to approach a revelation type book. But to reinterpret it through John's experience. And then the first century, what was happening there as a poetic, prophetic vision. I think there's a lot of room today to read that and reinterpret that. Maybe not in the who is the bear? Is it Russia? Who's the bear? That's where you get weird. Right? I remember as like a middle schooler going to some conference or convention about Revelation, interpreting Revelation, and they had all these convincing slides about how, you know, in 1999 Russia's gonna do this and America is this in the book of Revelation. And then. And you know, none of it happened. But at the time it was like, whoa, that is so convincing. And I think there's always going to be a rabbit hole to go down in Revelation, if you want to look at it that way. So let's not. [00:40:17] Speaker A: I remember our tour guide, when we were going through Ephesus in Turkey, described the fact that a lot of people in Ephesus, because there were like natural disasters and things that happened pretty quickly after John wrote the book, that they thought the majority of the prophecy was already done in that time. That was their take on it. And I think every generation has probably done that since that either a lot of it's already done or it's about to be here. And. But I guess that's what I'm saying when you read the Last Battle, you don't go, well, is the ape Putin? You know, you don't do that. You read it a little bit more open handedly. And then maybe there's something to that of John speaking to stuff that he has seen or. Yeah, and certainly that he's prophesying about, but also really just trying to tell this story. [00:41:05] Speaker B: Right. [00:41:05] Speaker A: About the goodness of God again, just like he did with this gospel. [00:41:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's not unlike, I think, his talking who people were always pressing him like, okay, so who's the Nazis in this? Who's Hitler? Obviously it's Sauron. And he always pushed back on that. It wasn't a direct allegory to the current events of World War II, which is when he's writing Lord of the Rings. Because I think in his explanation, I can't remember his words exactly, but it was basically like, I'm telling a bigger story than just this. You can find parallels. Yes, but I'm telling a bigger story. And I think sometimes we fall into the same trap. Even in biblical interpretation of like, oh, see, he was pointing to 1947 when, and oftentimes I think that might be Interesting or juicy later to look, try to connect all the dots. I think when it comes to the story of God, we're trying to realize like Jesus probably wasn't only thinking of the United States of America when he was teaching his disciples. [00:42:05] Speaker A: That's definitely a trap. [00:42:07] Speaker B: Have you seen these memes with AI now where it has Jesus, Jesus talking to disciples. And Philip was like, lord, when will this come to pass? He's like, well, not now. It'll be in 2000 years in a place called the United States of America, you know, and it's just poking at these ideas that, you know. [00:42:22] Speaker A: Yeah, amazing. [00:42:23] Speaker B: Me in my basement in my day is the one that Jesus was talking about. It's like, no, there's a bigger story being told. [00:42:28] Speaker A: And it's applicable because history repeats itself. Right. You got Nero and Stalin and Hitler and you know, like so you can read it as evil enters into the world and then this is God's response to that evil. But we've seen over the course of history, the evil continues to repeat itself, which means in turn the goodness of God is also repeating itself. But I don't know that it points. Yeah. Exactly what you're saying to this very specific one off person and moment in history. It's very narcissistic to me to think of it all that way. [00:42:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think you got to read this stuff with humility. Is it the apocalyptic prophetic revelations? Are they potentially pointing to how things will go down in the very end? [00:43:09] Speaker A: Sure. [00:43:10] Speaker B: Do I have the arrogance to be like, I figured it out, guys, and it's about us? No, I'm not, I'm not going to go there. And so I just think a lot of humility and trusting Jesus more than I want to get into the weeds and make myself the main character of the book of Revelation. You know, know Star wars though is. [00:43:29] Speaker A: A Nazi thing, right? I don't know. Isn't that. Isn't that thing Star Wars Nazis? [00:43:35] Speaker B: I mean they. It sure seems like it. [00:43:37] Speaker A: The stormtroopers and even though like the. [00:43:39] Speaker B: Formations of it uniforms. But yeah, you know. Yeah. George Lucas is still around. We could write him. [00:43:45] Speaker A: See, we could ask him spoken to it. Should I write him? [00:43:50] Speaker B: Should I hand write. Dude, handwrite a letter to George Lucas and then on this podcast we'll reveal if you ever get. Okay, great. [00:43:57] Speaker A: I want to do it. What's. Do you send it to Skywalker Ranch? Where does he receive his mail? Sure. [00:44:03] Speaker C: Try that. [00:44:04] Speaker A: I can send it to a few places. [00:44:05] Speaker B: You need to. You need to sign it Benjamin Age and then pick one in age when you would have had this question? Yeah. Age 7. [00:44:13] Speaker A: Sure. [00:44:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:14] Speaker A: I think that's great. [00:44:14] Speaker B: Don't you think this is more likely to get a response if he's not pushing 40? Asking church. [00:44:26] Speaker A: Do you guys ever write into anybody? [00:44:28] Speaker B: You ever do that? [00:44:29] Speaker C: Like currently? [00:44:30] Speaker A: No. Like when you're a kid? [00:44:31] Speaker C: I did. [00:44:32] Speaker A: You did? [00:44:32] Speaker C: I did. There was a girl Christian trio called out of Eden. And one of the singers, her name was Joy and that's my middle name. So I just loved her. And I wrote to her, I was probably nine, and I asked her to come to my house for Christmas. She wrote me back, no way. Handwritten and thanked me for the invitation, but said she was gonna stay with her family for Christmas this year. [00:44:58] Speaker A: Awesome. [00:44:58] Speaker C: I know. [00:44:59] Speaker A: That's incredible. So you wrote to Santa and then you wrote to Joy. [00:45:03] Speaker C: I never wrote to Santa. I wasn't raised in a Santa house. [00:45:06] Speaker A: Okay. I didn't write to Santa either. [00:45:07] Speaker C: Yeah. But I did write to Joy from out of Eden. Shout out. [00:45:11] Speaker A: None of us were raised in Santa houses. [00:45:13] Speaker B: No. [00:45:13] Speaker A: Oh, man. [00:45:15] Speaker B: I did write to focus on the family many times. Because if you wrote to them, they would give you a free Adventures of an Odyssey tape. Okay, there you go. [00:45:23] Speaker A: That makes sense. [00:45:25] Speaker B: The first couple times, they act like it's going to be like. And we're including something special because you wrote. The third time, they're like, the tape you requested is included. The tape you requested because I would always reference the episode that was on the radio that I wanted to wanted in my collection. And they were on to me by the third one. [00:45:43] Speaker A: I thought you were gonna say I wrote to focus on the family because it's basically the parallel to evangelical Jesus Santa at the time. [00:45:49] Speaker B: Evangelical Jesus, Evangelical Santa. James Dobson, Mr. Whitaker was a very Santa character. [00:45:56] Speaker A: That's so funny. [00:45:58] Speaker B: I think I told you this. My mother in law wrote to the Queen, I don't know what about like the month she died. And she received a handwritten response from Queen Elizabeth's lady in waiting, who was like her right hand lady. And it had to be in like the last batch of correspondence ever written on behalf of the Queen. [00:46:21] Speaker A: And how much time is she spending writing notes? [00:46:23] Speaker B: I mean, it must be like the whole gig is just responding to letters. What else do you do at that point? [00:46:29] Speaker A: And if you're responding to one, how many are you responding to? Yeah. Oh, you want to be the lady in waiting. [00:46:33] Speaker B: Great. [00:46:33] Speaker A: Here's your offer. I was pen. [00:46:35] Speaker B: I was so impressed that it wasn't like a form letter. It wasn't just a generic response. It was like handwritten response. [00:46:41] Speaker A: Yeah, it makes me feel bad about it. [00:46:43] Speaker B: Shoot. [00:46:43] Speaker A: That auto response on my email. Take that off eventually. [00:46:46] Speaker B: But Joy from Out of Eden is impressive too. [00:46:49] Speaker C: I think she was probably like 15, you guys. [00:46:53] Speaker A: Such a great story. [00:46:54] Speaker C: She was probably stoked to get fan mail. [00:46:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, probably. [00:46:58] Speaker A: Isn't that funny how you always feel like you're interrupting people with stuff like that? I think they might like it more than. [00:47:05] Speaker B: Yeah. What if George Lucas used to get all the fan mail and now since he sold to Disney, he's just like, I wish I'd get more fan mail. [00:47:12] Speaker A: Handwritten letter would be amazing. [00:47:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:47:14] Speaker A: Somebody from any age. [00:47:15] Speaker B: You should write him. I think. I know. I am very invested in to seeing if he'll respond to you. So I think you should do it. [00:47:24] Speaker A: All right, I'm gonna do it. Yeah, let's do it. That'd be a blast. You guys like Star Wars? I feel like you've never talked about it. [00:47:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm not a super fan by any means. Yeah, I watch it all. I have been watching Andor, which is quite good. [00:47:38] Speaker A: Isn't it? So good. [00:47:39] Speaker B: It's really good. [00:47:40] Speaker A: Andor is really good. [00:47:42] Speaker B: But I think it's good on its own merit. I don't think the Star wars thing is what makes it good. I think it's just well written, well acted. [00:47:48] Speaker A: It barely feels like Star Wars. Right. The stormtroopers show up at some point, but it doesn't. [00:47:54] Speaker B: Yeah. There's no force, there's no Jedi. There's lightsabers. All that. [00:47:58] Speaker A: Andor is amazing. You know what keeps making money and they keep making it. And I've never had a single conversation with anybody about it, and I've never seen one is Avatar. [00:48:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:09] Speaker A: Have you ever talked with someone about Avatar? Are people actually going to see this. [00:48:13] Speaker C: Thing Eric did with his dad? [00:48:14] Speaker A: He did? [00:48:15] Speaker C: Yep. Happy Christmas. [00:48:16] Speaker A: Did you guys talk about it? [00:48:18] Speaker C: He and I talked about how we were surprised it was still a thing. [00:48:21] Speaker A: Okay, there you go. [00:48:22] Speaker B: But then New Year's Day, he came out full blue body paint. [00:48:26] Speaker C: No, he didn't. [00:48:26] Speaker B: No. [00:48:28] Speaker A: Eric. [00:48:28] Speaker C: Oh, I thought you had James Cameron. No, I was like, well, that's kind of crazy. But also he's all in on this Avatar thing. [00:48:34] Speaker B: I was in. Eric's all in, just full on. [00:48:36] Speaker A: What do you call him? [00:48:36] Speaker B: The new V Neuvie? Na'. Vi. Oh, what is the. What's the race of creatures? [00:48:42] Speaker A: See, I don't know, man. I'm not the guy to ask. [00:48:44] Speaker B: I Only watched the first one. [00:48:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember even when it came out, it was close to Dark Knight. And I had a bet that I lost dramatically that there's no way that this new Avatar movie would outsell Dark Knight. And of course, it crushed everything. But I've never. Nobody. I've never talked about it to anybody. People like this series. [00:49:06] Speaker B: Okay. I have heard that overseas, it goes crazy. [00:49:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. [00:49:10] Speaker B: People love those films overseas. [00:49:12] Speaker A: All right. They're talking about it. [00:49:13] Speaker B: Obviously, they watch them here too. Because Avatar wants the highest grossing film of all time. [00:49:19] Speaker A: Still. Still amazing. And it will be probably forever. [00:49:22] Speaker B: I think it narrowly beats out Avengers in game, last one, endgame. No, no, no. I mean the. The big. [00:49:30] Speaker A: Yeah, in that they beat Thanos in that one. Spoilers. Yeah, that was huge. [00:49:36] Speaker B: They beat Thanos twice. [00:49:43] Speaker A: I'm impressed that Avatar and nobody will ever beat it again. Right. Because theater is just wonderful. Make that much money. Well, that's my hot take. Eric probably knows better than I do. [00:49:54] Speaker C: Yeah, we can ask him if you want. [00:49:56] Speaker A: Eric likes going to the movies. [00:49:58] Speaker C: He loves the movies. It's his love language. [00:50:02] Speaker B: I've lost the ability to enjoy movies in the theater. [00:50:05] Speaker A: No. Why? [00:50:07] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:50:09] Speaker A: I feel like I'm ready for a really pragmatic answer. I used to. [00:50:14] Speaker B: No. I used to like, like, really enjoy, like, going to movies. Like my brother in law, we'd always go. Now I go in the movies and I feel like I. I want to turn off my phone and just be disconnected. But then I feel like I'm on this island and if my family needs me or something. And so that's like. It creates this weird anxiety. [00:50:31] Speaker A: Oh, really? Okay. Amazing. Well, thanks for being honest. Yeah. I'm going to the Lord of the Rings. Fellowship of the ring. [00:50:38] Speaker B: Ooh, the 25th re release. [00:50:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the 16th it is. It's like a Friday. Something like that. [00:50:43] Speaker C: Is it all three movies or is it just one? [00:50:45] Speaker A: They're showing all three, like Friday, Saturday, Sunday. [00:50:47] Speaker C: Oh, fun. [00:50:48] Speaker A: But I'm just gonna go to the Fellowship. I can't commit. I love those movies more than any other movie ever. And watching all three of them in theater back to back to back sounds hard. So I'm not doing that. [00:51:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Over the years, anytime I've been like, I should, I'm gonna rewatch the Lord of the Rings. And then you get about two thirds the first one. You're like, oh, man, there's a lot of content here. It's just a lot. It's a lot. [00:51:15] Speaker A: I did watch them all. We did the triple header when I was in college. Me and a friend got pizza, had stuff delivered, watched. Yeah, dude, you're three quarters of the way through the third one especially, and you're like, just throw it in the fire. [00:51:28] Speaker B: Destroy. [00:51:29] Speaker A: You know, taking on Samwise Gamgee's character. It's a long time to be watching. [00:51:34] Speaker B: You're choking down a cold cube of lasagna. It's 4:30 in the morning. [00:51:40] Speaker A: You got to take the fork in like a steak knife to get through it, you know? It's great practice fuel. [00:51:48] Speaker B: That's terrible. Anyway, if you asked a group of. [00:51:53] Speaker A: People which of the three of us ate cold lasagna regularly for a few months in college, everyone would answer. [00:52:00] Speaker B: Everyone would get it right. [00:52:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Nobody would miss that. [00:52:03] Speaker B: Everyone would get it right. Oh, my goodness. Well, we're all being a little honest then today. Yeah. Cubes of lasagna. Anxiety in movie theaters. [00:52:15] Speaker A: People keep saying they like the honesty. [00:52:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Did you open up Lindsay? [00:52:19] Speaker C: I did not. I'm a closed book. [00:52:21] Speaker B: Eight seconds. [00:52:21] Speaker A: She did. Out of E. Oh, I did. [00:52:23] Speaker C: Talk about out of me. [00:52:23] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Okay. [00:52:24] Speaker B: That way that counts.