Rich, Young, and Powerful

[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: And I'm Evan Earwicker. Hi, Ben. Hey, good morning. Hi, Lindsay. [00:00:22] Speaker C: Hello. [00:00:23] Speaker A: Lindsay with her own camera. What a cool setup, you guys. She's finally joined the pod. [00:00:29] Speaker B: So we know it's a little cliche. You have a couple middle aged guys doing a podcast and they cut to the producer off camera. [00:00:37] Speaker C: Their young producer off camera. [00:00:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:40] Speaker B: So we thought, you know, we should get a camera for Lindsay. Just kidding. [00:00:45] Speaker C: I'm middle aged too. [00:00:47] Speaker A: Well, I think there's been discussion about having you at the table. I think you pushed back on that harder than anybody. [00:00:54] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't enjoy being on camera at the table, but alas, here we are now. [00:01:00] Speaker B: You're on camera in the corner. [00:01:02] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:01:02] Speaker A: There's a sense of safety and individualism over there. I think. You're not stuck when you're in the corner. Kinda actually kind of. Yeah. You're surrounded. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:01:14] Speaker B: So we. Speaking of middle age, we had this moment where we discussed something. [00:01:19] Speaker A: You said, oh, my gosh. [00:01:22] Speaker B: You were referencing a conversation that happened about how we're the adults in the room basically here at the church now, and there's a little bit important imposter syndrome where it feels like certainly we're not the ones. You know. [00:01:33] Speaker A: Totally. [00:01:34] Speaker B: There's somebody else. Right. That's gonna make the decisions. And at some point, you and us had this conversation where the point was made. Like, no, we are. We're the ones. [00:01:45] Speaker A: Yes. Time to lead. [00:01:47] Speaker B: But you referenced how Lindsay said that we're basically in our 40s. [00:01:52] Speaker A: I think I said we're in our 40s. [00:01:55] Speaker C: You said that. I said that we're in our 40s. [00:01:59] Speaker A: Right. Which none of us are. Right. [00:02:04] Speaker B: We are nearing our 40s. I'm 40 next week. [00:02:07] Speaker A: So he just said. I just lied. Yeah, I lied about it. I think what you said is, we're almost in our 40s. I know 40s was referenced. I am confident and I'll die on that hill. [00:02:17] Speaker B: But what was humorous about it is anyone that knows Lindsay knows she would never preemptively claim that she was in her 40s. [00:02:24] Speaker A: People keep saying this. Why would you not? I mean, it's just rounding up. [00:02:29] Speaker C: I enjoy feeling young, is 40 old. Okay, well, you're backing me into a corner here because. [00:02:37] Speaker A: No, you put yourself in that corner. You painted it and you decorated it all on your own. [00:02:42] Speaker C: I'm sure we have many people in their 40s. 40s are. It's a great decade. There's nothing wrong with being your 40s. I'll embrace it when I get there. [00:02:49] Speaker A: Sure. [00:02:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:50] Speaker C: The point is, I am not there. [00:02:52] Speaker A: Right, right, right. Yeah. [00:02:53] Speaker B: And I'm not. Nobody's saying, like, oh, people in their 40s are so old. It's just no one claim at 55 is like, I'm basically in my 60. No one rounds up. Yeah, no one rounds up. [00:03:03] Speaker C: Well, Ben rounds up. [00:03:04] Speaker A: That's totally fair. Yeah, that's totally fair. I understand that. I like it. So I do actually come from the perspective of I prefer people to think I'm older than I am. And some of that's just our position and things like that. People get weird. Not very often. People get weird when they learn things about your age or stage of life when you have our jobs. And again, it hasn't happened for a while, so I do. When people are like, wow, you really look 45. I'm like, I don't really. I could take that as an insult, but I actually appreciate it. [00:03:32] Speaker B: Yeah. People are maybe watching this right now and be like, ben and Evan are still in their 30s. That has been a rough huge. [00:03:40] Speaker A: You noticed that nobody, like, didn't believe me, right, When I referenced that? Yeah. [00:03:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:45] Speaker A: It actually really bugged me that I messed up that bad for, like, a good day. [00:03:50] Speaker C: No. [00:03:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, it did. I don't like the idea that, like, Ben's making junk up up there, you know? And that felt like, oh, Ben was really making something up after we talked. I'm all good. [00:04:03] Speaker B: I didn't. Because I was in the conversation, and it resonated as true to me. Not that she was like, we are all in our 40s, but that you were saying, like, we're of the age 100%. And that was what you were trying to say. [00:04:17] Speaker A: The idea of the story still stands, for sure. And we absolutely did have that conversation. The numbers 40s I used inappropriately, and I'd like to apologize firmly for it. Oh. But you certainly, Lindsay, have every right to say, ben, stop it. Don't put that on me. [00:04:38] Speaker C: If I don't want it, I'll own it. When I'm in my 40s, but I'm not there yet. [00:04:43] Speaker B: Many, many weeks from now when you're there. So rude. So many weeks. [00:04:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Along with my formal apology, I would like to say Lindsay's the youngest person on our staff. So there you go. That's true. [00:04:56] Speaker C: Speaking of lies. [00:04:57] Speaker A: That's not true. No. Having Gwen on the staff, who I think is our youngest member of the staff now, right? 22, 23. Yeah, she is. [00:05:07] Speaker C: She might be the youngest. [00:05:08] Speaker A: Oh, man. This is the first hire that we've made where I've been like, oh, I feel. I'm feeling it. Like, I'm feeling a lot older now. And having. We've referenced it before, like, we've always been young for whatever job, you know, younger senior pastors is really who we are now. And then you have Gwen in the room, and it's like, oh, shoot. We're not like the young people on staff anymore, which is great. [00:05:29] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, anybody born after 9, 11 now seems really young, but that's not even that young anymore. There's like another generation under those people. So get used to it, guys. [00:05:41] Speaker A: Seriously. Yeah, this is happening to us. I'm ready for the wisdom to happen first. Do you ever get that feeling of like, yeah, all that stuff will happen, but I'll feel like I have the wisdom to be the older person in the room or whatever. I think. And maybe that's where we go back to the story. I think that's the piece that a lot of people struggle with, that imposter syndrome. We feel like it's just gonna happen some. The mantle quote, unquote. And it doesn't happen really like that, right? [00:06:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. The meme, I think. Did I share this last week? I hope I'm not repeating myself. That would be a sign of my age. [00:06:19] Speaker A: Lean into it. Let's go. [00:06:20] Speaker B: But the meme of, you know, when I was young, I didn't realize that adults were as incompetent or as stupid as they are. I had my suspicions, but now it's proved, like, you know, you get to adulthood, you're like, oh, yeah, my parents, who were 27 or 32, they were just figuring it out. But as a kid, you think like, oh, they're the end all, and they're old and wise and now we are the parents or we are the. And it's like, I think people figure it out as they go. And that's human. [00:06:49] Speaker A: Yeah. It's those different stages with how you parents, there's traditionally that, like, yeah, they're the hero and they're the greatest thing. You turn into your early twenties and then you start realizing, oh, my gosh, how fallible and how quote, unquote, behind or whatever they are. But then the older you get, the more you empathize with them, and then they kind of become your hero again because you're walking in those shoes of where all Of a sudden, you do realize the level of sacrifice or care or love or time that goes into being a parent. And it's this funny little wave that we all have the tendency to ride. [00:07:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And then you blink, and then you're taking care of your parents. And it's this fast cycle, right? [00:07:29] Speaker A: Yeah, really fast. It is much faster. I mean, it's like they always say. Right. But then you're in it and you feel the speed and it changes everything. [00:07:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. So, speaking of age, we talked about the rich young ruler in your message on Sunday, which is a very. It's an interesting moment in. I think most of the gospels tell the story. [00:07:51] Speaker A: Three. Three of them. [00:07:52] Speaker B: John, Mark and Luke. Luke, yeah. And the story of this influential, successful, got it all together, moral, religious young guy that wants to check off another thing on his list of having it all together, which is to kind of get Jesus stamp of. Here's how you have eternal life. And what was your take on kind of the context of this as you read it? What brought this guy to Jesus? Any thoughts on that in the story? Yeah. [00:08:23] Speaker A: I reference in the teaching that it seems as though the rich young ruler, in trying to gain wisdom. [00:08:29] Speaker B: Right. [00:08:29] Speaker A: Has accomplished all these things at such a young age and has that feeling like a lot of us do, if not all of us. But I would say, especially people that I've talked to that have achieved, quote, unquote, big success or the desirable things of the world, they get to this suspicious place of life where they go, huh. I still feel like something's missing. And my suspicion is that's where the rich young ruler is at, because he comes to Jesus, he can access all these different rabbis. But of course, Jesus is kind of the hot topic at the time. But he goes to him and he asks him a very basic question, a question that rabbis use all the time in framing their own teachings. They would say, how do we get into the kingdom of Heaven? How do we obtain the kingdom of Heaven? And then they would teach from there. And so he asked him that question, I think, hoping to get a new practice or a new thing that he can kind of add to the repertoire in order to say, okay, I haven't really thought about that, but I want something new is what he's looking for, because he's been through already all the old things and he's found success. And yet he still finds himself looking for something more, but ultimately unwilling to sacrifice the thing that Jesus encourages him to sacrifice to find that thing. Right. [00:09:41] Speaker B: What seems like it resonates so Much with our culture now is this idea of that my faith or my religion or my Jesus is a really nice way to round out my life. And this is when I read this story or hear you preach it, I'm like, oh, man. I feel that where I want to have the stuff and I want to have the success and I want to have all the pieces that make a good life. And also Jesus would be a nice add to that, too. Wouldn't that be great to feel like I've kind of conquered my spirituality too? [00:10:17] Speaker A: Spirituality, right. I think this rich young ruler could go into that area of a lot of spiritualism today. A lot of people feel spiritual and they want to go on journeys and discover themselves or. Yeah. Have all these experiences that I actually think in a lot of ways are really great. But it is kind of this obtaining still it's a gathering just like we do finances or safety. I'm going to gather spirituality. I don't really want to follow something or sacrifice for something, but I'm just going to gain as many things as I can and believe that that's going to translate to a better feeling in my soul and not just my bank account, which of course isn't necessarily true. And I think the rich young ruler, you could say, when you compare it to modern times might be the closest thing to what we have to a lot of young people today in that they have access to just about everything they can do, lots and lots and lots of things. But we have this anxiety and depression epidemic. And you even see the rich young Rutherwin actually faced with an opportunity to go ahead and follow after Jesus goes away sad and grieving because, well, I can't give up all of these things to actually find this real, true life that I'm after. So there's some interesting parallels. Yeah. Between maybe more than some of the stories that you find in the gospel. [00:11:34] Speaker B: Right. It reminds me of a story I heard several years ago. My cousin was the chaplain for the Seahawks for a couple seasons and one of the first times he talked with Pete Kelly. Pete Kelly. [00:11:48] Speaker A: Pete Carroll. [00:11:49] Speaker B: Carroll. Excuse me. [00:11:49] Speaker A: No, it's great. It's Pete Kelly that is a famous person. I do not know, though that name rings true in my mind too. [00:11:57] Speaker B: Anyway, Pete Carroll. Yeah. This is what happens when I tell a Seahawk story. So he met with Pete Carroll and they were talking about faith and they were going to do a chapel for whichever the team members wanted to join in. And Pete Carroll, I think it was an offhanded remark, but he's like, when it comes to faith. They were talking about this. He's like, I just want us to win everything. And I want it to be with our faith, too. And it was this idea of, like, we are champions in everything we're doing, and faith is one more thing that we want to be champions at. So can you do this for us? [00:12:32] Speaker A: Always, always compete is Pete's. That's funny. Is Pete's thing. Always compete. [00:12:37] Speaker B: And so this idea of if we arrive at this upper echelon of the human experience, well, our spirituality has to be competitively good as well. And Jesus comes in to this guy who is kind of in this category, right? And he's like, slow clap for all the things you've done, right? It's not good enough. And it's this kind of gut punch to a guy who's thinking he's pretty awesome. And Jesus is like, that's not what this is about. It's not a performance thing. It's not a competition that's going to get you into the kingdom of heaven. Actually, it's going to be to follow me. And like we talked about last week, the cost of following me is everything. [00:13:18] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not good enough is even an interesting phrase that you use. Because Jesus does something here that I don't know that he does often. It seems like he's being a little extra bombastic with his language, right? He says. He uses the phrase that I liken to, like when pigs fly. He says, well, a camel. Easier for a camel to go through. I have a needle. Which is like, this is ridiculous and it's impossible. It doesn't happen. And he gets to the end of the story. He says, this is impossible, but nothing is impossible with God. But it's like he's trying to make this extra point out of it. You can't do this. It's not good enough. And we know Joseph Arimathea, who buried Jesus in his tomb at the end, is a very rich follower of Christ and Zacchaeus and Lazarus. And there's these other people that are very rich people that it's never mentioned. He doesn't confront them. He doesn't tell them to get rid of everything that they have. And interesting that he does it with this guy. And the conclusion of the message was it's because this is actually holding him, right? [00:14:22] Speaker B: This is what you're actually trusting in. [00:14:24] Speaker A: Exactly. Your father. And it says he grieved as he walked away. And it's the same word that Jesus is used for Jesus grieving in the garden of gethsemane grieving this disconnect from the father through the process of death. [00:14:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. By the way, Pete Kelly is our good friend at Antioch Church. Oh, my gosh. [00:14:42] Speaker A: No, he's a celebrity. [00:14:45] Speaker B: So, yeah, local pastor here, a good friend of ours. But, yeah, I totally called that out wrong. So if you're. If you're part of Antioch or you're Pete and you're listening to this podcast, we love you. We know who you are. [00:14:57] Speaker A: We do love you. [00:14:57] Speaker B: It's just the. The names are so similar. It threw us off. [00:15:00] Speaker A: Yeah. It's all the lighting and the microphones. [00:15:03] Speaker B: And everything like that. Oh, it's our good friend. I loved how you did point out what I've heard. I think we've all heard it preached of, like, well, there was this thing called the camel gate. And to get into Jerusalem and through the camel gate, or the. Sorry, the. [00:15:19] Speaker A: The needle. [00:15:20] Speaker B: Yeah, the eye of the needle. The camels had to bend down on their knees like they're worshiping. And it's nothing. That's made up. That is not true. There's no such thing. [00:15:30] Speaker A: I literally went through, granted, I guess, all the people that I trust, and there's nothing. There's no confirmation. [00:15:36] Speaker B: It's made up. [00:15:37] Speaker A: That is a thing. It seems, honestly, very like, late 90s evangelicalism did that. [00:15:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's so revealing that that has been a thing in church preaching that, like, oh, there is a way, actually, that you can trust in your riches and still be good with God. It just takes a lot of work. And that is so opposite of the point Jesus is making where, hey, it is impossible to trust your stuff and to follow me. So you choose. And the fact that we would even conjure up these mental gymnastics to let us love our stuff more than Jesus and still be good with him tells you how much this stuff has us still. You know, it's fascinating. [00:16:23] Speaker A: And he's not pulling the punch right. It's really. This is a hard teaching from Jesus because he's looking at him and saying, this is impossible. He's looking at the disciples and saying, this is impossible. And then he goes away sad. And then he said, but nothing is impossible with God. So he's doing this thing where he's saying, my intervention, my miraculous nature, who I am, can come in. It can change this completely. And it's impossible. He's just. He's not willing to do. Yeah, the camel through the eye of the needle thing, that was made up of like, well, yeah, there's a process and it comes in the form of this storytelling and camels on their knees. And, you know, he's doing both. He's holding both at the same time, which makes it a difficult teaching of Jesus, I think, that we're asked to sit with in the full context of it and allow ourselves to wrestle with it, that Jesus says it's impossible. He does. He says that, and I think he means it. And he's full of grace and mercy and forgiveness and is the one that bridges the gap for all of us. [00:17:25] Speaker B: Yes. And it seems harsh, harsh, but it is a kindness to not let people think the thing that is not gonna get them there might. You know, and the metaphor that pops to my mind is like, you remember in the old photos of, like, people when they were trying to learn how to fly before, you know, before actual airplanes were invented. And so they're, you know, they're putting feathers on their bodies and they have these wings and they jump off of little hills and flap their arms, and none of that is ever going to get you in the air. [00:17:57] Speaker A: And it's a kindness to let them out. [00:17:58] Speaker B: It is a kindness to not say, yeah, no, try. Try jump off that high, high place and see what happens. That's not a kindness because, you know, it's not going to get the job done. I feel like that's what Jesus is doing is like, don't, don't half follow me and think that's gonna get you. Either you're in or you're out, and that's for your sake. Go live your rich young ruler life or follow me. But it's gonna be really hard for you to do both because you think that that stuff is what is the most important. And if, as long as you feel that way, as long as your trust is in that, you're not gonna get there. So it's a kindness of Jesus that plays pretty harsh. And even I could tell, even as you're preaching it, we're all sitting there. Many of us who have means, have resources. And it's a tough teaching, sitting in a room of majority rich people saying there's no way unless God steps in, that you get to heaven. What a hard statement. [00:18:58] Speaker A: When you teach, do you ever find yourself in this place where you feel like the text is hard and you have two options? You can do the camel through the eye of the needle thing. Well, let me explain this for you and soften it up. And then a lot of times I feel like the text is hard for a reason, and I kind of want to pull that off. The Page and then put that atmosphere into the room so that we feel that tension. Because I think Jesus taught it in this way, right? It's tempting to go through the Sermon on the Mount and have him have Jesus talk about, well, you've heard it said that it's supposed to be this way, but it's actually way harder. It's way more. If you even look at a woman the wrong way, that's committing adultery and not even having to sleep with her, and the crowd is going, this is insane. We've already felt totally crushed underneath the law. I know you're crushing us even further, but do you ever have that feeling of, like, I want this to feel hard for everyone. I want us to wrestle and grapple with it right in real time. And we even talk between services, like, what's. What's a rich person? By definition, when you look at the world, everybody in the room is rich. But there's also some scholars and teachers out there that I listen to that are like, it's important in the context of actually hierarchy. It's not even just about, how much money do you have compared to the poorest people in the world. It's about, where do you find yourself in your context that makes you feel like God. Because the person making the least amount of money in Bend is rich compared to the other rest of the world. But they don't feel like I am on top of the world, and I run the show. And I think that's the thing that Jesus is trying to pull out. [00:20:38] Speaker B: I heard once that because of the rising cost of housing in Aspen, that the millionaires are getting bought out by the billionaires. And so there's this hierarchy, right, of like, well, this used to be the playground for the millionaires. Now we got the billionaires. So now the millionaires are the ones on the bottom rung. And I'm not not saying we should feel sympathy for the millionaires. [00:20:57] Speaker A: No, no, I get it. [00:20:58] Speaker B: But there's this idea of the billionaire with the biggest house now in Aspen, 30 years ago, that might have just been a millionaire, but now it changes. And to your point, yeah, it's less about, do I have enough rice to eat today if I'm poor in a country that's very, very poor, or do I not have money to put gas in my car or pay the electric bill here in America? Both of those can get to. Of this differential or this. Somebody else has more. And so they feel like they've got it figured out when they look at my situation. And that's different based on context. The important thing is for those of us who know or feel like we're at the top to ask the question, what are we putting our faith in? And that has very little to do with how much money physically is in a bank account. It's more about where we're putting our trust. [00:21:53] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. So I think both things are true. I think we should examine ourselves as a wealthy country in the world. But I think what the cultural hierarchy thing does is when you're on the bottom or the middle of the totem pole, wherever you're at, you naturally kind of experience this. Oh, yeah, I'm not the greatest thing in the whole world, and I can't make all the decisions, and I'm not in charge of. I'm not God. And I'm reminded of that every day on my way to work or whatever the case might be. And I think that's the thing that Jesus is trying to build in the rich, young rulers and I. That you've built your life to a certain point where you could trick yourself into believing that you are a deity. And I'm trying to pull you off of that. And that's maybe not where Lazarus had been. And just Veremathea, these other followers, they never found themselves there, but this one does. [00:22:42] Speaker B: Yeah, right. And for these hard statements of Jesus, what is not true in this story, it's not confusing. He's not being mysterious or vague. There's some teachings of Jesus where you're like, whoa, I don't even know what he's trying. Like, this is hard because I don't understand what he's saying. He's pretty clear here. And so I do like these kind of drop it. And then we actually have to deal with this because we know what he's saying. And I think sometimes with the disciples, he's telling parables, and they're like, this is really confusing. Other times like this, they're saying, this is really hard. We get it. And it's really hard. And those are the pieces, I do think, that are actually so much more compelling for those who are looking to be a follower of Jesus is when it is a difficult thing, you know, it is the challenge that Jesus throws down. And we have to wrestle with that. Because if it's such a soft gospel that never asks anything of us, is that really compelling or attractive, who wants that? You know? And I think there is something really compelling about saying this is impossible. But I think God can do it. But it's gonna take a lot from you and I think people lean into that. [00:23:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:53] Speaker B: You know? [00:23:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so, too. And I'm curious how we pastor people through that. Again, Our tendency in our pastoring can be to pull a punch to make someone feel comfortable. We've got a lot of wealthy people in our congregation, a lot of wealthy people in our area. We are on the west side of Bend, which means something in this day and age. And I didn't go to everybody and say, you got to throw out all your money. So how do we pastor people into this really meaning something? Because if I'm a person of great means in that room, I'm probably coming away going, yeah, well, I'm more Joseph Arimathea, I guess, and I'll hang on to my stuff. Thank you very much. How do we do that? It feels like a really complex thing. Long term, tough to teach, but even tougher over the long term to pastor. [00:24:43] Speaker B: I. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know that it's all that different from what we talked about through the election cycle and having to really want to be a certain way or yell about a certain thing or be so passionate about a certain thing. We told the congregation, like, you have to give that to Jesus. You have to bow to him only. And I think when it comes to money and wealth, if it's discipleship with Jesus, you have to say, I know you want to just take all the wealth and all the resources and have all the comfort and all the niceties that life has to offer. You have to give that to Jesus, too. You know? And I think maybe there's other approaches. I don't know any others, but that is discipleship. That is following Jesus is saying, you have to surrender yourself. All of it, all of it, every day. That is what it takes to follow him. And I love this passage in Mark, the last couple weeks we've been in, because this is the turning point where up until now, it seems like following Jesus is like free lunch and a blank check, like he can do anything. [00:25:51] Speaker A: This is great. [00:25:52] Speaker B: And now we've turned the corner and he's heading towards Jerusalem. And now it's all about the cost. It's, yeah, you can follow me. And the weak are going to be made strong, and the last shall be first. But first we actually have to walk to our deaths. Are you ready for that? And I think the disciples have to wrestle with that, and we do, too. [00:26:12] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's a big part of our pastoring is allowing people to wrestle themselves with the Holy Spirit and to figure that out. And there's A few good gauges along the way, referenced a few in the teaching. You know, let's talk about socioeconomic stuff. If you're a person of means, how do you feel about mingling with people that are not on the same rung of the social ladder than you? Does that bother you? Do you ever do it? Is that. Are you okay with never participating up or down from there? And do you make assumptions about those kinds of people? When do you think about poor people? Is it only when you feel like they're inconveniencing you or erecting tents in the middle of the off ramps and on ramps? Is that the only time, or is it others when you consider the broken or the less fortunate in the world than you? And then even within faith, we are a wealthy people. We believe in being able to follow after Jesus. How do we consider people that do not follow after Jesus maybe are antagonistic toward his cause, that don't subscribe to the same morals and ethics than you do? How do you think of them? How often do you think of them and in what context? And then I think we can see ourselves. Are we being discipleshiped or are we holding on to our riches and wealth as a means to say that we're justified in how we live? [00:27:23] Speaker B: Right. And the mind games we play to justify what is sometimes even like sinful behavior with how we hold our money or the greed that we operate in? And we have wonderful, beautiful, clean ways to make it all okay. And I do feel like these teachings kind of cut through all that and say, no, I know you have good reasons why you're not going to help somebody on the street because that enables cycles of dependency and all that. All that's true. But you're hiding behind that. [00:27:58] Speaker A: Yes. [00:27:58] Speaker B: To be a stingy, greedy, selfish person that looks nothing like the heart of Jesus. So if you can operate in the mercy and the generosity of Christ and then tell me that this is why, that's dependency and that's going to be bad. Okay, that's great. I'll listen to that all day long. But when that is the shield that keeps us from having to be merciful or generous or kind, we will always have reasons why it makes sense to not help, to not be merciful, to not give, to not follow Jesus. And at some point we have to just realize that Jesus is asking us to lay those down too, right? [00:28:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And it's tempting to make just big, sweeping judgments even about this text. I understand why people, when we talk about politics, I understand why it's Tempting to just say, we're going right and we're going to go hard at it because it's so simple. We're going to go left. And I've seen this text used to talk about eat the rich, basically, yeah, this is Jesus hating rich people and saying Jesus certainly pushes hard on them and we're not pulling punches on the wealthy. But Jesus also creates an invitation to come and to follow after and to care for. It's so tempting with all this stuff to just say, I'm going to go in this one direction. I'm going to go as hard as I can. The complexity in the middle of it is where the riches are, where the good things are. I referenced the Tim Keller quote that I had never heard. A few people had told me after the service, they were like, oh, yeah, I remember hearing that 20 years ago. But him talking about the difficult things that Jesus teaches is hard candy, that you have to hold them in order to understand the sweetness. And if you bite on them, you'll break yourself. If you swallow them immediately, you won't digest. But to hold them right. And what a beautiful picture of what I hope our church is doing and what I think it's doing, because that's the real discipleship. Not to just go ahead and make a massive judgment about a certain piece of text, but to hold it. [00:30:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And for all of us who are people that have resource and, you know, find ourselves maybe not at the top of society's ladder, but not at the bottom, for sure. We have to wrestle with these moments where Jesus isn't saying, like, the rich are going to have a hard time finding the kingdom, but also the poor. There's two sides to this. Not really. Jesus is never coming down hard on the poor. [00:30:30] Speaker A: Right. [00:30:31] Speaker B: Ever. [00:30:32] Speaker A: Totally. [00:30:33] Speaker B: And so there are times in our lives where we have to be like, yeah, there's not two sides to this. It's going to be harder for me, a person of wealth, to have genuine discipleship following after Jesus than it is for someone who's poor and knows that they're dependent on what they don't have from God, you know? And so, I don't know. I know people would probably, maybe this is prosperity teaching or whatever, make the case for, like, well, the sign that you're good with God is that you have means. So if you don't, that means you've done something wrong. That's actually not Jesus. That's not in there. And so I feel like, no, there's these moments where there's not two sides to this, you're gonna have a harder time. So you really are gonna have to surrender some stuff to Jesus more so than the person that has nothing. [00:31:22] Speaker A: How much of that comes from, like, really wanting to count stuff in our relationship with God, we wanna count so bad. We love the idea of, I have all these children. They're all successful based on this metric. Our churches are successful because we have X amount of people. And that's the metric that we have. Have in there. I think the money thing makes sense again, because we do. We like the simple math equation of, I'm doing a good job, I've been praying a lot, I've been going through my practices, God's blessed me. [00:31:49] Speaker B: Yeah. It's metrics that give us feedback. [00:31:51] Speaker A: Oh, feels so good. And it just so rarely fits into the actual understanding. The disciple of Jesus. Those metrics don't necessarily go hand in hand. [00:32:01] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's comparison. Right? Like, if. If there was no other churches in town, we'd probably care less about counting how many people are at our church. If no one else had wealth and you were all living in a section of the world where poverty was the norm, maybe it would still matter. But it would maybe matter less if there wasn't these disparities. And so I think it is the comparison that we want to look side to side and make sure we're okay because, well, I've got more than he does, so that must mean, you know, I'm on God's good side. And I understand that impulse, but it's pretty dark. [00:32:37] Speaker A: It's pretty dark, man. [00:32:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:39] Speaker A: Church competition is one of the darkest conversations I think, that you can have or things that can infest into your soul, you know? What do you think, Lindsay? They're both sides to this entire thing that Evan and I are missing out on. [00:32:54] Speaker C: No, I think you guys are hitting the nail on the head. And I agree with you. I think, gosh, our culture, our American Western society sets us up to think this way, to think in these types of metrics. The more people, the better. The more money, the better, the more success, the better. And when we look at the culture, the time that Jesus was coming from, I mean, yes, riches were obviously a thing, but it was just different. They had different mindsets about these types of things. And so I think as a people immersed in the water of this culture, we have a responsibility to become aware of our tendency to compare, to measure, to do these things and to push back against it, because it's not the only way. It's just the Only way we know it's again, it's the water we swim in. [00:33:46] Speaker B: The Gospel of Mark, the story, it kind of gives us a visual of this idea of pushing against the. Everything gets bigger and better and brighter and up into the right. Because they're like we talked about last week. They're up in the hill country in the north, and they have to go all the way down Dead Sea, below sea level before then they start their ascent into Jerusalem to be facing betrayal and Jesus crucifixion. And I think that is the picture right when you feel like you're at the top of your game and everybody loves you and the success is all there. Probably the next request is that Jesus is going to say, now follow me. We're going to go to the lowest of low places. Only then to be raised up into what is this new way of life, which is suffering and death and dying daily, like Paul said, to somehow obtain Christ. [00:34:42] Speaker A: It sounds like spiritual formation is what you're talking about. This would be Eugene Peterson's long obedience in the same direction to the low places and then to do the songs of ascent. Is that the answer? Is that spiritual formation space? And again, I'm looking at you, Lindsay, because this is your area of expertise more than me, but, like, it's my only thought to the question of, like, we keep doing this. We keep saying, we hear the people at the top of the ladders. And I talked about this in my message a little bit. Like, I listen to interviews with beautiful people talking about their beautiful spouse and all of their money and all of their experience and saying. And I deal with a tremendous amount of anxiety and depression. And the more money I get, the more I worry about my money. And yet, for some reason, all of us get in line and we go, well, I mean, I'll give it a shot, but let me try. I think I can do it different. I think I'd be better at it. Is spiritual formation the answer? [00:35:42] Speaker C: Yes, Spiritual formation is the answer to everything. I actually believe that. I really do. You just start doing it different, and you keep doing it different until that's your new. That's the new water you swim in. You know, I'm mixing analogies there, but you. You push against that, that mindset by incorporating new types of rhythms, practices, mindsets, habits, and you do them over and over and over again until you are. Are formed into someone who thinks different, who acts different, who talks differently. So, yeah, spiritual formation is the answer. [00:36:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I think it's interesting because there's some counting. I Think I've been thinking about this. With spiritual formation there is, you can say I'm going to adopt these three practices and I'm going to do them five times a week. So there is some counting and there's like some discipline which a lot of us like the, that doesn't just fit our own Christian spiritual community that comes from the wellness community or not comes from, but that is in it exists in those spaces as well. Right. I think the thing that I've noticed with people going through the spiritual formation renaissance is that they miss or skip the step in which their faith creates a tremendous amount of inconvenience or it encourages them to do something that maybe the wellness group would consider to be a little irresponsible, responsible or unhealthy. Again, caring about or being generous is not necessarily a part of all these things. What generosity can do. And even sometimes the stress that generosity can create in us, it doesn't feel necessarily like, well, I'm doing the right thing. And gosh, I feel really bad actually, or I feel a little bit scared. And Jesus brings us into that in our spiritual formation. [00:37:35] Speaker B: Right. [00:37:36] Speaker A: And so that's maybe where it disconnects from other things, things that we feel a bit more comfortable with. [00:37:42] Speaker C: That's a really good point actually, because spiritual formation is not a self help prescription, right? It's not become your best self. So do these 10 practices every day. That's not the point. It is costly because you are swimming upstream. But I think that's a really important distinction that you just made. It's not self help, it's not self betterment. It is helping. It's assisting in following the way of Jesus. That's what it is. It's adopting these practices to better follow him, to position yourself in a space where you are more able to hear, ready to act. You're in a position that supports this new way of following after him. [00:38:29] Speaker B: So with spiritual formation, can we be formed through things that are pleasant, comfortable, you know, can you win the jackpot and can that spiritually form you or does that always push against our spiritual formation in the way of Jesus when things go really well? [00:38:51] Speaker C: That's a good question. I think we're always being formed. So yes, those things can absolutely form you. I don't know. Oh man, I don't know that they form you pushing you to follow after Jesus. I think that feeds more of a self sustaining, self made. I'm not aware of my needs because all the needs are being met. So that actually speaks to your point of the Wealthy have it harder, right, because they aren't aware of as many needs. They're very self sufficient. They have everything that they could want. So it's harder to lean into a dependency type of relationship with Christ. Yeah, I don't know. [00:39:36] Speaker B: Isn't it interesting? When we talk about meeting the needs of people for good reason, we always talk about getting them out of dependency. And in that, baked in that I think is an attitude for those of us who are not dependent is that we are self made and self sufficient. And if we could just get everybody else to be self sufficient, wouldn't the world be a better place? And then Jesus comes in and he's like, actually the only way to inherit eternal life is to be dependent and to realize that you're not self sufficient. And so we have this clash of ideology, of what makes sense economically and just logically with the way of Jesus that says you can't do it on your own, you won't do it on your own and you'll destroy yourself trying. So give up the hope of that and fall completely on the mercy of God. And it's so antithetical to what we're even trying to create, even good people doing good work to try to get people to stand on their own two feet. And Jesus is like, those two feet aren't going to hold you up. [00:40:39] Speaker A: Falling on the mercy of God takes you to strange places, which is again, I think, where some of the disconnect happens from how we perceive spiritual formation sometimes and how the wellness community again approaches things. And I wonder if one of the main things is boundaries. I mean, think about my own spiritual formation. Deconstruction was a part of that. Reconsidering, being thoughtful, contemplative. My prayer life has changed. A big moment in my spiritual formation was going to Scotland and doing a pilgrimage for 10 days. I've, through therapy and other forms of mentorship and instruction, been like, well, here's some boundaries you have to create in order to have some health. But the thing is that Jesus continues to spend time with toxic and ignorant people that push him and challenge him in ways that they shouldn't and still find himself with incredibly needy people by intention. Those are the people that he's even come to save and to be with. And I think sometimes we can just talk ourselves into. And maybe this is where it goes back to the rich young ruler we talk ourselves into. I would love another practice that makes me feel like I am counting something and I'm making progress. But the thing is that while none of Those things are necessarily bad enough themselves. The journey with Jesus will pull you into all these different places still, it doesn't take you away from that geography, but instead it shifts shapes and forms your heart. [00:42:10] Speaker B: And in the church calendar we have Lent, which feels like, and maybe this is historically true or not, but it feels like it's four days baked in for spiritual formation. And for centuries, this is how Christians have treated this season of the year is that before we get to the resurrection, we're going to sit in some formative practice and, and repentance and fasting. And these are spiritual practices that form us so that we get to Easter Sunday and we can fully receive, fully say yes to this unbelievably good news that Jesus is not dead. And remembering the story of the road to Emmaus in Luke's gospel, where they don't understand these two travelers don't understand exactly who they're walking with until the very end. And they realize, and it strikes them, the greatness of this news. And I feel like we want to get to those days post Easter ready to walk with Jesus and then realize like he was with us this whole time and receive that with joy. And so these practices kind of prepare us, I think, for those encounters with Jesus that we're looking, looking forward to on the tail end of these 40 days, which is so cool that baked into our calendar. Hopefully we have these seasons where we focus on formation. [00:43:39] Speaker A: And to be clear, I don't think spiritual formation leads us to these places. I think we lead ourselves into these places in the veil under the guise of spiritual formation. I don't want to make it confusing for people that I think spiritual formation is bad. It's the thing. Thing I love reading especially the Eugene Petersons of the world that explain spiritual formation through so many different lenses and poetry and storytelling and theology. But I just know the human tendency to take any good thing and to put it on ourselves and to distort it just enough to avoid the Lenten pieces of the calendar. [00:44:17] Speaker B: Right. [00:44:18] Speaker A: In order to experience the rest of it. And this is something that's just in a little bit of the Christian zeitgeist right now that I think is awesome and huge progress, especially for evangelicalism. And there are these little dark sides of are we actually being formed or are we just using this as our own little Christian spa in order to do what we would like to and count it as righteousness? [00:44:41] Speaker B: And maybe that's what Jesus would say to the rich young ruler today is, are you really wanting, wanting eternal life or do you want the nice Christian spa experience? [00:44:50] Speaker A: How do I be spiritually formed is the question, right? Yeah. And it's true. That's a good comparison. A lot of people are asking that question inside and outside the Christian faith, and Jesus. Yeah. Would probably have a similar response. Ooh. How difficult it is for the rich to be spiritually formed. They think they're doing it, but yet they need to make these sacrifices to truly weigh together into the waters. [00:45:14] Speaker B: Yeah, well, we're not here to eat the rich. Neither is Jesus. It's an invitation for all of us to surrender what we trust in. Right. [00:45:24] Speaker A: It was a little difficult to not talk about eating the rich with Justin holding a big sign off camera saying that that's actually his theology. [00:45:32] Speaker B: Yeah. What did you write that in blood? Justin, what is going on? [00:45:39] Speaker A: Oh, make fun of the guy without a microphone. That's the best way to go. It is. [00:45:43] Speaker B: He's smiling, so that's good. Behind the Message is produced by Lindsey Parnell. We're your hosts, Ben Fleming and Evan Earwicker. And production, no engineering is happening. By Justin McMahon and Sam Nienbrough. We're back next week. We're gonna work on our credits. We're gonna work on our credits. [00:46:06] Speaker A: Subscribe.