Hey friends, welcome to another episode of the podcast.
Today we're jumping in on a conversation wrapping up Luke
Chapter 7, which I think is going to hopefully be
encouraging to you to continue having your conversations
throughout this week, be it around a dinner table or in a
car with a small group. We really hope that these these
conversations land you in greater community.
So realize that like you're probably listening by yourself,
but our heart, our hope is that it would push you toward
conversation with others. So praying that it would.
Today I've got Chris McLeod with me.
Chris, thanks for joining. My pleasure.
Chris is going to be asking some questions based on the text and
sermon from Sunday. Chris is our director of Youth
ministry and I always get those titles like slightly wrong when
I say them and I did with Elena as well last week.
So all things youth, all of the weekly and yearly youth
ministry, Chris is in charge of and does a great job with with
our teens. So thanks for jumping out of
that for a minute and and into this and you've got some
questions for us. So yeah, Luke 7 if you want
pause, reread it, pull it up on your phone or yeah, open a Bible
if you need a recap. But the end of Luke 7, verse 36
through to 50, verse 50 is the story about Jesus being anointed
by in what most Bibles call a sinful woman.
And it's, it's this intriguing interaction between Jesus, this
woman and a Pharisee named Simon whose house they're all at.
So we're going to get into some of that with with these
questions, but why don't we jump in and get going?
Awesome, Yeah. So first question, why do you
think the woman's act of loves her radical hospitality towards
Jesus? Why was that so powerful to him,
especially when we compare that to Symons's reserved
hospitality? Yeah.
So I, I think for two reasons. The first is like practical, the
we talked a little bit about this on Sunday, which is that
the lady who comes and offers this radical hospitality to
Jesus is actually taking on the role of host that should have
fell to Simon. So I think the first reason why
it is like why we call it radical hospitality, The first
reason why it is so significant to Jesus.
I think Jesus actually explains later on in in the text, right?
So later on he says to Simon, you know, I came into your home
and you didn't offer me water for my feet.
You didn't greet me with a kiss. You didn't offer to anoint my
head with oil. Those are the three main
responsibilities of a host in Jesus day.
So in any situation, if you are the host, if people are to your
house, if you've invited them, if you're hosting a meal, if you
have people, you were expected to be the one to offer those
three things. As the host, it was like your
duty, it was your responsibility.
And so I think Jesus arrives, We don't know this from the
beginning, but we find it out later in Jesus's own words that
Simon didn't do those things, which would have been like a
social misstep for him as religious leader, as a Pharisee,
as a person, one who's hosting Jesus.
Whether or not he, he offered those things to the other
guests, like we don't know. We find out later like that
there are these other guests there and you know, they, they
don't really factor into the story other than we're told
they're there. So whether they received all of
those things from Simon as host and then he didn't offer that
specifically to Jesus, we can't say.
Or whether Symon is just not a great, you know, quote, great
host. But so I think the the first
reason is that, you know, Simon didn't offer these these acts of
welcome and embrace to Jesus. When Jesus arrives, the woman
enters the house, which again, we talked about not being like
not being tremendously awkward in and of itself, that people
would come and go and that it wasn't just Simon the Pharisee
and Jesus. You know, there's a group of
people there, so you assume people coming and going a little
bit, but the lady arrives. She, Luke, tells us she's a
sinful woman. Like he makes sure we know from
the beginning that that's how she's perceived.
And then Simon himself kind of reiterates that in his his, in
his own words. O she not only.
And This is why I think it is in part why it's significant.
She not only takes on the exact precise role of host, but she
does it to like a lavish over generous in almost like
incredible way. So it's not like she shows up
and thinks to herself, oh, Simon didn't welcome this dude into
his house. I'm going to, you know, just do
this. I'm gonna get a, a bucket of
water and offer it to Jesus to wash his feet, you know, dusty
roads, sandals, long trips, all of it walking pretty well.
You know, I'm not going to offer him Simon's oil to anoint his
head and kind of refresh himself.
I'm not going to greet him with a kiss in the Simon Says it's
this lavish, generous, overly so.
She washes his feet with her tears and wipes them with her
hair. She kisses his feet and then
anoints it, says she anoints Jesus with oil out of an
alabaster jar that she's brought.
And so that's not a, you know, if you look this up, there's
like a general consensus on what this would have been, but I
don't think, you know, exact precise measurements of like
this oil in an alabaster, though some people will suggest it's
like this could even be like a year's wage.
Yeah. Yeah.
And so it's like probably a family heirloom almost that
would have been kept. It is overly generous.
It is in some people's minds, maybe in many people's minds,
like a waste of that kind of thing to to use that to, to wash
or to anoint Jesus's feet with. So it's overly generous.
It's overly hospitable. It's like outrageously so.
It is, um, an act of, of hospitality that's rooted and
driven by love. And I think that's like the
second thing. So the first, if the first is
that it's just really, it is a an overly generous act of
hosting in like just the strict kind of social human to human
sense. Hmm.
It's that if that's the first reason, I think the second
reason is that really what we find out is that she is not
welcoming Jesus into Simon's house as host so much as she's
welcoming Jesus into all of her life for how he forgives and
loves and how he's acted toward, toward Jesus.
So like some people suggest that this woman likely very likely
would have met Jesus already and would have known Jesus.
And maybe there's been some interaction there of, of
forgiveness or, you know, she's at least heard his message of
forgiveness that it, this might not be the first time they've
met, but that she, you know, she's internalized a lot of his
teaching and really kind of wrestled out her own lifestyle
and sin and come to a place of, of, of repentance of life
transformation. But I think what we know from
this text is that she is really welcoming all of what Jesus
brings, love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, and like change to
her life, transformation to her life, not just simply into like
a physical house, but she's welcoming Jesus as one who
enters into her life and radically changes it.
And I think that's why we see, that's why we see her in tears.
Like she's, she's weeping not just simply to like, well, like
I can use these tears to washes. Like, I think she's weeping
because she's genuinely been confronted by the reality of who
Jesus is and has had her life altered because of the reality
of who Jesus is and is wrestling that out.
Yeah. This is the expression of love
and gratitude. Thankfulness from one who knows
full well how the world sees her, knows full well how you
know she's lived her life, whatever that is.
Like we're not told. And who also then knows full
well how deep Jesus's love and forgiveness is for her.
Yeah. And that's hit her.
And so she's welcoming Jesus into her life in that sense of
of host, Right. So I think, yeah, it's it's
lavish on a human standard, like kind of from a human
perspective. And I think it's representative
of the radical transformation that happens when Jesus gets a
hold of everybody and and transforms their.
Life cool. Yeah, yeah.
It's it's like just seeing her have that kind of raw honesty
with herself of like understanding her brokenness and
like you're saying like it's out of that place and understanding
of like, this is where the tears come from.
Yeah. You know.
And so I guess a a follow up question, more like application
based, like how can we see this contrast?
What does that tell us about how we approach Jesus today?
Like either between like that formality versus the the raw
honesty that we see in the woman.
'S yeah, yeah, I it this this question would be easier to I
love this question. It'd be easier to answer, I
think if Simon had actually done each of those three tasks as
host. But just in like this wrote
because it's required of me kind of way, then we could say, well,
listen, like you can see Simon's heart.
He's doing it because it's the right thing to do, not because
it's representative of anything inside of him.
And here's this lady who shouldn't be the host, but who
is doing it like she's hosting in just such a lavish, generous,
loving way because, you know, it represents her heart.
So I mean, it would have been so much easier, I think, to answer
if if Simon that he doesn't even do it exactly.
He doesn't even do it. And so I think that there is
that hesitancy. I, I bring that, that up because
I do think that we can tend to struggle with this raw, like
unfiltered response to Jesus. Like, I really do mean like, I
think on Sunday I said, like, how far back do you think the
crowds got like the other, the other people there, the other
guests, like, did they leave? Like how awkward would they have
felt watching all of this happen?
And I I do think that there's a natural human inclination toward
like awkward, like keep it at an arms length, don't make me feel
too vulnerable kind of response. Yeah, that like I sure if I can
think the right thing and believe the right thing and then
just start to do the right thing, great.
Like I'm in, but I do think we struggle with no, I'm going to
get real honest and confront like the deepest, darkest pieces
of my life and my soul, my heart and my mind and allow Jesus to
meet me there and actually be transformed by, by Jesus
presence and love, death, resurrection, confrontation of,
of sin with, with life and Kingdom.
Like I do think we, we struggle with that honesty.
And so it, it I think that's why it matters that Simon didn't do
the quote right thing in some way, because we can't even like,
it's not even like you could say, well, at least that could
be like Simon and I can do the right thing for a good reason.
You know, it really is like I I think the gospel does force us
to really wrestle with the the most honest, raw, at times
darkest, most hurt pieces of our life.
Yeah. And when we do it, it's really
in those moments that there is that deep level of healing that
leads to this outpouring of like tears and love that this this
woman shows toward Jesus. So I think like we, we need
people in our lives who are willing to press in and not
allow or at least challenge us when we try to tip toward that.
Like what I'll say, like legalistic, sort of.
I'll say I'll do the right thing because it's the right thing.
Like, sometimes we just need to do that.
Sometimes you do need to do the right thing just simply because
it's the right thing. Yeah.
But I think sometimes we can maybe use that to avoid really
wrestling with what's going on in our lives.
So the fact that we see, the fact that we see Simon not offer
these three, you know, forms of welcome as host does, I think,
really show us that there's one way to respond to Jesus.
And the right way to respond to Jesus is by allowing Jesus to
actually confront and challenge and transform all of the pieces
of our life. Yeah.
So we don't get to compartmentalize it.
We don't get to like wall off a piece.
We're good at that, right? We don't get to keep like kind
of hide these pieces back. Truly.
Like what? What what God is challenging for
each of us to do is to say, OK, all of it, whatever needs to go,
yeah, game on. I'm willing to to deal with
that. And I think that does happen
when you got people in your life that are willing to like hold
your feet to the fire as it were really simple, like day-to-day
analogy. You need somebody in your life
who is like, hey, how's it going?
Good. Like how you doing?
Good. No, no, OK.
Like how are you really doing? Yeah, it's that second question,
like, I don't believe you. Yeah, right.
And you need people who are willing to lean in like that.
And that requires so much just presence and awareness and non
anxious, yeah, presence in in somebody's life.
So, yeah, like I, I think one of the challenges is to be that for
one another and to not keep things at that surface level,
but really to like press into, OK, what what Jesus actually
transforming in your life? We had that at the end if people
were at the community Bible study, and that's kind of where
we landed with the community Bible study is what are some of
the things that Jesus is like convicting you on?
And I remember that conversation around the table being like, oh,
this is it Like this. These are so meaningful and it's
so awkward at first. Like who's going to go 1st and
how honest, Like how honest will the first person we And like,
because that's like that's the tone.
Yeah, yeah. But I do think the, the more,
the more we can push away from the certainly like the time and
the Pharisee and not doing, not having the conversations, but
even the just doing the right thing, like having the surface
level conversations. The more we compress into those
deeper conversations, the better.
And like, you know what that means?
Like you need people who you can trust and who are who've earned
trust in your life like that. It only happens inside of real
meaningful deep seated relationship, which is why at
the end I kind of brought us back around to community as a
final is so cool. Yeah, so Jesus says whoever has
been forgiven, little loves little.
How does that truth challenge the way we talk about grace and
sin in modern church culture? Yeah, I think we have a tendency
to diminish sin, which might like, I don't yeah, that big
people might hear that and be like, I don't know how to handle
that. Yeah, mine I, I think again, I
think because we wrestle with like vulnerability, honesty,
like we, we struggle with our own sin.
We as a community, what that can tend to look like is that we
struggle talking about sin period, because I can't
challenge you on your sin because I don't want you to
challenge me on my side, right? Like that's kind of this, like,
it's, it's almost like, you know, this is a terrible, like,
feels like, like a little bit like mutually assured
destruction. Yeah.
So it's like you got your SIN. I got my SIN, and I'm not gonna
challenge you on yours because I don't want you to lean in on
mine. And we're like, anyway, so let's
just keep those pieces personal and private.
I do think that in Canada, something shifted in as, as a
culture, like, and I want to say like I wasn't there, but I want
to say in the 70s, and I might be wrong on this, on these dates
where like we've relegated a lot of things to the personal
private sphere of of like ethics and society.
So religion is 1 and sex is another.
And so I think it was, I think it was Pierre Elliott Trudeau
when he was Prime Minister who said that the state has no
business in the bedroom of the nation, right.
So essentially what you do on your own private time is your
own private thing and no entity ought to speak into that.
And so I think we've done that in in terms of a lot of
different things in life where we just naturally like, what are
the things that you don't talk about on like a first date or
with your in laws or when families together are like
religion? Politics.
And there's another one there. I can't remember what it is.
Yeah. But like, we've we've just kind
of relegated a lot of these things to individual private
life. And they're, they're either like
taboo. Like we don't talk about them in
public. You know, you don't, I don't
want to impinge on your thoughts and you don't want to impinge on
my thoughts. Like, let's just, you know, talk
about sports or the weather or whatever, where we're going on
vacation. And again, like, we, we wrestle
with having deep, meaningful conversation.
And then you get somebody who's like, man, I struggle with small
talk and like, they only want to go like, just like, you know,
deep conversation, like, OK, yeah.
Like more of that, yeah. So I think that when Jesus says
whoever, and I want to read it, so you know, whoever has been
forgiven much loves much is, you know, essentially the line, but
it's her sins and they are many have been forgiven.
So she has shown me great love. I love that.
So this is the NLT, the new living Translation.
And so, you know, it's just so crystal clear.
I tell you her sins and they are many right, have been forgiven.
So she has shown me much love. And it's the whole, it's the
whole like mini parable that Jesus tells one person knows,
you know, another 50, 3rd owes the same guy 500, the one dude
money lender, he forgives both the debts and like, who's gonna
be more grateful? Yeah.
And Simon answers, Yeah, like obviously it's the one who owed
more. It was going to take him longer
to pay it off. He would have to work harder to
do it. Maybe he couldn't like, you
know, for all of these reasons. And I think the point that Jesus
is making here is, um, not that, not so much that this woman's
sin is greater than like Simonson.
So she, you know, she's gonna love me better than you.
I think what he's saying is she really gets it, Like she gets
the depth of the need in her life and and Simon doesn't.
He doesn't get the depth of the need.
He thinks it's like 50, you know, 50 bucks when really it's
500. Hmm.
And I think what Jesus is saying is not like this woman gets it.
She she has felt the devastation of sin and brokenness in her
life, and she really, actually understands how great it is to
be forgiven from that. Yeah.
And I think that again, we struggle with this in, you know,
what I would consider like a, a fairly affluent life in Canada
right now for many people. And like for some it's not for
some it is still, it's very hard.
You know, think about people who are just brand new to the
country and who have left everything and are trying to
reestablish their life in a, in a new country.
Maybe it's a new language. Like you can still have a
difficult experience here day-to-day for a whole variety
of reasons. But I think by and large, for
many people, our affluence means that we are dependent on another
for very little, right? Like, if you can go to the store
and buy food when you're hungry, Like, it's been a long time
since I had to depend on someone else to provide food for me.
Yeah. And like, that's listen.
Like, that's a privileged place to sit.
I need to be really grateful for that.
But I think what it does is like, our affluence makes us
blind in some ways, like our physical wealth and accumulation
of stuff, like not really having need really makes it hard to
wrestle out like spiritual need because like, I don't need
anybody for anything. Yeah.
And now we're like, oh, no. But we do.
You do. Yeah.
And like, I think I do think we, we struggle with that.
And so I think what Jesus is pointing out is like the lady,
this woman gets it and she understands the depth of the
need that she has for somebody else to come in and rescue.
And that's why I love like CS Lewis's line that says, I think
it's anyways, it's probably misquoted by a bunch of
different people or like attributed to a bunch of
different people. And so I might be misattributing
it here, you know, because like there's a, there's a line that
says, like, you know, if, if our, if our deepest need is
humanity were like economic prosperity or wealth, whatever,
like God, we've sent to an economist, right?
And he goes to this whole list and he says, no, but like, our
deepest need was actually our sin and our brokenness, like the
death and decay. And so God sent a rescuer like
one who is the one to lift us up out of, you know, pit that we
can't dig our way out of or however you want to picture it.
Yeah. So I think this, this line, it
confronts us with the depth of our sin.
Um, and though it, it really reveals, and this is where like
I think it's positive in the end, it, it really reveals how
great life and community and love can be once you've wrestled
with how deeply loved and forgiven you are.
Yeah. So, so our, our ability to love
one another grows as we're willing to be confronted by how
much we've been loved. Our ability to forgive people
grows. Our capacity to forgive grows
when we really genuinely wrestle with how we've been forgiven.
If we kind of like put off like, oh, like my, my sins not that
great. And I like I, you know, I
definitely didn't do this or I definitely didn't do that.
And I, you know, if you diminish your sin, then you diminish the,
the greatness or gravity of, of God's forgiveness.
And I think that hinders your ability to forgive and to love
and to continue to be generous with other people.
And certainly also, you know, limits your ability to to really
live and flourish the way God's created you to.
So I, I think again, like, I think we need to confront the
reality of sin with the promise and hope and expectation of
like, yeah, this increases our ability to love and to love well
and to love one another in ways that that the church needs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great.
You kind of touched on this a little bit on like the idea of
how maybe we we avoid talking about sin, having those deep
conversations and maybe how we even like how how we minimize
sin, like the impact or the depth of sin in our life.
How do you think that's affects how deeply we love Jesus and how
rightly we approach him? Hmm, yeah, I so I, I picture
like a, a friendship or even like you take it a step further
and and think about like a relation relationship, dating
relationship or a marriage, let's say marriage.
And, you know, you, I think we would all likely agree that the
fewer secrets you're trying to keep from your spouse, the
better off life is going to be. Yeah, right.
And you know, I, I just think that when we diminish sin, when
we, you know, whether it's out of like our own trying to, you
know, preserve something in ourselves or, you know, when we
wall something off like that. Yet you can't live like an
unhindered a relationship out when you're like just constantly
trying to navigate this piece over here.
Yeah. And I think that that's kind of
like that's what we do in in some measure with God is, you
know, what we're effectively saying is, yeah, you can have
98% of my life, but I need to keep this thing over here for me
because it makes me feel good. Maybe because I enjoy it, maybe
because it makes me feel safe, maybe because it's like the
thing that in season of trauma was a coping mechanism.
And you know, that's like safety net, whatever it is.
Like I think that that level of um, like walling off pieces of
our life or compartmentalization just means that it's constantly
there as you're trying to live out, you know, a loving and life
giving relationship with, with Jesus.
Yeah. So, you know, again, I go back
to like a marriage where you got something kind of like, like, I
don't want you to find this piece out or I don't want you to
know this thing about me. Like maybe it's maybe it's a
wound, maybe it's like a trauma, maybe it's like a history thing.
And you're like, if you knew this about me.
So like it's not, you know, it's not something that you're doing,
but it's something that you believe you are.
If you find this out about me, then you certainly you won't
love me, right? So like I think that's another
thing that can come into into relationships again, like you're
just always dealing with that thing and always tiptoeing
around not dealing with it. Yeah, right.
Keeping it to yourself or not allowing the the pieces of you
out that that ought to be right. And I think that this is again
where this is the CS Lewis quote.
At the end of my ceremony, I said, like when we learn or when
we really realize, like God has forgiven the inexcusable in us,
then we learn to forgive the inexcusable and others.
Yeah. And so again, I think are you,
you know, you asked about our capacity to love Jesus.
I think it's hard to love somebody fully.
It's hard for a relationship to be fully formed when when you're
constantly holding something back.
And and maybe like, so name another thing.
Maybe it's work right? Like maybe it's it's yet I'm
going to let you shape every single decision I make except in
like when I'm at work. Like that's my, that's my arena.
Yeah. Because, you know, you're like,
I'm going to have to make some unethical decisions and I have
to make some decisions that I know I wouldn't likely be
comfortable making if I allow the gospel into that area of my
life. And again, I just it's
impossible to love somebody fully.
It's impossible to be fully loved.
Hmm, right when you're trying to hide something, or when you're
trying to hold something back. When you're trying to say like
this piece is mine, only I get to input on it, You not only are
you not able to love fully, but you're not fully known.
You're not fully loved. You are not like your the the
Pete Scazzero. Peter Scazzero has this series
called the Emotionally Healthy Right now.
The iteration is emotionally healthy discipleship, but he
wrote like emotional healthy church, mostly emotionally
healthy spirituality. Yeah, emotionally healthy
discipleship, which I'm struggling to say like all those
things. But, you know, the the premise
of it is that you can't be spiritually healthy and
developed while being emotionally stunted.
Yeah. And so for a long time we've
done discipleship and like Christian formation as this.
Let's get you spiritually as formed as possible.
And you like, how much can you know and internalize, memorize,
remember, like, but we're going to not focus on like the
emotional health piece. Yeah.
And so here comes Peter Scazzero.
And you know what what they've written is?
I think it's really shaped my understanding of spiritual
formation because they challenge in, they say at the end of the
day, you won't be spiritually formed if you're not also being
emotionally shaped and formed. So you've got to deal with,
like, the emotional stuff as you wrestle out the spiritual stuff.
Yeah. And the spiritual stuff wants to
deal with the emotional stuff and wants to, you know, inform
it as you wrestle it out. But you can't remain emotionally
a child while expecting to be spiritually mature.
Yeah, and in the other way, he says.
Like, you're probably not gonna be emotionally mature until
you're also spiritually mature. Like they go hand in hand.
Yeah. So you know, Jesus doesn't just
want to save you to heaven when you die, like spiritually save
you. He actually wants to get in and
transform all of your life emotions, the way you think,
act, how you are, all of it. And when we wall off those
pieces or keep those pieces maybe at an arms length, that's
what you're preventing. Yeah, right.
Is is for the gospel to shape, for Jesus's love, to shape all
of who you are and to wrestle out the the the hardest parts of
of your life. Hmm, Yeah, I don't know.
Does that answer? Yeah, that answering it.
OK. Yeah, Yeah, definitely.
Yeah. Now we see Simon judging the
woman based on her past, like based on on her sins.
But then we get that contrast with Jesus, who honors her and
sees her for her presence, faith that she's showing.
So how do we keep ourselves from putting others in boxes based on
who they were as opposed to the person that they are becoming?
Yeah, really. Like carefully, slowly.
I don't have a perfect answer for this question.
I don't have perfect answers for any questions, but I, I think
this is where in my mind, this is where, again, the turn to
community is necessary. Because like, I know we, we all
know, like our own hearts toward judgment, Like, for whatever
reason that is, you know, I think sometimes we, um,
sometimes we, we wrestle with like God's love and grace and
community bringing us into relationship with people that
maybe we don't like, or, you know, that we don't think we're
gonna like, or that we don't want maybe necessarily like
people who are different than us in ways that go like, I just, I
don't know how to talk to you. Like, I mean, those are kind of
surface level things. But like, you know, each of us,
I think know where we're prone to judgment and why we're, we're
prone to judgment. I, I think that, um, one of the
main ways we can, we can help combat that is by embracing
community because it's in community where, you know, I
need people to say to me, hey, like not sure that that approach
is the right approach. Yeah.
Or, or not sure that you're seeing this correctly, right?
Not sure that you are reading what's currently happening.
And it seems, it feels, looks like we're doing this whole
like, you know, you're still over here, like judgment thing,
right? So I think it's a it's a culture
thing that happens inside a community where we learn to be
accountable with one another and a name the fact that Yep,
probably still going to be prone towards judgment and also name
the fact that Yep, I'm going to need somebody to help correct
that in me. And when it happens, having
these relationships that we've built that that do allow for it
and that do call things out. So, you know, if if in a in a
group, something is said and it's like, hey, that like that
lands, you know, that that sounds judgment.
That sounds like judgment. Now, what I'm not saying is that
like I'm not saying we can't be judging, right.
I think that the, so we can, we can tip toward hyper or like,
you know, exceptional judgment on on the one hand, like Simon
does. Um, I think, you know, there
could have been a, a different way for Simon to like approach
the same like, you know, not like does Jesus know what he's
doing? But I wonder what he's doing.
Hmm. Right.
Because very clear, like nobody would, nobody would, would
disagree. Like Simon and this woman are
different. Now the reality is they're both
sinful and they both need Jesus to the same degree.
Yeah, that's, that's the reality here, right?
Is that doesn't matter like how close to perfect your life is or
isn't. Like we all need in equal
measure Jesus to repair a relationship that's broken.
And there are lots of ways of talking about sin and salvation.
But you know, Simon, so Simon, he, he goes like, does Jesus
know what he's doing? Like if he did, surely he
wouldn't. Like it's not only is it
judging, but like it's, it's immediate condemnation.
And so I think we like, we distinguish as we work through
the sermon on the plane where Jesus says, you know, stop
judging, stop condemning. We worked through the reality
that those are actually different.
They there's a finality to condemnation that there isn't in
judge, in judgment or in judging necessarily.
And we need to learn to forgive and give extra measures of, of
grace to kind of come back and push against the, the, the judge
and condemn. I think it's like Simon's he,
he's like judge, jury, executioner all in one fell
swoop in this. It's not like, does Jesus know
who she is? Like, does he like, does he
realize what's going on? It's if he knew.
So he's already made the determination that Jesus doesn't
know. Yeah.
And that he's not a prophet, that he's not, you know,
Messiah. He's not who he says he is.
So it's not that he's just judging, it's that he's
condemned. Yeah, He's condemned Jesus and
he's condemned this woman. And there's no good that's gonna
happen here. I think alternatively, like
Simon, I'm like, dude, like just remain a little bit curious.
Like even 1% curious about what? I wonder what Jesus is doing.
This is not. This is not normal.
Yeah, this is not what we all expected.
I wonder what he's doing is just a different posture to take than
that. Surely he's not, he's not a
prophet, can't be. So it's the fact that he's
judged, he's condemned, he's already, he's walked away from
the whole thing already. So, you know, I, I think for us,
it's how do we remain open to what Jesus is doing?
Yeah. I wonder what Jesus is doing.
So like, somebody walks in to the church.
You're like, I never thought you were gonna be here.
Like, hey, like, that's probably worth celebrating, right?
I wonder, I wonder what Jesus is doing.
Never expected you to show up. I wonder what?
Jesus. Jesus must be up to something.
Yeah, I think that's a different posture to take.
And it's one that pushes against judgment.
And so remain curious and open to what God's doing and worry
less about what the individuals doing.
And kind of like, I can sit here and go, man, I wonder what
you're doing, if you thought this thing through.
Like, I wonder what? I wonder what she is doing.
And in the midst of this. Yeah.
So, you know, community that's gonna hold you accountable and
then remain open and curious to what God's doing.
That's really cool. They're not gonna get you all
the way there, but at least it's a start.
Yeah, that's great. Cool.
Awesome. So last question, OK, Jesus says
your faith has saved you, go in peace.
So I guess kind of too many questions.
First, what does it mean to be saved in this context?
Hmm. And then follow up on that, what
prompted you and you've touched on this a little bit, but what
prompted you to kind of discuss the need for community at the
end of the sermon in the Go in Peace section?
Yeah, Yeah, great. Two questions.
So the first one, OK, saved in this sense.
I've been wanting to talk about this and so maybe I have already
talked about this and so forgive me, listeners, if like I'm
repeating myself, it's probably worth repeating though.
So we think of saved as I think at least we tend to think about
when when we read that word like go in faith, you know, or or or
your faith has saved you go in peace as like spiritual
salvation, like, you know, moment of conversion was living
in sin has encountered Jesus is now turned from sin and living
in faith. So we're talking about, you
know, lifestyle that was leading toward condemnation and hell
destruction, you know, those pieces away from God and now a
life that's turned and leading toward, you know, among other
things like heaven, right? We think of salvation as well.
You wanna go to heaven when you die, right?
So what do you need to do in order to be saved, in order to
be saved from something, towards something, saved from sin,
toward life, saved from hell, toward heaven, saved like, and
it misses a lot of what that word holds.
So yes, it's spiritual salvation.
Yes, it is spiritual redemption. And like it it it is and has to
do with the destruction of sin and death and toward life and
forgiveness and heaven. But it actually that word that
we translate saved is the same word that we also translate as
healed. So very often in the New
Testament when Jesus goes around and he heals somebody, so, you
know, casts out a demon and heals this person, or he says to
the paralytic like get up and walk and we read like he was
healed. It's that same word.
I think the the root there is Sozo, but it, it it means to
save and it also means to heal. Yeah.
And you could interchange those English words in these
narratives. So we should never read saved as
strictly spiritual in the New Testament because like that
again, to even say that like we don't have time to talk about
this, but like this dualism between mind and body or body
and like spirit is not Christian.
Like it's not Christian to say that like your body is just
going to die and decay so that your soul or your spirit can go
to heaven when you die like that.
Like you are created, you are created human being body, like
mind and spirit. And like some people, you know,
we want to talk about a soul. And you know, again, Christian
philosophers and theologians debate about like whether we
should talk about spirit or soul.
And regardless, like when God creates humanity, he creates a
physical body that is good. Like there's there's something
that is like intimately human about being in fleshed.
And when we talk about the resurrection, we're talking
about new heaven, new earth, like new physical, like
resurrected bodies. So, so you know, it's, it's the
early churches had like names for all of it.
Like literally, it is literally a heresy that the early church
debated over about this, this creep of, of, you know, Platonic
dualism and like this philosophy that says no, like we need to,
we need to escape our bodies and, and release, you know, our
spirits to this, the fullness of what they ought to be, right?
So I think that still creeps into like contemporary
Christianity and theology and philosophy, like how we talk is
like a lot of it contains kind of these these roots in this
dualism where, you know, we we think inherently all the flesh,
like my body's bad, my spirit, that's what's good and that's
what's going to live forever. And so I gotta focus on that.
Like Jesus isn't talking about this like spiritual salvation
that happens absent from the body.
He's talking about the whole self being healed and being
restored and being remade the the way it was intended to be.
And that includes spirit and includes mind.
It includes body includes soul, if you want to throw that in
there as well. The whole person is meant to be
recreated into the image of of Jesus.
And you know, we know that that takes it takes it takes a long
time. It's a process.
So when he says to this woman, go, go in peace.
Your faith has saved you. Um, it's meant to contain so
much more than just your faith has spiritually saved you so
that when you die, you go to heaven.
Yeah, he's saying. No, actually, your faith is
restoring you to life like all of who you are.
Yeah, Spirit. Mind body, your, your entire
life is being reordered by Jesus and by life inside the Kingdom.
And it's faith that that you know in large part enables it.
The faith of Jesus and the faith of this this person, just like
it is for us, the faith of Jesus and the faith of this person.
Whoever you know you may be, it's you know you were meant to.
And like, listener, each of us were meant to find healing in a
relationship with with Jesus. Yeah.
And so, yeah, like, it's not just that you don't just forget
the pieces of brokenness. Like, no, actually, those are
the things that God wants to deal with in a way that does
heal. So your faith has saved you.
It's this holistic picture of what it means to be healed.
Hebrew word Shalom is a really good place to start, right?
For those who have been around when we've talked about it and
others who have preached, like we talk about this idea of
Shalom and and peace and wholeness and health and
restoration, like this is all of the goodness of like the way
life was meant to be. And yeah, so your faith has
saved you, Like I said, like it's, it's that full picture.
Go in peace then is connected to which is the second part of your
question. Go in peace is connected to that
healing, to that salvation. So for Jesus to say go in peace
continues that holistic redemptive work that that Jesus
accomplishes in in our lives, which is again, not just
individual spiritual sin and salvation.
It, it is holistic life being reordered around what is truly
life giving and healthy for a human being.
So for me that that means necessarily community.
Yeah. Because I know that I can't
like, I'm not going to be the best version of myself in
isolation, right? Like individual faith like that,
that doesn't, you know, lead me into the best version of of
myself even as a Christian, like individual spirituality,
individual. Yeah, theology, whatever it is.
Like none of that, none of that is the best version of itself in
isolation. So I think it, it, there's,
there's an, there is like a, there's an individual way to
talk about peace and salvation and healing.
And there needs to be. But I think it always
necessarily leads toward the health and healing, wholeness,
peace, restoration of a community.
Yeah. And I do think that we've lost
some of that as a default, like I think the people of Israel,
like by default, and maybe I'm reading too much into it, but
like by default had these ways of talking about corporate sin
and corporate, the need for corporate repentance and then
corporate forgiveness and reconciliation.
Like as a people toward God, there was sin and there was
redemption and this back and forth and we've taken it and
made it just very individual when I think it was always meant
to be lived out in community. So, you know, you and I need
community to be who God is creating us to be, and we know
it, you know, And also I think we just need to talk about the
fact that sin, salvation never meant to just be strictly
individual. Yeah, it's always meant to be in
a community and wholeness, health, healing, all of that is,
um, it's meant to be, it's meant to be lived in community again.
So peace, the Greek word for peace, one of its roots actually
means to like. And I don't have it in front of
me, so I'm I'm not gonna remember exactly.
But to to mend into a whole is the the what one of the root
words come means. Yeah.
So to have peace with one another is to like bind up and
mend back together into what is whole.
And so it's not just like peace isn't just like the cessation of
conflict. Go your separate ways, pieces
mending, binding back together what is broken into a hole.
Yeah. So for Jesus to say go in peace.
That's why I think I get screams and this admittedly, like I
didn't I didn't create that. I didn't come up with that
point. Fred Craddock, who wrote a great
commentary on the Gospel of Luke preacher in the States, pastor,
He he's, you know, it's a question that he asks in his
commentary, like where does one go when one is told to go in
peace by Jesus? Yeah.
And really the answer to that question, I think, is community,
because of what peace really ought to look like.
Yeah, again, it's not just individual like, oh, I feel
better about my life. It's mending back together into
a whole. Yeah.
What was disintegrated and broken.
So that's that's where I think we get to community.
So salvation like saved, healing, health, wholeness,
peace mending, binding wholeness again, taking individual pieces
and binding them together into a hole in in my mind necessarily
lands us in in community. Cool.
Yeah. Call amazing.
Yeah, well, that's all. Hey, thank you.
Thanks Chris for being here. I appreciate.
It my pleasure. Yeah, it's great to kind of go
back and forth on some of this. And friends, we hope that this
encourage you, like encourages you wherever you are into your
week. We do.
Again, we want you to find yourself in community.
So we're hoping and praying that you can wrestle out some of
these questions yourself with friends, with family, inside of
relationship, and that in some measure, hey, I do rather bring
you peace and health and mending, binding back together
of what maybe feels like fragmented and a little bit too
individual sometimes. So blessings on your week.
We're praying for you and we'll see you in the next episode.