Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of the podcast.
We're grateful to have you with us and we're excited to be into
the sermon on the Plane, which I've always found just to have a
little bit less of an exciting name than Sermon on the.
Mount little less gravitas. Feels that way, but in some ways
like Luke is doing some really, really specific theological
intentional moves here with how he lays out this teaching.
And at some point, probably not today, but in one of these
podcasts or maybe an extra podcast, we will talk about
whether these two sermons are even the same like as Matthew
and Luke. Are they are they recounting for
us the exact same moment? Are these collections of Jesus
teachings that both have incorporated into one event?
Are they teachings that were common to Jesus?
Sort of catalog of teachings that he gave many different
places in similar fashion? Like how do you understand plain
flat place versus mount, all of that?
Those are all great. Questions a plane on amount
exactly. Like those are all great
questions that we're not going to get to today, so sorry to
just throw those all out there. Talk later, come back for
another episode. What?
What we are going to get to today is, is Luke's iteration of
the Beatitudes and Jesus is teaching on the good life,
Kingdom, Kingdom life, life inside the Kingdom.
And we've got questions from our community Bible study which
launched this past week on Wednesday.
We've got questions that you know, you and I have been
thinking through and some questions from Sunday.
So there's lots of questions, might be more rapid fire.
Yes, yeah, we'll try to be keep them brief so that we can touch
on a bunch of them. But yeah, I mean, this is a hard
passage. Like it, it is difficult.
And I and I actually left Sunday morning.
It was it was Mother's Day and so I had to run and just do a
bunch of stuff for for our moms between my mom and my wife's
mom. So it was like busy.
But as I, as I was leaving the church service, I, I felt like a
weightiness to this passage as it relates to how we as modern
Western generally wealthy people live.
And and that, yeah, that's been sitting with me even this
morning. Hmm.
But there's other, there's other parts of the passages as well
that I think are worth, that are not relating to necessarily
wealth possessions that are, that are worth exploring.
And we're going to get to that. But maybe the the first question
is as it relates to being very rich or very poor.
So Jesus highlights, you know, he says blessed are you who are
poor for yours is the Kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now for you'll be satisfied.
So those two are very tangible and then they kind of the turn
around for the woes. Woe to you who are rich for you
have already received your comfort.
Woe to you who are well fed now for you will go hungry.
So there's a clear, a clear kind of have and have not kind of
situation going on here. And the question, I think this
was a question relating from community Bible study from last
Wednesday nights. And it's like, OK, let's talk
about middle ground here. These are fairly extreme
positions. And at least the, the, you know,
Jesus calling a blessed, a person blessed because they are
poor and because they are hungry.
It's it's challenging to like to sit with that and grapple with
that and be like, OK, is there, is there a happy medium here?
And, and even the question feels a little silly in some ways,
because I'm like, Jesus isn't always about happy mediums,
right? So so, but just like for as
fodder for discussion. Is there a happy medium here?
Yeah, I, I mean, I think this is a great question.
I agree with you. It, it feels a little bit like,
yeah, silly maybe. Like you already almost know,
even as you're asking it, you're like, like, why are we even
here? But like, I do think there's,
there's like a functional reality, yeah.
To living in Canada in 2025 that, you know, there's a
responsibility, I think like you and I are part of families with,
with kids. And so there's a weightiness to
being a parent and wanting to put a roof over your kids head.
And you know, like there's, there are financial
responsibilities and requirements to living like I
said in Canada in 2025 that are just make it difficult to enter
into this kind of passage, right. 3 I think that I wonder.
I wonder if we wrestled that tension out right, like the the
IT less so. Like is there a happy medium or
middle ground? Because I think as soon as we,
at least I speak for myself, as soon as I want to look for the
happy medium, I know I'm gonna air in the wrong direction.
Yes. Like, you know, if financially
it's just I happy, what is happy medium for me is exceptionally
more wealthy than, you know, vast numbers of people on this
planet. And that's a hard reality to sit
with while also feeling like the price of groceries are going up
and the cost of living like of rent or mortgage is increasing
and people's ability to get into a house is, is becoming, you
know, less. It's harder to do that.
So we live in this tension of, um, life costs a certain amount
to live where we live and add to that risk the weight of
responsibility together, you know, if, if you have a family
or if you're caring for someone, if you're taking care of a
parent, Yeah, like all of that adds financial weight and
responsibility. So we're not saying sell
everything and move to the desert.
Like we're not, that's not, I don't think that's the logical
sort of implication or that's not, I don't think even what
Jesus is advocating for here. Some of the language that I've
tried to, and I didn't use this in the sermon specifically, but
in our community Bible study teaching team prep, I said like
in no uncertain terms, I want people wrestling with the
question, should I take that second vacation?
Do I need that second car? Like how much are we gonna spend
on luxury or leisure? Yep, I want people asking those
difficult questions because I think that's the place where,
you know, I, I did say this in, in, in the sermon that like if
you have two vehicles in your driveway, if you can, if you can
wake up in the morning and choose one vehicle over another,
or if you can choose to have one vehicle or two vehicles.
So like we have one vehicle, but it's a choice, but that's a
conscious. Choice that we've made.
To have one vehicle, not, not, it's not because we like, like,
how do you like that's, that's not, it's not good for us.
We have one vehicle. It's a choice.
We've made that choice. If you've made that choice like
that just puts you in a different economic bracket.
And and I want people wrestling those choices at what is
financial need, What is financial want?
What is what is what is a needed expense and what is a desired
expense because I like, I stink at this.
Yeah, right. And even in my language, I need
to be challenged by this one. What is what is an A legitimate
need and what is a desire? What would be nice but is not
necessarily needed and then what's just straight up I want
this because it's nice or cool or new Oregon, etcetera.
We are, we are wrestling with this huge.
And so I think it's, I think it's good.
It feels vulnerable a little bit to share like personal examples,
but I think it's actually what we ought to do because otherwise
we like, we can sort of tend toward, as you talked about,
kind of over spiritualizing this and, and almost like using that
as a way to sort of placate our own, like our own stuff, right.
So like, I wanna like maybe unpack the, a way that, that my
wife and I are, are working this through right now is that we
have a home. We've been there 11 years.
It's it's not a big home, but for the three of us and our cat,
it, it suits our, our needs and many, many ways and less so in
some other ways. And so we've been wrestling for
the past kind of couple years of like, OK, do we want to maybe do
a little renovation to make it, you know, to make it a bit more
what want, or do we look elsewhere?
And, and it would probably mean a little increase in our, in our
mortgage or whatever, which, you know, like we bought home at, we
bought a home at the right time before things went crazy.
And we feel very fortunate we didn't do anything like that was
just like the, the market at the time, right?
But like where we are, we are actively wrestling with these
needs and wants. And, and it's, it's hard because
they can get very confused, you know, cause it often boils down
to we need more room for our stuff, right?
Like, which which then I think for me, so it makes me feel, you
know, I end up feeling like conflicted, but also just
genuinely, our room is so small, it's hard to fit like even a
closet, you know, like an extra closet for clothing, right?
So it's it's, yeah, it's this tension and we're just wrestling
out in real time. So like I say, thank you for
sharing that because I think that's the like, you're right.
That is the real life that we ought to be living shoulder to
shoulder where you, just like you're bumping into people,
you're wrestling this stuff out together.
Or because we could use, you know, a lot of that extra money
that would go into our innovation or increasing the
mortgage, we could be exceptionally generous with that
money and do other things with it for, you know, others other
than ourselves. Right.
So I think the thing that I want people taking away from this is
exactly what you're doing. So a couple of things you said
you've been wrestling this out, thinking, praying through it for
a couple of years. So I just want to name that like
I think that in and of itself is a slowed down Kingdom.
What would, what does love require of us kind of method to
making a decision? So it's not rash.
You've been wrestling with it for a number of years.
You're not, you know, to my knowledge at this point, you've
not made a decision. So this is like, this isn't,
this isn't like you felt. You felt a perceived need and
then immediately looked for a way to to meet that need and
then made the decision in fairly rapid succession based on your
felt need without taking time to separate those things.
So you're feeling a need and wrestling through genuinely
like, is this a need? Is this a want?
Is this wise? Is this unwise?
What is the better part of wisdom if we're going to like
ABC or options praying through all of that that like that.
I think that's actually a good demonstration of what this
passage calls us to do, which is to lay that decision down and
say, all right, just like, what would you have us do?
And then to be honest and vulnerable enough to bring
others in and start saying, like, does this make sense?
Like help us make this decision and.
Listener, what do we do? Yeah, less that, no less that
look at the camera. But like what I would love for
everybody to have is that sort of community based decision
making mindset so that it would be natural to go to like another
couple who are maybe 10 years down the road, be like, hey,
this, these are our options. Like input into that for us,
help us with it, help us think through it and pray through it.
And here's what we're wrestling with.
Like that's the piece. So Jesus calls us to abandon the
pursuit of wealth and money and success and applause and like
all of the things. But now we're talking about
money. So to abandon the pursuit of
money for pursuit of the Kingdom, yeah, you can use money
inside of the Kingdom, right? It's just it's a lot harder.
There's something about it. And like, I know a lot of people
say like, well, money is neutral.
It's just a tool. And I go maybe in a vacuum
theologically I would agree, but not inside of the course of
human history because it's never just about money.
It's about our it's about what it plays on our desire and want
and greed and wealth, success and fame and like all of these
things. So yes, maybe it is a neutral
tool in a vacuum, but I don't think that that's the way Jesus
actually talks about it as being in a vacuum.
He's harder. He says it's harder.
It's harder to deal with that and live life inside the
Kingdom. Yeah, it's hard to be wealthy
and also live fully inside the Kingdom because it requires
surrender and even surrendering our money.
So I just, I think it's worth naming that like, I like, take
the vacation, build that into your rhythm of rest as a family,
but wrestle it out. Yeah, where do you need to go?
How far? What are you going to spend?
What percentage, all of that? Have that honest conversation
and say, all right, does this fit with how we want to live
inside the Kingdom? And if it does, great.
But the only other thing I would say is include some other people
in there. Yeah.
Because again, like I, I mean, I can start to convince myself if
I buy this, I could use it this way, like inside, but use it for
ministry. Do this.
And like you can, you can start to justify things pretty quickly
when you play that game just with yourself in your own mind.
So that's where accountability is really, really short story.
My first church, long before we got there, they were building a
building, new building. They were falling out of their
old building. And maybe I've told this story
on here before. I think I've told it to you, but
if I have, sorry. It's a good story to hear twice.
They're falling out of the old building and there was a family
who came and they had sold their cottage to help fund the build
on the new building. Dang, Yep.
Like, and I mean, that is a that is a big, that is a big.
I don't want to say the word sacrifice because if they're
selling a cottage, that means they have a home.
Yeah, they're not selling their home, right.
It is, that is, I mean, very generous.
And also it it came out of it came out of their wealth and
it's significant. And and yeah, I know it's one of
the things you don't want to undermine it, but man, like
those are the decisions we should be asking.
That's a that's a sacrifice that I think people can feel, be
like, Oh yeah, yeah. It comes from asking this
question, what is enough? Yeah, what is enough?
And genuinely being able to wrestle that out in terms of
your life and lifestyle and the lifestyle Jesus calls us to
live, what is enough? What is enough for me and for my
family? And what am I going to do beyond
that? How am I going to be generous
and abundantly so. Yeah.
So I think too few of us have that honest conversation to
really wrestle out what is enough.
And gets uncomfortable. That's an uncomfortable thing to
ask of yourself. Yeah.
But I think that's the question, right?
So is there a middle ground? I I think maybe if I could sum
up, I, I almost feel like it's a interesting question to ask, but
it's the wrong question. It's the wrong approach.
Yeah, because it's not, it's there's not, it's not a middle
ground between my pursuit of wealth and my pursuit of the
Kingdom. Those are Those are mutually.
They're mutually exclusive, so there can't be a middle ground.
Is there a middle ground between rich and poor?
Uh, again, I think Jesus says it's harder to be rich and enter
the Kingdom. And so, you know, for many of
us, and, and I won't say for everybody because I don't know
the financial realities of everybody, if I say for many of
us, uh, in Canada in 2025, we tip more toward wealthy.
Yeah. So I think.
We need to be despite of the some of the economical
challenges that are, yes. So I just think it's it's
important to start knowing globally where we tip.
And then it has everything to do with surrender.
Jesus says leave everything, follow me, abandon all, forsake
all and follow me. And so you gotta be willing to
leave like the the fisherman left there catch of a lifetime
of fish. Hopefully it went to good use,
right? We talked about that on the
week. Like, hopefully it wasn't
wasted. Yeah.
But they left what was perceived to be abundance for life inside
the Kingdom. Yes.
So that maybe rather than a middle ground between very rich
and very poor, we need to be looking at like the no, we need,
we need this is 1/3 path. The the and the third path is
that we bring everything at the feet of Jesus and and say it's
all it's all yours. What?
What does that require of us? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And to recognize that the more we have, the harder it is to
open our hands and say, yeah, here's the more, yeah.
But I think that's that's the call.
It's surrender and it's open handedness, not being willing to
move slowly. So you got a question in our
questions at courtrightchurch.org?
Yep, this is a good one. OK so later on in I think is
verse 22, it says blessed are you and people hate you when
they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil
because of the Son of man. And the person asks, what do we
do when people use that particular passage as a way to
defend themselves when people call them out on behaving
poorly? Persecuting me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and we've seen, we've,
we've seen a lot of that over the years.
I would, I would say especially in kind of the, the Western
North American Church, which has historically had very little, if
any persecution of any kind. But also, I think it goes deeper
than that because I think that there are some genuinely
concerning things that we could and should talk about.
But, but I think more on an individual level, on an
individual level, someone in a, you know, in a church or a
pastor or a, you know, a leader of some kind behaves poorly.
And then when they're getting Flack for it, they receive it as
well. I'm blessed because people are
are hating me which. Yeah, Yeah, it, yeah, I, I like
another way to put it, I think, is to say that we can, we can
play the hating, reviling, persecuting, whatever language
you want to use, like the card to avoid accountability.
Yes, that is uncomfortable. Yeah.
So you don't want to deal with your stuff or you don't like how
this is going. You don't want to be confronted.
And so you say no, you're persecuting me.
And instead of honestly saying what do I need to learn in this
moment, we say no. Blanket statement.
That is persecution, that is hatred.
I don't need to listen to it and I'm gonna continue on my merry
way. So, yeah, I think we are not
good at be it, you know, confronting our own stuff or
being honest or being held accountable feels particularly
uncomfortable. Yeah.
And so we can do that. Now here's here's my, I think we
all, we all have this tendency to do it a little bit.
So I think, you know, I'd be careful in yeah.
I just think we need to see this tendency in ourselves as well as
in others. And it's, it's just another
instance where we can see somebody else doing it and not,
you know, yeah. Not be willing to confront our
own. Like, why does this bother me so
much that you're. Anyways.
Yeah, you can. There's an endless cycle there
that you can kind of go into. But for me, it's blessed.
Are you when people hate you and when they exclude you, revile
you and defame you? There's no period there.
It's on account of the Son of Man and and.
Yeah, the sentence isn't. Finished.
The sentence isn't finished. It's not just it's not just, you
know, blessed are you when people hate you and when they
exclude you in a volume, defame you because you are a Christian.
It's like on account of the Son of man.
It's on account of who Jesus is and what Jesus does and how
Jesus lives and the message. So what, what?
Sorry, sorry to cut you off. What Jesus has just said to the
disciples is you are now he's named them apostles.
So you will be sent out as my messengers on my behalf with my
authority to proclaim this gospel, right?
And as you go proclaiming that gospel, living it out, like in
real, tangible, practical ways, people are going to hate you
because of it. Yeah, it's not because of you.
It's because of me. So blessed are you?
This isn't like, you know, blessed are you?
Because you're a Christian and you made a bad decision or you
made it. You know, you're a Christian,
but actually like you, like you're really judgmental and
you're like, well, I'm just speaking the truth in love.
No, you're speaking the truth rudely.
Like, you know, like. Is this seen this so much?
This isn't, this isn't, it's not a catch all that we can just,
well, I'm a Christian and it must be because I'm a Christian
that you don't like me. No, like there's a chance
actually that there's something that needs to change in my life,
like I did something wrong and need to own that.
So say, you know, I am hesitant. I'm really hesitant when
Christians play the persecuted card, and I'll just keep it to
our own context, OK? Our city, our province, our
country, um, I, I, I see a lot of division based on religion
and certainly, yeah, you know, hatred and like vile things
being thrown all over the place. So between Christian and non
Christian going both ways, yes, Christian and Christian,
different denominations, different flavors of whatever.
Like, you know, yes, there's a lot of that, but the, you know,
the persecution, persecution piece, I think if your default
is to jump to that place when you're confronted by something,
then that's saying more about you than it is about them, and
you need to listen to that. There, there's a little bit of A
and I'm OK. I'm going to say this gently but
firmly. I think some of it is like a
little bit of thin skin like like and I and I say that as
someone who has is thin skinned in other ways.
I will let things get to me. But yeah, when it comes when it
comes to persecution and when it comes to that being our our
default mode when when someone is expressing hatred toward us,
it's because, you know, it's just because I'm a Christian,
right. Rather than reflecting
internally that that may be, that there is some inner work to
do in your soul to to know that that I am, I am secure in who I
am in Jesus, and I don't need to let that rattle me and I don't
need to let that get to me. However, there is, I could
imagine a situation where someone is actually genuinely
reflecting and they're looking at like, you know, a situation
where they're experiencing hatred or experiencing A
challenging situation and they're genuinely being like, I,
I don't know if I've done anything wrong here.
I don't know if, if you know, is this just because they, they
dislike me as a Christian for what I believe?
I've never been in that situation.
I, I've always tried to, you know, I interact with the folks,
you know, at my, my child's school and people that from very
different walks of life know my pastor, Norma Christian, They,
they would deeply disagree with me on a number of things.
I've never experienced hatred from them because I try not to
be a jerk. And I and I try to be loving and
I try to be, you know, as as gracious as I can that they are
not Christians. But there could be someone who
is really wrestling with it. They're wrestling it out.
They're trying to figure out, OK, am I?
Am I being, you know, targeted in some way maybe.
And is there something going on in inside me that I need to
wrestle with? And I think the danger is
allowing yourself to do that in a silo, in isolation.
And, and, and so bringing, as we've said for for the the first
piece, bringing community into this and saying like, and don't
just like go to your people that are going to, you know, tell you
everything you want to hear. Like go to, go to people that
you know are going to be truthful with you and say like,
hey, I'm encountering this. Am I being the jerk?
Or like, do is there something else going on here?
Am I being targeted? Yeah, yeah.
I I think even just to to learn to have a curious spirit is and
will be one of the greatest gifts of your life.
About about ourselves and looking inwardly and.
Yeah, I, I mean, I like, I think in general, right.
Like, you know where when I'm at my worst is when I'm defensive.
Yeah, right. Like if I'm if I'm defend, if,
if I take, if I choose to take or and finding myself taking a
defensive posture in relationship, that is when I
know like I that's when I'm at my worst and that's me.
Like that's not necessarily everybody, but you know, I, I
think in those moments when, when my, my brain and my body is
saying like batten down the hatches and like, right, like
put the walls up. The the task for me in in
relationship is to learn to ask more questions and to remain
curious. Tell me more.
Help like help me understand where you're coming from.
Help me see me through your eyes.
Help me to to, Yeah, to understand more Now, you know,
obviously there are situations where, you know, I don't need to
be curious. Like if somebody walks up, you
know, the street and, and takes a swing at me with a hockey
stick for some reason, I probably don't need to be
curious. That's never happened, by the
way. Panthers fan, Yeah.
I just was trying to pick a obvious, but also weird enough,
you know, situation that you know, and I'm not making anybody
have have, Yeah. Yeah, as they're swinging,
you're not going to be like. Tell me more about.
What's what's brought you to? This moment I should probably be
defensive. Yeah, like arms up here we go.
Like I'm gonna actually try to like block the the like there's
a little bit of defensiveness. That is good, right?
Yes, yes. But I think in relationship, I
know that for me, the the antidote to the defensiveness is
curiosity. And I think curiosity is an
antidote to so many cynicism and bitterness and these things that
I think we naturally just wall ourselves with.
And so curious if you can be curious, it's great because
it'll help you see yourself differently when when you don't
need to. And then you got confirmation
and when you do need to. But that only happens inside of
good community. You gotta have your people like
you said you can walk to and say help help me see this in the way
I need to. That would in my estimation, and
I'm speaking very much to myself because I can be very quick to
jump to judgment and accusation in my heart.
I don't always verbalize that, but in my heart So but I I think
that would this that would solve if we could approach life that
way and even see Jesus. You know, Jesus asks a lot of
questions, right? Masterful in that way, but you
could, you know, I think some of our, our political divide, our
religious divide, it's, it's not all going to be solved by being,
you know, by asking questions and, and, but, but it's, I think
a lot of the, the intensity and the, and the, the extreme
tensions that we're facing these days.
I think a lot of that would dissipate if we all sought to
understand one another. Again, does not work in every
circumstance. There are sometimes where
someone is just doing a bad thing and we just need to call
it out. That is not what I'm talking
about here. I'm talking about your average
Joe who leans one way or the other on a political spectrum or
theological perspective perspective or whatever, right?
Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I think like anything
on this question, like the the quicker we are to rule something
out and dismiss it, the worse off will be, hmm, there's
certain things. Just absolutely, somebody might
level and accusation that is completely unfounded and needs
to be dismissed. Yeah.
But even to do that rashly and just with a kind of almost like
the wave of a hand, like that's persecution, like if it feels
like dismissing things, it at the end of the day does more
harm to ourselves and then by virtue of that to others long
term than it would to at least consider.
Yeah. So, no, I think yeah, there's a,
there's a right way to approach that.
Obviously in community is going to be one of the continuous
curiosity. Community, we need another C
That could be a Baptist sermon. Contemplation.
Yes, that's perfect.
I mean, like, I think that's a good, I think that's a good
approach to it. Yeah, yeah.
That's great. So one other one other thought
that came out as we look at this passage when you go to the the
latter. So I guess we verse 21 and then
the corresponding verse verse. Where is it in the woes?
Maybe, maybe he's not mentioned in the woes.
The the part about laughter. So blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh. Oh yeah, sorry, that is an end
of 25. Woe to you who laugh now, for
you will mourn and weep so laughter.
I like to laugh. Laughter's good.
Yeah. Generally speaking, yeah.
What's going on here? Why?
Why is laughter seen as bad? Hmm, there are a number of
different ways to answer this. Let me, let me just take two,
hopefully briefly #1 I think that there is, there's some
truth to what we experience inside of life, which is, um,
all of life. The fullness of life does
include grief and mourning, and learning to do that really does
change your approach to to life. Learning to mourn well, learning
to grieve well, learning to do that as an individual and inside
of community. That matters.
And there is a wisdom and even just gravitas to someone who has
sat in the depths of sadness and sorrow and moved through it to
experience joy on the other side.
So there there is. There's nothing worse than, I
think than than a funeral that doesn't name death and doesn't
name sadness and grief and mourning.
There, there are, you know, the Samus writes like the shadow of
the valley of death, like deepest darkest valleys, moments
of life. So I think there's just to some
degree truth to this statement that that there is there is a
blessedness to moving through seasons of mourning and sadness
and sorrow toward what I would call joy on the other side.
And, and to be very clear, not just happiness.
I I had a, I had a quote and I think I cut it from the sermon.
But Agustin said crying is a requirement.
Laughter the reward of wisdom. That feels like it's like right
lined up with this passage. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So crying is a requirement. Laughter is the reward of
wisdom. And then he continues.
Luke wrote Laughter to mean joy, so that's his take on it.
Yeah, that that makes sense. It is is that those who mourn
will receive and know and experience joy and you will move
through that. There's there's a gift of God to
do that and you won't feel it. You certainly won't feel in the
moment. It's going to take time.
It's not going to be easy. It's not going to look like what
you want it to look like. It's not going to feel great,
certainly immediately like, hmm, but there is there's just a
movement here that that that God walks us through.
So that's one way to answer this question.
The other way, and I think more so in on the woe side where he
says woe to you who laugh now for you're gonna mourn.
You're like, well, that sounds a little vindictive.
I think there's another approach to this that says the type of
laughter matters also. Yeah.
And so those who grieve now are going to be moved toward joy.
The laughing now is almost, if we consider it the inverse of
that. It's like those who laugh when
others mourn, those who laugh in seasons where it is right to
mourn, those who don't grieve but instead laugh.
And I would even maybe extend it to say poke fun at or even
celebrate or laugh at other peoples misfortune.
You are going to grieve in the long run that's going to lead
away from life. So the type of laughter matters.
The reward laughter is not the same as the woe laughter, the
blessing laughter. I don't it's not the same
qualitatively as the the woe laughter is.
The woe laughter is like vengeful and it is mean and evil
and driven against the other. I'm going to laugh at your
misfortune. I'm going to enjoy it.
I'm going to sit here and watch this all unfold.
I got to watch like the whole thing burn.
And I'm going to, you know, sip my coffee or eat my popcorn and
just watch it right you. Get those like sort of.
Crimes and. There's a pride element.
Yeah. The, the thing that I think I
compared it with you last week is it makes me think about this
is so for those who use Facebook, which is often the bad
place, you see on like lots of posts that are not meant to be
funny. Um, people using like the laugh
react and, and on posts that are maybe, you know, from, you know,
a particular theological or political persuasion or even
just someone talking about some misfortune they face in their
life. And you see someone laugh
reacting and it's like, man, why are you doing that?
That's kind of rude. You know, like and and that was
just a very a very like practical.
I'm like, man, people have weaponized the laugh react.
Listen, apparently the thumbs up that doesn't actually mean like
thumbs up either. Like.
Hey, good job, Sarcastic. Got like a sarcastic undertone
to it. Yeah.
So this is just what we do, it seems.
But I think that's a great. That's a great illustration of
it. It is.
It is qualitatively different. The reward laughter is joy and
the woe. Laughter is vengeful, mean, mean
spirited. I'm going to enjoy watching you
suffer. And Jesus says 1 is going to
lead to life and 1 is going to lead to death.
Yeah. And and that I think is is is
pretty clear on it. So yeah, it's certainly an area
where it's helpful to not always rely just on strict parallelism.
He's playing with the words. He is.
Yeah, totally. And and that the the initial one
about about, you know, blessed are those who weep for they will
laugh there. There are, I think, parallels
you could draw with other parts of Scripture.
I was just I just pulled this up from Psalm 30, which says you
turned my mourning into dancing. You peeled off my sack cloth and
clothed me with joy. Exactly that parallel of that in
our places of mourning and sadness and grief, God meets us
in that place and he doesn't abandon us and will we, we
believe and trust, restore us to a place of, of joy, to a place
where we can laugh again, right. Like there's, there's nothing.
You know, you've seen people go through a grief where, where
they are just in a season that is, is awful, where laughter
feels impossible. And then, you know, maybe a year
later or whatever they, you know, God has brought them back
to a place where they can be filled with joy, where they can
laugh, where they can enjoy life.
And it's like, that's an amazing thing.
It is. Yeah. 1 requires the other.
Yes. Right.
And so my very first preaching professor in seminary, at the
beginning of one of his books, tells the story of a funeral for
I think it was his niece. Like just devastating this child
who's died and he he tells the story of going to the grave side
and the minister preaching the graveside sermon didn't
reference the death of Jesus, the deep sadness at the death of
his niece and the grief and mourning the lament that was
required in that moment to enter into collectively.
It was only resurrection, joy, heaven, all that's before us for
what is waiting on the other side.
It was, it was entirely dismissive in the way my Prof
would recount it, dismissive of the lament and so.
Disembodied of the reality. Exactly.
So you can't skip. It's like why on Easter, we will
never, as long as I'm a pastor, I will never do like the whole
Easter Sunday services on Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
because Easter Sunday doesn't happen without the waiting of
Saturday and the death of Friday.
And so you have to move through those moments, those those those
movements and the reason why we do it year after year after
year. Even though we know the.
Outcome, even though we know where it's going to go, is
because we are, we are practicing the discipline of
lament. Yes.
And then we are practicing the discipline of waiting.
And then we are practicing the discipline of celebration.
And that movement is what's gonna pop back up when you're in
seasons of grief. You're like, oh, I know how to
do this. It feels more real now, maybe
like immediately pressing because this is a death that
affects like, emotionally, physically, mentally,
spiritually, all of it. You're like, you're confronted
by it. But my hope is that you know
that those disciplines, the discipline of lament, the
discipline of waiting, and then the discipline of celebration.
I've got the steps, I've got the map, I've got the path forward.
And I don't like it, but at least I have some reference for
this, so it's necessary. That's good, that's good.
There are so many questions that are, you know, community Bible
study came up with and so many questions that we had and so
many questions that didn't make its way into your sermon.
But that's kind of the beauty of this is that, you know, 10 years
from now when this passage comes up again in another in another
time for you, like there is an endless amount that of paths we
could go down. But for now, probably feels like
a good place to to close out and just to remind you that we are
doing this community Bible study on Wednesday nights if you're
watching this in real time. And so this is a fun, a fun
month where we get to have this, you know, 100 people talk about
the passage and then preach on it and then kind of do any
little cleanup on, you know, on the next day or the next week
for the podcast. So we get to really entrench
ourselves in the text, which is a lot of fun.
But if you do have more questions relating to the
upcoming passage in this upcoming week is gonna be a lot
of fun as we talk about Jesus called to love our enemies.
So I have a feeling there's gonna be some hardball
questions, which is gonna be great.
But for now, we'll leave it there and we'll see you next
time.