00:00:09.740 - 00:00:23.690

I hope you've enjoyed the day so far. I know that I have and I'm glad to be back here this afternoon for more time with John Pavlovitz. He left us with such a compelling question. And

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now we're really trusting you to answer it. So please, please encourage him. We are all gonna be sadly disappointed. Well, thank you for coming back. I'm glad I was allowed back into the

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building. That's always a good sign. So, um, Fantastic day so far and evening last night and again really appreciate as Wendy said the the synergy of the speakers and the way that the dots are

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connecting even when we didn't plan them. So yes , that's the question we left ourselves with is Christianity helpful anymore? You know you've probably seen there's a ubiquitous meme that floats around, um, you've probably

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seen it at one point or another that says I can't adult today and it's the idea that whatever is required of a proper responsible grown up human being, one is simply not capable of it. And for

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whatever reason, that day, that task seems impossible , and I've been a Christian for most of my life and a pastor in the local church for more than half of those and on far too many mornings

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recently, I've woken up. Checked my social media , watched the news or walked away from family conversations or departed church gatherings and thought to myself, I can't Christian today. You know, I can no

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longer be tethered to this thing that is so toxic and so painful to so many. I can't wade through any more bad theology and predatory behavior from pulpit pounding pastors who seem solely burdened to exclude and wound

00:02:02.330 - 00:02:20.040

and to do harm. I can't sift through all this malice and bitterness masquerading as Christianity to try to find what is left that's worth keeping. I can't do any more face palming while reading another celebrity evangelist

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social media posts about walls at the border all while saying he follows the same Jesus that I do. I can't align myself with the human rights violations and overt racism and rabid nationalism that is defining so much

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of Christianity in America and if being a Christian now means such things where you can count me out. You ever had those wrestling thought, well, you're good people, you probably haven't dealt with those things

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. But as a result, friends, I find myself in two fierce battles lately. I am simultaneously fighting with and for my faith tradition. Some days I'm working passionately to convince disillusioned people to stay there

00:03:07.780 - 00:03:21.530

because I want them to experience the beauty that I have seen firsthand. Other days I'm telling them to run like it's Godzilla about to squash them because I know how much destruction it is causing, the way

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it's preying upon vulnerable people, the corrupt power it wields against the already marginalized. And so I'm trying to figure out how to stand in the middle of those two really important fights. And so I've been

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asking that question of Christianity. Now, let me just go back to this if we could. Sorry . Let's sit here again That day when evening came , he said to his disciples, let's go over

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to the other side, leaving the crowd behind. They took him along just as he was in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up and the waves broke over

00:04:02.830 - 00:04:15.000

the boat so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. Disciples woke him and said to him, Teacher, don't you care if we drown? He got up

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, rebuked the wind, said to the waves, Quiet, be still. Then the wind died down and it was completely calm and he said to his disciples, why are you so afraid? Do you

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still have no faith? They were terrified and asked each other, who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him. So one of the truths I want to share with you today that I

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often share with people is that. I'm just gonna run through this because of our time, but um I will give you these notes for later on that we exist in both stories and systems. We have

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individual. And collective experiences of being human. And so we express empathy in the stories in those places of individual need. In the space of relationships, in the uncovering of personal narrative, and in the

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looking at the individual human being in front of us who is a once in history, never to be repeated. Reflection of the divine, but then we also express that empathy in systems so there is the

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collective need around us. There is the fight for justice, there is legislation that we support or oppose . There is the systemic need. And so we are in both of those places. Remember, the

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wounds of the world and the wounds we sustain attending to them, Well, these are the wounds of the world, and we find them on this micro and macro level, and they require a very different

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sensibility, a very different approach, and a very different energy. And, and having said that, I want you to think about what I would call energy orientation awareness. I want you to look at

00:06:04.400 - 00:06:23.960

your life. And ask how it's directed the posture you find yourself in the kind of work that you do, and to seek diverse expressions of your empathy , so to do equity work that is story based

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and do equity work that is systems based and it may, it's the same work but it's gonna require something very different as far as energy. So if I'm committed to being a person who works for anti-racism

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, well, sometimes I'm gonna wanna do that systemic work I'm going to wanna dismantle structures and oppose legislation and work against those big isms, and that's gonna require a certain posture. But I also wanna make

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sure I'm doing anti-racist work on a story level, which means examining my own biases, my own story , my own privilege. I also wanna be in relationship with people who are different than me, so

00:07:06.880 - 00:07:27.060

I'm practicing anti-racist movements and I'm working in communities that are already creating a world. That expresses that kind of reality so they're both fighting racism but they require a very different energy for me. Does that make

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sense? So sometimes we're always in the activist fight mode. And we neglect actual human beings in cultivating deep relationships and looking at our personal story and the stories of others and sometimes for only on that level

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on the story level well we're not working to to get to the root of why all these things exist some of what our speakers have so eloquently talked about . So as difficult as equity is to achieve in

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stories, it's far more difficult aspiration. When we get to the systems, right? Because in stories we can at least find some understanding and we feel a sense of agency there. But when it comes

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to the system, we may have to do some really difficult complex long term work that doesn't give us immediate gratification. And we actually have to make, maybe have to confront something that we have benefited from

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. So let's talk about compassion and what it is . It's a spending of yourself on behalf of other people. And because of that, there is a subtraction that happens. And this is where I want

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you to think about. Who is paying for your empathy right now? There is always someone who is paying for the way that you express your love for humanity as beautiful as it is sometimes you are paying

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that cost physically to the detriment of your physical health or emotional or mental health sometimes it's your relational health often it's the people around us who we love who are feeling the brunt of our work because they're getting

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less of us. Now, we don't wanna neglect the work, but we wanna make sure that we are mindful of the stories right around us, the ones that we have the closest proximity to. So

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to be mindful of that subtraction wherever it shows up . And compassion can make you physically and emotionally ill , right? Because trauma, as we said is embodied. So having said all that, earlier today

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we talked about the invitation. How did I end up here? And hopefully you're beginning to think about the yes that you initially said to leaving the safety and security of the shoreline on your way toward whatever

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is on the other side as you have followed Jesus in whatever avenue you've done so. And some questions I wanna think about as we begin this time is . Can the comfort of God really only come through

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the turbulence? And is the shaking that we endure , that shaking of being human, actually the path through which we become the peace givers? You know , we know that James says consider it pure joy

00:10:26.140 - 00:10:39.850

, brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds, we're all familiar but I don't know about pure joy. I may have an uneasy peace , right? Or uh just a neutral coexistence with

00:10:39.850 - 00:10:56.850

my trials. But what I do know is that the collateral damage of this life. Shapes and defines the kinds of people we become. The work we do and the mark we leave. So as you

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are thinking about the trauma that you are experiencing or have, the storms that you have passed through, realize what those are doing for you and in you . And my father passed away really suddenly about a

00:11:09.070 - 00:11:20.960

decade ago and 2 days later I was in a coffee shop sitting across from a good friend and I was in that state which I call it being a grief zombie. I really didn't know what was happening

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and I was with her and she said I know you're devastated and I know this is something that you've never experienced and the bottom feels like it's dropping out but there's something else here for you. She said

00:11:31.120 - 00:11:41.290

there's an invitation. She said because you're gonna now speak the language of grief in a way you never had before, you're gonna be able to be a translator to people who are suffering and because you are

00:11:41.290 - 00:11:52.400

a caregiver, you're going to have an audience with people in a way and a relationship with them that you've never had. Now at the time that really ticked me off. But she was right. Because

00:11:52.400 - 00:12:07.930

that is what suffering does for us. It helps us speak the language of pain in a different way than we could before. So we're gonna talk about the the work of equity and that's a collective work

00:12:07.930 - 00:12:24.370

that must be done by the broadest coalition possible right now. What we need in our nation is an interfaith non-denominational nation transcending movement. And that's gonna be difficult to do. I, I work with a

00:12:24.370 - 00:12:37.530

group called Empathetic People Network. We launched a community where people like you could just simply gather online to expose their wounds and talk about the wounds of the world and figure out a path forward, and what

00:12:37.530 - 00:12:48.100

I love about it is there's, it's not attached . denomination and it's certainly not attached to a political movement it's just human beings meeting on that level and the beauty of it is then they get to find

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geographically where they are connected and then they meet up because we were talking at lunch and people always say well John what do I do? and I said well what you need to do is something. But

00:13:00.200 - 00:13:07.830

I don't know what that something is. I don't know your context. I don't know the needs of your community. I don't know the partnerships that you have, so you need to do that work,

00:13:09.160 - 00:13:22.650

but this is an example of that. So we exist in stories and systems we encounter people individually. In their once in history, never to be repeated place, we endeavor to bring peace there, to

00:13:22.650 - 00:13:35.910

work for Shalom for them personally. But we also understand that there are larger systemic injustices that affect them and we are called equally to address those. So this morning I hope that you thought about your journey

00:13:35.910 - 00:13:48.710

in the boat and the shaking that you've been experiencing personally, but of course we know that. This is about more than your fear and your shaking, right? That's why we're here. It's about more

00:13:48.710 - 00:13:58.630

than the grief for the doubt that you carry, as important as those things are. This is about the turbulence of other people that you are called to step into, about your ability to show up in

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the storms of other human beings. It's about you incarnating and emulating the character of Jesus within a larger arena. And as ministers and educators, caregivers, that is the single most pressing agenda, being a

00:14:13.840 - 00:14:28.670

tangible visible reminder of the love that holds us all . And this week at a cathedral in DC we have seen what that looks like. With Bishop Buddy choosing to bring peace to the vulnerable by becoming the

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turbulence to the power that makes peace nearly impossible. The compassionate activist heart of Jesus revealed in leveraging platform and privilege. The kind that is becoming increasingly rare . But I want you to begin thinking about friends

00:14:46.510 - 00:15:03.240

, not just experiencing the turbulence and weathering that turbulence but becoming the turbulence on behalf of other people. Earlier today we lingered on the incredible debilitating power of fear. The story of Jesus in the boat reminding

00:15:03.240 - 00:15:18.600

us that we live and we teach and we minister in the tension between the peace givers and the fear bringers. We see the fear bringers everywhere right now . They're preying on the vulnerable, leveraging people's prejudices

00:15:18.680 - 00:15:33.510

, they're wielding power, and we understand that the cancers of racism and bigotry and. Hatred are not only personal afflictions, but they're collective ones. In his book Jesus and the Disinherited, theologian Howard Thurman

00:15:35.130 - 00:15:50.260

talks about fear, and he says in essence that fear is universal, but not all fear is experienced equally because not all people are equally exposed to fear . He says fear is one of the persistent hounds

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of hell that dogs the footsteps of the poor, the dispossessed, the disinherited. There's nothing new about fear. It's as old as the life of man on the planet. But he says the ever present

00:16:02.880 - 00:16:15.240

fear that besets the vast poor, the economically and socially insecure, is a fear of still a different breed. Is it a climate closing in. It's like a fog in San Francisco or London. It

00:16:15.240 - 00:16:27.990

is nowhere in particular, yet everywhere. In other words, Thurman says, yes, everyone on the airplane experiences the turbulence, but some of them do so with complimentary wine, free pillows and extra legroom

00:16:30.550 - 00:16:44.890

. I want you to think about what kind of conditions you have on this journey up until this point . Thurman talks about the specific fear experienced by marginalized communities, and he says that the feeling of helplessness

00:16:45.180 - 00:17:03.000

is one of the greatest sources of internal turbulence the oppressed person experiences in threatening systems or circumstances that the marginalized human being has less insulation from the terrors of this world. People then begin to doubt their capacity

00:17:03.000 - 00:17:19.540

to withstand their ability to overcome their possibility of victory . It's not only that circumstances seem challenging like the ones we're in now. But the entire system seems set up against them. So recently we. We

00:17:19.540 - 00:17:38.380

spent Martin Luther King Junior Day. While we were experiencing really a coronation day. And we can't miss that. And what that means when we think about the the shaking that's happening right now. As we

00:17:38.380 - 00:17:52.240

gather at this place and time, we're reminded that the prejudice created fractures of this nation. The racial inequities of its past, the systemic cancers. We can't talk about them as storms without talking about that

00:17:52.250 - 00:18:03.960

. It's not just the past sin, it's a present affliction. And as we consider the journey we are on, we remember that we are traveling in an interdependent community with billions of people and that our

00:18:03.960 - 00:18:25.580

theology, our spirituality, our moral and religious convictions are meant to be exercised now more than ever, which is. A beautiful invitation for us. We were preparing our entire lives for this. So as

00:18:25.580 - 00:18:42.190

we think about privilege a little bit um. Privilege is a natural buffer against some turbulence, right? It's a fear insulator. It's a barrier against some of the fear bringers. And our responsibility as people

00:18:42.190 - 00:18:56.750

of faith, morality, and conscience is to leverage our lives and our privilege and our resources and our influence and our platform to be peaceg givers. To speak into injustice, to decrease the turbulence people experience

00:18:56.750 - 00:19:14.090

and to risk taking on some of that shaking ourselves . So if you call your local cable service provider to establish service, invariably you're gonna have a conversation with one of the customer service representatives. At some

00:19:14.090 - 00:19:26.240

point he or she will. Invite you to add phone or internet. And it'll be much cheaper than if you purchase those services separately or from another vendor , which is known in the industry as what do

00:19:26.240 - 00:19:40.770

you know what that bundling or ups are you upselling and bundling and life is better when you bundle, right? And I love bundling because it makes me feel like I'm getting something inexpensively when really I'm paying

00:19:40.770 - 00:19:51.290

twice as much and I don't need it anyway, right? But I'm familiar with bundling and I'll tell you why. I'm 55 years old and I'm more than a little embarrassed to say it took far too

00:19:51.290 - 00:20:06.880

many of those years to even begin to understand. That as a white cisgender heterosexual man who was born in America and identifies as Christian, I've been given the privilege bundle. It arrived before I did.

00:20:07.530 - 00:20:21.400

I was grandfathered in. I was great, great , great grandfathered in. It was prepaid I began to learn as I had new life experiences that the color of my skin, my gender, my orientation

00:20:21.500 - 00:20:34.260

, my profession of faith, my very physicality. All buffered me from many varieties of adversity, formed a barrier against a great deal of struggle others experienced as routine, and opened doors I never realized had

00:20:34.260 - 00:20:48.140

been opened. And afforded me a vast multitude of advantages, some of which I've become aware of, some of which I will and some I may never know. I have been the beneficiary of inequity.

00:20:49.710 - 00:21:03.450

And many of us in this room to a much larger degree than others have been beneficiaries of inequity. But that wasn't the story I would have told you growing up. The first few decades of my life

00:21:03.450 - 00:21:15.260

I lived with a certain set of assumptions based largely on the particular arrangement of my privilege bundle. Growing up, I would have told you that anyone who wanted to work hard, had the same opportunities to

00:21:15.260 - 00:21:26.510

succeed even though if my mom were here she would say he didn't work very hard and somehow he always managed to magically succeed. I would have told you growing up that everyone had equal access to education all

00:21:26.510 - 00:21:38.910

the while attending a private school many families couldn't afford while having two parents who were fully engaged in my life, never wanting for a meal or clothes or transportation or well paid teachers or conditions that allowed me

00:21:38.910 - 00:21:49.900

to thrive. I would have told you that anyone who followed the rules and obeyed the law and respected law enforcement would have nothing to fear in a traffic stop, yet I can distinctly remember being in the

00:21:49.900 - 00:22:00.540

backseat of our car when I was young and my father was pulled over for speeding in a school zone before the officer could even reach him, my father rolled down the window and said, just give me

00:22:00.540 - 00:22:18.650

the fing ticket. And the officer just gave him the fing ticket. Do you see friends, so even though so much of my experiential evidence testified loudly in opposition to my working assumptions about the world,

00:22:18.900 - 00:22:36.760

I held tightly to those stories because I needed them to be accurate. I stayed committed to the narrative of equity. Because the alternative was to have my world turned upside down. And this is the seductive

00:22:36.760 - 00:22:47.400

power of privilege. The more you benefit from a system, the easier it is to defend that system . The greater advantages the status quo provides you, the more tempted you'll be to resist changes in it

00:22:48.320 - 00:23:00.730

. When you've always had the best and most comfortable seat at the table, it's really difficult to imagine that there are other people waiting outside. And when you are in an inequity beneficiary, equity often isn't

00:23:00.730 - 00:23:15.860

a priority for you. You don't even realize it . When you are an inequity beneficiary, you will be naturally oblivious to injustices experienced by those inequity most in dangers. All that to say we're all a

00:23:15.860 - 00:23:30.340

product of the stories that got us here. All our stories have a very specific geography. A precise place and time where we find ourselves. A neighborhood where we have our assumptions built and our prejudices formed

00:23:30.340 - 00:23:45.600

and our blind spots created. It's also where we build relationships. For the past 25 years, my neighborhood. Has been the church as a pastor, specifically predominantly white churches in the South. And something

00:23:45.600 - 00:23:56.640

happened in all those churches. All of those churches were incredibly diverse. You just had to ask us . We said it on our website. We're a diverse church. I mean, rarely will you find

00:23:56.640 - 00:24:11.620

a website that says, hi, we're a white church. And we said we were diverse, but we usually span the racial diversity from white to beige and everything in between, right? It wasn't that

00:24:11.620 - 00:24:26.080

we didn't desire diversity it's that we really lack the wherewithal to get there and we probably really didn't want to do the hard work of getting there because what's gonna come with that is grieving what you already have

00:24:26.080 - 00:24:37.990

been and why. And as a pastor, there began to be a tension in me and realizing that there are fewer entities in America that have been more powerful agents of inequity than the white Christian church in

00:24:37.990 - 00:24:51.500

America along lines of race and gender and sexual orientation and socioeconomic level. We have to be honest, religion as often as it has bent the arc of the moral universe toward justice, it has moved it

00:24:51.500 - 00:25:07.850

away. And I think that the issue is that white evangelical Christianity in America is based on a fraudulent premise that God is a white cisgender man who was born in America, raised Christian, and votes Republican

00:25:10.490 - 00:25:25.990

. Amen. And see with this as this working assumption that may not even be spoken, but is undergirding everything while people in those environments are gonna naturally allow injustice to people who don't fit those parameters.

00:25:30.400 - 00:25:41.350

We've been talking about compassion all day today and we haven't really. Defined it, but compassion has its roots in the word bowels. Now you may know this, or it may be a surprise to you

00:25:42.100 - 00:25:52.610

. But this makes sense because it was once thought that the deepest emotions were housed in our internal organs , right, right in our guts, right in the center of who we are. So that connection

00:25:52.610 - 00:26:08.800

between pain and bowels makes sense because contained in the word is the idea that one could feel so deeply witnessing another person's suffering as to become internally disturbed to the point of sickness. That's why it's not inaccurate

00:26:08.800 - 00:26:26.120

when we say that someone's story of suffering moves us , right? You're smart people. I didn't even need to connect those dots to you. But one time we were talking in a group and I said

00:26:27.010 - 00:26:41.230

, Compassion, it's tied to the word bowels. Compassion is a movement, so compassion is a bowel movement and a pastor said, yes, that's because we give a shit. I apologize for those that

00:26:41.230 - 00:27:00.590

offends. But this matters because we all have been sickened into our stomachs seeing the pain of other people . And right now, if you have a capacity for empathy, you are physically sickened. And it's

00:27:00.590 - 00:27:18.130

OK because we want to make sure that we are internally disturbed to the point of sickness or we are wasting our time here. There is this ancient phrase . That says, I am twisted in my bowels

00:27:18.130 - 00:27:29.960

at what I'm seeing, and I want you to think about what is it that twists you in your bowels as you live and work and minister. Now I know there are a million burdens in this world

00:27:29.960 - 00:27:38.080

and right now in our country you are being exposed to them one after the other. You can't attend to all of the wounds of the world. So what I want you to do is think about what

00:27:38.080 - 00:27:49.560

is the burden, the particular burden, the 1 or 2 or 3 causes or people or realities that keep you up at night, that break your heart , that boil your blood, and I want you

00:27:49.560 - 00:28:03.840

to lean into those burdens because there you have two things you have proximity and you have agency. You have uh closeness to people who are suffering and you have an ability to do something about it. So

00:28:03.900 - 00:28:18.880

, whatever it is that twists you in your bowels , that needs to be what directs you right now . Lean into that burden, friends. Maya Angelou says you should be angry, but you must not

00:28:18.880 - 00:28:30.960

be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer eats upon the host that doesn't do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger you write it, you paint it, you dance it, you march

00:28:30.960 - 00:28:41.400

it, you vote it, you do everything about it, you talk it, never stop talking it . Tomorrow we're gonna talk about the the joy of anger and so I hope you'll be here for that

00:28:41.600 - 00:28:52.720

. But, you know, I, I grew up as many of you did with the words of Jesus saying blessed are the peacemakers and it just became white noise to me. You know, it just

00:28:52.800 - 00:29:03.530

, I, that's a phrase, and we miss the power in those phrases the longer we just live with them. But as a Catholic growing up, I heard the prayer of Saint Fran Francis, let

00:29:03.530 - 00:29:12.340

there be peace on earth. Let it begin with me. And then as a someone raised with really good musical taste, I heard John Lennon saying all we are saying is give peace a chance. So

00:29:12.340 - 00:29:27.590

the idea of being a peacemaker was central to what I understood the role of a Christian was. This idea of being a maker of Shalom for people. And I had been taught from early on that Shalom

00:29:27.760 - 00:29:40.840

entailed not just wanting the absence of bad things for people, but an abundance of good for them. So not just about removing obstacles to their peace, but making a path to it, ensuring it,

00:29:41.050 - 00:29:51.740

fighting for it, protecting it. And how does this happen? How is peace in this setting, at this place and time in the history of the planet? How is peace made, fostered? How

00:29:51.740 - 00:30:06.890

is it nurtured? How is it protected? What is the path to that? And whether we're talking about an internal peace in the storm or an interpersonal peace between people who disagree with us, or a

00:30:06.890 - 00:30:25.450

societal systemic peace or an environmental peace with the planet . These manifestations of peace and rest and exhale and shalom are all intertwined, they're all connected. I seek to have peace internally and I work for it

00:30:25.450 - 00:30:42.020

tangibly. I welcome Shalom and I become an agent of it. So peace friends is an inside job . And it's also my orientation. And my movement in the world. These are times of tremendous relational

00:30:42.020 - 00:30:55.660

fractures and what I've been asking of people in my community lately empathetic people is what are people of faith , morality, and conscience supposed to do? Where do we stand right now? What is our rightful

00:30:55.660 - 00:31:10.900

place as human beings committed to diversity and equity and justice. For example, when we see migrants being shipped across the country by politicians in performative stunts. And we see people that we know and love supporting

00:31:10.900 - 00:31:25.570

these actions. What is the peacemaker's precise place in that? And as people of empathy we were always gonna be in the specific tension between our convictions and our relationships. We have the, the what we

00:31:25.570 - 00:31:37.880

believe matters and then we have the human beings that we share life with and sometimes those are not gonna be compatible. And I know that my inner peace should transcend circumstances. I know that's my story,

00:31:38.210 - 00:31:52.570

but I'm not sure if my, if I should abide the suffering of of others, right? I can't say to someone else, just bear it because that's not my place. So right now, does

00:31:52.570 - 00:32:05.640

our spirituality or our morality mean we are to be in the gaps between divided people, pulling them back together. Or are we meant to speak and act boldly even if it means widening the gaps and forcing

00:32:05.640 - 00:32:17.010

people to choose who they are going to be? I don't know if we have to choose between only pulling people together or naming what we will not abide and risking greater division, but we may need to

00:32:17.010 - 00:32:30.680

diversify our peace portfolio. In the name of peace , at times we will be silent and still, and we will like Jesus withdraw to breathe and recalibrate and find our center, and other times we will

00:32:30.680 - 00:32:42.950

be loud and move decisively. Sometimes in the name of peace, we will forgive someone, and other times in the name of peace, we will have to confront someone. Maybe the same person. The

00:32:42.950 - 00:33:05.740

cause of peace may lead us to decrease the shaking in the world, and it may cause us to become the shaking. 10 years ago, I was a student pastor at a um. A church in

00:33:05.740 - 00:33:15.840

North Carolina. How much time do we have? I'm missing my clock. 05, OK. I'm gonna start talking like an auctioneer at this point, no. I, I, I just wanna let

00:33:15.840 - 00:33:32.280

me share this with you, um. Oh it's fine. Yeah, I hear 10? Do I hear 12 or hear that again? Are we're gonna be talking till the spring lecture series. I didn't

00:33:32.280 - 00:33:46.830

want to be doing this. This work that I do. I've become whatever I am just someone nationally that some people listen to it's only by happenstance or it's only by Providence or however you look at those

00:33:46.830 - 00:33:55.850

things, but I, I say this I didn't intend to be doing this. I was a local church pastor like many of you. I had no ambitions to be in a position where I was traveling

00:33:57.550 - 00:34:14.450

. What what started to happen was around the 2016 presidential campaign I began to see strange things happening in our church. The conversations were shifting and the people began to excuse things that earlier they would have found

00:34:14.450 - 00:34:30.000

it inexcusable. And I began feeling attention as a minister. And I began writing a blog and at the time the blog was just for people in our church community it was a fairly large mega church and

00:34:30.000 - 00:34:45.290

for young youth pastors who are aspiring to a larger youth ministry, that sort of thing. But then something started to happen and I began to feel. That I was talking around things. I was speaking

00:34:45.290 - 00:34:54.410

in a way that I knew I was thinking as I was writing about there was this job I had as a pastor and I had to be very careful . I felt the collective weight of the expectations of

00:34:54.410 - 00:35:07.850

my people in that community and I began to soften my language and finally. I realize I can't do this any longer. If I have any value as a spiritual leader of any kind, it's my authenticity

00:35:08.650 - 00:35:22.700

. And so I started to say everything and. I went to a new church. I started another church. I'd only been there about 4 months when I heard God calling me to leave that church and

00:35:22.140 - 00:35:37.710

came in the form of my pastor's voice saying you're fired. But Like you say, it was in my quiet time. And it was a voice that sounded like Morgan Freeman. And he said, go

00:35:37.000 - 00:35:52.670

, but it was really at a Starbucks on a Thursday afternoon and complete strangers hearing my life fall apart . I share that with you to let you know that. There, I don't want you. To

00:35:52.670 - 00:36:07.780

become an agent of empathy. To your detriment, and I don't wish for you to try to be fired. But I don't want you to try to keep a position either. Because people, whatever I

00:36:07.780 - 00:36:19.560

risked is nothing to compare with someone who has far less privilege than I do. So this is the time for us to say, I can take a lot of hits and still be OK. And as

00:36:19.560 - 00:36:31.570

you think about the stories and the systems and how you are personally feeling called to enter into this, what I would say is risk something. Because if you experience no turbulence on behalf of what you're trying

00:36:31.570 - 00:36:45.950

to do, you're not doing it like Jesus enough yet. So That's easy for me to say because I they can't fire me twice. I don't want to be cavalier with your lives or the lives of

00:36:45.950 - 00:36:59.920

people watching. I just know that this can't be . Just an exercise in theory. This can't be a just a nice experience we have and we think wow, isn't that great? And we leave here

00:36:59.920 - 00:37:12.990

because if we do nothing to alter the planet outside this room we've wasted all of our time. And so I hope over this day and tomorrow and as we begin to leave this place that you'll start figuring

00:37:12.990 - 00:37:23.260

out how do I use my story to alter other stories and how do I use my story to change the system in whatever ways that I can. I'm gonna keep telling you this you have two things agency

00:37:23.260 - 00:37:37.650

and proximity. You have closeness to suffering and you have the ability to alleviate some of that suffering. You don't need an expert to tell you how you do that. That's what your faith will do so

00:37:38.580 - 00:37:50.630

. I, I've got 2 minutes and I'm gonna just um we're gonna have a nap for 2 minutes because you need it. No we can enter into the the Q&A a little bit early. That's OK

00:37:50.750 - 00:38:06.380

. Let's can we do that? Do we have any folks who who are asking questions? Thank you , friends. Thank you, John, again for a wonderful 2nd lecture to be able to close us

00:38:06.380 - 00:38:15.310

on today. Uh, we've got a couple of questions here and of course, as always, if you've got questions, please use slide them uh to my left and directly in front of you, uh

00:38:15.320 - 00:38:25.480

, to put those questions up. So, uh , this first question, I just kind of want to dive right in, uh, it's a question around race. Uh, I think for, uh

00:38:25.550 - 00:38:34.180

, our white sisters and brothers, the person that wrote this question, thank you for allowing this to be a safe space and a brave space. I think for people of color, it may be slightly

00:38:34.180 - 00:38:52.250

triggering, not a whole lot, but just giving a disclaimer. Uh, my friend says, I refuse to apologize for being white. How do I respond to that? I would probably tell what that

00:38:52.250 - 00:39:07.430

tells me is that that person is not aware of the benefits of whiteness on him or for him and what I would say is if you begin to do some digging into. What that actually entails hopefully you

00:39:07.430 - 00:39:21.390

will naturally grieve and you will want to make amends for that so no one is gonna force you to apologize for being white. What I would tell him is that means that you think someone wants you to

00:39:21.390 - 00:39:37.130

feel guilty they simply want you to acknowledge the reality of the benefits you've received so that you can move forward wiser and be a steward of those things. I tell people. Shame is the wrong response.

00:39:37.340 - 00:39:52.340

It's really just about awareness and responsibility and then what is my invitation to move forward with this knowledge? um, guilt just tells me you're not in the right place yet to receive the reality and that's the

00:39:52.340 - 00:40:04.750

true thing is friends, many of us are here our first response to even the idea of privilege was to defend ourselves, to declare why we weren't. Like the people who they, whoever was talking about

00:40:04.750 - 00:40:17.310

when in reality it's unavoidable, so it's really about looking in the mirror and saying how has my life been easier because of the conditions around my even very physicality so that's what I'd say. Thank you very

00:40:17.310 - 00:40:25.940

much for that. Absolutely. Another question, uh , says, uh, we heard a quote earlier from Howard Thurman, uh, and he says in one of his works, do what makes you alive

00:40:27.330 - 00:40:37.620

, uh, how was that distinct from the things that twist us and. Really just disrupt our humanity . Well, I think that you know there are 2, there are two ways this works and what

00:40:37.620 - 00:40:51.140

you know Wendy was saying in her message very eloquently we were talking about it a little bit last night that there is the idea of grief and the value of that and then there's the. The um activism

00:40:51.140 - 00:41:05.820

of joy right or delight and both of those are useful because what happens is if we only sit in the burden we become so heavy that we become. Unable to to really be successful, but what I

00:41:05.820 - 00:41:19.700

often, I do a compassion fatigue workshop and I might give you like a 90 minute workshop tomorrow in about 45 seconds, but part of that is to . And cultivate joy in your life so that you

00:41:19.700 - 00:41:36.260

are buoyant enough to do this work that laughter is medicinal, that these things are offensive weapons against despair because what laughter and joy allow us to do is say I'm not gonna refuse to acknowledge how horrible circumstances

00:41:36.260 - 00:41:49.210

are, but I'm not gonna let that overcome me to the point that I lose the joy for this life because often what activists do is they let. Their lives be taken over by their work and so

00:41:49.210 - 00:42:06.420

they're no longer living whole complete existence because they're working for that existence for someone else and so don't become a martyr to your own heart. Don't let yourself be so furrow browed, doing valuable work that you

00:42:06.420 - 00:42:24.400

forget that God has a life that God wants you to experience as well. It It's OK, sure . As a whole word, yes sir, um , thank you for that. Carson, brother and

00:42:24.400 - 00:42:36.240

friend here said, uh, what does alleviation of suffering look like for clergy who are themselves caught in the proximity? I'm thinking of queer clergy, clergy of color, and so on. I'll say it

00:42:36.240 - 00:42:49.050

again. What does alleviation of suffering look like for the clergy who are themselves caught in the proximity thinking of queer clergy, clergy of color, and so on. Well, Carson, I, I think

00:42:49.440 - 00:43:07.280

, as I mentioned a little bit earlier. Ministry has a way of dehumanizing ministers of not allowing us to be broken or to be hurting to have questions and so I would say that what I look for

00:43:07.280 - 00:43:20.120

is to create communities where people acknowledge. The moment you set up this where there's one person speaking in this direction and a whole row of rows of people looking in the other direction, it sets up a

00:43:20.120 - 00:43:30.880

hierarchy and I try to let people know I'm here , you know, I happen to have this position by a set of circumstances that none of us could control, but what I would say is I want

00:43:30.880 - 00:43:42.410

people around me who are for me as a human being before they are for me as a minister. Um, so I would try is that speaking to the question itself? Yeah, and so part of

00:43:42.410 - 00:43:55.710

it is to is as you begin ministry to set up those expectations for the people around you. I , I was very fortunate that I had. Pastors above me who said who you are matters more to

00:43:55.710 - 00:44:07.150

me than what you do and if that's not the case you're not in a church that is reflecting the compassionate heart of Jesus so uh I and I say that to people out there who are listening who they

00:44:07.150 - 00:44:22.020

always say well you know how do we do that ? Well, you have to realize that um. Pastors Carry the the not just the trauma that they're experiencing they carry other people's trauma, you know,

00:44:22.110 - 00:44:34.620

and we're gonna talk about anger tomorrow. Part of the anger comes from we're holding more pain than a human being should have to hold and there's something that there's something we have to respond to so the humanity

00:44:34.620 - 00:44:46.340

of the minister. Thank you for that. Truly a couple of other questions here. um, Amy said, what do you do when we are working with and part of a wounded marginalized group? I'm

00:44:46.340 - 00:45:07.150

tending and bleeding. What do you do when you are working with and are part of a marginalized, uh, a wounded marginalized group? I am tending and bleeding. I think Well there there was a

00:45:07.150 - 00:45:22.830

time in my first um stretch of ministry and I was um standing over a Xerox machine. And I was really just completely disheveled and stressed because I was a young minister who really just didn't want to be

00:45:22.830 - 00:45:37.520

a minister was drafted into it and I just was furrow browed and everything and my minister came over and he said uh. You know, if you fancy yourself being a superhero. There will be plenty of

00:45:37.520 - 00:45:45.360

people who will press your uniform for you, send you into a phone booth, and cheer you as you fly out, but when you come crashing down to earth when you meet your kryptonite, they will

00:45:45.360 - 00:45:58.160

not be there to help you. So you need to take care of yourself, and I would say to anyone who is part of a vulnerable oppressed community , you need to make sure. That you are

00:45:58.440 - 00:46:13.840

offering the same tenderness and empathy for yourself. We we are often the least loving to the person in the mirror. And, and There are enough people in this world fighting the fights that we don't have

00:46:13.840 - 00:46:25.530

to act as if we are the only one fighting them that's why community is so powerful when we can lean on other people and say I need to check out right now there are seasons of activism we don't

00:46:25.530 - 00:46:36.720

have to be in a continual state if we work at this level or we're involved in this level, we don't commit to that for a lifetime there are seasons I work with a lot of folks who are

00:46:37.400 - 00:46:46.950

. You know, people of color who are in their 60s and 70s and they're saying, you know what, I've spent decades doing this work and I'm tired. And and what we talk about is let

00:46:46.950 - 00:47:00.060

yourself be tired and let yourself just rest and grieve and let other people begin to carry this that's just what this community is supposed to be about so um don't buy into the myth that you need to be

00:47:00.060 - 00:47:15.600

constantly. The, the, the superhero, yeah . Yeah, yeah, my goodness, yes, thank you for that. A couple more we've got here. Let's see, um, connecting with local

00:47:15.600 - 00:47:27.920

like-minded folks is superior to screaming in an echo chamber . Can you offer some ideas on how we can connect locally? Yeah, you know, I'm fond of echo chambers screaming. No, um, here's

00:47:27.920 - 00:47:42.240

what I would say there is a difference between being in an echo chamber and being in a community of like-hearted people where you feel safe and able to express the fullness of who you are. So on one

00:47:42.240 - 00:47:51.960

hand I would say yes, community that we can be in is valuable, but then yes, we , we want what was the second part of how that question was worded? And I just archived it

00:47:51.960 - 00:48:00.980

that's OK that's good. So I think it was , you know, instead of an echo chamber, how can we begin to go and and have conversations we look for communities outside of that echo chamber?

00:48:01.220 - 00:48:15.920

Yeah, I think it's, uh, there are a couple of things. I've been doing this work in this virtual capacity for about a decade and during that time I've been invited by progressive churches and humanist

00:48:15.920 - 00:48:31.390

conferences and synagogues and mosques and atheist events but I've never been invited by a conservative Christian church to talk about the things we've been talking about, right? So we're gonna go over there right now uh let's

00:48:31.390 - 00:48:45.450

find one but what that tells me. Is there is that culture of fear that we talked about it insulates people from even being exposed to different ideas because then they might see someone like me or people like

00:48:45.450 - 00:48:57.180

you and say well they're not the boogeyman that we thought existed well they're actually human beings so what we need to do is to begin to be creative in how we partner with one another. I call it

00:48:57.180 - 00:49:13.760

the community of the convinced. So the community of the convinced are Christians and Jewish people and humanists and atheists and agnostic and Muslims who say we're gonna get together and demonstrate what is possible because when someone is

00:49:13.760 - 00:49:25.930

in a fear mindset and a community that's closed they lose their imagination. On what life can even look like so we have to wake up the imaginations of people and so whether that is doing music and art

00:49:25.930 - 00:49:38.810

festivals that we bring people together for or whether it's doing this on really expansive service work in the community I find that when people are someone once said to me about student ministry, if you want people to

00:49:38.810 - 00:49:52.240

feel significant give them something significant to be a part of. And I think that's what we need to be doing right now because that's when the conversations start to happen organically when you're working alongside someone who's different

00:49:52.240 - 00:50:05.560

than you, but you're able to do something redemptive together, suddenly you're disarmed. So I think we have to create opportunities for people to be together when the agenda is not let's figure out how to fix

00:50:05.560 - 00:50:19.150

our differences let's do something together that shows our commonalities and then let's slowly lean into that so we kinda have to be subversive in some ways. Yeah. Wonderful, thank you. We've got one final question

00:50:19.340 - 00:50:30.750

, unless other folks submit them. I think we'll probably land here. This is and more questions are coming in. Never mind retracted my wife over there . Thank you, honey. This one is a

00:50:30.750 - 00:50:39.830

bit revisiting from what we talked about earlier. I think it probably has come up through the course of the day with all of the lectures that have taken place uh but again revisiting, uh, Christianity has

00:50:39.830 - 00:50:50.590

been made toxic by Christian nationalism. Should we just phone our form our own new group as someone suggested earlier, followers of Jesus, can you expand on that? I think folks are really rough. Wrestling

00:50:50.590 - 00:51:00.750

with that nomenclature of calling ourselves Christian in this current context. Yeah, and part of it is a little bit difficult for me because I'm not in the context of let's say a local church every week or

00:51:00.750 - 00:51:15.160

a denomination where I don't have those barriers so I can just when I go to a different city and people come to see me. They they have no commonalities other than they are lighthearted in some of the

00:51:15.160 - 00:51:28.240

values that I talk about so those things about compassion , they're not coming to do that under the banner of a religious group or a political group and so no one cares what we call ourselves and I think

00:51:28.240 - 00:51:40.190

that's the challenge we have to decide are we committed to the to expressing emulating and perpetuating the life and teachings of Jesus just because they're the things that we should be doing. Or do we need people,

00:51:40.270 - 00:51:52.670

do we need to somehow get credit for it or or build some sort of movement and it's really difficult to know because I used to think when I was doing this work that being a pastor was an asset

00:51:52.670 - 00:52:06.420

to me in front of many people but now I know it's a liability. And so the question becomes we can work forever in figuring out a new label or we could just put all our energy into incarnating

00:52:06.420 - 00:52:16.050

whatever it is that we believe and know that the world is gonna be more just and loving than when we started. Um, I wanna be, if I'm gonna be a Christian, I wanna be an

00:52:16.050 - 00:52:25.500

expectation defying Christian. I want people to hear here's here's the way I think about this. I you've ever been driving and there's a car in front of you and they have a sign in the back of

00:52:25.500 - 00:52:34.940

the car that says how's my driving? you know , it's like a truck and they have a number . I just wanna call and say horrible, but imagine if you had a sign on your back that

00:52:34.940 - 00:52:45.910

said how's my living? call this number. And what I want people to do is be able to reverse engineer what I believe based on the experience they have of my life. And I think more Christians

00:52:45.910 - 00:53:00.270

if we lead with our values and not lead with I'm a Christian, they're just gonna experience the love of Jesus and right now the people who are most branding themselves before they meet you are the least like

00:53:00.270 - 00:53:09.340

Christ people that we know. Um, all that to say, this is eternal thing. I, um. If you find a way, please let me know and I'll, that will be my next

00:53:09.340 - 00:53:27.680

book but I, I just know that when I ask is Christianity helpful anymore? I don't know what I know is that. The audacious love of Jesus for all people in his path is helpful, right

00:53:27.710 - 00:53:43.660

? A, a, a relentless love of our enemy and of God and of friend and of neighbor that's helpful and so beyond that I can't answer. Yeah, thank you very much. Got a question

00:53:43.660 - 00:53:59.370

from pastor from a pastor. Sometimes I feel like even in my grief, I need to set an example. How much does being a pastor really need to impact how you navigate the wounds? There there's

00:53:59.370 - 00:54:15.170

a challenge that when I said that I needed to commit to authenticity in my as a minister. There's a fine line between being an authentic human being ministering . And simply doing therapy in front of other people

00:54:15.780 - 00:54:29.380

and some of it there's a narcissism that can creep into that so when it comes to our grief or our struggles we want to responsibly wield them for other people and it's a daily learning for me as a

00:54:29.380 - 00:54:40.360

writer and someone who writes all the time. I often have to say. Is this too much for me to offer someone or is this gonna be helpful for them? So when I talked about my grieving

00:54:40.370 - 00:54:52.850

, the loss of my father, I started writing on grief on day three. Now looking back, I probably shouldn't have, but it felt like what I was supposed to do and because of that I

00:54:52.850 - 00:55:07.970

did reach people I would have never reached any other way. So our personhood is our most valuable asset in ministering. The question just becomes, can we wisely steward that so that we are not devoured by

00:55:07.970 - 00:55:24.240

it. There are a lot of ex-ministers because they couldn't. They saw the wounds of the world as vital and the wounds that they received as unnecessary to deal with so um that's a tough one. Thank

00:55:24.240 - 00:55:38.040

you very much and our actual last question for the sake of time, uh, which Christian doctrines and language do you see as most responsible for fear of doubt? I'll say it again, which Christian doctrines

00:55:38.040 - 00:55:53.250

and language do you see as most responsible for fear of doubt? I don't think it's a, I don't think it's doctrinal I think it's environmental when I , I have been in churches where. I knew

00:55:53.250 - 00:56:07.880

that to them certainty was sacred. And there's been many denominational places I found that, but it was the idea that when I was self-assured, at least publicly, that's when I was respected most as a

00:56:07.880 - 00:56:21.320

minister. And I knew that doubt or questions were looked at as moral failings or character flaws, and I didn't need anyone to declare it and I couldn't even read it anywhere, but it was that sense

00:56:21.320 - 00:56:37.680

that when I was in a particular community where there was an expectation that the minister I call it the conspiracy of pretending. Where I would be upfront. And if I could speak eloquently and passionately and self-assuredly

00:56:37.800 - 00:56:46.770

, people would love it, even if I didn't believe what I was preaching. Even if I told people behind the scenes, I'm not sure I believe that they'd say it's fine, you know, you're

00:56:46.770 - 00:56:58.090

preaching it though, people are receiving it, you know, Paul is saying, well, whatever happens as long as I preach the word and what I would say is that they're. That authenticity, I

00:56:58.090 - 00:57:14.390

knew when that became a liability. And you know if you're in a community where certainty is prized and doubts are looked down upon and I will always lean on the Psalms and say I get the psalms because

00:57:14.390 - 00:57:25.110

some days the psalmist is saying you are beautiful and and and there's gratitude and some days it's like are you even listening? and some days is this you're not even there I'm talking to myself here. Um

00:57:25.250 - 00:57:39.450

, so doctrinally I've never really experienced it in my settings. It's always been once I know that there is a collective pressure to believe unwaveringly, that's when I know I'm in a dangerous place, and that's

00:57:39.450 - 00:57:46.290

when they say, hey, I'm gonna offer you a vacation and this is your start date and there's no return date and that's how I ended up with