Bonus Episode w/ Andrew Root

Welcome to the Gospel Reverb podcast. Gospel Reverb is an audio gathering for preachers, teachers, and Bible thrill seekers. Each month, our host, Anthony Mullins, will interview a new guest to gain insights and preaching nuggets mined from select passages of Scripture in that month’s Revised Common Lectionary.

The podcast’s passion is to proclaim and boast in Jesus Christ, the one who reveals the heart of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And now onto the episode.

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Anthony: Hello friends, and welcome to a bonus episode of Gospel Reverb. We like a bonus, right? Extra fries at the bottom of the Five Guys’ fast food cheeseburger bag or overtime of a great sporting event, bonus episode of the favorite TV show or a BOGO special at the grocery — we like bonus! And so here we have a completely free and bonus episode.

Gospel Reverb is a podcast devoted to bringing you insights from Scripture found in the Revised Common Lectionary and sharing commentary from a Christ-centered and Trinitarian view. I’m your host, Anthony Mullins, and it’s my joy to welcome our guest Dr. Andrew Root.

Andy is a Professor of Theology, Youth Ministry and Culture at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He’s written a number of books and given lectures and presentations across the country and around the globe to church groups, universities and academic communities. In this episode, we will discuss Andy’s book Churches and the Crisis of Decline. I’ve read the book, listened to the audio book, and it’s insightful. And it’s challenging. Do yourself a solid and pick up a copy.

Andy, thanks for being with us and welcome to the podcast. And since this is your first time on Gospel Reverb, we’re glad you’re here. We’ve been trying to do this for a while. We’d love to know a bit of your personal story and how you are participating with the Lord these days.

Andrew: Yeah. First, thanks for having me. And yeah, I guess probably the most direct way is talking to folks like you and just doing a lot of podcasts and a lot of teaching. But I would say right now my vocation around this series, which this book Churches and the Crisis of Decline fits within, has really pushed, I think, my ministry.

And I guess I believe, in fear and trembling, where God is moving is just helping people who have been in ministry stay in ministry by seeing some of the larger forces that are making ministry really hard right now. I hope that I’ve been a fellow companion as people have wrestled with the frustrations and the joys, but a lot of the sufferings of ministry right now.

Anthony: Do you have a favorite book in the series that you’ve written?

Andrew: Yeah. A bit, I think that’s like asking, what’s your favorite, which child do you like best?

Anthony: You have a favorite.

Andrew: I’m definitely not going to say that on the air.

Anthony: Okay. All right. We tried.

Andrew: The story always goes, no one has a favorite child, and then you name the one that is your favorite. And I’m not going to do that.

But yeah, this one I do like a lot because, I think, it’s trying to put together some pretty divergent things like the story of Karl Barth with a fictional story of a church that I’ve written. So, I like this one quite a bit, but I don’t know. The one that I always like the most is the one I’m working on right now.

Or the one that hasn’t seen the light of day yet or something. There is something like parenting where you try to do everything you can to kind of birth this child and give it the best chance to exist in the world. But once they leave your house to go to college You got to realize they’re out of your control in some sense.

And yeah, so I look at them all fondly. They all took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. But yeah, probably the one I’m working on right now, which in some sense, I can’t even talk about which one I’m working on right now. Not because it’s a secret, but because when you’re in the middle of it, it takes a while to figure out how do I even talk about what I’m thinking and what I’m trying to get out on the page now.

That’s, for me, the way it is. I heard one very famous French philosopher say once they write a book, it’s dead to them. Like they never think about it again. And that’s not quite me, but I do understand this, just moving forward, working on the next thing. And now let the books that are out do their work out there.

[00:04:30] Anthony: I’m curious — I’ve never written a book; writing’s intimidating to me. And I’m just curious if you’ve faced this. I think it might’ve been Rob Bell I heard say this once: when you pull up your Word document (or whatever you work in) and that blinking cursor, it’s so intimidating. Like where do I start?

Do you have that issue ever where you have writer’s block or just getting started is really hard?

[00:04:55] Andrew: Yeah, for sure. For sure I have that. And I also have just the constant — really, to be honest, I see writing as a spiritual discipline. That makes me seem very pious and holy, but it’s a form of suffering really.

I think it is. Writing is something you have to suffer. And I do think it’s a calling in that way that there are those days where just nothing comes out. Or even you’ve written a chapter or two and you’re like: I thought this was really good yesterday, and today I think it’s really awful. And you’re battling this.

Or you have someone in the back of your mind, you think is going to read this that you’re writing to, and you’re not sure that you can meet their critiques or something like that.

In some ways for me, I would never write if I did it only when I felt like it. It has to be a kind of discipline that I just return to and put myself in jail and work my three and a half hours and then go away from it and work it again. And it is a bit like a craft for me.

Like you’re just working a piece of wood or working a stone, and it definitely bloodies my hands. And there are some days where you wrestle to get 200 words out. And then there’s days where all of a sudden 2, 500 words come or 4, 000 words come.

And those are great. But the majority of it is just trying to scrape something coherent out of your brain.

[00:06:20] Anthony: Gotcha. Before we get into the content of the book, let’s tackle an immensely important subject. You wrote it during the height of the COVID pandemic. And like all of us, we’re watching a lot of streaming TV shows. Now I don’t need a pandemic to watch a lot of TV. I don’t know if you have that same issue.

But anyway, let’s fast forward to 2024. Do you have a TV show or two that you would recommend to us that you really like right now?

[00:06:48] Andrew: Yeah, probably the best show I’ve watched, say, in the last two or three months is the new season of Fargo. It is amazing.

And the way it ends in the final episode, which I won’t give away because you need to just experience it, but you do need to know if you start into the newest season that it ends in an utterly beautiful way. So, every episode was great, but the ending just is something really, just something magnificent.

So that would be one. The other series I just finished recently was the newest True Detective on HBO. And the final episode is worth exploring, but for the opposite reasons, it doesn’t open up anything transcendent to mystical. It closes it down in a certain way.

And I won’t ruin the ending of that, but I found myself more screaming at the TV in disappointment after that one. But both I think give anyone who’s watching with a kind of theological lens or trying to think about our cultural moment, both will leave you a lot to think about.

[00:07:58] Anthony: Yeah, of course, Fargo may be some geographical bias up your way in Minnesota, right?

[00:08:05] Andrew: According to the show, there’s a murder every few hours here in the Twin Cities.

[00:08:13] Anthony: Get out of Dodge, man. Get out of Dodge, man.

All right. So, let’s talk about the book. What prompted you to write Churches and the Crisis of Decline?

[00:08:22] Andrew: Yeah, probably the prompt was — first of all, it’s a failure in some ways because the series that I was writing, Ministry in a Secular Age, which was really a kind of wrestling with the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor’s epic work called A Secular Age and trying to apply it to ministry, but really be more inspired to do theological construction from it.

It was supposed to only be a three-volume series, and this was the volume that made it four. And made me a liar to everyone that I was going to make you read a lot more. And it became actually six volumes, and we finally decided to shut it down. But this book really did come out of this sense that there was obviously more to say.

And I wanted to do a kind of full ecclesiology in the final volume of this series. That was a book called The Congregation in the Secular Age, but as the title says, it kind of points to it, it became more just focused on the congregation and not a full ecclesiology and then I thought I’d do a full ecclesiology in this book.

And it kind of became that, but kind of not. And there’s just more to say. And I was particularly really fascinated with thinking about a kind of theology, a modern theology that could break into what Charles Taylor calls the “immanent frame.” And what he means is this kind of predisposition we have as modern people to presume the world is made up of natural material things as opposed to transcendent or supernatural things, and that we live an innate kind of bias that tends to see the world as more immanent natural material.

And yet, I think there’s been some really interesting ways of trying to imagine a way God breaks in and trying to think of the church as a community that can find life through an inbreaking God as opposed to — which really becomes the kind of enemy and opposition in this boo — narratives of decline. The book has an incredible clickbait title: Churches in the Crisis of Decline. But really, it’s a little bit of a red herring in the title. I’m a little bit too worried that we have narratives of decline that we’re trying to solve in the life of the church instead of being communities that really seek for the living act of God.

And that if we attend more to narratives of God’s action or more take on practices that conform our imagination that way, that those will serve us much better than thinking, “Why do we have such few resources, such limited relevance, and how could we win both those two R’s back? How could we win resources and relevance back?”

I’m trying to recast what we think about the future of the church in a different way than thinking that we’re in a kind of narrative of declension, in a narrative of loss.

[00:11:19] Anthony: You framed the book by turning back to Karl Barth, which you’ve already alluded to, but especially his early years as a pastor and theologian-in-the-making to shape the hopeful ecclesiology to some degree of the book.

And so, my question is right now, many denominations of pastors are seeking the latest and greatest strategy of church survival and growth because they’re experiencing decline. So, my question is why hearken back to the dusty pages of Barth’s theology and ecclesiology?

[00:11:52] Andrew: Yeah, it’s a good question.

And in the worlds that I live in, interpretations of Barth, either even mentioning the name Barth makes people roll their eyes, or you enter into wars on the right way to interpret him. So, it was probably not the smartest thing in the world that I did, for my own self-preservation, to enter into a dialogue with Barth.

But one of the things that I found really interesting, particularly about the early Barth that I think can be informative to us is that Barth, most definitely, and the whole theological movement around him at the time, particularly as they responded to the crisis of World War I, that they even named themselves (or it was shade throw on them that they then took as a kind of badge of honor) is they were called “crisis theology.” They always had this deep sense that there was a crisis.

And I think overall in American Protestantism, we feel like we’re in a crisis, but I think what’s happened and I’m trying to get at in the book is that we’ve got the crisis wrong. The crisis isn’t one of decline; the crisis really is how do we speak again of a living, acting God?

How do we help people in our congregations have an imagination for a God who moves in history and speaks and is bringing salvation to the world? That becomes our crisis. And I do think we’re at moments, like you’re saying, where pastors have to be — we’ll lose some sleep. People who are leading congregations, maybe even leading denominations, probably need to have some sleepless nights tossing and turning.

But I think too often those sleepless nights really are around, how can we be more relevant? How can we get more of what we don’t have? And some of that is legitimate. Most churches in America are one roof leak away from being done, not being able to survive financially because of that.

So, I don’t want to be naive about that. But I think the real crisis before us and the real crisis of what it means to live in a secular age and to inhabit this immanent frame is not the crisis of having less, not the crisis of decline, all of the title. It really is the crisis of: how do we form people to have an imagination to hear again a living speaking God?

So, I wanted to go back to Barth because Barth is this very interesting theologian who wants to be modern. He’s not interested in throwing off modernity and going back to some pre-modern time or recover some pre-modern conception. He wants to be a modern person, but he really wants to explore how even in a modern world God can speak and move, that even inside the immanent frame, which we don’t get to opt out of.

It’s just thrust upon us. It’s the lens that we get from our larger cultural reality. Nevertheless, God can still act and move and speak. And I think that’s a word that American Protestantism needs to hear again. Really, what the church is about is the crisis of wrestling with a God who’s an agent and who speaks and moves in the world.

And that can give us life. It’s its own kind of suffering and struggle in bearing that crisis. But also, there’s something really generative in it that I think can renew us.

[00:15:02] Anthony: As I’ve read Barth, especially Pastor Barth, I’m grateful for somebody who — we often think of Barth as a “dogmatician” and full of dogma, but yet as a pastor, you’re wrestling through these things with a community of people. I think it was George Hunsinger I heard say that I prefer to read theologians who preach sermons at a local church, they have to work this stuff out.

And that’s where Barth is so helpful. It helped frame his theology. In the book, you talk about churches tend to center themselves by centering their survival as the main focus of their speech and energies. But you want us to redirect those efforts, as you’ve already talked about, to the living God.

And the phrase (though it seems simple, is very profound) “God is God” appeared many times in the pages of the book to acknowledge this transcendent and immanent God. Why should “God is God” be so important to a declining church?

[00:16:11] Andrew: Yeah, I think it is kind of a nonsensical statement. Eberhard Busch (who is Karl Barth’s last secretary, administrator, teaching assistant and then his first real significant biographer) talks about this phrase that kind of started Barth’s revolution. “God is God.” It’s almost a nonsensical phrase; it’s only two words, three words total, two distinct words: God is God. And what are we actually getting at here?

But it is this really profound assertion that God is uncontrollable, that God cannot be controlled. And I think one of the issues we have in just the context of modern life, but particularly American Protestantism’s response, is we feel so much like we’re in decline that we want to turn God into a product that we can sell.

We want God to somehow serve our needs or the church’s continuation, not that the church needs to be drawn deeper and deeper into God’s life. So, the assertion that God is reminding us that God is uncontrollable, that God acts, and God moves, that God is not at our beck and call. But what we’re called to stop and try to discern how God is moving with within our lives.

And I think that’s really important. Like I said at the beginning, I was trying to at least move towards a kind of full ecclesiology here, and I don’t think I got there, but I was starting to take the steps there. And I think one of the first things we have to say in ecclesiology, about trying to ask, what is the church, was that one of the important theological points is that the church cannot be the star of its own story.

And I think almost every consultant who comes to a church that feels like it is in decline or that it is losing out market share in its community, almost the first question is, so what’s your church’s story? What’s your story? What differentiates you within this market? What is your story that we need to tell as a kind of marketing move?

And there some of that, of course, is necessary just as we deal with institutional structures and things like that. But theologically, the church has no story. The story that the church attends to is the story of God. The church has no story of its own. Its own story isn’t what matters. What matters is God’s story.

And the church doesn’t even get to be best supporting actor in this drama of God’s work in the world. Really, the world is. God is ministering to the world. And the church plays a significant role to narrate that story, to participate in it, witness to it, and point to it. The story that matters, that will fuel the church, is this story of how God is acting in the world.

I just hear so many churches that are always looking for their unique story. What do they innovatively do within their community? Maybe there’s some of that’s necessary, but I worry it decenters the very act of God in moving people to be interested in attending to how God is acting and telling those kinds of stories, as opposed to telling stories about what sets us apart in the market.

So, I really want to push that “God is God,” and therefore it’s God’s story that really matters here. And that our job is to try to attend to that story, to try to discern what God is doing in the world.

[00:19:44] Anthony: I appreciated the emphasis that you put on God “is”. There is a here and now, “I am” dynamic.

So, when we proclaim the name, Emmanuel, God is with us — not God was with us and now he’s disappeared and no longer on the scene, but he’s actively at work. And what is he doing? Like you said, discerning what he’s up to in the neighborhood where you’re at in your context. And so, it seems to me, what you might be saying is: we’re talking about anthropology when we should be talking theology. Who is God and what’s he doing?

You wrote, and I quote, “Fifteen is no shame. A community of fifteen people seeking the living Christ is beautiful.” You wrote it. So, I assume you believe it. Though I’ve come back and listened to some old sermons and I’m not sure I believe everything I say, but I’m going to trust that you believe it.

So, if you do, help us to understand how that’s a truthful statement.

[00:20:45] Andrew: Yeah. I think there is this certain late modern, kind of scrim we see the world through, that we haven’t been attentive enough to, which is that we live with a certain logic of escalation and that all things that are good continue to escalate and get more and grow.

And you’ll hear people say that only healthy things grow, which I suppose is true. Like the doctor says, your eight-year-old is not where they should be for their age. That’s a huge issue. But however, on the other side, like if you had an eight year old and your eight-year-old was 6’ 9”, you’d also be really worried. That doesn’t necessarily mean there’s health there too.

So, my point is, just things escalating and just things growing at the level of resource and say, relevance (to use those words again), I don’t think that’s the measure of a good church. I just don’t think that that can hold weight to really what the measure of a good church is. A church theologically that is good is one that is proclaiming Christ and him crucified, is living deeply in each other’s lives, is witnessing out in the world, as well as within their own life. This God who takes what is dead and makes it alive, they are living that story out. They are being sent into the world to minister to it.

So, I think there is absolutely no shame in being a small community. I think that is absolutely beautiful. And I think so much of our perspectives in Protestantism is to think what is big is better.

And I don’t know if that’s always necessarily the truth. And I guess that becomes part of the problem with this whole narrative of decline and thinking that’s our biggest issue is that the only way out of that, you imagine, is what the sociologist Hartman Rosa, the German sociologist, talks about as dynamic stabilization.

That we think the only thing that can stabilize our institution is further and further growth. And then this logic of escalation just then never stops. You just have to keep growing and growing and growing. You have to keep going faster and faster. You need to keep innovating and finding new and go and go.

And yet I’m not exactly sure that’s reflective of what God calls us to or of the biblical narrative. I don’t know that there’s this deep sense of continuing to escalate things as much as what it means to participate in. So, growth isn’t about just getting more and more. I think biblically it’s about growing into something, growing into being in Christ, of a deeper sense of participation in the Trinitarian life.

And you can do that with 15 people really sharing each other’s humanity isn’t dependent on thousands of people or thousands of dollars in a budget. So, I just want us to have a bit of a different kind of moral framework about what makes a church good. And I think it really is goodness is embedded in what it means to proclaim the gospel and participate in each other’s lives as a way of participating in God’s life and growing into being reflective of Christ’s ministry in the world more than it is to substantiate our institutions by having excess resources, more capital than we need, enough capital to always be able to exist beyond the day or the year or the decade.

[00:24:29] Anthony: I appreciate what you said about what are we growing into? It really is: how do we see growth? And I want to ask you a question. If you were sitting with a pastor of a church, a small church, and in my context, most of our churches are small and sometimes pastors feel defeated, like somehow, they’re doing something wrong.

If you had the privilege to sit with one of these pastors and you’d want to speak truth into their life, in their feelings of frustration and shame that they’re not accomplishing whatever someone else says they need to accomplish. What would you say to them?

[00:25:07] Andrew: Yeah, my answer would be, and maybe this dates me a bit, but it would be a little bit of a Goodwill Hunting response. At the very end of that Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Ben Affleck movie, where Robin Williams’ character tells Matt Damon’s character: it’s not your fault. In some sense, what I want to communicate to pastors right now — because inside this kind of logic of escalation, inside these kinds of senses of dynamically stabilizing things only through a growth, not a growth into, but a growth of more and more — it’s very easy, what happens in that as you enter into hyper competitive spaces.

So, you’re always competing for these resources. There’s a limited amount of them. How do we get more and more? And therefore, when you start to look at your church, and it’s small, or you haven’t done what you think when you came out of seminary or you took your first call and you thought this is what I was going to do, and there’s just been frustration. It’s very easy to either blame yourself or blame your people. It’s my fault. Gosh, if I only was talented enough. If I only was a better preacher, if only this community’s demographics were different.

Or you start to blame your congregation. If these people weren’t so hardheaded, if these people would just give more money. You start to either blame yourself or blame others.

And that will just suck the life right out of you. And there’s really no renewal in the midst of that because it will create forms of resentment where you either resent your congregation or you start resenting yourself. And I think, so my words would be — and this is really why this whole series was written is to say these forces are making ministry hard.

First of all, as I say, ministry is really hard right now. Yes, it is. And it is hard for really large cultural realities. And this is not the golden age of church leadership. And that’s okay because God will see us through. So, I think that’s ultimately what I want to say is it’s not your fault.

And that is also not your job to save the church. It is a certain kind of odd chauvinism to think it’s our job to save the church, as if God needs us to somehow save the confession of Jesus Christ in America. Now the church is God’s responsibility, and we will be called to deep forms of responsibility in obedience to God.

But really what we’re to do is to embrace the beauty of the gospel itself, to remember the absolute pleasure, the absolute wonder and a hardship, but wonder of walking with people in life and death, of pointing to this very narrative bound in the actuality of our lives of a God again, who takes what is dead and makes it alive.

The gospel itself is so beautiful and the ministerial task, the pastoral task is so profoundly important to just walk with people and prepare them to die well and live well, to celebrate before God and to find forgiveness and healing with one another. That is such an amazing task to remember that, to remember the beauty of that.

And yet I’m so concerned that all gets wiped away because we say to pastors: you got to grow this thing by 30%, 40%. You got to win market share. You got to go, you got to go, you got to go. And all of a sudden just being with a couple when the husband gets diagnosed with dementia or a young woman gets diagnosed with breast cancer and just praying with her and seeing her through this long battle and then helping her die well, and then preaching the gospel at her funeral is unbelievably beautiful. It is hard. It is heart wrenching, but it also is beautiful.

So, I’d ultimately just want to remind us of the incredible gift that we’ve been given, called to, which is to proclaim the gospel in the real, lived concrete lives of walking with people.

[00:29:33] Anthony: Well said. Plus, you got a Goodwill Hunting reference in there. Well, done, sir. That scene where Robin Williams and Matt Damon are sitting on a bench, and Williams is challenging him about the experiences of life was just so beautiful! But that was really well said.

The book articulates how if a church is going to take seriously engaging the living God it has to be a church that waits on God. Andy, this waiting ain’t popular, man. It feels passive and therefore unproductive. Can waiting on God really be the way? And if so, what does it really mean to wait on God?

[00:30:19] Andrew: Yeah, I say this to groups of people all the time, like right before I drop, it’s about waiting.

I say, you’re going to hate this. You’re just going to absolutely hate this. And for the most part, I’ve been proven right. People hate it. Especially as middle class, upwardly mobile people, we hate waiting. And in many ways, waiting is the enemy of a kind of late consumerist society.

We’re trying to, as one social theorist says, we’re trying to take all the waiting out of wanting so, part of the consumer society is to get you whatever you want without waiting. So, your Amazon droid is going to be dropping off your package as soon as you click it at some point. So, we want that to occur.

So, I understand that. And there are forms of waiting, don’t get me wrong, where — I’d actually say I’m not the most patient person in the world. So waiting is not easy for me. And I did have an experience just a few weeks ago of being at the Apple store and getting my watch upgraded and them asking me if I wanted to pair the watch while I was in the store.

And I figured that takes something off my to-do list. Let’s do that. But then it had to do a software update. So, I had to sit there and watch the percentage of the software update download happen. And it was a busy Sunday, and the bandwidth was being eaten up and it was excruciating. It was the most awful form of waiting ever. It felt just like a certain kind of hell. I get it — there are a lot worse things in life than that, but it was not a fun form of waiting.

So, this is usually how we think about waiting is that waiting is some kind of blockage to action. But there is a different, I think, sense of waiting that is really much more profound that I’m trying to get us to. And it all does go back to this idea of God is the one who acts. If God “is, and that “is” means that this God is an actor, that this God acts and reveals God’s being and God’s action, then the disposition we need — to be able to discern and interpret God’s action and to participate in it because we’ve encountered it — is to stop and wait, is to wait on this God.

And we have these biblical themes everywhere. The great Psalm, “Be still and know I am God.” I’ve been told by some Old Testament experts that one way you can interpret that or translate that in the Hebrew is put down your hands and know I am God. In other words, stop fighting me and stop trying to do all this stuff. Stop trying to do more and more. Just put down your hands and receive something that I have a gift to give you.

And Martin Luther, too, thought that the Christian life becomes a fundamentally passive life. Not that we don’t act. He thought we acted. We have to act for our neighbor. We have to minister to our neighbor. We have to proclaim the gospel to the world, but it becomes a passive act of a response to receiving a gift that God is the one who acts to justify, to save, and that our waiting is to receive the gift of salvation.

And really, we forget this, but in Luke Acts, and in the movements from Luke to Acts, the first command that starts the church — we love thinking of the church being birthed in Acts 2 with Pentecost, and we particularly love the text, “And then thousands were added to their number.”

For dynamic stabilization and for where we are at in our modern context, that’s just a luscious text. “Thousands were added to their number.” But we forget that the first command that forms the church, that really gathers the community is to the men on the road to Emmaus, where Jesus tells them to return to Jerusalem and to wait. So that’s a waiting together in community. That’s a waiting by telling our stories of loss and suffering of confusion. It’s waiting as a process of discernment.

And so, I think waiting becomes an essential way that we turn our bodies, that we turn our lives towards one another and towards the anticipation of God’s action. The distinct difference about me waiting for my software to download, and the kind of waiting I think is really quite a holy act, is that the kind of waiting that I’m calling for is a certain kind of attentiveness. It’s being attentive to something. It’s waiting with a story, what I call in the book a watchword: a word that we’re on watch, a way we [inaudible] know God moves. Like when there’s no way this God makes a way, out of death comes life. We hold those stories as we wait.

And then as we start to testify to our experiences, to our experiences of loss and of hope and of need and of want, we start to even just look at those stories through our watchword. And I’m trying to discern what God is doing and how God is acting, and I think we become very attentive to the movement of the Spirit in that way.

So, it’s a kind of waiting that reminds us again that God is God and to discern, to be a community, that the job of the church is fundamentally discern how the Spirit is moving

[00:35:27] Anthony: There have been friends in my circle, pastors, lay folks who have experienced their church closing, and they have actively waited on God, Andy. And they just feel broken when their congregation has to close.

You wrote in your book, “It’s no shame for a congregation to close—no failure necessarily, for a pastor to journey with a congregation into death.” Whew. That can feel icky for people experiencing a church closure.

So, can you help us unpack that? I think you’ve touched on it, but can you develop the thought further?

[00:36:06] Andrew: Yeah. I think it’s not surprising to me that around our discourses around the church, that one of the things we feel the most shame around is having to close the church. And I do think that there are leaders whose responsibility it is to continue to plant churches, to continue to think about how churches can have a sustained life.

But there also is a kind of denial of death that we can enter into here if we don’t recognize that sometimes the tragic occurs and that a church has to close and that isn’t always a church’s fault, that someone needs to be blamed for it. Sometimes it’s just life.

And this is a weird age we live in. One of the main things I’m trying to get at in these six books is that this is a kind of weird age. And what it really means to live in a secular age is to live in a time where you can go a long ways without thinking about God. Like you can go a long ways.

People will even say things like, I was going to church for a while, but I’m just going to take a break from God for a while. I just decided I need a break from God. You could never imagine a medieval person being able to say that. They couldn’t even imagine that was a possible thing that you could say.

But we live in a cultural context where people can go a long way, not thinking about God. That’s quite weird in the whole landscape of human history. It’s just as weird and pretty interconnected, I think, that people can go a long way in our cultural context not remembering, forgetting, not thinking about the fact they’re going to die, that they are finite creatures.

And the churches, congregations, the church universal, I think exists in a different way in a different place in God’s economy. But congregations, gathered expressions of the church, are made up of bodies, of human bodies. And Bonhoeffer reminded us in Life Together that to love the church is not to love the idea of the church, but to love the real church, and that always means real human bodies. And communities that are made up of real human bodies will have a lifespan.

So and so First Baptist, First Presbyterian, First United Methodist, First whatever, these are not eternal forms. They are gathered communities that gather and through our bodies proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But I don’t think any of them will exist in a thousand years, you know probably not. The church will. The church will continue to gather in some way.

But these are historically bound realities, and the very confession of the incarnation reminds us of that. The very confession of the Ascension, that Jesus bodily ascends, reminds us that we are always bodies in a place, and that pastoral ministry is always done as a body to bodies. And that does mean that some of us will have the ministry, and have the heavy burden of closing churches, because the bodies have died off the that they can no longer. The community itself can no longer sustain the life of these people.

And there isn’t shame in that. There would be as much shame in that as the shame of doing a funeral for a person, which is not any shame. It is an incredible, like I said, honor and privilege.

And maybe in the same way, it’s heavy, but that’s the same kind of way of closing a church. It is painful. Just like it’s painful for someone to die, but it also is part of what it means to be a finite creature.

[00:39:44] Anthony: Death is the dynamic, in a sense. As a friend often says to me, the Father did not save the Son from death but saved him through death. And death is a part of the experience, and it is not shameful.  And I really appreciate your words. Because again, I know we have people in our listening audience who are hurting from this and that’s okay. God is still on the move.

And speaking of the books that you’ve written, Andy, (and you’ve written over 20) you’ve mentioned this is part of a six book series beyond the book that we’re talking about right now.

And I know you’ve already said, hey, my favorite book is the one I’m writing.  But would you recommend a particular book or books to us that help further this framing of ecclesiology and what God is doing in the church.

[00:40:41] Andrew: Yeah, I actually think probably the place to start, the maybe entry way in, probably the best way, is a little book that just came out last year called, When the Church Stops Working, (which also is a very clickbait title). When the Church Stops Working.

But I really do mean it in a double kind of meaning. Obviously, you know there’s a sense we have that the church isn’t working well. But there also is a sense that what might heal us, what might renew us is not doing more, but actually working less, in receiving God’s gift.

But it’s a book that is in some ways a synthesis of the six volumes that really is written more for lay people. I think it’s a book that pastors can read with folks in their church. It’s what it’s written for. And so, I think it’s a good way in. Even if you feel like you want to get into the six volumes, this would be a good gateway drug, for use of a bad analogy.

[00:41:51] Anthony: Drug usage, as well. This podcast is off the rails.

[00:41:50] Andy: I mean like NyQuil or Tylenol or something like that.

[00:41:53] Anthony: Sure. Sure.

Finally, let me ask you this. What is your hopeful vision of the church in this era of history in a secular world?

[00:42:04] Andrew: Yeah, my hopeful message is that God still acts, and that God will be faithful, and that Jesus Christ is on the move, that the Spirit is being poured out and that God is at work. And yeah, these are hard times. But God is moving. And I think that, like I said, there’s just utter beauty and significance in gathered communities that pray, of pastoral leadership that leads us to celebrate our joys and suffer our great losses. And that this is a valuable thing. And God is moving within it. And I think remembering that the church is God’s responsibility.

And that also this seems like a kind of counterintuitive positive word, but there have been worse times. There have been more difficult times, and the church has made it through. And so, I think we can hang on to that, that God is faithful.

[00:43:16] Anthony: Yeah! Friends, the book is Churches and the Crisis of Decline. I certainly recommend it too, and I’ve read several of Andy’s books. There’s not a bad one out there that I know of; maybe he knows of something I don’t. But thank you so much for being a part of this podcast.

And I want to say on a personal level. I’m so grateful for your labor of love in Christ’s service. In our denominational context, Grace Communion International, we talk frequently about place-sharing, which is a wink to you and your work and engagement with Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Relationship is an end to itself. The beauty of, as you said earlier, of sitting with a person who has a diagnosis that breaks their heart and not trying to move them from A to B, but just sitting with them, being with them, and their joys and sorrows, their pains, their doubts, their confusion, as they sit with us. That’s the beauty because God is there.

So, thank you, Andy.

[00:44:12] Andrew: Thank you. I really appreciate it.

[00:44:13] Anthony: Absolutely. And it’s our tradition here at Gospel Reverb to end with a prayer. So, would you pray over the church?

[00:44:19] Andrew: I would.

God, thank you for this time together, and thank you for these people who are listening. And may you encourage them, even right now, as they’re listening, that you are pleased that their ministry is witnessing to your movement in the world. So, God, would you renew us again and again? And give us visions of your continued action in the world. Amen.

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Thank you for being a guest of Gospel Reverb. If you like what you heard, give us a high rating, and review us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast content. Share this episode with a friend. It really does help us get the word out as we are just getting started. Join us next month for a new show and insights from the RCL. Until then, peace be with you!

Team Building w/ Cara Garrity

Welcome to GC Podcast, a podcast to help you develop into the healthiest ministry leader you can be by sharing practical ministry experience.

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Cara Garrity: In this episode, I (your host, Cara Garrity) will lead us through some team building experiences and exercises.

Now today’s exercises are best experienced with your ministry team. So, consider dedicating an upcoming team meeting, or at least scheduling 20 minutes or so to team building in your next meeting agenda.

[00:40] We know that an important piece of GCI’s healthy church vision is Team Based —Pastor Led ministry. But there are a lot of diverse ways to lead a ministry. What is so great about team-based ministry?

When we minister alongside one another on teams, we reflect the unity and diversity of the body of Christ. Let us consider 1 Corinthians 12: 12-26 together. And it says:

¹² For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³ For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

¹⁴ Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. ¹⁵ If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸ But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. ¹⁹ If all were a single member, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many members yet one body. ²¹ The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” ²² On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³ and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect, ²⁴ whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, ²⁵ that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. ²⁶ If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

Amen.

[03:18] I want to encourage us to see our ministry teams as a reflection of the body of Christ — many parts, but one body.

And if we do this, how might this shape the way that we approach team-based ministry? And I want you to pause and, for a couple minutes, discuss this question with your team. How might this shape the way that we approach team-based ministry if we were to see our teams as a reflection of the body of Christ — many parts, but one body?

Now think about, practically speaking, how this might shape the way that we approach the practical aspects of

• how we run our teams?
• how we recruit people into our teams?
• how we run our meetings and communicate?
• how we assign different responsibilities?

How might this image of the body of Christ inform how we conduct our teams in that sense?

Take a couple minutes with your team to brainstorm and discuss this.

[04:45] Now your team, I want to suggest to you, is a unique expression of the body of Christ. I want us to take some time now to discern and celebrate who God has brought together on your team to serve for this season.

So let’s start with this — and I would encourage you, especially for those visual folks on your team, if you haven’t gotten these supplies already, get a big piece of poster board paper, one of those post-it papers, some markers, some pens, or even if you just have a blank piece of paper on the table that everyone can see and something to write with. Grab some of those, and we’re going to use that for this exercise.

And then the first thing that I want us to start with is a reminder of the purpose of your team. What brings your team together? What is your purpose? For what do you exist?

Now, this may come, for the purpose of this exercise, for your team in the form of your local congregation’s mission and vision statement. This will come in the form of GCI’s vision of Healthy Church or mission statement of “Living and sharing the gospel.”

Whatever that looks like for you, what brings your team together? What is your purpose?

And now what I want you to do is take some time and go around your team. Each member, I want you to answer the question: how do you uniquely contribute to the purpose of this team? And take two minutes to quietly reflect on this before you start answering this question.

[06:44] You are going to go ahead and pause this podcast while you go through and take those two minutes of silent reflection and then share as a team.

The question is: how do you uniquely contribute to the purpose of this team?

And now as you are sharing, I want you on that poster board, paper, whatever it is, draw an outline of a body. And as each member shares, label the various parts of the body with the keywords, the unique gifts or skills or passions that they contribute to the purpose of the team. And just label the various parts of the body with those keywords or gifts, whatever that is, that comes up in your discussion.

How does each member of the team uniquely contribute to the purpose of the team? What gifts, talents, skills, passions?

Now look at this image that you have created. It is a visual representation of your team as the body of Christ. And I want you to look at it and to praise God for who he has brought together to your team. And to see that he has brought together different giftings, different talents, different passions, different skill sets.

And I want you all to look at that and talk about the specific ways or the specific, I guess combinations or expressions of that, that you see on your team. What sticks out with you?

What do you appreciate and celebrate the expression of the body of Christ that God has brought together? What do you notice? And then I want you to take a few minutes and just praise God for bringing you all together. And I want you to affirm one another that you all need one another, that you all belong as members of the body of Christ and an expression of the body of Christ on this team.

[09:06] So go ahead and pause this podcast and take a few minutes to do that and celebrate your unique expression that is represented visually by this drawing.

Now, the next exercise that I want us to do, to consider is if we are considering or engaging with our ministry teams as a reflection and expression of the body of Christ, then we are going to embody this belief that we belong one to another, that we are connected, that we are made one in Christ. What would it look like to commit to belonging to one another as team members?

[09:59] Go ahead and pause the podcast and discuss that as a team for a few minutes. What would it look like to commit to belonging to one another as team members, to be united in Christ?

Here are some simple suggestions that you can start out with. You could rotate prayer partners after each meeting. Whether you have weekly meetings or monthly meetings, whatever that looks like, you just get a prayer partner on that team. And you share your prayer requests, and you follow up and you pray with that person once a week or during that month.

You add prayer for one another to each meeting agenda, every single time you meet. You take turns starting each meeting with a liturgical prayer or spiritual formation exercise that is meaningful to each one of you. You are bringing that expression of who God has made you to be, that gifting, that uniqueness to one another.

And you are growing together and forming in Christlikeness together, with one another. Maybe consider some practices and committing to some practices like this together as a team.

[00:11:25] And for right now, what I want to ask you to do is to take about maybe five to 10 minutes — depending on the size of your team or however this flows for you all —and I want for each person to pray for the person on your right. I want you to thank God for what they bring to this team. And you can use the visual representation from the previous exercise, as a reminder, as something to come back to. I want you to thank God for what they bring to this team, affirm their belonging to the body, their belonging on this team, that their participation on the team is important, and that we celebrate with one another.

Take five to ten minutes for each member on the team to pray for one another, the person on your right. Go ahead and pause this podcast and do that with one another now.

So, I want to encourage us to remember that the teams we serve are more than just production lines, groups of people that we complete checklists alongside to get things done in the church or gears in the machine to make sure things happen and get done. We serve on teens because in Christ, we are many who are made one, each uniquely, fearfully, and wonderfully made, brought together to form the one body of Christ and in him. We belong not only to him, but to one another. We come together in cooperation to be his hands and feet, to participate in his present ministry, in our midst.

And what a beautiful thing that these teams that we get to serve on, that we get to build out in our local congregations, to be a local expression of this body. So let me pray for us.

Lord God, I thank you so much. Father, Son, and Spirit, you yourself are, in your very being, unity. In diversity and unity, Father, Son, and Spirit, three in one.

I thank you that you, Jesus, have brought us, your people, many into one in your body. We thank you for being so good to us. We thank you for giving us according to your will for your good, good purposes. And we thank you for the immense privilege it is to participate in your ministry. And that we do not do it alone, but that we do it primarily with you, that we participate in what you’re doing, but that we get to do it alongside one another too.

We thank you for your relationship and community. And we thank you that it reflects who you are. I pray for a blessing for all our teams. That you would continue to grow them with one another, that they would continue to mature and expand as expressions of your body. That people would be able to operate in the gifts and the skills and the talents that you’ve given them to serve those in their neighborhoods, to join in what you are doing in their midst.

I thank you for being so faithful to guide us, and I praise you in your holy name. Amen.

[15:19] So together as a team, I want to offer a few reflection questions as we have completed these two exercises together as a team.

1. The first is, what difference does it make when we view our teams as reflections of the body of Christ? And how does this challenge us? How does it inspire us? So, take a few minutes to discuss this.
2. Next, what practices or actions does your team want to commit to continue growing in maturity and unity as an expression of the body of Christ together?
3. And finally, what would it look like to continue creating space for people to use their giftings to be active participants in the body of Christ and the life of your local congregation?

So, I want to leave you all with the encouragement of Ephesians 4: 1-16. And it draws us back to the purpose of coming together, diverse, and united, as ministry servants alongside one another in his church. So, Ephesians 4 says:

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. ² Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. ³ Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. ⁴ There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism; ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

⁷ But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. ⁸ This is why it says:

“When he ascended on high,
he took many captives
and gave gifts to his people.”

⁹ (What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? ¹⁰ He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) ¹¹ So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, ¹² to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up ¹³ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

¹⁴ Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. ¹⁵ Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. ¹⁶ From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

May it be so in our teams, in our congregations, throughout our denomination. Until next time, friends, keep on living and sharing the gospel.

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Thank you for listening to this episode of GC Podcast. We hope you found this time valuable. We would love to hear from you. Email us at info@gci.org with your suggestions or feedback. And remember, healthy churches start with healthy leaders, so invest in yourself and in your leaders.

 

Rise Up w/ Chris Tilling

Welcome to the Gospel Reverb podcast. Gospel Reverb is an audio gathering for preachers, teachers, and Bible thrill seekers. Each month, our host, Anthony Mullins, will interview a new guest to gain insights and preaching nuggets mined from select passages of Scripture in that month’s Revised Common Lectionary.

The podcast’s passion is to proclaim and boast in Jesus Christ, the one who reveals the heart of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And now onto the episode.

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Anthony: Hello friends and welcome to the latest episode of Gospel Reverb. Gospel Reverb is a podcast devoted to bringing you insights from Scripture found in the Revised Common Lectionary and sharing commentary from a Christ-centered and Trinitarian view.

I’m your host, Anthony Mullins, and it’s my joy to welcome our guest, Dr. Chris Tilling.

Chris is the Head of Research, Graduate Tutor, Senior Lecturer in New Testament Studies at St Mellitus College in London, England. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book Paul’s Divine Christology and co-author of How God Became Jesus along with Michael Bird. And he wrote a brilliant forward to Jeff McSwain’s latest book, Hidden in Contradiction. Chris has published numerous articles on topics related to Christology, the apostle Paul, justification, the historical Jesus, Karl Barth and more. He’s also on the Advisory Board for the TF Torrance Theological Society.

Chris is married to Anya, and they have two children. In his free time — and I do want to talk to him about this offline sometime — he loves to play golf. Chris, there’s nothing in my life that brings more frustration than trying to hit that little white ball. So again, we’ll talk about that offline.

Welcome to the podcast. And since this is your first time on Gospel Reverb, we’d love to know a bit of your personal story and how you are participating with the Lord these days.

[00:01:54] Chris: Oh, thank you. It’s a real honor to be involved with you guys. I’ve looked at your previous podcasts, and you’ve had quite a few big names on, so it’s obviously an honor to be involved to chat with you guys.

But me, my personal story, goodness — I became a Christian in my late teens and in quite a conservative background, even for American standards, quite conservative. And it was choppy, choppy waters for me, especially the deeper I got into theology, moving from very defensive, through to just engaging every possible question and doubt, through to finally orientating myself on God’s movement to us in Jesus Christ.

So, understanding Christian faith on God’s terms, as it were. So, it wasn’t something I possessed, something I could control, but rather was the joyful movement of God to us in Jesus. And that’s really where I am now. I am so grateful for that more conservative background that has given me a rooting in Scripture, a love of God’s word.

But now I’m orientated more forthrightly to evangelizing everything about my thinking in light of Jesus Christ. And that’s where I am now.

[00:03:09] Anthony: I love how you put it, the joyful movement of God in Jesus. And it is a joyful double movement of grace. Each pericope we’re going to look at this month, Chris, is found in Mark’s Gospel.

You’re a New Testament scholar, so you know way more about this than I do. What insights would you want to share with our listeners about the book of Mark that could enrich their preaching and teaching, especially as it relates to how Mark views the historical Jesus?

[00:03:39] Chris: Okay, I’m going to say something general about the Gospels.

Obviously, it’s applicable to Mark’s Gospel as well, but it’s crucial to get genre right. And I think this is the most important aspect that we need to take home when it comes to preaching and teaching as well. Genre matters, right? We wouldn’t read the comments section on Fox News the same way we might read a cooking book or a tweet. Genre matters.

And Mark, together with the other Synoptic Gospels, approximates to ancient biography. And the crucial thing about ancient biography is that they offer an account of a person. (I’m quoting Richard Burridge.) And that means that to read the Gospels aright, according to their genre, means to be obsessed with the person of Jesus Christ first and foremost, not with a moral code, not with lessons on how to pray better, or how to deal with finances, or whatever else it is, not with a philosophy of life, but with Jesus himself.

That’s the hermeneutical key for reading these texts. We are drawn to the Son of God, to behold the beauty of the Son of God. And this is obviously the case of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, because they all look at Jesus in different ways, but that would be my top tip for reading Mark’s Gospels.

[00:05:03] Anthony:  That’s a good word. It’s Jesus the Christ, the living Word, who is the infallible word of God, right? So, we look at him. And theology should always lead us to doxology, this praise, this joyful praise of the Lord.

All right, let’s do this. Go ahead, Chris, please.

[00:05:24] Chris: I was just going to say, because I say it’s crucial for preaching. The number of sermons I’ve had to sit through on the Gospels that tend to be moralizing that tend to be guilt inducing, or you need to do this, that, and the other. There’s a place for that.

But if they’re not also, and first and last, pointing us to Jesus and his reality, then it’s like reading a cookery book, as though we’re reading poetry. There’s a genre mix up there.

[00:05:55] Anthony: Yes. I just said to my wife this past week that so many sermons I listen to, first and foremost, ask questions of anthropology instead of Christology. And so, we’re trying to find ourselves in the scripture, but let’s go looking for God and what he’s done in Jesus Christ on our behalf. So amen, brother.

All right. We have five lectionary passages we’re going to be discussing this month. So, let’s get to it.

Mark 2:23-3:6, “Lord of the Sabbath”

Mark 3:20-35, “Family Feud”

Mark 4:26-34, “My, How You’ve Grown!”

Mark 4:35-41, “Don’t You Care?”

Mark 5:21-43, “Rise Up”

Our first pericope of the month is Mark 2:23 through 3:6.

I’ll be reading from the New Revised Standard Version, the Updated Edition. It is the Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 4 in Ordinary Time on June 2. And it reads,

One Sabbath he was going through the grain fields, and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. ²⁴ The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” ²⁵ And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food, ²⁶ how he entered the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions?” ²⁷ Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the Sabbath, ²⁸ so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

Again, he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. ² They were watching him to see whether he would cure him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. ³ And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” ⁴ Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. ⁵ He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. ⁶ The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

Chris, what are the implications of Jesus’ statement, the Sabbath was made for humankind and not humankind for the Sabbath, because he is the Lord of the Sabbath?

[00:08:33] Chris: Yeah, great question. That really does sum up the entire pericope. There’s a hermeneutic here: how to read and understand the law. What is it to live under Torah? What is it to be faithful to God’s commandments?

And ultimately, there’s a battle about what that entails, what that means. And Jesus is making it clear that the law was always there. The Torah was always there for human flourishing. It was there in order to facilitate healthy lives and balance and good relationships.

And the danger is that the law becomes something that bludgeons, that becomes a blunt tool that sees everything as a nail and so you need a hammer. So that the only thing that is required is unconditional, unthinking obedience to the letter. And Jesus responds to this by saying, actually, that’s not quite how this works.

Is it better to give life or to kill? Depending on the circumstances. There’s a hermeneutical battle here, in other words, about what it is to be obedient, which is why he goes to David. Have you never read what David did? Because according to the letter of the law, David and what his companions did, was disobedient. It was unfaithful to Torah. But actually, in the grand scheme of things, in light of the particularities, it was just the right thing to do. So, it’s clearly a hermeneutic going on here.

But the key, as always with these things and as we’ve already discussed about the Son of Man being Lord of the Sabbath, okay, there’s debate. Does this mean all humans, or does it mean Jesus? That’s probably a false “either or,” because the key to the hermeneutical understanding going on here, I think is, again, the reality of Jesus Christ. And then we can negotiate these choppy waters.

So, in other words this, the implications of this are huge. The implications are all about how do we read the Bible, as a whole, in light of Jesus Christ and in view of human flourishing?

[00:11:00] Anthony: Speaking of human flourishing, I was struck again as I was just reading this passage aloud, how frequently there’s a pattern in Scripture where God, of course, could do a work, a miracle without our participation, but he often invites us into it.

He said to the man with the withered hand, come forward, stretch out your hand. We see in other parts of Scripture, pick up your mats or the battle will be won. You’ll see the victory of the Lord, but go down and face it, even though you’re not going to lift the sword, kind of thing. Anything you’d want to say about our participation and what the Lord is up to?

[00:11:39] Chris: Anything I’d want to say about our participation? There seems to be a very real participation here, right? In other words, our agency, which is very real and honored, is given that Christological frame in this particular text. You stretch out, to the withered hand. Come forward. In other words, that responsiveness — in any theology, any dogmatic theology, that claims to be Barthian and doesn’t have a rich account of human responsivity is mistaken.

And Bart was very clear on this as well. We need to have a good account of human agency and what we do. But the ultimate bracketing of that human agency — no, it’s not its bracketing. Its constitution is Jesus Christ. Our real human agency is incorporated into the liveliness of Jesus Christ himself in a way that doesn’t obliterate that agency, but actually gives it its texture.

It’s slightly theoretical perhaps, but that’s where I’m going with your question.

[00:12:52] Anthony: Anything else you would like to bring forth out of this passage?

[00:12:56] Chris: There’s always a danger in reading this passage when the “not lawful,” thinking that Jesus is opposed to Jews and Jewish legalism and that kind of rhetoric, which is a huge mistake.

Jesus is picking up on very biblical principles for understanding the Torah. The Pharisees and their particular legalistic take, if that’s the right way of describing it, isn’t representative of all Judaism. As though Christians, we’ve left legalism behind, but the Jews haven’t. That would be a misreading of this passage, profoundly misleading.

But perhaps it’s also just worthwhile meditating on the fact that Jesus has caused so much consternation that he causes the Pharisees and the Herodians to conspire against him. This is the last verse. They are chalk and cheese. [“Chalk and cheese” is a British idiom meaning two people or things that are completely different from each other.] The Herodians (they’re not party as such, but they’re a bunch of people who are loyal to the Herodian dynasty) and the Pharisees are not natural friends.

So, when we get legalistic, when we put principles above people and above Jesus Christ, it can cause us to really put things out of kilter. And do the craziest things and that’s why the Pharisees here are even conspiring with the Herodians.

[00:14:20] Anthony: That’s a good word.

All right, let’s pivot to the next passage of the month.

It’s Mark 3:20-35. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 5 in Ordinary Time, which is June 9. Chris, we’d be delighted if you’d read it for us, please.

[00:14:34] Chris: Great.

Mark 3:20-35. This is for an Ordinary Time, June 9.

Then he went home, and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. ²¹ When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” ²² And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” ²³ And he called them to him and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴ If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵ And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. ²⁶ And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. ²⁷ But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered. ²⁸ “Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter, ²⁹ but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin”— ³⁰ for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.” Then his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. ³² A crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you.” ³³ And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” ³⁴ And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵ Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

[00:16:13] Anthony: My wife and I occasionally watch British TV, and we always comment about how anything a Brit says, sounds fantastic. Well, done, sir. Well, done.

[00:16:27] Chris: That’s the one card I’ve got going for me, I think, that one.

[00:16:30] Anthony: Tell us about the God revealed in Jesus in this pericope.

[00:16:34] Chris: Oh, wow. That is a big question. I suppose one of the things I’d want to talk about is how Jesus casts relationship with him, and therefore relationship with God, in familial terms, with familial metaphors.

It actually came as some shock to me to realize that the New Testament doesn’t tend to speak of Christ followers (it does, but not as often as you’d expect) as believers. Rather more often, with familial terms as brothers and sisters. And this is key in the teaching of Jesus. Richard Bauckham, who’s a New Testament scholar, he says of the Gospels, with every major area, there comes a new revelation of the name of God.

So, you had Adonai; you had the divine name, the Tetragrammaton; and with Jesus, you have “Father” as the divine name being revealed, which was a fascinating way of putting it. But one way or another, this is key to the understanding of Jesus with those who are around him. You are my brothers.

We’re called into a family; we’re called into a relationship with a Father who loves us even more than the best human fathers can love us. So that would be the first place I would go for understanding, but much more could be said, of course.

[00:18:04] Anthony: Wow. I’m just thinking about what you just said there. We so often want to make it our relationship with God. We talk in terms of judgment and not always as family. So that was brilliant. Whoever does the will of God is my, here we go, familial brother, sister and mother.

So sometimes we’re reductionist when we talk about the will of God. What’s the will of God for this or that? But just big picture: what is the will of the father in the context of this text?

[00:18:43] Chris: Yeah, I’ve been thinking about this question and realized it’s quite difficult to answer. Mark is famous for not giving us much content in terms of the actual teaching. There’s a lot of talk about what Jesus taught without going into the content of that teaching.

Matthew and Luke do that much more. Mark’s Gospel, which is often depicted as a lion with images, is fast-paced. It runs through texts with a lot of stories with lots of “immediately’s.” “This now happened.” “Immediately that” and “immediately this,” without stopping to pause and give us some more content.

So, there’s a sense in which — there isn’t too much to go on here, but what can we say? That the immediate pericope seems to link doing the will of God with works of power. And this isn’t something that is necessarily comfortable to hear but there Jesus is casting out demons. And it’s very much caught up in the debate about that.

And Jesus is not casting out demons by Beelzebub, but by the Spirit of God. And of course, linked to this as well, is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. And therefore, the will of God must be something about honoring the Holy Spirit. But can I just say something about that, actually? Because this is a what has been known as a text of terror for some.

[00:20:18] Anthony: Yes.

[00:20:19] Chris: And for those, especially those who struggle with religious scrupulosity and obsessive compulsive disorders, this is a verse that many have given up faith because of this. Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin. Oh, have I committed that eternal sin?

And lots of introspection and pain and psychological trauma is based on this. Let me just say something about the word here. Aiónios is the Greek word behind eternal there. And I think it’s better to translate that not as eternal. Ethos would have been a better word to have in that particular passage. Maybe it’s until the age or for an age, is guilty of sin until or for the age, by the way.

So, I think that’s a better way of understanding that particular passage. And for those who worry that they’ve committed the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, you almost certainly haven’t, because then you wouldn’t be worried about it.

It’s about the continued resistance that we put up against the Holy Spirit, which ultimately, I think God overcomes as well because God will be all in all. But there’s much more to talk about there. I just wanted to flag that particular passage.

[00:21:37] Anthony: I’m glad you did. I thought about asking a question about it, but it seems to me when people come to this pericope, they get hung up there and they don’t see anything else within the text.

But even though it’s not in our passage here, in our focus, I think of our Lord on the cross. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. The Spirit was there. And certainly, we were all blaspheming in some form or fashion against God. And Jesus’ words were, “Father, forgive them,” revealing the heart of God, not shielding us from an angry God, but revealing God’s heart as it’s always been.

Thank God for it. I appreciate your words.

Let’s transition to our next passage. It’s Mark 4:26-34. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 6 in Ordinary Time, which is June 16.

He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground ²⁷ and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. ²⁸ The earth produces of itself first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. ²⁹ But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle because the harvest has come.” He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? ³¹ It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, ³² yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” With many such parables he spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it; ³⁴ he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.

So, Jesus here describes the kingdom of God as growing, yet the workers don’t know how it happens in verse 27. And yet, Chris, I sometimes, or frequently, hear Bible teachers giving a five step plan on how we make the kingdom of God grow.

So, am I missing something here? Help us understand.

[00:23:50] Chris: No, you’re not missing a thing. I think there’s a temptation to turn the kingdom of God into a human project. And this is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of discipleship, which belongs to God. It’s not ours to control, as I said at the very start.

That was one of the key insights I remember battling my way through back then — what we’d now called deconstruction. It wasn’t trendy back then. But it was certainly a key moment for me.

There’s some wisdom to be gained from having, let’s say, five steps from not being a sluggard. We could get that from Proverbs. Understood.

But when it comes to the activity of God and God’s own reign, which effectively is what God’s kingdom means, this is all about the gracious activity of God, rather than something we master and control. We remain disciples in this whole process, not masters.

So, I don’t think you’re missing a thing. I think you’ve hit on something crucial to the life of faith, which frees us from taking ourselves so seriously. We don’t need to, you and me, Anthony — we’re not the middle of any of this. We’re not the center. Jesus Christ is the center. That frees us to enjoy the life of faith in discipleship without doubts, without stupidity, without whole swathe of misunderstandings and so on, intact, because it’s not about us.

It’s about Jesus.

[00:25:36] Anthony: And it’s so good! And some people receive that as not good news because they misunderstand agency, and they want to be able to control. But it is good news that we’re not in the center. As Barth would say, genuine freedom is realizing Jesus Christ is not a freedom from God, but a freedom for God, that we get to actively participate, even if we don’t know how it’s happening.

And I think it was Eugene Peterson that said this in terms of discipleship, that it’s focusing more and more on Christ’s righteousness and less on our own. And boy, we get that backwards, don’t we, Chris, so often?

[00:26:19] Chris: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. A good understanding of human agency, I think, is one of the crying needs for many in the church.

[00:26:28] Anthony: While we’re on the topic of things that puzzle me — and that’s not difficult. I’m not the sharpest chisel in the shed. So, let’s talk about the parables of Jesus. My life left eye begins to twitch when I hear people say the parables are simple stories or this parable clearly means whatever, fill in the blank.

So, I ask you, New Testament scholar, am I just a contrarian or is there more profundity there? Is it something in between?

[00:26:59] Chris: Oh, goodness. You’re not the only one that the parables puzzle. New Testament scholars debate endlessly questions relating to how they’re best understood, how they’re best classified, what genre they better approximate, whether there’s one meaning or whether there’s multiple meanings, what the purpose of these parables are.

Is it to disclose? Is it actually to cover and to hide? In other words, the confusion is one shared by New Testament scholars. Yeah, I mean, the only thing I could think that we could learn from New Testament scholarship in that regard is to realize that we have now recognized that we can’t speak in simplistic terms about the parables.

We can’t speak in simplistic terms about their genre, their historical precedence. Certainly, we can’t say that a parable has a single point. Rather, scholars these days tend to say that the parables are polyvalent. They have lots of ways of being understood. And it’s almost as if, to come back to the human agency thing here, Jesus is, in using parables, calling for our active participation in pondering, in thinking, in puzzling.

So, you said that these topics puzzle me. I think that’s the point of the parables. They’re made to evoke our wonder and response. Isn’t that interesting? Jesus isn’t there simply giving us a list of things to believe, right? Now that’s it. Now you’ve job done, like a good lecturer.

He’s causing, he’s evoking our participation in the process, in wondering, and in pondering.

[00:28:55] Anthony: Eugene Peterson has a brilliant book called Tell It Slant, and he’s quoting a poem from Emily Dickinson when he says this. But that’s what fiction can do. This is what the parables can do. It comes at you slant, not blunt force.

Like you said earlier, it evokes our imagination. And this is why I think there’s always more profundity than we can apprehend. We don’t ever comprehend. We just get glimpses.

Let me ask you this, Chris, as a follow up. If you were preaching this particular text, what would be your focus beyond anything you’ve already said?

[00:29:40] Chris: I don’t know if this is something I would preach on, but it’s certainly something I’d want to talk about now. I’m certainly — if I’m going to preach on this, it’s going to be, it’s got to be focused on God as I’ve said so many times, and I’m going to say till I’m blue in the face. It’s about God revealing himself in Jesus Christ and in his movement to us.

And God is creating this growth. God wants to do this. He’s for us. He’s with us in Jesus Christ. That’s certainly where I want to go for preaching. But for this particular discussion, I’d want to just meditate a little bit longer on the issue of parables. Because, if you were to flip open a dictionary of the New Testament or turn to a New Testament scholar who’s written on the parables, then very often you get questions of historicity — that is to what extent do the parables in Mark give us a window onto the historical Jesus or some such.

Can I just say something about this? Just because here, it seems to me, is where we need some of our metaphysics evangelized. There is no historical Jesus just existing in the past; we’re now in the present, separated from that past. If that’s the case, then Jesus isn’t who we think he is and confess him to be and worship him to be.

Rather, we exist in the time of Jesus Christ. We are crucified with Christ. We will be raised with Christ (to pick up on language of the apostle Paul and other New Testament passages use.) There is no neat history apart from us. We are incorporated into Jesus’ story and history.

So, the whole idea that we can get to a historical Jesus is to look with (I think it was John Webster put it) with methodological infidelity. I think was his turn of phrase. But more importantly as well, the historical Jesus can never be the real Jesus.

And I’m drawing distinctions here that a German scholar, Michael Wolter, has used. Historical studies can only give us an approximation based on probabilities and such, and that’s never going to be the same as the fullness of a person, a historical person. If someone, in 200 years, looks back at your life, Anthony, and tries to look at the trace you, of your presence online, interviews, descendants, looks at things that you’ve written online and things that your family said about you, they’ll come up with an approximation, but it’s not going to be the real Anthony.

And the thing about Mark’s Gospel is that it points us, not to a historical Jesus, but to the real Jesus. And I think these are really important distinctions to bear in mind in light of New Testament scholars. Because many will go, what are parables then? They’ll pick up a New Testament scholarly text, and they’ll get profoundly disappointed.

Don’t be. For the reasons I’ve mentioned, ultimately, it’s about pointing us to the real Jesus.

[00:32:59] Anthony: Yeah. I appreciate what you said there because I think that can be another lie about separation from God. Separation from the historical Jesus. Thank God that when one died, all died.

All right, Chris, our next passage is Mark 4:35-41. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 7 in Ordinary Time, June 23. Would you read it for us, please?

[00:33:30] Chris: Certainly.

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” ³⁶ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. ³⁷ A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. ³⁸ But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion, and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” ³⁹ And waking up, he rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Be silent! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. ⁴⁰ He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” ⁴¹ And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

[00:34:22] Anthony: That’s the question, isn’t it? Who is this? So, from your perspective, was Jesus knowingly sending his friends, with himself, into a raging storm?

And if that’s the case, what are the implications not only for them, but for us, if anything?

[00:34:39] Chris: Yeah. The text doesn’t specify, does it, whether Jesus was sending them there knowingly. Of course, that evokes lots of questions about the omniscience of Jesus in his being human, but also God, fully God.

These are questions that have occupied theologians for many years. In fact, I’m just reading a book by Austin Stevenson for an OnScript podcast next week. The book is called The Consciousness of the Historical Jesus, and he’s got a few chapters thinking about: how do we speak of the omniscience of Jesus in light of particularly passages in Mark where Jesus seems to admit that he doesn’t know everything?

That’s a bit of an aside. But here’s something we can say: that God does send us into difficult times. I think of the baptism of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, upon descending on Jesus, immediately sends him not into a nice place, but into the desert. So sometimes the Holy Spirit isn’t being friendly, in whatever way we might understand the word friendly. So, it wouldn’t be beyond the pale to understand Jesus putting them through this knowingly, with all of those theological footnotes in place.

But I do think that we are now encountering something which is essential to the fabric of faith. That question: don’t you care? Being a disciple of Jesus isn’t being a Buddhist and just having perfect peace about everything.

It’s about wrestling with psychological strain and questioning: how can this thing happen? Most of the Psalms or many of the psalms, they’re psalms of lament. The psalmist might turn around and say, look, we’ve done everything right, God, but you have fallen asleep. Wake up.

It’s evoking precisely these kinds of psalms where the faithful in Israel are perplexed that their enemies are taking over. So, this is the question of faith, not the question of atheism.

And just yesterday or the day before, I came across this Facebook post where someone was saying, the most devastating critique of Christianity is the presence of evil. And someone clever responded and said in the comments — I don’t know why I look at Facebook comments; it’s not very good for me — but someone clever responded in the comments, “How can an atheist say anything about evil because you don’t have a standard of which to talk about evil because you’ve given up faith in God?” And they turned around and they said, “Ah, this is an internal critique of Christianity.”

And I thought, okay, I follow the reasoning, but it’s actually a critique of faith, right? The question: don’t you care? That’s what believers, it’s what disciples ask, not an atheist.

And so, Jesus responds to us then in that light, as those who are his brothers and sisters and mothers. Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith? In other words, there isn’t this you’re on the verge of being an outsider now kind of condemnation. Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith? This is the kind of questioning that Jesus puts to his brothers and sisters and mothers, which then causes us to be filled with great fear and ask, who is this Jesus?

The questions, in other words, continue right off the back of that.

[00:38:18] Anthony: You mentioned the Psalms and I recently read Walter Brueggemann’s book, The Spirituality of the Psalms, and he helped me see a rhythm in scripture, specifically the Psalms. But you see it in the Sermon of the Mount and the passages where he talks about orientation, disorientation, and reorientation.

We come to Jesus with a certain orientation, what we think we believe about him. And then we’ve got to wrestle with that. Like you said, like there’s a windstorm and he’s asleep. What do we do with this? And then he says, be silent, be still. He orients us to the fact that he is God, and he is Lord of the weather and all that is. And that’s why we have to wrestle through this to get to the space where we actually see him and who he is.

And so, I’m going to invite you, Chris, before we depart from this pericope to get personal with people who may be shaking their fists at the sky saying, don’t you care? Because of whatever they’re facing in this life, the evil that they’ve encountered.

What would you say to them? So instead of giving a lecture, maybe what I’m asking you to do is preach and share a word of consolation to those who are wrestling right now.

[00:39:42] Chris: Oh, yeah. I’ve been there, Anthony. I’ve been shaking my fist at God and utterly perplexed with what is going on.

And all I would say is, this is the life of faith. This is what it is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. We’re not inoculated from these kinds of questions, from these complaints. But what we can do is when the storm starts to subside, we can remember that we stand on a rock and that rock is the God revealed in Jesus Christ. And the God revealed in Jesus Christ is our eternal Father. Jesus says, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?

Think comparing that with the love of the perfect earthly father. This is what Jesus is pointing us to. God loves us so dearly, much more, but analogous to the way in which the best human father loves their children.

I’m a father and I’ve got to say, I don’t know a love like that. I’ve often thought, would I give up my life for my wife? And I’d like to think I would. If I had to step in front of a bus to save my wife, I’d like to think I would. But here’s the thing. If either of my two children were in danger and I needed to give up my life for them, I would do it in a heartbeat, a thousand times out of a thousand instinctively.

That’s the kind of love that a father has, a good father has for their children. And Jesus is saying, this is the way in which God loves us. So, let’s question, let’s rage against the silence. Let’s question, because this is the kind of story that gives us permission to do just that. Evoking those psalms of lament of God’s silence, of God falling asleep.

But remember, that when the waves subside, we can ask in astonishment, who then is this Father, this incredible love, an eternal love from before all eternity?

[00:41:52] Anthony: Preach, preacher. That was a good sermon. Thank you.

Our final pericope of the month is Mark 5, 21:43. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Proper 7 in Ordinary Time, June 30.

When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him, and he was by the sea. ²² Then one of the leaders of the synagogue, named Jairus, came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet ²³ and pleaded with him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” ²⁴ So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. ²⁵ Now there was a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for twelve years. ²⁶ She had endured much under many physicians and had spent all that she had, and she was no better but rather grew worse. ²⁷ She had heard about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, ²⁸ for she said, “If I but touch his cloak, I will be made well.” ²⁹ Immediately her flow of blood stopped, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. ³⁰ Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my cloak?” ³¹ And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” ³² He looked all around to see who had done it. ³³ But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. ³⁴ He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” ³⁵ While he was still speaking, some people came from the synagogue leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” ³⁶ But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the synagogue leader, “Do not be afraid; only believe.” ³⁷ He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. ³⁸ When they came to the synagogue leader’s house, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. ³⁹ When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” ⁴⁰ And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. ⁴¹ Taking her by the hand, he said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” ⁴² And immediately the girl stood up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. ⁴³ He strictly ordered them that no one should know this and told them to give her something to eat.

Jesus proclaimed, “Talitha koum.” Girl, rise up.

This pericope tells us of a dead girl coming back to life. And a living woman who was dead to her community before a life-giving encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. As best you can, Chris, proclaim the astounding gospel declaration contained in these stories.

[00:44:56] Chris: Yeah, the gospel isn’t about sin management. You notice how as you put it, it’s about death to life. Where there’s death, where there’s separation Jesus comes along and brings life and incorporation.

And where the Gospels go, some have described them as extended prefaces to the crucifixion and resurrection narratives, which is slightly exaggerating, but there’s truth to that. Ultimately, Jesus is going to enter death and from within death, defeat death because he is life. He is the opposite of death.

And this is ultimately the gospel. It isn’t just about pulling up our moral bootstraps and making sure we’ve prayed the sinner’s prayer. It’s participation in the death and, therefore, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, as you put it. We believe that one died, therefore all died. This is the gospel as best as I know how to describe it. God in love sent Jesus Christ to assume our enslaved Adamic nature. It’s terminated on the cross, and then God raises Jesus from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. And the gospel is this: that story, that Trinitarian story, is our story. It’s your story, Anthony. It’s my story. It’s the story of every human.

We die in Christ. We believe that one died, therefore all died, and therefore we believe that we will be incorporated also into his resurrection. Because what these stories tell us is that Jesus is in the business of bringing life where there is death. And that’s the hope of the world.

[00:46:45] Anthony: Yes and amen. And we see these stories of the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years, the little girl, and these were resuscitations, right? Eventually that little girl died. Eventually the woman who had been bleeding died. Jesus died. I think of our mutual friend, Jeff McSwain, who I heard say once that we have to be reminded that God, the Father, did not save Jesus from death; he saved him through death.

And that is our story, but on the other side is resurrection.

Hallelujah. Praise God. As we just celebrated Resurrection Sunday. And he has, not only the first word, but the final word. And that, my friends, is good news. And I want to remind you to take heart: you do not know what is coming, but we know who is coming. And that makes all the difference.

Chris, I want to thank you for being with me today. It’s such a pleasure to hear you herald the gospel. It’s made my heart leap with joy and I’m so, so grateful for the way that God has you participating in his ministry. Keep it up, my brother.

And I think I heard you mention a podcast that you host if people want to listen further to your great British accent and your takes on theology.

How do they find your podcast? Where do they go?

[00:48:06] Chris: Yeah, it’s OnScript. Just type in “on script” and you will find it. I’m one of the cohosts, and we simply interview authors about their recently published works, among other things. We’ve done a few other things as well, but that’s largely what we do.

[00:48:25] Anthony: Fantastic. I want to thank our podcast team, Reuel Enerio, Elizabeth Mullins, and David McKinnon for their excellent work. It’s behind the scenes. You don’t actually often see it. But it’s what makes this podcast go, and I’m so grateful.

Chris, it is our tradition here on Gospel Reverb to end with prayer. And I’d be thankful if you would give thanks and praise and offer a prayer on behalf of all of our listeners.

[00:48:52] Chris: I certainly will. Yeah. And just remember, folks, Mark’s Gospel is there to point us to Jesus. And this is who he is this incredible, glorious Son of God who brings life where there is death.

And Father, we thank you for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. Thank you for the word of love, of life, of power that you have spoken in him. And Father, we pray that we would be faithful children, brothers and sisters and mothers of the Lord Jesus Christ, remembering that you love us as the greatest and the most glorious Father.

May we bring life in Christ where there is death. May we be agents of incorporation, of goodness, of wisdom. May we not be like the Pharisees at the beginning and conspiring with Herodians. May we be wise, skillful readers of Scripture, always pointing to you, risen Lord. And in your triune name, we give thanks and praise. Amen.

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