Kingdom Living (Part 1): Relational w/ Walter Kim

Cara: In 2026, the GC Podcast is shifting to a new format with two miniseries released throughout the year rather than monthly episodes. This change is going to allow us to go deeper into meaningful conversations that support our shared journey of kingdom living. In the first half of the year, we’re excited to launch the series with Reverend Dr. Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and the keynote speaker for the 2026 denominational celebration. In this series, Dr. Kim joins me to explore what it means to live as citizens of God’s kingdom in today’s world: faithful to Christ, formed in community, and engaged in mission. So, stay tuned for this rich and timely series.

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Hello friends, and welcome to this episode of GC Podcast. GC Podcast is created to support the best ministry practices in your own GCI context. I’m Cara Garrity, your host. And today we are beginning our miniseries to explore kingdom living and its elements as participatory, relational, missional, and transformational.

And today to help us do that, we have Reverend Dr. Walter Kim with us. Walter Kim is president of the National Association of Evangelicals. He earned his PhD at Harvard. Was chaplain at Yale and has served in diverse pastoral ministries. He’s on the Board of World Relief, Christianity Today, and Salvation Army, USA, he’s often sought out for theological and cultural commentary on issues facing the church and society.

And so, Walter, we thank you so much for joining us today to explore this really meaningful theme that we have for 2026, Kingdom Living.

[00:01:57] Walter: Cara, it’s a delight to be on this podcast with you.

[00:02:01] Cara: Yes. And so, I’m really excited for this theme and to explore these different elements of what kingdom living can look like.

For this miniseries, we’re really exploring what it means to live as citizens of God’s kingdom in today’s world, and what does it look like to live faithfully in Christ, to be formed in community, and engaged in a mission.

And so, our first element that we’re going to dive into is relational. What does it mean for us to live relationally? And so, that’s where I want to start. What does it mean for kingdom living to be relational, Walter?

[00:02:43] Walter: Yeah. I mean, that’s a great question and it’s a great place to start because, in fact, this is where Scripture starts. God sought to be in relationship, because in his very being God is relational as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the triune God. Internally in the great mystery of God’s own being there is built-in relationship.

And even so, it is this deep desire of God to create other, to create humanity. And I love the fact that in the opening chapter of Genesis and the description of the creation of humans in the image of God, it was very clear that when God created humans, he had community in mind, because he didn’t just say, God created the individual in the image of God, it said God created humanity, male and female, in the image of God.

There’re all sorts of things and implications that we could draw from that. But one thing that I think is very essential is that this notion that we need others, that we are intended for community is built into creation itself, is built in what it means to be even human — that we need other.

And when we think about all the metaphors of the church: family, building.

We have this notion of not just individuals who have been saved into the kingdom. We have been saved into a family. We have been saved into a building where each brick has a role. And that itself I think, is deeply informative to how we think about at the foundation of creation, at the foundation of the recreation of God’s humanity in the church is essentially this deep commitment to relationship — relationship with God, relationship between humans.

And so, whatever kingdom living entails, whatever it means to be disciples, it’s not just a bunch of individuals following Jesus individually. We have been embedded in a community, in a relationship.

[00:05:07] Cara: Yes. And I love how you really start with, Scripture starts there, from creation, from the foundations, that relationship is there and even in whom God is.

So, at the end of the day, we can say there, there is really no version of kingdom living that isn’t relational. There has to be relationship. And life itself really is relational because it has been designed that way. I think that is really critical for us to be thinking about that and learning how do we live that out with one another.

And one of the things that we want to focus on and dive into in this aspect of relational kingdom living is the aspect of God’s calling and gifting to us and, how do we hear and discover and respond to his call in our lives. And so, I’m wondering what does it look like for calling and gifting to be discovered within relationship, both with God and with others?

[00:06:15] Walter: Yeah, I think so many cases, while it may be helpful to take a personality test or some vocational training, in the end, most of us, we experience a set of blessings and opportunities that help us discern what God’s call might be upon our lives.

It may be in a community where we’ve led a small group and we begin to discover, wow, other people are telling me that I’m really good at asking questions or I’m really good at listening to people. And all of a sudden you begin to have this growing sense of perhaps the Lord is calling me in this way.

Or maybe you’ve been able to lead some friends of yours to Christ, and you begin to have the community affirm that you have a knack for explaining Jesus and such winsome and compelling ways, or it could be a speaking gift that was given, or you just show up in hospitality.

Yeah. Okay. There are places for figuring out our personalities and taking tests and maybe even a spiritual gifts inventory, but by and large we often experience our way into seeing and understanding our call through the ways that we have lived it out in relationships, in community, and in fact, this is what we see in scriptures. We see God’s people saying, “Paul, Barnabas, we see something in you,” and in period of prayer and discernment that the leaders of the church in Antioch gather together and lay hands and send them out.

This happened in community as they were undoubtedly serving and living out their giftedness and having God’s people affirm it and then bless them and send them out. So, I think both our personal experience and, once again, Scripture gives us this convergence of affirmation that so much of the discovery and discernment of our call comes through trying and living and doing and having God’s people affirm and shape and redirect us.

[00:08:36] Cara: Yeah. And I really appreciate both those elements of what we’re experiencing, but also what others are speaking into our lives and what they’re noticing and discerning with us and the dynamics of that, that there’s this dynamic in relationship where it’s not just an equation of, well, X plus Y equals Z and so this is what my calling or spiritual gifting is.

But that’s something that happens within that community and relationship. And so, I wonder too, how then can our response to God’s calling and gifting, maybe once we’ve discerned it, once our community has affirmed it in us, maybe commissioned us in that, how can our response be lived out relationally?

[00:09:28] Walter: Yeah. So much of the Christian life is the realization that you’re always an amateur. So, one thing that I would put out — this is after decades of walking with the Lord and serving the Lord in a variety of context — is you never graduate beyond the common basic lesson that God loves me, that my identity is rooted in Christ and not in my performance. That it is always about dependence.

Of course, grow in wisdom, grow in expertise and skill. But as we do so, there is simultaneously the temptation as we grow in expertise to trust our expertise. And to lose that simple dependence upon the Lord.

And so there are a couple of things that I would once again put out there for us to consider and that is, as we serve the Lord, that we need to continue to put ourselves in context of constant feedback, of being able to receive the affirmations and the critiques of God’s people.

Good thing David had Nathan in his life, that even way into his kingship, Nathan was able to speak truth and confrontation to someone who began so incredibly well — slaying Goliath, delivering God’s people from the Philistines, being the model king that Jesus would be named son of David. And yet later, after all this success, he became arrogant and entitled and fell into sin. And it required someone to speak a word of truth.

So, we always need to put ourselves in a posture of dependence upon the Lord, of remembering and fostering our first love, of recognizing we might grow in expertise, but we never graduate beyond dependence, and that we always need people in our lives who will speak truth to us, who will guide us, who will encourage us. We need Nathans to challenge us. We need Barnabases to bless us and encourage us, and we need the body of Christ to constantly be working out with us our mutual calling.

I really think it’s important for us, particularly in such an individualized context and time where we’re always trying to figure out what is my calling. My calling has no real value apart from its communal impact. Each of us, according to Corinthians, have been given a gift for the common good. So, it’s not so much that we’re, “I need to be true to myself and true to my calling,” it is, “you need to be true to the community into which that calling gets exercised.”

And so that I, once again, I think is a profound challenge for us to always be working things out collaboratively in community, even if some of our gifting is one that often gets applied in a personal context. Like, you may be a counselor and you think, oh, it’s the personal wisdom that I might have.

But many, those in the counseling field, recognize they need those moments where they’re talking to colleagues and working out, “Give me some wisdom here. What can I be learning?” So, I would wish to affirm that we constantly need each other in the living out of our calling. This is not the individual saying, “I got my calling. I’m good. I’m just going to go do my thing for Jesus.” Your thing for Jesus comes in the context of community.

[00:13:40] Cara: There’s so much richness in what you just shared. I really appreciate that. A couple things that I want to pull out that really spoke to me: you can grow in expertise but not out of dependence. I think that that’s huge. What I want to get from that is we can’t exist and use our calling out of relationship in kind of any way, right? Because we don’t come out of dependence on God. And so, what does it mean to use our callings and our giftings outside of relationship with God? Is there even a reality in which that exists? Not really. But to be aware of that and to remember that I think is really incredible reminder.

And then I think also you’re speaking maybe to that temptation to live individually, that reminder that our giftings aren’t for us, at the end of the day, that we need to be living them out, using them in the context of community, because it’s not just well, like me in my little corner using my … what  uses that. I think that’s a really timely and helpful reminder.

[00:15:02] Walter: Yeah. Cara, I think there are a couple of things. Just even your reflecting back just reaffirms to me the challenge that we often think and confront when we confront the issue of calling in our particular day and age, and one is this notion that our calling is primarily about our fulfillment.

I have this need to use gifts. I have this desire to be fulfilled in ministry, and you look at Scripture and you think, of course, God is concerned with your happiness and fulfillment, but that’s actually very, very much not how calling is described, right? Paul looks at his calling: go to 2 Corinthians.

Instead, 1 Corinthians and he has this laundry list of three occasions: I’ve been persecuted, I’ve been shipwrecked. There’s sleepless nights. I have the burden of the church constantly upon me. And one time I was stoned and left the city and went back into the city.

There wasn’t so much about, “I’m called to be apostle because it’s so deeply satisfying and I find meaning in this and fulfillment, and this is why I’m an apostle.” It’s almost, “I am, I’m an apostle, and I actually don’t know how humanly fulfilling it actually is, other than deeply fulfilling in knowing that I serve the purposes of God, deeply fulfilling that even in the sacrifice there is an exceedingly great weight of glory that awaits for me, that makes all the afflictions of this lifetime feel light and momentary, and the opportunity to enter into a deeper understanding of the love of God and the deep satisfaction of the community of God.”

It’s like when we sacrifice deeply for those in our church, in our communities, when we’ve walked long roads of suffering with someone with a debilitating illness. I’m just going to get really personal here. We cared for my brother most of his adult life, 30 years. He lived with us in our family or lived near to us. You had a variety of challenges. He passed away not too long ago and I often thought about in this period of reflection, “What was the point of that? All those years?”

The point of it was the gift of walking with someone. It’s probably not something that most people will know about, though I’m mentioning it now, but I would look back and say, “Oh yeah, there’s my public ministry. There’re the things that people will know about and then there’s this long ministry, deeply personal of just loving it and caring for someone imperfectly.

But it was as much a call upon my life as anything public that I’ve ever done. And in the end to know that he went to be with the Lord and died in faith and that I had sensed deeply from the Lord, “Your race with him is finished. Thank you. Well done.” Again, not perfectly. Cara, I think about that and the kind of way in which we are often called to just faithfully walk with the Lord and in the end, was it deeply fulfilling?

Absolutely. But fulfilling in a way that was so surprising and unexpected. And so, to recognize that our call can be one that in our moment may not feel fulfilling at all except for fulfilling the purposes of God, except for walking with someone who might drive us nuts. But years, decades later, discovering the joy of having been invited to care or love or walk with you — you fill in the blank. And that’s the kind of slow burn ministry that is often not the attractive ministry. We want the bright flash. And yet the Lord will often make sure that even those of us who might have bright, flashy moments in our ministry, we’ll be called to be faithful in the slow burn of someone in our life, and that might be the greater test of our faithfulness in ministry.

[00:20:13] Cara: Walter, first I want to thank you for sharing that. That’s a beautiful testament to the ways God has called you and worked in and through and around you and your family in your life. So, thank you for sharing that personal story with us.

We’re blessed by that. And I think even opening that awareness to us, that calling really is bringing us into the fulfillment of God’s purposes and not just our own kind of sense of personal satisfaction, I think is huge. Because in that moment, maybe it doesn’t feel great, right?

But when we talk about calling, it’s not necessarily what do we want to do? What’s that big superhero ministry moment? But how are we being invited into just playing a part in God’s overall purposes. And sometimes playing that small part in what God is doing around us is costly, is the knit and grit, the good, bad, and the ugly.

And I think that is really important, especially in our context, for us personally and corporately, to wrestle with that because I think we like the good and the flashy a lot more than the bad and the ugly, right? We want to feel very good about our calling. We got called to this really great glamorous thing, or we want to latch onto this one task or this one ministry as a sense of calling, not necessarily as a way of being or walking with somebody. And so, I really appreciate that description of calling that you’ve offered to us as well. Thank you.

[00:22:07] Walter: Yeah. My first assignment you mentioned I was a campus minister, worked as a chaplain at Yale, and my director, this was fresh out of college, my first ministry assignment, and one of my earliest conversations with the director is, let me give you some perspective on ministry.

Ministry is people. People are messy. Therefore, ministry will be messy.

[00:22:35] Cara: Yes.

[00:22:35] Walter: That was like the first lesson of ministry showing up on campus. So eager to share my faith and love students and being told by my director, ministry is people, people are messy. Therefore, ministry is going to be messy. And I think life has proven that to be very, very true.

[00:22:58] Cara: Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, what wise ways to start your ministry? And I think, as we’ve been discussing, you’ve shared a lot of really meaningful insights into why and how relationships are at the center of kingdom living and the riches and the beauty of that.

And so, I’m wondering maybe what are some practices or rhythms for us in our church communities and neighborhoods? What can we do to help us nurture that relational nature of kingdom living in our own contexts?

[00:23:40] Walter: Yeah. When Jesus sent people out, he sent them out in twos. When he was in the Garden of Gethsemane — this is the Son of God, right? He’s in the Garden of Gethsemane and he wants Peter, James, and John to be with him, to be praying with him — the intimacy of that. Again, Paul, Barnabas went out together and if you look at a lot of Paul’s letters, they were written with Silas or some other, someone else as well.

So, all throughout Scripture we get this deep sense that folks were sent in ministry teams. They were sent in context in which they were to share the joys and the sorrows of ministry with others. One practical thing is, “Who can I be doing this with?” Always asking the question. “Who, can I bring along as I am trying this?”

And then also to be thinking, again, as Paul often did, “Who are the people that I’m seeking to mentor?” The admonition to Timothy of finding faithful people who you would be able to teach and then they would be able to teach others as well. So, thinking about, “Who are folks that you could be building into?” And then of course, “Who are the folks that you can be learning from?”

And so, constantly asking those questions, just practically, “As I do this particular thing who can I be bringing along?” And it could be actually doing something together, co-leading something, but it also could be as simple as, “I’m working on this project and rather than just fulfilling this project, but on my own, just say, I want to pass this by you. Can you give me some advice?”

And to constantly be asking that, even if it’s like preparing your own sermon. Do we take the time to say before we actually get up on a Sunday to preach? “Did I vet this stuff with someone else? Did I invite someone else to gimme some feedback in my dialoguing with how this passage is working itself out?”

One is to constantly be asking, “Who can I bring along? Who could I be building into? Who can I be learning from?” And to have that corporate relational mentality with the type of ministry that I’m pursuing.

[00:26:17] Cara: Thank you. That’s a really practical place for us to … practical and I think really impactful place for us to really be intentional about bringing in these rhythms and practice of being relational in the ways that we live out the kingdom in our communities. So, I appreciate that. And I’m wondering, as we get ready to close up this first mini episode of our series: Any final words that you have for our listeners about the relational component of kingdom living?

[00:26:56] Walter: Yeah. I think, perhaps there’s no better way to end than Jesus’ prayer in John 17. What was on Jesus’ mind and heart the night before he was betrayed and he was going to die? You would think whatever’s of utmost importance. I’m going to emphasize that he thinks back to the years of ministry.

“This is my final chance to solidify a final lesson before I’m crucified.” So, the last earthly night with his disciples. And what does he do? He prays. He prays for them to be one, even as he’s one with the Father, that they would be one, so that the world would know. So, I think to recognize that this relational aspect of kingdom living is so important, that it was Jesus’ final thought and final prayer for us before he was crucified.

And to recognize that by putting in Scripture and by knowing that Jesus even now is constantly making intercession on our behalf. What is he praying? My guess is that he’s still praying John 17 for us. And so, to recognize that it’s not only important, but we actually have Jesus praying for us to live kingdom lives that are relational.

[00:28:42] Cara: Thank you. We love to have our guests close our episodes out with a word of prayer for our leaders, our members, our church neighbors. And so, would you be willing to say a word of prayer over our listeners and their people?

[00:29:07] Walter: Yeah, absolutely.

Heavenly Father, thank you that you yourself sent your beloved Son, and even now have given us fellowship with the Spirit, three in one. We praise you that you are relationship in being. And we recognize that our call is the call into this life of relationship. Your prayer was that we would be one with you, with one another, and that through that loving community give witness to the world of who Jesus is and the eternal life given to us in him. We pray that whatever the situation we may find ourselves in, whatever messiness of relationship that we may find ourselves in, that we trust your call upon our life to enter into it and fulfill your purposes through it. In the beautiful name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

[00:30:15] Cara: Amen. Thank you.

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And until next time, folks, keep on living and sharing the gospel. Thanks for listening. We would love to hear from you; email us info@gci.org. And we hope to see you at the 2026 Denominational Celebration in Texas from July 23 – July 26, 2026. Visit us at gci.org/dc26 for more information and to register.

Chris Breslin—Year A Lent 2–5

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 delight to welcome our guest, Reverend Chris Breslin. Chris is the founding pastor of Oak Church in Durham, North Carolina. He earned a Master’s of Divinity from Duke Divinity School where he teaches or serves as a precept teaching assistant. He works to keep the church small, local, and weird. Chris, thanks for being with us. Welcome back to the podcast. It’s been a few years, so we would like to have our memories refreshed about you, your story, and especially what has you experiencing delight these days.

[00:01:27] Chris: Thanks Anthony. It’s so good to be with you and thankfully it hasn’t been a few years since I’ve seen you in person.

[00:01:34] Anthony: That’s right.

[00:01:36] Chris: Yeah, in terms of things that are giving me delight these days. This is the in-between time when we’re taping this, and so we are getting ready for a baseball season ahead. I coach two of my sons.

I am hand copying Matthew’s gospel as I work in a New Testament class. And this is a practice commended to me by a friend, JR Briggs. And it’s amazing how much more you soak in familiar words when you have to slow down enough to faithfully copy them. Also gives you some respect for earlier manuscript scribes.

And listening to records. I know if I’m, like, in a good place and joyful and healthy if I’m listening to music and not just podcasts. And especially if I’m listening in a way that I have to get up and flip the record every 20 minutes or whatever. So, I’m listening to Bob Dylan’s biography …

Anthony: Oh, come on.

Chris: … that I found at a thrift store in awesome shape. I’m listening to MJ Linderman. I’m on the Train, big indie record from last year; Getting Killed by Geese. Loving that. The band is Geese. The record is Getting Killed. So Getting Killed by Geese.

Anthony: I love it.

Chris: And Mavis Staples has an awesome covers record. Just awesome, beautiful stuff. So those are giving me delight right now.

[00:03:25] Anthony: As you write down Matthew, what’s been maybe the epiphany that you’ve had as you’ve been doing this?

[00:03:36] Chris: Yeah. It’s interesting doing it along teaching. I’m working with Professor Brittany Wilson in an interpretation of New Testament hybrid course, and so you’re reteaching kind of themes of the gospel, but to do it slow and to realize man, this teaching, Jesus as teacher, Jesus as new Moses is such a theme. And when you get into handwriting Matthew 5, 6, 7, you realize, man, this is a really long discourse and rich and beautiful, but just again, the practice is a little bit of an antidote to skimming or just grabbing little aphorisms or chunks. And so, it really does re-immerse you in some beautiful words.

[00:04:37] Anthony: We know each other, we’re friends, which I’m very grateful for you and especially your guidance as I’ve been in the throes of planting a church. And one of the things I’ve heard you talk about is seeing the church stay small, local, and weird. What does that mean and why does it matter so much to you?

[00:04:58] Chris: Those might be threatening words to a church planner who’s trying to grow a church. But yeah. This just became shorthand around Oak Church, where I serve. In some ways, it’s a little bit of a bar to see if people are on the same wavelength or have like consonant expectations, small, local, and weird.

Some people are like, I’m out. But I think they also represent the positive side of some key temptations to resist and overcome. Speed and scale and distance and control are all things that happen with corporate franchise restaurants, but in my opinion, not really like the body of Christ, faith communities, and real places with neighbors.

I don’t know. I always think it’s good to have little handles to remind us, little watch words that there are no shortcuts or magic bullets. And for us it’s been so important in our ministry that we don’t need to go somewhere else to experience God’s presence and God’s grace.

And you’re in an early phase of forming a faith community, but I think there can be some temptation to think when things are scrappy and ragged, especially at the beginning, that you’re like not there yet and we need to smooth out difference in some of the marks of our creatureliness and some of the things that are actually gifts to us — that they’re actually good, that differences are a fruit of Pentecost and the way the Spirit is still working with us. That’s the weird part.

Yeah, it’s been interesting working in this New Testament course and especially examining Paul as a pastor and I think that’s made me more deeply committed to this idea, like all of these communities that we have these extant letters are small communities, sometimes small enough, where a whole congregation is assembled in a, like, some supporter’s home. I know this is a novel idea for you, Anthony.

Each of these churches is named, not with like slick branding or like aspirational wish dream language, but just where they are. And each of them, each of these letters is like Paul reflecting on challenges and griefs and quirks and joys and thanksgiving for these people.

I think Pastor Paul is not wishing them out of these situations, but it’s pastoring them in and through them, and expressing tenderness and care and pride. And those are things that I that I aspire to and we share that ministry here.

[00:08:16] Anthony: Yeah. No, you’ve been quite helpful to me in that regard, just reminding me of the smallness and the slowness of developing a faith community. As I read the parables of the kingdom. It just seems to me that it’s slow, but it’s really good work. And God is faithful and I’m wired in such a way that I do want to sometimes jump ahead and smooth out the rough patches. And this is a good reminder that God is at work. And sometimes you go to sleep and you wake up and things grow and you don’t know how or why it happened, but it happens. So, I really do appreciate that.

Let’s dive into our lectionary text. That’s why we’re here. We have four passages that we’re going to look at this month. Our first passage of the month is John 3:1–17. I’ll be reading from the New Revised Standard Version, the updated edition. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the second Sunday in Lent / Easter Preparation, March 1.

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. ² He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.” ³ Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” ⁴ Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” ⁵ Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. ⁶ What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. ⁷ Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ ⁸ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” ⁹ Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” ¹⁰ Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? ¹¹ “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, yet you do not receive our testimony. ¹² If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴ And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. ¹⁶ “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. ¹⁷ “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.

So Chris, how would you herald the gospel if you were preaching this text to your congregation?

[00:11:41] Chris: I’m really struck by this scene because it features someone in Nicodemus that is so serious and also in some ways so staked to the status quo, but also is courageous and humble enough to ask Jesus to reveal something new to him.

Just think these days it can be really distressing. Maybe you feel this to live in a world, in a media environment where two people can. Receive the same data or receive the same video or hear the same words and interpret those things like drastically differently. And sometimes in host hostile opposition.

And this happens in our church community. Sometimes it’s happening around them and inside them. Putting aside for a second that we’re that we’re all sinful and our vision and our hearing are in some ways, like provisional, still seems like there’s always a subset of folks who can and want to see and hear with clarity.

There’s a subset who can’t maybe yet, and there’s a subset who won’t or don’t want to. And so, I think this is remarkable on a human level: the curiosity and the courage of Nicodemus here. Although he does meet at night with some level of concealment and caution.

Anthony: Sure, sure.

Chris: And also the patience and the creativity of Jesus in his response. So, that’s the lens I’m approaching this with. This is a fascinating scene of Jesus encountering someone who can’t see but wants to. Jesus, Flannery says, draws large and startling images, like the image, the main image, being born again.

But he doesn’t quite shout at Nicodemus here. Jesus is complicating. Nicodemus is closed, too small vision in the world, but also opening up a window so that he can begin to feel how the Spirit is blowing, where it comes or where it goes, you know. So, it seems like Jesus is like loosening Nicodemus’ grip, his control. We talked about a minute ago in likening the coming of God’s kingdom and Nicodemus’ participation in it as passing through a birth canal. This is so scandalous. I’m in a season of life where this seems like every two months is another kid coming up on the talk, and so, dropping birth canal language is — I’m sure that’s not what Nicodemus assumed was he was getting himself into, right?

[00:14:52] Anthony: Yeah.

[00:14:52] Chris: Like I also I wonder if there’s a little bit of a parallel, not directly, but this strikes me a little bit like the story of the rich young ruler and that story doesn’t show up in John’s gospel. All Nicodemus wanted was something to do, some takeaway, something to achieve, conquer, progress, know that he was right. And all Jesus gives him is an invitation to do less, to give it away, to take his hands off, to gain an innocence that is only able to receive from God like a newborn baby.

And the last thing I notice is that Jesus is fleshing out God’s word. And this is like the theme of John’s gospel, right? The Word made flesh.

[00:15:50] Anthony: Yeah.

[00:15:51] Chris: But the Word in our translations at the end in famous, like, stadium rainbow wig verse John 3:16, the Word is doing so much work. Most of my life, I considered that like a quantitative statement like, God loves the world so much, which of course is true that he would give his only Son. And maybe that, so muchness has some connections to certain ideas about atonement and, like, mismatch, and what God gives, and what we have.

But what if that so is also like qualitative, like God loves the world, just so. You know, just so. God loves the world by entering into it. The way God loves the world is by giving his Son. The gift of Jesus is a gift of God’s own presence and God’s unbreakable decision to have skin in our game.

Those are some of the things that jump out.

[00:17:09] Anthony: Yeah, you just reminded me. We have a mutual friend who likes to say God didn’t just write us a letter, he paid us a visit. And I like the way you said it, that he has skin in the game. You’d mentioned how two people could read the same social media post or watch the same video and come to polar opposite positions.

And in that often what is people condemning one another, that there’s such disdain for the other position that we condemn. But God, as we read in verse 17, did not send this Son who he loved and so loved the world into the world to condemn it. And it gets me thinking if Jesus wasn’t sent to condemn, I’m pretty sure we’re not called to do that either.

And yet, we just have this enormous capacity to do that, to condemn one another. Can you talk about it? What’s the way forward in this roux that we’re finding ourselves swimming in at this constant condemnation of one another?

[00:18:27] Chris: Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know that I can speak generally, but when I feel most condemning of other people, that’s when I’m most insecure or when I feel most out of control or when it seems like, if I don’t lock this down, there’s not going to be enough.

I love that Nicodemus seeks out Jesus and gets this message of non-condemnation. I imagine him, Nicodemus, like, being glad that it’s at night so that Jesus can’t see him like writhing in his chair.

But what if this verse is true? I think it is. Like, what if God’s capital “YES” is so pronounced in our world that any “no” is lowercase and like only makes sense in light of God’s love and care and provision. Like, we don’t get that much about Nicodemus’ response or what happened after this encounter. Like the rich young rulers, he went away sad and we’re not really sure where that sadness is located or aimed. But we do get a story of Joseph, or of Nicodemus popping up later in the gospel alongside Joseph of Arimathea to help bury Jesus in John 19.

I think that’s like profoundly telling, that Jesus has this imaginative, non-condemning encounter with Nicodemus, and then somewhere along the line that turns him into a follower of Jesus, in the sort of person who used to only sidle up to Jesus in the shadows and in whisper tones, and is now out there with tenderness and sorrow tending to the body of a lynched dissident, who for all intents and purposes lost, was pulverized, was erased by the state and the church. People don’t know the bad news about themselves. There’s no need for the good news. Take a look at Nicodemus’ life of slow, steady unspectacular discipleship and the way he grew as a disciple. It’s really remarkable.

And it didn’t come from any condemnation of Jesus.

[00:21:48] Anthony: Yeah. I love what you said. What if it’s true? Because it is, and I’m convinced of that, and the Lord has said yes. And so, any response back to the Lord as a yes is contained within his larger objective yes to us, that he so loved us, that he sent his Son.

All right. Let’s transition to our next text of the month. It’s John 4:5–42. It’s a lengthy one, and so we have decided to spare you all of that reading. We’re going read a portion of that and then discuss it. It is the Revised Common Lectionary passage for the third Sunday in Lent / Easter preparation, which is March 8.

Chris, would you read it for us, please?

[00:22:10] Chris: Sure.

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. ⁷ A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” ⁸ (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” ¹¹ The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹² Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” ¹³ Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” ¹⁷ The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’ ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You[g] worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. ²⁴ God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” ²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” ²⁷ Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” ²⁸ Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ²⁹ “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” ³⁰ They left the city and were on their way to him. ³¹ Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” ³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ³³ So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” ³⁴ Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. ³⁵ Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. ³⁶ The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. ³⁷ For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” ³⁹ Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. ⁴¹ And many more believed because of his word. ⁴² They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

[00:24:45] Anthony: This is the lengthiest continuous conversation Jesus has with anyone recorded in Scripture. It’s a woman, and not just any woman, but a Samaritan woman. Chris, what might this tell us about the God revealed in Jesus Christ?

[00:25:07] Chris: Looking specifically at Jesus, sometimes it can be helpful to come up with kind of adjectives that are just like really particularly descriptive to the passage that you’re focusing on. And the two that I came up with were, this is the circuitous and exhausted Jesus. Okay.

[00:25:30] Anthony: Tell us.

[00:25:31] Chris: Yeah. I don’t think it is like a small detail that Jesus goes a really strange way along to go through Samaria in Sychar. One of the commentators, Dale Bruner, has a great John commentary, and he says, Jesus leaves “strategic Judea in Jerusalem in the south for a season away in seemingly less auspicious Samaria and Galilee in the north. Yet deep things happen in these externally out of the way, less impressive places. God is no more respecter of places than he is of persons. Wherever he is at work is a very significant place.”

And so, Jesus going this circuitous way that doesn’t seem at all accidental — surprising but not accidental, right? Samaritans, from what I can gather, are shady because they are synchronistic, they’re pluralistic. There is a history here. They sort of worship God, but also keep some of their own worship practices alongside of that. They’re not like pure in like a religious purity kind of thought purity sort of way.

I’m not sure there’s like a great analogy here, but I don’t know. I was trying to think what this could be like for a conservative Christian, someone who they might be like nervous and interfacing with — like maybe like a Mormon or a Rastafarian or like an indigenous American who like has some Christian thoughts and practice and worship, but also has a lot of other stuff going on, right? Maybe we can imagine as gaps widen in our world. Who is your theological outgroup, folks who are like a little bit exotic, but also a little bit dangerous, right? In some ways the theological commonalities of Jews and Samaritans are maybe more confusing in light of the theological and cultural differences.

And so, Jesus, it seems, despite the past in this present, sidles up to this woman at the well. And there’s a history of wells in Scripture, and particularly this well. Abraham meets Rebecca at the well — that’s Isaac’s future wife. Hagar is met by an angel of the Lord at a desert spring of water, which is basically a well. And this is Jacob’s well. So, I think that’s hinting that this is like the middle of God’s unfolding story. And that’s happening in a kind of a strange place that Jesus purposes to be.

So, the other word was exhausted. What the heck does it mean for a Christology that Jesus was exhausted?

Anthony: Yes.

Chris: And then the outpouring of that, like Jesus is exhausted. So, it seems like the disciples spring into action. They’re gone because they’re going to buy food to help him, and then he asks for help from someone who has no business helping him.

Anthony: Yeah.

Chris: Like, even if Jesus isn’t the Word made flesh, even if he’s just some random Jewish dude, like you shouldn’t be asking her for help. I also think like it’s an interesting contrast between this woman and our previous pericope with Nicodemus, like man, woman, Israelite, Pharisee, and a Samaritan, teacher, housewife, night. It says he met the woman at high noon, like in the middle of the day. Even how they respond. Like, Nicodemus refers to Jesus as teacher. She refers to Jesus as prophet and Messiah. This exhausted, out-of-the-way person. So, those are some of the things that I noticed. Those are some of the things that that I feel like I learn about the God revealed in Jesus from this story.

[00:30:16] Anthony: I’ve had the privilege of worshiping with Oak Church, where you pastor, and one of the things I’ve appreciated about you, you have a narrative way of preaching, and I know you value imagination, that we would spiritually imagine what’s happening and contextualizing that to our world. I’m going to ask you to do the same here.

We get brief insight on this woman’s testimony about Jesus, but what do you imagine she told her friends about Jesus and how she might’ve responded to this incredibly unexpected conversation?

[00:31:00] Chris: Yeah. Start with what she said, “I know that Messiah’s coming. He will proclaim all things. Come. See. He told me everything I’ve ever done.” And then she says, “He can’t be the Messiah, can he?” Yeah. And then, this human-divine Jesus goes and eats something. And after that, the Samaritans ask Jesus to stay with them and he does. So, in the process of that hospitality and that intimacy more come to trust in Jesus, and I think this is all because of this incarnation ministry move of Jesus.

Some initially trust what the woman said, but more were coming to trust in Jesus because of what he said, what they saw, and that he was with them. This again, like in light of the Nicodemus encounter, that idea that some can’t and some willfully won’t see in here, I think it’s remarkable that when Jesus comes close to these theological Creole folk, they are opened up and included in the very life of God.

So, in a lot of ways her testimony is opening them up to an encounter and experience with Jesus. She is like an evangelist host. She makes room for these encounters to happen by her questions and by her proclamation, but also by her, like, invitation and introduction of them to Jesus. It’s really remarkable how her encounter and experience then gives way to all of these other encounters and experiences.

[00:32:50] Anthony: And when the Spirit comes upon you, you will be my witnesses. Hallelujah.

Alright, let’s transition to our next pericope of the month. It’s John 9:1–41. Again, because of the length, we’ll read just a portion of the text. It is the Revised Common Lectionary passage for the fourth Sunday in Easter Preparation, March 15.

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. ² His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” ³ Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. ⁴ We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. ⁵ As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” ⁶ When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, ⁷ saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. ⁸ The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” ⁹ Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am he.” ¹⁰ But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” ¹¹ He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” ¹² They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.” ¹³ They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. ¹⁴ Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. ¹⁵ Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” ¹⁶ Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. ¹⁷ So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.” ¹⁸ The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight ¹⁹ and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” ²⁰ His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind, ²¹ but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” ²² His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. ²³ Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” ²⁴ So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” ²⁵ He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” ²⁶ They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” ²⁷ He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” ²⁸ Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. ²⁹ We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” ³⁰ The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. ³¹ We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. ³² Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. ³³ If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” ³⁴ They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out. ³⁵ Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” ³⁶ He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” ³⁷ Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” ³⁸ He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. ³⁹ Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind.” ⁴⁰ Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” ⁴¹ Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.

“I was blind. And now I see.” The religious leaders questioned who was to blame for the man being blind. No one was to be blamed. Was that type of blaming game isolated to that culture or do you see it at work today? And that’s like an understating question. And if so, how does this blame and shame game persist? And what is the solution?

[00:36:34] Chris: Yeah.

[00:36:37] Anthony: What do we do with that?

[00:36:42] Chris: And can I say that it’s strangely heartening that, like this sort of stuff, we didn’t invent this sort of stuff or that it’s not that it happens in a analog culture, like you can totally imagine a confrontation like this in this like AI and social media, deep fake age, right, where there’s just so much suspicion and disputation of what is real.

I think there are a couple of things happening. There’s the blame of it all. There’s an attempt at a simple answer to horrible suffering. It seems that Jesus’ disciples need to be “un-discipled” from these old ways of thinking.

[00:37:37] Anthony: Well said.

[00:37:38] Chris: Yeah. Matthew’s gospel has that formula. “You have heard it said, but I say to you” — this might be like a Johannine version of that. Jesus clears the way of old thinking off the table, a way that has no room for God’s presence and work, but only a zero-sum blame game of who screwed up. And Jesus resets the terms with just a more expansive, mysterious, complicated, and, like, theocentric, God-centered view of the world. They want an either / or. Jesus gives them a neither /and. I don’t know if that’s how that works.

[00:38:21] Anthony: Yeah, I like that.

[00:38:22] Chris: But I think the second thing that is happening is the encounter with the religious gatekeepers. This seems so social media coded to me. They are looking for a way to trap him. They want to get him to say something that can be clipped so that he can be disputed, dismissed, vilified, disqualified. Again, related to our theme of who can see and hear, those who can, and those who refuse to. If you already “know” that a man can’t be healed you just have a few options.

Your options are like the disciples, to try to explain it, and blame for it, which that works. And that can be satisfying until that blame comes for you when something bad happens. Another option is you can deny it like the Pharisees attempt to, or then that like denial shifts as denial often does and then they begin to recognize that this “impossible skill” happened, in that it has dark causes; you vilify it. So, those seem to be the ways that blame is operating here and I think still operates more generally.

[00:40:11] Anthony: Yeah. It seems to me when anything happens in our society, that’s the first question we often ask, “Who’s to blame?” We’ve got to be able to set it at somebody’s feet so we can understand what is happening.

And I just love this guy’s response. His testimony is not to wrangle over theology. “I just know what happened to me. I can’t tell you much about this guy, but I was blind and now I see.” What can we learn from the witness of this man?

[00:40:55] Chris: Yeah. Of all those previous options and the way that they’re wrestling with this upturning of the way things are, there’s this guy standing over to the side, and imagine him just like ogling at the colors and the shapes and the shadows and the faces and the details and the beauty that he never saw, but now can see.

Anthony: Yeah

Chris: Like, I think we learned that, like talking about and bandying about ideas of seeing and perceiving pale in comparison to the indisputable experience of a man who was encountered, who was touched, who was healed, who had things revealed to him. You circle back to the start of the passage, he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. And Jesus says, as long as I’m in the world, I’m the light of the world. And it is that light that is illuminating for this man.

[00:42:02] Anthony: I don’t know if you’ve seen the videos of people who had been born deaf and with today’s technology are able to hear.

[00:42:13] Chris: Yeah, that’s right.

[00:42:14] Anthony: And people who have been colorblind with special glasses can see in colors they could only previously try to imagine. It brings me to tears every time something like that happens. What a wonderful thing the Lord has done here. And I appreciate you just bringing it up, like the astonishment of what that man was experiencing and how that impacted his testimony. I don’t think he ever stopped talking about it. How could you?

[00:42:46] Chris: How could you? And again, not to rank healings or encounters, but there’s just something so much more vivid and, like, whole-being-related to gaining a whole sense. Again, someone who is immobilized by leg injury or something like, absolutely — those stories in the gospels they jump up and leap about like calves. That’s so cool. This man is having his whole way of being in the world completely changed in a way that seems analogous to what Jesus is telling Nicodemus. “You need to be born again. You need to come into this world again as for the first time.” It feels like that’s a little bit of what that man is experiencing.

[00:43:58] Anthony: Yeah. And yet Pastor Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, no eye has seen, no ears heard, no mind can even comprehend the things that are in store. Like even with this man’s sight, there’s just still so much.

All right, let’s transition to our final pericope of the month. It’s John 11:1–45. We’ll read just a shortened version of that. It is the Revised Common Lectionary passage for the fifth Sunday of Lent / Easter Preparation, March 22. Chris, read it for us, please.

[00:44:35] Chris: Sure.

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. ² Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. ³ So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” ⁴ But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather, it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” ⁵ Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, ⁶ after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. ⁷ Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” ⁸ The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” ⁹ Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble because they see the light of this world. ¹⁰ But those who walk at night stumble because the light is not in them.” ¹¹ After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” ¹² The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” ¹³ Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. ¹⁴ Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. ¹⁵ For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” ¹⁶ Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” ¹⁷ When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. ¹⁸ Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, ¹⁹ and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. ²⁰ When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. ²¹ Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” ²³ Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” ²⁴ Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” ²⁵ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, ²⁶ and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” ²⁷ She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” ²⁸ When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” ²⁹ And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. ³⁰ Now Jesus had not yet come to the village but was still at the place where Martha had met him. ³¹ The Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. ³² When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” ³³ When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. ³⁴ He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” ³⁵ Jesus began to weep. ³⁶ So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” ³⁷ But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” ³⁸ Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. ³⁹ Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” ⁴⁰ Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” ⁴¹ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. ⁴² I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.” ⁴⁵ Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did believed in him.

[00:47:33] Anthony: So how does the story end, Chris? Does he bring him back to life? Of course he does, and I think many of our listeners will know the rest of the text there. There’s just so much here. So, I wanted to give you a chance just to riff. What are you interested in us hearing? Teach, Teacher! Let’s hear it.

[00:47:52] Chris: Yeah. I did preach on parts of this passage in the last year or two. And it’s interesting ’cause I was doing a little bit of cleanup. Several weeks earlier I’d had a lay person preach with not a whole lot of experience. And they did an overall really good job preaching on the Mary and Martha story from earlier.

And congregation walked away with so much good stuff from that passage. But I felt like there was a little bit of an oversimplified kind of Martha, the busy body, Mary, the serious spiritual one, vibe happening. And it just needed to be a little more filled out. So, that’s what I mean by cleanup.

So, we get to this story. And so, I chose this text. And we get to this story and we find these sisters. And if you have siblings, you know how very interesting dynamics come out when you are hosting an important guest. And now they, these same sisters are in a moment of deep grief and they are completely univocal.

We clipped the passage, but Mary also repeats what Martha said about, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Anthony: Yeah.

Chris: So, it’s fascinating. We just read a passage about pointing fingers related to suffering, but this is quite different than “Who sinned, his father or mother?”

The praise is coming out sideways. They actually believe that Jesus could and would have countered Lazarus’ death. And so, they’re blaming Jesus a little for not being there. So, I think that this is like a beautiful and weird display of faith that probably most people can connect to.

If you’ve ever been deep in surprising grief, like whether you fall on the “got to get things done” or the “sit at Jesus’s feet and soak it up end” of the spectrum, you understand what it feels like to experience great loss and to try to figure out what the heck happened and what could have been different.

Anthony: Yeah.

Chris: There’s this old religious, like, old, old religious self-help book of Ars Moriendi, The Art of Dying. And it is like an instruction manual for how to be with people. And it tries to anticipate and name and short circuit some of the common struggles or temptations in dealing with death. This was written at a time of, like, plague where there was just death everywhere.

And the three kind of temptations or common struggles that it isolates are that when you experience death, not your own death, but death around you that you’ll lose faith, that you’ll despair, or that you’ll become impatient with that feeling of emptiness and loss and grief and try to mobilize death or move beyond it or do something to buffer, that deep feeling of pain.

It’s interesting in exploring this passage, like, I’m interested in exploring this passage as folks experiencing one of the worst days of their lives and still very imperfectly and maybe even problematically coming up with a way of looking at and pointing to Jesus. And it doesn’t seem like that really bothers Jesus that much to be blamed because their blame bears witness to their trust.

[00:52:04] Anthony: I appreciate you saying that it bears witness to their trust in him. I have heard so many sermons about the contrastive styles of Mary and Martha, and I think Martha, sometimes from my perspective, gives a bad rap. It’s often, be Mary, don’t be Martha. But people have got to eat. That’s part of it too.

[00:52:27] Chris: Also, it’s also interesting in this passage, Mary’s, like, kind of slow dwelling presence sensibility has her back with Lazarus and it’s actually Martha’s, like, more active and activated personality that has her first meeting Jesus …

[00:52:50] Anthony: Yeah.

[00:52:50] Chris: … when he arrives. And so, yeah. I do think it’s important to recognize that these are complicated real people, like all of us. And we’re really being given the gift of seeing them relate to Jesus in different ways, sometimes different ways and sometimes ways that are really unified in common.

[00:53:16] Anthony: We talked earlier in the episode about how the kingdom of God emerges slowly but surely not often at the speed we want it to go. And I just couldn’t help but think of the connection in some ways to this story.

Jesus is the king of the kingdom. He is the kingdom’s wherever he’s at. And yet he’s late based on the timing of what we want. Oh boy, there’s a lot to unpack there too. I think Jesus proclaimed himself as the resurrection and the life. And we didn’t get to this part in the text, but Jesus weeps. And I’m just curious, is there something for us to mine there in terms of a teaching? Why would he weep when he knows what he’s about to do, raise Lazarus from the dead?

[00:54:11] Chris: I had a post-it note on my monitor for years. I think the only reason it’s not there is maybe I moved or maybe just the sticky gave way eventually. But it was from a Eugene Peterson kind of counsel for pastors. And one of the things that he said that pastors attempting to emulate the good shepherd Jesus, one of the things that we would be, is unhurried.

And so, it can really be a challenging thing to try to be, and I think this passage really is like the greatest fear for if we approach ministry in an unhurried way, is that we actually might miss something big or important or might even be blamed for something that, that we could have been present for.

And I take heart that Jesus shows us that is okay and he is that committed to the bit that that might happen. But I also take heart in a lot of motivation that when Jesus is present with them, he is so present that he cries. That famous scripture memory verse, “Jesus wept.”

Anthony: Yeah.

Chris: I don’t think I’ll ever encounter that verse or this part of John’s gospel without thinking of Mako Fujimura, the famous Japanese American Christian artist. And the way he makes art is through this really particular Japanese practice where he pulverizes precious metals and applies them with this like water and glue. And it’s kind of like watercolors, that there’s a certain level of chance and chaos and happy accidents and how things come out, even though he is very skilled and has great purpose.

And for him, Jesus weeping at Lazarus’s graveside is the center of John’s gospel. It is structurally, but thematically too, and that Jesus’s tears give way for Lazarus’ resuscitation. But for Jesus’ resurrection, Mako has a quote in one of his books. He says, “Jesus’s tears transformed Mary’s view of her Lord, soaking the hardened ground of Bethany, Jesus’ tears co-mingled with hers. Jesus was not only a savior, but proved to be an intimate friend. The glory of God shown through the deep friendship with the Son of man, and John took note of it.”

Yeah. I feel like, also for ministry leaders and pastor types grieving publicly can really be a challenge. It feels like we need to be tough and have it all together and say the right thing rather than sometimes just falling apart a little more publicly than we care to.

I think of Henri Nouwen saying that that he’s learned that much of praying is just grieving. And yeah, I think Jesus models that. Also related to this one last thing. In the last year, I read a really fascinating book by Andy Root. He teaches up in Minnesota Twin Cities. And he writes a lot about the ministry in a secular age. And this book is called Evangelism as Consolation and talks really beautifully and imaginatively about just like Jesus in this story, just our being with people in an age of sadness and sorrow is great ministry and proclamation of the good news. He said, “Evangelism in these sad times is ultimately the confession that God meets us in our human sorrow and through our sorrow, takes our person into Jesus’s own person. And this is good news.”

[00:59:18] Anthony: Yeah. I was sharing with a friend just in the last week about an opportunity we’re meeting as a church plant team. And I was feeling sorrow over feeling rejection by somebody. Not on our team, but someone adjacent to our church. And I’ve confessed that I’ve struggled to be vulnerable in this way often with a team.

And I shared with them what I had experienced that week and I wasn’t anticipating it, but emotion just swept over me as I was talking about it. And I, in one sense, I was trying to keep a cap on it. I don’t know if you’ve ever done that, try to fight back tears, like sometimes I’m watching a movie and I don’t want anybody to see that I’m crying. I tried to put a cap on it, but it just seemed like it was the right thing just to let it go and to be honest about what I was feeling as a result of what had happened. And I didn’t think a whole lot of it other than sharing it. But one of the team members said to me afterwards, he said, “Anthony, we needed that from you. Because your tears allowed us, gave us permission to feel some of what not only you were feeling, but what all of us had been feeling.”

And I just think, like you said, there’s just something about that. I’ve read a lot of Root’s books, but I haven’t read Evangelism as Consolation. I’m going to put that on my list, because there’s a lot of sorrow. And I, as I’m looking at our text as we kind of wrap up our time together, I know our sorrow is leading somewhere.

And I see verse 39, “Jesus said, take away the stone.” And it’s got to be a foreshadowing, right? “Take away the stone.” And as his final words in the text are, “Unbind him and let him go.” Unbind Jesus from death, let him go. And his resurrection certainly is our objective truth in reality that we participate in his resurrected life. Hallelujah. Is there anything else from this text you’d want to kind of point out, bring to our attention?

[01:01:39] Chris: I’ll probably preach this text in a few weeks. And this is one of those cyclical texts that, you’re right on the cusp of Easter. And I’m just so thankful for this episode in the life of Jesus in that it gives our people a real chance to see themselves as included with Christ’s death and resurrection.

With this preview, those first fruits of the new creation. And in some ways, for all the ways that Jesus’s death on the cross includes us and is like the quintessential suffering of humanity, I think, of, like, … a Jesus will suffer until the end of the world sort of thing.

It’s an episode like this where it’s just messy and it’s just family and it doesn’t happen at the right time. And there’s a little confusion about … So many family lives end when it’s like so and so got checked into the hospital for some minor thing and then they never got out.

And so, yeah. It’s just a beautiful passage to see ourselves in and to see the ways that Jesus enters into our grief. Here’s our deep longing and desire for death not to win and not to continue to hurt us and not to continue to make us live and make decisions based on fearing death. And that Jesus says it in a way that’s just so human and real and accessible, still to us and for us and with us.

[01:04:02] Anthony: And I think as pastors, ministry leaders, as proclaimers of the gospel, we have to continue to come back to this reality, that we are co-participants in Christ’s suffering and he suffers with us and he’s in the midst of it.

And in a world that feels like it’s on fire and dying at this very moment, that is indeed good news that God is with us in this moment in human history. Hallelujah. Praise him.

Well, Chris, or Rev. Bres, as we affectionately know you, I’m so grateful for you, your friendship, your guidance especially as we continue to to hitch our wagon to what Jesus is doing in Durham, North Carolina. I’m praying for you. I’m excited about the baseball season that’s just around the corner for you and your children. So, blessings being upon you. Thank you for joining us, and I want to thank our team of people who are behind the scenes that make all this work, Reuel Enerio, Elizabeth Mullens, Michelle Hartman. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the good work that you do to make this possible.

And Chris, as is our tradition on the Gospel Reverb, we end with a word of prayer. We’d be grateful if you’d pray for us and with us.

[01:05:16] Chris: Sure. Pray with me.

Jesus. Light of the world. Help us see, like Thomas Merton prayed. We have no idea where we are going and do not see the road ahead of us and cannot know for certain where it will end. But you encounter, you touch, you heal, and you reveal still.

Jesus, flesh and blood Word, who lives in our neighborhood, help us to receive your words. When we can’t, speak to us. Enable us when we don’t want to, dig out our ears. And when those around us won’t, let us continue to know and to speak your truth. We trust you always. Though we may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death, we will not fear for you are ever with us. You will never leave us to face perils alone. Amen.

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