Brian Zahnd—Year A Christmas 2-Epiphany 3
Gospel Reverb | Grace Communion International Resources
Brian's upcoming book and love of mystery
Brian mentions his forthcoming book Unseen Existences and affirms the value of mystery in theology and faith.
Brian Zahnd—Year A Christmas 2-Epiphany 3
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.
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, Brian Zhand. Brian is the founder and lead pastor of Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri. He’s a pastor theologian who has authored 12 books, including Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, When Everything’s on Fire, and The Wood Between the Worlds.
Brian is enthusiastic about music, literature, mountains — amen — and long-distance pilgrimages. Brian, thanks for being with us and welcome to the podcast. And since this is your first time being with us, we’d like to know a little bit about you, your story, and especially what has you experiencing delight these days.
[00:01:31] Brian: First of all, thank you, Anthony. It’s a delight to be with you, speaking of delight. I am the founding pastor of Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, Missouri, that a week from this Sunday will celebrate its 44th anniversary.
[00:01:48] Anthony: Come on. You’re getting old, Brian. Is that what you’re telling me?
[00:01:51] Brian: I am 66. I’ve been doing this 44 years of my life. If my math works out, I’ve been doing this two-thirds of my life.
Anthony: And thank you, Lord.
Brian: I’m pastor theologian. I write a lot. I travel, speak. I don’t necessarily … the church doesn’t depend on me these days, to run it day by day, although I just came from a three-hour staff meeting. We have a great team. I love being with them, but I can tell my story real long, but that’s not what we’re here for. My simple story is I’ve done one thing. And I’ve tried to pastor a local church and have done that for 44 years. And then other things swirl around that. I have three grown sons. I have eight grandchildren. They all live within five minutes or 10 minutes of us.
[00:02:43] Anthony: Oh, come on. That’s fantastic.
[00:02:44] Brian: Yeah. And my grandchildren are fifth generation students in the same school district. In other words, my grandchildren are in the same school district program that my grandfather was.
[00:03:00] Anthony: Wow.
[00:03:00] Brian: And so, Wendell Berry just gave me a high five.
[00:03:05] Anthony: Ah, there it is. Kentucky boy.
[00:03:08] Brian: He’s about place and having roots and yeah.
Anthony: Yes, yes.
Brian: So, that’s not much of my story, but maybe it’ll give you some idea of who I am.
[00:03:18] Anthony: Yeah. And speaking of the local church, because I know you, you hold the local expression in high regard. I wanted to ask you this. I imagine in some low liturgical settings that the Christian calendar, Revised Common Lectionary would be considered restrictive, maybe repetitive, but are they really? I’m curious for your thoughts because you’ve, as far as I know, you’ve used the calendar and RCL for years. Help us to understand the value.
[00:03:45] Brian: Yeah, I’ve preached using the lectionary for probably close to 20 years, which means for more than 20 years I didn’t. So, I have, so I have plenty of experience in both practices. Here’s what I would say. Preaching from the lectionary can be restrictive, but it’s not going to be near as restrictive of just leaving it up to whatever the pastor is thinking about, because that way, pastors tend to just get in their thing. And everything becomes a version of their two or three or four pet emphases. So, I found that preaching from the lectionary to be a good discipline. It forces you to maybe deal with texts that you ordinarily wouldn’t deal with.
[00:04:36] Anthony: Yeah.
[00:04:38] Brian: But I also find it liberating in the sense that, alright, here’s your task this week. What can you do with this? And I like that a lot. Now that being said, I should clarify that we don’t always preach from the lectionary. Most of the time, we do. We certainly do from Advent through Pentecost.
In Ordinary Time we allow ourselves a certain liberty. I’m doing, for example, a series on Job right now. And we do have that flexibility that when we want to deal with a certain series or emphasize something, we’re able to do that. So, we do have freedom, but we always attend to the lectionary as far as scripture reading goes, as part of our worship on Sunday.
So, I recommend it. I think it’s a good thing. I think more churches should do that. One of the things I like is that it allows you to participate with much of the global body of Christ. There’s something invigorating about millions and millions of Christians are hearing these texts read and probably, in some form, preached upon this Sunday, and we’re a part of that. I like that.
[00:05:49] Anthony: Yeah, it points to the fact, I think, Brian, that we’re drawn into the grand narrative of Scripture. Which really brings in the calendar as well, to think that we’re preaching from the same text. We’re looking at the same season. So, during Advent, and now in terms of our conversation, we’re in Christmas and moving into Epiphany, that we’re thinking along the same lines. How is God revealing himself in Jesus Christ and how does the calendar bring and invoke that to us as the Church body?
[00:06:19] Brian: Yes.
[00:06:20] Anthony: I’m curious. Our listening audience is primary made up of church folk from around the world. And so, speaking to these church people, and I value your opinion on this, what would you say is the greatest opportunity and maybe the greatest challenge facing the global Church?
[00:06:38] Brian: I would say that the greatest challenge, and again I can’t speak to the global Body of Christ. I can speak in my own experience, certainly in North America, and to a certain extent in Western Europe, because I’m there a lot. I would say that we’re under a lot of pressure to make Christ subservient to some other agenda or ism or issue or cause.
[00:07:06] Anthony: Preach.
[00:07:07] Brian: And we need to be faithful. And without transcendence, Christianity without transcendence, degenerates into politics. And everything is so political right now.
I understand that Christ is not apolitical. Jesus speaks into the real justice situations of our world, but his politics are utterly other than of this world. And so, I would say it this way maybe to clarify what I’m trying to say: The critique that I would bring to both the Christian right and Christian left is what happens is that Christian gets reduced to adjective duty in service to the all-important political noun of right or left. And then Jesus is trotted out as a mascot to endorse political right or political left. And so, I think that’s a tremendous challenge. I don’t know that’s a challenge all over the world, but it is in North America and Western Europe for sure. And so, to remain … I just am not committed to isms. I don’t know how else to say it, Anthony, that I am not going to serve someone else’s ism or cause as far as how I preach on Sunday morning, that’s for sure.
[00:08:30] Anthony: Yeah. That’s so well said. I just had Paul Young on the last podcast.
[00:08:35] Brian: Paul’s a good friend.
[00:08:36] Anthony: Yes. And he’s a good man. He talked about these very things, that ideology. If theology, Christology is not leading the way, this is where we dive down to. And I think sometimes the fear of rejection or being misunderstood pushes us to conform to ideology. And we’re an alternative kingdom.
Brian: That’s it.
Anthony: And I think it’s Brueggemann talks about how, if we’re not that, then we’ve lost our witness. Otherwise, we just look like the culture around us.
Brian: Exactly.
Anthony: Alright, my brother, one last thing before we get into the text. I know you’re working on projects constantly. You’re a prolific writer. What are you working on currently that you can share with us? And where can we find it?
[00:09:24] Brian: I have a new book that, as far as I’m concerned, it’s done, but the publishers have the thing they have to do, but it’s through final edits and all of that. The release date is May 19th. The book is called Unseen Existences: Of Heaven, Earth and the Divine Mystery and All Things.
And so, I’m sort of at that spot where I’m just finishing a project. I have, I know what I’m gonna write next, but I’m not ready to share that. That’s so far out that I’m not gonna start talking about that yet. But coming up in May, new book will come out: Unseen Existences.
[00:10:03] Anthony: I love that you used the word mystery. We’re so afraid of that word sometimes in the Church, aren’t we?
[00:10:08] Brian: No, I love that.
[00:10:09] Anthony: God is a mystery. Amen. Amen.
All right, let’s do this. Let’s dive into the lectionary text we’ll be discussing. Our first pericope of the month is Jeremiah 37:7–14. I’ll be reading from the New Revised Standard Version, the updated edition. It’s a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the second Sunday after Christmas Day, January 4.
7 Thus says the LORD, God of Israel: This is what you shall say to the king of Judah, who sent you to me to inquire of me: Pharaoh’s army, which set out to help you, is going to return to its own land, to Egypt. 8 And the Chaldeans shall return and fight against this city; they shall take it and burn it with fire. 9 Thus says the LORD: Do not deceive yourselves, saying, “The Chaldeans will surely go away from us,” for they will not go away. 10 Even if you defeated the whole army of Chaldeans who are fighting against you and there remained of them only wounded men in their tents, they would rise up and burn this city with fire. 11 Now when the Chaldean army had withdrawn from Jerusalem at the approach of Pharaoh’s army, 12 Jeremiah set out from Jerusalem to go to the land of Benjamin to receive his share of property among the people there. 13 When he reached the Benjamin Gate, a sentinel there named Irijah son of Shelemiah son of Hananiah
And I — why don’t we name people this anymore?
[00:11:38] Brian: Just say it with confidence, Anthony.
[00:11:40] Anthony: I tried to. I tried to.
[They] arrested the prophet Jeremiah saying, “You are deserting to the Chaldeans.” 14 And Jeremiah said, “That is a lie; I am not deserting to the Chaldeans.” But Irijah would not listen to him and arrested Jeremiah and brought him to the officials.
Now Brian I listened to your last sermon Sunday. And you rightly said, when we come to the Hebrew scriptures, we’re looking for the Christ, for the Messiah. This is a doozy. Help us find Christ. And if you were preaching this text to your congregation, what would be the focus of that Christocentric message?
[00:12:15] Brian: Yeah, it’s not hard at all. Jeremiah, his whole life, so prefigures Christ. So, Jeremiah is prophesying there in the sixth century BC. We’re headed toward the great catastrophe, the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BC. And it’s Jeremiah that is warning the city that the end is coming. He’s the one that first says, you have made my temple into a den of robbers or a den of thieves. Jesus borrows that language when he stages his protest in the temple. But when Jesus is protesting in the temple, we call it cleansing the temple. It really wasn’t that. It was sort of a prophetic protest. And then he’s prophesying the imminent, within 40 years we would say, destruction of Jerusalem. This is exactly what Jeremiah had done, and so Jesus is warning that just because you call yourself the people of God.
Earlier in Jeremiah 7, Jeremiah is kind of mocking them. He says, you say, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. They think that simply by being called Yahweh’s people, that no kind of judgment or evil can befall them. And Jeremiah’s saying, “That’s not true.” And that’s exactly what Jesus was doing.
Jesus was lamenting as he arrives in Jerusalem. And he says, “Oh, that you had known the things for peace.” And he begins then in what we call the Olivet Discourse to prophesy the end. It’s not the end of the world, but it is the end of the age, that is, the end of the temple, the temple age, the temple apparatus, the temple elite. All of that is coming to an end. And the idea that because they are the people of God, that the Romans won’t eventually come and destroy the temple, Jesus says, “No, this is going to happen.” And Jeremiah does the same thing.
So, I would lean into that. The passage ends with Jeremiah being arrested. It’s amazing how many notable figures in the Scriptures end up at some point thrown in jail. And I have not yet been arrested.
[00:14:47] Anthony: There’s still time, Brian.
[00:14:47] Brian: And I’m, I don’t know, I’m feeling like, you know, I don’t want to go to the judgment seat of Christ and have Jesus say, “Hey, BZ, you never got arrested. You lived in the empire all that time and never got arrested.” I’m kind if joking and kind of serious.
The other thing I would do, though, with Jeremiah, I would certainly emphasize that the whole of his life anticipates the Messiah, in that if you follow the story of his rest then he is thrown into this cistern and he nearly perishes, but then he’s brought up out of it.
And so, even that’s pointing toward resurrection. So, I wouldn’t think it would be very difficult to have a Christocentric emphasis here in Jeremiah 37. Really anywhere in Jeremiah, because Jeremiah’s life prefigures that of Christ. So, that’s how I would deal with it.
[00:15:39] Anthony: No, that’s good. Especially on the second Sunday after Christmas, the focus on the Christ child and the Messiah, the incarnate God-man, entering our world and pitching his tent in our neighborhood, as Eugene Peterson would say.
Brian: Yeah.
Anthony: And in Jeremiah we see the shadow of that that is to come in the person of Jesus.
Let’s transition to our second pericope of the month. It’s Matthew 3:13–17. It is the Revised Common Lectionary passage for the Baptism of our Lord on January 11. Brian, would you read it for us please?
[00:16:15] Brian: I’d be happy to.
Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. 14 John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. 16 And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
[00:17:00] Anthony: Hallelujah. Praise God.
Brian: Yeah. It’s a great passage.
Anthony: It is. And here at Gospel Reverb, we think all theology should lead to doxology or or else why are we doing what we’re doing? So, let me ask you this, why would the perfect sinless Son of the living God be baptized? What purpose did his baptism serve?
[00:17:22] Brian: There’s a couple of ways I would respond to that. I’m at least, there’s at least two. There’s probably more, but I’m going to say two things. First of all, John’s baptism was in fact an act of public repentance. I think we all know this, and that’s what throws us off.
So, people are coming to John to repent and then to mark a new entry into the Promised Land. So, John is baptizing in the Jordan. And of course, if you know your story from the Bible, you know that after the wilderness wandering, finally the children of Israel crossed the Jordan in kind of a miraculous way and come into the Promised Land.
I think part of what John is doing is, there is a symbolic reentry into the Promised Land. Come on, we’re going to be the people of God now. We’re actually going to live out our covenant identity. So, I think that’s why he’s baptizing in the Jordan, for one thing. But yes, it is a public act of repentance.
Here’s the thing. We Christians, of course, confess that Christ is without sin. So, Jesus can’t say, “I repent.” But Jesus can say, “We repent.” So, Christ is Emmanuel, God with us. Not God removed from us, not God against us, but God with us.
And so, Jesus comes through virgin birth, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born without sin into this world. As he comes of age and begins his ministry, the first thing he does is participate with us in our repentance. So, Jesus doesn’t come and say, “You all are a bunch of sinners. You need to repent.” No, he says, “We, the fallen sons of Adam and daughters of Eve — to borrow a CS Lewis’ phrase — we need to turn back to God.” And Jesus joins us in that. That’s one way of looking at it. And I think that’s true. I think that’s, I like that.
The other thing, the church fathers — I can’t remember which one first said it, but several of them do — that in one sense, Jesus is baptizing the waters. So Jesus goes into the water to sanctify the water. The waters of baptism are now holy because our Lord has gone into baptism. And so, he enters into the waters of baptism to make the waters holy for our baptism. And that’s a really … I love preaching that way. That’s very patristic. That’s how the church fathers talked about things. And so that’s what I would do with that, at least initially.
[00:20:07] Anthony: Yeah. That’s so good. And in the tradition of the patristics, TF Torrance really leans in onto the vicarious humanity of Jesus, who did for us what we could not do for ourselves. He is the one on our behalf who has done it.
Brian: Yes.
Anthony: Lived the life we could not live. Died the death we could not die. And we get to do it with him. One died, therefore all died.
Brian: Right.
Anthony: There’s so much there. I think it was Baxter Krueger, who I heard say, in the only way that a Mississippi man could say it, that the Trinity is not two dudes and a dove. But I’m wondering, what do you make of the Trinitarian dynamic in this text?
[00:20:52] Brian: Where to start? I would say it this way. I really like what Henri Nouwen says about the Trinity. And he describes the Trinity as “the House of Love.” And then he works with the famous Rublev icon. We call it Trinity Icon. Actually, it’s The Hospitality of Abraham as the proper name for the icon. Anybody can Google it and you’ll see it and you’ll probably recognize it. And so, it’s drawn from the story of Abraham under the “oaks of Mamre” and the three visitors, which I mean, as a Christian, you can’t read that passage without having Trinitarian thoughts arise in your mind.
And so, Rublev creates a Trinity image drawn from that story. But the way it’s presented, as you look at the icon, there is a space available for the viewer. It’s as if they’re being invited to join the triune God at their same table. And now, in contrast, “the House of Love” with, I think he calls it, “the House of Fear.” And he talks about the world being so driven by fear, but we are invited.
So, the interaction between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as depicted throughout the gospels is always one of love. It’s always one of mutual affirmation. And so, we see this community of love and we’re invited into that. We’re invited to join that. We’re invited to participate in that “House of Love” that is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, I like that.
If you wanted to get into the weeds theologically, there’s the, what is it, the filioque controversy. And this is, does the Spirit proceed from the Father and the Son? The original Nicene Creed, “proceeds from the Father. We believe in the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.” The West added “and the Son.”
Now, I think the West was wrong in doing this without an ecumenical council. It was part of what led to the great schism and whatever that year was, 1059 or whatever it was. So, I think procedurally they were wrong. Theologically, I think they’re right. I think the one of ways to understand the Spirit is the personified love. The Holy Spirit is a person, as we say.
But it comes from the procession, the eternal procession, so there’s no beginning to it. It’s eternal. The eternal procession of the love between the Father and the Son. And of course, the Spirit does proceed From the Son, because we see how Jesus breathes upon the disciples after his resurrection and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
But this sounds more, this is more like a seminary lecture. This is a theological lecture I’m giving here. So, stick with the first part about the “House of Love.”
[00:24:04] Anthony: Yes. And in that” House of Love,” just as a reminder, this happened prior to Jesus’ earthly ministry starting, or at least the way we perceive it. He hadn’t done anything spectacular. He hadn’t raised up this big church and written a lot of books.
[00:24:22] Brian: He’s a carpenter for crying out loud.
[00:24:23] Anthony: That’s right. And he’s beloved.
[00:24:28] Brian: He’s beloved. I would into that word. I would lean into beloved.
[00:24:31] Anthony: Beloved. Yes. Yes.
[00:24:32] Brian: And we are invited into the same belovedness. I would preach it. I would have that icon. I would have that image and show it to people and say, the love the Father has for the Son is the love you are invited to join and share.
[00:24:49] Anthony: And that’s something, just to commend you. You do a great job of including iconography in your messages. And that’s something I’m learning because there’s power.
[00:25:00] Brian: Oh there is. There is.
[00:25:01] Anthony: And interpreting what you’re seeing. And Rublev is brilliant.
Brian: Yeah.
Anthony: Alright, let’s transition to our next text. It’s John 1:29–42. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the second Sunday after Epiphany on January 18.
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him, but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Chosen One.” 35 The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and as he watched Jesus walk by he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39 He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. 40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41 He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). 42 He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).
Brian, the declarative statement from John the Baptist, that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, it’s such liberating news, right?
[00:27:14] Brian: Oh yeah.
[00:27:16] Anthony: Or, so it would seem. In a punitive society where people want a pound of flesh from those who have harmed them, we haven’t lived a moral life according to their standards, and the list goes on and on. What would you say to those who struggle with a God who forgives both victim and victimizer?
[00:27:37] Brian: So, the pushback will come if the victimizer is just given some sort of cheap pardon, like releasing that congressman, commuting his sentence — I can’t remember his name. But that is not the way to think about the saving work of Christ.
Rather, it’s not purely just forensic, and we think in terms of legalities, and we think in terms of a potentate handing out pardons no matter what the mindset of the one who has committed the crime.
No, Christ forgives as he heals and he heals as he forgives and the person is transformed. There is no forgiveness, apart from repentance, but that is a transformative change of mind that alters who we really are.
For example, when Jesus says, “Depart from me, I never knew you,” there’s actually a grace there that Christ refuses to acknowledge the false self we are trying to become.
[00:28:51] Anthony: Come on.
[00:28:52] Brian: And so, when Jesus forgives, it is in the process of also healing. So, think of Jesus more of as a doctor treating the whole being, and forgiveness being therapeutic, not so much judicial. There’s that aspect, I suppose. I don’t think I would like to think of it that way.
And so, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Yes, there is the sense in which the guilt, because at Calvary, the sin of the world coalesces into a hideous singularity. Jesus takes all the blame. Lamb of God is sort of a riff in some ways on the scapegoat. But John emphasizes the innocence of the scapegoat by making it not a goat but a lamb. And not only a lamb, but the Lamb of God.
And so, at Calvary, the sins of the world become the singular sin of the world with great violence, sent into this Lamb, this innocent one, this Holy One, that the sin of the world might be forgiven en masse. So, when the Son prays, “Father forgive them,” the Son is not acting as an agent of change upon the Father, because the Father doesn’t change. The Father is immutable.
What the Son does is reveal the Father. So, you could imagine when Jesus says, “Father, forgive them,” the Father responds, “Of course, Son. That’s who we are. That’s what we do.” And so, there is forgiveness. The way of forgiveness, the offer of forgiveness is settled once and for all in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
But the experience of it is not handed out in some sort of cheap way, independent of how the sinner himself responds. And so, I think, if you explain that to people, any kind of anxiety about forgiveness being cheap and grace being made cheap and bestowed independent of any kind of accountability, judgment, or repentance, I think we can brush that aside and that won’t be a problem for people.
[00:31:06] Anthony: Yeah, I think that’s to look at Scripture from an objective and subjective perspective, that objectively all of sin has been forgiven. And yet subjectively, very personally, I experienced that day by day, the healing of that, the metanoia of that.
And so, that’s something that we — I don’t know if the right way to put it is — live into, but we experience it as we go. And I tell you; it’s healing. What was it? I can’t remember if which of the Gregorys said it, but “He’s not only the doctor, but he became the patient,” as a representative to heal it from the inside out. Hallelujah. Praise God.
John the Baptist, that guy had quite the following. He was …
Brian: Oh yeah.
Anthony: A lot of people were going out to see this crazy man out in the wilderness and he had to put it in modern terms. He had a platform.
Brian: Yes. Right.
Anthony: Many subscribers. Something about this. What do you make of when two of his followers get up to follow Jesus? And you hear no grousing from John. There’s something there, right, for us to learn.
[00:32:16] Brian: Yeah. You follow the whole storyline all the way into the third chapter where eventually many people have left John the Baptist and are now going to Jesus and some of John the Baptist’s disciples are disturbed by this. And they announce this. They say, “Hey, everybody, nobody’s coming to our meetings anymore. They’re all going over to Jesus’ meetings.” And there’s the whole thing about the bridegroom and all of that sort of thing. He says “I’m not the bridegroom, but I’m the best man, as it were. So, I’m rejoicing. I’m happy that he’s got the bride.” But then the most memorable line is, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
[00:33:01] Anthony: Yes.
[00:33:02] Brian: And there’s a line from the Lord of the Rings that I think about when I read that, or when I read this in The Lord of the Rings, I think about John 3:30. It goes both ways. But it’s the moment when Frodo offers the ring to Galadriel, who is this very powerful elf. We hear the word elf and we don’t think of power, but in Tolkien’s word world, this is a very powerful being. And she admits, “Oh, I have dreamed of this. I won’t deny that my heart has longed for it.”
And then there’s this moment where she begins to fantasize about if she had the ring. Instead of a king, you would have a queen. I would be not dark, but lovely, and all would look upon me and despair — there’s that scene. But she resists. She resists and she refuses the ring and she comes back into her right mind. And she says — and I think I’m getting pretty accurate. She says, “I passed the test. I shall diminish and remain Galadriel. Aha. I shall diminish, but I’ll be myself. I’ll be who I am.”
[00:34:17] Anthony: Yes, true self.
[00:34:17] Brian: Her influence would diminish. It’s not really, she’s going to diminish. It’s her — to use what you use — her platform, her influence, her power is going to diminish, but she will remain Galadriel and not become a female Sauron, not become monstrous. And so, I think we have to really commend John the Baptist for recognizing what his role was. And he’s always like that. “Who are you?” People were ready to believe he’s the Messiah. He said, “I’m not the Messiah. I’m not the prophet. I’m not the coming one.” “What are you?” “I’m just a voice out in the desert saying ‘Get ready, because it’s coming,’ but it’s not me. I’m not even worthy to untie his shoes.” So we love John the Baptist for this.
[00:35:04] Anthony: Yeah. Anything else from the text that you’d want to point out?
[00:35:07] Brian: There’s 20 sermons in here. You know what? I don’t think I’ve ever done this. But I could imagine doing a sermon called Four O’clock in the Afternoon.
[00:35:20] Anthony: Yeah, I could hear it now.
[00:35:22] Brian: Just because it’s a provocative time, “Four o’clock in the afternoon.” And probably what I would do with it is talk about how there are those moments in our life when we encounter Christ, either initially or in some new way, that we will remember it forever. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, or when, or whatever.
[00:35:45] Anthony: Yeah. I love that.
[00:35:45] Brian: I’ve got stories from that, yeah. I would draw from my own life, but then present it to people to be open that Christ can come into your life in such a way. And it’s four o’clock in the afternoon. That’s not when great things happen.
[00:36:01] Anthony: It’s siesta time, right?
[00:36:03] Brian: Yeah. Yeah. So I would play with it like that. I may even do that. I may even do that. That has potential.
[00:36:10] Anthony: It’s always struck me — Jesus, when they ask, “What are you looking for?” Ultimately, I hear them asking, “Are you the guy? Are you the one we’re waiting for?” Yes, and instead of saying, “Yeah, I’m your guy,” he’s, “Come hang out with me, like for the rest of the day.” This is so relational. This is who Father, Son, and Spirit are.
[00:36:30] Brian: Ultimately, that’s the only real apologetic we have. “Come and see.”
[00:36:33] Anthony: “Come and see.”
[00:36:34] Brian: So, by the way, it’s why I’m a little bit skeptical of the whole project of comparative religions. If you’re trying to be ecumenical and peaceable, I get all that. I’m for all of that. But I don’t like the presumption that you can stand above religions and say, oh, this one is that, and this one is the other thing. And I, from my secular perch, can analyze them all and compare them. No. You don’t know what it is to be a Muslim unless you believe as a Muslim. You don’t know what it is to be a Hindu unless you believe as a Hindu. You don’t know what it means to be a Christian unless you believe as a Christian. And so, how do we know that Jesus is the Christ? There’re all kinds of things we can say, but ultimately, I’m left with saying, “Come and see.”
[00:37:22] Anthony: “Come and see.”
[00:37:23] Brian: “Come and see.’ Yeah.
[00:37:24] Anthony: Alright. As we come and see our final pericope of the month, it is 1 Corinthians 1:10–18. It is the Revised Common Lectionary passage for the third Sunday after Epiphany, January 25. Brian, do the honors for us, please.
[00:37:43] Brian: Yes.
Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you but that you be knit together in the same mind and the same purpose. 11 For it has been made clear to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. 12 What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” 13 Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16 I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else. 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel—and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. 18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
[00:38:55] Anthony: Amen and amen. These United States don’t feel so united these days.
[00:39:01] Brian: No.
[00:39:02] Anthony: And if the Church isn’t attentive, we just too easily embody, reflect everything that we see about us. What does it mean for the Church to, “be in agreement that there be no divisions among you?”
[00:39:18] Brian: It means that we are truly willing to embrace anyone who confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord and has been baptized. I mean that our definition of Christian should not be more strict than that.
Now, you make a distinction between being Christian and being a Christian. Being Christian may mean actually the process of discipleship and becoming Christlike. But to be a Christian, the criteria is to make the basic confessions about who Christ is, Jesus is Lord, and all that’s presumed in that confession and baptism.
I am distressed when I see another criterion applied, especially that’s political. I can find plenty of people out there say,” You can’t be a Christian if you’re a Democrat.” “You can’t be a Christian if you’re a Republican.” And that is, in my mind, that is a grievous sin, and we cannot bring those kinds of political distinctions into the Body of Christ.
I would maybe, I don’t know … probably, I wouldn’t preach on this right now from that passage — I might — but I would stress the value and the beauty of an ecumenical spirit. You know what, you see that Corinth had these problems. In a perverse sort of way, I’ve gained some comfort from knowing that the Church has never had a golden age. The more you know about church history, you go, “We never had a golden age, did we?”
And yet the Church continues to be present in one way or another, seeks to be a witness to Christ. So, I do find some comfort in that, that if you say we’re going to go back to when it was the golden age, you’ll never find it because it never existed.
[00:41:14] Anthony: The local church for me, Brian, is such a beautiful, messy mess. Think about it. A lot of the people that are brought together, you wouldn’t be friends with otherwise. Not that you’d be opposed to them.
Brian: That’s exactly right.
Anthony: But you wouldn’t have them in your house for dinner. And yet you’re worshiping the same God together. And it is, it’s a beautiful mess.
[00:41:35] Brian: This is why I resist the idea of trying to reduce the Church to a circle of friends. Somebody will say, ah I’m done with the Church. I get together with my friends and we hang out and we drink wine and we talk about God. And I said, “No, that’s getting with your friends, drinking wine and talking about God.”
The beauty of the local church is that over time, I stand and have conversations in the church foyer on Sunday morning with people who, let’s just be honest, I probably would never hang out with, except that I’ve been called into this very interesting phenomenon called the ekklesia, called the Church, called the Body of Christ.
And I learned to care about people who I don’t necessarily share a whole lot of common interests with. What is common is our baptismal identity, and that turns out to be enough, and that is a unique phenomenon that belongs to the Church.
And Paul understood that immediately. He’s the best theologian and defender of that concept. You see how passionate he is about that. For example, in 1 Corinthians when they’re getting drunk — this will show up in the same letter later — they’re getting drunk at the Lord’s supper, which is, that’s just wild. You know what I’m saying? That’s just wild.
So, people are drunk. And that is not what upsets Paul. He might not be in favor of that, but that’s not really what he is upset about. What he’s upset about is that the class distinctions have been brought to the table of the Lord. So, what was happening is people would bring their own meal, and I’ve got my bottles of wine here, and I’m with my friends and we’re getting plastered.
And these people over here, they’re poor. And so they don’t even have anything. They’re hungry. They’re not drinking any wine. And what Paul is upset about, most of all, is not drunkenness at the Eucharist, but about the vision that belongs to the world being imported into the Church.
[00:43:40] Anthony: Yeah, that’s so good. So, let me ask you this. I don’t want the Kansas City Chiefs to win the Super Bowl. Would I be welcome into your congregation, Brian?
[00:43:48] Brian: You know what? I have served communion to people wearing Raiders gear.
[00:43:54] Anthony: Oh my gosh.
[00:43:54] Brian: I have had the Body of Christ broken for you and the dude’s wearing Raiders gear. I’m a committed Christian, Anthony.
[00:44:02] Anthony: Oh, you are? You’ve drawn a big circle around the world and said you’re in. I like it. Friend, I’d be grateful for your exegesis of verse 18, and just read it again.
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
[00:44:22] Brian: Yeah. This is what my most recent book that actually is available is about, Wood Between the Worlds. At least in part it’s about that. The cross is the antithesis to everything that the world thinks is wise and powerful. And so, the world as it is, the world of superpowers and super economies and militaries and all of that, think that what really matters is power, and might, wealth economy. And all of that is subverted at the cross of Christ, that in Christ, we discover a God who would rather die than kill his enemies, who says that we are not going to change the world by the sword, but by co-suffering love. And this temptation was presented to Jesus in the wilderness, that he was offered the capacity, the power to rule the world, to change the world. And the temptation for Christ would’ve been, you know what? Alexander the Great did it. Julius Caesar’s done it. I could do it, and I would do it for good. And I could overthrow Pontius Pilate. We could march on Rome, overthrow Tiberius, and I could establish by force, by the sword, by military might the kingdom of Jesus of Nazareth, except it wouldn’t change the world. It would just become the world.
When the Church reaches for the sword of political power. I know what the thinking is — we are going to use this for good and we’re going to change the world. No, you’re not going to change the world. You simply become the world.
The alternative to the world is the kingdom of Christ. And it is always cruciform in its posture and its emphasis and its language and how it relates to others. And so, this is foolishness to the world. So, if that strikes you as foolishness, well at least you know what is shaping how you think?
You have to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to embrace what Paul says about the cross as something other than foolishness. He says, “It’s the wisdom and power of God.” But until you can actually believe in resurrection, then it is going to remain foolishness.
[00:47:04] Anthony: As we wrap up our time here, friends, I wanted to leave you with this message.
Barbara Brown Taylor said this, “I’d say that human beings never behave more badly toward one another than when they believe they are protecting God.” Our call is not to protect God. He doesn’t need our protection. We’re here to proclaim him as he’s revealed himself in the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom is revealed here in scripture.
Brian, I’m so grateful for you, so happy you could join us. Thank you so much. And I want to thank our team of people who make this possible. Michelle Hartman, Elizabeth Mullins, Reuel Enerio. What a great team. And as is our tradition here on Gospel Reverb, we close with a word of prayer. So, Brian, thank you. And would you lead us in prayer, please?
[00:47:51] Brian: Thank you, Anthony.
Holy Father, I bring before you now all of us who are in one way or another participating in this podcast, hearing it, thinking about it. And my prayer is simply that the peace of Christ that passes understanding would guard all of our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. There is so much in the world that presently can produce anxiety and anger and all of the things that swirl around that. I pray for the peace of Christ. I speak these words that come from St. Theresa of Avila. Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. All things are passing away. God never changes. Patience, obtains all things. Whoever has God lacks nothing. God alone suffices. In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen and amen.
Anthony: Amen.
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!
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