As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.
That raises a terrible question. How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshiping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, they pay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound’s worth of pride towards their fellow-men. C.S. Lewis
Well all seek worth and validation – purpose and importance. But all too often we settle for a cheapened version of these things by looking down on others. After all, if they are down there, then we are up here. And up here is where it’s at.
To look down on others, we must first convince ourselves that we are above them. And so we turn to the ego, that master of dualistic thinking, and resort to comparison.
We compare money and possessions. We compare age and appearance and reputation. We compare education and experience. We compare our family line and who we know in the community and beyond. And before realizing it, we’ve built our lives on comparison – on looking down on others. It gives us a smugness and false sense of importance so foundational to who we are that we can’t even see it.
This spurious sense of superiority we superimpose on our insecurities is called pride. It’s the first in the list of seven deadly sins. C.S. Lewis calls it the utmost evil.
It is this utmost evil called pride that we will explore today, from its subtle ability to infiltrate us unnoticed to its overwhelming power to destroy the very thing we thought it would safeguard: ourselves.
And, more importantly, we’ll discover what it takes to expose and eliminate the hidden shadow of pride that lurks within us. And as we will see, the solution to eradicating pride is a real cliff-hanger.
Source Scripture
Pride Comes Before a Fall: Luke 4:16-30
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist
(Apple I Spotify)
What Jesus Read to the People of Nazareth: Isaiah 61:1
Sacred Scripture is like a Sword for the Heart: Hebrews 4:12
Sacred Scripture is Designed to Bring us Joy: John 5:39-40
Jeremiah Sees Sacred Scripture as a Feast: Jeremiah 15:16
Jesus Says Sacred Scripture Brings Joy: John 15:11
In my view, Jesus changed lives because he was able to change the way people imagined their lives. He dared them to imagine the stranger as neighbor, the child as teacher, the enemy as mirror, the deity as loving father. He helped them imagine lepers, women, and Roman centurions as exemplars of faith. He asked them to imagine that the most important person at the table was the waiter, and that the end of the line was the place to be. At the moment I cannot think of a single story he told that was not intended to change the way his listeners imagined the world. I believe the arts can do the same thing. They can break my heart, rekindle my courage, wreck my prejudice, give me second sight. Barbara Brown Taylor
The kingdom of heaven is the name Jesus chose to give to the new way of life to which he invites us to embrace. He refers to his message about the kingdom as good news or the Gospel, and he challenges us that to become part of that kingdom, it requires us to completely alter the way we think.
If you have been following us in our previous episodes, Jesus has just returned to his home country of Galilee to formally share this message of the kingdom and extend his invitation to join. And today we explore the first story that illustrates this foundational new way of thinking required to enter it. It’s called faith.
Now over the centuries, the word faith has unfortunately devolved largely into the idea of creating and adhering to a set of well-defined precepts. This unfortunate appropriation of the word faith is responsible for the denominational divide that still haunts the Christian Church. It is also responsible for keeping us out of the kingdom of God, because it offers a cheaper, easier alternative. Just agree intellectually to what is good and what is bad. Make sure your precepts validate your life and invalidate others, and sign on the dotted line.
This so-called faith does not transform. It attempts to bypass your need for transformation by printing a ticket that claims you are a lifetime member of the club.
But the kingdom is not a club, and faith is not an intellectual exercise.
Today, we will take a second look at faith in an attempt to grasp its original breadth and depth. And, when we do, we’ll begin to see just how foundational authentic faith is for experiencing true transformation and living authentically in the kingdom of heaven.
Source Scripture
Take a Second Look: John 4:46-54
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate. Thomas Aquinas
The first time we ever hear the divine God of the Universe speak he says, Let there be light. Four words that birth light itself – an agent that behaves as both a wave and a particle, both in continuous motion as they emanate from a central source outward toward everything around it.
The first time we see water flowing on earth, it is in a river that originates in Eden and then divides into four headwaters. One river that births four that then proceed in continuous motion to water everything they touch. In Hebrew, the word for river is the same word as the word for radiating light. A river flows. Light flows.
And then we have Ezekiel’s wheel within a wheel, a mysterious object in motion that flashes light and bears multiple iterations of a creature with four faces: a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. Together, these radiant beings move back and forth, left and right, along the primary compass axes. Together they symbolize that God’s presence continuously radiates in every direction.
And finally, we see the four Gospel writers. Four men who entered orbit around the Gospel story of Jesus and then chose to share that story through the light of their writings. Saint Matthew, the man. Saint Mark, the Lion. Saint Luke, the Ox. And Saint John, the Eagle. The light of the Gospel is in continuous motion, emanating from Jesus to these four and then on to the entire world. Including now you.
This pattern of God’s light emanating from him through a primary four and then onward to everyone else is played out not just in the foundations of Scripture, but also in those of science.
When Galileo Galilei, the father of science, first turned his telescope skyward towards the planet Jupiter, he was stunned to see four tiny stars on either side of it. He watched night after night and finally concluded that Jupiter had four visible moons revolving around it. What convinced him was the motion of the moons. He noted the changes in their position not just over weeks or days – but over hours.
He reported his findings in a publication called Starry Message in March, 1610.
Since then we have discovered no less than 79 moons encircling Jupiter. The light and motion of the first four were only the beginning.
The name Jupiter is comprised of two roots Dyeu and Pater. Dyeui means sky or God, which is where we get the name Zeus or the Latin Deus as in the phrase Deus ex Machina, which translates to God, out of the machine. And pater means father. Jupiter, it seems, means Father God.
The New Testament book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is the radiance of of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being. Jesus doesn’t just radiate the divine – he is the radiance itself. He is light in motion – and that motion is toward us. Jesus seeks us out. He is for us.
The four Gospel writers reflect this divine radiance in sacred Scripture.
Today we will review how all four Gospel writers are doing this by taking a look back at the previous six episodes. There is a pattern in the Gospel stories there that emerges – a radiance that continues to shine. It begins with the four Gospel authors, who each have so far shared different vantage points in the life of Jesus. And for the first time, our most recent episode featured a single Gospel story told by all four writers simultaneously.
Seen as a whole, the last six episodes cover four stories that give us an experience much like Galileo’s first sightings of Jupiter and it’s four satellites – it is something that, when documented and shared, will change the outlook of the entire world.
So let’s get moving.
Source Scripture
This is the Way: John 1:1-18
Genealogies with Geographies: Matthew 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-38
The Woman at the Well – Part 1: John 4:1-26
The Woman at the Well – Part 2: John 4:27-38
The Woman at the Well – Part 3: John 4:39-42
Jesus announces the Kingdom of God:
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist
(Apple I Spotify)
Two Genealogies – Why are they Different?
The Story of Rahab the Prostitute
The Story of Abraham and Isaac
The Story of David and the Threshing Floor of Araunah
The Story of Jehoachin and the Temple’s Destruction
The Chosen: (Woman at the Well Scene: Download the app and Watch Episode 8 beginning at 40:10)
Abraham Builds the First Altar in Israel in Shechem