To have faith in Christ means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you. C.S. Lewis
Is it a sin to….. fill in the blank. Yes, or no!!
The formulation of such questions and the hands-on-hips scrutiny that awaits their answers disclose an underlying, dualistic paradigm that we might call religious meritocracy.
Do the right thing – earn your way to heaven. If, then. Yes, no.
Religious meritocracy produces, as its logical conclusion, rigid boundaries with which to declare judgement, excluding those on the outside and self-righteously promoting those on the inside to elevated status. Everything becomes about the boundaries, where all troops are amassed. And yet, in so doing, the interior state becomes entirely devoid of the life with which the boundaries were intended to cradle.
It’s easy to fall prey to this paradigm if you take only a cursory glance at sacred Scripture, particularly the Old Testament. The law given to Moses and the message preached by prophets often center on those deeds that, if committed, warrant punishment. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Or else.
And yet, as we will see in today’s episode, the sacred rarely emerges from cursory glances, just as the breathtaking experiences of vacation in a beautiful country does not come by walking its borders heal-to-toe all the way around and then returning home.
Today, we cross the threshold of the borders outlined by the letter of the law and go deep into the interior – to the breathtaking Spirit of the Law – that brings life and love to otherwise dead religion.
Source Scripture
Connect
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Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist
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Read Romans 8-13. Compare Paul’s explanation of what it means to live by the Spirit and his religious establishment’s failed attempts to find the kingdom of heaven because of their focus on the letter of the law.
Read Luke 24:13-35. Note the reaction of the two men walking back to Emmaus on the Sunday following the crucifixion when a stranger explains everything from the law and the prophets.
Related Quotes
A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things.– G.K. Chesterton
The left hemisphere [of the brain] prefers the impersonal to the personal, and that tendency would in any case be instantiated in the fabric of a technologically driven and bureaucratically administered society. The impersonal would come to replace the personal. There would be a focus on material things at the expense of the living. Social cohesion, and the bonds between person and person, and just as importantly between person and place, the context in which each person belongs, would be neglected, perhaps actively disrupted, as both inconvenient and incomprehensible to the left hemisphere acting on its own. There would be a depersonalisation of the relationships between members of society, and in society’s relationship with its members. Exploitation rather than co-operation would be, explicitly or not, the default relationship between human individuals, and between humanity and the rest of the world. Resentment would lead to an emphasis on uniformity and equality, not as just one desirable to be balanced with others, but as the ultimate desirable, transcending all others. As a result individualities would be ironed out and identification would be by categories: socioeconomic groups, races, sexes, and so on, which would also feel themselves to be implicitly or explicitly in competition with, resentful of, one another. Paranoia and lack of trust would come to be the pervading stance within society both between individuals, and between such groups, and would be the stance of government towards its people. Ian McGilchrist
It is in our nature to be connected with each other. Interwoven. Interdependent. Interlocked in love and community.
And yet this is not our reality. Instead, we are alienated. Separated. Resentful. Mistrustful. In fear and paranoia, we depersonalize. Criticize. Exploit. Avoid.
In this increasingly diseased state, lacking the restorative powers of wholesome social community, the suffering caused by our isolation intensifies – due to our isolation.
It’s time to reverse the trend. To heal the wounds. To cure the disease.
Today, in our look back at the previous six episodes, we will surface their underlying theme of creating community and reversing the curse of isolation and the catastrophic toll it has taken from on of us.
Source Scripture
Matthew 5:10-12; Luke 6:22-23,26
Matthew 5:13; Mark 9:49-50; Luke 14:34-35
Matthew 5:14-16; Mark 4:21; Luke 8:16; 11:33
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
Many of the neuroses that plague the lives of modern humans, from anxiety to depression, are often fed, if not caused, by a confined, claustrophobic, and ultimately unsubstantiated interpretation of consensus reality: that is, by a deprived myth derived from grammatical rules. The depressed person sees no meaning in life largely because the small box of her linguistic thinking limits her view of what life is. Bernardo Kastrup
Words. Logic. Reason. Argument. Language is the bedrock on which most of us form and defend our framework of belief – the over-arching narrative that governs how we make sense of the world around us.
If something cannot be expressed in words, we think, then it cannot be true. How could it be?
And yet, are not the greatest experiences of our lives those in which we find ourselves… Speechless? When someone we know faces profound grief and loss, do we attempt to console them with logic? Would you prefer a detailed map and well-worded paragraph describing the islands of Hawaii over a personal visit?
Logic, reason, and the scientific method can go only so far in their attempts to penetrate the depths of the human soul. To limit ourselves to only what they offer is to live in the shadows of the fullness of reality. In a growing darkness. Where we crawl about, wondering why we cannot seem to see and experience the true depths of who we are and who we are meant to be.
What, then, can penetrate this darkness if not reason?
The divine light of truth, demonstrated in the raw, authentic, spiritual form of a narrative.
Words. Logic. Reason. Argument. Language is the bedrock on which most of us form and defend our framework of belief – the over-arching narrative that governs how we make sense of the world around us.
If something cannot be expressed in words, we think, then it cannot be true. How could it be?
And yet, are not the greatest experiences of our lives those in which we find ourselves… Speechless? When someone we know faces profound grief and loss, do we attempt to console them with logic? Would you prefer a detailed map and well-worded paragraph describing the islands of Hawaii over a personal visit?
Logic, reason, and the scientific method can go only so far in their attempts to penetrate the depths of the human soul. To limit ourselves to only what they offer is to live in the shadows of the fullness of reality. In a growing darkness. Where we crawl about, wondering why we cannot seem to see and experience the true depths of who we are and who we are meant to be.
What, then, can penetrate this darkness if not reason?
The divine light of truth, demonstrated in the raw, authentic, spiritual form of a narrative.
Source Scripture
Matthew 5:14-16; Mark 4:21; Luke 8:16; 11:33
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
It is like the famous Irishman who found that a certain kind of stove reduced his fuel bill by half and thence concluded that two stoves of the same kind would enable him to warm his house with no fuel at all. It is the magician’s bargain: give up our soul, get power in return. But once our souls, that is, our selves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls. – C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
Essence. This word connotes the wellspring of being – our nature. Often in an attempt to describe such a concept we turn to words like…
Father. The essence of a father is that he has children that he loves, provides for, protects, guides. If we see someone who claims to be a father violating that essence through abuse or abandonment, we feel natural tension. That tension is the distance between what we believe to be the essence of fatherhood and the broken example now before us.
Husband, mother, policeman, priest – all of these possess an inherent essence that, when lost, fill us with disappointment. But when fulfilled, as in an example where a father gives his life to save one of his children, we feel an overwhelming sense of awe.
The alignment between essence and reality matters.
Whether we realize it or not, our essence is divine. Our wellspring is the heart. The soul. And when we choose to live in alignment with our essence, awe permeates our reality. But when we pollute or dilute our essence to pursue the non-essential, we break faith with the divine and life loses its meaning – for us and for those who know us.
So what word best describes our divine nature? Salt.
We are the salt of the earth…
This is the truth for you, men of Athens; I am hiding nothing from you either great or small in my speech, nor am I holding anything back. And yet I know rather well that I incur hatred by these very things; which is also a proof that I speak the truth. Socrates
The truth hurts, and its wounded often lash out.
When the divine light of truth confronts, all masks and costumes fashioned to conceal it fall away. And in that moment, confronted with the reality of our naked being, we face tough choices: run, fight, or embrace.
Those who run search for a place where they may reacquire the familiar cloaking devices. Those who fight rush the source of the light of truth and attack, hoping that darkness may once again fall. And those who embrace the truth are transformed and experience the divine.
Truth ignites hatred in those entrenched in ego-centered living, because it calls their entire being into question. Truth is a threat to the ego’s way of life, and so the mightiest personal military forces available must be sent out to “protect.”
A life founded on the ego’s principles resorts to hatred instead of love, lies instead of truth, and insults instead of encouragement.
Today we will face the reality that those of us who speak truth, live rightly, and align ourselves with the divine will inevitably be the victims of enraged, wounded egos. And in that reality can find happiness, because it is an indicator that we are living in the kingdom of heaven.
Conversely, though, if we find ourselves unnoticed. Unchallenged. Unopposed. Unaffected by the egos of the world, then it is a haunting sign that our truth is hidden or corrupt. Our living is weak or off base. And our Jesus is an idol constructed in our own image and not the living, breathing God of the Universe.
So let’s see where we stand.
Source Scripture
Matthew 5:10-12; Luke 6:22-23,26
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: it blesseth him that gives and him that takes. William Shakespeare
Atop the human body is the head. Here we inhale and exhale, consume food, see, hear, smell, and taste the world around us, and experience consciousness as provided by the brain. For whatever reason, all of this takes place at the highest point in the body.
Atop the pyramids is what is known as the pyramidion – the capstone. Typically it is a different color and stone than the rest of the pyramid and often contains the name of the owner of the pyramid etched into it. Many pyramidion of the ancient pyramids are now missing, lost to treasure hunters who valued their uniqueness.
Atop the Washington Monument is a small pyramid itself, with a capstone comprised of 100oz of aluminum and with the words laus Deo – or Praise be to God – etched therein.
Atop the Christmas tree every year are various objects of central importance to families – an angel or a star or some sort of prominent decoration that crowns the tree in symbolic fashion.
The highest point of a human or object or story is often set apart from the rest. It is the location that represents the climax of everything that led up to it or that comes afterward.
Today, we will examine the top, the crown, the climax of the nine beatitudes that Jesus shares with us at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount. It is the fifth beatitude, and the apex of the chiasm formed by all nine of the statements Jesus made beginning with “blessed.”
And it deserves special treatment – because it is the climax of message of God to us, not just in the beatitudes, but in all of Scripture.
That beatitude is…the subject of today’s podcast.
Source Scripture
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Extras
I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure that God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait. When you do enter your room, you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have had otherwise. But you must regard it as waiting, not as camping. You must keep on praying for light: and of course, even in the hall, you must begin trying to obey the rules which are common to the whole house. And above all you must be asking which door is the true one; not which pleases you best by its paint and paneling. C.S. Lewis
We may not realize it, but our modern definition of waiting has devolved into something like this: that maddening interval of time we must endure between two successive desired experiences that leaves us irritable and discontent.
The key point to recognize here in this definition of waiting is that what we see as positive are only the bookends – the experiences on either side of the waiting period – and not the treasury of stories available to us in between.
As much as we may like to think so, life does not consist of creating an agenda and checking off each line item with as little waiting in between as possible.
Life does, and always will, consist of waiting. And so the key to life in this respect is not the impossible task of eliminating the wait. The key is establishing an altogether different definition of waiting.
We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. Joseph Campbell
In today’s episode, we will attempt to derive a true definition of waiting, to accept it as an inevitable and necessary, and to embrace its presence…through embracing the present.
Source Scripture
Good News or Fake News? – Matthew 5:1-2; Luke 6:17-20
Inside Man – Matthew 5:3-12; Luke 6:20-26
Escaping the Matrix – Matthew 5:3; Luke 6:20,24
Have a Great Mourning – Matthew 5:4; Luke 6:21,25
Meek in and Meek Out – Matthew 5:5
Just Right – Matthew 5:6; Luke 6:21,25
Extras
Suggested Scripture: Psalm 22; Psalm 37; Psalm 42
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
The truth lies within you. If you’re true in what you do, you’ll meet with the truth. If you’re not, you’ll meet only with the things that are fake and imitation. Ajahn Fuang [Ah’-jun Foo’ung]
The drug addict pursues an altered state of experience through the intake of substance. Over time, the ill effects of long-term addiction take their toll on the individual. Without the intervention of loved ones or some form of rehabilitation that leads to sobriety, the addict spirals out of control. The end result is a miserable and shortened life.
This form of addiction we comprehend. But there is another addiction, just as sinister if not more so, that society and large and we ourselves may never recognize – even though the long-term effects are just the same – a miserable and shortened life.
This subtle form of addiction, like drug addiction, is an attachment to a substance that we believe will bring us positive experience, but in reality is nothing more than cheapened and dangerous imitation that fails to fulfill the experiences we seek.
The experience sought in this form of addiction is love. And by love I mean the experience of knowing that one or more others seek our presence, validate our worth, and long to know us more.
The substance of this addiction – the attachment – is approval. We make the mistake of equating love with approval based on something we do, possess, or appear to be. And once this attachment – this substance – has us in its grips, we become lost in the addiction of seeking the approval of others.
No different than the drug addict, those of us addicted to approval build our entire lives around acquiring our substance. Nothing else matters. Before long, we become inwardly grotesque – no different than the pictures we see of drug addicts at their worst. With each temporary high we get from approval, we later come down and crash. The substance of approval is fake love. Imitation love. And it leaves us only wanting more because we cannot imagine that love is anything else.
Today we are going to take a hard look at what a life built on seeking the approval of others does to the human soul. That’s the bad news. The good news is that we will also take a look at what we can do to break the cycle of addiction and experience a life filled with authentic, true, divine love.
Today won’t be easy, but it will be true. It will be real. It will expose the addiction you have, the substance you crave, and the lengths you have gone to that contort your life to have it. But it will also show you the way out. The way to break the cycle. The way to find and experience true love.
Source Scripture
Real Love Awaits: John 5:41-47
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
Once you experience being loved when you are unworthy, being forgiven when you did something wrong, that moves you into non-dual thinking. You move from what I call meritocracy, quid pro quo thinking, to the huge ocean of grace, where you stop counting or calculating. Richard Rohr
We live in an age that philosopher Charles Taylor describes as an immanent frame, or, a state of disenchantment that eliminates the spiritual realm and reduces us to biological beings with five senses and no more. In such a context, it is only reasonable that our motivations and goals – indeed our very lives – become preoccupied with the manipulation of objects and people into an optimal order that maximizes our sensual pleasures.
In such a state of attention, then, we inevitably slip into the dualistic mindset of meritocracy. Because there’s nothing in this world for me to do other than seek sensual pleasures, and I am aware that you, too, are engaged in the same pursuit, then the only way for us to move forward is to agree that if I do something for you, you do something for me.
If I work for you, you pay me. If I do you a favor, you owe me. If you harm me, I will take revenge.
This mindset is so pervasive that even those of us who would reach beyond the eminent frame to seek the God of the universe who exists both beyond and within it allow us to be caught up in a spiritual meritocracy. If I do a good deed, God smiles on me and must bless me. If I suffer, God must be disappointed in me. If something bad happened to that poor chap over there, he most assuredly deserves it for something he has done.
There is no escape from this dualistic mindset without the divine, a new dimension of being, that exists apart from the immanent frame of disenchantment at worst and spiritual meritocracy at best. We need metanoia or repentance that leads to a new quality of attention, an entirely new way of thinking, that rises from the ashes of sensual orientation and seeks presence with the divine God of the universe and those around us that he has created in his image.
In our story today, Jesus confronts this immanent frame and invites us to live beyond it in the realms of love and enchantment and joy and peace.
How Jesus does this is the subject of today’s episode. He uses three metaphors that initially seem separate. Isolated. But when you allow them to coalesce, the result is a startling, overarching metaphor hidden in plain sight that stretches as far back as Genesis 1 and as far forward as Revelation 22.
Come and see for yourself.
Source Scripture
I Have a Proposal Matthew 9:14-17; Mark 2:18-22; Luke 5:33-39
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God’s love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin to be sincere. His sincerity is based on confidence, not in his own illusions about himself, but in the endless, unfailing mercy of God. Thomas Merton
The Ark of the Covenant. It is the subject of much of the Old Testament Scriptures. It is the central object of desire for Indiana Jones and Adolph Hitler in the Raiders of the Lost Ark. It is the ultimate boon for many treasure hunters who still seek it.
The Old Testament Scriptures tell us that God spoke to Moses from between the two cherubim – or angels – that rose above the lid of the ark. Inside the ark were the two tablets of stone on which God etched the Ten Commandments with his finger. The ark was so holy it was never to be touched, but instead covered with cloth and carried with staves that allowed the men moving it to maintain adequate distance.
The Ark made its way from its birth at Mount Sinai through 40 years of wandering in the desert, and then to the Jordan River where it split the waters and allowed the Israelites to cross into the Promised Land on dry ground.
It eventually made its way to its final home – the Jewish temple built by King Solomon in Jerusalem. It was placed in a room of the temple called the Holy of Holies, where only the great high priest could enter once per year on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, to seek forgiveness for the people of Israel.
The Ark of the Covenant, the most holy object of all time, resting in the Holy of Holies, had itself a most holy place – the lid atop it that covered the Ten Commandments. The place where the great high priest would sprinkle the blood of sacrifice once per year.
It is here, between the two angels atop the lid, that God said his presence permeated this world from the heavens beyond. And this lid was known as the mercy seat.
Of all of the ways that God could choose to present himself and make himself known. It was not through the tablets of law that were hidden inside the ark, which represented the requirements of the people to remain in good favor with God. It was not through the magnificent structure of the temple that encased it. It was not through the gleaming gold that covered every inch of it. It was not through the blood sacrifices that occurred just feet way outside in the inner court of the temple and got most of the attention.
No, the portal between heaven and earth where the divine God of the Universe presented himself to mankind was on the mercy seat.
Mercy. This is God’s posture toward us. This is his intent with us. And this – this unfathomable mercy of God – is the subject of today’s episode.
Source Scripture
Party Time: Matthew 9:9-13; Mark 2:13-17; Luke 5:27-32
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras