What is that religion that sanctions, even by its silence, all that is embraced in the ‘Peculiar Institution? ‘ If there can be any thing more diametrically opposed to the religion of Jesus, than the working of this soul-killing system-which is as truly sanctioned by the religion of America as are her ministers and churches-we wish to be shown where it can be found.Sojourner Truth
Though it seems unfathomable, there was a time when so-called followers of Jesus justified the kidnapping, ownership, forced labor, separation from families, torture, and killing of human beings who were in no way different from themselves beyond the color of their skin.
Religion, as we see in this horrifying example from recent history, can easily misappropriate the name of Jesus and hide behind it a system of belief and practice that bears no resemblance to the name it takes in vain.
Such misappropriation continues full force today, albeit in more nebulous forms with vague boundaries. More clear is the racism that still unfortunately exists. Less clear, on the other end of the spectrum is the general failure of religious institutions that bear the name of Jesus to adhere to this hallmark of his teachings: love your neighbor as yourself.
How does this happen? How does an individual, group, or institution that claims to follow Jesus succeed in living and promoting a lifestyle diametrically opposed to the religion of Jesus, as Sojourner Truth sought to understand?
The source of the problem appears to be two-fold. The first is the wanton lust of the ego. The ego wants what it wants and, left unchallenged by the soul, will write any name – even that of God – on its shield as it marches forward to slay anyone or anything in the path to fulfilling its desires. The second reason is equally insidious but less recognized. It is this. The systematic reduction of Love God and love neighbor to endless rules and regulations meant to deflect attention from the target of love and legitimize a particular form of false piety.
Today, we are going to tackle the tough problem of misappropriation as it pertains to religion and attempt to ferret out any that may exist in our own hearts so that we may return to what matters: divine love.
Source Scripture
Through the Roof: Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12; Luke 5:17-26
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
The meaning of life. Some say it doesn’t exist and you simply make your own way. Some say it does exist but must be understood and approached through a rigid belief system. Some say it involves achieving and conquering. Others say the meaning of life is to eat, drink, and be merry.
But some, like Victor Frankl, a Jewish survivor of the horrors of the holocaust, believe the meaning of life can only be found in love.
Today’s episode echoes Frankl’s conclusion as we review the stories from sacred Scripture that encompass our last six episodes together. Scene as a whole, they reveal the overwhelming, never-ending reckless love of the divine God of the Universe as he relentlessly pursues us. And then, we he finds us and we open ourselves to receive his divine love, he shows us how to let it flow through to everyone else.
This flow of divine love into us, through us, and out of us to others is, as we will see, the meaning of life.
The topics that we covered in the last six episodes include faith, pride, calling, holiness, selflessness, and free will. So, where did we see the love?
Let’s find out.
Source Scripture
Take a Second Look: John 4:46-54
Pride Comes Before a Fall: Luke 4:16-30
Adventure Awaits: Matthew 4:18-22; Mark 1:16-20; Luke 5:1-11
Wholly Holy: Mark 1:21-28; Luke 4:31-37
And You Give Yourself Away: Matthew 8:14-17; Mark 1:29-34; Luke 4:38-41
Pursuing Free Will: Matthew 4:23-25; Mark 1:35-39; Luke 4:42-44
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
The need itself is not the call. Charles Hummel – The Tyranny of the Urgent.
We have all been there. Overwhelmed by the tyranny of the urgent. By the weight of what is pressing. We cannot do what we want to do because we must do what we have to do. It’s enough to make you question whether or not you have free will. After all, if you simply “go with the flow”, and the flow is a roaring river of whitewater rapids carrying you unwillingly downstream, then free will takes a back seat to determinism.
If we have free will, why do we so quickly and easily choose to surrender it? Can we ever escape these incessant rapids, make it to peaceful shores, and set our feet on terra firma?
We can. But free will is not, as we so often think, an isolated exertion of psychic forces to empower a series of selfish choices. No, free will originates in the soul and exists as an ongoing call to choose that which sets us free to divine being.
Free will is a function of the spirit, and as such can only be pursued in the spirit. And because it originates from the divine God of the Universe, we can only exercise free will when our spirit is in communion with His. It is his will, not ours, that sets us free.
Anything else is indentured servitude to the ego disguising itself as free will.
Today, we will take a closer look at how to rejuvenate the powers of free will in order to escape the tyranny of the urgent.
Consider this your free will call.
Source Scripture
Pursuing Free Will: Matthew 4:23-25; Mark 1:35-39; Luke 4:42-44
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. Oscar Wilde
When consciousness first breaks in the morning and you become aware of being, what is the first word that forms in your mind?
Nearly always, it is I. I need my coffee. I am so tired. I wish I could stay in bed. I have to get moving. I have so much to do today. I want my breakfast.
And then as you rise and move through the day, your I-centered posture continues to dominate your thoughts. Your motives. Your actions.
It’s natural for you to do this, of course. It is the way of the world. What other way is there? Surely to be happy you must think of yourself first. After all, happiness by definition is self-centered. Or is it?
This posture of selfishness, though, keeps us bent on acquiring things. On putting things and people and experiences in orbit around us. And in so doing, of course, those around us become aware of our gravitational pull. And more often than not they resist. They pull away. They are repelled with disgust by your selfishness because it is mutually exclusive to their own.
This resistance frustrates us, and so you increase the gravitational pull. And so do they. And so the dance downward through the darkening spiral goes, until you reach with bitter finality the logical conclusion of continuing to maintain this posture. You become a black hole – something to avoid at all costs because everyone knows that nothing escapes your selfish grasp if they get too close. And then life is only darkness and misery and frustration.
It’s time to put this posture to bed and adapt a new posture altogether, one that births in you a shining star that radiates warmth and light to others. One that brings you the depths of fulfillment you seek while, ironically, comes only when you let go of your selfish pursuit of it.
It’s posture bedtime.
Source Scripture
And You Give Yourself Away: Matthew 8:14-17; Mark 1:29-34; Luke 4:38-41
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
You and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness.…How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing, it is irresistible. C.S. Lewis
In the movie Sixth Sense, for those fortunate enough not to see it coming, there is a point in the story that awakens the viewer to an altogether new reality – to abandon an existing framework of thinking altogether in order to adapt a new one that instantly resolves all of the unanswered questions and makes the story make sense.
But for the story to make sense, we need that sixth sense. For the pieces of the story to fit all together, we need an altogether new way of thinking. To resolve the unanswered questions, we need a renaissance of resonance.
When our lives are out of balance, centered in the ego instead of the soul, we experience frustration. Confusion. Despair. And most often we assume this to be the case because our outer world is not in proper orbit around us. This assumption drives a paradigm of frantic manipulation of people, possessions, and small green pieces of paper.
But what if this is not the way? What if our paradigm is all wrong? What if, like Galileo as he gazed through his telescope, we realize that we are not the center of the universe?
There is a new paradigm that, once embraced, suddenly brings the meaning of life into focus. This sixth sense helps everything make sense. This altogether new way of thinking makes everything in our lives fit all together. It resonates with all that we long to experience, and has the power to usher in a Renaissance that renders our lives rapturous.
This paradigm is called holiness. Our modern world has largely misunderstood holiness, relegating it either to an antiquated, irrelevant way of living or to a rigid regimen requiring self-flagellation.
But holiness is neither of these things. Holiness is the foundation of soul-centered living. It is the underlying armature that pervades Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom of heaven. And it is the way of thinking that, once adapted, will make your entire life – your story – make sense.
Source Scripture
Wholly Holy: Mark 1:21-28; Luke 4:31-37
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
Now, some people think the Bible is a book of rules, telling you what you should and shouldn’t do. The Bible certainly does have some rules in it. They show you how life works best. But the Bible isn’t mainly about you and what you should be doing. It’s about God and what he has done. Other people think the Bible is a book of heroes, showing you people you should copy. The Bible does have some heroes in it, but (as you’ll soon find out) most of the people in the Bible aren’t heroes at all. They make some big mistakes (sometimes on purpose), they get afraid and run away. At times, they’re downright mean. No, the Bible isn’t a book of rules, or a book of heroes. The Bible is most of all a Story. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne–everything–to rescue the ones he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life! You see, the best thing about this Story is…it’s true. There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves His children and comes to rescue them. – Sally Lloyd-Jones
In every hero’s journey, there are a series of common steps that lead to a critical juncture.
When we first see a future hero in a given story, we find him or her living an ordinary life in an ordinary world. But then, something happens. There is an allure to break out of the ordinary world to do something extraordinary. This is the Call to Adventure. The future hero becomes aware that there is another way to live – something that seems to pull from deep within toward living a larger, better, more selfless life in service of a greater good.
But then, of course reason screams back at the soul’s longing with this threat, “You can’t do that. This is your life we’re talking about. And you have responsibilities. And needs. And people who respect you. All that will be lost if you play the fool and walk away. Don’t do it!” This is the inevitable Refusal of the Call to adventure.
It is at this stage that we meet the mentor. The guide. The hero-to-be in our story receives reassurance and wise counsel concerning the call. This guidance helps overcome whatever doubts linger until the hero is born. He lifts up his eyes to behold the call to adventure and then boldly crosses the threshold into the new life.
The pattern of the hero’s journey, sometimes called the monomyth, serves as the armature for stories told in every culture at all points in history – from King Arthur to the Lion King, from Perseus against Medusa to Luke Skywalker against the Empire, and from Faust and the dragon to Katniss Everdeen and the Capitol.
These stories draw us – fascinate us – over and over again because they reveal what is already imprinted in our souls. We are designed to pursue the path of the hero’s journey. We are called to leave our ordinary lives and embrace the call to adventure. We will inevitably struggle with this call, but we can, if we choose, receive the supernatural aid offered by the mentor. And we can summon the courage to accept the call and live the life that we always longed to live.
And all we have to do is listen for and accept the call to adventure.
Source Scripture
Adventure Awaits: Matthew 4:18-22; Mark 1:16-20; Luke 5:1-11
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
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