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Ep. 55 - Is the Baptism of Jesus the ultimate Whodunit? Who knew what, when? What was at the heart of it? What does it mean for us today? Special guest Pastor Meggan Manlove joins us to discuss Matthew 3.
The Geek and Greek podcast is a show where two reverends talk honestly and clearly about faith, Christianity, scripture, and life. Follow us at GeekAndGreek.com!
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Ep. 54 - Jesus was with God and was God from the beginning of the world. Jesus was a real dude. How do we make sense of all of this through John 1, or are we just trying too hard? Christology debate ahead!
The Geek and Greek podcast is a show where two reverends talk honestly and clearly about faith, Christianity, scripture, and life. Follow us at GeekAndGreek.com!  Greetings! After an early-January hiatus, we’re back! In the interim, I had a reminder how terribly churches have messed up people’s lives by turning faith into behavior control. This often happens at a young age, when we tell children, “Be good, because that’s what God wants.” Or even worse, we say, “Be good, or God will be angry…” Somehow “good” is always defined as what we want the child to do in that particular moment, so God becomes leverage to get them to obey us. There are several problems with this: 1. We don’t end up teaching people about God as much as we end up teaching people about our morality, will, or power to enforce same. 2. God becomes a negative influence on people’s lives. They have to worry about pleasing God to avoid negative consequences. (In reality, this isn’t about God at all. We want them to worry about pleasing us and we’re willing to sell out God in order to get them to do so.) 3. Nobody is perfect. Inevitably the same people who hear that God only loves them when they’re good will end up doing something not good, thus God will not love them. 4. Our definitions of “good” are hopelessly inadequate. It’s presumptuous to even think we can fulfill complete goodness. Sure, we can sit still for 45 minutes in Sunday school, but can we create a perfect relationship with our neighbors or solve problems like world hunger or racism? Saying, “Be good for God”, we lower the bar of goodness so low that it doesn’t resemble God’s goodness anymore.  We do all of this in the name of getting someone to behave like we wish in a given moment. The effects last far beyond that moment, though. I know many adults who are quietly terrified that their lives don’t measure up and that God will condemn them to an eternity of punishment because they aren’t perfect.
Whenever your mind is tempted to say, “God can’t love me because I don’t measure up,” remember that God doesn’t work that way. None of us measure up. If that’s the standard, we all fail. God loves us. That’s the common denominator that allows us to celebrate the good things and deal with the imperfections of life. Because God loves us, we can see ourselves and each other as beautiful even when we’re imperfect. Because God loves us, we can define ourselves and the world as more than the sum of our mistakes. The voice inside that says, “God can’t love imperfect people,” comes not from the Spirit, but from people who want to use faith as a means to control your behavior. This is wrong. All faith schemes based on worry or fear fall terribly short. “Fear” of the Lord may be the beginning of wisdom, but it is not the purpose of wisdom. Nor is that kind of “fear” really what’s being talked about there. Instead trust in the Lord lets us admit we’re not perfect while assuring us that our imperfections are not the center of the universe, nor of our relationship with it. We can exhale, stop worrying so much about ourselves and a wrathful God, and start worrying about how we’re called to care about and serve each other in these times.
Ep. 53 - In maybe their favorite podcast to date, Dave and Justin lament the death of the children of Bethlehem at Herod's hands and ask what it means to have a Messiah who walks through tragedy, neither invalidating it nor leaving it as the final word. Maybe faith isn't complete until sadness and hope mingle?
Ep. 52 - How critical is the virgin birth to the Messiah story? How does Joesph's transformation due to heavenly visions change the way we view our own story? Mia Crosthwaite joins Justin and Dave to discuss Matthew, Chapter 1.
The Geek and Greek podcast is a show where two reverends talk honestly and clearly about faith, Christianity, scripture, and life. Follow us at GeekAndGreek.com! Welcome to 2020, everyone! The first week of each new year usually brings hope and anticipation of change. It can also bring unfair expectations, self-doubt, and mourning for times gone by. “Happy New Year” can be joyous. It can also seem ironic.
New Year’s is a good time to remember that we are not saved by our own resolutions, nor are our lives ultimately governed by the passing of time. We are in greater hands than our own, and those hands give us love always. Resolving to do better at some of life’s tasks is admirable. I hope you succeed in whatever you resolve! To the extent that pressure to achieve a standard causes you to feel inadequate, be assured that you are loved no matter what. All of us fall short in ways we don’t comprehend. Society likes to pick out a few favorite ones, setting up impossible standards that nobody could meet. We make people who fall short of those standards our sacrificial lambs, suffering publicly so the rest of us can ignore our own shortcomings. Maybe the things our culture condemns us for aren’t really bad. Maybe the condemning itself is worse. “New Year’s” time pressure is a weird thing too. We lament not being in romantic relationships, or not being where we want to be with other goals, as if this week mattered more to the cosmos than any other. The universe doesn’t know it’s 2020. The cosmos doesn’t count that way. Half of our planet doesn’t either! All moments are important to God. The idea that things aren’t real unless they happen right now is a conceit. That’s more about us trying to control the universe than us making the universe better as we come to understand our journey through it. Time passes beyond us, but time also works for us. The end of our story is not darkness, but light. That ended does not ask what the numbers on a scale say, how much money we make, or who we smooched at midnight on January 1. It doesn’t worry about how old we’re getting either. That ending offers the assurance, “Come to me, all you who are burdened and in need of rest.” It promises reunion with loved ones and everything time has appeared to take from us. It offers new possibilities of love and acceptance beyond what the world has taught us. As years and decades roll onward, remember that promise. Nothing you do can earn it. Nothing time does can take it away. It is yours, now and always, a gift from the One who loves you. --Pastor Dave
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Ep. 51 - Dawn Busch joins the podcast to illuminate how God offers all of us the critical affirmation, "We can't be family without you." Hear the story of John the Baptist crying out from prison in a way you never have before.
The Geek and Greek podcast is a show where two reverends talk honestly and clearly about faith, Christianity, scripture, and life. Follow us at GeekAndGreek.com! |