Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You're listening to a live recording from Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:06] We're continuing in this series called Good and Beautiful, Good and Beautiful Life, Good and Beautiful God, that is based on a set of books written by James Bryan Smith. And really what we've learned over the course of this time is that this is an invitation into what we believe to be the real journey of Christianity, the real journey of following after Jesus.
[00:00:28] And so we've discovered over the last few weeks that this is an invitation from God. It's not a manipulation or a guilting into behavior modification. Instead, our desire is to spend time in the presence of God and then be shaped and transformed through that presence.
[00:00:43] So through that, we learn what is good and beautiful in this life, learn that we can change other people, can change around us, and receiving that and believing that is part of this transformation process. Pastor Lindsay talked to us this last week about the importance of community in this transformational life.
[00:00:59] And then today we are going to talk about love and how we are to love in community.
[00:01:05] And this is important, the whole series is important because this is really the journey that we're after as Christians, as Christ followers, is to participate in this transformation process in the presence of Jesus.
[00:01:17] Now, I've only been thinking about this since last service, so this is going to maybe sound a little half baked, and you're like, oh, all your teachings are like that, Ben. Okay, relax.
[00:01:26] All right, give me a second.
[00:01:29] But sometimes we'll get connect cards or we'll get. We'll have personal conversations or these different things that. And people ask us why we don't spend more time at the end of services giving a salvation invitation, which in the tradition that I grew up in, often looks like.
[00:01:45] Let's all close our eyes. Anybody that wants to receive Jesus, go ahead and raise your hand. And we pray this prayer together, which, by the way, I think is good. I think there's 100% a place for it. And I think we could do a better job providing that moment here at Westside for people that want to come to know Jesus. But some of the reason that Evan and I have decided that we don't do this every single week is we also don't want to present purposefully or passively. We don't want to present this idea that Christianity is you coming and praying a prayer to start this relationship with Jesus, and then you stop cussing, and then you show up to church on Sundays and yay, Christianity. We did it.
[00:02:25] That's not it. Right? And there's no record necessarily of disciples who have followed after Jesus, praying the sinner's prayer and stuff like that. They respond to an invitation to Jesus, but really the entire journey, of course, is following after Jesus. That following Jesus for these disciples looks like following Jesus. And so while there can be this moment where we receive God, the whole idea behind what we do as a community at church here and what we're trying to accomplish is disciples of Jesus is to follow after him, to be in his presence, to learn to speak how he speaks and act, how he acts. And that is the long form tradition of Christianity. And that's what this teaching, this series of teachings is trying to accomplish, this invitation into the depth of discipleship that God has for us.
[00:03:15] And so we're talking about love and love specifically within community. This can relate to romantic relationships and family relationships, of course, but specifically, the writers of scripture more often than not are not talking about marriages when they talk about love. They're talking about the love of God for us, our love for God, and then the love that we are supposed to express to one another in community. And this is really where things get a bit vulnerable. When you bring true love into the equation, things can get sticky and frustrating. We get our hearts broken. And nobody says it better than the great psalmists Simon and Garfunkel.
[00:03:54] Hey said don't talk of love well, I've heard the words before it's sleeping in my memory and I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died if I never loved I never would have cried I'm a rock, I'm an island and a rock feels no pain and an island never cries There's a lot of thought around Paul Simon's writing of this song.
[00:04:26] Of whether it was his critique on a world that was becoming more and more independent and individualized, right Isolated. Or whether it was really Paul Simon's knee jerk reaction to how he wants to live that naturally in him. He says, I've experienced enough brokenheartedness in this world. I will not be vulnerable and love it anymore. Instead, I'd prefer to be a rock or an island.
[00:04:49] This option is becoming more and more available to us, right? Even Lindsay talked about this last week. You can doordash and Netflix your way to a pretty well entertained and isolated experience in your very own living room and never have to leave it. But God is calling us to something greater and then within that community, we're actually called to even take the next step and to love. And this is how Jesus does it. In John chapter 13 and verse 1, it says, before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father. He loved his disciples during his ministry on earth. And now he loved them to the very end. I love that line. And then he expresses it like this, says it was time for supper. And the devil had already prompted Judas Simon, the son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus.
[00:05:35] Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. And so he got up from the table, he took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist and poured a water into a basin.
[00:05:47] And he began to wash the disciples feet, drying them with the towel that he had around him. And when Jesus came to Simon Peter, Peter said to him, lord, are you going to wash my feet?
[00:05:58] As if Peter wasn't watching what was already happening to all the other disciples. But that's fine.
[00:06:03] And Jesus replied, you don't understand now what I'm doing, but someday you will.
[00:06:08] And then Peter goes full Peter right here. It's really great. No, he protested, you will never ever wash my feet. And Jesus replied, unless I wash you, you won't belong to me. And Simon Peter then exclaimed, then wash my hands and my head as well. Lord. Some translations say wash all of me. It's like, wow, Peter, really a lot of changes real quick here. What a guy.
[00:06:30] And Jesus replied, a person who has bathed all over does not need to wash except for the feet, but to be entirely clean. You disciples are clean, but not all of you. For Jesus knew who would betray him.
[00:06:42] And this is what he meant when he said, not all of you are clean. And after washing their feet, he put on his robe again. He sat down. He asked, do you understand what I was doing? You call me teacher and Lord. And you are right, because that's what I am. And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, then you ought to wash each other's feet.
[00:07:00] I have given you an example to follow and do as I have done to you. I tell you the truth. Slaves are not greater than their masters. Nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message. Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them.
[00:07:14] Let's pray one more time. We'll keep going in this. Lord, we thank you for this community. Pray that we would engage even as we're hearing your word and being taught by certainly more than me, but by your Holy Spirit. Pray that we would be willing to engage in this transformation process and that can only come by being in your presence. So may your presence rest on us today that we might be continued to be changed by you. In Jesus name.
[00:07:39] Amen.
[00:07:40] It's almost the end of wedding season.
[00:07:42] Congrats to those of you who participated this year.
[00:07:46] Congrats to those of you who didn't. I can see positives on both sides.
[00:07:51] I got married when I was 22, and my wife and I, our friends were. A lot of them were getting married at the same time. It felt like we went through this long stretch of time where there was a wedding every weekend. We went to 15 or whatever it was, and all the friends got married. And then there was like this kind of breath of fresh air that happened at the end. But I'm a pastor. I think I just did my 105th wedding, something like that.
[00:08:13] And weddings are awesome. They're really great.
[00:08:17] And you can no longer do something at your wedding that I have not seen before. Okay, Pinterest boards. Look, I've been through all of them. I've seen them all. I've seen them all play out.
[00:08:30] And they're awesome and beautiful and powerful and meaningful. Of course, for that couple, that family, that moment. We should keep doing weddings is what I'm saying. And you should ask me to do your wedding. I would love to do it. All right.
[00:08:42] But something about them that is interesting is we have these unifying moments. Almost every couple will do this. It used to be sand. People would combine two different colors of sand in like a vase or something, and they would use that for decoration. It's symbolic of the unifying of the marriage. We would do unity candles. I saw a couple combine two different kinds of wine into a cask that they would open later.
[00:09:06] That was kind of cool to watch. I've seen people plant trees.
[00:09:11] You know, that's tough if you don't own the property you're planting it on. I just, you know, I've seen. I've seen people spread ashes of a loved one, which, you know, circle of life, you know.
[00:09:28] And more recently, what's happened is a lot of people over the last six, seven years have started doing a foot washing ceremony in the middle of their wedding. Just great. A wedding I did recently.
[00:09:38] We took a moment to do the foot washing, and then I kind of back away from the space. A violinist comes in. This violinist was amazing and played a beautiful. I'm not sure what the song was, but it was gorgeous and perfect for the moment.
[00:09:50] And the groom began to wash the bride's feet.
[00:09:54] And, you know, we're all kind of watching, hanging out, listening to music.
[00:09:58] And it's a beautiful moment. Half the people are just watching, weeping at this point. And it makes perfect sense.
[00:10:05] And I look down and I watch him washing her feet. And this invasive thought comes into my mind in which I think, those feet are already perfectly clean.
[00:10:17] They've probably never been cleaner actually.
[00:10:20] Wedding day, both of them, right? She takes off his shoes, I'm like, yeah, nope, more perfectly.
[00:10:25] You guys both got pedicures. It's clear, right? Like this has happened recently.
[00:10:30] What is happening during this wedding ceremony is not washing of feet.
[00:10:36] It's not happening.
[00:10:38] There's a ceremony and there's a symbolism that's happening. And by the way, that's really meaningful. And we shouldn't discard ceremony and symbolism. It's really important to who we are as people. It's where we make promises and express intentions.
[00:10:50] Then we should have a moment to make those promises, to cast those intentions in that vision. But what is happening in this moment is not the washing of feet as juxtaposed to what is happening when Jesus is washing the disciples feet. In the scripture. These are 12 young men who have been wandering around in the dust with nothing but sandals for God knows how long. And Jesus takes a moment to wash their dirty, disgusting, horrific, smelly feet.
[00:11:16] And not only that, all of these guys are younger than him.
[00:11:21] They have had problems and issues along the road where they've been confused, they've been filled with rage, they haven't listened appropriately to his teaching. And no matter how many miracles he performs, many of them still have ridiculous and crazy questions about when we get to heaven, can I sit on your right hand? Because that's kind of like the most important thing. And Jesus, like, this is crazy. He's dealing with these young, immature, frustrating men that can't quite figure everything out just yet. And he decides to go ahead and wash their feet. And by the way, one of them is going to be chance a him to his death and he still even washes his feet.
[00:11:53] What Christianity can be in danger of often, what we can be in danger of often as individuals is that this love that Jesus has called us to, it can remain symbolism and ceremony if we let it.
[00:12:08] And we can refuse to actually wash the feet of the broken and the hurting people in our community and the surrounding community for the sake of lip service and symbolism.
[00:12:19] And we can walk away feeling pretty darn good about ourselves.
[00:12:24] We can have an incredible church service, we can sing all the right songs and it can be the right Volume, level, and the right teaching. And we can feel amazing walking out of this room and into the world around us. But if it remains simply the symbolism and the ceremony of a church service, we have not participated in the love that Jesus is calling us to.
[00:12:44] My hope for us as a church is not that we would just want to wash feet that are already clean, but that we would want to invite in the smelliest and the dirtiest and the worst and the grossest feet so that we may do the work that God is calling us to.
[00:13:01] That's the kind of love that we have to enter into. And so I was talking with Lindsay and Brandt Himes when I was getting ready for this message, and I was like, I want to. I want to talk about love in terms of one word to describe what this love is that we're talking about today. And a lot of the normal things came up, right? That love is action.
[00:13:18] For those of you who are mid-90s DC talk fans, love is a verb, right? I won't sing it. I might. I might sing it.
[00:13:29] And all these things are tempting, right? It's action. But again, a simple ceremonial action is not where we're meant to stop, but instead we're meant to continue on.
[00:13:37] James Brian Smith says this. A spiritual life is not a life of laws and precepts, but a life of participation, affection, and love, a life mingled and mixing with God. And so love is participation with God when we truly love the people around us and we give ourselves and our resources and our time our focus to them. It's like we're holding the hand of God to do the work that he is doing.
[00:14:05] I remember a few times when my kids were younger, I would come home from a trip or from the airport or something, and I would have some luggage with me. And my kids, in their excitement to see me, would tell me that they were gonna help me by carrying my luggage for me.
[00:14:19] How many of you know that when your kids decide to help you with something like this, it actually makes the process way slower, and it is not helpful at all.
[00:14:30] This partition with participation with God can seem kind of like this. We're called to help this being that is far bigger and far stronger for us. And Jesus invites us in to that process. And our participation with God sometimes also involves us stumbling over the luggage that we have professed to be able to carry, and yet God invites us into that place anyway.
[00:14:53] If you're expecting the church to do this perfectly, or if you're expecting yourself to do this perfectly, it won't happen. But I will encourage you. If your enthusiasm is about love, if your care for people is about love, if your posture is truly love, no matter what losses and difficulties you create or experience along the way, I promise you it will be worth it.
[00:15:14] So let love truly be our posture and not simply exist as a performance.
[00:15:19] Which by the way, in my experience, with the world around us, especially the non Christian world, non Christians can smell a church and a Christian that simply wants to rely on performance and not real love and posture.
[00:15:32] This posture of receptivity is grounded not in obligation, but in relationship true desire to do what Jesus is calling us to do.
[00:15:42] The second thing is this, that love is unhurried. James Brian Smith again says we can't love, think, eat, laugh or pray in a hurry.
[00:15:50] And when we're in a hurry, we find ourselves unable to live with awareness and kindness. My wife would say, I eat in a hurry, but that's not the point of this message.
[00:15:59] We cannot love, think, eat, laugh or pray in a hurry. Some of these things need to stop and to take time in order to be done at all. And sometimes, of course, to be done. Well, this happened yesterday. I picked up my daughter from a birthday party and she was enthusiastically telling me this story about how she got so many tickets at Sun Mountain Fun center at the arcade. And then she got these other items that in reality are probably worth about 50 cents apiece and was so excited to have them and I couldn't wait for them to just break when we got home.
[00:16:33] But she's telling me this story.
[00:16:36] She's telling me this story. And our family's just going through a lot right now. We've got, we've got stuff that we're trying to figure out with our house.
[00:16:45] There's some family health issues on both Rebecca's side and my side.
[00:16:50] And we spent the last couple days doing an estate sale for my in laws and moving stuff out and dump runs. You guys know the story.
[00:16:58] Selling things to people that want to barter over everything. My God, I love these people.
[00:17:06] How much for this? $4. I'll give you $3.50. Get out of my house.
[00:17:10] Get out.
[00:17:12] Don't come back.
[00:17:14] My gosh. I'm gonna sell it to the next guy for a dollar. You watch. Watch me.
[00:17:21] Ben really needs to practice some of this stuff.
[00:17:29] We're going through a lot. I don't wanna sensationalize it or whatever, but we are. Rebecca and I are both at that point where we wake up tired and we go to sleep tired and sometimes we can't go to sleep because we're so tired, right? You experience this. There's stress, there's thoughts, there's wondering, there's anger and frustration. There's phone calls you gotta make.
[00:17:50] And so my daughter gets outta this birthday party and she starts telling me this story. And I'm feeling as she is talking to me in these really broken and wandering sentences, she's not telling a great story. She's got a lot to learn.
[00:18:04] As she's telling this story, I can feel my eyes starting to look through her, right?
[00:18:11] And I start talking to myself in this exhaustion and being like, ben, buck up, buddy. You gotta grab yourself, pay attention.
[00:18:21] What's going on? Listen to her. She's 8 years old, and she's smiling and excited and telling you something.
[00:18:27] What is it? God, I don't know.
[00:18:31] And I finally am just getting back around to this point because I can feel it. I can feel it. Especially when things are chaotic, right? And many of us deal with this in all different ways, Shapes and forms. We have stresses, we have chaos, we have frustrations, we have money to deal with. There's relationships that need attention.
[00:18:47] And we find ourselves just kind of being not so present in the moment for the sake of all these other tasks that are at hand. And we miss this connection with our daughter, right?
[00:18:58] We miss this connection with the loved one.
[00:19:02] Not because we're trying to pass over it, but because we get so consumed with all the hurries and responsibilities of the world that we forget about the thing that is holy and sacred right in front of our faces.
[00:19:16] And so I stopped and I looked at her and I said, jovi, I need you to start again.
[00:19:22] I'm gonna do a better job this time understanding what you're trying to tell me.
[00:19:27] And I learned she played the claw game with the rings for the tickets, right? She got a 900 ticket ring out of there. And then that led to. And then she bought stuff for her friends through that and was generous with that. I got to affirm her generosity. All these opportunities that required me to stop, stop hurrying, go back in to listen.
[00:19:46] This is how it is with our lives in general.
[00:19:50] If you get so caught up in the stresses or other joys or things that you find yourself never actually being in the room that you're in, you're missing out on something sacred.
[00:20:01] You can have these moments when you're in the grocery store line, when you're at the coffee shop, when you're with family and friends, when you're at a restaurant, when you see a waiter A waitress, you can have these moments.
[00:20:14] Are we rushing through life and missing the sacred, the neighbor and the silence and the stranger and the moment far too often.
[00:20:22] So I want to encourage us to slow down and actually remember that what you actually physically bring to the table is not always the greatest gift. It's not always the best bottle of wine. It's not always the finances and the resources. It's not always your skills. So often the greatest gift you can bring to a room or to a family or to a person is your presence.
[00:20:43] A moment of genuine connection in a world that doesn't want to connect.
[00:20:50] And then finally, the third thing is love is change.
[00:20:54] Love is this willingness to see and again to embrace that we actually can change. And so with us, we should tell the story about a merciful God because we believe that we've been changed by a merciful and graceful God.
[00:21:07] We should allow ourselves to be soul trained in the presence of Jesus, to be cultivated and do that within community, and then ultimately allowing the Holy Spirit to lovingly transform us. That's how this actually happens. So that love might be born in us again, not just behavior modification, but that something hardwired would be trained by the Holy Spirit so that we might live the way that Jesus is encouraging us to.
[00:21:34] I'm going to close up with this. I'm going to go to First Corinthians 13. Speaking of weddings, First Corinthians 13, I'm going to read you a passage of scripture that you're probably pretty familiar with, but I believe that there's a few thoughts in here that could be valuable as we go.
[00:21:50] The Apostle Paul says to the church at Corinth, which again, I've seen this scripture tattooed on people and stuff, which I think is great.
[00:21:58] Just a reminder, this is about. This is a message to a church and not a loved person in romantic relationships. So if you have the tattoo of First Corinthians 13, I'm glad you love your church so much.
[00:22:12] Just kidding. You can make it about a romantic relay anyway.
[00:22:17] First Corinthians 13, verse 4 says, Love suffers long and is kind.
[00:22:22] Love does not envy, and love does not parade itself. It's not puffed up.
[00:22:26] It does not behave rudely. It does not seek its own. It is not provoked. It thinks no evil. It does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.
[00:22:36] This is where we're going to spend a few moments. It bears all things, it believes all things.
[00:22:42] It hopes all things and endures all things.
[00:22:46] Love never fails.
[00:22:49] What Paul does in the original language with those last four descriptors. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. He actually creates this kind of wor picture. And it's all based around this first one that says, love bears all things, which actually means that love makes shelters around broken people.
[00:23:13] Now, what we love to do in our current culture and context is we love to find people that have screwed up, especially powerful or influential people.
[00:23:23] We love to find people that have screwed up, and then we do something very medieval. We like to throw them into the middle of the town square so that we might shame them.
[00:23:32] And it happens through social media, it happens through conventional media, happens through gossip. It happens through all these different ways. We love. We love, love, love, love, love. Somebody that seems to be doing well, that has a fall from grace. Oh, it's so tasty.
[00:23:46] Is anybody in this room like me where you have found so much comfort in someone else's faults? Oh, yeah.
[00:23:56] It's our natural human tendency to do this. We actually connect ourselves more to this tribe when the tribe finds someone to throw into the middle of the town square in shame. And then we feel more connected because we feel better than that person. And that's kind of how our little lizard brains work.
[00:24:14] And so Apostle Paul and Jesus are encouraging us to do something that goes against that nature.
[00:24:21] And when someone is broken and hurting and is already finding themselves in their own guilt and shame, what love does is it builds a covering over them in the middle of that storm.
[00:24:34] It creates a safe place to find healing and nurturing instead of more shame and guilt.
[00:24:44] This is our calling as a community that love would find the most vulnerable of people in the world.
[00:24:51] And sometimes in a physical and practical way, right. We're called to build places of shelter for people to recover.
[00:24:59] But also in this metaphorical spiritual way, we're called to build shelter for those who are most vulnerable.
[00:25:08] And then it goes on to say, believes all things.
[00:25:11] This means love believes the best for and from people.
[00:25:18] Oh, this is a tough one, because again, if I feel like you have betrayed me or you've hurt me, my natural human tendency is to just say, that's it. You're cut off. I don't like you. I don't like anything you stand for. Get out of my presence, because nothing good can come from you. And the Apostle Paul says, even when somebody hurts you on purpose, you must believe the best for them and their intentions.
[00:25:45] Have you ever heard kids say they did it on purpose?
[00:25:50] They hurt me and they did it on purpose.
[00:25:54] That's a huge accusation to levy against an 8 year old, right?
[00:25:59] And Paul is saying, even in a situation where someone hurts you and they do it on purpose, we're called to believe the best for them.
[00:26:07] He goes on with a connected word, hope. You're supposed to hope the best.
[00:26:13] Hopelessness is this kind of darkness and hope is the candle that is lit in the middle of it. The Christians, the Christ followers, are called to be a people that when everybody else says it's just going to hell in a handbasket, there is no hope. Our politics have fallen apart, our morals have fallen apart, our world is falling apart. There is no hope. The Christian says there is always hope.
[00:26:35] And then finally, Paul encourages us to endure all things.
[00:26:42] That means our hope is to go through all things. We're to bear a storm for all people and we're to hope, excuse me, believe through all things.
[00:26:52] And through such endurance, finally love will never fail. We're a people to be called, that are called to love. And so we're also asked to tell a true, a truer story than this world would tell, that God is not an angry judge, but instead a loving father.
[00:27:10] Want to encourage you to practice presence, being in the room that you're actually in, so you might see the holy moments that are presented to you and be willing to exercise small acts of love and invite the Spirit in to the world that you live in, so that love might transform us and the world around us.
