The Expansionist Podcast
Shelly Shepherd and Heather Drake invite you to listen in on a continuing conversation about expanding spirituality, the Divine Feminine, and the transforming impact of living attuned to Wisdom, Spirit and Love.
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The Expansionist Podcast
Sin?
What if everything you thought you knew about sin was actually keeping you from experiencing true joy? In this thought-provoking episode, Shelley and Heather challenge conventional religious narratives around sin, offering a liberating perspective that centers on love rather than separation.
The conversation begins with a simple yet profound question: Do we need to confess sin to experience joy? This launches us into an exploration of original blessing versus original sin, inviting listeners to consider themselves as fundamentally loved and connected rather than inherently flawed and separate. Drawing from mystics like Julian of Norwich and scriptural wisdom, the hosts redefine sin not as moral failure but as "the essence of that which falls short of God's love."
For those who have felt burdened by religious systems focused on "sin management," this episode offers a healing alternative. Together, the hosts examine how confession can become not a burden but an awareness of both "what we have done and what we have left undone," particularly in addressing systemic injustice.
Through the parable of the Good Samaritan and Jesus's consistent challenging of religious laws, we see how love transcends boundaries and categories. The episode culminates in a moving reading of 1 Corinthians 13, reminding us that love remains when all else fades away.
Whether you're deconstructing from harmful religious teaching, seeking a more expansive spirituality, or simply curious about a different perspective on sin and love, this conversation invites you to return to love as your center. Join the community at expansionisttheology.com and discover how embracing original blessing can transform your relationship with yourself, others, and the divine.
Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast with Shelley Shepard and Heather Drake. In each episode, we dive deep into conversations that challenge conventional thinking, amplify diverse voices and foster a community grounded in wisdom, spirit and love. Hello, my friend.
Speaker 2:Hello, shelley Shepard.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Expansionist Podcast, it's so good to see you today, so grateful to be in your presence and for us to have this opportunity to spend some time thinking about things that are lovely, true and of a good report. So we have been between us thinking about things that will expand our capacity to feel love, to be love, to sense love, to further on the journey of love, and I'm excited for us to share it with the listeners today. You texted me the other day and asked a question and your question was do you think that you have to confess sin in order to feel joy or to experience joy?
Speaker 2:Yes, or to get to joy. Do we have? To acknowledge sin in order to get to joy.
Speaker 1:So today we want to talk about sin. Isn't that such a beautiful thing? I would have absolutely not been interested in any kind of talk of this a few years ago and now I feel like I can talk about it with a lot of joy, in fact, with a lot of hope, with a lot of ease and lightness, versus the burden that sometimes the word and the connotations that have been around it have led us into have led us into. And while we recognize that sin or separation is an absolute, enormous topic and we do not take it lightly, but I am just excited about the fact that we can tell a better story, that we can tell the story that God has been telling and that love has been showing us since the very beginning. So talk to me for a minute about why you had that question, or how it came to you, or what you were hoping to find when you asked me, just random, out of the blue do we have to confess sin in order to experience joy?
Speaker 2:Wow, my mind went so many places as I was thinking. And I don't know, maybe during the season of Lent, when we're thinking about, you know, prayer and fasting and gifts of generosity or serving others, you know, sometimes repentance comes up in that process or confession. And I was sitting with the with that notion wondering. I was wondering like wonder what Heather would think about that question, and so I just texted you and of course she's like what do you mean by sin? What is sin? And then that starts a whole like trajectory of thought and and other conversation around it.
Speaker 2:But you mentioned here just right now in this introduction that a few years ago you wouldn't have been as comfortable having this conversation.
Speaker 2:And so I'm wondering friends, my friends, and I believe that you have friends who are also deconstructing from their faith in ways that have either caused trauma or chaos or they've just completely left the church, because you know a variety of reasons. But one of the reasons that I feel like we have such a hard time talking about sin is that we have this image or have been told a story about what sin is, that it separates us from the one who loves us completely, and so if I have this unacknowledged sin in my life, then I'm a bad person. I can't get to joy, I can't, you know, I can't see abundance, and I can't certainly give that to other people if I have some sort of sin that I haven't acknowledged or confessed, and so I think this is going to be a wildly good topic for us to dive into today, so maybe share with us what has changed in just a couple of years that you're able to now talk about this.
Speaker 1:Well, I would have been able to talk about it before, but it would have been now talk about this. Well, I would have been able to talk about it before, but it would have been, I feel, like a heavy burden. I feel like it would have been yoking to something that was even more difficult, even more oppressive, and so I want to first maybe push back a little bit on. We know people who are deconstructing, and I agree with that, but I don't think they're deconstructing their faith. I think they're deconstructing from religious systems that have added to weights. I think that people's faith is secure in the fact that they know that there is more, that there has to be something better and more beautiful and more inclusive, and I can see that more heavenly in the idea of that but that religious systems and religion in itself have handed to us very. I can see that, and so I think that, well, I know that, growing up, and the first like an awareness of sin I had, and what sin was told to me was that it wasn't a perfection, that it wasn't what you were supposed to, there was like a standard, and the list was long. I was raised in the Pentecostal holiness church and I'm telling you Absolutely. I mean you look left. We had the list, yeah, but it was long. I mean there are some people who have shorter lists and I'm like you know, no lipstick, you can't cut your hair. So the list was not only in the issues of outer living, but also in inner living, in a fact that an awareness of sin absolutely, I think, caused me to almost diminish myself as opposed to live fully into the resurrected invitation that Jesus offers us, and it certainly taught me a lot about judgment, taught me about my own judgment for myself and how to judge others, because there was this standard of sin.
Speaker 1:So this topic is not something that you and I have flippantly come into.
Speaker 1:It's certainly that time that we've spent listening to the Spirit retell us the story.
Speaker 1:Where you and I both have come is to an understanding that we are people made in the image of original blessing, that we are not starting from original sin. We are starting from a blessed position, from a position where we are loved, delighted in, and that we are full image bearers. And so that is not the position that I originally grew up in, but it is a place where the Spirit has allowed me to expand and has converted or invited into something so much more and allows liberation for not only my spirit, but for the spirit of the world, for the spirit of others who are around me, for the good and for the benefit of all. And I believe that that's where wisdom leads us is not only to our own freedom. I believe that that's where wisdom leads us is not only to our own freedom, but for the freedom of every other person that is enslaved with a thought that keeps them connected to an idea or an illusion that has been gifted to them by something in this world.
Speaker 2:Very interesting. I want to go back to your thought on we don't deconstruct our faith, we deconstruct religion. Can we sit there for a minute, sure, sure, do you disagree? No, I don't necessarily disagree with that, but what do you call moving away from one faith or religion to a different one, like if I was Baptist and then I went to Catholicism? Do I have to deconstruct some faith and practice or understanding, or do I have to lay down some things?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Two of the things that you mentioned are, you know, systems that men have created, and what I am alluding to is the fact that in Genesis, chapter one, where it talks about the spirit that hovers or broods over the chaos, there are so many times in our thoughts and in the systems that we participate in, in our humanity and in our worldview, where it leads just to further chaos, further darkness. And when the Spirit comes in, when there is a revelation of the Spirit, I think that there is an invitation for us to follow light, for us to follow the Holy Spirit and for us to experience what Jesus offered us, with a renewing of our mind, with a repentance, a life of living something believing differently, turning around from a way of thought, joining the thoughts of God, when God in fact explains to us that God's ways are so much higher than our ways, and so it's an invitation into an ascension, it's an invitation into so much higher thought, a thought that comes not from scarcity, not from fear, but a thought that comes from the divine love, that comes from the voice of God, who has called us image bearers, who has called us one with God, and I love the prayer that Jesus prayed for us in John when he says Father, make them one Like you and I are one make them one and let
Speaker 1:them know that you love them like you love me. And so I think that's a really great place to be able to bring our understanding of sin, to be able to say can what I believe about sin right now allow me to believe that I am loved the same way that Jesus is loved? Because this illusion of sin, this illusion of separateness, and allow me to believe that I am loved the same way that Jesus is loved? Because this illusion of sin, this illusion of separateness, usually comes to us with the thought but I have already committed, I've already done these things or not done these things, and so I cannot be loved the way that Jesus is loved. And so I think that any time that we contradict the prayers of Jesus, it should be suspect to us. A little kind of tick should come off in our head. I need to question that.
Speaker 1:And so this invitation to a new way of viewing the salvation of God, the new way of viewing the work that Jesus has done for the whole world In John again, chapter 3,.
Speaker 1:For God so loved the world that he sent his one and only begotten son that whoever believed in the way of Jesus, in Jesus, would not perish but have eternal life, because God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through Jesus, would be saved. And so that, to me, is such a beautiful invitation of how the salvation enters the world, not just, I think, for a long time, saved from what Heather Saved from what, well, let's talk about I mean that's I think that's another whole podcast, Shelley but the salvation. Salvation that we're experiencing, where we're experiencing true life, where we're experiencing our full humanity, where we're experiencing life in the kingdom, where we're participating with Jesus and with spirit in bringing and ushering the kingdom here on earth. And so salvation, not necessarily just from sin, although it's a part of that and the salvation. What I mean by that, or what I'm practicing, is a rejection of an illusion of separation, that I am not separate from the love of God, I am not separate from inclusion.
Speaker 2:There's where I was hoping you would go with this, because the whole premise of sin entering into the world through humanity started with this notion of separation or a separateness now. So, now that I'm separate original sin, it's hard for me to see that story as original blessing or, in Hildegard's words, original wisdom. And so if I can lean into original blessing or original wisdom and understand that I've never been separated, then there is a different story about sin that we have to tell. Perhaps we're not the first ones to talk about this for crying out loud, and how many commentaries and theologians and researchers have belabored this particular topic? Let me read this quote, and I don't have a name for it. This person said sin is the essence of that which falls short of God's love. Now I'm looking at the queen of love right now.
Speaker 1:Always pushing. I hope it's me.
Speaker 2:Always pushing love down the stream. I am.
Speaker 1:I am force feeding love to everyone, but this is the essence.
Speaker 2:Sin is the essence of that which falls short of God's love. Now, if we unpack that, we have this opportunity of love within us. It sits around our heart or around our soul or in our mind and we reach out to receive it, we reach out to touch it, we reach out to unify with it, as Julian, one of the mystics, is teaching us right now in her 16 showings. Her revelations that she had with this love, right Like. This is what her whole book is about, is this dance and this engagement with love. And what's interesting in that particular book is that she points us to this one of the showings. As I just asked love. I asked love, what is sin? Where is sin? What does it look like? I need to know these things. You know, I'm of this Roman Catholic stature and I want to be able to see. Can you just explain this to me? And love says to her there is none, there is no sin.
Speaker 2:And then we fast forward. Oh, we go back to Mary Magdalene. We go back to Mary Magdalene and her gospel, and she's saying the same thing when she is approached in this conversation between Peter and Jesus and, I believe, and Levi, or, yeah, Levi, what is sin? And Jesus says there is no sin. And so if we have these different accounts, if a theologian or a pastor or a preacher or teacher or researcher can look at a particular passage in any text of the tradition and come up with five different translations or interpretations for that, then what that says to me as an individual is, when I look at sin as it has been taught or put into my hands or preached week after week, I have an opportunity to attach that meaning to my life, or in some kind of deconstructive or modified way of looking at an expansive faith.
Speaker 2:Jesus says to Mary Magdalene your faith has made you whole. She didn't enter the room to wash Jesus's feet knowing that she would be forgiven. She entered the room to wash Jesus's feet and to anoint them because of love. The love within her reached out to the love for him and the act was created. And then we know the story. Anytime this story is told, her name will be attached to it. And so, as we hold this space today and thinking about, you know these stronger words of repentance and salvation, and even sin From an expansionist perspective, if I can't get to the essence of that which falls short of God's love as the definition for sin, then I need a new definition. I think if we're going to tell a better story about sin, Heather, maybe we have to find a new definition, or at least in my case, I'm looking for a new definition.
Speaker 1:The idea that sin is an illusion of separation brings us to an awareness of the promise and of the fulfillment of the promise that God is with us always.
Speaker 1:People have said to me, since I was little and growing up, you know, like if you sin, then you remove yourself from the presence of God. Your sin does not allow the presence to be there, and I just want to tell you what a terror that is. Yes, to feel like that you could do something that would remove you from presence, the presence of love, and the scripture even reminds us there is no fear in love, that God is love, and so when we are handed any kind of thought that produces in us a terror or a fear, it should be questioned. And this promise of God throughout history, throughout understanding of the presence of God, of love, of the work of Christ and Jesus's manifestation here on the earth, is a complete understanding that we are always, always loved. In fact, the Apostle Paul said this is what I want for you, and I want it for everyone to know that there is nothing that you could do that would separate you from the love of God, yes.
Speaker 2:Why is that so hard for us to believe that? Why is it so hard? Because we've been told that sin separates.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. So. Here's the illusion. We have been taught wrongly and that happens, and so we do have to again. This is the Jesus way.
Speaker 1:You have heard it said but, I, say unto you that it is simply an illusion that we would be separated from God, that we have this eternal parent that would in any way turn their back on us, that we are always part of what God is doing and what God continues to do and how God reveals God's self and how the presence of God is with us in the world. But this idea that we would never be separate from love. Now we can forget love, we can turn from love, we can act outside of love. I mean, we're in a current political situation right now and people are acting very unlovingly toward each other. This already happened in early genesis, where brothers are fighting and then one brother kills another. I mean, there is an absence of love there, there is an illusion of I am separate from you and so I will inflict this pain upon you and the understanding and I believe this is why Jesus prayed this for us Father, make them one and let them know that they're loved by you the same way that you love me.
Speaker 1:I think, those two things in particular the oneness and the illusion of separateness, and the truth of we are one, we are one in God, we are one through Christ, we are one with each other, we are one with the universe and with nature and with all of the things that God created, that we are not separate from those things and we are not even separate from ourselves. I think a lot of times, a false idea of sin that says that it's a list of moral rules that you must follow actually asks us that behave in a certain way or think a certain thought, that we begin to resent those things. As opposed to what you talked about earlier in the podcast, this invitation into wholeheartedness, into wholeness and I believe this is the plan of salvation that we would be people who live and exist and minister and open tables of hospitality out of a place of wholeness, that we say to the world that is broken and lost in a nightmare or illusion come home, return to love, come back to the radical love of God that makes all things new.
Speaker 2:It's such a beautiful, expansive way to look at a relationship with God is through a lens of love rather than a lens of sin and separation, and it makes me think about. It's been a while since I've looked at this work by Cynthia Bourgeau, but she talks about the center, cynthia Bourgeau, but she talks about the center. You know, what's at the center of us, what is at the core of our being, is a place that the world cannot touch, that whatever is happening around us cannot touch. It's like it's reserved for this love relationship between ourselves and God. And I'm probably, you know, messing up her intentional theology to us. But the point is, if we can't understand that love is at our core, it just seems so simple to us. Maybe and maybe love is too simple. Simple to us, maybe and maybe love is too simple, but I find that it's it's complicated and it's it's not easy, um, to sometimes erase the thoughts of separation. You know things that I have said or done, and we'll get to that prayer of confession in a minute. I think we should talk about that and we kind of we beat ourselves. You know, we beat ourselves up Instead of being at this, at the center, and Cynthia says it in this way is that it's not.
Speaker 2:It's not that image of the archer. You know that's used in the Greek, where sin is missing the mark. Yes, that's been one of the metaphors that has been used for us to understand what sin is. But Cynthia contrasts that with alignment and attunement. When you get too far off center right and you don't hear, you know the pings in the snowbank anymore and the radar's not going off or you know the reminder's not happening, then we have to align ourselves back to center, where the love exists, where it's always existed. But she does a beautiful job. I can't remember which book that is in, maybe Jesus Wisdom.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I'm pulling it from the right place, but it's a beautiful way to get to a different definition of learning to tell a better story in as much conflict with the idea, if you understand that, missing the mark, if the mark is love, if the mark is a set of moral code, if the mark is a particular denomination, if the mark is something like that, then I think it doesn't work. But if the center, like you're calling us to, if the center is love, then 100% that still works. If you do anything out of the essence of or the understanding of what is loving to, would be a place of so much love that it would be a place of return for every single person. Welcome at the table of God, Welcome into the presence of God. We want to pause and take a moment and let you know how glad we are that you've joined us.
Speaker 1:If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a friend. We are that you've joined us. If you're enjoying this podcast, consider sharing it with a friend. And if you found the conversation intriguing and want to know more about what we're learning or how you can join our online community, visit our website at expansionistheologycom. Let's talk about the original question that you posted a few weeks ago going what about the confession? Do you have to confess this? And let's talk about the beauty in confession and let's talk about where it's leading us into.
Speaker 2:Very helpful yeah for sure, yeah, so maybe people are familiar. In some traditions they have this prayer of confession before communion and often in a liturgical service. But part of the confession is that we recognize, um, we take the posture of recognizing that we are coming to confess things that we have done and things that we have left undone. Right, so, wow, the things that I've done, I'm pretty clear about, uh, that list. But what about the things that I have left undone? I'm confessing this every week, that I'm taking this posture and asking forgiveness for what I have done or what I have said or how I might have treated somebody, or let my fire get out of control, whatever the case might be.
Speaker 2:Um, but the undone things, um, I think are it's a more interesting part of the confession and I would love for us to talk about that for a few minutes the things that I've left undone and, uh, in the pre-show you and I talked about, you know, is that undone-ness or or am I finding myself in a place right now that I've been part of? I've been complicit in not recognizing the undone things? That has maybe led us to our current state of problems that we're all facing in our current day with administration or with empire or how we're treating immigrants or neighbors or the other. Maybe I haven't confessed the undone. We only think about the things that we've done. So let's talk about that. What does that say to you? In the things that I have done, in the sin, or in the moments, or in the missing, the mark or in the off-centeredness that has happened in my life, for what I've done and what I have left undone, meaning things my mind wasn't necessarily even thinking about, that was causing me to be off-center.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that even that idea that you're presenting now causes us to recognize how unloving selfishness is, and the invitation is to become aware and I think that that's true of forgiveness and of the posture, of an awareness that we need to return to love, that we need to return to the presence of God, that we need to turn to an awareness of where God is. And I think that many of us have just lived our life with a set of moral codes or a standard, and as long as we were living up to this standard, it felt good, because then we could at least judge other people by not living up to the same standard when we are missing the loving mark that says what does it do?
Speaker 1:for what does it require us to remove the yokes of oppression, what does it require of us? That love says that you must remember the neighbor, the foreigner, the widow, anyone who is marginalized in any place that is not experiencing the fullness of the life of God. That love requires us to certainly invoke a conversation. How can we change this? What can we do to be a part of a loving solution? And while I look at that in the world that we're in right now and it feels overwhelming, I know that love is all powerful and so there is a great hope and an anchor that says that when we can become so immersed in love and in God kind of love I'm not talking about the saccharine, sweet, you know, little happy heart things. I'm talking about love that shows us itself in the cruciformed life of Jesus Christ. Love that shows us in the way that God shares everything with us. Love that shows up in radical service, in radical giving, in radical faith and in radical wholeness. This is the kind of love that we're invited into, and the practice of staying in this love requires that I wake up. In fact, I love the words of Jesus that says wake up, thou that sleepest. Pay attention here. Pay attention, there is more happening. You're invited to more. You're invited to the realm of spirit that sees all things, that hovers above all things, that is creating all things to become new.
Speaker 1:And so this invitation into love is an invitation into this oneness that sees outside of self, one of the things I experienced in leading this particular liturgy and in the prayer that says that we are asking for forgiveness or we're becoming aware that it's not only what we've done but what we've left undone. So we began using this in our church setting and we have a married couple that are in their 80s and we began rehearsing this and offering this as a posture and a prayer during services. And the husband called me and he said you know, I've been married over 65 years. And he said I was just aware this morning when I was praying this prayer that you have taught us and again, not original to me, but I offered it to our congregation and he said much of the damage that I have done in my own life is things that I've left undone.
Speaker 1:Things that I have left unsaid, love that I have left unspent, and he said it made me aware how many more days do I have left, how much more time do I have? I have got to get busy with loving all of the ways that I left undone, and I thought that's such a beautiful awareness of the Spirit. Like you can keep yourself from not saying or from saying the wrong thing, but are you saying the right thing? Are you saying the word? Are you blessing instead of just withholding the curse? Are you blessing instead of just withholding the curse? Are you creating, with the spirit, the kingdom that God says is available?
Speaker 2:to us now.
Speaker 1:Not in the afterlife Now. What can we create now? How do we join with the spirit, how do we join with brothers and sisters all over the world? And how do we say love is the way, love is the kingdom, love is what Jesus came for for us, and the invitation is into an awareness of love and returning or repentance that allows us to come into love, and not an awareness of sin or sin management, yes, or another or stricter moral code.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm and in in everything you've, you've, you've said in the last few minutes um reminds me that jesus was an expansionist right.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. Well, yes, certainly that jesus is the one we're following.
Speaker 2:He was in this context where he was consistently trying to get his friends and followers to see a different perspective. And so, when he was confronted to talk about sin because I'm sure there's people right now who may want to listen to us and find all the texts that say something different than what we've shared that Jesus knew his culture and knew the time in which he was standing in, and yet, in many ways, took a posture that was different than the law, took a posture that was different than the law, than the code, than the 600 and what is it? 14,? I don't know Jewish laws that he would have been familiar with. I mean, you miss one of those marks and what have you done? You've incited a whole empire to come after you.
Speaker 1:But in fact, jesus and his followers often did that. In fact, one of the things that is given in an account of one of the miracles that Jesus does is the disciples aren't honoring the Sabbath the way that they think that they should be honored. They're eating food, they're picking food, they're not washing their hands in the same way. And then Jesus comes and says you don't even understand that rule, you don't even understand that law. And here's what it actually means. I mean, is it better to leave a man with a withered hand? You know you take. In fact, jesus rebukes them and says you take better care of animals than you do of people. You'll get an animal out of a ditch, but here's a man who suffered his whole life and you won't remove the oppression. And so Jesus, on a regular basis, is confronting our idea about separation from each other and from God, our ideas of what sin is and who should be excluded or who needs to be included.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:Jesus tells us that and gives us his own life and say I am the way, I am, truth, I am life. This way of expansion, love, this way of showing us that love does lay down its own life and proves that there is no separation between us and I love I mean, we're in the season of Lent and getting toward resurrection and this idea that death doesn't have the final word, love does. And what does it look like in our lives to surrender to the loving word that is eternal? Jesus is the loving word, God is the loving word, and our part of creation is that we can join in the chorus that says that we will be a part of the loving word, that we will be an identification of the word of God through the way that we live, through the way that we think, through the thoughts that we ascend to and through the things that we choose to be a part of remaking in the world.
Speaker 1:When other people have left undone, left people in chains, left people in poverty, left people you know, systems and principalities that have left people harmed, deeply harmed, that are we, will we be part of the rescue plan?
Speaker 1:Are we people of love who will say I see you and I hear your pain and I so want to embody the story of the Good Samaritan, where I will take it upon myself that, when religious systems and when empire leave people by the side of the road, that I will lead my position, my job, whatever it was that I was doing that day, and I will go and I will offer the gifts of healing that I have and then I will put that person upon my own donkey, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:I have a really old minivan. You could come into my minivan and I will take you to whatever place can get healing. And I love the whole imagery of that story, because it's not all on the Samaritan to bring the healing, but to take those people and bring them to that. And I think love reminds us that we have a part to play. It is not all our responsibility, but in an awareness of love, in an awareness of a rejection of an illusion of separation, I am one with the man who is on the side of the road. I am also one with the man who ignored him and to be able to say Jesus said the good Samaritan, be him by what I have done and what I have left undone.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes. And so this truth to say this is how the world is healed, that we see the pain, we see the suffering. We don't walk across the street and ignore it, but we come with whatever gifts of anointing we have and then say I'll take you someplace that can, and the invitation is into wholeness. And I think that story in particular has a lot to do with sin and people's ideas about sin, because then people would justify the callousness and the horror of walking away from someone who needs your help, because people have explained the story to me this way it was a sin for them to touch a dead body and they didn't know if he was dead or not, so they couldn't. So even Jesus is confronting this idea in this story of the Good Samaritan. You think that you have a moral code that you are upholding, and yet you're missing your brother, you're missing yourself, beaten and left for dead on the side of the road, when you can bring healing. And so the invitation then yeah, is more.
Speaker 2:It seems easy for us to talk about that right now from a scriptural story and standpoint, because we can see ourselves as the Samaritan, but we can also see ourselves as the ones who walked away. And you know how many times have I personally walked away and maybe wished that I had gotten involved, and so involved. And so, moving from this definition of sin, is separateness to that. It is the essence of false, that, the essence of that which falls short of God's love. Then I'm reminded to look at every situation as where's God's love in that situation? Right, and what is what am I to do with that, Instead of saying, oh, that looks sinful, or I can't get involved in that, or you know, that's, that's somebody else's problem to deal with.
Speaker 2:And I wonder if this is how we've gotten here to this present age, is we've pushed it? You know, we've pushed it as far as we can push it. And now and now we have to face it. We have to face what is, what is my role, what is? How do I help bring this kind of love into the world and let it be a balm or let it be a salve for what I have done and what I have left undone?
Speaker 1:I love this, the story of the Samaritan and the wisdom that is in the story. And one of the practices that we can do toward expansionist is to not only find our place in the story with the hero, but to also find our place in the story with the victim. To find our place in the story with the hero, but to also find our place in the story with the victim to find our place in the story with the villain and look at the story through all of those measures.
Speaker 1:What does it look like for me to identify with the Levite and the priest? What does it also look like for me to identify with the Samaritan or with the man who is beat up and I love that in the story that he's removed, all of the things that are taken from him are all things that would be identifiers. The way that he was dressed would probably identify him with his ethnicity or his, you know, maybe he had a lot of money, or maybe he was a beggar. Like all of those things stripped away, his humanity is the only thing that we're dealing with. This place of connection is that this is a brother and the invitation into the story is for us to examine. Wouldn't we, in places of desperation, want to just be connected with or have mercy because we are human beings.
Speaker 1:And so the story calls us to engage the stories that we have used to form and shape our religious beliefs. They call us to a greater wisdom of seeing the oneness with each other and with God. And I love the story of the Good Samaritan for many reasons, many, many reasons, because I think there's such layered wisdom there. But I also see the church, and I still believe that there is value in spiritual community with radical love. I see the church maybe not denominations, but I see the church as this innkeeper's place where the people that are on the road outside that have offered their loving anointings, it says they took his own oil and poured it on the man for healing you, and I love the idea of anointing and that each person has anointing and that it should be this expression.
Speaker 1:But there was some place that he took this broken brother and said you can take the time that you need to heal and I will return to you, I will come again to this place and I will pay what needs to be paid and you will heal and I will be a part of it. And that, to me, is a beautiful illustration of what the church invites us to do, what a loving, beloved community can be, of what the church invites us to do, what a loving, beloved community can be. We can be the people who will attend to the near deathbed of someone's soul, of someone's heartache, of someone's relationship, and we can administer the gifts of healing that are given through the Holy Spirit, through wisdom and through the patient attendance and presence of time.
Speaker 1:And it's a promise of hope, I think, for the world that if we attend to the wisdom here, if we find the idea of goodness even in again, this was a hated person, the Samaritan. This was a person who was despised. The invitation is beyond all the labels. Love made us like itself. We are made in the image of love and if we allow ourselves to go past our prejudice and our bigotry, we can make divine connection, loving connection, with every single person. We can find places of mercy, we can be people of mercy, and I think that's where the healing of the world comes.
Speaker 2:And if someone's listening to this, I would add that if you can't find a church that's demonstrating that kind of love or that kind of expression or that kind of understanding about what's at the center of us, that love is at the center and only sees the sin, then I would encourage people to find a place outside of the church or a group or a community where this can be expanded and leaned into. Church isn't the only place that Jesus found himself.
Speaker 1:Agreed, and if you can't find? I read a book years ago, my daughter and I, by Doug Bursch, called the Community of God, and he said that if you do not find a church around you or that you can be a part of that, offers this thing that you're morally obligated to create a community that you would like to see, and so we don't get to just throw up our hands and say you know, I can't find a loving community.
Speaker 1:Build one. Then Open the table, set another seat and call in your neighbors, call in your friends. Jesus told us so many stories about that, you know, even when people said, tell us about God. And Jesus said God is like a woman, here we go.
Speaker 2:Here we go. Well, here's the point. Here's what we can do. Heather's favorite love story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I go from story to story on this, but God is like a woman who looks for this coin and when she finds it, she calls the neighbors. When she finds it, she celebrates To celebrate yes With someone. When she finds it, she has a party. And I think that these are the things that we need to remember about the God that Jesus showed us is like God is love and sin is an illusion of our separation from that love.
Speaker 1:And what Mary Magdalene offers us a way, a path, a a, an invitation into return, to love return to love you know, in your thoughts quickly return to love. In your actions, quickly return to love.
Speaker 2:Imagine if we did that all the time imagine, if we could um well, that's another podcast.
Speaker 1:We're out of time for today, but we've got more more podcasts coming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, I and that's what I say. It sounds simple, um, but I think the the path. Cynthia bourgeau says fifth way love, right, fifth way love is is what we're talking about here. It's not. It's not that you know, wow, just slap love label on it and all is good, um, but heck, that's a place to start, right. Put the love label on it and go deeper, like figure out how this gets expanded from separation to this complete, whole place of love.
Speaker 1:I want to read to us, if we're thinking about what is love and how we're connected, and allowing love to be the motivation of our lives. From 1 Corinthians, chapter 13. If I were to speak with the eloquence in earth's many languages and in the heavenly tongues of angels, and yet I did not express myself with love, my words would be reduced to the hollow sound of nothing more than a clanging cymbal. And if I were to have the gift of prophecy with a profound understanding of God's hidden secrets, and if I possessed unending supernatural knowledge, and if I had the greatest gift of faith that I could move mountains but have never learned to love, then I am nothing. And if I were to be so generous as to give away everything I own to feed the poor and to offer my body to be burned as a martyr, without the pure motive of love, I would gain nothing of value.
Speaker 1:Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one's achievements, nor inflate its own importance. Love does not traffic in shame or disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take an offense. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up. Love never stops loving. It extends beyond the gift of prophecy, which eventually fades away. It is more enduring than tongues which will one day fall silent.
Speaker 1:Love remains long after words of knowledge are forgotten. Our present knowledge and our prophecies are but partial. But when love's perfection arrives, the partial will fade away. When I was a child, I spoke about childish matter and I saw and reasoned like a child. But the day came when I matured and I set aside childish ways. Now we see but a faint reflection of riddles and mysteries as reflected in mirrors. But one day we will see face to face. My understanding is incomplete now, but one day I will stand everything, just as everything about me has been fully understood. And until then there are three things that remain faith, hope and love. And yet love wildly surpasses them all. So, above all else, let love be the prize for which you run. It was our joy to have you listen to our conversation today. If you would like further information or for more content, visit us at expansionisttheologycom.