The Light in Every Thing
Deeper conversation on the mysteries of Christianity with Patrick Kennedy and Jonah Evans, directors of the Seminary of The Christian Community in North America.
In this podcast we engage the great questions of life and do this through a spiritual approach to Christianity made possible through contemplative inquiry and the science of the spirit known as Anthroposophy.
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The Light in Every Thing
“Obedience, Listening, and the Freedom of Christ: Children and Parents in Ephesians 6” — episode 56 in the series, “The Letter to the Ephesians”
In this deep and lively conversation, Patrick and Jonah continue their journey through Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, entering chapter 6 — the passage addressing children, parents, and the challenge of obedience. Together they explore the profound tension and mystery in Paul’s words about submission, obedience, and how they can easily be misused or distorted into oppressive tools. At the same time, they consider how obedience can be transformed and transfigured through Christ into a liberating path of love, discernment, and freedom.
Drawing on personal experiences as fathers and priests, Patrick and Jonah reflect on moments of healthy authority, rightful correction, and also times when children (and all of us) must discern when voices are not “in the Lord.” The discussion expands into themes of generational inheritance, the role of parents in blessing the earth, and the deeper spiritual call to hear and follow the true voice of God — which may come through others but ultimately lives in the listening heart.
Themes Discussed
- Introduction to Ephesians 6: The closing exhortations before the “armor of God” passage.
- The continuity of the theme of submission and ordering oneself rightly — in families, communities, and before Christ.
- The radical equality in Paul’s new vision: children, wives, and bondservants are all addressed directly as fellow members of Christ’s body.
- The nuanced meaning of obedience “in the Lord” — not blind rule-following, but discerning and heeding true words of life.
- Parenting experiences: moments of both failure and grace in bringing up children in the “instruction of the Lord.”
- The danger of obedience distorted into tyranny and the church’s historical complicity in oppression.
- The role of listening (shema) in Jewish and Christian traditions — as deeply connected to the will and the path of freedom.
- Children (and all of us) learning to test the spirits and to recognize what is truly good and true.
- Reflections on generational burdens and blessings — breaking patterns to offer freedom to the next generation.
- The Prodigal Son as a lens for parenting adult children and trusting the Lord of destiny.
Key Scripture
- Ephesians 6:1-4 — Children, obey your parents in the Lord…
- John 8:12 — I am the light of the world…
- The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4) — Hear, O Israel…
- Luke 15: The Prodigal Son — referenced as a parable of trust and freedom.
Closing Thoughts
Patrick and Jonah close with wonder at the figure of Christ Jesus as the one who listens and obeys the Father perfectly — revealing true obedience as something rooted in love, freedom, and the pursuit of the good and true. This vision offers a path beyond oppressive systems into the joyful responsibility of becoming listeners and doers of the Word.
Next episode will continue into the more challenging and provocative passage regarding bondservants and masters, exploring the radical implications of Paul’s message for unjust systems and relationships.
The Light in Every Thing is a podcast of The Seminary of The Christian Community in North America. Learn more about the Seminary and its offerings at our website. This podcast is supported by our growing Patreon community. To learn more, go to www.patreon.com/ccseminary.
Thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed our theme music, “Seeking Together,” and the legacy of our original show-notes and patreon producer, Camilla Lake.
Good morning, Jonah.
Speaker 3:Good morning Patrick. Cheers, Cheers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no weather report. We're not doing it.
Speaker 3:We just resisted.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're not going to talk about how cold it is again here at the end of April.
Speaker 3:No, nor that we were hoping it would be sunny and warm.
Speaker 2:See, we're not doing it. No.
Speaker 3:We have our water. We have our water and we're ready to have a conversation.
Speaker 2:We are Welcome everyone to the Light in Everything.
Speaker 3:Where two priests speak about the mysteries of Christ. And we will begin, as we always do, with the Gospel of John in Chapter 8. Again, jesus spoke to them saying I am the light of the world.
Speaker 2:Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness. But yeah well, we are making our last few steps here into the letter to the ephesians. We've gone an incredible journey now, almost well, yeah, really all the way through chapter five now, which brings us to chapter six. That's only six chapters long, according to the chapter system that was developed sometime I think in the 1500s, 1600s, if I remember rightly way, way, way later. Originally there were no chapter headings or anything like that, but for having conversation and referring to things it's helpful to have these chapters and verses. So we began at the end, went to the middle and beginning, and then have made our way through the whole letter. And so we're back to chapter six and these are the passages that come, then, right before, the very famous armor of God passages, and it's finishing, and you can see that the chapters are a little poorly assigned because the theme is the same.
Speaker 2:It's still this theme of submitting and how to be within power differences in society, in your home, in the community. If I find myself in positions where I'm not the all-powerful one, where I have people above me, maybe in power in some fashion, in some form, how do I stand in that in a way that is aligned with the God I worship and love, the one I seek for consolation and salvation. How does he free me? How does he free me up? How does he grant me liberation in the middle of a situation where I don't feel outwardly free? How does that work?
Speaker 2:Who is this liberator? Who is this one that Paul, throughout the whole letter, is also trying to let everyone know? This is the most powerful one. He's above all other powers, authorities and spiritual beings. It's a big cosmic letter. He wants everyone to understand. You can trust, no matter that. There are dark powers in this world, mighty spirits of the air, great beings of darkness in our age. They are not more powerful than the one that I have come to talk to you about, that you gave your hearts to.
Speaker 3:Wow, yeah, I think it's even interesting in the context of the institution of marriage as a kind of power in and of itself. In a way, you could say, the roles that Paul describes of the husband and the wife are also ways of liberation within perhaps a seemingly, or even practiced in such a way, interpreted in such a way, that is an oppressive tool.
Speaker 2:Or at least factual power differentials, to use very abstract words, the fact that the male bodies generally have a greater musculature and power, that you have a physical power over someone, you are stronger. What do you do with that? How do you live with someone who has that power potentially to dominate or overpower, and he will move into further themes of other people to dominate or overpower, and he will move into further themes of other people within a set of relationships that are not equal. How do we stand in them?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good way to frame it. How do we live?
Speaker 2:in them. But he began, as we've talked about many times, in this chapter five. As he starts this again, I think it's a theme that pulses through the whole letter of how do we, how does what does it mean, to place myself, orient myself towards a being greater than myself, myself orient myself towards a being greater than myself? How do I come into a relationship to Christ and see in him the one who is greater than I but in whom my true I is present and with God at the throne? From chapter 2. Chapter 2. So my earthly eye can experience. I submit to you, christ, but you are not a foreign ruler, you are my true eye. It's in you and enthroned at the center of the universe. This is the mystery of Christian submission that I submit to a power greater than myself. That is my true self. And my true self is coming towards me in all that I'm going through in my life, in the transformational processes whereby I become who I really am.
Speaker 3:That's really important. I think that mystery that we can actually submit, there is a particular being in the cosmos that we can submit ourselves to that, through the surrender, actually feels like we're becoming more ourselves. Yeah, that's a unique. You wouldn't necessarily have that experience if, let's say, you were an employee at Google and you submitted yourself to the CEO.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:You wouldn't have the experience, necessarily, that that leader is carrying and bestowing onto me, in this surrender, a sense for my true being.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I would justifiably be concerned. Maybe I really feel not understood. Yeah, unfairly treated. Yeah. All of that could be accurate Totally. And Paul's like okay, can you break through that impression, can you? Break through that impression, which is also true to the impression that there is a wise and true spirit at work in all that is happening right now. Yikes.
Speaker 2:So, even though that person is in a lie and blind to who you are and misusing their power, a wiser power has placed you into the situation to go through, potentially, some of the deepest transformations available to humans, and that shift re-empowers us. That's part it. So we feel, oh, I'm submitting not to the ceo, I'm submitting to the power that has been involved in establishing this moment in destiny and I'm going to work to see what it means to submit to the Lord within this Well said, and that can mean a lot of things, and that's what's going to be interesting to talk about. Is it never standing up and only doing whatever the oppressor says? Is that what he's implying? So he's going to take it into these territories next, um, in chapter six, at the beginning of chapter six, where these, these topics really get pretty hot again.
Speaker 2:As usual, these are, these are hot topics. We, we've gone through the marriage journey a little bit. Obviously nothing's exhausted and we don't. We don't even pretend to think that that's the case, but it was for me a very holy process to try to go a road together into the depths of those themes. Now he's going to go to children in families, and then another household member and then another household member and that is bond servants or slaves. Quite often the translation will be slaves. And again this passage, like the passage where Paul says submit to your husbands that immediately rightfully triggers the feelings of how that's been abused and you could say the holy book of the church and the church herself is guilty.
Speaker 2:The church is guilty of using this holy book to excuse oppressive behavior. It's just a very dark sin for me as soon as we're using anything of God to justify our dishonoring and misuse and abuse of any being. It's the double nature of our sin. We've now sinned against ourselves and the person through the abuse, but now we're also dishonoring and abusing God, which is potentially ruining the relationship of God to this person, their person, sorry, this person's relationship to God.
Speaker 2:God because, now they think of God as the abuser. It's just some of the darkest, most evil work of the enemy of God, of the enemy of humans inside the church, with the Bible, scripture and so forth. I want to keep confessing the sin Jonah forth, so it's just.
Speaker 3:I want to keep confessing the sin, jonah, as people who are trying to be priests within a church, I want to keep confessing this sin yeah, because that beast is always crouching at our door and possibly you know we have to constantly watch that that we don't fall into these types of sins. Yeah, Amen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this comes to children. Now it'll be interesting to notice how the verb changes from submission, so the whole theme of placing myself, ordering myself, under something in honor of the other. Now it turns to obeying, which we should probably spend a little bit of time on, and I'd love to just start with the children piece. You're being a father. That was the first thing you talked about this morning when we arrived at the pod spot this morning. So verse 1 of chapter 6 in Paul's letter to the Ephesians reads Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise quote that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land, end quote. Verse four continues fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Yeah, what's talking to your heart this morning about this guidance? It's few lines. Maybe you could glaze over them. There's almost some classic language in here what is it really? Saying right right.
Speaker 2:How do you hear, though, what's being spoken?
Speaker 3:well, I, first and foremost I I think it's interesting that he addresses children as if they're reading this.
Speaker 2:I love that. Yeah, it's so clearly it also was Women, men and children, so the whole household, apparently, is reading this letter, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's kind of radical. I mean he's also going to speak directly to the bond servants.
Speaker 2:Who are also part of the house.
Speaker 3:Right Like it implies a kind of gesture of equality that I think is very interesting. I mean, if you were the master in the old mysteries, if you were the master of the house, master of the in the old mysteries, if you were the master of the house, you would never. You wouldn't, your religious texts and spiritual texts would never address everyone equally no, you wouldn't even be sharing your religious spiritual path with your servant? No, no, with your children probably not definitely also not your wives, you actually.
Speaker 3:That was a separate thing for the men, yeah but the very if there were communal festivals but like that kind of spiritual text, guidance for your life, that kind of thing right, no, so that's kind of striking just the quality of these new mysteries that's actually, even though it can be interpreted in various ways. But I think actually, if you follow Paul, it's actually a radical new equality in Christ.
Speaker 2:I totally agree. It's shocking, just right down into the culture of it. That's addressing everyone in the house.
Speaker 3:Yeah, every being has, in a way, equal status in the sight of God, even if your social status and your age status is different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which he established right in chapter 5. Like, as Christians, we submit to one another. So apparently everyone's in the room also, that household's sitting there in the room, the letter's being read and everyone is hearing. We all submit to one another. That means my master submits to me, right, like you can imagine all the thoughts at that. And then he goes back through the relationships that exist also.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 3:It's amazing, back through the relationships that exist, also Right.
Speaker 3:So, in a way, then, if we as adults, men and women, which we established, are to submit and surrender to the reality of Jesus Christ in his way and serve that, follow that, imitate that which we established, follow that, imitate that which we established, he's doing that same gesture with children and with bondservants.
Speaker 3:And so obeying if I let myself be struck by that word for children is a kind of well, it isn't a kind of, it is a way to imitate Christ. So Christ is the ultimate obeyer of the Father. Yes, he is the ultimate model of the human being that actually fulfills through a kind of I would call it divine obedience, meaning full surrender to the good word of God, allowing that to be its guiding light, and is actually able to accomplish it, whereas Moses and everyone else who had come before wanted to obey but weren't able to fully accomplish it Failed, failed, failed, failed. So Christ, jesus is the first to fully exemplify the full obedience to God. Yeah, and so, by saying to the children it's not just like follow the rules, obey your father, obey your mother. That's there too. But I think the bigger picture is this is a call to imitate christ obey your parents in the lord.
Speaker 2:There you go. That's the part he adds. It doesn't just say children, obey your parents. You see him again and again saying I don't, I I'm not here to simply maintain a social order. Yeah. I'm trying to teach us how to do the Christian order within a given one. That's it. How do we do the Christian kingdom, the Christ kingdom, the Easter kingdom, in the existing kingdom?
Speaker 3:Right, this is such a good point, so I love that that you pointed out that it's in the Lord, it's not just obey your father, so what that means to me, and I'm also interested in how you see that. For example.
Speaker 2:it's just not the case that everything I say Sorry, I could not laugh, even by the time he got to the end. You finish your sentence, sir. He knows exactly what I'm gonna say.
Speaker 3:It's just not the case, nor should it be, I think, the ideal for fathers that everything you say your kids follow like a soldier, like yes, sir, you know sometimes my kids they poke fun at me like I. I'll tell them to go clean the room. And Saskia especially she's my middle child she's like okay, yes, master, yes king, yes emperor. I'm like, oh, that sounds good. Say more Say more.
Speaker 3:But of course, if I had the expectation that everything I say should be obeyed, I think it would set me up for having a really difficult life. But what he's saying here is in the Lord, obey in the Lord. It's like well, what does that mean? So for me, that's kind of a deeper level of trying to imitate even imitate the parents, follow the parents, obey the parents. In a deeper way, like, for example, one of the things that I've talked about as being very valuable for life, one of the things I think I've also exemplified for my kids is, when things get difficult, can I look at my weaknesses with soberness and can I learn, grow from that, my weaknesses and the situation, and not fall into blame and hate for others.
Speaker 3:For example and I remember in my daughter Milena's eighth grade project, she had to take somebody that she admired or was kind of heroic in the world and study their biography and then she was asked by her teachers to develop something, a statement that was truly good, and she stood before the whole faculty and the whole school and each student stood before and stated their sense for what was truly courageous and good. And I remember witnessing her say the most courageous good thing is to stand before your weaknesses and be able to grow and learn through them. Be able to grow and learn through them Now. Not only was that a very moving experience for me as a father to see the beauty of that coming from her. I didn't instruct her to say these things yeah, yeah, she had gone through her own journey.
Speaker 3:She had gone through her own journey. She had gone through her own journey, but I would say she obeyed, in a way, the guidance that was coming through her parents. Yeah. My wife is also able to do that, yeah, so that's where I would go with this, obeying Not necessarily that they follow every directive.
Speaker 2:Right the directive relationship, yeah.
Speaker 3:But that they're finding a way to access what's truly Christ-like in the Lord through the parents.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful and it seems to unlock a little bit this word which, for me, I mean, you know, it's like a whole meme of our time, t-shirts and so forth. Obey, you know this, the kind of the darkest versions of um of power that seeks to rob you of your independent self and get you simply to just do whatever they want they, they want you to do. Right, this is like one of the themes, the modern themes, which is a really important theme, very, and it happens now in a very insidious way. It doesn't work necessarily that there's some kind of person saying go to work, or, you know, buy these products, or whatever, but there's a whole system at work to basically infiltrate your own decision making yeah so that you make those decisions and manipulate you and take you away from your true self.
Speaker 2:100 this is, these are things, and so a first kind of path, independence. Independence can very much be, you know. No, yeah, I'm not going to obey, right Like I'm trying to come to my own decision about what I do or don't do, and I don't want that to be a foreign self involved in me. So it's very interesting then to see if I take it the way you said it. Then she was listening. What she was doing was she was hearing, witnessing, drinking in a wisdom that was active in you guys, certainly also spoken of, but done and looked at and worked on together, so that that message, that wisdom, then arrived in her at a certain point and she could say this is good out of herself to the world. So this listening and that's that's where the greek word listen to your parents would be also a way you could translate it.
Speaker 2:But listen was heard also in the, in the hebrew tradition that has a very, very deep connection to your will. Hear, oh, israel, is the shema, the most common prayer from the book of Moses Hear, o Israel, the Lord, your God, is one, hear. And then come the Ten Commandments. This is the word from the Father to you who are the children, to you who are the children. So this father-child relationship is also a God and human relationship.
Speaker 3:I think that's a really good point too, because even in the Shema, hear O Israel and God. You could say giving the word to Israel, asking and knowing that they should listen and take it up, but at the same time, god knowing they will stray, they will stray, they will stray and that's not it's not fundamentally outside the destiny, but the destiny is to actually stray and be redeemed.
Speaker 3:So that's where I would go with also this next layer, which is, in a way, with teenagers now, in a way. Well, how can I have peace with the fact that my children are going to yeah, they're going to take up some of my wisdom, like I just described, or my wife's wisdom, but they're also going to stray and that's going to be actually, to a certain degree, helpful for their own becoming. It's important for the prodigal son to go on his journey and find his new self in the pigsty yeah.
Speaker 3:So I think, and I think, somewhere deep down the Father God knows that.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:And allows that. So I think that's a deeper aspect of even like the listening is listening to this journey that is actually deeply human, of finding your own deepest being.
Speaker 2:I think that's it. It's like, if the guidance comes to me and it feels like it's not me, it feels like it's coming at me from outside me, there's something healthy also in then rejecting that and seeking my own voice, my own motives. Voice, my own motives. And the path to take then is how can I find my true motives? Where are they? Well, I can notice, oh, there's desires rising inside me. Well, they're inside me. Maybe these are me. And then I can follow those desires and discover I'm not sure they have my best interest in mind, actually, either.
Speaker 3:Right, Like spending your money.
Speaker 2:These aren't actually me either, exactly Like spending your money. These aren't actually me either. Exactly, they're coming from something else that desires something that is ruinous to my person. Where is my true motive? How do I find that which I truly desire to do, or what is right or good? No matter what it turns out, as you investigate that journey, as you go on that path, it is always outside you and I can listen to every voice, but it's all voices and I'm the listener here, o Israel, I am the listener and I have the right I've been given the right in my constitution to choose to follow a voice, but it's like I'm an open ear to different voices.
Speaker 3:In your fundamental being.
Speaker 2:In my fundamental being, that's actually what our spirit is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's an open ear, it's an open ear To various beings.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that are speaking in us, that are speaking in us, and then I can try to get to know each being and figure out.
Speaker 2:Where is the good voice, where is the voice that seems to be not having an agenda, that's opposite of my true being, but actually is truly for me, but also truly for all beings, truly for truly reality? Where is the voice of reality, the ground of reality? And I can break through to that because the intelligence that permeates the universe also permeates my mind and my mind can touch into the intelligence that is at work in all things. The holy mind can touch my mind and I can start to have a relationship there and I might experience it in the gospel, in scripture. I hope so.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:You know what this feels like the mind Right.
Speaker 3:And we can also experience other minds overshadowing the scripture with certain types of interpretations. Yes. So that's also just such an interesting discerning in the spirit. That's what it's traditionally called.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have a great series on that in our archives.
Speaker 3:Which every listener, as you so beautifully described, every listening spirit, open ear, is actually called to learn and cultivate.
Speaker 2:So your children are listening? And what if they discern you're not saying a good word or a true word? How do you understand how to relate to such a moment when you feel your parent is not in the Lord themselves when they spoke? Because you know, let's just go back to verse 4. Then the guidance for the fathers do not provoke your children to anger. So there's yeah that's the first guidance, be interesting to look at, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the lord right not your discipline and instruction well, this is also is.
Speaker 3:So that's where my mind goes immediately, which is they have often sensed, you could say, a spirit that is unhelpful in my instruction, so to speak, so to speak.
Speaker 2:This also has to do, by the way, with our sacrament of marriage, where sometimes what's coming through my mouth to my wife is not of the Lord, for example, yes, and luckily it doesn't say she ever has to obey Right by the way, but you wouldn't want to submit to that necessarily.
Speaker 3:Yeah exactly Right. But children obey your parents in the Lord. You can also read that as when your parents are in the Lord, when the Lord is speaking through them, In the case that I described, where it's actually really good and courageous and strong and moral to stand before your weaknesses and have the courage to overcome them and learn from them. That would be a word, an instruction from the Lord, and I, as a father, would be in the Lord when I'm speaking that.
Speaker 3:But if I tell my child you have to become a doctor to be successful and if you don't become a doctor and get rich in that way and support me when I'm retired, you're not going to be a good child, I would consider that not in the Lord. I would consider that a different kind of spirit that has come into me, a tyrannical spirit that's projecting my lower desires upon this child. So that's kind of how I would yeah.
Speaker 3:And those lower forces, then my job as a parent is to try to not speak out of those lower forces, right, but use the belt of truth, like we talked about in the beginning to discern those things first before I speak and instruct.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I don't know about you, but I've so appreciated when my children speak up with their ability to see that I'm off, yeah, like if they'll point out this or that thing that I haven't considered. Yeah, that thing that I haven't considered, and I so appreciate that. And I actually, and I feel really encouraged about them growing up in the Lord when I see they aren't just blindly doing what I've asked. They want it to make sense, and by making sense I'm talking about the intelligence that permeates the universe. It should be the lawful truthfulness that is God in all things. And if they hear some kind of like that just feels like you trying to get us to respect you, oh, this is about your vanity as a father. Yes, you want to be obeyed. That's not a thing. No.
Speaker 2:I understand you want respect, but that's not an end goal of God. That Patrick gets respected, that's not necessarily Right. I want to raise them to be respectful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to raise them to be respectful, but I don't come up with things to twist them into respect. For me, like you will perform respect now, necessarily, but I might have to do disciplined things to teach them the path of respect. Yeah Right, this subtle thing, and so I just really have appreciated. I'm so interested to hear from you when they have stood up to me Amen, and said like wait a second, what about this? And this person didn't get that and I was like, oh my God, I didn't think of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what?
Speaker 2:Yeah, You're right, Because I want to show them. I also submit to the Lord because you've just said a truer word than I said and I'm not going to fall prey to my vanity right now and I'm going to be like that's a great point. I'm really glad you brought that up. Let me change my word to you so that it matches reality. And then they obey. They're like oh, this is lined up with the true.
Speaker 3:This is lined up with the Lord. It's good.
Speaker 2:Therefore, I will follow it. And they're not following me. They're following this instance of the good and the true spoken through the person in the role of their father, yes, amen.
Speaker 3:I love that distinction that we are in the Lord, in the sense of submitting ourselves to the truth. Yes, then it starts to flow in a proper way, where it's not just about my vanity. Amen. Yes. I remember a time and I also love it when I mean I love it is a little bit. I think it's extremely good. Right, there's a. It's a good sign. It's a good sign when my children also call me out. And yeah, I would say I think every parent knows children are pretty good at that.
Speaker 3:They're probably the best at that, but one time I, you know I one example is when, when Isla was littler and she was having trouble going to bed and I and I kind of she was laying on her stomach and I kind of spanked her, like I normally don't spank, but I I kind of spanked her in in kind of an outburst and she turned around to me and like looked me right in the face and said, daddy, you weren't seeing. And it was true. In that moment I wasn't actually interpreting what was happening right, because I was full of anger, and so that moment awoke me to the fact that I was not in the Lord, and that was very, very helpful. But another example would be just the other day one of my children body shamed her sister, so started really meanly talking about the body of one of her siblings and in a kind of and righteous anger, I came super hard down on them and brought them all together and said we will not be doing any of that in this house ever. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And there will be serious consequences if I hear any of that going on. Yeah, and because that was true and good and right, they really took that up. Yeah. And it wasn't just me trying to be a tyrant and be respected.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. They knew our father is going to actually stand up for us, exactly.
Speaker 3:And I said I don't want to hear it from any one of you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So that's another example of just having. It can also be intense and wrathful, so to speak.
Speaker 2:Oh for sure, Like in my household, if it begins to be disrespect to their mother, Right, it's like you better switch it up now. Yeah, Because that and they need and they want that and I can feel it. It's like they want to know that there's someone protecting and the honor of the mother. It's so interesting how like visceral that is, Because if that falls, the whole thing falls. Yeah, If that falls the whole thing falls. That's not happening, that's not happening. Again happening.
Speaker 2:You go out, you know, but in this house it's not happening and that that, um, there's these distinctions between meeting a good and true word with its fire of moral force and truth, and then coming in a different kind of fire that's maybe born of personal vanity yeah, or I don't like being, I'm reactive, yeah, and it's not really that moral force and to see that the children are listening for the word of God, the good, the true, and that we would want to see that actually growing up in them and even, as you said, wanting to see them maybe even not obeying on their journey to figure out. Well, what do I think? Because they're on a path to independence, they're going to be leaving the house, they're going to be making some choices that I would consider not so wise, that's right, very likely in the course of their life, and I can also submit to God in that as a parent Right, like you have also led us astray.
Speaker 2:Submit to God in that as a parent Like you have also led us astray You're trusting the prodigal son journey. Teach me how to be a true parent, like you have been for me.
Speaker 3:Right, I would say that sometimes in my experience of counseling parents who are struggling with their adult children.
Speaker 3:That's the most powerful prayer and medicine that I've come across. Usually is to pray in the light of the prodigal son mystery, where the father allows the child to go into this terrible situation, where the father allows the child to go into this terrible situation but somehow holds the faith and the hope that they're being carried by Christ as the Lord of destiny, yeah. And to call and ask and pray for strength in my faith that my child is being carried, even if they're addicted to whatever, even if they're in a dark spot, that the Lord hasn't abandoned them and that, no matter what happens, they're being held. Can I strengthen that faith in me? Oh Lord, strengthen that faith. That's a powerful prayer for parents. Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so interesting because I think that that kind of connects up to the promise of verse 3. So honor your father and mother, that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.
Speaker 3:What do you see there? I'm interested.
Speaker 2:Well, it just feels like this coming into a right relationship to generations Coming into a right relationship to generations to work on that relative to my parents and then me as a parent trying to work on it relative to my children, is in a lineage with the angels, archangels, archi, up to the father. These right relationships affect the cosmos and if I'm listening and honoring the father and mother, that also has a land quality. It affects this earth experience as well. It starts to flow out into all of our lives. So this harmony of relationship, not in the left to right, my equals and peers, but in the left to right, my equals and peers, but in the generational process, where there is such a differentiation of wisdom, power, strength and time on earth, right, there's all this differentiation and hierarchy through generational differences. Getting into right relationship there has to do with blessing for the land.
Speaker 3:There has to do with blessing for the land. I think that's really an interesting theme. It also awakens in me the theme of the sins of the fathers, yes, which I think is experienceable for anyone who looks closely at their family. For example, there's certain types of sins that my father's lineage carries, and I would say one of the things I admire most about my father is that he has seemed in his life to overcome a certain pattern that his father and his father had, and I think that's really affected me in the sense that I don't have to do that work, which I think is an interesting thing to look at in that light as parents, in relationship to your children. What are the patterns that are being carried through your lineages and what do you want to pass on, or can you overcome something that could affect your children on a deep and subtle way Not so subtle, but deep way? That's a very interesting thing to look at as a parent, in relationship to what you want to pass on to your children.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so powerful. I definitely had the experience that this generation that came before our generation bore a cross that we haven't had to bear and made many breakthroughs that just opened things up that we just haven't had to then work on. We've had other things. There's some things I think they haven't pulled off, of course that then are waiting for us to pick up, and that's just a powerful set of reflections. That's also true. I mean just as a generation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like, the baby boomer generation is one of the most remarkable generations in the history of mankind, for sure, like also what they've been through the developments that have occurred through their lifetime the the end of an old world. The traditionalism that they broke out of. Oh my goodness, amazing that we can even yeah, just change so many things.
Speaker 2:So many things To be able to make for your choices. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And build a way of being in families and social orders that feels true. Feels true and rather than just an enforced obey right this theme that we talked about. Right the shadow of obey, enslaving obey as a cultural energy to actually, how do I listen and willingly follow the Lord of destiny in my life, freely, holy, out of seeing the good and true nature of God, and that's what I'm obeying, because I'm also seeing what that obedience looks like in Christ. And it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 2:I do nothing except what the Father tells me to do. I say nothing except what the Father has revealed to me in Gospel of John.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, and that I think you know, as we come to an end in this hour, I think that's really worth just emphasizing that.
Speaker 3:How do I really find a healthy obedience, how really do I find a healthy capacity where I'm listening and following, not in the unhealthy way where I'm losing myself? It has to have a motivator, it has to have a right impulse to it, as opposed to just kind of protecting my reputation, trying to show an outer face, trying to follow the rules, trying to be good. But I think the way you put that, with such admiration, reverence and wonder for Christ Jesus, with such admiration, reverence and wonder for Christ Jesus, that's the direction that this motivation has to come from. I would say to be healthy, to find, and that's why I think that's the highest commandment, quote-unquote to love Jesus Christ, to actually find his being and his activity and his deed and his gospel as the most beautiful thing, that reveals the most good thing and the most true thing. If I can find that more and more and more out of my own listening ear and my own spirit, then I'm going to have a right motivation for following.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because it's out of love. It's out of freely chosen love for the beauty and goodness and truth of my Lord, beautifully said, and I think that's the only way to overcome, ultimately, these shadow forms of obedience and tyranny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we have to stay awake in these things, and that's all the more exciting for next time. Then I guess we'll get to this next portion of that and and maybe, look, maybe, we can use that as our guidance how do we see what obeying looks like in Christ in his own life, and what it means also to stand up and speak and and act in such a way that also doesn't just accept the untruth and evil at work in an oppressive system? Because we'll get to this line slaves obey your masters.
Speaker 3:Very radical, very exciting.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Jonah.
Speaker 1:Thank you, jonah, thank you, Patrick © B Emily Beynon you.