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
Masters, Servants, and the Hidden Revolution of Life in Christ
Christ's light seeks to shine in the most unexpected places—even in the complex, often uncomfortable power imbalances in human relationships. As Jonah and Patrick conclude their study of Ephesians, they explore how Paul's wisdom reaches its culmination in addressing “masters” and “bond-servants,” revealing a revolutionary approach to transforming unjust systems from within.
This conversation doesn't shy away from difficult truths. They acknowledge how these passages in the Bible have been misused throughout history to justify slavery and oppression—a painful example of how scripture itself can become weaponized by evil forces. Just as the devil quoted scripture to tempt Jesus in the wilderness, those seeking to maintain power have twisted these words to serve their ends.
Yet within these same verses lies an extraordinary subversion. Paul instructs servants to obey earthly masters, but then radically reframes their identity as "bondservants of Christ." The Greek word "doulos" represents not degradation but the highest calling—to be in service to God. This establishes a dignity no earthly circumstance can diminish. Meanwhile, masters are reminded they too serve the same Lord, creating a spiritual equality that undermines the very system of inequality they inhabit.
This "surrendered sabotage" mirrors transformative movements like the American Civil Rights movement, where dignity and nonviolent resistance revealed injustice without adopting the destructive methods of the oppressors. Like yeast working through dough, this approach changes systems from within by living according to a higher order while still working and living within the current one.
The episode concludes where the whole series began: with Paul's armor of God—spiritual weapons for this different kind of battle. Join us in discovering how Christ's light transforms the world, not through destruction, but by cultivating a new kingdom within it, one heart at a time.
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.
Speaker 3:Jonah. Good morning, patrick, is it spring?
Speaker 2:Yeah, update from Toronto, may 2025. Whatever you're listening to this, it's a beautiful spring morning.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it's so beautiful.
Speaker 2:It's amazing how, in your very cells, you can really feel the shift and change, how our bodies and souls participate in the year, and what the cosmos is doing with our earth I love it no small thing, and it's wonderful to have this also in the midst of an open course, yeah, where we're with a bunch of souls from all over the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And we're looking at the hidden garden.
Speaker 2:Have to recommend it. I have to say, if you love what we're doing here, that the light and everything would love to be on the ground and dip your toes into the life of the seminary. What we're up to? Check our calendar. Every year we have one open course at least where, for a week, guests and distance students, distance learning students, arrive and we just do a deep, big week together Learning, praying, sharing, crying, laughing the whole thing Full life together for a week. Yeah, the Hidden Garden. It's been a beautiful Easter theme.
Speaker 3:Wonderful yeah.
Speaker 2:So welcome, though, to this little digital space that we have in our corner of the interwebs that we call the light in everything.
Speaker 3:Where two humans speak about Christ in the best way they can.
Speaker 2:We start our conversations with a word from the Gospel of John in the 8th chapter, verse 12. From the Gospel of John in the 8th chapter, verse 12. Again, jesus spoke to them saying I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.
Speaker 3:but will have the light of life. Yeah, I'm struck again by that gospel. In a way, what we've been talking about has everything to do with following this light. So the master stroke and we're coming to the end of our Ephesians study, which is really exciting and amazing but the master stroke that we're contemplating here with Paul the apostle. The apostle is that he knows this Christ light so well, he knows its dynamics and its laws so well that he's able to now look into normal life and start to see how the structure of this light should, or even is perhaps should be revealed in normal everyday life. So the relationship that the Church has to Christ, that the Ecclesia has to Christ, the relationship of the spirit to imitating, following, becoming a son of light by worshiping this light, this Paul knows so well that now he finds it reflected in the marriage we talked about the marriage. We talked about the marriage. It's reflected in every soul, in the sense that we're all called to submit and find and know and walk with this light and worship this light and become the light that we worship. And it's also, then, it's not only in the relationship of man and woman Wives submit in this way that every human is actually called to submit Husbands. Give yourself like Christ gave, sacrifice yourself for your wife, for your wife. So he's seeing the archetypal patterns and realities of how we are to relate with Christ and ordering normal life in that dynamic.
Speaker 3:And then last time we talked about parents and children. That also children are to have a similar relationship to their parents, like the church has to Christ, the church has to Christ. Children are also called to try to find and be in relationship with this light in the Lord. And I think what I remember from last time we made this beautiful. I think that's what we did. We made this distinction between merely obeying. Sometimes as parents we just want our kids to do what we say and that can be a very shadow-filled error in our parenting where we become like tyrants just do what I say, even if it comes from the lower parts of our selfish nature. But the scripture is very clear. Paul is very clear here. He says children, obey your parents in the lord.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah I thought that was a key it was so, yeah, it was so good and this, um, both of us having had the experience that our children have been able to call us out and point out how we were not in, we ourselves, as parents, were off and called us back to it and actually helped us be giving them a word that was from the lord and rather than just a fallen parenthood that was really powerful, that's right, helping us be who we are meant to be so many times.
Speaker 3:Right, which I've also received help from my wife, for example. Oh yeah, you know. So this in the Lord, it's like children try to hear the Lord and obey the Lord through your parents, which is also, then, a challenge for the parents to recognize. When I'm speaking out of my lower nature, I just want something, because I want it Because I want you to respect me.
Speaker 2:I want to be honored, yeah, and so I'm going to use all my tools to get that, rather than help this person grow into their own rightful self.
Speaker 3:Is it really true?
Speaker 2:yeah, so that can we stop there for a second, just because I know a lot of people in the here, how do I know it's a word from the lord. Well, you just said one key guidance. Is it true? He is truth, yeah, it's His truth. Yeah, and a person, but his personhood is completely permeated by trueness and love, and love and beauty and life, right, his character and light. So these qualities, as we get to know him, he is always helping us see, like don't just think Jesus in the earthly human sense, but think that which emanates from my being and is my being Truth, for example, and untrue not truly deeply like like your story of you know you've told before some where your of myself.
Speaker 3:That could rationalize my own lower desires into correctness. Yeah, if I can put it that way. That's why I think it was also helpful when we brought in the belt of truth again. From chapter six coming up coming up, right Coming up, because part of Christ as the being of truth, as you said, is this quality where I can separate the upper from the lower as a belt. Yeah, I can start to know. Wait a minute, that's my.
Speaker 2:Where's that coming from? Where's that?
Speaker 3:coming from. So, yeah, obey your parents in the Lord and parents, don't aggravate your kids, Don't just poke at them for poking's sake, so to speak. So again, also serve like Christ serves the church. Again and again, this divine pattern. But now today, perhaps even our last episode, we'll have to see we're going to move to one more life category. Of course that may not be so much in our lives today, but I'm wondering if it doesn't have some applications as well where we're going to talk about masters and servants. That's the last little section, last section. So maybe I'll just read that.
Speaker 3:Patrick, let's do that In the light of this. Okay, paul's remembered. He's trying to put everything in the archetype of Christ and his church, of submitting and following and imitating and becoming in the likeness and also what Christ does for his church. So here is Paul in chapter 6, starting with verse 5. Starting with verse 5. Bond servants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye service, as people pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart, from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. Masters, do the same to them and stop your threatening. So I think this is very powerful. So partiality with God.
Speaker 2:So I think this is very powerful and I'm going to resist diving into it because I want to ask you these are the sacrificial gestures of the foundation of our conversation, right? I think people remark on the conversations being moved by, but part of it is like. Both of us, of course, are so inspired by Christ's Spirit at work and the Word, and it stirs us immediately to speak, but then to say no, you say something.
Speaker 3:No, you say something. So it just immediately feels. To me this has much more to do with just more than just servants and masters. It has to do with some archetypal qualities of every human being.
Speaker 1:And a relationship with.
Speaker 3:Christ and a relationship with Christ, of course, and I want to ask you so lead us into this, because this is also filled with all kinds of connotations that are massively hot in our time Slaves, servants, masters, yikes. Patrick, how would you lead us into this mystery here?
Speaker 2:Well, we do it like I are called to do it every time. Let's start with works of repentance. Listen, our movement for religious renewal is called to be a renewed body for Christ's working in the church mystery, the ecclesia mystery, and one of the illusions that that can have in its character is that we would, well, we'll be the good guys, and all the other churches then who've tempted to be the body are the bad guys. We're doing it right. It's the classic gesture of a new movement. Everywhere, and inside it, you could say, is the great, the great sin inside Christianity. Over and over and over again, they are the sinners. We are the pure ones, righteous ones, and the unrighteous are over there. All of that gesture is not true to what the Lord tried to institute. It's just so. It's like a. It feels to me like an original sin of the church.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and if I can just say something, because it's so interesting to me, that not only is that an original sin of the church, it's a carryover from what we would call the old mysteries Pre-Christian, pre-christian mysteries when sin, if it was found, had to be cast out, had to be condemned More or less, and the path of holiness was separation from sin and those sinners.
Speaker 3:And those sinners. So you had exclusive groups that were actually appropriate for a certain time. You could not be associated, and that's where all these divisions come from, essentially, and now we're just at the very beginning. 2,000 years is a half a breath of God Amen Two days. And we're just at the beginning of a totally new spiritual dynamic, because Christ has joined with every human and we see it.
Speaker 2:That's right. So you cannot read the gospel and come away with the idea he was excluding the sinners.
Speaker 3:It's impossible, Well, just it's impossible, Well so the but yet it's done, and yet it's done. Right and so. But I would say what you're saying is absolutely true. If you can truly read the gospel with the eyes of the spirit, then it starts. But if you come with the old mystery lenses, that's how it's read. So, for example, paul, his letter to the Romans, which is his masterwork, is always read as a condemnation of a whole swath of people. Yeah Well, but this is it, and yet he's not saying that in reality, it's actually unification. So it's just it's just to highlight exactly what you're saying that the true gospel is all about something that unites humanity, everyone, and what we're so used to is here's the special people, and all the other people are bad and wrong and going to hell.
Speaker 2:And that itself. It's not just wrong. Yeah, it has caused uncountable harm.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The people I know in my life and that's a few, and I know people who know, people who know right it's like they have felt the true hand of the enemy of the human soul wielding these things upon them. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And have not yet recovered. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, there is an expression of having the Bible thrown at you. It can be used to harm. We all know it, and so it just feels like the church has been a vehicle for the enemy of the human spirit, and this is another one, and I just want to. I feel like I want to go back to something we've talked about in the past. Again, this is the. The amazing thing is, if you read scripture in its entirety, all of the medicine for the false ways it gets used is in there.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's amazing, and one of them is the temptation of Christ in the desert. Christ is approached by the enemy of humanity, who finds a doorway in Jesus' hunger. As he's 40 days of fasting in the desert and desire rises strongly, that the need and longing rises, the enemy goes ah, I can work with that. And he appears and tries to get him to use his God powers while embodied in an earthly human being. Change these stones into bread and Jesus uses scripture to ward off the word of the enemy. So scripture comes to Jesus' aid. The next move by the devil is to use scripture himself.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The next move. This strengthens your point. This is in Matthew's version of the temptation in chapter 4. Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him if you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written he will command his angels concerning you. So the devil knows scripture and uses it to his ends.
Speaker 3:I think that is very important as a knowledge of how evil works. It takes up goodness and twists it and uses it as a weapon. And that's really important to recognize. It's also true for the church, not just scripture. Right, that's right. If you were the devil and you wanted to really mess with people, wouldn't your number one thing be to go to where the goodness is and try to twist it?
Speaker 2:So this is it so here it's like like, oh, we retreat from the world because we see there's something evil at work in the world. Is there a safe place that is protected from the devil so I can retreat to the church? It feels like it's good there and like, oh, guess what? The devil's in the church too. Yeah, or I can. Then there's a group of people go well, yeah, the devil's obviously in the church. I mean, you know. And then the protestants. And they look, he's in, active in rome, he's sitting on the seat. I mean, that was, that was the protestants. Like you know, the antichrist is the pope. That's how they felt. Yeah. And so there's like well, what's true and good and what's protected from the devil is scripture. Yeah, they exactly. And how?
Speaker 2:many people do, you and I know who feel that actually the bible is evil. All right, exactly. And it's just amazing. It's like listen y'all? Ain't no person, institution or book that the devil can't use. Yeah, the devil gets dressed in whatever he wants to get dressed on. If he can find the doorway in, if he can slip in, he can be wearing scripture as a suit, know every word of it, be super reasonable and convince you To turn on your brothers and sisters To oppress them To your advantage. And that's what was done with this text.
Speaker 2:The institution of slavery was biblically backed up by these words. These words were used to justify slavery and used to keep the slaves from rebelling. Part of how Christianity was given to the slaves was the hope that they would stay docile and not rebel. Because this is part of what Paul is doing, right. He's like. I'm living in a world in which there are slaves and bond servants, and Christianity is here not to destroy a social order, but to establish a new one. 100% Christianity is there. We have a new one, right. 100% Christianity is there. We have a new Lord. It's not Caesar, right, but we don't go kill Caesar.
Speaker 3:Right, so it could be misunderstood establish a new one, like get rid of the old one, yep, so this is this interesting mystery, right? So this is this interesting mystery, right, that there's an old order and this new order is being established inside it, kind of like a Trojan horse entering Troy that's hidden but has different laws, but doesn't have to destroy the old picture, can find its way to grow inside the existing, and that's why I think the Trojan horse is not appropriate, although what's right in it is something enters a world which will change that world, right, but they use the same laws.
Speaker 2:But the Trojan horse is a lie, a deception. Here's a gift, good point, and inside this gift is something that's going to destroy you. This is totally not that Right. He's really saying submit, obey, and the key is how, how, what is the secret? How? And I think one of the pictures is the yeast in the dough. Right, this is actually for the bread. Yeah, this is, this is actually going to enhance your life, right?
Speaker 3:it's not going to use the and it's not going to use the same I mean the trojan warriors that the greek warriors were using the same laws of power to overthrow same laws it's also. It's also a deception tactic yeah, it's not a perfect analogy in any way, I know, I know, but it does have this infiltration. It's, it's something other coming in, yes, and trying to grow from inside out inside.
Speaker 2:The yeast is a good picture, yeah. From inside out, so it actually always honors, always respects, always lifts, always has a quality of truth and love and sacrifice. That's its nature, and so it cannot enter and seek to destroy. And so let's just take a moment and look at Jesus' life. Here comes the Lord of the universe to live as a human being, the expected, anointed Messiah, to restore the people. You can wonder, why is he even crucified? This dude's going around, he's healing people, he's teaching love and forgiveness.
Speaker 1:What's so threatening?
Speaker 2:But it's clear that the order in which he lives is threatened by him.
Speaker 2:It's amazing, right? It's like there is something utterly threatening by this one who is drawing the people and inspiring them and he's never and he's saying put away the sword and he submits to their power, and he submits to their power. We watch him preach, teach and perform the new order All the way to the very end, in the sense that when his own life is threatened and his own authority is threatened and when he is disrespected, he responds in a new way, he bears it in a different way and what he does is he reveals the dark heart of the old order, that his, his suffering and death, his, his abuse at the hands of those in power is the highest weapon because it shows their character. It unveils the darkness in the heart of the order. That is why it's such a corollary to what happened in the civil rights movement. What was so powerful about the civil rights movement is the dignity, the uprightness, the honoring, the singing, as they spoke truth to this oppressive system, and that system didn't sit down to have a conversation.
Speaker 2:What's going on? What's the issue?
Speaker 2:It turned on fire hoses, put dogs on them, beat them lynched them, revealed the dark heart, revealed the dark heart and those images of the people who put their lives on the line to reveal, to go into the heart of that oppressive system and say this is no longer honoring us in a way that we can just bear.
Speaker 2:They were truthful but never destructive. It showed, then, the world we cannot turn our eyes away from the evil of this system, and people within the system changed it. People within the system changed it, and that's also what happened to slavery All these people who were trying to justify slavery with the Bible, because the world and the West Western Europeans in America and England so were convinced of the goodness of the Bible and of Christianity. They could no longer be honest Christians and support a system that robbed people of their dignity by forcing them into slavery, them into slavery and that. So this from the inside out is what took place. So I think this is what's going a work here and I think there are more layers and I'm really excited to look at that with you, but maybe that I'll stop there just for a second and see how that landed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's a really good entryway and also I'm just so grateful that you're able to name the sins of the past and build upon a kind of repentance gesture, that we're not trying to sweep under the rug any kind of atrocity and mask that this can't be totally abused. That I really appreciate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't think you can read this and not see he's all simultaneously said honor the given circumstance. And this is how you. I want to give you instruction to live inside it. Yeah, and completely undermine it at the same time. Right, he completely under by the time we get to the end of these words, if it's again the same thing that happened in the marriage. Right, it's like so.
Speaker 2:If you imagine in the room, apparently our children, women and men and bond servants, they're all hearing this letter because they're all one in christ. There there is no differentiation made. This letter is being read out that can feel threatening to the given order. And so if you're in there and I'm a master and I'm sitting in here praying to God and my bond servants over on the other side of the room, and Paul, the great teacher of this new thing, says bond servants, obey your earthly masters. Teacher of this new thing says bond servants, obey your earthly masters. Ah, now I'm the, I'm the earthly master and I'm relieved. Thanks, paul, really appreciate it. Put them in order. They're gonna listen to me, thank you, obey your earthly masters. With fear and trembling. Yeah, good, like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, with a sincere heart as you would. Christ, ooh, like that. That's okay. Make me Christ. I'm the Lord in this situation, yeah, and this beautiful, of course. Make it authentic, not by way of eye service, as people pleasers, but as wait, what Bond servants of Christ? Wait, who are they? Wait?
Speaker 2:Doulos is the Greek word of Christ and if you track that word in all of the Gospels and letters, this is the word for a disciple and an apostle. They're all doulos and the highest people of the Old Testament, joshua and Moses, for example, were called doulos in the Greek Septuagint or the Hebrew equivalent. The highest thing you could be would be a slave in the household of God. So we have to understand that in the Christian terminology that was the shaping language for the church. I rise from my current state in this world. I hope to rise to become a doulos.
Speaker 2:It is my hope and prayer to enter the household of the Lord and do whatever he asks me to do, to be his doulos. That's like we could do weeks just on the word doulos passages in the New Testament, gospels and letters. It's a very, very high term. And here he's saying you are not really the bonds servant of your earthly master. Think of yourself as a bond servant of christ. That's your actual identity, right, that's your actual. You don't serve your earthly master, you serve christ. So all of your life should be an expression of that.
Speaker 3:So it's very interesting because from one perspective, you're serving the old system, you're surrendering to the old system, but from another perspective, you're sabotaging the old system because you're actually serving God. That's it. So it's kind of like a surrendered sabotage. Yes, in terms of how we're, it's almost like what Daniel was doing in his relationship to the, to the. Oh, in Babylon, then the prophet Daniel yeah, so it's like I've got to be in this system, but my true heart is directed toward God, which is Three times a day Different.
Speaker 2:I bow and pray Right.
Speaker 3:So the trick would then come about. If your master is doing something that is actually not godly, how do you work with that? Yes, Maybe that's a big question. Well, we should maybe have the risk to go into it, but I just feel like he completes the picture right.
Speaker 2:So first, again, it's just like the children. So he says okay, obey your parents. Parents are all. Breathe a sigh of relief. He says obey your masters, bond servants. Masters breathe a sigh of relief. He says obey your master's bond servants. Masters breathe a sigh of relief. But then he says because your way of life is actually not in service to them, but in service to the Lord. He is your master, yeah, and that means your life should be an expression of that life with him. Yeah, oh, so now I'm the master. I'm listening. Oh, wait, he's actually submitted to another. Hmm, how do I feel about that? Right? And then he keeps going. So he talks about rendering service with the goodwill as to the Lord and not to man.
Speaker 3:Once again, Right, he's distinguishing.
Speaker 2:I'm a humble servant of God and you happen to be my earthly. That happens to be my destiny. Knowing that whatever good anyone does and yo check this one out Knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord. In case you're wondering about questions of karma in the New Testament. That's as clear as it gets. Also, the good.
Speaker 3:Also the good, the good Right, and it implies also the not good.
Speaker 2:Yes, you are doing all things in the eyes of your higher Lord. Yeah, that's your master. Orient everything in that way, and all whatever victories you have of overcoming yourself in love for another, be that your boss or, in this case, owner, that is something you're working out with God, not with him.
Speaker 3:So I have a question, it seems to me, but I wonder what you think. Do you think if, for example, I endure some injustice and keep without retaliation and vengeance, and about retaliation and vengeance, and forgive and surrender and compassionately bear that that that would be a good?
Speaker 2:Yes that I would receive the victories. I'm afraid, dear friends, are not about this world, Exactly Not in the sense of like some other world, but in the sense of the hidden moral universe inside our outer world. We will never be satisfied if we get to the outcomes of outer freedom alone. Never All right and good to do so. But everyone knows you can be free in jail and in prison outside.
Speaker 3:As free men. Yeah, everyone knows it.
Speaker 2:Everyone who has touched the spirit knows it. Let's just say that, yeah, you can be in your life and do whatever you want, have all the money in the world and feel like you're in utter prison and you can be in isolation cells and feel free.
Speaker 2:Yeah, these things arrest on something other than your outer circumstances amen that's just facts, at least from this perspective of the spirit and christ. It doesn't make throwing someone into the isolation cell, right. No, that's another thing and that's what he does next and that's I feel like in order to finish this conversation. We have to talk about the masters. He does then turn right. The masters are like great good instruction, yeah yeah, I can do the lord.
Speaker 1:That's great. Keep talking, follow my will buddy.
Speaker 2:And then he goes masters, now, like what, you got something to say to me. What are you gonna say? Do the same, what to them? Wait, whoa, what do you mean? What do you mean? Do the same, do the same. Same. Orient myself to my bondservant as if I'm submitting to Christ, as if every single word I say, feeling I cultivate, deed I do, is before his eyes and to him and under his guidance.
Speaker 3:Yeah, how do I have to then treat my servant?
Speaker 2:lord, have mercy, who you know? The pressure on this person? Stop you're threatening? Oh, he does. He doesn't even say stop doing something to the bond servants, but to the masters he says stop your threatening, trying to control them through violence. Stop your threatening, knowing that he, who is both their master and yours, is in the super sensible realm in heaven and that there is no partiality with him. He's the same judge and same Lord. You're both doulos. That's what he's just said. He's just said the master is a bond servant. You have a master. So he did the exact same thing. You're in this unequal relationship Before him, you are equals.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You're both servants Unbelievable. This is the thing.
Speaker 2:It's like you're in the old order and what you two are to do now in this old order is to live the new one.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And become servants of God.
Speaker 2:I just find this. So, after doing that, can we go back to your question then of?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I mean, let me. So something came to my heart and mind and let me say it, and then you respond too, like how does this look then, maybe in life? Something came to my mind this movie I saw I think it's also a book Hacksaw Ridge, and it's about a soldier fighting Japan, american soldier fighting Japan in World War II, world War II.
Speaker 2:No. Japan would be too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, world War II. And it was this famous place, hacksaw Ridge, I guess, where hundreds thousands of people died, and it's like this cliff that you have to climb and then go out, and it's super dangerous. But this soldier decides even in training camp I'm not going to use a gun. It's a super powerful film. It's so powerful and apparently this is a true story and he decides I want to be a soldier, so I want to submit to the order. I'm going to live in this order the laws of this order.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a military man.
Speaker 3:But I'm going to follow in that. I'm going to follow a different law and serve a different master, which is nonviolence essentially. And he was so persecuted, even in training camp, for not wanting to, and the sergeants were just belittling him, beating him, and he never gave in, and so he turned into a kind of almost like a medic, but his role was to go out and save.
Speaker 2:Recover the wounded.
Speaker 3:Recover the wounded.
Speaker 2:Go get them.
Speaker 3:And so it's a very moving story. But he ends up going and saving on this one night something like a hundred soldiers. And it was so moving because in the story there's an actual story of it. One of my confirmants told the story as he is wiping the blood from a face of one of these wounded soldiers. He sees his Lord, he sees in the soldiers he's saving the living Christ and never dies but ends up inspiring so many humans to the good. To the good.
Speaker 2:Where they had a hope that there is, even in this death zone, that God is with us, and even in this system where everybody was trying to pressure and break him to become a servant of the old order.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And he stays in the order but serves his new order. It's a good example. Bearing it with God. Yeah, that's what I mean. It's like.
Speaker 2:What pierced me, I think, growing up with my learning about the civil rights movement, was this one word from Martin Luther King Jr. He said this is about black people's bodies, so freeing them up to honor, give them the dignity they are worth as humans, and wipe people's souls Like the old order is ruling inside their souls and that's a soul poison. There's more at stake almost Beautiful, Because they're actually buying what the devil is selling. Actually buying what the devil is selling, which is this the benefits and privileges that you're enjoying is at the expense of the denigration of other human beings. And to to be cured of that, that, that that would take truly Cause. Again, it's like.
Speaker 2:It's just like when you have the older brother and you try to like well, I'm going to, I'm just my brother. I have a good example, he's, he's coming this week. I could pull him out here. I remember just growing up and he was four years older than me. He would just get bored and he just want to like, wrestle it, screw. You know. Yeah, I'd be like reading or whatever, sitting on the couch and just come loose.
Speaker 3:Smack Flicking my ear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm like just try to ignore, like flick, flick, and then I break, yeah, and I shove him.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And what that gives him justification to do. Yeah Is actually beat me up. Yeah, because he's just he, he. This is the thing is really.
Speaker 3:I just I'm picturing because I know, I know and love you both he's like okay we play it now.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm like I get up and I gotta run for my life, you know um, and we can laugh at that because that circumstance is lower stakes.
Speaker 2:But this is the thing is if a slave rebellion always leads to massacre it just draws out the guns of the greater power, and the secret power of the nonviolent movement was just like it was in a single person's life to reveal the dark heart of a thing and be so inspired to a transformation from the inside out. This is the weapon, and this is so beautiful. So what is the next line is the beginning of the armor of God. We are in a war and there are evil powers who want to hold the old order, and I'm going to equip you with a weaponry that will actually change the circumstance.
Speaker 3:Amen. So this is a weaponry that doesn't follow the laws of the old war, can't, but is still acknowledging there's a war. And here's the new dynamic, the new weapons, the new goal, and it's all under the greatest weapon of the cross. Yes, this surrender in and through death and be raised by something greater than you.
Speaker 2:And so what's the first key for these soldiers? Your dignity comes from your relationship with me, because I have given my life for you and no one can rob you of this, no one. I crown you with the highest crown available in the universe my love, and that person whose experience that is is do whatever you want to me, you cannot ever rob me of what the Lord has given me. You can't. You are powerless. He has won and that's powerful and I need to be oriented to that. And whenever it comes at me where someone is trying to again rob me of my dignity, I have to orient towards him and that crown and feel that dignity. And when that's scary to people because then they see, oh shoot, I have to pull every trick in the book to force you to grovel to me. That's what the devil wants. Is I want you to bow to me and to say no, I bow to one and I will honor you because that's how I love him.
Speaker 2:I'm going to respect you, because that's what he wants from me. I'm going to do what you asked, because doing that is fulfilling my destiny, which he has asked me to do. My dignity does not come from you, though my life does not come from you. You have no actual power over me I willingly submit to my life. It is a world changing power. It is the source of true freedom, and then he will turn. If there are any of you who find yourselves as masters, let's get it straight you are servants.
Speaker 2:Right Makes total sense and you are to live your role, exactly the same way, the same Beautiful.
Speaker 3:Very powerful, reminds me of our gospel this week. I have the authority to lay down my life and to receive my life again. This is what I do to serve the Father. This is actually my mission. This is why the Father loves me, why the Father loves me because I have this type of dignity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he uses that word authority, authority. I'm going to get killed. It'll look like I've lost all my dignity in this.
Speaker 3:Let me just make it real clear and I think that's just that capacity, and that he's bestowed that on us as his imagers, as his doulos, as his servants that that is how God loves us. That's pretty amazing, yeah, amen.
Speaker 2:Amen. And you see, if you look at the world and the earth and the rivers and the animals in which the Father's being is expressed, how he has poured himself out and bears, how we use this earth, the way the earth bears our choices, submits also to the destiny of the humans in this old order. You can see that gesture is there as well, such a powerful way. Yeah, and so then the? The rightful story, I think, is it the burden falls on the masters to change the system. That will grow naturally out of their hearts if they are to be true christians and true to their man, though eventually it's going to happen where they're going to turn and go.
Speaker 2:You know what this isn't right. How can I do this to one who is equal before my Lord? The system itself isn't Christ-filled, but it's not an order of Christ to end it or change it, of Christ to end it or change it. But to those who bear the destiny to have the levers of power on the system, it falls to them to change it to mirror him more, just like it falls to me to change myself to be a better image of God. If I have the capacity to change the system, then following that's what that would mean. Yeah, it's a logical consequence, but Paul doesn't have to say that per se because, as we can see, that's not, that it's not. It's not the secret. The secret isn't changing the order per se, but being a servant of Christ within your position.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it indirectly starts to change the order.
Speaker 2:I will no longer be able to sleep at night.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I won't be able to be true before, because everything I do I have to see it through his eyes and stand before him. And so it's a result of Christians who had the courage in the master class. Had that not happened, every slave rebellion would have continued to be murderously destroyed. There had to also be Christians in the master class who say I cannot be true to my God and continue to support this system and risk their reputation, risk their treasure to start to change it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean there's another aspect there too, as if I mean it's very important that we also have that eye as masters In a way. We have that role in our movement as leaders, in our movement as leaders, and we're called in a way, to do what we can to.
Speaker 2:Is there something off here? Yeah, always have that eye. Is this truly a picture of him?
Speaker 3:Yeah, are we leading in a way, that is, of the laws of this new kingdom? Yeah, but I think also the the full, the full change, so to speak, of the old world. That's all. There's also so many pictures that show that's also what God will do in the right time. Yeah, that he is the one that comes in and takes out the, the weeds.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:And it's actually not our job to fully change the system but to always do whatever we can to that actually vengeance is God's in the end, that actually vengeance is God's in the end.
Speaker 2:So do you equate the vengeance and the pulling of the weeds to these systemic questions?
Speaker 3:Is that what you're saying? Well, ultimately, the system, even if we go back to the temptations, the system is run by the adversary Meaning at the root. The system is not merely man-made. The old world, so to speak. So we can do our part, but there's a root of it that only God can redeem.
Speaker 2:That's so interesting. That's how it feels like an interesting question for us, Because my experience is it's like the world that is there at the end is a city, and it seems to be that the polis, this new order, is God, through us, so that it falls from the inside out a new order generating also into the system's levels, into the social order, social ordering.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, that's so interesting.
Speaker 3:That seems very much to me to be a cooperation, right, yeah, the city also is only man-made, because it's all substances from God, right? Yes, so it's a cooperation to build the new. Yeah, absolutely so. It's a cooperation to build the new, absolutely.
Speaker 3:But I think, it's a question then, like, for example, in the pictures where the beast and death and the adversary are thrown into the pit, and it's an interesting question what our role in that is, if we also participate with God. Certainly, god is throwing them into the pit, yeah, but do we? That's an interesting question. Do we also co-participate with that? Perhaps, but there's also a temptation there that is very strong, that it's our job to fix the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's, I think, the temptation that I'm speaking to, to watch out for that. We have to fix everything and that can lead to all kinds of arrogances and puffed-up-nesses, but that, ultimately, we have to be on the lookout for it and do whatever we can always, but there is this call to endure through and focus on the co-building of this new world with God should be our focus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exciting, yeah. Well, that was at least an attempt to try to get at it. I think this is not, of course, contemplated and worked through to the end, but I think this fundamental orientation of you all we all find ourselves in a given order, yeah, and this whole letter seems to be, seems to be orienting us towards the victorious order, the new order that we fulfill, not by throwing out and dismantling right away, in any direct way, an old order, but from the inside out, showing through who we are and how we bear our life circumstances, that we are ordering ourselves under one who is truth and love.
Speaker 3:Amen. Should we finish with a word?
Speaker 2:from Paul. Yes, to do this, to bear this, to carry this. He gives us these pictures of the armor.
Speaker 3:Maybe I'll just read it.
Speaker 2:That'd be awesome, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of darkness, against the whole armor of God. That you may be able to withstand in the evil day. And having done all to stand firm, for having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit with all prayer and supplication.
Speaker 2:Thank you, jonah, thank you Patrick, thanks everyone, thank you jonna, thank you patrick, thanks everyone.
Speaker 1:© B Emily Beynon you.