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
Sacrifice, Chosen Ones, and the Path of Love: Final Reflections on Ephesians
What does it mean to be "chosen" by God? Where is the line between rightful self-sacrifice and harmful self-erasure? In this final episode of our Ephesians series, we tackle these profound spiritual questions sent in by our listeners.
After 58 conversations unpacking the treasures of this extraordinary letter, we're moved by the thoughtful engagement of our global community. It has been truly moving to read from listeners how this exploration of Paul’s letter has transformed their understanding of scripture and enriched their lives. In this episode, we take up a few questions and review the journey together.
The first question we take up concerns the true nature of sacrifice and leads us to challenge the false dichotomy between standing for truth and sacrificial love. Drawing from our own painful experiences of burnout, we distinguish between genuine Christ-like sacrifice and misguided martyrdom. True sacrifice never abandons truth but risks everything for it—not from weakness or acquiescence but from spiritual strength. Sometimes the most loving action might be caring for your body and soul so you can serve sustainably rather than dramatically burning out.
We then dive into another question concerning the mystery of being "chosen" from Ephesians 1:4. Rather than an exclusive club of the predestined, we explore how all humans are "pre-purposed" in Christ from before creation. The Father has drawn all humanity to Christ, though not everyone recognizes this presence in their consciousness. This understanding honors both divine initiative and human freedom, respecting the unique spiritual journey each soul undertakes.
Some of the most powerful moments come when we acknowledge how Christ works through people of different faiths or no faith at all—whenever forgiveness, compassion, or self-sacrifice manifests in human life. The divine choosing includes our freedom to choose in return, a necessary component of spiritual maturity and authentic relationship with God.
Join us for this rich conversation that brings our Ephesians journey to a meaningful close, complete with a musical surprise from one of our listeners!
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.
and well nice, yeah, well, nice yeah.
Speaker 3:Rounding up here Last day Amazing.
Speaker 2:Last episode, last day Questions Lovely that many people have written in, spoken in yes and brought us their questions. We even had someone do a musical offering.
Speaker 3:Oh, man, we got a beautiful we. We will be closing with that, that will be. I mean, it was ambitious enough and well executed enough. We, those, those of you, our listeners to the light and everything who made their way to our patreon. You could find there, at our request for responses and questions from listeners, a little link. You could go to record your voice and leave a question, and one of our listeners was willing to whistle the theme music, to whistle the theme music, to whistle the theme music by heart, and very well, very well, yeah. So since he recorded it and didn't say we couldn't, we're going to call him out. I mean, we just want to say a great big thank you to Peter, to Peter, peter, our listeners. Yeah, we will put your whistle at the end of this episode, god willing, as long as our engineers can figure it out. So, welcome everyone.
Speaker 2:To the light in everything where two priests speak about Christ together. And we'll begin, as we always do, with the Gospel of John in chapter 8. We always do with the Gospel of John in chapter 8. Again, jesus spoke to them saying I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we are wrapping up our long series. I think this is going to be episode 58 in our series on the letter to the ephesians, if we've been counting correctly. I can't, I think it might even be more. 58 conversations, jonah is really more. So. If we had a conversation every week, it would be more than a week, more than a year's worth of conversations on this letter, walking our way through it and all of the what all is packed in a single letter is also mind-boggling.
Speaker 3:We didn't even address every single thing that came in right it's not possible, but you know we went through every bit of the whole text and so it'll be nice then to draw today some of the questions and comments that came up from our listeners and patrons. I wanted to maybe just there were a couple of comments that were very moving and beautiful just to share from some of our patrons, just about what it has meant to them. We want to share a word from Shelly Jonah and I know Shelly personally and it's nice that some of these people we've actually met in person, some we've never met you carry messages we have waited for. Thank you, it is a blessing you're bestowing because you reach so many who are thirsting for the water of life. Your art of conversation resonates with depth and beauty, Very, very moving. Thank you, Shelley. Thank you, Shelley. And she has put in a request for our next work. She has said I would love an in-depth look at the Our Father.
Speaker 3:Oh wow, note taken, shelley. We will earnestly consider this, along with a number of other things. Another word from a listener, a patron named Nicole. Thank you, nicole, for writing. No questions she writes, but a comment to express my sincere gratitude for this series. I was guided to read Ephesians last year and then guided to your podcast. So, by the way, nicole, if you hear this, did that mean you, like, searched up something on Ephesians and our podcast came up?
Speaker 4:I'd be so interested.
Speaker 3:Like how does God work with the internet? You know, it's just fascinating. The Lord of destiny. I was guided to read Ephesians last year and then guided to your podcast. It has deepened and expanded my understanding. I appreciate your personal shares to help anchor these mysteries into my reality, my reality from margaret river, western australia. Yeah, so glad, nicole, that that happened for you. I think that's a lot of what is in the word at the beginning that we say there is a light, we're seeking a wisdom, but it should lead to life. It's a light that leads to life Right and not just to abstract theological reflections. Yeah, it's really key to our mission. Very key.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so there was a potent word, a question about sacrifice, from Jerry, one of our patrons. And sacrifice comes in a really powerful part, if you remember Jonah, in the middle of the letter, where St Paul is trying to describe, first of all, the incredible sacrificial act of Jesus Christ, who has taken us up then with him into the heavenly places, seated with the Father, working to guide actually, and move all of reality towards the aims of God, move all of reality towards the aims of God. And then he calls us to imitate Christ. You remember this passage? A little bit is coming back, I think it's like at the end of two, beginning of three. That's the theme of sacrifice.
Speaker 2:It might be beginning of five, that's right.
Speaker 3:Beginning of five, that's right, that whole chapter five. He's giving this instruction at the end of chapter 4, verse 32. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God and Christ forgave you. And then 5, chapter 5, verse 1. Therefore, be imitators of God.
Speaker 2:That's it.
Speaker 3:As beloved children, walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. So this powerful call to truly live his life in our life, becoming priests within our life, so that our very biography becomes an offering. Yeah, a story of self-giving. So Jerry writes. I have a question about sacrifice when is it righteous and when is it necessary to preserve oneself? I personally have struggled with verses such as lay down one's life for one's friends, turn the other cheek and why not let yourselves be wronged. That was in quotes. I have misapplied these teachings to areas of life where they shouldn't be applied. It's like a mistimed good that becomes evil. Where is the line drawn between self-sacrifice and self-erasure? Where's the distinction between standing up for yourself and letting yourself be wrong? Thanks, jerry, from sydney. Another city.
Speaker 2:Wow, australians coming through. Yeah, so that's the one we're starting with. Nice, beautiful question. Thank you, jerry.
Speaker 3:Right. Where's the line? Where's the line?
Speaker 2:How do we do this to arise? For me is it also kind of implies, well, if I'm sacrificing or imitating Christ, and it implies it's a kind of weak gesture where I sometimes in a rightful spot just allow something to happen and don't kind of strongly stand for truth. It implies that-.
Speaker 2:Or oppose what is being done, or oppose, like as if sacrifice and self-offering is distinct from being strong and standing up for truth, right, and I think that division is not so helpful. So if we look at Christ in his gospel revelation, he never is weak in the sense of he doesn't stand for truth, but he allows. He stands for truth and allows whatever the consequences of that from the adversary working through humans is going to do. The adversary working through humans is going to do. So I don't think it's ever a question of not standing up and speaking what's true. It's not as if either I sacrifice or I stand up for what's true. If I'm imitating Christ, I'm always standing for the truth, I'm always speaking truth. It's never a kind of cowardice picture where I just let go.
Speaker 2:Maybe, that's just a way to start.
Speaker 3:It's such a powerful way to start. I think that, of course, the nonviolent resistance movements that were really fruitful in the 20th century, like the civil rights movement, had that. They put their bodies on the line for truth, not put themselves in the way of harm to simply acquiesce. It was the opposite of acquiescing it was standing and risking everything to say this isn't right.
Speaker 2:And I think what you just said risking everything has to be integrated. If you're going to go the way of standing up for what is right, if you're going to go the way of standing up for what is right, you have to integrate, or it's important to integrate, that, yes, you could lose everything. Yeah, and that's, I think, what makes it so challenging.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Is that you may then experience. Oh, I stood up for a truth, but then I lost everything, so maybe it wasn't so wise because I lost everything.
Speaker 3:Right, right, because the outcome look, if the wise thing would have been I would have greater benefits at the end in an outer sense, exactly.
Speaker 2:But subtly right there, my value shifts. My value shifts to weight. I need to be wise in the way of self-preservation and my existential needs are the most important thing, which is understandable. But it's a shift in value.
Speaker 3:As opposed to the value is, no matter what, standing for truth and accepting the consequences of that yeah, so then we get into the nuances of this too, because you and I, like, have gone through some powerful initiations in this regard recently too, and all that we went through and our whole podcast has been connected to this. Um, there there are, there are levels of maturity of what it means to stand up for the truth. Well said, yeah, there's that like for me as a teenager, like just that like visceral, reactive. Yes, that's not right. Yes, you know, and seeing only the angle of truth I have as the only truth, that's it.
Speaker 2:And condemning the others as evil For wherever because clearly they're wrong, right yeah. I love this because it's a kind of initial you could call it adolescent gesture towards standing up for truth. It has a very strong idealism I'm right, you're wrong, you're evil, I'm good, you're evil, I'm good.
Speaker 3:And it can lead to a self-righteousness and a destructive element that comes out of you as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's just a very powerful thing. Well, how do I mature that? One of the ways is how do?
Speaker 3:I put myself into the shoes of the other and see the world through their eyes and discover, oh, there are elements of truth. I can now understand why they're coming from that perspective, I can see it better, and so I can see I've expanded what all is included in truth for me, like my perspective still can be true. But now I've put myself into the shoes of the other. That's very important and and so forth, and I, so I can expand and expand this levels, these levels of truth. So, for example, there was a time I know in your life and in my life where we were trying to lay down our lives for our friends, trying to love our congregational mission in a way that was ruinous to our health, and we have had to see. Well, nobody was asking us yet it was not actually time to die and there was a way in which we were responding to the need and trying to bear the burden. That had a lot of in my case I'll speak for myself had a lot of vanity inside it.
Speaker 3:I wanted to be the savior exactly I want to, and and I thought the world couldn't survive unless I was working all hours of all. I had this whole totally like vain vision of how important I was, and at the expense of my organism and my bodily health, which then took me out of the work. So it's oh, in order to be available in a regular rhythm to the work, I actually need to take care of my organism. So the way I would put it is it wasn't about myself at all, that is to say, I didn't need to preserve myself. Myself was doing great, but my body wasn't. And so now I'm making a distinction and this may be helpful to you, jerry what I was doing was ruining my body, my life forces, for the sake of what inspired myself, but it was actually making me unable to fulfill what myself thinks is important. So the way in which I was laying down my life wasn't actually the right way.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:It was tainted with vanity and a kind of untruth that you could only discover by going that road, because I had to discover that loving my body and life forces is loving my community, and I didn't know that yet it felt self-ish so once. So this is really key for me. So it wasn't about self-preservation for me at all. Yeah, yeah. At all, but rather expanding my love.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I think that's the key for me here is like, probably what happens is somewhere in in our story, is we've missed part of the story of love and we're doing a kind of martyrdom process that isn't yet the right, right version. Yeah, as he was sensing like maybe there's just I'm aiming right, but I'm hitting, not hitting the mark. I'm not. I'm not. I'm attend, intending the good thing, but I'm not actually taking the right route. Yeah, so because of the way in which I was caring for the community was ruinous to my health, then I was unable to care for the community. So I realized I have to take care for my body and my life forces in a loving and serious way, just like I take care of the needs that are coming up in the community. Otherwise, I won't be available to serve.
Speaker 2:I think that's so important. I think that's so important Expanding your care to include yourself, so that the work can be done in a more healthy way.
Speaker 3:And again I would say to include my body and I would rather than include myself. Good, point.
Speaker 2:That was the distinction you made.
Speaker 3:All over the place, myself was just like fulfilling itself in all kinds of ways.
Speaker 2:Right, but it also had a kind of you had to recognize I have a little bit of vanity that I was saving that's in myself and so let me mitigate that and care for that, to try to take out that poison by caring for my body.
Speaker 3:I was actually lots of self.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And I needed to actually be more humble.
Speaker 2:I think that's really, really important.
Speaker 2:I also think there's maybe one more aspect.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's tons of aspects to this, but in terms of the impulse to stand up for what is true and bear the consequences, it's also true that there's a reverse of that, in a way, where it's to see what is truthful and what could be, to maintain a hope in what could be, but also to bear problems and unhealth and evil, even in a way that is Christ-like, because it's also true that we can't solve everything.
Speaker 2:If we're coming at the world like I'm just going to call out everything I think is wrong and not have the capacity to just bear what is broken and even suffer it with a compassionate heart, the expectation that I shouldn't have to do that, that I shouldn't have to be persecuted, that I shouldn't have to be in any kind of wrongful pain, that's also not super helpful. To conclude, because that's a picture of Christ he bears things that are not right and he doesn't just take a bazooka and shoot them down, yes, and he's still bearing the world in its error and is still being persecuted. So there's also a mystery to that, not being a form of weakness but a form of how can I build up the strength to carry things that are not right in a way that also has integrity?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so bearing actually as a part of the actual force of that can bring about transformation. Also, yeah, because the direct mode of attack, the direct railing against the wrongdoer, doesn't necessarily lead to the future. And this is Martin Luther King Jr's essay Loving your Enemies is one of my favorite things in the world and why he just goes through the logical work of just saying, listen, it just doesn't work to attack the attacker, the only thing that actually leads to the goal we all carry in our hearts is a love, your enemy approach it is a, it is a weaponry.
Speaker 3:So in this, in this battle that is there in ephesians, like we are battling against dynamic demonic powers that are against the aims of love, right, you cannot defeat them by being a greater attacker, you're just feeding the enemy, you're giving room for the enemy, right.
Speaker 3:So that may mean how do I find the different techniques that lead to true transformation? And in my life I know, in your life, part of the power of Christ's love in my life, and the people who have loved me through him have been their bearing of me for a time While I grow, and so the sense that people are growing beings and therefore bearing with one another in our growing, leaving some space for people to be wrong for a time, and finding our way to say the truth in the best way we can when it's time. But it may involve first just bearing something, and I think it's like we have to learn to trust that, the piercings that we take while we're doing, that, if we stay in integrity and love, that blood that flows out from us has power in it and that ultimately will play its part in changing everything.
Speaker 2:Well said, and it doesn't mean that we'll be preserved materially, no. So that's the risk.
Speaker 3:There's massive risks in this path and at the same time, though, from the spirit perspective, it's like every. I just saw a great thing recently when Christ says if you attempt to preserve yourself, you will lose yourself. Yeah, when you become ready to give yourself away, you will attain yourself. There's a recent pastor I came across and he said this isn't like instruction. He's not saying to his disciples you need to go do this. It's just what is? He's just describing reality.
Speaker 3:Reality every attempt we make to think I can preserve myself outwardly will ultimately unveil itself as empty. I cannot do it. I will only be in the core reality of being in myself, the eternal, when I am also giving myself, because it's just God's nature and God is eternal and God is the nature of reality. So by participating in that, I participate in what cannot be lost, yeah, even as I give myself away. So this is, this is the tricky thing, so it's distinguishing. That's why I wanted to go care for my body, care for my soul. I need to have a healthy soul to achieve the aims of my life. Yeah, so there's that soul needs it's time, conversations, prayer and so forth.
Speaker 3:it's rest, it's peace from god beautiful and then, jerry, for me it's like you said you, you said in your, in your, in your, what you wrote when you were wondering about it is it maybe the right impulse, wrong expression or missed, mistimed good that becomes evil? And I feel like that's very true for me. Jesus has that in the gospel. It's like in in john's gospel. His question is when is my hour?
Speaker 3:yeah yeah, he works for three years. Yeah, he could have been captioned and taken multiple times. And you read how he keeps not letting that happen, evading it, not confronting completely Until it's time. And then, when it's time, he lays down his life at the ultimate level. But he gets the timing right when is the full confrontation ripe, where it will cost everything, and that that's. I think that's our challenge, to try to read, anyway, that's my wonderful well, confirmed that from jerry beautiful jerry, thank you yeah, should we go to another question this?
Speaker 2:is a big one. Oh, go ahead. I was just going to say Claudia had a nice question.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're going to go ahead and play it, because she recorded it and she said we could have her voice. So here we go. Here's Claudia from Ottawa. Let's try again. Claudia from Ottawa.
Speaker 4:Hi Patrick and Jonah. This is Claudia Pfiffner from Ottawa, canada, and I'm happy to have my voice included in the podcast. I want to thank you for modeling for us to go through these Bible passages in a very slow and deliberate way in order to lift the veils, to reveal their secrets. Where I'm still stuck is the word chosen in Ephesians, chapter one, verse four. In him, he chose us all even before the world was created. If some people are chosen, others are not. Are we chosen? Why, why not? How are we chosen? And then, of course, the famous movie with that name comes to mind. Any comments to shine light on this is much appreciated. Thank you, any comments to shine light on this is much appreciated. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you, claudia, doing awesome, beautiful, devoted work up there in Ottawa. So thankful for her.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh, what a question. Age old debate. Who is chosen? I mean, if I started off I would say it's interesting in the actual letter and she read a bit of it there that it says you are all predestined, prepurposed we like that translation slightly better, slightly better pre-purposed from before the foundation of the world, pre-purposed in Christ. So I mean, first of all it's just a radical picture that before the foundations of the world we are in Christ Jesus already. That's a radical picture and somehow in him we're given the task or the purpose or the aim that also is his aim. Then somehow we fall away, go through a fall process and he comes and reunites and shows us that purpose through his death, resurrection and revelation and we're called to imitate him and come back into him, into his body. But I think it's interesting from the outset. There are no non-chosen people that Paul describes.
Speaker 3:Right, I think that's really important.
Speaker 2:That's very important.
Speaker 3:It's not like he says there are the unchosen, yeah, the ones God did not choose.
Speaker 2:He just says everyone is in Christ and pre-purposed.
Speaker 3:Yeah. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him In love. He pre-purposed us for sonship, as sons, through Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:And I think another aspect that's very important there is that we need to take this picture of. We are created in the image and likeness of God very seriously, very seriously in the sense that God, there is a community, a plurality, it's a plural word, so from the very beginning there's a community that is human that is, it doesn't say there were some that were not created in the image and likeness.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is Genesis 1.
Speaker 2:So the very fact that humanity is a community, christ is a community, and that that was the original nature of the human being to be an image and likeness of the godly community, yeah, there wasn't some separate human creation.
Speaker 3:Were there, these other humans that were built outside of this community? Exactly no all were in humanity, which was an image of the Godhead, which was the Elohim, this plural community.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So in a way, there is no such thing from the foundations of the world as a human being. That's not pre-purposed yeah, that's just.
Speaker 3:I feel like that's just so. We should stop there. So the first, the first answer here you're saying is there is no other group of humans to be found somewhere that weren't chosen. All were in this original image of God, all were created there. So everyone, in that sense, every single human being, is bearing that image and carries this love choice by God. I have chosen my life with you, so every human being is chosen. Then, in that creation moment and tell us more.
Speaker 2:Well then we have the whole fall, the whole. In a way you could. You could distinguish in a way like I've been pre-purposed. You could also say it's like this is the blueprint been pre-purposed. You could also say it's like this is the blueprint, but it was given in a way that wasn't. We didn't decide to receive that, it just was inlaid in us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this choice by God in the purpose inside us.
Speaker 2:Right, we didn't, in the sense that we know freedom in our consciousness right now. We were asleep, we were asleep. We were like babies, in the sense that we know freedom in our consciousness right now. We were asleep, we were asleep. We were like babies In the womb. It's like a baby who's pre-purposed to eat and breathe, and they don't choose that, it's just inlaid in them how they're built. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then we go through this whole mystery which is called the fall in Christian terminology. Which is called the fall in Christian terminology where we are allowed to come into a kind of independence.
Speaker 3:Yeah, To have our eyes opened by a snake, but to have them opened, yeah, to go away from God.
Speaker 2:And to have this possibility of then being able to decide do we take up our purpose or do we not?
Speaker 3:Do we follow other purposes, other purposes? We're inspired by a different goal.
Speaker 2:Right, because the miracle of this being is he wants. He's hopeful that humans can be beings that are free in love. Part of the pre-purpose, even, is to be an expression of free sacrifice for the life of the world.
Speaker 3:Yes, and I feel like I hear in claudia's question another really miss key mystery in the christian experience, which is well, why? Why doesn't everyone respond to the news that the image is restored, love is, has become a human? Uh, I mean, there's just nothing but good things coming from this thing healing and blessing and inclusion of all peoples. And why doesn't everyone just flock to Jesus, right? Why is it only some? And this experience also, certainly that is there in Paul's letter there are some who are not in the community. Now, now that this has come about, yeah, there are some who are not. Is it really all their choice? Or is actually the very term ecclesia those who've been called out? And then John says it really strongly and I know you love this passage too when in chapter 17 in the Gospel of John, jesus is praying to the Father for his disciples, he makes some pretty big distinctions between the world and them.
Speaker 3:There's this and he says I have kept and guarded and taken care of the ones you gave to me. You did not. He says you did not choose me, I chose you. He says that to the disciples you did not choose me, I chose you. I think that's in chapter 15. I chose you Like why am I in this life where I'm in his community? Can I really say this is all my free decision. So there seems to be the element of destiny at work around this question of your relationship with Christ. It's not just a logical free decision that you consider You're like oh well, I could go this way, I could go that way. I'm going to go the Jesus way. There'm going to go the Jesus way. Yeah, yeah, there seems to be also choosing going on.
Speaker 2:Being chosen, you mean Like in your life.
Speaker 3:It broke into your life. Yeah yeah, so talk to me, jonah. How do you wrestle with this mystery?
Speaker 2:Well, from a Paradox. Yeah, it is definitely a paradox and in a way I would say there's two levels there. For me, one level is Christ has actually chosen all of us. He walks with all of us. He walks with all of us, but it's not necessarily conscious. And to become conscious and to actually freely decide to invite him into your heart and consciously connect with him is a different process. An aunt who is really struggling right now with alcoholism and she had long story short she had a very profound experience that, even though she hasn't ever decided to become a Christian or ever decided to like oh, here's the choices, I'm going to choose Jesus she nevertheless had an experience that he was walking with her and she actually then told him I'm not interested, I'm more interested in my alcohol and my process with that. So that experience also highlights to me there is a being that is, you could say, walking with us, calling us to certain impulses and that's for all, but it's not necessarily conscious and it's not yet necessarily chosen.
Speaker 2:Yet not yet chosen Meaning like we say to the children Christ died, he became alive in the being of those who gave him a dwelling in their heart. That's a conscious process that you don't have to do and you could do, but that doesn't mean that Christ has not already chosen you and with you. So that's how I would begin this. So the fact that the Father says also, or that Christ says no one comes to me unless the Father draws them, that has two mystery levels for me. One is the Father has drawn and allowed Christ to unite himself with all human beings, but not necessarily at the level of our consciousness. But if, like in my experience, if Christ does become a conscious revelation, that's the work of the Father revealing him to my consciousness. But even there I don't have to say yes, like my aunt, the father revealed him, but she didn't have to go with him.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's how I would start to describe it.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, what comes up for you? Well, it's just so. It is a wonderful riddle and also maybe our listeners know people in their lives. We just have this feeling like I feel like that person. I'm just surprised that that person doesn't love Christ the way I do. I can't understand exactly why and and I think the chosen picture gets understood as a little bit, you could say, outside of time.
Speaker 3:Also, maybe that's a way of saying it's like God chooses you or not, and so you're saying everyone is chosen from the beginning yeah and then, in this new step, how, where the new humanity is being formed, as he describes it, bringing all peoples of all, taking down the dividing wall that divides us from one another and trying to form a new humanity in him, submitting to one another in Christ. I've known so many people in my life now also working as a priest where I've met them and they've actually said to me like I hate the church yeah, I don't, I'm not religious. Yeah. And then, a decade later, they know communion better than other people. They love it.
Speaker 3:Sure, and I'm not surprised because I could feel in them they've been chosen. Yeah, right, they've been chosen, but they haven't yet made the choice, that's it. But that's because there's another thing in there why they're blind. Yeah, like I can see there are other people who I know talk a lot about God, but I can tell they haven't yet had their experience. Yeah, they've outwardly chosen him, kind of. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But they're going to need to actually go away from God, right. They're going to need to have the world that they thought God was fall apart and go through a desert first before they truly take this new step. And so I think this idea that there is a ripening process in every human that is connected with the word destiny for me, that is connected with the word destiny for me. When is it the right moment in my life to have the scales from my eyes fall so I can at least see him, so that I could maybe make a new kind of choice, right?
Speaker 2:And that those scales have different levels, because I can even have right. Let me put it this way I've never met anyone in my life who I have the experience that Christ is not with them. And yet I've met many people who are totally enraged at Christ or the church or can't tolerate even speaking about it. But I still have the feeling this person is being walked with. I even have the experience my dear wife is one of them where she's had encounters and healing encounters with the one I know as Christ Jesus. But even those and she's conscious of that healing even those she's not ready yet to say that's my Lord and that's okay.
Speaker 2:And it's not my business. It's not my business, so there's so many levels of the encounter. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or, for example, there are some souls, for example like Malala, a Muslim woman very famous, who stood up to the Taliban for the rights of women's education with such courage and such strength, and she was then shot and almost killed. And I can also see there Christ working in her as an impulse for courage and self-sacrifice for truth. And yet I would never come and say to her you have to recognize that that's Christ in you, because I want to respect the destiny power of the Father working in her as it is, but Christ is still there, he's already working.
Speaker 3:And this is really where we get into radical territory that most of our brothers and sisters in the Christian tradition would dismiss us if we were to say. The spirit of Malala before she was born, in working out the right life for her with God, her angel and Christ, who is the Lord of destiny, the weaver of all lives, clearly made the decision that a life as a Muslim girl in Pakistan was the right one. Yeah, and that's a good life. That's a good life for me as a Christian priest, seminary director, leader of a worldwide movement as a Christian church. I trust God's wisdom there Exactly, and I also know this isn't her first incarnation. It's not her last incarnation. Right.
Speaker 3:And that it will be, over time, about waking up to him. Over time, about waking up to Him, it will become more and more important to see and to name Him, to recognize Him, for the sake of our soul and spirit selves on earth.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 3:It is very important.
Speaker 2:And it's very important now and it's also. I would also, and I think you also would agree. I think that it's also really valuable to recognize and know God in impulses like forgiveness yeah, even if I don't yet say that's a being and that's called Christ. Yeah, but the impulse, if I see forgiveness happening in my brothers and sisters, or compassion, or patience or long-suffering, I can already see this being working.
Speaker 2:That's one of the calls, the mystery calls of the gospel, which he says to Peter in the end, which he says also in chapter 25 of Matthew the way that you care for and love other human beings is me. If that doesn't tell you that christ is universally chosen, all of us, I don't know what can yeah that means he is. He is suffering what we inflict on others and he is being loved by how we recognize and that that choice is not god plucking out his preferences.
Speaker 3:That's the evil thought. I'm going to take you because I like you, and I'm going to take you because I like you and making my elite group that will be saved and all the rest are condemned to hell. This is the evil thought that is there in christianity. But rather, I've chosen all of you, but my my choosing includes you being able to not choose me and exactly right, because if, if otherwise, otherwise, it's wholly arbitrary in God's will and he isn't maturing us.
Speaker 3:There's no freedom, there is no spiritual maturity. We will never be images of God and true sons, true sonship that is the promise of this choice includes the son who chooses not to go back. It has to be a part of the process, it has to be and of the process it has to be, and that's actually in the choice.
Speaker 3:It's a choosing, so he chose us then in a new way, by choosing to become human. For me, that's the next love story. It's like I choose you so much. I'm going to choose your experience and join you in it.
Speaker 2:And I'm going to suffer. I'm going to unite myself so fully with all of humanity that, whatever human beings suffer, I'm going to suffer.
Speaker 3:Including your hatred of me.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Your blasphemy against me, your rejection of me. I make roomemy against me, your rejection of me, that I make room for that because of my love for you, right? So?
Speaker 2:I think that's then, if we're going to then more and more unite with this being even as an impulse or actually recognizing we're going to have to do that too Suffer what he suffers and love in the way that he loves.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it does. Of course, the evangelism side of that is and that we haven't gotten to, and that's I hope we have time to in the future it's very important that everyone have a chance to meet him and hear about him, yeah, and that those impulses have become a human and they're not just forces. That's so important, yeah, and that's we have a responsibility, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:To make sure that it's known and heard. Do you know the good news? Yeah, that love became a person. Yeah, and what that, what all that means, so that everybody has a chance to get to know him, reject him or choose him? Yeah amen well, there were was one more uh question we didn't have time to get to. Time is pressing this morning, but thank you everybody for leaving messages and writing them to our patrons, to our supporters. Jonah, this has been epic, this journey through the letter to the Ephesians.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm so grateful.
Speaker 2:Thank you, patrick, and I look forward to our next theme yes, we have to decide what that will be ©.
Speaker 3:BF-WATCH TV 2021 ©. Transcript Emily Beynon.