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
Re-Post: The Path of Discipleship, Christ Empowers and Sends His Disciples; Ep. 4
As the summer winds down, we are busy at the seminary preparing for new students. We are also quite excited by plans for expanding what we do with the Patreon. Before the new content arrives to you, we are reposting these two episodes from the early years of the podcast. We selected these episodes to align with the announcement that the audit option for the Distance Learning Program is now open. If you wanted the chance to receive weekly instruction about discipleship from Rev. Kennedy, followed by discussion with fellow auditors, then this is what you've been waiting for. Click here for more information. Registration closes September 15, 2025 and the course begins October 7.
In this final repost of the summer, Patrick Kennedy and Jonah Evans explore the next steps along the path of discipleship as revealed in our fourth gospel reading of the series: Luke 9: 1 - 17. We hear how Christ gathers his disciples, empowers them, and instructs them as to their mission and sends them out into the world. What is the mission of a disciple? How are they equipped for this work, what provisions given? Jonah and Patrick take up the answers given in the gospel and explore the deeper mysteries of the 'angel' of the discipleship circle and the final step in the passage: the feeding of the five thousand.
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 to you, jonah. Good morning Patrick. Good to be here. We're in Niagara-on-the-Lake on our annual seminary retreat.
Speaker 2:Reflecting on the year that's been and looking ahead to a rich year coming towards us.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Preparing the curriculum, so it's been very good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Renewing our discipleship no doubt as well, Really glad to be with everyone and take this next step in deepening our sense for what it means to look towards and follow Jesus Christ as the guide in our human becoming. This discipleship work here at the Light in Everything ¶¶.
Speaker 1:And we'll begin, as we always do, with the Gospel of John, chapter 8. 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 2:I had a great experience once, jonah of going to California. I was invited by our dear friend Ken Smith out there at the.
Speaker 2:Bay Area Waldorf Teacher Training to do something with one of their groups. And it's always exciting to come as a priest into the world of people who most often are not confessing Christians and maybe have very good reason to actually have gotten, you know, wanted to get as far away from Christianity as they could. And I decided to try something where we would look at this phrase that lives strongly and has lived strongly in the past 20 years or so, of people saying about themselves I'm spiritual but not religious. And we did a little thing where, on the blackboard, we just wrote up up what do we think we mean by spiritual or spirituality. We listed things under spirituality. They're all wonderful things.
Speaker 2:I was like, okay, well, what do we think we mean by religion? And it was, it was nice, they knew I was a priest, so there were some positive elements in there, things like community, um. But there was a lot of things having to do with, with shaming and guilting, with giving up your self, your sense of self, fear of truth, all kinds of, you could say, reactive, controlling, anti-human things. So it's not unexpected controlling anti-human things.
Speaker 2:So not unexpected, but it's, you could say, a painful legacy of continuing to do religion as we had in the previous era, like from the Middle Ages and before Into our time. It becomes something that actually ends up wounding humans in their further development. Yeah, that was very, very powerful. But one of the things that we got to which was really exciting and which opened a new door was like well, what do we see? People of faith in different faith communities, let's say Muslims, buddhists and Orthodox Jews, practicing people of certain religions. We looked over the spirituality side and they kind of had all those things and, in addition, what they had was devoted practice.
Speaker 2:So we could come to the idea actually that we have in our English language oh, I'm doing something religiously, let's just say that. Let's say if I, like I don't know, brush my teeth, I brush my teeth religiously. And people don't mean in a constricted self erasing way. They mean consistently with discipline and taking my intentions seriously. So by the end of the session I actually could, with them, have the feeling like we could say a new sentence. We could say I'm spiritual and I take my spirituality seriously, meaning I'm spiritual and religious. I'm religiously spiritual, I religiously devote myself to what I hold to be sacred and true and seek to embody it in my life and practices. And for me that's like another way to sum up what we mean by discipleship Not just to think and feel about spirit, but to seek to imbibe it, inhabit it. Inhabit it, embody it, express it in my person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's beautiful and that's one of the ways also to understand faith in a deeper way, Faith in a deeper way which is not just a thought and a feeling perhaps that goes with that thought but to have faith can also mean, in a deep way, to act, to live, to practice, to have a rhythm that is like God that is like the. Spirit.
Speaker 1:I faithfully do something. Exactly, it's there again, it's there again. So I think that's also a beautiful way to enliven discipleship, that it comes into our lives and our will, but also the word faith itself To bring it not just as a structure of ideas that I adopt Right some kind of abstract things.
Speaker 2:These are true, but it has no expression or consequence in my life. You'd have to say I don't believe them, Exactly Because I would be doing what I actually believe, exactly.
Speaker 1:So, if I have faith, I'm actually living a Christed experience. A Christed experience which is so different than some of the pictures and thoughts of religious life in our time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So with those kind of, it's always nice to touch in again and again, I think you know on like well, what do we mean by discipleship? What is discipleship? It's just another facet, another expression.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know on like well, what do we mean by discipleship? What is discipleship?
Speaker 2:It's just another facet, another expression on it.
Speaker 1:Beautiful.
Speaker 2:So this week we are moving into a portion of the Gospel of Luke. We have been taking steps on this journey, this discipleship journey, in the Gospel readings in the Liturgy of the Year If you go back to our first episode, we talk a little bit more about that that there are between the moment of St John's High Summer, june 24th, to the crossing point in the autumn in the northern hemisphere, which is the beginning of the festival of Michaelmas. There is a series of gospel readings that we take up here in the Christian community that are not randomly chosen but actually have a whole unfolding. Yeah, so the first step that we took was from the Gospel of Mark, the famous Peter's Confession, with the question that Christ asks his disciples.
Speaker 1:Who do you say that I am?
Speaker 2:Who do you say that I am? Who do you say that I am? The response, and then this unfolding of his mission and the expression of what it means to follow him. We hear it denying yourself. Take up your cross and follow me. We get the core thing. So who is Christ? The disciple is asked.
Speaker 2:He reveals his goal of the Mr Golgotha, this name for what he accomplishes on this mountain in Palestine in Israel on the cross and the resurrection and that each human being who follows him can find that they too have a cross that they can pick up and, by following him, go where he goes.
Speaker 2:So that's this incredible opening right. So it's good to go back there. The second step was this passage from the Sermon on the Mount, then an actual teaching, a set of core teachings that come from the Master, the Guide, the Rabbi, for the disciples, the students. This all that leads to the path that leads to life, the narrow gate, the hard path. And the third step was, last week, this activity of the divine world to actively seek us, to seek human souls, to seek human souls and to rejoice at the reunion of that soul that has strayed from the hole and been brought back in, in the shepherd who finds the sheep, in the woman who finds the coin. And then the story of the human soul and the prodigal son who leaves and goes to a distant country, far from the estate of the father, spends his inheritance, ends up in the nothingness and comes into himself and remembers the father and remembers the Father and starts this return journey that leads to an embrace and a blessing because he was dead and now he's alive.
Speaker 2:And then this amazing drama with the other brother who is shaking his head in disapproval and wants him condemned. And the Father shows what real love looks like. And it has nothing to do with condemnation, nothing to do with disapproval and punishment, anything at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, fourth step, what is it? What's going to happen next? What will be the fourth step? What is it? What's going to happen next? What will be the fourth step? And we come to chapter 9 in the gospel of Luke, and I think, today. What I'd like to recommend, jonah, is that we kind of do the just describe the composition of this passage a little bit as a whole and then actually do the reading and respond.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:So in this chapter 9, verses 1 through 17, we have three basic steps that come in the gospel passage. Jesus gathers his disciples, empowers them, and we'll hear some of the words that he gives this incredible empowering of the twelve.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then instructs them what to do. So he gives them dunamis and exousiai which are the Greek words, this dynamic power and authority that comes from a heavenly world. And they are to go out. And what do they just do? To proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. So to bring wisdom of heaven and heal the sick and to cast out demons. So they're given these powers to teach, to cast out the demons, to heal. And then they go out to do that. And he gives them a few further instructions that we'll get into, because it was very exact instructions for this journey. They go out to do this and then we get part two.
Speaker 2:Suddenly, the gospel writers take us to Herod, the false king, and we get to hear about Herod. It's fascinating, and what Herod is doing is he's wondering about hey, what's going on? Who is this that I am hearing about? Because the twelve are out now in the world and the power of Christ is working through them. So it's way spread out in the country. It's not just one person anymore, it's working through the disciples. And Herod is saying who is this man? People are saying it's John the Baptist, it's Elijah, it's one of the prophets.
Speaker 1:Herod says I beheaded John.
Speaker 2:Who is this? And then switch scenes, the apostles they're called now because they have been sent out return and they tell what they've been doing. So this is part three. Jesus takes them, he wants to be just with them, but the crowd finds out where they are and comes to them. Then Jesus does what he told them to do he teaches of the kingdom and he heals them.
Speaker 2:And then the disciples say there's no food in this desert. Send them into the cities to get shelter and food. And Jesus says to them you feed them. So again, he puts it on them and then they say, with what? We've got five loaves and two fish. And then we get a story of the feeding of the 5,000.
Speaker 2:So these three steps sending out of the 12 through empowering them, and sending them out to preach and to heal, empowering them and sending them out to preach and to heal Herod's question about who this is, is it John? Part two, part three, returning to Jesus, and a nourishing story, a story of a feeding. So those three parts in mind, now we'll just hear the actual details of the words and it'll be exciting to see. You know, as you live with this gospel, jonah, what on the discipleship path particularly stands out to you in this fourth section. So Luke, chapter 9, verse 1 through 17. One day Jesus called together his twelve disciples and gave them power and authority to cast out all demons and to heal all diseases. Then he sent them out to tell everyone about the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Take nothing for your journey, he instructed them. Don't take a walking stick, a traveler's bag food or money, or even a change of clothes.
Speaker 2:Wherever you go, stay in the same house until you leave the town. And if a town refuses to welcome you, shake its dust from your feet as you leave, to show that you have abandoned those people to their fate. And so they began their circuit of the villages preaching the good news and healing the sick. When Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee, heard about everything Jesus was doing, he was puzzled. Some were saying that John the Baptist had been raised from the dead. Others thought Jesus was Elijah or one of the other prophets risen from the dead. Others thought Jesus was Elijah or one of the other prophets risen from the dead. I beheaded. John Herod said so who is this man about whom I hear such stories? And he kept trying to see him. When the apostles returned, they told Jesus everything they had done. Then he slipped quietly away with them toward the town of Bethsaida. But the crowds found out where he was going and they followed him. He welcomed them and taught them about the kingdom of God and he healed those who were sick. Late in the afternoon, the twelve disciples came to him and said Late in the afternoon, the twelve disciples came to him and said Send the crowds away to the nearby villages and farms so they can find food and lodging for the night.
Speaker 2:There is nothing to eat here in this remote place. But Jesus said you feed them, but we have only five loaves of bread and two fish. They answered Are you expecting us to go and buy enough food for this whole crowd? For there were about five thousand men there. Jesus replied have them sit down in groups of about 50 each. So all the people sat down. Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread and fish to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftovers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how can we pull out some of these elements of discipleship in this story?
Speaker 2:Was there one that just leapt from the page for you at all?
Speaker 1:Well, not just one, but I think what I feel is four main gestures there.
Speaker 1:First of all, the sending, being sent itself. This is a new step. It's not just learning from him practicing morality or picking up our own cross, but now to be a disciple of the living, risen. One is to be sent to feel like I have a mission and to go out into life and bring two things, or do two things. Two things, or do two things Teach the kingdom of God, which is at hand, and to heal Amazing. And then I think a fourth thing can be added to that, which is this not only teaching about the kingdom and healing, but nourishing, right, nourishing, feeding, spiritually feeding. You feed them, you feed them, yeah, so strong. So those are the four main threads that I see that are really salient for our disciple process.
Speaker 2:That first part seems nice and clear and powerful. Again, just to say the teacher doesn't just gather the disciples to teach them. Here we have this moment where he calls together the twelve and passes his power over to them. So it's a power exchange, it's not just wisdom. So now we have this image of the forces that live in Christ are given over to the twelve. They're now living in them and they are dynamis and exousiai. They're over dynamis and exousiai over the daimonion, the spirits, the unclean spirits, the demons, those things that are inhabiting humans, that aren't their own true spirit. So there is, he cleanses, there's a power in him that has authority over them and restores them to themselves. So his power passes over to the twelve. They are then to go out, so gather, empowered, sent out. And what are they sent out to do?
Speaker 1:Right To proclaim the kingdom of God which is at hand, and to heal, and to heal.
Speaker 2:I don't know if people can understand how striking this is. I feel like it needs a little bit, because and this is what will take us to Herod why does Herod the king show up in this story Suddenly? He's not even in the scene. It's literally very movie-like right. It's like cut to Herod's palace. He's not with the group, it's not in front of him. It takes us over to him. Why is he there in the composition? I think part of that is, if you say the kingdom of God is here in that time, what are you saying?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That there's also another kingdom.
Speaker 2:But you're going to? I mean, if I'm a Jew, if I'm a Roman, if I'm an Egyptian, if I'm a Roman, if I'm an Egyptian, if I'm a Babylonian? The kingdom of God is the outer kingdom too. God sits on the throne in some fashion, either through his anointed one. In the Hebrew tradition, right rules through his king over the people in an earthly kingdom, or through Pharaoh, or through the Assyrian or Babylonian kings, or Julius Caesar or Augustus, caesar Augustus, these sons of God, caesar Augustus, these sons of God tell them the kingdom of God is here. So if Jesus is the Messiah and they're all saying, well, we're with him and the kingdom of God is at hand, what would the next thing be that they would do if it's about an earthly kingdom? It seems to me they would be recruiting soldiers because they're going to have to go to battle, to war, to establish an earthly kingdom. And they do go to war. They go to war against the daemonion who are possessing the people. And they go to war against the daemonion who are possessing the people. And they go to war against the sicknesses that are afflicting the people. They heal, they don't gather a physical army.
Speaker 2:Cut to Herod. Who's this guy? There's this kingdom of God word on the street but he's not doing anything. That looks like a threat to me. Actually, there's a kind of spiritual fervor growing, but he's healing people. That's not scary to me, that's not threatening. I mean, they think God is with him. Fine, that could be threatening. So it really strikes me that something of the nature of the kingdom of God and the work that this anointed one is doing is different than what was expected of the coming king.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, which is so crucial in understanding the kingdom of God, because the kingdom of God doesn't work with the same power, dynamics of the traditional king in the earthly world or the kingdom of Caesar or the kingdom of Herod's presence here reminds us that the kingdom of God is infiltrating in a way into the kingdom of Caesar, into the kingdom of Herod, and brings new dynamics, new power, new substance that is actually, on the face of it, not threatening, seems powerless, seems weak to a Herod or to a Caesar, because its nature is going to die on the cross.
Speaker 2:Right, well, eventually it will be enough of a threat that it's worth killing him. They will feel like well, indirectly he's threatening us because he's stirring up the people. Let's just take care of him.
Speaker 1:That's right, and it's not kind of authentically threatening, it's just indirectly threatening. Yeah.
Speaker 2:To those kings. It will be spiritually threatening to the leadership to those kings.
Speaker 1:It will be spiritually threatening to Spiritually threatening to the leadership and to the mysteries. The mystery leaders, yeah, right for sure.
Speaker 2:But the possibility of threat to the outer kings is that it has often come that a religious leader has appeared, a prophet has appeared and stirred up religious zealousness and brought upon the people a terrible reaction by the Roman Empire which caused great suffering. So there's like a managing the politics of the age. We want to keep the peace in an outer way, so we might need to deal with him that way. But I hear also what you're saying. Is he?
Speaker 3:is announcing a kingdom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it is actually threatening to the old order, the old kingdom. It is going to establish a new order.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:At the spiritual level, at the core level. The devil knows his time is short.
Speaker 2:Yes, but he rules in this world.
Speaker 1:And he rules in this world and he has a kingdom and it has laws and the laws of Christ's new kingdom, which we just learned about in the third step, with the prodigal son and the lost sheep and the lost coin third step, with the prodigal son and the lost sheep and the lost coin. This kingdom, this reality, this sphere of his working, has different laws and dynamics that are now meant to be planted in the world, in human hearts, by the apostles, by those who are sent by us, by the disciples who are sent out.
Speaker 2:So it really is also a sowing of a seed Of that kingdom, of that kingdom Actually, yeah, establishing of it in regions of human beings, that's it In the landscape of soul and spirit. And it's so powerful because the word for the teaching about the kingdom I think it's good to remember it's actually this heraldic.
Speaker 2:They are heralds of the king, the word is to proclaim, so it's like the kings would send ahead. The king is coming. You know, it's like that, it's that verb. They're coming and they're saying and announcing the coming of a king in a kingdom, because, of course, you never have a kingdom without a king, which is another really key thing. If you're saying the kingdom of God is at hand, who's the king? God's the king, he's here. He's Emmanuel, he's here with us. So it's very strong kingship and kingdom moment. And I imagine I'm in these little villages and come, these guys proclaiming a coming kingdom. Well, what's this kingdom going to be about? Sure, and they heal people. I'd just be weeping. I'm thinking of the other king that just rolled through Like Caesar. What's he going to be about? Taxes?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Building things or Herod Sold about Taxes. Building things, soldiers, herod cutting heads off yeah.
Speaker 2:What will be the first act of this? What's the nature of this king?
Speaker 1:and kingdom, healing, healing. And also then we get nourishing, healing and nourishing. Oh, okay, feeding.
Speaker 2:Whoa, this is a different kind of kingdom Right.
Speaker 1:So that also then reveals these different dynamics and laws, already so different, so different From the traditional power, outer power orientated kingdom.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there's another thing for me to just dance out here. I want to get into it.
Speaker 2:So that comes with this core instruction after. So you do this, tell them be heralds of the kingdom, then heal Okay, and here's some real concrete instruction that is going to be core to my heralds Take nothing for the journey. What, wait? Wait, like he goes into great detail here. Like when he talks about her he doesn't go into detail. So like say this and that when you get there, find the high place and talk he doesn't get into any detail, right? No staff, no bag, no food, no money, no extra tunic.
Speaker 3:Why.
Speaker 2:Why do his heralds receive that instruction when they are sent out into the world? Wouldn't you think, if I'm a king of a kingdom that is actually going to be threatening or a threat to the existing order, I would want to equip them with supplies, weaponry, with. You know, for example, if you have an army and you send them out to fight a war, one of the core things you have to do is have a supply line. Totally Right, because otherwise they're going to get isolated and you just starve them out and you already won the war and you never had to even battle them. You have to have a supply line. So he's saying not only you're not going to get a supply line, you don't even get to take any supplies with you. What's he doing? How do you? How do you?
Speaker 1:how do you Well, yeah, I definitely, definitely some pictures come, come into my heart and I'd love to hear what you think too. But it has to do with a further description of the difference in the laws and dynamics of the kingdom of God in relationship to the kingdoms of Caesar and Herod. So, of course, as you say, in a normal kingdom you need a supply line, you need to be equipped with armor and swords and food and whatever. You need to go into battle.
Speaker 1:But here, essentially, he's talking about the power of renunciation. I'll use that word, the power of renunciation, or the power of you could say not of giving up something earthly. And this is a law. This is actually a spiritual law, a power of giving something up earthly in order to make yourself open and a vessel for receiving something spiritually, something spiritually. And I mean, one can look and find this law even in something as simple as not eating breakfast every day. When I give up something earthly, other capacities, I make room for other, more non-earthly capacities, and, especially at this time, the practice of renunciation and fasting was particularly used as a power.
Speaker 2:At this time, meaning the time of the Gospels.
Speaker 1:Of the Gospels? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So another way of saying that that, if I've understood you rightly, is like when a person goes blind, they've lost their physical sight and what happens is the forces that would usually be spent in seeing through the organs of the eyes are now available to be put into more heightened hearing and see, feeling that's right, and sensing in other ways, that's right yeah, and so it's not like a, it's not, it's not like clockwork, but it it's like a potential and, and I would say this is pointing at that lawfulness, that dynamic of and we can maybe even bring it into our own reality of practicing, being willing to let go of, at any moment, what is something earthly, what is something earthly in order to serve the healing and proclaiming task and nourishing task of the sending, and so that we come into the dynamic of a kind of powerless or unattached relationship in order to be fully filled with power and attached to the spirit of the dynamies and the authorities. So that's kind of how that's a beautiful kind of core description would.
Speaker 2:that's a beautiful kind of core description of a lawfulness, so it would imply, if there's a law of giving something up in order to gain a new thing, so to speak, a new gift. A new thing, so to speak, a new gift. It would imply, though, that there is a way of approaching life that is expressed usually in approaching a journey or the usual heraldic Provisioning by the king. Does he give them no provision? You're saying no. He's actually saying If you want my provisions, you should.
Speaker 1:Not provide for yourself. Yeah, simply put Even the will to go where you want. So being sent implies you let go of the will to say that's where I want to be and this is also, of course, in the priesthood.
Speaker 1:This is the priestly thing, this is the beginning of the priest right, Absolutely so important. So the disciple is moving into the priest or the apostle and one of the main letting goes of is my will to be there or here or in Sacramento, California, wherever. There or here or in Sacramento, California, wherever in order not just to beat myself up and to be morbid or whatever, in order to open myself up to the incredible force and power and blessing of feeling the intentionality and the purpose and the mission of Christ in me, Not my will, your will A very concrete thing.
Speaker 2:If I see this journey and I see the hardships that lay ahead and I anticipate my lack, how I will hunger, how I will thirst, how I will need clothing, how I will need shelter. If I see all of that and then say how can I make sure from my own self that all of that will be taken care of, I am acting actually out of a self that is totally concerned with itself.
Speaker 1:It's just very concrete, very concrete and also, to add to that, not concerned with receiving what is wanting to be given to me from heaven.
Speaker 2:That's it, which is the other side of the coin. My hands are full with what I've given myself, what I've grasped for to keep myself safe and, of course, what we feel is, if I let go of all those things, I feel fear. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Fear for my security, fear for my safety, fear for my safety, fear for my earthly life, which?
Speaker 2:means I'm at the threshold. Good, that's really important.
Speaker 2:I'm actually near the place of life and death, and all this providing for myself actually buffers me from the threshold, buffers me from the threshold and so he pulls all the things away, that buffer, so that you're raw and now open. Because what happens is they go and they're provided for, they're given shelter, they're given food, they're taken care of and they have a profound experience, for they're given shelter, they're given food, they're taken care of and they have a profound experience of being provided for by grace and not by their own self-centered activity to provide for themselves, and this heals them, I would submit.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:it heals them, it opens their eye to the eye of God, amen.
Speaker 1:And from a slightly different perspective too.
Speaker 1:You could say in the third step of discipleship we hear about opening to grace step of discipleship, we hear about opening to grace the disciple in learning to be carried by the shepherd in the last sheep coin and son as a preparation to be able to be sent and follow that graced threshold, living, as you so beautifully described, so the kingdom of God itself, to be knowing about the kingdom of God, to be living with the kingdom of God. You could describe it as to be in a relationship with the threshold, such that I'm constantly feeling the pouring in of grace it's from there that I am provided for and my I, I, give wholly over to his work.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, beautifully, I'm so glad you took us back because to the previous step. The previous step ends with the son returning to the estate of the father saying please use me as a hired hand. Yeah, step four is okay, here's your job.
Speaker 1:And now you're going to go out. There's some work to do. Now you're going to go out, not out of your own lower will to spend and waste all of your inheritance In fact, you're going to stay in the nothing place that you ended up in.
Speaker 2:Don't provide for yourself, don't take anything for the journey so powerful yeah.
Speaker 2:And grace will be with you. People always ask me, as a priest, like how do you, like you know, live a life where you are sent? How do you live a life where you are not earning? You are not in control of your earnings? Yeah, you're not in control of where you are. My whole happiness and ability to work in a priestly way is dependent on this. I have to follow His instructions and the special thing about our work is affiliate work in this regard, where we really actually have to leave home, leave the home congregation and go to a congregation, and you've got, like your, basically your vestments in the bag. That that's what you have, right, and maybe a few tunics we can bring some clothes and a few bits, but you know, but it's very minimum.
Speaker 2:You're just you're, you go and you stay where they find a place for you.
Speaker 1:You you eat what they give.
Speaker 2:Submit to what is provided and it's very powerful. You get to know the people in a really deep way and it can be a loss in the local congregation because you are so provided for, they're so generous in giving you your own place to stay, that you can lose connection to this part of the instruction. I think Take nothing for the journey, but I would say this whole feeling of I'm never working for myself, I'm only doing his work and the community provides for me as they can. That that is essential to a worker for the kingdom and it's in the structure, therefore, of how we actually have a new priesthood. Amen, I got asked you to. I remember learning too at some point that the bishop of the Anglican church in Cincinnati was making $240,000 a year. I was like wow.
Speaker 1:Dang Got the wrong church, wrong church.
Speaker 2:And someone had asked my wife so can you move up, can you advance? Also meaning, can you make more money? Sure, can you have more renown or fame, can you personally gain in the path? Yeah, and I could happily say nope, nope, you can only just have more responsibility. That that's right.
Speaker 1:In fact, very often and this connects exactly you have more and more responsibility. You may even have, in the eyes of others, more and more status or kind of respect Sometimes lankers and seminary directors are seen in that way, even though it's not really the case and even have less money than you had before, depending on the congregation's ability to giving you what they can. So or it may be that there's a priest who has worked for 40 years and is well, just a pillar and well-loved and respected elder, and there's a brand new priest who's got five kids, who's making way more money than Right because they're not making it. Because they're not making it, they're being, they're being given what's needed on the basis of their children and their family. So that's just some more practical aspects.
Speaker 2:Spiritual value is separated from outer values like money.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So take nothing for the journey leading us to keep that self that feels strongly the presence of the Father and the Sender, the Son, and meets it in life, then you're because you have nothing. Your hands are open, you're focusing on. The only thing you have is your connection to the supply line that goes to heaven. That's the only thing your ad can take with you, and if you give from there, then you let yourself, you make yourself available to the to receive. But we still have a few minutes. If you want to try to get into. I mean, the Herod thing is really rich and really huge. I don't know if you want to open to get to. I mean the Herod thing is really rich and really huge. I don't know if you want to open up anything in there. What is also John the Baptist doing?
Speaker 2:here, what is Elijah doing here? Why did they come right into the middle of this composition of these three stories? It's really one story and this comes into the middle and then comes a feeding, emerging story.
Speaker 1:Well, I think one thing that could be that in the path of discipleship, and this step of now, not just working kind of in my secret heart, but the fourth step really leads us into the priestly activity. The priestly activity is nothing other than the activity of a community. We don't become priests out of our own selves. We don't become priests because we're special people individually. We actually become priests because we become joined and enveloped and embraced in a community, in a community, in a circle. And every community has a kind of spirit, like angel-like being that you could say is spiritually responsible for it, envelops its wings around it.
Speaker 1:And you could say, if we look with the spirit eye at this picture of John coming in, and we know that he had been killed in a very unique way and very connected in a unique way to the disciples and to the work of Christ's kingdom on earth, as he was the first to recognize and the original herald and he was the original herald right, he is the announcer of the kingdom of God that is at hand.
Speaker 1:So in a way he is the leader. He was the leader on the earth of this priesthood, this priest circle, and now you could say, after his death, he becomes the angel that envelops this community in his wings, angel that envelops this community in his wings. And so to follow this next step in discipleship is to start to feel the substance and beingness of the community of Christians as a community, to feel a part of an esoteric community that is doing these three things teaching about the community of Christians, about the kingdom of God on earth, healing and nourishing. So I would say we can become connected to this angel of the disciples by feeling more and more togetherness along our shared mission.
Speaker 2:So beautifully said, so powerful. It's such an essential teaching for our age. I think to begin to feel my spiritual path and my spirituality is not going to ever just be about me. If it is to be good, amen, it will be about joining a circle, and hopefully a circle whose aim is to be a part of the circle of humanity. Yeah, hopefully a circle whose aim is to be a part of the circle of humanity. And here we see then this next story. After it goes, john the Baptist the herald, then Elijah is named.
Speaker 2:The next story then touches on this one story in the Old Testament of Elijah, who in a small way, performed the same miracle of the nourishment, the feeding, where he, in a great famine, is hungry and meets a widow and her son and asks her to make bread for him. And she says I will do so with the little flour and oil I have. And then my son and I will die because we have nothing else. And he says don't worry, because we have nothing else. And he says don't worry, you'll find that the flour and the oil will not run out. And every day it's there again for her to make bread and for everyone to be nourished.
Speaker 2:But now Jesus does that for 100 groups of 50 people Five loaves and two fish, so it's like through the 12. He takes them, he lifts them, he looks up, he blesses them, breaks them, gives them. So he does a sacramental act taking something from this world, lifting it into the heavenly world, uniting it with a word, a good word, a blessing, breaking it and giving it to the disciples to pass out. And everyone gets all they need and they gather up 12 baskets full. Did anyone eat anything? They were certainly nourished, yeah. What did anyone eat anything? They were certainly nourished, yeah. So it reaches this like octave of Elijah John energy.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, beautiful, and Christ seems to be working with it and through it at this point, yeah, but his unique work is still to come, yeah, which he announced in the first step. I am here to suffer, to die and to resurrect. This is a new work. This is not elijah work or john work, but that there is a, a genius, a larger spirit that unites. Then the circle of disciples become apostles, the priestly Christians, and his name is John.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, there's so much. We could go on for hours, but I think for our listeners it's just important to contemplate and think about, and maybe even bring your questions and your insights to, these four qualities that are interspersed with other important aspects as well. What does it mean in my life to feel that I can follow and take up a path, a mission, however simple, that serves Christ, that serves the kingdom of God? How can I begin to actually bring the mysteries of the kingdom of God in, to speak them and proclaim them in some way, even if that's just through acts of selfless love that bring healing, that bring healing. And then the third to bring healing Through that, to bring healing and to nourish human beings with that spiritual substance. These are the four steps of the next fourth step, the four in the fourth of the path of the disciple, all of that in relationship to the other dynamics of Herod and Caesar that we are working with and called to live in and through as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right in the middle of it, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you Jonah. Thank you Patrick.
Speaker 2:We so look forward to hearing from you and your questions. Please don't be shy. Share them if you'd like. We're moving into that middle time of August, starting to turn towards the new school year. We'll have more things to announce and share soon, I think. We'll have more things to announce and share soon, I think.
Speaker 1:And yeah, really looking forward to the next step.
Speaker 3:Blessings on our week, friends ¶¶. © transcript Emily Beynon.