[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to that Makes Total Sense, a podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis Busetti, a Christian, aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same.
Every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice, but the how sometimes eludes us. That Makes Total Sense is a way for us to get together, posture ourselves as learners, and challenge one another to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day.
Drew, I am always super thrilled to talk to you. So welcome back to the podcast.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Thanks for having me back, Alexis.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I just had the pleasure of going through this study.
So much of it made me wish I had done it as a group. But as we speak in June, it is not quite out yet. By the time this releases it will be.
But it's not quite out yet. But it is part of the series that IBP and Made For Packs are releasing together.
And the study that you wrote is called Let Peace, Love, justice and Dignity in God's Kingdom. And I almost want to repeat those three words again.
Love, justice and dignity.
Because we're living in wild times where those three things are getting trampled on quite significantly in our world today.
I mean, you're in New York, I'm in Houston, but I just got back from LA over the weekend.
And this is a wild, this is a wild time to be living in and it's one where I think we need, we always need it, but we need right now to remember and to be reminded of who we are as people who serve the kingdom of Jesus and what that means for us. Drew, what I feel like just this study is part of it, but Let Peace Reign feels like a far cry from where we are right now.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think the word you said it, you know, I think really kind of connects to my, my heart for this study. Right where you said remember and.
Cause the stuff in this study is not new.
It's not new, but it's things that, because of the ways that so many of us have been conditioned, especially those of us living in the context of an American empire that conditions us a certain way in the context of a so many of us wrestling against the things that have been taught to us in church spaces and religious spaces that have been co opted by nationalism, by empire.
It's as if we have forgotten who we are and we've forgotten what this good news is about.
And so to really just remember, at the heart of this gospel message is this message of the kingdom of God that is counter to the kingdom of Caesar.
Right That Jesus announcement of this kingdom flies in the face of the empires of this world and the ways that they do business in the world and calls us to a different way. Like, I mean, it's like we. Like you said, we need it all the time. Like, it's. That message is necessary all the time. And, you know, when we. When we wrestle with it in this moment that we're living in, it's like we need to. We need to wrestle with it afresh again. We need to hear it again. We need to. To remember who we are and get a fresh vision for what it means to be, you know, to be makers of peace in the midst of a world at war, in the midst of violence, in the midst of genocide, in the midst of all of it. Like, what is our responsibility? What is our call? What is our vocation?
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, it's a good study. When I was starring something on page one, literally. And I want to. I want to quote. I want to read this quote that you wrote, because I think it be a good overarching thought for us to have in our minds as we continue the conversation and as folks engage with the study, either by themselves, as I did, or in groups, hopefully. And that is this quote.
Just living. So not only living or solely living, but living in justice. So just living and peacemaking are central to Christian discipleship.
So just living and peacemaking are central to Christian discipleship.
And that feels almost like a controversial statement.
I will say this when I have deconstructed parts of my faith that I grew up with that were present, especially in my early adult, I often will say either to myself or aloud, I was discipled to xyz, so I'll. I'll give an easy one.
As a woman, I was discipled to believe that women are ontologically inferior to men. That's how I was discipled. The church taught me that. My church community, the Christian community I was a part of for decades and decades of my life, taught me that was part of my discipleship program, basically, so to say, just living and peacemaking are central to Christian discipleship.
I believe that with my whole heart. And it feels odd and off to me because it doesn't.
I think the evidence of that in formal discipleship, in informal formation, this is not as present as I wish it was.
Yeah, what say you, Drew?
[00:07:09] Speaker B: I say you're spot on in that it's not as present as I wish it was either. I didn't grow up hearing that either.
And, you know, it really. It really Wasn't until later on in my journey that that message started to come through, that I started to, you know, reread the text again.
And you know, it's like I remember the first time I stumbled across Luke chapter four and I read, you know, Jesus's quote, unquote mission statement, right?
[00:07:54] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:07:56] Speaker B: And you know, to hear, to hear Jesus in his inaugural sermon say and quote Isaiah 60:1.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to preach good news to the poor, to bring recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, you know, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. It's like, I'm like, why in the, you know, fundamentalist Baptist church that I grew up in, did we not talk about this?
[00:08:29] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: Why didn't I hear this?
You know, And I mean, I know why now.
You know, I know why we didn't talk about it. I know why we didn't spend any significant time wrestling with the prophets or we cherry picked the prophets to. It's like my, my only memory, my only real memory of the prophets is, you know, pastors Talking about Isaiah 53, the suffering servant, as a pointer to Jesus. That was it.
That was it.
And, and it's like as I got, as I got older and I started reading the text for myself and studying more deeply, and I'm just seeing like this message of, you know, God being a God of justice is all throughout the text.
I mean, and like to go back to, and really what this study is doing is to go back to the very beginning, to go back to the first pages of scripture and the creation narrative and to ground this good news in creation, to say creation is all about God being a God of shalom, and to say that God is a God of shalom is, is to say that God is about, is about right. Relationships between everyone and everything.
Right.
It's not, when we hear shalom, it's not peace as in like this sort of, kind of flimsy idea of peace that we often are given.
But it, but it's, it's, it's.
There's a depth to it. It's connected to the idea of justice. Right.
It is about mutual flourishing and that, that's grounded in creation itself.
And so to see that message kind of carry through the biblical text, the narrative, to see Jesus pick up on that, right. To see the call of discipleship be a call to be shalom makers, you know, blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be Called children of God. Why? Because this is what God does. God makes shalom, God does justice like. And so it's.
And so when I think about why, why we haven't heard this message, it's like you can't disconnect it from the history of the message being co opted by rome back in 313 by Constantine and the empire and how the message of Jesus was then connected to imperialist ends, conquest, raising the cross in the name of war, fighting under the banner of the Lord.
And to see how that has carried through history, to see how that has been so. So a part of what has shaped the dominant form of Christianity that has taken root in America.
It's like we can't disconnect those things.
And so there's a reason why a gospel of shalom that is really forming people in the way of justice and peace.
It's not advantageous to empire for people to be formed in that way. Right. So of course we didn't hear it.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: I mean I'm going to ask you to preach that in a minute, I think, but before I do that and I'm actually going to skip ahead to maybe ahead and back to the prophets like you were talking about.
But first I'm going to take a moment to just kind of say a tiny bit about how the study is organized and then I'm going to get us to where I really want you to go next.
So in this study there's six sessions and they track along a narrative. So the first session is the story of peace, then the establishment of peace, the disruption of peace, the call of peace, the climax of peace and the consummation of peace. And like the other studies in this series, they each session has a manifesto statement, a myth associated with it, a material statement and emotion, something that we can do.
And as you were talking about the prophets, I could not help but want to sit in this place for a minute.
So in the call of peace, the manifesto statement for that session is that the prophets call the people of God to practice peace and justice, which you've just talked about. Jesus quoted the prophets, we can see. I mean this study has stuff as you mentioned, all the way from Genesis throughout the New Testament. It's got revelation, it covers the, I mean there's prophets in here. This Bible study is truly a Bible study. I mean it's, it covers so much of scripture.
But the prophets call the people of God to practice peace and justice, which I think we can see. Yes, this, this is true. The myth statement of, associated with this Session, However, I feel is.
I wish it were not as relevant as it is today.
And that is, if you speak out against injustice, then you're standing in the way of the unity God desires.
I mean, this feels.
If you speak up against injustice, then you're standing in the way of unity and that God desires. Can I just say. And this is. I feel like this is like an actual hot take, but. And you. I mean, push back against me, Drew. I mean, like, I'm. I welcome it. Okay?
But when I see that, I'm like, how many people will hear that? And it will be triggering because they have had maybe individual spiritual leaders in their lives say to them, you can't bring that up.
Don't you know that the most important thing in our community is unity? And when you bring that up, you are the one who is being disruptive. You are the one who is causing trouble. You are the one who is. And then the leader might come back and say, this God desires unity. And that feels on the verge of. Sometimes that's on the verge of spiritually abusive, right? To claim this God desires unity. And what you're doing is not in line with what God is calling us as a community. Because the most important thing is that we be united.
Who cares about these other things that are happening that you're bringing up? You're just being disruptive on a grander scheme.
Especially now, I have seen this kind of thing, and it really. I mean, to be kind of trite, is this like, kumbaya? Can't we all just get along? Don't we know that this is. You know, we're. As Christians, we're supposed to be known by our love. And that means, you know, xyz, that we just get.
Go along to get along or whatever it is.
And then we're reminded of what you mentioned already, the prophet's call and Jesus affirmation of preaching good news to the poor, to serving people who are oppressed, to not being satisfied with people being in bondage but fighting for their freedom.
Yeah. I mean, this. This one felt.
This unity piece feels.
I don't know, like it's something pretty common now. And it's like. And then. And then you go, well, I do know that there is something that we should be united and we should be a community that is. That values unity. That is not false.
But I think where we. Where we get into this is. But at what cost?
So, I mean, push back at me, Drew. I mean, that felt real awkward for me to say, but talk to me.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, to stay with the prophets, right. There's a passage in Jeremiah 6 that I think really helps me in this.
And it's a passage actually where Jeremiah or God through Jeremiah is naming or designating what a false prophet looks like.
And a false prophet is one who claims peace. Peace where there is no peace, right?
That is the definition, if you will, of a false prophet that's so hard. One who declares peace where there is no peace.
And in the Context of Jeremiah 6, it's the prophets who refuse to deal honestly with the threat of the armies that are going to overtake the people.
And you know, in exile, like there's this threat of the people that the prophets just say, okay, like we're going to ignore that. Right. And so God says, you treat the wound of my people lightly and you declare peace. Peace where there is no peace.
And so this idea of God just wants unity.
God's desire, God's desire is that, you know, we would, we would wake up to, and you know, live in the reality of our oneness with one another, with everyone and everything, even with the creation itself.
But to wake up, to become conscious of that, you have to become conscious of the fact that what we, what we live in, like practically speaking, from day to day is the tearing apart of what God has declared good and one and whole in the beginning.
And we can't actually do the work of putting things back together and living in the deep reality of oneness if we don't name with precision the ways that things have been being ripped apart.
And, and so to just say, to call, to call, you know, to say, you know, naming injustice is to sow division, right?
And that is that, that flies in the face of the biblical witness, right? From, from prophets starting in, starting with Moses, who God raises up to name injustice, to call the, those who were in power to a different way of being, to liberation.
All throughout the prophets, right there, I mean, but there's a reason why the prophets are killed. There's a reason why the prophets are named rabble rousers and sowers of disunity. That's not new, right? That is. And Jesus said that. Jesus, Jesus said like, you know, as he wept over Jerusalem, right?
The, the, the city of peace, the city of Shalom, right? Is like there's a reason that you, you kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you, right? It's, it's.
No one wants to deal with the injustice in their midst when our very way of being props it up, right? And when our refusal to deal with it only leads to its.
Only leads to it being perpetuated more and more.
And so yeah, it's like I've heard that so many times in my life, you know, to this call to unity that is cloaked in God language, but underneath of that it's really sinister because it ignores, as Jeremiah said, the wound of the people.
And you know, I just, I think back to Dr. King, I think back to his letter from a Birmingham jail and the ways that he, that white moderates would say the same thing to him and the ways that he was labeled someone who was a sower of disunity.
And what's interesting to me is to kind of know that history that is fact. There's a reason that we have so many mug shots of Dr. King where there's a reason why eventually he was killed and to kind of be on this side of it and to hear the same people who would label him as a sower of disunity and a rabble rouser and a this and that and a violent protester, then to hear now people pointing to him and saying, why can't people be like Dr. King?
Right? Why can't people.
Do you know what I mean? It's like the way that history has been completely whitewashed and we don't.
And all in the name of this kind of false peace, false unity that doesn't actually deal with the problem.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: That's right. I mean, who, yeah, you don't want people to be like Dr. King. I mean, you don't actually know because I mean, you don't.
We're in a summer where the National Guard and Marines are being called out for people who look like Dr. King's example, singing in the streets and things like that.
I want just two seconds there, two more seconds there.
I'm really appreciative of you bringing up Jeremiah. 6.
False prophets are the ones who say peace, peace when there is no peace, but also who have treated the wounds of my people lightly.
That, that's tough.
And I think about, you know, bring it down for a second, take it away from the, from the, from the meta for just a moment and go to like our personal relationships.
You know, I think it's, it's just very interesting because I think it's good for all of us to take a look and I say if I'm tempted to say peace, peace where there is no peace. If I'm tempted to treat the wounds of a people group lightly, then I think about how do I want people to treat me in my own Personal, one on one relationships. How do I desire to treat people who are close to me, people who live in my house? You know, often I talk to my youngest about repair work. You know, when you hurt someone, what do you need to do?
And sometimes we go back.
My kids used to watch a cartoon, like a PBS cartoon, Daniel Tiger. This was based on Mr. Rogers neighborhood, right? And Daniel had a song. None of Daniel's songs were that great. The messages were good, but the. The tunes are not great. But he used to have a little song, and it would say something like, saying, I'm sorry is the first step.
Now, how can I help?
And it's that repair work to treat someone's wounds lightly. You're not asking that, how can I help?
You are saying, peace, peace, when there is no, it's fine. Oh, I stepped on your toe. Whatever, it's fine. Like, no, it actually hurts. Like, how can I help? Do you need me to bring you an ice pack? You know, like, what. What is it that I can do? Even if it was an accident, I stepped on your toe on accident. But I was wearing my heels and I'm so sorry.
How can I help? Oh, well, maybe I need help just getting over to this couch so I can rest for a minute. Okay? Not suck it up, you know, suck it up and keep walking. You're fine.
Peace, peace. You know, it's like, no, this person is actually wounded. This person is actually hurt or their feelings are hurt, their. Their bodies are hurt. Like, what can I do? I mean, I just think, I'm not trying to be funny or make light, but it's like, these are the things that we teach our preschoolers and our kindergartners, right? Is like, when you've hurt someone, even if it was by accident, like, tend to them, you know, for a moment at least tend to them.
Let them recognize that you recognize there was an injury that happened. Or a bully pushes a kid down. You know, the bully may not turn around, but you saw it. So you can turn around and say, how can I help? You weren't the bully who pushed them, but you can still say, are you hurt? You know, I mean, this was one of the moments I was so proud of my. Of my youngest. He did this in the. In the playground. You know, there's a kid who is bully. We're always hearing stories about this, and.
And he hurt one of his friends, you know, and it's like, well, you go tell the teacher. You. You try to help tend to that person when they're hurt. And when they're wounded. Even if it wasn't you who did it, or even if it was you on accident.
And, and it goes into the, the another place where you have that.
One of the things that you write is to be a disciple of Jesus means that we must learn his way of making peace in the world. And we engage in the work of peace.
And that one says, we engage in the work of peace because Jesus is coming back.
I feel like that's a whole other thing. If we say the creeds on Sundays, we talk about Jesus coming back but engaging in the work of peace because he is coming back.
These things sometimes feel like far away.
But we are embodied people called as disciples of Jesus to do this work that prophets talk about on the ground because it matters.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: I love the, like you bringing it to the. That that example of, of your youngest and the things that we learn as children because it is, I mean, it's like it's not as complex as we often try to make it to be.
We know what it feels like to have people ignore our pain, and we know that it is doubly as injurious when the people who ignore our pain are the ones who have caused it.
And, and so it's like to, to be screaming out, hey, I'm in pain. Hey, I'm hurt. I've been injured.
I need help.
And for that to be ignored over and over and over and over again.
I mean, this is the, this is the story, right, of, you know, how many movies have we seen where, you know, the, the, the person who was hurt as a child ends up responding out of that hurt because they've been ignored for so long, right?
And the, and the whole arc of the story is that that person then becomes the villain. That person is then viewed as the villain.
And then there has to be someone to rise up to save the world from the big bad bullies, but we never actually get to the root of it, right, and deal with, deal with the, the, the actual pain of the problem is that like, you know, this person was hurt deeply and people continue to ignore the hurt.
And so we know the old adage, hurt people, hurt people, right?
And the ways that, you know, people can respond out of woundedness.
And to see through the eyes of compassion is to see through the eyes, you know, like, what does it mean for me to deal honestly with the ways that people have been wounded in this world and not to fall prey to the, the easy, you know, scapegoating and criminalization and, you know, all of those things like Even, even, like as we see protests and you know, there are, there are, there are those who will quickly say, you know. And, you know, a lot of times these, these are fabricated stories of violent protests and this, that and the other, you know, but even, but even during those times when things do get out of hand, right? And there, it's like, I remember Dr. Kingsworth when he says, a riot is the language of the unheard of, right?
It's the person whose pain has been ignored over and over and over again.
And eventually they say, but you're going to hear me.
Someone's going to eventually hear me, right?
And so I just think about what is our responsibility toward one another.
You really want to talk about unity?
Unity is this. Unity is if my neighbor has been injured, has been hurt, has been wounded, their injury is mine, right?
This is body of Christ language, right? When one suffers, we all suffer.
That's, that's, that's unity.
That's union, right? So I don't care if my neighbor lives in Gaza.
If my neighbor is being wounded and has been being wounded for generations.
That is not something that's distant from me. Their pain is my pain.
So what does it mean for them? What does it mean for me to then respond to that? What does it mean for me to then feel that and to not push that off and to say or. And to ignore it and say, well, that's. That's on somebody else's doorstep. That's not my problem. It doesn't affect me.
And then you take it up another level, you ratchet it up and you say, what is my responsibility when my people and my government are doing the wounding?
What is my responsibility toward that?
Right? So I just, like, we have to keep asking the questions of what is ours to do, right?
In this invitation to be peacemakers in the midst of a world at war, the answer can't be nothing.
It can't be nothing, right?
We may not be able to save the whole world. That's not ours to. The world is not mine to save, you know, but it is mine to participate in God's work of salvation.
I am called to participate in it and to wrestle with what can I do from where I am, with the voice that I have, with the power that I hold, what is mine to do?
And so that's. I mean, I don't even know if I've answered your question, but yeah, just.
Yeah.
We can't treat the wounds of our neighbors lightly.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: You're raising different questions and we're going all over the place including places that aren't even in this study. But it's great. Study's great. Get the study. Everybody do this together. And then you'll have these conversations, too, in your own. In your own groups. But, Drew, it's. Gosh, it's making me think of where we are right now in.
In our churches, in our Christian communities.
I know you don't shy away from conversations like this, but I'll just say, take any option you want on how to talk about it or not to talk about it. But I am thinking right now about how it matters, how we respond when our neighbors are wounded.
I think here are some of the things that are going through my mind.
Can we see our neighbors wounding?
You know, I think this is. This is one question for me.
You know, you mentioned Gaza, and I think sometimes this is hard for us to see our neighbors.
Our neighbors wounding. I think, you know, what about when working towards the kingdom looks so different, and sometimes it looks like we're going in opposing directions from some of our Christian brothers and sisters. I think Dr. King spoke to that in Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I also think it just feels like if we could learn from our history, we don't have to reinvent the wheel with things that are happening right now. Everyone keeps saying, and in some ways, there is a truth to. We're living in unprecedented times. Okay, yes, in some ways, this is the case. And in many other ways, I say, yeah, but what is it? The saying like, history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
If we could see the rhyme, you know, if we can see the rhythm of this, then we wouldn't feel like we would have to reinvent the wheel. So I guess maybe when it comes to peacemaking, if we take just that, if we take. History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme. What can we learn from our predecessors and how they did the work of peacemaking in their own times, where hostility, oppression, violence reigned?
What can we learn from them now? Where we sit now?
I mean, that's a book. So what? You know, that's a book. But in these few minutes.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a library.
It's a library.
I mean, I think just to start off by saying, yes, history does rhyme, and it's important for us to be students of history.
And there's also a reason why the telling of history in all of its depth and power is being attacked. Right?
[00:38:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:23] Speaker B: You know, certain versions of history, you know.
Yeah. I mean, history. History is powerful, right. And there's a reason that, you know, people have gone to lengths to really preserve what happened and who showed up and who resisted. You know, so one, let's. Let's do all we can to make sure the fullness of history is told, right.
When we live in a world where we know that the winners write the history books.
But there's always been a different way of seeing that has been preserved, particularly from those on the margins, Right?
And so, yeah, but I think to your question, what can we learn? Like, there are so many examples, so many examples of.
Of people who were deep, deep followers of the way of Jesus who got really creative about how to respond to the mounting oppression and injustice of their time.
You know, obviously we could talk about Jesus, right?
But I want to look at, like, people like, even. Even within the. Within sort of the early Jesus movement, the early church, right?
You started off by asking me a question around peace and justice as being, like, central to Christian discipleship.
And I think about how, like, the early sort of discipleship programs, the catechesis of the early church was.
You know, I was just.
I went back to an old sermon that I preached, and I was just kind of relooking at some things and.
But one of the things was that I talked about in that sermon was just about how the early profession of faith at baptism, you know, was how part of that was the very explicit call to denounce the ways of war, to denounce violence.
So when you went down into the water, right, the idea was that you were leaving on the shore the weapons of war and the ways of war.
Like, put. You can't. You can't proclaim the way of Jesus and hold a sword in the other hand. It doesn't mix, right? And so it was a very revolutionary thing to have, you know, people who were part of the Roman legion say, I want to follow the way of Jesus.
I've had this encounter. I want to follow the way of Jesus.
It's like, yeah, you can't baptize your sword and shield. Can't do it.
Leave it on the shore, right? And so, like, that was just a way of protesting the violence of the empire and saying, we are going to follow a different way that is our witness in the world.
You know, I think of. I think of then what started to happen as the.
As. As Christianity started to become more and more, you know, a part of the religion of the empire during Rome and the ways that you had these people and communities of people flee to the desert, the desert Amas and Abbas, the desert elders who started the. What we now know as monasticism, those monastic communities that were, in and of themselves, by their very nature, ways of resisting empire and its violence and the ways that it was taking over the name of Jesus.
I think if people like St. Francis, who in that same spirit embodied a whole different way and was not so much interested in creating whole different sorts of, like, you know, statements of orthodoxy for people to say, you have to profess this way or you have to believe this way. His whole thing was, let's practice a better way.
And so to quote Father Richard Rohr, who is a Franciscan and who learned this from the way of Francis, he says, the best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.
And so someone like Francis and St. Clair, who embodied this different way in terms of getting proximate to those who were on the margins, as someone who grew up, you know, in. In as the. As a. The son of a wealthy merchant and who saw the ways that the church had become about wealth, you know, the acquiring of wealth and power and militarism, and he was like, I don't want anything to do with that. But there's this thing about this Jesus that looks so different.
And so he. He. He. He got close to the lepers.
He.
He had this deep, deep affection and care for creation, right? So you hear about The Canticle of St. Francis and Brother sun and Sister Moon, and at this time where the empires of the world were learning the ways of extracting from the world, Francis is embodying this different way.
During a time of the Crusades where the church is going out and demonizing Muslims and slaughtering them in the name of Jesus, Francis comes along and he crosses over enemy lines and he makes friends with the sultan, right, and embodies a different way, right? It's like, I could keep going because there has been this witness of people, and they have been a minority. They have been on the edges. They have not been, you know, what has become powerful and central to Christendom throughout time and history.
But there's always been a remnant, and it will always look like it's standing in opposition to sort of the dominant Christian narrative of the day.
And so to that, I say, if you find yourself being in opposition to those voices that are saying we have to, you know, the way of Jesus means we have to. I don't know. You throw anything in the blank like we talked about, preserving unity, and you can't call out injustice, like, if that's what the.
What's coming out of our churches, what's coming out of Our pulpits, what's forming the majority of people who claim to be Christian in this nation.
If you find yourself in opposition to that, you find yourself in good company, right?
Of. Of those people who have.
Who have saw. Have seen something different in the way of Jesus and have followed it faithfully. And it's put them on the outs from the. From the dominant, you know, apparatus of the day.
And, you know, so I would say, like, let's keep learning from them. Let's keep looking, you know, for their. Their witness.
Let's tell their stories.
And I think the thing that I love most about it is that if you look throughout history, they don't look the same.
Those people who have. Who have walked a different way and have resisted. It's been very creative. It's been imaginative. It's been people acting out of their own gifts and passions, right? You have, you know, writers and poets and activists and environmentalists, and it's the whole span of people doing what is theirs to do with what has been given them.
But it's all in service of a more just and loving world.
And so I think that's what we can learn is how do we take what is ours, the things that we're passionate about, the gifts that God has put in us, and say, what does it mean for me to then put that in service of a world of shalom, Right? Even if it means putting me on the outs with the dominant voices and structures.
[00:47:26] Speaker A: Drew, I'm going to ask one more question that goes to that.
The dominance there.
And then I'm going to ask you to close us out with whatever last words you have for us.
But right before that, when the study starts, the very first myth is peace is achieved through oppression and suppression.
And to me, this is linked very directly with these dominant voices that you're talking about. I mean, when we talk about history, I didn't think you're going to go back to Constantine, but go back to Constantine because I think that's so important.
My husband has a ridiculously long book called Constantine's Sword. I have not read it. I study Constantine in seminary. So let's just. I got better than the Cliffs Notes, but not Constantine Sword. If you're really interested in Constantine, read that. But the moral of the story is we have a leader who converted, at least publicly, to Christianity, and then that became this early turning point for Christianity and empire being linked.
And, gosh, that is a hard thing to wrestle with, because, as you noted, we see that still today all over the place, not just in the Us, but, but all over the place and throughout our history, we, oh, we can talk about colonialism, we can talk about, right, all of these, all of these things, all this hegemonic rule, everything that had to do with Christianity imposing itself as empire all over the world.
But this piece is achieved through oppression and suppression.
Again, taking this away from the big picture and going down to the smaller picture. Just to give an illustration, I think we understand on an interpersonal level how problematic that is, right? If you're in a therapy session and you might be telling your therapist, I'm in this relationship, or my fill in the blank, my parents, my teacher, my whatever, never really cared what I thought. They always just wanted to keep the peace. They just didn't want us to speak up. We weren't allowed to speak our mind. We weren't allowed to do this or whatever, or think interpersonally. We know enough interpersonally to know that's not a healthy relationship.
When one party is expected to keep their mouth shut, to not speak up, and the other party just suppresses their opinion, their feelings, their thoughts, their actions, whatever it is. We know enough intrapersonally to know this is a dysfunctional relationship. This is not healthy.
Yet something happens to some of us when we see this in a meta narrative.
We see a leader, we see a government, we see a church body, we see a movement where the goal is, everybody just chill, don't bring it up, you know, whatever. And I think part of that is we know intrapersonally, even though that's not healthy, we know it's better to do the messy work of bringing it up. Let's talk about it. Let's talk through it. The argument or the. What it might be. It's probably not going to be fun, but we know that if we do that work honestly and sincerely, all parties are going to be better off on the other side of it. And then when, when, when more things come up, we do that again.
But something happens when, when it's the bigger picture, I think that it becomes more difficult to see. And the suppression or the oppression feels like peace going back to Jeremiah when it's not actually peace. I'm wondering if you can talk about that myth in a, maybe in a better way than what I just tried.
[00:51:56] Speaker B: You know, so that, that, you know, if we take it right back to Jesus's proclamation of peace and his announcing of this gospel of the kingdom underneath of the nose of the empire, right?
You really can't appreciate the full kind of weight of what he's doing there.
Unless you wrestle with what was sort of the myth of Rome at the time.
And the whole idea of the, the Pax Romana, right? The, the peace of Rome, that was the myth of Rome, that they were the shining light for the world, that they were bringing peace to the world.
And so it really justified to them and to the people, you know, why it was good for Rome to go out and to conquer other nations and to conquer other people groups because they were bringing light and peace and salvation and civilization to the world.
Right?
You know, so when you buy into that myth, of course, go out and take over the world because it's good. It's good for, for everybody, for, for, you know, for everybody to come under this sort of peace.
That was what was happening. Like, that was the story that Rome was telling that was being propagated from Caesar's throne.
I mean, Caesar himself, Augustus called himself a son of God. He was, he was divine. He was the son of God. He was right. So like all of, all of this stuff was happening and then you get this, this, you know, this, this, this poor preacher from Nazareth coming along and talking about this, this, this, this other kingdom, this, this way of peace.
That does not, that does not, you know, bring peace by way of the sword, because that's what the Pax Romana was. It was, you know, we will spread our reach through violence.
And if you don't acquiesce and if you don't come under our rule and reign, and if you don't become like us civilized Roman citizens, then too bad for you, right? Like that, that was how they, that was their way of spreading peace through the world.
And that's just the, that's the, the absolute antithesis to the way of Jesus.
And so when I talk about, like this, me, this myth that peace comes through oppression and suppression like that, that myth persists, right?
It persists. On the, the macro level, we could call it the Pax Americana, right? It's, it's no different. Like, we've all heard this story before and my, we might use different language. We might talk about spreading democracy, we might talk about, you know, but if you, if you, if you study American history, honestly, we know what has been on the other side of the promises of democracy, you know, spreading that through the world, how we've done it through bombs and bullets, how we've done it through occupation of lands and how we have told the story on the home front, that this is for the good of the people, right? Because they're living under these dark whatever, right? It's like, let's, let's talk about it honestly.
So on one hand, like when I use that myth, like I'm talk. I'm trying to get us to wrestle with these larger narratives and how the gospel cuts through them, right, and says that, no, there's a different way. That's not actually what peace is.
And then when you, when you do bring it down to the micro level, to our interpersonal relationships. Yeah, I think you hit it, you hit the nail on the head. Just that idea of even the ways that, like, you know, if you, if you go to the schoolyard, right, and you give the bully what they want, right, you might be spared from a knuckle sandwich, right. Like it's, you know, but if you don't, right. And, and so from the outside, you would say, oh, well, that's peace because that person was spared violence, right, because they acquiesced to the bully. So it's like saying peace on the playground means giving the bullies what they want.
And we know that's not true.
We know that that's absolutely not true. But that's like the way that we operate on a macro scale.
And so. But it's a myth. I think that's, that's the whole point of like, you know, the, the in the studies to call that out as a myth.
And, and to say that it's a myth, right, is to say that it's, it's, you know, myths are, myths are stories that form us. Right. And there can be positive myths that form us in really powerful ways, and there can be myths that malform us, and that's one of those myths that malforms us.
So, yeah, there's so much to say about that, but I think just to kind of hold it within that Pax Romana versus the Pax Christi, the peace of Jesus, they're very, very different ways.
[00:58:22] Speaker A: They are very different. Before I ask you to close this out, well, thank you for that. Gosh, the bully in the playground is a great picture of that. Just again, what we've talked about it so much, just looking at something and looking at that and saying that that's peace, but it not really being peace. When you talked about Jesus living under that Pax Romana, I immediately thought of his mom and her song in Luke of the Magnificat and just how Mary knew Mary was living in the same system, under the same oppression, and declared that the peace that God brings does not look like the peace, the quote, peace that she and her people were living under at the time of Jesus birth.
[00:59:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I mean, I mean, can we talk about how, how that song, Mary's song, has been, you know, banned from being recited in public liturgies by, you know, several countries because of the ways that it is viewed as possibly inciting revolution among the poor.
[00:59:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:59:50] Speaker B: Do you know, it's like when you hear people saying, talking about what God is going to do, God's salvation, that God is going to cast down the mighty from their thrones and lift up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and has sent their rich away empty.
Like that's Mary's declaration of God's salvation and peace in the world.
[01:00:10] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:00:10] Speaker B: Right. And the way that I, you know, not to go off on a tangent, it's not really a tangent, but, you know, but just to say that like when you hear, when you hear Mary talking about the lifting up of the lowly and the pulling down the mighty from their thrones, it's like there's a reason why the message of the gospel is so hard. I mean, Jesus said this, right? It's hard for the rich and powerful to inherit the kingdom because that message, that your salvation is tied to you being pulled down.
Like, it's hard to receive that as good news, right? It is those who have been on the margins and have been humiliated and oppressed by the world, for them to hear that good news is for them to be lifted up and to hear that they are loved, that they have dignity, that they have worth, right? It is, in its own way, it's hard for people to receive who have been told that they're not worthy. But it's easier for them to receive that message than for those who have been told that their worth and their dignity is tied to their power and status. To receive that, that's not it at all. And to be pulled down from their thrones.
But when you look at the picture of it, for people to be lifted up and to be pulled down, it's a leveling of the playing field.
[01:01:30] Speaker A: That's right.
[01:01:31] Speaker B: Right. It's a leveling of things, right? This is, this is shalom, right? It is, it is a leveling of the playing field. It is, it is putting people in right relationship with one another and that, that is at the heart of this, of this good news.
And why becomes a threat, right? And so it's like, you're right, Mary, Mary knew Mary sung this song. This is. And so when you talk about, like, what, what was forming Jesus as a kid.
[01:02:06] Speaker A: Yep, yep.
[01:02:07] Speaker B: You think about him sitting and learning from his mother, who was singing these songs, who was, who was teaching him the prophets, who was right. Like, that's what was forming Jesus to be the person who would then stand up in the synagogue in his Hometown of Luke 4 and say what he said.
[01:02:24] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. When you talk about the leveling, you know, I often think about the oppressor in situations like this.
And the wording that came to my mind as you were talking about the leveling is when the oppressed are being brought up, they're being told the same message as the oppression presser being brought down, which is your dignity and worth is found in the fact that you are a created being, a child of God. So to the marginalized, your dignity and worth doesn't come from anything that the powerful would say about you or how they would treat you. Your dignity and worth comes from your inherent creatureliness, from your being made in the image of God and to the oppressor.
Your dignity and worth does not come from your ability to have power over someone or to put someone else down or to hoard something or something else. Your dignity and worth comes from the same place, your creatureliness, the fact that you're a child of God. It's the same message, but we lose different things when we receive it.
Yeah, and that's.
That's tough.
[01:03:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it's tough.
[01:03:45] Speaker A: That's tough. That's real tough.
Doesn't it always happen like this? We start preaching at each other right when we're about to end anyway, as we close out.
This is a part of a series of Bible studies that made for PACs, and IBP, has put out together this one, Let Peace Reign.
Drew, what would you leave us with? I would ask maybe what is your hope as people get their hands on this study and they start to participate in this together as communities of people? What is your hope for folks as they engage with this work?
[01:04:26] Speaker B: Yeah, one that people would wrestle with the message of the gospel again, wrestle with it in the context of the world in which we live, start to ask questions again, start to get curious about the way of Jesus again, and begin to ask the question, what is ours to do as those who have been called to be makers of peace in this world, if we desire to, you know, live out the way of our Father in heaven, Right.
This, this, this, this beatitude, you know, blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
I mean, that is.
There's so much power in that, in those few words.
And it looks like something, right? To, to make peace looks like something.
And so I would just hope that as people and as communities begin to wrestle with this again and ask questions again of what it means to hear this Gospel, to follow this Jesus, that there would be small ways that people would begin to act in their homes, in their personal relationships, in their communities, their neighborhoods, you know, and that that would be something that would contribute to sort of a larger collective of what we talked about earlier, those small pockets of people who begin to walk in a different way, to challenge the status quo and to have a new imagination for what could be. I think if there's any that is the hope is that it would spark a new imagination for what could be beyond what we currently see.
[01:07:01] Speaker A: Amen.
Thanks so much, Drew. Again, the name of the study, which I don't even think I mentioned, has a video component, by the way, for every session.
It's called Let Peace, Love, justice, and Dignity in God's Kingdom by Drew Jackson. Thank you again so much, Drew, for joining me today.
[01:07:20] Speaker B: Thank you, Alexis.
[01:07:23] Speaker A: The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the show Notes, music and podcast production by Seth Buscetti. Be sure to give us a review on itunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app. You can also Visit
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