Redemption Church KC Sermon Podcast

1. Exposure to the American Black Church prompted a significant shift for Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His life was also deeply impacted by time that he spent teaching confirmation and investing in the lives of a challenging group of boys. In both these instances, he had an initial encounter and then dug in more deeply, rearranging his life to do so. What experiences have you had with unexpected people or in unexpected places that altered your view of the world and/or your understanding of what it means to experience and love God? When you experience challenging or unfamiliar situations, do you tend to lean in or pull back? If you’ve had experiences where you have leaned in, why did you do so, and how did the experience impact you? What did you learn? 2. A major theme in Bonhoeffer’s theology and work is the idea that Tim summarized with this Andy Crouch quote: “the flourishing of the vulnerable depends on the vulnerability of the flourishing.” Take a moment to sit with this quote and the ideas communicated by it. What do you understand it to mean? How do you understand or make sense of the dependency it states? What does that mean for “everyday Christians” like us? 3. As he wrestled with his commitment to non-violence and the reality of Hitler’s rise to power, Bonhoeffer came to this conclusion: “We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” How do you respond to this statement? How much do you see it in practice in the world around you? What resistance surfaces for you as you consider this idea? To what extent do you agree with Bonhoeffer? Share about why.

1. At the start of his sermon, Tim shared about his “wall of fame,” to help foster intentional conversation with important influences in your life. Who would you put on your wall? Why? What did they do? What did they do for or in you? 2. Wendell Berry said that you cannot know the world in general, but that you have to know it in particular. What do you think about this idea? How does it land for you? What does it bring up for you? What experiences have you had that inform your sense of and response to this idea? 3. Tim shared an idea, deeply aligned with Wendell Berry’s own prophetic wisdom: we must love the world [i.e. the earth] as God does. Consider that idea for a moment and then answer, without judgment, how well you think you love the world. What experiences have led you to be where you are in this regard? How do you feel about being here? If you desire movement or shift in your own loving the world, what might it look like for you to intentionally pursue that kind of change? How might you go about doing so?

Cole left us with a powerful benediction today: 1. May we be a people who know the pearl when we find it. 2. May we be a people who stay put long enough to know and to be known by others. 3. May we be a people who give our lives away - especially to the poor. In lieu of 3 unique questions, please use the following questions and reflect on them relative to each of the points from the benediction. Take them one at a time, and if you’re with a group, share. Questions: • What does this mean? • What does it look like? - give practical and concrete examples where you can. • How would you describe where you’re at in relationship to this idea? To what extent are you someone who ? • Where do you what to be? • What might shift look like if you desire it?

1. Tim talked about the incredible defense mechanisms that we have - individually and societally - against change. “Change” as he said, “is painful, costly, and unsettling.” What comes up for you when you think about potential change? How would you describe your general orientation toward change? When you think about Tim’s statement that change is painful, costly, and unsettling? What comes to mind? How do you respond to that statement? What types of changes do you resist the most? What defense mechanisms can you identify, either in yourself or in our society, against change? What things have broken through your natural resistance to change? Which catalysts have driven you to the most significant changes? Do you see any patterns as you consider change in your own life so far? 2. Tim also said that “faith without depth cannot be sustained.” What is “Faith without depth?” What does it look like? What are its unique characteristics? What about faith with depth? What does that look like? What characterizes it? What has brought depth to your faith? What has gotten in the way of its depth? 3. As he approached the end of his sermon, Tim, summarizing key parts of the parable, said that a foundational requirement for the Kingdom of God is a desire to change. He also said that “to be a Christian is to constantly be making up your mind about whether or not to keep being a Christian.” What do you think about these two statements? Which draws your attention more? Why? What in your own experience speaks to these two ideas? In what was have you seen a willingness or desire to change pace the way for God’s Kingdom? Do you feel like you are constantly making up your mind about whether or not to be a Christian? Share about your own experience in whatever ways it does or does not resonate with that idea.

1. Tim framed the story of Zacchaeus through a lens that was probably new for many of us. How did the story you may have learned as a child differ from the one that you heard taught today? In what ways were the meaning and take-aways of the story changed by the new way of looking at it? What new insights or ideas were prompted by a this unfamiliar lens? With new information and framing, take some time to ponder and then share what this story is “about” for you at this moment. 2. Tim shared that, for the first thousand-ish years of the church, the interpretation of Zacchaeus he taught today was the standard. Somewhere along the way, the standard undersatnding of the story evolved (at least in some parts of the world church). Tim also intentionally prepared us to learn a significantly different way of understanding Zacchaeus and his encounter with Jesus. How does it feel to realize that what we sometimes think we know as an objective fact about the Bible might be, instead, just one way to understanding it? Tim shared the following quote from the midrash: “The torah has seventy faces; turn it around and around, for everything is in it.” What’s your initial response to this idea? What does it bring up for you? How do you feel about the idea that there might be many right or appropriate interpretations or understandings of a single Bible story? What if the same is true for all of the Bible? What surfaces for you as you consider that? Is there anything that feels like it should be “off limits” for this kind of consideration? Why or why not? 3. Tim highlighted several examples of times in which standard English translations might lead an English speaking reader into an understanding that is out of sync with the original Greek. Recalling other instances in which we’ve learned that this is a common challenge of translation in general, what does that mean when it comes to the way you relate to the Bible and its words as you understand them? Does it feel any resistenace to that reality? n the landscape of your faith, what does it mean that some of what you’ve been taught may be anchored in misleading word choice on the part of long-ago translators?

1. One of Tim's slides read, "Neighbor isn't a noun; it's a verb, an action: 'to neighbor.'" Spend a little time thinking about and articulating what it actually means to be a neighbor. How would you explain it? If it helps, get practical and consider examples of neighboring you've seen in your real life. Who has been an excellent neighbor to you? What have they done that makes you say so? What outcomes have been born of those people and their actions? What things have you done that demonstrate good neighboring? What impact have your own experiences of neighboring others had on you? On your community? 2. Tim pointed out that, when asked, the expert in the law couldn't even name the Samaritan as the person who was a good neighbor. Instead, he said something like "the one who showed mercy." He went on to say that this man was probably not a "bad person," but instead someone stuck in a cycle of exclusion and blame. Think about some of the people that you might consider especially in need of lessons in neighboring. It might be helpful to think not only of groups, but also of individuals if you can. Do you think that these people are "bad people"? Why or why not? Now consider them through the lens of "people stuck in a cycle of exclusion and blame." How easy or difficult is it to really, fully conceive of them that way? Why do you think that is? Where do you feel resistance to this lens? Now consider yourself. Think about ways in which you might wish you had been or could be better at neighboring. Do these moments in your life make you think of yourself as a bad person? Can you think of yourself as someone stuck in a cycle of exclusion and blame? Is that easier or more difficult than thinking of others that way? Why do you think that is? 3. Tim shared two quotes toward the end of his sermon: "People are hard to hate close-up." ... Brené Brown & "If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life, sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility." ... Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Think back to some of the people you thought of in question two as those who might be particularly un-neighborly. Or perhaps others who you might have a habit of despising. What do you know, if anything, of their sorrows and suffering? If you don't know anything, what might you be able to guess? Try to take a moment to form an authentic, dimensional vision of that/those person’s suffering in your mind. How do you feel considering these people in this light? What resistance do you feel to cultivating compassion for them? Are there places where you feel there should be limits to this kind of consideration? Why or why not? What is valuable about thinking about people in this way? Is it something you practice? Why or why not?

1. As Mandy taught that Luke’s story of the Gerasene demoniac is full of political and military language, she asked us to consider that this story might be more political commentary, along the lines of a satirical political cartoon, than we may realize. What’s it like for you to consider this story that way? What’s it like for you to think about any content of the Bible through this lens? If it brings up resistance for you, share about it. If there’s something about the idea that resonates or makes sense, share about that too. What, in your own personal experience of reading and studying the Bible, might quietly underlie and shape initial responses to this idea? 2. Mandy shared a quote from theologian Dr. Paul Hollenbach: “Demon possession [in the Bible] is often a reflection of class antagonisms rooted in economic exploitation, or a socially acceptable form of protest against, or escape from, oppression.” For many of us, this turns what we may have learned in the past about the idea of “demon possession” on its head. What does this framing stir up for you? What thoughts, questions, or emotions arise as you consider that there may be a different - and perhaps better contextualized - way to understand the Biblical stories about demon-possessed people? Regardless of how you’ve understood those stories about the possessed, spend a little time thinking about who in today’s context might be a rough equivalent of the Gerasene man in the Luke passage from today. Who would they be? What about them makes them possible candidates for this potential label? Assuming that demon possession isn't your go-to, what might be? And how do those conditions & circumstances (as you understand them) hold up within the framework presented by Dr. Hollenbach? 3. As she closed her sermon, Mandy summed up one of her themes with this simple sentence: “healing is so disruptive.” What do you think about that statement? On its face, is it something that feels more true than false? Or vice versa? Why? What examples do you have from your own personal or communal life of healing that has disrupted the status quo? In what ways is individual healing different from social healing? In what ways is it the same?

1. Tim started his sermon today, reminding us about Hegel’s ideas about the importance of the “other” in our ability to grow in self-consciousness. He also taught us that in first-century Jewish Palestine, the “other” was the Gentile. Who are your “others?” Which do you feel most resistant to moving closer to? Why? What insights might the nature of or patterns in your list be able to provide for you? 2. When he talked about the disciples’ response to the sleeping Jesus, Tim taught about the importance of cultivating the ability to recognize the presence of God. How does one go about doing that? How can you do that? What might you say to someone who asked you to teach them? Where and when have you found the most growth in cultivating your own ability to recognize the presence of God? When do you find it to be most challenging? 3. Toward the end of his sermon, Tim talked about the idea of the weightiness of some Christians. He used the metaphor of the moving sand dunes in Cape Cod to illustrate his point. He said that a person who can name accurately the anxiety all around us in our world without getting sucked into it, is someone with a weighty presence. He also shared a quote from Dallas Willard: “Instead of counting Christians, we should weigh them.” When you consider this concept, are there people who come quickly to your mind? Who are they or what do they have in common? Can you put other words to the nature of that weightiness in those specific individuals? What impact has that weight quality had on you as you have been in relationship with those people? What do you know or suspect about how those people came to be people of such a quality? What does it tell you about what you or others who desire to cultivate and mature in that quality might aim to pursue or avoid?

1. Tim started his sermon today, talking about two approaches to understanding what wholeness is and how peace can be established. Both revolve around the brokenness, struggle, failure, and negative aspects of life. The first aims to exclude and eliminate these parts of life in order to achieve wholeness and peace. The second involves embracing and reconciling oneself to these aspects of life. When talking about the brokenness, the struggle, the failure and the negative, Tim said these things are “hardcoded into creation for our benefit.” They, he said, help us to learn and change and grow. What are your responses to these ideas? What thoughts or feeling surface for you in response to the idea that these difficult things are hardcoded into creation for our benefit? What are your thoughts about the differences between the first and second approaches described above? What kind of experience do you have with each? What have your experiences taught you? Is there a difference between the approach that you mentally “better” and the approach you might default to in troubling times? What does that look like for you? 2. Tim talked about prophets as people who feel the falseness of the age and refuse to go along with it. He talked about three elements of the prophetic imagination: feeling the pain of the marginalized, criticizing injustice, and energizing toward a better future. Take a moment to consider people that you consider to act, at least at times, as prophets in our world today. What is it that prompts these people to come to your mind? What traits do they have? What actions do they take? Consider the paradigm of the prophetic imagination. In what ways are you participating in this way of being in the world? How does it feel to consider yourself as a participant in this type of activity? 3. As he closed his message, Tim talked about the way that we are still at church in exile and that the story told through the section of the Old Testament helps us know what to do: We still gather in small communities, read the scriptures, talk about faithfulness instead of success. We break bread together, and put our hope in the future where everyone belongs and knows the love of God. We don’t try to be perfect, and mostly we just struggle and fail. But we confess, we change and we grow, we forgive, and we reconcile. These things, Tim said, help keep us from becoming people who fall for the lie of empire. What are your thoughts about this? This list of things may seem to describe small actions, but what is the size of their impacts? What experience do you have with choosing these paths and how do they shape and form you, your experience of the world, and the world around you in which you do what you can to create and extend shalom? Do they feel like meaningful action? Why or why not?

1. In his sermon, Tim said “the royal consciousness is always blind to those for whom the system does not work.” Working under the assumption that the royal consciousness is alive and well in our society today, who is it that you think is most often not seen? To whom is our culture so often blind? Now consider this on a more personal level. Are there ways in which you or those you love personally have been unseen by the system? What have been the outcomes of that blindness? Which people for whom our systems do not work are you most often blind to who is it that you do not see? 2. Tim talked about the story arc from Egypt to exile. His slide said “the story began centuries earlier with the people of God, walking out of Egypt [ended with] the final remnant of her people walking back in… for the Jewish people, this is a wound that has never closed.” Then, he said that as we read this we are “just like a guest in someone else’s grief.” Many of us have been taught over the years to always see ourselves in the underdogs, the victims, and the oppressed in the Bible’s stories. Tim’s framing here challenges that orientation. How does it feel to think of yourself this way? Are you more naturally inclined to identify with the bereft people in this story or others like it? How easily can you see the story from the perspective of someone helping Israel to walk back into its ideological capture? Why do you think you’re inclined to approach it that way? Does reflecting on your orientation toward this type of story and the ongoing grief in the heart of the Jewish people present any opportunities for you to reconsider or challenge some of the ways you might tend to engage with the stories in the Bible? How so or why not? 3. As he closed his sermon, Tim brought us back to the wisdom Jeremiah shares about this time in Israel’s history. His counsel included encouragement to just keep going in the daily things of life and to be serious about good neighboring. What do you think about this wisdom and advice in the world as you see it today? What does it look like to take neighboring seriously? How do you cultivate it? How do you practice it?