Exploring My Strange Bible - Jesus, Truth & Spin - Gospel of Matthew Part 8

Episode Date: June 18, 2018

Today we are going to focus on Jesus’ teaching about swearing… as in “swearing oaths”. You’re probably not too hung up on “swearing too many oaths”, but it was actually a really important part of Jesus’ culture in his day and age. More importantly, we’re going to explore some of the basic heart-level issues that Jesus is getting at here. The way we talk to each other with spins, half-truths, etc. is actually the very same thing that Jesus is trying to address in this piece. This became a surprisingly relevant and important teaching for me, and I hope it is helpful for you.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. All right, well, in this episode, we're going to keep exploring the gospel according to Matthew and specifically camping out in the Sermon on the Mount. This was part of a teaching series I did

when I was a pastor at Door of Hope Church a number of years ago. We're camping out in the Sermon on the Mount and going to focus in this episode on Jesus's teaching about swearing, not cussing, but swearing oaths, which I'm guessing probably isn't one of your biggest hangups in life, is that you like swear too many oaths. But swearing oaths was actually a really important part kind of woven into the fabric of everyday life and culture in Jesus's day and among his people in time. So we're going to explore some of that. But more importantly, what I try to do is identify the basic heart level issue that Jesus is getting at here and how our own practices in the modern West of packaging, how we talk to each other with spin and illusion and half-truths is actually a manifestation of the very same thing that

manifested itself in Jesus' day in the swearing of oaths. This became a surprisingly relevant and powerful teaching of Jesus for me after the reading and reflecting I did on it, and I hope it's helpful for you, so let's dive in. dive in. We're continuing through Matthew, and we've been crawling, quite literally crawling, through this first section that's one of the greatest collections of Jesus's teachings. It's one of the first collections of Jesus' teachings that you come across in the Gospel of Matthew. We, in the English church tradition, have called it the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew, when he introduces Jesus giving this message, he calls it Jesus teaching and preaching the good news of the kingdom. That's what these chapters are about. And so Jesus, he's been going around. You'll remember this kind of by way of summary.

He's inaugurating the kingdom of God, the rule and the reign of God is dawning in the world in a new way in Jesus and in what he's doing and what he's saying. And so he's coming as King Jesus to reclaim his world from right, from what we've done to the place. And he's forming a people around himself called disciples or followers. And they are people who see Jesus and they recognize him for who he is. And they are putting themselves under his rule and his reign. And that's what these chapters are about, the good news of the kingdom. chapters are about, the good news of the kingdom, the good news of what it means to rediscover our humanity in Jesus's kingdom, because he's come to both reclaim it from how we ruined the

place and ourselves and each other, but also to make all things new. And so we're in this section, it's kind of a mini section within chapters 5 through 7, where Jesus is filling out a portrait of the renewed hearts and minds of the people of the kingdom, the people who commit to Jesus and allow him to begin remaking them. What does such a person look like? And what he says is such a person looks like somebody who fulfills what all of the Old Testament laws and story were pointing to all along. And so we're in kind of the six-part little mini-series here where Jesus quotes from an Old Testament law, and then he says, you've heard that, and that is good. And then he sets his own teaching

right alongside it. And his own teaching doesn't contradict it, but it is meant to get to the real root issues. And so every single week, it's been a really intense part of the series, because he's getting at these deep root issues that distort our relationships. The highest, absolute highest value and the highest ethic of the kingdom, we're going to hear this so many times, right, as we go on in the series. Jesus is asked, what's the most, what does it mean to be a human? What is God's will for human beings? And Jesus summarizes the great command with two angles. And what's the first one? Love God while your heart, soul, mind is strength. And what's the second ethic of

the kingdom? Loving your neighbor as yourself. And so everything in the kingdom is about God remaking his world and remaking humans to be a world of healthy, whole, loving relationships, of us with God and us with each other. And so what Jesus is moving towards in these six parts is exposing among his disciples the deep root issues in us that distort and that corrode our relationships. The highest value is loving relationships. And so he goes right to the deep issues that like sabotage our relationships. And so he's talked about anger and unforgiveness and sex and all this kind of thing. Today he's talking about the way that we bend and distort reality in order to control how people perceive us. And I just want to begin with the image, actually. It's an image that I came across recently that for

me actually has been very helpful in kind of helping me. I don't know about you, I feel like I just get punched in the gut just in preparing these messages. I don't know what you feel like receiving them. But this is another week of just like, okay, here's another grenade in the room.

Just throw that one in. But I came across an image recently that's helped me, kind of reminded me of what I think Jesus is really getting at here. And how many of you are National Geographic fans or subscribers? Yeah, you see it at the dentist's office, and you're like, sweet. You know, that's kind of how it is with me, or the doctor's office. And you're like, oh, cool, you know, I don't, whatever.

And so I remember, I don't even remember how long ago it was, but I was sitting at the dentist, and I remember I came across an issue, and I had one of these big photo journal essays about icebergs in the Arctic Ocean. And it was all these amazing, amazing photographs of both just how, you know, how cool they look and how unique their shapes are, but then also of these underwater photographs of the parts of icebergs that you don't see from the surface. Do you guys know about these photos? Have you seen them before? They're so amazing. So one of the photographers I remember from that story is a guy named Paul Suders. And if you go to his website, he's continued to explore

iceberg photography. I thought it was a thing, I guess, but he's continued to explore iceberg photography. I thought it was a thing, I guess, but he's amazing at it. And so just here are some images from his website, paulsuiters.com. You should go look at it. It's amazing. How thick was his wetsuit, you know what I mean, to get in the water and to take these pictures. And what's so remarkable and striking about these pictures, of course, is that what you see, you striking about these pictures, of course, is that what you see on, you're in a boat, you know, and you're watching, you know, you look at an iceberg,

and it might be flat, you know, and just a big flat sheet of ice. It might be, you know, 15, 20 feet high with all these, you know, protrusions or whatever. It might be an actual small mountain, you know, 100 feet high or whatever. But what these photographs show us is that the relationship between what's above the surface and what's underneath the surface, you can just never predict by what you see above water. And so some of these things, you know, they're just like 20 feet high, but 100 feet deep under the water. And just tens of thousands of metric tons of ice and glacier break off and stuff like that. They're amazing. And I think why I find these

photos inspiring, there's lots of different ways. They're just cool and geeky, if you like nature photography or something. But there's something profound, because what, like really what is that photograph about? It's about perception, and it's about the fact that if you were to view this thing from above water, you would have no clue what's under the surface, and I saw this image just on, it was on some advertisement or something recently, and then I wasted half an hour on Paul Suter's website. You know how those things go when you're trying to do something and then all of a sudden, you guys know what I'm talking about? Anyway, but God blessed

Paul Souter's because he takes amazing photographs. It was a wonderful half hour spent. But you guys can see where I'm going here. I think this is a helpful image that to me really helped me grab on to what Jesus is trying to do in this section of the good news, the teaching about the good news of the kingdom. And it's a theme that will come up many times as we go through Matthew and his teachings. Jesus views that human beings,

we have all this surface behavior that we watch each other do. We're going through day-to-day life and working with people and living with people and so on, and then sometimes we crash into each other do. We're going through day-to-day life and working with people and living with people and so on. And then sometimes we crash into each other. And there's all this activity that we can observe, you know, and whether it's the kind of stuff he's highlighting, the short temper or the bitterness or sexual misbehavior or broken relationships or distorting the truth and so on. And so that's the stuff we observe about each other. And maybe for some of us, it's more under the radar. You know, we don't notice.

People don't notice that we're doing that kind of stuff. For some of us, it's just out there for everybody to see. You know, it's just that's some people's lot in life. And so what Jesus is interested in is not simply behavior modification in the community of his people. not simply behavior modification in the community of his people. What he really wants to do is move towards the root causes that result in those surface behaviors. And that's what he's been doing as we go through these six parts. And that's what he's doing this week. What is it that causes us to bend and distort how we talk about ourselves in front of other people. We actually are trying to hide from each other by how we talk about ourselves and manage other

people's perception of us. What's the root issue? We call it lying and don't lie, and you teach your kids don't lie, and you write bad moralistic children's books about don't lie, and that kind of thing. But what's actually going on underneath the surface? And it seems to me that's where Jesus is trying to go. So lock that image in your mind and I think it'll help us explore what Jesus is talking about here. Let's look at Jesus' words right here, this paragraph in verses 33 through 37. This might be the first week so far in the series where you read the paragraph and you're kind of like, phew, I don't remember the last time I swore an oath,

so I'm good on this one. You know what I mean? At least there's one area where I think I'm following Jesus pretty well, you know, because I just don't, I mean, maybe if you were on a jury or something, you swore an oath. This isn't something we do a lot, but it was something that was very common and significant in Jesus' day. But even the examples that he gives are just surface phenomenon. And with that last line, he moves to the deeper issue, because this is about

a truthful, honest presentation of ourselves to other people. And why don't we do that more often? So he quotes some kind of Old Testament law, as he's always done. In verse 33, you've heard it said, don't break your oaths, but fulfill to the Lord the oaths that you have vowed. Here's something that's interesting. He's not actually quoting any one law or verse or passage from the Old Testament. He's actually using language from a handful of different passages in the Old Testament about this practice of swearing oaths and so on. And so let's kind of paint a scenario, like what is Jesus speaking into here? What kind of practice is he addressing? So let's say you're a Jewish farmer, right?

And you live outside of Jerusalem, and you have a big grove of olive trees or something like that. Jewish farmer. And you've got a neighbor who's also a Jewish olive farmer or whatever. And let's say for one reason or another, you know, your neighbor doesn't like you. He hates your guts or whatever. Your olives are always for one reason or another, you know, your neighbor doesn't like you. He hates your guts or whatever. Your olives are always better. You stuff them with pimentos and you make loads of money during Passover on your olives or something like that. So he's like

jealous of you and it's been a difficult relationship for a long time. So your neighbor has donkeys. Just work with me here, right? So your neighbor has donkeys, and one of his hardest working donkeys turns up missing. And, you know, he hates you, and so, you know, he thinks that for sure you did it to maybe work your olive harvest or whatever. So he goes to the local elders, and he makes an accusation against you. My neighbor, he stole my donkey. I know he stole my donkey. In fact, I saw him do it. I saw him do it. And then maybe he'll hype up the rhetoric even more, and he'll say, I'm telling you the truth, local elders, I saw him steal the donkey. I swear to you, I swear by the name of Yahweh and everything that's

holy in Jerusalem that I saw him steal the donkey. Okay, you guys with me? Now, so what's in this silly little story, what's happening right there? Why does this neighbor feel the need to say that? Why couldn't he just say, I saw him do it, or I think he did it, you know? Let's investigate. But he appeals to God, right? He drags God into it, and he uses God's name to do what? What's he doing? So he's using God's name to somehow, by association, God is good and holy and truthful. And so somehow that makes the claim more important, more serious. You need to take me more seriously. And so I'm going to use something like God and bolster my claim that I think he, whatever, that's what he's having. Why does he do that? Is he just power hungry?

Is he just a jerk or whatever? You don't know. He's just your crabby neighbor, you know? And so the elders investigate. And it turns out that like you didn't take the donkey. His cousin, his cousin came and borrowed the donkey for a driveway project or something. And he forgot to tell him, you know?

And he thought it was you and it's all just a ruse or whatever. Okay, so what's happened now? In public, your neighbor has taken the name of God and has associated it with his own insecurity and crookedness and whack sense of reality, and he has taken the name of Yahweh in vain and so defiling it by swearing this oath. And so there developed, or there were given laws to the people of Israel to avoid and regulate this kind of thing to stop it from happening. So some famous verses from the Bible.

One of the Ten Commandments, in fact, in Exodus chapter 20. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. Or in older English translations, you might be familiar with the wording of it, which is you shall not take the name of the Lord your God, what? In vain, right? What does that mean? Leviticus 19, you shall not swear falsely by my name and so defile the name of your God. So in our culture now, swearing has to do with like foul language and then using God or Jesus' name in foul language or something like that. That's not what swearing is in the Bible. Swearing is doing what the neighbor did. It's swearing this oath to somehow bolster the importance of a claim that you're making.

And the whole point is to take God's name in vain, is to take God's holiness and uniqueness and goodness and associate it with your own, you know, whatever, distortion of the truth and crookedness and so on. And so what happens when God's name gets associated with my crookedness? It defiles it. It's an abuse of God's reputation. And so you have these laws given in ancient Israel. Don't use the name of God in your oaths. So here's what happened. People didn't use God's name in oaths anymore, but what they developed in Jesus' culture was a whole

cultural practice and system of using other things that were associated with God but aren't the name of God. And so what can you swear by if you're not supposed to use the name of God? Jesus' name is a few things. You can swear by heaven. You can swear by earth. You can swear by Jerusalem. You can swear by your head. And then that created all these other debates. And they exist in Jewish literature from the time of Jesus that we have. All these debates among the rabbis. Well, what counts as a genuine swearing an oath? And like, what do you really have to be sure you're telling the truth on if you're going to swear by this or something like that. And so there developed all of these debates and discussions. Jesus alludes to this whole debate later on in the Gospel of Matthew, in Matthew chapter 23. And it'll, I think, be clear what he's getting at. So he's getting on the Pharisees about

legalism and misplaced priorities. And he says, so you Pharisees, you say, if someone swears by the temple, it means nothing. But anyone who swears by the gold in the temple, well, now they're bound by that oath. I swear by the temple, he stole my donkey. And then it turns out, oh, he didn't really steal the donkey. Well, at least I didn't swear by the gold in the temple. You know what I mean? Because, whoa, you know, the gold in the temple, that's a different thing. So you blind fools, which is greater, the gold or the temple that makes the gold sacred?

You also say, if anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing. But anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath. You blind men, which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar, swears by, branch in the way, swears by it and everything on it. Anyone who swears by the temple, swears by it and the one who dwells in it. Anyone who

swears by heaven, swears by God's throne and the one who sits on it. In other words, so there's developed this practice where, well, if I can't use God's name, I'll use things that are kind of associated with God and that'll still accomplish the end goal, you know, which is to make people impressed and think that I'm for sure telling the truth. But in fact, by just trying to evade and use these like loophole things, you're actually still drawing on God's reputation. Because who made your head? Where did you get your head from? Where is heaven? It's God's space. Where is earth? It's also God's space too. It's all God's. Anything that you could possibly swear by is a part of what God has authored in this wonderful, strange world that we call creation.

And so we're always swearing by God's name, even if you think that you're not. And so here's what Jesus does. He wades into this labyrinth of debate and discussion about like, you know, it happened the way I said it happened. I swear by the altar. And then you just left out a few facts and you distorted some things.

And you're like, well, at least I didn't swear by the gift on the altar, because what kind of person would I be then? And he just wades into this, and he just says, enough. This is just, in the kingdom, it's about simple, honest, truthful recognition and sharing and relationships. There's something about this multiplication of words and what Jesus is exposing here is actually something that undermines and corrodes our relationships. And there's one commentator, a guy named Dallas Willard, whose book, The Divine Conspiracy,

which I absolutely recommend. We've recommended Willard's book before, once in a series we did in the summer. The Divine Conspiracy, at the heart of this book, is about a 200-page, just beautiful exploration of the Sermon on the Mount, the whole thing from beginning to end. It's absolutely profound.

And his comments on this teaching of Jesus, I think he gets it right spot on. He says this. He says, the essence of swearing that Jesus targets here, it's about invoking something or someone else, especially God, to make your words seem more significant and weighty. So the aim is to impress others with your seriousness or your piety so that you get what you want. It's a device of manipulation that's designed to override the judgment or input of others in order to possess them for our purposes. It's manipulation, or as we say in our culture, spin. And Jesus says it's evil. Instead of loving and honoring others with truthfulness,

the intent is to get one's way by verbal manipulation of the thoughts and of the choices of others. How you guys doing? That's a dense, that's a very dense paragraph, but do you get what he's saying here? This is not just about first century Jewish culture and what you can swear by and so on. The root issue is that we present our

yes and our no, we present ourselves to each other as false presentations. We don't live in ways that are truthful with each other. Instead, what I love is the analogy of generating spin, because 21st century America, you know what he's talking about, don't you? Spin. So Coca-Cola, they give you a commercial of children playing in a field, or like cuddling polar bears or something like that. It's like, what is that?

We all know what's going on right there, right? They're using the positive emotions that you have associated with kids playing and wanting to cuddle up with a polar bear or whatever and then associate it with their product. Well they'll never show what actually happens with Coca-Cola, which is like you have too much and then you belch and it dribbles down your cheek or something like that. And imagine the close-up of that. That's obviously not what they're going to do.

It's spin. And so it's not even that Coca-Cola is not good or something like that. It's the point of we're using someone or something else in this verbal smokescreen to somehow present me or myself or what I'm doing here in the best positive light, and it's putting on a show. It's putting on a show for each other. And Jesus says that absolutely runs against the core ethic of the kingdom, because when you're doing that, you're not honoring people's ability to actually, like, maybe want to get to know you. You're not being honest and truthful about your own weaknesses or flaws. You're constantly clouding that out or whatever.

It's about this false representation of ourselves to each other. And a community of human beings who are moving towards healthy, whole, loving relationships. This might actually be one of the greatest obstacles you can imagine to a community of healthy, loving relationships. This is the fact that we're constantly hiding from each other through words, through verbal spin and smoke screen. This is not just about first century oath practices in Judaism. This is about a habit that we all, all of us do in some way. So how many of you have been in a conversation before

and you began to notice this pattern of how this person talks? And what they do is they mention the people that they're friends with. And those people are maybe impressive or important or influential people and they just kind of weave it into their speech and it's just kind of how they operate. I was with someone last week, or I was really thinking about this thing. Actually, you know who I was talking about it with was this person. This kind of thing. And you guys know what I'm talking about here. And sometimes it's very subtle, and sometimes it's quite awkward, maybe if they're not very self-aware or something. What's happening

in that moment? So what's happening is, because in that moment, it might be, I mean, it just might be. Odds are, it might be 50-50 or something, but like they really love and they want you to appreciate that person for who they are. But odds are, what's happening is that they're name-dropping and they're actually using that person, right? They're not honoring them as a fully-orbed, divine, image-bearing human being. They're using their reputation and borrowing from it to somehow bolster and fill in gaps that I perceive in how you think about me, and so I want to come across as more impressive or whatever. You guys know what I'm talking about here. We do it through embellishment. So stories about ourselves or stories, you know, you move to a new place. There's a lot of people around Dorfhoff who are new to town.

And so it's, you know, moving to a new place, beginning new relationships. It's kind of this, it's kind of awesome, but also really precarious in a way because you can present a version of yourself that might be totally different than the version of yourself that you just moved away from, you know? And so, and as you get, as you present yourselves in these new relationships, it's this opportunity to tell your story, to tell about who you are. And we all have this tendency to do what? To smoke screen and to, you know, like, you can use grandpa's fish that when I was five it was a one foot long salmon that he caught and then when I was ten it was somehow eight feet long or something. How did that happen in grandpa's story about the fish? But that's a silly example of things

that we all do. We airbrush the presentation of ourselves. We might use other people to do it and use from their reputation. It might just be through verbal smokescreen. And that's what I think seems to us so silly. We look at this practice and it's like, what, the gold on the altar in the temple? These silly primitive ancient people. Don't they know how to be human beings? And there's such arrogance and ignorance on our part.

This is a human thing. There's something deep within us that we actually use our words. Jesus is talking about how we use words. We use our words to hide from each other and to deceive each other. And it might even be so deeply rooted, like the iceberg goes so deep, we don't actually even know that we do it anymore. But you might catch yourself. There's a moment in which you bailed, you dropped the ball, you did something where you blew it, and then someone asks you about it, or they catch you on it,

and in that moment, you have a chance. Do you truthful? Yeah, I did that. I forgot. That was lame. I shouldn't, you know? Or do you like spin a paragraph that the person doesn't actually even know what you just said,

but you think, you know, you know what I'm talking about? Oh man, I didn't say this at the nine, but I'll say it right now. One of my earliest experiences, I was most of the way through my PhD at the University of Madison in Wisconsin, and I had a friend who was the director of the Association of Funeral Directors for the state of Wisconsin. And so he asked me to come give this talk on Jewish views of burial and life after death and so on. And so I'm in a room full of 300

funeral directors. Imagine how that meeting goes. And I remember this one guy asked a question about some archaeology thing of ancient Jewish tombs or whatever, and I didn't know the answer. I just straight up didn't know. I knew a bunch of other stuff that I brought to share, but I didn't know the answer to that thing. And what I did was not the right thing to do. What I did is just start blabbering. And I got about a minute into it, and I was realizing, like, I don't know the answer to what he's talking about. I don't even know what's coming out of my mouth right now, but they're all, and I began to realize, like, I think they know that I don't know what I'm talking about right now. 300 funeral directors. And so I just had to stop myself and just be like,

dude, you know what? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I'm really sorry. I just, you know, there's some things I thought might be helpful, but I just, I don't know. And it was one of those moments where, like, public speaking nightmare, you know, I'm sure I blushed and my body temperature raised 40 degrees

or whatever. But it was, for me, personally, and I remember that experience so vividly because of the strong emotions of shame that I felt because I was trying to hide. Instead of just, no, I don't know, I felt the need because here I am, I need to be perceived and I need to manage how these people think about me

and so I'm going to come up with something to present myself as something other than what I actually am somebody who doesn't know that much about seventh century burial tombs in ancient Israel like why do I need to be that guy who knows that but apparently I thought I did for about 60 seconds yeah right and so that's my geek version or whatever but you guys know what do you guys know what I'm talking about yeah you know what I'm talking about here. You know what I'm talking about. And so what's wrong with us? And these are just non-religious examples.

Jesus is giving ways that we use God language of doing this. Because this is all about using God's name and using our own religious vocabulary to do this very, to do this very thing. How many of you have been in a conversation with someone and they're a Christian and they're talking to you about like a decision that they've made, you know, or something that they've chosen to do and they'll use language like, I've really, I've really been praying about this and I feel like God's called me to it. Or they might even say, you know, I have a real peace about this, and I feel like God's called me to it. Or they might even say, you know, I have a real peace about this. You know, the peace one. I like that one. I have a peace. Because you would

never say that about, I have a peace about eating this hamburger. You would never say that. But I have a peace about moving here, doing this. Anyway, so what's happening right there? It could be that that person is really like honest, searching. They have been praying for a long time, and they've been talking to other people who are wise and getting their input and check my motives and, you know, reflect on the scriptures. And so they've, I hear I'm going to do this thing. But you know, if you have been in this conversation, you know that there are other times where it's like, if they were really honest, it's like, yeah, I kind of like, And you know that there are other times where it's like, if they were really honest, it's like, yeah, I kind of like, I don't know. I prayed once in the last week about this thing.

And to say I've been praying about this, God's called me to it, for some people is actually a way of like putting up a wall. And shutting down the conversation. Because they don't want your opinion, right? Or input. And then it's sort of like the God called me Trump card. You know, who's going to say no to that? God called me to do this, you know. Oh, the Trump, you know, God called them.

What can I say, you know? And it's murky, I understand, but what's the root issue there? For some of us, we use religious language. We use Jesus. And we're actually, we're not honoring and loving Jesus. We're just using him as a way to somehow make my own agenda or decision seem more holy or sanctified. And because it's important that I come across that way in my church community. We do it all the time. And I think the most tragic use of God language to do this is when a church community of people can do this, or the leadership of a church community can somehow convince itself or whatever. It has

good plans or whatever, but there's something that happens even on leadership teams within churches where we begin to use Jesus and Jesus language to just put, like, the stamp, it's holy, right, and good on, like, our five-year plan for our church and what we're going to, you guys know what I'm talking about here, and I say that fully knowing the position that I'm in right now as I say that, and it's actually that issue, the sharing personally, it's that issue that, for me, gives me an extremely conflicted relationship with what I'm doing this very second, right, me an extremely conflicted relationship with what I'm doing this very second, right? Because part of it is just growing up skateboarder in Portland, I just still have this thing in me, stick it to the man, you know what I mean? That kind of thing. And so I recognize in some ways,

ironically, I have a job where I kind of like represent the man or something like that, you know, in the form of a church or whatever, I don't know. And I don't. It's a team of us who do it. But I'm so scared of that. And all the elders are, and Josh is too, it's this ways that you can convince yourself that your own deal is so important that you begin to use Jesus to airbrush your deal. And then you actually don't want the input of other people, and you're just trying to present it as good as you possibly can, because you can get people to do what you want. It's much easier to control people than to love them and to honor them and their dignity and their input. And so I don't actually think this is one of those Sundays where you're like, I'm doing good on this one, you know? Because I haven't sworn an oath recently, you know?

This is obviously much, much, much deeper. It's way deeper. So why do we do this? What kind of inner transformation does it take to get to a place where my presentation of myself and my purposes is just simple and honest? I don't feel the need to create the smoke screen. How do I get there? How does anyone get there? And it seems to me that that's what Jesus is trying to get us to reflect on with this last line here. What kind of person does it take, or what kind of person do I need to become, so that I can not feel the need to hide from you with my words? So that my yes,

my words truly correspond to who I really am, and I don't feel the need to cover that. And actually, I think it's that verbal cover-up that Jesus exposes here that I think really gets to the issue. It's that somehow with words, with just blabbing or talking or using Jesus' language or name-dropping or other people, what we're doing is we're hiding from each other. We're hiding the truth about who we are. And what is that truth? And I think it's the same

truth that some of you learned about the playground bully, you know, in grade school. And they're just a jerk. You know, that's such a jerk and oppressive. You know, they steal your milk money or something like that. I don't just, people They steal your milk money or something like that. People don't have milk money anymore. Maybe they do. I don't know. You know what I'm talking about. Anyway, so you have the playground bully. And they're a jerk and you don't like them.

But some of us, somewhere along the way, they stayed in school alongside you in high school and you learn their story. And what you learn was that their life at home was just a wreck, absolute wreck. And like overbearing, jerk dad who never affirms them if he's around at all, and like tense, anxious mom, and so on. And so what your playground bully is actually doing

is he's compensating. He's compensating for a deep fear and insecurity that they have. And so how do they compensate? They compensate by either bullying you, controlling, manipulating you, or presenting some version of themselves that isn't actually true because, dude, if anyone actually knew about what my life is like and the kind of person I really am, what my life is like and the kind of person I really am, no one would want to be my friend. It's fear. It's fear. What is a smoke screen designed to do? It hides. And so it's the tragic irony of human communities is that we want more than anything to know and to be known by each other, but we're perpetually hiding from each other by how we spin, generate spin around

ourselves. And for you, it may not be swearing oaths. It may not be polar bears and children playing in a field, but we all do it. We all know what Jesus is highlighting and exposing right here. And so how do you get around that, right? How do you address your fear of just being totally insignificant and unimportant? That's a deep iceberg, right? How do you address your fear of people actually knowing the real you and the flaws in your character and the parts of your story that you're not proud of? Like, how do you do that? And there's a theme woven throughout the New Testament. There's one passage in particular that I think is like the answer or the corresponding passage to what Jesus raises right here. And it's in 1 John chapter 4, but just what it highlights is I just want us to

think about who's Jesus and what's he doing? How does Jesus think he's addressing this issue? And remember, what is he doing? He's going around inaugurating and announcing the kingdom. He's throwing these dinner parties and inviting all of the wrong people, people who have been written off by their religious community, and he just invites them to these banquets where he just celebrates God's grace and forgiveness. He is Jesus making the first move and just moving right into people's worlds and lives and just announcing forgiveness and grace and an invitation to come into the family of Jesus' people. And as the apostles and the disciples

later reflected on what Jesus was doing, there is one word woven throughout the entire New Testament that the disciples came to describe what Jesus was doing. There is one word woven throughout the entire New Testament that the disciples came to describe what Jesus was doing. And this passage puts it beautifully. John says, this is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through Him. See, this is love. Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. So as the disciples looked back and reflected on their encounters with Jesus as he inaugurated the kingdom. The word they used to describe everything about Jesus and what he did was love.

Jesus was God's love among us. Jesus was God's love that went and found people who were hiding and distorted and screwed up human beings like we all are, and just made this ridiculous offer that Jesus's life, lived as a human being full of integrity and truth, is being offered to us just as a free gift, which is what he means when he says that we might live through him. Somehow, in John's conception, as we go around hiding through smoke screens from each other, we're living dead people because we don't want to be known, we're scared of being known, we don't ever let people in, we don't actually have relationships where we let anybody in. And John calls that a form of living death.

You're living, but you're not really living for what God made you for. And so Jesus comes as this human who actually is that kind of human. And he begins an association of people who he's beginning to remake and heal that part of them. And so we live through him. And not only that, is that not that we loved God first, but that in his death, and that was his life, and then his death, he actually covers over That was his life. And then his death, he actually covers over all of the huge messes that we make and that we contribute to this world precisely through all of our lying and deception of each other. I mean, the world is what it is because of all of these broken things about us.

And so God's purpose is not to, like, just let us go to hell in a handbasket. His whole point is to come among us and actually do something that addresses the core issues inside of us. And it's love. It's just preemptive, unconditional, like God didn't ask us if he wanted Jesus to come, that he just came among us in Jesus and did this for us.

And here's the result. This is later on in the paragraph. In this, there's a couple lines here. I commend them to you for many cups of tea and lots of time reflecting on. John says this in conclusion. He says, there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.

Fear has to do with punishment. And whoever fears has not yet reached perfection in love. So one of the results in a disciple of Jesus, when they truly reckon with who Jesus is and see what Jesus is doing is God's love for them, is it diminishes fear. What is it that causes us to hide from each other? Fear of being known, insecurity about my worth and my value, and so on. And there's something John says about God's love, which isn't like a mysterious, vaporous cloud out in the universe. God's love is a concrete, real person, Jesus of Nazareth,

who did and said these things on our behalf, if you're willing to accept that. And in that act of love, it's God's permanent commitment to us, despite our deepest flaws and sins and failures, that he's committed to us, and that he sees value and worth in us as divine, image-bearing humans, and that we're full of all this remarkable capacity and potential that we're just totally distorted. And so he's here to redeem that, literally, and to begin to believe that about yourself. I know it's like theology or whatever, so just stop. Do you actually believe that about yourself? There are things that you've never let anybody know about secrets or stupid things that you've There are things that you've never let anybody know

about like secrets or stupid things that you've done or things that you're ashamed of or things that you're embarrassed of about yourself. Do you really believe that those things do not determine your value or worth? Do you really believe that your creator, the most important being that exists, has already demonstrated his preemptive initiating love and grace for you. And John says if you can get that truth deep, deep in your bones and in your mind and in your heart, it eliminates fear. Fear. Because fear has to do with god's actually like out to get me no jesus has proved that wrong fear has to do with people are constantly evaluating and what about if what they think about me you know and then i'm not significant if those people don't think a certain thing about me and what seems to me what john's getting at is like if you really reckon with who jesus is

who who cares what people think about is, who cares what people think about you? Who actually cares what people think about you? Not in a bad way, but in a healthy way. Because your identity is not determined by what other people think about you. It's determined by this act of Jesus right here. And so it seems to me that the only way to address the deep, It seems to me that the only way to address the deep, huge scope of what's underneath the surface of this iceberg, lying is just the tip, and this verbal smokescreen is just the tip of the iceberg. This is the issue, and it seems to me this is how Jesus moves towards us in it. This is the point at the surface where I typically say, I don't know what this means for you. It means 350 different things right now, I think, right? Because we're all at different

places. You know what I'm talking about. And I don't know how to move towards it except to begin continuing the habit of reminding ourselves of what is true. And so the way that we do that in our Sunday gatherings is every week we come together, we worship Jesus for who he is and what he's done, and we take the bread and the cup, which is this tactile word picture that Jesus gave us to remind us of his commitment to us and of his life for us and of his death for us.

And so some of us, I mean, this might be so deep beneath the surface, like we don't really even know how big of an issue this is for us. Some of us, you might be really well aware. And so I would just encourage you as we take the bread and the cup today to just turn this time of worship into a prayer that Jesus would begin to remake you and make you into somebody who can just be simply honest with people and not feel the need to create verbal spin in how we present ourselves to each other. And it's one step forward that we become a community of Jesus's people who truly represent him and represent this renewed humanity that he wants to make in our midst. All right, you guys, thank you for listening to Exploring My Strange

Bible podcast, and we're going to keep rocking the Gospel of Matthew. So we'll see you next time.