February 21, 2025 • 19 mins
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you and pray for those who abuse you.” Those are Jesus’ directives to us who call him lord. What a dangerous oddness! The concept of "dangerous oddness," a unique term by Walter Brueggemann, paints a picture of Jesus' countercultural call.
In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright have a conversation about redefining society's norm and loving your enemy. They discuss Jesus' guidance, his own response to loving those that curse you, and how we can apply his teachings to our lives. Listen in for the full conversation.
Read For Faith, the companion devotional.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bishop Wright (00:00):
So then, ultimately, we're brought to
this intersection, which is this, and this is why this is a
dangerous oddness and anextraordinary difficulty and a
beautiful struggle.
And all that, and that is Jesusis saying will you follow me,
Because this is where I'm going.
I'm going into enemy love.
You know, from his own crosshe's being lynched in front of
(00:22):
his mother right and he saysforgive, Forgive them, Father,
for they know not what they do.
Melissa (00:40):
Welcome to Four People with Bishop Rob Wright.
I'm Melissa Rau and this is aconversation inspired by For
Faith, a weekly devotion sentout every Friday.
You can find a link to thisweek's devotion and a link to
subscribe in the episode'sdescription.
Hey, hey, Bishop, hey, Melissa.
Today's devotion you calledDangerous Oddness.
Bishop Wright (01:03):
Yeah.
Melissa (01:04):
And it's based off of Luke Luke 6, verses 27 to 38.
And it's Jesus talking aboutloving our enemies and doing
good to those who persecute us,and so this is kind of a bit of
a fiery devotion.
You want to say what's kind ofhitting you most with this
passage.
Bishop Wright (01:24):
I think, just to sort of open with a big punch to
the tummy.
I think that the churchoftentimes is guilty of trying
to fit Jesus into sort ofmainstream, acceptable behavior
(01:49):
and I think that that doesviolence and damage to Jesus's
actual words and actual way tobe.
And so what I'm aware of in andthis, this whole business in
Luke six about loving enemies,is just one big, gigantic sort
(02:10):
of, you know, flashing sign thatI think Jesus is saying we are
different and that's why, youknow, we entitled it dangerous
oddness, dangerous oddness is aphrase I'm borrowing from Walter
Brueggemann, who says thatJesus is the alternative to the
empire.
Right, jesus is the alternativeto the status quo.
(02:31):
And if you start to look atJesus in Matthew, mark, luke and
John through that lens, jesusis not trying to make you a good
American, trying to make yousomething that causes your
workplace, culture, society toreally look at you like what is
(02:52):
this odd person?
Who is this odd person?
I'm looking at Jesus in manyways lives perpendicular to the
culture of his day and of coursethat is why we had to get rid
of him.
And of course that is why wehad to get rid of him is because
he was inspiring people to alsolive in alternative ways, to
take up alternative practices.
Count people who were countedout as siblings, you know,
(03:20):
deserving dignity, you knowrespect, et cetera.
And so, yeah, that's, you knowthat's what it is.
I mean, jesus is not here tohelp us just sort of punctuate
our version of life.
Jesus is here to help us tofind the courage, you know, to
live truth and not popularity.
Melissa (03:42):
Wow, okay.
So when I read this I was like,oh okay, here we go yet again,
bishop, where your words arevery relevant for the very here
and now, and there is a lot ofconcern amongst the populace.
And sometimes I wonder at leastthe way I see it is when often
(04:05):
the church and the empire alignRight.
Well then, we got some problems.
Bishop Wright (04:11):
If we are really going to be, or attempt to be as
much as we can because we allfall short I know I do but if
we're going to be as meticulousas we can about trying to bear
witness to Jesus Christ as weunderstand Jesus Christ in
Matthew, mark, luke and John,and not the Jesus of our own,
(04:33):
you know, our own making then weare always going to be, or
often going to be in living intension with a culture, with our
culture, and it's notanti-American or anti-status quo
necessarily.
To say that, as the lawyers saythem, is just the facts.
(04:54):
Jesus comes with this way to be, in these words, to help us
understand that the way in whichwe've configured ourselves
oftentimes is upside down fromwhat is actual reality, that we
(05:14):
have engineered a world thatultimately is unsustainable,
where the powerful and thewealthy dictate everything and
the people on the margins are ina perpetual sort of cold winter
with only a modicum of theirneeds met, and that the earth is
here for us to just abuse, andthat the earth is not a co-equal
(05:40):
partner, and so is everythingcreated equal partner, and so is
everything created.
We just decide as human beings.
It's part of our failing, it'spart of our own engineering flaw
we call it sin in theologicalcircles that we will design ways
to be that ultimately hurt us.
(06:01):
I have said this before.
You know, when I look out mywindow, you know during the
summer and the fall, you knowsort of all these great and
wonderful garden spiders.
But what's remarkable aboutgarden spiders, as I have said,
is that they don't get trappedin their own webs.
They move, you know, deftlyalong their own.
(06:21):
You know their webs.
But human beings make webs thatwe get caught.
We ourselves get caught in, andI think you know this is one of
the great gifts of Jesus'swords is that they come.
They come to us and his examplecomes to us to try to give us a
way of life that is sustainable, and it helps us to understand
(06:41):
our own integrity and dignity innew ways.
It's just that we are socommitted to the ways in which
we've configured because offamiliarity, because they serve
us in lots of ways, and so Jesusthen becomes a threat.
His newness, his agency is athreat, and so what we try to do
(07:02):
is we try to round off all hisedges.
In the church we try to roundoff his edges and make him less
dangerous, and if we make himless dangerous, then we get to
keep this idea of we'reChristian without the content.
And so enemy love is one of thebest examples of that.
(07:23):
Right, so am I a nice People,want to say nowadays, I'm a nice
person, I'm a good person,that's great.
We should aspire to be allthose good things.
However, jesus has some realclear ideas about what the
deliverables are, and it wasn'tabout being nice or good.
In fact, jesus said who is good?
Right, none is good, but thefather, jesus said.
But Jesus did say, hey, youwant to go my direction?
Melissa (08:12):
Well, and you drop the big word here.
You talk about Jesus and how heled into that.
You say he said that to you whoare ready for the truth, Right?
That's kind of like the big one, right?
And so I'm looking at the worldand I don't know if you're
following I'm sure you are,Bishop that President Trump is
(08:33):
trying to appeal to the SupremeCourt to give him ultimate power
and make him above the law, andI think there are a lot of
people who are hurting andafraid.
And if they're not directlyimpacted by some of these most
recent decisions, I know thereare many people who love people
who are hurting and who areafraid, and so I guess I'm
(08:57):
wondering how do we be different?
How do we set ourselves apart?
What does love look like?
Is it just coming alongsidepeople?
Is it a matter of talking tothe government and government
officials?
What do we do?
Bishop Wright (09:19):
That's a really good question.
One pundit put it this way isis that when you boil it all
down and you try to take as muchof the you know sort of enmity
and malice out of things youknow, let's just say that the
president has an expansiveunderstanding of presidential
authority, one that we have notseen in recent memory, perhaps
(09:41):
ever, and that has to get workedout in the courts.
So so there's that, and that'sa bigger conversation, you know.
I think what is interesting,though, is is that that I'm
always on guard for is is that,while I think it's part of my
duty as a citizen to bewell-informed, to read broadly,
(10:04):
to read the news in sort ofdifferent political parlances,
what's interesting about Jesusis Jesus wants us to work
locally, and so it's not anabdication of my larger
responsibilities, but when youread Matthew, mark, luke and
John, when you read Luke six,there's nothing more personal
(10:27):
and local than an enemy, right?
And so, while I may havephilosophical and political
disagreements with people whoI've never met, who live at a
great distance from me, right,jesus seems to spend most of his
time thinking about the people.
You know three, 10, you know 25feet from us, and so you know,
(10:49):
when he says love enemy, do goodto those who hate you, bless
those who curse you and pray forthose who abuse you.
He's talking about people weknow, people we interact with,
perhaps people who are ourbosses or our employees.
He's talking about perhaps evenour spouses and our children.
And so I think that while wehave to spend a lot of time
(11:10):
thinking about the direction ofour nation, and for those of us
who have the ability to advocateand to do that kind of work,
then we should, in the causes ofneighborliness, in the causes
of sort of charity and equity,we should do those pieces of
work and at the same time, jesusagain is preoccupied with
what's happening.
You know what's that phrasethat Al Roker says on the Today
(11:33):
Show.
You know that's what'shappening nationally.
You know what's happening whereyou are right.
And so how are you handlingneighbor and how are you
handling the neighbor that isyour enemy.
And and what I love about thatline that precedes this in the
message version, I like to lookat lots of different versions of
(11:56):
the Bible and I would remindpeople, please do that.
And so in the Episcopal Churchwe usually use the New, revised,
standard Version.
But I'm old and I like the KingJames Version.
You know where Jesus' words arein red right.
And then, of course, eugenePeterson's version, the Message
(12:20):
which you can Google or you canpurchase or whatever it is.
What I like about it is, everyonce in a while, the way he does
his interpretation reallybrings it home and it's
conversational.
And so before Jesus launches outinto this sort of proclamation
declaration love your enemiesdirective in fact he says uh,
there is this truth.
(12:41):
To you who are ready for truth,and for me, that just unlocks in
a new way this whole idea.
So there is a truth, jesus.
If we take Eugene Peterson'sinterpretation to heart, then
when Jesus says, love enemy, dogood to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you andpray for those who abuse you,
jesus is not only giving yousort of directives and a
(13:01):
prescription.
Jesus is not only giving yousort of directives and a
prescription.
He's trying to tell you that,if you want to follow him, that
there's a truth that livesbeyond retribution.
There's a truth that livesbeyond indifference to people,
all the ways that we try tohandle people.
There's a truth that livesbeyond bitterness.
(13:23):
He's trying to tell you thatthere's even a reality that
lives beyond you know, just sortof walking around perpetually
in pain.
There is a way.
There is a way to address thesevery legitimate things that
happen to us, where we haveenemies and we have been hated
on and we have been cursed andwe have been abused.
(13:46):
That is still legitimate forJesus, but it's how you handle
them which can be grace-filled.
Melissa (13:54):
So maybe there's a truth even beyond opinion, and
that we can get caught up in atrap of just having an opinion
rather than showing up to thepeople that are very much in
close proximity to us.
Bishop Wright (14:06):
Of course, of course, of course.
That's absolutely true.
Well, think about it this way.
Think about all the learnedbehaviors that we have right.
So when you come back to thispoint I was trying to make
earlier about Jesus, sort ofdisrupting the status quo, what
is the status quo way to handlepeople who hate you?
What is the status quo way tohandle people who hate you?
What is the status quo way tohandle people who are your
enemies?
(14:26):
What is the status quo way tohandle people who curse you?
I mean, you don't need me topoint that out, but I mean, if
you really want to go slow justto see the genius of Jesus,
think about it that way.
So how are we taught, whetherverbally or tacitly, to handle
these type of difficulties inlife?
We shut them off, we becomeindifferent.
(14:48):
You know what's that old saying.
You know we sort of do untoothers as they've done to us,
and then we run like hell is theway that usually finishes right
.
And so we have all thesestrategies that we have devised,
and while they may give usmomentary peace and while they
(15:09):
may give us some sense ofone-upsmanship over people who
have done us wrong, jesus ishere to say there's another way
that might yield some betterlong-term benefits.
And I can almost hear Jesussaying now, if you're looking
(15:31):
for the easy fix, I'm not theguy.
You know, when Beth and I havebeen doing some things around
the house, you know you usuallyget three bids on a roof or
three bids on some landscapingor whatever it is your project
is, and there's an unbelievablycheap sort of contractor who's
probably not going to do a goodjob but you'll be happy because
(15:53):
it's cheap, but you'll have toprobably redo it again.
Then there's the middle of theroad, middle cost person.
And then there's this othercontractor who said you know,
this is going to be expensiveand it's going to be time
consuming, but we're going to doit right and you're going to
have the confidence of standingin that.
It's going to cost a little bitmore, it's going to take a
(16:15):
little bit more time, butultimately it'll be done and
done well.
And so in some ways, jesus isthat kind of spiritual
contractor.
Right, he's like now you can doit cheap if you want.
Right, you could do vengeanceif you want.
I mean.
I understand you might want todo vengeance.
That's cool, right, but what isthe long-term effect of that
(16:39):
right?
I mean, will you actuallyprocess the injury?
Will you actually process itand not only process right,
because that's just kind ofconsumerism, right, our
spiritual consumerism?
I have processed my emotion.
That's great.
Jesus always is interested inmore Right.
How will you positivelycontribute right to that great
(17:01):
bank account of love?
Melissa (17:05):
Wow.
Bishop Wright (17:06):
How will you help to change the temperature on
the planet?
One enemy at a time.
So again, you see why we had tokill Jesus.
Jesus comes up with all thesehard things that cost us
something, right?
And the fact of the matter iswe don't want to pay the price,
(17:26):
and I understand it.
I'm not talking as someonewho's been delivered from any of
this.
In fact, if I'm making anysense today, it's because I know
what it feels like, right?
So you, you, you.
Then we get into conversationsabout fairness.
Well, that's not fair.
Yep, it's not fair.
And the cross was not faireither.
So we can't really come toJesus and talk about fairness,
(17:49):
because Jesus could say yeah,man, I get that.
Melissa (17:52):
Yeah, it's a bad word in our house.
Bishop Wright (17:56):
So then, ultimately, we're brought to
this intersection, which is this, and this is why this is a
dangerous oddness and anextraordinary difficulty and a
beautiful struggle.
And all that, and that is Jesusis saying will you follow me?
Because this is where I'm going.
I'm going into enemy love, I'mgoing to find the capacity, I'm
(18:20):
going to increase my capacity tobless those who curse me.
You know, from his own crosshe's being lynched in front of
his mother, right, and he saysforgive, forgive them, father,
for they know not what they doright.
And so it's not just aboutbeing magnanimous, right, such
that we can generate, you know,magnanimity ourselves, such that
(18:50):
we can generate, you know,magnanimity ourselves.
It's about tapping into thisunderground again, this ocean of
love and shalom that you and Ihave opportunities to make
(19:13):
deposits in.
You know, look, we should goback to all these wonderful
expressions in history wherepeople decentcentered themselves
and centered the cause of loveand neighborliness, and those
instances have changed the world.
Melissa (19:32):
Bishop, thank you for all that great reminder and
listeners.
Thank you for tuning in to ForPeople.
You can follow us on Instagramand Facebook at Bishop Rob
Wright.
Please subscribe, leave areview and we'll be back with
you next week.
So then, ultimately, we're brought to
this intersection, which is this, and this is why this is a
dangerous oddness and anextraordinary difficulty and a
beautiful struggle.
And all that, and that is Jesusis saying will you follow me,
Because this is where I'm going.
I'm going into enemy love.
You know, from his own crosshe's being lynched in front of
(00:22):
his mother right and he saysforgive, Forgive them, Father,
for they know not what they do.
Melissa (00:40):
Welcome to Four People with Bishop Rob Wright.
I'm Melissa Rau and this is aconversation inspired by For
Faith, a weekly devotion sentout every Friday.
You can find a link to thisweek's devotion and a link to
subscribe in the episode'sdescription.
Hey, hey, Bishop, hey, Melissa.
Today's devotion you calledDangerous Oddness.
Bishop Wright (01:03):
Yeah.
Melissa (01:04):
And it's based off of Luke Luke 6, verses 27 to 38.
And it's Jesus talking aboutloving our enemies and doing
good to those who persecute us,and so this is kind of a bit of
a fiery devotion.
You want to say what's kind ofhitting you most with this
passage.
Bishop Wright (01:24):
I think, just to sort of open with a big punch to
the tummy.
I think that the churchoftentimes is guilty of trying
to fit Jesus into sort ofmainstream, acceptable behavior
(01:49):
and I think that that doesviolence and damage to Jesus's
actual words and actual way tobe.
And so what I'm aware of in andthis, this whole business in
Luke six about loving enemies,is just one big, gigantic sort
(02:10):
of, you know, flashing sign thatI think Jesus is saying we are
different and that's why, youknow, we entitled it dangerous
oddness, dangerous oddness is aphrase I'm borrowing from Walter
Brueggemann, who says thatJesus is the alternative to the
empire.
Right, jesus is the alternativeto the status quo.
(02:31):
And if you start to look atJesus in Matthew, mark, luke and
John through that lens, jesusis not trying to make you a good
American, trying to make yousomething that causes your
workplace, culture, society toreally look at you like what is
(02:52):
this odd person?
Who is this odd person?
I'm looking at Jesus in manyways lives perpendicular to the
culture of his day and of coursethat is why we had to get rid
of him.
And of course that is why wehad to get rid of him is because
he was inspiring people to alsolive in alternative ways, to
take up alternative practices.
Count people who were countedout as siblings, you know,
(03:20):
deserving dignity, you knowrespect, et cetera.
And so, yeah, that's, you knowthat's what it is.
I mean, jesus is not here tohelp us just sort of punctuate
our version of life.
Jesus is here to help us tofind the courage, you know, to
live truth and not popularity.
Melissa (03:42):
Wow, okay.
So when I read this I was like,oh okay, here we go yet again,
bishop, where your words arevery relevant for the very here
and now, and there is a lot ofconcern amongst the populace.
And sometimes I wonder at leastthe way I see it is when often
(04:05):
the church and the empire alignRight.
Well then, we got some problems.
Bishop Wright (04:11):
If we are really going to be, or attempt to be as
much as we can because we allfall short I know I do but if
we're going to be as meticulousas we can about trying to bear
witness to Jesus Christ as weunderstand Jesus Christ in
Matthew, mark, luke and John,and not the Jesus of our own,
(04:33):
you know, our own making then weare always going to be, or
often going to be in living intension with a culture, with our
culture, and it's notanti-American or anti-status quo
necessarily.
To say that, as the lawyers saythem, is just the facts.
(04:54):
Jesus comes with this way to be, in these words, to help us
understand that the way in whichwe've configured ourselves
oftentimes is upside down fromwhat is actual reality, that we
(05:14):
have engineered a world thatultimately is unsustainable,
where the powerful and thewealthy dictate everything and
the people on the margins are ina perpetual sort of cold winter
with only a modicum of theirneeds met, and that the earth is
here for us to just abuse, andthat the earth is not a co-equal
(05:40):
partner, and so is everythingcreated equal partner, and so is
everything created.
We just decide as human beings.
It's part of our failing, it'spart of our own engineering flaw
we call it sin in theologicalcircles that we will design ways
to be that ultimately hurt us.
(06:01):
I have said this before.
You know, when I look out mywindow, you know during the
summer and the fall, you knowsort of all these great and
wonderful garden spiders.
But what's remarkable aboutgarden spiders, as I have said,
is that they don't get trappedin their own webs.
They move, you know, deftlyalong their own.
(06:21):
You know their webs.
But human beings make webs thatwe get caught.
We ourselves get caught in, andI think you know this is one of
the great gifts of Jesus'swords is that they come.
They come to us and his examplecomes to us to try to give us a
way of life that is sustainable, and it helps us to understand
(06:41):
our own integrity and dignity innew ways.
It's just that we are socommitted to the ways in which
we've configured because offamiliarity, because they serve
us in lots of ways, and so Jesusthen becomes a threat.
His newness, his agency is athreat, and so what we try to do
(07:02):
is we try to round off all hisedges.
In the church we try to roundoff his edges and make him less
dangerous, and if we make himless dangerous, then we get to
keep this idea of we'reChristian without the content.
And so enemy love is one of thebest examples of that.
(07:23):
Right, so am I a nice People,want to say nowadays, I'm a nice
person, I'm a good person,that's great.
We should aspire to be allthose good things.
However, jesus has some realclear ideas about what the
deliverables are, and it wasn'tabout being nice or good.
In fact, jesus said who is good?
Right, none is good, but thefather, jesus said.
But Jesus did say, hey, youwant to go my direction?
Melissa (08:12):
Well, and you drop the big word here.
You talk about Jesus and how heled into that.
You say he said that to you whoare ready for the truth, Right?
That's kind of like the big one, right?
And so I'm looking at the worldand I don't know if you're
following I'm sure you are,Bishop that President Trump is
(08:33):
trying to appeal to the SupremeCourt to give him ultimate power
and make him above the law, andI think there are a lot of
people who are hurting andafraid.
And if they're not directlyimpacted by some of these most
recent decisions, I know thereare many people who love people
who are hurting and who areafraid, and so I guess I'm
(08:57):
wondering how do we be different?
How do we set ourselves apart?
What does love look like?
Is it just coming alongsidepeople?
Is it a matter of talking tothe government and government
officials?
What do we do?
Bishop Wright (09:19):
That's a really good question.
One pundit put it this way isis that when you boil it all
down and you try to take as muchof the you know sort of enmity
and malice out of things youknow, let's just say that the
president has an expansiveunderstanding of presidential
authority, one that we have notseen in recent memory, perhaps
(09:41):
ever, and that has to get workedout in the courts.
So so there's that, and that'sa bigger conversation, you know.
I think what is interesting,though, is is that that I'm
always on guard for is is that,while I think it's part of my
duty as a citizen to bewell-informed, to read broadly,
(10:04):
to read the news in sort ofdifferent political parlances,
what's interesting about Jesusis Jesus wants us to work
locally, and so it's not anabdication of my larger
responsibilities, but when youread Matthew, mark, luke and
John, when you read Luke six,there's nothing more personal
(10:27):
and local than an enemy, right?
And so, while I may havephilosophical and political
disagreements with people whoI've never met, who live at a
great distance from me, right,jesus seems to spend most of his
time thinking about the people.
You know three, 10, you know 25feet from us, and so you know,
(10:49):
when he says love enemy, do goodto those who hate you, bless
those who curse you and pray forthose who abuse you.
He's talking about people weknow, people we interact with,
perhaps people who are ourbosses or our employees.
He's talking about perhaps evenour spouses and our children.
And so I think that while wehave to spend a lot of time
(11:10):
thinking about the direction ofour nation, and for those of us
who have the ability to advocateand to do that kind of work,
then we should, in the causes ofneighborliness, in the causes
of sort of charity and equity,we should do those pieces of
work and at the same time, jesusagain is preoccupied with
what's happening.
You know what's that phrasethat Al Roker says on the Today
(11:33):
Show.
You know that's what'shappening nationally.
You know what's happening whereyou are right.
And so how are you handlingneighbor and how are you
handling the neighbor that isyour enemy.
And and what I love about thatline that precedes this in the
message version, I like to lookat lots of different versions of
(11:56):
the Bible and I would remindpeople, please do that.
And so in the Episcopal Churchwe usually use the New, revised,
standard Version.
But I'm old and I like the KingJames Version.
You know where Jesus' words arein red right.
And then, of course, eugenePeterson's version, the Message
(12:20):
which you can Google or you canpurchase or whatever it is.
What I like about it is, everyonce in a while, the way he does
his interpretation reallybrings it home and it's
conversational.
And so before Jesus launches outinto this sort of proclamation
declaration love your enemiesdirective in fact he says uh,
there is this truth.
(12:41):
To you who are ready for truth,and for me, that just unlocks in
a new way this whole idea.
So there is a truth, jesus.
If we take Eugene Peterson'sinterpretation to heart, then
when Jesus says, love enemy, dogood to those who hate you,
bless those who curse you andpray for those who abuse you,
jesus is not only giving yousort of directives and a
(13:01):
prescription.
Jesus is not only giving yousort of directives and a
prescription.
He's trying to tell you that,if you want to follow him, that
there's a truth that livesbeyond retribution.
There's a truth that livesbeyond indifference to people,
all the ways that we try tohandle people.
There's a truth that livesbeyond bitterness.
(13:23):
He's trying to tell you thatthere's even a reality that
lives beyond you know, just sortof walking around perpetually
in pain.
There is a way.
There is a way to address thesevery legitimate things that
happen to us, where we haveenemies and we have been hated
on and we have been cursed andwe have been abused.
(13:46):
That is still legitimate forJesus, but it's how you handle
them which can be grace-filled.
Melissa (13:54):
So maybe there's a truth even beyond opinion, and
that we can get caught up in atrap of just having an opinion
rather than showing up to thepeople that are very much in
close proximity to us.
Bishop Wright (14:06):
Of course, of course, of course.
That's absolutely true.
Well, think about it this way.
Think about all the learnedbehaviors that we have right.
So when you come back to thispoint I was trying to make
earlier about Jesus, sort ofdisrupting the status quo, what
is the status quo way to handlepeople who hate you?
What is the status quo way tohandle people who hate you?
What is the status quo way tohandle people who are your
enemies?
(14:26):
What is the status quo way tohandle people who curse you?
I mean, you don't need me topoint that out, but I mean, if
you really want to go slow justto see the genius of Jesus,
think about it that way.
So how are we taught, whetherverbally or tacitly, to handle
these type of difficulties inlife?
We shut them off, we becomeindifferent.
(14:48):
You know what's that old saying.
You know we sort of do untoothers as they've done to us,
and then we run like hell is theway that usually finishes right
.
And so we have all thesestrategies that we have devised,
and while they may give usmomentary peace and while they
(15:09):
may give us some sense ofone-upsmanship over people who
have done us wrong, jesus ishere to say there's another way
that might yield some betterlong-term benefits.
And I can almost hear Jesussaying now, if you're looking
(15:31):
for the easy fix, I'm not theguy.
You know, when Beth and I havebeen doing some things around
the house, you know you usuallyget three bids on a roof or
three bids on some landscapingor whatever it is your project
is, and there's an unbelievablycheap sort of contractor who's
probably not going to do a goodjob but you'll be happy because
(15:53):
it's cheap, but you'll have toprobably redo it again.
Then there's the middle of theroad, middle cost person.
And then there's this othercontractor who said you know,
this is going to be expensiveand it's going to be time
consuming, but we're going to doit right and you're going to
have the confidence of standingin that.
It's going to cost a little bitmore, it's going to take a
(16:15):
little bit more time, butultimately it'll be done and
done well.
And so in some ways, jesus isthat kind of spiritual
contractor.
Right, he's like now you can doit cheap if you want.
Right, you could do vengeanceif you want.
I mean.
I understand you might want todo vengeance.
That's cool, right, but what isthe long-term effect of that
(16:39):
right?
I mean, will you actuallyprocess the injury?
Will you actually process itand not only process right,
because that's just kind ofconsumerism, right, our
spiritual consumerism?
I have processed my emotion.
That's great.
Jesus always is interested inmore Right.
How will you positivelycontribute right to that great
(17:01):
bank account of love?
Melissa (17:05):
Wow.
Bishop Wright (17:06):
How will you help to change the temperature on
the planet?
One enemy at a time.
So again, you see why we had tokill Jesus.
Jesus comes up with all thesehard things that cost us
something, right?
And the fact of the matter iswe don't want to pay the price,
(17:26):
and I understand it.
I'm not talking as someonewho's been delivered from any of
this.
In fact, if I'm making anysense today, it's because I know
what it feels like, right?
So you, you, you.
Then we get into conversationsabout fairness.
Well, that's not fair.
Yep, it's not fair.
And the cross was not faireither.
So we can't really come toJesus and talk about fairness,
(17:49):
because Jesus could say yeah,man, I get that.
Melissa (17:52):
Yeah, it's a bad word in our house.
Bishop Wright (17:56):
So then, ultimately, we're brought to
this intersection, which is this, and this is why this is a
dangerous oddness and anextraordinary difficulty and a
beautiful struggle.
And all that, and that is Jesusis saying will you follow me?
Because this is where I'm going.
I'm going into enemy love, I'mgoing to find the capacity, I'm
(18:20):
going to increase my capacity tobless those who curse me.
You know, from his own crosshe's being lynched in front of
his mother, right, and he saysforgive, forgive them, father,
for they know not what they doright.
And so it's not just aboutbeing magnanimous, right, such
that we can generate, you know,magnanimity ourselves, such that
(18:50):
we can generate, you know,magnanimity ourselves.
It's about tapping into thisunderground again, this ocean of
love and shalom that you and Ihave opportunities to make
(19:13):
deposits in.
You know, look, we should goback to all these wonderful
expressions in history wherepeople decentcentered themselves
and centered the cause of loveand neighborliness, and those
instances have changed the world.
Melissa (19:32):
Bishop, thank you for all that great reminder and
listeners.
Thank you for tuning in to ForPeople.
You can follow us on Instagramand Facebook at Bishop Rob
Wright.
Please subscribe, leave areview and we'll be back with
you next week.
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