Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to Resilient
Faith, the podcast.
Opportunities to find deeperresilience within ourselves can
come when life seems mostchallenging.
This podcast is to help youdevelop that resilience and
connection with God.
Being resilient and havingpower starts with faith.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Welcome, friends, to
the Resilient Faith podcast,
sponsored by BrentwoodPresbyterian Church in West Los
Angeles.
We are sharing our sermons fromour recent series, the Gospel
According to Taylor Swift.
This was a six-week sermonseries in the fall of 2023.
It's important in this day andage to talk about current events
(01:04):
and pop culture in our worshipand be in dialogue with
Christian perspectives andscripture.
Using Taylor Swift's lyrics andsome of her songs as a
launching pad, we are discussingsome of the important issues
and looking through them with aChristian lens.
Thanks for listening and wepray that the Holy Spirit
(01:26):
reaches you through this series.
Do you want to hear one of myjokes?
Some of you already know thisone, so it's okay if you do.
How do angels greet each other?
Hello, hello, hello, hello,hello.
(01:49):
I've got more.
I have like a whole page, butlike, don't worry, that's like
not our sermon today.
All right, friends, we aregoing old school this Sunday
with the title track that cameout in 2008 from Taylor's second
(02:10):
studio album, Fearless.
She was 18 when this album wasreleased and it has this
youthful innocence to it that isboth nostalgic and a little
naive.
The song is about thatweightless feeling of falling in
love and it's pretty untaintedby heartbreak and disappointment
(02:34):
.
You'll notice that this15-year-old music video also has
very low production value.
It's just a montage of herFearless tour in 2009.
Really, this video and thissong is youthful and simple,
which is really a part of itscharm.
So as you watch and listen, Iinvite you to go back to 18.
(02:59):
Remember what first love feltlike, when the world was your
oyster, anything felt possibleand really, regardless of your
age.
Just remember the first time,or maybe even the most recent
(03:23):
time, if there is a most recenttime for you when you truly felt
fearless.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
You guys this tour
has been the best experience of
my entire life.
The street looks when it's justrain.
(04:08):
There's a glow off the pavement.
You walk me to the car and youknow I wanna ask you to dance
right there in the middle of theparking lot.
Yeah, who are you?
(04:28):
You're driving down the road.
I wonder if you know I'mshining so hard Now to get
caught up now.
You're so cool.
Run your hands through yourhair.
Absinthe mind will leave,making me want you, and I don't
(04:53):
know how it gets better thanthis.
You take my hand and drag mehead first.
Feel it, and I don't know who Igot with you.
I dance in a storm in the bestdress.
Feel it, you're so brave.
(05:21):
It drives slow till we run outof road In this one horse town.
I wanna stay right here In thispassenger seat.
You put your eyes on me In thismoment.
Now capture it, remember it.
And I don't know how it getsbetter than this.
(05:44):
You take my hand and drag mehead first.
Feel it, and I don't know who Igot with you.
(06:08):
I dance in a storm in the bestdress, feel it.
Well, you stood there with mein the door.
Weep my hands, shake our notusually this way.
You pull me in and I'm a littlemore brave.
(06:29):
It's the first kiss.
It's flawless, really something.
It's fearless, oh yeah, cause Idon't know how it gets better
(06:53):
than this.
You take my hand and drag mehead first.
Feel it, and I don't know who Igot with you.
I dance in a storm in the bestdress.
Feel it, and I don't know howit gets better than this.
(07:13):
You take my hand and drag mehead first.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Feel it, and I don't
know who I got with you.
I dance in a storm in the bestdress.
Feel it?
(07:39):
Oh, that's so fun.
Well, friends, we might haveglimpses in our lives of feeling
fearless, and I do hope thatyou were able to recall that
feeling while listening to thissong, and maybe, if you are
(08:00):
closer to the age of 18 thansome of us, you can resonate
with it in a certain relationalway.
I certainly can remember thatfeeling, that youthful feeling,
but it's really not a spacewhere we live all of the time,
right, maybe that's why it's sofun to sing about, because it's
(08:24):
not our emotional norm.
We might experience the briefhigh of new love, or securing
the job, or the first kiss, orthe baby born, or the new puppy,
or the happy reunion, but mostof us don't float around in
(08:44):
euphoria all of the time.
Life happens, heartbreak happens, disappointment happens, death
happens, and even though ourscripture tells us hundreds of
times to not be afraid, we stillare.
(09:05):
We can't help it.
Our feelings, our informationresponding to what is going on
around us and within us.
If we truly walked aroundfearlessly, well, we would never
buckle our seatbelts or wewould never look both ways
(09:25):
before crossing the street.
There are so many ways that wewould behave differently, more
recklessly, if we werecompletely fearless.
And so we know that some levelof fear is healthy.
It's even necessary for oursurvival.
So how do we live with somelevel of healthy fear, but not
(09:50):
let it have the final word, notkeeping it in the driver's seat
Before our hearts have beenbroken.
It's easy to be fearless, likethis Taylor song says, but the
more we experience thisheartbreak, the easier it can be
to be controlled by fear andthe harder it can be to hope we
(10:16):
can build up that armor andbuild up those walls.
The more that we experiencepain and disappointment, we lose
touch with that fearless,innocent part of ourselves that
can easily grow jaded and afraidto open ourselves to life and
love and risk and failure.
(10:37):
Because fear is in the driver'sseat, and sometimes it even
feels dangerous to hope, becausehope can feel risky.
What if we don't get what wehope for?
Here is a portion of what Paul,the apostle Paul, says about
(10:59):
hope in his letter to the earlyChristian community in Rome.
This comes from Romans, chapterfive, starting with the first
verse.
Therefore, since we arejustified by faith, we have
peace with God through our LordJesus Christ, through whom we
(11:22):
have obtained access to thisgrace in which we stand, and we
boast in our hope of sharing theglory of God.
And not only that, but we alsoboast in our afflictions,
knowing that affliction producesendurance, and endurance
produces character, andcharacter produces hope.
(11:44):
And hope does not put us toshame, because God's love has
been poured into our heartsthrough the Holy Spirit that has
been given to us.
This is the word of God for thepeople of God.
Thanks be to God.
So, based on this passage, itsounds to me like Paul walked
(12:11):
around pretty fearless.
He encourages us to do the sameand even to boast in our hope,
which is Kind of a funny notion.
I've never thought aboutboasting in my hope, boasting
about how hopeful I am.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
This might be easier
said than done In one of my
favorite podcasts, harry Potterand the Sacred Text.
Yeah, that's real and it'sawesome.
The hosts read through thechapters of the series through
the lens of a theme and approachthe text in conversation with
(12:53):
the world, and one of the hosts,vanessa Zoltan, speaks openly
about her struggles with hope asa Jewish chaplain and
granddaughter of Holocaustsurvivors.
Her skepticism with hope isrooted in the reality that it
often leads to disappointment.
We often hope for things thatdon't become a reality.
(13:17):
We hope for resolution to war,but what about those who don't
survive?
We hope for healing for ourloved ones, but what about those
who don't recover?
We hope for a happy ending forourselves, but we also have to
acknowledge that tragedy is real.
(13:40):
I just saw the musical LesMiserables a few weeks ago when
it was in town and a spoileralert the vast majority of those
characters end up dead.
I totally resonate withVanessa's struggle with hope.
Maybe you do too.
(14:01):
We hope for the relationshipthat doesn't come.
We hope for the baby thatdoesn't come.
We hope for our parents and ourpets to live forever, and they
don't.
We know they don't and that thepain of loss is really baked
(14:22):
into the cake of human life.
That's just how it goes.
It's a cycle and because ofthis we can become afraid to
hope and close ourselves off toliving life fully.
Again, fear ends up in thedriver's seat and we are fearful
instead of fearless.
(14:42):
And yet, as Christians, we knowthat hardship and death does
not have the final word.
Yes, in lame is there is a lotof death, but there is
redemption and grace and loveand forgiveness and
(15:05):
reconciliation.
And, like I, wept through thewhole thing, it's a beautiful
story.
And Vanessa, my podcast host,she also speaks to the beauty
and resilience in the humancapacity to hope, even in the
(15:26):
face of horrible tragedy.
Even if we are sometimesdisappointed, we still have this
innate sense within us to notgive up, to persevere, to look
for the positive, to desiregoodness, to see goodness around
us.
We hope.
(15:48):
Perhaps we are not completelyfearless, but still we hope.
And, according to Paul, theroot of our hope is not actually
that we always expect to getwhat we hope for, but that
(16:09):
through a life of faith, we areheld in peace and grace through
God, in Christ.
Affliction into endurance, intocharacter, into hope.
Paul's equation might not addup to a totally fearless life,
but it certainly doesn't givefear control over our lives.
(16:32):
I heard Oprah Rinfrey talkingabout this recently with author
Anne Lamott, and Anne said toOprah we live in the hope that
love is true and that God istrue and that goodness is true
and that the light shines in thedarkness and that the light has
never been extinguished, nomatter how many horrible things
(16:56):
happen in the world.
And Anne goes on to share aboutwhen her best friend Pammy died
years ago and she said to apriest friend do you believe
that God will catch her as shecrosses over and her little
daughter will be okay and I willsee Pammy again?
And he said to her I hope so.
(17:17):
And she says I never forgotthat because we live in the hope
of truth and the hope of lightand the hope of spiritual
healing.
And Oprah jumped in and said tohope makes you so vulnerable.
And Anne agreed, adding yourheart is open and it's going to
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get bruised and knocked aroundthe world.
To hope is to put yourself in avulnerable space.
The world teaches us to be inarmor, but when you're in hope,
you're like a snail betweenshells.
What a slimy, soft and tangibleimage.
(18:05):
I mean ew, but like yeah, atthe same time, right when you're
in hope, you're like a snailbetween shells.
That's scary, being thatvulnerable.
That snail might not be totallyfearless, for they are exposed,
(18:27):
but they also know that theycannot stay in their current
shell forever, for they haveoutgrown it and it is time to
venture out.
Have you ever felt like that?
Like a snail between shells?
It's uncomfortable and yet it'swhere some of the best human
(18:51):
connection can be made.
Yesterday, at this Presbyterymeeting that Pastor Dave
referenced, the sermon was givenby Reverend Carlton Rodin,
who's the pastor at WestminsterPresbyterian Church, and Pastor
Carl spoke about the suddendeath of his father on Easter
(19:14):
Sunday in 2021 and thedepression that followed and the
sabbatical that he neededearlier this year to grieve, to
rest, to recover and, ultimately, to stay in ministry.
It's a story that exposes one'sown vulnerability and need for
(19:39):
help that is so relatable in itshumanity.
It's a story that was sharedopenly to the entire community,
both those in person and online.
Fearless Life might not be allinnocence and openheartedness.
(20:03):
It's not all sparkle leotardsand red lipstick.
I mean it is those things.
Obviously, there is holiness infriendship bracelets and dancing
in the parking lot and theseself-indulgently fun sermon
series.
But it's more than that it is.
(20:26):
We know that it's more thanthat.
To follow Jesus Christ, wholived and suffered and died and
lived again, is to follow avulnerable God who goes with us
through the fullness of thehuman experience, through all of
(20:47):
it, and is with us still.
The invitation is to feel ourbright sparkles all the way to
the shining sun and to feel ourdeep sadness all the way to the
dark side of the moon.
Paul says hope does not put usto shame.
(21:08):
So maybe for today we can lookat life in Christ through this
lens of Taylor's innocence anddance in the storm in your best
dress, fearless Amen.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
You've been listening
to Resilient Faith.
The podcast Resilient Faith issponsored by Brentwood
Presbyterian Church in West LosAngeles.
You can follow our church andthis podcast on Facebook at
BPCTeam and Instagram at BPCunderscore USA.
(21:53):
Make sure to subscribe on yourfavorite podcast platform and
thanks for listening.