Accelerates

What if embracing authenticity could lead you to spiritual maturity and a deeper connection with God? John the Baptist's authenticity invites us to step out of societal norms and into a life of repentance and grace.

In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright have a conversation about John the Baptist through the lens of Luke 3:7-18. Together, they wonder about John's upbringing by Zechariah and Elizabeth, which cultivated his understanding of God's reality. They also talk about John's message and it's relevance in our world today. Listen in for the full conversation.

Read For Faith, the companion devotional.

Chapters

• 0:00 Grace and Truth in God's Call
• 12:05 Authenticity and Grace in God's Call

Transcript

Bishop Rob Wright: 0:00

Grace can also be telling us the truth, and the truth is this Everything that we conjure up and participate day to day may not be healthy for us Some of our defaults, some of the ways that we've decided to live because life has squeezed us into directions or family of origin, issues that may be at odds with God's call for our life. God may be calling us to heal, and so a word of grace is also a word of truth.

Melissa: 0:40

Welcome to Four People with Bishop Rob Wright. I'm Melissa Rau and this is a conversation inspired by For Faith, a weekly devotion sent out every Friday. You can find a link to subscribe in the episode's description. Good morning, bishop.

Bishop Rob Wright: 0:54

Good morning. For

Melissa: 0:56

Entitled Accelerate. This week's devotion is based off Luke, chapter 3, verses seven to 18. And it's all about John the Baptist and his continued message, spreading repentance and authenticity and grace. What more would you say about our brother John?

Bishop Rob Wright: 1:15

All of that, John.

Melissa: 1:16

I love John.

Bishop Rob Wright: 1:18

I love John. John doesn't get nearly enough credit. He's the wild man. He's Jesus's big sort of wild, woolly, maybe hyper-religious cousin to some people's minds. But I think it's easy to miss the beauty of John. You know and so you know what John is and what John does according to scripture is he just refuses to participate in the cover-up. He refuses Because I think what he's paying attention to is that especially people like me who are pastors or bishops or deacons or priests, who are charged with creating spaces for people, sometimes we soft sell the gospel, sometimes we make it so palatable to people that it's no use at all, sometimes we diminish the change invitation and we don't want to ruffle feathers or whatever.

Bishop Rob Wright: 2:24

But it seems to me that John is betting on something and that is is that if we can give the gospel with its clarity that Jesus for us now is inviting us home to himself, or for John then that God is inviting us to a turnaround, drop the pretenses, stop the silliness, come on home to God, come on home to yourself. If we would do that, I think we would create a space for people to really feel the full blessing and the full heft of the gospel.

Melissa: 2:58

Well, that's a big dose right there.

Bishop Rob Wright: 3:01

That's a whole lot, I know.

Melissa: 3:03

I have to say I read your devotion this week and in preparation for our conversation I did a little digging because I got excited by it. I don't know, there's just something about your devotion that's kind of raw. And John the Baptist is a really interesting figure. I got to go to the Holy Lands a couple of years ago and realized there were three major factions, I guess of the Hebrew people realized you know, there are three major. There were three major factions, I guess, of the Hebrew people, the Jewish people, the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Essenes.

Melissa: 3:31

And the Essenes like lived out in the desert, like they were separatists on purpose, and we can probably thank them for the Dead Sea Scrolls because they did a lot of that work right. And so John the Baptist, whether he was brought up or not in a scene kind of you know the community, he is definitely from the desert, from the wilderness. So the idea of the marginalized, you know, coming in or pushing in with messages of hope and salvation to the regular culture, I don't know. There's something that captured me about that whole idea.

Bishop Rob Wright: 4:10

Yeah, I mean it seems that what I like, john, is that John comes from the wilderness to the Jordan to bring a word of repentance. I like to say, every once in a while, the big city needs a word from the wilderness, right? You know, howard Thurman used to talk about being in a place where the traffic of the mind could be. Still, you know, one wonders if John wasn't out in the wilderness. As you know, I think what, what some people would argue, who go way deep into this stuff, is, is that there's lots of beliefs about how to respond to God. One is to sort of stay in the thick of things and try to work the change out from the middle. Others sort of retreat to the edges. Amish folks don't necessarily mix, you know, with our sort of regular modern day culture. So I mean, there, there, there are always, there's always this thread which is is that we need to be out. In a way, we need to be in communities where we can, where we can work really hard to make them resemble of what life with God looks like. And so, yeah, it's, it's possible that John, you know is is out on the edges. We know that at least he had an encounter with God out in the wilderness. But we also know that John was raised in the temple with mom and dad, with Zechariah and Elizabeth. We know that John is the much-awaited child from a couple that struggled with infidelity for many years. We know also that John is the product of a marriage where a husband and a wife agreed that God was the center of everything. And so, you know, while the gospel doesn't tell us all the details, I always wonder about family dinners. You know, or you know you're bouncing your baby boy or daughter on your knee and you're telling them stories. You know. I think that Elizabeth and Zechariah, his mom and dad, probably deserve a lot of credit in John understanding that God is real, as I like to say, god is real, able, good and generous, and that God is someone that we should invite other people to know. So I think that's where John gets John's zeal, his energy, his clarity.

Bishop Rob Wright: 6:44

I also wonder, dr King used to say, when I use my spiritual imagination, in other words grounded in these stories and yet in some ways beyond these stories, but making connections and projections, I also wonder what went on with John. I wonder. I just this is just wondering, and I've said this sort of stuff before. I wonder, you know, if the lack of seriousness in his local congregation drove him out to the wilderness to be in the mud with sin-stained people?

Bishop Rob Wright: 7:23

As a sin-stained person you know also, if you do the history you know, the Jewish people at that time were colonized people and so in their religion, their religion, had to make lots of concessions to the Roman oppressor, and even some of the dignitaries and some of the people in authority were Jews, but Rome had forced them into practices and ways of life, uh, as a control mechanism over the people. And in fact, uh, the Romans controlled the way in which the Jewish folks, um, celebrated their holidays, and certainly the Romans were there to crush any movements or motions by folks who wanted to live out from under their oppression. So one wonders if John doesn't set up John's movement not only in response to what he believed God was doing and could do in people's lives and may have done in his life, but also perhaps an invitation to come out from this mindset of being colonized.

Melissa: 8:42

Well, I mean, it doesn't escape me that the last sentence of your devotion has the word grace in it, and you talk about grace being proliferated and accelerated.

Bishop Rob Wright: 8:53

Yeah.

Melissa: 8:53

So where does grace come into play with all of this?

Bishop Rob Wright: 8:57

Well, I think we've got to start thinking about grace, perhaps in a more nuanced fashion. I think sometimes, when people talk about grace, what they mean is that they put grace somehow in opposition to accountability, or they put grace somehow oppositionally to something that has demands. Yes, grace is unmerited, undeserved favor of God. Yes, we know that, we agree 100%. But grace can also be God sending a word to us that changes our direction. Grace can also be telling us the truth, and the truth is this everything that we conjure up and participate day to day may not be healthy for us, Some of our defaults, some of the ways that we've decided to live because life has squeezed us into directions or family of origin, issues that may not be the way, that may be at odds with God's call for our life. God may be calling us to heal, and so a word of grace is also a word of truth. So, you know, I think John is actually quite graceful. Because what's the alternative? God says nothing. You know what kind of parent sees that the bridge is out ahead and doesn't try to stop the son, beloved son or daughter from going in a direction where the bridge is out. I would call that grace.

Bishop Rob Wright: 10:38

And so I think we've got to expand our sense of what grace means. It is grace that we have 66 books of the Bible that help us to know something of the character and mind of God. It is grace to us to watch some of these people in this book and in these stories, like John, struggle with what it means to suffer, to struggle with broken relationships. I mean it's grace that Paul says you know, this thorn in my life, right, doesn't go away. I've prayed and prayed and this thorn won't go away. But this thorn leads me to understand that God's grace is sufficient. So I think that you know, I think there's an exciting conversation to have with people about the forms of grace in our lives.

Melissa: 12:05

Yeah, you know, listening to you talk about that, I can't help but bring up the image of people who kind of ruffle their feathers when someone who is telling the truth and is trying to tell the truth in a grace-based way, and yet the hearers just hear negativity rather than the truth behind it.

Bishop Rob Wright: 12:20

Sure Sure.

Melissa: 12:21

Where does dissatisfaction come into all of this.

Bishop Rob Wright: 12:25

Well, look what we're also talking about. You know, maya Angelou said that. You know you can't wrestle people's ignorance from them, right? So I think there's that on the one hand. And yet, you know, jesus told this wonderful story about a sower who went out to sow. Someone went out to throw seeds, and so thank God for the grace of John the Baptist, who goes out and he invites people to take life seriously, to take God seriously. Look, here's what I think about John. I think that John represents what we all need.

Bishop Rob Wright: 13:01

Maybe one of my favorite things about John is somebody needs to be in our life that believes that we all have a next chapter. You know, for all of our sort of feather ruffling at John and all of our sort of squinting at John, to see the grace of him, john is a graceful character because John looks you, no matter where you've been, no matter what you've done, looks you square in your face and says you, my friend, have another chapter. Right, you have another chapter. Come and be baptized, Come and know the living God. Leave the pretenses down, Leave all the ruts that you find yourself in, leave the sin down by the riverside, come and be baptized and live anew.

Bishop Rob Wright: 13:48

I mean there are some people who don't. They're either afraid to say it or they don't have the capacity to say it. They don't say anything about your next chapter. You know they want to just cover you in your past. You know, condemn you to your sins, right? And so I don't know what's more graceful than saying come on down to the river and be baptized and you get another chapter. What's the alternative? Right? Nothing, right. We just go on and on and on, just as we are, and we know we're diminished.

Melissa: 14:25

Okay, yes. And Jesus then also says don't throw pearls before swine.

Bishop Rob Wright: 14:31

Right.

Melissa: 14:32

That's right.

Bishop Rob Wright: 14:32

That's right, beautiful, what a beautiful counter, yeah, and so let's go down that line. And so, if you watch the Ark of John's ministry, john seems to know that too. When he says to people, religious onlookers who warned you of the wrath that is to come, you brood of vipers right. I mean, john also knows that there are vipers and or, in Jesus's language, there are swine, right. And so John does have one requirement of us, and that is sincerity. This is not another religious performance right.

Bishop Rob Wright: 15:11

One of the things that I was really very mindful of as a young minister is that how religious services of any denomination can become religious entertainment, spiritual entertainment, insipid and empty. We go through the motions but we don't bring ourselves there, and John is having none of that right. He's having none of it. So, yeah, his job is to sow, his job is to invite, but he does have a requirement, and you know, I can just imagine, you know that people came and were turned off by John and maybe pivoted and went away, and I can also imagine that some people came there and it was life changing.

Melissa: 16:05

So let's talk a little bit more about that authenticity then. What do you think is behind that authenticity? Like, does someone have to be knocked down on their butts to get back up, or is it just a matter of wanting, or you know? Is there something that we can do to stoke fire, of being real?

Bishop Rob Wright: 16:27

Well, I think what we can do is that we can. I mean, you know, I don't know how we get these messages to people sometimes. I think it's maybe one of the flaws of the way we do church in a lot of quarters Somehow the message gets shared that we have to dress a certain way, and you know we have to speak a certain way before we come to God. And you know what we have got to do is purge those ideas right. So God is the God of your ugliest moment. God is the God of your most beautiful moment. God sees you in all your wonder, god sees you in all your warts, and so what there's an invitation to is to be yourself.

Bishop Rob Wright: 17:16

There's an old hymn that says just as I am, without one plea, right. So it is, I think, an invitation to spiritual maturity that says I can come to God in my prayers just as I am. Prayer is one of the most honest places that there is Talk about a grace. Honest places that there is Talk about a grace. I mean you can say stuff to God that you might even not be able to say to your therapist. You can go to God and say all the stuff, right. So that's authenticity, but also you understand that God doesn't want you to be somebody else you to be somebody else, right?

Bishop Rob Wright: 17:55

God's not saying that you are fundamentally flawed. Be somebody else. God is saying come and know me and know my love, and when you go down deep in that, you find the best expression of your own self. You know. What's interesting about this is is that God wants, god is rooting for us to finally embrace the fact that we're already fearfully and wonderfully made and that if we just took off all this falsehood and all these, you know, fake garments that the world wants us to put on, that we would find ourselves. What's the what's? One of the most flattering things you can say to somebody is that they are themselves self-possessed. Right, and it's to own the fact that I am a saint and I am a sinner. I am both.

Melissa: 18:44

That's right.

Bishop Rob Wright: 18:44

I'm absolutely both. I'm no little perfect church. That's why, when I go to congregations, I always say where are the sinners at? Because I don't want to be in the perfect churches. Perfect people, churches give me the willies, right, I want to be, you know, and I think that's what it is. I want to be in those places, not where, if I say I'm a sinner, I have no self-worth no, not at all. God loves sinners and sinning just means that I fall short. And think about the authenticity that comes out of that. If I know that I fall short, right, and I know that you fall short, now I can meet you at a place where you know we can really see each other. Right, we can see each other and we don't have to perform.

Bishop Rob Wright: 19:29

What's great about having a longtime friend? Right, they knew you when, right, they knew you through your bad hair days and your 1980s, weird, 1990s, weird clothes days. They know you and you know them. And if you've got a real friend right that they appreciate you, that they appreciate your travel, your journey, all the ups and all the downs, and you can say to that person girl or friend, yeah, that was a. I look back, that was a bad call and they say, yeah, that was a bad call, right?

Bishop Rob Wright: 20:06

I mean, this is the invitation I think that comes from John, you know at the Jordan River to come and be yourself, let your shoulders fall down and know that God loves you, but also know that God is inviting you to something that you can't even imagine the truth, how truth can just shape your life in ways. Don't you love 80 and 90-year-old people? I do. Don't you love 80 and 90 year old people? I do, I do, I do, and I even have the blessing of knowing someone who's over a hundred. You know, there's no pretense with them, and they will tell you. They will tell you some stuff that you may not even be ready to hear.

Melissa: 20:51

You know what I'm going to be the coolest 80 year old fish. You know what I'm going to be the coolest 80-year-old fish.

Bishop Rob Wright: 20:57

Well, think about it, and what a gift that would be to somebody.

Melissa: 21:02

Yeah.

Bishop Rob Wright: 21:02

What a gift it would be to somebody to say I see you and encourage you and maybe tell you to lay some other stuff down, but nevertheless, at the same time, invites you forward into life. Oh, my God, I mean you know. So if we love 80 and 90 year olds, think about God, who's older than time, right, yeah, who gets these people like John to participate with God in inviting us, you know, into a life?

Melissa: 21:30

a real life. Maybe the goal isn't perfection, but the goal is being authentically who we are meant to be.

Bishop Rob Wright: 21:38

I think the word perfect can be a very dangerous word. I think it's been weaponized in some families. It's certainly been weaponized in some religious traditions. I think the word is whole, whole, to be integrated, to integrate the fact that all the quadrants of my journey are integrated, and so, as far as I know, there's nothing better to integrate all of who I am. Again, the wonder and the warts, right. Then a relationship with God.

Bishop Rob Wright: 22:14

The Psalms again, they account for all of the emotions of life. Hey, god, where are you? Abandonment, rejection why don't my prayers seem to be answered? Hallelujah, god, you're so wonderful. I mean, it spans. It's all of the emotions. And you sketch all of that together and what we realize is that God is enough, god for all of the things that we go through. And God is like I'm standing right here. I'm right here with you. You know there's in Psalm 139, there's nowhere you can go, nowhere that you can go, that I can't be with, right beside you. And I've seen you since your birth, right, and I'll be with you when you have your last breath. And I'm right here. I think John just doesn't want to muddy that message. John just wants to say God is not to be played with. God is a serious God, but God's seriousness is about you finding real life.

Melissa: 23:21

And thank God for that. Thank God for that. Thank you so much for your wisdom. Thank you, listeners, for tuning in to Four People. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Bishop Rob Wright. Please subscribe, leave a review and we'll be back with you next week.