For People with Bishop Rob Wright
For People with Bishop Rob Wright
Creative
God does some of God's best work in the darkness! These painful periods hold unexpected creative potential—a perspective shared by both Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in his 1964 Nobel Peace Prize speech and Jesus in his final hours with his disciples. Dr. King spoke during a time of profound national division. Yet he saw beyond immediate chaos to "a genuine civilization struggling to be born." Similarly, Jesus, facing betrayal and death, used that moment to wash his disciples' feet and establish a new commandment of love that would define his followers for centuries.
Drawing comparisons between Dr. King's words from and Jesus' commandment in John 13, Melissa and Bishop Wright have a conversation on how turmoil itself can become the raw material for transformation. What current turmoil in your life might contain creative possibility? Listen in fo the full conversation.
Read For Faith, the companion devotional.
What King is saying in. Oslo is a reverberation from what he's seen in the American South trying to do these wonderful interventions that bring us to the truth that we are actually siblings and that this lie called racism is corrosive to white and black alike, and corrosive and a betrayal to our American ideals. And so what he's saying is is that in this turmoil, you should realize that there's a creative possibility.
Melissa:Welcome to For 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 this week's For Faith and a link to subscribe in the episode's description. Good morning, bishop.
Bishop Wright:Morning.
Melissa:This week's devotion you named creative and it's based off of Dr. King's Nobel Peace Prize speech in 1964. And there's a quote in it. But here's the interesting part it's also you also are using John, chapter 13, verses 31 through 35. And, bishop, I couldn't. I wasn't able to necessarily see the thread, and so I'm really intrigued, really, we're talking about what's going on when we face turmoil in our life, and how are we being invited to create a new way forward, a resurrection path, if you will, our darkest days. How did you make the leap between John 13 and Dr King's speech?
Bishop Wright:My wife says, after reading my writing for almost three decades, it tells me all the time there's some gaps in your thinking sometimes. Wow, I know, you know what you want to talk about, but I'm not sure it always makes it to the paper. I love it. Well, look. First of all, what I want to say is that we're in Easter season, still right, and so we're writing with an Easter mind and we're always trying to look for signs of Easter all around us. And what is Easter? Well, easter is that God intervened powerfully, right, and that God's creativity was not outdone by our sort of you know, our evil, frankly speaking, our sin, our division, our blindness, and so you know we love and serve a creative God.
Bishop Wright:And I think in 1964, it happens to be the year I was born Dr. King is in Oslo, norway, and he gives this amazing speech. And if you haven't read it I know we love to read I have a Dream and that's great. We should continue, but this fellow was a genius and he's got a lot to say, and so don't limit yourself. And you can find it. Just Google Nobel Peace Prize speech Dr. King, 1964. And it'll pop right up. You can actually see the video or you can read the text. But but what he does, we have to remember 1964. So nothing is decided in 64.
Bishop Wright:At this point I mean, you know we're still working on civil rights They'll get delivered soon and then voting rights, and all of that is still in flux. The South is still a very dangerous place. The urban centers are still a tinderbox. You know Vietnam is happening. We're being lied straight to our face. We now know we're being lied straight to our face. We now know we're being lied straight to our face. We're feeding the war machine, our young men from all over the country, and we know that it is something that is unwinnable, untenable. And now we know, we're so clear, and you know, the society was just in an absolute turmoil. So when Dr. King makes this speech, absolute turmoil.
Bishop Wright:So when Dr. King makes this speech, he talks about God using turmoil and why that's important. I think it's not that God is causing turmoil this is a critical distinction but that it's God can use turmoil. In other words, so what is Easter for us is that nothing is out of God's reach to use, to push into service for God's creative, redemptive purposes. That's the good news. Right? I mean Episcopalians, we're a quiet bunch. But if we were not Episcopalians this morning somebody might shout and have a hallelujah party right there. Have a hallelujah party right there.
Bishop Wright:That any turmoil you find yourself in physical, financial, societal, organizational is not beyond God's ability to bring into service for God's redemptive purposes. That's the good news. That means we are always resourced, always, always, always resourced. And it's not about how good you are, how lovely you are, how much you read the Bible, even how much you go to church. It's just that this is the nature of God.
Bishop Wright:And so what King is saying in Oslo is a reverberation. You know from what he's seen in the American South trying to do these wonderful interventions that bring us to the truth that we are actually siblings and that this lie called racism is in fact a lie and is corrosive to white and black alike, and corrosive and a betrayal to our American ideals. And so what he's saying is that in this turmoil you should realize that there's a creative possibility and that is hope-inspiring and that beats back despair. Because if this is not true, then the worst is true and that we're going down a hole, we're doomed and there's no way back. But he sees in the worst of us God's ability to bring out of us our very best, and so he's encouraging people.
Melissa:Yeah, okay, and so is this. You know, this is the part where Jesus is telling the disciples that where I'm going, you cannot come.
Bishop Wright:Right and.
Melissa:I'm giving you a new command to love one another. And so. I guess it's that love one another that makes it all possible.
Bishop Wright:Well, when Jesus says I give you three amazing sentences, right, I give you a new commandment love one another, love as I have loved you, and by loving this way, people will know that you are my disciples. Three you know amazing sentences, but he does. He renders these sentences. You know, after supper he's just been betrayed by his buddy, judas, who was who occupied. You know the treasurer role you know, in the little startup company called the Christian. You know fledgling Christian movement and he's facing his own death. He's fully aware of this.
Bishop Wright:So in that turmoil he is being creative, because what he's doing is is he's intervening not only in the now, in that moment, with the foot washing, because I mean, what would you do if you got your death sentence in the mail? You might not find yourself at the feet of people, especially people who are some of them are just dense, others of them are duplicitous. You know others just absolutely haven't got a clue and won't get a clue until you're hanging on a cross, right, and then maybe even then they might not sort of be able to articulate what the hell is happening. So you know, what you got to love about Jesus is that Jesus holds to his purpose in the midst of turmoil and therefore he begins to creatively use turmoil. So here's the turmoil of this dinner and he's saying even this is the raw material for me to use to make this amazing point, which is to push into the DNA of this organization that will go on after me that we're about loving one another and we're not the sort of model of how to love.
Bishop Wright:Love as I have loved you. There's the model, there's the DNA, there's the brand identity and as I have loved you. There's the model, there's the DNA, there's the brand identity. And then the public face piece. How will people know anything about you after you're long gone, jesus? Well, people will know me by the way. You love one another, and so all of that, as we well know, interpersonally and organizationally, certainly nationally, internationally, is turmoil. I mean, just look at the news these days. And so what Jesus does is and what King is trying to do that's the connection is to say to us there's hope, and also to give us a future and also to tell us how to intervene, going forward.
Melissa:Yeah, you know, I'm going to read this sentence because it's absolutely brilliant and it reeks of resurrection language without saying resurrection, dr King says when our days become dreary, with low hovering clouds, and our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, we will know that we are living in the creative turmoil of a genuine civilization struggling to be born Like. That, to me, is like the precipice of resurrection.
Bishop Wright:That's right. That's right. Yeah, he knows that we're standing on a precipice, but he, you know he's also said in other places just because you don't see the entire staircase doesn't mean you don't take a step in faith.
Melissa:Right.
Bishop Wright:And so, so you know. And so what inspires us to do extraordinary things? Well, we have to have some sense that we are giving ourselves to something that is bigger and maybe even better than ourselves. And so he says a genuine civilization is struggling to be born. In other words, there's an invitation here. Don't you want to participate in something that is genuine, that is yearning to be born? Right, I mean, that goes to our American DNA. Right, I mean the best of our American DNA, which says we come from lots of different places, but we can find ourselves beside each other to accomplish amazing things. It certainly is the Christian DNA, right, I mean. So this is why I say the King is not only some sort of eloquent, charming black preacher, you know, as some would want to just limit him to be. I mean, this fella is an, he's a genius.
Melissa:Absolutely.
Bishop Wright:And he's also read his civics book, right, I mean, and, and think about how a statement like this hey, join in with us and let's work together to be midwives of a genuine civilization.
Melissa:You said midwives and what I went to was the birthing table and struggling to be born. I've delivered three kids. They've all gone down differently and, wow, struggle is definitely a great word to use, so I guess my question is about creativity here. How might we be creative?
Bishop Wright:Right, oh, I love this question. Well, I mean, and here I mean I've quoted this before on a podcast, but here I just want to give it to you, nice and slow, because I think that Walter Brueggemann, great Old Testament theologian, gives us this wonderful little framing, and here it is. He says that to sort of contradict the world as it is, which means the world that is somehow perpendicular to the mandate of the Gospels love one another as I've loved you. He says that we have to be engaged in dangerous oddness right, I've said that to you before, but dangerous oddness. And then he tells us, he defines for us the two ways that dangerous oddness should look. Number one, they will expose contradictions. And number two, they will practice alternatives. So, you know, it's not that we are to be a follower of Jesus. Always make you sort of a walking talking, you know, picture of antagonism. No, it is this embodiment of this neighborly love that is going to, just by living that out, is going to expose contradictions.
Bishop Wright:Right, I mean, again, we've used Jimmy Carter and his post-presidency. You know someone who's gone. He went from the White House, you know, to a single story ranch house in South Georgia, and yet it impacted so many people's lives. Right, he was the contradiction and he exposed contradiction as well. Right, he got in a lot of trouble for exposing contradiction. He called the state of Israel. What's happening there's happening there. You know apartheid, and he was not wrong. And now we know that he's absolutely right that it is in fact you know apartheid. And so it is just a consistent, the persistent, gentle embodiment of these two ideas to expose contradiction and then to practice alternatives.
Bishop Wright:And so this is what Jesus does, right? I mean, if you just take those two phrases and you take them to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, you will see that Jesus does that all the time. He's always exposing contradictions in his pithy, wonderful little way, with his storytelling, with who he talks to, with where he spends his time and with whom, and he's always practicing alternatives. And so that's, I think, is the way. And so what all of this implies is that you and I have a real deep connection and tethering to his actual words and ways. I mean, you can't. You know, I love jazz, I love the great jazz musicians and the best jazz musicians. You know, they knew the fundamentals before they took their flights. They knew the fundamentals before they took their flights, right. And so you think about these guys Miles Davis, john Coltrane, charlie Bird, parker and the like and these fellas were fundamentally sound.
Melissa:Yeah, you know what, though? Jazz artists are also not typically soloists. They feed off of one another.
Bishop Wright:No doubt about it. Well, the best jazz artists absolutely are not, it's the quartets, it's the quintets right.
Melissa:And that's all creative, it's all new.
Bishop Wright:And you bring up such an interesting point though, because when you see, some of my favorite jazz selections are when you've got all of these, the stellar talent together, you know, on a piece or on an album McCoy Tyner, you know, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, just to name a couple of folks, philly, joe Jones, you know, and each one in their own right was living deeply into what they believed was their calling in their art. And then to throw that all together, so you know, king's invitation here, you know, to struggle on and to be creative in turmoil is also, you know, not an individual call. It is an individual call, I should say, but it is also a collective call, like find your quartet right and as each of you go deeply into your own personal conviction and then look around and find other soloists that you guys can make some. And King would always talk about harmony and disharmony. And so what's phenomenal that's suggested here in Jesus Lives Out, is that even in turmoil the jangling chords, to quote King, the jangling chords of turmoil somehow he realizes that he can find a harmony, and that harmony is that you and I find this note that Jesus has played and we begin to adopt it.
Bishop Wright:I think it was Herbie Hancock, who was an amazing jazz keyboardist, who was a very young musician. The story goes and he won the dream job of a lifetime and he got to join because he was a prodigy. And he got to join because he was a prodigy and he got to join miles davis. And so, uh, you know, miles davis plays his little bit of solo and then it's sort of over to herbie and herbie is doing his thing, beautiful, flourishes, etc. And then towards the end of his uh, little bit, he plays you know some wrong notes, right, and he, yeah, some wrong notes. And and he says you know, miles looks over at him right, pauses a minute and, like everybody knows it's a wrong note, like everybody knows it's a wrong note, and, uh, miles looks over at him and picks up the note that he plays and finishes the thing beautifully, wonderfully, amazingly, creatively, right.
Bishop Wright:And Hancock goes after the set very apologetically hey man, sorry, I hit that wrong note, or whatever. And you know, miles doesn't, doesn't say much about it. But what Hancock reflects on is is that, you know, this guy didn't hear a wrong note, he saw an opportunity, right, exactly. And this is what we're saying about Dr. King's Nobel Peace Prize that you know, we can get stuck in all the wrong notes of our present society, of our present society. What's wonderfully adaptive about Jesus's ministry to us is that Jesus can pick up all these notes. He has such capacity that he can pick up all these notes and still make something beautiful out of it.
Melissa:I love it. I also love surprise, and I feel like that's exactly what jazz does. It takes. I think it's highlighting a dissimilar in a familiar you know. And so, Bishop, would you say anything about surprise and how we might lean in or even created ourselves in coming alongside Jesus and doing this work on earth?
Bishop Wright:Well, I would say that that's the excitement for me. The excitement for me, so where's the Holy Spirit in all this, you might ask. Well, I that that's the excitement for me. The excitement for me, so where's the Holy Spirit in all this, you might ask. Well, I think that's the excitement. The excitement is and I think King talks about this in lots of ways I think the disciples get surprised by some people who are not a part of the 12 doing the thing, and they meet that surprise with disdain and Jesus says hey, man, they're doing the work, leave them alone, right. Meet that surprise with disdain and Jesus says, hey, man, they're doing the work, leave them alone, right. So the surprise for me, and what's really energizing for me, is when you go places and you meet people and you see people doing the thing and you know so in these surprises you are not.
Bishop Wright:You realize you're not alone, because sometimes we can get woe is me and we can get trapped in cycles of despair and loneliness and all that. And while sometimes that's a part of the faith life, it shouldn't become the pathology, right, it should be seasonal and not sort of sustained. But it's also where you begin to see that while you have some gifts. There are lots of other gifts in God's economy, right In God's beautiful diversity, gifts that you couldn't even imagine. There are vantage points and viewpoints and competencies that you can't even imagine. And how. Best part of my job is knowing now what my value is and my add value to the system, and also knowing what other partners add value is, and so in many ways it does become creative and it does help you to process the turmoil and, I think, to meet it.
Bishop Wright:So, without that sustaining sort of Holy Spirit surprise, I think the whole thing would be, you know, biscuits with no gravy, you know. But because Holy Spirit is radically active, you know, and I think also you know, both King and Jesus are talking about this, implying this, you know, we are not left to our own devices. That's also the good news, right, I'm going to run my race with everything that I have, you are going to run yours and so many others are. But there is this other piece, this X, that we can't always account for but yet is nevertheless there, right? And so in some ways, christian maturity and deepening of spirituality is beginning to always make room for the X Right, always making room for, you know, god's Holy Spirit coming in and throwing a creative flourish on things that you could never imagine.
Bishop Wright:That's why Paul in Ephesians, the third chapter, is that that's one of my favorite three and 20, my favorite little bits and pieces. God can do infinitely more than you can ask or imagine, according to the faith at work in you. I love that. I love that. It's like you know, look, I hear somehow. I hear Paul saying Jesus down through the hallways of time.
Melissa:I got you man down through the hallways of time. I got you, man. Just keep going. Biscuits and gravy. Bishop, thank you for your wisdom and listeners. Thank you for listening to For People. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Bishop Rob Wright, or by visiting www. forpeople. digital. Please subscribe, leave a review and we'll be back with you next week.