For People with Bishop Rob Wright
For People with Bishop Rob Wright
#1 We Believe
"When we say that we believe, we are saying that we are in the response position." In our latest series, Bishop Wright invites us to consider the profound implications of the declaration "We Believe" that unites Christians across time, denomination, and geography.
In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright have a conversation about what it truly means to believe. Far more than intellectual agreement, belief positions us in relationship to a God who exists whether we acknowledge it or not. When we stand and recite ancient creeds, we join a timeless community of faith—standing "spiritually shoulder to shoulder with generations who have gone before and generations yet to come." This connection reminds us that faith is both deeply personal and inherently communal. Listen in for the full conversation.
Read For Faith, the companion devotional.
When we say that we believe, we are saying that we are in the response position. Belief is a response to the reality of God, it's a way that we can apprehend the reality of God, and it's all gift. As I start this journey With God, I'm already responding, and one way, best way to respond is to say I intend to live as one who trusts this reality that we call God.
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. Over the course of this next season, Bishop Wright is framing his devotions and our conversations around the theme We Believe as we make our way through the lectionary. Welcome, bishop.
Bishop Wright:Good morning.
Melissa:Today's devotion you have based off of Luke, chapter 12, verses 49 through 56. And it's a big one. It's really about keeping us united, not divided, and all the things that Jesus had to say about that. Tell me where this inspired the we believe theme.
Bishop Wright:Yeah, well, again, as I mentioned last week, you know, just upon reflecting on how we gather as believers around the world, gather as believers around the world. You know, one of the things that we have in common, even across denominations, even with folks who don't even go to church, we use these two words, we believe, and those words are really powerful and, as I say, in a devotion, they're not magic and they're as consequential as we choose to make them and they're as consequential as we choose to make them. It's pretty powerful to think about that, that, at least in our tradition, all over the globe, you largely aspirationally and, I hope, penetratingly, say we believe, and that's pretty powerful when you think about it, that we stand, then, in that moment, spiritually shoulder to shoulder with generations who have gone before and, in many ways, generations that are yet to come, as a group of people who, by faith, are questing forward with Jesus. We believe and we're saying, when we say that, that this means something to us you know, the full freight of which I'm still figuring out and yet, through the gift of grace that is faith. Yet those words are important to me.
Bishop Wright:We believe, and when we say the creed because I'm referring to what we call the Niacin Creed. You know it's not the full measure of the faith. In many ways it's the table of contents of the faith. We believe in God, we believe in Jesus Christ, we believe in the Holy Spirit, we believe in the church, all those sorts of things. And you know I really commend people to study. If you haven't studied I would really commend it.
Bishop Wright:And what I like about the creed and it was actually my wife who pointed this out to me I sort of mumbled through it all these many years, as lots of folks do and never realize. And we believe, you know, in the world that is to come. And what's interesting is is that when we believe and we go deep with Jesus, we really are with chisel and hammer alongside of the Holy Spirit, chiseling out the world that is to come in this very moment. And so that's a way to really think about it. When we say we believe, what we're saying is that God is the sun around which we orbit, and just that much is worth everything.
Bishop Wright:No-transcript Belief is a response to the reality of God. It's a way that we can apprehend the reality of God and it's all gift and it's all grace. And so, as I start this journey with God. I'm already responding, and one way, best way to respond, is to say I believe, by the way, and I'll say, I restate this, not that I give intellectual assent to the idea only, but I am living, I will live, I am going to live, I intend to live as one who trusts this reality that we call God.
Melissa:Okay. And so you're talking about standing up and saying a creed, all in unity and unison, and it doesn't escape me that the very last sentence of your devotion, it says Jesus came, I came for division, which is a little ironic right? And yet you're saying let's not meaning making go hand in hand and many people will interpret things differently from one another, like how do we hold that intention?
Bishop Wright:Well, I think what I'm doing is trying to start at the beginning. I think what happens is is that people race right by sort of what I've just said and they get to what I call, you know, the issue, the issues du jour. Right, what is the? What is the division soup of the day? And I'm not poo-pooing them, but I think that let's let's begin at the beginning, and, and actually the issues of the day, so to speak, are downstream of what I'm trying to say. In fact, I can't even really parse in any faithful way the issues of the day until I start at the top of the funnel, if you will, with who am I, who is God and who is my neighbor? Right? And so I think that any issue that we are faced with that's so wonderfully urgent right now, and division making right now, you know, we can just sort of wrestle with that sort of stuff without any frame of reference. I think the frame of reference for us is that God is good, real, able, good and generous, and you are my sibling Again to beat that drum again and again and again. That's where we start, that is where we start, and then that helps us to parse issues.
Bishop Wright:Now I want to say something here which may sound controversial to some folks. Some folks, you know, go to scripture and have this sort of maybe even a golden calf and obsession with the word unity, and I don't see that in the Bible actually. In fact, jesus himself says I come to bring a sword right and division will spring up. By me being amongst you, for you and loving. So I think we may have to put our big boy and big girl pants on and realize that this is a tragically, terribly messy world and that what I'm responsible for, you know, is not the whole world. I remember as a kid there was a Coca-Cola commercial. You know, I love to see the whole world sing, and there's this wonderful image where people are holding hands across the world. I'm not giving up on that, but I want to also name that we live in a very messy world and it continues to get messier, if I'm understanding the news correctly.
Bishop Wright:So then, what am I responsible for? What is the best response to that? Well, not my mind, but Scripture seems to think that individuals who can clump together in large and small groups who believe in love of neighbor is the best way to handle that, that there's going to be division right up to the end if you use that language, that revelation language, and that somehow there's a part of all of that that is God's business exclusively. So then, what I'm trying to figure out is so what's our part? So, my part, our part, I think, is to figure out who is this God, as we've told the story of God, how have we painted on God's canvas with our smallness, with our need to be superior, with our need to be separate? How can we purge that and move as best we can, with the grace of God, into a configuration with one another that is graceful, kind, also truth-telling and candid and also understands that we are finite but God is infinite? So what's our part? What's God's part? None of that. All the messiness of that doesn't stop me from starting where we can start.
Bishop Wright:I think what worries me now is is that people watch the news and we have our little devices in our hands, more computing than did send the men to the moon, and we're, sort of in real time, very aware of all the brokenness in the world, and people tend to get paralyzed by that, people tend to get overwhelmed by that, people go into despair over that, people go into depression over that. People want to run and hide and of course I understand that right. And yet here's Jesus inviting us, one step at a time, right to interpret these times that we live in in this way. And the way is God is timeless. God is wondrous and loving. Neighbor is your sibling you have. You're not responsible for the entire world. You have 24 hours, just like the next man or woman, and if you believe, let's see what your belief yields in the next 24 hours.
Melissa:So that's big and bold. Right there, I feel like we could conclude no, I'm just kidding, I just kind of feel that that was a micro.
Bishop Wright:I realize I'm on a tear there, but I think these ideas all wonderfully work together.
Melissa:So I think what's really compelling about this devotion, Bishop, is the very last thing. That's in my version anyway. The NRSV UE. Jesus is saying gosh, you know, we know how to predict the weather, we know how to recognize what's happening with the planets and all the things, and yet why do you not know how to interpret the present time? And you're suggesting that we do that through trust.
Bishop Wright:Yes, Well, again, as I said, forget me. I mean, I'm just sort of commending what Jesus has commended. That's what he comes to boldly declare with his living, in his silences, in his words, in his deeds and in his death and resurrection. You know, he's coming to say you ought to trust God. He's coming to say God is trustworthy even when it hurts. You know, with your biggest pain and all your accomplishment, you can trust God to be sort of the best guide and companion. And all that I mean and he says that and what's fantastic about the church with all of her problems, is is that you keep running into people I have, and I'm sure you have, who have actually tried this to varying degrees. And it's amazing to see the wonder on their faces, the joy in their voices, and to realize that they've discovered you know, to use the biblical language, they've discovered a pearl of great price that was in their garden all along. I mean, it's a wonderful thing.
Bishop Wright:And you know, I've met people in tragic divorces. I've met people in death and loss. I've met people in terrible disorientation. I've met, you know, young people who've got the world ahead of them, who somehow get a glimpse that their best life will be trusting God and living, you know, peaceably with other people, and you know it inspires me. I mean people think I'm in the inspiration business in some ways. People and it, you know it inspires me. I mean people think I'm in the inspiration business in some ways. I'm just sort of in the. I'm a bit like a barn silo, so I sort of gather all the grain in the barn and then pour it out. I mean I keep meeting faithful people who have decided to try to trust God and I get to tell those stories and so, yeah, so Jesus does that.
Bishop Wright:And Jesus is saying, you know, I'm saying to you, jesus says this is the best way to interpret the times. Now, what we have to realize in this moment is is that we have divided loyalties, right, because there's no purity in us, right, and I don't mean that as a slight to us, I just mean that we are the kind of people our mind and our behind can be going in two different directions. We have divided loyalty. We can say we want, you know, sort of world peace, and then we can say something contradictory to that in our Middle East, but nobody wants to give an inch in Gaza, right, and so we know that to be terribly, terribly true, and at the same time, we know that people are sincere when they say they want world peace.
Bishop Wright:But these things have a cost. And so the measure of what we believe is all Jesus is saying. The real measure of what you believe, measure of what we believe is all Jesus is saying, the real measure of what you believe is what you do, and I think in the West in particular, we've sort of read, I think. Therefore, I am as if we can shape the world really by just sitting in rooms and thinking profound thoughts, and that has nothing to do with Jesus at all. I mean, it's so profound that Jesus comes to us, god in flesh. That action, the incarnation, proves this paradigm, that it is even God decided to come and to do beyond creation so as to help to persuade us that this is the way to live.
Melissa:Okay. So I guess there's some tension in me that I have to name, because I heard what you said about trusting God and it's really about trust and believing in God individually and then collectively, and I feel like the church sometimes gets in the way of that. In that I'm just saying there could be a person like let's take me, for example, I trust God so fully and yet sometimes there will be people in the church and I'll do this too to others who, who have a problem with some of the other beliefs that say that very trusting person in God, very mature faith, who's just trying to live faithfully and lovingly and you know, for their neighbors and all the things, and yet precludes them from full belonging simply because that they might believe something a little differently than someone else. That's real tension for me.
Bishop Wright:Well, yeah, I mean there is tension in all of this. That's why I called it divided loyalties. I mean, you know there is real tension in it and you know life with God is living with that tension and working through with that. You know, one of the ways to say this a little bit cheeky, is to say if we find in our life with God that we win all the arguments with God, perhaps we need an adjustment in our relationship.
Bishop Wright:I think what we don't want to talk about when we talk about belief and trusting God is obedience. I think that's what we don't want to talk about. What we want is a God who believes with us, who believes what we believe. What we want is a God who believes with us, who believes what we believe and who wants to. You know, what we want is this conversation to be a reversal of polarity. We believe as a response to who God is. We believe it's not God responding to who. We are Right, and I think that's what we want. We want God to disagree with the people we disagree with. We want God to vote the way we vote. We want God to not like the people we don't like and so we believe is, by definition stretching. I mean that is part of a mature faith and part of that maturity comes about. There's no other way than obedience. So just because I don't understand everything, I mean I think belief means it doesn't mean that I don't try everything, right. And so how do we please God? The Bible tells us you cannot please God without faith. In other words, I've got to try it, I've got to try. It doesn't say it says it doesn't say think and see that the Lord is good Right. It says taste and see that the Lord is good. Right, it says taste and see that the Lord is good. And so, if we want to be mature followers of Jesus, the truth of the matter is is that we're going to have to do some things that will be uncomfortable, live some ways that are going to be uncomfortable.
Bishop Wright:Let me give you a concrete example. When we say we believe, right, what we're saying is that we trust God. Now, all of us have relationships that could be better. Some of us have relationships that are terribly broken, right. So Jesus gives us a concrete way to handle forgiveness and we have decided, many of us. We have decided that we know better than Jesus about how to handle family disputes, brokenness, marital discord. We have decided that we know better. We have decided that we may be, on one level, aware of Jesus's process that he's offering to us. We have decided we're not going to go that far, that that's a bridge too far, that forgiving seven times 70 is too far, that praying for those who abuse us and say nasty things about us is a bridge too far. We have decided right and I'm saying this as a sinner, I'm saying this as someone, rob, who misses the mark. So that is a that is an example of what I mean.
Bishop Wright:We have decided to withhold Parts of ourselves From this sort of trust experiment with God and then, having withheld parts of ourselves, we have decided to critique God as somehow not able.
Bishop Wright:So that is a bit ridiculous when you think about it.
Bishop Wright:We've not tried the product and yet we want to criticize the product, because what is actually true is I'm afraid, or I'm too invested in my way, or my ego, and this is why, you know, I like to say, you know, in a matter of speaking, we had to kill Jesus, because Jesus kept coming to us to say I understand your ego, I understand your wounds, I understand your pain. All of it's legitimate. But I have a way to process all of that. Won't you come and use my way, your wealth, your time, your achievement, come and use the way that I've constructed so that you can hold all those things in the best way. And we have decided in many ways to say thanks, jesus, but no thanks, yeah. So it's evolving and so if I, as a preacher and a pastor, don't bring you to that intersection, I've not done my job. Now I'm not going to condemn you or criticize you at that intersection, but it's my job to tell you, to describe at least, and for my own self and for my own soul, what's at that intersection.
Melissa:Yeah, and so I'm thinking the word justice here. How do we lean into trusting God and also having the, I guess, holding it in tension, understanding that this is very much a personal and individual response to said trust, without getting caught up in all of the shoulding and should notting on other people?
Bishop Wright:Yeah, we don't want to, should all over it, right? No, we don't. Well, look, here's one way to talk about it. You know we get racing to these big. I mean, justice was a justice, was an individual idea, a communal construct, before it became a nation-state construct. Right, it became just dealing with individuals. I mean, if you go back to the Old Testament, it became a way to sort of set guardrails in the community before it became a nation-state way to go.
Bishop Wright:And so here's what I would invite us to think about. What is that for us to reflect on? Invite us to think about what is that for us to reflect on? What area of our lives might we be most out of alignment with God and God's processes and God's ways forward? It may be in our finances. It may be in our obsessive need to accumulate things that we don't need. It may be a broken relationship. And let's start there. I mean, we can't solve the macro today, but we might be able to make some improvement on something personal today.
Bishop Wright:And so the gospel is not only personal piety, but it does start there, right? Because I think there's no hope in many ways for justice and just systems and equitable systems if we as individuals don't move our hearts in that direction, with the help of the community and the grace of Almighty God. So so you know, why should we expect that a county in Georgia would be more just, more equitable, more kind, more generous, if the households in that county individually are not moving in that direction? It seems almost an impossible task and a ridiculous ask. And so I think that we start where we are, and where we are is.
Bishop Wright:You know what have you risked for the gospel? You know how have you extended an olive branch? Not because you necessarily wanted to, but because who you say you are, who we say God is, is persuasive to you, god is is persuasive to you. So not my way, god, but your way. Even Jesus, you know, has to echo those words Not my will, but thy will be done. He says that at important intersections at his life perhaps the most important intersection at his life and when he says that the crucifixion and the resurrection are downstream of that. But they all start with not my will, god, but your will. So if we really want to be mature believers, if we really want to in flesh, we believe we've got to stand at these intersections as best we can, relying on the grace and help of God, informed by scripture, and take that next hard step. Jesus says you know, this is how we interpret the times. We interpret the times through faithful action and that's how we move forward.
Melissa:Amen, bishop, thank you, and thank you, listeners, 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.