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- [00:00]
Marty Solomon
Everybody, it's Marty here. And we are continuing our way through the end of session nine here on the Behemoth podcast. And we knew because we had already recorded and produced some episodes with Josh Bossay before he passed away. And so we knew that these episodes were coming. And one of the things we talked about with Sophia, she was really confident that she wanted us to use the content that Josh had produced before he passed. And we love that. We want to honor that. We want to honor the content that he had made. And so we're going to share that episode that he had already recorded. And I just thought it would be worth pausing before we got into the episode and let you know that you're about to hear an episode with Josh's voice. And we don't want that to be jarring or a triggering experience. We want to honor the content he made. And I just want to tell you that if this experience is too hard for any reason or not life giving, for some of us, it's going to be. But if it's not for you, please just skip this episode. You can always come back later if it ever feels more appropriate or right. But all of our experiences are going to be different. That is a part of grief. And so before you just launched into an episode and heard Josh start talking, we wanted to give you just a moment of pause to let you prepare for the fact that that was coming. We actually asked one of our fellow staff here, one of the people that knew Josh really well, who worked alongside of Josh. We're in Cincinnati together, Mitch Lavender. You've heard him on the podcast before. He's about ready to introduce himself. And he wrote a tribute to Josh that I thought would be a really fitting way to intro this episode. So I'm going to turn over to Mitch here, but wanted to just let you know what was coming. And we hope that it's a blessing whenever you get a chance to listen to this episode.
- [01:53]
Mitch Lavender
Thanks. Hello, everyone. I'm Mitch Lavender. Mitchell Lavender, but I go by Mitch. You have previously heard me likely on B episode 397. I was blessed to really get to know Josh and his family when my family moved up here to Cincinnati. And Josh is the person who really opened up the role here for me in this city with impact. And he would always kind of joke with me about how, like, this dude stole my job. But he has also shared with me just how much he trusted me. And even most recently, Sophia reassured me that he trusted me completely with this role. So that is something that has really changed Personally, the trajectory of my life because I was in a place where I wasn't sure what was next and the opportunity opened up here. But thanks to him and the Impact team, I was able to come here. And it has been and was a good fit. And I'm very thankful for his grace and his hospitality in doing so. And it's humility to. To be someone who in our Christian family could willingly step aside and let someone else in. Josh is really good about those things. We did spend lots of time eating together, slow and steady time, deep time here and there, playing board games. We love to play Wingspan, and we love to have just a good cup of coffee at one of our spots in Cincinnati named Collective Espresso. One of my favorite memories with Josh and Sophia was one of those nights where Hope and I, Hope's my wife, and we. We had a Sabbath dinner together and Sophia and Josh asked us what our life was like as black people, and we shared our experiences with them. He shared his experiences as a white man, and Sophia shared her experiences as an Asian woman. And this was the first time in my life, actually, that I had friends who were bold enough to just ask that question, but then have hearts big enough to create a safe space and for us to share vulnerably. It was the first time Hope and I actually openly and willingly had that conversation with two of our friends. And I think the safety, the depth and the vulnerability in our friendship, which would pop in and pop out here and there, really did characterize the way that our family has grown to love their family. And our friendship bounced in between times like that and other times where we just love to be in the same space and just eat food. So I'm sad that he's gone. Josh's family and Josh himself are some of the closest people to us in Cincinnati. And I'd like to share this poem with you because it is an attempt of mine to express my heart towards our short but powerful friendship and the lasting impression that he and his family has had on mine. It starts like this. You're gone now, no longer here. You took your leap over into Adonai's embrace right at the beginning of Shabbat. November 28, 6pm I know you're resting now, and for that a part of me is glad. You see, we could be here in Ohio because of you. If it weren't for your generosity and hospitality, if it weren't for your submission due to your health, I would not have the role or impact that I do. More importantly, if it weren't for your open home and your family's open heart, Cincinnati would have never become that for us.
- [06:04]
Josh Bossay
Home.
- [06:07]
Mitch Lavender
Yes, the lavenders miss you. To Zion, you are Uncle Josh. To us, you're our brother and friend. The conversations we've had over Worshabbat dinner, our concerns about the world, our experiences, people, the restaurants we love, the brokenness in church, the laughs over our kids and how crazy parenting is, and the heart to love the overlooked and forgotten. Josh, you helped me become a man who was freer in Christ. You brutally confronted my dysfunction with grace and acceptance. You model authenticity, love and grace. You showed us how to make chai tea from scratch and you could whip up a sauce on demand in a hot second. I thank Adonai for you, my friend. Of course our time was too short, but the impression on our hearts is olam everlasting. And now onto our episode.
- [07:22]
Brent Billings
This is the Baymo podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co host, Brent Billings. Today I am with Reid Dent and Josh Bossay to talk about hope.
- [07:30]
Reid Dent
I hope this doesn't upset anybody, but sometimes I do a thought experiment where I think about if I could take any text and insert it into the canon of scripture. Like if the canon of scripture is truly open and I have full authority to just put one thing in there that becomes Bible like everything else, and it could be from any time period. I think that there's a really good chance that the Four Quartets by T.S. eliot will would get inserted somewhere in there between the Testaments. And I want to start by reading the end of the four Quartets. This is from the fifth part, the final part of the fourth of the Quartets. Please forgive me for those of you who know this poem because I am chopping it up just a little bit. Like, I didn't think it would be good for airtime to just read the entire thing. And I just had to. I was forced to make choices. But I do want to read some of this because when I think about hope, this is what I think about. Okay, this is a vision. Here we go. In my beginning is my end. Home is where one starts from. In my end is my beginning. What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. And every phrase and sentence that is right where every word is at home, taking its place to support the others. The complete consort dancing together. Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning. The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew tree are of equal duration. A people without history is not redeemed from time to time, for history is a pattern of timeless moments. So while the light fails on a winter's afternoon in a secluded chapel, history is now an England with the drawing of this love and the voice of this calling. We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time through the unknown remembered gate, when the last of earth left to discover is that which was the beginning at the source of the longest river. The voice of the hidden waterfall and the children in the apple tree not known because not looked for but heard, half heard in the stillness between two waves of the sea. Quick now. Here now. Always a condition of complete simplicity costing not less than everything. And all shall be well. And all manner of things shall be well when the tongues of flames are enfolded into the crowned knot of fire and the fire and the rose are one. I start with that because you asked me what is the end of all things look like. That is it. That is what it is. I don't know about pearly gates and golden streets, but I do know about this. And this is the thing. And now for our daily beekner. It's a little bit of a longer entry, but he says this about hope. He says for Christians, hope is ultimately hope in Christ. The hope that he really is what for centuries we have been claiming he is. The hope that despite the fact that sin and death still rule the world, he somehow conquered them. The hope that in him and through him all of us stand a chance of somehow conquering them too. The hope that at some unforeseeable time and in some unimaginable way, he will return with healing in his wings. No one in the New Testament calls a spade a spade as unflinchingly as St. Paul. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. He wrote to the Corinthians. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. That is the possibility, in spite of which St Paul and the rest of us go on hoping. Even so, that is the possibility that led Dostoevsky to write to a friend. If anyone proved to me that Christ was outside the truth and it really was so that the truth was outside Christ, then I would prefer to remain with Christ than with the truth. All right, so before I do more reading, let me just pause, because I don't want to just read continuously, for I gladly would, but I don't think everybody wants to listen to that.
- [12:12]
Brent Billings
Have you thought about a career in audiobook narration?
- [12:15]
Josh Bossay
I.
- [12:16]
Reid Dent
You know, it has crossed my mind a little bit.
- [12:19]
Josh Bossay
Okay, it has.
- [12:20]
Reid Dent
I have thought about that as the answer to the question. Although I will say that when Marty's and my book releases, the audiobook version is actually being recorded by Marty and not by me.
- [12:31]
Josh Bossay
Oh, man.
- [12:32]
Reid Dent
Yeah, it's actually really. Believe it or not, you guys, professional recording studios are scant in Kirksville. We just. We don't have the engineers and the space, and the publisher wants it to be professional.
- [12:49]
Brent Billings
They don't like your setup.
- [12:50]
Reid Dent
Not knocking our setup here, Brent, of course, you have done an amazing job setting me up with this microphone in my office. But anyway, just initial. Anything on Hope? Actually, Josh, I don't. I'm trying to remember when we were. When I was wrangling in people for episodes, did you select. Were you, like, I want to be on Hope, or did I just assign you to that? Or.
- [13:14]
Josh Bossay
Hope was the one you assigned me.
- [13:16]
Reid Dent
Did you feel happy about that?
- [13:18]
Josh Bossay
Yeah. I mean, you know, when you're talking about those three, it's like, I don't know. How do you pick between faith, hope, and love? Like, there's. There's much to be said. Although I'm glad I got hope, because I feel like my thoughts on love and faith are. Are much more whole and complete. And so I feel like this will be a very illuminating conversation for me in having to articulate it, because it's something where I often feel like, unlike the conversation we're already having just out the gate with these readings, a lot of times when we talk about hope, it either feels like kind of a trite response to some massive injustice or horror, or it's, you know, a way of just making a virtue out of just, you know, plastering a smile on your face and moving on. So usually in cultural spaces, when I hear hope invoked, I kind of tend to prepare for it to be misused. But, you know, that's why I think it's very good for us to talk about it and why I'm looking forward to talking about, like, what real hope is.
- [14:33]
Reid Dent
You know, he's just saying that. It occurs to me that with the vices, I think the temptation is to take things that should be less and make them more. I mean, that's what happens when these things get disordered. I think you're on to something, because I think it also is true for faith and for love. Faith, hope, love. These are what we call the theological virtues. But Like, I think the tendency is to make them actually much less. Much paler, much thinner, and much less robust than they actually are.
- [15:04]
Josh Bossay
Yes.
- [15:04]
Reid Dent
Because I don't know, what's your. What's your sense, Josh or Brent? Like, what's your sense of. If we have too kind of thin of a conception of hope, like, what is that conception? What do we tend to mean when we say the word hope? Or what do we tend to be thinking about? Any initial things jump to mind?
- [15:23]
Josh Bossay
Yeah, I would say that. I mean, first of all, I think you're right, broadly. Like, even when I think about, you know, the other. Sorry, what'd you call them? Theological virtues.
- [15:33]
Reid Dent
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Faith, hope and love. Theological virtues.
- [15:35]
Josh Bossay
Yeah, like, you know, particularly with faith. I feel like the point you were making about, you know, how we tend to make them smaller is just so abundantly obvious. But here, see, exactly. I'm going off talking about a different virtue, hope. I think that so much of the invocation of hope. And I'll speak specifically to within the circle of the church, right within the scope of Christianity, a lot of it comes back to, like, well, we believe we're right, so let's just stick to our guns. We are just gonna ignore what we're feeling or what's in front of us. I believe I'm going to a perfect retirement community up in the clouds. So, you know what? I can just grit my teeth and get through anything. In a weird sense. I feel like there's kind of a despair within that hope, and it leaves me very disturbed and unsettled. But, yeah, that's, I guess, how I would summarize that sort of shallower hope and in the world sense, you know, outside of the circle of Christianity. I would say that that kind of shallow hope is more just like. That kind of. Yeah. I don't know what we want to call it, like, blind optimism or that kind of just wanting to. And maybe that's even a more specific, like, American style of, like, the kind of just perpetually happy sort of, like, you know, I guess blind optimism was kind of the right. The right word, for sure.
- [17:04]
Reid Dent
I think that that is all right. It occurs to me that the faith. It makes sense that you started to talk about faith, because I think faith and hope are related in this way and that, like, the thinner versions of these things inside of, like, church land, what happens is it tends to pull us out of the world to look for something beyond the world rather than something that is in it. I was thinking about the hymns, you know, like, I'll Fly away Some bright morning I'll fly away Yep. And contrasting that in my mind with. You guys know Sufjan Stevens.
- [17:42]
Josh Bossay
Oh, yeah.
- [17:42]
Reid Dent
He's got that great version of Holy, Holy, Holy. And he. The one of the line. And it's an old hymn, but one of the lines in it is, though the darkness hide thee. And both of these hymns convey something about hope. Like they are hymns of hope, but different sorts, I think. So, like, in the first, it's like this thinner thing, Right. Where what you are looking at or looking forward to is like a kind of escape. The world is a sad place, and our hope is in getting away from it somehow.
- [18:17]
Josh Bossay
Right.
- [18:17]
Reid Dent
But for the second, which then goes on to say, like, all thy works shall praise thy name. It's earth and sky and sea are all named. Right. So, like, it's. It's connected, it's grounded. And though there is darkness, like, it's not looking away from the darkness or not denying it, but though there is that, the hope is that this stuff is going to be somehow, like, restored and even turned to the praise of God rather than something to kind of just be jettisoned, you know?
- [18:49]
Josh Bossay
Know. Yeah.
- [18:50]
Reid Dent
And like, God knows the world is full of pain. And I think we can use hope either like an anesthetic or like a defibrillator. Anesthetic, like numbing you just to the pain of the world. Right. Let me get away from it. Or the defibrillator, which actually, like, kickstarts your heart back into doing something about it. And I think that's kind of one of the main things I want to get to in conversation about hope, is that it actually drives us to action. Like, it's an interesting word biblically because it is about waiting. And there's a kind of tension implied in the word, but it's a word that leads to action. There's a little bit of a paradox, you know, waiting and action, like, go hand in hand with the virtue of hope.
- [19:36]
Josh Bossay
Yeah.
- [19:37]
Reid Dent
But, yeah, I think I was just sketching out hope a little further. Beechner and his. Our daily beginner for. For the day. He says, you know, the hope that despite the fact that sin and death still rule the world, he, Jesus, somehow conquered them. And that word, despite, I think, is like biblical. Biblical Hope's like, favorite word. Because I don't think it helps anybody if we go around peddling a kind of hope that's like, everything's gonna be fine, you know?
- [20:08]
Josh Bossay
Yeah.
- [20:09]
Reid Dent
Because I think we have to be real about the way that things are. And I think Biblical hope is real, but then says, despite. So, like, despite this, you know, we talked about with Acedia.
- [20:24]
Josh Bossay
Yes.
- [20:24]
Reid Dent
This nagging sense. Right. That there is, like, an aimlessness that just threatens to, like, swallow up our days and our lives. Hope insists this is actually going somewhere.
- [20:36]
Josh Bossay
Yeah.
- [20:37]
Reid Dent
Or as Buechner was pointing to, despite the prevalence of war in every age that we have ever recorded. And my son, who's 11, like, he's very keyed into this because he's. He's one of those kids who's like, his vision is too expansive for his age and his little body, you know? But he thinks about and he asks about, is the war still going on here? Is it still going on there? Do we ever not have a war? And it's like, no, there's always war. But despite that, that, you know, death and, like, the sin that leads to death, those have actually been conquered. Like, this is the claim of New Testament writers despite, like, the inexorability of the decay of things. And, Josh, I know that you have, like, deeply personal experience with this in, like, the things that have gone on in your body, right?
- [21:31]
Josh Bossay
Oh, absolutely. For sure.
- [21:32]
Reid Dent
Hope says that somehow, like, the glorious end of things will actually be like a. A realization, a real, and I mean real, like, material realization of good that is actually woven into this, including your body, you know, in the creation.
- [21:47]
Josh Bossay
Yeah.
- [21:47]
Reid Dent
That will be realized ultimately in some way what. What was intended from the very beginning. The hopeful person, the genuinely hopeful person, as I'm continuing this sketch, is not just somebody who likes. Is willing to acknowledge the pain of the world and say, despite that, something better, something realer is coming. But also, I think the hopeful person. I was thinking about Heschel's thing about prophets, and, like, prophets are people of hope, and yet prophets are abrasive and fiery. Right. And so, like, it would be a misconception to think that because we have hope for something better, we just live on this, like, level of Zen now. Right. Like, the hopeful person is not unbotherable, I guess.
- [22:39]
Josh Bossay
Yeah.
- [22:39]
Reid Dent
But that actually, like Heschel says, the prophet is a man who feels fiercely. The reason why hopeful people who are latched on to a biblical kind of hope ought to be getting really angry when they see, you know, injustice in the world or see, like, the pain or the broke. Why they ought to feel sad deeply is because there is a recognition that it ought to be otherwise, you know, that there is something that is intended to be. And I think even. And this is like, we're going to get into this conversation a Little bit too back to the hope leading us to action. But I think part of the biblical hope is that we are meant to be, actually be able to do something about it. The way that we are called to partner with God, that we are called to somehow. I don't, I don't know if you guys have thoughts on this, but like, whether it's, you know, heralding or whether it's like ushering in or just being a foretaste of what is to come, but like our actions in the present, like we're actually meant to be somehow forecasting this, you know, and when it's not happening, it's like, man, we could be doing something. And, and that's not just because I'm angry and surly and jaded. It's because I'm actually hopeful of what could be. It's rooted in that. Does that make sense?
- [23:55]
Josh Bossay
Yeah. And I think one of the threads I'm picking up in what you're saying is that it comes from a belief that whatever is right, whatever the state is that we are hoping for, and I think that's a crucial, maybe not distinction, but it's a quality of hope that's important to recognize as you hope in something. And whatever it is you're hoping in, it's not really hope if you don't think it could be real. And if it can be real, then it should bother us when reality doesn't turn out that way. And that's why I think to circle back the kind of hope that is forced to, or used to jettison reality or ignore the way things are really just doesn't sit well with me. You know, like, people who have like, I don't know, broken relationships, and they're just like, man, I really hope God fixes this relationship. And it's like, okay, but you're, you know, you're, you're imagining God swooping in and fixing the other person's heart or, you know, maybe we'll see each other in heaven and be friends. And like, that's. There is something within that that is almost anti hopeful. Like, like it, it kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, says, I don't think this can happen. I don't think that this can actually be done. There is kind of a. I don't know if fear is the right word. There could probably be a lot of emotions behind it, but I really do think that there is an audacity of hope, which I don't say to bring Obama to mind, but there is an audacity to, to believing that Something worth hoping in is also possible to happen. And this is where I think being uncompromising in that vision, hope doesn't just mean. It shouldn't mean that we're just perpetually okay with the status quo. In fact, it should be the opposite. And that's where I feel like within myself I feel this pull. They're not completely opposites, I don't think, but you know, cynicism. I'm not sure if I feel like it's the complete opposite of hope because we can learn from experience and you know, like this whole podcast, right. Like we can have expectations of how Empire is going to behave and we can also hope that in the practical real world just outside our door and also inside our door, it's all the real world that it can change despite the reality. That may also warrant a level of cynicism or a level of Jesus style cleverness of serpents, the wisdom to know how. And this is where I think the waiting is so important, especially going back to when you referenced my own health issues. I might talk about this more in the future or in the past, depending on if it comes up in our Cohella conversation. I don't know, we might. Sorry, Brent, I don't know if this will need to be cut or re edited or anything.
- [27:08]
Brent Billings
But yeah, go ahead. Because I was going to make a comment too about like we are recording this series like almost defiantly out of order. We generally try to be in order. Sometimes we have to squish a little bit depending on people's schedules. This series is all over the place and it's like, why? Why is it like this? It seems like there's something more to this. Like it's almost out of our control that we're talking about hope so far in advance.
- [27:35]
Josh Bossay
Yeah, it is very funny.
- [27:38]
Reid Dent
That's interesting too because I mean we talked in the intro about how like what we're creating is this sort of nodal web map of like, you know, just human nature and maybe it makes sense recording it out of order just.
- [27:52]
Brent Billings
Because.
- [27:55]
Reid Dent
The way that these things feed into each other, virtues and vices is not purely sequential and systematic, but that there are, you know. Yeah, it's non linear and like what hope has to do with acedia or what hope has to do with faith is. Yeah, like it's non linear in the way that it. The cause and effect did. Like there is cause and effect, push and pull, but it's not one direction.
- [28:20]
Josh Bossay
So yeah, to what you mentioned earlier, Reid, with regard to my health situation, there was no beating around the bush that the other side of the coin was just dying. And the experience of hope in that time had nothing to do with ignoring that reality. Because if I only had a hope that had to pretend that that reality didn't exist or didn't really matter anyway because there's heaven on the other side or whatever, then that was. That's a losing game. That's like trying to buy back the savings and loan by going to Vegas. It's not going to happen. And that's probably too complicated of a metaphor. Too many layers there.
- [29:05]
Reid Dent
But are you trying to bring up It's a Wonderful Life again?
- [29:09]
Josh Bossay
I know. It popped back into my head.
- [29:12]
Reid Dent
We're haunted.
- [29:14]
Josh Bossay
But either way, it's a losing game in the way that it's weird how much it reflects a lot of the real state of the world. Right. You brought up earlier the use of hope as this anesthetic, this thing that relieves pain. And we've had a huge problem in our country, at least, with the overuse of painkillers and the way that that can create this addictive cycle. And I don't think it's just. There's the chemical dependency side of it, but I think there is also, in parallel to that, a similar kind of dependence on hope via, you know, getting the kind of same effect of hope, but by just jettisoning reality, you know, just constantly numbing it. Like there are diminishing returns. There is a limit to how much that actually helps. And, you know, when I was going through my first battle with cancer and the whole transplant process, the hope had nothing to do with expecting a miracle to happen or something that would require reality just totally warping and shifting and disappearing. In a lot of ways, it would have been easier to give up. It was not easy walking to the hospital to get all these treatments that made me tired and feel like crap and all that. And on one level, there is that feeling of just like, I don't want to get up each morning and do this. I don't have to get up early to walk through the snow in Minnesota, so to go have these things happen. But I had hope that I could survive. I wish it was more poetic. Sometimes it was poetic and beautiful, but most of the time, kind of like the disciples to Jesus after he freaked everyone out with the cannibalism stuff, where it's just like, there's no other source of life. I can't live believing that the worst is going to happen, because then you don't get any points for predicting, like, Ah, I knew I was going to die from this. Like, getting that answer right doesn't mean anything. And in a certain sense, that's also a way of kind of trying to exert control over something that you simply cannot control. Hope is just waiting and being willing to, like, still be present, to still, like you said, you know, get yourself moving, because, hey, you can't just stay in bed and let this disease eat you. You gotta get up. You just gotta do it. Because there is something that lies ahead. And, man, it is so interesting what you brought up earlier, too, the way this kind of folds back around on acedia and that just allowing things to happen and run their course in the. The despair underneath that.
- [32:11]
Reid Dent
I want to bring us into the biblical conversation here because in thinking about what has plagued you, like in the body, and then if we expand the conversation to think about the other things, not necessarily bodily things, but things that sort of plague, that create a need, I think, in us for hope to look beyond the present thing into what's coming. And I want to get into the sort of the, The. The paradox. We've been dancing around a little bit. That is like the waiting and the action, you know, Action and waiting. The Bible Project has great word studies video on hope from now. I think it's like seven years ago or something, but they talk about two words. One is yahal and the other is kava. And I want to talk about kava. And it's prevalent word that gets translated as hope, which it also just means. It means waiting first mention, actually, I thought this was interesting. Josh, I'm curious what thoughts you have on this. First mention is Genesis 1:9. Brent, can you read that verse there?
- [33:21]
Brent Billings
And God said, let the water under the sky be gathered to one place and let dry ground appear. And it was so.
- [33:27]
Reid Dent
Yes. So that word gathered.
- [33:29]
Josh Bossay
Yeah.
- [33:30]
Reid Dent
Is actually this word.
- [33:32]
Brent Billings
Hmm.
- [33:32]
Reid Dent
So God is telling the water to wait. Let the water wait right here in this place for this other thing then to happen.
- [33:44]
Josh Bossay
Right.
- [33:45]
Reid Dent
And, you know, I like the image of the waters because I imagine, like, not stagnant water, you know, but water where life is teeming and things are happening. But that needs to be here for this present time until this other thing should happen. You got any insight for us on that word there, Josh?
- [34:04]
Josh Bossay
Oh, man. Yeah. This is a super interesting use of that word. And I'm glad you brought this out. I really like this lens on that word because, yeah, it's usually translated as gather, gathering in one place. And that's not incorrect. But to add this layer of waiting and of hoping. I think for me, I probably mentioned this somewhere in the Mishkan series. But to sum it up in short, I see this day as being a picture of community. And so this idea of taking this kind of unorganized, chaotic mass and just saying, hey, wait here, and suddenly out of nowhere, it becomes firm, it becomes solid, it becomes something that is stable, has foundation, and then within the same day is also fruitful. I think as an image of community, connecting it here to hope, that's really powerful, especially with the backdrop of not just the larger darkness and chaos and everything, but specifically that this is describing the lower waters. Right. It's the lower waters that God says, you know, let the water under the sky be gathered to one place.
- [35:25]
Reid Dent
Yeah.
- [35:26]
Josh Bossay
Not the, you know, the heavenly waters that are up above that are always, always fresh, just like the rain. You know, it's all fresh water up there. But, you know, it's like this is the, you know, the more chaotic, the less potable the place where, you know, this idea of it would be really easy for this water to just stay chaotic, stay dark and depressed and everything else, but to just wait, to gather together. And this idea of hope being something that gathers us together and can transform into solid life, bringing community, like, I love that scan on this image.
- [36:06]
Reid Dent
I'm really glad you're bringing in the community aspect here. And this is something that is actually key to thinking about, I think, the kind of action that we're called to in waiting. Because I. I think the paler, thinner form of hope is the, you know, the kind of cliche. Christian hope is pretty individualistic.
- [36:28]
Josh Bossay
Yeah.
- [36:28]
Reid Dent
And has to do with, like, going to heaven before we get to that part. Biblically, this word kava, it's used a lot in the Psalms too. And the object of waiting, what you are waiting for is almost always just God himself. I will wait on the Lord or wait for the Lord, which, you know, Bible Project guys point out. We're not just hoping for a mere change in circumstance, but for the Lord of hosts to arrive. And. Yes, but I think this goes back to your comment before Josh about, like, well, I hope that so and so, like, gets better or I hope that this situation changes. Like, the way that we talk about waiting for God, I think leads to a. Can lead to, like, super passivity. Right. Where I'm just sitting by and it's in God's hands now. I thought it was interesting to find that this word is also something God does. This kavah in Isaiah, chapter five, where it's talking About God planting a vineyard. Brent, I got Isaiah 51 and 2 here. Would you read those verses?
- [37:42]
Brent Billings
I will sing for the one I love, a song about his vineyard. My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but he yielded only bad fruit.
- [38:01]
Reid Dent
Okay, so the word, the loved one is the Lord here, planting a vineyard on a fertile hillside. And when he built a watchtower, cut out the wine press. Then he looked for a crop of grapes. That looked for is the word kava. He waited for, waited hopefully, expectantly for a crop of grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. Yeah, and then the Isaiah like goes on to this is a kind of an indictment that is being made against the people. It's informative for me to think about the way that I hope, when I think about God hoping here and that there is an expectation that like, something is going to happen, right? That some action is going to be taken. Not later, but I'm looking for now.
- [38:59]
Josh Bossay
I like this because I think part of this whole tension with hope, I think a lot of times what pushes us to lose hold of hope is when there isn't something for us to do, there isn't a concrete action that we can take. Like we talked about, you know, like with injustice, like a lot of issues of injustice, particularly with, you know, the scope of our awareness these days, it's, you know, things that are way outside of what we can do with our own two hands.
- [39:31]
Mitch Lavender
And.
- [39:32]
Josh Bossay
And it often feels like you have this rough choice of just, do I pay attention and just feel freaked out all the time but not have an outlet to do anything, or do I? So what's the other option? It ends up, I think, hollowing out our belief in the hoped for thing. And that's where I think that I love this reference here to Isaiah 5 or this quotation that you've brought us of God waiting on us, like giving us time to fulfill God's hopes. And I think that especially reflecting back on my own medical battles, there is a real value for knowing when to do nothing. And like, there's a very fine distinction between this and just locking in to passivity as a way of being. Because I think it's like when you are grounded in the reality and you hope for a future and you believe it's possible, but it's just not possible with what's in front of you right now. There is an importance to knowing when to take action and when to wait. Keep your powder dry and say, okay. And this is where I think so much of the substance of hope is about. What is it you're hoping in? Because if it is just some vague like, well, people, you know, the next generation will take care of it. We can just throw it all on them, or, you know, it'll all be fixed in heaven, or, you know, whatever it is that doesn't actually have something you hope for other than just all the problems go away.
- [41:09]
Reid Dent
Yeah.
- [41:09]
Josh Bossay
And when we have a sense of like, no, this is what it needs to look like, and there genuinely isn't any way for us to make that more real ourselves, there is a place for just saying, like, okay, I'm going to hold onto this vision. But holding onto that hope means, like, you're also holding onto the vision of what you are hoping in so that when you do see it, you are still ready to act. You have that defibrillator to kick things into active mode and say, okay, now is the time to reach out, to start building something to whatever it is, you know.
- [41:43]
Mitch Lavender
Yeah.
- [41:43]
Reid Dent
And I think mostly who I have my eye on in this particular episode are those who are using hope as an anesthetic, when actually what they need is to get shocked.
- [41:53]
Josh Bossay
Right.
- [41:54]
Reid Dent
So when I think about what is like, the vision of the future that I am tethered to, you know, and if heaven is just a place for me to go to escape some kind of hell or damnation and it's just this paradise.
- [42:08]
Josh Bossay
Yeah.
- [42:09]
Reid Dent
I don't know how that actually informs my action in the present, but if I have a biblical vision of that, and it is a matter of justice, not in, like, the retributive, everybody's getting their just desserts way, but in the restoration of all things that the Bible talks about and people being brought into, like, a right sort of relationship with the community that they ought to have had, there's equity, there's all of these things. If that's my view of what God will ultimately do, then now that demands justly restorative living now, you know, And I think that some of us have been lulled to sleep by a thinner sense of hope that's like, yeah, you're going to go to heaven someday, and that. That we can do better than that.
- [43:03]
Josh Bossay
And, like, to be honest, I think that lack of substantive hope will also blind us to opportunities for smaller victories. I mean, this is the Bama podcast. You know who you're listening to. If you think rest is not an aspect of restoring Kingdom, bringing kingdom to yourself and the people around you, and if you're not taking that seriously, then it's like, what do you have hoping? And, you know, there are some people whose circumstances make it not possible to have that kind of rest. I get that. But if that's not you, if you're hoping for something and it's, you know, even if it's just this small little, you know, individual change, it's like, okay, well, start by making that individual change. And then once you're resting, you can teach your co workers how to rest. You can invite your friends and family into that. That's where when you have substantive hope and know what you're looking for, know what that vision is, grab at it whenever it's available. Like, whenever that is genuinely available, there is no reason not to bring that even just, you know, 0.1% more into the world. And that, I think is way more possible. And that's something I think that I a lot of times underestimate, because having gone through some pretty dark times, not just in terms of my physical health, but in terms of my spiritual and emotional health, I've been in some really dark places. And when you've been to those edge places, you understand, you don't want to give an inch up to, I'd say, broadly the enemy. You know, whether we envision that as empire, spiritual forces, just the absence of Kingdom, like, there is no reason not to get that extra inch. There are a lot of things in life that it's like, you know, hey, that extra inch doesn't really matter. Don't worry about it. If we're talking about bringing the thing we are hoping for, the kingdom of God, if we have an opportunity to actually bring incarnate that right in front of us, that extra inch makes all the difference in the world.
- [45:22]
Brent Billings
So Josh mentioned Empire, and I've kind of been toying with Daniel three a little bit. This one particular phrase kind of sticks in my mind. This even if he does not phrase, which feels pretty hopeful. I like to think of that with hope. But I was making sure that I had the language right. And I'm looking at it again, and this whole thing, there's this extra element to it that I don't think I've really noticed before, you know, so the king is like, yeah, everybody's got to worship when. When this stuff happens. And then some people come to the king and they're like, hey, these three guys aren't actually doing that. And he's mad and calls him forward, and he's like, hey, I heard about this. And are you doing that? And if you don't do it, then we're going to throw you in the furnace. And then what God will be able to rescue you? And their response is, king Nebuchadnezzar. We do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it. And that's kind of like the end of my memory of that verse. And then they come back. But even if he does not, we want you to know that we will not serve your gods. That feels very hopeful as it is.
- [46:38]
Josh Bossay
Yes.
- [46:38]
Brent Billings
But the part that I missed.
- [46:40]
Reid Dent
Oh, yeah.
- [46:41]
Brent Billings
Is that if we're thrown into the furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from your majesty's hand.
- [46:53]
Reid Dent
That's so good.
- [46:54]
Brent Billings
And then it ends. And, like, this is where the empire thing comes in. Because, like, before anything has happened, it's not like he's even given them another chance. Like, they say that, and then he is furious and throws them in the furnace immediately. It's not like, okay, hey, you know, next time you hear the instruments, like, make sure you worship. Like, he doesn't even give him a chance. This idea of hope is an absolute affront to empire. The fact that there is something more powerful than the right hand of the king to destroy you in some way, like, he just loses his mind. I don't know exactly what the Hebrew is, or it's actually Aramaic in this portion of Daniel, but it says something to the effect of, like, his face changed or was distorted or whatever by the anger. Like, this level of hope is maybe the most powerful thing on earth.
- [47:45]
Josh Bossay
I love that.
- [47:46]
Reid Dent
Thank you so much for bringing that up, because I was not planning on going here. But I love that there's a question implied in there. Even if he does not. Like, basically, who knows what'll happen, you know?
- [47:57]
Josh Bossay
Yeah.
- [47:57]
Reid Dent
And yet, like, the hope persists despite not knowing. And even if it's not what we can envision as best possible outcome, what we actually trust in is that, you know, I guess this is maybe the. The deeper, truer vision of, like, what it is to actually wait on God.
- [48:15]
Josh Bossay
Right.
- [48:15]
Reid Dent
Even if the circumstance doesn't turn out the best way we can imagine, we still like what we believe in is God. This reminds me, this is what I was not planning on bringing up, but the Jonah story. And actually, I think with each of the virtues There is a kind of B ism, like attached or like, embodied, like Bama. There's a Bama ism that kind of embodies the virtue. And I was remembering Marty's episode way back in the day on Jonah where he talks about choosing to live into the potential of something, leaning into the potential. And I think hope is kind of like that. What I think is maybe a word that's a little uncomfortable for me and for us church land folks is that in the story of Jonah, the ones who have hope are the ones who aren't supposed to have the hope. Think about the sailors, you know, at the beginning.
- [49:06]
Josh Bossay
Yeah.
- [49:06]
Reid Dent
And then the king in Nineveh at the end. And they each have this mirror phrase that they say where there's like, potentially some destruction that is coming.
- [49:18]
Josh Bossay
Right.
- [49:18]
Reid Dent
And they both say, who knows? Who knows? Maybe the God will relent. Yeah, maybe what will happen with this God will be better than what we can imagine. And the uncomfortable word for me is that Jonah, as the prophet in the story, like, he's a religious guy, right? He's the one on the quote unquote, right team. He's the one who's supposed to be getting this. And he doesn't have the same kind of hope that they have. And that their hope is, like, just accompanied by this question of, like, who knows? Whatever happens, like, maybe it'll be better, you know? And so I don't know, I just kind of want to let that sit there and, you know, that can marinate with whoever it needs to marinate with.
- [50:00]
Brent Billings
Hey, just breaking in momentarily to mention that Josh's regular audio simply stopped recording at this point for some reason. So the rest of the episode will be with his Zoom backup file.
- [50:13]
Josh Bossay
Honestly, that reminds me so much of that Dostoevsky quote of, like, you know, even if we are wrong, I'm still going to double down on this. And this is where there's a fine distinction between those things. Like, his thing isn't that I'll ignore what truth is. It's just that I'm still fine following Christ and having that be the higher thing.
- [50:32]
Brent Billings
Well, I think it's the same as the furnace. There's a confidence that even if we have that aspect of it wrong, there's the confidence that we're going to be delivered from the hand of Empire. Even if we have the truth wrong, there's going to be. There's confidence that Christ will lead us to whatever the actual truth is.
- [50:51]
Josh Bossay
And I think that is so important, especially, like, there are so many aspects to you know what, like, things that we talk about a lot here on the behemoth program of like us acknowledging that there is a limit to how much we can know and understand, like there is, is, you know, we talk all the time about, you know, we don't need to have answers. And that can be something that, you know, I've definitely seen in, you know, some more progressive sides of Christianity where that willingness to let in some ambiguity over the truth, it can create a sense of just kind of throwing your hands up in the air and just like, well, then I don't really have to have a stake in anything. You know, I'm just getting by. But to be willing to say, like, yeah, you know, maybe it doesn't go the way I think it's going to go. But they still said God's going to save us. Now maybe God doesn't save us. Maybe my role in the story is to be a martyr, but God's going to save, like still being able to full throatedly say God is going to save us. You can't stop us with this. Like, that is to me, that is hope. Like, that is a way of holding that paradox, that contradiction. Yeah, I love it.
- [52:03]
Reid Dent
Let's shift gears for this last part of the, the text conversation because again, I think that there is the anemic version of Christian hope that is just about like individuals going to heaven, but the biblical conversation. In the biblical conversation, there is this idea of the Messianic banquet. And this is kind of like serves as this, this focal point for conversation about what is being hoped for in the future, this repository of hope. And it's a little bit of a turns out, as I looked into this, it turns out to be kind of a Rorschach test because of the rabbinic conversations surrounding this Messianic banquet. And it, it turns out to be, as I followed, was a conversation that I wasn't necessarily expecting to have about hope. But it makes sense as we get beyond our individualistic bo think about what hope means for a community. And so in Tanakh, I think the kind of key passage for the Messianic banquet is from Isaiah 25. So I want to start there. And Brent, would you just read, this is Isaiah 25, 6, 8. And hopefully this is a passage that people are familiar with. If you're not familiar with it, I am so sorry that your life has been deprived of this because this is some of the most beautiful speech that there is in the scripture. Go ahead, Brent.
- [53:33]
Brent Billings
And the Lord shall prepare a banquet for all the peoples on this mountain, a banquet of rich food. A banquet of well aged wines. Rich food with marrow. Well aged wines, fine, strained. And he shall swallow up on this mountain the veil that covers all peoples. And the mantle cast over all the nations. He shall swallow up death forever. And the Lord God shall wipe the tears from every face. And his people's disgrace he shall take off from all the earth. For the Lord has spoken.
- [54:07]
Reid Dent
Oh, dude, that. First of all, have you guys ever had marrow? Like, have you eaten a dish that had marrow in it?
- [54:16]
Josh Bossay
I don't think I have, actually.
- [54:18]
Brent Billings
Yeah, I'm not sure.
- [54:19]
Reid Dent
Leanne and I went to this restaurant in KC last year that was highly recommended by a friend, and they served this dish that was bone marrow. It was a dissected bone laying lengthwise on the plate. And it had this marrow that had been spiced and had these jellies and stuff mixed with it. And it was actually really delicious. So anyway, that resonates with me now in a way that it didn't used to, but here is this ecstatic cosmic sort of vision, like the kind that you really can hang your hat on. And there's this phrase, all the peoples. And of course, like, what happens when anybody says all the peoples? You want to go, yeah, but which ones?
- [55:04]
Josh Bossay
Who is my neighbor?
- [55:05]
Reid Dent
Exactly, Josh. Exactly. No, that is the conversation. And so if you look at some of the. The other texts, and I don't know exactly the publication date of the. These publication date, the. The dating of these texts, but I take it to be swimming in the waters of this era when Jesus was walking and talking on the earth and having conversations.
- [55:29]
Mitch Lavender
Right.
- [55:30]
Reid Dent
There's a Targum which is like a kind of Aramaic translation of the text. But in the authors of these Targum or Targum, they would also kind of expand. It was sort of like, what's the. Is it the Amplified Bible that does this?
- [55:46]
Brent Billings
Yeah.
- [55:47]
Reid Dent
Where. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about? Where it's like, it's not just the actual text translated, but there is like a sort of expansion of the text at various places. And so this is what Targum would. Part of what they would do as they translated into Aramaic is they would also then expand as a way of commentating or interpreting. And so there, there's a. It's called the Targum Jonathan on Isaiah 25. And I can't totally vouch for this translation. I found it online because I don't just have Targum Jonathan, like a, you know, an accredited sort of publication sitting on my bookshelf, but it Says, this is on Isaiah 25. So Brent, I want you to read the first. So verse six, which is basically up to. And he shall swallow up. This is actual Isaiah 25, verse 6. Go ahead, Brent.
- [56:35]
Brent Billings
And the Lord shall prepare a banquet for all the peoples on this mountain. A banquet of rich food, A banquet of well aged wines. Rich food with marrow. Well aged wines, fine, strained.
- [56:47]
Reid Dent
And so then the Targum takes that verse and says, and in this mountain shall make a feast and a banquet. They think that it shall be for their glory, but it shall be to them for disgrace and for mighty afflictions from which they shall not deliver themselves. Afflictions though through which they shall come to an end. And do you want to take a guess who the they is?
- [57:09]
Josh Bossay
I'm guessing it's all the peoples or the nations.
- [57:13]
Reid Dent
Yeah, it's the people, it's the nations, it's the Gentiles, you know, and so it's like, yeah, we're going to have a feast and a banquet on the mountain, but this crowd, like, they're going to be there, but we're going to shame them and afflict them and eventually annihilate them. That's what will happen to them on this mountain.
- [57:29]
Josh Bossay
Little red wedding.
- [57:30]
Reid Dent
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Then. So in, in first Enoch, which is another book from apocalyptic Judaism back in the day, there is. They're, they're talking about this notion of the Messianic banquet. And it's a much different vibe here. I mean, similar kind of violent sentiment, but this one actually gets a little bit more metal because it writes the angels of punishment. So imagine again, banquet, table, feast, mountain. And the angel of punishment will take them so that they may repay them for the wrong that they did to his, meaning the Lord's children, and to his chosen ones. And they will become a spectacle to the righteous and to his chosen ones. They, the chosen ones will rejoice over them, the spectacle. For the anger of the Lord of spirits will rest upon them. And the sword of the Lord of spirits will be drunk with them. And the righteous and the chosen will be saved on that day. And they will never see the faces of the sinners and the lawless from then on. So, you know, it's metal because this angel shows up with like a sword and just slaughters them. This takes the Targum sentimentality, but then elevates it to like, we're now rejoicing over these people as they are being slain at the Messianic banquet.
- [58:50]
Mitch Lavender
Yeah.
- [58:50]
Reid Dent
Then there's one other text, the community rule, or the Messianic rule, like from the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is, like, more austere. And I won't read the whole translation, but basically the idea is, like, it's very particular about the order of the chosen people who are going to be there. And the nations, the Gentiles, they're just not even present. They're not mentioned at all. Like, they have been completely excluded from the picture. And so I want to bring that down to the. To the Jesus conversation. Luke, chapter 14. Here is Jesus in Luke 14, at a table with people, as he often was. He's at a Pharisee's house, they're feasting, and somebody stands up to say something, which then brings on a parable from Jesus. Brent, can you start reading this passage?
- [59:33]
Brent Billings
When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.
- [59:40]
Reid Dent
Okay, stop there for a second. This phrase, we hear it, and I think we tend to take it as just like a general statement of, like, joviality, right? Like, hey, we're going to, like, have this food and then there's going to be a feast. It isn't that great, but I think this actually is a way of invoking this conversation that's going on. And the question, like, I think the questioner, the Pharisee, is actually looking for a response from Jesus because implied in blessed is the one who will eat at the feast. Because of these other texts we've been talking about, implied is the question. And who do you think that's going to be?
- [60:17]
Josh Bossay
And even just saying, you know, like, emphasizing that, you know, there's the one who will eat at the feast.
- [60:24]
Mitch Lavender
And.
- [60:24]
Josh Bossay
And then, by definition, you know, some people don't get to eat at the feast.
- [60:27]
Reid Dent
Right? And so again, I want to keep in mind we're talking about hope and what it is that we are hoping for. This is a conversation about the end of things. And this guy is saying, it's almost like, who will be blessed? Who has hope for the end of things? Who will be eating at the feast in the kingdom of God? And Jesus is like, okay, I have an answer for this. But of course, it's not going to be straightforward. He is going to tell a story. Brent, can you go on?
- [60:54]
Brent Billings
Jesus replied, a certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests.
- [60:59]
Reid Dent
Ah, a banquet that's not incidental. This is actually the very. The Messianic banquet is the thing that's being talked about. Go ahead.
- [61:05]
Brent Billings
At the time of the banquet, he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited come, for everything is now ready.
- [61:11]
Reid Dent
So there are some who have been invited already, and now they are being told it's time to party. Okay, so I think Jesus is pointing to, like, who. Who do you think this might be, Josh? The ones who are who have been invited.
- [61:25]
Josh Bossay
Well, this would be, you know, we would presume God's people. You know, it'd be the people who are invited, the partners at Sinai, Israel.
- [61:34]
Reid Dent
Right, right, right, right. So like in the Targum or in the. In Enoch, this is the chosen ones, the ones who have been chosen.
- [61:41]
Brent Billings
And again, he's in the house of a Pharisee.
- [61:43]
Reid Dent
He is in the house of a Pharisee, one who has been invited. And now come. Everything is now ready. Go ahead, Brent.
- [61:49]
Brent Billings
But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, I have just bought a field and I must go and see it. Please excuse me. Another said, I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me. Still another said, I just got married, so I can't come.
- [62:11]
Reid Dent
Jesus is so funny. This is so absurd and comical, right? Because the tenor of these other texts on, like, the future, hope, and who's going to be there, right? With being drunk on swords and blood and disgrace and afflictions, and these people aren't going to be delivered. These. The wrong sort, right? The wrong folks. And Jesus then is like, he flips the. The lens and he's like, the ones who had been invited. The chosen ones. Yeah. You know what they're doing? It's like, oh, whoops. Like, maybe I made a bad investment. I already bought the field and I haven't even looked at it, so I should probably go do that, you know, And I just bought five yoke of oxen. I should probably try them out. Like, these are things probably that should have been done beforehand or the last one, I just got married.
- [62:57]
Josh Bossay
It's interesting, too, because a lot of. I'm not sure if it's literally all of those examples, but certainly getting married, like, these were things that were provided as exceptions to certain communal duties, primarily being called to war. Okay, so, like, if you had. If you had just bought a house and it was like. Like a piece of land, and it's like, I have to, you know, I'm the. I'm the patriarch. I have to, like, oversee, like, getting things up and running or if I just got married and you have that year. And it's interesting, too, to like, think about the Parallel between them not attending this feast and, you know, being excused from war, and also their own projections of, like, oh, yeah, when. When the feast happens, we're going to be. We're going to be killing people.
- [63:50]
Reid Dent
Yes, dude. Yes. I had not. I had not thought about that, but yes, that's. That's brilliant.
- [63:55]
Josh Bossay
Yeah, I. Oh, man, they're literally. There's so many things here. I. Oh, my gosh.
- [64:01]
Brent Billings
Pharisaical draft dodging.
- [64:03]
Josh Bossay
Yeah, yeah, literally. And it's also like, they're the ones who decided that the wedding was. Or the wedding. See, and now I'm pulling in Revelation.
- [64:14]
Reid Dent
Imagery, which is fair game.
- [64:16]
Josh Bossay
Yeah, yeah. But they're the ones who are treating. Who decided this feast was going to be a bloodbath. And this is where I just got to jump in and throw in this. Like, a couple chapters earlier, Isaiah explicitly talks about God saying, oh, I'm gonna make God calls Assyria and Egypt his people and that they will be. You know what's interesting, too? I think one of the images he uses with that is of them being woven into a cord, which would be so perfect for that kava, right?
- [64:49]
Reid Dent
Oh, yeah, yeah. I would need to look at that again. But okay, yeah, anyway. But yes, this is a good point. This is an important point because I think what this is bringing to the surface is that linked to hope, the virtue of hope. And what we are hoping for is going to bring to the surface these, I guess, worst tendencies in ourselves to say, who is the hope for and who is it for? Not. And that very much involves Egypt and Assyria and, like, who are the people of God? And sometimes, like, the. The writers of scripture, the prophets in scripture have these radical and kind of offensive reinterpretations of what had been accepted, which is. I think Jesus is doing that comedically here. Right. All these people are, like, making these excuses, right? And. And so. And so then what do you. What do you end up with? Brett, can we continue?
- [65:47]
Brent Billings
The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant go out quickly.
- [65:54]
Reid Dent
Hold on. Sorry, sorry, sorry. The owner is. Now he. He was actually expecting a party, ok? He was expecting to have guests, and now it's empty. And he's like, well, what gives? So not gonna have a party with nobody at it. And continue.
- [66:09]
Brent Billings
Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. Sir, the servant said, what you Ordered has been done, but there is still room.
- [66:24]
Reid Dent
Okay, so here we have. The circle has expanded by a notch. It's not just the ones who had initially been chosen or invited, but now all of these other people who were poor and crippled and blind and lame, the vulnerable, the outcast, they're now being brought in. But of course, the banquet is bigger than that, and there is still room. And so then finish it out, Brent.
- [66:47]
Brent Billings
Then the master told his servant, go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.
- [66:59]
Reid Dent
So then the circle expands even more out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in so that the house will be full. Where you know who is out on the roads in the country lanes. I mean, some people have noted, like, this is, you know, it could be dangerous place. Like, out in the country, there could be. You could find robbers, you could find dangerous folks, or at least just folks who basically aren't from here, folks who are from somewhere else. Go find them and bring them in so that the house will be full. And so if the conversation about the messianic banquet that's going on with what is hope and who do we hope is going to be there? All the peoples, right? That's what Isaiah 25 says. And yet then the conversation is like, yeah, but probably not these people, and probably not these people. And Jesus is like, you're missing it to the point that you are excluding your own selves. Like you're finding excuses not to be there, right? And of course, the hope, the vision. And I almost hear, like, Jesus, like, the implied question that he has is like, is that as big as your hope is?
- [68:04]
Josh Bossay
Right?
- [68:04]
Reid Dent
Is that the best thing that you can Hope for? Isaiah 25, we are talking about all peoples and a rich banquet of wine and food and not just eating, but what is actually being feasted on is death itself. God is going to swallow up death forever, wipe away the tears from every face. This is the passage we're talking about. And you're like, yeah, but not them. Or, yeah, but I've got other things to do. And I think the challenge of Jesus is to expand hope. Not, like, how much more pleasurable can it be, right? This is sometimes the way that heaven was talked about to me as a kid growing up. Like, imagine the most delicious piece of candy, but more and infinite. And Jesus is like, who's there next to you is what I'm Asking, right, who are the people? Like, how big is your circle? And to bring us back to then the actionable part, notice how in this parable, the servant is the one who is being sent out. Right. And so if the vision is, the house has got to be full, Right.
- [69:11]
Josh Bossay
Reinterpret it to be about war and death there as well. But that passage in Isaiah, the word for shroud is the word lot, as in literally, you know, the name of Abraham's nephew. And it reminds me so much of when Lote is fleeing the destruction in Sodom, right? And there's like this whole little kind of side plot where he's afraid that he won't be able to get away in time. And so he asks if he can stop in a smaller town and if they won't destroy the smaller town.
- [69:50]
Reid Dent
Yeah.
- [69:51]
Josh Bossay
And the angels say, sure, we'll do that. Which is kind of cool because it's like, you know, he just saved a whole town of people. Yeah. But then he's so afraid of that that he just runs into the mountains anyway. The fear of death looms so much larger over Lotes. It's such a heavier shroud than his hope for what God can do.
- [70:13]
Reid Dent
That is, I think, the challenge of the biblical text. The conversation. The conversation that Jesus is having, it just brings me right back to if you are tethered to something in the future, and it starts with whatever that vision is, right? And so if that vision is just you and people who look like you and people who believe exactly like you, that's going to play out in the way that you act in the present. But the challenge of Jesus is he paints this bigger vision, right? This bigger picture of hope. And that is something that we wait for expectantly, but also it's something that's actionable, like in the present. And I think, like, what God calls us to. This is the last thing I have to say. We've been talking about over and over again, what is the image of God? And with the vices, it was like, how does this distort from that? And then the virtue is it's. How is this reflected in that? And I think the hopeful. It's the word heraldry keeps coming to my mind. We herald something, but the way that we herald isn't simply by talking about it, certainly not simply by just sitting around thinking about it, but that you embody in the present what you anticipate in the future. And so if this is the vision of hope, Isaiah 25, that all the tears are being wiped away from all the peoples that there is a feast, sumptuous feast. Right. For all the peoples that even this notion of like empire and our empire versus that empire or this one empire overall, like, if that is something that is being counteracted in the feast and that we're even sitting down at the table with the wrong sort. As Jesus says, it's the poor, the blind. It is even potentially those who are like the criminals and, you know, whoever else what the wrong sort of. But the picture is this is. This is what the actual hope is. The best we can hope for as people of hope is not just out here like, hawking wares, you know, and we're not just out here like, peddling this, like, oh, yeah, you can go to heaven sometime in the future. We're meant to be like this servant who is out there making peace. That is almost too good to be true. Because when it says that he compels them. Right, right. It says go out there and compel them. That doesn't mean force them to against their will. The idea is that it is so good that they could, like, you got the wrong guy. You must not mean me if you want me to come to this party because, like, I am poor, I am blind, I am lame, I have a life of crime. You got the wrong guy. And he's. And the master's like, no, compel them. Say, this is for you too. Contrary to what anybody has told you about who's getting slaughtered at the banquet, actually, it's for you. It's for everybody. And that hope is the kind of hope then that I think actually becomes, like, contagious as we start to incarnate it by, you know, making peace, shalom with those wrong sorts of people who are around us. That is the end of my rant on hope.
- [73:20]
Josh Bossay
Yeah, absolutely. I also had the word incarnation, like, right on my lips. It's such a. Like we talked about earlier, you know, there's the larger hope that can feel sometimes, you know, impossibly far away. Very unactionable in that, like, you know, cinematic protagonist sense of like, I want to make this happen now. I want to, you know, stop all the violence everywhere with a push of a button. But when you have actually been compelled by this vision of God's feast, of what God wants to bring to us, even just, you know, I. I don't know if we'll end up having to. To cut this or if it'll. It'll probably certainly rub people the wrong way. But, you know, looking back on my childhood and the ubiquity of, you know, John 3:16. Right. You know, it's, it's the Bible verse and the ease with which we can go from saying, well yeah, sure, God wants to save the whole world. That's not happening. You know, like that's, it's actually not everyone. Don't get your hopes up. Like we're so quick to, to do that. And I think that that speaks to what our hope is actually in and not to like, you know, try and shame people. Like, you know, we're all working through this stuff. But I do mean very seriously that the substance of hope is the substance of the gospel. Like what is this? It's not about apologetics and what we can force people to concede in argumentation or this or that. It's what is the vision of the future of what is to come that we are painting for people. And I think shockingly easy for it to be something that does not reflect the image that God paints. But that's all a little bit of a sidetrack. The main thing I think in terms of acting it out is that, yeah, it's like you don't have to single handedly put it together. Like going back to that Genesis image of like, hope is something that binds people together. Like you have in your notes here about the connection between it and this image of accord and of people being woven together and bound up together. And that I think is something that, that doesn't happen through just, you know, some great man theory of, of action and of changing the world. It's through just embodying it and other people getting, you know, stuck to that, other people getting drawn into that like that. That is what we're talking about here. And when you, when you find yourself embodying, incarnating that vision of the feast, the hope flows naturally because you know, it's possible because you're experiencing it or you're making it something that other people are experiencing. And that's where like back to what you were saying, you know, we're not, we're not trying to sell people on something. We're not, we're not just, you know, throwing out brochures for, you know, getting a great spot in heaven. We're showing people what the substance of heaven is through how we live.
- [76:43]
Reid Dent
That is well said, Brent. I think it's time for our self examination questions. So you want to hit us up with that and get us out of here.
- [76:52]
Brent Billings
When I feel hope stirred up in myself, what do I see in my mind's eye when I imagine the end of things. Who is there in what way can I herald now the future I hope for what is the best we can hope for? And do I believe God wants that too? Do I believe God can get there?
- [77:18]
Reid Dent
All right, Brent, thank you. Thanks, Josh, for man, another great conversation. That's all I got to say. Better get us off the hook, Brent, before we talk for another hour.
- [77:29]
Brent Billings
All right. Listeners can find details about the show@baymodiscipleship.com if you want to get in touch with us, you can use the contact page. The news page will give you the latest on what we're up to otherwise. And once again, everything that we do is made possible by listeners like you. So thank you to those of you who support us. If you want to do that, you can find links for that on the website or in your show notes. But thank you for joining us on the Baymo podcast this week. We'll talk to you again soon.