Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to comm.church for more information.

Today, we are continuing our FAQ series, frequently asked questions. And the series is all about resetting our foundation as a community. Now the fall is always a new start, think, but this year, more than most, this feels like beginning again. So what do we mean when we talk about our values here? Intellectually honest, spiritually passionate, Jesus at the center of our imagination.

That's what we wanna talk about. Last week, we started by talking about intellectually honest and born again. See, there's this phrase born again that honestly has just grated on me a bit at times. For most of my career, born again has been a term that's been used to separate some believers from other followers of the way of Jesus. And I've been asked, are you a born again Christian?

As if the fact that I'm a professional Christian wasn't enough. I don't know. I put a lot of myself into this faith, but it's always struck me as wrong, not necessarily bad or evil, just misguided maybe to divide ourselves this way with these terms and to turn a beautiful metaphor into insider lingo. That's funny. Last week, I joked about all the insider Gen Z lingo that I'm learning from my son these days, how sus it all is.

But two days later, at dinner, I had made a wonderful plant based taco salad. I mean, who doesn't love taco salad even if it is sans meat? But my son refused to eat because it didn't have the right beans. And so he said confidently, I'm out. I'm gonna make myself a veggie dog.

And I said, that's fine. More tacos for me. Have at it. No. He goes to the fridge.

He pulls out this slimy hot dog out of a plastic bag, slaps it in the microwave for thirty seconds, puts it on a cold dry bun, doesn't even butter and toast that bun, which you should always do with your buns. By the way, side note here, forty five seconds, face down in a pan with some butter, it will transform your burger game. You're welcome. But he gets this warm dog, cold bun, starts squeezing on ridiculous amounts of ketchup, turns to me and says, dad, I love a good glizzy. Now, if you don't know, glizzy is a hot dog.

But come on, that has got to be the worst Gen Z word they have ever come up with. Big yikes for real on that one. In fact, I told that story to the staff and even Larissa who is by far the coolest of all of us. She said, no, that's terrible. You gotta do something about that dad.

You cannot let glizzy clutch on in your home. The thing is I'm pretty sure Rachel's using it now too, so I don't know. Think I'm outnumbered here. Anyway, even worse than glizzy is born again when it becomes a marker that divides us rather than this beautiful metaphor that actually speaks to all of the unique and unexpected ways that spirit works in each of our lives. Because last week we saw this phrase born again and how it comes from a very specific passage where Jesus interacts with a particular man named Nicodemus.

And the point of Jesus invitation with this phrase is not to accept a title or to reach a new destination. His invitation is exactly what it sounds like, to start again. His offer to this old, wizened, respected religious leader is to relearn and explore and to push old boundaries and to consider new ideas to approach the world and spirituality as if for the very first time. And he does. We get to see Nicodemus throughout the Gospel of John.

Listen and learn and evaluate and consider and explore ideas he once would have written off as impossible. And eventually, he comes to a new understanding of Jesus. Thing is that journey, regardless of where it takes any of us, what it means to be born again, that is just the beginning of it. As I said last week, for us, intellectual honesty means study, and rigor, and education, and thoughtfulness. Yes, all of that, absolutely.

But at its heart, it is an ongoing posture of possibility. Accepting that we are all of us always learning new things about our world and ourselves and our God. That's what it means to be born again. So that was honest and born again. Today, we want to talk about passion and personal stories.

First though, let's pray together. God of grace and peace, who has created a world of possibility, a universe of potential. Might we embrace your invitation to continue learning and exploring together. To resist old conclusions that close the doors for us. Instead, to open ourselves to new ideas when spirit reveals them to us.

Yet, through it all, might we trust that you continue to walk with us, guiding us by your spirit, helping us to find your path throughout our lives. May goodness and kindness and welcome and peace lead us always to trust your love. And may that become the guiding star that marks out our path, your path in the world. For those of us just beginning to explore the way, gift us courage and wisdom, light to learn to step in step with you. And for those of us long on the journey, perhaps even lulled into a sense of complacency by familiarity, grant us curiosity and excitement to push in new directions toward a new love.

Expand our imagination of all the ways that you are present to each of us. May this journey be lifelong. May your spirit keep us moving. This we pray in the strong name of the risen Christ. Amen.

Today, it's nicknames, identities, anecdotes, and multitudes. But last week, we talked about being born again. And we watched Nicodemus travel from an early encounter with Jesus through his learning and discovery and toward a commitment to the way of Jesus at the end. This week, we're gonna start where we left off. At Jesus' death to talk about making it all personal.

And, I want to read you one of my favorite accounts of the resurrection. And, this is kind of an Easter story granted, but Christianity is kind of an Easter faith. So, here we are. This is John 20, just a chapter after we left off last week. We're starting at verse one.

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one that Jesus loved, and said they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don't know where they have put him. So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in.

Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus' head. The cloth was still lying in its place separate from the linen. Finally, the other disciple who had reached the tomb first went inside. He saw and believed.

Okay. That's John 20 verses one to eight. But a couple of things here. First, we talked about Mary Magdalene just a few weeks ago. You can find that sermon online.

It was from Bobby. It was awesome, and Mary Magdalene is awesome. But even her name Magdalene has so much going on in it. Generally, historically, it's been assumed that this meant Miriam from Magdalene or Magdala. Problem is we don't actually know of a place called Magdala.

Now, there was a town called Megadan. And so some scholars have assumed that this was just a misspelling all the way along, but there is another alternative here. Because Magdala means tower. And, there was even a Tower Of Mary in ancient Palestine. Herod the great had built three great towers.

He had them named after the three people he loved the most, His brother, his friend, and his Jewish wife Miriam, who by the way he had executed. So not a great guy, but otherwise. These three towers stood even after Titus had destroyed the city of Jerusalem near the end of the first century. That means they were standing when Jesus was around. And that means it's likely that Mary Magdalene is not a geographic reference to her place of birth, it's a nickname based on the local topology.

Mary the tower. Mary the disciple full of strength and refuge and safety. That's a very Jesus thing to do. Right? He gives James and John the nicknames of the brothers of thunder.

That's a good one. He calls Peter the rock. He names Mary the tower. And we also see this here in John with this other disciple who picks up the title, the one Jesus loved. Now, we'll talk about that in a second, but first I love this little quirk of Jesus here.

I call my son bro all the time. It's fun. It works for us. Doesn't really mean anything though, and most nicknames don't. Right?

I had friends that called me Slam Duncan in high school and it never improved my vertical. It never did anything for me. But Jesus nicknames are somehow both reflective of the person he knows and at the same time aspirational for who they might become. The brothers of thunder were brash and loud, but thunder also follows light. Peter was headstrong and hard, but he also became dependable and solid.

Mary was strong, much stronger at times than most of the men who followed Jesus, but she also became a place of refuge for so many followers of Jesus throughout the centuries. And this art of naming what is and what could be. I'm not saying we need more nicknames, but I am suggesting we need more of this kind of encouragement in our friendships. So give someone a nickname today, tell them I said it was fine, you'll get past. This still leaves us with the disciple Jesus loved.

Was this a nickname Jesus gave him? Or when bestowed upon him by the other disciples? Or maybe just one he gave himself? And the second question here is, who exactly is this disciple? Now the unsatisfying answer to both of those questions is we don't actually know.

But we do have some ideas. First of all, I doubt Jesus gave this dude that nickname. No doubt. Jesus had different and unique and personal relationships with all of his friends. So the idea that Jesus was particularly close to one of the disciples, that doesn't really bother me.

I just don't think he'd frame it in quite this way over and above the others. So it could then be that the other disciples noticed this unique relationship are themselves, and that's where the title comes from. And if that's the case, then we might have a clue to who this disciple's identity was. There has been a consistent, though minority witness in the tradition of the church suggesting that this beloved disciple is actually Jesus' friend, Lazarus. Now, we actually talked about Lazarus last season in a series called relearning friendship.

So, if you're interested in learning more you can check that one out. But, there are clues in the gospel that Jesus has a long and significant friendship with Lazarus that runs a lot deeper than just the moment where Jesus weeps at his untimely death and then raises him from the dead. So that's a really interesting possibility. That said, the most common theory is perhaps surprisingly, that this is a title the disciple actually gave himself. Now before you get too snarky about our beloved disciple and all his hubris, and you start remembering that guy that went around high school calling himself Slam Duncan.

Hear me out on this. Alright? The theory is not that there was a disciple who went around calling himself the disciple Jesus loved. The theory is that the writer of this gospel has written himself into the story as the disciple Jesus loved. See, we know that John is the latest of the gospels.

It's written after the other three. And, possibly, probably in the next generation of Jesus followers who have grown up in the church community. And this character, the beloved disciple, is hard to match up with the disciples as we know them in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. That on its own is not entirely surprising. Each of the gospel writers have their own unique memory and perspective on the Jesus story.

That's fine. But it's at least possible, I might even argue probable that this character is meant as a reflection of how the author has experienced Jesus and by extension how all of us are invited to see ourselves as part of the story. I mean, about that first generation of post Jesus Christians. They grew up in the church or they found their way to the church. But when they got there, they stood alongside those who had actually seen Jesus and those who could remember Jesus.

In some cases, those who actually even personally knew Jesus. So, no wonder they searched for ways to tell the Jesus story in their own words with themselves as a character. And here, the theory is that the writer writes himself in. But it's not an egotistical, I'm better than you, Jesus loves me more than you kind of thing. It's more like a, I'm part of the story as well.

I'm in this with all of you. I am beloved just as you are kind of thing. And I kind of love that. Now, we all know this tendency to center ourselves in stories that aren't ours. Right?

Like if you are used to being the center of attention, it feels really natural to make yourself the center of attention. So when tragedy happens to someone else, it's about how it made you feel. Or when someone tells a story, it reminds you about the time when you when someone shares, it's well, actually, I remember. And all of this comes far too easily to a lot of us. If I've done that to you, I'm sorry, but I'm not surprised.

Because there's this unhealthy tendency that all of us have, particularly those of us used to being the center of attention, to put ourselves in the middle. And we need to guard against that. Hear me. But when it comes to faith, part of the beauty of the divine is that there is always attention to go around. And you might not be the center of the story, but you are at the center of your own story.

And sometimes, part of faith is about reclaiming that space for yourself. If you have felt or been ignored, faith is the reminder you have divine attention. You hold Jesus interest. You are the beloved disciple that lays their head on Jesus chest listening for sacred breath. That's what this character is about, an invitation to see yourself the way that Jesus sees you.

You're not the center of the universe, and yet you hold the universe's attention. The beloved disciple is all of us where the infinite grace of God becomes personal for each of us. So to see what I mean here, listen to the story that we read earlier, this time with some extraneous commentary just for fun. On the first day of the week, while it was still dark Mary the tower went to the tomb and saw the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Peter the rock and the other disciple, that's me the one that Jesus loved and said, they have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don't know where they have put him.

So Peter and the other disciple, remember that's me, we started for the tomb. And both were running, the other disciple, that's me, the one that Jesus loved. I was excited and I let my feet fly and I outran Peter and I reached the tomb first. I bent over and I looked at the strips of linen lying there, but for some reason I couldn't compel myself to go any farther. I was frozen outside and Simon Peter came along behind me.

Remember, I was much faster than him. I always was. I bet Jesus liked that about me. Peter got there and without any hesitation, he went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of lying there just as I had.

He saw the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus' head. It was lying in its place separate from the linen, and he turned back to look at me. Finally, the other disciple, that's me. The one who had run harder and faster and who had reached the tomb first. The one that Jesus loved with all his heart.

The one that was both terrified and ecstatic about the possibility of what this could mean. I went inside and I saw and I trusted and I knew my friend Jesus was alive again. See, if it wasn't so beautiful, it would be downright silly to read this passage. We raced to the tomb. I raced ahead.

Did I mention I won? Me fast, Peter slow. That's really the story here guys. Also beloved right here, and I'm not saying there's a connection, but I'm also not saying there's not. So if Peter wants to come to win some wind sprints with me, I'm down for that.

Monday to Friday, twice on Saturday, Sunday's recovery day, sorry take an ice bath to you. Next week for practice I'm outie. All of it though is completely unnecessary. And I don't just mean the running. I mean the running.

I mean the beloved. I mean the disciple himself. None of it matters to the story. At least not if the goal is the facts and nothing but. But that's not the goal of the story here, is it?

Because this story isn't about just the facts. It isn't even just about the resurrection. It's about the way that resurrection, the life of Jesus that could not be stopped, finds its way into each of our stories. And this is important. Because if you and I are going to be intellectually honest about the Jesus story, we have to be honest about the fact that the Jesus story isn't told to us in objective terms.

It is personal, and it's unnecessary. It's provocative, and it's passionate. Because our story isn't about just what happened some two thousand years ago. It's about all the ways that Jesus is with us right now and shaping us today and leading us onto his path tomorrow. That is a very different kind of story.

One that requires a very different kind of storytelling. But it's also one that requires very something different from us. See, I love study. I love studying. I love learning new things.

I love researching new ideas. I love looking at things in new ways. And when I was writing the book Upside Down Apocalypse, which we'll start looking at in a couple weeks, which should be a lot of fun. I can't wait to hear how Scott and Bobby tackle those ideas. But, when I was writing, I loved the fact that I could get just way more nerdy than I can on a Sunday.

Right? Like I could load up the end notes with references and detours and comments, everything I wanted to. I could build out the bibliography into a monster that anyone with the inclination too could take a look through. In fact, my editor had to work hard to make sure that I didn't go too far down all those idiosyncratic rabbit holes. So when we talk about intellectual honesty, I'm here for all of it.

That's my safe space when it comes to faith. That's where I'm most comfortable. But this story, this moment, and this unnecessary anecdote about racing toward the tomb, this is what reminds me that intellect will never be enough on its own. And that there will always be a necessary place for me to let go of everything I can explain, so that I can lean into everything I am invited to experience. And sometimes, we have this tendency in our lives to want to set different ideas at odds with each other as if everything is a binary.

Like you can be intellectually honest or you can be spiritually passionate, but you gotta choose. You can be thoughtful or you can be caring. You can be stoic or you can be emotional. You can be kind or you can speak the truth. You can be tender or you can be strong, but you got to choose and all of that is nonsense.

Because the only way that any of our values ever get lived out consistently and ethically and honestly and appropriately in our lives is when they are held in tension. Last week, after the first week of school, I was had a particularly busy week getting set for the fall. And I came home and I sat on the couch beside my son who is nine now, and he said to me, dad, I need a cuddle, but he paused like a bro cuddle. And I said to him, absolutely buddy, bring it in. Let's cuddle like a couple bros and watch Thor.

That's what we've been waiting to do that day. But he is nine years old and he's figuring out his world right now and what people expect of him and what it means for him to be a boy and eventually a man. And the last thing that I want for him to feel is that to become all of that, he has to leave behind the best of everything he is right now. I did way too much of that in my teens and in my twenties, trying to fit in and make sure I positioned myself for everyone else's expectations of me, and I lost parts of myself in doing that. And my son is going to grow and change.

I know that. He's going to figure things out for himself, and all of that is fine. We said it last week. You are not who you were. You are not who you will be.

But this idea that we can be this or we can be that. You can be a bro or you can need a cuddle, but you can't have both. That is not helping any of us because you and I, all of us, we are multitudes. And in fact, the better you know yourself, and the more aware you are of what comes naturally and easily to you, well then the better equipped you will be to start to push and explore and try new ways of knowing yourself and your world. And some of us are here in this room, in this community, watching today because like me, intellectually honest is the safest space for you.

And you want to think about your faith. And you want to wrestle with ideas, and you want your faith to be as rigorous as possible the same way you approach every other endeavor in your life. And I get that. I love that. I celebrate that.

I will do my best to help you with that. But I also want you to know that sometimes it's okay to need a bro cuddle with Jesus. And to tell your own unnecessary anecdote about resurrection. To lean into a song or a moment or the whisper of spirit that reminds you somewhere deep in your soul that you are loved before you are anything else. Then on the other side, I know that there are some of us here for whom faith has always been feeling first.

And, we are now just discovering questions that we've kept hidden and pushed down for a very long time. And, I want you to know we're here for all of that. Nothing is off limits. There's no question that's too scary. More importantly, there are no answers that are out of bounds for discussion.

But, just as important, I need you to know this as well, that you can raise your hands in worship if that feels right. You can come forward for prayer when you need it. You can lose yourself in a moment and you can invite the spirit to move through you just as wind, just as we saw last week. Because feeling your way to the divine is just as valid as any intellectual exercise. And in fact, it's when we come to know ourselves as embodied creatures.

The heart and mind and soul and spirit and flesh and blood and all of these with their own way of knowing God's presence. This is when we become most human and most alive. So absolutely, we invite you to be intellectually honest with all of your inquiries. But just as important, when you are ready, we invite you to write your own unnecessary anecdote about God to let your passions run wild in races for resurrection. Because you are multitudes and every single bit of you is searching for God.

Let's pray. God of grace and welcome, who invites us to know you in a thousand different ways, who has created us as embodied creatures with intellect, and heart, and passion, and emotion, with body that senses your presence around us all the time. Might we recognize that in each of these ways we can come to know you, and that as we listen and we learn and we invite these ways of knowing together, we come see you more fully. For those of us who live in our heads, might our emotions become avenues to divine encounter. For those of us who live in extravagant displays of passion, may our minds be renewed to see you in new ways.

For all of us, may our embodied presence feel you near us in ways we can only begin to put into language. Trusting that your love surrounds us and upholds us, sustains all things in Christ. In the strong name of the resurrection Christ we pray. Amen.