Parables of Jesus: Virtuous Living

In this episode, we dive into some of Jesus’ most challenging and illuminating parables—the Good Samaritan, the Rich Fool, the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, and the Unforgiving Servant. 🙏 Together, we unpack how these stories confront our assumptions about morality, compassion, forgiveness, and self-righteousness. Far from simple moral lessons, these parables invite deep self-examination and a reorientation of how we see ourselves, our neighbors, and God’s kingdom. ♥️ Whether these stories feel familiar or unsettling, we explore how their ancient wisdom continues to speak powerfully into modern life. 🎙️

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It's like the Peter thing, asking that question is like, you dummy, have you not been, later the disciples. Later someone's gonna like, uh, I'm right about this. I'm gonna bring that up with Jesus. And people are like, dude, don't do that. You know, this never goes well. Have you not learned anything from the Pharisees? yeah. His, this will not be what you expect. He's gonna tell you a story and you're gonna be on YouTube and the headline's gonna be, Jesus owns Peter. sm smug Peter gets s smacked down by Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. I'm telling you, you'll become a meme if you do that right. There'll be t-shirts. You're not gonna abate about you, you're not gonna like this. So I think we avoided technical difficulties this time around. Maybe still messing with it, but more to the point. Are you, uh, dugout from the snow here. not even close. No, this is a perfect day for recording'cause we are completely trapped in, it's, uh, maybe, maybe about eight, 10 inches of snow up here, but then ice on top of it. So Yeah, it's a, it's, it's a mess. Like there's trees coming down and I don't know if this feed gets cut in the middle of it, you'll know power finally went out here, but for now I think everything's pretty stable, so. We'll, we'll see. We can pull off today. Okay, Yeah. And I knew during the storm yesterday you couldn't go anywhere'cause you kept texting me and said, okay, I've edited that video. Check out this folder, you know, and I'm like, yep, you got nothing to do, but just sit there and work on this Yeah. I actually had a good work ethic yesterday because I'm just literally stuck in the house completely. Alright, for contrast, what is the, uh, what's the weather in St. Pete like Oh, did you want to ask? gonna say, did you go swimming today? It's about 75 degrees today? so Unbelievable. shorts. I was wore shirt, I wore shorts yesterday. Yeah. I hear about all the snow and I'm like, that's none of my business. I'll, check in with some people, but, Yeah. So yeah. Snow Apocalypse 26, yeah. Yeah. And it's actually supposed to get a little cooler next week, but high in the. Fifties or sixties, something like that. So, Whatever you're a coward is what you are. You are a coward. You've run south to have this decent weather. well, okay, so we wanna start off the episode this week basically talking about the idea of our loss of symbolic thinking before we get into the specific parables, how we lost symbolic thinking, over the years and kind of jump in that way to kick this episode off. yeah. I thought it might be worth revisiting this idea, the bigger picture of why we're doing pretty much everything we do now. And I don't know, I read this, I can't remember where maybe you and I are reading the same book, but one of the things that it said is rational enlightenment or, or kind of the, you know, scientific rational mindset that we all grew up in. the core truth. And once the core truth was discovered, you didn't need the story anymore, Right, So it's like, hey, we've got the truth. Throw the story away. right. And symbolic thinking is actually saying, man, we're throwing a lot away when we throw the story away. Yeah, so I. trying to recover the story and try to recover the value that we throw. We've been throwing away by discarding the story. And I was reading, uh, again, I can't remember the book right off the top of my head, but I was reading a little bit more last week, and just reiterating same idea that there's so much embedded in a story, you can't reduce it, and that's where you get this idea of reductionism, right? You can't reduce it down to say, okay, here is the moral of the story. Once you got that, I. don't need the parable anymore. Yeah. You've, you've, you dismiss all the layers to it, and Yeah. it, and really there's something that's transformational about learning something that way. And so, well, I've heard in general that if you wanna memorize something, our brains need to attach meaning to it. so say you're studying for a te, you can do this several ways. Music is super memorable. That's why we can think of lyrics to songs we heard as kids, you know, that we haven't heard in 30 years, that the lyrics still come right back to us because it was attached to music. you can do things like create mnemonics, you know, the whole, what is it? The planets, Mary Virginia eats many jelly sandwiches under Nancy's porch. You remember that? I don't think I remember that? one, You don't remember that. Yeah, Okay. Yeah. Well, the, the of the right, yeah. Yeah. The first letter is, is the letter of all the planets.' cause Yeah, still remember sure. Yeah. I mean, that stuff pops in your head, right? So you can use a mnemonic, and even if you're studying something. Boring. Like for a test in high school or college or something. Experts will tell you to study in a memorable place. Like go outside or go, go, uh, whatever, build a fire and sit next to it. Because what happens is when you're memorizing this information, your mind will attach to the smells and the the place. And if it's, if it's the same study place every time, if you study at your desk every time, then when it comes test time, you can't put yourself back in that position. Whereas if you study someplace unique, your mind can go back to when you were sitting outside and you heard the birds chirping and stuff like that. And information will come back to your mind. And I, I say all that to say that cognitive experts sort of know how to shortcut these things and explain it, uh, to US moderns that are studying as study tips. But this was all built in the parable. This was all built in the fairytale. All of these things were built in to make these things memorable, to make these things transportable from town to town. Because again, I think we said before, this is before writing, or at least before printing. and so that was all packaged in the story. And when you say that, the enlightenment came along and we got rid of all that. What we got rid of is a lot of core information that's actually still helpful, but we don't think it's helpful. It's like we got rid of the master copies and now we just have the music. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And I think, why as we are unpacking these parables, our listeners may have the question of like, man, you guys are reading a lot into this, and I don't think that's the case. I think actually we're reading into what was supposed to be there in the first place. We are just used to hearing the moral of the story Right, here's what Jesus meant. Yeah. This one thing occurred to me, and then we can jump into our first parable, but I thought that was kind of interesting because when I was thinking about this idea, You have the left and the right. right. And Ben Shapiro talking really fast, you know, coined this idea of like, facts, don't care about your Right, right. Except he says a really facts, you know, facts don't care about your feelings Yeah. fast. and, and there's some truth to that idea because what he's trying to counter is, man, a lot of what's happening on the left is disconnected from reality. Now, not everything Right. but I was thinking about that in the past week about this idea of, discarding the story we found the core kernel of truth. What the right lacks is the story. Right, And this has been the case for a long time. The left has the story lot of times without the kernel of truth. The Right, has what they claim is the truth, connection to reality. But they don't have a compelling story. right. And, don't know, I understood that for kind of new last week, Yeah. this is the disconnect. yeah, it's where the left and the right go wrong. And it's not that the left never has facts or the right, never has a story. It's just where, when those, yeah, when you get in that, that singular left brain, right brain thinking, that's where it goes wrong. And the the counter can also be said, your feelings don't care about the facts. I mean, everybody knows that intuitively, That's in love with somebody or whatever, however you, whatever feeling you want to impose, if you're angry with somebody, the facts, you, you throw 'em out the window, you know? And so the point is to obviously have that balance of both facts and feeling, and to get back to the parables, that's what the parables seem to capture. And what we're gonna see in today's parables is that people wanted the facts. They kept asking Jesus for the facts. And not to get ahead of ourselves, but you're gonna see this pattern. People want to clarify to Jesus, Hey, explain what the law says about this. And Jesus never does it. He never just says, well, you know, code 48, subsection 18 says this. He doesn't do that. he comes back with a story that almost sidesteps. It doesn't almost, it just sidesteps the original question. The intent of the question, And it almost frustrates people 'cause they're like, you know, J Jesus clarify this. Right? And Jesus tells them a story and they're like, here you go. Telling stories again. You know, I asked you a direct question, and you won't answer it, but that's this idea of the parable. And that goes back to last episode where it's the hidden nature of it. By its very nature, it's hidden. So you're meant to take the story and go home and go, wait, I think I know what he means now. Which is a much more powerful experience than Jesus just saying. Like you said, well look up law code, up the, uh, you know, mishna, whatever law. right? Yeah. Oh, okay. Now that's a fact. Right. Right. But it's not compelling. It's not a compelling story. Yeah. And Jesus doesn't always do this. in lots of interactions, he says, doesn't the law say this? Like he spells it out for him. But in the parables, it's usually to get away from the quote unquote facts of something to capture the broader meaning. intention of the law so this is a good pivot to jump right into our first, Yeah. So before we read it here, be listening for that context that we're talking about. It doesn't start off with just Jesus telling a story. There's a context before it. And so let's listen to it and we'll pick up on the other side. All right. So that is a very familiar story. We will get back to that in a moment, but we neglected to actually say, what are we gonna talk about today? Which is this idea of. Virtuous living in the kingdom. So the kingdom of heaven, yes, is something to come, but it's also here and now. And so Jesus, with the stories we're gonna talk about today is kind of a answering the question, well how do we live today then? Okay. does this mean for how I live? So that's kind of the general theme of these, a very familiar story. I dare say, people who didn't even grow up in church could have a vague notion of what the Good Samaritan is about. Right. Sure. like we were saying before, this is a super familiar story. But there's a context of Jesus telling the story, and it starts with this quote, unquote, expert of the law. It says, asking directly about eternal life. Yeah. So the question is, and Luke seems to do this, I think more than Matthew, I, it's just a observation. I haven't really checked into it, but seems to just list a bunch of parables, right? And Luke seems to give a little bit more context, which is, it's really helpful for a lot of these. And so, I don't know, it's just a observation, but you're right. So an expert in the law says, what must I do to inherit eternal life? right, And Jesus answers, you will love the Lord your God, and then you will love your neighbor as yourself. And then he comes back with of, it sounds like an honest question, but a lot of times with these experts in the laws are Pharisees or religious leaders, they're really trying to push 'em, right. right, Like, okay, that's nice, Jesus. But then he says, well, who is my neighbor? And Jesus said, in response to that question, he tells them the parable of the Good Samaritan. Alright, so that's the setting. Anything else about the setting that you want to, that you noticed? Well, it specifically says, but he wanted to justify himself. Right. he uses that great line, which is classic lawyer man. Our brother's a lawyer, and Yeah. He's all the time trying to do this type of stuff. No, I'm kidding. But yeah, it, it is kind of funny. Classic lawyer, you know, he wanted to justify himself and like you said, the Pharisees are always trying to trap him, and so there is something to it where he's trying to, draw Jesus, paint him into a corner a little bit. Right. And I don't know where he was wanting to go with this necessarily, but that's, that's why he asked. He didn't ask because, well, I need to know who my neighbor is so I can run out and bless them. Right. It was almost like I need to know, let's, let's get specific here. Jesus, Yeah. Who am I obliged to help? And then Jesus tells this great story. Yeah. And that idea of justifying himself, it's almost like in his own mind he's like, well, I'm already doing this, but I want other people to know. It's, it's the ancient way of saying he was virtue signaling, Right, right. Virtue signaling there, it's, it's ancient, just social media digitized it. It goes, it goes all the way back here. But yeah, he wanted, he wanted a virtue signal and let everyone know, Hey, I'm already doing this, but for your benefit, Jesus, why don't you Right. my neighbor is? Right. And the great thing is Jesus is saying here, 'cause you don't wanna miss this. Jesus is saying here that self-justification is usually the first sign that we've missed the point. And that mindset, yeah, that mindset plays out in the story here. But yeah, it's the first sign you, Hey, you're off track here, Yeah. Yeah. If you think you've already got it down and you're telling other people you, you probably don't have a clue about what is really going on. Right. right? Alright, so then we have I, very familiar story for a lot of people of the Good Samaritan, and like a lot of these stories, especially today, I, think the challenge is hear them without all of our preconceived notions. yeah. Because we, at least I think I have a tendency to approach this and go, well, what are we gonna talk about that people already haven't heard 10 times over. Right. But, I don't know. So let's start talking about some of the things that jump out at you about, you know, the guy goes up to Jerusalem, to Jericho, he gets beaten, and then the priest passes by the Levite, passes by, like, what's going on in there that you think Jesus is getting at, yeah, I thought about this. Kind of anew. When I was reading it here in the past couple days, I think the priest represented the primary religious class in Jesus' Day. Right. That would've been the Pharisees or the priest of the day. The Levite represented the primary religious class of the past. And so, in a sense, I think what Jesus might be saying is that he's pointing to a deep, fundamental problem with the organized religious structures that had taken root. Right? a, this isn't just a modern problem that he's pointing to. It's almost like he's saying the Levite, because, and you can speak more to this, you're, you're more knowledgeable about this. But the Levite was more of, uh, the tribes of Israel. That was more of a thing of the past. You know, the Levites were the priestly class of the Israelites in the past. Now in Jesus' time, I think the religious structure had taken shape a little bit different. Now you have the Pharisees that are sort of the religious class. Now, I don't know if they were still Levites. I don't know. But it, my point is, is that I think what Jesus is saying is that this is a structural problem, not just a modern problem where the religious elites have lost their way. Yeah. Okay. I could see that. I could see it's like, okay, this is what's happened in the past. This is what's currently happening in the present. You not only have the Pharisees, you also have the Sadducees, you have, a lot of different variations, either even among pharm. it kind of, you know, fractured Right. wasn't this one monolithic thing anymore. Yeah. It almost had broken out into denominations or something like that. Yeah. Something like that. So what's interesting here is that they both pass by on the other side. now again, this is where we have to let this shock us, way it would've shocked people. here's another thing I think especially if you grew up in like evangelical church, Right, you hear the word Pharisee, you always go, oh, boo. right. like he's the bad guy. Bad guys. Yeah. but that's not what people thought. When Jesus is telling this story, Right. I thinking, gosh, these guys are the giants of our day that we are just trying to live up to. In fact, one of the things Fair Saym was trying to do is this idea that Israel is an exile, and if we can cleanse Israel and bring them back to the covenant, right, mm-hmm. then God will re-inhabit the temple. Then God will truly be our God. Again, Rome will be cast aside, and so what the Pharisees were trying to do was actually a decent thing, Yeah. It wasn't all bad. Sure, right? yeah. yeah. These are, these are the people's pastors and evangelists or, or at least the modern equivalent. yeah. Yeah. So I would. I think today, maybe it would be something like, Jesus tells a story where he says, you know, monk walks by and then he goes to the other side. So it didn't have to get his hands dirty and then none. You know, yeah. thinking, oh, well, surely she's gonna bandage the guy's wounds. Right. is like, no, I, wants nothing to do with it. Right. She avoids it. yeah. that would be kind of shocking to us today. We'd be like, well, what kind of nun or monk is that? Well, it's the same thing here. It's like, man, what kind of Pharisee is this guy that he just passes by? So I, I think we have to let it hit us like it would've hit them the first time. right. Okay. So let me ask you a question because I've, I've heard also, when we read it today, we're thinking that the priest and the Levite of all people should be morally obliged to help the man. But I've also read commentaries that say kind of the exact opposite, that the priestly class would've been morally bound not to touch blood, not to touch a dead body, and they obviously couldn't tell whether the guy was dead or alive. Right. And then add to that, we'll get into the fact. that he was a Samaritan. We'll jump into that here in a little bit. But the fact that he was a Samaritan, you know, but what you end up with is a situation where the people listening would've understood the moral justification for passing onto the other side. Right? And then to go back to moral justification is the exact reason the lawyer pressed this issue. And so it's not just a, a feel good story about kindness. It's kind of a brilliant response that cuts right through the implication of the lawyer's original question to begin with. Right. but am I right about the, the ancient moral obligation to not touch blood, not touch a dead body? Was that, was that going on in Jesus' time or was that, is that a little bit outdated? I think that justification was there. Jesus is challenging the notion though, that that trumps kindness to your neighbor. Right. So in other words, yeah, there were laws about you can't touch dead bodies. But actually the law would say, if you come in contact with a dead body, you have to go perform the rites in the temple to cleanse yourself. So it's kind of a yes and no, I would say, Yeah. Yeah. that there would be kind of a justification to say. Well, look, I can't touch a dead body, or I can't come in contact with blood, so therefore, Right, I'm off the hook for this. Right, But I think even the people at one level would understand that. But another level, I think it's kinda like, well, that's kind of crappy, right. Yeah, sure. do come in contact with I okay, you're impure now, to go through the ritual of purification, you just need to go through the proper channels, right? It's not like, okay, you're, you're done now. So, I don't know, I, I think on one level I can understand why people are saying that, but on another level, I think that's the very thing Jesus is challenging is he's like, look, that doesn't hold water. Right. like the pastor who I, drives by a wreck and said, well, look, you gotta understand, you know, church starts in 30 yeah, I've got, get and I've gotta preach. Right, There's some truth to it. Yeah. Yeah. some people would go, I get the, uh, tension there, but come on, what kind of pastor are you? Right. Yeah. No. Okay. That, that's actually helpful in answering that. You're right. That there's a process to purify and so that doesn't hold water Yeah. And Jesus addressed this in other times where, well in the Nazarite vow, it's like you can't touch a dead body, right? But. There's also process for purification. So the law was not saying that you can't ever do any of this. The law was prescribing how you become pure you have to get your hands dirty, so to speak. Yeah. Right? Well, I think, I think another interesting thing is that, the religious elite of Jesus' Day, the so-called priests and Levites of Jesus' Day, would be debating the morality of the situation, right? And Jesus seems to be saying, stop getting into these endless debates on the interpretation of these granular details of Levitical law. Right? And it goes back to that idea that we talked about in episode one. I think we talked about in both the episodes about this rigid stone versus the growing potential of a seed, right? Yeah. I keep coming back to that as well. I think one of these later parables I thought of that idea of the rigid stone boundaries versus the field that's supposed to be flourishing. Right. Yeah. And, and again, I like that idea that record them once. Sometimes the gospels record them a couple times, but Jesus probably told these stories over and over again. Yeah. To where it's like you don't just hear one story, hear all of them and you start to develop an ethic, right? You start to develop a virtue. And so, yeah, I do think, I do think the picture of the Levi and the priest are arguing over where this stone goes. And do I need to get my hands dirty? And you know, what do I do here, here in this situation? What if I become impure? And Jesus is like, look at the field. Right. Yeah. the guy, Yeah. Right. Surely I don't have to spell it out for you. I mean, it just doesn't seem that hard to see, but they had probably gotten to a part where it was that hard to see. yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, let's talk about the Samaritan. this is another one where you have to understand who a Samaritan is because here again, we even title this most Bibles, you know, it says the Good Samaritan. So this is another one where he go, where Jesus says, Samaritan as he journeyed came and pass the guy. And we go, oh, good Samaritan. Good. The good guy's coming. Right. That's not how people would've heard this in Jesus' day. Yeah. What was the issue with, Samaria in that day and time? What was, what was their big hangup with them? Well, in one of the, you had to go back way back to, The fall of the Northern Kingdom, the fall of the Southern Kingdom. But basically, Samaria thought that one of the ancient of where the, uh, I may be getting this wrong, but where the ancient sites of, like the Tabernacle was housed at one point, they thought, Samaria, they thought we should be the capital of Israel. Okay. Yeah. so when the capital is established in Jerusalem, Samaria never accepted that. you could almost think of it as a spinoff of Judaism. It's almost, it was thought of maybe like a cult almost, Yeah. they're thinking like, well, we have our capital, right? We are the true Israel. And everyone else in Israel is like, no, you're not. You've misunderstood. You misread all this. And Yeah, were kind of, they were off base, right? They were, they were into some weird, crazy no, that's, that's a cool way to say it because you could look at Samaritans as just like some whatever evil group of people, but that's not really accurate. It's, it's, it's exactly what you said. They're off base. they had lost their way religiously. And so interestingly enough, Jesus is comparing the priests who were right under the law versus this Samaritan who's not just this dirty dog of a person, but it's more like he is part of the group that's lost their way, and he, they figured it out. Yeah, And so it's a great contrast when you understand that. yeah. Even go back to that idea of what the Pharisees were trying to do. They were trying to purify Israel into alignment with the covenant so that God could Israel. Right? Right. if that's your mindset, man, who's the primary group standing in the way? It's those crazy Samaritans up there. Right. Right? So I like that contrast is Jesus chooses that very carefully. Right. Jesus is like, you know who got it? You know who did the Right. thing, Yeah. the Samaritan, Right, But we are not supposed to read this initially and go, oh yeah, the Samaritan's the good guy. yeah, I just think it's great that the Samaritan doesn't debate morality. Right. In this story. He just acts, it's the, yeah. It's, it's the religious leaders that are debating back and forth, should I, shouldn't I, that type thing. and that's kind of brilliant the way Jesus points that out. No, I like that. And the more we talk about it, I really think this is about, you could say it's right action, not necessarily Right. belief, but it's actually the combination of that, cause at the end of the day, Jesus is saying, look, who's the one who fulfilled the law about being a neighbor. Look the Samaritans, they're screwed up in their beliefs, but is the one that did it. Right. Yeah. And here you guys are arguing about this and you're not doing anything. The guy's still laying there, you know? Does he still have a pulse? We still gotta figure this out, Right. Right. so what pops in my head is things like, we would look at something like a cult leader. or somebody who's kind of a little bit on, on the lunatic end of, of religion. And yeah, we would look at it as like, man, who's gonna drink the Kool-Aid with this guy? Right? But Jesus is kind of laying out a story about saying, well, you know, the pastor missed it. The missionary missed it, but the cult leader, he had it figured out. and so yes, that would have that shock, shock effect to us today if you're like the cult leader. and what I think he's saying to your point, is not that the cult leader is the good guy, that they have everything figured out correctly. It's that, the cult leader, they always have these kind of screwed up religious beliefs, but there's something, there's something that is very feeling, you know what I mean? And I'm not talking about, I'm not talking about the bad cult leaders that kill everybody. I'm talking about the ones before they kill everybody, right? They're all working together in a commune and they've all pooled their money and they're all seem to be happy, uh, you know, planning their, their food that they're growing, things like that. You know, there's, there's an aspect of cults where at the beginning you would look at it and say, oh, that's kind of a cool setup. You know, not my cup of tea, but, They seem to be in touch with nature, and so maybe Jesus is kind of pointing out something like that where, look, these, these people they may not have the right through line when it comes to, religiosity or the law, but at least their core value is going to not debate the morality of helping a man who's beat up on the side of the road. They're just gonna act and do it. That's gonna be the first thing they do. And, and if you wanna debate morality after the fact, whatever, but don't do it in the moment. Yeah. Yeah. Now that's a good example because in that example too, the point of the story would not be that the cult leader, well, he actually has everything figured out. The point of the story would be, for goodness sakes, if there's anyone who's actually living out their faith is screwed up as it might be or misdirected. Yeah. It's that guy. And so Jesus, I think it's important to understand that Jesus, he's not answering the question, are Samaritans, Right. Right. he's answering the question, who is my neighbor? And Jesus says, you know, let me tell you the little story. And so it, this is more directed back at the religious leaders who are debating the nuances of all this. meanwhile, you know, this cult leader, you know, wedges between him and say, let me know when you guys figure it out. I'm gonna take this guy to the hospital, Right. Yeah, is like, okay, this guy gets the neighbor piece, even if he doesn't have the theology down, right? And depending on what faith grew up in, we can fall into that self-justification of going, man, all my theology is right. yeah. And this is the problem of religion in, let's say the eighties. there were big debates on if the Methodists have it right or the Baptist have it right, or, you know, surely you're not Episcopalian. You know, we kinda got all these fractured denominational way of viewing the world, and that was what we argued about, in probably more, maybe, maybe a little bit more like the sixties, seventies, eighties. So, going back a little bit, that was the big debate. And I think if you can say one of the good things that's come from maybe our modern skeptical, rise of atheism, is that it's helped unite. we don't talk about denominational stuff in public as much anymore. Not that none of that stuff matters, but it's just that we're not publicly arguing about. Immersion versus sprinkling versus, you know, all these kind of minutiae things that, again, I don't want to paint the picture, like it doesn't matter, but we don't publicly go out there and argue it.'cause we know that we have a big world to deal with and there are bigger fish to fry, so to speak, than worrying about who does what, and what qualifies for your version of salvation. yeah. There's a place for both, and ultimately that's what Jesus is. I can imagine if Jesus is talking to, well, he does, if he was talking to Samaritans, he might have a different story, He yeah, there and say, man, you guys get it. Good for you. In fact, he talks to the Samaritan woman, right? And what does he end up telling her? Go and sin no more. Right. Right? So like he's, telling her, you've gotta sharpen your beliefs. Is another way to say that. that's a cool thought that he would've told the story differently if he was in Samaria. I think you're probably right. Yeah. I mean he's, he's looking for the shock fact. Right, right. Okay. Alright. So before we move on, is there any thought to the fact that the lawyer originally asks once clarification and says, and who is my neighbor and at the end of the story, he doesn't say who his neighbor is. He says, who do you think was the neighbor to the man who fell in the hands of robbers? And so he kind of changes this focus of inward focus of who is my neighbor, who is the person that I'm obliged to, versus he goes to the man who was robbed and says, who do you think was the neighbor to that guy? Yeah, it, it's a way, well, if you start from this idea that he wanted to justify himself, he wanted Jesus to say, man, you're, you've got it down. Right. But the story actually externalizes it I think what he's doing is it's actually forcing the lawyer to not answer the question, but to, you know, the answer. Right. Yeah. knows the answer Right. wanna say it. gotta go home and wrestle with it. it's also interesting because if Jesus had said, you know, no, you, you're doing a good job, wouldn't have done anything for the guy. On the other hand, if he would've said, man, upholding this law, the guy would've got defensive. Yeah. But in telling the I the guy has to go away going, ah, crap. Uh, Jesus. He's right. right. of those, it's like, I hate to admit, but that guy, you know, the political guy that I disagree with, I hate to admit it, but he's right. Yeah, yeah, tell him that. Right. yeah, yeah, and he wanted to know specifically, is the guy who lives next door, is that my neighbor? What about the guy? Two houses down? What about three houses down? Well, if, if we're talking about the next village or the next country, we've talked about this. You've got your, your neighbor, you've got your, broader culture. You've got the outsider, and then you've got the wilderness. So at some point he's, it's, it's almost like he's trying to build up the case where, where, give me the line, surely the, the guy in the next country, the, the one that invaded us, that's not my neighbor. Right. and instead Jesus. aren't, Yeah. Right. and I think Jesus spins it on purpose and at the end says, who do you think was the neighbor to the man who had gotten beaten up? It's like, quit trying to. Figure it out from your vantage point of how far do I need to go? He's like, try to think of it from the aspect of the guy who got beat up. Who's that guy's neighbor.'cause first of all, we're in the wilderness. There isn't the guy next door. Right. You know, we're we're, we're on a, on a barren road. And it's like, who was that guy's neighbor? And the point was, it was the priest, all three of them, you know, and the priest and the Levite were thinking about their obligations and they moved on. yeah, The more we talk about it, it's a brilliant story. Yeah. Well I just like the idea of the rigid law versus the growing seed and we're gonna see this kind of continue on, but that idea pivots well into, another easily misunderstood parable, the rich fool. Yeah. Now, this is interesting. We won't, have, uh, this one read, but, this is another one that gives the background, okay, so Luke chapter 12, verse 13 through 15. This is the background, and this is important. Someone in the crowd said, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. And Jesus said, man, who appointed me as a judge or arbiter between you. And then he said, watch out. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. is interesting that that's what he brings up in response to this guy's question. Life does not consistent in abundance of possessions, and then he is gonna tell him this parable. But, so that's the setting there. What do you pick up in Same idea, right? That someone says, okay, so this just occurred to me too, like it's the same idea. Teacher interpret the law for me, Right. Yeah. I love how this starts. Because in the previous verses of this parable, Jesus is speaking to a crowd and he's kind of, he's kind of banging on the Pharisees and he's pretty clearly implying that he just might be the Messiah. That's the previous verses to this rich fool parable. And in the middle of that, some guy just yells out, Hey man, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. Right? And it just kind of comes outta left field, right? But again, the setting is important and that's the setting that this parable is told. Well, in the same way, he clearly feels gypped outta the inheritance and he's doing the same thing. He wants to justify himself. What is my brother gonna do? Right. If this, you know, potential Messiah says, well split the, split it down the middle, Yeah, So yeah, in and I love Jesus. You know, Jesus is like, who appointed me? Judge. Again, this is this idea of like, look, you have lawyers and judges and priests, like that's not what I'm coming to do. yeah. have a thousand years of the law, Right. And it's also interesting that he said right after that he goes, be on your guard against all kinds of greed. And it's like, whoa, did you just call me greedy? Yeah, yeah. gipping me My brother's a greedy one. Yeah, he's the greedy one. no, it is, it's great. And he doesn't ask for details. He doesn't say, well, gimme the context. You know, what did, what did the will say? Yeah. It's just he doesn't want the details. He just sort of jumps right to, the greed portion to what you said. It's like, it sounds like the older brother. Is the greedy one, right? But Jesus says, look, just be on the lookout for all types of greed. You're worried about whether your brother is being greedy, and perhaps he is. But I wanna tell you a story.'cause you need to watch out and be on your guard against all kinds of greed, not just worry about what other people are being greedy for. Let's look in the mirror. Yeah. Alright. So then he tells him the parable, and I'll just go through this real quick. The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. There's that idea again, the field and the harvest, right? Yeah. to himself, what do I do? I have no place to store my crops. And then he said, this is what I'll do. I'll tear my barns down and build bigger ones. And there I'll store my surplus of grain. And I'll say to myself, you have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink, and be merry. God said to him, you fool this very night. Your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? And then he says, this is how it will be for anyone who stores up for themselves but is not rich toward God. Alright. Simple little story, but there's a lot going on there. Well, the first thing I that is worth pointing out is, again, you got two brothers in this story so far. The first two characters, the older brother is cheating the younger brother, so to speak, out of his inheritance. And then Jesus tells a story. About a guy who builds up an inheritance. So it's almost like it's a story about the father or their father. Now, Hmm. Yeah. I don't know that Jesus is saying your father is the, is the source of this problem. I don't, I don't necessarily think that's what Jesus is saying, but I do think it's interesting that the story he tells is that about a man who built up an inheritance. in verse 20, it says, then who will get what you have prepared for yourself? So he's telling the story about a guy who's built up a bunch of stuff and then he says, look, all you wanna do is take it easy, eat, drink, and be merry. But tonight your life is gonna be demanded and then what's gonna happen to your stuff? Your two sons are gonna fight over it and come to me and demand for me to explain who deserves what. Right? He, you know, but the point is you don't have it anymore. Right. So I just think it's kind of interesting that in answer to this squabble between brothers, he tells a story perhaps about the father, Okay. Another that's interesting, another way to read this then, as you were saying that, and this is the great thing about these parables, is you could go around thinking like, who do you think Jesus was talking about? right. you'd have these conversations. What if Jesus is talking about the older brother who gets the windfall and says, man, No, that's good. brother. Right? gonna buy, I'm gonna buy a beach house and I'm gonna buy a new car. Then I'm gonna kick back and take life easy. Yeah. sense, I could see it both ways. But in that sense then it's almost like the implication is to the younger brother who asked the question, it's almost like, Hey, be careful what you wish for. Yeah. The moral weight right now is on your brother. Yeah. And the older brother's, like, what do you mean the life is gonna be demanded of him this very night? You know, Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if the older brother's on the edge of the group thinking, oh crap, did he, was he calling me out? am I gonna die tonight? What's the, you know, what's the deal like? Right. No, that's a cool thought though. I, I hadn't thought about that. Yeah. The brother gets this windfall and says, now I can take it easy, eat, drink, and be merry again, putting the moral weight on the brother and Jesus is pointing out to the younger brother, perhaps, are you sure you want this weight? You want this responsibility? Because trust me, when it comes to greed, people lose their way real easy. And in this story, his life was taken from him. And again, this isn't to be translated literally, that if you're a greedy person, God is gonna strike you dead. It's almost like it's saying That if you're a greedy person, you'll end up consuming yourself. You know, you, you, you almost, you almost take your own life. Your possessions will consume you. Yeah. That's a better way of saying it. Yeah, Well, and I was thinking too about, uh, you know, look, generational squabbles and inheritances are still a thing today, yeah, And it's funny 'cause every now and then I'll talk to people. I've heard more stories of that are torn apart because of an inheritance. And so maybe there is this generational aspect of it. It's like indirectly Jesus is like, look, your dad was greedy. He didn't do things the right way, and now it's playing out between you and your brother, Yeah. That's a cool way to look at it. I think that, I think that might be really what he's kind of saying is generational greed, again, we're reading into this, but perhaps the father was sort of set the tone for the sons of saying, Hey, man, work hard. Get ahead, store up for yourselves and you can retire like me, and then you can leave this wonderful inheritance, and It's passed down to the generationally, to the sons, where now they've got this mindset where they're thinking that the primary goal in life is to store up enough that you can just take it easy. Yeah, All right. There's another image in here. That I wanna point out, I alluded to it just briefly, but this idea that he said, the ground of a certain man yielded an abundant harvest. Okay, well, we're back to the field, we're back to the fruitfulness of the field versus the rigidness of the, of the law. Right, so there's something there when you tie it into Jesus' other parables, that he's not getting onto the rich man because he had an abundant harvest. That's the point. It's right, he do with it, So it's another, subtle story about the, the ethic of the kingdom of God, right? I'm here to make the, the, the field harvest, Yeah. I'm here to plant the seeds and have them grow. In fact, it would be a great thing if storehouses were overflowing, Yeah. it's not something you keep for yourself and hoard. Right. Well, verse 16 specifically says, the ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. And so don't just look at that and say, oh man, this guy is killing it. No, the ground is what yielded it. the. Yeah. not the rich man, the rich man didn't do this wonderfully awesome investment and things like that. It's that the ground happened to, to go back to, the parable of the sower and the seed in episode one that it said, that some yielded forth 10 times, some yielded forth 60 times, some yielded forth a hundred times. Right. And I think you pointed out that we can't control what the harvest does. And it's almost like he's, taking that theme from a previous parable and saying, the ground of this man is what spit out all this wonderful harvest. Not the rich man, but the rich man took it upon himself and said, this is mine. it's because I was wise in my planting or I was wise in my investing and Jesus is pointing out, yeah, pay attention to the details. That's not what happened here. Right. Yeah. And there's almost this idea, he says, say to myself, you have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy. And it's almost like I'm not gonna work the field anymore. Uh, yeah, to, you know, and bring in all the imagery. What's the field? And Jesus is like, no. You don't kick back and say, yeah. I'm good. I've got it right. No, that's worth pointing out. Don't let the field go. Yeah. and I think that's what he's, I think that's exactly what the rich man's saying. I can live on what the field has produced for the rest of my life. This ought to do it for me. But Jesus is saying, man, you don't let the field go. That's the whole purpose of it. Yeah. The, the, the fruitfulness of your faith, right? Yeah. meant to be shared with others Yeah. know, look, if you get a bumper crop, good for you, man. But don't just kick back and think you've arrived. Right? It's a continual, it's I, idea too. You see it later in the New Testament of continue to work out your salvation. It's another way to say that, right? yeah, Well, it's just, it just goes back to that organic aspect of the seed that has really hit me in this series of the parables. You know, that the kingdom of God is much more organic. It's not rigid. it's not do this, do this, do this. It's not a checkbox, that type of faith. it's seeing who needs a neighbor. It's seeing that I'm always gonna be tending my field, whether it produces a million or whether it barely produces enough for me to survive. I'm always gonna be tending the field. And so it's just another example of Jesus saying so much more than don't be greedy. Right? He's addressing the implication of the original question of the brother with a story about greed, right? And so, again, the questioner seemed to want Jesus to quote the letter of the law so he could use that ammunition against his brother. But instead Jesus tells his story of a guy whose greed consumed him and cost him his life. Yeah. There's one more thing in here that I wanna get your take. I don't know if it jumped out to you, but the very last line, he said, this is how it'll be forever. Stores up things for themselves, but is not rich toward God. Now, I would've expected Jesus to say, who's not rich towards others. I don't Yeah. do anything with that? Well, if you are rich toward God? One of the outflowing of that is that you would be rich toward others. But to contrast the parable of the, of the Good Samaritan. the point at the end of that was who was a neighbor? who did for others, who was more kind to the person in need? And then this one, you're kind of right, he's kind of points to something a little bit different. And he says, this is what's gonna happen to someone who's not rich toward God, who stores up things for themselves, but is not rich toward God. And I guess, what I would get from that is that God gives us blessings and as the blessings come to us, we have the opportunity to use that inwardly toward ourselves or, just give it right back to God, right? Kind of the can and Abel story, one offers his offering back up and the other one, what works it from the ground and so the offering pushes back down toward Earth. And so I kind of think that's the image that he's kind of creating. Not that, that you shouldn't be rich toward others, but that that primary is that your focus and your aim needs to be up, Yeah. you have to be properly aligned. Yeah. almost this, higher piece to the Good Samaritan. It's like, okay, the Good Samaritan in this case was doing the Right. thing, but it's like, look, ultimately it's about, you have to be in alignment with what God is doing in the world.'cause you could be a very generous person and be completely off base, Yeah. with God. And so I, I don't know. I like it in contrast to the Good Samaritan where he, he's like, no, look, you have to be rich towards God first. Yeah, rich towards God, you're gonna be generous I others. hear the other story I just told. right. But, right. you, you have to have that proper orientation or generosity can go awry as well, Sure, Well, you talked about in the, the fruit, the what? Bears fruit. It's, it's what's beneficial and sometimes I can think of scenarios where I'm generous with everything, that I own, maybe to the detriment of my family, maybe to the detriment of other things. Everything has is about trade-offs and uh, it's just not beneficial. Do, do you know what I'm saying? I heard a story one time and he was kind of talking about spreading the gospel and he compared it to, food that there are certain places in the world, like if you went to Africa and you just had a big pallet of food, you could put that pallet in the middle of a village and you could be pretty certain that about 95, maybe a hundred percent of that food is gonna go to people who need it. and just let 'em come and grab it. Right. A free for all. And, and still, you know, 90, 95% of that is gonna go to people who actually need the food. if you did that in the United States, put a pallet of food in the middle of Walmart and just say free food, I bet you about 80% of it is just gonna go to people who saw the big free sign. It's like, dude, I'm grabbing that. Right. I'm gonna get three or four of 'em. Yeah, and so in the United States, when it comes to food, you need to put most of your resources in the identification of people who actually need food. Right. Whereas in other countries, you don't really need to identify it. The entire country is impoverished and you can just throw it out there. Right? Well, he drew this comparison to the gospel and saying that there are times that we actually need to put our effort and resources into somebody who's willing to hear the gospel. This is the, this is the ground metaphor. You're looking for the fertile ground. And if you go through and you're a street preacher, you know, sometimes I go to a football game and there'll be street preachers on the corner, and I've wondered before, you know, kind of in one part of me says, man, God bless 'em. They're just out here on the corner with a little microphone thing and they're preaching to everybody walking into the game. And then another part of me thinks, I wonder how effective that is. You know, I mean, lots of people are hearing it, but they're all thinking, look, I'm, I'm headed to the game So you kind of wonder about its effectiveness, it's something having to do with that. But when you're rich towards God, as opposed to focusing on, okay, I need to give all my resources into giving to others, then sometimes that can get out of alignment and the focus is, you're what you said, you have to be aligned toward God. And when you're aligned toward God, then you'll have the ability to discern on the types of soil you'll be, you'll be able to discern a little bit clearer on how to and when to give to others. yeah, yeah, that's right. I've seen the street preachers too. The races are in, um, St. Pete coming up here and there's always a street preacher, you know, he's got his microphone, all that, and man, I always kind of wanna have a conversation with that guy, Yeah. But at the same time, you don't wanna distract him. Right. Yeah. He's I don't wanna mess up your game here. Yeah, Tell me about the conversations that you have. Does you know, does anyone walk up to you and have questions? And kind of conversations? I wonder if it would surprise you yeah. I'm nah, people just ignore me, but I'm just trying to be faithful. You know? Yeah. That would be a, that would be a good question. Well go to the races and report back on episode four or five here. I think if I told my wife that I wanna go talk to that guy, she'd be like, no. Or find me in the race. You know? Right. later. Yeah. Well catch up with me in four hours in. Okay. Yeah. anyway, once again, this is kind of a brilliantly crafted theological response to somebody who wanted a legalistic answer, and that's the theme that I'm seeing in all of these parables today. And that rolls into the next one. If we can hit on this one real quick. In Luke chapter 18, it's the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. And this one starts out again, gives a little bit of context to those who were confident of their own righteousness, wonder who that is, and that's a great start. else. Yeah. told this parable, Right, So he didn't even have to like spell out everything. And again, this is probably a well-known one, but two men went up to the temple to pray. One a Pharisee, the other tax collector, the Pharisee, stood and prayed. God, I thank you that I'm not like other people. Robbers, evil doers, adulterers. Then I can see him like looking some side shade, you know, or even this tax collector over here, And then he goes to his list. I fast twice a week, I give a 10th of all I get, but the tax collector sit at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but he beat his breast and he said, God have mercy on me as sinner. And then he said, I tell you, this man rather than the other went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humbled themselves be exalted. Alright? This is another one where you have to let this shock you. You can't hear the Pharisee and go, well here's the bad guy, Right, the religious snob. Yeah. same way with a tax collector. Yeah. Well, I think this story is intentionally a little absurd, right? Because I can't imagine that a priest or a Pharisee in Jesus's time would say a sincere prayer to God out loud, right? Thanking him that he wasn't like this loser sitting next to him. You know what I mean? So maybe I think it, I think it is designed to be a little bit absurd to make a point. And so at least that was, that was the way I read it. Sure, yeah. But Jesus also, in other stories, he talks about Pharisees who pray out loud for everyone to hear, Right. Right. but maybe it's exaggerated. but clearly the Pharisees, it's always interesting, the prayer, the Pharisees prayer to God is God, look at everything I've done, Yeah. much of a prayer, right? And then the tax collector, and again, heard this in church, but you have to let it shock you because the tax collector was man the turncoat, right? This is the guy working for Rome. Yeah. down Yep. for all these unfair taxes. Right, right. you, the picture is this tax collector who's too ashamed to even go up to the temple. And he just says, God have mercy on me as sinner, which is the Jesus prayer, right, in the Orthodox, right. that everyone is encouraged to say, you right. Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me as sinner. That's where this comes from. Yeah. And so I like that idea that that prayer actually takes on the posture of this, total turncoat loser, right? Well, and and you have to grasp that because if you listen to it through the modern ears, you're gonna fall prey to exactly what the Pharisee is doing. And what I mean is that when you look at this modernly and say, well, I would never do that. Right. I, I would never pray to God, thank God I'm not like this homeless guy, You know what I mean? It's like I would never do that. And so then you leave hearing this story, almost patting yourself on the back saying, I would never do something like that and therefore fall prey to the exact thing that the Pharisee was being made an example of. Right. But yeah, ultimately I think this is a story kind of about perspective. You know, comparing ourselves to God's standards as opposed to looking around the room for the best example of somebody who struggles with something you don't. And looking good by comparison. Does that make sense? Like it's easy to look at some arrogant athlete, some screwed up politician, or some Hollywood socialite type person, right? It's easy to point out that person in our society and say, well, I'm not that bad, Right. But there's no transformation in that way of thinking. It just trains your mind to be critical and to point out everyone else's flaws so that you don't have to deal with your own. Yeah. And I think that's, especially in this age of social media, it's so easy. I could pull up YouTube Right. now and go, at least I'm not like that guy. Right. Yeah. Look at the, look at that person's full of themselves, and that's not me. Yeah. As soon as you fall into that kind of thinking, as soon as you start thinking at least, I'm not like that guy. Right. Jesus is like, Nope, you've fallen into the trap. Yeah. is why I like this contrast of the Jesus prayer. God have mercy on me as sinner I said a couple episodes, I think I was reading rereading Marcus Aurelius meditations and he said something that is along these lines, which when someone accuses you of something, he says, your response should not be to get all defensive. response should be like, well, you don't know the half of it. Right. And that's good. cool. Yeah, because that's disarming. Yeah. Yeah. So someone, you know, accuses you of something you're like, God, you don't even know, man. Yeah. Dude, that was done before I even got rolling in the day. Yeah, You should have seen what I did after that. Yeah, yeah, but it's that same posture of humility, you know, that says, yeah, you're probably right. And if you knew everything that I screw up every day, Well, it, I can do is, you know, God have mercy. I me a sinner. yeah. Well, and it just, it just takes me back to the Old Testament story about the 12 spies that went into the promised land, that 10 of them came back and said, we're like grasshoppers to these guys. They're gonna squish us, And then Joshua and Caleb come back and they say their, their comparison was the enemy to God, and they're like, these guys are nothing. Trust me. You know what I mean? And so it's that, again, it's that perspective idea that if you could, if you look around at the guy to your left and right and say, well, I'm not this screwed up, Kat, I've got my life together more than this loser. Right? You, you just, there's no transformation in that. And there's, and the only way you can transform is what you said earlier, is when you align yourself up and you aim up, and that's your comparison and that's where you're going. You know, I look great compared to you. You know what I mean? yeah. my shot, here's my shot for the day. Yeah. I might look great compared to you. Wait a second. Yeah. I might look great compared to you, but it just falls so short. You know, it's like saying, you're here and man, I'm up here, but if your comparison is up here, well, who cares? Who's, who's ahead down here? Right? Yeah. And it goes back actually, now that we talk about it to the, the rich man with the field said, man, I've got, know, look around me. I'm, I'm loaded. Now I can kick right? it easy. Right? Yep. no transformation in kicking back and taking it easy. Yeah. it's another story to say the same thing. Yeah. no, man. If you were properly oriented to God, in some sense, you would give yourself grace, but in, in another sense, you would never be fully satisfied with your level of righteousness. Yeah. I think I, I think that's it. And it, again, it just goes back to that organic growth as opposed to the rigid checklist, I don't know. I think this series has been helpful for me because it kind of compresses 'em all together. And I think we've already said, man, we could go on and on about this parable or that parable, but there is something advantageous sort of racing through it at this high level view. Because you see the patterns, you see the connection with all of them. And if you take any of them in isolation, you can kind of go different directions with them. But when you have them all kind of laid out, man, it's just the pattern is obvious. What Jesus is pushing back against is fairly obvious. And it's also why the religious elite were so upset and bothered by this because he's pushing back on the very thing that they're saying is structurally in place that makes them the religious leaders to begin with, right? I've got this check mark, this check mark this check mark. Ask me anything about the law. I'll tell you exactly how to, how to define it. And Jesus keeps coming along and saying, look, I'm not gonna define you got your people, you got your lawyers for that. Here, let me tell you a story. And that's what caught, that's what it enact. Transformation. Yeah. yeah. No, that's really interesting.'cause it is. You see that pattern now in almost every one of these. Yeah. They just smack you in the face. Alright, should we do this last one? Uh, yeah. this one's a little more lengthy. Matthew 18, servant. This one's interesting too, so give it a listen, then we'll come back and talk about it. okay. So yeah, that was a little bit lengthier one. here again, well this is Matthew, and Matthew is giving this in response to, he's giving us a little bit of the setting here, but this time it's interesting 'cause it's Peter, Right. He's not just dogging on the Pharisees, Right. I, he's picking on Peter, which Peter, be honest, was easy to pick on apparently. sure. So Peter comes to Jesus and he says, Lord, how many times should I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me up to seven? And Jesus answered, I tell you, not seven, but 70 times seven. And Yeah. the story you just heard. Yeah. that setting, what, information do you think that setting sheds on this. Uh, the first thing I thought is, Peter, you've been following Jesus around for so long. You really thought that it would go well if you asked for a specific number, you really thought it was gonna, that this was gonna play out well. Hey, Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. He said he seven, and then I'm free. Like, did you think that that was gonna go well? That Jesus say, man, well played, Yeah, I personally would only give him six. But yeah, Like, but I do think the number matters. I think that Peter is not necessarily saying seven literal times, but sort of saying, do we do it to completion? You know, we've talked about that number seven before. So maybe to give credit to Peter, he's sort of saying, how many times do I forgive? Do I, you know, we have to forgive to completion. Right. You know, maybe that's what Peter was saying, as opposed to literally seven times. Well, I read something that said the law in the Old Testament or the, you know, the interpretation of it from the rabbis. The law actually says three times. I dunno if Okay. I read something that said, you know, look, the law would say you have to forgive someone three times. And after that it's like, quit enabling that person or something like that. Right, right, right, And so there's this idea maybe that Peter, he's actually, it's the same pattern, right? It's self-justification. right, right, many times should I forgive? Seven. that's enough.'cause the law says three. paying attention to you, Jesus. So seven times. again, the Jesus comes back now, the 70 times seven. That's interesting too.'cause that's, If seven is the completion, 70 times seven is basically saying no infinity, Right. We would say that on the Might as well be sure. so there's this picture then of Peter going, okay, Jesus, I'm not gonna fall in a trap of saying three, quoting the law, seven right to its yeah. And Jesus basically says, no, Peter Infinity. And Peter's like, oh, you know. And I I think you mentioned enabling, I think to, again, to give Peter credit, maybe this was a question of at what point are we enabling somebody, Jesus. Right. Because, if I steal money because you left it sitting on your bedside stand, okay, you can forgive that. If it happens again, you know, you're gonna point it out. You're gonna, you know, and you can forgive that, but at some point somebody would say, look, you're just enabling your brother by continuing to ignore the problem, by continuing to forgive him, by continuing to let him in your house and wander upstairs. Right. And steal yet again. maybe he's asking, you know, to give him credit. Maybe he's asking. Yeah. I know we're supposed to forgive, but isn't this gonna be a problem if, if somebody just keeps doing it over and over and over? Like, what are your thoughts on, on that? And what is Jesus saying? is he promoting, enabling people? You might think of it as a couple of different levels of forgiveness. One is as often as you ask, I should forgive you. but the other one is like, yeah, you gotta be smart about it. And I say that because I think we've seen through some of these parables. Go back to the Good Samaritan. It's like, well, who's Jesus talking to?'cause he might give a different answer if he were talking to Samaritans. right, right. Jesus always seems to give an answer that your self righteous position. Yeah. And I don't think, is my opinion, but I don't think what we can do with that is to say, oh, okay, so we should continually let ourselves get taken advantage of because someone else who's just a doormat might tell a far different story, Yeah. and so he is considering the, the person he's talking to, a and b, he's also pointing out that forgiveness isn't a transaction between you and the person you're forgiving necessarily, it's a transformation in you. Yeah, You know what I mean? It's, it's more for my transformation that when I forgive, I let something go a lot of times. And so, yeah. So to that example, you just keep doing it or else you're gonna carry it around. And, and again, I don't think he's getting into specifics of letting somebody walk all over you over and over, or putting yourself in these situations where you get taken advantage of. But he is saying that if you don't learn to let it go, you're just gonna carry it around with you. And unless, unless you have a mindset of, I'm always willing to forgive lest I be consumed with outrage all the time, then you gotta, you gotta have a mindset of letting these things go. Yeah. It's almost, I like what you said. It's, it's separating the hold that anger and resentment have on you versus the action of the other person. Jesus isn't not saying that. Well, Yeah. Continue to let yourself be taken advantage of. He's saying you have to let go the anger that's consuming you. You Right. Now, for goodness sakes, be smart about it too, and quit. Let yourself be taken advantage of. Yeah. very well might say that, but in this, again, a parable addresses a certain attitude. A parable is not, man, I keep going back to that idea of like the stone wall that surrounds a field, right? Mm-hmm. not what the parable is. The parables say, here's how you go be fruitful in the field. yes, this is how something grows. not necessarily how to interpret the strict structure of the law. Yeah. And again, Jesus is constantly shifting the story back to, how do we grow a field? Not how do we build a wall? How do we grow a harvest? You know? And that's, that's what he keeps going back to. yeah. I like that. so we jump into the story that's the context of it. and we get into this, we get into this absurd contrast in this story that's designed to make a point about, what is it, 10,000 bags of gold. The first servant was, was forgiven and then compared to some silver coins, right? Which is, which again, is just a, a silly contrast designed to make a point. Yeah. And you could kind of run with those amounts. One is like a million dollars versus, you know, a couple thousand. So, Yeah, I need to Google that. What is, what is 10,000 bags of gold. I have a equivalent in, 10,000 talents a talent was worth about 20 years of a day's wages. yeah, like 10 thou, 10,000 times t it's one of these. when some athlete signed a $400 million contract, I think someone did the math and said, if you made a hundred thousand dollars a year, it would take you something like 4,000 years. It's something that absurd. Yeah. So this is like GDP level numbers that Jesus is talking about here in this story. this is the athlete who just signed, you know, the $400 million contract. Yeah. can't even imagine what that kind of money is. Right. And he turns around and stiffs the waitress Yeah, doesn't have the $5 tip But yeah, it is, it's like, the Hollywood millionaire that is griping about what they're paying their mate or their, their driver or something like that. It's just, yes, it's designed to be absurd. well, yeah, it's pretty self-explanatory, but what are some of the deeper you see here? So, obviously one servant has this absurd amount forgiven and turns around and shakes who owned him a couple bucks, shakes him down and throws him in jail, and other people saw this and went back and told the king, right. This Yeah, like a fairytale. I think yeah. Yeah. It kind of does. again. I was like, know the bags of gold, the king and another kingdom, right? Yeah. and the throw him in jail and torture him until he can pay it back. It's like, well, best of luck ever paying it back when somebody's torturing you and pulling your fingernails out every day. Right. It's like what, what is it? The, the beatings will continue until morale improves. It's kind of that thing, right? It's, Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. I hadn't thought about that. It does, it does kind of read like a fairy tale, but no, a couple things I got out of this was the first thing I like the idea of comparing forgiveness to a physical debt. Right. Because debt is a pretty powerful metaphor Hmm. for all of us.'cause it, you know, it kind of quietly shapes how we relate to others. You know, if I owe you a couple thousand dollars, I'm kind of gonna avoid you. You know what I mean? It's like, uh, I'm not gonna go, I'm not gonna go to church because I may run into Dave and I owe him a bunch of money. Right. It, that guy money. Yeah. yeah. Right. So, so it affects how you relate to others anyway, when you, when you owe somebody. And so when it comes to forgiveness, you know, we always end up just kind of going back and forth forever. Like, well the only reason I did that is 'cause he did this to me. And the only reason he did that to me was 'cause I did this. You know what I mean? You're like two kids in the backseat of their parents' car. And so, you know, so viewing forgiveness as debt gives us a more. Tangible way that we can break that back and forth cycle. So that's, that's the first thing I think he's Jesus is doing, is like, let's make this tangible, you know, instead of Hatfield and McCoy's who did what first, we, we will just never untangle that, so that was kind of the first thing I got from it. But the other thing is that, it's another story about perspective that don't justify your unforgiveness by degrading the person that you don't want to forgive. Right? View it through the lens of what you've been forgiven. And that's how you transform, right? When you have the right perspective. I mean, there was a time, that if I was felt like I was cheated outta 50 bucks, man, it would've just eaten me alive. It, uh, it would've, I mean, it would've ruined my week. I was thinking of a story. I was, I was sold a used phone. It was an old iPhone, this is probably 10 years ago, the phone ended up being, uh, not being able to be unlocked, right? And Okay. had to have your Apple password, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I took it to the, I bought it. I paid like 200 bucks for it. I took it to the Apple store, told 'em the story. They're not gonna unlock it. Long story short is this thing is a brick, right? It's worthless. And so I called the guy back, he's like, Hey man, I can't get it. You know, he answered the phone the first time and he's like, oh yeah, well, uh, I don't have the money. I'm like, dude, this was like two days ago, three days ago. And anyway, he stopped answering. I text him, I'm like, dude, come on man. Don't do this to me. He never answered the text. I went back to his house 'cause I actually went to the house to pick it up To get the and yeah. And the person answered she, and, and she was like, yeah, he, he doesn't live, he doesn't actually live here. He, he was just staying and there's nothing I can do, dude. I was, I was just so eed up, you know, and talk about like, you know, to relate to the, to the servant that threw the lesser servant or the one who owed him money, the, the silver coins that wanted to throw him in prison. Right. I, I can relate to that dude. I wanted to catch this guy and throw him in prison. Right. And That's right. yeah. But at the end of the day, it was just crippling me. and that's how the unforgiving servant becomes a monster, you know?'cause you read this story and you're like, you know, what kind of animal is forgiven that much? And then turns around and, and shakes somebody down for milk money basically. and so it is, it's like that's how we become monsters, is we don't forgive and we don't let these things go. And not because he's wrong, cause the other servant owed him a legitimate amount of money. but because he's forgotten the larger story that he lives inside. And that's the problem yeah. as you were saying that I, it ties back to again, the Jesus prayer, right? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Like if I've been forgiven so much, you know, Mark's real. It's like you don't know the half of it, right? If, Yeah. been forgiven that much, it's like, man, why do I ever hold a grudge against other people? And again, that same principle is like, now that doesn't mean you just let people walk over you, Right, man, there's no sense in harboring grudges, right, in letting it affect friendships, uh, familial relationships. None of that is worth it, right. right? Well, you've heard before, about some, some guy who doesn't have a lot of money, but he's got a loving wife and a couple of kids who think, who are crazy about him. And the right way to point that out is, man, you're rich beyond measure. You've got a wonderful family. You've got a wonderful kids. You wouldn't take $10 million for it, and so therefore you're rich. But then we turn around and because of debts and forgiveness and injustice, we end up selling that. You know, it's like we, we tear our families apart and basically for something a lot less than $10 million, right? For, to go back to the brother a little bit of an inheritance money, you know, he's willing to just completely write his older brother off and say, Nope, burn it to the ground. I'm done. You know, and so the older I get, the more I just can't let that type of thing get to me. You know, the $200 things, right. You know, I'm blessed beyond anything that I deserve, and there's something therapeutic about exhaling and letting something go and moving on, right? By choosing to see it through all the good things that I have in life. that's not the same thing as ignoring justice. That's not being flippant about someone being a thief. It just opens up internal transformation for you, right? I can't fix the injustice in the world, but I can learn how to deal with it internally for me personally, you know? And so that's kind of how, this is a really, it seems a little bit of a simplistic, maybe even silly parable. But again, once you get into it and really take it apart and put yourself in the story, then you kind of really get something transformational out of it, as opposed to, again, Peter asking, give me a number. How many times do I forgive?'cause I'm getting real sick of forgiving this one dude over here. Jesus. You know? And I'll be glad to tell you the story here. Yeah, it was another disciple yeah, yeah. It's Philip, it's got, it's always Philip. guy's driving me crazy, Yeah. Bar all of you, man. You, you, you don't, you know, you know what I'm talking about. Jesus. I'm not gonna say it out loud, but you know. The, okay, so there's another, layer of symbolism in here that occurred to me.'cause he says, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts. And the idea again, is like the king in charge is like, okay, um, you know, it's tax time or whatever, right? But I Right. my accounts. And it just occurred to me, if you're a Jew in Israel at this time and Jesus is talking to you, like who is the king another kingdom who's settling accounts? Oh, I gotcha. Yeah. Okay. So you Yeah, you're bringing in the Roman yeah. Image. Do you think there's a layer here of Jesus? Maybe people, again, maybe it's that same thing. It's like people are walking around resentful of the Romans, you know, the Monty Python. What has Rome ever done for us? Right? Yeah. you know, these, all they do is take all our money. And, and so Jesus says, well, I'll tell you what, there's a king a, in a kingdom who comes and wants to settle accounts, but he And paints Caesar as the merciful, yeah, the benevolent king. Yeah. And, and again, if you are walking around with this unforgiveness in your heart, it just cripples you. And maybe, maybe you're right. Maybe that's why Jesus framed that, that story the way he did, because he knew the crowd, is just constantly walking around grumblings like, oh, you know, daggum Caesar and I can't get ahead, and all these other things. And yeah, maybe he framed it that way for that reason. Maybe. And maybe that's where the 10,000 bags of gold comes from. It's like, Hey, add it all up. Yeah. Yeah. right? That's the wealth of Rome, Right. Yeah. that's where that wealth is not just absurd. It's like you do the math, you're like, yeah, we're talking about all the money that Rome is taking from us in total. It probably is something like that. Right. You know, at least that's the way they saw it. Yeah. I don't know. I just thought that was a, interesting take on how it could be another little subtle layer of man, like all you got, not only Peter and you know, Bartholomew, but man, all you guys just walk around with such resentment towards Rome. Yeah. he goes, I'm telling you like the fertile field of the kingdom of heaven, you've gotta let go of that stuff. You've gotta let that go or else it's just gonna cripple you. I, well, I just think it's an interesting layer to it. I think you may be right on that, and no, I didn't pick up on that at all. Well, and it just, we seem to come back to this theme, but because it seems like all of these things kind of merge into this idea of, man, you have to let stuff go. You have to keep oriented upward, right? You have to focus on the, the fertility of the field and not the rigidness of the wall Yeah. field. Well it, yeah, on all of these, the law asks What am I justified in doing? And Jesus says, no wisdom asks a different question. The wisdom asks who am I becoming if I do it right? And this distinction explains why Jesus kept refusing to give straight legal answers, right? The lawyer wanted permission. The brother wants leverage. You know, Peter wants a forgiveness limit. And Jesus keeps responding with stories because rules settle arguments. But stories reshape people, which stories create that inward transformation, and that's what Jesus was concerned with. Yeah, yeah. Now it's the same thing. I, I picture Peter walking off going dadgumit, like, Yeah. Come here, Barth, all of you. Let's hug it out. Come on. stupid story that I can't forget now. Right. You know, and the next time Bartholomew irritates me, this story's gonna come to mind and Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for screwing all this up for me. Jesus. yeah, Right. No, this is a it. it's a great story. yeah, I do like, taking them in groups and, you know, we're just taking like four or five, but there's, I, I think I I, there's like 40 plus parables. So I do like them together. So you can see the same imagery, you can see the same message, you can see the, the contrast. Right. mm-hmm. And you really do get a complete picture of what Jesus is trying to say to people of his day. Yeah. Well, I hope it's becoming obvious to the listeners as much as it's becoming obvious to us that Jesus is addressing real issues, but he's just doing it in a different way than the religious leaders that typically handled these sorts of interpretive problems. And the picture he keeps painting isn't this image of the law etched in stone, but to go back to that seed that's organically growing and transforms, he's moving away from the rigid, legalistic framework that only gets more restrictive, right? And he's moving toward this underlying spirit of that legalistic framework, which is so much more. Yeah. Holistic. I don't like that word that much, but you know what I mean. Uh, the holistic, transformative, that's what he's looking for. He's trying to move away from that legalistic framework. And that's the theme you see all through these. yeah. And, by extension he's saying, this is what the kingdom of heaven will be like. And Yeah, back to the garden. yeah, what Eden was like. Right? yeah. When we usher in the garden again, this is what it's gonna be like. This is what it was intended to be. yeah. These are, these are interesting and they really are painting a more complete picture and a better understanding of parables in general. yeah. So where are we going next week? We got how many more of these? Two more episodes. The next episode we are going to talk about, I, I say communing with the divine because these have more to do with how you relate to God. So today it was more, you know, how do I, to others? This is more like, how do I commune with God? And another familiar parable to most people is the prodigal son. There's gonna be a lot there and oh yeah. some others too. that's really how we relate to God. So we'll get more specific next episode. Okay. Yeah, that sounds good. yeah. And you know, so now that we're releasing these on YouTube, we always say we want to hear from you. It, it occurred to me. You don't have to listen to this on YouTube if you listen to it on Spotify or Apple thing, but YouTube is one of the easiest places, truly just to your question or make a comment. Yeah. Leave a comment there. yeah, that would be a great place. If you have any thoughts or ideas, just go to the episode on YouTube and just leave us a comment there. That's probably the easiest thing to do. Yeah. The YouTube platform is a lot more conducive to, kind of talking back and forth and some, some podcast. However you're listening to it, you may not even be able to leave the comment, but yes, that's a good idea. Go to YouTube and start the conversation there and we'll pick it up. Yep. Sounds good. Okay. Alright, we'll see you next episode. Thanks for listening. We hope this episode helped you see these ancient stories and maybe your own story a little more clearly. If you found it helpful, share it with someone you know you can find more episodes and resources at navigating an ancient faith.com. Until next time, keep paying attention.