Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Finding God in the Debate {Reflections}
Ryan opens episode 77 of the Reflections podcast by sharing a fascinating encounter at Starbucks with a man who left his Protestant evangelical church to become Catholic. The man's surprising reason? He was tired of theological arguments and wanted one authoritative voice to provide definitive answers. This conversation launches Ryan into a thoughtful exploration of why he takes the completely opposite approach to faith.
Drawing from ancient Jewish traditions, Ryan explains how rabbis approached sacred texts not as puzzles with single correct answers, but as multifaceted gems to be turned and examined from different angles. Each rabbi would bring their interpretive "yoke" to the discussion table, offering diverse perspectives that weren't viewed as competing rights and wrongs, but as honoring the text through thoughtful engagement. Even Jesus participated in this tradition with his own unique interpretive approach.
This "turning the gem" metaphor illuminates a profound spiritual practice – the same unchanging text reveals different insights depending on our perspective, life stage, and the Spirit's guidance. Ryan argues that wrestling with scripture in community, engaging with difficult questions, and allowing space for multiple viewpoints doesn't diminish our respect for sacred writings but actually honors God. While acknowledging that some interpretations are indeed better than others, he invites listeners to embrace the wonder, mystery and collaborative journey of faith rather than seeking oversimplified answers. What might we discover when we approach our faith with both reverence and a willingness to wrestle with its complexities?
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What is up everybody? Hey, my name is Ryan and welcome to our Reflections podcast. I'm in studio with Mike this is actually Mike's office, but we were just talking and this is episode number 77, which is awesome. It's one of my favorite numbers. One of the reasons is because the Jews believed that the number seven represented the image of perfection or completion, which is great. A lot of these in the Jewish consciousness, a lot of the numbers mean other things, but also I'm a huge Denver Broncos fan and, of course, john Elway, the greatest quarterback of all time, was number seven. So there's that. That's a free one for you today. But hey, being episode 77, I was thinking back.
Speaker 1:A couple years ago I was in Starbucks and talking with this guy and we were chatting. He noticed a book I was reading and he was talking about his own faith journey. He's a Christian and he goes. He told me he just had left this Protestant evangelical kind of a mega church. He left it to convert to Catholicism. So he left this Protestant evangelical church to go become a Catholic, which I look, I know tons of like really wonderful, beautiful, god-fearing Jesus, jesus loving Catholics.
Speaker 1:But I usually see the opposite and when it comes to conversions. A lot of folks will leave the Catholic Church and convert to some kind of form of Protestantism or evangelicalism or something like that. And I go well, tell me why, why'd you convert? And he goes look in the Protestant Church or in the evangelical tradition there are lots of different ways to think about the texts and theologies and I got sick and tired of having arguments or hearing arguments about which theology is right or which interpretation of that text is right, and I wanted to just go somewhere where I'd have one person tell me the answer. I thought, oh wow, I told them, I go hey, I appreciate that, but I am the exact opposite. In fact, I don't want to have just one single person tell me the answer for a number of reasons, one of which is I'm not sure it's how it's supposed to work. I don't know if there is one single answer. Now, look, I know there is such a thing as objective truth, and I'm not saying there's not, and some interpretations are for sure better than others. But I'm saying I think part of the beauty and the wonder and the journey of our faith involves the wrestling and the arguing and the discussion. In fact, my own way how I learn is. I like to sort of dabble in all the different ways of thinking about anything and then kind of come to this conclusion within my community about, hey, here's kind of where I'm landing on this idea or this text, but there's so much room in some of these topics to kind of have this discussion. In fact, I realized too I was in good company.
Speaker 1:This is how the rabbis would teach and how they approach the text. The rabbis, of course, each had their own way of viewing, interpreting and understanding any given text or law, so they would come to this discussion table with their interpretation they called it their yoke, and this is how I see this text, this law and then they would say this is the most important thing about this story or this sacred text. And then someone across the table would say, no, no, here's the most important thing. Or here's how I would read that text. And then another rabbi would say, no, no, here's how I would read that text and here's how I would read that text. And it wasn't as though one of them was right and the rest were wrong, which is kind of a more modern Western way of thinking about anything Like. If there are eight, you know, different opinions. Seven of them are wrong, only one's right.
Speaker 1:But the rabbis didn't see it that way. They thought they were all honoring the text. There's multiple ways to view a text and interpret them, or things that can speak to us out of these texts and what it means and what does it mean to be a faithful person to the text and to God in this way? And Jesus himself had his own yoke. They call it a yoke the way you saw the text, and he had his own. And so that was actually how they honored God. And how they honored the text was by wrestling with it, by arguing about it, by really diving deep into it themselves and saying, hey, here's how I see it, and then discussing it. In fact, they called this.
Speaker 1:When they would approach the text in this way, they'd call it turning the gem. They saw the Bible, or really the Hebrew Bible or the scriptures, as this sacred gem that you hold it in the light and you turn it, and if you can imagine doing that, it's still the same gem all the time. But when you spin it and you turn it, you see different colors and the light reflects in different ways and refracts in different ways, and so you're always getting just a different experience. And they would approach the text that way and they would come to it and they'd read it and it was alive and they would chew it and regurgitate it and chew it some more and, knowing that God, the Spirit, would speak to them in different ways and that the text doesn't change, but their experience of it sort of changes and what they see and what they notice can change, especially in different stages and phases of life.
Speaker 1:And so that's why I love our tradition that we read the Bible together, we interpret it together, we preach this word together and we wrestle and argue and there's lots of different ways to see things and interpret them and look, some of course are better than others and there are some things that are orthodox and some things that are unorthodox and that kind of thing, but generally there's just a lot of room for rustling and negotiating and understanding. What does God mean in that? And we honor God by doing that. Now I do want to say I'm not saying look, everyone's right. Like I said, there are better interpretations than others and some people are just going nowhere in their thinking, and that's fair.
Speaker 1:What I'm saying is that we join this long tradition of the rabbis who are genuinely trying to find God and understand things like when Jesus says love your neighbor, what does that mean exactly? Who's my neighbor? How do I love them? What am I responsible for with them? That's what I mean wrestling with the text and the theologies and understanding that there's all kinds of ways to see these things. And we do it together in community. So I invite you today to experience the grandeur and the wonder of God and even the mystery of God in the text and even with each other, as we read these stories together and talk about theology together and leave room for each other. And may we experience God in a deeper way. May we grow our faith today. Amen, peace. Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends. And don't forget, you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 830, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering, or you can check us out online at clcelkriverorg Peace.
