The ending of Isaiah projects a beautiful image of the world made right. Jerusalem restored. People live to an advanced aged. The lion eats straw. The serpent is not longer a problem. For a people deeply traumatized from the experience of exile and now returned home, there are probably images that felt both comforting and true. There world, once rocked and destroyed, had massively improved. However, it was not yet the perfection described in Isaiah's vision. Indeed, that level of perfection still eludes us. So, we find trust in the promises already kept to find hope in the promises still out there to be fulfilled.

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Purity Culture is a thing - quite a thing. It was all the rage in youth groups across the nation and fed in part by Joshua Harris's I Kissed Dating Goodbye. It put an extreme focus on saying literally everything until marriage and turned pre-martial sex (particularly for young women) into a kind of uber sin, a sin that there's no coming back from. Good news! None of that's in the Bible, and Joshua Harris has disavowed his own book that he wrote at the age of 21 (the age where everyone always has it all figured out).

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Contemplating the meaning of life is one of humanity's eternal challenges. We want there to be meaning - to have our existence be more than simply a set of memories that evaporate with us. Our relationship with God hold the answers to these questions and fears. While our earthly life does end, God does not, and when we invest our lives into our relationship with God and with others, our existence and relationships go on forever. It's not just that our work and efforts out live us. It's that cease being a part of what God is doing - eternally.

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Two men pray, but the one that doesn't match the traditional social script is the one that walks away justified. Part of God's deep beauty is the way that God, unlike the bulk of humanity, looks purely at a person's heart. It's not about being from a righteousness focused group or being the wrong kind of person. God sees through all of that into a person's reality and deeper motivation. So, as we approach God, we should do so with our genuine selves because we can't hide anything from God.

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Talking about prayer can stray to some difficult directions extremely quickly. When we have story about being persistent in prayer and about God's goodness, we need to balance all of that being truth with the fact that plenty of people end up feeling like they're prayer didn't get answered. That persistence isn't simply about banging down God's door. It's about staying in our relationship with God even when the answer that we get doesn't align with our desires.

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Jesus concludes a conversation with a particularly thankful leper that his "faith had made him well." Ten lepers all received physical healing just because they asked. This one who turns around and actually thanks Jesus gets something additional. It all points to a kind of wellness or wholeness that stretches far beyond the physical. Thankfulness and a deeper connection with God are all part of a much deeper and holistic version of being well.

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2 Timothy positions Paul at the end of his life - reflecting on what it meant and trying to pass something onto the next generation. Timothy represents that next generation. He grew up in the church and marks a major shift in church leadership to second generation Christians. He's the first youth group kid that made good. We see an early iteration of what has become the eternal work of the church - to prepare and inspire the next generation to continue the great relay race of faith.

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Shiny Happy People Season 2: A Teenaged Holy War is A LOT if you crew up in the Christian Rock/Evangelical/Contemporary Christian Music scene in the 1990s and early 2000s. Both Pastor Trey and Pastor Emily very much did. Journey with them as they explain their near misses and the ways that they might still be fighting a holy war.

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Jeremiah is a sad prophet. He has a lot to be sad about. By serving as prophet in the direct run up to the Exile, he was never going to have a lot of good news to report. The people are crying out for relief, but a long history of their own failings landed them in this position in the first place. When we find our selves wondering where God is in the midst of a world looking on the brink of collapse, we might call to mind the normal way that God moves in the world - through people heeding God's call.

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Every tell all documentary about a new religious movement takes a turn at some point. They all start out with a merry band of weirdos and misfits - folks who never feel like they belong anywhere else but finally find belonging. It's great. Eventually, it all turns dark when someone declares themselves perfect and a living god to be followed and served unquestioningly. Paul never does that step. He stay humble and even in his farewell address to his second in command, Timothy, call himself the foremost among sinners. That's part of why we can revere Paul because Paul doesn't revere Paul.

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Sometimes, Jesus goes for shock value. You have to be willing to hate all your loved ones, get rid of all your property, and take up your cross. It's a lot. It's probably, partly, hyperbole, but still, it's a blunt statement on the nature of discipleship. God comes first. We live our lives with God as one priority among many - job, family, the grind daily life, our finances. That's not how Jesus lived, and this scripture about the cost of discipleship challenges us to live differently as well.

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This scripture looks like social advice. Don't jump to the seat on honor until it's offered to you. Sure. However, there's more to it than that. It's not just about where you try to sit and, instead, is more about how important you think that you are. Don't think so highly of yourself that you automatically assume that honors should be coming your way, and don't see yourself as above others that you don't leave room for those that often get left behind.

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Any time we hear about Jesus healing or doing anything else on the Sabbath, we have to recognize that he is breaking the Law. He keeps getting a reaction for it because it is truly and rightfully shocking to his original audience. The Old Testament spends a lot of time explaining that you should be willing to die rather than be prevented from living a holy, Law abiding life. Jesus keeps breaking the Law. He's making a bigger point about what sits beneath the Law as written, about what the Law is meant to teach us. We love God by following the Law, and we love neighbor through acts of kinds. We also love God, the most, by loving neighbor. If the two are in conflict, choose love.

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Sit through enough funerals, All Saints Day services, or Memorial Day events, and at some point, some one will remind you of the "Great Cloud of Witnesses." We often use this as a generic term for the saints that came before us. Their original context, in Hebrews, is far from generic. This cloud is specifically our faithful heroes of the Old Testament who went through a shocking amount of human suffering for the sake of God. The paragraphs leading setting up the celebration of the witnesses and our challenge to be like them are almost comically graphic in their descriptions of what these folks went to. The Great Cloud of Witnesses were folks who held God as their primary allegiance.

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When we picture a "religion" in our mind, we probably see ceremonies, special outfits, and specific traditions. We might call to find a Catholic Mass, a Jewish Passover seder, or a Muslim family breaking a fast together during Ramadan. In theory, we practice these rituals to connect us to God and each other - to help us down a journey of transformation. The religion is a set of practices to aid in a meaningful divine human relationship. Isaiah opens with a warning. Don't stop at the ritual piece. They don't mean anything if you don't continue to part of caring more for people because of your relationship with God.

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Before starting this episode, open up Google maps and punch in "storage units near me." In classic Internet parlance, the results may surprise you. They're massive and just about everywhere. We keep finding more stuff to put in them. Who doesn't like cool stuff? However, Jesus reminds us of a couple of things. One, we can't take it with us, and two, maybe we should focus on the things that we can take with us - our relationship with God and others. Additionally, could there be another use for all that money in God's kingdom somewhere? Who can say?

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God's innate goodness is one of Christianity's core tenets. We agree. We named this show the Goodness of God. However, God is not a vending machine or a bad version of Santa Claus. It's not just insert a prayer and get out your desired result. Things we pray for don't come to pass. Things that we pray against happen. So, we have to zoom out and dig deeper into the goodness of God.

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Human life pulls us in a lot of directions. Our culture values the right grindset. Social media companies hope that you never rest and just keep clicking away. We can hear the story of Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus and see it as wildly unrealistic. Get back to work, Mary! While we can't let go of every responsibility, we can be more intentional in seeking God in the midst of it all and limiting what pulls us away.

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We want exceptions to who we have to love because the alternative challenges us in a deep and dark place. Humans are shockingly good at dehumanizing other humans to create lists and categories of people that we don't have to care about, who we can harm, who we can exclude. Jesus obliterates all of that with one parable - the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The hated enemy gets cast as the hero, who in turn, cares for his enemy. We don't get easy outs. The call is to love even the most unlovable - even the person ruining the thing that you love.

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God just is. God is everywhere. God is in your life. God has power. God is constantly moving. As humans, we develop tools and techniques that help us comprehend, access, and see what God is doing. We have religious words for them like "ritual," "worship," or "sacrament," These things can help us find God, but they are not themselves God or powerful. In the story from 2 Kings, the great general Naaman feels disappointed that he didn't get an elaborate ceremony, but it wasn't needed. God just healed him.

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