Hearing The Gospel (and Knowing What We're Hearing)

Summary

In this conversation, Bishop DeDe and Adam explore the complexities of faith, the discernment of truth, and the essence of the gospel of Jesus. They discuss the importance of humility, curiosity, and relationships in understanding faith, as well as the challenges of discerning the true gospel amidst conflicting messages. Personal stories illustrate the journey of faith, emphasizing the need for community and the call to love and include all people, even those we may find difficult to embrace.

Takeaways

-The journey of faith involves seeking truth larger than ourselves.
-Listening and humility are essential in discerning the gospel.
-The gospels present different narratives about Jesus, but the core message is love.
-Loving our neighbor requires changing our perspective and mindset.
-We often struggle with the complexity of relationships in faith.
-True discernment may involve discomfort and conviction.
-The gospel is an invitation for all, regardless of differences.
-Community is vital for understanding and living out the gospel.
-We must confront false gospels that promote exclusivity.
-Knowing the gospel helps us identify false teachings. 

Chapters

00:00 Exploring Faith and Truth
07:05 The Journey of Discerning the Gospel
18:13 Personal Stories of Faith and Understanding
24:56 Confronting False Gospels and Inclusivity

AI Disclosure: To support our staff in their limited time, many of our episode summaries are first generated by AI and then edited by the Communications Director to accurately reflect and preview our podcast episodes.

Transcript

Bishop DeDe (00:03.128)
Hey there, how are y'all? We're ready to speak about faith. My name is DeDe Duncan-Probe. I am the Episcopal Bishop of Central New York. I am so glad to have this time with you. This is a podcast in which we talk about faith. This is not meant to be authoritative. It's meant to be invitational. I'm inviting you and all of us to consider how we talk about our faith and what we mean when we're speaking faith.

I'm well, I'm joined today by Adam Eichelberger, our director of communications. I'm grateful for Adam's technical wisdom and also his wisdom on all things. This is a conversation that we have. Now what's been on my heart and mind in the last span of time, not sure how long you would say, is how do we know the gospel of Jesus and or how do we attune our ears to understand truth when we hear it?

What is our maybe mechanism or how is it that you understand discerning God's ways from human ways? How do you discern what is true and right and good from all that happens around us? I don't know if you've noticed, but in this time, there's an awful lot of people talking and not a lot of people listening. And mostly people are speaking from a place of authoritative. I know this, therefore you should understand this too.

What I want to do in this podcast is open that up a bit and come at it from a place of curiosity and humility and faithfulness. All of us are seeking to know truth that's larger than ourselves, whether we're Christians or your faith is some other faith. We are seeking to know what is right and true and good. And that journey is a sacred journey. And it also takes attention and time and real soul searching, I think.

to Now, I will say that for me, as when I talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ, I really am talking about the gospels that are in our scriptures, the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. also have a big fan of the Gnostic texts, a little nod to, you know, nerds that the Nag Hammadi texts to listen for truth that has come to us from other centuries and generations, people seeking God.

Bishop DeDe (02:29.164)
with Matthew and Mark and Luke and John to know that these gospels do not tell the same narrative, but they're talking about the same witness of Jesus, that they're talking about Jesus in different ways. I also happen to really believe that the gospel of Jesus is about that journey of learning and then there's a crisis or a death and then there's resurrection.

And then there's continued learning, this movement of the spirit that is very much like our Eucharistic theology and all of those things. So I'm going to back away from that a little. And also talking about the good news of Jesus is to talk about salvation, that there's something about Jesus that saves us. For some people, it's learning about how Jesus lived and emulating that in their lives. For some people, it's about understanding that Jesus

was crucified for our sins and so there's salvation in being forgiven through that redemptive act. And for some of us, Jesus saves us by the engagement with the Holy Spirit and being made new in the process of becoming whole. That as we learn and the Spirit moves in our lives, we're healed. However you understand the gospel of Jesus, at the core of it is this teaching of Jesus about loving God with all our heart.

mind, soul, and strength. And then the second is like unto it to love our neighbor as ourselves. This understanding that at the very foundational level of the good news of Jesus is relationship, relationship, relationship, relationship. It is really hard in this time to have relationships. So many people want to be right about everything.

They want to say that their way is right and if you don't agree with me, there's something wrong with you. We may be that person that if you don't agree with me, there's something wrong with you. I think we need the humility and the curiosity to know that in each seeking heart, God is at work. So how do we know when we've heard the truth or how do we know when what someone is saying that it is like Jesus?

Bishop DeDe (04:46.444)
And I think the first thing we do is we listen and we compare it and look at it alongside what Jesus teaches. There is nowhere in the gospels where Jesus says, well, you can disregard all of those people. They don't matter, only we do. There's nowhere in the gospel where Jesus actually does that. Jesus talks about the people of God, Jesus talks about Jews, Jesus talks about his followers, but he does not talk about

those people have no value. We're to forgive our enemies, we're to love our enemies, we're to pray for our enemies, we're to offer cups of cold water. So whenever I hear someone talking about the gospel of Jesus as a way of isolating, separating, annihilating, putting down, dehumanizing any other group or person, right there I know that that isn't the gospel of Jesus.

And that can be hard because as humans, think we kind of like that stuff. We kind of want those people to go away. Everybody should agree with us. But when they don't, our calling is to love our enemies, not just hope that they have a nice day or make sure that they're not harmed. Our call is to actually embrace them as God's beloved people. And that feels very threatening and vulnerable.

because it feels like there's no wisdom in it. If you're loving your enemies, then you're just gonna lose. You're just making yourself open for all kinds of harm. But Jesus also goes on to say that we are to care for the stranger and that we're to care for ourselves. To love our neighbor as ourself means we are caring for ourselves too. We're making sure that we're not harmed.

that we're not dehumanizing ourselves, that we're not putting ourselves down. And I don't know about you, but I think that's probably one of the things we struggle with the most is to not put our own selves down. What's wrong with you? Why can't I do this? I'm just a terrible person. So all of this to say as we're speaking of faith, it's pretty complicated. And so I'm gonna bring Adam into this because I can keep talking about how complicated it is. But Adam, as you listen to this, what sort of...

Adam Eichelberger (07:05.5)
you

Bishop DeDe (07:09.144)
questions or what sort of curiosity in you.

Adam Eichelberger (07:13.69)
I think one of the things that that I've been thinking about a lot, Bishop, and I think that for me and my own faith journey, this has been going on for a while. I think that it has been drummed up a lot, especially over recent weeks and months and years. But when we talk about how we can hear God, how can we attune ourselves to hear God and actually discern what

the gospel is because like you said, there's the text of the gospels that we read when we participate in scripture, but also the good news of Jesus that we're called to live. I think that sometimes those messages get mixed up and I've talked to a lot of folks who get really frustrated about seeing things like the gospel and I'm using air quotes here, the gospel being proclaimed, but it's very clearly is serving

Bishop DeDe (07:58.87)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (08:06.583)
Haha.

Adam Eichelberger (08:11.182)
another purpose. So I guess my first one when it comes to like kind of discerning the truth, if we're to call it that, if so many sources are claiming to speak for God, how do we discern what is truly God of God and the gospel and what's not?

Bishop DeDe (08:12.204)
That's right.

Bishop DeDe (08:18.54)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (08:30.254)
Right. It's such a hard question because sometimes you just don't know. You you listen to somebody and you can get really kind of inculcated into it and think, oh, that sounds like that's true. And especially because we kind of have what's, you know, the Bible says, they're itching ears. We we like to hear what makes us feel good or makes us feel pumped up or or sort of satisfies our longing for a certain type of security. But when we hear the gospel of Jesus,

Adam Eichelberger (08:46.61)
Hmm.

Bishop DeDe (08:59.54)
I think sometimes the way we know is because it convicts us. And sometimes that first thing when we hear it, it isn't a euphoric feeling. It's a ouch. It's a, my goodness, that's true. I have been hateful or I need redemption. And you know, we're not too keen on that. We want God to tell us we're all great and God loves us and God does think we're great, but God is calling us to repentance first.

Adam Eichelberger (09:03.505)
Mm.

Adam Eichelberger (09:11.025)
Hmm.

Bishop DeDe (09:29.708)
So the way we hear Jesus is first through, walking through that fire of repentance, that fire, the dross, the way that the Holy Spirit cleanses us with fire is sometimes that we have to face that we're in need of redemption. And so when we can only see the sin in someone else's eyes, like Jesus talks about with the log and the splinter.

If we can only see the sin that other people are committing, but we cannot see the sins we commit, then there's a conviction of we have become about something that just makes us feel good. And Dietrich Bonhoeffer would talk about cheap grace or costly grace. Cheap grace is we just wanna feel good and feel comforted and just kinda cozy up to the fire. Costly grace is to allow the fire to burn through us.

and cleanses of our selfishness and our greed and our desire to put others down so we can raise ourselves up. And so I think first and foremost, when we're assessing if something's true or not, is there an element in it where it convicts us? Where we realize that we've been wrong in some way and it compels us to want to be better, to want to try to be more like Jesus.

And I think first and foremost, have to start with when do we feel something convict us?

Adam Eichelberger (11:01.778)
And that's, and it's hard to because I don't think anybody would ever say that like, it's a bad thing. When we hear the gospel, when we hear the story of Jesus for it to bring joy or excitement or to make us feel good. But I think that it kind of you've spoken about this on the podcast before Bishop, I'm pretty sure we talked about a couple of episodes ago that like, Paul talks about like,

a mature faith and that it has to grow and like those things are good as we are kind of young in our faith but as we grow we need to be willing to be made uncomfortable. I talked about this with Ken and Megan on her podcast Cheap Plug for the rest of us with Ken and Megan Castellan but we talked about this on her podcast about the fact that in the Bible when we talk about the Bible we often put ourselves in the role of the protagonist.

Bishop DeDe (11:27.064)
Right.

Adam Eichelberger (11:54.982)
that like, I'm the good guy. I do that all the time. I've done that for years, reading the Bible, or I'll read the Gospels, and I'll hear Jesus exhorting people or telling a parable. And I'm like, I'm the good guy. And it's, it's a really uncomfortable relationship when our it's really uncomfortable when our relationship with God, when we understand like, no, we're not. And that doesn't mean God doesn't love us, right? That's what I hear you saying that it doesn't say it doesn't mean God doesn't love me. He's just saying, I need you to go deeper.

I need you to do more.

Bishop DeDe (12:26.848)
And I think that this whole idea about good and bad is really destructive because the thing is it's not about good and bad. We are sinners. We...

We are self-motivated. We are self-motivated to be the protagonist, as you say, or to be the winner. We don't want to be the loser. We are, all of those things are true. But that isn't the same as loving ourselves. That's a fear that somebody's going to be taken from us. And so this idea that we're self-protective is a part of our sinfulness. And so,

Adam Eichelberger (12:57.682)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (13:08.686)
What you're saying is absolutely true that we're called to, you know, really open our hearts to God, that God wants to go deeper than that. It's easy. You know, when you first start playing a sport, you don't play it very well, but you're also not critical of yourself because you don't play it very well. But as you start to play it more and more, gets to where you start needing to train and you start needing to do laps and you start needing to do more throw, know, throw, uh, uh, free throws or.

Adam Eichelberger (13:37.851)
Right?

Bishop DeDe (13:38.24)
whatever the sport may be, and it gets harder and harder and harder to train because it's no longer at the easy level. Our faith needs to grow in a similar way. When we start out, we fall in love with God and we think God is good and wants to heal us. And it's like, yay, this is so great. And that is really important. That first love of God is so powerful and lights our heart on fire. So great.

But then as we grow in our faith, we get to that point where we realize, I'm so tired of God asking me to care about other people. Pretty sick at caring about other people. I just want to go back to that time when God cared about me and I didn't have to think about caring about other people because caring about other people is super hard work. And I said it this Sunday, those of you who were there and heard me, but you know, we talk about loving our neighbor and.

Adam Eichelberger (14:12.786)
Mm.

Bishop DeDe (14:32.482)
people will say to me, well, I tried that once and it didn't work. And I'll say, well, yeah, it didn't because you thought that loving your neighbor meant they were gonna suddenly be nice to you, or you're gonna suddenly like them more, or they're gonna suddenly conform to a form of which you approve. Loving our neighbor means we learn to change our mind. We learn to see our neighbor through the lens of God's grace. And that thing we're holding against them.

we ask God's forgiveness for so that we can see them as God sees them. And in all of this, you're a listener, if you're starting to say, there are people who do wrong things and we need to hold them accountable and we need, yes, this is not about a free for all or some sort of free pass. This is about how we care for others, has generosity and kindness first and foremost. And it's not about seeking our own way.

When we want to learn about love, Paul wrote a wonderful treatise on that in 1 Corinthians 13, where we can read about kind of a description of what it is we're going for. It doesn't seek its own way. It isn't hardy, you know, all these things. So to be about the gospel of Jesus is to be about learning to be cleansed of our need to be right, to be forgiving, to offer grace and compassion.

Adam Eichelberger (15:57.735)
Hmm.

Bishop DeDe (15:58.57)
And in this present time, let me just put a fine point on it. I have people contact me after the election and say, at my church, we don't want to pray for the president, the governor, whoever it is. And this happens, this happens every time there's an election. Just dear listeners, so that you know, this happens every time when the person's other, when the other party wins, people will say, well, I don't want to pray for whoever it is. I do not hate.

anyone in another party. I don't want them to die, don't want them to die early. I don't want hard things, terrible things to happen to them. Because as a person of Jesus, what I want is for them to be convicted like I am, to seek what is best for our neighbors, to be partners in helping the world be better. And so I pray for our leaders in the country that they will have a change of heart or that they're

perspectives will be infused with the gospel of Jesus that is healing and restorative and justice driven. That they will lay down their grudges or their selfishness and actually seek God's way. Part of loving our neighbor is not excluding somebody because we don't like how they are. Loving our neighbor is inviting people and setting boundaries, but also hoping for the best for them.

Adam Eichelberger (17:23.378)
And it comes back to the you've talked about on the podcast before Matthew 5 44 Love your enemies pray for those who persecute you that when we have that when we have differences and Disagreements and we feel cornered in by the people who are not in line with what it is that we want or desire believe that we that we're called to pray for them and I think that that's That is hard work. It's really really hard work Here's what I have for you Bishop and

Bishop DeDe (17:29.601)
Right.

Right.

Bishop DeDe (17:43.832)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Adam Eichelberger (17:51.598)
And this one isn't really so much something I've heard from somebody else, but this is just more me asking you. I, listener, will be the voice, I will be the voice of the faceless. You are listening and I will be your voice in this. Can you maybe share with us a time when you struggled to hear God's voice and what did you do to navigate through that?

Bishop DeDe (18:13.61)
I'm, you know, that is great. then listener, just in case you think this was a setup, I didn't know what he was going to ask. So I was on the staff at a church. was late at the time I was not ordained and it was at a church that had a big feeding program and it was an inner city feeding program. And so there was a very large program, couple hundred people a day would come for lunch. And there was one man who very regularly, they had to call the police for.

Very large man. was about six, four. So you can't see me listener, but I'm, I'm not six, four. And, he was a very large guy. he was very off putting looking because he had long, blonde. was, he was a person without a lot of melanin. And so he had blonde hair and he was, and then he had this, these big scars. So he's a very large guy. He also, I would guess was on PCP or something because sometimes he would get very, worked.

and they would have to wrestle him to the ground and the police would come and I found him frightening. He also did not speak and I was told that he was deaf. And so he would grunt and he would make noises and he was, he just scared me because I would see them wrestling with him or when he would be yelling, know, doing these loud noises because he was so frustrated. And so in my work at the church,

I would go into this feeding program and I would talk with people and listen to them, but I would really super avoid this guy because I found him very off putting and I was afraid of him. And so I had a conviction reading scripture one day and thought, okay, I, I need to, I need to learn to see Christ in this person. And I really did have a very strong conviction about it. So I started praying about it and about,

you know, about this. And one day at lunch, I happened to be sitting out on the patio area by myself and I was looking at the sunshine and enjoying the day. And this guy came out and he sat across from me on one of the benches. And it was just the two of us in this courtyard alone. And my first feeling was, you know, fear. I wanted to jump up and leave the space. But because I'd been praying about it, I thought, no, I'm I'm going to, I'm going to wait, sit here and, and be quiet.

Bishop DeDe (20:39.816)
And so after a few minutes, he got up and walked away. And then I was so relieved and went to my office. And so then a few days later, same thing happened. I was sitting out because I would go there to have lunch. He came out to appease myself. I started just talking to him, thinking again, he's deaf mute. Can't hear me. So I just start talking about, it's a beautiful day and look at the birds and my gosh, isn't this great? And then I said goodbye to him as I left. So the next day.

I walk into the feeding program and he's standing there in line and I don't make eye contact because at this point I never made eye contact with him because I was afraid that would be an invitation or you know, and or yell at me. So as I'm walking past, I realized that he grunted hi Deedee, not to script. mean, it was very, it was, it was not clear, but I suddenly realized he'd said my name.

And I whipped around and looked at him. said, did you say my name? And he nodded and in his way smiled, which I sometimes when people smile is worse. It enhanced the scars on his face. And I thought, he said my name. He's not deaf. And that was what I thought. Well, as you can tell, up until this point, he was not a person to me.

He was a fear object. But when he said my name, I realized he's a person. And after that, I started seeking him out and asking how I stay. And he would grunt at me. And I learned to speak a new language, which was Will. I learned to speak Will language. And after a while, they started calling me and saying, he's asking for something, and we can't understand him. And often,

Adam Eichelberger (22:04.996)
Hmm.

Bishop DeDe (22:34.388)
It was, he was asking for a cup of water or a napkin or a fork, but because everyone was afraid of him and thought he couldn't speak, they just never responded to him. And then he would get frustrated. The time. So when he would get frustrated, started decreasing because we all learned to listen to him. And then the real capstone of the story is my wedding day. Cause this was a church where we got married.

Adam Eichelberger (22:53.126)
Hmm.

Bishop DeDe (23:00.594)
I arrived with my dress and you know, all that you do. And as I'm walking up, there's this man, clean, clean shaven, clean clothes. I didn't recognize him at first and it was Will. And he grunted to me, can I come? I won't scare anyone. Which I wanted to say, too late. They all know you, they're all scared already. But I said, yes. He sat in the back of our wedding.

Adam Eichelberger (23:23.885)
Eh.

Bishop DeDe (23:30.958)
And as we turned as husband and wife to walk down the aisle, he stood and he looked at me and he bowed and he left. I will tell you, I don't know where Will is today, but I don't think he's talking about me at all. But it has been, I've been married now 31 years. It's 31 years later, I'm still talking about Will because he taught me to listen past my prejudice and listen past.

My fear. Now fear is a really good thing. You have to listen to your gut and sometimes you need to pay attention to when you're in danger. But sometimes we are afraid of things and we're not in danger. It's just different or unknown. And I will be forever grateful to him for changing my life. He taught me how to love and it's humbling. And I was totally wrong to have objectified him.

Adam Eichelberger (24:13.55)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (24:29.024)
as somebody to just fear.

Adam Eichelberger (24:30.739)
That's really cool. So the last one I have for you on this episode, Bishop, is I'm going to kind of, I had like this battery of questions that thankfully our listeners have gotten to us. And sometimes they perfectly line up with what we're talking about. And then sometimes we don't. So I got to kind of put them back in the hopper. And as we were getting ready, I was looking through and I've gotten this question in a couple different ways. So listener, if you submit it with your name,

I'm sorry, I'm mashing this all into kind of one question. So you're all getting your question answered at once, several of you. When we hear something that doesn't line up with the gospel, whether it's like a version of preaching that's very clearly like, like something stinks here, like there's a buzzer that's gone off or like you hear somebody in the public square in the culture.

Bishop DeDe (24:58.094)
only to have one question, so you're all getting questions in a one-server. What do you is something that's helping like up with the gospel? What do you think is like a version of pre-church that's getting clearer on the other side? Like, something's thinking. Like, there's a different, there's a different, others are talking.

Adam Eichelberger (25:24.114)
talking about Jesus, talking about the gospel, quoting scripture, quoting Jesus, and very clearly using it for an ulterior motive. What do we do? Because I think that like we hear it and we're like, my gosh, does the Bible say that or is that really what Jesus said? And it can be kind of scary, you know? What do we do when we hear

Bishop DeDe (25:35.372)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (25:42.67)
Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (25:49.798)
I'm going to use a buzzword and you can correct me, Bishop. I'm willing to take correction. What do we do when we start hearing like a false gospel, something that doesn't line up with the inclusivity of Jesus? Because I think that sometimes, especially lately, it becomes very exclusive.

Bishop DeDe (26:00.43)
and we have to realize, mean, you know, Jesus included people who at the time were the most outcast, unincluded people ever, know, tax collectors or prostitutes or, know, just he, Jesus included all of God's beloved. And we often look at people and think they need to clean up for God, that they need to straighten up.

But that is our own sinful heart needing to clean up. I think what we, you know, sometimes what we need to do is start by double checking ourselves. If it doesn't seem right to read some scripture and to be people who are reading the gospel and familiar with Jesus. Sometimes Jesus says, came to set mother against, you know, daughter against mother and father against son, you know, brother against brother, that the gospel of Jesus is not always unifying.

And Paul tells us that there are such things as false prophets. And so there are people who use the gospel for their own means. And so first and foremost, I listen for whether someone is trying to use the gospel or proclaim the gospel. If they're willing to be wrong, if they're willing to be open, if their heart is not aligned against one of God's beloved. When I hear people using hate speech,

Adam Eichelberger (27:16.827)
Mmm.

Bishop DeDe (27:27.938)
for any particular group or being comfortable dehumanizing the group. That is not the gospel and it's never gonna be the gospel. Not because we haven't read enough verses about it, but because the gospel of Jesus is a free invitation for all persons. Jesus on the cross with the two thieves, Jesus turns to them and says, today you'll be with me in paradise. God is including the people we want to exclude. So right from the get go,

It is not possible to exclude people and say we're preaching the gospel. And then I think we start with what in our own lives, kind of how we want to not only learn about scripture and what it teaches, but then to understand what it is we believe. We need to know what we believe. Can't just be antagonistic to stuff.

There are certain instances where confronting someone and saying, look, I heard you say these things. I just want you to know, I don't see that in the gospels. I don't see Jesus ever saying that that kind of thing is okay. people didn't take it well when Jesus corrected them. Pretty sure they're not going to take it well when we correct them. That is a measure of when we correct them. We have to tune our ears and maybe next time we can talk.

Adam Eichelberger (28:46.492)
the

Bishop DeDe (28:53.728)
a little bit about how do we know if we're listening to the Spirit? And I think it's very difficult because sometimes we do have itching ears, sometimes something seems like it's right and it's not until time has gone by that we realize, wait a minute, I like that because I wanted it to be true. But I think the first and foremost, when we hear someone proclaiming something that's a false gospel, we go back to the gospel.

And I will close with this really. The way that they used to tell if there was, if a dollar bill was counterfeit was they did not study all the tricks and trades of how to counterfeit. They would study and study and study a real dollar bill. And then anything that compared to it that was false jumps out right out. So the way we can hone our skill, whether it's to hear the Holy Spirit or to know the gospel,

Adam Eichelberger (29:45.692)
Hmm.

Bishop DeDe (29:52.27)
is to know the gospel and to be engaged in that work of being convicted and changing our minds. And it is hard to do. I would love sometimes to be able to harden my heart to a certain group of people, because it would just be so much easier. But you know, the gospel doesn't ever say that. Jesus says, you know, to forgive 70 times seven.

And even Paul, when Paul talks about if someone will not hear, then you go and you take someone with you. I think we need community for this. We need to gather together. We need to have people around us who help us to hear and help us to be attentive and help us to be convicted about the way of Jesus versus our own selfish desires. Really difficult conversation to speak about people and so,

Adam Eichelberger (30:24.06)
Hmm.

Bishop DeDe (30:47.362)
This week as you speak about your faith, curiosity and humility, to listen and be willing to hear and then to recognize that when you feel that nudge that, I need to change here, to change, to allow yourself to trust God is greater than the challenge before us. May you know that you are loved, may you be blessed and be a blessing, and we'll speak next time.