The Challenge of Living the Gospel

Summary

In this episode of 'Speaking of Faith', Bishop DeDe discusses the essence of faith, the teachings of Jesus, and the importance of living out the baptismal covenant. She emphasizes the need for self-reflection, accountability, and the challenge of seeing dignity in others amidst disagreements. The conversation explores how to embody the teachings of Jesus in daily life and the revolutionary nature of faith in today's world.

Takeaways

-Faith is about conforming our lives to the teachings of Jesus.
-The gospel calls for an amendment of life, not complacency.
-Living out the baptismal covenant is a communal effort.
-We must recognize the dignity in every person, even in disagreement.
-Respecting dignity sometimes means setting boundaries.
-Accountability in faith involves listening to others and reflecting on our actions.
-Prayer is essential in resolving conflicts and disagreements.
-The teachings of Jesus can feel revolutionary and challenging.
-Self-reflection is key to understanding our faith and actions.
-We are called to be a blessing to others in our community.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Faith and the Gospel
02:52 The Bedrock of Following Jesus
06:08 The Call to Amendment of Life
09:01 Living the Baptismal Covenant
11:57 Seeing Dignity in Others
15:02 Challenges of the Baptismal Covenant
18:01 Accountability in Faith
21:01 Closing Thoughts and Prayer

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 (00:02.979)
Hey friends, welcome to the podcast, Speaking of Faith. This is a place where we talk about faith, what we believe faith to be, how our faith informs our lives. And whatever faith you may have, I'm speaking very much from a Christian and from an Episcopal tradition. My name is DeDe Duncan-Probe. I'm an Episcopal bishop in central New York. I'm joined by Adam Eichelberger, who is our Director of Communications.

And we're talking today about our faith and how we live our faith. In the last few podcasts, I've talked a bit about how do we know the gospel? What happens if we get it wrong? How can we make amends when we think we're talking about Jesus, but then we've kind of gotten it wrong? And today, what I want to follow up and talk about a little bit is how do we know if we're on the right path? And what does that right path look like?

Now, way earlier in the podcast, about a year ago in fact, I did a whole series on the baptismal covenant in the Episcopal Church. Today, I'll be revisiting that just a little because what I wanna talk about is the bedrock of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. If we say we believe in Jesus, if we say we love Jesus,

then our life is to be conformed to the teachings of Jesus. Believing in Jesus isn't a platitude that we can just kind of throw up on a wall and then ignore as we go about life. What the gospel of Jesus actually calls us to is an amendment of life, a way of living, a way of embodying a message. In our Episcopal and Christian tradition, we talk about incarnation.

embodiment incarnate. We also are part of embodying a message of Jesus. So when you look at the gospels and I encourage you to read the gospels, especially Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, obviously are canonical gospels. You will see and hear in those gospels Jesus telling us how to live, we're to forgive our enemies, we're to love our enemies.

Bishop DeDe (02:24.951)
We're to take a cup of cold water, we're to help outcasts and sinners. And when we have welcomed outcasts and sinners, we are welcoming Jesus. We've seen, we see in the gospels a radical economy of God that the last shall be first, the first shall be last, that when we seek power, it is empty and hollow. And when we seek the way of Jesus, we will find peace and restoration and wholeness.

In this time, in this season in the world, the teachings of Jesus feel very revolutionary. In fact, I think they feel actually antagonistic to a lot of what's happening in the world. And that is really okay. Lately I've heard from a number of folks who have said, well, I feel uncomfortable when I read the gospel. I think we're supposed to feel uncomfortable when we read the gospel.

Jesus is calling us to amendment of life, to repentance. All through the gospels, Jesus says, repent, the kingdom of God has come near. That word repent, especially in the gospel text, means change your mind. What you believe to be true is not the way God is. And so for us today, as we're speaking of our faith, it's very threatening at times to realize that

Our Christian faith is not meant to be a big comfy blanket we put around ourselves with a nice cup of tea and sit by a fire and put our feet up. Now it is comforting and God, the Holy Comforter of God, the Holy Spirit is meant to heal and renew us, but not by affirming our selfishness or indulging us in our, you know, just when we talk about self care, kind of being just.

know, glomming on that we light a candle and sit and commune. Jesus actually commands us to take up our cross and follow him. In our faith is actually a call to crucifixion. Now that is hard and really sounds harsh a bit, but happily I can say, talk to Jesus.

Bishop DeDe (04:43.407)
This is not, I didn't come up with this idea. This is Jesus commanding us to take up our cross daily and follow him. That if we want true peace, if we want to know what love really is, if we want to feel better about ourselves, the path to that is through the gate of changing our mind and repenting. That what we think is important, we hold up against the gospel.

I've been saying in recent weeks a lot, if our opinion about the world does not match up with the gospel, it's not the gospel that needs to change. We need to change our minds. And that's hard. We're not used to changing our minds. We kinda like being right. And so I talked about the baptismal covenant as people of faith. We root of what we believe and say we believe in our baptismal covenant. The actual covenant.

vows we make before God. If you're a lay person, you've made vows to God. If you've been baptized, if you're a priest, deacon, and as a bishop, we've made vows to God what we will be about. Once we've made a vow to God, if we're honoring those vows, it means there are certain things that are no longer options for us. It is no longer okay to be about hatred.

it is no longer okay to dehumanize another no matter how right we think we are. As soon as we are subjugating or looking at someone as just outcast, we need to repent. We need to turn back to the ways of God. Now I mentioned the baptismal covenant. One of the things that we affirm in the baptismal covenant, and if you are an Episcopalian,

You can find the baptismal covenant in our book of common prayer. If you are someone who is not familiar with this, you actually can look this up online and it will come up for you. The first part of the baptismal covenant, we affirm who we believe God to be. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. But the very next bidding says, will you continue in the apostles teaching and fellowship in the breaking of bread and in the prayers?

Bishop DeDe (07:05.026)
Will you live your faith? And our faith is communal. We don't live our faith isolated or alone. The Christian faith was never meant to be singular. It is communal that in our embodiment of Jesus, we are part of a wider community. Will we continue in the apostles teaching and fellowship like the apostles where we gather with Jesus, gather together and together learn?

St. Paul tells us we're to incite one another to good works. St. Paul tells us we are to be challenging to each other. And so this idea, again, that churches come together and it's all happy and we never have conflict, isn't actually scriptural. I don't know if you've ever thought that before. It isn't what we're called to be. We're called to be the living embodiment of Jesus, which is a working out of God's grace. So we say with God's help that we will.

continue to break bread together, to pray together, to seek Christ together, to learn together, to work together. And then will you persevere in resisting evil once we started gathering together, once we start learning about God, once where two or three of you are gathered together, Jesus is there. Once we gather in these places, then we have the ability to recognize

how we need to persevere in resisting evil. I say all the time, I think one of the ways that I see evil the most is in people thinking they're right. I'm right, you're wrong. You need to change. I don't like that. The number of times I hear people say, well, I don't like that. Loving your neighbor, I don't like that. I can't care about everyone in the world. Well, that's nice you're giving yourself a pass, but I think Jesus is calling us to care about the people

in our world. We don't have to care as intimately as we might for the people in our household, but we are called to be about these things and when we find ourselves failing, we come back to God and say, I was selfish. I've been seeking my own way. I've been hard-hearted. I don't want to care about those people. It is hard to be a Christian in this time and a true follower of Jesus is just very, very difficult.

Bishop DeDe (09:31.055)
because it always leads us to want to change our mind, to repent and be renewed. So much easier to just want things the way we like it. But Jesus doesn't call us to that. We're commanded to take up our cross and to live the teachings of Jesus. Over the next few weeks, I want to revisit the baptismal covenant a bit because I think in the may you of all that's happening in our world.

It's easy to lose sight of who we actually are and are called to be. I can tell you that in my own life, there are times when I want to look at someone and say, I've done with them. I just can't care about them anymore. And then I recognize my own selfishness and repent of it.

And I give that to God and say, right now I just can't with this person. So I'm going to offer them to you and pray for them. And I'll pray for them until you, until my heart is changed or until I'm able to do a better job of living for you. I always find it interesting when Jesus is talking to Peter and Peter questions Jesus, say, Lord, you know, we can't, Peter is really great because he's always sort of like trying to get it right so much.

He's like, you know, that can't be the way it is. And Jesus actually says to Peter the rock, get behind me, Satan. When we are not for Jesus, we become against it. And right now in our lives, you and I together, we need to be for Jesus. We need to love Jesus and lived up to those vows we've made and recognize with starts by knowing Jesus.

Now I've talked an awful long time, so I'm gonna get Adam in here, because we get questions from the viewers, and I always love these questions, so send your questions. Again, this is meant to be a conversation, but also for all of us to remember who we are, and that is part of what we do together. So Adam, do you any questions or things that come up for you?

Adam Eichelberger (11:38.42)
We do. And I have two that we were submitted. One of them was submitted anonymously, and then we have one that was not. So we'll start with our anonymous question. And it's kind of apropos, Bishop, that you're talking about this revisiting of the baptismal covenant right now with everything that's going on in the world around us, especially for us as Americans. We had somebody who asked, how do I make sure that I am seeing the dignity in everybody?

Bishop DeDe (11:57.571)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (12:07.439)
Mm.

Adam Eichelberger (12:07.63)
They shared a little bit about how with their, people around them and their neighbors and their family who they seem to be disagreeing with more and more as things continue in our country, that they're having a hard time seeing the dignity in those people. So in the light of this commitment that we make in the baptismal covenant, how can we better live out that call to see the dignity in every human person? Because I feel like that can be hard. I agree with our listener. I feel like that can be hard sometimes.

Bishop DeDe (12:19.183)
Okay.

Bishop DeDe (12:23.497)
Mm.

Bishop DeDe (12:37.167)
Oh my gosh, it's so hard. and I just want to say that for each of us, we're going to have a different answer because for each of, excuse me, each of us, there may be something that helps us to see the humanity of another and affirm that humanity to not disregard. If someone has a different opinion about us than, than we do to be interested in their understanding of it. We're very quick right now.

especially civically, to take a position for or against, in or out, on or off, instead of saying, well, tell me more about that. I want to seek to understand what does that mean to you? In what way is this important for you? And how does that translate? We may not and will not most likely change our minds about what we think, but we might have a better understanding of where someone comes from and what's important to them.

And so part of dignity is to acknowledge that our agreement is not the reason to do anything. We open the door for people and hold it open for the person behind us or we're considerate and kind. And if we are in a place of disagreement with someone, we continue to do those things that are gracious and just and kind and not kind of

encourage our schadenfreude or kind of the tit for tat stuff or the, well, I'll show you. I'll put my trash can on your, you and to seek the best for the other person. And then with those places where we really don't agree at all and where it's emotional for both parties to say, you know, this is one aspect of our lives.

Adam Eichelberger (14:13.633)
Right.

Adam Eichelberger (14:17.154)
Ha ha.

Bishop DeDe (14:33.091)
whether it's the partisanship that's flying around and who we voted for, or whether it's, you know, our like or dislike of pasta. This is one aspect of a life. And there's so much more to both of us. Let's focus on the so much more parts. Let's talk about our love of, you know, jigsaw puzzles or our love of, you know, whatever. And to change the narrative rather than constantly coming at

I'm gonna convince you you're stupid, which is what seems to be happening a lot. So I think respecting the dignity is to begin with a kind of self-respect where it's like, know, I am not gonna be part of degradating another person. I'm going to seek what's best and pray for what's good.

Adam Eichelberger (15:04.418)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (15:24.184)
Hmm. And I think right there, you said something really important, Bishop, if I could say so myself. It involves prayer. A lot of times I feel like I am guilty of this as much as anybody and listener. I don't know if you can commiserate or empathize. I am really quick to judge and not bring God into the situation because just as much as I feel like people who may oppose

Bishop DeDe (15:33.24)
Mmm.

Bishop DeDe (15:39.983)
Hmm.

Bishop DeDe (15:48.665)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (15:52.268)
the things that I hold dear, I am really quick to think, well, I'm right. And, you know, we've had conversations both on this podcast, we talked about this a little bit on Megan, Ken and Megan's podcast the other day, about how we tend to put ourselves in the role of the protagonist, like we're the good guys all the time. Yeah, and and I screw up all the time when I'm arguing with somebody about and that's again, they're right there. I don't know about you listener, I tend to argue a lot more than I tend to listen.

Bishop DeDe (16:08.013)
Right. We're the hero. Yeah.

Bishop DeDe (16:18.487)
Yeah.

Adam Eichelberger (16:20.128)
And I tend to take my principled stand rather than take it back to prayer. And I think that that's a really good admonition for us is like, are we involving God in these disagreements that we have with the people that we're having a hard time seeing the dignity in? I think that's really good.

Bishop DeDe (16:36.513)
Absolutely. Are we taking positions? I mean, we're very quick to take a position and then insist that we're right and then try to coerce the other person rather than really listening to each other. know, moniker, my grandmother used to say, you have two ears and one mouth, use it proportionally. Do we, know, our humility, curiosity, gentleness of heart. If we really think we're right, then how we act is going to be with grace and dignity.

Adam Eichelberger (16:52.91)
Mm.

Bishop DeDe (17:04.622)
If we're really aligned with Jesus, we're gonna have compassion for someone else. We're gonna have patience for someone else. We need to do a study, I think, on 1 Corinthians 13 again and say, what is love? Love is not seeking your own way. Love is generous. You know, this wonderful economy of God to be like, you know, the thing is not the thing. How we act matters. And so to respect the dignity is to be respectful.

and to not take positions. And like you say, to refrain from getting into that pit fight. And then also, I think there's a part of us that when we're wanting to fight all the time is because we don't feel heard. And we want to be heard. And that's important. All people, should hear, but that may mean that then we're not hearing. And so if I'm wanting, especially I think when we get into a conflict with someone, if we stop,

Adam Eichelberger (17:46.478)
Hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (17:54.872)
Hmm.

Bishop DeDe (18:01.963)
I remember I was in a parish and there were people who have very strong opinions that were different than mine. And I would look at them and think, why don't they understand? How could they be so stupid about this? And why don't they get this? And I would make myself mentally, cognitively think what they're saying to me is, why doesn't she understand? Why is she so stupid? Why doesn't she get this? And that helped me be more humble and say, okay, so

Our problem is we're both taking positions and not hearing. So let's hear each other first.

Adam Eichelberger (18:34.798)
Hmm. That's good. So we did have a brand new listener submitted question and I want to welcome a new listener. The name is David and David is joining us. David's an Episcopalian joining us from Seattle, Washington, who submitted a question and David left a comment and a question and they have recently been kind of doing a deep dive back at the podcast. And it's interesting because they brought up that

Bishop DeDe (18:51.055)
Woo, hey David, welcome.

Bishop DeDe (18:59.096)
Yeah.

Adam Eichelberger (19:03.096)
they came into the podcast in your earlier conversations about the baptismal covenant. And here we are, the great sense of humor of the Holy Spirit that we're of starting to revisit this. And David wanted to ask, after listening to the baptismal covenant episodes, I'm starting to see that there are some big challenges to living out the baptismal covenant. What do you see as the biggest challenges to us best living out the baptismal covenant here and now?

Bishop DeDe (19:07.299)
Yeah.

Bishop DeDe (19:33.891)
my goodness, David, great question. And I would love if I had the answer to that question. But I can tell you, because these are things, reason it's speaking of faith and not telling you of faith is because we're talking about these things. I think we learn in conversation together, in conversation with ourselves. I think the challenge of the baptismal covenant, the first half of the baptismal covenant, we're gonna, with God's help, have a little bit more success.

Adam Eichelberger (19:40.558)
Ha

Bishop DeDe (20:03.631)
coming to an understanding of who we say God is, even if it's not kind of 100 % traditional understandings. Will we continue in the apostles teaching and fellowship, breaking bread and prayers? Okay, all right, we're still rolling. It's when you get a little further down, will you be an example? Will you live your life? And then of course the real culminating to which.

To be honest, David, most of the time people just focus on the last two, the dignity of each person and seeking justice. But I don't think you can get to those unless you go, I think the baptismal covenant has a process to it. Because first we learn and we grow, then we're willing to live out what we're learning and growing. And then we need to act in certain way in loving our neighbors, ourself, and then seeking justice, that there is a building to the culmination.

I think the hardest part is our probably disagreement at times about what it means. So if I'm saying, I'm gonna respect the dignity of every human being, which I am saying that, and I'm dealing with someone who is, let's say they're someone with real significant mental illness or someone who harms others.

I'm thinking of, I'm gonna start with, it's easier to go with the big things. So like pedophilia or someone who is a psychopath or something like that.

What it means to respect the dignity of someone might be saying no, might be saying you're not safe for other people to be around and so we need to set a boundary on that to make sure that you're not harming others which continues to harm yourself. And so sometimes our concept of what is just and right and good is kind of like a happy clappy simple easy breezy living.

Bishop DeDe (22:07.235)
That isn't how life is. Sometimes we really have to set a boundary with someone and say here and no further. You will not harm anyone else. Sometimes respecting the dignity of every human being means saying to that friend, look, you're always harassing me. I cannot be friends with you anymore because that isn't how I I don't want to live and I'm not gonna harass you and I will not be harassed. So sometimes I think it's very hard to parse out the baptismal covenant because

Adam Eichelberger (22:13.048)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (22:37.455)
it can easily fall off into, well, I don't really like this person, so I'm cutting them off, versus I'm gonna respect that this is true about them, and so I'm gonna respond with respect. So I think it's very hard, David, to sort that out. And it's a great question. I think this is part of the fire of our faith purifying the dross out of us.

Adam Eichelberger (22:46.254)
you

Adam Eichelberger (23:04.983)
Mm.

Bishop DeDe (23:05.675)
And I think we follow the instinct of the Holy Spirit that there are times when we just have a gut check and we're like, you know what? Here and no further. can't do that again.

Adam Eichelberger (23:14.018)
Yeah. And I think you're right, Bishop. think that I a lot of times when I when I think about this call that were that's been put out to us when when we hear Jesus say love your neighbor as yourself. And this is going to come out all wrong listeners. So I apologize. I'm speaking on behalf of myself myself only not on behalf of Bishop Dee Dee Dookie Probe or the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York. But I feel like sometimes like

Bishop DeDe (23:27.779)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (23:31.469)
You

Adam Eichelberger (23:40.17)
I fall into like, if you want to call it like a heresy of kumbaya, like it's like, yeah, and like, and I'm not trying to say like, we have to be like, it has to be hard love all the time, you know, like, but I think that you're right. I think that we can respect the dignity of every person and still also make sure that we are being respectful of ourselves. And you've talked about this before in previous episodes about

Bishop DeDe (23:44.643)
Yeah, niceness. We're going to be nice.

Bishop DeDe (23:52.545)
No, yeah.

Bishop DeDe (24:03.587)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (24:06.954)
establishing boundaries and things like that. So that's a really good reminder for us that like we are called to be peacemakers, but obviously we can't violate boundaries that are clearly important. So the last thing I kind of had is maybe like a closing question and a thought on behalf of our viewer, on behalf of our listeners is how can we, and this one's geared more towards us as people in the pews and the Episcopal parishes like in our diocese or

Bishop DeDe (24:17.775)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (24:35.586)
wherever you may be listening. But this is kind of for all of us as we think about and ponder the Baptismal Covenant and these things that we've been talking about recently about sharing the gospel, when we get it wrong, all these topics. How do you think we can hold ourselves accountable as people of faith trying to live out these promises, these big, really hard promises and calls that God puts on us?

Bishop DeDe (24:57.187)
I'm

Bishop DeDe (25:02.183)
Well, you know, and each listener, again, you're going to have this is a work at each person's heart to how do we know the if what we're doing and saying aligns with the gospel, then we're a pretty good shot at it. Are we loving or are we being are we trying to be considerate and kind to someone? There are times when we're considerate and kind that we don't realize we're trying to control someone. And so.

Adam Eichelberger (25:27.534)
Mm.

Bishop DeDe (25:28.909)
That's one of those places to, you know, to David's question. It's sometimes it's hard to parse because we think we're being kind, but it's being experienced as coercive. We think we're being loving. It's being experienced as power mongering. And so part of holding ourselves accountable is listening to others, watching the impact of our words or our actions, and then doing the work, learning about what it is to be a healthy, whole human being.

Psychologically speaking, think Jesus is very self-actualized in the gospels, to use a psychology term. Jesus in the gospels is sober and working with healthy boundaries. There's times he says, you you say that I am, and he puts it back on, okay, so you're saying that this. And so in our lives, doing that work of being self-defined people,

of being in a right relationship with God, like you said earlier, praying, learning the scriptures, recognizing, and then also in our lives, being willing to say we're sorry and make amends. There are times when we need to live into the, there's good practices in AA, we have lots of places where our Christian faith calls us to say, to be accountable one to another. If what I have done harms someone,

and I apologize for it. I may not be able to fix it. A lot of times we can't fix it, but to be willing to make amends and to apologize and take it to God. And I wanna stop, listener, talking, you know, earlier we talked a bit about with this loving our neighbor. When we're in conflict with one another, a great place to start is to pray together.

to with the person we're having conflict, if it starts getting heated, and it starts getting heated, say, know, would it be possible for us to take a moment of silence and just pray together? And then when we pray together, say, God, you you love this person, and I love this person, and both of us care so much about getting it right. And right now, we care so much about getting it right that we know we're wrong, because we're out of relationship with each other. So if you could.

Bishop DeDe (27:47.437)
you know, give us the humility and the grace to have either this conversation or to let this conversation go and focus on our work with you and to invite God into that place. I think we spend too much time talking about where we disagree or who's in or who's out, especially right now with all the partisanship that's happening. well, I'm being, you know, this or that to pray together and to remember.

that what's most important about us is not the political party we belong to, what candidate we do or don't support. What's most fundamentally important is we are beloved children of God seeking the way of Christ and seeking to live that way of Christ in community. So dear listener, we will take this up next week. Please do send in your questions and comments, especially because this is hard, hard work and it's hard work in this time.

It's revolutionary work in this time. And so I hope that this season as that you will find opportunities to draw closer to Jesus, to embrace your faith and to speak of your faith with others. May you be blessed and be a blessing. And we'll speak soon.