[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:08] Welcome to the collective table, where we celebrate the intersections of Jesus, justice, and joy.
[00:00:14] This podcast is brought to you by Oceanside Sanctuary Church.
[00:00:18] Each week, we bring our listeners a recording of our weekly Sunday teaching at Oceanside Sanctuary, which ties scripture into the larger conversations happening in our community, congregation, and even the podcast.
[00:00:31] So we're glad you're here, and thanks for listening.
[00:00:42] Hey, good morning.
[00:00:45] Happy Pride Sunday.
[00:00:47] Hey, listen, if you guys didn't go to Pride by the beach yesterday, you totally missed out. It's Amazing day.
[00:00:54] Pride by the beach has gotten bigger and bigger every year, and it is a testament to this community that our community supports that. And increasingly, you'll see booths from other churches, too, although those churches are terrible. Don't visit those booths.
[00:01:10] I'm kidding. They're all great, great religious organizations, just not nearly as good. So, a couple things. I'm not supposed to do announcements while I'm up here, but I've got a couple of announcements. The first is, how cute is that?
[00:01:28] This is Oceanside Sanctuary Pride T shirt that our queer committee made these T shirts. This is by far the coolest and cutest one. And there's only one available, so I'm sorry, you don't get this one. This one.
[00:01:43] This one's spoken for. This is Hypatia's T shirt.
[00:01:47] Mark's daughter. So there you go.
[00:01:49] But if you go out into the cafe today, you'll see a pile of Pride T shirts. You are welcome to one. There are different sizes. Just take one. If you feel guilty taking free T shirts, we'll take your money. There's an offering box right there at the back. If not, that's okay, too. No judgment.
[00:02:06] The second thing that I need to share with you is that this church definitely does not organize political protests. But the hands off rally next weekend is happening in Carlsbad, not Oceanside. So if you by any chance were planning on participating in the Hands off no Kings, you know, kind of a rally that may or may not be organized by members of this congregation, just know that it is not in Oceanside next week. It's down in Carlsbad, right where the Fish and chips place is on Coast Highway. I know you know where that is. Yes. And then the third thing I want you to know is earlier today, Janelle engaged in a little bit of misinformation when she said that she has been begging me to make a tote bag for the membership drive. And I just trust that you all know that Janelle does not beg me for anything.
[00:02:56] That.
[00:02:57] That is not an accurate description of the power dynamic in this relationship.
[00:03:08] Glad I got that off my chest.
[00:03:12] You make Janelle beg.
[00:03:14] Please, would you? If you have a Bible, turn with me to Matthew, chapter 5, verses 43 to 48.
[00:03:23] That's what we're going to be teaching from today.
[00:03:26] We're not in the midst of a teaching series of any kind. This is Pride Sunday, so I have something to say about that. If you are a member of the LGBTQ community, then. And you're new here, you might not know, but on this day, I do not teach about the passages that are. That are famously weaponized against gay people because I don't want this to be a space of further, like, harm and trust triggering. If you want to know how I read those passages or you know, how we might make sense of those passages, we have classes where we do that sort of thing. Are you welcome to come and talk to me or Janelle or Claire or anybody else? But today I want to share something that I think is highly relevant to Pride Sunday. It comes from Matthew, chapter 5, verses 43 to 48.
[00:04:07] And here is what it says. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.
[00:04:33] For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?
[00:04:37] Do not even the tax collectors do the same.
[00:04:40] And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others?
[00:04:47] Do not even the Gentiles do the same.
[00:04:51] Be perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect.
[00:04:57] Would you say a prayer with me?
[00:04:59] God, we thank you for today, for this space, this time, and for the people who call this place their community.
[00:05:11] We pray that you would lead us and guide us in our growth as human beings, to become people whose hearts are inspired to be bigger, to include more people, to relieve more suffering, to liberate more oppressed neighbors. Because your gospel has done all that work for us, and we just can't help but do it as well.
[00:05:40] We pray that you would expand our imagination this morning for what's possible.
[00:05:43] We pray all this in Jesus name, Amen.
[00:05:48] Okay, some of you guys were here in the fall of 2023 when ICE, I.e. immigration Customs Enforcement, began dumping people off at the train station here, about three blocks away, to the tune of about 100 asylum seekers a Day There are all kinds of sort of complex political reasons for why all of a sudden, like, the floodgates were opened at the border. At that time, a lot of, I think, political jockeying was happening. But the end result was that asylum seekers from literally all over the world, not just from Mexico or Central America or South America, but from Africa and even parts of Asia, asylum seekers were coming here. They were crossing the border, looking for asylum from persecution, from wherever they were living, And ICE was letting them in and processing them as quickly as they could and then just dumping them at a couple of train stations throughout San Diego county and just saying, there you go. Go wherever it is that you need to go, wherever it is that you need to get to. Most of them were trying to get to, like, New York or Chicago or Miami or somewhere where they had relatives or friends, people who were their sponsors as asylum seekers. And rather than helping them get to where they were going, our government was just dumping them at the train station and saying, good luck. And so that was producing effectively 100 new homeless people a day, three blocks away.
[00:07:15] And this was an enormous crisis in San Diego County. And a number of nonprofits came together, including the Oceanside Sanctuary. And we were doing whatever we could to help process people, get them to where they were going, help them with bus tickets, plane tickets, whatnot. For a period of time, we had a bunch of asylum seekers sleeping in the basement here in our little community center space. And many of you came and helped fit, fed them and, you know, help them out and provide them a little bit of relief. It was really a crazy, crazy time. It was insane.
[00:07:46] And a kind of privilege and honor to be able to participate in helping in some way. But, boy, were our neighbors pissed.
[00:07:58] Boy, were they mad.
[00:08:01] And nobody was in this more deeply than Janelle. Every day, Jane. Janelle was walking over to the bus station and coordinating with people and then walking like crowds of people, right? Like, you know, South Americans and Africans and Asian people, most of whom didn't speak a whole lot of English. She was walking them over here and helping, like, get them processed. And our neighbors saw that Janelle was involved, and they saw the commotion here. And at one point, one of our neighbors confronted Janelle outside. She wouldn't tell you this story, and she's appalled right now that I'm telling this story story. But one of the neighbors grabbed her and confronted her and yelled at her because of what was going on over her. And at one point, in the midst of the conversation, accused Janelle and this whole church of human Trafficking.
[00:08:52] Now this, by the way, is how hate, xenophobia, fascism and the law work.
[00:09:06] Some of you know that human trafficking is a very serious problem that needs to be dealt with. Human trafficking laws originated all the way back in the early part of the 20th century, but really found sort of legs in our society after 9 11, when it became increasingly obvious that people were being transported across the border for forced labor. This is what human trafficking is. It's moving people from one place to another in order to enlist them in forced labor against their will. Very often sex work against their will.
[00:09:43] Now, because human trafficking so often involves sex work, it very quickly caught the attention of the evangelical universe because, you know, sex is a thing.
[00:09:55] If you are a right wing fundamentalist Christian, it's a problem to force people into sex work. Don't get me wrong.
[00:10:04] But it became a kind of like social justice caused du jour among the evangelical church because it involved keeping people out of sex work. And that's very, very bad. They might not advocate for the rights of asylum seekers, but they'll definitely advocate for the rights of women who are forced into sex work. Good.
[00:10:22] That's fantastic.
[00:10:25] Let's do whatever we can to keep that from happening.
[00:10:28] Most of Christendom in the west rallied against human trafficking. Human trafficking became synonymous with forced sex work. That's what most of us think of when we hear the phrase these days.
[00:10:42] But now you can begin to see how the phrase is changing its meaning.
[00:10:48] Because everybody is against human trafficking, because everybody is against forced sex work. The phrase human trafficking automatically, if you use it, automatically enlists people to your side. And so now we're seeing asylum seekers seeking refuge from violence and persecution in other nations and people helping them accused of human trafficking.
[00:11:19] That is not human trafficking.
[00:11:22] I don't mean to mansplain this to you, but that's not human trafficking.
[00:11:28] International law dictates that countries should be open and ready and willing to take refugees from other nations who are facing violence. It is the law.
[00:11:41] And so when a government regime uses the phrase human trafficking to describe assisting asylum seekers, there is. They're drawing on that whole history of genuine human trafficking to enlist people in their campaign of xenophobia.
[00:12:02] That's what happened when our neighbor accused Janelle and this church of human trafficking. They were leveraging all of that emotion against a very real problem to now be against brown and black skinned people entering this country.
[00:12:20] You're free to disagree with me.
[00:12:23] Like, I'm well practiced in the art of speaking authoritatively.
[00:12:28] You can disagree with anything that I'm saying, but I'm trying to illustrate sort of a bigger issue. And the bigger issue is the trouble with the law.
[00:12:38] The law is a bit problematic in this regard. I don't just mean the law about human trafficking. I don't just mean laws in the United States.
[00:12:46] I don't just mean the law as maybe the St. Paul might refer to it in the New Testament, when Paul is referring to the Hebrew Bible. I mean all those things. The trouble with the law, any kind of law, is that it is first and foremost a solution to real problems, or at least it's supposed to be.
[00:13:08] Any law, any policy, any guidelines, any rules, even the HR rules at your office, right, are meant to be a solution to a real problem problem.
[00:13:20] We all agree that we're not going to cross the street without hitting the little crosswalk button because that, you know, keeps people from being flattened by cars that they don't see coming down the road. We all agree that, you know, when a double yellow line is painted on the road, that we don't cross over that line because there's oncoming traffic. And if we all agree not to do that, then we're all a little bit safer.
[00:13:44] The law, when it is good, when it's doing its job, it protects us from harm.
[00:13:51] That's the point of it.
[00:13:54] Beyond that, beyond just protecting us from harm, it also does this other kind of social heavy lifting, which is it sort of shows us what's good and it shows us what's not good.
[00:14:09] Like, in a very real sense, like you and I are all formed socially by what is legal and illegal. We all just sort of like, assume that when something is illegal, it's bad, and when it's legal, it's good. And, you know, entire moral theories have been built on the idea that some people for their entire lives will just assume that if something is illegal, then it's bad.
[00:14:29] But if it's legal, it's okay, and if it's taxes, it doesn't matter, right? Like, it's a very gray area in this way. The law, like, as a philosophical concept, makes our lives easier.
[00:14:46] And that's a good thing.
[00:14:48] I mean, it's kind of nice, you know, especially because when I walk down the street, I usually am staring at my phone. It's kind of nice to know that if the light is red, I should stop. And if I want to cross, I hit the little button and eventually the little like, you know, walkie guy on the other side will come along the. The little screen and then I know it's Safe to walk across. But I still look both ways.
[00:15:09] For the most part, I don't have to think that much about whether or not it's time to cross the street. If we all had to think about that too much, our lives would be exhausting and even more exhausting than your lives already are. Right?
[00:15:24] In this way, the law, if we all sort of follow it, it brings order through to the chaos. It makes our lives a little bit easier, and that is a good thing.
[00:15:36] The problem is the law doesn't always solve real problems and it doesn't always make our lives easier. In fact, sometimes it makes things worse.
[00:15:47] This is one of my favorite things about laws and policies and guidelines, that there are unintended consequences.
[00:15:53] Sometimes we make laws and we don't realize what the consequences of that are going to be. We want to do these things and, and sometimes those things happen because we passed a good law.
[00:16:01] But then it turns out that we didn't realize that if we do these things, then it's also going to make this thing happen, and that's bad.
[00:16:08] Okay, My favorite example of this was anybody living in California when they passed the three strikes laws, right? Okay, three strikes and you're out. We all thought this was great because, you know, baseball's America's pastime. So that's an easy metaphor to understand, right? You break three felony laws, you go to prison for the rest of your life.
[00:16:28] The whole purpose of the three strikes laws in California was to decrease violent crime, right? Okay.
[00:16:35] I was a kid when this happened. I remember thinking like, wow, I like baseball, whatever.
[00:16:42] But my favorite example of unintended consequences is this. In the state of California, after the three strikes law was passed, it worked.
[00:16:53] First time violent offenders, you know, people who would get a first strike, those rates of crime went down pretty significantly, like between 20 and 30%.
[00:17:04] Yay. Great. That's what we wanted.
[00:17:07] But fascinating enough, people who already had two strikes, two felonies on their record, third strike offenses went up even more. This isn't funny. I don't know why I'm laughing. It's like, you know, all you can do is laugh because you can't do anything about it.
[00:17:28] But rates of murder for third strike offenses went up because people were like, I'm gonna do it.
[00:17:37] Might as well, like, go all the way.
[00:17:40] I'm going to prison for the rest of my life no matter what. I might as well risk it with a really big crime crime.
[00:17:48] It's an unintended consequence. Like nobody would have thought, hey, if we do this, if we make this thing a law, then people are actually going to commit worse crimes after they have two strikes. But that is exactly what happened.
[00:18:02] The other thing that happened is violent crime in Nevada went up because people were like, I got to commit a violent crime. So I'm driving to Nevada where there are no three strikes laws.
[00:18:19] So Nevada was like, thanks, California, I appreciate that.
[00:18:23] So this is the problem with the law. The law not only solves problems, it creates new problems. The other problem with the law is just like with the little example of human trafficking, fascists will come along and weaponize the law.
[00:18:40] My guess is you're all becoming very familiar with that right now.
[00:18:47] People who are in charge of enforcing the laws can very easily take advantage of laws to actually gain more power, gain more control, and suddenly, oh, everybody's against human trafficking. Great, we'll just call all of the people who are helping asylum seekers human traffickers, and then the rest of the country won't be able to argue with us. We, when we mobilize the National Guard in the state of California, law is a very effective tool for people seeking power and control.
[00:19:19] I think the bigger problem though, with the law, even bigger than that, even bigger than unintended consequences or weaponization by fascists. I think the bigger problem with law in general as a category is that it makes our lives easier.
[00:19:36] We don't want to have to think about whether something is right or wrong.
[00:19:42] We just want somebody to tell us, can I do this or can I not do this?
[00:19:49] Is this right or is this wrong? Please, could you just help me understand what is going on here?
[00:19:59] This is where Jesus becomes a real problem, because he enters in, in Matthew chapter 5 and he gives us what we sometimes in like religious circles call the six antitheses.
[00:20:12] This is what's happening. We're entering in on the tail end of the sixth antithesis here in Matthew, chapter 5, verse 43, when Jesus says, you have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies. This is actually the last, last of Jesus. Six antitheses before this. He talks about all kinds of things. You have heard that it was said, you shall not murder. But I say to you this, you have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. But I say that you've heard that it was said. You get the pattern.
[00:20:46] This is why it's called the six antithesis. Because Jesus's teaching here seems to follow this interesting pattern where there's like a thesis, right? There's you have heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemies. That's the thesis.
[00:21:04] But I say to you, this is the antithesis.
[00:21:09] You should love even your enemies.
[00:21:15] The reason we sort of notice that pattern is because this kind of classic, like dialectical, educational approach that's very indicative of ancient rabbis where they would engage in this kind of back and forth discourse. Oh, you say that? Well, I say this.
[00:21:34] It's a way of engaging in dialogue about the law, about what's good, about what's God and what isn't. It's a way of revealing deeper truths. And that is exactly what Jesus is doing. What with all six of these passages, he is approaching the laws and the customs of his society, and he's questioning them.
[00:22:00] He's saying, quit not thinking about it.
[00:22:08] Stop just going along with the way that we treat women and divorce. Stop just going along with the violence that you are justifying because it stops short of murder. Stop just going along with the tribalism that is destroying our community. Take a moment and think about what's underneath these realities.
[00:22:36] If you go through all six of these, which we won't do, we don't have time because there's a taco truck outside, you would see that in each of these, Jesus is revealing sometimes the unintended consequences of a law. Jesus is sometimes showing that there are problems with the law because it's been abused by fascists who are in power.
[00:23:02] But mostly what he's doing, I think, is he's inviting us to join the dialogue.
[00:23:08] Because for every thesis and antithesis, there is a synthesis, right? For every point and counterpoint, there is an implicit invitation for you to say what you think.
[00:23:23] Jesus isn't just giving his listeners a new law.
[00:23:28] You know, Moses said this, but I say that. Oh, well, forget Moses then.
[00:23:36] That's still too easy.
[00:23:40] We've got to stop just expecting people to tell us what to do and how to think and what is right and what is wrong. We have to learn to think for ourselves.
[00:23:51] Hey, listen, one of the classes that I have taught for a few years at Cal State San Marcos is called therapeutic interviewing.
[00:23:58] This is deeply ironic because I'm not a therapist and I don't do any kind of interviewing at all, right? But the class class is essentially like a therapeutic approach to listening very carefully during, say, intake interviews in a therapeutic environment. Fantastic class, which has nothing to do with me. I didn't create the course, but it really teaches people how to pay attention to what is going on in any setting.
[00:24:30] Now, one of my favorite things about therapeutic Interviewing As a course is, I teach this concept in it called the Therapeutic Alliance. Now, here's the thing about the Oceanside Sanctuary. Can't swing a dead cat in here without hitting a therapist.
[00:24:42] So apologies to the professional therapists in the room for anything that I might get wrong.
[00:24:52] I'm not a trained professional. I just Play 1 on TV.
[00:24:55] So the concept of the Therapeutic alliance is fascinating, though. It's this.
[00:25:02] It's that you pay the therapist, but you have to do the work.
[00:25:08] In almost any other endeavor, this would not fly. Like, you know, if you were remodeling your kitchen and the contractor came and was like, all right, here's what you need to do.
[00:25:18] The sparks would be like, this is what we paid you for.
[00:25:21] You're here to remodel our kitchen.
[00:25:24] Right?
[00:25:25] But this is the unique thing about, like, therapists and teachers and theologians is that people come to us and they just want us to, like, tell them the answer.
[00:25:40] What's the answer?
[00:25:41] Just tell me what to do.
[00:25:45] Just make it easy for me.
[00:25:48] But that's not how therapy works.
[00:25:51] You have to do the work.
[00:25:55] That's not how spirituality works.
[00:26:00] That's not how learning works.
[00:26:04] If you're a therapist or a teacher or a theologian or a pastor or a fitness coach, we can show you a new way. We can point to the escape hatch from the trap that you have found yourself in, but you have to do it.
[00:26:24] And this, I think, is exactly what Jesus is teaching in this sixth antithesis.
[00:26:33] Jesus is beautifully summarizing that we have a tendency to just buy into whatever rules or laws or guidelines we have been given. And we're just grateful that somebody will tell us how to think and what to do and how to be and what is right and what is wrong. But this creates a dangerous trap.
[00:26:54] And the trap is that if we believe in it, then we end up believing in all kinds of harmful binaries. Because if I believe that I'm okay, if I believe that I'm thinking about what's right, and if I think that I am behaving in what's wrong, then I really need somebody, maybe you, to be wrong.
[00:27:13] I can't be right unless somebody's wrong.
[00:27:17] And so that creates this domineering binary where we desperately need to create out groups, we desperately need to create a them, so that we can be an us.
[00:27:28] We desperately need to create boundaries around our nations so that I can be a citizen. In order for me to be a citizen, somebody has to be an alien.
[00:27:40] We desperately need to define who is straight so that we can define who the gay people are and we can exclude them and vilify them and beat them up and murder them if necessary in order for us to be right.
[00:27:55] Jesus is, I think, revealing this binary trap.
[00:28:01] These false dichotomies are everywhere. You have probably noticed.
[00:28:06] Some people are citizens, some are immigrants, some are legal. Some human beings are considered illegal.
[00:28:13] Sometimes we say that some are civilized and others are savage. Sometimes we say that people are ignorant or they are educated, that they are orthodox or they're heretics, that they're Christians or pagans, saved or lost, white or black, straight or gay, man or woman.
[00:28:32] All of these really are just another way of saying human or vermin.
[00:28:43] When we lean on the law to do our work for us, when we lean on an expert, a pastor, a president to do the work for us, we inevitably create people who are disposable, dispensable and eradicated when they become a problem.
[00:29:09] Love, I think Jesus is teaching us, offers us the only escape from this trap.
[00:29:15] Mark, chapter two. Jesus says man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man. We don't exist for religion. Religion exists for us.
[00:29:27] We don't exist for the Bible. The Bible exists for us.
[00:29:32] The United States of America doesn't exist because it needs citizens. Citizens need a country that defends its rights, that makes space for all people.
[00:29:48] Paul tells us in Romans chapter 13, verse 1, that love does no harm, therefore it fulfills the law.
[00:29:56] This is, I think, exactly what Jesus is trying to get at.
[00:30:01] I could talk about this all day, but we're all getting hungry.
[00:30:05] What I'd like to do is invite the band to come back up.
[00:30:08] And I want to suggest to you that what Jesus is doing in these kinds of passages is that he is not.
[00:30:16] He is not giving us a newer, better version of Moses rules.
[00:30:25] Jesus is critiquing the way that Moses Very Good rules are easily creating new problems that we never thought of.
[00:30:38] Moses Very good rules are easily co opted by corrupt fascists who want to protect and preserve their power.
[00:30:48] But Jesus is not replacing Moses Very Good rules with Jesus. Newer, improved, shiny, discounted rules.
[00:30:59] Jesus is instead inviting us into the hard work of learning to discern what is good and right and true.
[00:31:11] There's a thesis, there's an antithesis, and we are invited into the synthesis that becomes what is true.
[00:31:22] As Joey and the band get started, I want to ask them to give me a little background music if possible, because I want to share my six antitheses for Pride Sunday.
[00:31:35] You don't have to agree with me.
[00:31:38] These are not my new rules for the best church in town is my invitation to you to engage in your own discernment, your own dialogue, your own discourse.
[00:31:53] So you have heard it said that the Bible is the word of God. But I say to you that Jesus is the only word, the divine logos, and that the Bible is a human text meant to be read, understood and debated.
[00:32:07] So it will form us into people who know for ourselves what is right.
[00:32:13] You've heard that it said that the Bible must be obeyed. But I say that humanity was not made for the Bible. But the Bible was made for humanity.
[00:32:23] You've heard it said that women must remain silent in church.
[00:32:29] But I say to you that nobody should remain silent, least of all women.
[00:32:35] And that we need every voice to know who God is, men, women and non binary people alike.
[00:32:43] You have heard it said that homosexuality is a sin.
[00:32:48] But I say to you there is no sin but harm and hurts and trauma.
[00:32:58] And that there can be no law against love between consenting people of any gender or sexuality because love is the opposite of harm.
[00:33:11] You've heard it said that there are only two genders. But I say to you that every ancient culture, including the one we see depicted in scripture, recognizes that gender is a spectrum that transcends biology and that the shape of your genitals is nobody's damn business.
[00:33:33] You've heard it said that God will punish you for all eternity unless you conform to the rules of traditional Christianity. But I say to you that fear based obedience is a form of fascism and terror and that is the antithesis of love.
[00:34:02] Thank you for joining us for this Sunday teaching, no matter when or where you're tuning in.
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