Heart Of The Matter: ReDux with Shawn McCraney

Tonight, we are presenting a new format for you folks in our HOTM Redux.  On Monday nights we are going to air the core content of our weekly presentation to you – 30 minutes long.

Then tomorrow night we are going to go live, open up the phone lines, and hopefully hear from YOU regarding the content presented now.

So, in essence, HOTM Redux will remain the same length but come to you in two parts – 30 minutes on Monday night of Presentation and 30 minutes on Tuesday nights of calls, emails and your online comments – as well as announcements and the like.

So, getting right to it, I want our first program tonight, oddly enough, to be about what the LDS call the sacrament, which is called communion in some churches and the Eucharist in others.

Let’s take a quick look at where the observance of this rite began – and of course we have to go to the Bible.

Anciently and on out to today, the Nation of Israel celebrates what is called the Passover which was in memoriam of when the Spirit of Death PASSED over the firstborn children of Israel who put lamb’s blood on their doorposts while in bondage to Egypt. 

On the night of His death and the night Passover was celebrated, Jesus brought new significance to the Passover meal which was eaten among the Jews.

What was this meal?  On the night the Spirit of death passed over those houses with the blood of the lamb on their doorposts, those inside the home roasted the lamb and ate it with unleavened bread.  This was the Passover meal.

On the eve of His own death as the Lamb of God, Jesus gathered for this same celebratory meal with His disciples, and assimilated it into His ultimate sacrifice which was about to take place.

Paul, in 1st Corinthians 11:23-26 said of this meal something Jesus himself told him, saying:

1st Corinthians 11:23  For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:

24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.

 25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.

26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death until he comes (or returns).

So, to them/then, Jesus instituted a significant new fellowship meal taken from the old but now based on Him.  It was a material memorial created to sustain the believers in that day in their tremendous trials via fellowship (or communion – koinonia in the Greek) that would occur over very simple elements that were representative of His brutalized body and shed blood.

After taking a loaf of bread and giving thanks He broke it and said:

‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ Then after the meal he took the cup of wine and after thanking God, said, 

‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you’.”

Then they ended the feast by singing a hymn and proceeded to the Mount of Olives where Jesus was betrayed and then lived out in his person the breaking of his body and shedding of His blood.

This meal was a profound and deeply impactful memorial to His offering for sin and death, and had tremendous import to the believers in that age.

There is a lot of power behind this ritual when performed with solemnity and remembrance of the sacrifice of Christ – and for this reason it has remained a staple in Christian praxis for nearly two millennia.

Of course, the materially based practice is both a favorite among religionists (perhaps second only to water baptism) and naturally it is approached a thousand different ways till Sunday in terms of execution and purpose.

What is so easily forgotten is Paul has the Lord placing a time limit on the ceremony itself —did you catch it?  He said the Lord told him, 

“For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death until he comes (or returns).”

Because most believers are blind to the fact that He has come or returned, most believers – especially the denoms – continue to implement some form of the Eucharist, communion or sacrament in their weekly, monthly or annual services.

In fact, built in to the practice of communion is the tacit affirmation that Jesus is coming back in the future to save them.

Additionally, there is perhaps no more of a religious practice on earth.  What I mean by this is, according to the New Testament narrative (written to the believers then) Communion:

Is a command believers must obey.  Why? Because the Lord told them/then

"This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me."  1 Corinthians 11:24

Must obeys are called religion.  It was necessary.  Remember, this was established while the Temple still stood, and Judaism was still in control, and the nascent gathering of believers were barely surviving.  This was BEFORE God established His New Testament of writing His laws on the hearts and minds of those who were his.  It was a transitory period and so the communion to them/then was very important and purposeful.

Additionally, communion is an ultimate expression of material religion because Paul said to use it as a time to examine ourselves as believers, saying in 1st Corinthians 11:28: 

“A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.”

But self-examination in and through direct access to God by the Holy Spirit through Christ is a daily, constant, personal experience for those who are his and is not tied to an external practice the way the denoms want us to believe.

The model is really simple folks – if the denoms can standardize, corporatize and institutionalize material mandates on people – whether water baptism, or blessings, or communions – they own us – as often as they demand our allegiance to the thing we are owned.

For this reason the more sinister approaches to communion demand it more frequently of their congregates, right?

This is not of God who came to liberate and free through the finished work of His Son.   Like most things in the New Testament, communion had a limited purpose for a limited time that had a limited application to that little church-bride.

You wanna do a study?  Just go online and review the vast and varied approaches that churches have adopted relative to communion.

First, we have the name it is called.

The term "Eucharist" (which means, thanksgiving in the Greek) is the name still used by

Live from the Mecca of Mormonism, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH This is Heart of the Matter, (BEAT) Where we try and get all people to walk toward the love of Jesus Christ.  And I am Shawn McCraney, your host.  Let’s have a prayer.  PRAYER  Tonight, the fourth and final part of Hear Me Out – Next week we will get into our direct discussions about the Mormon institution and the people thereof.  Listen – Seth has put the audio version of our book, Knife to a Gunfight on Youtube in segments by chapter.  If you really want to understand the mass of thought behind the philosophy and thinking behind Subjective Christianity take a few minutes and listen to this book.  Some chapters take as long as 20 plus minutes and some are short as four or five minutes, but give it a go.  It’s free, its informative, and I am personally really proud of the information and insights the book brings to seekers of God through Christ.  Knife to a Gunfight – in AUDIO form – chapter by chapter – just go to Heart of the Matter with Shawn McCraney on YouTube.  And while you are there take the time to subscribe to our channel.  We are going to start to unleash new interviews mid-week in addition to our Tuesday Night live programs and by subscribing you will get immediate notification of their release.  Finally, check us out on  Instagram Twitter Facebook  And join us on Sunday – Live or anytime through our archives - as we teach through the Bible Verse by Verse.  Again – all free, easily accessible – and informative.  Finally, this coming Sunday at the HOTM Church/Studio here in Murray Utah we are having our annual Open water Baptism at 11:30 (after our Milk gathering).  Come one come all.    In parts 1 – 3 presented these past three weeks we have tried to lay out for you a biblical world-view of all things Christian.  In so doing I have said  ●       Material religion was done away with by God himself once he destroyed Jerusalem and over a million Jews, their Genealogies, their temple, their priesthoods, and the Law in 70AD, which was the end of “the world” when Jesus came back and took His pure church/bride. ●       That as a result Hell (which was once a reality) has been cast into the Lake of Fire, along with Satan, that God is now “all in all,” that a spiritual resurrection has been taking place (for every individual who has died since that time) and that all people (have been saved from the former place called hell) and go to a heavenly realm as a result. ●       We maintain that the faith shifted from being materially based (in brick and mortar, with men and their authoritai and traditions, and their interpretations of God’s laws written in ink) to a faith governed by the Spirit, where God writes His laws on the hearts and minds of those who are His, making the faith subjectively understood by every individual and not objectively demanded by institution.  This stuff is new to some of you but was not created by me – it was created by God and is directly presented in the narrative we call the Bible – if you have eyes to see.  And most do not – which is unfortunate – because it just leaves them in the bondage of Man (which has proven to be a fail) instead of being free to love all with the liberty of the Spirit.  Also unfortunate is that what I have presented in the past three weeks tends to lead to some really poor assumptions.  I mean, when a person says that God has saved everyone to heaven, that statement, in the minds and hearts of most people, gets translated to something called Universalism or the notion that everyone is the same and all go to the same location in heaven after this life – no matter what they believed or did.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Nevertheless, even those people who fancy themselves as “thinkers” (even amateur “scholars”) believe that this is what I am saying or teaching!   I mean, listen to what a critic named Isaac sent me a few weeks ago on this very topic, saying:  “If the whole world is saved then quit what you're doing. You are wasting your time getting attacked by LDS and real Christians for nothing. Better to resign from ministry altogether.”  The assumptions in Isaacs email are very sad.  Listen to them again:  “If (or since) the whole world is SAVED then QUITE what I you are doing?”  The assumption made by Isaac is that being saved (from hell to heaven) is all that matters for human kind!  This view is completely out of harmony with the scripture!  There is so, so, so much more that God intends for those who receive His Son by faith in this life – and herein lies the fail in the thinking of men like Isaac, who appears to assume that:  “I am wasting my time getting attacked for nothing and it would be best to resign from ministry all together!”  You see to Isaac, there is no reason under the sun to have a ministry that  Reaches out to others with the message of the Great News or challenges institutional religion  Or teaches through the Bible verse by verse  If in fact God has saved the world in and through His Son.  What is the point of sharing Jesus, says the thought, “If He has already come back and taken His bride?”  What is the point in sharing Jesus if hell and Satan have been defeated, if God has accomplished everything through His Son? And so on and so on.  I would like to use my fourth and final part tonight to explain why outreach, and ministry, and teaching the Word to believers remains essential to God’s Plan for human beings today and has been essential for nearly 2000 years even though God has saved the world.  Please hear me out one . . . last . . . time.  So after proving through the scripture last week that God has saved the whole world through the work of His Son – which is the only real definition of the Good News that I can accept in light of a Good God who is omnipotent and loving, why would and does this ministry continue to do what it does in reaching, teaching and trying to bring people to faith AND to help them grow IN the faith once received?  Let’s begin by reading the familiar description of Jesus (and His Kingdom) described in Isaiah 9:6-7.  I am going to take the liberty to add “emphasis” to the part that applies to our topic tonight where Isaiah wrote speaking of Jesus and says:  6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.  Did you catch it?  That speaking of His Kingdom (which Jesus plainly said to Pilate when He was on earth was “NOT of this WORLD) “there would be no end.”  Of the INCREASE of His GOVERNMENT over HIS KINGDOM (which is NOT of this world) there will be no end!  His Kingdom (which again, is NOT of this world) is “ever increasing” and will eternally continue to increase.  In what manner will His Kingdom ever increase by?  By people joining it.  People coming to faith and people bearing fruits of love.  By God writing His laws on the minds and hearts of more and more people who come to him by faith.  These will forever continue to increase and to fill that Kingdom of ...

We’re taking live calls. Remember, we are taking calls – 801 950-8413 – in about 40 minutes. 

I want to thank all of you who tune in and consider our message.  We know that some of you are enemies who frankly despise me however we have seen some of our stuff sink in and actually change the ways even you do things and for that we are grateful. 

And thank those of you who are so led to support us with prayers and hard earned finances. 

Ours is a very, very small ministry but we are able to produce some qualitatice AND quantitative stuff because of your support.  So thank you. 

This is Hear me out Part III of four. 

Last week we talked about how that even though the Bible makes it clear that God, through the finished work of His Son, was going to establish His Kingdom among individuals, making the faith “subjectively known and received, that men and woman have tried to insert themselves and their views between God and the individual in the form of organized religion and their empires. 

We illustrated the four main Jesus groups that are engaged in a constant tug-o-war for members and their control over them – Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxies, Protestant Denoms (of every flavor), and Restorationist movements writ large. 

We also mentioned that some 5 BILLION other folks which thrive outside of these four groups (who are all considered hell-bound by the way) by the four main Christian approaches just named. 

Again – all of this stuff  – this infighting and warfare, all of the division and name-calling would be done away with IF believers could see that God has reconciled the entire world to Himself by and through the finished work of His Son. 

See, conflict and warfare exist between people when they allow themselves to believe that Jesus has only saved some because the rest of the world fails to believe the way their respective religion says they must to be saved. 

And therein lies the power and the problem of religion – its very existence is anathematic to peace, love and understanding. 

However, if God (through His SON) saved the whole world past, present and future (without exception or condition), then there remains no reason for denominationalism, judgment, criticism or attack on others.  None. 

Of course ANYONE can come up with a theory that sounds nice, right?  The  question here is: Does the Bible say that God, through His Son, has saved the whole world? 

If it does, then this is a major blow to proprietary religious establishments the world over and we can all stop feeding the machine. 

Now, what makes answering this question difficult is people open up their Bibles and read Jesus and the Apostles talking to audiences in their day about “being saved.” 

What many people don’t realize is that a great percentage many of these references (about being saved) from the mouth of Jesus and His apostles are speaking of being saved from something other than “from hell and to heaven” – the way Christians today interpret the phrase. 

For instance, when Paul was on a boat that was in peril he said: 

Acts 27:3 Unless you abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved. 

That passage obviously has nothing to do with being saved “from hell and to heaven” but saved there obviously means, “saved from drowning in the sea!”  Right? 

So context, audience and speaker help determine the meaning of the term, “saved.” 

We also know that many times the word saved is used to describe someone who was healed from an ailment due to their faith, as Jesus said to a man healed in Luke 18:42 

“Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee.” 

Saved thee from what?  Blindness.   

Now listen closely, what is really revelatory about this is that most of the references to “being saved” (as stated by Jesus and/or his apostles) are couched in conversations of them talking to those people (in that day and age) about being saved from the coming destruction which was promised to fall upon them soon. 

A destruction that actually did come and not only destroy Jerusalem and much of Israel in 70 AD but slaughtered well over a MILLION Jews. 

The apostolic promise in that day was believe on Jesus and be SAVED from that certain coming death!  That is what many of the remarks on saving are about in the New Testament! 

So, as an example, when we read Jesus say to his apostles in Matthew 10:22  

And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. 

He is talking to them about enduring the heinous trials that were coming upon them and those who did so “to the end” would be saved from the coming destruction. 

Again, in Matthew 24:22 when Jesus says 

And unless those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened. 

Again, the saving he is speaking of here has nothing to do with being saved from hell and to heaven but has to do with them being saved from the promised physical destruction headed their way. 

Same in Luke where we read 

(1:71) That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us – from physical death prophesied to come! 

I suggest that even at Pentecost, when Peter stood before the 3000 Jews and said: 

Acts 2:21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. 

That he was speaking of them being saved from the coming destruction and not from an eternity in hell. 

In Acts 2:47 we read Luke’s description of the nascent church when he wrote that the believers were 

“Praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” 

That again, “the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved from the coming destruction as His Church-Bride whom he would come and take.” 

We all assume that when we read passages like Acts 16:31 where Paul says 

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” 

 . . . that he is speaking of saved from hell and to heaven but he could easily and also be speaking of saved from the coming destruction Jesus promised. 

Even when Paul writes in Romans 

Romans 5:9-10 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 

Or when he writes in Romans 10 

Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might ...

I’ve been searching for truth since I was a youngster.  I had thoughts and inklings and premonitions about things like love, and God and kindness, but they were typically corrected or overrun by the group-think powers surrounding me.

I grew up in an era where black people were not only laughingly referred to by other names, but so were Hispanics, and Asians, and anyone else that was not white.

Mine was a time when it was completely natural to refer to a homosexual as a fag, a lesbian as a dyke, and a disabled person as a gimp or retard.

What amazes me most is that while I, the individual, was secretly entertaining other thoughts toward these people groups who were different than me – thoughts of kindness and acceptance – 

the religion my parents had embraced, which promoted itself as “the only true church on the face of the earth” and its male leaders who were in charge of me, encouraged the rhetoric that I was secretly concerned about.

In time their promotion of hate took root in my soul and I fully embraced all the elements of being a misogynistic, narcissistic, racist, homophobic fascist jerk – ironically known also as a returned Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Looking back, however, I can see the winds and waves of change at work on my soul.  Sometimes they would arrive in one giant swell and never leave – like when Jesus came to my heart in 1997. 

But at other times truth and my ability to receive it came in waves stretched out over spans of time  . . . without my realizing that each wave was part of the same storm.

Having three older siblings I cut my teeth on music – on a wide arraignment of types and styles.  

But sometime in the midst of my teens – around 1977  - I had become a fan of a form of music that I could really resonate with - punk.  

Along with my best friend and next door neighbor Steve (who is now an LDS Stake President in Los Angeles), we discovered the Sex Pistols and dove headlong into what I felt was a “raw garage-like honesty” as compared to the fabricated sounds of corporate rock, studio bands, disco and of course, the prefabricated ideals and ideas of the only true Church on the face of the earth.

What I mean to say is that in very short order I learned to trust the authentic expressions of punk over the ersatz group think messages of all of the former.

One week around that time Steve and I learned that the Sex Pistols (our first exposure to punk and the first punk album I ever owned) were going to be on Saturday Night life and, like many of you, we anxiously passed the hours of that week waiting to hear, “Live from New York, Its Saturday Night.”  We could hardly wait to see them live.

We were disappointed however when the Pistols were replaced (for some unknown reason) by a guy named Elvis Costello (of whom we knew nothing about).

Nevertheless, because we were seeking for more authentic expressions in music we watched on – from our respective family dens.

Evil Costello took to the stage that night looking cool enough, and he and his band launched into a song that seemed original and honest enough but then all of a sudden I watched with both shock and delight as Elvis manically jerked himself from the microphone, spastically stopped the music, apologized to the audience, and turning to his band, told them to play something different – a song called, “Radio Radio.”

I suppose it was what I was longing to see someone do in my life all along – to step forward in teachers quorum and spastically stop a homophobic joke, or to tell us kids that it was okay to love people who were of the world with all of our heart – and I was mesmerized by the courage of this wirey little bespeckled Brit for doing whatever he was doing.

What was this?  I said to myself, fascinated by the spectacle.  What is this guy actually doing?  Why did he stop the first song?  Why sing this second song instead?  

I was tempted to call Steve next door on the telephone but remained transfixed as Elvis Costello sang, “Radio, Radio” angrily.  Passionately, as if in defiance of a some Totalitarian power f which I was totally unaware.

I didn’t know how to react, where to put my hands, and I remember looking around the room to say something to somebody about this . . . but nobody was there.

By the time song ended, which I later learned was an indictment against the powers that run the radio waves, I knew a couple of things as much as I knew that the Boom of Mormon was true - I knew I I wanted what Elvis Costello had – that devotion, and passion - THAT willingness to do what he did NOT appear to have the permission to do – and I knew that Elvis Costello, more than my young mens’ advisor, more than my Bishop, more than my own parents, could be trusted.

This was my Montgomery Pop festival.  My Woodstock.  My Tieniman square.  And it all took place in my heart and head in the glow of an agitated man named Elvis Costello and his band the Attractions.

As the next week rolled around, two female friends at school (who were artists and real music aficianatos) told me the inside scoop to the SNL event:

Elvis had not only been told to sing the song they opened with by NBC and Lorne Michaels, but he was expressly prohibited to sing “Radio Radio” – which he did anyway – which resulted in a great debacle at the time.  

Elvis Costello would pay the price for his disobedience and would not be invited back to SNL for over a decade thereafter but in the least, he gained the trust of one idiot southern California teenager through his act of defiance in the face of artistic authenticity.

Several week later I heard a knock at my door and found a new silkscreened tee- shirt of Elvis Costello and the attractions laying on my parents front porch – an unsolicited gift of love from my two female friends at school.

That sort of amazed me – that two girls who were not members of the only true Church on the face of the earth had enough love and care for me to gift me with something that they knew I would love.

I wore that shirt out as I continued forward in search of unvarnished, authentic truth in art, life, music and ultimately, even spiritual matters.

Nearly twenty years later, after a full time mission and marriage in the LA temple and while still outwardly an active Latter day Saint but one totally immersed in years of seeking for unvarnished spiritual authenticity, I was invited to go to Sri Lanka (for a month or so) and to develop a line of clothing from warehouses of fabric owned by the largest cutter and sewer of clothing in South East Asia, Kumar Deapura.

I was not a traveler then (or now) and had never been outside the United States with the exception of Tijuana a couple of times and Canada in college so I knew that this was going to be a new experience for me.

After all the shots and paperwork I embarked on the 21 hour flight to Sri Lanka where I would actually live with Kumar in his home and work out of his offices to create this line of clothes.

Remember now, I had – since returning home from my LDS mission – been seeking “authenticity” in my life.  Ever since the SNL event I had been seeking to be authentic – though I usually failed.

For years prior to this long journey to a completely foreign land, I had spent years seeking truth in music and in film, which bra...