1. In his teaching about Genesis 3’s story of and reflection on the acquisition of wisdom, Tim pointed out that, in Western culture, we often think of freedom as a lack of constraints. This state, however, is actually one of chaos. Instead, Tim said that freedom is finding limits that help us to express our true humanity.

Spend a moment considering your own sense of what freedom means and is. 

What do you think of the idea that minimizing constraint is the pathway to freedom? What experience do you have with that approach to pursuing freedom? What has that experience taught you?

Then, consider Tim’s assertion that freedom is actually finding limits that help us to express our humanity and to be human as human was meant to be. 

What do you think of this idea of freedom? What experiences have you had that align with this idea and approach to the pursuit of freedom? What have those experiences taught you?  

2. Adam & Eve listen to a source other than God. They ignore God’s directions, which are designed to lead them in the long slow work of gaining knowledge alongside commensurate growth in wisdom. In essence, their core misstep is trying to take a shortcut to wisdom.

In what ways does this summary of what Genesis 3 communicates differ from what you’ve learned in the past? How do you feel about any misalignment in what you thought you knew about this chapter’s contents and what you’re learning from Tim this summer?How does this week’s framing of the story land for you? Does it resonate somewhere within? Do you feel resistance? Frustration? Confusion? Relief? Share a bit with your group about the process of re-learning familiar stories and texts. What’s that process like for you?

3. Tim taught  tha part of the take-away from Genesis 3 is that the task of humanity, in the wake of Adam & Eve’s failure, is to again pursue sacred space like that of the garden, in which meeting with God is natural, easy, and uncomplicated.

How do you respond to this idea? What thoughts arise? What emotions? What embodied sensations, if any, do you feel aware of as you consider this idea of purpose? 

Tim also talked about how many of our Christian practices help us to: 

1) slow down and patiently make the pursuit of wisdom central to our lives, and 

2) cultivate sacred space in our lives, which allows God to be the primary source for our wisdom and direction

What do your own practices look like in regard to these two aims? Which feels most important? Most helpful? In what regards do they feel so? What have you learned (or are you learning) about setting the pursuit of wisdom and the creation of sacred space with God as primary aims in your life as a Christian? What questions or areas of curiosity do you have in regard to these ideas? 

1. Tim taught about the Hebrew behind our English translations of Genesis 2,  breaking down the true meanings of “ha adam” (the human” and “ezer kenegdo” (delivering opposite.) He taught about how the entrenchment of patriarchy in culture led to unsuitable and inappropriate translations of these terms and fueled the proliferation of patriarchal ideas about exclusion based on gender in Christian society. 

In looking at these realities, how are you left feeling? What surfaces for you as you consider the long-standing and far reaching impacts for people of all genders in our society, now and in the past? 

What thoughts, ideas, and assumptions of your own are challenged, changed, or supported by this information? How does your own gender identity impact your responses to today’s teaching & to this quote?

2. Tim said the following:

“Patriarchy is all over the Bible, but it is not the message of the Bible… and grown-up Christianity involves learning to make that distinction. 

“Grown up Christianity is shaped by the Bible Jesus read, and knowing it well enough to know that it argues against patriarchy…..

“Any hierarchical social system bent on excluding and scapegoating people based on race, ethnicity, nationality, or even religion runs counter to the terms God has set for creation. And grown up Christianity can see this reality and resist it in whatever ways God might be leading them. 

“Grown-up Christianity knows that the exploitation of the earth for fossil fuels and natural resources all so that we can consume more and more products without limits cannot lead to shalom and flourishing…

“Grown-up Christianity has been shaped by the Bible Jesus read, and by these creation narratives that can give us a whole new imagination so [that we’re] able to see and confess that we need to make changes. We need to find ways to take care of each other - especially those on the margins - to make sure [that] all of God’s children get in on the blessings of life and can be full participants in the human vocation.”

What do you make of this idea of “grown up Christianity” and the ways Tim has described some its attributes? Where do you feel resistance? What feels intuitively “right” to you? 

If you were to describe “grown up Christianity,” how would you characterize it? What might you add, modify, or change?

3. No matter where you are in your own life and faith stories, what might it look like for you to become more “grown up” in your Christianity? If you need to spend a little time considering that question in order to come up with some meaningful ideas, please do. 

What does it mean to lean into grown up Christianity? What’s yours to do and challenge in your own personal faith?

As part of the closing prayer, Tim said, “we’re so dehumanized by many parts of our culture.” 

With that statement and today’s sermon in mind, how do you see your role in moving our larger culture toward more humane and humanizing experiences of life for all, particularly in light of today’s sermon? 

1. In contrasting the creation narratives & cosmologies of other Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) cultures with those of Genesis’ writers, Tim pointed out that the Biblical narrative is unique in two key ways:

* First, the gods in the other cultures emerge from nature, but the Hebrew God exists wholly apart from the creation & 

* Second, the creation acts in the other ANE narratives originate in violence of some sort, while the Hebrew God’s creative acts were creative & entirely nonviolent. 

What do you make of these differences? What do they tell you about what Genesis conveys about the Hebrew God? What does it suggest to you about the ancient Hebrew mindset and worldview? What’s the value in holding this conception of a foreign, ancient, and, in many ways, unknown mindset as we consider our own experience of reading and engaging with the book of Genesis?

2. On the attached slide, Tim highlighted some important differences between the first and second creation narratives in Genesis. 

What’s your response to the consideration of the dual narratives in Genesis? Is this approach to the creation stories different than what you have been exposed to in the past? If so, what do you make of it? How does the shift in how you conceive of the Bible’s telling of creation affect you? Your sense of what the Bible conveys? How to respond to and receive the Biblical narratives? What emotions, questions, or thoughts emerge for you as you consider?

Tim also said, including both of the Biblical narratives, that “creation is clearly left unfinished.” He also pointed out that neither narrative mentions perfection. 

How do you respond to each of these two ideas? (Feel free to discuss them separately for simplicity’s sake) Are you aware of any spaces of curiosity as you consider each of these ideas? Are you aware of any spaces of internal resistance? What do you make of these personal responses?

3. Tim also taught that the Genesis telling of creation tells us that:

 a) since the very beginning, God has been with us in our struggles with chaos (being overwhelmed by too much) and barrenness (not having enough of what we need to flourish). 

&

b) the only way forward for all of humanity is to find a way to live in partnership with the Divine. 

Spend some time discussing these ideas and responding to them as a group and as individuals. 

1. One big idea from Cole’s sermon today, reflected in the work of Karen Armstrong, is the idea that “the gods we shape, shape us.” In other words, part of the theological work of mankind involves the creation and articulation of images and understandings of God. And those concepts, as they evolve alongside the cultures and contexts in which they exist, have an influence on the spiritual communities we create, and the way we live devout lives of faith. 

Spend a moment reflecting on this idea. Where might you have seen its fingerprints in your own experiences and/or life? 

In what ways has your own concept or God evolved as you have grown & changed? In what ways have those evolutions impacted the way you respond to God?

2. Cole taught that the texts included in the Bible reflect a time period before early Christians were able to reconcile some important theological ideas:

1) the Shema’s insistence on oneness

2) with the divine identity of Jesus (see Phil 2:6-11) &

3) the real presence of the Spirit (see Acts 2)

He said, “as the pages of the Bible come to a close…the early Christians had not really landed on a consensus about what in the world was going on with Jesus. They hadn’t really come close to anything that resembles the doctrine of the trinity.” 

Cole shared Jaroslav Pelikan’s idea that the dogma of the Trinity didn’t have its origins in speculative theorizing, but instead, in the nature of the life that the early church lived as they pursued a deep commitment to Jesus. As they did so, they lived the idea of the trinity before they even understood it as a concept. It was out of that embodied truth that the language and more formed concepts were born. 

Cole suggested that, like those early Christians, we are constantly living and acting in accordance with something we haven’t yet understood. 

How do you feel about the idea that early Christians lived ideas they didn’t have language for or real understanding of, and that it’s those ideas we embrace today in our faith? What questions surface for you as you contemplate that reality?

In what ways do you see yourself living and acting in accordance with something you don’t yet understand? What’s challenging about that aspect of living? What’s good about it?

What do you think we can learn by living and acting in accordance with ideas we don’t yet understand? What, if anything, is the value of this dynamic in our lives? 

3.  Cole also taught about a concept of God, widely embraced in Western Christianity, which is easily used as a convenient tool of empire. This God is pure and cut off from creation, set above the concerns of ordinary life. In this theological paradigm, empire gets to control access to God and how God comes to us. This removed inaccessible God doles out peace the same way empire doles out peace, as a benevolent, fleeting gift for those who can earn or deserve it. 

In contrast, an authentically communal God, a trinity inseparable from relationality, births communities in which God’s presence and peace come by way of common relationship & common life.  As Cole said, “this God is a community, and participation in cruciform community is to be caught up in God.” This allows church to be about connection, rather than getting people to accept some idea, behavior, or message. 

Reflect on these ideas for a moment. How do you feel about the idea that our Western concept of God is very congruent with the empire in which we live and operate? How does that make you feel about your own history with different churches and with the versions of God shaped by those communities? 

How do you understand the idea that “participation in cruciform community is to be caught up in God?” Do you understand it? What questions do you have about that idea and what it looks like? What parts seem clearer? Where have you seen that in practice in your own experiences? 

1. Today, Tim set up his discussion of Jesus’ new command (John 13:34) by sharing about the concept of pleasure v. enjoyment.

This slide outlines what he shared:




In light of this concept, Tim taught that the reason the original 613 commands of the law couldn’t transform the Israelite people was that they worked against human nature. We’re wired to seek continual opportunities for enjoyment, often found by transgressing the “commands” in our lives.

Spend some time with this dichotomy. Think of ways in which you’ve experienced pleasure, as it’s conceived of here. Think of some ways in which you’ve experienced enjoyment. Share some examples of each with your group.

Which of these experiences feels more familiar? More appealing? What do you think it is about your personality that leads you to answer in the way you are?

2. Tim also taught about the opportunity for enjoyment that’s provided by exclusion. He said, “any kind of exclusion makes our sense of belonging so much better.”

Where do you see/have you seen this principle at work in yourself? What groups/categories have you seen engage in frequent exclusion?

How/when have you been excluded? How did you respond to that exclusion? How did it make you feel about the crowd/people from which you were excluded?

3. Tim taught that Jesus’ new command (from John 13:34) leads to enjoyment in a new and different way; rather than finding enjoyment through transgressing commands, we find it through transgressing the self. This process of loving sacrificially leads to both pleasure and pain. It also provides opportunities for endless enjoyment. Tim said that, as the church, our only real command is love and inclusion.

When you think of your life in and as a part of the church, how do you feel about this sole command? What thoughts, ideas, and feelings arise for you as you take a moment to consider this command as the command for the church?

Are there [other] “commands” that you have embraced in the past hoping in their ability to create transformation in your life? How has that worked for you? Do you have commands (other than Jesus’ new command to love) that you embrace now, hoping for them to produce transformation? What fruit, if any have you seen from those efforts?

What experiences do you have that speak to the power of sacrificial love’s ability to create transformation when it’s embraced or enacted as a command? See if you can think of experiences in which you’ve been the one loving actively and experiences in which you’ve been loved in this way. Share some examples as a group. If you can see transformation that has resulted, share about that with the group.

1. One of Tim’s slides read, “we get to re-narrate our own stories & decide what meaning they will have for us.         We can’t change the events of our past; we can change their meaning.” 

How does this idea strike you? Does it intuitively make sense? Does it challenge any ideas you may hold about the meaning of events in our stories? Or about the nature of our stories themselves?

When you think generally about a person’s past traumas, experiences of disorientation, or failures, what are some of the other ways in which you’ve seen people respond to difficult experiences? What do you think of “rewriting its meaning” as one of the options? What makes it an appealing option? What makes it less appealing? 

2. Reflecting on the ways in which Peter may have felt disqualified or defeated by his denials of Jesus, Tim taught that Jesus’ response to Peter demonstrated that God’s covenants and kingdom are those of grace, love, and reconciliation. In effect, Jesus’ demonstration of love and grace helped to re-narrate Peter’s failure as a natural part of Peter’s discipleship process, rather than a transgression for which Peter must offer restitution. 

Spend a little time thinking about this, and as you do, reflect on times in which you might feel like you’ve failed in significant ways - or maybe even failed God. There’s no pressure to share your own story, but in light of your experiences, what might you imagine that Peter could be feeling as he sees this grace-filled restoration offered to him, with no condemnation or  remonstrance? 

To what degree do you think it might have been difficult for Peter to fully accept this second chance? What might have given him cause for resistance? 

Do you feel resistant to the idea of unrestrained and limitless second chances being extended to you? Is that more true in concrete examples or in abstraction? What are the factors that you suspect could lead to any resistance felt in yourself, in Peter, or in someone else? 

3. As Tim shared, Redemption Church hopes to be a community in which we help each another to re-narrate the stories of our lives, and to assign them meaning within the story of God, aligned with God’s kingdom of love, forgiveness, and  reconciliation.  

Have you had experiences of this in your time at RC, in big or small ways? Have you witnessed it in others? 

How do you think it works in the practical realities of community and relationships at church? What does it look like to be a part of this process in regards to the narration of your own stories? What does it look like to be a part of this process in the stories of others in our church? How does it feel to be a part of this work in the lives of others? To have others be a part of this transformation in your life?

1. Tim juxtaposed religion that packages the cross and resurrection with certitude, as a solution for the puzzle of our “sin problem” and a faith that engages with the cross and resurrection as “a mystery of how God can be born into the world through us.” He discussed the ways in which this happens on both personal and societal levels. We lack insights that, in our present form, are simply beyond us, so God is always leading us toward something deeper. 

As a group, generate a list of some of the ways in which you think that, as a society, we are lacking the insight we need to address places and things that simply aren’t working for us anymore. 

How do you know those are places where we, as a society,  lack the insight and wisdom we need? How can they be identified? 

2. Tim taught that the cross and resurrection help show us that in order for new things to be born, we have to let go of old ideas that we are attached to, that feel like they’re a part of us. 

Do you have experiences of this principle at work in your own life? Share any examples of times in which you recognize that, in order to survive and thrive, you had to let your old way of being die, so that something new could be born. 

Continuing this theme, Tim talked about how, Thomas sat in fidelity with his friends, even though he doubted their story of Jesus’ resurrection, and that this mysterious space prepared him for the ability to see all new possibilities once he did finally encounter Jesus for himself. (This idea is connected to the fact that Thomas, after his encounter, was the first to recognize and declare Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” )

Reflecting back on the examples you just shared about places of death and rebirth in your own life, can you identify any new insights and visions of possibility made possible through those experiences? 

3. Shifting back to some of the societal challenges the group identified  in the first question, spaces in which society lacks the insight to move forward and address our challenges, which ideas do you think that you, personally, are attached to that might need to die in order to create opportunity for new birth and life in our society? 

As we collectively sit in places of longing to know, while not knowing, Tim taught that we have to trust God in the mystery…that that’s the life of faith that leads to new life. 

What do you think of this idea in the practical? How does it work? What does it look like? If you’re “doing it,” what does that mean?? 

How do you feel about the prospect of allowing death to come for ideas you’ve held as part of yourself and identity that may need to die? What feelings and spaces of resistance arise for you?