Rev'd Up for Sunday

Jesus calls the grieving, the meek, and the persecuted blessed—but what does that promise mean when life is painful? This week, Elizabeth Garnsey and Rob Schwartz explore the Beatitudes through personal stories, everyday encounters, and the challenges of making peace. Along the way, they consider how God meets us in grief, what it means to hunger for righteousness, and whose blessings we might be overlooking.

Questions for Reflection

Themes and Application

1. The discussion draws on Nadia Bolz-Weber’s understanding of Jesus conferring blessing on the people before him. How does that reading change the way you hear “blessed are the poor in spirit” or “blessed are those who mourn”? What kind of response might an already-given blessing invite?
2. Rob’s personal account of losing his brother distinguishes the pain of the loss from the love that arrived through friends and a church community. What does that distinction teach us about offering comfort? How might a congregation make room for grief without explaining it away or expecting it to end on schedule?
3. Elizabeth describes being poor in spirit as making room to receive God and meekness as releasing the need to dominate. The film Babe offers a playful picture of leading through gentleness. Where could that approach change leadership in a household, workplace, or parish? What would give it strength?

Personal Reflection

1. Perhaps you recognize your grief, emptiness, or weariness in the passage but struggle to call yourself blessed. What makes that word difficult? Can you imagine receiving God’s love without having to feel happy, grateful, or spiritually accomplished first?
2. The discussion makes room for bereavement, the death of animals, and grief over suffering in the wider world. Is there a loss you have minimized because it seemed too small, too old, or too overwhelming? What kind of presence or practice would help you carry it?
3. The scorpion story and the Zen story both ask whether another person’s behavior must determine our own. Where are you tempted to answer hostility with hostility? What could help you remain compassionate while also setting boundaries and holding others accountable?

Broader Spiritual Considerations

1. Rob contrasts social media celebrations of money and possessions with Jesus’ blessings upon people experiencing vulnerability. How can equating prosperity with God’s favor shape our judgments about poverty, disability, or suffering? What would change if churches measured their faithfulness by whom they accompany?
2. The episode connects meekness with loosening the grip of scarcity, conquest, and hoarding. How might that challenge the ways communities distribute land, water, or other resources? What would need to change for enough to become a shared reality rather than an individual advantage?
3. The episode reflects on Halloween, All Saints, and All Souls as an invitation to face death and affirm belonging to God. How can remembrance deepen our courage, compassion, and sense of connection with those who have died? How might we speak of resurrection hope while honoring grief and uncertainty?

References & Resources

Vocabulary

• Makarios: The Greek word translated “blessed,” sometimes rendered “happy”; the episode explores radiance as an interpretive image. 
• Righteousness: Rootedness in God expressed in right relationship and repair. 

Scripture

• Luke 6:20–26 — A companion passage for comparing Matthew’s “poor in spirit” with Luke’s blessing of “the poor.”
• Matthew 25:31–46 — Seeing and serving Christ in people who are hungry, thirsty, strangers, unclothed, sick, or imprisoned.

Sermons

• "After We Meet Our Demons" by Rob Schwartz (Watch it)
• "Who God Is Not" by The Rev. Dr. Mark Francisco Bozzuti-Jones (Watch it)

Authors and Thinkers

• Nadia Bolz-Weber (Read her sermon) 
• Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind—A New Perspective on Christ and His Message (Read an Excerpt) or (Order the Book) 
• Gregory C. Ellison II, Cut Dead But Still Alive: Caring for African American Young Men: (Order the book)

Movies

• Inside Out: Making room for sadness. (Watch the trailer)
• Babe: Gentleness as a form of leadership. (Watch the trailer)
• The Interrupters: Courageous intervention in community conflict. (Watch the trailer)

Learn more about St. Mark's at https://www.stmarksnewcanaan.org

What does Jesus mean when he tells us to love God and love our neighbor? And how do we keep such familiar words from losing their power to challenge us?

Elizabeth Garnsey welcomes the Rev. Anne Bartlett to explore Matthew’s Gospel, where a question meant to test Jesus leads straight to the heart of faith. Together, they consider love as a commitment expressed through action, the connection between loving God and loving the people around us, and why experiencing ourselves as beloved by God matters for the love we offer others. From beautiful worship to difficult relationships, this conversation asks what it means to embody God’s love in everyday life.

Questions for Reflection

Themes & Application

1. Elizabeth and Anne explore how devotion to God flows into our treatment of others. How might this connection shape a church’s priorities, decisions, and relationships?
2. Anne wonders how we can hear the commandment to love with fresh attention. What helps these words move beyond something we readily affirm into something that changes our behavior?
3. Anne speaks affectionately about beautiful liturgy while asking what it forms us to do. What would show that our worship is shaping the way we live beyond church?

Personal Reflection

1. Which part of this commandment feels most challenging in your life right now: loving God, loving your neighbor, or loving yourself? What makes that part difficult?
2. Who falls outside your instinctive circle of care? What assumptions or experiences make it difficult to recognize that person as a neighbor?
3. What would one concrete act of committed love look like for you this week? Consider Anne’s observation that sometimes love takes the form of simply being present.

Broader Spiritual Considerations

1. How does Jesus’ use of Deuteronomy and Leviticus shape your understanding of his relationship to Jewish tradition? What becomes clearer when we hear his teaching within that tradition?
2. How might love guide our interpretation of religious rules and practices? What questions should we ask when a practice appears faithful but its effects on people seem unloving?
3. What does it mean for the church to embody Christ’s love? Anne describes us as Christ’s hands, feet, and heart in the world. What responsibilities does that image place on a congregation?

References & Resources

Vocabulary

• Shema: A central Jewish confession and prayer drawn from Deuteronomy 6, including the command to love God with one’s whole being.
• Torah: Jewish teaching and instruction, particularly the first five books of the Bible. Jesus draws both commandments from Torah.
• Lawyer: Here, an expert in religious law who asks Jesus about the greatest commandment.
• Liturgy: The shared prayers, words, and actions of worship, which can help form us for a life of love.

Bible passages

• Deuteronomy 6:4–5: The Shema and the command to love God.
• Leviticus 19:18: Love your neighbor as yourself.
• Matthew 1:1–17: Jesus’s genealogy and identification as the son of David and son of Abraham.
• Romans 13:8–10: Love as the fulfillment of the law.
• Galatians 5:14: The law summed up in loving one’s neighbor.
• 1 Corinthians 13: Paul’s description of love.

Prayer & worship

• The Lord’s Prayer
• The Gloria Patri

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A question about paying Caesar’s tax sounds simple...until you notice who is asking, what the coin says, and who is carrying it. Elizabeth Garnsey and Rob Schwartz explore the strange alliance trying to trap Jesus, the imperial claims stamped onto a denarius, and the question beneath Jesus’ answer: Whose image do we bear, and what does it mean to give ourselves back to God?

Questions for Reflection

Themes & Application

1. The Pharisees and Herodians are unlikely allies, but they unite to get rid of Jesus. Where do you see people or groups set aside their differences to oppose a common target? What does that alliance reveal?
2. Jesus is handed a choice between supporting Caesar and opposing him. How does his answer disrupt that framing? What false choices do Christians sometimes accept too quickly?
3. The episode connects Jesus’ open-ended answer with discernment rather than a tidy legal rule. What might faithful discernment look like when questions of public life, responsibility, and allegiance have no easy answer?

Personal Reflection

1. Elizabeth and Rob name ways we can benefit from systems we also question, including their examples of driving a gas-powered car and using AI. Where do you notice that kind of tension in your own life?
2. Rob describes giving back to God as using what we have in service to God and neighbor. What is one ordinary part of your life that could become an expression of that kind of giving?
3. Have you ever encountered a teaching of Jesus and thought, “I didn’t realize that was an option”? What did that new possibility ask of you?

Broader Spiritual Considerations

1. Elizabeth and Rob connect the strange alliance against Jesus to scapegoating. How can churches recognize when they are building unity by making an outsider or opponent the problem?
2. Elizabeth points out that Jesus’ answer does not make Caesar’s realm and God’s realm equal. What changes when we understand God’s claim as encompassing all of life rather than occupying one sphere alongside others?
3. Elizabeth wonders whether Jesus’ response was successful, since it did not win everyone over and the conflict continued. How should we understand faithfulness when it does not produce immediate agreement or visible success?

References & Resources

Vocabulary

• εἰκών (eikōn) “Image”: The word behind Jesus’ question about whose image appears on the coin. The episode connects it with the biblical claim that people bear God’s image.
• ἀπόδοτε (apodote) “Give back,” “Render,” or “Repay”: The verb in Jesus’ answer. The sense of “give back” supports the episode’s reflection on what we return to God through how we live.

Bible Passages

• Genesis 1:26–27: Humanity created in the image of God. 
• Matthew 4:1–11: The temptation in the wilderness, echoed in Matthew’s language about testing Jesus.
• Matthew 6:24: The teaching about serving God and wealth.

Authors & Theological Voices

• Brian McLaren, Learning How to See: The podcast Rob mentions in his conversation about false binaries. (Watch/Listen to his podcast)
• Andrew Marr: Elizabeth cites his framing of the deeper question: “Who owns you?” (Read his blog)

Film

• The Matrix (1999): Rob uses the film as an example of people discovering their identity beyond a system that claims to define them. (Watch the trailer)

Learn more about St. Mark's at https://www.stmarksnewcanaan.org

A wedding invitation turns into a nightmare: a burned city, a room full of unexpected guests, and a man thrown out for wearing the wrong clothes. Is this really what God’s kingdom looks like? Peter Walsh and Elizabeth Garnsey wrestle with Matthew’s unsettling wedding banquet parable, exploring two different readings—and asking what happens when religious power gets in the way of God’s invitation. Their disagreement opens a deeper conversation about fear, faithfulness, and the God revealed in Jesus.

Themes & Application

1. Elizabeth sees a ruler whose violence exposes the workings of worldly power. Peter understands the king within a nightmare story whose actions should not be taken as a literal portrait of God. How does each reading change what you hear Jesus challenging?
2. Peter emphasizes that the kingdom, in Matthew’s Gospel, is breaking into life now and calls for a response. Elizabeth questions whether the threat of punishment can be reconciled with Jesus’ teaching about God’s love and care. What might an urgent invitation rooted in love sound like?
3. The clergy remain divided over important interpretive questions while affirming a shared understanding of God. What helps their disagreement become fruitful? What can a church learn from reaching common ground without requiring everyone to adopt the same reading?

Personal Reflection

1. When you hear that God is inviting you, do you feel welcomed, pressured, afraid, or something else? What experiences have shaped that response?
2. Have you ever felt that religious belonging depended on having the right appearance, language, beliefs, or credentials? How did that affect your sense of God’s welcome?
3. What do you do when a biblical passage conflicts with your understanding of God? What would help you stay with the difficulty long enough to learn from it?

Broader Spiritual Considerations

1. When communities experience catastrophe, what is at stake in describing the suffering as God’s punishment? How might that explanation affect survivors and the people blamed for it?
2. How can Christians interpret Jesus’ conflicts with particular religious authorities without turning those stories into condemnation of Jewish people or Judaism?
3. Can a religious community sustain shared commitments while allowing several interpretations of a sacred text? What makes that openness fruitful, and what responsibilities come with it? 

References & Resources

Vocabulary

• Eschaton: The ultimate fulfillment of God’s purposes. Peter uses it when discussing the banquet as the consummation of the kingdom.
• Nightmare parable: The interpretive framework Peter attributes to Thomas Long: a disturbing story whose alarming imagery presses a theological question rather than describing God’s behavior literally.
• Suffering servant: An image from Isaiah that Christians connect with Jesus’ suffering. Elizabeth considers whether the speechless guest evokes this image.

Biblical texts

• Luke 14:15–24: The banquet story discussed as a comparison with Matthew’s version. (Read it)

Historical and theological context

• Jerusalem’s destruction and the loss of the Temple: Peter discusses how Matthew’s community may have been trying to make theological sense of catastrophe. This is presented as an interpretive framework, not as proof that God caused the destruction.

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Jesus tells one of his most violent parables: tenants seize a vineyard, attack the servants sent to them, and finally kill the landowner’s son. But who actually calls for vengeance at the end of the story? Peter Walsh and Elizabeth Garnsey explore the Parable of the Wicked Tenants, its roots in the Hebrew Scriptures, the danger of treating God as something religion can own or control, and why this passage should never become a story about Christianity replacing Judaism. Ultimately, the parable turns the question back on us: If the vineyard has been entrusted to our care, what kind of tenants are we?

Questions for Reflection

Themes & Application

• Peter suggests that the tenants’ fundamental mistake is believing that the vineyard belongs to them. Where can religious communities make the same mistake with God, faith, tradition, or the Church? 
• Elizabeth notices that when Jesus asks what should happen to the violent tenants, it is his listeners who say they should be put to a “miserable death.” Jesus instead turns to the rejected stone becoming the cornerstone. How does noticing who proposes the violent ending change the way you understand this parable? 
• Peter eventually turns the parable toward the Church itself. Rather than assuming Christians have simply inherited the vineyard, he asks whether we are actually producing its fruit. What would good stewardship of God's vineyard look like for the Church today? 

Personal Reflection

• Where are you most tempted to become a gatekeeper? Are there people, beliefs, experiences, or ways of encountering God that you find yourself wanting to declare inside or outside the boundaries?
• When someone challenges something you deeply believe, what is your first instinct? Do you listen, defend, withdraw, attack, or become curious?
• Where do you see the “fruits of the kingdom” growing in your own life? Where might the vineyard need more tending?

Broader Spiritual Considerations

• What would it mean to think of the Kingdom of God as the “culture of God”? If mercy, reconciliation, healing, relationship, and love characterize God's culture, how might that culture challenge the assumptions of the cultures in which we live?
• The conversation about supersessionism highlights how interpretations of Scripture can have consequences far beyond Bible study. What responsibility do Christians have to consider the history and consequences of the ways Scripture has been interpreted?
• Peter and Elizabeth repeatedly return to the danger of assuming that our institution, tradition, or interpretation has everything right. How can a religious community hold deep convictions while remaining open to correction, transformation, and the possibility that God is speaking through someone outside its boundaries? 

References & Resources

Vocabulary

• Supersessionism / Replacement Theology: The Christian theological belief that the Church has replaced Israel as God’s covenant people.
• Zionism: A movement supporting Jewish self-determination and a Jewish homeland in the historic Land of Israel.
• Hermeneutics: The practice and principles of interpreting Scripture or other texts.

Scripture

• Isaiah 5:1–7: The Song of the Vineyard: Elizabeth explains that Jesus’ vineyard imagery draws directly from the Hebrew Bible’s portrayal of Israel as God’s vineyard.

Biblical Scholarship & Theology

•  Robert Farrar Capon, The Parables of Judgment: Elizabeth draws on Capon when she explores what the tenants have actually been entrusted with and the danger of religious authorities becoming gatekeepers who act as though access to God belongs to them. (Read the book)

Episcopal Church Resources

• The Episcopal Church’s Alternative Good Friday Liturgy: The Episcopal Church authorized a new alternative Good Friday liturgy in 2024, following several years of development. The revised texts explicitly affirm that God’s covenant with the Jewish people has never been broken, acknowledge the harm Christians have caused Jewish people, and include prayers for Jewish flourishing and safety. (Read it )

Learn more about St. Mark's at https://www.stmarksnewcanaan.org

This week, the religious leaders challenge Jesus by asking, “Who gave you the authority to do this?” But Jesus turns the question back on them, exposing something deeper than a disagreement about authority. Peter Walsh and Elizabeth Garnsey ask what happens when the truth is right in front of us, but accepting it would require us to change. Through the Parable of the Two Sons, they explore the disruptive authority of Jesus, the danger of becoming too certain about our religious convictions, and why an honest “I don’t know” can sometimes be an act of faith.

Questions for Reflection

Themes & Application

1. The religious leaders challenge Jesus because he does not possess the kind of official authority they recognize, yet the crowds have already recognized his authority to teach and heal. What gives someone spiritual authority? How do we discern the difference between institutional authority and authority that comes from God?
2. The religious leaders did not change their minds even after they saw what was happening. What makes us hold onto a belief, position, or way of doing things even when something challenges it?
3. Peter and Elizabeth describe the religious leaders as caught between their convictions, their status, public opinion, and their desire to defeat Jesus. Where can the desire to win an argument or defend our position keep us from genuinely seeking truth?

Personal Reflection

1. When was the last time you genuinely changed your mind about something important? What allowed you to see differently?
2. Peter asks what he needs to “pick up” and what he needs to “put down.” What might you need to put down in order to become more open to God? What might you need to pick up? 
3. It’s boring until it’s personal: Where do you see yourself in this story? Are you the son who initially refuses but changes his mind, the son who says the right thing but doesn’t follow through, the religious leaders questioning Jesus, or perhaps someone else?

Broader Spiritual Considerations

1. The parable asks which son actually did the father’s will, shifting attention from what each son said to how each ultimately responded. How does this complicate the relationship between belief, words, and action?
2. Peter suggests that the religious leaders are not simply “bad dudes.” Their deeply ingrained religious commitments may actually make it harder for them to recognize God breaking into their world in an unexpected way. Can something good, including religious conviction, become an obstacle when we become unable to question it? 
3. Peter suggests that Jesus challenges these leaders so fiercely precisely because they are close to him in their concern for God, Scripture, and righteousness. What if Jesus’ harshest challenges are not rejection, but invitations to transformation?

References & Resources

Vocabulary

• Authority — The chief priests and elders ask Jesus, “By what authority are you doing these things?” The episode explores the difference between the religious leaders’ institutional authority and the authority people recognize in Jesus and John the Baptist.
• Inbreaking — Peter repeatedly describes the Kingdom of God as “breaking in”: God disrupting established patterns and opening up something new. The religious leaders’ established religious framework makes it difficult for them to recognize this inbreaking of God.
• Repentance — Repentance here is worth understanding as more than feeling sorry: it involves a genuine change of mind, direction, and response.

Books and Authors

• James Alison — Elizabeth references Alison’s description of the Parable of the Two Sons as one of the easiest parables in the Bible because its basic meaning seems so obvious, even though its challenge is anything but easy for those Jesus confronts. 
• Andrew Marr, OSB — Elizabeth draws on Marr’s alternative reading of the two sons as caught up in rivalry with one another, allowing their competition to distract them from their relationship with and responsibility to their father. (Read his blog)
• Thomas G. Long, Proclaiming the Parables — Peter returns to Long’s idea of “nightmare parables,” stories intended to shock us into recognizing something about ourselves and changing course. Peter connects this idea with Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and Matthew’s imagery of weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Read the book)

Organizations & Ministries

• Center for Action and Contemplation — Founded by Richard Rohr, the Center is mentioned as Peter discusses the relationship between contemplation, self-knowledge, and becoming more open to the work of the Spirit. (Learn more)

News & Current Events

• "Jerusalem cafe bows to Haredi protests, will no longer open on Shabbat" — (Read about it)

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This week, Jesus tells the story of workers who put in very different hours and somehow receive the exact same pay. Fair? Not exactly. And that's the point. Peter Walsh and Rob Schwartz explore what this parable reveals about our tendency to keep score, decide who deserves what, and turn someone else's blessing into our grievance.

Questions for Reflection

Themes & Application

1. The conversation connects the workers who negotiate their wage with Peter’s earlier question to Jesus: We have left everything to follow you, so what will we get? Where are we tempted to approach God with the same kind of spiritual accounting system? 
2. The workers hired late in the day have not necessarily refused to work. They tell the landowner, “No one has hired us.” How might this challenge the stories we tell about people who have been overlooked, excluded, or fallen behind?
3. The first workers receive exactly what they were promised. Their anger begins when they see the landowner give the same amount to someone else. Why can another person's blessing sometimes feel like something has been taken from us? 

Personal Reflection

1. Have you ever found yourself thinking, I worked harder, I paid my dues, or they don't deserve that? What was underneath that reaction?
2. The episode discusses the biblical image of the “evil eye”: seeing another person's good fortune and turning it into our own grievance. When have you experienced that reaction in yourself? What might help you see differently? 
3. Think of a time when you felt overlooked, passed over, or chosen last. How does the image of the landowner repeatedly returning to the marketplace affect the way you understand that experience?

Broader Spiritual Considerations

1. Peter argues that the story ultimately isn't about calculating the proper wages of the workers. It reveals a God whose goodness exceeds our systems for deciding what people deserve. How does that change the way you understand divine justice?
2. “Is your eye evil because I am good?” What would it mean to read this as a question Jesus asks each of us? Can God's goodness actually expose something unhealthy within us?
3. Peter and Rob notice something peculiar: strictly speaking, everyone in this parable ends up receiving the same thing. What if the kingdom isn't ultimately about reversing the hierarchy, but dismantling the hierarchy itself? 

References & Resources

Vocabulary

• Denarius — A Roman coin commonly associated with a day's wage for a laborer.
• Transactional Faith — An approach to one's relationship with God based on an exchange: If I believe, behave, sacrifice, or serve in the right way, God owes me a particular reward.
• Grace — God's freely given love and forgiveness; not something earned according to merit. 
• Evil Eye — A biblical expression associated here with envy or begrudging another person's good fortune. 
• Day Laborer — A worker hired and paid one day at a time. 

Books and Authors

• Thomas G. Long — Peter draws on Long's interpretation of the parable, particularly in discussing justice, the character of God, and the language behind the landowner's questions.
• Michael Lewis, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game — Rob uses the story of Billy Beane and the Oakland Athletics to illustrate how systems can overlook people because they are measuring value according to limited or faulty criteria. (Watch the Trailer) (Read the Book)

Images & Concepts

• Lady Justice — Discussed as an image of impartial, “blind” justice and contrasted with the parable's vision of God's generosity.

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How many times do we really have to forgive someone? This week, Peter Walsh and Rob Schwartz explore Matthew 18:21–35, where the apostle Peter tries to put a number on forgiveness and Jesus responds by blowing up the whole accounting system. But the conversation quickly gets harder: Is forgiveness the same thing as reconciliation? What happens when someone continues to hurt us? And what are we supposed to do with a parable about mercy that ends with torture?

Questions for Reflection

Themes & Application

1. Peter distinguishes forgiveness from reconciliation: reconciliation involves restoring a relationship, while forgiveness can still be possible when reconciliation is unsafe or impossible. How does this distinction change the way we hear Jesus’ command to forgive? How can we forgive while still naming harm and maintaining necessary boundaries? 
2. Peter and Rob wrestle with the parable’s disturbing conclusion, where the unforgiving servant is handed over to be tortured. Is the king meant to be a straightforward representation of God? How should we interpret violent images of judgment in Matthew alongside Jesus’ larger message of mercy, love, and liberation? 
3. Thomas G. Long describes some of Matthew’s stories as “nightmare parables,” comparing their frightening imagery to A Christmas Carol. Scrooge sees the terrifying destination of his present way of living precisely so that he can wake up and choose another path. Could Jesus’ frightening parable be intended to awaken us rather than simply threaten us? When can uncomfortable or frightening stories reveal something that gentler language cannot? 

Personal Reflection

1. Rob tells the story of accidentally breaking a statue belonging to a friend’s mother and expecting punishment, only to hear her say, “I forgive you.” When have you received grace or forgiveness that you did not think you deserved? Did that experience change the way you treated someone else later? 
2. The episode repeatedly returns to the image of keeping a ledger of what other people owe us. Whose name are you most tempted to keep in your own mental ledger? What would you fear losing if you stopped keeping track?
3. Peter expands the conversation from forgiving others to forgiving ourselves. Are there mistakes, failures, or regrets for which you find it easier to believe God forgives you than to forgive yourself? What might it mean to receive grace deeply enough to stop continually punishing ourselves? 

Broader Spiritual Considerations

1. The contrast between Lamech’s seventy-sevenfold vengeance and Jesus’ seventy-sevenfold forgiveness presents two radically different ways of organizing human relationships. What would families, churches, communities, or nations look like if forgiveness rather than retaliation were the thing that multiplied?
2. The unforgiving servant receives freedom but then recreates the same system of debt and punishment for someone else. Why do people who have experienced oppression, hurt, or judgment sometimes reproduce those same patterns when they gain power? What allows grace to genuinely transform us rather than simply benefit us?
3. Peter ends by describing forgiveness as being released from the “gunk of our psyche” that weighs us down, while also noting that the struggle to forgive is not uniquely Christian but deeply human. What might Christianity contribute to the broader human struggle with resentment, vengeance, guilt, and forgiveness?

References & Resources

Vocabulary

• Seventy-Seven / Seventy Times Seven — The translation  varies, but the exaggerated number communicates forgiveness beyond calculation. 
• Lamech — A descendant of Cain who boasts in Genesis 4:23–24 that if Cain is avenged sevenfold, Lamech will be avenged seventy-sevenfold. 
• Nightmare Parable — Thomas G. Long’s term for frightening parabolic imagery that exposes the destructive destination of a way of life and shocks the listener toward another possibility.

Scripture

• Genesis 4:23–24 — Lamech’s boast of seventy-sevenfold vengeance, discussed as a possible biblical backdrop and reversal for Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness.

Books & Literature

• Thomas G. Long, Proclaiming the Parables — Peter’s primary resource for interpreting Matthew’s harsh judgment imagery. (Read the Book)
• Victor Hugo, Les Misérables — Rob draws on Jean Valjean, Bishop Myriel, and Javert to explore grace, justice, transformation, and the danger of living by a moral ledger. (Read the Book) (Watch the Movie Trailer)
• Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol — Used to illustrate the “nightmare parable”: Scrooge is confronted with the frightening destination of his present life so that he can awaken and choose differently. (Read the Book)

Theology & Doctrine

• Purgatory — In Roman Catholic teaching, a state of purification after death for those who will ultimately enter heaven but still need to be cleansed of the effects of sin.

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What happens when someone hurts us? Jesus’ instructions in Matthew 18:15–20 offer a surprisingly practical approach to conflict, accountability, and reconciliation. Peter Walsh and Rob Schwartz discuss why talking TO someone matters more than talking ABOUT them, how storytelling can break down tribal divisions, and why the goal of confrontation is less about winning the argument and more about regaining the person.

Questions for Reflection

Themes & Application

1. Jesus gives a remarkably practical, step-by-step process for dealing with conflict: begin with the person rather than beginning with an audience. Why is our instinct so often to tell other people about a conflict before speaking directly to the person involved? What might change if we actually followed Jesus’ order of operations?
2. Immediately before this passage, Jesus tells the Parable of the Lost Sheep, in which the shepherd refuses to accept losing even one member of the flock. How does that story change the way we hear Jesus’ instructions about confronting someone who has sinned? What does it suggest about the ultimate purpose of accountability and church discipline?
3. The episode repeatedly distinguishes reconciliation from proving who is right. What would change in our families, churches, workplaces, friendships, or political conversations if our primary question became “How can this relationship be healed?” rather than “How can I prove my position?”

Personal Reflection

1. Rob suggests that as long as he continues carrying resentment toward someone, he remains bound to that person. Have you ever discovered that anger or resentment was keeping you emotionally connected to someone long after the original conflict ended? What might it mean to be “loosed” from that relationship without pretending the hurt never happened?
2. Peter discusses the ways our minds can develop deeply ingrained responses to people and ideas until we stop actually listening. Who are you most likely to stop listening to because you believe you already know what they are going to say? What would genuine curiosity toward that person require?
3. Peter and Rob playfully use sports rivalries to illustrate our instinct toward tribal identity. What tribes do you belong to? When does belonging become a way of deciding who is “us” and who is “them”?

Broader Spiritual Considerations

1. Peter explores different Christian understandings of excommunication and church discipline, from Roman Catholicism and the Southern Baptist Convention to the Episcopal tradition. What is the proper role of boundaries within a Christian community? Can excluding someone ever serve the larger goal of reconciliation?
2. Peter observes that “casting people out of the community doesn’t cast out the trauma.” What is the difference between removing a person and actually healing what happened? How can communities maintain necessary boundaries without imagining that exclusion itself creates healing?
3. Jesus concludes this teaching with “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” We often quote this verse about small worship gatherings, but here it appears in the middle of a teaching about conflict and reconciliation. What might it mean to believe that Christ is especially present between people attempting the difficult work of reconciliation?

References & Resources

Vocabulary

• Ecclesia (ἐκκλησία) — A Greek word meaning an assembly or gathering, commonly translated as “church.”
• Excommunication — Exclusion from communion or participation within a religious community. 
• Narrative Theology — An approach that recognizes story and lived experience as important ways of understanding God, ourselves, and one another.

Restorative Justice & Reconciliation

• South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission — A court-like restorative justice body assembled in South Africa in 1996 after the end of apartheid. Authorised by Nelson Mandela and chaired by Desmond Tutu, the commission invited witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations to give statements about their experiences, and selected some for public hearings. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution.

Thinkers & Theologians

• Pádraig Ó Tuama — Irish poet, theologian, and conflict mediator whose work explores storytelling, disagreement, and how people and communities can engage conflict without allowing it to become destructive. (Visit his website)
• Ó Tuama's "Prayer for Reconciliation" (Read the prayer)

Pop Culture

• Encanto (2021) — Rob uses Bruno and the Madrigal family to illustrate the necessity of bringing what has been hidden back into relationship. (Watch the trailer)

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This week, we move from Peter’s confession of faith to the difficult reality of what following the Messiah actually means. Peter Walsh, Elizabeth Garnsey, and Rob Schwartz explore why Jesus tells Peter, “Get behind me, Satan”, how love and good intentions can become stumbling blocks, and what it means to lose our lives in order to find them.

Questions for Reflection

Themes & Application

1. Peter’s desire to protect Jesus comes from a place of love, yet it still puts him at odds with Jesus. When can our good intentions actually become stumbling blocks? How do we discern the difference between loving someone and trying to control the path they take?
2. The episode interprets Jesus’ command, “Get behind me, Satan,” as a call for Peter to get back into the proper position of a disciple: behind the teacher rather than out in front. What might it look like for us to “get back behind Jesus” when our own expectations, fears, or ambitions begin leading the way?
3. Elizabeth suggests that Jesus’ goal is much larger than producing individually humble or virtuous people: “The whole point is to create a new world and a new humanity.” How does that change the way we understand taking up the cross and following Jesus?

Personal Reflection

1. Peter wants Jesus to conform to his own idea of what a Messiah should be. When have you wanted Jesus to want the same things you wanted? Has your understanding of what following Jesus means ever had to change?
2. Jesus asks his followers to consider what they are willing to lose and what they believe is truly worth gaining. What are you most reluctant to let go of? Security? Status? Being right? Control? Approval? Comfort? Something else?
3. The conversation suggests that spiritual maturity involves becoming more authentically ourselves rather than trying to perform an idealized version of holiness. Have you ever found yourself “performing” goodness, humility, faith, or spirituality? What might authentic discipleship look like instead?

Broader Spiritual Considerations

1. Peter notes that Jesus’ language of losing oneself in order to find oneself has parallels in other religious traditions, while Jesus specifically adds “for my sake.” What makes Christian self-emptying different from simply denying or erasing ourselves?
2. Bob Dylan’s Gotta Serve Somebody becomes a shorthand for one of the passage’s existential questions: Who or what ultimately directs your life? If everyone “serves” something, what are some of the gods our culture invites us to serve?
3. The episode ends by acknowledging Christians around the world for whom persecution and the possibility of losing one’s life are not metaphors. How should Christians who live with relative safety hear Jesus’ command to “take up your cross” without trivializing the experiences of people facing literal violence or persecution?

References & Resources

Vocabulary

• Skandalon (σκάνδαλον) — A Greek word meaning a stumbling block, obstacle, or something that causes another to fall. Peter, previously named the “rock,” becomes an obstacle when he tries to redirect Jesus away from the way of the cross.
• Mimetic Desire — René Girard’s theory that human beings often learn what to desire by observing and imitating the desires of others. The person we imitate can consequently become both our model and our rival.
• Kenosis — From the Greek for “emptying.” In Christian theology, it commonly describes Christ’s self-emptying and self-giving way of being, and can also describe the spiritual practice of relinquishing ego, status, or control.
• Passion Prediction — Jesus’ prediction of his coming suffering and death. Matthew 16:21 also includes the promise that he will be raised on the third day, making it simultaneously a prediction of resurrection.
• The Way of the Cross — The pattern of discipleship modeled by Jesus in which self-giving love, rather than domination or self-preservation, becomes the path toward true life.

Pop Culture

• Spider-Man (2002)
• Bob Dylan “Gotta Serve Somebody"

Historical & Geographical Context

• Caesarea Philippi — The episode discusses its pagan religious history, Roman imperial associations, Herod, Philip, and the ruins surrounding Jesus and the disciples.

Christian Persecution
Open Doors World Watch List — Peter references statistics on Christians experiencing persecution and discrimination worldwide to remind listeners that “taking up the cross” is not merely metaphorical for many Christians. (Read the latest 2026 statistics)


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