David Brisbin Podcast

Dave Brisbin 3.22.20 On the first Sunday of COVI-19 lockdown, streaming to those in self-isolation, the surreal quality of living the reality of a pandemic outbreak is amplified. In just a week of lockdown, many of us are already strongly feeling the effects of disconnection from each other and the regular routines of life that once connected us. How can we best help each other in times like these—or any times? As always, Jesus gives us the principles: establish authentic connection first, see others and their needs as they really are, respond with action that because it is grounded in connection is always relevant, always feels like love. Connection always takes precedence over program—connection is the only program that matters. Those who are really making a difference during this crisis are those continuing to extend themselves to others, letting their actions flow from really knowing who they are flowing to. The uncertainty of a time like this raises a thousand questions, and maddeningly, the questions we

Dave Brisbin 3.15.20 There’s an elephant in the room, and there’s no sense not addressing it. The COVID-19 outbreak is unprecedented in the way it is changing our way of life, and there’s a sense that things may never be the same, just as they never were after 9/11. With schools, churches, conventions, restaurants, sporting events, all public venues shutting down, with supermarket shelves empty and people fighting over bathroom tissue, we all want to know how long this will last and how bad will it get? The truth is, no one knows—and that is what is most frightening. In a great article titled the Psychology of Uncertainty, psychologists show us how our brains will do almost anything to avoid uncertainty. Uncertainty can’t be fought, planned for, or outrun. It is the real spirit killer. How can we live through uncertain times like these with our spirits and humanity intact? The short answer is faith, but not as a platitude. Our need for certainty and control has distorted our understanding of what faith origin

Dave Brisbin 3.8.20 If we are to be persuaded to try to make this Lent a transforming process, the creation of a new habitual way of living in greater presence, it’s important for us to have realistic expectation of the result. Most of us would say that we expect peace in some form, and by that we mean we want any and all hurting to stop, an absence of the pain and longing that characterize so many of our lives. But Jesus never promised this. He said that he gives us his peace in one passage, then says that he didn’t come to bring peace, but the sword in another. It’s not until we translate his sayings back into Aramaic that his meaning comes clear. When I was just starting my spiritual formation decades ago, a mentoring pastor said he saw in me a “divine dissatisfaction,” a spiritual unrest and longing for something I couldn’t quite define. When we look at the clues left us in scripture, it becomes more and more apparent that this divine dissatisfaction is there for a reason, and we should pray it never leav

Dave Brisbin 3.1.20 I often say that I’m a teacher, not preacher, by which I mean that a preacher’s main purpose is to persuade, and a teacher’s is to encourage students to engage. Both impart information, but the agenda is different. That said, there are things I do want to persuade my listeners: to be intimately part of a faith community and to passionately engage their own spiritual journeys. How this is done is entirely up to them, but this Lent I have been trying to persuade everyone to use this time to try to establish a new habitual way of making themselves more present to whoever and whatever occupies their moments—and therefore to God in the moment. How is it that we are persuaded to do anything? A marketer says we are persuadable when someone encourages our dreams, justifies our failures, allays our fears, confirms our suspicions, and helps throw rocks at our enemies. When you think of it, these five are all included in the promises of Gospel, if in a slightly altered form than probably first intend

Dave Brisbin 2.23.20 Lent begins Wednesday as it has every year since the seventh century. What do we really know about Lent? For those of us who grew up in liturgical churches, what we learned may have had little to do with the traditions that established Lent, and what we remember now, may even subvert those ancient intentions. What does the word Lent mean? Why 40 days and how was Lent initially used in early church life? What traditions like Pancake Day, Mardi Gras, and Ash Wednesday have sprung up around it and what is their significance? But most importantly, how can we understand and even reimagine Lent to take us on a 40 day journey to the new life of Easter? If Lent became a time of fasting and deprivation as penance for sin, can we use Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness as model to begin to see Lent as affirmative action, as positive subtraction, sensory deprivation for the purpose of clearing away all that distracts from the Presence that will bring new life on Easter? Because just as Jesus’ first fol

Frank Billman 2.16.20 The way Jesus teaches, through parables, stories, and questions in response to questions, makes clear that a primary intent is to challenge the belief system of the student, to help him or her deconstruct the worldview that is now limiting their ability to see a radically different truth. We all see the world based on several filters or lenses of our personal belief system, and identifying and deconstructing them is essential to spiritual growth because most of them operate on the subconscious level and appear to us as reality itself or the voice of God. Three categories of lenses of belief are: 1)Genetic predispositions--personality type, Myers Briggs, Enneagram; 2) Childhood upbringing, parents, teachers, church; 3) Woundings and successes. There are other filters but these have a huge impact and are a good place to start. If we can began to see what is shading our accepted truth, we can take action to negate or remove the filter entirely and begin the journey Jesus is traveling.

Dave Brisbin 2.9.20 It’s natural for people to focus on law and rules because the world runs on law and rules with the threat of punishment enforcing obedience. It makes the world go round and trains run on time. And the church, as an institution, has largely run on the same premise, which then makes God guilty by association of also looking for obedience to his “law” as the means by which we are accepted and approved. But Jesus and the Hebrew prophets before him are showing us a God running on compassion and mercy instead of justice, and if we’re going to actually follow Jesus’ Way, we need to make sure we understand that mere obedience can never bring us into Kingdom as Jesus defined it. A story in the book of 1 Samuel about David and man called Naval help illustrate the notion that we can still be wicked, even with the permission of the law, that is, lawful and unloving at the same time. God is interesting in lovingkindness, with lawfulness only an external guide to that internal state of connection with

Dave Brisbin 2.2.20 Continuing a series of exploring difficult subjects, those that tend to really set off emotional triggers and divisive arguments, we have dug into the concepts of salvation, eternal life, Satan and spiritual warfare…and now the question comes about whether God’s judgment on us is predestined or if we really do have free will. Wow, no easy questions here. Just as with salvation by works or grace, there is an immediate apparent contradiction in scripture. Paul seems to directly say that God, from the beginning of time, has already picked the winners and losers—those going to heaven or hell. And Calvinist reformers 1500 years later, based on those passages and the writings of Augustine a thousand years earlier, created a belief system centered on the predestination of God’s elect. Of course, the controversy raged then and still does now, but it doesn’t take much digging to find passages that state absolutely that God draws and desire all people, not just some, to come to himself, and he wishe

Dave Brisbin 1.26.20 Decades ago, I thought it was important to challenge a Franciscan priest who said he believed that Satan was really a metaphor for our own inclination to evil. He waved me off saying that all he could do was tell me what he was convinced of; that I needed to go become convinced of what I’m convinced of. Now, decades later I am challenged for my beliefs on Satan and evil, and though there is no definitive proof from the scriptures I used then to “prove” my points, I do have a different responsibility than did the priest to at least talk a bit about them. So, is Satan “real” as we typically understand him: a sentient being dedicated to opposing God’s will and effecting our destruction? When we dig into the Hebrew scriptures from within a Hebrew context, we’re in for a shock. The scriptures present at least four different ways “ha satan,” the adversary, can be viewed, and the passages we have used to nail down our popular image of Satan aren’t even referring to such a being in the first plac

Dave Brisbin 1.19.20 One of the drawbacks of the Sunday morning sermon is also its strength: uninterrupted speech. Good for developing and delivering a message, but not for conversation. And conversation, the give and take, question and answer is where ideas can really be conveyed and absorbed. And with a topic as large as salvation that was tackled last week, this Sunday is more about the conversation. Recapping the main lines of thought on salvation from last week’s “Becoming Saved” message, it seemed good to add a bit more thread. It’s hard for Westerners to get their minds around the Hebrew concept of salvation since it’s not grounded in afterlife, but here and now—as is all Jewish spirituality. It may help to understand that salvation and eternal life were equivalent terms to ancient Jews, but only if we know how eternal life was understood. Using Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus based around the famous verse, John 3:16, we get a glimpse from the Aramaic rendering of how eternal life is not life that c

Dave Brisbin 1.12.20 A friend takes me to task saying that he could see that what I write and teach would make someone want to be “saved,” but that he couldn’t see where I was actually telling anyone how to attain salvation. Based on our understanding of salvation in Western Christian tradition and Paul’s line from Romans 10: if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your hear that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved, I completely understand why he would say that. But what if the Jews who wrote our scriptures, including Paul, understood salvation differently? And what about Paul then writing in Ephesians that there are no works by which we are saved but only by grace through faith and then further in Philippians that we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling? What can three statements seemingly in direct contradiction with each other and an altered view of what it means to be saved by God tell us about attaining that salvation? Digging in, we find that Jesus and Pau

Dave Brisbin 1.5.20 Why are new year’s resolutions so hard to achieve? They are so hard that fewer and fewer of us actually try to make them anymore—especially those over fifty-five year of age. I suppose the older we get, the more we realize the difficulty, which lies in the fact that what we want most, resolve to do most, is not the result of a mere intellectual decision, a stated intention that we make once at the head of a new year. The things most valuable to us are always the result of repeated, ongoing action, discipline, and dedication until the change “takes.” Whether a reputation, character, stopping smoking, or losing weight, a marriage: if we’re not saying “I do” everyday, we’re ultimately saying “I don’t.” This is the same reason it’s so hard to follow Jesus. Because what we consider salvation is not an intellectual decision or stated intention either. Jesus specifically calls himself the “way,” the clear implication that following him is not an event but a process of showing up every day to a ra

Dave Brisbin 12.29.19 Anticipating a new year and new decade, how best to prepare and direct ourselves? How best to find the hope, peace, and assurance we need to remain undeterred and undistracted amid the noise and chaos of another year? Coming from an unexpected direction, I get a phone call from a licensed clinical psychologist, a PhD who had a near death experience that was so profound that he had to write about it, asking if I would be willing to read his manuscript. His story stood out among other such experiences I’ve read in its sincere attempt at objectively describing what is inherently a radically subjective and ultimately inexpressible experience—an experience of pure presence, of God’s presence—yet completely devoid of religious imagery. And most interestingly, his description matched in some cases almost word for word the experiences of the mystics and contemplatives who have written for millennia. Whether external circumstances like illness or accident bring us to the point where ego is comple

theeffect 12.22.19 theeffect’s Christmas service as a seamless presentation of music and story combines the scripture passages of Jesus’ nativity with original and curated writing, all centering on the incredible story of the Christmas Truce of 1914 between the trenches of the Western Front of World War One in Belgium and northern France. A spontaneous ceasefire in which muddy, exhausted soldiers were able to see themselves in the muddy, exhausted soldiers sometimes only fifty yards away across No Man’s Land. And though wearing different uniforms, these soldiers found the same humanity, hopes, and dreams that Christmas promised nineteen hundred years before and still promises today.

Dave Brisbin 12.15.19 Has the Star of Bethlehem ever fascinated you? The Star that led the Magi to Jesus…what was it really? A miraculous star that appeared and behaved like no other star ever did or could? Or a natural, but perfectly or supernaturally timed astronomical event like a comet, supernova, conjunction of planets or some other anomaly as many scholars have suggested? But even such events, if natural, could never behave as Matthew describes the Star behaving: going before the Magi, unseen by Herod and his advisors, and then stopping and standing over the place of Jesus’ birth. Is there any possible astronomical event that could account for all Matthew’s details? In our continued look at the account of Jesus’ birth in Matthew and Luke, we look at the Star like a forensic detective sifting through the clues left in the gospel to see what may actually have happened. And surprisingly, if we’re willing to look in a direction that is often forbidden in modern, Western Christianity, we find there is one t

Dave Brisbin 12.08.19 There’s a word little known in Western Christianity that was a foundation of Hebrew spirituality, appearing throughout both Old and New Testaments. Anawim, plural for anawv in Hebrew, literally means to “bow down” but by extension means lowly, poor, oppressed, or marginalized. But more than that, it refers to people who have accepted this position in life, see themselves as vulnerable and dependent, and are grateful for all provision—realizing that ultimately they must rely on God rather than themselves for sustenance. The humility, submission, and grateful vulnerability of the anawim were understood as the ideal attitude toward life and God, and that it was primarily an interior attitude of heart that was easier to attain if physically poor as well, but available to even the wealthiest. The anawim are held up as the inheritors of God’s kingdom from the Psalms to the Beatitudes, and all the great figures of faith in scripture are anawim at heart regardless of their station in life. Mary

Dave Brisbin 12.01.19 Why is there so much depression and anxiety at Christmas? One psychologist writes that there are three reasons: the demands of time, preparation, activities, and finances; family dysfunctional issues that are highlighted during the season; and inability to meet expectations placed on us both physically and emotionally. When you think about it, we first experience Christmas as children—learn what our culture says it’s supposed to be through a child’s eyes. And it’s a perfect storm for children: from three feet off the ground, the lights, decorations, candy, treats, magical beliefs, gifts, suspense, and anticipation create a breathless wonder. How do we expect to recreate all that through our adult eyes, looking at a different world from six feet off the ground? To recreate Christmas as our hearts remember it, is to recreate the world in our hearts as the child sees it. This is Jesus’ message to us—that the Kingdom he’s leading us toward is only experienced from three feet off the ground,

Dave Brisbin 11.24.19 In the run up to Thanksgiving, we take a pause to ask if anyone knows who established Thanksgiving as a national holiday in the first place. Our thoughts tend to go back to Pilgrims and Native Americans collaborating, but it was surprising to most that it was Abraham Lincoln, in the midst of the Civil War, who instituted Thanksgiving. This is ironic on two fronts: that Thanksgiving was born in the middle of the darkest period in American history, and born of Lincoln, a man of near constant depression at the most stressful time in his life. What allowed Lincoln, as he put it in his Thanksgiving proclamation to see the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies, and the continued beauty of the land and its people outside the theater of conflict? And how did he continue to acknowledge the divine source of that beauty and fullness in spite of his own personal loss and that of the country? Gratitude is an amazing thing. People choose to embrace or not, it seems, based on their ability t

Dave Brisbin 11.17.19 Launching a new book is a crazy process. An all-consuming process. A process that takes on a life of its own and sweeps author and marketing team up into a whirlwind of deadlines, strategy, tasks, and emotion. But what does it all really mean? A book hopefully has meaning poured into its pages, but once it becomes a product to be sold, is there any real meaning left— to it and the process of selling it? As with all the tasks, causes, careers, and activities of life, where is the meaning? Maria Montessori said that play is the work of the child, and toys are the tools of that work. We dismiss child’s play as inconsequential and look to our work in the adult world as significant and meaningful. But just as the real meaning of child’s play lies in the motor skills, socialization, and problem solving being learned, the real meaning of the processes of the adult world lies in the humility, vulnerability, interdependence, and connection in relationship that we are learning if we’re paying atte

Frank Billman 11.10.19 If you think about it, we eventually get what we’re looking for. But if we have an ironclad definition of what we’re looking for, we won’t accept anything, however true, if it doesn’t look like the image we already have in mind. A forgone conclusion, a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. When it comes to things of faith, most of us have the image in mind of finding the certainty of a faith proven by scripture, church, creed, and doctrine—that if we just master those elements, we will have the certainty for which we crave. But on closer inspection, another image arises: that faith is not about certainty, but about embracing the mystery at the core of life and choosing and taking action as if certain things that can never be proven are actually true…becoming personally convinced along the way. We have lived under the assumption that mastery will take us to faith, but faith as defined by scripture is telling us to make friends with the mystery that will teach us to live in the fearless vuln