Ep. 12 Enemies, Empathy, and Shalom with Osheta Moore

Written By Sarah Bessey

Hosted by Sarah Bessey and Jeff Chu

Featuring Osheta Moore

Telling better stories is one way we are being invited into God's magnificent story of redemption. This week, author and pastor Osheta Moore calls us into the most complicated and yet simple truth of Christianity: loving our enemies. She asks us to consider who lives on the other side of our empathy and offers spiritual guidance for daring to write a better story for our enemies. Then Sarah and Jeff get honest about why this particular way of living - loving your enemies, praying for those who curse you - is incredibly difficult especially right now and explore the invitation we all have to become peacemakers in the world.

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Show Notes

Osheta Moore

Other links mentioned in the show:

Special thanks to Audrey Assad and Wes Willison for the music on this episode. And thanks as always to our new producer, Lucy Huang.

If you’d like to be featured on an upcoming episode, just call our voicemail inbox at +1 (616) 929-0409. Leave your first name and state or province and answer this question: How are you cultivating hope in the wilderness right now? It can be something small - a song, a poem, a practice - or something big. There are no wrong answers. Just please try to keep your answer to under a minute so we can feature a few of you every episode.

“Telling better stories is your way of being invited into God’s magnificent story of redemption. ”
— Osheta Moore
 

[IMAGE CONTENTS: Six images. First image is a white square with brown and blue flourishes at the top and bottom with the Evolving Faith logo featured. Photo of Osheta Moore, smiling. Text reads: Enemies, Empathy, and Shalom. Ep. 12. Now Streaming. with Osheta Moore. Remaining five images are white squares with illustrated floating bubbles in green and maroon and brown. A line-drawing of an open book is the corner and a small plant is growing out of the pages. The quotes for each are attributed to Osheta Moore. Text is as follows: 1. Your enemy is the person right on the other side of your empathy. 2. Telling better stories is your way of being invited into God's magnificent story of redemption. 3. Every time you choose to love those who hurt you, you are going to make yourself vulnerable. Jesus on the cross was vulnerable. But this is what I want to tell you. The very same spirit that was with Jesus on this cross and excruciating pain is with you in your vulnerability. 4. Shalom is God’s dream for the world as it should be. It’s an ongoing vision of wholeness and goodness and flourishing. 5. Shalom is what happens when the love of God pulls us out and says, “I see you, you are beloved, and you are enough. And we are made whole. And then we turn around and make the world whole.”]

 

Transcript

The Evolving Faith Podcast 

Season 1 Episode 12 - Osheta Moore

Enemies, Empathy, and Shalom with Osheta Moore

SARAH: Hi friends, I’m Sarah Bessey.

JEFF: And I’m Jeff Chu.

SARAH: Welcome back to the Evolving Faith Podcast.

JEFF: This is a podcast for the wanderers, the misfits, and the spiritual refugees, to let you know you are not alone in the wilderness. We are all about hope and we're here to point each other to God. No matter where you are on your journey, no matter what your story is, you are welcome! We're listening—to God, to one another, and to the world.

SARAH: The story of God is bigger, wider, more inclusive and welcoming, filled with more love, than we could ever imagine. There's room here for everyone. 

JEFF: There's room here for you.

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SARAH:  All right, friends. Welcome back to the Evolving Faith Podcast. This is Episode 12! 

Before we jump in, I wanted to tell you about our free newsletter. Once a month, we send out an email with an essay, behind-the-scenes news, some announcements, all sorts of goodness—book recommendations, that sort of thing—from all of us at Evolving Faith. If you want to sign up, go to evolvingfaith.com. 

Today we’re listening to our friend Osheta Moore. If you haven’t had a chance to get to know Osheta yet, it is such a joy to introduce you to her. She is someone who has deeply influenced me and if you have ever read any of my books, you probably recognize her name because I’ve usually footnoted her at least twice. 

Officially, Osheta Moore is an author and a podcaster. Both her book and her podcast actually share a name: Shalom Sistas, whcih for the book I actually wrote the foreword for that. She is the teaching pastor at Woodland Hills church in St. Paul, Minnesota. And not only is she the teaching pastor there, she also is helping to pastor and lead her husband's church plant called Roots Covenant. Some of Osheta’s story that would be helpful to know is that she’s originally a suburbanite Texan who fell in love with urban core development in New Orleans. But then the hurricane came and after their family evacuated, they found their way to Boston, then to L.A. and now they live in Saint Paul where she and her husband pastor two different churches. Her theology is deeply informed by the Anabaptist tradition and so she is so passionate about the biblical word “shalom,” which is the Hebrew word for peace. She’s a lot like us in that she loves to talk about Jesus. And Jeff and I are quite Jesus-y. She’s not afraid to shy away from how Jesus can both complicate and simplify things, and sometimes that can happen at the same time. 

JEFF: One of the things I love about Osheta is that she really lives out her faith in tangible, practical ways. Love is not some abstract concept to her. For instance, she helps lead a monthly practice at Roots Covenant called Laundry Love. They show up at one particular laundromat, and they give out coffee and donuts and love takes the shape of spare quarters and free detergent and free fabric softener. They take a mundane moment—doing your laundry at the local laundromat—and they turn it into an experience of accompaniment and love. Those of us who don’t live near Osheta in Minnesota can also experience her love and her teaching on social media. Her heart really just shines through, and I am so annoyed at how evangelical that just sounded. Let’s just let Osheta love on you as we do life together. OH my gosh, I can’t even say it. It’s gross

SARAH: “Do life.” Holy smokes, that’s a flashback right there. Someday we should do this running list of the most cringe-worthy phrases of evangelicalism - “let him love on you” is at the top of that list for me. It’s so upsetting! 

JEFF: It just sounds dirty.

SARAH: Let’s unpack purity culture while we’re at it. Bless it. I agree with your point, though. I really feel like Osheta is pastoring the people who engage with her work. One of the things I’ve loved is that during the pandemic she’s been leading breath prayers, which has been so helpful for me in terms of managing anxiety right now and it’s been a gift to so many of us. She has a new book coming out in January called “Dear White Peacemakers: Dismantling Racism with Grit and Grace” and everybody should definitely preorder it right now. It’s a break-up letter to division and a love letter to God’s beloved community and this really strong eviction notice to these violent powers and principalities that have sustained racism for centuries.

JEFF: That work of being a Black woman discipling white Christians is not for everyone, and God bless Osheta for answering that call. She does not shy away from saying the hard thing, but she does it in this way that is clear and compelling and loving and not shaming. She calls us to be our better selves. And yet, I want to acknowledge that what she shares in this talk that you’re about to hear is for many of us a hard word, a timely word for this moment in time but a hard word. Because this world is bonkers, it’s going to be really difficult to hear Osheta’s call to empathy—empathy not just for the people we like and love and who we think deserve our empathy but also for our enemies. So I just want to name that. It’s funny how these talks from 2018 have taken on new layers of meaning given the dumpster fire that is 2020, and this one in particular, well, it has an important but hard and uncomfortable takeaway.

SARAH: You know, I would really love to talk more about that after we listen to Osheta? Because I think a lot of our community and listeners will feel that and I’d like to talk about that more with you. But first let’s get to the good stuff. So friends, join us as we listen to author and pastor and podcaster, and peacemaker Osheta Moore, speaking at the first Evolving Faith conference at Montreat, North Carolina.

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OSHETA MOORE: Oh, hey there. All right. That works. I, like Sarah, kind of need to take this into because my tradition, I'm Anabaptist. And so my tradition, kind of, we just camp out in this middle space. We use language like third way and we pride ourselves in not being conscripted onto either side. We're not progressive enough for the progressives. We’re not conservative enough for the conservatives. And so I have felt for such a long time that as an Anabaptist, that there hasn't been the space for shepherding and caring for those of us who are just here in the middle. And so I kind of need to take this in too. I also need to let y'all know that Audrey Assad is like my all-time favorite. So I'm back there worshiping and I'm like, “Jesus, what are you doing? I get to be here!” 

Like Sarah said, my name is Osheta Moore, and I'm a mom. I have three kids—one’s 16. And then one turns 12 today, and Trinity, if you're watching you rule, because you tricked your dad into letting you stay home from school. I'm assuming all your math is done. And then I have another one who's 12. And he's going to turn 13 in a little bit. He's gonna turn 13 in a couple of weeks. And you know, one of the things that I have been thinking about, as I have been mothering these children and being in a relationship with my husband and planting a church and pastoring for over 15 years now, I've been asking myself the question as an Anabptist person who values the peace teachings of Jesus, who want to look at Jesus and say, “You are my prince of peace, and not just at Christmastime because I got that reclaimed wood sign. You are my prince of peace all the time. What does that look like in my life? Does it mean anything for me right now?”

And I think for those of us in this room, who are, who are, who are deconstructing and rebuilding, whose faith is evolving, I think one of the things that we are all aware of is that as we change, and as we grow, and as we start to ask questions and as we begin to press against some of the structures and things that have held us down, the people who hold those things up, those people who are dear and precious to us, they get hurt. And they push back on us in some ways that are offensive, that are frustrating, that make us want to question: Do I need to be in a relationship with them? And that question can easily turn from “Whatever, I don't need them” to “They are the worst. They are my enemy. They are a heretic, and I want nothing to do with them.” 

But my tradition has this value that has held me together as my faith has evolved, as I have frustrated people, and as they have pushed back on me and I've pushed back on them and that relationship, those really tenuous—my  tradition has this value. And it's this value of peacemaking because Jesus is our Prince of Peace, not just at Christmastime. And so, when Jen was talking about that fight for connection, and when Jeff was talking about being a worm that creates that soil of flourishing and life and wholeness, and when Sarah was saying that love is the way through the wilderness, I can bet that some of you in this room had this question: What does that look like? I don't know how to do that in my life. 

So we're going to look at peacemaking, because I believe peacemaking is our tool for moving through the wilderness. It's what we hold on to our hands that creates flourishing, and goodness. It is the weapon that we use to fight for connection. And I don't know enough about worms. So I can't give you a great analogy about that. But if you want to be a worm, be a worm. And I know that when some of you think about peacemaking, and you hear Jesus say, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” you feel wholly inadequate, because we have, we have thought about peacemaking in these very surface boxes, these boxes that if we don't fit into either one, then we just don't think that that beatitude is for us. I mean, I got some mercy, so let me just be merciful. We think that peacemaking is by, by personality. So, if you are a peacemaker, you are kind and gentle and you have a crown about your head, and you smell like lavender and vanilla, and you can rock a kimono and do all the perfect yoga poses. Peacemaker by personality. 

Or you're a peacemaker because you do the work of peacemaking. Either you've gone to school, or you live in a war-torn country, and you throw your body as a human shield, or you prevent the politician from hitting the nuclear code. Or you move into, like I did, an urban neighborhood and said, “I'm going to be a peacemaker in this community.” 

These two boxes can be so dangerous for us, because I am not your typical peacemaker. I will tell you about yourself and I snark. And for the longest I was over here. I was doing the work of living in the urban core and being an urban peacemaker in New Orleans. But guess what? New Orleans is susceptible to hurricanes. And that's exactly what happened to me. Hurricane Katrina hit, and my family had to evacuate. And I had to wrestle with this question: What does it mean for me to be a peacemaker? When all the things that qualified me here as peacemaker, by works and acts and deeds? All these things were under 10 feet of water.

Is Jesus my peacemaker here? Can I still be considered a peacemaker? And so I had to wrestle with that. And I did that over 40 days, because my husband came to me crazy. And he said, Babe— At this point, after we had evacuated, we moved to Boston. And so he came to me and he said, “Babe, I don't want to move back to New Orleans.” And I was like, You are an emissary of the devil. We are going to go back so that I can be a peacemaker, because I’m Anabaptist and I love me some peace. He said, No, I think we need to stay in Boston. I'm going to finish seminary. I want to plant a church here. And so for 40 days, I said, Jesus, show me the things that make for peace, because I'm obviously not going to go back to New Orleans. I obviously snark way too much for over here and I don't smell like lavender. So I'm gonna have to figure out what this looks like. And so for 40 days, I studied every instance of the word “peace” in the Bible. And here's what I found. 

That peace, that almost every instance of peace in the Bible hearkens back to that beautiful Hebraic concept of shalom. Shalom is God's dream for the world as it should be. Brueggemann says it's a persistent vision. It's an ongoing vision of wholeness and goodness and flourishing. Shalom is what happens when the love of God pulls us out and says, “I see you, You are beloved, and you are enough.” And we are made whole. And then we turn around and make the world whole. Shalom is that picture of the garden, that essential it-is-goodness of the garden. And when we live into shalom, we are creating goodness all around us.

So being a peacemaker has nothing to do with your scent. And it has nothing to do with your education. And it has everything to do with your connection to Jesus as our Prince of Peace. And this is important for us. Because this room has the kind of energy that I imagine would be the same energy when Jesus was with the disciples. Because they were rabble rousers. They were questioners. And they pushed back against empire. And they were so different from each other. So they had to figure out how to work it out. But they did that, with Jesus seeing them, saying, “You are mine, I love you, you are enough, you are whole, go make the world whole.”

And that is what— And that is the energy we have in this room. So when we talk about our faith evolving, and we make space for our grief, which we should, and we make space to recognize brokenness and relationships, which we should, and we camp out in the wilderness, which we should, we are preparing to go back into the village and say, “You are whole. You are enough. Let's make this world whole. It is good.” 

Shalom is the breadth and depth and smell and climate of the kingdom of God. So when we pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” it is us living into shalom, God's dream for the world. So when I think about practicing Shalom, because it truly is a practice, it's not something that I that I that I woke up at the end of the 40 days and said, “I am a shalom sista,” and you did say it right.

It is not something that we can just do automatically. Because we have the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit who is with us, and walks with us, and points out areas of brokenness that we need to work on in his presence. The Holy Spirit that walks with us and shows us people that say they are broken— tell them they are whole. 

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you one really practical thing that you can do to go out and practice shalom, to be the kingdom of God here on earth as it is in heaven. To proclaim the essential it-is-goodness of the garden. And that is, what we do with the people who we feel like we've offended or who have offended us and they become our enemy. 

I had to work through this because somebody became an enemy to me that I did not expect. You know, if you were to say to me, Osheta, I don't have enemies. I'm like, Yeah, you do. Just wait. Just wait.  

So my son came home from school. I have a 16-year-old son by this point; he was 14. He came home from school. And my son is loud, and he's extroverted. And he is always talking about League of Legends. And so he came home from school, but he was very, very quiet. And we were going someplace that night. And so I was doing that mom thing where you're rushing and you're barking at people and you're putting your back together. And I'm noticing that he's quiet. But I don't have time for that. I got two other kids and I gotta get in the car. So we're heading out to the car. And typical teenager, he stops me before we leave the door and he says, “Mom, I need to tell you something. Can you send my brother and sister to the car? I don't want them to hear this.” So I send them to the car. And I sit with my son and I say, “What's going on?” And he says to me, “Well, today I was playing basketball at school. And we were kind of ribbing each other, we were making fun of each other. And it started to get loud.” And our coach yelled at us and he said, “Quiet down.” And then he turned to the other coach and said, “Leave it to the N word to get in trouble.” What you don't know is that he was the only kid of color in that group. So my son stops and he looks and he tells me he says to himself, Did I say what I think he said? So he goes and he reports it. And I find out that later on that day, he got pulled into the principal's office, where they tried to convince him that he didn't hear what he heard. And they tell him that it was his fault if he got chastised. And I married a white man. And so I know that there's this racial, you know, identity stuff that my son is always going to work through. And I just did not think that it would happen to him because we moved to the most affluent, most progressive community we could. And yet this happened.

And so my son is telling me this, and I am channeling my inner Beyonce, and I am seeing Serena Williams dancing, and I am singing Sorry, I am not sorry. And I am looking for the bat. And I'm wanting to get so angry on behalf of my son. But then I remember shalom. And so I send my son to the car, and I weep. And then I text my friend and I say, I tell her the story. And I say, “I need you to help me do this one thing.” And this is the one practical thing I'm going to tell you to do. I need you to help me tell a better story about this coach. Telling a better story is our way of changing the way we think about the people we're in conflict with. You see, Jesus did this on the cross. When Jesus was being crucified, arms stretched out, excruciating pain, he looked across the crowd and said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

Jesus could have cursed them. Jesus could have called them betrayers, murderers. Jesus could have said, “I am done with you. You don't deserve all this goodness.”

But Jesus told a better story about the people at the foot of the cross. And so for me, if I want to practice shalom, and I want to look at Jesus as my Prince of Peace and model my life around him, then that moment has to mean something to me, when people have deeply offended me, like this coach.  

So I went with my son to where we're going and I came back home. And that night, I pulled out my journal. And I wrote two types of better stories.

Because I don't know everything about this teacher. But I know that I can control my mind, I can control the way I think about this teacher. So I told one story, I wrote one story in my journal, the first one is a story of belovedness. That this person is beloved by God. That this person is made in the image of God. He did something that does not reflect the goodness of God. But when God looks at him, he sees his son. That that morning that he called my son the N word, when that coach woke up, God was delighted. And that I, as a beloved daughter of God, I have to reposition the way I think about him and say, “You are beloved too.” I had to restore the dignity to that coach, because I was this close from Beyonce bat time. And that's what usually happens when somebody, when somebody becomes our enemy. That's typically what happens is we strip them of their humanity. We take away that essential Imago Dei that's in them.

Because it makes it so much easier for us to hate them. And to tweet terrible things at them. 

So the second story that I wrote about this coach was a backstory. See, a backstory is my way of practicing empathy for the person who is my enemy. You see, when we say, Oh, I don't have an enemy. I usually say, Yeah, you do. Every single one of us in this room and who is watching has an enemy.  Your enemy is the person who is right on the other side of your empathy. Your enemy is the person that you would look at and say, I would never do that. How dare they. Sympathy is looking at somebody and saying, Oh, I feel bad for you. Empathy is looking at somebody and saying, I will identify with you. I will understand where you came from. 

And so I had to practice empathy for this coach. And so I gave him a backstory. The backstory that I told about this coach was, he is a white man, in an affluent school community. And this community is known for having connections to the KKK. And as a white man, he's never had to think about race. And he's probably never had his language checked. And maybe he thinks that because my son is biracial, and he has black friends, and they say that word to each other, that he can say that. All of these things are— are not true. They're offensive. But if I look at them from the gaze of his backstory, I could say, “I get why you would do that.” I don't agree with it. But I get it. And I will have empathy. 

So where are you, my friends? Are you in relationships that feel hopeless? And you want to give up? Are you harboring anger and bitterness because you've been hurt? May I encourage you to press through the hurt and take it to God and let him fill you? Let him help you become whole, so that you can go around and begin helping others become whole, that you can bring them with you and say, “I see you. I see that brokenness. You're not alone.” We can't do that for our enemies, unless we remind ourselves that they are beloved and we give them a generous backstory.  

Every time you choose to love those who hurt you, you are going to make yourself vulnerable. Jesus on the cross was vulnerable. But this is what I want to tell you: That the very same spirit that was with Jesus on this cross in excruciating pain is with you in your vulnerability. 

So you are not alone in taking this risk to practice shalom. Telling better stories is your way of being invited into God's magnificent story of redemption. There's always room to pin one more character arc, one more page of dialogue through hard conversations that end up in new, better connections. There's always room for one more hero's journey, and one more victory, of you being made whole and being a part of somebody else's story of holiness. We are tasked to be peacemakers because Jesus is our Prince of Peace. Thank you.

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JEFF: Friends, if you’ve been listening to and loving this podcast, join us for Evolving Faith 2020, the Live Virtual Conference on October 2 and 3. Which is coming up very  soon!

SARAH: Many of us are engaging in this sort of good, hard, holy work right now to cultivate love and reimagine and build a faith that works not only for us but for the whole world, and to find our way together in this wilderness. We need to be reminded of what matters and who is alongside us. I think a lot of us need connection and inspiration, good conversation and laughter and, who are we kidding, probably (definitely) some of Jeff’s tears. 

JEFF: Always my tears, huh? We need some hope. We are gathering not in spite of these turbulent times, but because of them. Our speakers this year include not only Sarah and me but Jen Hatmaker and Sherrilyn Ifill, Audrey Assad and Kate Bowler, Padraig O Tuama and  Propaganda and Nadia Bolz-Weber and Barbara Brown Taylor, and so many other wonderful human beings. We hope you will be a part of this.

SARAH: And don’t forget: your registration gives you full access to all of that incredible content, all the way until April 1, 2021. We’ve set a big, rowdy table in the middle of the wilderness, and together, we are having a feast. We’ve saved a spot for you. 

Go to evolvingfaith.com and register today. Okay, back to the show.

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SARAH: You see why I love Osheta.  

JEFF: I love how she comes straight at our stereotypes of peacemaker and peacemaking, because I know I have those stereotypes. It’s this picture of being docile and glowing, almost in such an irritating way.

SARAH: I cackled when she talked about, like, the kimono and smelling like lavender. 

JEFF: So I had to wear a satiny pink kimono with flowers a few months ago, because I was a bridesman in a dear friend’s wedding. And I’ll be honest, it felt weird. Anyway, if being a peacemaker means being a walking bath bomb, you can count me out. 

SARAH: You can count me in! I love lavender and kimonos! And bath bombs. That is 100% my jam. But. You know, we’re laughing about it, but I think that distinction that  Osheta has made between being a peace-keeper and a peace-maker is actually really, really important. And even though she makes some jokes about how we have these stereotypes, the truth is that we do tend to confuse the two. I think that we often believe the absence of conflict is the same thing as peace and it’s not. But the work of being a peacemaker is not an easy road. Like how we think that being brave somehow means that you’re never afraid, when that’s simply not true. Bravery is being afraid and doing what’s right and good and necessary anyway. And so I think that peacemaking actually is quite similar, in that it doesn’t mean that you’re someone who never has conflict or is never disturbed or is somehow above being involved or disrupted by the world. I think it means being very engaged with the world. It means naming and acknowledging the wrong thing, the absence of peace, and then leaning into the work of making peace happen.

JEFF: I think the absence of overt conflict can be mistaken for peace, but that’s a false peace. What Osheta said is hard for a lot of us, because it’s very countercultural and it pushes back against a lot of our natural inclinations, especially for those of us who have felt hurt or misunderstood by the Church or by other people. Do I really want to live into shalom, which she defines as God’s dream for the world, or do I really want peace just for the people I like and who make me feel good about myself? Do I really want to help foster shalom and God’s dream for the world and even for people I can’t stand? If I’m going to be honest, most of the time I don’t. I have my own dreams for the world and too often I know they’re not entirely in line with God’s. Yet I know this is what we’re called to—and I know how weird that might seem given the ways of the world. We want vengeance. We want retribution. We want our tormentors to be punished. We want our enemies to suffer like they’ve made us suffer. And that is not shalom at all. And maybe it’s helpful here to pause for a moment and do some defining, because we’re talking about “peace” and we’re talking about “shalom,” and it’s important to reiterate, like you said at the top of the show,  what we mean when we say these things. “Shalom” is a Hebrew word and a Jewish concept. Rabbi David Zaslow makes an important point when he writes that “the Hebrew word shalom does not mean ‘peace,’ at least not in the English sense of the word. It comes from a Hebrew root-word that means ‘wholeness.’” And then I love how the rabbi explains wholeness as “the joining together of opposites. That’s why we say ‘shalom’ when we greet friends and when we wish them farewell. There is a hidden connection to all our comings and goings; they are wondrously linked together.” So I guess believing in shalom is a way of acknowledging that we are all linked together as God’s creation.

SARAH: You know, she talks about shalom as God’s dream for the world as it should be, this ongoing vision of wholeness and goodness and flourishing, where we are made whole and the world is made whole. And she very clearly calls us to that sort of work. That it doesn’t have anything to do with our education or our opinions but our connection with Jesus. And I love that. Because I want to be a peacemaker. I find that to a very compelling vision for the work that we’re to be about in this life. But she names that energy as being a bit absent from the room at times, calling us to be more like the disciples, to be rabble rousers and questioners and push back on the Empire. And doing that work while we are very different from one another. And yet that isn’t how most people right now think about peacemaking. They don’t look at Black Lives Matter as peacemakers and yet I could argue that they are actually embracing that ongoing vision of wholeness and flourishing and God’s dream for the world. We don’t think of peace making as conflict and yet it can be an opportunity for that. Truth telling. Protesting. Policymaking. Voting. All these things can be acts of a peacemaker. 

JEFF: I think there’s a lot of truth in that cry that you hear at many protests: “No justice, no peace.” Sometimes we mistake quiet for peace, right? But I also want to be clear: Not all rabble rousers are peacemakers, and not all questioners are peacemakers. The motive matters. So we have to get to the heart behind something: Are you rabble rousing because you are pursuing peace through justice, or are you rabble rousing for some other reason? Are you asking questions because you are trying to make peace through justice, or do you have another agenda—shaming or virtue signaling or performance—behind your questions?

SARAH: That is such a good point. Motivation matters. And disruption isn’t its own reward. That we disrupt and protest and enter into conflict with an endgame in mind. Here’s a question I have for you: What did you think of her definition of an enemy as the person who’s on the other side of your empathy? Because that really haunts me. I think especially at this moment in time. 

JEFF: So honestly there’s a very real part of me that wants to put my fingers in my ears and go lalalalalalala I DON’T HEAR YOU, Osheta.

SARAH: So not just me then!

JEFF: It’s annoying! And that’s probably because I know she’s right. I do not naturally have much empathy for homophobes or for people who crack jokes at the expense of people of different ethnicities or for those who mock the disabled or for Donald Trump, frankly. And I also know, in the depths of my heart, that I am no better and no worse and no more beloved and no less beloved than every single one of my enemies and every single one of the people I don’t want to be empathetic towards. I was thinking recently about my fourth-grade bully and my fifth-grade bully, who were two very different people. And what they have in common is that decades later, it’s still a struggle to even think lovingly and empathetically of them. That is how deep and lasting the wounds can be. And I know that part of my spiritual work I need to do, and part of the spiritual work I need God’s help with, is empathizing with the two of them and with Donald Trump and remembering that God’s dream for them is good and right and whole and honestly no different than God’s dream for me or for you. 

SARAH: Okay, I’m having a hard time. Because I think there is something here that we need to name. Because I hear you say that and I think, “You don’t have to!” You don’t have to have empathy for those people, because they are terrible and wrong! And so what does it mean to have empathy while still acknowledging and naming the destructive and broken and unholy things that have been done? Can we have empathy without excusing or glossing over very real hurts and injustices? Does “telling a better story” mean giving grace to people who probably don’t deserve it and, let’s be honest, would squander it?

JEFF: Sarah. Thank you so much for the opportunity to offer this Reformed Theology Education Moment. 

SARAH: Ugh. I WALKED RIGHT INTO THAT. Where’s my abort button? Abort! Abort! Abort!

JEFF: Because I have empathy for you, I will not dwell on your mistake for too long. Okay, so here’s the point, right? Nobody deserves grace. By definition, grace is undeserved. And I think it’s actually good and important to be clear: To have empathy does not mean erasing the reality of what other people have done. To have empathy is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. To have empathy doesn’t mean seeing someone or something as better than reality. And to have empathy is to me really an act of humility: We recognize that others are complicated like we are, like I am—and we recognize, hard as it may be to do so, that God loves them too.

SARAH: All right, is this the end of our Reformed Theology Moment so I can carry on? 

JEFF: If you must.

SARAH: You know, I think that was a really practical gift then that she gave to us,that simple spiritual practice, which is to write a better story for those who are on the other side of our empathy. And it was really challenging when she talked about doing that for her son’s coach. It was a real Sermon on the Mount moment of her choosing to believe Jesus meant what he said. And then choosing to practice it. Even though it wasn’t easy. Even though there were a lot of tears. And even though it may look or sound foolish to outside eyes. And that invitation to give our enemies a generous backstory, to choose empathy, even as you address the injustice, is still a way of making yourself vulnerable. Which takes guts. It takes faith. It is the exact opposite of an easy path. You know, in a way, it reminds me of back in Episode 1, when Amanda Opelt said in that very first episode, she referred to Rachel being someone who walked on the “narrow way.” And that phrase, “the narrow way,” can often be weaponized against us. But she said that it’s not actually something that restricts or excludes but it’s simply an invitation to a very particular way of living, a way that’s formed by Jesus, which is a life then of hope and peace and love, all of these very particular things. And so in a way this invitation from Osheta reminds me that we are invited into a particular way of living in the world. 

JEFF: And it’s a particular way that’s really hard. Because when you feel dehumanized, it’s so, so tempting and easy to dehumanize the other person. And when you feel shamed, it’s so, so tempting and easy to shame right back. So there’s this part of her talk where Osheta asks: “You want to give up? Are you harboring anger and bitterness because you’ve been hurt? May I encourage you to press through the hurt and take it to God and let him fill you? Let him help you become whole, so that you can go around and begin helping others become whole, that you can bring them with you and say, I see you.” And I felt personally attacked. I wanted to say, No, thank you, you may not encourage me in this way. Because I am an expert at harboring anger and bitterness, and I consider it a particular gift to nurture these things in the garden of my twisted heart. 

SARAH: We understand why you’re Reformed. Carry on.

JEFF: But I know, I know, that this is not God’s dream for my life. I know that is an impoverished life and not what I’m called to or what we’re called to. Sometimes I think back to when I visited Westboro Baptist Church when I was working on my book, and I got to know the folks who hold the “God Hates Fags” signs. The easy thing would be to condemn them—not just their actions or their signs but them. Back then, I needed to put on my journalistic hat to be able to talk to them as human beings, as mothers and fathers and sons and daughters and siblings and neighbors, rather than as the caricatures and stereotypes that I actually wanted them to be. Because that would have made things easier. And you know, I slowly came to a place where I could think empathetically of them and want God’s best for them. And it’s hard. I do want to give up sometimes. But I have to concede that I think Osheta is right. 

SARAH: She is right. I think that’s even maybe why it feels like we are getting our toes stepped on a little bit in there is because we know she’s right. One thing that you and I talk about a lot behind the scenes and honestly literally everywhere is becoming people who can name what we are for, not simply what we are against. Because naming what we’re against is easy. There is a multitude of things that are wrong and broken right now. But learning to name and live into what we’re for— we’re for human flourishing, we’re for equity, or peacemaking, and then actually living that out? That’s the sort of thing that does turn the world upside down. And it may look so different than how you’ve been taught to think or discipled to think but that doesn’t mean the particular way of shalom isn’t for you. I think what Osheta does here is to name what we are for, to set that vision of shalom, and then offer this simple and yet very complicated invitation to participate in that, and live into that, wherever we are. 

JEFF: Simple and yet so, so complicated. I think each of us craves love and belonging. Is it so hard to imagine that our neighbors want the same thing? I think each of us wants wholeness. Is it so difficult to think that our enemies want the same thing? So ultimately, what I hear from Osheta is an invitation into holy imagination. I think she’s urging us to dream beyond ourselves. And that is a healing gift that will ultimately benefit not just our enemy and not just our neighbor but also each one of us who dares to go down this difficult path. And then we just have to remember that we never walk this path alone. There was one who came before, and he loved this world so much that he gave his life for it, in the ultimate act of empathy. 

SARAH: It is because I know you that I know that that was actually sincere and not a Jesus juke.

JEFF: I almost felt like I should do an altar call right then, though.

SARAH: I would have walked the aisle. I would’ve. You know, and the other thing too, is to keep in mind that there is that great cloud of witnesses, right? The ones who came before us. The ancestors. The ones who are coming up after us. The ones who are alongside of us. And I love being in a company of peacemakers, that it’s communal, not in spite of all of the chaos and dehumanization that’s going on right now but because of it. It’s never been more important to have linked arms around that vision of what flourishing looks like and to lean into that together. And remember that we do not walk that alone. We aren’t the ones who invented it, we’re simply part of it. And we’re invited into it. We can keep borrowing hope from each other in these days, as we practice shalom even when it makes no sense to anyone else. I love this particular way of living.

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SYLVIA: Hi Jeff and Sarah. My name is Sylvia. I’m calling from northwestern Ontario in Canada. And one place that I am finding hope in the wilderness lately is taking walks through my garden and you know picking the tomatoes and watching the peppers grow. And I’m an Indigenous person, and I’ve been growing tobacco that some friends had gifted me some seedlings, so I’m drying tobacco, that I will use for prayer and ceremony. And I’ve also been harvesting some sweetgrass, and that has been really healing too. And—so that’s kind of where I’ve been finding hope in this wilderness. And I’m a teacher, and things have been definitely a wilderness. And I look forward to every Wednesday, when I can hear the podcast, because that’s also something giving me so much hope lately. And Sarah, thank you for your audio prayer on Sunday. It was wonderful, and I hope you’ll do it again. Thank you so much.

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SARAH: You can find all the links mentioned, info about Osheta and her work in the world, plus links to call in to share your own voices with us, our After Party Facebook hangout, and a full transcript in our show notes at evolvingfaith.com/podcast. You can find me at sarahbessey.com with all my social media, newsletter, and of course my books. 

JEFF: Sign up for my newsletter at jeffchu.substack.com and find me online wherever you find people online—that social media thing. The Evolving Faith Podcast is produced by us, Sarah Bessey and Jeff Chu, along with Lucy Huang. Thank you to Audrey Assad and Wes WIllison for our music. And please join us next week as we listen to two dynamic women, Kathy Escobar and Cindy Wang Brandt. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Evolving Faith Podcast, friends. And until next time, remember that you are loved.

Sarah Bessey
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