Episode 3: The River of Grace with Jeff Chu
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Show Notes
Co-hosts
Jeff Chu
Find Jeff online: @byJeffChu on Instagram or @JeffChu on Twitter. You can also subscribe to Jeff’s newsletter, Notes of a Make-Believer Farmer on Substack.
Sarah Bessey
Find Sarah online: @SarahBessey on Instagram or @SarahBessey on Twitter. You can also subscribe to Sarah’s newsletter, Field Notes on Substack. Explore Sarah’s recent books on her website.
Featured guest
Jeff Chu
“I wear several different hats to cover my coarse Chinese hair, which requires too much product to tame: Writer, reporter, and editor. Teacher-in-Residence at Central Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where my husband and I recently moved. (Neither of us has ever lived in the Midwest. Snow tires are a revelation!) Elder and candidate for ordination in the Reformed Church in America. Retired farmhand and aspiring farmer. Co-host, with my dear friend Sarah Bessey, of Evolving Faith.
But these are all things that I do, and as with anyone, there are so many more aspects to who I am. I am the son of immigrants from Hong Kong, the grandson and nephew of Baptist preachers, husband to Texas-born Tristan, and someone who is still learning how to be a good friend. I love to grow things, even if I’m not that good at it, and then I like to cook them, especially if there are many people around my dining room table. English is my second language; my first is Cantonese, though I have lost much of my fluency. I believe in the Oxford comma. I’m an introvert and an Enneagram 6. I love the Bible, even if I interpret it differently than I once did. And for those of you who love Schitt’s Creek, I wish I had David’s sartorial boldness, but I’m really more of a Patrick.”
Explore Jeff’s work on byJeffChu.com or follow Jeff on Twitter
“Your reconstruction is not just for you.”
Thanks to our producer, SueAnn Shiah, who also provided the music for this episode, you can listen to her album A Liturgy for the Perseverance of the Saints on Spotify, Apple Music, Youtube, or Bandcamp and find her at @sueannshiah on Instagram and @sueannshiah on Twitter.
Transcript
Opening
[ Instrumental Music: It Is Well With My Soul by SueAnn Shiah ]
SARAH:
If you’ve been listening to and loving this podcast, join us for Evolving Faith 2022, the live virtual conference. It’s on October 14 and 15.
So many of us are engaging in good, hard, holy work right now to cultivate love, reimagine and build a faith that works not only for us but for the whole world, and to find our way in the wilderness together. We need to be reminded of what matters, about who is alongside of us. We need connection, inspiration, good conversations, and laughter, and we need some hope too. We are gathering not in spite of these turbulent times, but because of them. So please join us.
We have set a big, rowdy table in the middle of the wilderness, and together, we will have a feast. We’re saving a spot for you.
Go to evolvingfaith.com and register today. You won’t want to miss this moment with this community. It's pretty special. Okay, now back to the show.
From Jeff's talk: “But your reconstruction is only worthwhile if it fits into the larger God-given picture of the restoration of all of creation. Truth is, God doesn't need your help to restore anything. But God invites you to. God invites you to make a choice between death and life, your death and your life, your neighbor's death and your neighbor's life.”
(MUSIC)
JEFF: Hi, friends, I'm Jeff Chu.
SARAH: And I'm Sarah Bessey. Welcome back to the Evolving Faith podcast.
JEFF: Hey, Sarah. Hello everyone.
SARAH: I can hear in your voice, and I can imagine how you feel right now. We did this last season as well. It's always incredibly vulnerable and uncomfortable to share our own talks in these seasons of the podcast. As a couple of writers, I don't know if you and I have ever felt quite in our lane when we're preaching or talking, certainly podcasting, but here we are anyway.
JEFF: Still talking, still talking.
SARAH: You know, I'll go easy on you today because I actually just wanted to jump straight into your talk today if that's okay.
JEFF: If I said it's not okay, would you stop?
SARAH: In this instance? Uhhhh, no. Hard pass. But I do have a lot of questions on the other side, and so I didn't want to take up too much time here on the front end, as much as I'm sure everyone would absolutely love another round of us discussing Derry Girls. Bless our hearts and our apologies.
So let me do your official bio bit while you listen in discomfort. All right, Jeff Chu—who, note for the audio, is visibly cringing right now—is my beloved friend and brother. He is a writer, a reporter, and a gifted editor. He's been my co-host and co-curator here at Evolving Faith since 2019. Jeff is also an editor-at-large at Travel and Leisure magazine, an occasional preacher, and the teacher in residence over at Crosspointe Church in Cary, North Carolina, which also broadcasts their Sunday services. So even if you're not local to that area, you can always catch another message from Jeff. He's in a complicated ordination process with the Reformed Church in America right now. He's an incredibly thoughtful cook, a fledgling gardener, a farmer in his heart and his imagination. He's also the dog walker of Fozzie, the noble beast, who is often pictured on Instagram, and pro tip, if you ever want to aggravate Jeff, refer to Fozzie as his furbaby. He and his husband, the social media avoidant and beloved Tristan from Texas, have made their home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, over the past couple of years.
I do think it is important to know that Jeff is so much more than his resume in his bio. He's the son of immigrants from Hong Kong, the grandson and nephew of Baptist preachers, he has a tremendous gift for friendship. And, as you have likely picked up over the last season, and in these past few episodes, Jeff is an introvert and an Enneagram Six. He loves the Bible, even if he interprets it differently than he once did. He loves fried rice and bacon and hiking and cooking and good gin. But listen, don't ever, ever offer him anything with marzipan or beets. You will not be the person to change his mind, I promise you. And small talk, which is actually one of my great talents, I have the capacity to talk about the weather for half of a day, that sort of thing can make his soul shrivel. So Jeff is so passionate about helping the church, the wide universal church, become relentlessly loving and hopeful people.
He helps make Evolving Faith into a space where we can rest and imagine and even feast together over good stories. He has brought such thoughtfulness and compassion and intention to our community and to me. So let's settle in together to listen to our friend Jeff, from Evolving Faith 2019 in Denver, Colorado.
Evolving Faith 2019: Jeff Chu
JEFF: Your story, our story, is a story of water. On the farm, and those of you who were here last year, knew that I would be taking you to the farm again. My second favorite place after the compost pile is a spot on the banks of the stream, just before the waters flow into the western end of the pond. There's a stand of trees that shades that spot, leaning over the stream, and in the early morning, in the spring, in the summer, the temperature is just right for a dense mist of airborne waters to hover over the liquid waters, and all of it glows from the sunlight that straggles in through the trees that are on the eastern side of the pond.
It can be hard to make out what's cloaked in the mist in those post-dawn moments. But when I do go, I see, when I look closely, so much life. I see Canada geese because there are a gazillion Canada geese in the world. Occasionally some wigeon. But what I'm always looking for, what I want to see, are the white herons.
In the early morning, it can be hard to spot the herons because of the white feathers on their bodies coming in and out of the gray-tinged mist. I was thinking about them last night, early this morning when I was writing as I sat with some of the things that we've been talking about over the past 24 hours, as I pondered the complex feelings that have been stirred up by the truth-tellers in our midst. And as I wrestled with my own sentiments about the grief and the joy, the tears, and the laughter that we have shared together.
My people have traditionally held the heron in very high regard. In Chinese painting, they represent guidance. So in those ancient watercolors, if you see one, it represents a possible path forward. In Chinese philosophy, these birds, which typically move slowly and rhythmically, their heads and their beaks dipping in the water, in search of a minnow or a tadpole, or a bug. These birds represent patience; they're seen as the guardians of our souls.
And that seems kind of right for us, doesn't it? Many of us are walking through something akin to those post-dawn misty minutes right now. We glimpsed a little bit of sunshine breaking through; we searched the horizon for some kind of way. And what I want to say to you this afternoon is that in the holy waters of our stories, we can just begin to make sense of the call on our lives.
Into the story of our intersecting journeys, because all of our 2,500-plus stories have intersected in this time, in this place, whether you like it or not.
God has poured the stories of the waters that move in and above this earth, the very waters of our baptism, the very waters that give us the life and love that is and has been, and the very waters that remind us of the promise of what is to come. The waters are signs of grace and symbols of hope. And my great hope, at this very moment, is that all this talk of water over the next few minutes will not make you want to get up and pee.
One of my favorite passages of Scripture in the recent past comes from the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel was an exile, sent to a godforsaken village in what is now Iraq during the Babylonian captivity. And while Ezekiel is in exile, while all that he has known has been broken apart and deconstructed, God gives him a series of powerful images of restoration and reconstruction.
My favorite image comes from Ezekiel 47, in which water plays a powerful role. This chapter comes at the culmination of a grand tour that the prophet Ezekiel gets from a divinely appointed tour guide.
Ezekiel has already been shown a vision of the restored sanctuary of God. And when the tour guide brings Ezekiel back to the outside of the rebuilt sanctuary, Ezekiel notices a river is flowing out of the sanctuary. As he follows the waters movement, Ezekiel takes in a scene that one can only describe as paradise, as Kingdom come.
Here is what Scripture says, “I saw very many trees on both banks of the river, he [the tour guide] said to me, ‘These waters go out to the Eastern Region flow down the steep slopes and go into the Dead Sea. When the flowing waters enter the sea, its water becomes fresh. Wherever the river flows, every living thing that moves will thrive. There will be great schools of fish because when these waters enter the sea, it will be fresh. Wherever the river flows, everything will live. People will stand fishing beside it, and it will become a place for spreading nets. It will be like the Mediterranean Sea, having all kinds of fish in it. It's marshes and swamps won't be made fresh; they're left for salt. But on both banks of the river will grow up all kinds of fruit-bearing trees. Their leaves won't wither and their fruitfulness won't wane. They will produce fruit in every month because their water comes from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for eating and their leaves for healing.’”
A side note, one detail I love—and maybe this is just my bias as someone who loves the kitchen—is that even in this vision, God is pointing toward the feast. There is fish, and there are vegetables, and there is fruit. But we're keeping the briny waters of the coastal marshes because you still need to make salt. You still need to make salt for seasoning because in paradise, we will need not eat bland food.
Another notable thing happens on this tour. Over and over the tour guide—and I don't know if it's an angel or a manifestation or God’s self or what, and I'm not a Hebrew scholar—the tour guide asks a question that I would like you to ask yourself, “Human one, what do you see?”
“Human one, what do you see?” And I want you to hold on to these words for the next few minutes, “Human one, what do you see?” Or, if you want to honor all the senses, you could say, “Human one, what do you perceive?”
The invitation here echoes one that comes 10 chapters earlier in a part of Ezekiel that might be more familiar to many of you. In Ezekiel 37, the prophet visits the valley of the dry bones, a low place filled with death, and the things of death. And when God takes Ezekiel to the valley of dry bones, a curious thing happens: God invites Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones. God does this twice. The first time, God instructs Ezekiel to tell the bones to embark on a reconstruction project. Tendons will reattach, muscles will regrow, skin will cover it all.
And the second time, God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to summon the four winds, the breath of life that will restore these bones fully. What is wondrous about this to me is that God doesn't need Ezekiel to do any of these things at all. This is a grand and mysterious invitation to the prophet, to the human one, to the mortal, to participate in the recreation of life.
It's an act of grace that a human, a mortal, a created being is called by the Creator to take part in the resuscitation of his friends, his neighbors, his fellow humans, and 10 chapters later, once again Ezekiel gets invited by God to do something that God does not need Ezekiel to do. God could just as well tell Ezekiel what he's supposed to see and what he is supposed to do. And yet God honors human agency by asking Ezekiel, “What do you make of this? Tell me, what is the story that you see unfolding? What is all this? What do you see?”
This is our intimate God, our God of relationship, our God who honors the abilities we have been given to create and to destroy, to perceive or not to perceive, to make sense or to make folly.
And I repeat that question to you now, “Human one, what do you see?”
We, like Ezekiel, can only see that place of full restoration in dreams and visions right now. We, like Ezekiel, have not found our way there yet. We, like Ezekiel have been blessed with glimmers of that glory and glimpses of that hope. And God says to us all as to Ezekiel before us, “Human one, what do you see?”
Friends, what do you perceive in the beauty that God has called us to? And the reality that we have shared over these past two days, which is that we are falling short of that beauty? What do you make of the stories you've heard the stories of pain but also resilience, the stories of struggle but also triumph, the stories of suffering but also delight, the stories of fragmentation but also wholeness? Where do you see possibility? And the things of good? And the things of God?
Human one, what do you see?
In the middle of Ezekiel 47, the narrative takes a curious turn. What has been a stirring and winsome story, vivid with imagery of nature, suddenly turns into what seems like a property report. Suddenly, God is giving Ezekiel instructions about how the Promised Land is to be divided once Israel's tribes go home.
I have spent much of my career as an editor, and if a writer submitted this chapter to me,
I would send it back with instructions to revise it completely. Or at least to give the reader a more gentle transition, because it's weird. The chapter loses its rhythm, there is seemingly no flow.
And then we get to verses 21 and 22. “You will apportion this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. When you redistribute the land as an inheritance, the immigrants who reside with you and raise families among you are considered full citizens along with the Israelites. They will receive an inheritance along with you, among the tribes of Israel.”
If I had been in Ezekiel’s place, I would have said, “God, this does not seem right. All these years we have suffered in exile clinging to the promises that you have made to us. The ones you said you chose, the ones you said were special, the ones you said were set apart, and now you want us to share? And not just do we have to share a little bit but they are equal to us? Hell, no.”
Here is the radical and unexpected call to radical and unexpected equality, radical and unexpected community, radical and unexpected justice according to God's standards. By the rules of our capitalistic world, this is absurd. But according to God's justice, just casually tucked in here amidst instructions for real estate transactions, is the assertion that the foreigner and the refugee, the immigrant and the alien, gets an equal share of land. Because land is life. In an agrarian culture like this one, land is not only a place to call home but the possibility of feeding your family. And what I hear God saying is, “There is enough and more than enough. What I have given for you is given for all. What I have blessed you with is to be a blessing to everyone.”
And what Ezekiel 47 proclaims is that it's not real flourishing if only some flourish.
I want to speak candidly with you because we have no time left for pleasantries and we are going over. Yesterday, our speakers shared some hard truths. I pushed three of them to give those hard truths some specificity that made some of you deeply uncomfortable. They went there.
And though I know there are some of you who are not at all grateful for it, I and many others are. They named things that may have been hard to receive, yes. But imagine how much harder they are to live.
We are prone to the same temptation that God was addressing these many centuries ago. Many of us have convinced ourselves that what we have—first and foremost, comfort and privilege and power—is for us. And when someone who comes along and makes a bold claim, that maybe the distribution of comfort and privilege and power might be uneven, and perhaps let's just say it, evil, which is to say that you get to be comfortable when another doesn't. And that privilege even is a thing because it implies profound inequity. And you participate casually in a system that wields power against others.
Well, let me just ask you, “Human one, what do you see?”
Do you see something that honors the God of us all and the flourishing of all and the life-giving waters of the river benefiting everyone? Do you see the disconnects? Are you willing to answer the call that God offered to Ezekiel, and by extension, to us?
Do you hear the instruction not to be complacent and, yes, even complicit in the persistent death in our own valleys of dry bones and to prophesy breath and life and restoration?
Friends, I'm so glad that many of you are on a journey of reconstruction. Your reconstruction is not just for you.
If you came here this weekend because you want to feel better, that's fine. But it's not enough.
If you came here because you wanted to learn and grow, I honor that. But I ask you, learn and grow for what and for whom?
Because you can give yourself a personal gold star. But your reconstruction is only worthwhile if it fits into the larger God-given picture of the restoration of all of creation.
The truth is, God doesn't need your help to restore anything. But God invites you to.
God invites you to make a choice between death and life, your death and your life, your neighbor's death and your neighbor's life.
You can come revel in these endless and beautiful waters, which are no human’s private property and are cleaner and richer and more filled with abundance than anything any of us have ever known. Or you can keep getting drunk from that poisoned, made-in-the-USA chalice that you choose to call wine.
For much of my life, I confess that I have chosen to drink from that chalice. Although I might call it gin. The words in my Bible might as well have been a fantasy novel. Promises like the one that God offers Ezekial and, by extension, all of us, were not for me, not for Chinese me, not for questionably masculine me, not gay me, not shy me who might stutter out in the answer if I could get any words out at all. Not for the Jeff who didn't even believe some days that he was worthy of another day on this earth.
Not for the Jeff who felt beyond a disappointment to his family and to his friends. Not for the Jeff who had been used as an object for sexual pleasure by a stranger, not for the Jeff who felt condemned to invisibility by some and condemned by my proximity to whiteness by others.
Not for the Jeff who had internalized so well the message is that our hearts are deceptive and our bodies are sinful and our very beings are flawed, so much so that I wondered what the point was to keep on going.
I drank of that poison chalice because I had forgotten about the waters of baptism that had drunk that Jeff up. I drank of that poison chalice because I had forgotten that the evil waters in my cup were no match for the goodness of God's love sent to wash over me.
I drank of that poison chalice because I had become addicted to the bitter flavor that I came to know as mine, that I learned to seek out for my comfort, that I had turned into my idol. When there was another cup waiting for me all the while.
I may be Reformed, but I still believe we have choices. I chose poorly. And it is through community that I have been helped to choose more wisely. It is in being reminded of the unifying waters of baptism and the life-giving water turned wine of communion, and the blessed chalices of a thousand dinner parties and sacred cups of shared coffee with friends that I have been summoned back to life.
God used Rachel and Sarah and Jim to prophesy my reconstruction. God empowered Noah and Nate, Nadia and Kaitlin, Beth and Wayne to pour healing waters onto my broken heart. God called Wes and Hannah, and Annalise and Werner, and Pearl and Danny, and Kenda and Nate, and Lincoln the dog and August the goat (I love August, the goat) to sit with me at the farm and by the restorative waters of the stream.
God offered Ryan and Caleb and Alex and Greta and Francis to point me to the need for hope for future generations. And God sent me my beloved Tristan, to breathe with me and for me.
Some of these names will mean nothing to you, but they mean everything to me, because they are synonyms for family, for purpose, and for love.
I think there is power and significance in naming who our water-bearers have been. Both to honor how God has used them, and also to remind us that none of it (I can't even read anymore, Oh Lord), none of it is ever just for or about us, as individuals.
All of it was so that we can be ushered into togetherness, pouring into one another and reminding one another of our call to community, because we belong to each other and to all of God's creation. What glorious creation it is.
It may be hard for you to comprehend sitting as we are in the overwhelming grandeur and aesthetic and architectural wonder of this hockey arena. (laughter)
That was for you, Sarah.
But I know no cathedral grander than a grove of redwood trees. I know no church more winsome, no church aisle more winsome and more inviting than the narrow pathway in the middle of the woods. Or in the middle of a garden.
I know no stained glass that can compete with the petals of a peony. No trumpets more triumphant than elephants bellowing at one another. No organ more majestic than the roar of the ocean, especially the Pacific. No piano more melodic than the bird song of early morning.
I know no heat more holy than the healing warmth in the heart of a compost pile, as the things of death are transformed into the things of new life.
And what unites every single one of these things is the life-giving presence of water because without water there is no life. The trees, the gardens, the flowers, the animals, the oceans, the birds, holy water empowers them all.
The work of the compost, too, is impossible, too, without enough moisture, and I really tried to avoid that word because I hate the word “moist.” But the soil of new life can't come from the things of death without an adequate measure of water.
In a few minutes, we will approach the table that Jesus set. Neither the wine nor the bread were possible without water, both the literal water that nourished the grape and fed the wheat, or whatever gluten-free grain went into the wafer; and, the figurative living water that is part of the holy equation.
Here in the wilderness, we have found each other and we're invited to come to this table together. It is not for any single one of us alone. But for us together as a family, and all are welcome. And as we come, I invite you to look around. Take your time. Absorb the beauty of each person around you in a totally non-creepy way.
If you're joining us by livestream and you're watching with others, look around the room. If you're watching alone in your mind's eye, scan the landscape of your life for passersby, for people you work with, for people you worship with, the folks you encounter at the grocery store and the stoplight and in the course of your daily existence. As we go back to our respective homes and towns and cities and countries keep watching, because the question is, “Human one, what do you see?” Do you see the others around you who seek the cup of life that God has put in your hands to serve to your thirsty neighbor? Do you see the others around you who need you to hold up to their lips the chalice of blessing that God has handed you to offer to your enemies? Do you see the others around you who don't even know that they're waiting for the goblet of goodness that God has given you that was never meant for you alone?
Because at the great feast, there are no tables for one. And even this shy introvert doesn't hate it. We feast together in the midst of God's sanctuary and the beating heart of that sanctuary is love and what flows out of that sanctuary is the river of grace. Grace is the love-infused healing water that we seek—grace for ourselves and grace for our neighbors, grace that transforms behavior and grace that reframes relationship. God's grace and peace to you, friends. God's grace and peace to you. And let me say it one more time: You are loved.
Amen.
(Transition music)
Conversation
SARAH: Alright, well, let’s start off with something we have in common: the heron. I love herons myself. They have been a marker of God’s grace and presence in my own life, which I’ve written about a couple of times, but I don't think I’ve ever heard this perspective on guidance, and the representation of a path forward. I love the imagery you painted there of that slow and rhythmic movement, the patience of it. And when you said that it seemed appropriate for us at Evolving Faith, I really wanted to hear more about what and how you see that for now and for today’s world, now that it’s been a couple of years and some of us are re-entering the world post-pandemic or are experiencing a different sort of wilderness because of the pandemic.
JEFF: So, one of the most beautiful things to me about how a heron moves through the world is its elegant deliberation. Most of the time, it moves very steadily and carefully. It doesn’t make any rash movements or take any capricious steps, but that doesn’t mean it’s slow. Of course, it’s capable of being extremely quick: Anyone who has ever seen a heron snatch a fish from the water knows that. And what I see in the heron’s testimony is such a great antidote to how the world so often, I think, wants us to move. Social media platforms, for instance, want our hot takes and our bursts of emotion; they thrive off of them. And I think the heron calls us to something different, something more careful, something more watchful.
SARAH: As long as I’ve known you, I’ve known how much you love Ezekiel. And particularly the passage about the dry bones. It’s something that comes up often in our conversations as we are seeking, hoping, to guide this community well. It’s kind of become an unofficial metaphor for us, maybe? And so I wanted to hear a little bit more about that story from your eyes and in particular why it has always resonated so much with you, why you see its importance, and its weight for our listeners, even.
JEFF: Anyone who has been paying attention knows that we actually deploy a ton of metaphors at Evolving Faith and we could really use a good editor. (laughter from Sarah) But yes, I do love this story a lot, and Ezekiel resonates with me a lot—maybe not in how wild and over-the-top some of his visions are, because honestly, it seems a bit showy, and a bit much. Like, I wonder sometimes, did Ezekiel’s spouse get a little tired of his drama? But one of the important things to me about Ezekiel’s context is that he is in a land where he can’t be fully at home. He and his people are in exile. He can try to make some sense of home, but it will never truly be home. There is so much longing in Ezekiel for home, and that speaks to me. But even if home is elusive, there’s also so much hope in his story. The story in Ezekiel 37, where he’s taken to the Valley of the Dry Bones: I find it so moving that God invites our participation in the process of breathing life into other people, into other bodies. You know I love to cook and to feed people; you mentioned that earlier. To do that can be a way of participating in the invitation of Ezekiel 37. I think of some of my darkest times, shortly after I came out, when I felt abandoned by many loved ones, and to some degree, by the church, and I remember the folks who came and breathed life into me through their friendship—simply by showing up. To do that can be a way of participating in the invitation of Ezekiel 37. I think of friends who, in moments of stress and anxiety, have made space for whatever I was feeling, who have sat in silence with me when I’ve said that I don’t have anything to say; to do that can be a way of participating in the invitation of Ezekiel 37. When my fears threaten to overwhelm me and Tristan looks me in the eye and says, “It’s going to be okay,” to do that can be a way of participating in the invitation of Ezekiel 37. I love how there’s a picture painted of God making resurrection a communal act. We rise together.
SARAH: I love that. It kind of reminds me of a passage in the New Testament when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead and he instructs everybody around him to unbind him. That communal thing of being part of that. Which actually leads to my next question. You had this very stirring invitation in the middle of your talk there that I’ve thought about often since then. You kept asking us, what do we see? And you meant that to be answered, right? You asked us what we saw in those two days together, where we felt we fell short of it, even the stories we heard of struggle and triumph, delight, belonging, even possibility. So, now, what do you think is the invitation from God about what we perceive around us now?
JEFF: I think the invitation is much the same as it has always been: What’s going on in the world around us, and how can I be a part of healing what hurts, and blessing it, and putting some balm on whatever aches, and bringing some goodness amidst what’s foul? And what is going on in the world around us, such that I can be attentive to what’s good and what’s resilient and what sings of beauty and life? I will say that it can be really taxing to pay attention. We’re not—to tie it back to the image we started with—we’re not all naturally gifted in the way of the heron. To pay attention takes energy and care and an emergence from the kind of self-absorption that so many of our societies are prone to nowadays, and I think a key part of your question is the phrase “around us now.” Because the invitation that the weird tour guide issues to Ezekiel is not: What are you feeling inside your heart? This isn’t a therapy session. The invitation is: What do you see around you? How do you make sense of the world around you? Where can you make connections beyond you, for the common good? I read this as a very relational invitation, a very communal question that compels me, maybe compels us, to interrogate what’s going on between me and you, me and my spouse, me and the earth, me and my dog, me and the ecosystem.
SARAH: You know, you addressed something, and maybe this is connected to that, because you addressed something in your talk that maybe some of our listeners, who have only listened to the podcast, may not fully understand, given the nature of how these seasons sort of unfold here so if I was just to take a minute to sort of fold out the scene. Your talk happened on Day 2 of the event itself in Denver, and it was after a session with Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes, whom we heard from in Episode 2 this season already, as well as Kaitlin Curtice and William Matthews, who are coming up in future episodes. We haven’t ever publicly shared, you know, those kind of couch panel sessions, that happen after kind of a trio of mainstages usually do. And so those tend to exist in the moment of time for the conference, and we’ve never really made them public. But you were calling back to that session because some of what we discussed in there, just previous, had made a few folks uncomfortable. You moderated the conversation between those three, and you had invited them to share some hard truths with our community. And so normally when someone reference those couch conversations in a talk, we’ll edit them out so that our listeners here don’t feel left out or like they’re missing part of the conversation, but this time around we actually left it in. I thought it was important to leave your mention of it in the episode because of the larger point you were making here: It’s not real flourishing if only some of us flourish. Which goes back to that question we keep circling around this season, almost maybe an unofficial theme it seems—that our evolving faith journey isn’t just for ourselves. And I think that’s an invitation we miss in these spaces at times, and I’d love for you to talk more about the way our evolving faith shows up in the restoration of all creation, like Ezekiel.
JEFF: So, I remember that several people walked out during that conversation that I moderated, and we heard from at least one of those people afterward. And if I’m remembering correctly, they felt that they were being shamed as white people. So you had four people of color onstage having a really candid conversation, and it made some attendees so uncomfortable that they felt compelled to get out of their seats and walk out. And that really made me ask: What are folks gathering for? Why are people coming to Evolving Faith? And by extension, maybe why are folks listening to this podcast? And the answer, at least in my mind, has to be more than “These talks help me feel better about myself” or “These conversations make me feel good.” It’s not that those are bad things or bad goals, but there has to be something more. Are you becoming a better neighbor, or a better friend, a better companion for the journey? Maybe some helpful context to remember is that I come from a communal culture, a collective culture. Eastern culture, like the culture that birthed Scripture, is communal and collective. The individualism that has infected so much of the American church is really foreign to my upbringing, and it still startles me sometimes. Our journeys can’t just be for ourselves. The Christian story is not a self-help story. It has never just or even primarily been about individual salvation, and anyone who says that didn’t understand the assignment.
SARAH: So true. That’s so true. You spoke in your talk about the poisoned chalice (speaking of metaphors)...
JEFF: So many metaphors.
SARAH: So many metaphors. But you spoke about this poisoned chalice, which immediately conjured something like, you know in my imagination, that you had in your hand and drank from. And I think a lot of us have experiences with those poisoned chalices, that they were told that they were filled with wine when they’re just dirty water. And I thought that that was incredibly courageous and compassionate of you to bare some of that with us, and I really wanted to take a minute to just honor that. But I also really loved how you spoke about choices—of course, I did, the non-Reformed counterweight to your Reformedness, so of course I’m going to point out the choices—but I loved how you were talking about being summoned back to life through ancient and communal chalices of life. I loved your litany of witnesses there, and I think that’s an invitation for our community to consider in their own lives—the names that are our own synonyms for family and belonging and love. And yet one of the things that often comes up in our community is how profoundly lonely people are in the wilderness. And so I was wondering if you had any words of advice or invitation that you would offer to our folks about finding those good chalices of love and belonging?
JEFF: So, I really want to be careful here. And maybe the best thing for me to do is to state this in the form of testimony, because I don’t know that I should be giving advice to people about how to combat their loneliness or to critique how people have gone about their business. In my experience, sometimes I’ve chosen loneliness because the vulnerability and risk to let myself be loved seem scarier. Sometimes the biggest obstacle to companionship has been my own fragility and maybe even my own slightly narcissistic self. To open myself up to relationship takes daring. It is scary. It can be draining, especially given how often I’ve experienced rejection. But here’s the question I have to ask myself and want to ask myself: Do I actually believe that I am a beloved child of God, and do I actually believe that I am wanted and that I matter in the household of God? It’s hard for me to say that out loud. I get emotional because it’s scary to name that question. The narrative of the Scriptures says that I am a beloved child of God and that you are a beloved child of God, yet my behavior often doesn’t back up my conviction. And the thing is, if God loves me, and if I truly believe that in my heart of hearts, what does human approval or human rejection, what does it matter? The fact is, so often I don’t actually believe that I’m a beloved child of God. I don’t really feel particularly loved at all—and I don’t really let myself be loved. And that’s when I get really lonely.
SARAH: That’s a really real thing. Thank you for sharing that. I know it’s not easy to talk about. I’d be lying if I didn’t say it made my heart hurt a bit because you are so loved, but I know that even hearing it isn’t always the same as knowing it. And that larger yearning—to be loved, but also to be wanted, to matter in the family of God—is present. We talked about that a bit in the first season in your episode if I remember correctly, because I remember asking you about why it was so important to you that we always ended every episode with the phrase and reminder that we’re loved, and we spoke about this then as well.
Okay, as we wrap up, I did want to take a minute because it seems so intrinsic to who you are—it always is woven into almost every essay you write and sermon I’ve heard you preach—is your great passion for food. There was that joke in there about how there’s no bland food in the heavenly feast —which, amen—but you pointed out the feast in Ezekiel and then again there at the end as we prepared for Eucharist together. So people that maybe have not attended our gatherings before may not know that receiving communion is actually a cornerstone part of our Evolving Faith gatherings. It has been since the very beginning. You mentioned that this isn’t a table for one. From your perspective, why do you think it’s so important for us to hold communion or Eucharist together as this kind of misfit outpost, you know, higgledy-piggledy community just gathered together here in the wilderness?
JEFF: One of our friend Rachel’s most famous phrases is, “On the days when I believe…” To take communion is an act of faith—not an act of certainty, an act of faith. To take communion together, even on the days when you don’t believe, is to me a way of saying that I’m hoping for days when I might believe again. I am hoping for days when some aspects of the Jesus story are more real to me than they are right now. I’m hoping for days when God feels closer to me than God feels right now. But in the meantime, we’re going to have this meal together, and maybe you, my mealtime companion, maybe you can hold onto hope for me and with me. I think Jesus knew what he was doing when he established this ritual and this template. He knew we would have to come back to the table again and again to be reminded of God’s love so that we would be fueled up again to love others. A meal is a shared experience. I love to cook for people because I love the story that comes together in that meal, at the table. And I love to imagine how that meal might fuel them, just for a little while, and make them feel a little bit loved.
Closing
(Music)
SARAH: You can find all of the links mentioned on today’s show as well as info about our friend Jeff and his work in the world as well as a full transcript of this episode in our show notes at evolvingfaith.com/podcast. Don’t forget to follow us on social media at @Evolvfaith on Twitter and Instagram. You can always find me, Sarah Bessey, at sarahbessey.com for all my social media links, my newsletter Field Notes, and, of course, my books.
JEFF: You can sign up for my newsletter at jeffchu.substack.com, and there are always photos of my dog, Fozzie, and me on Instagram at @byjeffchu. The Evolving Faith Podcast is produced by us, Sarah Bessey and Jeff Chu, along with the polymathic SueAnn Shiah, who also provided our music. Please join us next week as we hear from our friend Pete Enns. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Evolving Faith podcast. And until next time, remember that you are loved.
Throughout our time together at Evolving Faith, there’s one thing we’ve heard over and over from you: We need community. Being in the wilderness can be really lonely. You can feel too isolated—even those of us who are profoundly shy introverts. We need companions for the journey. We need folks to accompany us and be alongside us.
So, we are delighted to invite you to join the Evolving Faith Community online, a new space we’ve created—and we hope you will co-create with us—for better conversations, deeper connections, questions big and small, and content that we hope will be inspiring and meet you where you are.
It is free to join the Evolving Faith Community. Our desire is that you might find some fellow travelers in this oasis with whom you can feel a renewed sense of belonging and maybe even some hope. So come, explore, and share. All you have to do is go to community.evolvingfaith.com and sign up. We can’t wait to greet you. See you there.