Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hey guys, this is Naeeb and you've reached the mosaic church podcast. So excited that you're part of our listening community and I'd love for you to be even more connected. So check out our website. There's more content there and there's more opportunities for you to get connected in our ministries and events as well. Also, love for you to share this content if this is blessed to you. I know that God wants to use you to bless other people with it, so share this podcast if you will. Lastly, would you consider supporting this ministry? This is made possible by other people's generosity and I'd love for you to pay it forward. Join us to reclaim the message and the movement of Jesus together. So would you consider giving to this ministry? I know that God is able to do immeasurably more through us when we come together. Thank you so much. God bless you and enjoy.
[00:00:57] Hello, BJ. I like that entrance, man. I like that. I like that. Not so mean. Not so mean. Not so mean. Mean, but not so mean. Naim. All right, awesome. Hey, well, good morning. Glad you're here. If you're joining us online, welcome, friends. So we are on week three of a series that we started two weeks ago called the church the world needs. And we are doing this because, number one, we do series. We do series of talks.
[00:01:26] They're really great for people to follow along, maybe share with friends and all that, but we take a topic and really talk through it. And the good thing about this is that we're also addressing some of the things that are just everyday cultural things that we're facing as a country, as a people, and all that. And so the big idea on this was the idea that, man, we really need to be a certain kind of people and reminding ourselves that, hey, the church, we, the church, we are actually a people. And there are certain kinds of people the world really needs right now. And so the first week we kicked it off and we talked about, hey, the church the world really needs is a church that asks the right questions and doesn't have all the answers. And so what I want to do is, I want to just ask you a question today. Okay? Now, this might not be like a spiritual question. This might be a really honest question. I love asking questions. Last week I asked you a question. It really gets us, you know, figuring out how honest are we today? Okay? So can I ask you that? Can I do that? Can I do that? Okay, easy, easy, easy. Okay, here's the question. Okay. Have you ever been in a place, let's say grocery store. You were walking down the aisle, you saw someone and you like, ah, not today. Not today. And you left, or you walked away and you went to the other aisle. Have you ever done that? Okay, okay. Your hand up went, your hand went up really quick. Okay. Yes. You look. Or, or, you know, maybe it's, maybe it's, you know, it's on the street, you saw someone, you're like, oh, man. Not theme them. Maybe it's an ex. Maybe it's just someone, you know, someone who's a little bit too complicated. You know what I'm talking about? We love them. We love them too much. Too much, right. And so you've had that moment. Yeah, right, I have. You know, I was talking to a friend of mine, and I hate to say he was a pastor, but he was. And not that he was a bad pastor, but I'll tell you what happened and you can decide. Well, he told me, this is what he does. He says when I see someone I don't want to interact with in public, I just pretend like I'm on my phone taking a call and I was like, whoa. I was like, that's awful. Like, why would you do that? I can't do that because I wear earpods, you know what I'm saying? And I can't, like, I can't do that. But some of you guys are like, I'm gonna take this down. I'm gonna do this. From now on, I'm gonna do this. Yeah, I'm on a call. I'm on a call. I don't. The reason is because there are some things in our life where people, whatever you wanna call them, and we really want to walk away from, because we don't have the energy for him. We just don't have the energy. We just don't like, hey, I just don't have the energy. Here's the question, though. Here's the question. Could it be possible that this idea of walking away from things that are complicated is really not good for us? It is not part of who God created us to be. And in fact, maybe, just maybe, God doesn't want a church that walks away. And so this morning, what I want to talk about is the church the world needs is a church that does not walk away.
[00:04:12] Because for some of us, you know, in your life, you felt the church walk away from you.
[00:04:19] You might know someone who shared a story or life got really complicated or they began to talk about some things that they were feeling and it just didn't line up. With the denomination didn't line up with the perfect christian life, or it didn't line up with tradition. And the church walked away from them, and you saw it happen. A youth group walked away from you. People in your group just walked away, and you felt as the person, as the one left there going, okay, am I so difficult? Is something wrong with me? See, I find people like that in mosaic all the time. People who go, you know what? I just feel like it was all good until my life got complicated, and then I was just too much. The church just kind of started walking away. I've had people in my life who've come out to me, who've literally come out to me and said, hey, I think I'm gay.
[00:05:08] And I've had so many people like them say, but I'll leave. I'll leave if you want me to. I'll just leave. I said, this is not where I walk away from you. This is where we get close.
[00:05:19] This is where we get close. Because the church gets in the habit of walking away from people, walking away from situations that are just complicated. They're just. They're just. They're not perfect. They're not clean. You know what I'm saying? Then we become people who walk away from suffering, from pain, from difficulty. And so what we don't want to be is, we don't want to be a church that walks away from the world. We don't want to be that. The world does not need a church that's too perfect, that does not want to get its hands dirty, because I don't know if you know this. The world is a little dirty. It's a little messy. Okay. It's complicated. It's a little bit of a mess. Just look around you, right? We're a little bit of a mess. The good thing is, we're God's mess, and he knows that. And aren't we glad that God doesn't look at us and go, whoo, I'm on a call right now.
[00:06:18] I can't handle your mess. I can't handle this situation because you were going a perfect life, or you're doing a certain thing, and now you just messed up everything. You messed up your marriage. You messed up your relationships. You got into all kinds of stuff. You're addicted now. I just want to walk away from you. So, what would it look like for us to be people who don't walk away, who, in fact, actually walk towards when things get hard? We walk to words. When things get complicated, we walk towards certain people we walk to words. We don't walk away.
[00:06:47] We walk to words. And so this idea, you know, is the essence of the teachings of Jesus. And so let me just take you to one particular passage where Jesus is encountering this guy, an expert in the law, in a sense, religious law. And he starts a conversation, and it leads us into really realizing, oh, wow. Jesus is telling us something about what the church really needs to look like. So let's jump in. Here it is. It's in Luke, chapter 210. It says here, one day an expert, an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question. He asked him this question. What's the question? Help me out. Let's read this together. What's the question, teacher? What should I do to inherit eternal life? Now, what he's asking is not, how do I get to heaven? By the way, if you've ever been told this is the question about how to get to heaven, this is not it. The term eternal life is a phrase that jewish people use all the time. It was not about hell or heaven, salvation, condemnation, damnation. It was none of that. In fact, the word here, eternal life, is the hebrew word, and I'm going to butcher it because I don't speak Hebrew, but it's O Lamhaba.
[00:08:07] Let's say it together. Can we do that?
[00:08:10] The word implies, what do eternal life is? The expert in the law, he's asking, how can I inherit O Lamhaba? Which means a life, a quality of life that starts here on earth and continues into the afterlife. So the expert of the law is talking about a Jewish concept where you can have access to a certain kind of living that follows you through the afterlife. It is, in one sense, if you know anything about budDhism, it's this idea of Nirvana. It's this idea of an essence where you get to a certain level of enlightenment, and you begin to change your life here, and you live a certain kind of way. And what's interesting is the teachings of jesus have so much to do with eternal life. Like, he talks about how you can access this eternal life. So what the question really is, is how do I change and become a different kind of person? Which is a great question. Great question. But this guy was trying to ask Jesus something, and some scholars would say he was trying to trick him into figuring out if he could justify living a certain kind of life. So the expert of the law is trying to do that. He's trying to figure out, okay, how can I still have access to Ulemhada but still not change my behavior.
[00:09:31] Just pretend like I just, I don't have to change anything. I just want to have access to this. I just don't want to change anything.
[00:09:37] So then Jesus, he is pro at this. When you ask him a question, he asks you a question, you know, what day is it? What do you think is the day? Just tell me, what time is it? What does it feel like? No, Jesus. Okay. So Jesus replied, what does the law of Moses say? How do you read it? It was interesting. He's already told him, okay, first of all, let's talk about the law of Moses. And then I'm going to just make sure you know that it's all about your interpretation. Doesn't have to be true, but it's your interpretation. He's already not answering the question the way the guy wants him to. And he says, the man answered. The man answered. He says, well, basically it says this, you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength and all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.
[00:10:28] And Jesus says, right, right. Jesus told him, do this and you will live. You will access what eternal life. Which is Olam Habah.
[00:10:40] Then the man wanted to justify his actions, and so he said, and who is my neighborhood? Like, basically, it's like we all agree who the neighbors are, right? We all agree because, like, we live in suburbs. I mean, anybody live in suburbs? Okay. Suburbs were created with this idea of, like, people who live in the same lifestyle, like, the same things, will live in a certain community. It's like we have this community and that community, and then we talk about the other community over there and the other community over there and all that. But the people who live together are similar to each other.
[00:11:15] That's how humans begin live. But here, what he's talking about is, I just want you to know that all the jewish people live together, but there were other jewish people that they had issues with or people who they thought were not really jewish people, who were not necessarily neighbors. So he goes, so we're just right. Who is the neighbor again?
[00:11:35] Because I just want to know, because if I'm doing what I'm doing right now and living the life I'm living, if I'm walking away from certain kind of people, I just want to know. I can still walk away from certain kind of people, still have eternal life, like, still be living the life God called me, but I can walk away from people who are not my neighbors. So let's just be clear. Who's the neighbor? Okay? Who's the neighbor. And that was a tricky question. It was risky, right?
[00:11:59] Because then Jesus says. He says Jesus answered this by telling a what?
[00:12:06] Telling a parable. Telling a story. Now, what's interesting about this is in the western world, you tell stories, right? You tell stories. And then if you have a favorite song, if you find a song, what do you do? Do you tell people about the song? Or do you say, hey, let me listen to this, right? Listen to the song. You don't tell a song.
[00:12:25] You make them listen. In the eastern culture, that's the phrase. You don't tell a story. You say, listen to this story.
[00:12:33] Invite you in. Listen to the story. So when he does the whole, hey, listen to the story. He tells them a story. He says, there was once a man traveling from Jericho, from Jerusalem to Jericho. On his way, he was attacked. By who?
[00:12:46] Robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up and went off, leaving him half dead. Luckily. Luckily, a what? Priest was on his way down on the same road, okay? And when he saw him, he angled across the other side. He got a call. He's like, I gotta go, I gotta go. I gotta. He went to the other side. Okay? Then a what a people are like, I don't know how to say this. Okay? Levi, religious man, showed up. He also avoided the injured man. Okay? Same thing happened. Now, here's what you might not know when Jesus told the story, because some of you know the story, because there's another person who's gonna show up, right? Anybody know who it is?
[00:13:32] Say it again. Yes. The good samaritan. We know the good samaritan story. Naim ha ha. We know it. Please get something original. Calm down. All right, so here's the thing. What's interesting about this is that if you actually read some of the jewish commentaries and jewish scholars about this, about this story, what they'll tell you is that the template that Jesus was using was a classic rabbi deal. Have you ever heard the classic template? Joke, a police officer, a teacher, and, I don't know, and a pastor walk into a bar, right? What do you think is happening? It's a what? It's a joke. A joke is happening.
[00:14:17] So, surprisingly, when Jesus starts talking about this priest, and then he says, levi, they know who's coming next.
[00:14:28] They know. It's the joke. It's not a joke. It's the template. It's how you tell the stories. In fact, other rabbis would use the same template to communicate a truth. They know who's coming next to them. The next person who was coming was a pharisee. Because it was always priest and a levite and a pharisee walk into a bar. Like, that was the joke. That was the story. There's a moral to the story. It's happening. But okay, stop.
[00:15:01] Because something happens there. Jesus does not bring out the pharisee. He doesn't. He brings out the who?
[00:15:10] Samaritan. Which is like, oh, hold up here. What's happening? What he's also saying here is that the story of the priest and the levite ignoring. Ignoring or walking away from a person who's been robbed, walking away from a need, walking away from a person who's unfamiliar, walking away from a person who's injured, who is a little too much trouble or doesn't have an easy solution. We don't know what's going on. Maybe he deserved to be mugged. I don't know what's happening. The idea of holy people not wanting to be touched by unholiness was a thing like their jewish laws were like, if a person is bleeding, if a person is in trouble, you do not go and touch them. You don't do this. See, Jesus, what he's doing here is. I mean, there's so much to the story, but he starts off using the template, talking about an injured person who would be ceremonially unclean. But he says, these people are walking away and they're okay.
[00:16:16] They're okay to do that. They've justified themselves to do that. And see, I don't know about you, but I found myself doing that. I found myself looking at people, and I just don't want to see them. Have you ever done this? I'll just be honest with you.
[00:16:31] Sometimes the more awkward moments in my life is when I'm stopped at a red light and there's a person right outside my car begging.
[00:16:40] And I don't know about you, but sometimes I'm like, I just. I don't. I can. I don't. I don't want to see. I don't want to see you. I feel so awful when I'm a one. I'm like, I don't have cash. If I have cash, I'll give them. But I just. And then sometimes I find myself, God, saying, hey, just look at them. I'm like, I don't want to look at them. Have you. Have you done that? I hate it. Honestly, I hate it because I'm like. And he says, just look at them. Just look at them. Just pray for them. You don't know what's going on. You don't know what's going on? Just look at them. See, I find myself wanting to not really look at suffering and pain. Anybody, you, anybody. I don't want to do that. I just write happy things. Happy things. That's why I like comedians.
[00:17:18] I don't want, like, suffering, pain, don't want that. But yet he's saying, hey, these two religious people did that. You know why? I realized for me, for me, and I think for all of us, delegating empathy, delegating empathy is apathy.
[00:17:42] And I don't know about you, but people in my positions were like, you know what? I can just get someone else to care.
[00:17:49] I can get someone else to provide. I can just get someone else to do it. I just don't want to. And when you delegate empathy, it's apathy, and you begin to teach your soul not to care.
[00:18:03] So I don't know about you, but I find myself already convicted, because in the story, when Jesus is talking, I'm the first person he mentions. I would be the priest in the story, right? I would be the person who, the pastor, the Levite, is the person who's like the deacon or something like that. It would be the person who is a part of the system, but nothing, in charge of everything. He's the Levi. And then, as we already know, because we know this story, it says here, a number one, an unfamiliar person, sorry, a samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man's condition, his heart went out to him. His heart went out.
[00:18:49] Empathy went out. Compassion went out.
[00:18:54] His heart just went out to him. So Jesus is telling the story. Is this a real story? No, Jesus is making up a story to tell a real truth. This is what rabbis did. But he goes, this is the kind of person, this is eternal life. This is the definition of who the neighbor is. So what happens is a samaritan traveling the road came down upon him, and he saw the guy, and he, his heart went out to him. It went out to him.
[00:19:23] Next verse over here, it says here, he gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him, what?
[00:19:38] Comfortable.
[00:19:41] In the morning, he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill and I'll pay you on my way back.
[00:19:59] Then Jesus says, hey, so who do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the person attacked by robbers? The one who treated him kindly, the religious scholar responded, and Jesus said, go and do the same.
[00:20:20] See, the tension in the room here in the space is one that we will never understand. Because when he threw out the Samaritan instead of the Pharisee, the Samaritans were just people, especially in that time. There were the ones that people did not like or were very cautious of. It would be like. It would be like, you're going to tell the story, and the story is a priest and a Levite and the Pharisee. And the template of these stories of all the other rabbis, was always that the priest and the Levite would always not do the right thing, and the Pharisee would do the right thing. Pharisee was always the hero of these rabbis stories. So Jesus takes those Pharisees out, he puts in the Samaritan. They are still shocked that he did that. That is super offensive.
[00:21:21] You wonder why Jesus got tortured and killed and crucified. Because he ticked off a lot of people.
[00:21:28] They were constantly mad at him. The religious people were people who knew what he was saying. The people who were getting healed and fed were, like, loving him. But the people who knew what he was doing were so ticked off because he was changing people's minds and hearts about humanity. And he was like, hey, I want. I'm gonna put the Samaritan in this story. See, to me, it would be like this, okay? Now, this is. This would be just talk about everyday culture right now. It would be like telling a. Telling a story to jewish people, and then the hero of the story, the last person who comes and helps, is nothing. Not a jewish person, but an Arab, a Palestinian, they would just stop and they go, no, no, no, no. Not the Arabs. No, no, no, no. They're not even people. No, no, no. They would never do that. They would never do that. They would never do that. You know what's funny? It's so ironic. The Samaritans, the region where they lived back in the day, fast forward modern times. Right now, it's the Gaza Strip.
[00:22:32] It's actually the West bank. So it's so strange.
[00:22:36] But I just want you to know that this life, this eternal life, the idea of loving your neighbor is not easy. It is so easy to love people who are just like you and just like me, who have easy solutions, who are not complicated.
[00:22:58] But it's very hard. It's very hard to resist walking away from people, number one, who are just unfamiliar people.
[00:23:09] You see, we don't need to walk away from unfamiliar people. People who are like, ah, I just don't know who they are. I'm not comfortable with them.
[00:23:18] I just don't know. I'm so glad that people don't look at me and they walk away from me. Some do. But, you know, most of them. Most of them don't. It's so tough. I didn't even realize, friends, how hard it would be to start a church in the south called mosaic. And me, being a pakistani ex Muslim, you know, grew up in Kuwait, came here after the war, starting a church. I did not know what I was doing, seriously. Because you know what? I looked around and I was like, you know what, Ash? And I did some research. A lot of research. She did more than I do, okay? And she was like, I don't think there's any ex muslim pakistani person who has ever started church from scratch in the US. And I was like, that's awesome.
[00:24:01] And I was like, that's great. And I was so excited. I was so excited. And then I was not so excited. I was not so excited. I was not excited because for years, we could not get into any schools here because of the way I looked and because of my name. And I literally had people, staff from schools, walk me, escort me out and say, you'll never meet here.
[00:24:23] I walk in, they're like, no, not you. I was like, oh, my gosh. But I love Jesus.
[00:24:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Apparently, I look too much like Jesus. That's the problem. That was the issue. That was the issue.
[00:24:39] But unfamiliar people. See, there are people in your life, Mandy, you know, they're just so familiar. And you love them. They're like a blanket, right? They're like, oh, I just wanna be around them. And then there are people who are like.
[00:24:55] It's like, going through. I don't know.
[00:24:58] Yeah, poison ivy. I mean, you know, like, you're like, I don't know if I wanna do that. I don't. They're just prickly.
[00:25:06] You know what I'm saying? I'm not saying always do that. I'm just saying there's some people in our lives that God may be saying, hey, don't walk away from unfamiliar people.
[00:25:15] And he's also saying, this is. Don't walk away. Don't walk away from, like, uncomfortable situations. Don't walk away from uncomfortable situations. Like the church. The people that we need to be are people that go into the holidays.
[00:25:32] And I know. I know. You're like, oh, family.
[00:25:35] I know. I know. Listen, I've got my own. Okay?
[00:25:40] Okay.
[00:25:43] They're just uncomfortable sometimes. And we're gonna get into uncomfortable situations and conversations. We're about to do that in the political realm, and this thing is gonna bleed over all our whole country. In fact, we're gonna do a series because of this called protecting our peace. We're gonna do that for a couple of weeks, just talking about that. But do you, are you tempted to walk away from just uncomfortable, uncomfortable situations? You just don't want to? What if you were to be the person at work that says, hey, I know this is uncomfortable, but we're going to get to it. I know this is, this is.
[00:26:27] No one feels good about this conversation. It's a hard conversation to have, but I'm going to do it, man. What if the church started doing that? What if the church started not walking away and allowing certain things to happen in other people's lives? Like, what if we were to engage in uncomfortable conversations and say, hey, this is the way of Jesus? I know this is not. It's complicated, but this is the way of Jesus. What if we were not walking away from people or situations, even just solutions, like walking away from uneasy solutions? I mean, this guy had to pay. He had to pay his own money. Then he'd change his schedule, then come back and pay for the rest. Jesus is making a point. He's saying, this person, his definition of neighbor, was anyone that God put in his way.
[00:27:22] Anyone.
[00:27:24] If it was unfamiliar, if the people, if there's a different, different kind of person, different kind of belief, it didn't matter. This person believed that that person was their neighbor.
[00:27:36] That loving God and living this kind of life that starts here and moves you all the way to the afterlife, it starts with you looking to the person and saying, regardless of who you are and regardless of what ethnic group and regardless of what we think or I think the media tells me about your certain group, you are my neighbor, and I am called to love you. And I'm called to love you as myself. That I would provide, like I would provide for my neighbor, like I would provide for my friend, like I would provide for my family, I'd provide for you, I would do for you. For one that I wish I could do for everyone, but I would do it for you. Now, it's a hard thing to do. It's extremely hard to do. But these conversations that we're having, these series of talks, are not about, hey, five easy things to do as a Christian. No, it's, hey, what does the world need right now?
[00:28:35] It doesn't need churches, people walking away from all kinds of groups of people.
[00:28:41] It doesn't it needs a church of people that walks across the aisle, in a sense, that walks together. Let me just remind you again, the whole divide and conquer, have you ever heard that phrase? It is how the kingdoms of this world operate. It's reality, but it is not the reality of the kingdom of heaven. It has never been about divide and conquer. When Jesus comes, it's always been about uniting and creating.
[00:29:10] It's never been about divide and conquer. He has never used that tactic, and we still use it. Shoot. Ash and I were like, okay, divide and conquer when it came to parenting. You know what I'm saying? It is seized in everything. Divide and conquer. Divide and conquer.
[00:29:27] Not in God's world, because he wants to unite. So what do we do?
[00:29:34] Well, we ask ourselves, who are we avoiding? Who are we pretending to have a conversation on the phone because we want to avoid them? Who are we walking away from? What conversation? What situation? What people have you walked away from? And I'm not saying get into an abusive situation or abusive relationship. I'm not saying that for some of you, it's the wisest thing you've done.
[00:29:59] But maybe you've walked away from them, but you also have stopped praying for them, but you've also stopped caring for them. And you're like, someone else can care for that person because I don't care.
[00:30:12] When you delegate empathy, what is it? It's apathy. It's apathy. And we cannot be an apathetic church. That's not what the world needs right now.
[00:30:26] Friends, I believe this. I believe. I believe that we can turn this around in these conversations if we just learn to go, God, what do you want me to do today? And we can change this world and give our kids, the next generation a church that they can be proud of as the church that they need. It's the people that we need to be for this moment in history. So let me pray for us. Can I do that? Let's stand together.
[00:30:59] Lord God, we thank you so much for who you are.
[00:31:04] God, I am so grateful for this beautiful community called mosaic.
[00:31:11] People who come from different backgrounds, God, who've decided to be together, not because we are similar, familiar.
[00:31:23] No, because we're uniquely different.
[00:31:27] I'm so proud, so proud to help pastor a church like this.
[00:31:36] People who decided long time ago or who are learning to live in a world that says anyone, anyone, God you bring to me is my neighbor and my eternal life. This eternal, this new way to live starts now as I learn to love my neighbor. And it starts with me not walking away from them when their life gets hard and complicated, when people want to take sides.
[00:32:13] God, I pray that we would learn even more and more what it means to not walk away. God, so grateful for this group of people. God, help us be more more in tuned.
[00:32:30] God, show us people situations.
[00:32:35] God, what do we need to do?
[00:32:37] Speak to us.
[00:32:39] God, I pray that as we sing this last song, as some people go and receive communion, if others go and go to the cross.
[00:32:48] But guys, Lord God, I pray for people who go light a candle.
[00:32:53] God, I pray they begin lighting a candle for someone who is maybe someone who they've walked away from and decide today they're going to walk towards.
[00:33:05] So God, I pray, empower us. We are your church.
[00:33:11] You've given us the ability to do immeasurably more things because of your power. So God, use us this morning. Speak to us as we respond in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:33:25] Thanks for listening to this message from Mosaic church in Charlotte, North Carolina. For more audio and video content, visit us at Mosaicchurch TV.
