Illuminators live with wisdom

The following video transcript has been lightly edited

My experience is difficult conversations are often like a rollercoaster. You start out by getting in and strapping in and you're feeling a little anxious, but you're like, no, this is going to go great. And then someone says something difficult, and that's where you begin your ascent up the rollercoaster track.

And then someone else says something and that's the next click and the next click. And then the next click and all along the way, everyone's like trying to be like, okay, no, it's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. And then somebody does it. Somebody says the thing and your stomach drops because you've hit the top and now you're plowing through the rollercoaster course.

You get to the end and you think, how did this happen? I wanted it to go better. All of us in life have these moments, whether it's in our homes, small, little difficult conversations that we have with our spouse and our kids and our loved ones to work situations, to larger difficulties that we run into and all of us, I think, want to figure out a way how do we have these conversations? Well, how do we deal with these sticky situations? Well, that's what we're going to learn about today because we are walking through this series entitled Illuminate, and it's the idea that Jesus is the light of the world, and when we look at conversations that Jesus has with others, it tells us about God, tells us about what it's like to be human, and gives us a skill to work on.

So what we're going to learn today is that Illuminators walk through the world with wisdom. And to do that we want to do three things. We want to remember that God is always about redemption.

Two, we want to be the kind of people that create or carve out new possibilities. And the skill that we want to develop in order to do that is that we want to be people who are good at perceiving and understanding the framework that others are operating out of, their mental framework. The story we're going to look at is a story between Jesus and the Pharisees, and Jesus and a woman caught in adultery. And essentially what's happening in the story is this. The Pharisees have become jealous and envious of Jesus, and they're looking to shut him down.

In fact, the chapter before, in John 7, they have sent the temple police to arrest him, but the police don't do it because they're like, hey, he's a good guy. He's teaching. People love him. Why would we do this? And so they come up with a trap, a plan to trap Jesus. And what the text tells us is they bring this woman, supposedly caught in the midst of adultery.

And say, Hey, Jesus, we just caught this woman in the act of adultery. She, according to the law of Moses, she should be stoned. What do you want to do about it? What we see is that Jesus engages the Pharisees and he also engages the woman in a way that does the three things.

Reveals that God's always about redemption. Carves out a new possibility. And he's able to do that because he engages the mental framework of both the Pharisees and the woman caught in adultery.

So, the Pharisees think they have him trapped, but what he does is he says, hey, whoever is without sin, you can go ahead and throw the first stone. And then, when they realize that that precludes them, disqualifies them from being the judge on this woman's life, he says to the woman, hey, did they condemn you?

And when she says no, he says, well, neither do I condemn you. And the lesson here for us is that God's action is always towards redemption, or towards restoration. And this is helpful in two ways. One, I think that it It often reminds us that our own view of God is perhaps lacking. We often think of God as like a punitive child that just really wants control and is trying to get us to do the things that God wants us to do when in reality, what God wants is God wants all of creation, human beings included, to live a fullness of life. And the things that God calls us to, things like forgiveness and grace and love and kindness and patience and peace are all part of human beings really being the kind of human beings that experience life by connecting to God and connecting to one another.

And so you might be out there thinking that God is punitive and what I want to tell you is God is not punitive. God is restorative. Now, of course, that involves challenge sometimes, because you and I have a propensity to engage in things that will bring us death instead of life. But God's goal is not to be punitive.

God's goal is for us to follow, experience relationship with Christ, and to have a whole and flourishing life. The other way that this challenges us, it should remind us that that's the kind of view we want to take towards others. We want to be the kind of people that aren't punitive. We want to be the kind of people that try to figure out how to bring about redemption.

Okay, so what it teaches us about being human is that we want to carve out new possibilities. So again, the Pharisees think they have Jesus trapped. It's an A or B situation. Either Jesus ignores the law of Moses and loses credibility as a teacher. Or, Jesus stones, has this woman stoned, which will ruin his following with the people who in the world are feeling unseen.

Jesus refuses either of these options, and what he does is he carves out a new possibility. I think this is informative for us as human beings often, in difficult situations, difficult conversations, we get stuck and we can only see an A or a B option, both of which feels like it's a lose for somebody.

And so what we want to be as people is we want to be people who choose hope and figure out a way to find option C. Option C that brings redemption, restoration, brings possibility. And this is what Jesus does by saying, Hey, you want to abide by the law of Moses? Great. Whichever one of you is without sin, then that qualifies you to be the judge.

So you go and judge this woman. What happens there is it shifts. And they see that they are no longer able to be the judge. And so they leave, allowing Jesus to then say, Hey, neither will I condemn you. But he also challenges her and says, Hey, perhaps what's going on in your life is not bringing you life.

You now have experienced grace and love. I see you. Now go be a flourishing person. So it's helpful for us as we deal with difficult situations and difficult conversations. We want to trust that God is at work trying to bring redemption. And two, we want to be the kind of people that carve out option C, that other option which can restore life.

Finally, what we see with Jesus, he engages the mental model that the Pharisees are working with and considers the mental model that the woman is operating out of as well.

What's true is that no one in this world has the same mental model. You and I might see the world similarly, so we would have a lot of overlap between your mental model and my mental model.

Why things happen, how they happen, what we have to do to be viewed as healthy people, what we are hoping people don't find out about us, where we feel pride, where we feel shame, all those things are all part of our mental model. And often what we do is we're engaging the world out of our mental model, which is why we miss other people.

So we want to do is we want to become adept at understanding the mental framework that others are operating out of. Now, in order to do that, we want to be people who ask questions, listen, tell them, have people tell us about their story, explore it, engage it. Where we see Jesus do this in two ways in this story is that Jesus the way he challenges the Pharisees is through their own mental framework.

So he knows that the way that the Pharisees have engaged the world is through honing and controlling the law of Moses. And so what he does is that he challenges them with that very law, which makes them see the world differently. So this is Jesus understanding their mental framework and engaging it.

Two, his expectation is that this woman probably has experienced condemnation from religious leaders most of her life. And so rather than engage that, he offers her something different. And so he flips the script, and rather than offering condemnation, offers affirmation, in the sense that he sees her, he loves her, and he challenges her to go and live differently.

And that's the skill that we want to add to our repertoire if we want to be wise illuminators. We want to be the kind of people that understand and consider the mental framework of others so we can engage that. Versus always just miss each other or bang into each other because we're just operating out of our overlapping similar but distinct mental frameworks over and over and over again.

So there you have it, Jesus comes into the world, the light of the world, revealing God and humanity, and instructs us to go be illuminators like Jesus was an illuminator, helping those who feel unseen to feel seen, like this woman used as an object in a trap.

We want to be the kind of people that engage these difficult situations, trusting that God wants to bring redemption to people's lives, restoration to people's lives. That God wants to help us find ways to carve out these new possibilities. That's us being the kind of human that Jesus was. And ultimately to do that we want to add this skill of understanding the mental framework that others are operating out of so we can better communicate and engage. I hope this was helpful for you.

Always great to be with you. Have an awesome week and I'll see you soon.