Improv, Justice, and Why Rest is a pre-requisite to Empathy
The brain science showing that rest is a pre-requisite to doing justice, why it’s essential we remember that Christ both saved us AND killed us on the cross, and the best laugh Skye’s ever gotten from the improv stage.
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[0:00:05.4] JR: Hey friend, welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast, I’m Jordan Raynor. How does the gospel influence the work of mere Christians, those of us who aren’t pastors or religious professionals but who work as database architects, crossing guards, and bailiffs? That’s the question we explore every week, and today, I’m posing it to my friend, Skye Jethani, the brilliant bestselling author of With, What if Jesus was Serious?, and today, we’re going deep on his latest devotional book, What if Jesus Was Serious about Justice?
Skye and I talked about the brain science showing that rest is a prerequisite to empathy and doing justice in the world. We talked about why it’s essential to remember that Christ both saved us on the cross and killed us on the cross, and we also talked about the best laugh that Skye has ever gotten from an improv stage. Trust me, you’re not going to want to miss this terrific episode with my friend, Skye Jethani.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:01:14.4] JR: Skye, welcome back to the Mere Christians Podcast.
[0:01:16.3] SJ: Thanks, Jordan, I love being here.
[0:01:18.1] JR: All right, I got to ask because I thought this was a fascinating little mention in the introduction of your new book, improv. You started improv. How new is this?
[0:01:27.1] SJ: Like, three, four years?
[0:01:28.0] JR: Three or four years? What was the impetus for this? You’re getting bored, you got grown kids that are leaving the house, what’s going on?
[0:01:33.6] SJ: I have a good friend who did improv when he was a college student, and for a couple of years, he’s been – like, during COVID, especially, he wanted to – there’s an improv theater here on Wheaton and they do classes, and he wanted to sign up and do these classes and they all got canceled because of COVID. So, COVID was ending and they were opening up again, his name is Josh and he was talking to me about it.
And I was kind of thinking about it, and then he just was like, “Come on, let’s do it together. It would be more fun if we do it together.” “Why not? We’ll just take a class.” So, I took a class and I was hooked immediately, and here’s the thing, and it doesn’t come out super strong in the book, but like, I was fascinated by how applicable the principles of improv were to life, to relationships, to work, to faith, to all these things, and so that was intriguing to me.
But then, like you, I do a lot of public speaking and I’ve developed that skill over decades and I’m pretty comfortable when I’m on a stage, but I – I don't know how you do when I’m speaking, I usually have written an entire manuscript of my talk?
[0:02:32.4] JR: Yeah, 100%, and it’s a talk you’ve given like 30 times.
[0:02:36.1] SJ: Right-right. Well, not always. I mean, I used to preach every week, it was a different talk, but I would write a manuscript, then I would internalize, and I would speak without my notes, right? So, when I get up on the platform to speak, like I know what I’m going to do, and improv required a completely different part of my brain, and I had to shut down that kind of scripted way of thinking and go to this improv, and I just loved the challenge of it.
I enjoyed it, it was like therapy for me, and so I just kept taking more, and more, and more classes, ‘till eventually, I was invited to be a part of a – one of the teams at the theater. So now, Josh and I are on that team together and we perform with some regularity on the weekends.
[0:03:12.9] JR: This is amazing. We were talking before we recorded about me coming back up to Wheaton, and I got to schedule this around the Skye Jethani improv.
[0:03:20.6] SJ: But here’s the thing, like, I honestly – sometimes I am terrible and it’s just not good.
[0:03:25.5] JR: One minute on this, what’s the best laugh you’ve gotten from the stage?
[0:03:28.7] SJ: Oh my gosh. Well, I’ve gotten some terrible laughs when I have –
[0:03:32.6] JR: You’ve gotten a lot of silence?
[0:03:34.5] SJ: Yeah, there was – there was one where I don't know how this actually happened, but I was a toilet angel.
[0:03:42.4] JR: That tracks.
[0:03:43.4] SJ: Someone’s on a toilet and then I come alongside them to like, whisper into their ear and speak good things, and then there was a toilet demon in this conversation, but it was – it was wild. It was really, really weird, that got a lot of good laughs.
[0:03:56.8] JR: We’re way off base. All right, hey –
[0:03:57.2] SJ: I know.
[0:03:59.4] JR: You mentioned improv in the latest installment in this, What If Jesus Was Serious devotional series. Your, What If Jesus Was Serious about Justice? I loved it. I’m excited to contextualize it to the lives of the Christian professionals listening. But hey man, as you know, that word justice means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. How can we define justice biblically?
[0:04:19.5] SJ: Yeah, man, that’s where the book really begins. It is an acknowledgment that it is defined differently in different places. I made the parallel to pizza. Well, there’s a lot of different pizzas out there, there’s Chicago-style pizza, there’s New York-style pizza, there’s a Detroit-style, whatever, there’s different kinds of justice. Biblical justice is not the same as American legal justice or Marxist justice, or whatever justice label you want to put on it.
Biblical justice is synonymous with righteousness. It’s actually the same word in both Hebrew and Greek, and you know a lot of Christians have no problem talking about righteous this and righteous that, but we don’t, sometimes depending on the community, find the same comfort level towards it. It’s the same word, and what it simply means is for relationships to be in their proper order.
So, to be – have a righteous relationship with God means your relationship with God is in its right proper order. So, justice is simply having everything, both our vertical relationship with God and our horizontal relationships with one another in the proper order that God ordained the order so that everyone can flourish. Obviously, those relationships get broken by sin and they need to be restored, that’s justice.
When they are warped or broken, it’s injustice, it’s unrighteousness, and so the idea of biblical justice is how do we pursue all these relationships in their proper ordering, and where there is injustice, how do we cooperate with God and putting them back to the right order.
[0:05:39.8] JR: That’s good. I love that you’re already bringing up vertical and horizontal because either the theological tradition I grew up in never used the word “Justice.” We were very much, as David French says, who I love, and you quote in the book, telephone pole Christians, right? Concerned, almost exclusively with our vertical relationship with God, very little about the horizontal implications of the gospel that call us to do justice and transform the broader culture.
Make the case here that we’re called to both, to be cross-shaped Christians, if you will, concerned about both the vertical and the horizontal.
[0:06:14.2] SJ: Well, how much time do you have?
[0:06:15.4] JR: Come on, take as much time as you want.
[0:06:17.4] SJ: Let me get into something that’s not in the book. Okay, so let’s go all the way back to Genesis chapter one, and I don’t want to get too far off track here, but like John Walton and other theologians have made a very compelling case that the seven-day creation account is modeled on a temple inauguration ceremony, which was very common in the Ancient Near East.
[0:06:34.9] JR: Walton’s book is fascinating.
[0:06:36.3] SJ: Yeah, it can take years or decades to build a temple, but it’s a seven-day ceremony that actually inaugurates its function as a temple. You see this even in the Bible, the temple in Jerusalem is inaugurated in a seven-day ceremony. In the Ancient Near East, in a pagan culture, the very last thing that happened at the temple inauguration is the image or the idol of the deity was put into the temple.
You see that in Genesis. Day six, God creates his image, his “Selem” is the Hebrew word, it’s the same word for idol. He creates the man and the woman in his image. Now, here’s the part you may not get unless you’re from the Ancient Near East, which none of us of course are, in those cultures, it was believed that a community’s responsibility was to care for the image or the idol of the deity, and if you don’t care for and service that image, then, the deity will unleash vengeance against you.
So, it could be disease or pestilence or famine or natural disaster, some terrible thing could happen to the world if you don’t properly care for this image of the deity. Worst-case scenario, the way you maintain the order of the cosmos is by caring for this deity, the image, and so if you don’t do it appropriately, you don’t have the right sacrifices, the right rituals, the right incantations, whatever, the sun may not rise tomorrow.
The – whatever, terrible things will happen in the – when you take that same idea and you apply it to the Hebrew scriptures, to the Old Testament, what it appears God is saying in Genesis Chapter One is, “The way you honor My image, the way you honor Me, the way you cooperate with Me in the right ordering of the universe is by caring for My image, and My image is one another.” And so, then you move into the Hebrew law, the Torah.
The instructions you get throughout the Old Testament, and what is it about? “If you don’t care for the orphan and the widow and the foreigner, if you don’t care for your fellow neighbors around you, I will vomit you out of the land, I will kick you out.” This is exactly what pagan culture deities would say, “If you don’t care for my image, I’m going to kick you out, and I’m going to do terrible things.”
It’s curses, and then you get to the profits. In Isiah chapter one, Isiah chapter 58, God says that the worship of his people is detestable, He rejects their prayers, their sacrifices, there is a – He says, “You honor Me with your lips but hearts are far from Me.” That’s not about emotion. He turns to them and says, “Because you neglect the poor, you beat one another with wicked fists, you have unfair justice in the courts,” and that’s why He rejects their worship.
Because the argument throughout the Hebrew Bible is that the only proper way to worship and honor God is to care for His image, and His image is one another, and so then you get to the New Testament and the expert in the law comes to Jesus and says, “What’s the most important commandment?” He only asked Jesus for one, but Jesus responds with two. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Why does he respond with two? Because he’s echoing exactly what the Hebrew scriptures enforce from the – literally, from the opening chapter. You cannot honor and love God without honoring and loving His image, which is one another. Then you get to Paul, and he talks about the cross is the place where we are not just reconciled to God, but first, we’re reconciled to one another. He says this in Ephesians chapter two.
“The Cross reconciles hostile people to one another and makes us into one new person, and then together, reconciles us to God.” So, nowhere in scripture, from beginning to end can you ever-ever-ever separate your vertical relationship with God from your horizontal relationship with his image bearers, and any form of Christianity that says you can do that is an apostate form of Christianity.
[0:10:17.7] JR: That’s good, amen. Good remark. You pointed something out that I never heard before that I thought was fascinating, that in order to glorify God by loving neighbor as self, we have to rest because rest is a prerequisite for empathy and doing justice. Tell us more.
[0:10:33.5] SJ: Yeah, I know you’ve talked a lot about Sabbath, rest, and things like that, especially as it relates to work and faith and things. When you look at the commands around Sabbath keeping, in the Old Testament, there’s a number of different motivations given for it. The one we always go to is, well, God created in seven – six days and He rested on the seventh, and that’s fine, that’s there.
I don’t disagree, but when you read in Deuteronomy, for example, about the Sabbath, He explicitly says that you shall rest on the seventh day, not just you, but of course, everyone in your household, foreigners, even animals are going to rest. Why? Because you were slaves in Egypt, and you will remember that I set you free. A slave didn’t get a day off. So, you’re going to take a day off to remember your freedom and then you are to extend that freedom to others, and part of the benefit of slowing down is that it gives us space to think.
There’s been a lot of brain research that shows that when people are incredibly busy and distracted, the empathy center of the brain gets deactivated. I mean, we all know this from our own experience. When you’re hurried and rushed and worried, it’s very difficult to truly emotionally engage with the people around you.
[0:11:35.3] JR: Hurry hurts, inevitably.
[0:11:37.5] SJ: Hurry hurts, exactly. So, it’s interesting to me that God’s command to slow down is directly related then to how we treat other people. Remember, you were a slave, remember the people that you have authority over, don’t treat them the way you were treated, have empathy. You should remember what it was like, you’re only going to be able to do that if you slow down and remember. When you slow down, you build the capacity for empathy.
When you slow down that part of your brain, that system, too, as some call it, of your brain has time to kind of spool up and do its empathetic work, but so much of our culture today, whether it’s just work or social media or screens, or whatever, keeps us in this frenetic, crazy pace, and then you wonder why we’re getting so angry, and we lack empathy, and there is a now, an empathy deficit some people are talking about in American society. Well, we don’t slow down anymore to relate to the people.
[0:12:30.9] JR: These things are correlated.
[0:12:32.7] SJ: Yeah, I mean, it’s not – this isn’t rocket science, not even really.
[0:12:34.6] JR: This is not rocket science. It’s brain science that’s very well documented.
[0:12:38.6] SJ: It is, but even before we knew the brain science, we knew from experience this was true, right?
[0:12:42.7] JR: This topic feels so big. It feels so overwhelming. I’ve talked to listeners, like, “Jordan, I get it. I get that I’m called to pursue justice in my work, but I’m one of 350,000 employees of PwC, right? Like, my role is so small, can God really use me to do justice, and if so, how?” How would you respond to that question, Skye?
[0:13:02.8] SJ: Wow. The reality is as a human being, you’ve – gosh, you’ve written about this better than I have, Jordan, so I feel like I’m preaching to the choir a little bit or maybe the choir is preaching to the preacher. As a human being, you have authority to rule over something, and even if you’re a cog in the wheel of this huge corporation with 300,000 people, like, you have authority over something.
And whatever it is you do have authority over, as a follower of Jesus, you are called to cultivate that thing with justice to have a properly ordered relationship. You may not be able to change the whole mechanism that you are a part of, so focus on what you can change, and that goes for our families, it even goes for children. I mean, we try to teach our kids, like treat your siblings kindly. Like, you’re not the mom or the dad but you’re a sibling.
Like, you have authority, you can choose how you’re going to react in different ways. So, I don’t want to make this idea of justice like this grandiose, culture-changing, world-shaping, you need to totally transform the broken systems of capitalism or whatever. No, like, I get it, you’re not going to be able to do that. What can you do? What relationships do you have responsibility for? It could just be the way you interact with a coworker.
It could be the fact that you’ve realized we are dramatically underpaying somebody in our area that is – it’s unfair or unjust, whatever. Like, those things in you have the authority to change, change it, or at least, use your influence and persuasion you have over systems to the best of your ability.
[0:14:29.6] JR: Yeah, but it’s that posture of like, “Yeah, I’m a cog in this big machine, in my corner of creation that God has called me to subdue, maybe “small” but I’m going to orient myself within that space, not to use the system to serve me, but to use the system however I can to bless others and the size and scale of that is irrelevant.” I love that you pointed to the Hebrew midwives as a reminder of how God can use small acts of justice. For those who don’t remember, can you briefly share that story from Exodus?
[0:15:04.5] SJ: Yeah, this is in Exodus chapter one and Pharaoh is upset with how much the Hebrews have multiplied and he’s threatened by them, so he enslaves them, and then he’s still threatened by them. So, he orders that all Hebrew baby boys that are born be killed as soon as they’re born, and the midwives decide, “Well, this is wrong, this is unjust, we’re not going to do it.” They just defy Pharaoh's order and then, when they’re dragged in, in front of the officials, and ask, “Why aren’t you killing these baby boys when they’re born?”
They say, “Hey, the Hebrew women are a lot stronger than Egyptian women and they give birth before we ever get there.”
[0:15:37.7] JR: Such a great lie.
[0:15:39.0] SJ: It’s not just a lie, but it’s also a dig, but they decide to not cooperate with evil, and I think I quote Dallas Willard in that chapter where he talks about our obligation to gentle noncooperation with evil. So, it isn’t just about pursuing justice, but there are oftentimes in our work, in our lives, in our communities, where we can just, you know, kind of go along with something we know to be wrong or unjust, and the Hebrew midwives shows.
I mean, these are the women at the very bottom of the hierarchy in ancient Egypt, and they’re defying the guy at the very top with gentle noncooperation. That’s also part of our work of seeking justice is, if we know that we are – that something is disordering right relationship, we’re just not going to participate in it.
[0:16:21.4] JR: Yeah, that’s good. You said in that chapter, “God’s kingdom is subtle and often invisible, rather than the spectacular and obvious. We may not all be called to lead great revolutions, but like the Hebrew midwives, we can gently subvert the evils we encounter every day.” Which I love. How do you personally though, Skye, where like, you look around, you see all this injustice in your neighborhood, in Chicago, in the world, how do you personally pursue justice without giving into the temptation to hate the unjust? What are spiritual disciplines you have in place to love the unjust as you seek justice?
[0:16:58.1] SJ: Well, I think the first one is from the sermon on the mount where Jesus talks about recognizing the log in our own eye, rather than the speck in another’s.
[0:17:07.5] JR: Flipping the assumption that it’s a log in their eye and a spec in mine.
[0:17:11.6] SJ: Right. So, there’s that well-used quote from G.K. Chesterton, apparently, that the Times of London was doing an essay contest about what’s wrong with the world and he gave the shortest response. It was just two words. “I am,” right? So, I am part of what’s wrong in the world. I am an agent.
[0:17:30.4] JR: It’s me, hi. I’m the problem, it’s me.
[0:17:32.3] SJ: Yes. I am an agent of injustice, and later in the book, I talk about how one of the enemies that Jesus defeated on the cross was me. Like, in American Christianity, we always talk about how Jesus saved me through the cross, but we don’t want to talk about how Jesus killed me through the cross, but He did. I am part of the problem of this world. So, before I just go around talking about how terrible everyone else is, I need to recognize I am part of this problem as well and God had mercy on me.
And so, that should temper my approach to the injustice I see in others, but it doesn’t mean, you know, I don’t practice that perfectly, for sure. But to be reminded of our own culpability in all of this is a huge problem. You know, there’s this tendency, and this is not just in the church, it’s not just in Christianity but in our culture today, there’s just this spirit of absolutism, where we think that everyone’s walking around today, and they’re either wearing a black hat or a white hat, right?
They’re either a good guy or a bad guy, and we can just delineate who is who and push away the bad guys and exalt the good guys, and everything will be all right, and that’s an incredibly naïve. I remember, there was one of these terrible school shootings that happened, was it Sandy Hook back in 2012? And the head of the NRA said, “You know the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” And I’m like, people don’t walk around with the label good guy, bad guy like –
[0:18:48.8] JR: We’re not wearing nametags.
[0:18:49.9] SJ: Exactly, and I know there are days where I’m the bad guy and I’m not the good guy. So, it’s not that simple but that tends to be how we view everything, and we have to realize and the Christian view would be the line between good and evil does not run between us and them it runs through every human heart. So, until we acknowledge that piece of this, we’re not going to be in a humble posture to be able to be an agent for justice because it will be – we’ll be an agent of self-righteousness is really what we’ll be.
[0:19:18.7] JR: Yeah, that’s really, really good. Our listeners love how practical we make these episodes, right? This is the question I asked you before. You know, I’m at PwC, what does this look like practically? But there is something to be said for the fact that as our mutual friend, John Hoten, likes to say, “You can’t outsource discernment,” right? In other words, like don’t rely on Skye, don’t rely on me to tell you what it looks like practically to do justice in your work.
Discern the how yourself in communion with God and His people. Would you agree, Skye, and if so, riff on this for a little bit?
[0:19:51.2] SJ: Totally, 100%. I remember early on when I was a pastor of my local church, I was preaching regularly, and the senior pastor was giving me feedback on my sermons. One of my critiques was, “You know, Skye, you’re not giving enough practical application in your sermons.” And he was just super helpful in a lot of ways but he was a baby boomer coming out of a very kind of practical more megachurch-inspired sort of setting.
And I am a Gen-Xer and a little bit different, and he’s like, “You need to give more practical instruction.” I’m like, “I don’t know the circumstances of everybody sitting there. There’s 500 people in those seats, like I – it is going to be applied very differently to somebody who is 25 and single versus 65 and retired and married. Like they’re totally – I don’t know how to apply this to everybody.” And I still stand by that.
Like you, you have been given the Holy Spirit, you have been given the scriptures, you have been given God’s spirit through the community that you are a part of, and you know your circumstances better than I do. This is one of the reasons I don’t give marriage advice, I don’t give parenting advice. I’m trying to figure out how to be married with my wife, and I’m trying to figure out how to raise our three kids.
And even among those three kids, they’re radically different from each other, and what works for one doesn’t work for another. So, you think I’m going to come up with something like, “Here’s the catch-all principle for how to raise amazing children.” No, I haven’t figured it out yet with my three, what do I know about your kids? Similarly, in your workspace, in your environment, where are the relationships broken, where are they flourishing?
What are the temptations to cooperate with evil, what does it mean to gently not cooperate? What is the threshold where you have to say, “I have to walk away from this thing because it’s my continued even presence here is a participation in evil that I cannot tolerate as a Christian,” and when is it, “No, you stay,” and like Daniel, you’re the right hand of the pagan king and you are there to advise godly advice?
I don’t know, I don’t know, but you have been given what you need, and to the degree that my book or anything that we say on this podcast inspires or helps, wonderful, but it’s not enough.
[0:21:43.3] JR: Yeah, you got to do the work.
[0:21:45.0] SJ: You’ve got to do the work.
[0:21:46.3] JR: Speaking of inspiration, one thing that I personally found to be immensely helpful in baptizing my imagination on the how of living out the gospel in my work is reading really great biographies of mere Christians throughout history. Not only do they show me, rather than tell me what it looks like practically to follow Jesus in my work, they also renew my imagination of what’s possible for God to do through my work.
And I loved the story you told in “What If Jesus Was Serious about Justice?” from Andrew Young’s biography. So, here’s the story, I’m going to read it. “Evidence of God’s power of deliverance is still work in the world has founded Andrew Young’s book on the civil rights movement. He tells about a march on Easter Sunday in Birmingham in 1964, 5,000 people were dressed in their Sunday best ready to march to jail where Martin Luther King Jr. was being held.”
“Everything began peacefully but then Bull Connor’s police force arrived with guns and dogs and firefighters with hoses.” So, Bull Connor’s police force arrives, the marchers stop, and here’s what Andrew Young says, “While Walker and I are leading the march, I can’t say when and what to do. I know I didn’t want to turn the march around. I asked people to get down on their knees, and offer a prayer.”
“Suddenly, Reverend Billups, one of the most faithful, and fearless leaders of the Old Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, jumped up and hollered, “The Lord is with this movement, off your knees. We’re going on.” Stand up first, Bull Conner yelled, “Stop them! Stop them!” But none of the police moved a muscle, even the police dogs that had been growling, and straining at their leashes were now perfectly calm.”
And he goes on to just describe this miracle, and I think the point you’re trying to make is, hey, God is still at work doing justice in this world through you and me, right Skye?
[0:23:31.2] SJ: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s an echo of Daniel’s story in the lion’s den in a way, right? Shutting the mouths of beasts and all that, but we have a part, a role to do in this and to participate. Going back to those Hebrew midwives, right? Gentle noncooperation with evil. Moses finding the courage to go before Pharaoh and say, “Let my people go.” Like God uses us and in that story, He uses the courage of those civil rights marchers to just keep moving forward, keep moving forward, and God met them, and it doesn’t always happen that way.
I’m not saying that that’s a guaranteed outcome, but the stories of scripture of God protecting His people or advocating for His people or putting His people into right relationship and restoring justice, like I believe God is still active in the world today, and we are invited to participate with Him and that we need to discern what is my role.
[0:24:23.8] JR: Yes, and it’s not let go and let God. It’s not, “Okay, yep, the world is unjust, we’re waiting for Jesus’s return to do the work.” We are called to play a part, we’re not going to finish that work, Christ will finish that work. I don’t know if you remember this, you and I were talking in Chicago really briefly about 18 months ago about Fannie Lou Hamer. Do you remember this conversation?
[0:24:46.2] SJ: Yeah, vaguely.
[0:24:47.2] JR: Vaguely? Because I was starting work on this biography on Fannie Lou Hamer, that’s a part of a collection we’re about to release in a couple of months, although I think by the time this comes out, the book will be out, but she’s a great example. I mean, she grew up in this incredibly segregated Mississippi in the 1960s and she’s going to church and hearing about how people with her skin color didn’t have the right to vote, and she just heard this sermon one day.
It was like, “Hey, get up, out of your seats, go register to vote, God is not going to put it on our lap like we’ve got a role to play in this thing,” and I think that will preach to modern believers today. We’re seeing all of this news about injustice in our Facebook newsfeeds, Instagram newsfeeds. We’re not just called to sit on our hands and Facebook newsfeeds, we’re called to do something about it, amen?
[0:25:31.5] SJ: Amen, and you know, this gets more complicated when you take these biblical principles, and then you try to apply them in a modern democratic republic like ours. I mean, such things does not exist in the ancient world, so – and there’s interesting conversations going on right now about what exactly does it mean for a Christian to engage faithfully in this, right? But one of the dilemmas we have is and I’ve talked to my friend, Mike Yuri about this, like, in our constitutional system, we’re not against Caesar because we are Caesar, like, it’s we the people, right?
So, it’s not as easy to say, “Well, that, see, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to the Lord what is the Lord.” Well, who is Caesar today? It’s not the president, it’s not Congress, it’s not Washington DC. The ultimate political human authority in our country is us. So, what responsibility then do I have as a citizen, as a voter, as someone with free speech, as someone who can mobilize, and use all my rights as an American citizen, what responsibility do I have to pursue justice?
You see Paul in the New Testament as a Roman citizen appealing to his citizenship status to do what God is calling him to do. Well, how do we use our American citizenship status to pursue justice? There’s going to be disagreement about what that looks like and different discernment, different communities, and different ways, but to say, “Ah, I throw up my hands doesn’t matter, I’m just going to be all about Jesus, and not care about the Caesar thing.” I don’t think that’s a faithful response given our context.
[0:26:54.9] JR: That’s good. There’s got to be said though too. I think we have such an overemphasis on political solutions, right? To injustice, but there is also cultural solutions, and in fact, when you look at history and big changes politically, they are almost always preceded by people’s hearts and minds being changed by acts of culture prior to that political change. I think about William Wilberforce in Parliament and Hannah Moore writing poetry that changed the people’s hearts to the issue of slavery, who is doing that now?
Like, who is doing the cultural work that you’re really excited about that’s awakening, that’s baptizing people’s imaginations about what their role might be in solving some of the injustices?
[0:27:37.8] SJ: That’s a great question. I mean, when there’s always been a power in storytelling, and I think what’s hard, and you’re younger than me, but I remember when in America existed where there were three or four network television channels, and when there was a giant mini-series event like North & South or you know, I forget some of the others that were huge, Shōgun, or whatever.
Like, the whole country would be glued to this stuff, and we’d all be shaped by the same storytelling, or there was a handful of blockbuster movies, and that was it, but we’re so fractured today that the storytelling is so siloed, and I’m not saying it’s not important. It is, and it doesn’t have to be an explicitly Christian story.
[0:28:18.5] JR: Correct, a hundred percent, amen. I think it’s often far more powerful when it’s not.
[0:28:23.1] SJ: Right. I mean, find the people who love the chosen and whatever, it’s great. It’s wonderful, go for it, but like, to hold up stories that emphasize the sacrifices required to make broken things whole, to restore relationships where they should be, to it’s going back to what I said earlier, stories that honor humans as the image of God even when they are different than me, even when they believed differently than me, or they live differently than me.
Like, there’s still that basic human dignity, that is the way we honor it. Like, stories that emphasize that are inspiring. So, I think that’s one way it happens but I think there is an inverse. As I said earlier, we’re going back to those Hebrew midwives, the gentle noncooperation with evil, when there are cultural products that are deconstructing that, that are dehumanizing, that are fostering injustice and broken relationships, our minimum role is to not cooperate with those things.
And unfortunately, when I look at the American Church today, too often we’re not just cooperating with those things, but we’re advocating those things. I mean, rhetoric that dehumanizes anyone is not okay. It is against the ordering that God has for the world and yet, some Christians are cheering that on as if it’s central to their faith, and it’s grotesque. So, noncooperation with that is just as important as advocating good storytelling, and an appropriate view of our neighbors.
[0:29:45.0] JR: Did you see This is Us?
[0:29:46.3] SJ: No.
[0:29:47.1] JR: It’s such a fascinating show, maybe the last great network drama, right? Like, it ended on NBC, like right as streaming was eclipsing network television, but that show did more to move my heart toward orphan care than any sermon ever did, not explicitly Christian. I don’t even know if any of the members of the writer’s room are followers of Jesus. By God’s common grace, frankly, it doesn’t really matter, right?
They showed what it looked like to do justice practically, and man, it was super, super powerful. All right, Skye, four questions we wrap up every show with. Number one, what job would you love for the Lord to give you to do on the new earth free from the curse of sin? Last time you were here you said you want to keep teaching. You want to add improv to this list?
[0:30:37.6] SJ: I think all of life is improv, there is no script.
[0:30:41.3] JR: This is improv.
[0:30:42.9] SJ: This is, for sure. Okay, let me think. Yeah, all right, last time I said keep teaching. I don’t know if I shared this with you before, I’m not a cook. I don’t cook, I guess there is a difference. I’ll put it this way, I can cook, I’m not a chef, right? Like, that’s a whole different thing, but when I look at really beautiful cooking and a chef who is really gifted at that, I think, I think that might be the perfect vocation because –
[0:31:08.1] JR: It’s idyllic.
[0:31:09.1] SJ: It is idyllic but it has all the qualities. Number one, there is beauty, right? I mean, visual beauty, smell, taste, there is abundance. Like, create something that is practically useful to your body, right? To keep it energized, and then there’s this ordering, you’re taking random things, and you're organizing them in a way that magnifies their potential. Like, it’s order, beauty in abundance just perfectly. So, when I think of like, what is the ultimate kingdom vocation, I think it might be a chef.
[0:31:39.8] JR: That’s a killer answer. Do you know Aarti Sequeira?
[0:31:42.7] SJ: No.
[0:31:44.0] JR: Oh my gosh, you should know Aarti. Aarti was on the show and she is a chef on the Food Network, and she was talking about just imagining smell on the new earth. She’s like, “Jordan, the coffee we’re going to taste is going to knock your socks off.” Like, there’s so many sense that we can’t even sense right now. So, I love that answer, chef’s a good answer. That may be one of my favorite answers so far, Skye.
All right, if we opened up your Amazon order history, which books do we see over, and over, and over again that you’re giving away to friends?
[0:32:13.9] SJ: Oh, that’s a good question. Probably, lately, it’s been N.T. Wright’s book Simply Christian. I just – I’ve had a number of people in my life recently who are just like, “I need to understand the basics of this faith,” and that’s the one I kind of go to over, and over, and over again, but there are so many. Another one is, Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son. Beautiful book. Those are two that come to mind.
[0:32:34.6] JR: That’s great, that’s a killer list. Who would you most like to hear on this podcast, talking about how their faith is shaping the work they do in the world? Ideally, somebody who is not a pastor or Christian author like yourself.
[0:32:45.3] SJ: I may have shared this with you before, but my white whale, the one I want on my show is Stephen Colbert.
[0:32:51.3] JR: Ooh.
[0:32:52.5] SJ: And I’ve heard him talk briefly at times about his faith. He did an interview once with “Dia Lupa?” Is that her name? “Lupa Dia,” “Dia Lupa.” Whatever her name is. Anyway, and she asked him, “How does your catholic faith inform your comedy?” And he had an answer right away. It was amazing, like, and it was really good. I think it’s on YouTube somewhere. I would love to have a longer sit-down conversation with him or listen to you have a conversation with him, talking about how Christian faith impacts comedy and entertainment.
[0:33:20.5] JR: That’s a great answer. We’ve never invited Colbert.
[0:33:23.4] SJ: I’ve tried.
[0:33:24.0] JR: I mean, obviously, a tough get, right? But hey, you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take. We’ve – we got a lot of yeses that we shouldn’t have gotten on this show, we’re going to make that ask. All right, Skye, you're talking to this global audience of mere Christians doing a bunch of different things vocationally, what’s one thing you want to say or reiterate to them before we sign off?
[0:33:41.4] SJ: Oh man, it’s probably the same thing I’ve said on your show before, but a reminder that God does not need them, but He does want them, and we talked earlier about, “Hey, we’re called to cooperate with God in this work of justice,” and it’s absolutely, but He doesn’t need us.
[0:33:55.3] JR: The width comes before the four.
[0:33:56.8] SJ: Exactly. He’s going to redeem all things with or without us, and as valuable as you are to Him and as valuable and meaningful as your work is, He can do it without you, and the most important thing is that you’re actually in communion with Him. He wants you. So, that’s always my go-to message for people, and I think if you have that foundation, then the rest falls into place.
[0:34:16.6] JR: I’d love to have a conversation with you and Oliver Burkeman on this tension of the cosmic significance of our work and the cosmic insignificance of our work because he’s handling this in Four Thousand Weeks. I’m like, there’s nothing really, really juicy here that we get impact sometime. All right, Skye, man, I want to commend you as always, for the exceptional work you’re doing for the glory of God, and the good of others.
Thank you for the reminder that to fully follow Jesus means, yes vertical but also horizontal righteousness, and for helping to baptize our imaginations to the end. Guys, Skye’s new book is What If Jesus Was Serious about Justice? It is excellent as is everything Skye is putting out, Skye, man, thanks for hanging out with us.
[0:35:00.2] SJ: Thanks, Jordan.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:35:02.7] JR: I love that episode with my friend, Skye Jethani, I hope you did too. Hey, if you want to dive deeper into a super practical example of what it looks like to work for justice without hating the unjust that Skye and I talked about, I could think of no better example than Fannie Lou Hamer, this woman who I mentioned in the episode. Fannie Lou Hamer was this poor, black share sharecropper in Mississippi, who in 1962, was falsely imprisoned and beaten by police for having the audacity to register to vote, which oh, by the way, was legal.
And the abuse she suffered as a result, would have led many people to hate those who oppressed her, but by God’s grace, she boldly confronted the injustices of her day and refused to hate, refused to cancel, refused to retaliate against her enemies. I tell you the full story of her life with super practical takeaways that you can apply in your own work today in my new book, Five Mere Christians, which drops May 6th.
You can visit FiveMereChristians.com right now, to learn about the other four men and women featured in this book and order your copy. Thank you, guys, so much for listening. I’ll see you next week.
[END]