Advent & Christmastide Bible Study: What does it require to follow Jesus?
Episode 25 - Release Date 12/21/2024
Today’s Bible Study discusses readings from different passages in the Gospel – you can find the readings here.
Bedtime Chapel’s weekly Bible Study helps families explore the Bible readings for our night prayer services. Find the prayer service and readings for the upcoming week here.
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In this episode, The Rev. Aaron and Elizabeth Ross join us to discuss the Bible readings you'll here this week during Bedtime Chapel. We met Aaron and Elizabeth at the consecration of Bishop Julia Whitworth in the Diocese of Massachusetts. Our shared need for childcare at the bishop's seating made us fast friends. And we've continued to bond over a love of the Enneagram and a desire to make church a place of welcome for young kids. Aaron is the curate at St. John the Evangelist, Duxbury. Elizabeth is a spiritual director and writer with an emphasis on noticing sacred light within the spiritual journey, creative practice, and family life.
Key moments in our conversation include:
00:51 Aaron's Introduction
02:35 Elizabeth's Introduction
04:08 Losing Ourselves in Christ
06:22 God's Revelation Today
08:12 New Heaven and a New Earth
10:40 The Holy Innocents
19:02 The Ministry of Deacons
You can read a complete transcript of this episode, here.
Things we talked about on this episode:
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00:00:00 Natalie Thomas
Hello, and welcome to Bedtime Chapel's weekly scripture study. I'm Natalie.
00:00:04 James Thomas
And I'm James. We're deacons in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts.
00:00:08 Natalie Thomas
Bedtime Chapel grew out of a shared desire of ours to support families who are trying to center Jesus in a post Christian world.
00:00:15 James Thomas
We offer a nightly prayer service that includes a short gospel reading. In this episode, we'll be covering the last few readings of Advent and the beginning of Christmastide.
00:00:26 Natalie Thomas
And we are here today with Aaron and Elizabeth Ross, who we serve with in this diocese and at this podcast. We are not fans of formal biography introductions, but we like people to introduce themselves through their faith story. So I will pass it to you, whoever wants to start first to share a little bit about yourselves and how you came to be in this seat and how God has been moving in your life.
00:00:51 Aaron Ross
Hi, everyone. I am Deacon Aaron Ross. I'm a transitional deacon on the way to the priesthood here in the Diocese of Massachusetts. I'm really excited to be here. I'm currently serving at St. John's the Evangelist in Duxbury, Massachusetts, which is 15 minutes down the road from James and Natalie. Just a little bit about my faith journey.
00:01:11 Aaron Ross
I've always felt a deep call to ministry, actually, since I was a young person, and that has evolved in many, many different ways. Many different churches, many different denominations, actually. And then through as the Holy Spirit works in her mysterious ways, landed in the Episcopal Church. I think also to maybe add into that is I also felt a deep call to the military as well.
00:01:42 Aaron Ross
And when I was in high school, I was kind of struggling with those two pieces of, oh, I want to be a pastor, but then I also want to be in the military. And I remember talking to a recruiter, and the recruiter said, hey, man, we have chaplains. I was like, really? Perfect.
00:01:57 Aaron Ross
So that's when I kind of set my sights on for most of my life after that. I have a bachelor's degree from Gordon College, and I actually very recently graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary in May. And here I am for my first call and my first cure. It's very different from the military, I will tell you that, but I am having a lot of fun and I am meeting some amazing people.
00:02:24 Aaron Ross
And all I have to say is that our redeemer lives. The Holy Spirit is moving in the Diocese of Massachusetts, and a new thing is coming. That's what I'm sensing here.
00:02:33 Elizabeth Ross
Now.
00:02:34 Natalie Thomas
What about you, Elizabeth?
00:02:35 Elizabeth Ross
I'm Elizabeth and I'm a mother of two, married to Aaron. And we found ourselves in Massachusetts after Getting married, and we've traveled around a little bit. But I'm also interested in religion and theology and went to seminary myself early in our marriage before having children. So I am a spiritual director as well as just an artist and a writer and someone who enjoys thinking theologically and.
00:03:02 Elizabeth Ross
And reading and adding all the books to the list that I will probably never finish, but it's worth adding them to the list, so maybe one day I will read them.
00:03:11 James Thomas
Well, we're very happy to have you both here with us today. So, as I said, we're finishing up the last couple evenings of Advent and then moving into Christmas. I guess the topic we'd like to engage with our listeners and parents with this week is what do we think these passages say about the identity of Jesus and the costs and benefits associated with claiming his identity?
00:03:36 James Thomas
In particular, these readings, we hear the story of Christmas, and then immediately, I think this is very interesting. Immediately after hearing the Christmas story, we shift to Stephen, the first martyr. Then we go to St. John, who tradition holds as the only one of the original apostles to have survived old age. So how do people who have not engaged with the lectionary calendar or the daily office at any point in their life, how do they make sense of the Christmas story, followed by St.
00:04:03 James Thomas
Stephen, followed by St. John, which might be a new experience for many of our listeners?
00:04:08 Aaron Ross
So in reading these texts, especially as someone who's a believer in Jesus Christ, I have found that kind of starting with Christ and then moving forward from there. So with the beginning of the. Of the week, starting with that sweet Little baby Jesus, 8 pounds, 4 ounces, as Ricky Bobby says in Talladen Nights, you know, our Lord doesn't stay as a baby.
00:04:37 Aaron Ross
He moves forward. He grows up and has a witness, right, as the son of God, that changes the world. And this witness of our Lord, right, removes racial distinction between Jew and Gentile and may even cause one to lose their own life, as we find in the martyr Stephen. And how even in old age, with John the Evangelist, he's having these visions and this belief in Christ will change you in old age.
00:05:10 Aaron Ross
He's saying that. So essentially, we believe in something that doesn't just stay in the manger, it moves us forward. And the faith that we also hold also pulls us beyond our little worlds, right? Our little, you know, pockets and bubbles, right? It pulls us out of those spaces.
00:05:31 Natalie Thomas
That's a really powerful connection to think about the beginning of our relationship with Jesus as shedding and losing the identities that we've held so dearly and are still a part of us, but being willing to hold those loosely all the way to this idea of being willing to lose our lives for it.
00:05:53 Elizabeth Ross
So we're talking about these identities that might be evolving or moving forward or changing as time goes on. And really that means that the identity of Christ in the story of Christ is worth that change and worth that adjustment. So the love that Christ is the incarnation of is moving us and transforming us as we're accepting it and open to it.
00:06:18 Elizabeth Ross
And so it's revealing itself through truth and salvation, God's wisdom, purity, forgiveness. And that identity is. We see that Christ's identity is coming through from the testimonies that people bring forth through, through the Gospels, through our neighbors, you know, as we see it in this storyline of Scripture. And it's again, it's so powerful that people are holding onto it and clinging to it even to the end of their age.
00:06:42 Natalie Thomas
I'm really glad that you said that, because this idea of revelation and Christ being revealed to us is so present in the readings that people are going to hear this upcoming week. And people starting to get it, see who Jesus is in their lives. And we're curious, following up on that idea, what you just said, Elizabeth, about being.
00:06:59 Natalie Thomas
Being present to the way our neighbors reveal Christ to us, our children reveal Christ to us. So we're curious about in this world that's so busy, how as humans, our parents, our families, y'all continue to pay attention to how God is revealing God's self to us.
00:07:15 Elizabeth Ross
The first thing that comes to mind is you have to be able to slow down in order to notice what's around you moving too quickly, everything is going to be a blur. And so whether it's a regular Sabbath, whether it's literal, deep breaths throughout the day. We're parents of young children, so we do a lot of deep breathing sporadically every 15 minutes, every hour.
00:07:39 Elizabeth Ross
It seems like, to be able to slow down and recognize what's in front of us. And it could be the flowers that we see outside, or it could be the way that my child is holding something in her hand that seems utterly meaningless, but to her, it's the most beautiful thing in the world.
00:07:58 Elizabeth Ross
And slowing down to recognize where we are, who we're with, can be an excellent first step in noticing the people that God has put in front of us, the wisdom that God is placing in front of us, all of that.
00:08:12 Aaron Ross
Yeah, that's so good. I am particularly thinking of the. The text from Revelation. Right. I'm drawn to the language, in particular, the language of the kingdom of God and, you know, a new heaven and a new earth. And for some people, that literally means like a turning of. Like a physical turning of the world, like within the eschaton.
00:08:38 Aaron Ross
But for me, I see God's kingdom in the people around me. And actually my daughters, both of them, and their love and their optimism, especially with other people, people that to me, is an element of the kingdom of God that's turned alive with within us. And also, I mean, in part to make it a little bit more practical with our littles.
00:09:03 Aaron Ross
You know, I think our littles, and particularly my 3 year old, does a really good job of recognizing good in a way that I am just so quick to dismiss. And I am, in my own way, trying to learn at her level, to see that goodness. You know, for example, kids are always watching, right?
00:09:28 Aaron Ross
And I remember there was this one time I was on a run and I stopped to talk to a neighbor and they were a bit elderly and they had groceries, so I decided to help make the groceries. And my daughter Amelia, she's watching this happen, and we had a really great conversation the next day about that.
00:09:45 Aaron Ross
And for me, that is a new heaven and a new earth, that our children can observe that and then they can change their own little worlds by, you know, by our actions and by us believing that the kingdom of God is here and now.
00:09:59 Natalie Thomas
Yeah, I'm moved by that. I'm thinking. I think it was Thomas Merton who had this vision in Louisville, Right? Yeah. Where he said, I was suddenly caught up with the fact that all of these people were beautiful and that all of these people contained the spirit of God within them. And so often we are waiting for something to change practically.
00:10:24 Natalie Thomas
But a lot of what is our work as teachers, leaders, humans, parents, is starting to see the world the way Jesus sees the world and see people the way Jesus sees people. And then that can move us into, as you're saying, this new heaven and new earth.
00:10:40 James Thomas
So a little later on in the week, again not too far after we've had Christmas, we come to the story of the holy innocence which might engage our listeners, maybe for the first time or the first time in a while, with what we could call a text of terror. What do you make of this encounter with institutional violence?
00:10:58 James Thomas
What in the scripture we might call principalities and powers of this world? How do we support parents as we're trying to make sense of scripture like this, stories of overt violence and how in relationship with this ongoing revelation that we've just been discussing about who Jesus is and What Jesus means to us.
00:11:19 James Thomas
Do you see the same type of violent reaction in the world today?
00:11:23 Elizabeth Ross
I think when we look at terrible texts like this, us as readers, especially in the western world, these things can feel really distant. And we need to recognize that there are people in 2024, 2023 that are actually experiencing terrible things that we're reading about in scripture. And so for us, as we're watching the news or we're reading the scripture and we're seeing the same things happen, it's really important to be able to consider the perspective of the most vulnerable in those situations.
00:12:00 Elizabeth Ross
And in our text were thinking of those families and what was happening right before someone from the empire was going to commit that heinous act. These were families with children, they were eating meals, they were going about their daily business. All of a sudden this terrible, traumatic, invasive act is happening. And it's a probably one other thing in a disruptive chain of events that's changing their lives forever.
00:12:30 Elizabeth Ross
We read about it, we set it down, we go about our business. But this changed the trajectory of their life forever. They've lost a child, they've perhaps lost multiple children to the empire. And so thinking of the grief in these families life, we can think of the forms of grief in our own life and kind of connect these dots that we are also living in traumatic times as well.
00:12:55 Elizabeth Ross
And taking care of ourself is incredibly important. And answering questions from our children, talking about in age appropriate ways is really, really important. Knowing that Empire is always going to exist in some way or another until the kingdom of God comes.
00:13:14 Aaron Ross
Empire. To me, I think I actually think about Empire a lot as someone who's the son of immigrants, you know, being someone who's Indian, South Asian and within my own familial history and the tension between the persecuted and Empire I think is a. Is just that cycle we are constantly seeing. And I think Elizabeth just really named that.
00:13:40 Aaron Ross
And you know, the holy innocence text is just really resonant, especially in the state of the world today with what's going on in Ukraine, to Palestine, to Syria, even in Korea right now, between their government. And I think for me that the text doesn't necessarily answer the question why do bad things happen to good people?
00:14:03 Aaron Ross
But I think what I gathered from the text was that there is space for grief within God's kingdom. Within God's actually, let me rephrase that. Within God's economy, right, there is the space for grief. And how in Matthew, right, Matthew quotes Jeremiah racial weeping for her children. And that and to kind of take this a little bit into the other realm, right, is that he's.
00:14:29 Aaron Ross
He's quoting Matthew's quoting Jeremiah that happened within the time of the prophets. Now here we are coming from the Old Testament into the New Testament, right, where something terrible has happened and Matthew's quoting the past. And here we are thinking about something that happened within the Scriptures. So there's that cycle of what is happening.
00:14:47 Aaron Ross
And this is not anything new. But we serve a God that says, okay, there may not be a clear answer over why bad things happen to good people. I mean, we all have ideas over what that means or sin or whatever it may be. But we serve a God that has space for grief in our scriptures.
00:15:08 Aaron Ross
Well, the Hebrew scriptures in our scriptures as well, make room for lament and sorrow. And so we should as well in our lives. Even with our children, they get sad over stuff. You know, I'm also the youth minister in the parish I serve at, and they have the same exact questions that we do within the state of the world, the economy.
00:15:29 Aaron Ross
They also somehow catch. They all have cell phones and they see what's happening on their phones. And so the same question is for all people. And I think one of the ways out or to deal with that is to make space for it and to make space for those difficult questions.
00:15:47 Natalie Thomas
What catches me about what both of y'all said is that it's true there is so much pain in the world overseas. And I have been watching that it was recently the 12th anniversary of Sandy Hook shooting massacre, right? And it is not that innocents don't continue to die. It is sometimes that the church forgets to make space to lament and to grieve.
00:16:11 Natalie Thomas
And how might that change us as a church, as families, as individuals, if we actually created the space to grieve and to bewail and to find the hope for what change might look like.
00:16:25 James Thomas
And thanks for all that and, you know, for the personal kind of nature of that testimony. One of the congregants here at Christ Church in Plymouth, where Natalie and I are presently exercising our diaconal vocation. This gentleman is a local farmer, which in the greater Boston area is sort of rare to have a more agrarian lifestyle.
00:16:46 James Thomas
He's a very faithful guy. He's educated in the scriptures, he's direct in his communication style. And I was saying to him, yeah, it's kind of a whirlwind when you actually read. Read the daily office lectionary every day, and you do Christmas, then you do holy Innocence, and then you do or Excuse me, you do Christmas, then you do St. Stephen, then you do St. John, then you do holy innocents. And to actually go through the sort of ancient wisdom of the church on this point.
And in a way he just sort of looked at me and he said, well, you know, real life is gritty. And I've been sitting with the fact that he said that.
00:17:23 James Thomas
And part of our purpose with this podcast is to obviously raise faithful Christians, to equip families and caregivers and parents, to equip faithful children who are able to face modernity and its many challenges. And I think candid conversation as we're having here about the reality of mortality, the reality of oppression and terror, someone who is engaged, a young person who has engaged on these topics from a young age, and where there are candid conversations in a faithful home and in a church community about the fact that these things do happen, and engaging with questions of the role of God in this and nature of good and evil and these sorts of things.
00:18:06 James Thomas
It just seems to me that that is a person who is less likely to grow up, to queue up outside of Walmart at 2:30 in the morning on Black Friday, to stampede somebody to death, to get a doll, you know, and to be a more fully formed human being in the face of a lot of consumerism and the decadence.
00:18:25 James Thomas
I think ultimately here in the west, where, let's say that most of our listeners at this point, although we do have a few listeners, I should say, as we look at our statistics from other parts of the world, but many, the majority of our listeners are in a place where they are less likely to engage on a day to day basis with violence on the scale that we encounter in this text.
00:18:47 James Thomas
So it's good to be mindful of it.
00:18:50 Aaron Ross
I have a thought. I don't know what you guys think about this, but I don't often meet vocational deacons. And so it's St. Stephen, right? The first deacon of the church.
00:19:01 James Thomas
That's right.
00:19:02 Aaron Ross
And so I have a question that I thought I might ask you guys. Sure you guys are doing that? Yeah, we're up for it. So we are in the room. I'm taking over your podcast. We are in the room with two vocational deacons and one transitional deacon. And so in honor of The Feast of St Stephen, the first deacon of the church, a question that I was really left with is what is the meaning of being full of the spirit?
00:19:24 Aaron Ross
That Stephen was understood to be someone who was full of wisdom in the spirit. So with the two vocational deacons in the room, what does that mean to you in your diaconal role?
00:19:36 James Thomas
So I would say, and I'm very much looking forward to Deacon Natalie's answer as well, but my response in the beginning is that the vow is that we all took recently, the three of us.
00:19:48 Aaron Ross
That's right.
00:19:49 James Thomas
And I think the church, in her ancient wisdom, the first vow that is taken by a cleric is to serve the poor, the weak, the sick and the lonely. And that is the foundation upon which the church is built. And secondarily to that, to interpret to the church the needs, hopes and concerns of the world.
00:20:12 James Thomas
Those are the vows. And that, I think, is the space in which, against all worldly appearances, the Spirit principally moves in service to the poor, the weak, the sick and the lonely. And what we know about Stephen is that, you know, originally there was. There were widows and orphans and also a, as we understand it, a linguistic minority within the community of believers and the followers along the way.
00:20:44 James Thomas
And the apostles sort of said, oh, well, you know, that's kind of a lot with the widows and the orphans and the. And speaking the other language and the whole thing. And so they said, we're going to have to have a special core of people who attend to that particular need. The marginalized, the outcast.
00:21:00 James Thomas
And that is the first expansion. And who knows much about the actual former story. We don't know much about liturgics at that point in the history of the church, but that is the first kind of expansion of the ranks through the laying on of hands to, in some sense, of a formalized ministry, an office of the church is this ministry to the marginalized.
00:21:23 James Thomas
And that's the place that is fullest of Spirit.
00:21:27 Aaron Ross
I'm also hearing that wisdom is knowing where the wealth is, and the wealth is the people.
00:21:34 Natalie Thomas
And often the people who've been pushed to the side. Right. That that's where the wealth of God is. I am reminded, Erin, of the answer you had to the first question about being so committed to God that you're willing to lose yourself and to lose your life. And when I think about Stephen and what it means to serve as a deacon in the church today is to be so consumed by the Spirit that the wisdom that directs your life is not the wisdom of the world anymore, but the wisdom of Christ.
00:22:04 Natalie Thomas
And I think for better or for worse, I would say mostly for worse, the church became an institution of the state and of empire at some point. And while that allowed for infrastructure that supported the church through many changes and for the expansion for the good of people knowing God in many instances.
00:22:26 Natalie Thomas
And knowing Jesus, it. It also shifted the church into a way that was more aligned with the structures of the world. And so the church began more and more and still today to want to look like majority culture and to want to fit in and to see that we were succeeding because we had a fresh coat of paint on the walls and the members were driving nice cars and the pastor was wealthy and had its own jet.
00:22:52 Natalie Thomas
And I think when we hearken back to Stephen and to be truly consumed by the spirit, it is to be consumed so much by God's vision that the wisdom of the world is no longer of use to us. And I think deacons at our best can truly push the church to lose itself for the sake of the world the way that Stephen did.
00:23:14 Aaron Ross
Thank you both for your witness as vocational deacons to someone who is a newly minted transitional deacon.
00:23:25 Natalie Thomas
Elizabeth Aaron, thank you so much for joining us today. And thank you to James, my husband, for being on this journey with me. And thank you so much to the wider community of people who are praying with us. As James alluded to, we have people who are praying with us in Russia and in Kenya, all over the North North American continent.
00:23:45 Natalie Thomas
Yes, yes. And we're grateful for each and every one of you. And we are praying with you. One specific word of gratitude to each ESBT3 who is praying with us and left us a review on itunes that said, this is a perfect way to wrap up your day as a family. After three days, the kids are already joining us in on the prayers and asking good questions about the scripture readings.
00:24:09 Natalie Thomas
And we are so grateful for you. We want to be your partner in raising the raising families that are centered around Jesus. And we want to stay in touch with you. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram as Bedtime Chapel. Follow us, let us know what's working, what's not working for you, and email bedtimechapel@gmail.com and you can find all of this on our website.
00:24:31 Natalie Thomas
And until then, we'll be praying with you.
