Focus 3 | Collectively
|
Consider this ice breaker as you gather for the Spotlight.
Choose one famous person from history you want on your team during a zombie apocalypse.
Choose one famous person from history you want on your team during a zombie apocalypse.
See what this Spotlight—and series—is focused on.
Tap on the words "Focus 3" in the image below to read this Spotlight's summary.
Tap on the words "Focus 3" in the image below to read this Spotlight's summary.
Let’s talk about Joshes.
Listen to this audio clip when you’re ready to begin today’s Spotlight.
(And welcome, by the way! It’s great that you’re here!)
Listen to this audio clip when you’re ready to begin today’s Spotlight.
(And welcome, by the way! It’s great that you’re here!)
Choose your favorite painting.
Isaiah is one of the greatest prophets in the Bible. In the sixth chapter of his story, he describes the fantastical events that took place when God “called” him to be a prophet. Below are four different artists’ renditions of that calling.
↑ “Isaiah 6” by Justin Simmons
↑ “The Vision of Isaiah” by Luke Allsbrook
↑ “Isaiah 6” by Merrilyn Jaquiery
↑ “Isaiah Lips” by Richard McBee
Isaiah is one of the greatest prophets in the Bible. In the sixth chapter of his story, he describes the fantastical events that took place when God “called” him to be a prophet. Below are four different artists’ renditions of that calling.
- Take a look at each of the images below first—click to enlarge them and see more detail.
- Choose a favorite before reading the below passage. (For those who struggle to choose, don’t worry. Nobody will be mad at you and you can change your mind anytime—it’s just an exercise!)
- Read Isaiah 6:1–8.
- Take another look at the images, having read through the above passage.
- Did your favorite change or stay the same? Why? (If you’re doing this Spotlight in a group, share!)
↑ “Isaiah 6” by Justin Simmons
↑ “The Vision of Isaiah” by Luke Allsbrook
↑ “Isaiah 6” by Merrilyn Jaquiery
↑ “Isaiah Lips” by Richard McBee
Take stock of where we’re at—and where we’ve been—in this series.
So far in this series, you’ve walked through the idea of being collectible—that is, uniquely one-of-a-kind and valuable—and being collectable—that is, sharing a common characteristic with other people with whom you can, therefore, be grouped.
This Spotlight will focus on the collective actions of those groups and the ways those collective actions impact the individual members of a group.
In a sense, this Spotlight is about why Isaiah could say that he was “a man of unclean lips” and that he lived “among a people of unclean lips” and both of those truths would make him unworthy of seeing God.
Permit a little warning as we get into this topic:
Watch out for the ditches.
Talking and thinking about collective actions, collective failures, and collective guilt can lead to extreme applications on both sides of the idea. On the one hand, people can (wrongly) argue for total individual responsibility and autonomy, claiming that each individual can only be responsible for their own personal actions. On the other hand, people can (wrongly) argue that an individual’s actions cannot affect or relieve the collective guilt they carry.
There is danger in both extremes, so avoid them. Step wisely, and follow Jesus as you do.
(The good news is that if you make a mistake, Jesus still forgives. You don’t have to fall or crash.)
So far in this series, you’ve walked through the idea of being collectible—that is, uniquely one-of-a-kind and valuable—and being collectable—that is, sharing a common characteristic with other people with whom you can, therefore, be grouped.
This Spotlight will focus on the collective actions of those groups and the ways those collective actions impact the individual members of a group.
In a sense, this Spotlight is about why Isaiah could say that he was “a man of unclean lips” and that he lived “among a people of unclean lips” and both of those truths would make him unworthy of seeing God.
Permit a little warning as we get into this topic:
Watch out for the ditches.
Talking and thinking about collective actions, collective failures, and collective guilt can lead to extreme applications on both sides of the idea. On the one hand, people can (wrongly) argue for total individual responsibility and autonomy, claiming that each individual can only be responsible for their own personal actions. On the other hand, people can (wrongly) argue that an individual’s actions cannot affect or relieve the collective guilt they carry.
There is danger in both extremes, so avoid them. Step wisely, and follow Jesus as you do.
(The good news is that if you make a mistake, Jesus still forgives. You don’t have to fall or crash.)
Welcome Perspective
You are who you are, but you are not simply you. You’re complicated.
You are who you are, but you are not simply you. You’re complicated.
Feel the weight of the collective.
You are constantly interacting with the results of sin. Sometimes that sin is committed by individuals and other times it is committed by whole groups of people acting collectively.
The Bible contains many examples of this, but perhaps the most powerful is a place called Babel, which is described in Genesis 11:1–9 (and in this video using Legos.)
You are constantly interacting with the results of sin. Sometimes that sin is committed by individuals and other times it is committed by whole groups of people acting collectively.
The Bible contains many examples of this, but perhaps the most powerful is a place called Babel, which is described in Genesis 11:1–9 (and in this video using Legos.)
Here’s how the Bible recounts the story:
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
Genesis 11:1–9
At first, God seems mean. Humankind is pulling off something amazing, and he goes and messes it all up. While this may seem like God is being a jealous baby from our perspective, it isn’t. It’s God saving humanity from itself.
Discuss this using the following prompts:
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
Genesis 11:1–9
At first, God seems mean. Humankind is pulling off something amazing, and he goes and messes it all up. While this may seem like God is being a jealous baby from our perspective, it isn’t. It’s God saving humanity from itself.
Discuss this using the following prompts:
- The people building Babel say, “Let us build a city… so that we may make a name for ourselves.” Compare their stated desire to the promise Jesus offers you in Revelation 3:12: “The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will they leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on them my new name.”
- God says that if the people build the tower and keep one language, “nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” This sounds like a good thing, but it isn’t. Humans tend to overestimate what they can accomplish (this happens to individuals and to groups). What dangers do you think God is trying to spare the people from here?
- The people wanted to stay in one place in a city they built. What did God want for them? (See Genesis 1:28).
- What’s better for you to have: a) a free, planet-sized gift that totally satisfies you and was put together by someone exponentially more talented than you are; or, b) the best city you and your friends can build?
Ask God to come down to you.
At the end of the day, the error that the entire population of the planet made in the Babel story was this: they wanted to go up to be with a God who had already come down to be with them.
See how this has always been God’s method:
He came down to make Adam out of dirt and Eve out of Adam.
He came down to make them promises after they’d sinned.
He came down to walk with Enoch and carried him to heaven.
He came down to visit with Abraham and promise him a son.
He came down to Mary give a virgin a child.
He came down as Jesus to pay the price for all sin.
He will come down again, to take his people home to heaven.
Listen to this song and then pray with hope and comfort.
At the end of the day, the error that the entire population of the planet made in the Babel story was this: they wanted to go up to be with a God who had already come down to be with them.
See how this has always been God’s method:
He came down to make Adam out of dirt and Eve out of Adam.
He came down to make them promises after they’d sinned.
He came down to walk with Enoch and carried him to heaven.
He came down to visit with Abraham and promise him a son.
He came down to Mary give a virgin a child.
He came down as Jesus to pay the price for all sin.
He will come down again, to take his people home to heaven.
Listen to this song and then pray with hope and comfort.
After you listen to the song, pray—pray to the God who comes down to be with you, despite you having unclean lips and living among a people of unclean lips—as is shown in the very language that you speak (and others don’t)—pray that by praying through these words from Isaiah:
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains would tremble before you!
As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil,
come down to make your name known to your enemies
and cause the nations to quake before you!
For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.
Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.
You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways.
But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry.
How then can we be saved?
All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
No one calls on your name
or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins.
Yet you, Lord, are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord;
do not remember our sins forever.
Oh, look on us, we pray,
for we are all your people.
Isaiah 65:1–9
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains would tremble before you!
As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil,
come down to make your name known to your enemies
and cause the nations to quake before you!
For when you did awesome things that we did not expect,
you came down, and the mountains trembled before you.
Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.
You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways.
But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry.
How then can we be saved?
All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
No one calls on your name
or strives to lay hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins.
Yet you, Lord, are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
Do not be angry beyond measure, Lord;
do not remember our sins forever.
Oh, look on us, we pray,
for we are all your people.
Isaiah 65:1–9
Worship Perspective
When collective sin brings personal guilt, God comes down with solutions.
When collective sin brings personal guilt, God comes down with solutions.
Find your collective sin and let others find theirs.
Click around (on the plus symbols) within the chalkboard presentation below to consider several passages from the Bible that give glimpses and insights into the parameters and usefulness of collective sin/guilt.
(If you’re doing this Spotlight as a group, make sure each group member understands the concepts in each circle as you go.)
Click around (on the plus symbols) within the chalkboard presentation below to consider several passages from the Bible that give glimpses and insights into the parameters and usefulness of collective sin/guilt.
(If you’re doing this Spotlight as a group, make sure each group member understands the concepts in each circle as you go.)
Figure out why we should want to identify even more guilt?
A person almost certainly has to believe they are sinful on an individual level before they’re going to acknowledge that they can be part of sinful collections. If God forgives sin through Jesus—even the sins that a person doesn’t know they’ve committed, why dig into this collective guilt issue and unearth even more guiltiness?
It all depends on what you believe makes life better. Is the goal of your confession to move past sin and get on to the bigger, better things you want to be able to do? Is confession a way of “dealing with” that which is impossible for you—but only that which is impossible for you, because you’re going to take care of the rest?
Or is the goal of confession something that goes beyond just “dealing with” sin? Imagine the relief that comes in a version of confession in which we say to God “I need you” and he says, “I know, and I’ve got you, but you don’t know how much you need me or how much I’ve got you yet. Keep confessing, let me show you how much I love you.”
Now, apply the above three paragraphs to the Tower of Babel story we learned about earlier. In what ways did they fail to understand this point?
(If you’re going through this Spotlight in a group, discuss.)
A person almost certainly has to believe they are sinful on an individual level before they’re going to acknowledge that they can be part of sinful collections. If God forgives sin through Jesus—even the sins that a person doesn’t know they’ve committed, why dig into this collective guilt issue and unearth even more guiltiness?
It all depends on what you believe makes life better. Is the goal of your confession to move past sin and get on to the bigger, better things you want to be able to do? Is confession a way of “dealing with” that which is impossible for you—but only that which is impossible for you, because you’re going to take care of the rest?
Or is the goal of confession something that goes beyond just “dealing with” sin? Imagine the relief that comes in a version of confession in which we say to God “I need you” and he says, “I know, and I’ve got you, but you don’t know how much you need me or how much I’ve got you yet. Keep confessing, let me show you how much I love you.”
Now, apply the above three paragraphs to the Tower of Babel story we learned about earlier. In what ways did they fail to understand this point?
(If you’re going through this Spotlight in a group, discuss.)
Finish out this section by listening to this powerful song.
Learn Perspective
Finding collective guilt helps increase dependence on the grace of God.
Finding collective guilt helps increase dependence on the grace of God.
Consider the power of land acknowledgement.
One increasingly common version of collective confession that connects to our non-profit this month is the idea of a “land acknowledgment.”
+ READ THE PAGE
One increasingly common version of collective confession that connects to our non-profit this month is the idea of a “land acknowledgment.”
- Click the button below to read a short page about land acknowledgment; then
- Discuss this question: Who do you think benefits from land acknowledgement?
+ READ THE PAGE
Learn about the Always Indigenous podcast by the Chief Seattle Club.
“Always Indigenous” is a four-episode podcast about resilience.
Read the following from the Chief Seattle Club’s official podcast description:
“The podcast follows the resilience of urban Native folks in Seattle who are unhoused during the COVID-19 pandemic and how they tie into the community at Chief Seattle Club. While the resources and connections Chief Seattle Club provides are a boon for members, their strength and ancestry embrace them as they find ways to weather this new uncertainty.
Chief Seattle Club worked with Raven Two Feathers to produce this four-part podcast series to illuminate stories of a lifetime of resilience. Raven Two Feathers is a Two Spirit, Emmy award-winning creator and being intertribal only encourages their exploration of local indigenous roots, wherever they go.”
Remember, you can follow the Chief Seattle Club on social media using the buttons below:
+ LIKE ON FACEBOOK
+ FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM
+ FOLLOW ON TWITTER
“Always Indigenous” is a four-episode podcast about resilience.
Read the following from the Chief Seattle Club’s official podcast description:
“The podcast follows the resilience of urban Native folks in Seattle who are unhoused during the COVID-19 pandemic and how they tie into the community at Chief Seattle Club. While the resources and connections Chief Seattle Club provides are a boon for members, their strength and ancestry embrace them as they find ways to weather this new uncertainty.
Chief Seattle Club worked with Raven Two Feathers to produce this four-part podcast series to illuminate stories of a lifetime of resilience. Raven Two Feathers is a Two Spirit, Emmy award-winning creator and being intertribal only encourages their exploration of local indigenous roots, wherever they go.”
Remember, you can follow the Chief Seattle Club on social media using the buttons below:
+ LIKE ON FACEBOOK
+ FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM
+ FOLLOW ON TWITTER
Feel free to submit a prayer request by filling out the below form.
(If you choose to make your request public, you'll see it display in the Current at the end of the Spotlight along with anyone else who did the same.)
(If you choose to make your request public, you'll see it display in the Current at the end of the Spotlight along with anyone else who did the same.)
Pray through your requests—together—as a group.
After submitting your requests in the above form, take some time to share with your group whatever requests the group might have for this week.
After submitting your requests in the above form, take some time to share with your group whatever requests the group might have for this week.
Serve Perspective
Finding where you fit allows you to contribute as only you can.
Finding where you fit allows you to contribute as only you can.
Let’s pray about dependence before we close today.
Pray using the words of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, as he prayed for relief for himself and on his history.
Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
He has raised up a horn z of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David
(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
salvation from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us—
to show mercy to our ancestors
and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
and to enable us to serve him without fear
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
Luke 1:68–75
Pray using the words of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, as he prayed for relief for himself and on his history.
Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
He has raised up a horn z of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David
(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),
salvation from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us—
to show mercy to our ancestors
and to remember his holy covenant,
the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,
and to enable us to serve him without fear
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
Luke 1:68–75
Sing along with (or listen to) this song to close out this Spotlight.
Feel free to sing along or simply listen. Do what makes you comfortable—but do whatever helps you focus on the song's meaning best.
Feel free to sing along or simply listen. Do what makes you comfortable—but do whatever helps you focus on the song's meaning best.
Farewell Perspective
What is it to be collectible if you are never in a collection?
What is it to be collectible if you are never in a collection?
Let's wrap things up by taking a look at what's Current at Illume.
Tap on the buttons in the frame below to see what’s currently happening at Illume—information on everything from current and upcoming online content to live events and opportunities to serve in the community can all be found here.
Tap on the buttons in the frame below to see what’s currently happening at Illume—information on everything from current and upcoming online content to live events and opportunities to serve in the community can all be found here.
Posted in On Letting Guilt Collect
No Comments