Does Jesus Get Us?

Jesus didn't come to teach hate. Yes or no? Welcome to the Uncut Podcast.

I'm Pastor Luke. I am Pastor Cameron. And this is the Uncut Podcast,

where we have honest, uncut conversations about faith, life, and ministry.

And the Super Bowl. And the Super Bowl. We're going to be talking about the

Super Bowl, even if that feels maybe late. We're a week late on talking about it, but who cares?

Because I think people are still talking about it a little bit.

Not so much the game, though.

Yeah, I don't like, no one cares about the game anymore.

At least not around here. Yeah, right.

But there is the kind of the questions that are the things that we, what am I trying to say?

Oh sorry i got a text right i was trying to have that thought but.

Um the he gets us commercials yes jesus showed up at the super bowl yeah i don't

know that there's been any greater piece of controversy about the super bowl

that i've seen in recent history,

other than this these he gets

us commercials at least inside of like christian culture

maybe be yeah i don't know christians always kind of freak out a little bit

about the super bowl yeah like since like i don't know i was a kid when janet

jackson and that thing happened oh my gosh do i have a story about that i'm not gonna tell it though.

Um but yeah so if you're living under a rock you might not have seen the he

gets us yes commercials or you may not have been exposed to someone commenting about them.

But if you haven't seen them, press pause on this and go YouTube.

He gets us Super Bowl commercials. He gets us Super Bowl commercials. There's two of them.

Yeah, one's a fairly short one. One's like a minute. One's 30 seconds. Yeah.

One of them apparently – well, one of them is a lot more –.

Uh controversial than the other yeah the

long one yeah the long one's a lot more controversial there's one

that is basically like starts out with who is my

neighbor yeah it just shows pictures of people

people yep the other has to.

Do with the um jesus

or not jesus uh people different different

people washing different people's feet yes so it's

a series of photographs which by the

way before we'll talk about this before we go any farther those are

indeed actual photographs and actors they're

not ai generated so a lot of people

were kind of like so that looks ai that's definitely

ai it's not actually ai it's a photographer who

stylizes their photos to make them look that certain

way um so it's a

series of photos of like these

different like scenes scenes where one person

is washing another person's feet uh do

we kind of want to like list the scenes like yeah you

can i mean there's like there's there's scenes of

someone like a protester

washing the feet of a woman outside of an abortion clinic yeah there is scene

of is it a pastor or a priest washing the feet of someone who appears to be

is presenting Presenting as possibly transsexual or homosexual or something

like that. What are some others?

There's like a scene of an old African-American and an old white man.

That's right. Not washing each other's feet, but having their one foot each

stuck into a little basin of sorts.

That was one of the more interesting photos. But then there was the kind of

a cowboy washing, I think, like a Native American's feet or like an oil digger.

Maybe those were two photos that were similar.

Then there was what looked like, I think, was a suburban mom washing the feet

of maybe a refugee that was getting off of a bus.

There was one that was just like a family dinner. or it looked like either the

son was washing the father's feet or maybe the boyfriend washing the father's feet.

I think, were there any others? Oh, there was somebody who was washing an alcoholic's or an addict's feet.

I think that was all the major ones.

And so it flashes these scenes with music playing in the background.

And then at the end, it says, Jesus didn't teach hate. He washed feet.

He gets us and he gets us.com so

all kind of put off by this kind of um i

don't know if it's a if it's a independent like

that's the name of the organization that gets us or if it's

just a mark like a you know a marketing campaign that is

the name of the organization okay yeah yeah yeah

funded primarily by um

i think one of the owners of hobby lobby yes

who is historically a

very conservative uh even

i don't know i don't even know what the word evangelical means anymore so

i'm trying not to use it um very conservative leaning

yes christian person he's been pretty outspoken

yes um and then um

there's a number he's not the only contributor

but he's one of the only contributors that is

not listed anonymously to the organization most other contributors i think are

anonymous so so that commercial aired for 60 seconds on super bowl night and

the world lost its mind about it at least the christian world did yeah where

the The deconstructing world did. Yeah.

It's really interesting. It is a really,

really interesting phenomena or whatever you want to call it to watch the way

that the Christian world or the Christian pop culture world,

maybe subculture. I don't know.

Yeah. The Christian world, those who have a space to have an opinion and they

say it, how they are responding to all of this.

Either in support but i think mainly what i've seen in like um are really mad

about it yeah well and i mean because we because you know we're we're i think we're more a part of.

Conservative evangelicalism again what is evangelicalism but like we're that's

more More of where we kind of sit closer.

I would say in general that I am a theological, social, and political conservative.

Right. So people from that camp, which is probably why we see more of those

responses, I didn't watch that.

I didn't watch a lot of the Super Bowl, and I didn't see the commercial.

And so I started seeing people kind of angry about this thing,

and I didn't know what they were talking about.

Out i was like oh what are we what are we angry about so yeah i mean i guess

the one of the main questions that i have is is this commercial are these commercials

this particular one this foot washing one is it an accurate representation of

who jesus is and what he came to do,

like even the statement jesus came to wash feet or or like jesus didn't come

to promote hate or or teach hate or whatever he came to teach hate he washed

his feet is that an accurate,

statement and accurate is that statement right accurate first.

Mostly like i think with inside of the context of what i think they're trying to say,

yes i mean like and we can't i don't know that we can even judge the intention

of what they were trying to say we can only judge what they said right yeah

right so if we were to say if i I would say the statement apart from it's the imagery in the,

in the commercial to say Jesus didn't come to teach hate.

Yes or no. Yes. Correct. Right. I would say, correct.

Jesus came to wash feet or Jesus not even came to wash feet.

Jesus washed feet. I don't know. Like, yeah. Did he?

Yes. Yes. Right. And so, okay.

Now you take the statement and you kind of have to apply it in context to the,

commercial of self right the images i'm like all right well does the.

Because a lot of it is like, what is it not saying?

What is the commercial saying and what is it not saying? You're saying that's

what people are upset about, is that the commercial is not saying some things?

Right. Yeah, I think that the commercial, I think people are mostly upset that

the commercial is not saying some things.

Yes. Like, oh, no, people are, oh, yeah, Jesus came to wash feet.

But what he really came to do, what he really came to do was to tell every sinner

that they should turn from their sin, repent of their sin, and turn towards him.

And because there was no message of repentance in the commercial,

then it's obviously like teaching a false gospel is heretical in its theology or in its teaching.

And, you know, it should not be supported by any Christian who reads the Bible,

only progressive Christians, which is an interesting dynamic.

I don't know, is that your kind of like your commentary read on the commercial?

Yeah, I think most people who are like angry about it, well,

no, there's two different camps.

There's the people who are theologically angry about it from the standpoint

of what I think you just said.

Like, they're saying that the message of the commercial means that Jesus is

giving permission for you to live your life however you want, and it doesn't matter.

And Jesus just loves you no matter what. And kind of this, like, right.

Yeah. So, like. Which the commercial never says. Commercial doesn't say.

Commercial doesn't say that, like. And it doesn't even depict Jesus washing

these feet. No, it doesn't. It doesn't, you know.

And, you know, so they're angry

because they feel like it lacks this important message of repentance.

The other camp of people who I think we're running into less of,

but like, or maybe more of the liberals or the deconstructionists are angry

because Christians spent money on a Super Bowl commercial.

Commercial, because they're like, well, wouldn't it have been better to have

gone out and fed people with however many money, how much money was spent on

the commercial, which was a large amount.

And so I think those are the two camps that are angry.

I think theologically, because it's not harsh enough on sin,

or practically because we should be spending our money not on on getting the

message of Jesus out there,

but on like just feeding people or that's the one that people always say,

they say feeding people or clothing people. So, yeah.

So, okay. Some important dynamics there. One is, um,

Yeah, like we said, the commercial doesn't depict Jesus actually washing anyone's feet.

And so there is like, they want Jesus to appear and essentially tell all these

sinful people who are getting their feet washed, Hey,

we're gonna serve you, but also we want you to know you need to turn from your sin.

And I look at the gospel, when we look at the gospels, we see that there was

really only one instance where Jesus himself washed the feet of people.

John chapter 13, he washed the feet of his disciples at the Last Supper.

And John's pretty clear about what was happening there.

And then Jesus himself is really clear as to why he was, or what the foot washing

was meant to accomplish.

So John says in chapter 13, it was just before the Passover feast,

Jesus knew that his time had come for him to leave this world and to go to the Father.

Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.

Whatever's coming next, he was about to show them the full extent of his love.

The evening meal was being served. The devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot,

son of Simon, to betray Jesus. Judas was at the meal.

Judas was among those who Jesus was about to...

Serve judas the guy who went and traded jesus's life for 30 pieces of silver right,

could have very easily been in the commercial right jesus could

have been you could that would have been a great that would have been

a great ending clip on that commercial is jesus washing

the feet of judas yeah because he did jesus knew

that the father had put things all all things under his power and

that he had come from god and when returning to god establishes

his heavenly authority right so in verse

4 he got up from the meal took off his

outer clothing and wrapped a towel around his waist after that he poured

water into a basin began to wash his disciples feet drying them

with the towel that was wrapped around them simon tries to stop him yeah jesus

is like you don't understand like peter is like okay then wash all of me wash

all of me right um then he it comes down to verse 12, the end of the little section.

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place.

Do you understand what I have done for you?

You call me teacher and Lord, and rightly so, for that is what I am.

Now that I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet.

I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.

So the only time in scripture that we see Jesus washing the feet of anyone else,

he does so for at least a partial purpose of setting an example for what his

disciples should do for one another, for others.

Now, you could take a super literalist view on what Jesus said and make the

assumption that Jesus was only giving them example for what they were to do amongst themselves.

Yes, you could. I don't particularly feel like one another was exclusionary

in Jesus' language, but it was rather like, hey, go and do this for others as well.

And so there is a point here where I think you have to –.

Kind of parse out what were the underlying reasons that jesus got up from the meal and,

did that because it essentially describes him stripping down to his underwear

and using his clothing to wash and dry the feet that is a position and posture of,

of extraordinary vulnerability. Yes.

Humility, like crazy amounts of humility. The Lord of heaven,

God had put all things under his feet, John said.

So then he got up from the meal, stripped down to his underwear,

and washed the feet of the people who had abandoned him, who had run away from

him, who would deny him, who would betray him.

So his, like, could be seen, according to the world, as the most extreme enemies of Jesus now, right?

Jesus was serving them in a place of humility, in a place of like absolute vulnerability,

and then says, hey, go and do this for one another too.

So one of my issues with the critique then of this,

with the critique of this is that even in

the act of washing people's

feet jesus was not like i'm washing your

feet make sure you repent right i'm

walking washing your feet make sure you turn from or i'm washing your feet make

sure you don't betray me i'm washing your feet make sure you don't abandon me

deny me yeah i'm washing your feet make sure you don't deny me it was simply

Jesus let the act speak for itself.

And it feels like in modern Christianity,

a lot of the times we don't want the act to speak for itself.

Or we think that the act itself does not speak loudly or comprehensively enough

the message of the gospel.

And so we got to add our own words to it.

We got to add our own addendums to it.

Um and this is one of the issues that i have with like ministries that feed

people feed the homeless it's like a we will feed you take this information

about our church here's food,

but you have to take this information about the church or come to

the church for this meal

and stay for the worship service yeah there was a ministry in chicago um been

been around for a very long time and um it's primary thing is like it would

feed lunch but you had to sit and listen to the sermon that was being preached

at you while you ate lunch.

Yeah and i get it like you want to seize an opportunity to proclaim the gospel in people's lives,

but I am of the personal opinion that for lack of a better term,

we need to earn the right, the relational right, the relational right to speak

the message of the gospel, which is a message of repentance.

Repent for the kingdom of God, heaven is near, right? That is the

message that jesus came to preach like i'm not i'm not

saying that but what i'm saying is that like

you some like there was

not a bait and switch of serving for jesus he was not like take this foot washing

but but here make also make sure that you follow this teaching right he let

the act in fact, incarnationally speak for itself.

Yeah. And what critics of these commercials want to say is that,

well, the commercial didn't go far enough.

It didn't go far enough in like really proclaiming the gospel because it didn't

talk about the offensiveness of sin or the need for repentance or faith in Jesus Christ.

Right. It simply said Jesus doesn't preach hate. and they're angry about it.

They are, Christians are foaming at the mouth that all that was said was Jesus doesn't teach,

hey, Jesus came, or Jesus washed feet.

Like, I am...

Out of my dome to try and understand how like

pointing people

towards any aspect of the relationship of of like life in jesus when they're

pre-christ right is a win it is an absolute win right so to to have it you're

like i want to curse right now like i I want to swear.

I'm so, I get fired up about this.

To be angry about it, I think is just, I think it's stupid.

Because I don't, you know, sometimes, here, I'll give maybe an example that

hits home for me a little bit more. I'll preach a sermon.

And someone will come up to me after the sermon. German, essentially with,

with a pure heart about it. Sure.

Why didn't you say this though about it and this about it and this about it

and this about it and this about it and this about it.

And the reality is, is because, well, I,

I, we really only have like a 40 minute block and I almost always preach 60 minutes.

So, so the, like it would be next to impossible for me to say everything about

one topic in one sermon every single week.

Yeah. Right. Sometimes you got to preach on Romans six before you can preach on Romans seven.

Like, and you can't be mad at me because I said what was in Romans six and not

what was in Romans seven.

I'll say it next week. Right.

It's just the way it goes. And so,

I think that there is this thing happening where when you say something about Jesus...

People feeling like you need to say everything. You need to say it.

Yeah, you have to say everything.

This is one of the reasons I actually don't like... One

of the reasons I don't particularly love a

lot of christian films because like

your kind of traditional cheesy christian

film is like somehow you know the main character has like this like you know

terrible things happening to him and then he sits down with this older guy who's

got a bible and says you know and And then the guy gives this very simplistic,

but hits all of the markers that people want to hear in a gospel presentation.

And the guy just goes, oh, yeah.

And he gives his life to Christ, and the movie ends happily ever after.

And the film is meant to try and be its own invitation for someone to know Jesus.

And one of the reasons that that doesn't work very well is because films are

not meant to at least creative storytelling films are not meant to be that didactic.

They're meant to be reflective they're meant to be interesting thought

provoking they're not meant to be a presentation that

is saying you need to think this way and make this

decision that's called propaganda technically um and so like a lot of the christian

films i like are films that christians don't like because they don't have the

gospel in them explicitly they have things that point to the gospel and the

question is is like what is the point of a super bowl commercial.

Like is the super bowl commercial supposed to be a gospel presentation or is

it supposed to be the thing that kind of points to something farther down the

road yep and exactly it's because it's a 60 second commercial right or a 30

second commercial yeah Or if you don't like it,

raise your own $30 million.

Yeah, go make your own commercial. And put your preacher on the TV and have

him preach the message of salvation through repentance.

Right. That's what you... Go buy the airtime. Do it. Like, I don't know, like, I...

Watch somebody does. does. Um, what do you think of what, what do you,

what personally do you think about the argument that about the money?

Oh, the amount of money that it costs versus like what could have been done

with that money? Well, the thing, okay, so.

So that was not the only nonprofit to have a commercial, right?

I looked it up. There weren't a ton of nonprofits. Most things were for-profit

companies, but there was like a political activist commercial,

and then there was one other nonprofit commercial that came up.

So it's not the only nonprofit that took people's money, that was donated to

them, and then spent that money on a commercial. Not the only nonprofit that did it.

Nobody else is mad at those nonprofits for getting their message out and not

doing the thing that they're supposed to be doing.

And this is, you know, a lot of times is people love Christians when we do things

like Christ, Christ, but when we get the message out about Christ,

somehow we're doing something wrong or bad.

And from a non-believing, you don't believe in God,

you don't believe in Jesus, you don't follow, you think the church is maybe

a dubious nonprofit at best, then yeah, you're not going to like when we get our message out there.

Because you don't believe the message, you don't

trust the message you don't think the message is worthwhile and so

you're like well i just want you to put your money towards the

thing i want you to put your money towards is what you're

actually saying but you're not the non-profit

right you're just not

and we think i think that

the gospel is the most important message in

the entire world and i don't think

you can put a price tag on that like if

you were to say like how much is too much to say

to present even a portion of the gospel to someone i can't i'm not gonna find

that number no not in money not in monetary value that's for sure not in monetary

value and so um and so from a from inside of the faith like Like, it makes so much sense.

And, like, the He Gets Us organization, like, that's what they're doing.

And the people who gave to that know that's what the organization is doing,

is about getting out the message.

And so, like, there are other, lots of other Christian campaigns,

organizations that are oriented towards meeting physical, practical needs that are doing that. Yeah.

And so if people want to contribute their money to that, like,

I kind of just like, it's kind of just a really easy critique,

but it's a critique that comes from a place of just like.

I just want to tell other people how to spend their money. Yeah.

And you don't get to do that. Right. Sorry. Yeah. Right.

I saw, you follow the Babylon Bee? Yes, I do. Well, yeah, I do.

Was it you that sent it to me then? I told you about it. You told me about it.

I told you about it. Okay. All right. Yeah.

They put out an article about.

Oh, they made a video. Oh, it was a whole video. It was a whole video mimicking.

You tell you you tell so babylon b put out made a video using actual ai generated photos.

Displaying different images of satan like coming alongside people and like i

don't remember if he had him washed i don't know he was like high-fiving them

or whatever i don't remember now um and then And at the end,

it's like, Satan, he gets us.

He's okay with you doing whatever you want to do, something like that.

Essentially, it was trying to say, it was trying to equate the message of the

He Gets Us commercial to a message that Satan would like us to hear.

Yeah. Really interesting.

Really interesting take on it or commentary.

Well, see, here's the thing, too. is that

the original commercial that he gets us commercial is that

there's only one or two of the

photos that really bother people that really bother people really there's probably

one in particular one yeah one or two um and the rest of them are pretty innocuous

at the end of the day they're they're people who um because the the the general

idea is let's display people.

Who generally, for one or two reasons, don't get along, either historically or now.

And let's take the one who seems to have maybe the moral upper hand or the traditional

upper hand or the authority,

this dominant position, and have them wash the disenfranchised,

the less powerful person's feet.

And there's just the one that seems like that's a family dinner,

the son washing the father's feet.

There's two protesters washing each other's feet. There's, you know,

but the ones that people really get anger about, it's only just two of them.

The priest washing the person who we're meant to assume is gay or something like that,

and then the other one where somebody is, a protester is washing a woman's feet

outside of a Planned Parenthood or abortion clinic.

Um and so like those are the two that people get really angry about right because those have.

Like relation to sin plus

and or political things well and

one of the critiques that i heard about those ones in particular is

it puts the christian in the

place of being the one that needs

to humble themselves to service like they

were upset that the message was like a what do you mean in

the in that relationship that it's the christian that's the

one that needs to do the feet washing why can't the you know like what's the

why are we why do we have to take the place of humility when they're the ones

that need to repent i'm like because we follow jesus that's the answer like Like,

what are we talking about here?

So that was, yeah, that was another...

Because we follow Jesus. Yeah. Because Christ loved us first while we were still enemies.

While we were still sinners, Christ died for us, Romans 5.8. Yeah.

Like, we cannot, like, if we are constantly making the moral expectations of

being a maturing Christian,

like, if we make that the starting point of someone who does not follow Jesus,

They will never follow Jesus because what we're giving them is a list of rules

and not inviting them into a relationship.

And that's kind of the whole point of the commercial is to say,

Jesus understands who you are, where you're at, where you're from.

Gets us. He gets you and he wants to wash your feet. He wants to invite you into relationship.

Come check him out. That's an invitation. There it is. Yep. There it is.

So, I mean, like, my verdict on the commercials are like, good job.

Good job. Would I like to have the opportunity to have further conversation

with people who are intrigued about the message of Jesus from the He Gets Us

commercials? Mm-hmm. Yes.

Because do I believe that there is more to the gospel than that?

Yes, I do. But I'm not going to sit over here and, you know,

foment the mouth that didn't say everything and swear off the He Gets Us campaign

as being somehow progressive or too progressive or too conservative. I've heard both of that.

Yeah, and so therefore, like, just... I will say it was a little cartoonish.

I don't mean that stylistically. specifically but it's trying

to say something quick and snappy so i mean it's

the super it's a super bowl commercial right you have the largest tv

audience in the world at

that moment so yeah anyway tell us in the comments if you're watching a place

where you can comment youtube primarily i guess what you thought yeah or what

you think of the commercials uh we didn't really say anything about the other

one because i don't really there's not really any commentary about the other

one no No one's talking about the other one.

It was also very short, but, like, again, we agree with it. Yep.

And do I believe that there's more to the message? Yes, I do.

Do I agree that you have to say everything that there is to say in the message

in one 60-second block in the middle of the Super Bowl? No, I don't.

But comment and tell us what you think. You can also send us any questions,

comments, thoughts that you have, reflections on what you heard today or what

you've heard in another episode.

Our texting line if you want to text in a question is 716-201-0507 if you would

love to we would love to have you.

Music.