In Episode 58 of The United Methodist People Podcast Rev. Dr. Brad Miller talks with Rev. Rob Fuquay of St. Luke's UMC-Indianapolis about his new book and Lenten resource "The Passion Play-Living the Story of Christ's Last Days" which is inspired by the Oberammergau Passionsspiele.

Jesus' Passion Story is presented each Lent in countless churches each year. But one play presented by the inhabitants of the village of Oberammergau, in Bavaria Germany, may be one of the longest-running performances of all. Staged every 10 years since 1634. To play makes an impact not only on the villagers who portray the characters and all who see it as well. And the passion play Rob Fuquay follows the biblical story of the passion and shows how this amazing play as we use both as a ritual of praise and later as a weapon through that's anti-semitic past.

Brad and Rob talk about the book at length in this interview including its relevance in today's world of pandemics and anxiousness.

The United Methodist People Podcast is produced by Rev. Dr. Brad Miller a retired UMC Elder with a heart for "doing all the good I can; particularly in anxious times."

The United Methodist People Podcast is all about sharing the story of the United Methodist people who have similar commitments to doing all the good they can through conversation and commentary.

To Purchase "The Passion Play-Living the Story of Christ's Last Days" Go to:

https://www.cokesbury.com/the-passion-play

If you like The United Methodist People Podcast then you are invited to try one of the following podcasts Rev. Dr. Brad Miller is involved with.

To Be Encouraged with Bishop Julius C. Trimble (co-host)

https://www.tobeencouraged.com/

Voice of God Daily Bible Study

https://www.voiceofgoddaily.com/

Beyond Adversity: Helping People Navigate Adverse Life Events and Emerge Victoriously.

www.DrBradMiller.com

Hello, good people. Welcome to the United Methodist

people podcast with Reverend Dr. Brad Miller. This is the podcast

where we look to strengthen the connection in the United

Methodist Church through conversation, and commentary.

And we like to lift up resources from time to time that can be

helpful in your local church and in your own personal devotional

life. And it's our privilege to have Rob Fuquay with us today,

Pastor Rob frequent Reverend Rob Fuquay, from the St. Luke's

United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. He's a

past contributor to United Methodist people podcast, he has

a new resource called the passion play living the story of

Christ last day, inspired by the homograph passion Spiel in

Germany, and we welcome you to the to United Methodist people

podcast today, Rob. Thank you.

Thank you, Brad, always good to be with you. And

it's been a while since we've done this, I know go back to

prior to the pandemic. Yes. So and to be back with you for

this. It is awesome to be back with you. And we've had great

conversation in the past about lots of things involving life in

the church and resources that you've come up with and things

like that. But just for our listeners, give us just a brief

kind of thumbnail of who you are, what you're about and maybe

some of the past resources you've been involved with. Sure.

So I have been the senior pastor here at St. Luke's United

Methodist Church in the northern part of Indianapolis for about

10 and a half years now I've got here in August of 2011. Follow

Dr. Kip Mullard, who had been the senior pastor for 18 years

prior and hard to believe it's already been more than a decade.

I think it was shortly into my time you and I did a podcast

together. And can you believe it? You know, that's been about

10 years ago, that's when I started podcasting was 10 years

ago. So yeah.

So I'm originally from North Carolina was a member of the

western North Carolina conference before coming here

and have served a variety of appointments I started out in

well, actually, my very first full time Minister experience

out of seminary was in Bristol, England, and well and serve the

church just off the campus of the University of Bristol. And

that was part of an exchange program seminary students did in

from the United States with the British conference. And I waited

until after I finished to do it. Many students do it somewhere in

the middle of their of their studies, take a semester or a

year off to go serve a church I waited till afterward. So it was

kind of my first appointment. Then I went to a small two point

charge in the mountains of western North Carolina, from

there was an associate pastor at a very large, our fastest

growing church at the time outside of Charlotte, then to a

medium sized congregation back in the mountains just off the

grounds of Lake junaluska that grew into a large church went to

another church just a little bit larger than to St Luke's which

would be considered a megachurch. So it's a variety of

ministry experience that I'm really, really grateful for. And

I think it it gets reflected in the writing that I've done since

I've been at St. Luke's I've been fortunate to produce a

number of resources. Three with the upper room. The first one I

did is the God you can know which is a series based on the I

am sayings of Jesus, and then did a fun series based on the

flags of racing, taking the flag, and it was the same

format. It was a meant for small group studies in churches. So

it's a book but also a DVD companion. Then a study on Paul

thinking about our our purpose in life which way Lord is the

name of that one. And again filmed on location in Greece in

Turkey traveling the sights of Paul and then with Abington, a

several years ago in preparation for the 500th anniversary of the

Protestant Reformation under Martin Luther and 2017 did a

resource called a new reformation. And then in 2018, I

was contacted by the publishing house to let me know about a

project they were doing with educational opportunities. P. eo

is a travel Christian travel company that works predominantly

with United Methodist churches leading Christian tours and I

think he may be the largest group that takes people to the

passion play in Germany and I can tell more about that in a

moment but anyway, they were doing this combined effort to

produce a resource that could not only be something like a

travel guide for people going to Ober amor gal for the passion

play in 2020. But it would also be something relative and

meaningful to people in churches who would not be going To the

passion play, so it needed to have some some spiritual value

and takeaway that would apply to anybody. So that was kind of a

unique challenge with this to base the themes off of the

passion play, be relative and meaningful to anybody wherever

they are, but something that people could look forward to if

they were going on the trip. So that's how so this project

connects with eating ready for 2020 connected

with Iove with this project, and to put this resource together,

and I've been privileged to travel with EO and a couple

times to the Holy Land, in my case, and certainly on my bucket

list is the passion play and hope to do that someday. But of

course, the last couple years have been kind of everything's

been kind of messed up by the COVID crisis, and so on. And

we'll talk about how the impact of that here in just a second,

but for those who may be a little bit uninitiated, give us

a brief description of just what the passion play is, and maybe

where it's located. And just a little context here for our

conversation.

Absolutely. So, the passion play in Oberammergau

Germany, which is a tiny village nestled in a remote part of the

Alps, in southern Germany, right before you go into Austria, very

close to the Italian border. And this is the longest running

continuous passion play in the world. It's, it is performed

once every decade, usually in the first year of a new decade.

So this one was, of course, supposed to be performed in

2020. And they they do about 100 performances in a season starts

in mid May ends in the very first days of October. They

don't do seven days a week, it's more like four or five days a

week. So it ends up being 100 102 performances something

like that. It goes back to 1634 when the very first passion play

was performed in over amor gal. And passion plays by villages

was a fairly common thing. This was a way for a community that

tended to be all Christian, all very strongly Catholic in many

places. And passion plays were a way for a community to express

its faith and devotion. And honestly, sometimes it was a way

for a community to say we want to do this for God so that God

will help us with something we need. Wow. So in 1632, a

terrible plague broke out in Europe, probably resulting from

the 30 Years War, something that was in the aftermath of the

Protestant Reformation and the tensions that were happening in

Europe, very much around religion with the the Protestant

separation, but also it was a political war you know, having

to do with who's in control, who really has power. And you know,

as a result of many of these wars disease would break out and

so a famine or not a famine Forgive me a disease spread a

plague that was very contagious very deadly. And the people of

Ober amor gal, hearing the news, of course, pre Internet,

newspapers were not common, you know, you would only hear word

of mouth, way off big cities somewhere Paris, maybe even

Munich, not that far away. People are dying from a disease.

And then they start hearing that it's getting closer, it's

several villages away, but it's coming their direction. So the

town council had a meeting. And they talked about all of the

precautions they were going to establish. So they, they they

had to shut down. They shut the doors of the gate to the city,

no one was allowed into the city and nobody could leave and come

back. So the people had to stay within the walls of the town.

And the people who came in would have to quarantine for a period

before they could interact. Now, this all sounds like ancient

history, doesn't it? Until we get our own pandemic. Well,

I was gonna say it does, but it does. You know, it

rings true. Right. Right, right now.

You know, when I started this project in

2018 2019, you know, it just felt like ancient history stuff.

And then in 2020, we were literally doing this in our

church here at St. Luke's as a Lenten study, and we were on

week three, when we shut

down so we're talking March, mid March of

2020.

Exactly. I remember the day march the 15th 2020 was

our first Sunday. Not having worship in person, and I'm

standing in the sanctuary with a camera, doing the message about

a community in Germany, that had to shut down because of a play,

you know, almost 400 years ago, and here we were living it.

Gosh, so we finished the study. And that was when a lot of

groups were beginning to announce postponements. Of

course, the NCAA, they were getting ready for the right. And

they announced the, you know, the ceasing of the tournament

that year, other groups even at a distance into the year, we're

beginning to recognize we're not going to be able to have our

event, the passion plan over ever gal was really quick to

pull the plug. They didn't just say we're not doing it this

year, we will reschedule for 21, they wasted no time saying we're

going to put it off two years. Okay. 2022. And it just it was I

remember hearing that thinking, holy cow, you know, two years

from now. And it turned out to be a brilliant move.

And I was on their website recently. Apparently, it

is on schedule for this year, as far as I can tell.

Right? It is to begin in mid March and mid May.

And so that's why we're just trying to promote the the book

and the series, again, for people, especially

folks very applicable to the situation in

our world. We've been in this pandemic for a couple years now.

And in one form or another, it seems like it's gonna be ongoing

presence in our lives. And so we have to learn how to live with

it and the folks here, and overwrap or growl have learned

to live within their own way. And there's some lessons to be

learned from there. But I want to kind of take you to the core

of the story about the passion play for a minute. And if you

would, for just a few minutes unpack the story of Casper

schist, and what he was all about in terms of how this was a

part of this whole process of this coming to be

right. Yes. So the the reason that this plague and

and Oberammergau making a vow to start performing a passion play

is because with all of their precautions in place, the plague

still got into Oberammergau. So the legend has it that one of

the residents Casper schissler, who was in another village for

work, and it was time for an annual church festival that over

amor gal had every year, that was like a three day event. It

was a time when everybody came back, just a real joyous

occasion. And he came back for the festival and found out they

wouldn't let him in. So we don't really know how he got in, did

he bribe somebody was the person at the gate that night a good

friend, but somehow he was allowed to come in so he could

go and be with his family. He had no idea that he had had the

disease. He showed no signs of it. But within a day, he was

starting to cough, and, and show signs of weariness. And of

course, by that time, he's already infected his family. And

not many days after that he was dead, his family was dead. And

over the next several months, 84 members of the village would be

debt. History historians believe that that might have been

anywhere from 15 to 20%, of the total population of over amor

gout. So the people called an emergency meeting in the church,

this beautiful, ornate sanctuary. And they prayed in

front of a crucifix that is still in the church today. And

they made a vow, God, if you will spare our village any more

deaths, we will hold a passion play every 10 years. And here's

what gets interesting about this. And I'm talking a lot

about so you might No, no, stop me. But learning all this

information was a lot of fun. So here's what's interesting is the

dating of it. There are some dates that show that the vow was

made at a gathering in July. But it is attributed to October when

you go back and there's an actual record of the deaths from

that period. The last death occurred in July. And so you say

now, wait a minute, why would they have waited? Three? If you

were doing 123 funerals every week for a number of months? Why

would you now wait three months since there was a death to make

about? In the book? I speculate that what perhaps happened is

the people met in July and made the vow and said God, if you'll

spare us any more deaths, we will do this. And about three

months later, I can imagine somebody going Hey, have you all

notice something? I haven't had any more deaths. From the play,

I think we made a promise I think we need to follow through.

So anyway, there was a

thing I find kind of interesting about this part

of the story, as I read, read the book, is how you know the

people. It had to be just an incredibly scary time as we've

gone through just scary, fearful times in the last couple of

years with the pandemic, and especially those first weeks,

when we all were hunkered down. And you know, we were right,

just isolated for one from another. I never forget this. My

son is a hospice worker, I'm ever going to work in a hazmat

suit. Oh, no. Right. And we literally prayed and cried over

him, his went out the door, because he was going to go work

in a COVID ward at a time when we none of us knew exactly what

was going on. But I'm just saying that scary time. So this

has been incredibly scary time for the people over have a bro.

And that's a great and then but they responded by making a vow

and following through and seemed like they kind of responded to

fear with faith. I don't know. Yep, you unpack it with me? Do

you think I'm in my reading into the story correctly? Or maybe

there's some applications?

That's a fear sections of a chapter. Yep.

Instead of talk about, you know, instead of panic, or a way to

face their panic was to turn to praise. And it's that point

rather than giving into fear, they turn to their faith. And,

you know, they go and make this vow before the crucifix. But

yeah, I think it's interesting to look at the timing, because

that happens in a lot of our lives, doesn't it that we make a

promise to God? And then only in retrospect, do we have a sense

of, of God answering a prayer, or God revealing God's self to

us in some way, and then say, oh, what else? Okay, now, I made

a deal here. And it's so easy to forget and just move on past the

blessing. But to me, that's the power of this, that the people

remember their vow and their promise. And they said, We've

got to keep it. And so they had some kind of gathering in

October. That was a dedication to keep this bow. And the next

Pentecost was when they performed the play, probably at

that time, because Pentecost is a significant Sunday in the

church, and especially in that time, it would have been a

festival. But they built a Play platform, in the cemetery, over

the graves of the people who would die. Oh my gosh, and that

was where they held the first play. And that began the

tradition that eventually, I think by 1670, moved to be the

start of a new decade when they performed.

And here's the interesting thing about it, it

just shows the incredible resilience, and persistence, and

the power of the vowel to not let it go. They've kept it going

for 300 Am I get my math is 300 years, 300 plus years.

386 coming up on Yeah, before 400 The next, the

next time they'll perform. So just

to get perspective, you know, well, before we the

United States was even founded, you know, with this have been

going on just to give a little bit of context there. And, and

this think Sayla, but about how this is kind of a a testimony to

grace in the midst of despair or grace, in the midst of

desperation, say something about that?

Yeah. Well, it is a recognition that as awful as

the, as the event was, and losing the number of people they

did in their village, there was a coming out of it, and a

recognition that God had been with them, and that God answered

a prayer and a belief. Now, regardless of what we would say

about that today for the people, then they had a belief that God

had answered the prayer. And it summoned within them a need to

respond in gratitude to God. And so they began the practice of

offering this passion play in the creation of the resource. At

first I just remembered being offered this opportunity and

thinking, how do you create, you know, important spiritual

themes, out of a passion play out of this story of a history

of a play, you know, it's not based. The idea of the book

itself, at least is not based on a book of the Bible. It's not

like the I am sayings of Jesus. But the more we started digging

away at this, we realize there are great themes there. The

power of a vow and how our lives are shaped by vows. The

significance of community. And in that chapter, we dig into the

the incivility and the divisions of our world today that so

fracture community that many churches are dealing with, and I

think we're experiencing that even more coming through this

pandemic, then then we even felt before we thought it was bad

enough before we're feeling it even even more right

polarization in politics, the church is just

really, you know, discouraging at times. It really is.

Yeah. But I think it makes that chapter even more

meaningful. And just to pause on that thought, right there

Chapter Two dealing with community. It was fun to go

there, we filmed the DVD on location, and to interview the

director and, and people who remembered stories in the past

from the village, when the village got at odds with each

other. When people had suggestions of making changes to

the script. And the old guard versus the new reformers and

people who couldn't even speak to each other until they got on

stage to act this out. I just thought, boy, what relevance to

our world right now?

Well, and but some of that got through it, because

of the bigger vision Disney the bigger vision of what they had.

And I'm also just was intrigued by you know, I've known about

this for some time, but I was intrigued about how this became

a the entire village project. And also when you do this, this

is an all day affair, a six hour affair, for instance, when you

do this, and it is consuming of this entire village. So it

really really does take a village to and a community to

pull this off.

And not just the six hours of the play performance,

but the three hours in between. So you you do three hours, you

take a meal break, and then you come back for the final three

hours. Well, this is just a village of 5000 people. And the

play theater seats. I'm sorry, said five 5000 residents in

O'Brien regale the theater seats 5000. So every day the play is

performed. The number of people in the village dub Wow.

Which means all services in the village have to

come to are overwhelmed

when they don't have enough restaurants lodging, what

have your meal, all these people, it requires people

having folks in their home Oh, wow, to serve a meal to them. I

mean, it literally does take the whole village. So there are some

2500 people involved in the play itself, either as actors on the

stage, or stage hands, people doing behind the scenes work, or

all of the service related activity, shuttle bus drivers,

Usher's, you know, whatever it might mean. So it is something

that now has formed that community in a very, very

significant way

total immersion, really, totally immersed into

the mission immersion of the mission? Oh, yeah, kind of like

that, in terms of, you know, what if we, in our churches or

our communities, really became totally consumed or immersed in

whatever the mission may be, you know, helping homeless folks

whatever would be, you know, if we got truly immersed in that,

that would be an awesome thing to do.

And, you know, in all honesty, I talked to people

where they were very honest about their own faith. And some

of the damaging aspects of the Catholic Church that have

happened in the last few years, have really turned a good many

people away from the church, and people were honest about Yes. So

their commitment to carry out this this vow and and perform

this play every 10 years. It's not just their belief in God,

their faith in God, it there's also something about their

commitment to their community. And that because I am from this

village, and in former times it used to be that you had to be a

resident in the village a minimum 20 years. Before you

could be in the flight, sort of

like some churches, you got to be around 20 years.

On the ad board or whatever, the trustees especially. Yeah.

But, you know, the point being is that's the power

of the of the community of work.

And yet we're folk so some of the other I'm sorry,

go ahead. I was just saying, Get the focus. The focus of this is

about the passion story, the Passion Week story, right? And

about, yes, telling of that story, and the retelling of that

story, over and over and over again. I think there's some

power in the telling of the story. And then there's got to

be some lessons we can learn there about how we can reframe

the passion story to be relevant to our world right now. Because

there's some would say yeah, it is ancient. It is 400 years. Old

House irrelevant to me now. But I'd say a word about telling

story and retelling the story to be relevant now.

Oh, yeah. So one of my favorite chapters, preparing

it in the book is called telling a better story. So after the

chapter on community, there's a chapter about ritual. The

significance of this, of this sameness that this village

follows every 10 years, and it's more than the year you put on

the play. There are all kinds of traditions on the front end of

that. Then there's a chapter on living the story, how we make

our lives a stage, for God's story to be told. The last

chapters on the power of the cross, but the fifth chapter, we

dug into the negative aspects of passion plays in the history of

Europe, that very often passion plays would stir waves of anti

semitism. Because so many of the plays are presented from the

angle of DSI, the killing of God

by and then I use the Judas. Yeah, no,

yes, exactly. And, and so the current director, who

started his first year directing the passion play Christian

struggle, began in 1990. And his aim was to bring a change to the

way they told their story and the script and you go, Wait a

minute, how can you tell the passion story of Jesus

differently? I mean, it's, it's in the Bible, it's what it is,

you know, you can't change it. But as we all know, the way we

tell a story and understand the story, with the subtle nuances

and emphases that we give, can really change the meaning. And

the way this story was told over some years, the costuming that

was used, settle on, they actually had the Pharisees were

a type of hat that was meant to look like religious authority.

Okay, but the way they crafted those hats, they look like giant

horns, oh, my goodness, okay. Now without without saying a

word, what are you communicating their

message was clear when they made demonizing the

other,

and exactly, the total demonizing the other. They

made Judas look as dark as they could. And so Christian StuCo

takes over the play. And he changes the costume. And he

changes a lot of this emphasis so that people would have an

appreciation for the traditions and the values of Judaism. And

he really changed the way people saw Judas and spent time trying

to understand what Judas did, perhaps from an angle of really

wanting religious leadership to understand Jesus the way he

understood Jesus, as somebody who was trying to broker peace,

and and just help them to get it

that the draft some brief for this trying to change

things. Yeah.

Well, you know, in the in the initial efforts to

make any change without even knowing what the changes were,

be, there were reactions. Sure. When people experienced this,

the first time he saw that Judas was presented in a way that when

he realized the depth of what he had done, and he decides I have,

I have no no choice but to take my life. That's it. His grief is

that is just that deep, and gut wrenching to him. They say that

people in the audience were wiping tears from their eyes,

goodness, in previous place, when Judas takes us life, going

back, you know, 100 years, that might have been a time when

people broke out into applause, and cheers. So telling a better

story. Until it was very, very meaningful to me, because I just

think in a day and time, where so many people just struggle to

understand the challenges of people different from them. It

makes that chapter so rich, and so very meaningful, and even

stories of Obama gal, about World War Two, and they're not

censure and some incidences that actually happened in over amor

Gao. It to me was very powerful. And I think

one of the things we can learn from this story and

from your resource and talking about how people can get a hold

of this and so on, but we tell a better story. It has to be a

story that relates to our world right now and certainly the

context of the living in the pandemic and so on as part of

it. But I love the story you told in in your book Have to

fess up here, Rob. I'm a Cubs fan. I know that's hard for some

people to swallow the bar. But I really would like you to share a

little bit about the story of Steve Bartman, and how that

might relate to how we can really take the context of a

life transformation story that's here into our modern context.

Would you go there, please? Well,

well, you might, you can set it up or I can set it up

what year was that? They played the Marlins.

1999 2003 or something like that.

No, that's right. That's right. Yeah, it was in

the 2000. I'm sorry, I am way off. It was in the 2000s. There

legitimate chance of the World Series in forever,

you know,

bingo. And they are ahead and in command of winning

the National League Championship in Chicago. And in a crucial

moment in the game foul ball hit to the side, Steve Bartman, they

are wearing his cubs hat does what any of us would do reach up

to catch Foul ball. And at first it looked like he tangled up

with the out of the Cubs outfielder trying to make the

catch. If he makes the catch, it's the third out of the

inning. They're done. That's the game and he's not able to make

the catch. Oh, yeah. And so that began an eight run inning or at

least it went on for an eight run ending with two outs right?

The Marlins scored eight runs. When the game they end up going

game seven in Miami, they win national championship. In that

moment, the crowd around Steve Bartman was so angry, so

vicious, yelling threats at him, throwing things at them, that

security had to come down and, and lead him out. And they took

him to a private room, where he remained until everybody had

cleared the stadium after the game. And then they let him go

home. And there are great stories about him. In fact, when

the Cubs won the World Series Finally, after what, 108 years

2016 2016 they win, they did the ring ceremony for everybody on

that team. They had Bartman come to present a ring to him. And

there's just a really beautiful statement that he makes. But the

the point, the point is,

he uh, he had, he took a lot of abuse for years

after the accident. And then there was a time of redemption,

a retelling of the story here. And I'd say I love this and I'm

hopeful and about stories like Oprah grab, right, gosh, Oprah

gram ago and the passion play and Steve Barba and others were,

you know, the time we live in right now, Rob, which is so

polarized in, in politics, in culture, about matters of the

environment, all kinds of things, and certainly in our

church with schisms and so on at hand. I'm hopeful that we can

come out of a time of chaos, and despair, right. And maybe maybe

years down the road, who knows, but we can come to a time of

healing and wholeness. I was noticed that in the Google put

out a video that the greatest search items for to the tune of

2021, that all number of things were the greatest searches on

Google. And the top search item was the phrase how to heal. And

just very interested in that in terms of how that implies that

we, you know, if you if you want to if you search for how to

heal, that means you're broken, you're hurting, you're in pain.

So I just think we're at a time when we need a retelling of the

story. And perhaps this resource can help to do that. So how do

you see this resource, perhaps being helpful? As local churches

use this, as other entities may people read the book or churches

use this resource? I think you know, I

think it has a number of dimensions. It has a

number of dimensions to it. I think there's a level of just a

personal faith connection. As we think about things like vows and

how we've been shaped, and the way God has been present through

our lives. The ritual, you know, the rituals of our lives, and

what's important to us what helps connect us to God, the way

we let our lives tell a story. So it's a book that just makes

you pause and think about your own life. It also has the

element to it like the chapter on community, where in a group,

if you do the study that way, it is a great opportunity to just

think about what's going on in human community in our world

right now and in our country. And why are we so divided? And

what would help? What are our own Christian values that maybe

we need to just be more intentional about practicing and

lifting up? Sometimes churches it's a great opportunity for a

church to say, how are we doing in Unity? How are we

experiencing division right now? And what can we do about that?

What can we do to help our own community live together? other

better. And then I think some of the other chapters, like telling

a better story. It to me, there's just a lot of applicable

value there for people living in some kind of brokenness for

groups of people struggling to understand others, and how we

all have that have that opportunity to go, Wait a minute

there. We get so worked up and what is truth these days? What

is true, what is true? Well, if you think about it, some of the

most powerful life changing events of the Gospel were based

on untruths. There was no prodigal son, Jesus made up the

story. It was fiction. There was no good Samaritan, Jesus made up

the story. pure fiction, not true. But it was true. Because

what he's talking about is the power of forgiveness, and the

power of compassion and understanding that can change

our lives for the better. Now that's truth. So it's a great

way to say wait a minute, what's, what's a better story

that I can tell, that points to something that I really do

believe deep down is true. And I want my life to reflect that

transformation part of the Bible and of the of our

Christian walk, it is the passion story, it is the story

of going you know, from all the passionate moments, of betrayal,

of hurt, pain, of, of denial, all of that all the way through,

you know, he ridiculed, and then did a crucifixion and the

resurrection is take through through all walks of life. One

last thing I would say about it, that was fun, too.

Because anytime you work on a while, you know this as a pastor

working on a sermon, you learn a lot when you're doing your study

and homework and working on the last chapter on the power of the

cross. And thinking about the crucifix in the Catholic faith

and where that comes from and what's meaningful about it. I

did a lot of historical research that was rich and meaningful.

But I tell a story in the book about the crucifix that is

outside of the church in Oberammergau. And it's it's a

life sized crucifix on the wall of the church. And Jesus is, is

on the cross with eyes opened. And of course, as Christians, we

have trouble with the crucifix in the first place, we believe,

empty cross it's Easter's resurrection, we want to get on

to victory and celebration, right? There's something about

the body of Christ on the cross, that keeps us humble, that keeps

us aware of the price God pays on our behalf. And I believe

it's meant to put in us a sense of our own value and worth in

God's eyes. And to keep us humble, and also grateful. So

the last day of filming there, it's toward evening, the day

lights fading. And we filmed the last piece and um, for the who

did the filming, to kind of get all the equipment packed up.

He's off at a different part of the cemetery outside the church.

And I'm there by myself and I'm walking underneath that

crucifix. And the eyes of Jesus are in such a way that no matter

where you're standing, it feels like he's looking right at you.

Oh, wow. And I just remembered standing there that evening,

looking up at the cross Jesus looking at me. And all I could

just say in a prayer was Thank you. Wow, thank you and I Tran

the rows there, there is a power power that I believe everything

about this play in this resource is meant to take us to and that

is how much we mean to guys. And that's the goal. Well, that's

awesome. What tell us what, what folks let's say

there's a local church pastor or a group that thinks Okay, here's

a possible resource for the Lenten season or for Easter

time. Are they going to find this resource where they're

going to find in the you know, the book Leaders Guide the DVD

tell us a bit about what they're going to see visually on the

DVD? Just what what people can find in this resource?

Sure. So the DVD for the small group companions about

a six to 10 minute clip that you would watch each week for that

session. The scenery is absolutely stunning. The person

on our staff who went to film it just it's such a terrific job he

had a drone so you get these high aerial views of over amor

gow of the Alpine mountains. And so it's just absolutely

beautiful. There interviews with people from the village people

in the play the person who's going to be playing Jesus coming

up the director of the play, and I just think it makes it a lot

of fun to get that perspective. There is a media page that talks

about ways you can get the information through Instagram

through A Facebook and we can send this to you or we can show

it If you have that ability on the screen to show how people

can access the social resources that are available. It's through

Abington press. You can of course, get it through Amazon.

So you could just go to Amazon or Amazon and you know, put the

title, the passion play the living the story of Christ last

days, it would come up that way. Or you can email me or let me

tell you even better email my sister, okay, and she can send

the media page to anybody who reaches out to her Marsha ma R

SHA dot Thompson, Marcia Thompson at St. Luke's umc.com.

Okay, great. Well, we'll put links to that and all

the resources, all our links to all the media resources and how

people can get this resource at our website, United Methodist

podcast.com. It'll be in the show notes there and other ways

that we have this. And I just want to say that in a time of

great distress in our world, and in our lives personally and, and

in our society, I just said some nice things, we got to get back

to Jesus, we got to get back to the cross, oh, at some

foundational thing. And there's something to be said about the

history for almost 380 something years of this history. It's not

to be said about the devoutness the people there all through

history, all the ups and downs, interpersonally all the dynamics

that go on in any group of people. And certainly, you know,

in this particular circumstance, Germany, you got Nazi ism and

anti semitism and credible atrocities that have happened.

And we have lots of really ugly things going on our world right

now. But man, if we don't get back to kind of a focus on Jesus

focus on the cross as we Christian folks, you know, we're

really lost then. And so I will,

I will say, I will say, Brad that, you know, I'm

doing this resource again, right now, in a group here in the

church, two years later from when it was meant to be used. I

think it is more meaningful now than it would have been two

years ago. Because we understand the experience that brought

about this passion planogram ergo, we are living through our

own pandemic, we are experiencing our own divisions

and community. And, you know, we we have a need for Jesus in a

way that we didn't have two years ago. I think we're very, I

find it even that much richer,

wherever we're very aware now of our own humanity

and our own fragility of life and all kinds of other things.

And, yeah, what a better time than this. I just want to thank

you, Rob, you've been a very prolific in creating resources

and other things for the church of Phoenix be helpful to people

and latest resource and I'm going to hold it up because we

will be doing this on YouTube will be called is called the

passion play. Live in the store of Christ last days inspired by

the overgrow passion Spiel by Rob few clay. And what a great

resource you'll find connections at United Methodist podcast.com.

Rob, any last words of encouragement to folks that may

be listening to our voices to hear today?

No, I just encourage folks to give it a look and, and

hope that will be very meaningful. Again, I think for

people personally for groups that would do it together for

entire churches. And thank you, thanks for the chance just to

talk about it with you here today. As you can tell, I love

it because I got to go and be there at a wonderful time. As I

mentioned, it's online and experience something about the

community life the pride that they have in it. I was I was in

over amor gal 19 months before what was supposed to be the

first performance in 2020. So this was October 2018. That's

when they announced the cast and feeling. I mean, you got the

sense that this was really for the people who live there. This

was their special okay, because now they're celebrating their

kids and family members and neighbors who are going to be

announced in the upcoming play. And you just felt that pride and

so learning the history behind it and thinking about the

spiritual connections to our own lives today. It's just a story,

a film a

heritage and a legacy. Right so we appreciate

your contribution to this and in for being our guest today on the

United Methodist people podcast with Reverend Dr. Brad Miller.

Thank you to our guests, Pastor Reverend Rob refu clay Thank