Recreational Outrage: The Opening Ceremony of the 2024 France Olympics

Dave Jackson [00:00:00]:
Today on feeding my faith, should I be outraged over the Olympics opening ceremonies? Kick the doors open. Let the party begin. Hey. Welcome to Feeding My Faith. I'm Dave Jackson from the school of podcasting.com. This is where we try to make God simple. I love Jesus, hate religion. And, I don't know, did you see the opening ceremonies of the Olympics here in France 2024.

Dave Jackson [00:00:41]:
These people dancing around in robes and all this stuff. And the next day, look, I don't really watch the news because most of it is just commercials for, you know, drugs, and I I could not escape this story. People were losing their minds because the opening ceremonies mocked the Lord's supper. And I looked at it was like, holy cow. There's that person in the middle with like a little halo over their head and a bunch of people around the table, and I was like, sure. It looks like they're holy cow. And then I saw a picture of the da Vinci painting, and then I saw a screenshot of the opening ceremony. I was like, holy cow.

Dave Jackson [00:01:25]:
They're mocking the Lord's Supper. I don't believe this. I can't this is blasphemy. This is outrage. This is disrespect. I I hate it when non believers act like, non believers. Yeah. I couldn't believe it.

Dave Jackson [00:01:42]:
I mean, exactly how did they mock it? Oh, they dressed up in costumes and they went around the table and there was some big guy looked like Papa Smurf, but he was naked. Wait. What? I mean, at my church, we dressed up in old costumes and sat around a table. Is that wait. Hold on. And then I did a little research. Remember, there's that great book. No, not the Bible.

Dave Jackson [00:02:07]:
That's a great book. There's another book called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and one of those habits is understand before being understood. So I went to see, well, wait, did was that on purpose? Like, what's going on here? And the director of the opening ceremonies, he said that basically it was about, the feast of Dionysus, not the Lord's Supper, where Dionysus arrives at the table because he's the Greek god of celebration and that sequence is called festivity and the god of wine which is also a French jewel and father of sequana the goddess linked to the river sign. The idea was to create a big pagan party in link with the God of Mount Olympus and I'm like is that really the first impression you want of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics? Okay. And he says and you will never find me or my work or anyone really mocking anyone. You know, my great first impression, viva la France. Okay. If that's what you say.

Dave Jackson [00:03:13]:
And I get it. I saw a lot of people losing their minds. Christians. Like, look, Dave. I'm I'm offended. I'm I'm just offended. And when you're offended, what happens? You are quick to anger and we head for the nearest platform, your phone, your computer, whatever it is, and you take part in America's number one activity, no not pickleball, recreational outrage, and you just tell everyone, you're wrong. You're wrong.

Dave Jackson [00:03:44]:
This is wrong. You're all out of order. Right? But wait. What does the Bible say again? James 119. Know this, my beloved brothers, let every person be quick to hear slow to speak and slow to anger. So am I mad at these people? Let's let's go with they were mocking the lord's supper. You make up your own mind on that, but let's just for giggles. Let's say they were doing that on purpose.

Dave Jackson [00:04:18]:
Am I mad at these people? I mean, I'm I'm not going to get mad at sinners for sinning, right? I mean, do we get mad if we get a puppy and it pees on the floor? I mean, isn't that what they do? Right? And I know you might be saying, no, Dave. You don't get it, though. I am seriously offended. Like, how am I supposed to react? Well, as Christians, I mean, Jesus said it's gonna get worse before it gets better. So we really shouldn't be offended by anything the world does. I mean, if you think about it, we know better. They don't. And the truth is, as I researched this, look, I could have gone either way on this particular topic because I saw like God shall not be mocked and I was like, But then I saw a lot of other scriptures about not being offended.

Dave Jackson [00:05:31]:
And there's a guy on Facebook. I think his name is Kenny k. I'll put a link to him. He had to make great point. He said, offense is the bait of Satan. Right? So just picture of Satan on a boat throws out his reel. Ring. Right? We take the bait on that.

Dave Jackson [00:05:52]:
We get all outraged. And then he says when you think about it, when you are outraged, you're what? You're filled with hate, disgust, outrage. Are you really in the best place to communicate with God? Because you've got a whole different lens you're looking through and Satan's pretty happy about that. The other thing I thought was interesting as I did some research on this, there was I saw many, many screenshots of here's the da Vinci painting. Here's the opening ceremonies, and you'd see that. But then I saw one. It was da Vinci opening ceremonies and then this other picture where someone had altered the da Vinci photo. So it wasn't like, hey, is that the Lord's Supper? It's like, no, it's the Lord's Supper, and they had taken Jesus out of the picture.

Dave Jackson [00:06:43]:
And I was like, wait, hold on. They're doing what to who the And what did they put in place of Jesus? Yeah. Donald Trump and not a peep. So if it's so wrong to, you know, alter this picture and you're mocking God and but your Jesus and disrespect, yeah, unless you put Donald Trump in there? Wait. Hold on. Which then you go, wait. What's the difference between this and that? Oh, those were trans people. So Satan is like, yep.

Dave Jackson [00:07:13]:
Gotcha again. Because now you look like homophobes and transphobes and every other kind of phobes there are. Probably got a pretty good laugh out of that. Because I didn't hear anybody saying I'm outraged that they altered this this picture and so what we need to do and sometimes for some people this is easier said than done. We need to separate the sin from the people because I realize you're like, Dave, that's evil. Okay. That's what you believe, but I'm not saying being tolerant of evil and going, ah, no big deal. No.

Dave Jackson [00:07:55]:
No. No. We gotta gotta keep our eye on that. But we should hate the evil in the world, but we should love the people. Again, sometimes a little harder for some people to do and then people are like wait a minute Dave this outrage thing it's okay to be outraged you're like really they're like yeah of course because, you know, Jesus overturned the tables. And you're like, okay. Yeah. Okay.

Dave Jackson [00:08:28]:
Got it. Totally see that but where was he again when he did that oh that's right he was in the church And, who was doing all this bad stuff? Oh, that's right. The the church. And so it wasn't a bunch of non believers. It was believers. It was the people in the church and there's a that makes that a completely different situation. 1 is basically going to believers and going, hey, knock it off. And the other one is attempting to be the light in what appears to be a very dark world.

Dave Jackson [00:09:10]:
Apples, oranges. So I'm sorry if you're like, oh, I can't wait to play that card. And have you ever, when you were growing up played your parents, right? You knew what pushed their buttons. I put on Oscar award winning winning performances. As a kid, I could throw a tantrum and within 5 to 10 minutes, I had my mom in the palm of my hand and, you know, what if they did this on purpose to offend us, and what if they went out and they said, hey, look. Look. We're mocking your God. See? We're mocking God.

Dave Jackson [00:09:58]:
Hey. It's your God. Isn't this your number one guy, your Lord savior? Look. We're mocking him. What if we instead of going, how dare you? What if we replied, you know, aren't you? Look look aren't you offended aren't you offended? No no I'm I'm not offended actually because, I love you and you could be doing so much more with your life right now. God has a plan for you and I don't think this is it. What if we said that? That would be different, right? And I always go back to the one of the best marketing strategies for Christians is when they were thrown to the lions. Right? Have a bunch of people in a stadium, throw the Christians out there.

Dave Jackson [00:10:51]:
They're sitting in the middle of the ring. Lions come out. What do they do? Do they run and scream? Do they cry? No, they prayed. They prayed and people went wait, this isn't any good. This isn't any fun. These people were weird. Big big, must have been a sale on the word weird this week. It's been used a lot.

Dave Jackson [00:11:15]:
But nonetheless, it looked weird because everybody else was screaming and running fighting for their lives. Nah. And so when we react in a way that's different from the world, we are gonna look a little strange. Like well that's different. And that difference is what draws people. They're like I got to check into what's going on. This seems weird and I get it. They're like Dave, but I'm I'm really upset.

Dave Jackson [00:11:45]:
Come on. I want a onward Christian soldiers. I want to stand up stand up for Jesus. Okay. I get that. I really do. But does God really need us to fight his battles? In Exodus 14 it said the Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still.

Dave Jackson [00:12:07]:
And I get it. You want to stand up for Jesus. Well, okay, stand in love because God has been defending his name for quite some time. He's pretty good at it, and our job is to trust in his promises and be that light that he's called us to be. After all. What's that verse? You've probably heard this one. Vengeance is what Right? Romans 12/19. Vengeance is mine, not yours.

Dave Jackson [00:12:43]:
Not, hey, can you take care of this for me? No. God said no vengeance is mine. I got it. I got it. Don't worry about it. And the other thing you have to keep in mind sometimes when we want to do protests, we grab our torches and our pitchforks and our signs. We're all set. They don't always work.

Dave Jackson [00:13:05]:
Sometimes all we're doing is putting a flashlight on behavior that shouldn't be rewarded. In 1985, 19 record labels started using the parental guidance explicit lyrics sticker. That's when it was invented. It took 5 years for an album to come out that had the song f the police on it. But in 1990, 0% of the songs of like the top 20 or the top charts or whatever, 0% were marked explicit. Fast forward to 2021, 40% were marked explicit. So a little over 10 years. Now why were 40% marked explicit? Oh, it's simple.

Dave Jackson [00:13:54]:
They sold more. You put a sticker on an album and tell a kid you can't listen to it. That's all they want to do and it worked. Have you ever told a teenage girl not to date a specific boy? You're like, yeah, Dave. I did. He's my son-in-law. He's still a loser. Turned into Hank Hill all of a sudden.

Dave Jackson [00:14:15]:
Bobby, propane and propane accessories. Alright. Anyway, here's another one. Joe Rogan in 2020, got a deal, 200 $1,000,000 to do his podcast and to do it only on Spotify. Now, Joe brought up the drug. Again, remember the times here, 2020. So the pandemic's going on, and Joe brings up the Nobel committee back in 2015. They nominated ivermectin for an award and if you don't remember ivermectin it's a multifaceted drug and in 2021, it was found notable, it helped to reduce COVID fatalities.

Dave Jackson [00:15:12]:
And what was interesting about that is, you know, big pharma owns the media and ivermectin is really cheap. Well, you can't have that. So they got the media together and they're like, hey, this guy, that's it we're all gonna get on Joe Rogan he's a horrible human being he's he's putting out misinformation and you know, it's horse dewormer. He's telling people to eat horse dewormer. Right. Regardless of the awards, I believe it was ivermectin. It might have been the other one that actually helped World War 1 veterans, but you know this guy is crazy and the musicians Neil Young and then the next day Joni Mitchell and then the next day Crosby Stills and Nash they all pulled their music from Spotify which would have been a brilliant idea if it was 1970. But alas it was not and it didn't really have much effect.

Dave Jackson [00:16:11]:
Fast forward to 2024. First of all, all those musicians have since brought their music back because, you know, they need to eat. But in 2024, Joe got a new contract for $250,000,000 and, oh, that whole exclusive thing, you can only get me on Spotify? Yeah. He can be anywhere. So that's one example. I got another one here real quick. Colin Kaepernick was a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers and he really hated injustice. He kept noticing there were a lot of, innocent black males getting killed, and that seemed to kind of upset him a bit, upset me a bit.

Dave Jackson [00:16:59]:
And the media got a hold of that, and we were told that somehow he didn't like the troops. He didn't like the troops. America. Okay. And it went on and on. Did anybody try to understand before being understood and go, hey, Colin. What's your deal? Why you kneeling during the, during the national anthem? Because he would have said, I need people to look at the injustice that's going on. Nobody's talking about the fact that all these innocent black males are getting killed, and nobody seems to care.

Dave Jackson [00:17:30]:
No. They just America. He hates the troops. And it was this whole big thing. Are you gonna kneel or not? And or the team. It was a whole big deal. And so what happened? Well, Nike gave him an advertisement deal. And people were like, oh, how can you he's got a pair of shoes.

Dave Jackson [00:17:49]:
You can't do that, America. Troops. Nobody's talking about hey. Does this guy have a point about the people getting killed? Nope. Nope. Just America. True. Shoes.

Dave Jackson [00:17:58]:
Burn the shoes. Everybody burn your shoes. Right. Well, it turns out all that that extra America, burn your shoes kind of thing. Yeah. The shoes took right off. I think people bought them to burn them, but, nonetheless, that campaign didn't really work. In the end, Colin got paid, and Nike sold some shoes.

Dave Jackson [00:18:19]:
America. Good job. So when I say there are plenty of passages in the Bible, Proverbs 19, good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory. So when you think about his glory, think about God's maturity to overlook an offense. In Leviticus 1918, you shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge, yet the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. Colossians 3:13, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other. As the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Dave Jackson [00:19:17]:
Romans 3 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And I get it. Sometimes somebody says something and it just goes right through your heart, and it hurts. Been there, done that, got the t shirt, but being offended, that's a choice made by us. Now, often, it's a knee jerk reaction to being hurt. Hurt is very much an emotion and offense is very much a logical thing, but it doesn't seem that way because it was triggered by hurt. But hurt requires healing and offense requires an objective opinion and it requires a dose of just letting it go. It's a choice.

Dave Jackson [00:20:14]:
You can choose to hold on to it, and I think that's what the media wants us to do. The media wants us all mad at each other. How can you even think that? Right? Because we're too busy getting mad at each other to notice what they're doing behind the scenes. And so what do we do? Well, we end up screaming at each other and we end up screaming what we're against And as Christians, we shouldn't be responding the way the world does. I feel bad for any middle aged white woman named Karen. But if you go to YouTube and type in Karen losing her cool, there are plenty of videos of recreational outrage, and I realize that that's given Karen's a bad name. I have a cousin Karen who's absolutely amazing. So but there are some people out there and they're just losing it and so we shouldn't be responding the way the world does because we have something the world doesn't have.

Dave Jackson [00:21:18]:
You see, if we truly wanna make a change in this world for Jesus, we need to stop talking so much about what we're against and start telling people what we're for and what we're for is Jesus changing lives. What we're for is the love of Jesus being all that we need and forgiveness forgiveness forgiveness. Romans 12:2, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. And I get it. You're like, Dave, I understand. I still feel hurt, and they're getting away with it. We can't let them get away with it. Well, that sounds like a competition, but are we really letting them get away with it? Do you do you not think God is taking notes? Right? It's better instead of holding on to them, fighting God's fight that we don't need to fight.

Dave Jackson [00:22:24]:
He's got it handled. God is always in control. We could be giving them to the Lord. Just offer them up in prayer. Plant that seed because you know who wasn't offended? Jesus. I mean, think about it. If you go to the Lord's prayer, what does it say? Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. And what about as they're putting nails in his hands and his feet? Forgive them for, you know, father forgive them for they know not what they do.

Dave Jackson [00:23:11]:
Didn't seem too offended. And I'm gonna get a little loosey goosey here with the scripture, so bear with me. But I just wanna I just wanna put a scene out there in your head, right? A little theater of the mind. We know the picture of the last supper. We've seen da Vinci's picture. But what if Jesus just bear with me. Stay with me here. What if Jesus was fashionably late? Alright.

Dave Jackson [00:23:41]:
All the boys are already lined up. They got a seat for him in the middle. He walks in, looks at Thomas. In his head, he's probably thinking, yep. That guy's gonna doubt me in about a couple hours. He looks at Peter. Yep. That guy's gonna deny me pretty soon.

Dave Jackson [00:24:06]:
So he walks in, sees Thomas. Yeah. That guy's gonna doubt me. What's up, Tommy? Little fist bump. Pete. What's up, Pete? Good to see you, buddy. Jesus knows. Yeah.

Dave Jackson [00:24:22]:
That's the guy that's gonna deny me. Not once, not twice, but three times. Matthew, you know, back in the day, dirty, dirty tax collector. There's nobody worse than a tax collector, and there he is at Jesus table and, of course, Judas. Jesus knew all these guys. Well, Matthew didn't, but, you know, they they were all going to betray him in one way or another here, and, he wasn't offended. In fact, what did he do? He washed their feet. He washed their feet knowing that that guy was gonna doubt me.

Dave Jackson [00:25:09]:
That was guy was gonna deny me, and that guy is gonna betray me. He washed their feet. I mean even later when they went out in the garden and Jesus got arrested in Luke 22:49 when Jesus followers saw what was gonna happen, uh-uh Not gonna take my Jesus. Can't arrest him. They said, Lord, should we strike with our swords? And one of them, that was Peter, struck the servant of the high priest cutting off his right ear. But Jesus answered, no more of this. And he touched the man's ear and healed him. It doesn't sound too offended.

Dave Jackson [00:25:56]:
Recreational outrage. It doesn't seem to be working as a strategy. Do you think? Is anybody are we changing anybody's mind screaming at them? We're falling into Satan's trap. We are known more for our hate. Jesus overturned the tables. How many times? And then how many times did he show love and compassion? Well, maybe we should try love, compassion, and forgiveness. I hope you found this episode helpful. I hope you think twice maybe the next time you see some bait out there put out there by Satan.

Dave Jackson [00:26:51]:
If you know somebody who likes to play in the American pastime that is recreational outrage and they're a believer, remember Jesus turned over the tables because it was the believers that were acting like, well, nonbelievers in a way. Could you do me a favor and and share it with them? That would be awesome. The website feeding my faith dot com, if you feel so moved, and we got a donate button out there somewhere. I'm Dave Jackson from the school of podcasting.com. I help podcasters. It's what I do, and I'm hoping I'm helping you realize that, there's a big difference between religion and God. Take care.