Taylor Swift, Splinters and the Golden Rule | Rev. Adam Hamilton | Church of the Resurrection

2:17 things that Jesus said. In fact, one thing that may be the most important ethical teaching and summary of his ethical teaching that we find in all the New Testament. And so we're going to explore once more the Sermon on the Mount as we turn to Matthew chapter 7. If you have your Bible, turn to Matthew chapter 7. But before we do that, I want to mention Taylor Swift. So last week, I was watching an interview with Taylor Swift that the New York Times conducted. There was a video that you could watch, and it was a part of a series they were doing on the 30 greatest living songwriters today. And so they were focused on Taylor Swift, and in it, it got me thinking about, as I was listening, this sermon. So Taylor released her first album when she was just 16 years old. This is that first album. She was just 16 and became a hit album. Her second album she released when she was just 18 years old, and it became, it sold, I think, eight million copies, maybe more than that. Fearless was the name of it. That year, she won Album of the Year, Best Country Album, Best Female Country Vocal, and Best Country Song at the Grammys.

3:16 But with her success came relentless criticism. The critics sought to question whether she really wrote her songs. Maybe she was relying too much on other people. How much of that song did she really write, they would ask. They criticized her vocals. Anytime she didn't quite hit the note exactly right, they criticized that. They said that she was weak in her vocals. She didn't really have good vocals. They said that she didn't deserve the awards. She was 18 and then 19 when all of these criticisms came through. And I want to just imagine what it feels like for an 18-year-old young woman to be just bashed with these criticisms, right? So that's where we want to start today is this idea of criticism. And I want to ask a question of you. Can you think of a time when you were judged harshly, when you were judged unfairly, when somebody was questioning your motives or your gifts or why you were doing what you were doing or whether you had the skills to be doing it or whether you deserve to be where you were. Or maybe they were just trying to find some reason to knock you down.

4:07 They disliked you. Or maybe you'd achieve some measure of success. I mean, most of the time, people don't start knocking you down until you've started to rise up a little bit. And that's what happened with Taylor when she started selling millions of albums and winning all these awards. Well, then it came time for people to just start bashing and beating on her and the haters and the critics. So I was thinking about how we feel when that happens. You've had it happen to you. I know you have. I've had it happen to me before. This is a part of life. This is going to happen in life. And the question is, what do you do with it? Now, you can either be crushed by those words or you can rise above them. You can quit or you can keep moving forward. You can learn from them. Sometimes there's some valuable criticism in there, even if there's a lot of things that are just invalid, but there's something you might be able to learn from them and you move forward or you just throw up your hands and you go hide, right? And I mentioned this in a sermon a couple of weeks ago, that if your fear of criticism, like none of us likes to be criticized or likes people to say things that are hurtful or hateful or inaccurate or unfounded about us, making things up about us, nobody likes that. But if you live your life afraid of that, you're never going to accomplish anything in life, right? This is a part of it. If you're going to go for something, if you're going to make a difference, if you're going to have an impact, if you're going to pursue your dreams, you're going to have people trying to knock you down and you either give into their criticisms and the horrible things they say sometimes, or you say, I'm going to continue to move forward. I'm going to keep my head high. I'm going to learn everything I can, and I'm going to move forward. So in the New York Times article, or actually in the video interview, near the end of the interview, it was a 30-minute interview, near the end, Taylor Swift notes this.

5:45 Criticism has been like a fuel for me, like a huge jumping off point, like a creative writing prompt. And then she mentions one of her songs, Antihero. Antihero is a song that I'm so proud of still. That song doesn't exist if I don't get criticized for every aspect of my personality that people have a problem with. My favorite thing when I sit down with news singers or songwriters is I'm like, why are you reading your comments? That is the social media comments. Like that's too much of it. You're inundating yourself with too much criticism. But a little bit of it is just, that's just a part of it. Like don't make this make you stop writing. don't respond to the trolls in your comments. This week, I was speaking with one of our church members, and she was describing the criticism she'd been experiencing and how devastating that was or how hard it was for her. That's life, and this is gonna happen. But here's the thing, the people who make a difference, and I've taught this across the country to leaders in almost every annual conference in the United Methodist Church, is leaders who make a difference don't give up in the face of criticism.

6:43 They persevere. And Jesus is the pinnacle example of that. seven times across the gospels, maybe more, but at least seven times across the gospels, his critics said that he had demons, that he healed the sick and cast out demons by the power of the prince of demons. And when he got to the end of his life, they accused him of blasphemy, right, of being a heretic, and then ultimately of trying to lead an insurrection where he was trying to wage a war against the Romans, and they had him crucified for that, right? Jesus didn't give up. The biblical figures, all of them who made any difference at all, were all criticized. They had people who are sometimes waging wars against them, but they refuse to give up. Learn from the criticism, but don't give up. Don't give in. Don't be crushed by the criticism. All right, so that leads me to what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 7. So interestingly enough, he knows all of this, and this is coming for the disciples. And earlier in the gospel, earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, he says, you know, that rejoice and be glad when people say all kinds of terrible things about you, right? Because he knows it's going to happen to them, and it's going to happen to him.

7:43 But when we get to Matthew chapter seven, he doesn't address all the haters. You know, you'd really like him to say, well, all of you people who say horrible things about other people, you know, woe unto you, but he doesn't do that in the Sermon on the Mount. Instead, he turns to his disciples and he says, don't you do this now. Like it's coming for you, but don't you do this. I mean, listen to what he says. Don't judge so that you won't be judged. You'll receive the same judgment you give. Whatever you deal out will be dealt out to you. Now notice he has to say this to his disciples because he knows his disciples are just like every other human being. We are all prone to judging other people. We're all prone when somebody, you know, maybe they've done really well in the workplace or maybe somebody at school has excelled or whatever else. There's a tendency within us to be able to just take them down a notch, right? Or to tell our friends the things that are wrong with them or what they don't like about them. I remember when Church of the Resurrection, when we first started and the church began to grow and, you know, about four or five years into this, and there was plenty of people out there who were, you know, offering their criticisms of resurrection or of me personally.

8:40 and I walked into a room filled with pastors one day. And as I walked in, they got really quiet and somebody said, oh, we were just talking about you. And I'm like, oh, okay. And of course it wasn't like, yeah, we were saying how great you were doing. No, you knew the silence meant we were talking about all the reasons why you're not a real United Methodist, why you're doing it all wrong, and yet the church is growing. I mean, that's just what people do. And you either get destroyed by that or you keep going. But what Jesus again is saying here is don't you do that to each other. Even preachers get to do that to each other. Lay people do it to each other. No matter who you are, there's a tendency inside of us to actually practice these kinds of things. These are not virtues. This is the sinful part of us where we find ourselves criticizing others. So then Jesus says this, why do you see the splinter that's in your brother's or sister's eye, but don't notice the log in your own eye? How can you say to your brother or sister, let me take the splinter out of your eye when there's a log in your own eye?

9:38 You deceive yourselves. First take the log out of your eye, and then you'll see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother or sister's eye. Now, I love this imagery, right? And this is once more, Jesus speaks in hyperbole. He exaggerates to make a point, but the imagery is beautiful. And I've shared this with you before, but he's like, you know, why are you trying to take the splinter out of your own eye when you've got a log sticking, you know, or out of somebody else's eye when you've got a log sticking in your own eye? I mean, isn't that just so powerful to think about that? And here you are, you've got your tweezers, and now we got our tweezers, and we got our magnifying glass. No, no, no. Let me take that little thing out of your life. And all the while, you got something big sticking in your own eye, right? And this is how we sometimes are as humans. And what makes it easier today? I mean, it was clearly a problem in Jesus' day. What makes it easier today is social media. Like we can so easily be courageous, you know, keyboard warriors where we're criticizing other people and writing things. And we don't, you know, we don't even know if it's true. We make it up. We make assumptions. We assume the worst of other people instead of the best.

10:37 This is how life works. It's how it works in religion. It's how it works in our friendships and our schools. It's how it works in politics is we have this tendency to do this. And then we can go through and we can decide we're gonna read everybody's social media comments and we believe it about that person or we go, yeah, you know what? I know that person. That's just not true. Or better yet, just don't read the comments at all. Now, a lot of times comments are positive. Look for the positive ones, read those about yourself, but don't be destroyed by the negative comments. They're just gonna come. That's gonna happen. But again, Jesus is saying, don't you do that, right? Take the log out of your own eye before you start trying to take the splinter out of someone else's eye, all right? We see this, of course, in so many ways. And I think about this, you know, Jesus is saying this because we are the ones, we as his followers says, you, I just don't want you doing this. We get our magnifying glasses out. We point out the faults of other people. We criticize while wandering around with a log in our own eye.

11:31 We judge other people's motives. We assume the worst instead of the best. Jesus says, don't do that. Just stop doing it. Because this is what destroys societies. Right? So destroying us as a country right now is, you know, our infighting with each other. Theologian and biblical scholar John R.W. Stott rightly noted, we have a fatal tendency to exaggerate the faults of others and minimize the gravity of our own. So what I love about what Jesus is saying is, just make sure you notice your own faults before you start criticizing someone else. You're criticizing somebody else's driving? Have you checked your own driving lately? Are you, you know, are you, did you, you know, slightly run that, you know, you went out of turn at a stop, stop, stop. This happened to me. I shared it with you in a sermon. I was at a four-way stop and, and you know what? I didn't notice the person to my right and I went on through and they laid into their horn and I'm like, hey, I'm so sorry, you know, and, and, and then I was mad at them, you know, but then I thought, well, how many times have I been irritated? I've never laid into the horn like that, but irritated somebody else because they went out of turn, right? Inside. And the moment somebody does something, you can just go, hey, what have I done? In what ways have I not been the perfect parent? In what ways have I not, you know, been kind when I should have been? In what ways have I been short with other people? And all of a sudden you find it's just easier not to judge when you're clear about your own stuff. All right, so Jesus tells us not to judge. But then I want you to notice in Matthew chapter 7 verse 15, Jesus comes back and he tells us to judge. Now this is really interesting. He says, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. Okay, so, and he goes on to talk about beware of them, watch out for them. And, you know, Jesus kind of gets judgy sometimes, right?

13:09 Jesus, you know, he goes in and he cleanses the temple and he drives out the money changers. And in Matthew chapter, I think it's chapter 16, he says, yes, chapter 16, he says, beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. In Matthew chapter 23, he says, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but on the inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. I mean, he's telling us not to judge. And then he says, beware of these people, beware of their teachings, beware of... So which is it? Don't judge or judge? And the answer is both, right? So our demeanor in life should be to not judge other people. It's not to be assuming the worst about them. It's to assume the best about them. It's to find ways to be an encouragement instead of tearing people down. It's being aware of our own insecurities, which lead us to criticize other people. It's understanding the brokenness in us, which leads us to try to tear people down. We have to be aware of all that stuff and be aware of all of our own shortcomings before we start pointing out the shortcomings of others. And yet, there is a time when we have to practice discernment, when we have to look and see, hey, in this case, this person is genuinely hurting people. This person is acting in ways that are leaving people in their wake. We've got to say something in this case. Or we've got to be aware of it and just not follow that ourselves. So maybe we don't say anything, but we at least are aware, I don't want to practice what they are preaching or what they're living.

14:39 And so I think about this. There are times where we have to be able to discern. And what I love in the scriptures is Jesus, again, he tells us, now this is the way that we discern whether somebody is somebody we should be wary of. So this is what he says. Again, he says, watch out for false prophets. They come to you dressed like sheep, but inside they are vicious wolves. So sheep and wolves clothing. By the way, I've been called that before. been called that years ago when as a congregation, we were welcoming and we were saying, you know what, we are going to interpret the scriptures, five or six scriptures that say something about some form of same gender relationship in the light of the really big picture of scripture, which is the desperate love of God for us, the relentless love of God for us and what Jesus teaches us. So we're going to look to see scriptures complicated. We have hundreds of verses on slavery, but we don't look at those verses and say, well, we think we should have slaves today. We say they related to the socioeconomic and the social and political, times in which those scriptures are written. And when scriptures teach us that if your children are persistently disobedient, you take them to the elders and you have them stoned to death. Well, we don't do that today. We say, no, that doesn't really reflect God's will, but it did reflect something that was going on in the culture of that time. So we were saying the same thing when it came to, and so are millions of other Christians, that we need to read these handful of scriptures about same gender relationships in the same way. And that upset a lot of people.

16:01 And so there were people who were like, you're a wolf in sheep's clothing. And I'm like, well, I don't think so. I think we're following Jesus and what he stands for and what he was like, and we're recognizing the complexity of scripture and the historical situation in which it was written. But people are going to make those kind of judgment calls sometimes, right? And so Jesus says this. So when you're trying to decide how do you discern whether somebody is a wolf in sheep's clothing or not, he says, you will know them by their fruit. You will know them by their fruit. So look at the fruit they're producing, the fruit they're bearing in their personal lives. Look at the fruit they're bearing and how they're impacting other people. So when you think about that fruit, what is that fruit? Twice he tells us, you will know them by their fruit when you're making judgments like that. And in the end, you remember the fruit that he tells us to produce is love. We are meant to produce the fruit of love. So you look to see, is this person by their life, are they fostering love for other people or are they actually diminishing love for other people?

16:58 Do they seem themselves to practice and try to live a life of love? Nobody's perfect at that, but are they trying to live a life of love? But ultimately you're asking when it comes to somebody who might be dangerous, are they fostering love or hate, right? And that's what Jesus I think is talking about. Or I think about the apostle Paul who talked about the fruit of the spirit, Galatians 5, 22 and 23. Let's read these together. We've memorized them in the past. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. Just leave those up there on the screen for a moment. And I want you to look at those for a second. And it's what you need to think, if you're thinking about, you know, is somebody a wolf in sheep's clothing and Jesus says, you'll know them by their fruit. Does this look like the fruit of their lives? Or are they producing the opposite of all of these things? You know, which is instead of kindness, cruelty, or instead of joy, sorrow and pain, instead of love, are they producing hate?

17:53 I mean, this is how, you know, we are measuring. And when somebody's fostering this and they're, you know, they're leading to, whether it's their policies or actions or their words or the way they live or how they run their business, if they're doing things that are inconsistent with the fruit of the Spirit, then at the very least we'd say, you know, I'm going to be a little weary of following somebody who's producing the opposite of what Jesus told us to produce in their lives or through their companies or through their policies, whatever it might be. All right, so we're not to judge, but we're also to be weary. We're also to beware. We're also to practice discernment, right? So we started with, don't be crushed by criticism. That happens everywhere. But don't you be the ones who are crushing other people, right? But at the same time, if you see somebody who's crushing other people, you should be aware of that. And then that leads us to Matthew 7, verse 12.

18:46 So we're going to go back to Matthew 7, verse 12. And in this case, we're looking at, well, we're looking at what William Barclay, the great biblical scholar said, is the ethical Mount Everest. That is the golden rule. Now, one mom noted one morning, she said, following an evening of explaining the golden rule to my preschool daughter, Katie, I quizzed her, what's the golden rule, Katie? With a look of exasperation, she replied, I know, I know, the golden rule is you're my mommy. No, that is not the golden rule. So you know the golden rule, though, and let's put it up on the screen. Let's say it together. This is one translation of it, but let's put it up. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. By the way, today we have at core.org slash next a photo of this that you can download and then you can turn it into your wallpaper on your phone. You have this memorized already.

19:39 Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. But I thought what would happen if every time you picked up your phone, like we've done several times during this series, every time you picked up your phone, you saw the golden rule there. and it might just prompt you or remind you, hey, don't forget to live this. And I know you pick up your phones 20 times in a day, maybe more. So what if 20 times in a day, you happen to look down there and go, oh yeah, I got to do unto others as I would have them do unto me, right? So we're going to hold on to that golden rule this week. We're going to carry it with us on our phones. If you can download that at core.org slash next and make it your wallpaper, that would be great. So this rule applies to every part of life. Like, and it's interesting what Jesus says. So I want you to hear how it is actually in Matthew 7, 12. It's in everything, in everything, not just in some things, in everything, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In everything. Now notice how he ends this statement in Matthew 7, verse 12.

20:31 So again, look at it. In everything, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, for this is the law and the prophets. So in everything, do unto others as you'd have them do unto you, for this is the law and the prophets. He's saying this summarizes everything else in the scripture. Now, there was a very famous rabbi in the first century. He died when Jesus was probably five or six. Maybe Jesus was 10 by the time he died. He died in 10 AD. And Jesus was probably born in three or four BC. And so Jesus might've been seven. But Hillel was his name. He was a very famous rabbi. And somebody came to him and said, you know, who was not a Jew, he said, you know, I would gladly convert to Judaism if you can summarize the entire scripture, the entire Tanakh or the Torah and the prophets, the law, the prophets and the writings. If you can summarize it while I'm standing on one leg, I will be glad to convert to Judaism. And Hillel famously summarized it in this way. He said, what is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. This is the whole Torah. The rest is explanation. Go and learn. All right, I love that.

21:37 And so, but I want you to notice the difference between what Jesus taught and what Hillel taught. So what Hillel taught was also known. Confucius had some version of this. Some people call it the silver rule. If Jesus is giving us the golden rule, the silver rule was pretty well known. It shows up in kind of a sort of similar form in some songs that come out of the Buddhist tradition. Then there is Confucius. Then we have Hillel and others within the Jewish tradition. And as the silver rule is, it's don't do to other people what you don't want them to do to you. All right, so that's a pretty helpful rule, right? If you don't want somebody to steal your stuff, don't steal somebody else's stuff. If you don't want somebody to hit you, don't hit somebody else. If you don't want somebody to say mean things about you, don't say mean things about other people. So that is really great. That's a really great rule to live by, the silver rule. But Jesus changes it. And as far as I know, he is the only figure in the ancient world who offered us this version of the golden rule.

22:35 He doesn't say don't do to other people what you don't want done to you. He says positively do unto others what you would have them do unto you, right? It's relatively, it's not easy, but it's easier to just avoid doing harm to other people. You may remember within the Wesleyan tradition, there were three general rules. And the first one was avoid doing harm to other people. The second one was harder. Do all the good that you can as often as you can, everywhere that you can, to as many people as you can. That's how we often say it today. And so it's positively, that first word in the golden rule is do. Do. We are going to actively do. We're not just going to refrain from doing things we shouldn't do. We're going to actively do good to other people, right? So when we're actively doing good to other people, that encompasses the idea of refraining from doing harm. But it positively says, I'm going to do as much good as I can to people. So you're driving down the road and you see somebody who's on the side of the road and they need help.

23:31 You know, you say, well, I'm not going to, I'm not going to, I'll pull to the other lane and not get too close to them so I don't scare them. That's fine. You're not going to scare them. But Jesus' golden rule will say, what do I need to do to help them? I'm not going to harm other people with my words. I'm going to choose not to comment on social media in ways that are not appropriate, but what can I do to positively either correct misinformation or just to be positive in the things that I'm saying? How am I going to do that? What does it look like to love other people as opposed to merely not hating other people. You know, even in the realm of politics, this is important. So in 2024, we had our last campaign for kindness. So we've done this every two years, starting in 2020, 2022, 2024. And in 2024, our theme for five weeks, five weeks, right before the general election, was do unto others. And this was one of the TV spots that we ran. Take a look. Kindness, respect, compassion, love. How do you want to be treated? There's a phrase often referred to as the golden rule that simply states, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It's a call to treat others with the same kindness we would want to receive in return. Yet, during election season, it seems division and polarization are common headlines.

24:48 In a time filled with negativity, we have a choice to make. Choosing kindness isn't about avoiding our differences, but navigating them with respect and compassion. Kindness has the power to influence even more than an election. It strengthens relationships, neighborhoods, and communities. It helps us find common ground instead of taking sides. It allows us to disagree and remain friends. It builds bridges instead of walls. Let's vote for kindness, one small act at a time. I love this theme of doing others that we had two years ago. And the series of sermons, I went back and I was rereading them again. And if you ever go back and listen to my old sermons, go back and listen to the ones from 2024. It was in October of 2024. And those five sermons still spoke to me today about how, maybe even more than before, how we're meant to live our lives in the political realm and how we bring our faith into that.

25:44 And what we've talked about a lot here at Resurrection, in politics, but in all of life, is how do we build bridges? How do we bring people together? And part of that means that I'm not gonna assume the worst about you. And I'm not gonna judge you in the light of the worst people in your party, whether you're Republican or Democrat or whatever you happen to be. Maybe it's not about politics, something else, but I'm not gonna judge you. I'm not going to assume the worst about you. I'm gonna assume the best about you. I'm gonna find ways to bless you instead of tearing you down. And in our country, we so desperately need that today. This fall, we're gonna have another campaign like this, another kindness campaign. and it's going to be built around the theme of love one another. Jesus said, this is my commandment that you love one another. When he was asked, what are the greatest commandments you remember? Love God and love your neighbors or love yourself. In the Sermon on the Mount, we learned a couple of weeks ago, love even your enemy. I mean, so love, right? And it's interesting, do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. He says, this is the law and the prophets.

26:35 There's only one other time he says that. And he says that when he talks about the great commandments, love God and he says, love your neighbors or love yourself. This summarizes the law and the prophets. And what's interesting is when Jesus gives us the golden rule, you could actually summarize the golden rule in one word, love. Do unto others as you have them do unto you. You know what that is? That's agape. That's love. This is what we're called to be and to do. By the way, when it comes to the golden rule, this applies in marriage. In my life, every time I made a mistake when it came to my marriage, it was because I didn't love Levon as I love myself. It was because I was thinking more of me than I was thinking about her, and I wasn't thinking about her. Now, this is true in the workplace. This is true with friendships. This is true in all of our relationships. Don't judge. Don't be hypercritical. Don't be critical. Assume the best.

27:28 But then we come back and we say, and I'm going to do unto others as I have them do unto me. This changes everything when we live this golden rule. Now, by the way, some of us, we have the silver rule. Don't do to other people what you don't want done to you. Then we have the golden rule, do unto others what you'd have them do unto you. And then some have talked about a platinum rule, which is really a sort of reinterpreting or, you know, an imaginative interpretation of the golden rule. And the case of the platinum rule, it is do to others as they would have you do to them. Because sometimes what I would have done to me, you know, what I think is okay, may not feel okay to somebody else. And I found this out recently. I was, you know, I had said something to somebody and it was something I, I didn't think there was anything. I thought, well, this felt okay to me, but it hurt them. And they responded with a harsh word to me. And I kind of took a step back from that harsh word and I was defensive and said, fine, I'm sorry I offended you. You know that kind of apology, a non-apology apology. And that's what I did. I'm 61 years old and I've been trying to live this life you know, as a Christian, I still got it wrong. And it took me a couple days to sort of reflect upon that. And then I thought, why were they, you know, why were they upset by this thing that I thought was fine? I thought it was actually a good, you know, good thing that I'd said. And then I tried to see it through their eyes and I realized they saw it differently than I saw it.

28:54 And what I said didn't feel the way to them that it felt to me. And I had to go back and offer a real apology and say, I'm really sorry about this. I think I see why you felt the way you felt. You see, I needed to do unto that other person or say the thing that I said in the way they needed to be said, not how I thought was okay. And so sometimes, maybe oftentimes, we need to be asking the question, what does the other person need? And how do I do to them as they need done to them or as they would want done to them? Right, in any case, all of these are captured by the idea of love. Okay, so listen, take the log out of your own eye before you get your tweezers out and your magnifying glass to take the splinter out of someone else's eye, which generally means most of the time, leave your magnifying glass and splinters at home.

29:55 Sometimes you have to be wary. You have to be aware that there are people who are doing the opposite of love and they're hurting people. and you should and you need to be able to discern when that's happening. And sometimes you need to speak up for those who can't speak up for themselves. And Jesus gives us permission to do that and he models that for us when people are hurting other people. And so we have an opportunity. We have a need sometimes to do that, but we better be really careful that we have all of our facts right and that we are actually aware of what the motives are because there are many times we can assume the worst of somebody else and we don't have all the facts and then we start being a champion crusader for something we don't really know what we're talking about. So we need to be careful about that as well. And then finally, we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. We practice love or do unto them as they would have us do unto them. We practice love. Okay, so I wanna end by returning to Taylor Swift. It was 2011 when I saw Taylor Swift for the first time in concert.

30:49 Actually, the only time I ever saw her in a concert. Her tickets are pretty hard to come by. And so, but in 2011, she was not quite the big deal that she became. And she was already a pretty big deal. but, and it was down at, I think it was at the Sprint Center or maybe it was Kemper Arena. I can't remember. It was the Sprint Center. And one of our members said, Hey, you know, I've got some extra seats. Do you want to come? And so we're like, yeah, sure. We've, you know, we've heard of Taylor Swift. We don't really know much about her. And so LaVon and I went and we were surrounded by 19,000 screaming preteen girls and teenage girls and a few other adults who are around. And it was quite a concert. It was really quite remarkable. And this was 2011 after, So she'd recorded an album in 2010 after all the criticism she had received from her album Fearless. And in this new album, it was called Speak Now. She had some songs that reflected the hurt that she'd experienced. And one of those songs really touched me. It really touched me because it captured this idea of people bullying people and criticizing people and tearing them down. And so this is what it says. You with your words like knives and swords and weapons that use against me, you've knocked me off my feet again, got me feeling like a nothing. You with your voice like nails on a chalkboard, calling me out when I'm wounded. You picking on the weaker man. Well, you can take me down with just one single blow, but you don't know what you don't know. Someday I'll be living in a big old city and all you're ever going to be is mean.

32:26 So there are three things that we can do, right? We're all going to be criticized and judged and often unfairly, and you can give up or you can keep going. I want to encourage you to keep going. The people who make a difference, keep going. Second, we find ourselves tempted to take the splinter out of somebody else's eye while we've still got the log in our own. And I want to encourage you to not be the kind of people who are the haters and the people who are cutting people down. And because you feel threatened by somebody else's success, you try to tear them down. Let's not be those kind of people. Let's not do that. Let's not judge. Lest we be judged in the same measure that's used against, that we use against somebody else is going to be used against us. But sometimes there are policies and people and things that happen that hurt other people. And let's be the people who are willing to stand up and speak up for those who can't speak up for themselves and stand in the way of the bully and the person being bullied. And then finally, let's do unto others as we would have them do unto us. And here's the thing, if you don't do those things, guess what? All you're going to be is mean. Let's pray. God, we thank you for your love and grace. We thank you for your mercy. We thank you that you know and understand what it's like to be criticized and picked on and bullied and unfairly judged. You know that because it happened to you, Jesus. We pray that you would give us strength to keep our heads high, help us, oh Lord, to persevere and not to be silenced by the critics, but to learn from them. We pray, oh Lord, that you would help us when we see other people being hurt, to speak up for them, to stand in the way of the bully. And we pray, oh Lord, that you would help us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Help us to be these kind of Christians in Jesus' name.