I think we’ve been pressing into some of the implications of these ideas in our gatherings this semester. Think Veritas Forum and our What is the Bible discussions…Wish I would have known about this video. It would have been a great intro. BTW, isn’t it great that some of the greatest scholars and theologians of our time are using youtube to communicate!
From June 3 – Aug. 10 our Sunday gathering is going to start at 10am.
The Flight From Conversation – NY Times.com
So we read through this article up to this quote on Sunday, “Connecting in sips may work for gathering discrete bits of information or for saying, “I am thinking about you.” Or even for saying, “I love you.” But connecting in sips doesn’t work as well when it comes to understanding and knowing one another. In conversation we tend to one another. (The word itself is kinetic; it’s derived from words that mean to move, together.) We can attend to tone and nuance. In conversation, we are called upon to see things from another’s point of view.”
With I hope, love and respect, I shared that this, connecting in sips, and as was earlier talked about in the article, connecting, but not actually talking or knowing is the danger of performance, stage driven church gatherings; creating space where a bunch of people can do the same thing at the same time and feel connected, but actually remain individuals alone in their own ‘cock pits’. Creating a space that helps draw us out of loneliness and consumptive spirituality is very important to Fusion. God help us learn genuine hospitality…
Rom. 12:9 Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; 10 love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
dioko: literally to chase, pursue, run after. this is the word translated, extend… In other words, hospitality is something the community of Christ ought to literally chase down…
Heb. 13:1 Let mutual love continue. 2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. 3 Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.
1Pet. 4:8 Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Be hospitable to one another without complaining. 10 Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.
What does it mean to show hospitality? What are some of the things that you do to prepare to be hospitable?
philoxenos – hospitable
philoxenia – hospitality
xenos occurs from Mycenean Gk. and Homer onwards. Its root is connected with Lat. hostis, stranger, enemy, and Ger. Gast, Eng. guest.
philos; properly, a dear friend
Ie. treat a stranger or enemy as if they are your closest freind.
I know a lot of us have traveled abroad… How did it feel to be an outsider? Was there a moment where someone or a group of people made you feel like you were a dear friend? What did they do? Were you completely comfortable, or was there still some awkward outsider feelings?
When I was in Malawi, Africa, young children in the marketplace burst into tears seeing my face, as it was the only white face they had ever seen. While there, Luke became a good friend. He treated me like a brother. Even that though was different than my own culture. Often as we walked around the villages, he would take my hand in his and we would walk together. Another aspect of hospitality that truly amazes me is that in both Nepal, and Malawi, when eating at our hosts home; we were treated to a meal that may have cost a months wages. In many ways, it was almost difficult to accept the generosity of our hosts. That too, accepting with grace, is an important part of hospitality. We would dishonor our hosts if we tried to pay them back for their love and hospitality.
What is the difference between your best friend coming to your house and a stranger?
In primitive society the stranger is basically an enemy, because he is unknown and therefore sinister. Mutual fear and resistance are characteristic of the attitude of the foreigner and the people round him. Foreigners were often outlawed and put to death, or driven away cowed by magical practices. The stranger never had rights.
In the OT, hospitality was also a self-explanatory practice and duty. Israel’s law forbad the affliction of strangers, because the nation itself was a stranger in Egypt (Exod. 22:21; 23:9; Deut. 24:14). The stranger enjoyed the sabbath rest like the Israelite (Exod. 20:10). Yahweh loves and protects the stranger…
In the NT, Care of the xenos is care of Jesus Christ himself (Matt 25:31-46); refusal to provide hospitality to the stranger is to exclude Jesus himself. The gospels show Jesus as the frequent recipient of hospitality in his public ministry (Mk. 1:29 ff.; 2:15 ff.; Lk. 7:36 ff.; 10:38 ff.; and often). Hospitality has a regular role in the parables of Jesus (Lk. 10:34 f.; 11:5). God’s summons to his kingdom is depicted as a banquet (Lk. 13:29; 14:16 ff.; Lord’s Supper). Jesus sent out his disciples to proclaim the kingdom, expecting that they would enjoy hospitality in the towns and villages (Matt. 10:11 ff.; Lk. 10:5 ff.). In the missionary work of the early church missionaries enjoyed hospitality (Acts 10:6; 16:15; and often).
It’s important to recognize that the whole idea of philoxenos is the challenge of extending our love by means of hospitality out beyond the boundaries of those we are comfortable with to the stranger and other… And that seems to be at least alluded to in the hebrews and romans letters, though it’s good to note that in both cases the word stranger does not exist. it has been added in the english based on context… the peter passage however is very clearly focused on the importance of developing our love and hospitality within the church community in order that it can then be better extend outward to a world that might exploit it.
This is similar, I think, to the ideal of love in a marriage where a spouse can knowing s/he is loved and cared for can feel completely safe extending love to the other with no concern or insecurity about being left empty. There is a constant giving and receiving and living in a place of being full and loved. Each person in the relationship is then able to meet others from a place of love and abundance rather than out of emptiness and the longing for validation.
Read portions of 1 Peter
1:3-9 – This is the way of Heaven, living resurrection…
2:11-17 – living in a pagan world
3:8-16 – The new way of life
4:1-11 – Transformed Living, including hospitality
Read “The Early Christian Letters” pg. 77-78
“How does a Christian behave when surrounded by a world that doesn’t understand what we think we’re about, and is potentially hostile?
The answer comes in Peter’s quotation from Psalm 34. Seek peace, and follow after it…Don’t expect peace to come when you whistle. You have to do the work. You have to learn the new habit.
You have to learn it because it will be all too easy to lapse into the way many people behave. Here is the irony: Christians are supposed to stand out as distinctive, but when we do, and are mocked or criticized for it, we are tempted to mock and criticize right back – and then we are no longer distinctive, because we are behaving just like everyone else! Another victory for the hostile world…
The new habits of heart and life are, then, to be learned in the comparatively safe environment of the church itself, so that they can be practiced and applied in the wider world. Sadly, it’s all too easy to get this badly wrong, even in the church. But Peter, like Paul in one passage after another, insists on this as a basic rule of life: like-minded, sympathetic, loving, tender-hearted, and humble. We may think of some people as naturally tender-hearted, and others as naturally a bit rough and cross-grained. But the early Christians assumed that they were all called to become tender-hearted, however difficult that might be. That’s why we are given the Holy Spirit, to enable us to work at the new habits of heart and life.”
Seek peace and follow after it…practice the new habits of the heart in the relatively safe space of the church community… That’s where we’re at… What can we do to better foster these qualities and grow in hospitality as a church community?
LOTR Scene – Gandolf Returns
Resurrection can only occur when something dies…When it is completely given up for lost. And when resurrection does happen, the person or thing that has been raised is the very thing that has been lost, but has been transformed in a way that it is so far and away better and more glorious that it is barely recognizable…
Greys Anatomy – Merideth Dies
In this scene, I want to point out that resuscitation is simply the keeping alive of what was. The life, the idea, the reality that appeared to be lost returns, but it is not transformed. The body is still broken, the dream is still fearfully fragile…
However, for those who know the TV show, Greys Anatomy, this scene is both a resuscitation and a resurrection. Meredith’s body is resuscitated, but in the process of this experience, there has been a death and in her return to vitality, she has been transformed. She has in some way died to her fear of failure, of not living up to the expectations of her mother, and is able to move forward with a new sense of hope into her role as a Dr. and into the relationship she is questioning…
Is faith, dying to what you thought would bring you life, because you have come to trust that Jesus knows what he’s doing and that following him no matter how backwards or self defeating what he’s calling you to do seems, it will actually bring life?
The reality is that the disciples couldn’t fathom the glory of the resurrection either. Even when Jesus had tried to tell them…
They were still living within the idea that Jesus was going to overthrow Rome, renew the temple, and usher Israel into freedom and possibly leadership over the rest of the world. (another LOTR theme, With this ring, I would intend to do good, but…)
I’m convinced that the reason Judas committed suicide after Jesus was condemned to die is because he never saw what he was doing as a betrayal. He thought that he was just helping Jesus step into his role as messiah…(Matt 27:3)
The disciples had to die to what they thought would bring life, peace, & security.
Isn’t this the same thing Jesus had to do when he was tempted? He had to let go of striving to satisfy his own physical and emotional desires, he had to let go of his dreams, and his desire to influence the world for what he thought would be good. He had to die to manipulating relationships to achieve his goals in life… (LK 4)
What are you holding onto? What dream, idea, person, preferred future for your self, your kids, or others that you love, are you trying to keep breathing, because you feel like you would die without it? Maybe you’re frustrated at the way you have to live to keep this thing alive, but you see no other way… Is there an image, mistake, or opinion of someone you love and want to respect that keeps playing over and over in your head defining who you are? Is there anything that Father god is lovingly, gently pleading with you to let go, to let die, in order that you can experience a resurrection that though it won’t look exactly like the thing you’ve been holding onto, will be more glorious, life giving and fulfilling than what you hoped for and thought you needed?
Maybe you’ve been living this one way, with these certain patterns and habits for so long that you can’t even imagine doing it any other way.
The resurrection reminds us that another world is possible. That if the way we are living is killing us, that we don’t have to keep living that way…
Possibly share story of my family…
“In medicine, a “do not resuscitate” or “DNR” , sometimes called a “No Code”, is a legal order written either in the hospital or on a legal form to respect the wishes of a patient to not undergo CPR or advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) if their heart were to stop or they were to stop breathing. The term “code” is commonly used by medical professionals as a slang term for “calling in a Code Blue” to alert a hospital’s resuscitation team. The DNR request is usually made by the patient or health care power of attorney and allows the medical teams taking care of them to respect their wishes.” - wikipedia
Are there things that you need to attach a DNR or No Code to in your life?
It’s difficult to experience true joy, & life, when constantly investing all of ones energy and resources into keeping a corpse alive…
As we head outside to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ in song, bursting champaign, and fireworks, May you discover the grace and peace of God freeing you to let go of striving, enabling you to trust in the way of Jesus where life comes on the other side of death. And may you enter into more fully into the heaven meets earth world inaugurated by Jesus…
Since you’re not going outside to celebrate after reading this…you may find this song helpful, or cheesy, but for what it’s worth I like it…
Good Friday Worship Gathering 6:30pm, @ the Lighthouse
Following todays conversation initiated by Mike, who drew our attention to a passage of scripture where Jesus, we are told, emptied himself, vs grasping for equality with God, in order to be a servant…I wanted to reflect a bit about serving.
I’ve had a couple of conversations recently where guys have told me they really want to be a part of a community that does something. That acts, and serves rather than just sits around talking. “Thank God!”, because there is a serious lot of work to be done. I think, however, that there is an assumption in those comments that we are not yet, ‘doing’ anything.
The funny thing is that even now, we have more physically active needs left undone, than done. And that’s to say nothing of the service of active love that goes on within relationships every time we gather throughout the week.
I wonder, what constitutes serving?
Is it building cabinets, planting a garden, salting a driveway, vacuuming a rug, washing dishes, caring for the needs of others? Chopping wood?
Is it inspiring a group of guys to develop character? Leading PT and practicing Karate? Making food, teaching a beginner how to cook? Mentoring, helping someone develop a budget so they can live within their means? Is it being present and willing to listen as another person works out a thought or idea until they are confident to move forward in one or another direction? Is it sharing experience gained?
Is service learning about economic, political, and social trends surrounding injustice and suffering so that actions taken better bring the peace and care of God into the world?
Is it praying, forgiving, encouraging, cleaning? Practicing english with a friend who is just learning the language? Organizing events that bring people together across divides? Is it getting on the floor with a child? Telling stories, asking questions, initiating a hunger for God and what is true? Is it sitting and mourning with someone who is grieving? Sharing resources that enable others to thrive? Is it giving enough time to know what that need is?
I wonder if it’s possible to sum up serving in a to do list, or if what we really need is to become a community that is available with a serving heart ready to fill whatever need arises, no matter how great or small, with thoughtful love? And when it comes to the action list, I think only our imagination and commitment of time are in the way of ‘doing’ things.
We began this conversation with community observation on the Acts 8:26-40 story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. Then per the notes below a couple of interesting points that are easily missed in a casual reading were introduced. This led to one of the most engaging conversations our community has experienced together.
Lets start by just reading the story straight with our own basic assumptions vs. hearing the story in its own context.
Now lets try to listen for connections w/in history, to other scriptures and traditions that might help us understand why certain questions or statements have more meaning than we might think on a casual reading…
Hearing what’s being said does require interpretation and historical research, which is possible but not always straightforward or completely clear. But it’s worth the work because it reveals to us more powerfully what’s actually going on in a passage of the bible and what God might have been communicating through it to the people it was happening too.
Once we understand that, we have a chance at hearing the resonances of that same voice speaking to us today. This level of background knowledge is what we mean by the bible is real people in real places at real times. Each passage has a history. Each act, reaction, question, command…has a hx that deepens and often transforms how we understand the passage. To pretend none of that matters is to lock the bible in our own cultural and theological lenses and in many ways undermine its power to speak into and transform our own lives and culture.
Not all of us are going to agree on the implications, the application of the text, or how God uses it to speak to us in a given moment, but by going through the process of observing and interpreting, we might at least come to some agreement on what’s being said.
Review
Observation sparks the questions that might lead us to better understand the passage.
Interpretation happens as we try to reconstruct the past (to the best of our ability) and attempt to hear the story or understand what was said or happened as it unfolded for them.
Application is when we try to take the redemptive spirit of the original communication and allow it to speak into our own situations…
Helpful background for this story…
At this stage in the life of the church they are trying to spread the news…
Acts 1:8 and the narrative up to this point clues us into where this is primarily taking place so far. “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, judea, Samaria, and to the ends of earth…”
Jerusalem and Samaria are big cities. thats where you find the apostles going. that’s where you expect people to go if they want to communicate a message. go where the most people are…
Gaza – destroyed 100 yrs earlier, isn’t rebuilt until 30 years after this moment. Gaza was effectively a ghost town…
50 miles SW of Jerusalem. 2 day walk…
Not a great strategy… Does this tell us about the ways God works sometimes? And then, at the end of the day, it was never even about Gaza was it? It was actually about what would happen on the way to Gaza that was important, Philip never even gets to Gaza…
What about the Ethiopian Eunuch?
Is there something more the, going on when the Philip is asked, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?”
Actually, yes…
Deut. 23:1 No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the LORD.
If you have done something like that to yourself you will not be accepted because you have violated one of the core principles of Gods creative work in the world, which is that you are a co-creator with God and when you remove that part of your body from yourself you can no longer create… you are essentially a dead tree… you are not welcome in the assembly or community of believers…
Its also interesting that he was reading the scroll of Isaiah… because in the scroll of Isaiah it says something most interesting if you are a eunuch.
Is. 56:1 Thus says the LORD: Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed. 2 Happy is the mortal who does this, the one who holds it fast, who keeps the sabbath, not profaning it, and refrains from doing any evil.
Is. 56:3 Do not let the foreigner joined to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely separate me from his people”;and do not let the eunuch say, “I am just a dry tree.” 4 For thus says the LORD: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, 5 I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.
This is a direct contradiction of Deut. 23…which was part of the original covenant given to the people of God…
And if you follow the thought from IS 53 where he is reading as philip meets him, whats happening there is crucial to everything spoken about forgiveness, grace, fresh start and welcoming into the shalom of God that leads up to this pertinent passage…
Not only did this Eunuch receive the grace of God and get accepted into Gods family, but if we look at the Hx of the church, 2000 years later, the coptic orthodox church traces its hx to this Ethiopian Eunuch… A dry tree becomes father to a multitude. [sounds a lot like abraham and sarah...just a thought...]
This is the story…what we do with it is at least partly up to us, but this is what’s here. This is what God does. This is after all, not just Philips idea. The story claims that it’s God’s idea…
I don’t think this story implies that God now wants people to be, or become a eunuch, but it does speak powerfully about Gods acceptance of people where they are and in the situation and history they find themselves in…the eunuch has made decisions that cannot be undone and God says, yes, I understand. You are welcome in my house and in my family…
Maybe say something about the Gospel of sin management vs. a humble seeking after god…
(Lack of Acceptance is what makes us insecure. What is it that every Jr. High kid wants? Isn’t it acceptance from peers, parents, teachers, coaches…)
God extends love to all who are thirsty, not just to those who are worthy…
One of the reasons we struggle to accept others is because we struggle to accept ourselves…
There is a humility about seeking god. It is an awareness that we are need of something and are not ok on our own. That in itself creates a posture of openness, of willingness to listen and grow and change in the light of revelation.
I don’t think God is interested in rescuing anyone from their sexual identity, i think God desires to rescue people from rooting their identity in sexuality…
I think God is trying to rescue each of us from rooting our identity, whether its in having a man, a girlfriend/boyfriend, having a certain job, getting a particular degree or position in life.
I think God is trying to rescue us from rooting our identity in something that can not fulfill us. I think God is trying to rescue us from rooting our identity in trying to have the perfect family, the right car, the right look, from our efforts to play music in this one place, to make it big, to accomplish something important in life.
God is constantly trying to rescue us from rooting our identity in things that will destroy us.
If there’s anything that is powerful about a person coming into the kingdom of god, it’s this inherent willingness to say, “here i am god. this is all of me, this is who I am, I surrender, do with me what you will.”
And as we continue on this journey, God, little by little wakes us up to things we need to surrender to…
Most of us I think, if we were told all the things that we would have to surrender to right up front at the beginning of our journey in Christ, would run the other direction…Instead, God invites us to join the family and lend a hand as the way of heaven breaks into the earth and transforms our lives in the journey.
May you realize that God is not frightened by the skeletons in your closet. That he knows who you are, where you’ve been, and what has shaped you. May you know that God understands and accepts you. And as you come to know the radical love and acceptance of God, may you let go of rooting your identity in things that cannot fulfill, including the empty way of judging others to find self-worth. And may you grow in the ability to love others with the same grace and radical acceptance of God.
In response to/ inspired by this video:
We are the radicals
Did you ever think that church was a radical place?
That it was dramatically counter-cultural
or conspiratorial?
I think it’s true.
This place is a fort for the resistance and a hideout for the revolutionaries.
It probably sounds funny.
When did reading the Bible and praying and doing rituals get to be anything more
than yesteryear’s tame traditionalism?
It obviously can be. I think many of us have seen that. The church that is empty of anything meaningful or the church that is so packed with air that it pops.
But when I read the prophets, when I read the letters, when I hear the words of Jesus I hear something different.
Maybe it’s a cliché at this point that Jesus was a radical and the American church often seems anything but radical
That Jesus challenged the religious authorities and turned over tables, but that the American church is the religious authority and picks all the tables back up
These are the kinds of comments I’ve often found myself nodding to and saying “Yeah!”
But what made Jesus radical and why is the American church not?
A lot of us would say Love, and I would agree
But to me that’s one of those comments that can just float out up in the atmosphere somewhere not meaning a whole lot
So I’ve been thinking about that and reading about that and hearing people talk about that
So why are we the radicals?
We say a lot of times that if you’re really a good Christian the people who meet you should just know there’s something different about you. Are we much different than the people walking around outside right now? The people sitting in the bagelry or walking their dogs?
Here’s what I got:
Because for us, everything comes down to this:
Love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength
and Love your neighbor as yourself.
Listen to that. It’s so simple and so familiar, I know.
But really—Love God, Love neighbor—we even have it written over here.
And honestly, I’ve come to think those two things aren’t so different.
So maybe we could even boil it down further to living complete lives of love.
So what’s that all about and why is it radical?
I think it means we start rethinking everything.
I think it means that we can’t be fulfilled with a purely 21st Century comfortable American
9-5 relax and go out to eat on the weekends life.
I think it means that we have reexamine our lives and ask,
“Am I focused on the most important things?”
I think it means we are called into a life of sacrifice
that considers others greater than ourselves
And I think that means we need to ask ourselves,
Do I really need to buy a cup of coffee everyday?
Do I really need a bigger this, more of that?
And is it important that I spend a lot of time on that?
And why do I put so much emotional energy into this?
God has given us amazing resources. And God has given us a mission.
I’m convinced that we need to think and pray long and hard about how
to use all our resources—mental, emotional, financial, creative, temporal—to further the Kingdom of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17)
It means we need to ask ourselves what principles our lives
are really oriented around.
If we were on trial, as in the parable in the video,
would we be innocent or guilty? Would there be “no conviction”?
Would we be innocent because
our religion is the religion of comfort?
our faith the faith of self-interest and self-concern?
The Christian faith imagines a way of life that does not live in fear of our neighbors who might be illegal immigrants or homosexuals or Muslims—people who might be different from us and who might sometimes scare us.
It imagines a way of life that tells us not to hate the people who are always opposing us, always irritating us, always putting us down—not even the people who ruin our relationships and our careers. It tells us not to swear at them behind their backs, but to pray for them and live in peace with them.
It is a way of life that sets aside our personal safety and private interests to care for the people that are weird, that might creep us out, that don’t belong—some people we’d rather not spend time with.
It is a way of life that believes God is in control and will protect us beyond what we have asked or imagined. It is a way of life that denies that we are in control of what’s going on around us and that we can make decisions for God.
Because we are the hands and feet and eyes and ears and toes and fingernails of Christ in this world. And this Lent, let’s remember that and become better at that.
But every week after Sunday, it’s so easy to fall back into a lot of the self-interested, self-oriented, Me-God stuff.
This is the place where we resist that and remind ourselves that is not who we really are. Where we say NO as one body to the blinders-on, eyes-down, don’t care about others way of life. Where we say, We do not accept the status quo. Where we say, We will not become uninspired, jaded, apathetic people. Where we say, We are filled with the Holy Spirit. Where we say, We are the radicals and you can’t stop us because there is not just death—there is resurrection.
The following Prezi presentation was used as we worked through the process of observation, interpretation, and application on the text of Romans 14
