more from Mike Frost
Some more notes from Forge National Summit - Dangerous Stories 2
mike frost - last session
Forge events are like a gathering of the clan, it is great to be among family.
Luke 14 - Eating with the Pharisees
Henri Neuwen talks about reaching out.
One of the movements, if we are serious about following in the footsteps of Jesus, is about moving from hostis to hospis, that is hostility to hospitality. Our world is governed by hostis. Suspicion, anxiety, and anger all impinge on your own life. It is standard operating procedure for our society. Hostis guards one’s own space at the expense of others. We need to fashion it into the space of others and allow them to truly be themselves and what God intended them to be in the first place.
Daryl Gardiner spoke about the sanitised Jesus of contemporary Christianity versus dirty Jesus of the Bible. The presentation of a sanitised Jesus is hostis. It is what the world expects and involves a vengeful and an excluding God. The dirty Jesus is the hospice Jesus, who fashions space in which people might blossom and grow.
We need to recommit ourselves to the process, to the costly and hard work of hospis.
Luke 14:1 ¶ One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched.
Luke 14:2 There in front of him was a man suffering from dropsy.
Luke 14:3 Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?”
Luke 14:4 But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him away.
Luke 14:5 ¶ Then he asked them, “If one of you has a son or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull him out?”
Luke 14:6 And they had nothing to say.
Back in those days, when the Pharisee threw open the gates to invited guests, it was not unusual that if someone snuck in when all the guests invited arrived, that the host was obliged to feed them. These uninvited freeloaders were called the umbra, the shadow, as they shadowed the invited guests.
One day I was at a casino, and was looking around because I had never been in there before. I approached the High Rollers room, but was prevented from entering by the bouncers there. Just then, a group of people came in from behind me. And they were asked whether they were part of Uncle Cedric’s party, they said yes, and I also nodded and went in. I became one of the umbra. and shadowed the others inside. It was nice inside, you got good food but eventually I left after I had looked around.
In another story, Jesus was invited to Simon’s place. And there was a woman who was an umbra at the party. She slipped in, and she was a freeloader. All the guests were kissed and had their feet washed. But at that party, Jesus was treated as an umbra even though he was an invited guest. The woman eventually kissed his feet and washed it for him.
There is lots of evidence that Jesus was often an umbra at parties, one of those that lurks at kitchen door.
In this story, Luke 13, it says that the Pharisees and lawyers were watching him closely. Looking to criticise him, an example of hostis.
1. Jesus, the shadow man, always prefers people over religion.
There are laws and requirements that people need to follow. One of those were the adherence to the sabbath. Now, there were many legitimate reasons to keep the sabbath. But there were also reasons in this situation where adherence goes against the intent of the sabbath.
Jesus highlights the ridiculous extent to which adherence to sabbath would lead.
Many in the emerging church find they are set free from the rules of traditional church rituals, but then get caught up in the paraphilia of what is emerging church. Don’t get too busy to not engage with the umbra, or healing the sick because I spent too much time in the maintanence of religious practice. You can spend so much time trying to put on something cool, and miss out on spending time with people. I recently asked clergy how much time they had for the umbra in their lives? How much does maintaining what they do suck us from the umbra of our situation?
1stly, people not religion.
2ndly, when he noticed the seating pattern. If you invite Jesus to dinner and he says he wants to tell a story, you know you are in trouble.
Luke 14:7 ¶ When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable:
Luke 14:8 “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited.
Luke 14:9 If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this man your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place.
Luke 14:10 But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests.
Luke 14:11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Jesus said wouldn’t it be embarrassing if you had to be moved down, after having put yourself in a more important position than you should. It sounds like he’s giving practical dinner party etiquette. He turn hostis into hospis by preferring humility to personal honour. Additionally, when you start at the bottom, you have a completely different perspective of any situation.
I can’t tell you how the church has fashioned hierarchy in so many areas, such as in conferences. Can you see Jesus doing that?
Ash Barker talks about the film “Titanic”. Jack is a shadow person on the Titanic. He’s not meant to be on the ship, and through a quirk of circumstance, he meets Rose. He then takes her under and opens her eyes to a much different vision of the world than if she had stayed above.
That’s what Jesus does for us. Come with me into the steerage, and the mess and music… You will see something the likes that you have never seen before.
In Maryborough, a Victorian country town, there lived a guy with a mental disability called Wal Richards. He sat on the main intersection and said hello to everyone that went passed, and that’s all anyone thought he would be capable of doing for the rest of his life. When he was a teenager, someone gave him camera. He turned up to every wedding in Maryborough and photographed, uninvited. He would jump into the bridal car, uninvited, and just get in the way of things. He was considered a nuisance to the people. People avoided putting announcements about their weddings in the local paper in order to make sure he wasn’t there. He couldn’t drive, so he rode a dragster pushbike to photograph the weddings. When he died, they were surprised to find at his house hundred and hundreds of photos. People assumed he didn’t have film in his camera. And these photos showed an entirely different perspective of the town’s weddings than any of the professional photographers did. Not all of them were in focus, but after he died - the city ran a photography exhbition of his best photos. In the printed guide to the exhibition, it said “He was a gift to the town and he had shown us in a way that we never ever would had seen.”
Don’t tell me you are a missional church unless you have gone to the bottom of the table and helped people see things they can’t see themselves.
When we, as conference, sent out Alan, I saw a united tribe. My wife saw the same scene but said she saw a leadership without women. In male dominated circles, it is women who have a vision that the men can’t see.
Get out. Take your camera and photograph the world as it is seen at the foot of the table. Prefer people over religion, and prefer humility over honour.
Thirdly:
Luke 14:12 Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid.
Luke 14:13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,
Luke 14:14 and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
This is logical. Invite those to the table that can’t repay you. This is a key plank of hospis. We should practice a ferocious form of hospitality.
In “Hotel Rwanda”, the main character as a hutu creates space and practices hospitality to Tutsis. There was nothing physically stopping death squads walking into the hotel except for one man’s devotion to hospitality, one man’s moral integrity. He does anything he can to stop them.
We are called to invite those who can’t, the marginalised, the shunned and the poor. The merging church is not about cooler worship, or pissed-off and cynical evangelicals.
Alan once said that hopefully we will look back and say that at the end of the 20th century, at the turn of the 21st century, there was the decline of the church, but when the fathers and mothers embraced mission as their defining purpose and were propelled out and went to the margins, they turned the tide.
I don’t want them to look back and say, yeah there was a group of cranky evangelical - they were lazy and self-focussed and wanted things their way, and something flared up. But all it did was create a little blip in the declining trend of the church.
Those people…
preferred people over religion;
launched people that practised humility over honour - they were selfless, they were generous, and denied their own self-interest.
they moved out like a wave of shadow people, and turned the hostis of Australian culture into the hospis of Jesus.
Do you want to be part of a movement that isn’t about new innovative structures, new worships, etc, but follows the shadow man to the bottom of the table to share lives and photographed the umbra.
We need to embrace dangerous Christian disciplines, selfless generosity, and build spiritual muscle. Stories will kick off something, but it is our discipline that will be the dangerous impact on this wide brown land.
Let us go and love, to serve and empty ourselves into the lives of others, the umbra, the lurkers of kitchen doors, and the hungry ones. And all because we follow the most marvellous umbra of all.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
“BTW…..how come homosexuality is being discussed in three threads. Bit of over kill isn’t it”.
Hillsong is being discussed in ninetten threads. Tithing is discussed in 27.
So realtively speaking, no, its not over kill.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:35 am
Rev
you can talk about anarchy in a minute, but (to all) what I would like is a simple explanation of what the argument for homosexuality being OK is from a biblical point of view?
Cheers
MN
April 13th, 2007 at 8:06 am
avb7 - I thought the same thing, but for me as a hetero struggling to comprehend how to deal with this issue, it seems to creep into many aspects of my faith. How I interpret scripture on the gay issue affects how I interpret scrpiture per se. How I relate to gay people affects what I believre the church shuold be doing to reach out to the homosexual community… etc etc. I agree with Tony Campolo that this issue (and the abortion issue) should not define the church, but I think many of us persoanlly are struggling with where the church should go from here on this issue.
April 13th, 2007 at 8:14 am
MN…I’m not responding on Rev’s behalf, he can do that himself, but I think you’re doing theology a disservice to think that there are “simple explanations” for such complex issues. Would you ask for a “simple explanation” for the doctrine of the Trinity?!
avb - Reve raised it in several threads, hence it’s being discussed in those threads. I also agree with Emma’s comment above - I can’t help but read the scriptures from the perspective of a heterosexual person, just as I can’t help but read them from the perspective of a white, female, tertiary-educated, middle-class person.
April 13th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Actually for the sake of honesty (and now I wish I had a cool cyber name instead of my own) I should own up for the sake of this interesting argument that when I said “as a hetero” person I should add I have had same-sex attraction and I definitely believe in the slidin scale, as I am on it. I am married and have and always will be faithful, my attraction to men is much stronger than my attraction to women, but for many years in AOG I tried to get rid of the “unwanted” attraction because I was told it would wreck my marriage, bla bla bla.
I tried prayer, exorcism, everything…and let’s be clear here, it wasn’t like I was going around trying to pick up women, it was the same attraction that might exist if I was to be attracxted to any other man who wasn’t my husband, maybe even less so, but you just don’t go there because you’re married! In the end nothing has “worked” and to be honest it doesn’t bother me anymore. When I got married, it was a spiritual committment to seek no other sexual relationship with a man or a woman. Everyone accepts that you will be attracted from time to time, but it’s what you do with that attraction that counts…
I thik that’s why I feel so strongly on this issue as someone who does mainly identtify with “hetero” because I can see from my own limited experience that attraction is just something that cannot change. A while after I had the “exorcism” performed on me I would have said priase God hallelujia I’m cured, but within months it was back again. Now I feel I can’t class myself as anything, I’m not gay, I guess I’m not fully hetero, but I can’t honestly say I’m bi-sexual either because I’vr never had a full relationship with another woman. I’m just me, sonewhere on that sliding scale and that’s OK.
April 13th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Great post Emma, thankyou so much for sharing!
When I was younger, it occurred to me that some of my straight female friends and gay male friends who were physically repulsed by the idea of kissing a woman, and wondering what that made me…I wasn’t repulsed by it, but I didn’t want to do it either…I was, frankly, competely non-plussed about it. I wondered whether that made me gay, and whether I was in denial about something because of my Christian upbringing and faith. I know people who have similar experiences, who embarked upon what could have been, and sometimes were, rather unconstructive “experiments” that hurt not only themselves but others. I’ve similarly seen the fall-out from young men who think that just because they’re a bit effeminate and play music, they might be gay. Stereotyping can be so helpful.
Thankfully I didn’t ever experiment, and quickly realised that there is indeed some kind of sliding scale, and that the fact that I’m merely bored and disinterested in physical intimacy with women didn’t mean anything more than…well, that I’m disinterested in physical intimacy with women! …I think that homophobia exists in so many guises and is so rampant in the church that we’re creating real problems for our young people. We depserately need to find ways of creating safe spaces where people can share stories, journeys, and figure out their sexuality in healthy ways.
April 13th, 2007 at 8:43 am
Yes, that’s exactly right, and thanks for your post. I agree with much of what reve has said, but my concern is that some people who do feel same-sex attracted are honestly not going to go out there and nake lives as gay people, like me, and they’re not in denial, they’re just somehwhere on the scale a bit closer to “hetero” than “gay”. It worries me that we marginalise young people who are definitely gay, like you say, who feel repulsed by the idea of being ijntimate with the opposite sex, but it also concerns me that we shouldn’t force the label of “gay” onto people who maybe aren’t that strong in their orientation (not saying that you would do that Reeve).
I feel like I had the wrong people speakng into my life telling me there was somehting wrong with me that neede to change, but conversly, if someone else had been saying, “you’re gay, you’re just in denial” then they would have been wrong too. Sexuality, as in so many other things, is a journey I guess and we need to encourage people to be honest and open, creating as you said safe spaces, always listening and encouraging people to draw from God’s guidance.
April 13th, 2007 at 8:48 am
Emma…..for what its worth….your expereince is not abnormal as a female. I’ve read the research, had many emails from readers as well as met quite a number of lesbian couples who orginally were friends and ‘hetero’. You women it seems have a capacity to be attracted to, fall in love with and partner with someone of the same sex. Can you imagine a hetero man falling in love with his best mate wanting to bed him and spend the rest of his life with him. I think not.
So what we are talking about is something which is intrinsic……not sin just nature. What you choose to do with that according to your beliefs and conscience will determine if that is a curse or a blessing. I feel very blessed and often say that to others.
Bec and Lionfish…..point taken……jsut thought I’d ask.
April 13th, 2007 at 8:53 am
Thanks! by the way, read your book and loved it.
April 13th, 2007 at 8:59 am
Lance #20,
You are one of the most fearlessly perceptive people i have ever read.
Never Change.
April 13th, 2007 at 9:24 am
avb, you ask: “Can you imagine a hetero man falling in love with his best mate wanting to bed him and spend the rest of his life with him. I think not.”
Actually, I can, because I’ve seen it.
April 13th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Reve, I hope you understand I take that as an insult
rev
April 13th, 2007 at 9:45 am
AVB - there you go again - taking Emma’s story of same sex attraction and sliding scale-ednessiosity and turngin it into a full onb gay devoted to one other [person who si of the same sex - what gives? Ca’t you see that not everyone who is attracted to intimacy with a member of the same sex is is gay? It’s not all about you AVB - it’s not even about how to make it all about you!
None the less, love your work and wish I could have been at your book launch. I have had a bit to do with Chris Yinger who spoke at the launch nad think she is an amazing young lady - not your average pente
April 13th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Emma, thanks for sharing something of your self with us.
April 13th, 2007 at 9:57 am
AVB - my experience is similar to yours, I have only met a few bisexual men but quite a few women. Based on the conversations I’ve had over the years, I suspect that generally speaking, the sexuality of women might be more fluid than that of men And I think - though my understanding is now terribly outdated - that research might confirm this.
However I’m not sure what you’re trying to suggest by saying this?
April 13th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Yes I think it needs to be clear (and maybe wasn’t in AVB’s post) is that people who do experience same-sex attraction are NOT all gay.
April 13th, 2007 at 10:17 am
I was attracted to Orlando Bloom, but then I found out she was really a man.
rev
April 13th, 2007 at 10:46 am
I think (with the whole female-female attraction thing) is that as females are more emotive…it is much easier to feel attracted to another female as we ‘feel’ more than males…we’re more easily caught by their personality, the way they make us feel, how comfortable we are around them, as well as looks of course.
Males on the other-hand, are much more visual (generally speaking) so its much rarer for a guy to be attracted to someone that looks ‘visually’ (i.e. physically) like them.
I also believe in the sliding-scale…that everyone is born ‘bi’ but obviously most people are skewed towards one end or the other. That’s why, even as a Christian, I believe the church’s (and even the views of my friends) is unfair and unjust.
These ‘ex-gay’ programs are all about the chuch (and christians) providing ‘conditional love’ and not ‘unconditional love’ as Christ does.
April 13th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Yes, that’s right. And when you “fail” the love test…you can’t change something everybody says you have to change to be a Christian…the guilt is enormous. The only way out is to either lie and say you have changed or lose your mind…or get some proper distance and realise you’re not a failure for being who you are
April 13th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Rev, i would hate it to have offended you. Please understand, i consider that you & your family have ADDED to the Emergent scene, not that you have been absorbed into its membership. The Cave is the benchmark in my opinion & i have said that more than once before now.
You accepted me, a stranger, into your home, you fed me, taught me, accepted me without judgement & so did your wife & daughters. Your uniqeness is due to not having been raised in the Australian middle-class, having actually lived your talk with no inconsistencies. Your unashamed anarchy refreshing & inspiring. I understand that an honourable person like you would defend your peers, but i don’t yet hold them in the same estimation.
I think you are an exception on the scene & would defend you personally against anyone.
Please accept my humble apologies for general & careless statements made about the emergent movement that do not give credit to those individuals whom in my opinion, geniunely get it right.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:08 am
But I not exceptional, that is what angers me about Lances comments about the emerging church just being a brand. I am actually less accepting and caring towards the gay community than Deb, and a host of others. The emerging church has fought hard to break free from the residue of racism, sexism, homophobia, and the stuructures that support them. They have fought for incarnational lifestyles that actually are a part of peoples lives, living in relationship with people of all backgrounds. Look bro, the emerging church is getting absolutely scewered for our policies when it comes to the homosexual community, when it comes to the way we view scripture, when it comes to the way our morals work, for our commitment to envirementalism. One of my good friends actually was threatened with losing his missionary support because he ran for office as a Green. This is not an issue of style.
There are some people in the emerging church, and I believe even more so in America, that are so entrenched in the traditional church that they are just stylistic changes, but slowly other things start changing as well. The worst thing you can do to a people on a journey, making progress, is to tell them their journey thus far has been unimportant, and not valid, this does not spur them to go further, but rather tells them that its no use. I talked to Deb last night as word had gotten to her about these posts, and she laughed that “no one believes that stuff anymore, I don’t think even exodus believe that still” If you talk to her you will sense someone that very much lives in the grace that Lance talks about, and is a shining example of it. She is the one who inspires me to go further and by more loving. And FORGE flies her all over the country to speak to the future leaders of our movement to so inspire them.
rev
April 13th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Bec…
from 34 …”MN…I’m not responding on Rev’s behalf, he can do that himself, but I think you’re doing theology a disservice to think that there are “simple explanations” for such complex issues. Would you ask for a “simple explanation” for the doctrine of the Trinity?!”
Bec I think that is crap. I not a theologian but have spent the best part of my working life dealing with people who at the least have a vested in avoiding a straight answer.
Please note: I have not at any times in these threads when raising the issue denied, diminished, or belittled same sex attraction. or belittled any person on that score.
My question was does any one out there have “a simple explanation of what the argument for homosexuality being OK is from a biblical point of view?”
Now either there is one or there isn’t. I’d suggest from what I’ve read so far that there either isn’t one, its so theologically up there and beyond the likes of me, and that you’re so theologically advanced that I couldn’t understand it.
Simple explanation of the Trinity? Alright here’s one… the Bible teaches it - (I can get the references if you want them) - I accept it… end of story! I don’t have to understand it (although it helps) - I don;t feel like I have to put my hands in the nail holes in the hands and feet of Jesus to believe Him. The Bible calls it faith! I don’t actually think that’s too much of an ask because God is God and the Creator. He exists outside of me, not the other way around, and I am beholden to Him, not the other way around.
Theology either serves a useful purpose in understanding the truth about and of God or it serves to obscure that truth.
Now if someone could answer the bloody question please…
Cheers
MN
April 13th, 2007 at 11:27 am
I’m confused about this use of “emerging” and “traditional” again, but I don’t want to get off topic…
I couldn’t agree more with what Rev says about telling people that their journey has been irrelevant.
If we’re serious about authentically journeying together, that means we have to allow each other room to grow, to change our opinions on things…and it also requires respect for other theologies. I really, really understand the concerns expressed here about groups like Exodus - indeed, I share them!! However I think this is a complex and emotive issue, and I definitely don’t think I can expect my more conservative friends to listen to and engage with my views if I’m not prepared to do the same.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:30 am
One more thing before I go and strike another blow….
that was such an elitist condescending bullshit response…
April 13th, 2007 at 11:32 am
MN…I don’t think it’s “crap” to suggest that the stories of the Bible and what they ahve to say about something as complex as sexuality or the Trinity…or the resurrection, or heaven, or hell, or a whole bunch of other things…can be simply addressed. To do so is to diminish not only the beautiful complexity of the Bible, but also that of human life, and of our ultimately unknowable God.
By the way, you haven’t provided a simple explanation of the Trinity. All you have said in that paragraph is that the Bible talks about it and why you believe in it. That is not an explanation of what the Bible says about the Trinity.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:37 am
“that was such an elitist condescending bullshit response…”
Well, it certainly wasn’t meant to be elitist or condescending - I’m deadly serious. I don’t think it can be dealt with “simply”.
More importantly - **I believe half the crap that Christians suffer and deal out to each other RESULTS from trying to deal with things “simply”**
April 13th, 2007 at 11:40 am
I am considering going along to the meeting & hearing her. AVB has said he may attend, too. Maybe i should tell you the context of why i got so upset & loose-cannoned all over the place, i’ll send you an email.
In the meantime, i hope i have’nt hardened your heart towards me or burnt my bridges. I am such a hot-headed reactionary, to my own detriment most times. A thoughtless fool with a quick temper.
Comes from years of repression & fear of being slighted, or society slipping backwards.
Not an excuse, just an explanation.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:43 am
That was for Rev (#57)
April 13th, 2007 at 11:47 am
mn actually a friend of mine studying theology just recently toild me that the scripture doesn’t every expplicity describe or say there is a trinity…it’s more of a church tradition thing. I have no references to back that up, just thought it was funny, becauae everyone seems to accept that is in “in the Bible”. I think the case for homosexuality in the Bible has been dealt with extensivle on the God and Homosexuality thread, maybe that’s why no one has posted a lengthy answer, but if you get onto http://www.gaychristian.net there are great answers on the frequently asked questions page. Also, anything on this subject by Peggy Campolo is worth reading. I’m still not sure what I think, but these essays/opinion pieces definitely opened my eyes to how scripture has been misinterpreted.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Well my friend, if that was all it took to harden my heart towards you, then I am as big of a dickhead as Lance thinks I am.
rev