Week 4 - March 31 I Shall Be Love

Part 3: “I Shall Be Love”

Chapter 10: Searching for the Science of Love

1. Share if you’ve ever seen hospitality or welcoming initiatives struggle to get off the ground or gain momentum (pp. 140–44). Why do you think hospitality and welcoming efforts struggle? What do you think the solution might be?
2. Discuss how your community struggles or excels in extending hospitality. What are you doing well? What are you struggling with?
3. The chapter argues that hospitality begins not with a policy, program, ministry, or service project but as a daily, habit-forming practice (pp. 140–44). Discuss what such a daily, habit-forming practice might look like.
4. In Story of a Soul, Thérèse describes her “Little Way” as a “science of love” (p. 150). If your community was going teach a class on the “science of love,” what should be the first lessons, experiments, and experiences for the students?

Chapter 11: The Heart of the Church

1. Have you ever had a struggle similar to Thérèse’s, where you felt guilty about not doing more for God in your life (pp. 151–53)? Share that story.
2. Pick a random moment from your day when you are with people—at home, at work, or out in the world. (Bonus points if you pick an irritating or boring moment with others.) Share these moments with the group and describe what doing “a little thing with great love” would look like in that moment (pp. 157–62).
3. Hospitality Homework: Commit to doing “a little thing with great love” this week. Be specific! Come back and share your experience with the group.

Chapter 12: The Elevator to Jesus

1. Make a list of activities people engage in when they want to improve and invest in their relationship with God. Circle activities on this list that involve improving and investing in our relationships with other people. Reflect on how and why these lists overlap, or fail to (pp. 163–68).
2. Discuss our temptation to “over-spiritualize” our relationship with God by ignoring “the social and interpersonal aspects of our relationship with God” (pp. 164–68).
3. Following Thérèse’s practice, where in your life can you start offering a kind word to make a sad soul bloom (pp. 168–72)?
4. Share a story where you’ve felt an irritation similar to Thérèse’s experience with the sister making the clicking sound (pp. 172–75). Describe how wrestling with irritation and practicing patience in moments like these are practices of hospitality.
5. Hospitality Homework: Commit to “seeking out” someone this week to share a kind word or a smile. Be specific! Come back and share your experience with the group.

Week 3 - Reflection on Stranger God, Emotional Battlefield

Parable of the Fig Tree - and as it is Lent, let us not to forget the Cross

From Wikipedia

— Luke 13:6–9, King James Version   A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.

 We are the fig trees ... taking up valuable space in a vineyard yet not bearing the fruit that the owner expected.  Despite being told by the exasperated landowner to cut down the barren tree, the vine dresser, Jesus, makes a plea for more time during which He will carefully tend the tree - us - in full expectation that given time, we will bear fruit.

As we approach the second week of Part 2 of Beck's Stranger God - The Emotional Battlefield - we rejoice in Jesus' grace, always knowing we are "works in progress," he faithfully tends to us none-the-less.  We pray that as we challenge ourselves to honestly look at our biases and prejudices, we can turn the hate to love.  Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking: The Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty That Sparked a National Debate , exhorts us to....“Lavish love on others and receive it gratefully when it come to you. Cultivate friendship like a garden. It is the best love of all. ”


Chapter 6 - The Murderer in Our Heart - we took time to reflect upon the smugness and superiority that causes us to contemptuously disregard others whom we feel are below us.  The Gospel's Good News would have us break down the walls of this hostility.

Chapter 7 -This hostility bred of disgust and contempt, cannot co-exist with hospitality.  The Walls go up to keep THEM out, and fear is intentionally cultivated to rationalize the need. The Love that we are asked to show to our neighbors is just way too risky. Our children, jobs, homes, and even our lives are threatened. 

Chapter 8 - Triggers - and the personification of the Devil - Evil - is useful for now creating the binary of good and evil.  In our discussion, we recognized that rarely is anyone purely good or purely evil, but that all of us have elements of both.  Bryan Stevenson, author of  Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption famously remarked "Each of us is more than the worst thing we have ever done."

We spoke of how risky we felt it was to start conversations with strangers not within our emotional circle.   Educating ourselves and opening our hearts to those even on our Trigger List is key.  A past exhibit at the Jones Library featured background bios of the Panhandlers that take up residence on our busy intersections was brought up as one way to breach that divide.  Others confessed feared saying the wrong thing, being rejected, or not being understood. We group sourced tips for reaching others positively.  These included saying "How do you spend your day?" and making an effort to make eye contact.  We  shared stories of how this led to being shown pictures of grandchildren and making new friends that now great us everyday.  Some shared the happiness with which others shared their stories while others noted a growing trend, especially among young people, who are tired of having to explain themselves to us and don't want the burden of educating us.

It was noted that a book read by the Bookgroup, James Doty's Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon's Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart
covered many of the same themes that Stranger God was covering, and members of both groups were delighted to add this way of thinking about

Week 3 - Assignment and Study Questions

 

Lenten Study Week 3: March 25

Continuing with Part 2: The Emotional Battlefield

https://lentenlessonstranger.blogspot.com/

Continuing to Walk “The Emotional Battlefield” together: It doesn’t feel to me that we are done with “the emotional battlefield” and it seems right to spend another week with Part 2.  So the reading assignments and questions for this week will focus on the Chapters 6, 7 and 8. We will not have an explicit discussion of Chapter 5: Our Dirty Little Secret, in which we reflect upon the “culture of honor – and how we identify individuals to be applauded and praised” but do please read it to set the context for the next chapters. 

STUDY QUESTIONS FROM RB: STRANGER GOD: MEETING JESUS IN DISGUISE

   

Chapter 6: The Murderer in Our Heart

1. Where in your life do you struggle the most with feelings of superiority and smugness (pp. 95–98)? If you were going to make an “idiot list,” who would be on your list?

2. Jesus taught that contempt is “affectional murder,” killing people in our hearts (p. 96–98). If that’s true, share how many people you’ve “killed” this week.

3. A “wall of hostility” separated the people Paul lists in Galatians 3:28—male/female, Jew/Greek, and slave/free (pp. 98–102). Expand this list, sharing other pairs where you see a “wall of hostility” at work.

4. Discuss how grace as a “social revolution” (pp. 98–102)—breaking down walls of hostility—changes how we might speak about, witness to, and proclaim the “good news” of the gospel. 

Chapter 7: Build That Wall!

1. Putting partisan politics aside, discuss how fear affects the hospitality of a nation. Share historical and recent examples (pp. 103–8).

2. Hebrews 2:14–15 describes fear as “the power of the devil” (pp. 106–8). How have you seen fear undermine love, compassion, and hospitality in your own life, in the church, in your neighborhood, in our nation, and in the world?

3. Discuss how our fear causes us to scapegoat strangers, blaming them for what’s going wrong (p. 108). Share examples of this.

4. Discuss the relationship between love and risk (pp. 108–11).

• Does love always involve some degree of risk? Can love ever be 100 percent safe? Why or why not?

• Revisiting chapter 3, how can we balance the risk of love with our concerns over safety?

• At what point does our concern over safety begin to undermine our ability to love? How can you tell when that’s starting to happen?

Chapter 8: Heart Triggers

1. This chapter walks through a list of “heart triggers,” places where we struggle to extend hospitality (pp. 115–26):

• Politics

• Habits (e.g., smokers, drinkers)

• Lifestyle choices (e.g., gun owners, vegans)

• Hygiene

• Appearance (e.g., clothing, tattoos, piercings)

• Disabilities

• Demographics (e.g., Muslims, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ, immigrants, refugees)

• Poor social skills

• Criminal history

•  Sins and moral failures (i.e., any behavior defined by yourself or community as sinful, unjust, or oppressive)

• Personal history (e.g., grievances, grudges, bad experiences with individuals)

2. Looking at the list, what are your biggest “heart triggers,” places where you struggle to extend hospitality? Is there any one area where you are particularly struggling at this time in your life?

3. What would you add to the list of “heart triggers,” and what additional examples can you give that aren’t mentioned in the chapter?

Week 2 - Reflections - Hitler's Cooties and the Spit Test

Before trying to provide a capsule account of our discussion yesterday, let me remind you that your input is welcome!   Please make a comment below.

We were all shaken by Friday's massacre of 49 Moslems at worship in Christchurch NZ.  We were shocked that so much evil had come out of a group of white supremacists who had demonized innocent people through ignorance and hate fueled by online hate speak.  It was pointed out that there seemed to be a social media silence on this tragedy when compared with, for example, the Paris terrorist bombing incidents.  Our hearts went out to the victims' families and communities and to the country of New Zealand itself, in which such terrorism and murder is almost unheard.  Our own church families' journey to become more educated about the Moslem faith through the Fall 16 Islam 101 and Fall 17 Islam 201 studies led many of us to revise our views of Moslems from "other" to "brother" as we realized how much we had in common.  Many hoped that our efforts to partner with the Hadley mosque would be reinvigorated.  We also wrote notes of condolences to the members of that mosque and delivered them to one of the mosque leaders, a neighbor.

Mosaic from Dominus Flevit Church in Jerusalem, God as a hen with her chicks.

 Attending to the issues presented in the beginning of Beck's Stranger God, Part 2, we took up the idea of the "Emotional Battlefield"  and tried to unpackage why we tend to feel repelled by certain things that really don't make much logical sense -such as the thought of putting on Hitler's sweater or drinking our own spit.  We pondered why many of us felt as though we would not, unless facing the danger of freezing to death, put on Hitler's sweater and why some of us feel disgusted by the prospect of taking saliva that we have just spit into a cup and drinking it.

In three animated discussion groups a few themes emerged:

• each of our groups was quite diverse in our responses to the challenges.  Some individuals saw the logic of "it's just a sweater" and would have no problem drinking their own spit, others were disgusted. 
• we pondered the curious belief that while the clean could be made foul by simple contact, the reverse was not true.  We wondered whether certain aspects of our "reptilian brain" had evolved survival habits that were no longer necessary, but that the taboos lived on deep within us.
• we  considered the story of St. Francis and the leper, and heard animated stories of a Lepertorium in Ethiopia that L and R had worked in during their time in the Peace Corps.  We now know that leprosy is not catching, and we should have no problem "kissing the leper." We were drawn back again to the idea that knowledge could break down so many of these barriers.
• We asked ourselves the question, "Who are our lepers?" some suggested pedophiles and white supremacists like those who had committed the atrocities in Christchurch to be among them.  Would knowing more about the background stories of these individuals allow us to "kiss them on the lips" the way St. Francis did the leper?   
•  we realized the value of recognizing our illogical habits, even while we fight to change them so as to be the inclusive communities we want to be.
• we were reminded of our gospel lesson Matthew 23:37- "Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!" The son of God himself seems to ask Jerusalem (the church, each of us) to act according to his example and spread her (our) wings over saints and sinners and like a mother hen, offer sanctuary to all by the grace of God.  Perhaps only through love like this, will all of us be saved.

Please feel free to comment below.

Week 2 - Study Questions

  March 17 SG – Wrap Part 1 and Begin Part 2: The Emotional Battlefield

 

Recap of Last Week Part 1 – Entertaining Angels

We danced through the first three Chapters of Stranger God, with some of us not having been able to read the book ahead of time.  Take a minute now that we’ve had some discussion and as you read or re-read these chapters, record your own reflections on the characterization of Chapter 1: Recognizing Angels and identifying who are the people on the periphery of our lives; Chapter 2: The Circle of Our Affections and recognizing our own emotional and moral ecosystem; and Chapter 3: Yes, and…. Can we assess our congregations “will to embrace.” Does our hospitality has limits?

In the end, the comments that have stuck with me from our discussion:

·      Try to use “us” and not “them” and “we” and not “they”

·      How do we approach as equals those whose lifestyle, physical conditions, or political ideologies repel us?

·      Realize that “We are all, in the end, just walking each other home”

Feel free to respond to any of the above or make your own comments below. 

Entry into the Emotional Battlefield

Before we can understand our own barriers to welcoming the strangers, we must examine our fears, phobias, and what Beck describes as the “Cooties for Grown Ups.” Together, we will identify those whose habits, cultures or political beliefs we find offensive. How do we get to the place where we, like St. Francis, can embrace the leper?

STUDY QUESTIONS FROM RB: STRANGER GOD

Chapter 4: Hitler’s Sweater and Cooties for Grown Ups 

1.    The Hitler’s sweater experiment (pp. 66–68) illustrates how we treat sin as a virus, causing us to push sinners away as a source of moral contamination. Share stories of how you’ve seen this purity psychology at work in churches and other communities. 

2.    The Dixie Cup experiment (pp. 70–72): 

• Confession time: Would you drink your spit out of a Dixie Cup? Go around the group and share how disgusting this would be for you, on a scale of 1 (= not disgusting at all) to 10 (= extremely disgusting).

• Your answers about the Dixie Cup reflect what psychologists call “disgust sensitivity,” how each of us differ in what we find disgusting. Describe examples in your life where your disgust sensitivity affects how welcoming or unwelcoming you are to certain people. 

3. Discuss the example of Saint Francis and the leper (pp. 76–78). 

• Who would are the “lepers” you struggle to embrace? 

• Who are the “lepers” your community struggles to embrace? 

• Given the answers above, what would “kissing the leper” (extending the “will to embrace”) look like? 

Week 1 - Reflections and Challenges

Recipe for Week 1

Ingredients

25 Methodists with bellies filled with chili and cornbread
1 classic March snowstorm with snow, sleet, and freezing rain
1 murderous "spring ahead" daylight savings time
1 anthem "Breaking Down the Walls"
25 copies of Richard Beck's "Stranger God"

Directions

1. Make sure the 25 bellies are full, then call to begin Lenten workshop with chimes.  May not be successful the first time, so chime again, and again.
2. Gather in the Southwest classroom to begin Lenten Study.  Add chairs as needed.  
3. Begin with a practice of ten mindful breaths - "Just" on the inhale and "This" on the exhale.  Our bodies are ready.  
4. A prayer by CB brings us to the study with the Spirit at our sides.  
5. An explanation of the rules, an introduction by POH as to the reason for this choice.
6. Off we go into four small groups for 25 minutes of discussion of the Study Questions. 
7. Return to Southwest classroom to report out by Group #
8. Finish with a prayer for opening our hearts by Pastor.

Random Reflections (add yours in comment below)

"We are all, in the end, just walking each other home." 

Challenges

Every day in the week to come, take a risk and entertain one angel whom you would not normally have approached. 

Week 1 - STUDY QUESTIONS

Part 1: Entertaining Angels

Chapter 1: Jesus in Disguise

1.     The chapter shares many stories from the Bible where God or Jesus come as a stranger, in disguise, unrecognized, or seeking welcome (pp. 20–26). Did anyone of these stories strike you more than another?  Why do you think?  Can you think of any other stories like these in the Bible? Share these.

2.     From page 27: “We don’t show hospitality to be like Jesus. We show hospitality to welcome Jesus.”

• Discuss what goes wrong with hospitality when we see ourselves as saving, rescuing, or fixing other people. Share examples of when you’ve seen this happen, either from having been the rescuer or the rescued.

• Discuss how our views and practices of hospitality would change if we were the ones who were being saved by strangers. Share stories when you’ve experienced this. 

3.     A series of questions are asked on page 26: “Our response to the call of hospitality is to answer some simple questions: Who are people on the periphery of my life? Who is that person at the far boundaries of my care and attention? Who is being ignored in my workplace and church? Who is marginalized in my neighborhood and nation? Who would Jesus grab to place at the center of my attention?”

• Take some time to prayerfully ponder these questions, letting faces and names of specific people (or groups of people) come into your heart and mind. As you pray and ponder, write down this list of names as they come to you. Share some of your list with the group.

Chapter 2: The Circle of Our Affections

1.     “Our social world is an emotional ecosystem” (pp. 36–38). Make a list of all the feelings that create obstacles for hospitality. Share which two to three feelings you most struggle with.

2.     Make a list of some people you encounter in a typical day who are not in your moral circle, people with whom kindness is hard (pp. 40–43). Share why you struggle with these particular people.

3.     The chapter describes a scene where a stressed-out server in a restaurant is treated unkindly because she’s a stranger (pp. 41–43).

• Make a list of three other situations where we encounter people as “strangers.”

• Describe how your interactions would change in these situations if you welcomed these people into your moral circle (i.e., treated them as a family member or dear friend).

    

4. Reflect on the story in Acts 6 where the early church “expanded the moral circle” by caring for the widows of the Hellenistic believers (p. 44). Share other examples from the Bible where the moral circle was expanded to include those who were excluded or marginalized.

Invitation to Partner with Us for 2019 Lenten Study

Lenten Workshop 2019   

Stranger God: Meeting Jesus in Disguise by R. Beck

Five Sundays in Lent – March 10 – April  7

^{Matthew 5: 42-45}

For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink.  I was a stranger and you did not invite me in. I needed clothes and you did not clothe me. I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me. They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

WUMC Lenten Study

Come join us for a Lenten journey in which we will engage in reflection and honest discussion on Richard Beck’s Stranger God: Meeting Jesus in Disguise. 

When Richard Beck first led a Bible study at a maximum-security prison, he went to meet God. His own faith was flagging, but Beck still believed the promise of Matthew 25, that when we visit the prisoner, we visit Jesus. And sure enough, God met him in prison.

Beck combines biblical reflection, theological reasoning, and psychological insight to show how God always meets us in the marginalized , the oppressed, and the refuge. 

How are we predisposed to like those who are similar to us and avoid those who are unlike us? The call of the gospel is to override those impulses with compassion, to widen the circle of our affection.

Using a study guide provided by the author, we hope to continue and deepen a conversation we began last spring. Newcomers welcome! In the end, Beck turns to the Little Way of St. Therese of Lisieux for guidance in doing even the smallest acts with kindness, and he lays out a path that any of us can follow.

 We will meet for five consecutive Sundays starting March 10.  Class begins 15 minutes after service in the meeting room adjacent to the front doors.  An informal lunch will be served while we begin with short videos featuring individuals whose message is informative, spiritual and personal. Each week we will break out into small groups for discussion and close with reporting back to the larger group.

Childcare provided but please let us know. Please note that this series will NOT replace the long standing Sunday evening Bible studies led by Reverend Jim Harvey.

For information,  contact Pat O’Hara by leaving a comment below.
  

March 10  ~ Introduction: Welcoming the Stranger God – Part 1: Entertaining Angels

Beck leads us in confronting our own preconceptions of hospitality and challenges us to examine the circle of our affections. He leaves us with an injunction to leave the predictable and take risks as life hands us opportunities for which we may not feel prepared or ready.  This is where and when we will meet God.

March 17 ~ Part 2: The Emotional Battlefield –

Before we can understand our own barriers to welcoming the strangers, we must examine our fears, phobias, and what Beck describes as the “Cooties for Grown Ups.”  Together, we will identify those whose habits, cultures or political beliefs we find offensive.  How do we get to the place where we, like St. Francis, can embrace the leper?

March 24 ~ Part 3: “I Shall Be Love”

What are the practices and daily habit forming actions that have helped church communities expand their circle of affection.  We will develop a list of actions we can take as individuals and as a community to inspire true hospitality. 

March 31 ~ Practicing Hospitality

Beck believes that if we adopt the three fold recipe of “Seeing, Stopping, and Approaching” we can come closer to finding Jesus in the Stranger.  We will examine his examples and see if they map on our own experience

April 7 ~ How to Save the World and The Kindness Revolution

We need to start by loving locally and embracing the concept that “Blest be the (Weak) tie that Binds. Do we have the commitment to become the faith communities like those of the early church described by the Apostle Luke: Acts 2:42-47  

The Fellowship of the Believers

⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ⁴³ Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵ They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. ⁴⁶ Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

….and Acts 4:32–35  

The Believers Share Their Possessions

³² All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. ³³ With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all ³⁴ that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales ³⁵ and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.