sustain:if:able kiwi

having each other

A research day. I was meant to be looking at Christ figures in film, most particularly, female Christ figures in film. What might we glean about Christology today from figures like Paikea in Whale Rider or in Vianne in Chocolat?

Got side tracked by Luke 10:1-12 and how the missionary becomes the guest, enjoying the hospitality of the tables of their culture. And the resultant evangelical angst over the danger of “selling out.”

Then this: “True justice only operates in obedience to the economy of friendship that recognises the question in every encounter, “Who is the stranger?”, and realises that answer is: “Neither of us – while we have each other.” Graham Ward, Hospitality and Justice toward ‘Strangers’: A theological reflection.

I watched this happen last nite. A gathering with old-timers and new-timers. A study of the parables, in particular the great banquet in Luke 14. A great discussion of the grace that is inclusion and the practices of hospitality that follow. The realisation that as a result, labels of in and out, old and new, have no place in a Kingdom of invitation and radical hospitality.

A word used that made the parable then a challenge for now. And the re-realisation around the group, that as a result, labels of in and out, old and new, have no place in a Kingdom of invitation and radical hospitality

You can apply this to individuals, we need each other. You can apply this to discipleship, we need each other. You can apply this to church and culture, we need each other. (Which does link back to my starting point, female Christ figures in film). This is the scandal of the Incarnation, God revealed in human cultures says something fundamental about the possibility of human culture in inscribing redemption.