Dan J. Brennan

Lisa McMinn on Compassionate Companions

I've been meaning to share this for some time here.  I lost the article somewhere in the depths of my study (um...yeah :-) and I found it this weekend.  I found it when I was looking for something else!  Lisa McMinn professor of sociology at Wheaton College as well as author of Sexuality and Holy Longing wrote an article in a recent Journal of Psychology and Christianity titled: "Sexual Identity Concerns for Christian Adults: Practical Considerations for Being a Supportive Presence and Compassionate Companion" (200, Vol. 24, No. 4 368-377).

She starts her article "In colleges and universities throughout North America, students find their way to perceived 'safe' faculty and staff offices to disclose confusion about and longings for emotional and physical intimacy with others of their same sex."

Jesus and Pastoral Friendship: Seduction or Intimacy?

This story of Jesus and the unnamed woman in Luke 7: 36-50 is a striking story to consider under the subject of Jesus and pastoral friendship.  This story does not usually fit into any classic textbook case on male female pastoral friendships.  It usually doesn't show up as a model for men and women engaging in a pastoral conversation unless of course it becomes a model for an abstract discussion about the depth of forgiveness.  It usually doesn't head the list of texts presented when pastors and counselors are encouraged be imitators of Christ unless it is the G rated edited version. 

Jesus and Pastoral Friendship: The Friendship Story of Mary Magdalene

"The woman who stood by Jesus throughout his life, sensitive and understanding, was Mary Magdalene" (The Women Around Jesus Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel).

In church tradition, Mary Magdalene has been associated with the woman prostitute in Luke 7 who anointed Jesus' feet.  Moltmann-Wendel writes "Anyone who loves the biblical Mary Magadalene, must get very angry." 

"Soon afterward he went on through the cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.  And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities:  Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out" (Luke 8: 1-2).  It's interesting that none of the twelve males who were called to follow Christ were "healed" like Mary.  She was a follower of Christ.  She was one who journeyed with Christ, the twelve disciples and others. 

Jesus and Pastoral Friendship: Jesus and With-ing

"Jesus is the tangible incarnation of God, and his manner of inviting people into deep relationship with himself is that manner we have available to us today.   Jesus gathered a group of people together, some friends and brothers, some complete strangers and natural enemies, and eventually he told them that by their love for one another people would know that they had been touched and loved  by God incarnate.  In fact, this kind of friendship, inexplicable apart from God, was the apologetic by which he demonstrated his power to the world" (John 13:35; 17:20-21)" so writes Richard Lamb in The Pursuit of God in the Company of Friends.

I have mentioned James Olthuis' "with-ing" before. Here we want to begin looking at Jesus and with-ing, particularly, with-ness and pastoral friendship.  I do plan to look at Jesus' God-with-us friendship with men and women. 

Jesus and Pastoral Friendship: Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

Many feminists who have found it difficult to identify with the maleness of God as so portrayed by the Church, discover in the Jesus of the Gospels a person whom they love and appreciate.  Elaine Storkey What's Right With Feminism

Friendship defies reduction. It is to be enjoyed. Mary E. Hunt Fierce Tenderness

Seeking intimacy at any level—with God or with persons—is not a venture that gets the support of many people…if we will not settle for the reduction of love to lust and of faith to ritual, and run through the streets asking for more, we will most certainly disturb the peace and be told to behave ourselves and go back to the homes and churches where we belong. Eugene Peterson 53-54 Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work

Because experiencing emotional closeness without sex is not understood or legitimated, men’s ability to develop close friendships with either women or other men is hindered. Lisa McMinn 176 Sexuality and Longing

When women read their Bibles closely, they find in it a message of hope for themselves. For as it progresses from Genesis to Revelation, the biblical drama is the story of increasing inclusiveness in the kingdom of God. Van Leeuwan Gender and Grace 120

Friendship between a man and woman can be a medium for radical personal and shared transformation, that such an undertaking is eminently Christian and that the dynamics of such relationships are formative and grounded in the nature of the divine life as it is shown itself in the person of Jesus Christ. Wendy Wright

 

Jesus and Pastoral Friendship 1

"One might attempt to add still another biography of Christ to the already lengthy list.  But strictly speaking,, a biography of Christ is another contradiction in terms....though Christ also lived in a specific historical milieu, and though knowledge of the forces at work in it does further understanding of him, a biography of Christ is practicable only within the narrowest confines.  Neither his personality nor his works are immediately traceable to the conditions of the times, for he came to us out of the fullness of time contained in the mystery of God, and it was to this mystery that he returned after he had 'moved among us' (Acts 1:22)...In face of this mystery, human conceptions weigh little.  They may be used or discarded.  What counts is the realization that Christ forces upon us when he himself 'interprets Scripture' and our hearts start 'burning within us' (Luke 24:27 and 32)."  These words are found in the classic work of Romano Guardini, The Lord.