Chocolate for Lent
Week Two -- Group Encounter
View Movie Clip
Scenes: Armande reminiscing, Vianne’s gift to Josephine, Vianne visiting Josephine.
Brainstorm
1. For the moment, leave aside any questions you may have about Vianne, her “pagan” influences, her motives, etc., and look just at the good things she does. In this clip, how does she reach out to other people? List all the different things she does and says in this clip that offer people love and acceptance.
2. Think back to when Vianne first met both Armande and Josephine. How did they behave? List the things they said and did that might well have discouraged Vianne from getting to know the two women. How would you have reacted to those initial encounters?
3. Does your church (possibly) have any people who arc prickly, difficult, a bit odd, or socially unacceptable? List all the reactions inside you that might make you avoid them.
READER 1: Luke 5: 27-32 “Jesus, why do you eat and drink with sinners and tax collectors?”
“I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance.”
READER 2: Luke 7: 36-50 story when Jesus tells the story of a person cancels one person’s debt of 50 denarii and cancels another’s debt of 500 denarii, and wonders which debtor will love more the one who cancelled the debt?
Ponder and Share
Take a few minutes of silence to think about the following questions. Afterwards, if you feel you want to, share your thoughts with the group.
4. Think about ways in which someone’s act of generosity to you—whether of time, respect, listening, a practical gift, showing appreciation for what you had to offer them, etc. – has made a difference to your life.
5. Are there any people that you first felt uncomfortable with or disliked who have ended up enriching your life?
View Move Clip
Scene: Armande’s party
Discuss
6. Vianne arranged the party for Armande knowing that the rich food, especially sweet things, could kill her. Was this the right thing to do? To what extent should we give people what they want, even if we know it might be bad for them?
Ponder and Share
One of the greatest gifts we can give to others is our time. Sometimes, what others need most is not counsel or prayer or deep conversation but just time spent having fun. One of the most neglected gifts is the gift of an invitation—to a meal, a walk, a cup of coffee, a movie. It need not be anything grand or elaborate.
Spend a few minutes in silence to think about the following questions before sharing your thoughts.
7. Think of a time when an invitation came as a special gift to you. Do you spend enough time having fun with others? When was the last time you had a good laugh? Does your church community as a whole spend enough time together doing social things (whether formal organized activities or informal ones)?
8. What are the reasons you give for not spending more time having fun? (Such as: “The business of living, earning money, looking after the family, cleaning the house, takes up all my time.” Or, “A Christian’s mission and purpose is too important to waste time in frivolous things.” Or, “I don’t have anyone to have fun with.”)
9. What are the real reasons you don’t take this time? (Such as: “I’m too tired to bother.” Or, “I wouldn’t know what to do.” Or, “I’m afraid of being refused.” Or something else?)
Meditation
Begin with a few minutes of silence.
READER 3: Friendship is fragile and must be approached gently and patiently. The following passage explores this idea. It is taken from The Little Prince, a fantasy story by Antoine dc Saint-Exupéry about a boy who lives alone on a tiny planet with a rose bush as his only companion. The boy journeys to find other worlds, and on another tiny planet he meets a fox:
Come and play with me,” proposed tile little prince, “I am so unhappy.”
“I cannot play with you”, the fox said, “I am not tamed.”
“What does that mean—’tame’…?
“It is an act too often neglected,” said the fox. “It means to establish ties.”
“What does it mean to establish ties?”
“Just this,” said the fox. “To me you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of mc. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world.”
“I am beginning to understand,” said the little prince. “There is a flower. I think she has tamed me. ...”
“One only understands the things that one tames,” said the fox. “Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things already made at the shop. But there is no shop anywhere where you call buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me.”
“What must I do to tame you?” asked the little prince.
“You must be very patient,” replied the fox. “First you will sit down a little distance from me—like that—in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye and you will say nothing. Words are a source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me every day...”
And so the little prince does, and eventually he and the fox become friends. Later the fox explains more: “It is the time you wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important... Men have forgotten this truth,” said the fox. “But you must not forget it. You become responsible for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose...”
Pause for a brief reflection
READER 4: We listen now to a reading from a well-known passage from one of Paul’s letters. It’s so well-
known that the radical nature of its message may have lost the power to shock us. 1 Cor. 13: 1-10
(To get an idea of this radical message, put YOUR name into the passage instead of the word “love”)
Prayer
Lord, teach me to dance to the beat of your heart,
Teach me to move in the power of your Spirit,
Teach me to walk in the light of your presence,
Teach me to dance to the beat of your heart.
Teach me to love with your heart of compassion,
Teach me to trust in the word of your promise,
Teach me to hope in the day of your coming,
Teach me to dance to the beat of your heart. Amen.
To Continue Your Reflection
The Gift of Hospitality
One thing that disappoints me about the Gospels is that Jesus never gave a party (except perhaps the Last Supper; which was understandably somewhat somber in tone).
But even if He never hosted one, He was a welcome guest at several, spoke of others, and never showed any hint of disapproval no matter how disreputable the company. His followers certainly made it clear that welcoming others into your home was an important factor in following Jesus.
“Practice hospitality,” says Paul succinctly to the Roman church (Romans
In a way, early Christianity did not need to say a great deal about hospitality. When Moses set down the laws of the embryonic Jewish nation by listening to God and recording what he heard, periods of feasting and celebration were put in place as a vital part of the Jewish cycle of life. And of course, entertaining strangers was so ingrained into the Jewish way of life—indeed of all Middle Eastern life, as it is today—that the writer to the Hebrews needed only to remind them: “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).
The story of Abraham, who found that the travelers he had invited into his tent were actually messengers from God, was so well-known as not to need naming.
But of the many good things that have been handed on from biblical times into Western Christianity, sadly, hospitality is not always one of them. It sometimes seems that the more we have, the less we are willing to share.
Pause for Thought
What are some of the reasons why you and those you know arc sometimes reluctant to invite others into your homes?
Read John 2:1-11.
I often wonder how the staunch prohibition supporters of previous times dealt with this one: Jesus’ first miracle, used for something as frivolous as providing wine for a party. And not just for the toasts, either! Verse 10 suggests that the celebration was already “somewhat lively” by the time this occurred. Do you think Jesus did this to make a statement, or just to give help when it was needed? Whether it was an intentional statement or not, what messages do you take from this story?
Pause for Reflection
What act of hospitality could you perform in the next few weeks? It need not be anything big, because the aim is not to impress another, but to make someone feel loved and accepted.