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CIRCLES OF DIGNITY AND JUSTICE

Discerning the haunting questions of our time John 9 (and Job 42). CIRCLES OF DIGNITY AND JUSTICE. Hearing the haunting question. This example is part of the praxis of engaging HIV in our contexts

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CIRCLES OF DIGNITY AND JUSTICE

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  1. Discerning the haunting questions of our time John 9 (and Job 42) CIRCLES OF DIGNITYAND JUSTICE

  2. Hearing the haunting question • This example is part of the praxis of engaging HIV in our contexts • See: The process of creating a CBS begins with ‘Seeing’. Social analysis with people living with HIV (‘from below’) identifies one of the decisive questions associated with HIV as the question of what ‘causes’ HIV, with HIV being stigmatised as “the illness of sinners”, as “the salary of sin”. • Judge: Once the context of HIV has been analysed, the CBS then moves into bringing this ‘reality’ into dialogue with ‘other’ biblical resources for a more redemptive interpretation. The challenge is to develop a CBS that will address the ‘causal’ question. In this case we will use John 9, focusing on ‘the shape’ of the text. • Act: The CBS begins the process of moving into action through the action plan, but the actual action goes beyond the CBS into the life of the community. In this case the CBS seeks for forms of action that can be used in the church to challenge and change its stigmatising responses to those who are HIV-positive.

  3. John 9:1-41 • 1. Listen to the dramatic reading of the text, and then share briefly in twos how this text has been interpreted in your context. • 2. Jesus engages with a man born blind in a number of ways: Jesus saw him (v1); Jesus touched him (v6); Jesus spoke to him (v7); Jesus found him (v35); Jesus has a conversation with him (v35). Re-read each of these encounters; what do these encounters say about Jesus and his attitude to the man born blind? Draw a picture which depicts these encounters (and the links between them).

  4. 3. The question the disciples ask in verse 2 reveals what they have been taught about sin and sickness. What is this teaching? What is their theological orientation to sickness? • 4. What Jesus says to his disciples in verse 3 and his subsequent actions (see Question 2 above) reveal an alternative teaching about sickness. What is this alternative theological orientation to sickness?

  5. 5. What is the theological orientation/teaching of your church towards those who are HIV-positive? Is it like that of Jesus or like that of the disciples? • 6. How will you respond to this Bible study in your context? • How would you preach about HIV and AIDS in a way that counters the dominant theological position that HIV is a punishment from God? • What structures could be put in place in your local congregation to make HIV-positive people welcome? • If as John 9 indicates, God is also at work with those outside the synagogue/church, what does this mean for our collaborative work with other faith traditions in the area of HIV and AIDS?

  6. Job 42:7-17 has a similar capacity • 1. Listen to a reading of Job 42:7-17. Summarise the whole story of Job in small groups. • Input: In chapter 29 Job remembers how in the past, before his loss and sickness, his community respected and embraced him. This was a time “when God watched over me; when God’s lamp shone on my head, and by God’s light I walked through darkness; when I was in my prime, when the friendship of God was upon my tent” (2-4). But in chapter 30 he laments how his community “now” “make sport” of him, and “mock” him, and “abhor” him. • 2. Why does the community change its attitude to Job? • Input: Chapters 29-31 represents the final major speech of Job’s. From chapter 3-31 we have a cycle of three sets of speeches, those of Job and the friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. Job begins the cycle of speeches in chapter 3 and concludes it in chapters 29-31. Throughout these cycles Job claims that he has done nothing to deserve the withdrawal of God’s presence, blessing and protection. But his three friends insist again and again in their speeches that he must have done something to deserve his loss and sickness. But it is God who has the final word. Chapter 42:7 brings us to the final words of God. Here God speaks to the three friends. • 3. What does God say to them in verse 7, and what do you think is meant by this?

  7. 4. In verse 8 God repeats what was said in verse 7, but in addition God requires the three friends to do something. What does God require them to do and why? • 5. In verse 10 we are told that “the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends”. How does God restore the fortunes of Job? (see verse 11 in particular)? • 6. Why do family, friends, and the wider community shun and stigmatise those who are HIV-positive? • 7. What does Job 42:7-11 teach us about our response to those who are HIV-positive? • 8. How can the community of faith 'restore the fortunes’ of those who are living with HIV? And what will you now do in response to this text?

  8. Dignitiy discerning the haunting questions of our contexts • What are the haunting questions of your contexts? • And how might scripture speak into these questions? • 1. ??? • 2. ??? • 3. ???

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