Last week we started a movie discussion group at Wicker Park Grace, based on the movie Fish Out Of Water. It tells the filmmaker’s story, who came out as a lesbian when she was in college and was rejected by all her Christian friends who told her she was going to go to hell.

To try to understand that, she interviews a lot of pastors and says she learns more about the bible and theology in that process than she learned in all her years of Sunday School, growing up in church. That strikes me as so true and so sad. I’m glad that we engage the bible very deeply at Wicker Park Grace.

After studying all this, the filmmaker sends a letter to her best (ex-)friend telling her what she has learned. Her friend apologizes to her and they begin to work on rebuilding their friendship. After that, the filmmaker decides she needs to send this same letter to the whole country, and that is what this film is: her letter to us.

Last week we talked about the Creation Stories in Genesis 1 and 2, and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19. I really believe the Sodom and Gomorrah story is grossly misinterpreted when it’s considered to be a commentary on sexuality.

Do you know what Jesus said about Sodom? He said that the people there were like the people who rejected the disciples when then went as strangers into towns. It seems that Jesus interpreted the Sodom and Gomorrah story, like many biblical scholars have, as a failure of hospitality. Check it out in Luke 10:1-12. What is the sin/failure that Jesus is describing?

To reject a stranger in those days was a life and death matter. These days rejecting a stranger is also often a matter of life and death.

You can rent the movie for $3.99 on iTunes. Check it out.