Ep. 160: Sexuality. Identity. Hospitality. Food. | Pt. 2

Kourtney Cromwell:
Welcome to the indoubt Podcast where we explore the challenging topics that young adults often face. Each week we talk with guests who help answer questions of faith, life, and culture connecting them to our daily experiences and God’s Word. For more information on indoubt, visit indoubt.ca or indoubt.com.

Ryan McCurdy:
Hey everyone. So great to be with you again. My name is Ryan, your indoubt host and I’m pumped about this episode. It’s gonna be good. We have Rosaria Butterfield with us again and we’re doing part two of our conversation. If you were with us last week, you would have heard us discuss with Rosaria about belonging and identity and with sexual identity and the human need to find definition and how we label ourselves and all that stuff. And in this second episode, we’re gonna look a little bit more about how we can provide that, how we can understand our identity by the Gospel. By how Jesus views us, by how God’s Word says we are belonging to the family of God.
So, this episode I hope that you will be encouraged by that, because so often we are so busy in our lives and we need to slow down and invite a conversation about who we are in relationship with other people, in community, in the church. One of the main things I pulled from this conversation is that whether your house is clean or not clean, you can be hospitable. Whether your dorm room or your family living room or whether you feel like you have it all together, it doesn’t matter. Being part of community and recognizing that your identity is not in just the things you do but in who you are as a follower of God, it changes the way that we love and welcome other people into our lives. So, creating space for someone to have a place to belong is important. And so let’s open up our doors and Rosaria is going to challenge us again how we can be hospitable with the world just like Christ has been hospitable with us. Make sure you take a listen.
I think even hearing all that and what we’ve been talking about, how do you open the door and this phrase that you use, let’s get our hearts in order before we get our house in order. You know, growing up, my family we went to another family that this lady loves to cook and she puts on these amazing spreads and then you leave that and you’re like, “How am I supposed to open up my house? Like, I got a bowl of peanuts and maybe some water. Is that enough?”

Rosaria Butterfield:
Right.

Ryan McCurdy:
But what I’m hearing you say is that’s totally enough and it doesn’t need to be this big show.

Rosaria Butterfield:
No. No. Do what you do and open your arms wide knowing that the gospel that is in you is more needed than impressing people with things. And in fact, enlisting people to belong is part of the gospel. So, if you come to my house and everything is already done, I think I’m probably sinning against you because I won’t give you a sense of belonging. But if I’m … you know, you walk in and there’s laundry on the table. You know, you know what to do with laundry. You shove it back in the dryer. You know? Or you fold it and put it away, but if you’re people in my world you just shove it back in the dryer, you know? And that’s the holding pattern.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah.

Rosaria Butterfield:
So, I think that’s the point is that hospitality is supposed to meet strangers and welcome them as neighbours and then welcome neighbours to be part of the family of God and then to remember that the blood of Christ is actually thicker than the blood of biology. So, it’s a sense of belonging and that’s part of why you want to replicate an invitation that somehow captures the spirit of you are needed. You are welcome. You are wanted. Not just when I can set all these boundaries around you, but really all the time.
You know the other issue too though is to realize that the Gospel is not just meant to make converts. It’s meant to make this world a better place. So, you know, a few years ago something happened in our neighbourhood and it had coalesced with some other things happening in church and Kent and I, my husband and I, looked at each other and said, “You know, it’s time. It’s time we lived differently.” That’s when we started opening our home every single night for dinner and fellowship and prayer and we started saying to all of the singles in our church, but especially the singles who were struggling against same-sex attraction, “You’re a member of the family. Just come. Come stay.” If the holidays are rough, you know, stay. Sometimes we’ve had so many people here you’ve gotta sort of step over the sleeping bags, but we say, these are our church members. So, these are church members, these are our brothers and sisters. These are my children’s aunts and uncles. You can’t treat people who are family like they’re not.
So, we started to have different boundaries with our family of God and at the same time we started welcoming our neighbours in and two things happened. We started seeing conversions everywhere, which is exciting. But we also started to realize how we could be earthly good to our neighbours. How we could have a legitimate calling in our neighbourhood. So, to that end, we learned that many of our neighbours were struggling with addictions and abuse. And it wasn’t enough to say to them Smiths, “Hey, come over the third Tuesday of this month at seven o’clock”, because you know what? My neighbours didn’t know if they were going to be sober or safe the third Tuesday of the month at seven. They wanted to come. They just didn’t know if it was safe to say yes. And we started to realize that issuing invitations with all these boundaries around it could really make people feel even worse than they already did.
So, we started to say, “Come any Thursday at 6:15. Bring your self. Bring a friend.” And that changed everything because you know, one of those Thursdays those neighbours are going to be sober and one of those Thursdays those neighbours are going to be safe. So, instead of being hard, I mean, you know, definitely it takes a certain amount of planning, but I’m gonna tell you, everyone in this house knows where the vacuum cleaner is. And if the pet hair is a concern, I’m just trusting that you know how to do it.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah. They can take care of it.

Rosaria Butterfield:
They can take care of it.

Ryan McCurdy:
Totally.

Rosaria Butterfield:
People know how to make a meal in my kitchen. You know, it’s been wonderful. I think that living communally has made us all people who see the vitality of the Gospel and the living power of the word of God in ways that we didn’t when we had all those boundaries in place.

Ryan McCurdy:
Uh-huh. (affirmative). Yeah. And I think you know, even hearing that there’s so many things that even in my own life, you know, my wife and I have a three and a half-month-old, first-born son. We live in a one bedroom coach house that’s probably like 600 square feet, maybe 650, okay? And I’m thinking in my mind, I’m like, “Okay, how can I get creative?” Because I think that’s a big part of it is just being creative, taking down the barriers that would prevent you.
And we have two close friends of mine and actually a few months back before I had heard about you, I heard about you through a friend of mine who has your book, the book, “The Gospel Comes with the House Key. ” Her and her husband, in my opinion, are amazing at hospitality. Every Sunday night, they’d be like, “Hey, our house is open for family dinner.” We would just show up and kids toys everywhere. It’s like, this is messy. It’s not the most organized. There’s dishes sitting in the sink. Okay, so we’d come and sometimes we’d bring something and we would eat. There would be us and another few couples. Then people from our church who aren’t connected yet, and they modelled it so well for me.

Rosaria Butterfield:
Right.

Ryan McCurdy:
Because I’m thinking we have two kids. This same girl, her name’s Joanna, she has two kids right now. They live in a basement suite. When she heard I was having a conversation with you, she was like, “Oh, my goodness. That’s so exciting. I want to hear that. I want to get to know her a little bit more.” So, she asked this question –

Rosaria Butterfield:
Yeah?

Ryan McCurdy:
And I’d love to relay it to you if that’s okay. She asked –

Rosaria Butterfield:
Sure.

Ryan McCurdy:
– how would you encourage young families to radically ordinary hospitality in an already exhausting time of life?

Rosaria Butterfield:
Yes. I think that that’s a great question and there’s a difference between the normal exhaustion that simply goes with your season of life and the need to remember that doors do have hinges and shore up for a little bit. So, the point is not that you are always doing this, but that somebody in your church is always doing this. Because ultimately you’re calling people to notice that the church lives differently. And you’re calling people to see that that different is great. It’s a great way to live. We live as brothers and sisters. We live communally. We don’t erect boundaries of selfishness and idolatry. We share what we have and we go without and we live below our means and our houses are messy. And I know when I had kids your age I could count on one hand how many showers I got in. You’re like, “Oh, it was an overachieving day. I got a shower and dinner’s made.” So, you just share what you have. But you know, you’re exhausted in Christ. You have neighbours who are exhausted and they’re eating each other alive.
So, you want to think about that. That it isn’t that you have to do it all the time. It’s that somebody in your church community does. You know what, I lived in Syracuse everybody knew which house on the block had a really good snow blower. And we all wanted to be friends with that person. Well, church membership, and what I mean by church membership, I mean the vital belonging of the family of God that should communicate across the boundaries in the same way that snow blowers do in January. But yeah, be reflective with each other. So, I have friends who are reflective with me and they’ll say, “This is not normal exhaustion. This is you need to go on a vacation exhaustion.”
But you know, most of my friends will do it a little differently. We sort of use the marathon training schedule. You know what that is, the slowest runner sets the pace. So, we have a number of singles from our church who are just tied in with us. They eat with us every night. If it looks like I’ve been cooking for too long or I’m too busy, you know what? They pick up Chick-Fil-A and everyone’s thrilled. I’ve personally never seen anyone complain here.

Ryan McCurdy:
Uh-huh. (affirmative).

Rosaria Butterfield:
The point is not the food. The point is not whether there are dishes in the sink. If there are dishes in the sink, wash ’em, you know?

Ryan McCurdy:
Uh-huh. (affirmative).

Rosaria Butterfield:
This is belonging. The point is that there are people more exhausted than I am who don’t have Christ. There are people who are at the end of their ropes and they have no supernatural love and grace to pour into them.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah. And when you give people an opportunity to belong, it opens them to receive that love, that grace, right? Belonging to a community, belonging to a group of friends around a table, even that conversation about hey, when there’s laundry on the table.

Rosaria Butterfield:
Right. Do it.

Ryan McCurdy:
Right. I think so often it’s easy to think, “Okay. Well, I’m gonna take care. I’m gonna serve everybody by doing everything. When in reality I’m gonna serve you by allowing you to put some of your skin in the game, have ownership, and then realize that you contribute to this evening or you contribute to this community just as much as anyone else.” That makes you a part of it.

Rosaria Butterfield:
Right.

Ryan McCurdy:
You’re not just a bystander. You’re not just watching us do this.

Rosaria Butterfield:
No.

Ryan McCurdy:
You are part of it.

Rosaria Butterfield:
That’s right. And that takes up two very important Christian realities. One is Jesus was both host and guest. And the other is that belonging is the only thing that will respond to the crushing loneliness of our social media infatuated world. Belonging in a way that allows you to touch and share. And recognizing the fact that Christians have to go the extra mile in befriending people who think differently than you do. And thinking about what it is that you have that might be a blessing. I mean, I have a friend who is a gay rights activist. She’s also a friend. In our home, we do the same thing every night. We’re the boring Butterfields. We have a bunch of people over. We share what we have and at a certain time in the meal, the kids will send the dishes up to the sink and the coffee mugs and the Bibles down and we will open the Word and we will sing the Word. We’re Psalm singers. And then we’ll pray and all of our neighbours who are there, you either join us or you don’t. You’re not tied to the chair. I don’t super glue people to the chair.

Ryan McCurdy:
Right.

Rosaria Butterfield:
You need to leave, you leave and that’s true for the Christians too. Guess what? People have things. But lingering long to allow Jesus to enter into the conversation, not to stop the conversation, but to deepen it, is an art. It’s a beautiful thing. So, that happens just every night and it is a way of first of all making sure that you have now … ’cause people sometimes say, “How do I shift the conversation from egg salad to eternity?” Well, it’s pretty simple. At a certain point, there’s a b=Bible that shows up in front of you and somebody says, “What’s this?”
But in the process one of my neighbours is an activist and she’s not a Christian but she’s in our world and you know what she does? She borrows one of our dogs when she gets really lonely. I’m great with that. We’re fine with that, but that’s how close we are. We’re close enough friends that’s she’ll say, “Can I borrow this dog?” My house is a kennel, you know? But seriously, to know people well enough. Loneliness is what makes people … it can make people crazy, but it’s also loneliness that really exacerbates sin, right? 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation will befall you except that which is common to man and God will give you a way of escape so that you can endure it.” What if my home is that way of escape?
But I’ve just read a book called Boundaries and I have a million boundaries. I’m not making fun of the book called Boundaries. There are lots of books named Boundaries. I’m just saying people sometimes talk about boundaries like, you know, they’re carved in stone. They’re not. They’re set in the blood of Christ is what boundaries – You have boundaries. I have boundaries. And it’s Christ’s blood that’s going to determine those boundaries. So, you know, just be thinking about those things.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah, and I think that’s something where you know, you see heightened boundaries but we see loneliness all over the place.

Rosaria Butterfield:
All over the place and it’s loneliness that can drive people to sin. You know, Satan loves to get especially Christians really lonely. Feeling very much like as you said just before, outsiders looking in. But I know that if our homes were much more open than they are, then you’d have a way of escape.

Ryan McCurdy:
Uh-huh. (affirmative). And I think that’s a question that I wanted to ask you as well even as I was preparing to have this conversation with you is you know, my wife is a therapist. She’s a counsellor and I’m a pastor. We’ve had to navigate that line of boundaries, right? Because a client of my wife’s and her relationship is very unique, very specific and they’re not gonna be friends outside of that, but as a pastor, I’m friends with so many of the people that I’m doing life with and in community with. These are people that I genuinely call my friends and yet there’s a similar relationship of, hey, let’s look on God’s word together and let’s recognize that we do have a difference of relationship as a pastor, but it’s a much different type of boundary and I think especially where we’re from in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver, there is a huge boom and bust for counsellors. As the rise of mental health, anxiety, depression, all of these things coming more and more to the front. People are saying, “Oh, I need a counsellor. I need therapy. I need this. I need that.”
And yet, what I think is a potential, if we’re not careful we could get into thinking that oh, my relationship with my counsellor is the type of relationship I need to have with most of the people in my life.

Rosaria Butterfield:
Exactly. Exactly. So, we would make a distinction in this way, and I’ve had to do this. Sometimes I’ll have people who will want to come and stay with us. You know, because they’re struggling with something. I’ve had to remind people I’m not a ministry, I’m a human being. So, if you’re going to stay in my home, you’re going to watch me homeschool some kids and talk to my neighbours, and go to Costco, and you know. That’s it. This isn’t an extended – I’m not a counsellor. I’m a human being. You’re going to see all the messiness of this. I’ve heard Kent say, especially when he had a college ministry, he’s had to say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. This isn’t the debate team. Why are you talking like this? This is my dinner table. Stop.”
That brings up the other thing. People will often ask how do you not be taken advantage of. Well, let me put that one to rest. You will be taken advantage of and that’s okay. Right now you need to adjust your expectations. All right? So, I kind of kid around that we can all put this on our foreheads or on Christmas wrap, “Lower your expectations. Increase your joy.” But especially in the ministry. You will be poured out like a drink offering. You will be robbed. You will be maligned. And 1 Peter 3 says you’re supposed to count it all joy if all of this is happening for the sake of Christ. But be careful that it is not happening because you haven’t dealt with your own sin.
So, yes. You will be taken advantage of. Guaranteed. And so then you have to sit down and think it through. Do you believe that one of the costs of Gospel life in a post-Christian world is that your home is not your own, but rather it’s a hospital and an incubator? Do you believe that in a post-Christian world you don’t just cold-invite people to church because there’s a bridge that people are going to have to walk over and actually park on, maybe for years and that bridge is called your home. Do you believe that? If you believe that, then all the things we’re talking about in this podcast make sense. And if you don’t believe that, then you’re gonna tell me that I’m violating Proverbs. That Proverbs says “don’t often be in the home of your neighbour.”
So, it’s really about do you believe that this post-Christian world requires that you live differently. You know, at a certain point in the gay community, the AIDS crisis demanded that we all live differently in New York. People might now know this, but women who identified as lesbian and men who identify as gay have nothing in common. All right? Women who identify as lesbian look at gay men and say, “You’re a bunch of hedonists.” And the men look at us and they would say, “You’re just a bunch of political prigs.” Then AIDS came through and people were dying and we decided we were going to shut up and deal with this. That’s where the coalition happened. That’s where that coalition was born.
Now, can Christians look at this world and say, “You know what? It’s a post-Christian world. I’m not getting any favour out there. We need to live differently because we need a revival.” We’re no more ready for a revival then we are anything else right now because our hearts aren’t in order. Our houses aren’t in order. We grieve more over spilled coffee on our white carpet than we do the souls of our neighbours. We are a sinful generation. If that’s where we are then this conversation makes sense. If not, I’m just gonna pray that we get there. This is a post-Christian world.

Ryan McCurdy:
That’s a huge takeaway because we look at even church history the last hundred years and if we think the things that got us here are going to be the things that lead us forward as the church, I think we’re gravely mistaken. It sounds like even what you’re advocating for is hey, it actually doesn’t look like a few pastors sharing a few good sermons and everyone listening to that. You know, like the Billy Graham era where people were like thousands coming across. You know, not that it’s not likely or it’s not possible, but it just might not be the way that it was in the past. So, it might look like a couple thousand or a couple million individual followers of Jesus opening their door.

Rosaria Butterfield:
Yes. Yes. Amen and amen. Opening their door to their messy lives where Jesus reigns and just sharing what you have and allowing your neighbours to see that no, no – this isn’t the Gospel on a coexist bumper sticker. This is the Gospel that recognizes that Jesus did not shed his blood to make an ally with the same sin he went to the cross for. No, no, no, no, no. The Gospel comes in exchange for the life you love, not in addition to it. And because that’s hard we’re a family. So, you’re welcome here. Not just Tuesdays at seven, but all the time.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yeah, and I think what I’m hearing and what I would encourage those who are listening to this is no matter where you’re at or what you have if you are a college student living in a dorm and all you have to share is Ramen noodles, because it’s the cheapest thing that you got and the cheapest thing you can afford, opening your door and sharing a bowl of noodles with somebody that cost you two dollars and fifty cents is just the same as opening up to a big dinner, because it’s not about the food. It’s about the relationship. So, maybe I ask the question what would you say to maybe the average follower of Christ who really longs to make an impact and difference in their community, in their neighbourhood, what words of encouragement would you give them? And is there anything else that you would share?

Rosaria Butterfield:
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Well, first of all, I think it’s great when this kind of momentum comes from the church. So, I would say if you’re feeling yourself a sense of loneliness and just a segmented, segregated life where without meaning to you almost feel like a hypocrite. You’re one person here and you’re one person there. You know, I would gather with your people. Gather with your Christian friends and pray about this. Explore what hospitality was with the early church, ’cause you know the early churches are a model for the post-Christian world. You’re right. We’re not going to go to the 1970s. We’re not going to go to the Billy Graham movement, because that’s not our world. The first and second century are a lot closer. What made those people more afraid of false teaching than persecution? What made them that? Well, I’ll tell you. They lived communally. They were stakeholders in each other’s lives in real time.
So, I would say first of all pray about it. We’re talking about a husband and wife. Talk about it. You know, please don’t think you’re doing anything for the Gospel wives if you are commandeering or hitting your husbands over the head with hospitality. He’s gotta lead on this. You guys have to work together on this. So, let’s not rush into this like it’s a program. You know, like it’s a Crossfit. You know, just do this. Let’s be mindful of the spiritual graces that you need to go into something like this.
Then I would say start where it’s safe. You know what’s safe is Christian fellowship. Start there. Build there. And then build neighbours through that and the reason I say neighbours is neighbouring matters. Jesus never gets the address wrong. He puts somebody next door for a reason. He puts somebody across the street for a reason. So, build in neighbours. Once you’ve got your core, church fellowship group there, but do it prayerfully. Do it under the authority of your church pastor and elders. Do it under the authority of your husbands for the wives. You know, in this case, singles have a lot more room to range on hospitality and one of the things that we also know that’s true across history is the people who have very little have always shared more than the people who have too much. The people who have too much, those idols they’re just a noose around the neck. So, give it away. Share it.

Ryan McCurdy:
Yep. Rosaria, I feel like we could talk for a long time. It has been such a joy to have you on indoubt with us and some really compelling conversations and challenges for us. So, thank you for being here and we would love to do this again.

Rosaria Butterfield:
Oh, Amen. Thank you, brother.

Ryan McCurdy:
That was part two with Rosaria Butterfield and so I think this is an important conversation to be having as young people because it’s so easy to close our doors and push people out. It’s so easy to just focus on what we want and the friends that we have, but the Gospel actually challenges us and says, “Hey, don’t just focus on yourself. Love your neighbour. Invite them in. Go to their home.” Jesus spent time with tax collectors and sinners. So, this is a great conversation to be having. I hope you enjoyed the conversation.
I want to remind you that indoubt is all about helping us understand how we can live our lives in the culture that we’re in. So we want to invite you to partner with us as we share this Good News and the challenges and the nuances of how we live as followers of Jesus. You can visit us at indoubt.ca in Canada and if you’re in the United States, indoubt.com. Follow us on social media and download our app which is available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. We would love to hear from you on topics you’d like for us to discuss and how indoubt has impacted you. You can email us at info@indoubt.ca to stay connected with us there. Next week we talk with singer and songwriter Jordan St. Cyr about his personal story and about how he aspires to write music that applies to the next generation.

Kourtney Cromwell:
Thanks so much for listening. If you want to hear more, subscribe on iTunes and Spotify or visit us online at indoubt.ca or indoubt.com. We’re also on social media so make sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.