Rise & Shine - December 03
In this age of Facebook “friends,” non-traditional families, and pass-by acquaintances, what does it mean to be in true relationship with one another?
The Rise and Shine discussion group meets Sunday mornings at 9:00 am in the Parlor. Adults from the 8:00 & 10:00 services gather for discussions that are relevant to their lives through the lens of a current topic and scriptural references. This week's story can be read or downloaded below.
Click HERE to download a copy of the story
Rent-a-Relation Businesses on the Rise
In the News
Ishii Yuichi created his company, Family Romance, to provide clients with actors of every age and description to play-act the part of relatives, friends, and acquaintances. The Japanese company enables people to form "on-demand" relationships on an à la carte basis to cope with loneliness, grief, unmet needs, business, or family expectations.
The sometimes comical, sometimes poignant complications that arise from hiring people as fake friends, relatives, fans, etc. is a common theme in movies (Dear Frankie, My Fake Fiance, Marry Me for Christmas, A Walk in the Clouds, The Convenient Groom, Borrowed Hearts and Can't Buy Me Love, for example).
Besides the typical applications of using actors to play romantic relationships, Family Romance actors have acted the parts of:
- a father of a child being bullied for not having a father or to enhance a fatherless child's chances of gaining admission to a private school
- a large wedding party to bolster believability that a wedding is real
- a pretend family to create the impression that employees have strong family ties valued in their business culture
- a penitent to apologize for wrongdoing to an employer or spouse
- a loved one who has died, to help someone work through grief
- fans to praise clients so they will feel better about themselves
- an infant to allow a man to see his unborn grandchild before he died
- an idealized person to have a convenient relationship without the work, mess and aggravation of real-life problems with real people
"In a real relationship, you're slowly building trust," Yuichi said. "It takes years to create a strong connection." Some people don't want to risk being disappointed or hurt by a breakup, or don't have time to invest in a serious relationship, so they hire a "perfect" companion to play a part for two hours per week at about $50 an hour, plus expenses. "Real dating feels like work," Yuichi explained. "It feels like work to care for a real person."
"Money may not be able to buy love, but … it can certainly buy the appearance of love," an article in The Atlantic observed. But Yuichi doesn't like to call the experiences his company creates "fake"; instead, his company motto describes them as "more than real."
Yuichi has some concerns about the relation-rental business: maintaining long term cover stories; people discovering that the cover story is actually false; handling the stress of playing idealized people; becoming too attached to clients and confusing the cover story with reality.
Yuichi sometimes dreams of revealing the truth to a girl for whom he plays a surrogate father. In his dream, he apologizes and reveals his true identity as an actor, but just as the girl opens her mouth to speak, he wakes up.
"The happiness is not endless," Yuichi said, "but that doesn't mean that it's without value. The child had a father when she needed him most." Instead of anger, the child might feel grateful that her mother did this for her.
In this age of Facebook “friends,” non-traditional families, and pass-by acquaintances, what does it mean to be in true relationship with one another?
More on this story can be found at these links:
How to Hire Fake Friends and Family. The Atlantic
Mourners-For-Rent Hired to Blub at Funerals. The Guardian
'Rent a Mourner' Helps You Look More Popular at Your Funeral. Huffington Post
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:
Job 2:11-13
Now when Job's three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from his home -- Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They met together to go and console and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads. They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great. (For context, read 2:7-13.)
Job was a wealthy man enjoying life and honoring God, when Satan attacked his integrity, sending raiders who killed his servants and stole his possessions; then his 10 children were all killed in a natural disaster, and finally, his health failed. His wife, crushed by her own grief, was unable to help him in his agony.
That's when Job's three friends showed up. That first week, the three men did more good by their presence, tears and silent empathy than they did after they began to try to philosophize about Job's suffering. Later Job complained that his relatives and close, intimate friends had failed him and turned against him (19:14, 19).
Questions: Why is the failure of friends or family members to understand and empathize with you in your time of need harder to accept than that of mere acquaintances or strangers? When you are hurting, what is the most helpful thing a friend can do for you?
How comfortable are you with silence when with a hurting friend? Why do we sometimes need to fill silence with words? How do we determine when words might be helpful and when they are unnecessary or even unhelpful?
Luke 15:13-16
A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. (For context, read 15:11-24.)
In Jesus' parable about the prodigal son, it seems that as long as the wanderer had money in his pocket, he had plenty of friends, but once he was broke, his so-called friends were nowhere to be found. Alone, hungry, and down on his luck, "no one gave him anything."
Proverbs 18:24 says, "Some friends play at friendship, but a true friend sticks closer than one's nearest kin." The prodigal's "friends" were willing to play only as long as his star was on the rise. His elder brother begrudged him his father's generosity, too. It was only the father who "stuck close" when the younger son was most unworthy. In his mercy, the love of God the Father is reflected.
Questions: When have you been most in need of a friend? Who has been a true friend to you over the long haul, through thick and thin? How can you be a friend to lonely people in need?
Psalm 25:14
The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes his covenant known to them. (For context, read 25:12-15.)
Friendship is a two-way street. To be friends of God can mean that God behaves in a friendly manner toward us, and also that we behave in a friendly manner toward God.
Some relationships with God are described as friendship. Abraham "was called the friend of God" (James 2:23); God spoke to Moses "face to face, as one speaks to a friend" (Exodus 33:11).
Questions: What have you experienced from God that you might describe as friendship? How can you be a true friend to God?
John 15:12-14
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. (For context, read 15:9-17.)
Jesus clearly states how we demonstrate that we are his friends: by doing what he commands us to do. And what does he command? That we love one another as he has loved us. And how do we love like that? By laying down our lives for our friends.
Questions: Who has loved you "as Jesus has loved you"? Who besides Jesus has laid down life for you? How are you loving others as Jesus has loved you? How are you laying down your life for your friends?
Prayer for the Human Family (BCP p.815)
O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us
through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole
human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which
infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us;
unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and
confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in
your good time, all nations and races may serve you in
harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ
our Lord. Amen.
