What is the Missional Church? (Part 7)
Epistles: Ephesians
The next three posts in this series will carry us on through the New Testament. Ephesians will give us a Pauline view, 1 Peter a Petrine view, and Revelation will afford us a last look at the missional church.
In Ephesians Paul gives us the most comprehensive, wide-angle, big picture view of God’s plan and the church’s role in that plan. God’s plan is, of course, his mission. This mission, God’s “eternal purpose” (3:11), Paul declares is “to gather all things up in (Christ), things in heaven and things on earth” (1:10). The resurrected, ascended, exalted, ruling Christ is the center point of everything God is doing. All things and people will find their place in and in relation to him. This “mystery” now to be made known to the world is that in and through this crucified and resurrected Jesus Jew and Gentile have found a unity beyond their ethnic, religious, social, political, and economic enmities (2:11-16), a unity that will ultimately be God’s eternal habitation (2:19-22).
Paul’s share in this divine mission is to make this “mystery” known everywhere and to everyone (3:7-9). Our share in this mission is, through the church’s living out of the “mystery,” this profound and profoundly counterintuitive unity of Jew and Gentile in Christ, to make known ”the wisdom of God in its rich variety” to “the rulers and authorities in heavenly places” (3:10). Somehow, someway our life together as the one new person in Christ (2:16) announces to the rebellious powers (unruly spiritual creations/creatures) that disorder our lives and creation itself that their reign of “discreation” is over, they have been defeated, and beginning with the church but ultimately encompassing all things order, harmony, beauty, and justice is and will be restored. Being this “announcement” of God’s plan and the fruit of its achievement is the mandate and ministry of the “missional” church! The remainder of Ephesians is Paul’s detailing of central dynamics and issues the church faces in being such a community.
Ephesians is governed by what I call a Pattern of Grace.” Paul articulates it in terms of three posture images: Sit (2:6), Walk (4:1), and Stand (6:11). Within the three posture images, Paul embeds what I call the “Missional Matrix,” the dynamics and structures that make and keep Christian existence missional. Each of these five elements of the Matrix begins with “M”: the Mystery of God’s gracious plan (ch.1), the Memory of God’s gracious work (ch.2), the Mission of God’s people (ch.3), the Milieu of Missional growth (4:1-6:9), and the Mode of God’s people’s work in the world (6:10-20).
To “Sit” is to assume a posture of receptivity. The first three chapters of Ephesians are governed by this image (2:6) along with the first three “M’s” of the Missional Matrix. In them we receive the gifts and calling of grace. Paul paints this divine grace, this “mystery,” in lavish, extravagant terms, spanning eternity past (1:4) to eternity future (2:7) and leaving no aspect of life unseasoned by his mercy, forgiveness, acceptance, and welcome (see especially the classic passage in 2:1-10). He dazzles us with an unveiling of God’s plan, a gracious and wise plan that none would have ever guessed or predicted. The means of our appropriation and participation in God’s plan is “memory” – the embracing and internalizing of what God has done and promises to do as the story of our lives (Ch.2). And we discover the “mission” that will henceforth claim all that we are and all that we have in its service (3:10) with Paul himself a chief example and mentor in living out this missional way of life 3:1-8). All this we must “receive,” that is, take it in, ponder it, reflect on it with others, “remember” it in study and worship, and internalize it as the new reality in which we live.
To “walk” is to actively live within the community of faith (4:1-6:9). Here we learn to share our gifts, receive the gifts of others; to be accountable to the community for growth in living out God’s mission; and preparing for the struggle of actually engaging that mission. This community of faith is the “milieu,” the only “milieu” in which we can grow into the kind of people who can announce and model the victory of God’s wisdom to the powers (3:10).
Finally, and this is where Paul has been leading us all along, the “mode” of our engaging the powers and the world is conflictual (6:10-20). We are in a battle and, thus, need proper equipping. Astonishingly, God’s gives us his very own “armor” so we might “stand” and “stand firm” in the struggle with the powers. For it is they who are behind human movements and their leaders that contest God’s will and way. The human beings caught up in these movements and practices, even if they lead them and think they are in charge, are in truth captives and slaves of these powers and do their bidding, wittingly or unwittingly. Therefore we seek to rescue them as well as resist the plans and pogroms of the powers.
The New Testament epistles give texture to the profile of a missional church. We can fine tune our grasp of its character through the guidance the author gives the particular community in light of the salient dynamics. structures, and values of the places where we live. For North Americans, I suggest that Ephesians teaches us that missional communities who incarnate the Pattern of Grace we identified will
-live a rhythm of “being/doing” in which each aspect feeds, leads to, and calls forth the other – a sort of continuous feedback loop with two foci. Thus neither “prayer” nor “practice” is at odds with each other, being two sides of the same coin.
-speak “Southern,” that is, will emphasize “Y’all” over “you” and “me.” A missional church will recognize that the community is the “incubator” for personal growth, that individuality only matures in interacting with others in pursuit of a common purpose Thus the ideology of individualism is ruled out as a way of life for such groups.
-exist in some measure of tension or conflict with their context. Any culture or society the church finds itself in will fall short of God’s intentions for it. While eager to affirm signs and traces of beauty, justice, and compassion in our communities, missional churches know they will have to resist and oppose the encroachments of the dehumanizing, divisive, destructive, and death-dealing ways they pursue.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
What is the Missional Church? (Part 6)
What is the Missional Church? (Part 6)
The End of the Gospels: Summary
In the providence of God we have four stories recounting and interpreting the event of Jesus. They are best likened to four portraits of Jesus. Unlike photographs, portraits attempt to capture the substance or character of their subjects rather than striving simply for exact reproduction of likeness. Four artists portraying the same figure would produce works that are clearly of that figure yet each would have its peculiarities of setting, shading, perspective, and emphasis on certain features that would make each different from the other. The four portraits could not be homogenized into one yet, if they are each recognized as faithful renditions of their subject, they can all be recognized as true!
This, I suggest, is the case with our four “gospel” portraits of Jesus. They cohere with each other in that they are clearly about the same figure, on the one hand. And on the other hand, the church under the guidance of the Spirit has acknowledged that each in their differences from the others are faithful renditions of Jesus. Thus there is no need to homogenize them into one (as harmonies of the gospels try to do) or choose one over the others as “most true.” Instead we need to install all four in our “Gospel Gallery” and spend time mulling over each of them, both in their similarities and their difference to gain a fuller, more nuanced, and more adequate vision of this Jesus. We have seen this difference in similarity or similarity in difference in our brief surveys of the resurrection and commissioning stories in each gospel.
We will need a way of honoring both the similarities and uniqueness of each gospel’s “end” if we seek a well-rounded profile of the kind of community or church, what I have called the “Missional” church, that emerges from them. On an end table in our living room sits a decorative piece that I believe offers an apt image for this task. It is a Russian doll that comes apart in the middle revealing another, smaller doll inside. That second doll comes apart too and contains a third yet smaller one and so on. There are five dolls in total embedded in the one doll that sits on my end table. They bear images of key Russian leaders from Lenin to Gorbachev in chronological order. I believe we can helpfully conceive the profile of the “missional” church that emerges from the four gospels in a similar fashion.
The innermost figure in our “Gospel Doll” is Mark. In his unusual and provocative ending limns the basic, non-negotiable response to the resurrection that alone yields knowledge of and relationship to the risen Jesus – go and join him in cruciform, servant ministry in the world of suffering and need.
I would place Mark inside the next larger doll, Matthew. Thus we embed Mark’s radical call to action – “if you want to know, you’ve got to go” – at the very heart and core of any faithful profile the “missional” church. Matthew adds to this call another layer of meaning – “If you want to go, you’ve got to know.” In our going, he shows us how through his risen presence and power, we are equipped and reconstituted as God’s people, a “new Israel” as it were, to fulfill than ancient purpose for which God’s people were first called – to be the vehicle through whom God would bless everyone else (Gen.12:3)!
Our Mark/Matthew doll would go in the next larger figure, that of Luke. As God’s people, heirs to the great promise to Abraham and Sarah, this promise is intended not just for us but for the world. Luke highlights that it is to all of Adam’s progeny that we must go if we are to be faithful to our commission. Especially, Luke emphasizes, the last, the least, and the lost.
Finally, Mark/Matthew/Luke is embedded in John. John reflects the most expansive horizon of meaning for the “missional” church – the cosmic. John tells us, “the Word made flesh – a world made fresh.” New creation has dawned in Jesus’ resurrection and the whole world, the cosmos, is remade. This is the bold announcement we make to the world, that “the hopes and fears of all the years” along with “groaning of creation in travail (Romans 8) are indeed met and resolved in Jesus, the Word who was God (1:1) made flesh! All the other layers of meaning are taken up and set in their largest context and each gains texture and meaning that none alone possesses. And this process moves both directions: from Mark to John and John to Mark.
A “missional” church then, will in a manner appropriate to its context, embody something of each of these features the gospel endings reveal to us. One aspect may be more prominent in one context and another in an different context. These churches will share the same “difference in similarity” or “similarity in difference” that the gospels themselves have. These features may be recurring “seasons” in a community’s life when the particular focus of each gospel needs to be revisited as the life and context for ministry changes. But “missional” churches will share this “family” resemblance. Their lives and ministries will be
-as wide-ranging and all-embracing as John’s ending,
-as pointed and prodding as Mark’s call to follow,
-as constitutive of the community’s identity as Matthew’s, and
-as expansive and inclusive as Luke’s.
In the next post we’ll look briefly at Acts as the sequel to Luke’s gospel.
The End of the Gospels: Summary
In the providence of God we have four stories recounting and interpreting the event of Jesus. They are best likened to four portraits of Jesus. Unlike photographs, portraits attempt to capture the substance or character of their subjects rather than striving simply for exact reproduction of likeness. Four artists portraying the same figure would produce works that are clearly of that figure yet each would have its peculiarities of setting, shading, perspective, and emphasis on certain features that would make each different from the other. The four portraits could not be homogenized into one yet, if they are each recognized as faithful renditions of their subject, they can all be recognized as true!
This, I suggest, is the case with our four “gospel” portraits of Jesus. They cohere with each other in that they are clearly about the same figure, on the one hand. And on the other hand, the church under the guidance of the Spirit has acknowledged that each in their differences from the others are faithful renditions of Jesus. Thus there is no need to homogenize them into one (as harmonies of the gospels try to do) or choose one over the others as “most true.” Instead we need to install all four in our “Gospel Gallery” and spend time mulling over each of them, both in their similarities and their difference to gain a fuller, more nuanced, and more adequate vision of this Jesus. We have seen this difference in similarity or similarity in difference in our brief surveys of the resurrection and commissioning stories in each gospel.
We will need a way of honoring both the similarities and uniqueness of each gospel’s “end” if we seek a well-rounded profile of the kind of community or church, what I have called the “Missional” church, that emerges from them. On an end table in our living room sits a decorative piece that I believe offers an apt image for this task. It is a Russian doll that comes apart in the middle revealing another, smaller doll inside. That second doll comes apart too and contains a third yet smaller one and so on. There are five dolls in total embedded in the one doll that sits on my end table. They bear images of key Russian leaders from Lenin to Gorbachev in chronological order. I believe we can helpfully conceive the profile of the “missional” church that emerges from the four gospels in a similar fashion.
The innermost figure in our “Gospel Doll” is Mark. In his unusual and provocative ending limns the basic, non-negotiable response to the resurrection that alone yields knowledge of and relationship to the risen Jesus – go and join him in cruciform, servant ministry in the world of suffering and need.
I would place Mark inside the next larger doll, Matthew. Thus we embed Mark’s radical call to action – “if you want to know, you’ve got to go” – at the very heart and core of any faithful profile the “missional” church. Matthew adds to this call another layer of meaning – “If you want to go, you’ve got to know.” In our going, he shows us how through his risen presence and power, we are equipped and reconstituted as God’s people, a “new Israel” as it were, to fulfill than ancient purpose for which God’s people were first called – to be the vehicle through whom God would bless everyone else (Gen.12:3)!
Our Mark/Matthew doll would go in the next larger figure, that of Luke. As God’s people, heirs to the great promise to Abraham and Sarah, this promise is intended not just for us but for the world. Luke highlights that it is to all of Adam’s progeny that we must go if we are to be faithful to our commission. Especially, Luke emphasizes, the last, the least, and the lost.
Finally, Mark/Matthew/Luke is embedded in John. John reflects the most expansive horizon of meaning for the “missional” church – the cosmic. John tells us, “the Word made flesh – a world made fresh.” New creation has dawned in Jesus’ resurrection and the whole world, the cosmos, is remade. This is the bold announcement we make to the world, that “the hopes and fears of all the years” along with “groaning of creation in travail (Romans 8) are indeed met and resolved in Jesus, the Word who was God (1:1) made flesh! All the other layers of meaning are taken up and set in their largest context and each gains texture and meaning that none alone possesses. And this process moves both directions: from Mark to John and John to Mark.
A “missional” church then, will in a manner appropriate to its context, embody something of each of these features the gospel endings reveal to us. One aspect may be more prominent in one context and another in an different context. These churches will share the same “difference in similarity” or “similarity in difference” that the gospels themselves have. These features may be recurring “seasons” in a community’s life when the particular focus of each gospel needs to be revisited as the life and context for ministry changes. But “missional” churches will share this “family” resemblance. Their lives and ministries will be
-as wide-ranging and all-embracing as John’s ending,
-as pointed and prodding as Mark’s call to follow,
-as constitutive of the community’s identity as Matthew’s, and
-as expansive and inclusive as Luke’s.
In the next post we’ll look briefly at Acts as the sequel to Luke’s gospel.
What is the Missional Church? (part 5)
What is the Missional Church? (Part 5)
The End of the Gospels: John
As we might expect, the ending of the fourth gospel is similar yet different from the other three. Like the gospel as a whole, John’s ending places Jesus’ followers, the missional church, in the largest perspective possible.
-Mark places Jesus and his church in the prophetic tradition of Isaiah’s New Exodus, thus he begins his Jesus’ story with a quote from the prophets.
-Matthew places Jesus’ story within the great promise of God to Abraham and tells his story as the reconstitution of the new missional people of Abraham and stresses the formation and nurture of that people.
-Luke puts Jesus in the line of humanity going all the way back to Adam. He stresses the significance of Jesus for all humanity and sees the missional church going out to the world announcing God’s great of deliverance for the world and recruiting everyone to join the movement.
With John we move on to a whole different plane, a cosmic plane. The fourth evangelist reveals this in the very first verse: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In dealing with Jesus, the world is dealing with God, God come in human flesh to dwell among us and live as one of us. Incomprehensible as this seems, nevertheless, this fundamental conviction of John’s that the God who works in, with, and through Jesus is the God who encounters us as Jesus, is the heart of the New Testament’s gospel.
Incarnation is the word we use for this claim that God has “moved into the neighborhood” and that in Jesus of Nazareth we come face to face with reality and discover in this human face the face of God’s own grace and truth. Straight from the heart of God (1:18) Jesus enters the heart of rebellious humanity (1:10-11). He becomes the focal point for a cosmic struggle for the world’s future (though John makes it clear that the outcome of this struggle is never in doubt). In the aftermath of his victory over the “ruler of this world (12:31) Jesus sends his people out to spread and implement his victory throughout the world (20:21).
The end of John (chs.20-21) unfolds in two stages. Jesus’ resurrection and appearances to his disciples occupy ch.20 while the mission of those disciples to the world occupies ch 21. In ch.20 John emphasizes that Jesus’ resurrection occurs on “the first day of the week” (vv.1,19). Combine this with the symbolism of the man (Jesus) and the woman (Mary Magdalene) in a garden and it is clear John evokes here Genesis creation imagery. He means us to see that with Jesus’ resurrection God’s New Creation has dawned. Everything has changed with this event. A cosmic reshaping has occurred. Nothing is the same as it was – for us personally and for us as part of God’s creation. This setting of New Creation, then, is the setting in which the ongoing work of the missional church is placed.
Let’s look back for a moment. Mark places the mission of God’s people within the setting of the New Exodus, the historical act of God to finally and fully deliver his people from slavery and restore them to their proper calling and vocation. Matthew places this mission in the context of God’s promise to Abraham to get a people through he and Sarah, to bless that people, and through them bless everyone else (Gen.12:1-3). Luke puts it in a universal context of outreach to all humanity, Adam, and all his posterity. John extends the horizon to cosmic dimensions with his setting of the missional church in the wake of the dawning of the New Creation in Jesus’ resurrection.
This breathtaking expansion of scope in which the church’s mission is set changes everything for us. God’s drive to enter fully into humanity and or experience becomes the sine qua non of our existence. This is henceforth what we live to do – enter into the life and lives of those around us as deeply and fully as possible.
This is not possible, of course, on our own power. We require and receive from the risen One the very breath of life (another creation image!) when he “breathed on them” and they were enlivened and energized by his Spirit. Thus we can go forth into the world “walking the talk” of the new life God has given us, forgiving and spreading Jesus’ “peace” as we go.
And such mission will not be fruitless! In fact, it will brim with abundance. Not because we are so “healthy, wealthy, and wise” that we can make it happen or project such success based on our own prowess. The disciples tried that and came up empty (21:5)! No, our mission to live the life of the New Creation in the midst of the old life that is passing away will bear fruit because Jesus promises it will. God is in control and God’s will will prevail!
In obedience to his command to cast their nets on the other side of the boat, the disciples are astonished at their catch – 153 fish. This seems to refer in some fashion or another to a full catch among the peoples of the earth. From nothing to fullness, from our own strength to the strength of Jesus’ promise, that’s the direction of faithfulness for Jesus’ missional church.
Jesus’ threefold restoration of Peter is a model example of the kind of evangelism we should practice. Jesus meets Peter where he is, in the bitter shame of his heinous betrayal of his Lord. Instead of judgment, however, Peter is offered the chance for restoration. He, whom Jesus addresses with his old name “Simon” (because that’s who and where he is at this moment) is called again to become “Peter,” the person God always intended him to be! And as such, Jesus’ evangelism of Peter ends not simply with the assurance that he has been reclaimed for God but that he is restored to the duty and dignity of his vocation to be one who “feeds” and “tends” Jesus’ sheep! Both reclamation and restoration come together here in Jesus’ practice of evangelism but with a decided emphasis on the latter.
So our profile of the missional church that emerges from the ends of the gospels looks like this. Mark tells us: “If you want to know, you’ve got to go.” Matthew’s ending adds: “If you want to go, you’ve got to know.” Luke’s more involved story provides a triple focus for our discernment of the missional church: “If you know the plan, you’ll know the man”/”To know the man, you’ve got to know the plan,” “Don’t just talk the talk or walk the walk, walk the talk,” and “If you don’t wait, you’re going to be late.” John’s chief contribution is this: “The Word made flesh – a world made fresh.”
The End of the Gospels: John
As we might expect, the ending of the fourth gospel is similar yet different from the other three. Like the gospel as a whole, John’s ending places Jesus’ followers, the missional church, in the largest perspective possible.
-Mark places Jesus and his church in the prophetic tradition of Isaiah’s New Exodus, thus he begins his Jesus’ story with a quote from the prophets.
-Matthew places Jesus’ story within the great promise of God to Abraham and tells his story as the reconstitution of the new missional people of Abraham and stresses the formation and nurture of that people.
-Luke puts Jesus in the line of humanity going all the way back to Adam. He stresses the significance of Jesus for all humanity and sees the missional church going out to the world announcing God’s great of deliverance for the world and recruiting everyone to join the movement.
With John we move on to a whole different plane, a cosmic plane. The fourth evangelist reveals this in the very first verse: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In dealing with Jesus, the world is dealing with God, God come in human flesh to dwell among us and live as one of us. Incomprehensible as this seems, nevertheless, this fundamental conviction of John’s that the God who works in, with, and through Jesus is the God who encounters us as Jesus, is the heart of the New Testament’s gospel.
Incarnation is the word we use for this claim that God has “moved into the neighborhood” and that in Jesus of Nazareth we come face to face with reality and discover in this human face the face of God’s own grace and truth. Straight from the heart of God (1:18) Jesus enters the heart of rebellious humanity (1:10-11). He becomes the focal point for a cosmic struggle for the world’s future (though John makes it clear that the outcome of this struggle is never in doubt). In the aftermath of his victory over the “ruler of this world (12:31) Jesus sends his people out to spread and implement his victory throughout the world (20:21).
The end of John (chs.20-21) unfolds in two stages. Jesus’ resurrection and appearances to his disciples occupy ch.20 while the mission of those disciples to the world occupies ch 21. In ch.20 John emphasizes that Jesus’ resurrection occurs on “the first day of the week” (vv.1,19). Combine this with the symbolism of the man (Jesus) and the woman (Mary Magdalene) in a garden and it is clear John evokes here Genesis creation imagery. He means us to see that with Jesus’ resurrection God’s New Creation has dawned. Everything has changed with this event. A cosmic reshaping has occurred. Nothing is the same as it was – for us personally and for us as part of God’s creation. This setting of New Creation, then, is the setting in which the ongoing work of the missional church is placed.
Let’s look back for a moment. Mark places the mission of God’s people within the setting of the New Exodus, the historical act of God to finally and fully deliver his people from slavery and restore them to their proper calling and vocation. Matthew places this mission in the context of God’s promise to Abraham to get a people through he and Sarah, to bless that people, and through them bless everyone else (Gen.12:1-3). Luke puts it in a universal context of outreach to all humanity, Adam, and all his posterity. John extends the horizon to cosmic dimensions with his setting of the missional church in the wake of the dawning of the New Creation in Jesus’ resurrection.
This breathtaking expansion of scope in which the church’s mission is set changes everything for us. God’s drive to enter fully into humanity and or experience becomes the sine qua non of our existence. This is henceforth what we live to do – enter into the life and lives of those around us as deeply and fully as possible.
This is not possible, of course, on our own power. We require and receive from the risen One the very breath of life (another creation image!) when he “breathed on them” and they were enlivened and energized by his Spirit. Thus we can go forth into the world “walking the talk” of the new life God has given us, forgiving and spreading Jesus’ “peace” as we go.
And such mission will not be fruitless! In fact, it will brim with abundance. Not because we are so “healthy, wealthy, and wise” that we can make it happen or project such success based on our own prowess. The disciples tried that and came up empty (21:5)! No, our mission to live the life of the New Creation in the midst of the old life that is passing away will bear fruit because Jesus promises it will. God is in control and God’s will will prevail!
In obedience to his command to cast their nets on the other side of the boat, the disciples are astonished at their catch – 153 fish. This seems to refer in some fashion or another to a full catch among the peoples of the earth. From nothing to fullness, from our own strength to the strength of Jesus’ promise, that’s the direction of faithfulness for Jesus’ missional church.
Jesus’ threefold restoration of Peter is a model example of the kind of evangelism we should practice. Jesus meets Peter where he is, in the bitter shame of his heinous betrayal of his Lord. Instead of judgment, however, Peter is offered the chance for restoration. He, whom Jesus addresses with his old name “Simon” (because that’s who and where he is at this moment) is called again to become “Peter,” the person God always intended him to be! And as such, Jesus’ evangelism of Peter ends not simply with the assurance that he has been reclaimed for God but that he is restored to the duty and dignity of his vocation to be one who “feeds” and “tends” Jesus’ sheep! Both reclamation and restoration come together here in Jesus’ practice of evangelism but with a decided emphasis on the latter.
So our profile of the missional church that emerges from the ends of the gospels looks like this. Mark tells us: “If you want to know, you’ve got to go.” Matthew’s ending adds: “If you want to go, you’ve got to know.” Luke’s more involved story provides a triple focus for our discernment of the missional church: “If you know the plan, you’ll know the man”/”To know the man, you’ve got to know the plan,” “Don’t just talk the talk or walk the walk, walk the talk,” and “If you don’t wait, you’re going to be late.” John’s chief contribution is this: “The Word made flesh – a world made fresh.”
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
What is the Missional Church? (Part 4)
What is the Missional Church? (Part 4)
The End of the Gospels: Luke
Have you ever noticed that each gospel begins as well as ends differently? Mark begins with the appearance of John the Baptist and jumps immediately into the ministry of Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s promise of a new and definitive exodus for his people. It ends with the risen Jesus calling his people out of themselves and their past into the freedom of following him anew in risky cruciform service to the world. Matthew begins with a genealogy of Jesus, literally a new “Genesis.” He traces his family tree back to Abraham, who received the definitive promise from God of a (miraculous) people whom God who bless and use to bless everyone else (Gen.12:1-3). Matthew ends with the risen One mandating his people to form “all nations” into a people disciplined and prepared to be such a vehicle of blessing for the world.
Luke, today’s gospel, begins with a birth story and then proceeds to include his own genealogy that stretches all the way back to Adam (Lk.3:38). Matthew writes for a Jewish-Christian community and interprets Jesus’ story in light of the particular dynamics of their relationship with and calling by God to be that Abrahamic vehicle of blessing. Luke, a gentile writing a wider community interprets Jesus in light of Adam’s creation and calling to be the royal representative and steward for all creation. This was to be our common human duty and destiny under God. Though God has chosen to work his plan for salvation out through the Jews, it is always with the end in mind of reclaiming and restoring all humanity to their original divine role. Luke shows how Jesus carries out and represents this divine plan and is, thus, the Lord and Savior of the gentiles too!
When we turn to the end of Luke (ch.24) we find much more material than in either Mark or Matthew. In addition to the resurrection story we find the beautiful “Walk to Emmaus” story, Jesus’ appearances to the disciples and promise to them of divine power to fulfill their commission, and his ascension. The mode of the disciples’ new life in the world will be as “witnesses” (24:48). They are to tell the story of what they have seen and what has happened to and through Jesus of Nazareth. When we add this to what we have seen earlier, the profile of a missional church now includes
-a risking faith that follows Jesus in cruciform ministry (Mark),
-a gathering faith that welcomes and assimilates others throughout the world in the new order of Jesus’ people (Matthew), and
-a testifying faith that announces to the world that in and through Jesus God’s great act of deliverance, the new exodus has happened, humanity’s exile from God is ended, and the long-hoped for new age has begun.
Distinctive in Luke’s account is, first, the Emmaus story. Two disciples, dispirited over Jesus’ crucifixion, the hopes he aroused in them crushed, find themselves accosted by a third traveler as they trudge toward Emmaus. This stranger is, of course, Jesus. His identity is hidden by his companions’ ignorance and lack of faith. When he questions them about what they are talking about he hears his own story told only with his death being its decisive end (despite the wild tales some of the women were telling). Jesus begins their rehabilitation with a bible study about the divine necessity of Messiah’s death and how all scripture pointed to himself.
Remedying the two travelers’ ignorance is not enough however. They are intrigued by him and his exposition of the scriptures (v.32) but this is not enough to reveal his identity to them. That requires the desire for a relationship with Jesus. They invite him to stay with them and they share a meal together. At this meal a role reversal seems to occur and Jesus functions as the host. And as he takes, blesses, breaks, and gives bread to them, suddenly they know who is – Jesus, alive and raised from the dead! Now everything makes sense and they up and hot foot it back to Jerusalem to share their news with the rest of the disciples.
After they arrive, Jesus appears to the whole group and instructs them further about how everything in their Bible (our Old Testament) “must be fulfilled” (v.44). Included in this instruction is their mission: “that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in (Jesus’) name to all the nations” (v.47).
Repentance and forgiveness mean more than we tend to think. They are not simply about relieving an individual’s guilt and giving them a good conscience. After all, Israel’s sacrificial system did that! No, repentance and forgiveness are announced to the nation and the world as the news that God’s final and decisive triumphant victory over the powers and forces of evil and death has been achieved and that “now” is the time to embrace this good news, enlist among God’s people, and be a part of the future that is coming and indeed is making waves even now in the present. It is a call for Israel to turn away from its own stubborn and rebellious ways of being God’s people and take up Jesus’ newly defined and modeled way of being
“Israel”: suffering servanthood. So too for the world, for God’s way for Israel to be his people is also God’s way for “all nations” to be human!
As we learn from the Emmaus story, the way to take this good news to others is twofold: instruction and intimacy. The world needs to hear Jesus’ story faithfully recounted. But by itself this is not enough. Meeting Jesus, up close and personal, is also required. And that means incarnation – embodying the life of Jesus in the key of real so that through us others can and do truly encounter Jesus! This is the heart of missional living and ministry.
Finally, we learn from Luke that being a missional church is not our doing but God’s. Thus we must wait for the promise of the Father, the Spirit, before we launch into what we are called to do. Patient waiting on the Spirit and a discerning of his particular call to service is also a chief ingredient of missional living. This “waiting,” however is of a paradoxical sort, what the author of 2 Peter calls “waiting for and hastening”. This active waiting consists in attentive listening and watching for the Father’s word or the Spirit’s movement ready upon direction to spring into action. We might call it “Holy Saturday” waiting. Failure to practice active waiting renders us dull and insensitive to divine nudges and renders us captive to the parameters and perspectives of the age in which we live just as it did those first disciples. “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel (but obviously, he was not).” So they thought; so they acted. Ditto for us way too much of the time!
At stake is our competency as “witnesses” to the grand climactic act in God’s whole plan for the salvation of both creature and creation!
The end of Mark tells us: “If you want to know, you’ve got to go.” Matthew’s ending adds: “If you want to go, you’ve got to know.” Luke’s more involved story provides a triple focus for our discernment of the missional church: “If you know the plan, you’ll know the man”/”To know the man, you’ve got to know the plan,” “Don’t just talk the talk or walk the walk, walk the talk,” and “If you don’t wait, you’re going to be late.”
The End of the Gospels: Luke
Have you ever noticed that each gospel begins as well as ends differently? Mark begins with the appearance of John the Baptist and jumps immediately into the ministry of Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s promise of a new and definitive exodus for his people. It ends with the risen Jesus calling his people out of themselves and their past into the freedom of following him anew in risky cruciform service to the world. Matthew begins with a genealogy of Jesus, literally a new “Genesis.” He traces his family tree back to Abraham, who received the definitive promise from God of a (miraculous) people whom God who bless and use to bless everyone else (Gen.12:1-3). Matthew ends with the risen One mandating his people to form “all nations” into a people disciplined and prepared to be such a vehicle of blessing for the world.
Luke, today’s gospel, begins with a birth story and then proceeds to include his own genealogy that stretches all the way back to Adam (Lk.3:38). Matthew writes for a Jewish-Christian community and interprets Jesus’ story in light of the particular dynamics of their relationship with and calling by God to be that Abrahamic vehicle of blessing. Luke, a gentile writing a wider community interprets Jesus in light of Adam’s creation and calling to be the royal representative and steward for all creation. This was to be our common human duty and destiny under God. Though God has chosen to work his plan for salvation out through the Jews, it is always with the end in mind of reclaiming and restoring all humanity to their original divine role. Luke shows how Jesus carries out and represents this divine plan and is, thus, the Lord and Savior of the gentiles too!
When we turn to the end of Luke (ch.24) we find much more material than in either Mark or Matthew. In addition to the resurrection story we find the beautiful “Walk to Emmaus” story, Jesus’ appearances to the disciples and promise to them of divine power to fulfill their commission, and his ascension. The mode of the disciples’ new life in the world will be as “witnesses” (24:48). They are to tell the story of what they have seen and what has happened to and through Jesus of Nazareth. When we add this to what we have seen earlier, the profile of a missional church now includes
-a risking faith that follows Jesus in cruciform ministry (Mark),
-a gathering faith that welcomes and assimilates others throughout the world in the new order of Jesus’ people (Matthew), and
-a testifying faith that announces to the world that in and through Jesus God’s great act of deliverance, the new exodus has happened, humanity’s exile from God is ended, and the long-hoped for new age has begun.
Distinctive in Luke’s account is, first, the Emmaus story. Two disciples, dispirited over Jesus’ crucifixion, the hopes he aroused in them crushed, find themselves accosted by a third traveler as they trudge toward Emmaus. This stranger is, of course, Jesus. His identity is hidden by his companions’ ignorance and lack of faith. When he questions them about what they are talking about he hears his own story told only with his death being its decisive end (despite the wild tales some of the women were telling). Jesus begins their rehabilitation with a bible study about the divine necessity of Messiah’s death and how all scripture pointed to himself.
Remedying the two travelers’ ignorance is not enough however. They are intrigued by him and his exposition of the scriptures (v.32) but this is not enough to reveal his identity to them. That requires the desire for a relationship with Jesus. They invite him to stay with them and they share a meal together. At this meal a role reversal seems to occur and Jesus functions as the host. And as he takes, blesses, breaks, and gives bread to them, suddenly they know who is – Jesus, alive and raised from the dead! Now everything makes sense and they up and hot foot it back to Jerusalem to share their news with the rest of the disciples.
After they arrive, Jesus appears to the whole group and instructs them further about how everything in their Bible (our Old Testament) “must be fulfilled” (v.44). Included in this instruction is their mission: “that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in (Jesus’) name to all the nations” (v.47).
Repentance and forgiveness mean more than we tend to think. They are not simply about relieving an individual’s guilt and giving them a good conscience. After all, Israel’s sacrificial system did that! No, repentance and forgiveness are announced to the nation and the world as the news that God’s final and decisive triumphant victory over the powers and forces of evil and death has been achieved and that “now” is the time to embrace this good news, enlist among God’s people, and be a part of the future that is coming and indeed is making waves even now in the present. It is a call for Israel to turn away from its own stubborn and rebellious ways of being God’s people and take up Jesus’ newly defined and modeled way of being
“Israel”: suffering servanthood. So too for the world, for God’s way for Israel to be his people is also God’s way for “all nations” to be human!
As we learn from the Emmaus story, the way to take this good news to others is twofold: instruction and intimacy. The world needs to hear Jesus’ story faithfully recounted. But by itself this is not enough. Meeting Jesus, up close and personal, is also required. And that means incarnation – embodying the life of Jesus in the key of real so that through us others can and do truly encounter Jesus! This is the heart of missional living and ministry.
Finally, we learn from Luke that being a missional church is not our doing but God’s. Thus we must wait for the promise of the Father, the Spirit, before we launch into what we are called to do. Patient waiting on the Spirit and a discerning of his particular call to service is also a chief ingredient of missional living. This “waiting,” however is of a paradoxical sort, what the author of 2 Peter calls “waiting for and hastening”. This active waiting consists in attentive listening and watching for the Father’s word or the Spirit’s movement ready upon direction to spring into action. We might call it “Holy Saturday” waiting. Failure to practice active waiting renders us dull and insensitive to divine nudges and renders us captive to the parameters and perspectives of the age in which we live just as it did those first disciples. “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel (but obviously, he was not).” So they thought; so they acted. Ditto for us way too much of the time!
At stake is our competency as “witnesses” to the grand climactic act in God’s whole plan for the salvation of both creature and creation!
The end of Mark tells us: “If you want to know, you’ve got to go.” Matthew’s ending adds: “If you want to go, you’ve got to know.” Luke’s more involved story provides a triple focus for our discernment of the missional church: “If you know the plan, you’ll know the man”/”To know the man, you’ve got to know the plan,” “Don’t just talk the talk or walk the walk, walk the talk,” and “If you don’t wait, you’re going to be late.”
Sunday, July 11, 2010
What is the Missional Church ? (Part 3)
What is the Missional Church? (Part 3)
The End of the Gospels: Matthew
The end of Mark’s ending places the reader in the crisis of decision: will he or she shoulder the cross and go to Galilee and join the risen Jesus in his servant ministry to the world? Or, like the women at the tomb, otherwise faithful in following Jesus throughout Mark’s story, will they allow the magnitude of the claim and the immensity of the power involved to render them mute? Such is Mark’s intention by the way he crafts and concludes his gospel.
As the first gospel written, it seems fitting for Mark to lay out in stark fashion the challenge of resurrection faith as the call to cruciform living and loving in the imitation and power of the risen One. A missional church is one that risks taking up this challenge and lives restless and relentless in following Jesus wherever he sends them. The other gospel writers, who have the more traditional gospel endings with angels, appearances of the risen Jesus to the disciples, and formal commissioning stories, fill out the picture of what such missional, cruciform ministry entails. We’ll look at Matthew today.
Matthew’s resurrection story (ch.28) has its own peculiarities: the earthquake (v.2), the guards’ reaction (v.4), and the authorities cover up what happened that first Easter morning (vv.11-15). The astonishing and outrageous challenge highlighted by Mark remains in the note that doubt mingled with worship among the disciples on the mountain with the risen Jesus (v.17). Yet the Lord imparts to these believing/doubting disciples what we have comes to call the “Great Commission” (vv.18-20).
This latter is, I believe, Matthew’s pastoral acknowledgment of the place that most of us are in most of the time – “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!” If the story of Jesus’ resurrection seems a tall tale hard for us to swallow, we are not alone! It seemed like that to the first disciples too! Yet Jesus called just this group of folks to carry on and carry out his ministry to the world!
In this commission Jesus responds to what he knows is our “mixed faith/doubt” condition. His fourfold “all” stresses the utter sufficiency of what he provides for our mission – “all authority” is his (v.18), “all nations” (v.19) belong to him, “all that I have commanded you” (v.20) assures us that have the resources necessary, and “all days” (v.20, usually translated “always” in English) means we are never, ever alone in our work.
In promising his ongoing presence with his people Jesus draws two Old Testament images of God together. And they make a powerful impression. “I am with you always,” he asserts. “I am” alludes to the divine name revealed to Moses at the burning bush in Ex.3. This God, this “I am what I am” (or perhaps better, “I will be what I will be”), also identifies himself as “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex.3:15). Jesus is telling us that God’s great drama of redemption and restoration, begun with his promise to Abraham and Sarah of a great and blessed people who will be the vehicle for spreading his blessings to everyone else in Gen.12:1-3, continues on. And Jesus commissions his followers to enlist in that movement and move out and bless the world! That’s the missional church in lock step with God’s mission of redeeming all creation.
If the “I am” is “with you” this can be nothing other than the great promise of “Immanuel” (“God with us”) with which Matthew began his story (1:23). Now this Immanuel has been identified as Jesus of Nazareth and as the risen and exalted One he himself accompanies on our way. Just as Moses knew his mission of leading the people of Israel to the promised land was futile if God did not go with them (Ex. 33:15-16), so we sense that if the risen Christ is not with us we too will fail. But he is! He is! And Matthew brings his gospel to its climactic conclusion with just this affirmation.
Matthew’s commissioning story also makes clear that “disciple-making” is the content of the work of the missional church. “Make disciples” is the main verb of this sentence. And this disciple-making involves a double-movement of baptism and teaching, “membering” and “mentoring,” we might say. Both aspects are crucial. A missional church will be intentional in seeing that “members” also get “mentored” (learning by apprenticeship and practice rather than in a class-room) into the lifestyle and ethos of God’s Kingdom.
So, from Mark we learn that a missional community is one that embraces the risky call to share in the risen Jesus cruciform (cross-shaped) ministry in the world. Matthew adds to this profile assurances of Jesus/God’s powerful presence with us. Indeed, only divine power could transform an instrument of humiliation, torture and death, the cross, into the very power of salvation! In the power of the cross and cruciform ministry we go out to invite others into God’s kingdom movement and habituate them to their new life as part of it. Knowing who accompanies us transforms our “doubt” into faith and enables us go!
Mark’s ending tells us: “If you want to know, you’ve got to go!"
Matthew’s ending tells us: “If you want to go, you’ve got to know!
Next time we will see what Luke’s ending adds to our profile.
"What is required--what Jesus Christ continually requires--are rocks like this who are certainly not perfectly untainted people, who are perhaps seriously objectionable in many ways and will have much to answer for, but are nevertheless ready to do something quite specific, to render obedience to a specific word by undertaking a specific service." Karl Barth
The End of the Gospels: Matthew
The end of Mark’s ending places the reader in the crisis of decision: will he or she shoulder the cross and go to Galilee and join the risen Jesus in his servant ministry to the world? Or, like the women at the tomb, otherwise faithful in following Jesus throughout Mark’s story, will they allow the magnitude of the claim and the immensity of the power involved to render them mute? Such is Mark’s intention by the way he crafts and concludes his gospel.
As the first gospel written, it seems fitting for Mark to lay out in stark fashion the challenge of resurrection faith as the call to cruciform living and loving in the imitation and power of the risen One. A missional church is one that risks taking up this challenge and lives restless and relentless in following Jesus wherever he sends them. The other gospel writers, who have the more traditional gospel endings with angels, appearances of the risen Jesus to the disciples, and formal commissioning stories, fill out the picture of what such missional, cruciform ministry entails. We’ll look at Matthew today.
Matthew’s resurrection story (ch.28) has its own peculiarities: the earthquake (v.2), the guards’ reaction (v.4), and the authorities cover up what happened that first Easter morning (vv.11-15). The astonishing and outrageous challenge highlighted by Mark remains in the note that doubt mingled with worship among the disciples on the mountain with the risen Jesus (v.17). Yet the Lord imparts to these believing/doubting disciples what we have comes to call the “Great Commission” (vv.18-20).
This latter is, I believe, Matthew’s pastoral acknowledgment of the place that most of us are in most of the time – “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!” If the story of Jesus’ resurrection seems a tall tale hard for us to swallow, we are not alone! It seemed like that to the first disciples too! Yet Jesus called just this group of folks to carry on and carry out his ministry to the world!
In this commission Jesus responds to what he knows is our “mixed faith/doubt” condition. His fourfold “all” stresses the utter sufficiency of what he provides for our mission – “all authority” is his (v.18), “all nations” (v.19) belong to him, “all that I have commanded you” (v.20) assures us that have the resources necessary, and “all days” (v.20, usually translated “always” in English) means we are never, ever alone in our work.
In promising his ongoing presence with his people Jesus draws two Old Testament images of God together. And they make a powerful impression. “I am with you always,” he asserts. “I am” alludes to the divine name revealed to Moses at the burning bush in Ex.3. This God, this “I am what I am” (or perhaps better, “I will be what I will be”), also identifies himself as “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex.3:15). Jesus is telling us that God’s great drama of redemption and restoration, begun with his promise to Abraham and Sarah of a great and blessed people who will be the vehicle for spreading his blessings to everyone else in Gen.12:1-3, continues on. And Jesus commissions his followers to enlist in that movement and move out and bless the world! That’s the missional church in lock step with God’s mission of redeeming all creation.
If the “I am” is “with you” this can be nothing other than the great promise of “Immanuel” (“God with us”) with which Matthew began his story (1:23). Now this Immanuel has been identified as Jesus of Nazareth and as the risen and exalted One he himself accompanies on our way. Just as Moses knew his mission of leading the people of Israel to the promised land was futile if God did not go with them (Ex. 33:15-16), so we sense that if the risen Christ is not with us we too will fail. But he is! He is! And Matthew brings his gospel to its climactic conclusion with just this affirmation.
Matthew’s commissioning story also makes clear that “disciple-making” is the content of the work of the missional church. “Make disciples” is the main verb of this sentence. And this disciple-making involves a double-movement of baptism and teaching, “membering” and “mentoring,” we might say. Both aspects are crucial. A missional church will be intentional in seeing that “members” also get “mentored” (learning by apprenticeship and practice rather than in a class-room) into the lifestyle and ethos of God’s Kingdom.
So, from Mark we learn that a missional community is one that embraces the risky call to share in the risen Jesus cruciform (cross-shaped) ministry in the world. Matthew adds to this profile assurances of Jesus/God’s powerful presence with us. Indeed, only divine power could transform an instrument of humiliation, torture and death, the cross, into the very power of salvation! In the power of the cross and cruciform ministry we go out to invite others into God’s kingdom movement and habituate them to their new life as part of it. Knowing who accompanies us transforms our “doubt” into faith and enables us go!
Mark’s ending tells us: “If you want to know, you’ve got to go!"
Matthew’s ending tells us: “If you want to go, you’ve got to know!
Next time we will see what Luke’s ending adds to our profile.
"What is required--what Jesus Christ continually requires--are rocks like this who are certainly not perfectly untainted people, who are perhaps seriously objectionable in many ways and will have much to answer for, but are nevertheless ready to do something quite specific, to render obedience to a specific word by undertaking a specific service." Karl Barth
Thursday, July 8, 2010
What is the Missional Church (Part 2)
What is the Missional Church? (Part 2)
The End of the Gospels: Mark
In Part 1 of this series I claimed that the problem in North American Christianity is that the church is “missing.” I might say “missing in action” except that the church has never really been in the action. That is, the church as we have known it has seldom if ever truly functioned as a missional community whose very reason for being is to live out God’s mission as sign, foretaste, and instrument of God’s kingdom. So I will stick with simply “missing.”
The end is often a good place to begin to attain clarity on something. In our case, it’s the end of the four gospels we need to look to help us gain clarity on why what is today called “missional” church is the church Jesus envisioned.
We’ll begin today with the gospel of Mark because it is quite likely the earliest account of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection we have. Subsequent posts will follow on the other three gospels.
Each gospel narrates the story of Jesus’ resurrection and his mandate to his people to carry on with his work. Though each of them does this differently, they all leave the end of the story open, inviting the reader’s own decision to commit and follow the resurrected One. In the different ways the evangelists tell this same story we can develop a profile of the community living by the power of Jesus’ resurrection.
Mark’s gospel ending is found in 16:1-8. It’s rather an enigma. The two additional endings later copyists added to make Mark’s story more like the others confirms its strangeness. These readings are usually found in the footnotes in your Bible. Mark apparently intends to end his story at v.8: “So (the women) went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone.” Strange indeed!
No angels at the tomb (only a strange “young man), no appearances of Jesus to the disciples, no overt commissioning story, no passing on the wonderful news of Jesus’ resurrection by the women (who heretofore in Mark have been exemplars of faith in contrast to the male disciples) – just an unbelieving response (terror, amazement, fear) to the astonishing reality they encountered at the empty tomb. What’s Mark trying to tell us? What kind of people ought we to be in response to this story?
Now the women eventually did tell the disciples their story. Otherwise, how did it get out? Yet within Mark’s story even the faithful female disciples quail in the presence of God’s astounding resurrection power. And Mark leaves each of us with them at the empty tomb. With them we have heard the young man announce this glorious news and that the disciples should hasten to Galilee for that is where Jesus is and where he will meet them. And with them we are challenged to the outrageous risk of embracing this outlandish claim! Their example reminds us how difficult such faith is.
What does it mean to embrace the call of the resurrected Jesus to join him in Galilee? Galilee is the place of ministry for Jesus. The first half of Mark, the active ministry of Jesus, takes place there. After the passive ministry of his passion, crucifixion, and resurrection in the second half of the story, we start again in Galilee. Jesus’ active ministry of preaching, teaching, healing, exorcising, and evangelizing continues anew and his followers are called to join him. To rejoin Jesus in ministry in Galilee is to do so with a deepened sense that such following is cruciform (cross-shaped) all the way down. For Jesus lived such a cruciform following after God and by raising him from the dead God has validated and vindicated such a life. Now it is inescapable that “bearing the cross” and living fully in the risk and vulnerability that entails is the way of discipleship. There’s no triumphalism here! No other way to be faithful. No wonder the women drew back (at least initially). What about us?
Mark’s ending then reveals the non-negotiable mode of following the risen Christ in missional discipleship. The church of Jesus will be a radical, risk-taking community that makes itself available to and liable for the care and well-being of others, especially the last, the least, and the lost. The way of the cross, then, is inescapable for the missional church. To embrace this call means joining the risen Jesus again in Galilee. To embrace this call is the crucible for an authentic church. Indeed, it is the only way to know the truth of the resurrection. Karl Barth puts it succinctly: “The community is as such a missionary (what I am calling “missional”) community, or she is not the Christian community.” By posing this challenge at the end of his story, Mark pointedly and powerfully directs us to the “end” for which God created and redeemed us: to incarnate the cross of divine love in suffering servanthood as the way to the renewed and fulfilled creation which God has promised.
Perhaps we could say that the missional profile emerging from Mark’s gospel is this: If you want to know, you’ve got to go!
“The relationship between the obedience of God's people and the triumph of God's cause, is not one of cause and effect, but one of cross and resurrection.” John H. Yoder
The End of the Gospels: Mark
In Part 1 of this series I claimed that the problem in North American Christianity is that the church is “missing.” I might say “missing in action” except that the church has never really been in the action. That is, the church as we have known it has seldom if ever truly functioned as a missional community whose very reason for being is to live out God’s mission as sign, foretaste, and instrument of God’s kingdom. So I will stick with simply “missing.”
The end is often a good place to begin to attain clarity on something. In our case, it’s the end of the four gospels we need to look to help us gain clarity on why what is today called “missional” church is the church Jesus envisioned.
We’ll begin today with the gospel of Mark because it is quite likely the earliest account of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection we have. Subsequent posts will follow on the other three gospels.
Each gospel narrates the story of Jesus’ resurrection and his mandate to his people to carry on with his work. Though each of them does this differently, they all leave the end of the story open, inviting the reader’s own decision to commit and follow the resurrected One. In the different ways the evangelists tell this same story we can develop a profile of the community living by the power of Jesus’ resurrection.
Mark’s gospel ending is found in 16:1-8. It’s rather an enigma. The two additional endings later copyists added to make Mark’s story more like the others confirms its strangeness. These readings are usually found in the footnotes in your Bible. Mark apparently intends to end his story at v.8: “So (the women) went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone.” Strange indeed!
No angels at the tomb (only a strange “young man), no appearances of Jesus to the disciples, no overt commissioning story, no passing on the wonderful news of Jesus’ resurrection by the women (who heretofore in Mark have been exemplars of faith in contrast to the male disciples) – just an unbelieving response (terror, amazement, fear) to the astonishing reality they encountered at the empty tomb. What’s Mark trying to tell us? What kind of people ought we to be in response to this story?
Now the women eventually did tell the disciples their story. Otherwise, how did it get out? Yet within Mark’s story even the faithful female disciples quail in the presence of God’s astounding resurrection power. And Mark leaves each of us with them at the empty tomb. With them we have heard the young man announce this glorious news and that the disciples should hasten to Galilee for that is where Jesus is and where he will meet them. And with them we are challenged to the outrageous risk of embracing this outlandish claim! Their example reminds us how difficult such faith is.
What does it mean to embrace the call of the resurrected Jesus to join him in Galilee? Galilee is the place of ministry for Jesus. The first half of Mark, the active ministry of Jesus, takes place there. After the passive ministry of his passion, crucifixion, and resurrection in the second half of the story, we start again in Galilee. Jesus’ active ministry of preaching, teaching, healing, exorcising, and evangelizing continues anew and his followers are called to join him. To rejoin Jesus in ministry in Galilee is to do so with a deepened sense that such following is cruciform (cross-shaped) all the way down. For Jesus lived such a cruciform following after God and by raising him from the dead God has validated and vindicated such a life. Now it is inescapable that “bearing the cross” and living fully in the risk and vulnerability that entails is the way of discipleship. There’s no triumphalism here! No other way to be faithful. No wonder the women drew back (at least initially). What about us?
Mark’s ending then reveals the non-negotiable mode of following the risen Christ in missional discipleship. The church of Jesus will be a radical, risk-taking community that makes itself available to and liable for the care and well-being of others, especially the last, the least, and the lost. The way of the cross, then, is inescapable for the missional church. To embrace this call means joining the risen Jesus again in Galilee. To embrace this call is the crucible for an authentic church. Indeed, it is the only way to know the truth of the resurrection. Karl Barth puts it succinctly: “The community is as such a missionary (what I am calling “missional”) community, or she is not the Christian community.” By posing this challenge at the end of his story, Mark pointedly and powerfully directs us to the “end” for which God created and redeemed us: to incarnate the cross of divine love in suffering servanthood as the way to the renewed and fulfilled creation which God has promised.
Perhaps we could say that the missional profile emerging from Mark’s gospel is this: If you want to know, you’ve got to go!
“The relationship between the obedience of God's people and the triumph of God's cause, is not one of cause and effect, but one of cross and resurrection.” John H. Yoder
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
What is the Missional Church (Part 1)
WHAT IS THE MISSIONAL CHURCH? (Part 1)
The Strange Case of the Missing Church
North American Christianity has a big problem: the Church is missing! How can that be? There are church buildings all over the place! Yet it remains the case: the Church is missing. Not missing, of course, in the sense that there are no church buildings, or services, or programs. Rather, the Church is missing in that the body of people called into being by God and promised to be the people through whom God would bless the world (Gen.12:1-3) is scarcely to be found here. God intended a “missional” church yet we have only a “missing” church? Why?
Three reasons:
1. Our western view of reality is divided in two.
GOD spiritual realm
-immaterial, soul/spirit
-good, beautiful, desirable
______________________________________________________________________
material realm HUMANITY
-nature, bodies, "stuff"
-inferior or even evil
As a consequence, we Christians focus on the invisible, immaterial, inner spiritual realm with a goal to return at death to that good spiritual realm where God resides and from which we originally came.
Thus, the direction of spirituality under the influence of this divided, dualistic, view of reality is both inward (into ourselves, our heart, spirit, soul, etc.) and upward (to the realm of God and the spiritual). The material, physical realm, the world of space and time, is marginalized in our concern as much as possible.
2. We also have a (“billiard ball”) view of humanity. We consider individuals to be complete, whole, sufficient in and of themselves quite apart from relation to anyone or anything else. Thus we think of freedom primarily if not exclusively as “freedom from” any constraint or external influence. Other than family of origin (for most of us), our relationships must be “chosen” by us rather than given to us.
Thus, we view “church” as a “voluntary association of like minded individuals” with whom we associate for spiritual benefit. We might picture it like a billiard table with all the individual balls racked together.
3. We live in a “therapeutic culture” which inclines us to focus on getting our “felt needs” met and being happy. Thus the institutional church is seen primarily as a “vendor of religious services and goods.” This reflects the consumer mentality which saturates and shapes us in this society. We go to a “place” (Church) to get what we perceive we need for ourselves and our families.
When we mix our two-sided view of reality with our individualism and our view of the church as a “vendor of religious services and goods,” we have a formula for the “missing” church. The “church” as such has little or no intrinsic significance for growing in faith or doing God’s will. Its only value is instrumental. It is a convenient “place” for Christians to come to get what they perceive they need. In this way of viewing and practicing Christian faith the church (the “missional” church God always intended) is indeed no where to be found; it is “missing.”
A biblically conceived view of the church, a “missional” church, would have at least the following features.
1. It would be oriented to the “Sending” God. God “sends” forth his love to create a world “very good” (no two level, divided view of reality here!). But humanity rebels, sins, and falls. Then God “sends” Abraham’s family to heal and restore his creation, but they too fail. Undaunted, God “sends” Jesus to climactically and decisively fulfill Israel’s role (which is also Adam’s role) and heal and restore the creation. Jesus then “sends” his people into the world to implement and spread his victory. God and Jesus “send” the Spirit to the people to empower and equip them for this work.
The direction of spirituality in a “missional” church is centrifugal, always moving out from the center, Jesus Christ, to embrace and serve God’s wayward creation. Our focus rests on what we have been given (divine gifts and calling to sacrificial servanthood in the world) rather than what we can get.
2. It works out of a “molecule” model of humanity. We are created to need each other, to be connected or in “communion” with one another; to bear the “image of God” (Gen.1:26-28) together. To be without such relationships is the core of our sinful fallen condition. As God made us in creation, so he deals with us in history by making covenants, binding agreements with his called people to do his work in the world. In this sense and for this community, it is very definitely about “us”!
Orestes Brownson, a Catholic theologian, says it well:
“Herein is the distinction between an association and an organism. In the association, the body has no life but the aggregate life of the members, and therefore, none but what they impart to it; in the organism, it is precisely the reverse, the life of the members is in the body, and they have none but what they receive from it, through their intimate union with it…But now is the Church of Christ, not an association, but a body, an organism, and therefore, does not receive its life from its members, but imparts in them their life; and they can live only in their intimate union with it…In declaring the Church to be the body of Christ, we necessarily declare that Christ is the life of the Church.”
3. Viewing itself as God’s missional people implementing Christ’s victory of the restoration of creation rather than a place where people come to consume religious goods and services, a missional church will function as a “sign” (a prophetic pointer to), “foretaste” (a present experience of), and “instrument” (practitioner of) God’s kingdom work in the world. This means that the missional church, as the prototype of the kind of life God intends and is saving his creation for, is God’s mission. It does not have a mission, as if mission was something different and separable from what the church is, some piece or part of the larger work of the church. The restoration of creation, under the lordship and empowerment of the triune God is “the” thing, the “only” thing for which the church exists and to which it is to bend all its energies and efforts.
We have a “missing” Church; we (along with God and the world!) need a “missional” Church. Enough said!
The Strange Case of the Missing Church
North American Christianity has a big problem: the Church is missing! How can that be? There are church buildings all over the place! Yet it remains the case: the Church is missing. Not missing, of course, in the sense that there are no church buildings, or services, or programs. Rather, the Church is missing in that the body of people called into being by God and promised to be the people through whom God would bless the world (Gen.12:1-3) is scarcely to be found here. God intended a “missional” church yet we have only a “missing” church? Why?
Three reasons:
1. Our western view of reality is divided in two.
GOD spiritual realm
-immaterial, soul/spirit
-good, beautiful, desirable
______________________________________________________________________
material realm HUMANITY
-nature, bodies, "stuff"
-inferior or even evil
As a consequence, we Christians focus on the invisible, immaterial, inner spiritual realm with a goal to return at death to that good spiritual realm where God resides and from which we originally came.
Thus, the direction of spirituality under the influence of this divided, dualistic, view of reality is both inward (into ourselves, our heart, spirit, soul, etc.) and upward (to the realm of God and the spiritual). The material, physical realm, the world of space and time, is marginalized in our concern as much as possible.
2. We also have a (“billiard ball”) view of humanity. We consider individuals to be complete, whole, sufficient in and of themselves quite apart from relation to anyone or anything else. Thus we think of freedom primarily if not exclusively as “freedom from” any constraint or external influence. Other than family of origin (for most of us), our relationships must be “chosen” by us rather than given to us.
Thus, we view “church” as a “voluntary association of like minded individuals” with whom we associate for spiritual benefit. We might picture it like a billiard table with all the individual balls racked together.
3. We live in a “therapeutic culture” which inclines us to focus on getting our “felt needs” met and being happy. Thus the institutional church is seen primarily as a “vendor of religious services and goods.” This reflects the consumer mentality which saturates and shapes us in this society. We go to a “place” (Church) to get what we perceive we need for ourselves and our families.
When we mix our two-sided view of reality with our individualism and our view of the church as a “vendor of religious services and goods,” we have a formula for the “missing” church. The “church” as such has little or no intrinsic significance for growing in faith or doing God’s will. Its only value is instrumental. It is a convenient “place” for Christians to come to get what they perceive they need. In this way of viewing and practicing Christian faith the church (the “missional” church God always intended) is indeed no where to be found; it is “missing.”
A biblically conceived view of the church, a “missional” church, would have at least the following features.
1. It would be oriented to the “Sending” God. God “sends” forth his love to create a world “very good” (no two level, divided view of reality here!). But humanity rebels, sins, and falls. Then God “sends” Abraham’s family to heal and restore his creation, but they too fail. Undaunted, God “sends” Jesus to climactically and decisively fulfill Israel’s role (which is also Adam’s role) and heal and restore the creation. Jesus then “sends” his people into the world to implement and spread his victory. God and Jesus “send” the Spirit to the people to empower and equip them for this work.
The direction of spirituality in a “missional” church is centrifugal, always moving out from the center, Jesus Christ, to embrace and serve God’s wayward creation. Our focus rests on what we have been given (divine gifts and calling to sacrificial servanthood in the world) rather than what we can get.
2. It works out of a “molecule” model of humanity. We are created to need each other, to be connected or in “communion” with one another; to bear the “image of God” (Gen.1:26-28) together. To be without such relationships is the core of our sinful fallen condition. As God made us in creation, so he deals with us in history by making covenants, binding agreements with his called people to do his work in the world. In this sense and for this community, it is very definitely about “us”!
Orestes Brownson, a Catholic theologian, says it well:
“Herein is the distinction between an association and an organism. In the association, the body has no life but the aggregate life of the members, and therefore, none but what they impart to it; in the organism, it is precisely the reverse, the life of the members is in the body, and they have none but what they receive from it, through their intimate union with it…But now is the Church of Christ, not an association, but a body, an organism, and therefore, does not receive its life from its members, but imparts in them their life; and they can live only in their intimate union with it…In declaring the Church to be the body of Christ, we necessarily declare that Christ is the life of the Church.”
3. Viewing itself as God’s missional people implementing Christ’s victory of the restoration of creation rather than a place where people come to consume religious goods and services, a missional church will function as a “sign” (a prophetic pointer to), “foretaste” (a present experience of), and “instrument” (practitioner of) God’s kingdom work in the world. This means that the missional church, as the prototype of the kind of life God intends and is saving his creation for, is God’s mission. It does not have a mission, as if mission was something different and separable from what the church is, some piece or part of the larger work of the church. The restoration of creation, under the lordship and empowerment of the triune God is “the” thing, the “only” thing for which the church exists and to which it is to bend all its energies and efforts.
We have a “missing” Church; we (along with God and the world!) need a “missional” Church. Enough said!
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