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.”