What is the Missional Church (Part 9)

What is the Missional Church? (Part 9)
Revelation

Revelation brings the biblical story to a rousing climax with its strange but oddly compelling visions of God’s sovereign love finally reaching its rousing and exciting finale. All its weird and eccentric (to us) imagery and visions serve its fundamental gospel announcement :

“‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever.’” (11:15)

The circle is now complete. The kingdom Jesus announced and inaugurated as recorded in the gospels reaches its glorious fulfillment in Revelation. The reality and centrality of this kingdom “bookends” (as it were) the whole New Testament. This reminds us that it’s God’s kingdom that finally and fully matters and that all the “church” stuff dealt with between the gospels and Revelation serves God’s kingdom agenda too!

We can develop a missional profile for the church out of Revelation in two ways. The first is to consider the way Revelation as a whole critiques and contests “The Roman Way of Life.” The Roman Empire was “the” empire in the world of the early church. They sought to export their way of life to the rest of the world, whether they wanted it or not! Their ideology had six key ideas, each of which the gospel contests and replaces with God and God’s kingdom.

1. Empire: Rome and its emperors claimed and celebrated worldwide dominion. They, and they alone, were the uncontested rulers of the world. John in Revelation makes the same claim on behalf of God’s “Empire.”
2. Peace: the Pax Romana (“peace of Rome”) blanketed and pacified her empire with its claim to benign rulership. It was, however, based on a strategy of “peace through strength” and enforced order. The Pax Divina of God, which John reveals, is in these and every other respect Rome’s opposite.
3. Victory: Rome claimed to be victorious over all. This claim is embodied in the emperors and based on their use of military, economic, and social force. God’s “Empire” also claims victory over all (including Rome). It is embodied in the Lamb who was slaughtered (Rev. 5:6) and based on his non-violent way of life and life-giving death for all.
4. Faith: Faith is the kind of exclusive and reciprocal loyalty of the citizenry that held the social fabric of the Empire and its way of life together. John likewise seeks to inculcate this “glue-like” faith in his counter-imperial communities.
5. Eternity: both empires, Rome’s and God’s claim to last forever.
John’s churches would be expected to share in his critique and contestation of “the Roman Way of Life” not only in word but in action. Indeed, they were called to live out the ethos and ethics of God’s Empire as they had seen it modeled for them in Jesus, the victorious Lamb. His non-violent, cruciform way of living was to become, through the Spirit, their own as they too shared in his sufferings for the sake of the world.

That’s a “macro”- look at what’s going on in Revelation to shape the profile of God’s missional people. Chs 2-3, the so-called “Letters to the Seven Churches” in
Asia Minor provide us with a “micro”- look into the life of seven actual congregations. In them the way the struggle to live out the ethos and ethics of God’s Empire is portrayed in ways that we can easily relate to in our own time and place. After all, that’s why there are “seven” letters – the number seven being the number of completeness. This sevenfold profile of faithfulness and unfaithfulness in these churches in Asia Minor offers a complete profile of the dynamics and difficulties that attend becoming and remaining a missional church.

The Risen Christ tells the church in Ephesus that they have “taken their eye off the ball” and forgotten or neglected the one that that makes and keeps them a loving and hospitable community – that intimate fellowship with Christ. They have allowed the good to crowd out the best, “lost that lovin’ feelin’” and consequently no longer practice either of the two great commandments (Mk.12:28-34)!

To the churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, however, the risen One has only words of praise and comfort. Though slandered, rejected, poor, and soon to be imprisoned, both are alive in Christ and they serve him wholeheartedly, whatever the cost. They need only to “keep on keepin’ on.”

Pergamum and Thyatira faced related though not identical pressures and responded in similar though not identical ways. Pergamum reflected and reveled in the power of the Roman Empire and Thyatira was a thriving commercial center. Both are holding firm to the faith but within each of these churches false teachings were gaining traction that advised them “to give a little to get along.” In other words, try to reach some accommodation with the culture even if it meant trimming back full allegiance to God’s Empire.

The risen Christ pronounces the church in Sardis “dead”! Their works bear only a veneer of living faith (even though a few individuals there are faithful). He warns them to get back to basics and “just do it”! Start practicing what they know else they’ll forfeit their status as one of God’s churches.

Laodicea has the megachurch among these seven. Wealthy, productive, creative, both the citizenry and the church there had it all and were proud of it. And this prideful self-sufficiency robbed the church of any sensitivity to God, to their true spiritual state, and to the presence and needs of others. It was “lukewarm,” like the water it had to get from Hierapolis through six miles of clay pipes - good in that state only for inducing vomiting. Neither hot (like the hot springs of Hierapolis) nor cold (like the springs of Colossae). This church, says Christ, is neither healing and soothing nor fresh and vibrant in its ministry. Only lukewarm, which makes God sick at his stomach! They too must return in humble repentance to the Christ they have effectively excluded from their church!

In sum, if you’re going to be a “good Roman,” you can’t be a “good Christian,” and vice versa. This is where the battle for Empire is joined. In the daily discernments and decisions we make about where our significance and security comes from, the story we want our lives to tell, and whether we have something to live for that is also worth dying for. We are on mission from and with God to point to his Empire in everything and to everyone!