finding that Jesus is enough

I am making an effort to read Scripture daily so that I might remember.  It is so easy to forget the content of faith, commitments I have made, experiences that have shaped me, and the places where hope can be found.  It is easy to forget Jesus.  Reading Scripture jolts me back to ultimate realities, moves me beyond the numbing effects of daily work and activities, and reconnects me to Jesus.

I have to be reminded because I am so susceptible to the barrage of messages, ideas, and images that pull me this way and that.  All day I am being asked to buy this, consume that, support this candidate, get behind that idea, sign up for this event, or give myself to that cause.  Memory is the tether that ties my mind and heart to that which is crux or core, essential and ultimate.  Without it, I easily drift to lesser stuff.  Reading Scripture is a way of remembering, a way of tethering.  Reading reminds me of God’s story, re-establishes faith, and restores hope.

Today, I open and read Scripture so that the Spirit might remind me, so that I might have a tether.

Growing up I learned via various mediums (church, movies, books) that good and evil existed in separate realms and were color-coded.  The good guys had white hats and said certain words and phrases, and the bad guys wore black hats and said the exact opposite of the good guys.  And yet, I have since discovered that the world is not so clear and simple.  There has been a growing awareness that neat, color-coded categories are not reality.  I have learned that evil sometimes wears a white hat and speaks the language of Christian religion, dominant culture, and free market capitalism.  And goodness and mercy are mediated at times through what might looks like evil.

I am not as certain as I once was in my pronouncements about good and evil.  Where once I had good and evil partitioned into distinct categories, my vision is now blurred by contradictions that I cannot explain.  Where once I considered power and prestige as virtues, security and safety as essential rights, experience has taught me that sometimes the opposite is the case.  Where once I assigned guilt and suffering based on circumstances, conditions, or culture, I now wince at the callousness and arrogance of such thinking.

What I have witnessed is that God shows up in the midst of terrible suffering and injustice.  He cannot be relegated to one side of a dichotomy nor does he work only in particular arenas.  And thus, because God demonstrates his power, and expresses his mercy, grace, and love throughout all reality, even pain and suffering, sickness and death, I cannot make simple evil/goodness declarations.  If I do, I will surely miss him.

I do not believe God causes suffering, but neither can I believe is he on the outside of it looking in.  I must resist and fight evil, and join the efforts to seek justice for the oppressed, care for those on the margins, and work for the liberation of those trapped in the aftermath of an earthquake.  However, I must also be willing to see him in the wretchedness of life, the rubble of devastation, human suffering, and death.  And more than merely observing him there, I must join him there.

Because God showed up in the midst of our evil and abusive world, suffered our shame and reproach, and died a cruel death, I can believe and hope for his goodness and grace in the worst of situations.  Because I do not have an adequate explanation for hunger, human trafficking, and death, I must look for him in midst of these.  This, for me, is reason to hope.  Likewise, in the midst of my own rubble of greed, consumption, and evil desires, I long for him to be at work.  This is my hope.

As I begin 2010, I am overwhelmed by God’s grace and compassion.

I may at times think myself as wholly good, kind, and benevolent, but I know who I really am.  Many times I justify or defend my actions and responses, but my motives are quite clear to me.  I am capable of lies and thus at times seek to deceive, but the truth seems to find me out.  While I may be a man who tries to do good, love others, and live the truth, I fall short and thus must continually look to and rely upon the grace and compassion of God.

As I look back on the preceding years, I see God’s grace and compassion continually under-girding and carrying my life.  His grace and compassion form the basis upon which I have been able to go to school, do productive work, relate to others, and serve higher purposes.  A self-made or self-sufficient man cannot admit such.  But I cannot boast of such sufficiency.  Not to acknowledge God’s care in my life is to act as though all I have is due to my own innate ability, my goodness, or my design.  I certainly do not understand the ways of God’s grace and compassion, but I can and must acknowledge their presence in my life.

As I enter the New Year, I look to God’s grace and compassion to sustain me.

For the majority of Christians, church and missions operate in separate and distinct realms.  The church nurtures and instructs the ’saved’, and missionaries cross cultures and evangelize the ‘heathen’.  Church is here and familiar, missions is over there and foreign.  The points at which church and missions usually connect are money and recruitment.  Because the work of missions requires money and fresh recruits and since the church is where both can be found, mission organizations and agencies find it necessary to relate to the church.  Likewise, since people within the church have full-time, secular jobs, they ‘do missions’ by providing finances for those who do the work of ‘fulltime’ missions.

The place where missions and the church have traditionally converged is mission education.  The church’s role has been to educate its adults toward their obligation to give and its children and young adults toward the possibility of joining the ranks of the missionary professionals.  In short, the promotion of offerings and the recruitment of individuals is the function of mission education.

However, a revolution in the church’s understanding of missions is underway.  One of the seeds of this revolution is found in a theological re-framing of missions as missio Dei.  God is a missionary God, who moves toward his creation to reconcile and restore.  Thus, God is the one who initiates and sustains the mission - it is his mission.  He sends the Son, and the Father and Son together with the Spirit sends the church.  Because missions is part of the intent and activity of the Triune God, it should not be a side issue or auxiliary to the essence and purpose of the church.  To participate in God is to be party to his mission.  It is not that the church has missions as one of its activities; rather God has a church for his mission.

This new understanding of the church and mission calls for a similar revolution in mission education.  If missions is central to the church’s purpose, then mission education must be about more than raising money for the mission of denominational or para-church organizations and their projects, and it must pertain to a wider audience than just potential mission personnel.  Because mission is a whole church affair, mission education must be a critical component in the nurture, formation and life of the people God.

In order for the church to be faithful to the new understanding of missions, mission education must be renovated in several ways.  Mission education must be …

Formative.  Rather than just educating people in what they need to do, they must also be formed into who they are to be.  Rather than training people for a missionary vocation or mission activity, they should be equipped with missionary character and lifestyle.  Instead of just idealizing the missionary vocation or highlighting human need in far-away places, mission education must address one’s love of God and love of neighbor, the way one relates to family, friends, and enemies, truth-telling, consumerism - the habits of hands and heart.

Imaginative.  Rather than teaching that the mission of God finds expression in only certain activities and a specific vocation, mission education should open a wide array of avenues in which God is at work.  The emphasis should be on assisting people, especially young people, to think creatively about how their skills, interests, work and leisure activities are part of the mission of God - not in how these are means to an end, but how they are mission.

Integrative.  Rather than isolating mission education into a corner of church life or to specific hours of the church week, it must be integrated into the whole.  Thus, every aspect of church life and every dimension of the church calendar must be seen as missional.  Discipleship, worship, Sunday School, Awanas, prayer meeting, choir - everything - must be viewed through a missional lens.  We must ask questions like - ‘If the church exists for the mission of God, then how do we prepare, equip, position ourselves for God’s mission through our worship?’  Worship does not have to be overtly missionary, as much as it needs to be intrinsically missional. Worship should lead people to see God as the Creator of all peoples, as the one worthy of praise by the whole of creation.  Worship must be seen as more than a private affair between me and God but a public event before the world.  Similar questions must be asked about Sunday School, children programs, choir, etc.

Collaborative.  Rather than the professional missionaries or ‘mission-minded’ people in the church being viewed as the sole mission educators, people across the spectrum of church life must see themselves as contributing to the education / formation of children, youth and adults for the mission of God.  If mission education is the formation of the person and not just specialized training for the professional, then the skills, experiences, and gifts of the whole body must be employed.  Collaboration around mission takes place when the mission of God is not the specialty of a few but the concern of the whole.

Prescriptive. Rather than just providing facts about mission activities elsewhere and images of exotic and far-away places and people, mission education must challenge people to faithfully participate in God’s mission in their homes, workplace, and relationships.  Mission education must lead to obeying what we learn of God and his mission rather than just being amused and amazed by mission stories and missionary lives far away.

Expansive.  Rather than leaving us in places of comfort and convenience, mission education should pull us toward the ends of the earth (literally), challenge us to live beyond our human capacities, and to ask ‘what could God do’!  Mission education should lead to see God’s universal concern for all the peoples of the earth and humble us that he invites us to participate with him in his mission.

Transformative. Rather than the goal being missions as a cognitive understanding gained via classroom instruction (teacher, students, books), the goal should be life transformation that leads to missional lifestyle.  Life transformation occurs for most people through involvement that is whole life - hands, feet, eyes, ears, nose, and mind.  Therefore, a two-week trip to Brazil can be part of missional formation leading to life transformation.  People see, smell, hear, touch, feel, and embrace what God is doing and thereby their view of God and the world is transformed.

Mission education has a place in the local church if it is retooled to be formative, imaginative, integrative, collaborative, prescriptive, expansive and transformative.  This does not necessarily mean that existing programs or structures have to be discarded.  Nor is it a matter of mission education becoming more relevant, or having better or more attractive literature.  Mission education will serve its purpose if sharply focused on forming the whole church for its chief purpose - the mission of God.

Everyday, in large and small ways, each of us are making decisions - real decisions with real consequences.  No matter how hard we might try to rationalize choices, blame others, see ourselves as victim, or fain ignorance, we make these decisions ourselves and our choices impact the lives of people around us in either cruel or kind ways.

My greatest sin is not that I make wrong decisions (of which there are many).  Rather, I truly fail when I choose to think that I exist as an island, for Mike alone.  This isolated or alienated self is akin to what Charles Taylor (A Secular Age, 2007) characterizes as the “buffered self.”  Living in a disenchanted world and with the failures of individuals and societal entities (family, church, organizations) around us, we find it all too easy to withdraw into a world ordered solely by our desires or self-perceived realities.  Taylor names this as our tendency toward “a sense of invulnerability” and “self-possession.” As buffered selves, we seek to escape the world that might challenge our sense of well-being, security, or self-consciousness.

The fears, anxieties, even terrors that belong to the porous self are behind it. This sense of self-possession, of a secure inner mental realm, is all the stronger, if in addition to disenchanting the world, we have also taken the anthropocentric turn, and no longer even draw on the power of God. (300-301)

When I buffer self, I am no longer open to the world around - family, friends, associations - and ultimately shut myself off from the world beyond - Father, Son and Spirit.  And yet, for me, such buffering is an allusion, a lie, a self-deception, for the world of family, friends and associations still exists and God is still God.

Reality is this: I am a father; I have brothers; I have a son and daughters; and I relate to friends and colleagues.  I am not a monad but part of people, places, community, family, creation.  Even though I am free to decide what I will do and say, and how I will act and respond, I am not so powerful as to dissolve or alter these realities.  I exist within the context of a sacred responsibility and trust toward my daughters and son, wife, parents - and God.  I may choose to buffer but not to negate these sacred and eternal obligations.

When I act as a responsible and ‘porous self’ with and toward my community and the Creator, I am a better husband, father, and brother.  I am a better man than my own choosing might make me.  Without this community, I am an empty and hollow man.  With this community, I know love, hope, and salvation.

As a free individual with the God-given capacity to make decisions, I choose to lean into my community, to admit when I am wrong, to give and receive forgiveness - to give of myself.  At the same time, I am choosing love and hope for myself.

A revolution is taking place right before our eyes - a mission revolution.  Some might mistake it to be a rebellion against power and authority, but such a characterization would be wrong.  A rebellion is an attempt to overthrow and unseat, while a revolution is the act of re-creating or re-forming from the bottom up.  Rebellion takes place in the halls of power, revolution takes to the streets.  Over coffee at Starbuck, on airplanes returning from Niger, in church offices, and at small gatherings, ‘like-hearted’ pastors and church folk are joining passions and resources into mission collectives.

In simplest terms, a mission collective is a group of people and churches united around the proclamation of Jesus Christ in word and deed.  This means they are, above all, pursuing collaborative mission activity and contributing resources to the common witness of the collective.  In its essence, collectivism honors the contribution of each church and every individual, trusts the work of the Spirit in each, and seeks involvement in the diversity of God’s mission.  Absent are organizational enormity, top-down control, forced uniformity, and politicized, single-issue missions.  Front and center is the mission of God - it is the sinew and muscle holding the collective together, the electricity empowering collaboration, and the nerve center providing coordination and direction.  It is the singular reason for diverse, autonomous congregations and unique individuals to unite in trust and respect for mission.

In practical terms, a mission collective translates into churches giving people and money to joint mission endeavors, sharing ideas and materials, working across demographic and doctrinal lines to create and hold in common needed training materials, systems, procedures, strategies, and encouraging each other to do more and be the best possible witness to Jesus Christ.  A concrete example of a mission collective is Global Connection Partnership Network.  GCPN is “a community of churches committed to a direct global witness.”  It connects, partners, resources, provides material, trains, collaborates, and supports in order for “God’s glory to be realized throughout the earth.”

While the traditional, hierarchical mission paradigm will not cease to exist, growing numbers of young students, adults, and pastors are looking for something different - something more organic, relational, and participatory.  For them, mission involvement no longer rises or falls on promotion or mobilization originating from a distant place or a famous people.  They see and hear mission all around them - in their churches, from fellow students, among friends and in their pastor.  Mission is bubbling up from the bottom.  The revolution is underway as collectives in Waco, Arlington, Oklahoma City, Atlanta, etc., form, grow, and encounter the world.  Long Live the revolution!

Even though I am driven by particular questions, I am not without answers.  I open my hands toward what I do not know, and at the same time, I stand firmly in what I do know. For example …

What is conversion? … Conversion is part of the deal; it must take place.  Conversion must be to a person, not a religion, creed, culture, institution, etc.  In order to be made whole, reconciled to God, to be forgiven of my rebellion, I must turn from my way, my self aggrandizement, and to God through Jesus Christ.

What is the gospel? … The gospel is not a group of words or a set of propositions in an elite or special language meant to convince the mind.  The gospel is a person who confronts my whole existence (not just my mind).  Jesus is Good News.

What is community? … Community is more than coffee, songs, handshakes, and kisses.  Community is friendship, solidarity, love, and life.  Community is not clean and easy … it is messy, confusing, and expensive.  It requires me.

Who are the people of God? … The church is not defined by who shows up to meet within four walls. The church is the people of God on pilgrimage through the mall, school, workplace, home, giving witness to Jesus.  This witness is not from position, power, or privilege by the power of the Spirit.

How are we to do missions? … The mission of God is much, much more than what happens through the professional missionary or the mission enterprise.  Because God is the Creator of life, his mission runs through the whole of life, finds expression in every aspect of life.  Mission is best done via relationships, trust, and the people of God.

Am I authentic? … I am authentic if I make known what is true - I am a sinner, an inadequate teacher, a poor husband, a struggling follower of Jesus Christ, and so on.  I am in the process of being transformed and always will be.  If this process stops, I am no longer authentic.

Am I still living? … My aim is to live - to feel the hurt around me, to give of myself to those who cannot give back, to listen -really listen- to the people talking to me, to act out of conviction, to love well.

While I have questions, I do have some answers.  Yet, the largest question for me is … am I living into the answers that I do have?

There are a number of questions that I continue to ask, that still drive me.  Some of you will wonder what is wrong with me.  You ask - Why are you still asking questions?  Don’t you have things figured out yet?  Well, I keep asking because the given answers just don’t fit or are no longer clear.  For example …

What is conversion? … What does it look like when one steps across the line to be a committed follower of Jesus?  When does this happen?  Is it at a point in time? Through a long process?  Is it continual?  Does it ever end?

What is the gospel? … What part of religion (my religion) is Christian and what is culture?  I ask this because I am afraid that extras I have added to the Jesus message confuse those who do not know Christ and create pseudo-barriers.

What is community? … Community has become the new cool word and thus co-opted to mean whatever one wishes.  I want to know and experience real community.

Who are the people of God? … What is the essence and purpose and mission of the local church? What marks as being God’s people in the world?

How are we to do missions? … Structures, means, and pathways that we once used for mission involvement are quickly fading.  What is the new mission paradigm?  What does it mean for the church to encounter the world?

Am I authentic? … What does authentic living look like?  How do I get there?  Am I willing to do what it will take to be there?  What does transformation look like in my life?  Why am I so afraid of living an open life?

Am I still living? … Not am I still alive, but am I living?  Am I on cruise control, asleep at the wheel?  Am I passionate about something (someone)?

These are some of my questions … not all.  I remind myself often that the questions are not my enemies but necessary friends. It is only through asking, owning, and living into these questions that I can grow and hope.

Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) comments …

Since it is the privilege of the mind to rescue itself from old age, I advise mine to do so as strongly as I can. Let it grow green, let it flourish meanwhile, if it can, like mistletoe on a dead tree. But I fear it is a traitor.  It has such a tight brotherly bond with the body that it abandons me at every turn to follow the body in its need. I take it aside and flatter it, I work on it, all for nothing.  In vain I try to turn it aside from from this bond, I offer it Seneca and Catullus, and the ladies and the royal dances; if its companion has the colic, it seems to have it too. Even the activities that are peculiarly its own cannot be aroused; they evidently smack of a cold in the head.  There is not sprightliness in [the mind's] productions if there is none in the body at the same time. (cited in S. Toulmin, Cosmopolis, 38)

What hope is there as we grow old, our bodies and minds fail?  Friends and family once brilliant, daring, and beautiful now shuffle along in dull, spiraling decay. Do what they may to preserve the mind (let it grow green, let it flourish), it too follows the body and betrays.  We are whole beings and thus move wholly toward physical and mental death.

For my body, I will take exercise, eat whole grains, take certain things in moderation, medicate it when ill, and thereby enjoy its pleasure and strength.  For my mind, I will turn off the TV, interact with others, offer it poetry and Lewis, and thereby delight in its ability to reason and recall.  And yet, I know decay and destruction wait in the wings.  My 58 year old body and mind does not offer me much hope.  My hope is in Christ and his resurrection of body and mind.  This kind of hope does not fail nor will it decay.

A culture of abuse and slander swirls around us and seeks to poison our view of the world.  Via the internet, television, printed materials - from politicians, talk show hosts, good ole boys, and even well-meaning people - we are told that Muslims, Democrats, homosexuals, illegal aliens, and others are less than human, represent the dregs of society, and are not worthy to live.  In shrill tones, these voices shout - Fear! Protect! Attack!

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we must resist these voices and hold fast to an alternative vision.  Instead, the voice of Jesus must order our words and actions - “whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also” … “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Mt 5:40, 44).  Jesus did more than speak these words, he lived them by touching lepers, speaking to women, embracing Samaritans, loving those on the margins, and suffering death on the cross.

The Jesus way confronted Peter.  A lifetime of religious instruction and cultural reinforcement had taught him to hate, despise, and dismiss the Romans.  And yet, God revealed to Peter another way - love and inclusion.  Peter is confronted with a choice - either abandon his prejudice or deny God’s acceptance of Cornelius (Acts 10).  In the end, Peter declares, “Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality!”

I can disagree with another and even be on the opposite side of an issue, but the gospel does not allow me to slander, curse, strike or kill another human being.  If I slander or demonize another person, be they Republican or Democrat, Jew or Muslims, black or white, poor or immigrant (legal or illegal), homosexual or disabled, then I deny the gospel.  For the gospel of Jesus Christ …

• is powerful enough to transform anyone - “it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” (Rom 1:16)
• is for the whole world - “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16)
• unifies people - “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male or female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:28)
• creates a new humanity - “a multitude which no one could count, from every nation, all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, … and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9, 10)

The gospel destroys the walls that separate the people.  As the people of God, we are called to join him in the ministry of wall-demolition.  For you see, while we were enemies of God, Christ showed no partiality toward us; rather he died for our sins and made a way for us to know him, his love and grace.  We serve his mission not through venom, hate, exclusion, slander, curses or self-preservation but by laying down our lives for the other.  This is the gospel - may we have courage to speak and live it in the midst of a polarized and uncivil society!