finding that Jesus is enough

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!

I am reading for the third time Christopher J. H. Wright’s The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (2006). As I read through the first section this morning, I recalled how Wright’s reframing of mission first impacted me in 2006.  My comment at that time was that he turned my biblical/theological understanding of mission on its head - the way I look at scripture and how I talk about mission could never be the same.  I do not agree with Wright at every point, and yet, I wholeheartedly affirm the manner in which he approaches the Bible and mission and the fresh, holistic understanding of mission he offers the church.

It is extremely urgent that the church reexamine its encounter with the world and rethink how it is to participate in God’s mission.  If you have not read Wright, take the time to work through this tome (535 pages of text).  I know some of you have purchased The Mission of God, and it sits on your shelf, partially or totally unread (because I have seen it sitting there).  Pull it down, open it up, and begin working your way carefully and thoughtfully through each section.  Of all the things you might do in the next six months, reading Wright might be the most formative and impactful.

It’s Sunday morning.  A man rises and reads the following text:

This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come (Matt. 24:14).

The speaker then exhorts his hearers to do missions in order that they might hasten the return of the Lord. They are told that through missionary activity they can actually accelerate or speed up Christ’s return.  Since every sincere Christian wants to see Christ return as quickly as possible, it makes logical sense that they should be involved in missions.  In fact, they are told that one of them could possibly be the actual person who preaches the gospel to the last people group and thus initiate the Second Coming.

While this may be a popular interpretation of Jesus’ words and seems to be a persuasive reason for missionary service, several questions need to be raised …

Will we actually cause Christ to return? The implication is that in some logical, mechanistic manner we trigger or force God to bring human history to a close.  Rather than merely living in the expectation of his coming and being acted upon by his return, we stand above this event in a controlling, initiating manner.  On the contrary, Jesus is not issuing a command or prescribing a strategy.  He is stating a fact - “the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached.”  God will return when he decides to do so and will conclude human history for reasons that are far beyond our comprehension or control.  Thus, it seems unwise for any of us to obligate God to a timetable conditioned by our actions.

Doesn’t such an interpretation encourage escapism? The message is - the world is evil, you want to get out of it as soon as you can, and therefore, do yourself a favor by doing missions.  And yet, in the preceding verses, Jesus encourages his disciples to do just the opposite.  Even though things will become harder and harder before the end, Jesus tells them to remain firm and faithful in the present, evil age.  It seems that an appeal to do missions in order to bring about the end may have more to do with our desire to escape suffering than the redemption of the world.

What constitutes ‘the whole world’? It seems the speaker makes clear what Jesus has left unclear.  Does ‘the whole world’ mean all geo-political entities (nations), ethno-linguistic groups, dialects, cultures, provinces, cities, or villages?  Must these be 25%, 45%, or 65% evangelized or Christianized?  Do each of these portions of the world have to have one or two churches, a group of churches, or a ‘church planting movement’ before Jesus returns?  Do these churches have to be self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating?  In my lifetime, I have seen various definitions of ‘the whole world’ come and go.  What is now in vogue will surely be replaced with a fresh explanation.  Jesus does not give specifics at this point, and thus, it seems unwise for any of us to speak in quantifiable absolutes about what will precipitate his return.

What does it mean that the gospel of the kingdom will be preached? The speaker implies that proclaiming the kingdom is a verbal sermon about personal salvation.  Could it be that the gospel of the kingdom encompasses much more than people merely hearing a message or even giving intellectual or emotional assent to it?  It seems that the Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed was a call to lordship and discipleship (Matt. 5-7) - the transformation of life, family, clan, and village.  We may be proclaiming less than the gospel of the kingdom, if all we are doing is preaching evangelistic sermons in hopes of representative converts from people groups.

I confidently expect the gospel of the kingdom to be proclaimed in the whole world, and I fervently desire to see the whole church involved in this mission.  At the same time, I believe that our motivation should flow from interpretation that is true to the historical context, as well as the intent and aims of Jesus’ life and ministry.  Rather than appealing to a desire to escape this world, or a desire to make our actions significant, or to fulfill some nebulous aim, shouldn’t we base our motives for mission on Jesus’ summon to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and to love our neighbors as ourselves?  May you and I be found loving well when the end does come!

Zeal is well and good, as long as it is tempered with knowledge.  We who teach and preach must be careful not to call people to heart-felt commitment and excitement without explaining the need to go on to maturity via careful and adequate instruction.  In fact, to challenge people to zeal and not provide the means to grow in their understanding is less than responsible.  Too many people begin like a flame only to burn out with the passing of time or when things become difficult.  Zeal and knowledge must walk hand-in-hand.

Part of the problem is a common opinion in the church that knowledge destroys or undermines faith.  I have heard people say …
“If you study theology, you will loose your passion for God.”
“God looks on the heart more than the mind.”
“Doctrine only confuses a person.”
“Simple faith is the best faith.”
“Knowledge puffs up.
And while many of us would deny such a lopsided opinion, our emphasis on a commitment response in contrast to our lack of attention to and opportunity for discipleship and formation indicates what we really think.

And yet, Jesus clearly makes the point that we are to love God with more than the heart (Luke 10:27).  His definition of love of God includes the mind (as well as soul and strength).  I believe he did this for several reasons.

• We are more than one-dimensional beings, and thus, truly loving God requires more than an emotional response.  Loving God requires more than a partial-person commitment. It demands our whole being.
• The heart can lead us astray.  We can actually dishonor God through uninformed actions while all the while acting with fervor and passion.  The heart is not to be trusted to act alone.
• An intellectual pursuit of God provides the necessary refinement of our misconceptions and development of our capacity to believe.
• When the circumstances of life become difficult and problems sap our emotions, it is knowledge of who God is and how he acts and the truths of the faith that can sustain us.  Feelings wane, emotions come and go, and thus, we need more than a ‘heart-tether’ for faith.

Because it is convenient to measure commitment to God by emotion, passion, or fervor in worship, we assume that if people are not ‘excited’, or continually smiling, or animated in their worship that something is personally wrong with them or there is something lacking in their love for God.  Emotions, at best, tell only part of the story, and, at worst, they can be deceptive.  In the end, the ultimate proof that we belong to and follow hard after Jesus is our steadfastness and faithfulness to him in the best and worst of situations.  Such faithfulness requires our whole person - heart, mind, and soul.

So, we must …
-actively and consistently read the Bible, both Old and New Testaments
-embrace life’s questions and not push them under the table
-avail ourselves of opportunities to gather with other believers in study, conversation, and questioning
-read the opinions of others (books, articles, commentaries)
-ask God to catch our mind up with our heart and vice-versa

If I am to faithfully face the challenges of the present day and be active in my witness of Christ to those around me, I must diligently pursue God in both my zeal and understanding.

‘Throwing the baby out with the bath water’ is a way of saying that in an attempt to rid ourselves of the dirty, bad, or undesirable, we toss out that which is essential or prized.  The idiom is quite graphic.  Imagine a mother lovingly washing her daughter’s face, arms, and hair.  She is careful not to rub too hard but thoroughly washes between fingers, behind ears, and around eyes and mouth.  All the while, she softly reassures the child that she loves her.  Once the mother is done, she takes the tub full of water and baby to back door and toss both into the yard!  We get the message - you don’t throw out something or someone of value just because it sits in that which of no value.  Besides being mentally unstable or out of touch with reality, a mother might throw her child out with bath water because she thinks (wrongly) that the only way to dispose of the nasty water is throw it and its contents into the yard.  The problem is that she cannot differentiate between the value of the child and the filth of the water.

A surprising number of people inside the church feel that the only way to deal with the ugly past of missions is to throw it out with the bath water.  They want to “own up” to the fact that missions was party to some of the ugliest episodes of human history - colonial aggression, slavery, cultural genocide, and power grabs.  For its distractors, missions belongs to an era of unenlightened and even brutish abuse and disregard, motivated by religious naiveté and simplicity.  They insist that in order to be free from this unsavory past, we must distance ourselves from every part of it.  And yet, such an opinion is itself too simplistic and, frankly, is an over-reaction motivated by an attempt to resolve an uncomfortable past.

We must differentiate between value and filth.  Missions is too valuable to throw out for at least three reasons. First, the value of missions can be seen in the myriad of good done by men and women on mission.  In fact, I would say that far more good has been done in the name of missions than bad.  We must not allow ourselves to be blinded to the vast amount of good and noble by dark and unsavory exceptions.

Second, missions is valuable because it is an enactment of the mission of God.  Missions is a human endeavor, carried out by culturally bound and sinful men and women, and thus, it will always be in need of a bath - repentance, refinement and humility.  And yet, in some miraculous way God demonstrates his love, grace, and glory through the human means of missions.

And third, without missions the church becomes too established and secure in itself.  Much of the reason for rejecting missions is that it is not respectable, or it is unsophisticated.  Missions is an embarrassment.  The church needs missions because of its embarrassment and offense.  Through participation in missions, we are reminded that we are a pilgrim people, exiles, sojourners, and witnesses of someone far greater than ourselves.

Who am I to dismiss, vilify, or reject missions?  I am merely a broken, and yet redeemed, man invited to participate in God’s movement toward humanity.  God’s mission uses me - my dirty bath water and all - to reveal his love, grace and glory to the world.

Wilbert Shenk asserts …

Without mission the church dies.  Although what we ordinarily call the church may continue to exist as a religious group, a missionless church is no long an authentic church.  The proof of its missionary character will be demonstrated by its response to the world. (“New Wineskins for New Wine: Toward a Post-Christendom Ecclesiology,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research, April 2005, 75)

Shenk’s point is that church renewal and outreach must accompany each other.  Both dimensions must be addressed, if the church is to do more than just exist as organization, as religious entity.  The church exists to give witness to the glory and purposes of God … without this mission it betrays its charter and constitution.

The irony is that as the contemporary church feverishly seeks to renew itself via a focus on its growth, health, services to members, branding, worship styles, etc., it is in fact doing the opposite-destroying itself.  Jesus said, “unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (Jn 12:24).  Unless the church gives itself away in witness to, care of, and justice for the neighbor nearby and those at the ends of the earth, it will die.  Mission rhetoric and seasonal participation in mission emphases are not substitutes for giving ourselves away.  Mission means we give ourselves to the world, go ourselves to the world, and love the world more than ourselves.  This is the mission of and hope for the church.

Join us at Truett Theological Seminary, Waco, Texas for the Parchman Endowed Lectures, October 13, 14, and 15 (2009).  Our guest lecturer will be Lamin Sanneh, D. Willis James Professor of Missions & World Christianity and Professor of History, Yale Divinity School.  Born in Gambia of royal African lineage, Sanneh is an editor-at-large of The Christian Century, contributing editor of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, series editor of Oxford Studies in World Christianity and the author of more than a hundred articles and several books, including the recent Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel Beyond the West (Eerdmans 2003), Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture (Orbis 1989), and Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity (Oxford 2008).

Dr. Sanneh will lecture at 9:30 am each of these days under the general theme of Connecting World Christianity: New World Parameters.  This is a rare opportunity to hear a leading voice in the interpretation and shaping of world Christianity.

 ”The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.”
    Mark 10:45 

Just as Christ came as a servant, service is the role of the church.  And yet, the church is constantly tempted to be a triumphant and victorious community that aligns itself with power, privilege, and place rather than finding itself in the places of service.  There is a fine line between the the “victorious Christian life” and the assumption that privilege and rights belong to us irrespective of others.  An indicator of when we have crossed that line is when we expect to be served by the powers in society, to be at the head of the table, to be respectable and honored - to be socially advantaged. 

History shows that the people of God usually do not voluntarily move toward service.  Rather, service is forced on us via humiliation, loss, and exile.  Quite possibly the American church is at the brink of such loss.  The Christendom arrangement within the American context (particularly in the South) has run its course, and Christianity is being disestablished in school, by government, in polite society, and within the wider popular culture.  Many Christian leaders act as though it is still 1950 and that society still cares about what they have to say or is looking for them to determine what is right or wrong.  However, the year is 2009 and society is not listening, nor does it care what we think.  At best, the wider culture only wants to manipulate and corrupt Christianity for its ends. 

The need for the gospel to be at home in its context (contextualization) must be balanced by the necessity of critical self-examination.  Christianity becomes un-Christian when its essence is severely diluted by societal forces.  Patriotism and gospel, consumerism and gospel, entertainment and gospel, sports and gospel, wealth and gospel are dangerous mixtures that can and will mute the church’s voice and disengage it from mission.   Thus, the church constantly needs are reminder; a means to assist it in strking the right balance.

Service is the means through which we remember who Jesus is and are reminded who we are to be.  Jesus was in the world, for the world, and serving the world.  Our renewal as the people of God will not come through accumulating more power, or recapturing a golden era, or re-inventing ourselves.  Rather, renewal comes as we realign our mission to that of the Suffering Servant by taking up a towel, kneeling before the maimed and marginalized-washing feet, dressing wounds, and loving without conditions. 

Service is not resignation from or a forfeiting of the church’s role in society.  It is the means through which it actually is salt and light, permeating the whole of society.  The power of the gospel is made real not in our alliance with the state or in political maneuvers but in our service.

Jesus came to serve; we are called to serve.  Either we freely pick up the towel or circumstances may force it on us.

As already noted in previous posts (2008: Oct 19; 2009: Jan 9, 23, Mar 11, 22, Apr 12, May 19), the face of global Christianity has been radically altered.  Jehu Hanciles, Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration, and the Transformation of the West (2008), highlights how the development of Christianity into a non-Western religion has impacted Western Christendom.

According to the World Christian Encyclopedia (2001), the church in Europe and North America is losing members at a rate of six thousand members a day (just over 2.2 members a year).  The level of apostasy is much higher with regard to churh attendance: roughly 2.7 million church attendees in Europe and North America cease to be practicing Christians every year (an average loss of seventy-six hundred every day).  These extraordinary developments are substantiated by numerous reports (114).

How are we to respond to such information?  Several options: We can dismiss this information as only academic, statistical mumbo-jumbo, or we can give way to resignation, hand wringing, and despair, or we can pursue the questions which this information provokes.  

I believe that integrity and faithfulness demand that we pursue the obvious questions.  Such questions as …

• Is this a signal that the church has lost its place of prominence in Western culture, or that faith has been successful translated into new places and fresh expressions?
• Does the decline in church attendance indicate an abdication of faith or that people are doing their faith in different ways and places?
• Where are those who leave going?  To new religions, other forms of ’spirituality’, or to the mall?
• Has denominationalism run its course and thus is the blame or cause of the statistical decline?
• Where would the church in Europe and North America be if not for Pentecostalism and Charismatics?  If not for Christian immigrants from Africa and Latin America?
• Has the Western church merely succumbed to the long process of secularization and thus just needs to rediscover or rejuvenate its conservative and/or evangelical moorings? 
• Is the information a call to re-double our efforts to re-evangelize the homeland, or is it a cause to rethink the nature and purpose of the church within Western culture?  
• For what reason and on what basis should we continue sending missionaries to Africa, Latin America, and Asia? 
• In what ways should the shift evoke adjustments in our personal and corporate lives? 
• In what ways should the shift cause us to rethink faith, church, theology, missions, etc?  

Tough questions!  Some would say these kinds of questions should not be voiced aloud, less we undermine our evangelical and missionary commitment and resolve.  Well, my contention is that to avoid these questions and blissfully continue doing church and missions as if nothing has changed is irresponsible.  Faithfulness to the gospel and the mission of God demands that we not dodge, dismiss, or mask difficult or uncomfortable questions.  Nor is it acceptable to just keep repeating well-worn answers.  The change in world Christianity is massive, complex, and dynamic and thus demands that we make reasoned and intentional adjustments in our thinking, living and loving.  Tough questions require an authentic response.

Alan Hirsch seeks to provide clarity in the midst of mounting confusion over the word missional.  After stating that missional does not mean emerging or seeker-sensitive, and is more than social justice and church growth, he offers his understanding of missional.

A proper understanding of missional begins with recovering a missionary understanding of God.  By his very nature God is a “sent one” who take the initiative to redeem his creation. This doctrine, known as missio Dei-the sending of God-is causing many to redefine their understanding of the church.  Because we are the “sent” people of God, the church is the instrument of God’s mission in the world.  As things stand, many people see it the other way around.  They believe mission is an instrument of the church; a means by which the church is grown.  Although we frequently say “the church has a mission,” according to missional theology a more correct statement would be “the mission has a church” (Leadership, Fall 2008, 22).

I completely agree.  Missional has been co-opted and turned into the next emphasis, a new technique, or some slick program.  Instead, missional has to do with theology - our understanding of God; who he is, what he does, and his ultimate purpose.  A clear understanding and use of missional is essential, if the church is to be God’s church.  The church needs to hear anew that God is a sending God, and thus, the church is a missional people.  She exists for God’s mission.