Blog Archives

Wasted thoughts on Church and mission: Church is the embodiment of God's reign now

11/29/2018

Some wasted thought on church community as mission.†

Based on passages such as Ephesians 2:11-22, God’s mission in Christ, at this time, is, first and more most, about being church, specifically a local gathered-church in a place*, that is being the new humanity, a distinctive community of people.

Albeit the end is not here, but it has been inaugurated through the Spirit and, by that, church, again, a local gathered-church in a place.* Thus, the new social order (i.e., the Kingdom of God come, the new heavens and the new earth), although not finale, is present where Christ is, namely his body, the church (Ephesians 1:10; 2;10-22). This means that the contribution which and/or impact a church can have on this inaugurating new social order is itself to actually be a new social order.

Lesslie Newbigin has pointed out that Jesus called and prepared “a community chosen to be the bearer of the secret of the kingdom . . . The intention of Jesus was not to leave behind a disembodied teaching. It was that . . . there should be created a community which would continue that which he came from the Father to be and do—namely to embody and announce the presence of the reign of God” (Gospel in a Pluralistic Society (1989), 133-34).

Again, Newbigin affirms what I have been saying, preaching, and advocating concerning church: “The primary reality of which we have to take account in seeking for a Christian impact on public life is the Christian congregation. How is it possible that the gospel should be credible that people should come to believe that the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross? . . . The only answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, ia a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it” (Gospel in a Pluralistic Society, 227).

“Jesus challenged the powers that ruled the world by deeds of justice and mercy. These were not marginal but central to his ministry. Therefore, since the church’s mission is in Christ’s way, ‘it is clear that action for justice and peace in the world is not something which is secondary, marginal to the central task of evangelism. It belongs to the heart of the matter’” (Gospel in a Pluralistic Society, 133, 137).§

*Place, not necessarily an address, but a geographic location small enough to encompass true community and life together in neighborly approximation.

†These reflections have been influced (or affirmed) by the book I am reading at the moment: The Church and Its Vocation: Lesslie Newbigin’s Missionary Ecclesiology.

§Michael W. Goheen, The Church and Its Vocation: Lesslie Newbigin’s Missionary Ecclesiology, p. 87.

Wasted quotes: royal (self-interest) wishing and authentic parity

11/24/2018

“The prophet announces the end, the end of haughtiness in which one takes priority over another, the one who has forgotten about covenant partners. It is clear that this is not simply gentle concern for poor folks, but it has to do with Yahweh, with his character and his commitments. He is allied with the poor against the rapacious wealthy. That is who he is and no royal wishing will have it otherwise.” ~Walter Brueggemann, The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith

“It is delicate work, I have found, establishing authentic parity between people of unequal power.” ~Robert D. Lupton, Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help, and How to Reverse It

These quotes come from the head of the first chapter of Wasted Evangelism, “Widows in Our Courts.” Please consider purchasing a copy of my Wasted Evangelism: Social Action and the Church's Task of Evangelism, a deep, exegetical read into the Gospel of Mark. All royalties go to support our church planting in the Hill community of New Haven, CT. The book and its e-formats can be found on Amazon, Barns'n Noble (and most other online book distributors) or directly through the publisher, Wipf & Stock directly.

Painting table fellowship from our experience of church

11/23/2018

There are so many grand and wonderful paintings of early church times of table fellowship. And some I really, truly like. Yet, there is a male-centerness to them that would not have reflected the actual tables of Christian fellowship of the early church that these scenes are to depict. I do not see women and wives and slaves and children; typically just men, and when women are depicted, they are serving food. Most of these grand paintings were created and come at the time after Constantine, the Roman Empire Caesar (272 AD - 337 AD), herded the churches away from the homes of Christians and into buildings sanctioned by the State, along with laws to build up and protect an appointed church authority and priesthood consisting solely of men. Church began to reflect the culture of the empire more so than the one painted by the Apostolic church and the early church through 300 AD. This move recreated the church away from the Table fellowship of strangers and unequals that had increased and spread since the days after the Pentecost of Acts 2. Most of these wonderful paintings, as far as I can tell, come from the post-constantine Christian era, reading their “church experience” back into the apostolic and early church (form and experience).

We do that, too, now. Our vision of the church not only reflects the flaws and unredeemed aspect of our social and cultural times and trends, but we read this experience of church back into the life of the early church and, worse, back into the vision of the church depicted by our New Testament writers.

God's cosmic restoration, seated at the table, breaking bread and lifting a cup

11/22/2018

“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:7-10).

“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind” (Isaiah 65:7).

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more” (Revelation 21:1).

The goal of redemptive history is the cosmic restoration of creation. This is the story of the Bible. This is the church’s story. This should be your church's story.

God has determined to use a redeemed people to herald this message. The ekklesia of Jesus, the gathered-church, composed of redeemed and restored people, living out the gospel, illustrating this cosmic restoration through its treasonous worship of the risen Jesus, the Lord over all other claims to the throne, its missional behavior to its neighbors, and , particularly, through the fellowship of restored human relationships among strangers and unequals.

The gathered-church of the Lamb of God is unlike any and all other rebellions and resistance movements: church is not (ever) aligned with a government or party or state or king in order to violently overthrow or by means of State-authority and any form of violence to maintain; church is never (ever) aligned with the spilling of blood through strength or cunning to change or maintain the status quo of an unredeemed social structure or cultural state of affairs; and, where privileged to participate, church does not count on the ballot-box to overthrow power or maintain a particular person or party in power.

The church uses a table of fellowship over food, broken bread, and a raised cup of allegiance to the risen King of kings and Lord of lords, now seated at the right hand of God in the heavenly places. This has been and is God’s way of, not saving the State or some preferred demographic or cultural value, but demonstrating that all of history is moving toward His ultimate conclusion of a restored creation.

How does God reveal and accomplish this purpose of history?

Little and grand tables, scattered throughout time and place, some well noticed and many hidden in the back alleys and among the margins–this has been where God does his rewriting of corrupted history and the deconstructing of the powers of humankind. This is church-story. Not just the best story. But the true story of history. This is the story you and I are invited into; and, the gathered-church is the place God restores all things. Not the battlefield. Not the ballot box. But at tables of strangers and unequals.

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A place where the desperate anxiety to please God means nothing

11/21/2018

Not long ago, I developed a paper on why place matters and that loving one's neighbor cannot exclude caring about (loving) that neighbor’s neighborhood. In an article by Stanley Hauerwas, “The place of the church and the agony of Anglicanism,” he draws our attention to Rowan Williams, who “observes that the New Testament testifies to the creation of a pathway between earth and heaven that nothing can ever again close.”

A place has been cleared in which God and human reality can belong together without rivalry or fear. That place is Jesus, in Christ, now better known as “church.” It is a place where a love abides that is at once vulnerable and without protection; a place in which human competition does not count:

“. . . a place where the desperate anxiety to please God means nothing; a place where the admission of failure is not the end but the beginning; a place from which no one is excluded in advance.”

The messy life of the church as its public voice

11/17/2018

There is no doubt in my mind that the Bible teaches that the church is to have a public voice on social issues and, especially, the needs of the poor. The question is how is this voice to be manifested. I will agree the are numerous, relevant applicable ways this voice can be heralded, but by actual words and social action means. Yet, we seem divided: Half of us church people seem to think the “voice” is setting a good example by maintaining and raising Christian-acceptable families, promoting education and hard work, and, of course, getting a job–if others would just follow our example all the social problems would be ameliorated and the poor wouldnt be poor. The other half seem to focused “activism” at some level that seeks to change the systems in place–if our government didn’t have a law or had a certain law, or this company had to do this or that, or if that social group had to do this our that, things would change for the better. And, don’t be fooled, both sides believe our “God-given voice” is in voting correctly, as if voting–and some truly believe and act this way–is the church’s weapon of choice for change or for maintaining what we already have.

For those who see the church’s voice as “activism” of some sort (and I am not necessarily against activism as Christians or even as church), but this means (i.e., method or way of having a voice) produces leaders whose personalities and resources create platforms for celebritism (yes, I invited a word, but it is am important word) and this means (i.e., method or way of having a voice) shortly degenerates into one power to replace the other power we don’t want or to maintain what we do want; so, that we can create and apply law in our social (preferred) image, which is accompanied by the power to punish the law-breakers. [Seriously, Christians, are you okay with church having such power–and it wouldn’t be the church in general, but powerful church individuals.] We are accustomed to this means of social reform–it is however the language and method of Caesar not Christ.

The means presented to us in the New Testament (and seems to have been true of the early church for about 300 years) is, well, church: the messy yet discipling life of the church that is (supposed to be) made up of strangers and unequals, loving one another. The public voice of the church is how it does church. This is the church’s voice on social issues and the needs of the poor.

I am more and more convinced of this.

Already woke: I already know what the Bible is going to say . . .

11/16/2018

While I have been a student of the Bible for over forty years and, actually, not a casual but a serious one since the week after my conversion on July 10, 1978 when the guys that lead me to the Lord bought me a New American Standard Bible from a Boise, Idaho Bible Book Store, I am, still, always learning and listening (hopefully better and hopefully well). However, if I already know what the Bible should and ought to say, why read it at all? If I already know what each book, Gospel, Letter, and text is supposed to say BEFORE I read them, the Bible, a Bible book, a chapter, a text cannot teach me anything "new" nor challenge me afresh. These, then, only become weapons to use against those that don’t think or conform to my way of thinking or political agenda.

The Bible (or depending on who is reading it and who is making this assumption), then, is always going to preach to me a conservative or progressive lesson I already know; it is always going to teach me the same old message or same enlightened message; it will always point me toward voting Republican or Democrat at the ballot box; it will always teach me to accept or hate certain others; it will always move me to certain places and not to others; it will always teach me what social location is best for success, safety, and prosperity.

While there is value in hermeneutic, confessional, and theological centers and consistency (I certainly have them–well, I sure hope I do), there is also value, as someone has blogged, “just allowing the Bible to be strange and unsettling.” God’s word should always be challenging my assumptions, my politics, my social locations—or I will simply have a harden heart (or continue to have one) that is never confronted, never challenged, and never breaking my idolatries. I am already woke. I already know what the Bible is gonna say.

The need and importance of ecclesiology: Whose story are we?

11/15/2018

Herein is our problem, my problem:

“Ecclesiology is first of all about the church’s identity—who we are and who[m] we serve. And if the biblical story is not the place where our identity is forged, then by default this place will be somewhere else, almost certainly in our cultural story and social location. That will mean we are no longer the people we are called to be and will be serving the wrong master” (Michael W. Goheen, The Church and Its Vocation: Lesslie Newbigin’s Missionary Ecclesiology)

And this is why church, that is ecclesiology, is so so important.

I have been wrong on many things theological over the years (e.g., nature of man and nature of sin, God's sovereignty and election, the importance of the Lord's supper, and too many more to be embarrassed over, which I hope I know better now), but the biggest “didn’t get” was “church.”

I, like most of us, define “church” by and through our culture, our sociological history (i.e., our story), even my personal story, and my social location as (now don’t get offended, or maybe you should)—my social location as a white, suburbanite, living in America, and a person within a westward marching, European cultural history (story).

Really need to rethink church and do so within the context of the biblical story.