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Living as God’s Missional
People For those of you who have missed the theological implications of this announcement…see “Fiber is Coming!” sign - imagine the implications for a ‘fiber-less’ people; the excitement and buzz it would generate. - a better way of communications is possible; abandon all of your other communications options, fiber is here! - reconsider life now that fiber is available; realign your communications hopes around fiber-optics. - but, just because fiber has come, does not mean that everyone will ‘connect’ and realize its benefits. Some will choose the ‘fiber-less’ life. ● While that is certainly a crude example of the invitation we encounter in the story of God, it helps us understand that although God has made himself (and his life) available to us now, he allows us the freedom to choose; to ignore his story (where his will is done) and formulate our own (where we decide). ● Throughout the story, we discover that the breaking in of God’s Kingdom into the world will require not merely some ‘minor adjustments’ to our lives, but a radical re-thinking of all of life (repentance): the process is painful, it’s disturbing, it’s unsettling. It means confronting the ‘cultural curriculum’ which has shaped our values; the story that we have lived in and been developing for years. “Pasting wings on a worm will never give you a butterfly”. ● In a very real sense, we are called upon to be a prophetic community- engaging our culture for God; calling it to ‘glory’--- something other, something bigger. And, it’s not enough to denounce the way things are if you don’t have anything better to offer. ● For Israel, their understanding of God was rooted in their experience of him and in coming to terms with what it meant to live as his people in the world, summarized in the phrase, “I will be your God” (exodus) and you will be my people” (Torah). “I will be your God” (chosenness: Exodus 6:7 “I will claim you as my own people and I will be your God”) expresses God’s acts of grace; “…you will be my people” calls on his people to live with grace as the guiding principle of their lives. [read Isaiah 61] ● So, Isaiah initiates his address with a declaration of God’s ‘sovereignty’. I believe he does so because he wanted to establish confidence in God’s determination to set things right; that his good purposes for all of his creation cannot be thwarted--- no matter how desperate, broken or dysfunctional. It’s easy sometimes to see our participation as futile or as some token gesture of good will versus viewing ourselves as significant agents of restoration. ►God’s glory and righteousness are most recognizable amidst the backdrop of human brokenness [what happens when you run out of ‘energy’ and ‘ideas’]. ‘poor, broken, captive, mourning’… all descriptions of people who have been over-taken by life. Notice that purpose of the ‘anointing’ in each situation is to bring the good news to bear on their circumstance. What becomes evident is the great “reversal” associated with the announcement of the gospel (i.e. beauty for ashes, joy for mourning, praise for despair, etc.) What we might miss is the ‘presumption’ found in the terms ‘rebuild, repair and refresh’; they seem to indicate the destructive nature of a way of life that’s lived independent of God; without thought for his glory, which produces ways of being together which are self-directed and without concern for the common good. ● So, this idea of “mission” helps us answer the question of how we are to live in response to glory and righteousness. The church has a mission only because it is the tangible, recognizable presence of a missional God. The one who was ‘sent’ is ‘sending us’ [John 5:30; 8:29; 12:44-45; 13:20; 14:26; 20:21] ● But, the challenges are at least (2)-fold: 1. Within the church there has been this dramatic shift away from the mission of God to a more ‘pragmatic’ story: how does God’s story accommodate me?! (like we’re in negotiations). 2. Then, in the world, there’s no ‘controlling story’; no common story to guide us, but merely our own individual preferences and interpretations. In that context, the highest objective is to ensure that the individual maintains ‘autonomy’ and the highest virtue is ‘tolerance’ [Tolerance has nothing to do with the legitimacy of your story, only your right to believe it]. ● “The Kingdom is at hand” is a declaration, not the current ‘poll question’! In its context, that statement was really good news unless you had found a way to acquiesce to the prevailing powers (empire) in a way that was to your advantage. ►We are discovering that mission both ‘sets us apart’ and ‘drives us toward’. We are called to ‘work out’ what restoration (this multi-directional relational healing) looks like in our own context. Who better to relate to a broken world than broken people in the process of being made right? 1 Peter 2:9-10 (read) ►Being ‘missional’ is not defined by any strategy other than a community’s desire to be like Jesus in the way they are ‘with others’. In mission, we learn to engage others with God’s healing love; the result of those restored relationships is justice- healing love setting things right in the world [glory producing righteousness]. ►Without ‘incarnation’ (the messy work of involvement), there is no viability to our faith; nothing to suggest that such a ‘way’ is worth the risk. We are the ‘called-out-ones’ who demonstrate through an alternative lifestyle that God’s kingdom has arrived and, in so doing, challenge the prevailing story being told. John 20:21 “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you”. I ask the logical question would be, “Why was he sent?” John 3:17 gives us a glimpse into his motivation. ● Sent… participating with God in his willingness to enter the brokenness; meet the world at ‘the place of pain’. But, we proceed with no illusions about our ability to remedy the brokenness on our own. ● Being ‘sent’ means that we live ‘representatively’… fulfilling the mission (desires) of another. In this case, God is not merely concerned with our cooperation, but actually makes it possible for his desires to become our desires through his lingering presence and deep inner-transformation. ● Admittedly, we’ll never achieve justice; we’ll never arrive at shalom; but our lives become a declaration of hope that what we are experiencing now only partially will one day be completed. ►We simply accept our role as ‘advocates’. An advocate, by definition, is one who acts on behalf of another. Implicit in the concept is the notion that the one being represented lacks the knowledge, skill, ability, or standing to speak for themselves (“mediator” 1 Timothy 2:5- one who intervenes to restore peace- wholeness; “intercessor”): we are to be ‘for the world’. Advocacy is one of the purest expressions of Godliness; to step in for someone who is helpless. When we do so, we reflect a God who is just, and his justice demands involvement (Deuteronomy 27:19; Psalm 33:5; Amos 5:24; Matthew 23:23). ►While it is true that transformation begins with us, it does not end with us. As “priests”, we view ourselves as ‘anointed; chosen; set apart; suited for the role’--- bringing the world’s brokenness to God and taking God’s restorative love to the world [all of those activities associated with the temple are now accomplished in and through us: healing, declarations of being reunited in community, forgiveness, worship, etc…] ►God’s initial instructions for his ‘sent ones’ …“wait”. As a means of ensuring we are all being guided by mission; moving the same direction: a means of unifying our efforts; ensuring similar passions. Waiting on the power of the Spirit to empower us; to offer an endless source of grace in what will be, at times, tiresome efforts. The Spirit would confirm our partnership with God and ensure that we maintain a ‘grace-filled’ approach; his presence with us would compel us by this mysterious desire to experience ‘unity’: that whatever was going on between the Father, Son and Spirit, we would desire to be a part [“… that they may be one as we are one…” John 17] ● In the end, my decision to embrace the story of Christianity had nothing to do with guilt or sin or failure (to often those words just become religious rhetoric); my life was already full of those things--- there will never be anything remarkable about sin. But, to be loved ‘in spite of those things’… that was good news; it was compelling news which captured my heart. ● God never viewed sin as an excuse (reason) not to love me. In fact, he considered sin an ‘enemy’--- at odds (opposition) with all of his good plans for his creation. John says, “The reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work” (1 John 3:8).
God considers sin an
obstacle to ‘shalom’; it prevents us from experiencing the wholeness (life) that
he came to offer. |
