I really enjoyed reading Julie Clawson’s reflections on the Missional Church and Worship, posted on her blog last week.
I think she’s spot on that there has to be something deeper to our worship than just the “cultural habits” of whatever style of worship music happens to be cool or whatever methods of prayer or devotion are currently in fashion.
How does the image of mission as healing affect the way we understand the mission of God?
So, after a long sabbatical it’s time to resume our Missional Viewpoints series. I almost let this series go, but I still think it’s something worth continuing so it’s time to revisit it and press on further. Just to jog your memory, here’s what I wrote as the brief for this series last Summer:
So today is Blog Action Day – and whilst I haven't really had time to be able to work on a post, I felt I should contribute something. The point of it all is to raise awareness and hype around the issue of poverty – to get talking about it, to get thinking about stuff that we can do, to get fighting poverty together.
I hate all your show and pretense—
the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies.
I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings.
I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings.
Away with your noisy hymns of praise!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice,
an endless river of righteous living.
- Amos 5:21-24
Mark Sayers talks about the Pink Elephant in the Missional Room, and has some really helpful videos up on youtube.
Sat in St Paul's Cafe whilst some Lab and St P's friends are staffing it. Just been looking back through Pete Rollins' blog, and hit on this:
It is all too common for Christians to attempt to do justice to the scriptural narrative by listening to it, learning from it, and attempting to extract a way of viewing the world from it. But the narrative itself is asking us to approach it in a much more radical way. It is inviting us to wrestle with it, disagree with it, contend with it, and contest it—not as an end in itself, but as a means of approaching its life-transforming truth, a truth that dwells within and yet beyond the words.
Been meaning for a while to write about online lobbying, and how much of a good thing it is for us to get involved in. Especially for students, who are often saying "we have no money, so we can't give", "and we're too busy (or possibly lazy ;-) to give much of our time" when it comes to charities and that whole aspect of being a Jesus-follower.
First up, I so, so strongly believe that social action and social justice on both a local and global scale is a vital part of living the Jesus life. Jesus said: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."*
And that's part of our duty and our joy, as Jesus-followers, to continue to bring in the Jubilee – "the year of the Lord's favour".
There are three different places at the moment that I get updates from, who lobby governments on justice and poverty issues – from Zimbabwe to Fair Trade Chocolate.
It only takes about two minutes to:
Two minutes which could add to up to, at least, some small change, and at most something world-changing. There is very little to lose. And, for the skeptics – these campaigns actually achieve stuff.
So, I mentioned three sites I'm subscribed to:
This is Tearfund's facebook app – so quick and easy from Facebook. Every week or so, a new "badger" comes up which you can respond to. As a cheeky extra, you then gain badger points for the amount of badgering (lobbying) you do, and whether you invite friends.
Tearfund engage with environmental and justice issues both here in the UK, as well as the huge global justice issues. And they have a Christian ethos – as you might know.
The One campaign is pretty USAmerican, but came out of what was the Make Poverty History campaign which ran for a year (remember that one). Sometimes they send American stuff out and right now their covering the American elections – which isn't hugely relevant, except that it's about choosing who the next most powerful man in the world will be. Think about it.
I'm not really sure where this site came from – I found it around the time of the Zimbabwe elections. But it is incredible. It's about harnessing and continuing to motivate that wave of young people who quit school over the Iraq war and are outraged about the situation in Zim. They usually focus on the huge, big issues on a worldwide scale.
The best way to keep up to date with these things is to sign up for email updates – so they send you the most vital campaigns for you to spend your two minutes on regularly.
Anyway – there we go, so take it or leave it.
* Luke 4:18-19 ESV
I was watching Batman Begins a couple of weeks ago (in preparation for the Dark Knight), and was hit by a weird quote. When Bruce talks to Rachel about his desire to avenge his parents' killing, she says something like "Justice is about harmony. Revenge is about you making yourself feel better."
But when we think about justice in this day and age, definitely in a secular sense and usually in a religious sense, we don't think about harmony, but instead about people getting what they deserve. People who do bad things deserve to have bad things happen to them to achieve justice. To balance the scales.
Even in a biblical sense, when we think about justice (or God's justice) a lot of people think about people getting what they deserve for sin. Jesus and grace are the way out of justice.
But what if the biblical concept of justice is actually something much deeper. What if when God speaks about justice it is much more closely related to harmony – to everything being in it's rightful place in relation to God (shalom)? Is justice the process of God achieving Shalom in His world? And how does this alter our understanding of what justice should be?
Was justice what the Jews were trying to achieve by stoning the woman caught in adultery, or was it achieved when Jesus set her free?
Another idea I've been thinking about a lot is the Old Testament idea of the Jubilee – when every fifty years debts are forgotten, land is given back, and a giant reset button is pressed for Israel. Surely the point of the Jubilee year is justice, harmony, peace? The rich would give up some in order to bring the poor back into the right place – and bring themselves back into that place as well.
And what if we look at the cross through the lens of justice? The law could never truly achieve justice – it could only give people what they deserved, but not bring them into a right place – and so Jesus sacrifices. He sacrifices of himself to restore relationships. And this is also how the community of faith achieves peace – we sacrifice of ourselves for each other. Especially the early church (Acts 2:42ish), who devote themselves and their possessions to becoming a community of peace together.
Think I'm about spent – it's been a long day. So…
Justice is about harmony/peace, achieved best through self-sacrifice.
How does that sit with you?
Just clicked a link onto Warner Bros online TV / on demand website. Unfortunately it’s only available in the US:
It looks like you’re trying to visit theWB.com from outside the United
States. Unfortunately, due to complicated domestic and international
entertainment law, our website is restricted to viewers within the US.
But please write to your local government representative if you want to
fight this injustice, so hopefully one day, fans like you from all over
the world can enjoy theWB.com.
Injustice? Yeah, right. So much of God’s Shalom would be restored if the whole world could access Warner Bros TV online.
Don’t judge me too harshly if I chose to spend my time lobbying the government on real issues of injustice instead.
<Create your own interesting commentary on the individualistic, apathetic state of western society here.>
As a sidenote – Yay! I’m now a Superbadger!
Some more thoughts after my previous post. Little disappointed at how confused/undeveloped it readssounds, especially after Jonny linked to it. So I want to try and explore more about what I got from yesterday about what Paul is communicating to the Colossians about the culture around them, and how they should respond to it.
1. Christ is above the empire, above culture.
Paul is clear that Christ is above the empire, came before the empire, and will live on after the empire. We can directly compare this with Christ and our culture. He was before culture, and He will continue after it. Christ, God, whatever our faith is clinging to, is constant – the way we relate to him and the way we relate and interact with the world around us will change.
2. Christ can work through culture – sometimes by subverting it.
We get this from the use of circumcision as a metaphor in Col 2:11, as well as: "And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross." – Col 2:15. Christ uses the Roman method of securing peace to make peace, but through his blood being shed, rather than the blood of others.
3. Christ can also be the fulfillment of culture/tradition.
Christ can also fulfill the Jewish tradition and laws/scripture. There is no longer any need for observance of the law, religious festivals etc. Circumcision is transformed by Christ and brought to fulfilment through death and then life with God.
So, a response?
1. Culture can be transformed and fulfilled by Christ.
We can partner with Christ by embracing and/or transforming elements of culture by showing how they point to Him.
2. Don't submit to the rules of this world.
"Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still
belonged to it, do you submit to its rules"? Col 2:20 – instead set our eyes on things above. Our focus must be on Christ above the culture we are in rather than being ruled by it.
3. Work against the "bad" elements of culture.
Freeing slaves etc. Working to right inequality and for justice – is this against culture or transforming culture by providing an alternative? This definitely engages with culture rather than withdrawing from it.
4. Provide an alternative narrative/story?
Sylvia argued that Rome used stories and images to legitamate and control society. She argued that the Christian response is to provide alternative stories and images. I wonder whether actually our role is to subvert the narratives we are part of so that they point back to Christ. Also, I hold that rather than story or doctrine legitimating the action of culture, the role of the church is to reverse the mechanism – our praxis legitimating the story we have to tell. Eg. "By this all men will know you are my disciples…"
With essays done and out of the way, felt like time to get back to some blogging… coupled with a huge discussion I had last night with some of the guys from the Lab about money. Will try to get down a quick update on what I’ve been up to later in the week but for now it’s reflection time, whilst my mind is still hot with thoughts.
Our discussion centred around the story of the rich young man in Luke, and the question: is it okay for a man, in this age, to be rich and follow Jesus?
The passage in Matthew 19 is here, although it also appears in Mark. It seems strange to be attempting an answer rather than just asking questions but here goes…
I think that we can interpret this passage and other similar passages – and probably the whole gospel – through two lenses or viewpoints. I think we can often end up with two different versions of the same gospel – the gospel of grace or salvation and the gospel of justice or works.
The gospel of grace says that we are assured of eternal life, not through our own works, but through Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection. It dictates that the path to righteousness is through trusting God’s grace, worshipping him and prayer – through the process of being made holy or sanctification. And it is absolutely true.
The gospel of justice says that we follow Jesus through challenging injustice and changing the world we live in – bringing about the kingdom of God. This gospel says that prayer, worship and bible reading isn’t enough – if we are to follow Jesus we need to live lives that bring God’s justice to a world of injustice – through works. And I believe that it is also totally true.
What we often seem to do as Western Christians is to emphasise the grace factor and often neglect the theme of justice – often because any discussion of justice and judgement often leads us too close to salvation by works for our likings – something the evangelical church in particular seems to be petrified of.
I believe the twin gospels of grace and justice are intertwined in the gospel that Jesus teaches.
The grace gospel says that the rich young man was serving two masters (as Jesus talks about in Matthew 6), and his hope was in both God and money. So for sanctification to take place, Jesus tells the individual to give up everything he owns. If he does this, then he can fully serve God. Therefore, it is not money that is the root of evil, but the love of money – and we can live with material wealth as long as we ensure we serve only one master.
What is also important is that Jesus makes the point that the man cannot inherit the kingdom of God on his own – but only with God "everything is possible".
The justice gospel – which we often neglect – says first that the rich young man is asking the wrong question. He asks for eternal life, but Jesus shows him the way into the kingdom of God. Jesus says that in order to live in the Kingdom, we must work to bring about God’s justice – by giving everything to the poor, by fighting for the marginalised and against injustice. How can a rich man inherit the kingdom?
How can the kingdom of God reign in his life – if he is not using all he has to fight injustice?
We can see how these two viewpoints could contradict – how they could be presented in opposition. But I believe the truth is that they are intertwined. They are like the double helix that works through the gospel. We should neglect neither – we should never seek eternal life through works alone, but we should also never pursue eternal life so much that we forget the poor and the marginalised and the broken. If we are to truly follow Jesus we are playing for keeps – we must give everything to pursue the kingdom of God on earth.
And that means our wealth.
And that’s a real challenge to Western Christianity – because it means that nothing can stay the same. Everything is up for grabs.
I’m sure there is more that could be added – and other parts of the bible which support either side of the debate, and I’m sure that my reasoning is probably flawed at best – but I’m only human. And life and belief is an ongoing journey.
Welcome to the blog of James Henley. I'm a young church leader / youth worker and student based in Newport, South Wales.
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