BLOG 12/10/14. THE CHURCH BEHIND ‘THE CHURCH’– BENEATH THE RADAR

BLOG 12/10/14. THE CHURCH BEHIND THE CHURCH: BENEATH THE RADAR

From its very beginning the church has been called to: “Examine yourselves, to see whether you in in the faith. Test yourselves” (II Cor. 13:5). Or, maybe: “I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up …” (Rev. 31-2). These words of caution being so, my desire in the Blogs is also to remind myself and my readers that we can never become complacent, nor content with things as they may appear, but to look behind what it is, to what God in Christ has intended his church to be.

The liturgical season of Advent is an annual reminder that things are not always as they seem to appear. God has always had a unique way of revealing himself from the margins, of ‘flying beneath the radar.’ First of all, the dominant and inescapable reality in that first century world was the mighty Roman Empire, in which Caesar was God, and to question that was an act of sedition. In the off-on-the-margins nation of Palestine, the dominant reality was the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem with its elaborate priesthood and rituals, and all of the politics involved in that establishment, not to mention that this nation was also occupied by the Roman government and had a compromised and questionable king by the name of Herod.

No one was looking at the small city of Nazareth and at a godly peasant artisan by the name of Joseph who was the betrothed husband of a peasant girl by the name of Mary. It was then, and to their surprise, that God revealed himself with the startling word that Mary would become pregnant by an act of God and would bring forth as son who would sit on the throne of his father David, and of whose kingdom there would be no end. The two of them had to be convinced themselves at such an outrageous proposition. From the margins …

This should not have been too surprising to those conversant with the history of the Jewish people, because, centuries before, it was to a wandering Aramaen by the name of Abram, a sheik out there in the middle east, that God came and made the promise that in his offspring, all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

Leap over several millennia to our incarnation here in the twenty-first century, and we still have the task, the discipline, of understanding the difference between counterfeit and authentic churches, of those facades of ‘religious Christianity’ and the reality of God in Christ building his church—and again it is more likely to be happening beneath radar, and from the margins.

One sees, in our culture and in our media, the vast religious enterprises and the colorful television preachers. We are surrounded during these pre-Christmas days with music and carols carrying a message so profound that we have become immunized to it. The news carries many stories of what is taking place in the Vatican with the unusual Pope Francis, who doesn’t fit the mold. We also see religious fanatics, many who profess to be followers of Christ, doing things that actually contradict what they profess to believe. And so much more … but this is all on radar.

What is not seen is the daily faithfulness and obedience of a huge multitude of modest men and women, often in oppressive contexts, who live out their faith and are quietly contagious with their love of Jesus Christ, and who in their own way are bold to give answer to the hope that is in them with gentleness and sensitivity: hard-working parents, immigrant farmers, school teachers, … those engaged in industry, in the arts, in commerce, in government, in environmental stewardship, in home-making, in service. This is where God dwells among his people, and calls them to be true colonies of his New Humanity—to be the authentic demonstration of his purpose to make all things new. It took Mary and Joseph a while to comprehend what they had been called to, but quietly they taught this son, Jesus, so well that when he was twelve, he could debate scripture with the priests. From the margins, and beneath radar: the Lord of all.

 

 

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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