Enchanted Community

BLOG 9/7/18. THE CHURCH: CALLED TO BE SENT

I had to chuckle. The responses to my last blog on the (caricatured) conceptions of the church as either composed of settlers or pioneers, were quite revealing of the fuzzy understandings that are formative in so much of the church’s self-understanding. There is a sense in which the church could be considered as both, but so often those of us who make up the church become comfortable in some institutional form what with its regular services and activities, its professional leadership, and its predictability, and so become (to use the term) church-i-fied.

There are so many conceptions of the church, i.e., sociological, historical, theological, Biblical, etc. that it is not surprising that one could be sincerely a part of a Christian community/church and yet not understand its role in the design of God. The very word church is the English translators word used to translate the Greek word ek-klesia (ecclesia as in ecclesiastical). It is a word that defines a community called-out for a purpose. Jesus employed the word when he told his disciples that he was going to build his church/ek-klesia ­upon those called out to be his followers and to engage with him in his message and mission.

That means that the church is called for a specific purpose, not to be ‘religious’, but rather to be engaged with him in his mission. He has called his followers to express their faith in and love for him in lives of trust and obedience. Everyone who is baptized has taken a vow to be his faithful disciple and to live a life of obedience to him.

Ah! But Jesus also tells his followers/disciples: “As the Father has sent me, even so do I send you.” That means that we are called by Jesus to be sent by Jesus to engage in his mission. Such also means that whatever the church is, it is a community formed by him and his word, and a community sent by him to be the incarnation of that mission in the totality of its life. The church (and every follower of Christ who composes it) is, in a very real sense, the missionary arm of the Holy Trinity. It does this by not only heralding the life and teachings of Christ in its ordinary conversation, but in being the communal expression of God’s New Humanity in Christ, by its love and good works, by demonstrating the love and good works of Christ, by loving not only friends, but strangers and even enemies. Because those who compose the church have been reconciled by Christ, they are also called to be reconcilers. Because they have been forgiven by God in Christ, they also forgive those who have sinned against them. The become a redemptive community that is to be contagious with the life of Christ which indwells them by the Holy Spirit.

The purpose of the community’s gatherings is to re-inforce, to be nurtured in the teachings of Christ and of holy scriptures, to celebrate in songs of praise together this calling and this mission. So, that whenever the church becomes focused on a place and designates it as the ‘house of God’ some yellow lights should go on. The dwelling-place of God is in his people by the Holy Spirit, not in a building. Yet the church has again and again become idolatrous of its buildings and institutions. Of course, there is a degree of institutionalization that takes place whenever a church is formed to function efficiently in its calling. Of course, there are those who emerge as gifted in its ministry of equipping its members for the carrying out its/their mission,

The church is the human community recrated, but it can be (by the very words of Christ) as small as two or three gathered together in his name, where he is with them. It can express itself in large assemblies or in houses, in diverse and often secret places, … but its integrity is always in its faithfulness to the message and mission of Christ. Its form changes in different contexts. Yes, we are both called and sent. We are the Body of Christ in the realities of daily life.

[See: http://wipfandstock.com/what-on-earth-is-the-church-14083.html]

BLOG 9/4/18. THE CHURCH: PIONEERS OR SETTLERS?

A few decades ago, a very astute, witty (even mischievous) Episcopal priest by the name of Wes Seeliger wrote a colorful, border-line irreverent, and yet most revealing book about two common appraisals of life and of the church. The book is entitled: Western Theology In it he sees two visions of life, and two kinds of people. The first see life as a possession to be carefully guarded.  They are called settlers. The second see life as a wild, fantastic, explosive gift. They are called pioneers.

These two types give rise to the two kinds of theology: Settler Theology and Pioneer Theology. Settler Theology is an attempt to answer all the questions, define and housebreak some sort of Supreme Being, establish the status quo on golden tablets in cinemascope. Pioneer Theology is an attempt to talk about what it means to receive the strange gift of life. The Wild West is the setting for both theologies.[1]

In Settler Theology, God is the mayor, and the church is the courthouse. It is the center of town life. The old stone structure dominates the town square. It’s windows are small and this makes it dark inside. Within the courthouse walls records are kept, taxes collected, trials held for bad guys. The courthouse is the settler’s symbol of law and order, stability, and most-important security. The mayor’s office is on the top floor. His eagle eye ferrets out the smallest detail of the town’s life. In Settler Theology, God is the mayor. He is a sight to behold … but since he keeps the blinds drawn no one sees him or knows him directly, but since there is order in the town, who can deny that he is there.

In Pioneer Theology, the church is the covered wagon. It’s a house on wheels, always on the move. The covered wagon is where the pioneers eat, sleep, fight, love and die. It bears the marks of life and movement—it creaks, it is scarred with arrows, bandaged with bailing wire. The covered wagon is always where the action is. It moves toward the future, and doesn’t bother to glorify its own ruts. The old wagon isn’t comfortable, but the pioneers don’t mind. They are more into adventure than comfort. In Pioneer Theology, God is the trail boss. He is rough and rugged, full of life. The trail boss lives, eats, sleeps fights with his people. Without him the wagon wouldn’t move. The trail boss often gets down in the mud with the pioneers to help push the wagon. … You begin to get Seeliger’s analogy.

In Settler Theology, Jesus is the sheriff who is sent by the mayor to enforce the rules. In Pioneer Theology, Jesus is the scout. He rides out ahead to find out the way the pioneers should go. The scout suffers every hardship that the pioneers do. In Settler Theology, the Christian is the settler. In Pioneer Theology, the Christian is the pioneer. In Settler Theology, the clergyman is the banker who keeps within his vault the values of the town. In Pioneer Theology, the clergy is the cook who doesn’t furnish the meat, but dishes up what the buffalo hunter provides. In Settler Theology, faith is trusting in the safety of the town: obeying the laws, keeping your nose clean, etc. In Pioneer Theology faith is the spirit of adventure, the readiness to move out, to risk everything on the trail. … and so it goes.

Sound familiar. I love the analogies. Comfort-zone Christianity is one of the most pernicious heresies we encounter. Christ’s calling is to a life that is only secure in our obedience to him. The true church is always a company of pioneers. I couldn’t resist sharing (maybe confusing you?) with Seeliger’s analogy.

[1] I think that much of this comes from a digest of the book by Brennan Manning that I copied years after reading the book.

BLOG 8/31/18. “… AS GOD’S PICKED REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NEW HUMANITY”

You know, guys, it really does matter what our professed life in relationship to Christ looks like to those outside. An earlier paraphrase says it well: “As, therefore, God’s picked representatives of the new humanity, purified and beloved of God himself, be merciful in action, kindly in heart, humble in mind. Accept life, and be most patient and tolerant with one another, always ready to forgive …” (J. B. Phillips on Colossians 3:12). This is a consistent theme from Jesus through all the New Testament writings. We are called to be God’s New Creation people, his new humanity, and that is most convincingly communicated by our behavior.

Which raises the compelling question: What practical difference does your trust in / relationship to Jesus Christ make? How do you conceive of, and nurture your calling by Jesus Christ to be a dynamic part of his message and mission in the 24/7 vicissitudes of your life? How does it determine the caliber of your daily work and responsibilities and relationship to others? It’s quite too easy (and too common) to mouth-off about being a disciple of Jesus, or of being born again—but that’s not our calling. We are called to demonstrate by our love and good works that we related to him, and if others ask us: What makes us tick? Behave as we do? … then we are called to give them a thoughtful and sensitive answer.

Those who are still outside of the family of God can hardly escape the examples of warm hospitality, or helpful kindnesses. I love the comment made about the Irish poet Seamus Heaney after his death, that he was so influential because of his warmth, humor, caring and courtesy. (I wrote that into my prayer journal.) But it’s not only in the interpersonal relationships of love and good works, but in the totality of life, … in our stewardship of the environment, in our quest for justice, peace-making, and humanitarian sensitivity in the larger social and political scene.

To be candid, going to multiple church meetings can be essentially meaningless, even a distraction, if those same church meetings to not at the same time re-energize us, equip us afresh, and encourage us in that calling to our calling to be God’s new humanity as we live out his message and mission.

Such a calling also is a calling to know how to relate, as God’s new humanity, to ‘real sinners,’ to difficult co-workers, to the unlikely and unlikeable … whom Jesus came to seek and to rescue. In the accounts of the early church in Jerusalem, the message and the healing made real in Christ, caused the local populace to come and to bring the sick to a place where the very shadow of Peter might fall on them and bring healing. I would like to think, and so I pray, that the authenticity of my new humanity in Christ might be a healing and reconciling influence wherever I went, and on whoever I engaged in personal relationships. I want to be a healer and a reconciler in the midst of a tragically estranged and often destructive context.

Our cultural atmosphere is probably polluted with too much unconvincing religious talk, when what it really needs would be a whole lot more (as someone designated them) ‘little Christs,’ i.e. those living and present incarnations of God’s new humanity. … And it begins with you and me. Go for it!

[And if these Blogs are helpful to you, recommend them to your friends. Thanks.]

BLOG 8/28/18. CAN BEING CANTANKEROUS BE A CHRISTIAN VIRTUE?

I’ve just finished reading two books, both of which triggered such an outrageous question. One was a scholarly study of the ethical challenges that have confronted the humanitarian agency Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) that tracked the ever-changing issues faced over its forty-year history, what with the ever changing and challenging contexts and crises that it has engaged. In the conclusion of the study the author commented that it could almost be written into the constitution of the agency that it was deliberately cantankerous in that it was always dissatisfied that it was accomplishing it purpose in the most effective way. The other was a book about the ever-disruptive effect of creative thinkers, of how un-safe such non-conforming thinking can be.

Which, in turn, reminded me of the word from the apostle that those of us who are called into Christ’s New Creation are not to be conformed to the world (i.e., the existing powers (economic, political, cultural, etc.) and determining influences that are our context), but, rather, are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we might prove what is the will/agenda of God (Romans 12:1ff). That sounds awfully much like a call to being cantankerous to me. There is no way we can be so non-conforming and not, at the same time, be disruptive (though with sensitivity and gentleness).

In a world, such as ours, with daily mind-boggling new discoveries, old ways are constantly being outdated and replaced by new and often disruptive realities. One of the biographers of Larry Page and Sergei Brin, the co-founders of Google, summarized their motivation as their assumption that “if you wanted to make the world a better place, then you had to break a lot of rules, and piss a lot of people off.” Pardon me for saying so, but that sounds a whole lot like the effect of Jesus and of the early church, doesn’t it?

Then I think of Jesus coming into this human scene with a message that God was, in Jesus himself, invading this present with a disruptive and radically new creation that would be the ultimate fulfillment of God’s prophesies back from the very beginning. He was bringing into our human neighborhood a message of the ultimate meaning of God’s design for men and women that included meaning, acceptance with God, and hope.

Along the way he looked out on the crowds and had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he became angry at the ostensible spiritual leaders of Israel because they seemed to be so self-protective and indifferent to these sheep without a shepherd. In announcing his role in bringing about a new creation, he put his focus on the lost, the meaningless lives, the helpless, the hungry, the sick, and the oppressed. He gave a whole new agenda that acknowledged that this message of true righteousness would not be well received, but would incur retaliation, … but that his followers were to incarnate mercy, identity with the poor, peacemaking, good works, and to, in general, be demonstrations of his compassion for the sheep without shepherd. They were to be cantankerous, to be disruptors for the Kingdom of God. Then he sent his followers out to herald and practice this non-conforming new life that comes from God.

This being so, I often look with dismay at those ostensible church institutions that are so focused on their own survival, their handsome sanctuaries and their inner congregational life, … and show not a whit of concern for those sheep without a shepherd all around them, … are content to exist year after year without reaching any new believers, or making any redemptive impact upon the populations around the who are seeking to find some understanding of their lives without a center, without meaning, without justice, without a guiding line, or a final goal, … and I want to be cantankerous, to raise my voice and to be disruptive, to be non-conforming and so proving the will of God, and the reality of God’s new creation what with all of its hope and meaning and love through my life and community. How does that sound?

BLOG 8/24/18. GETTING HONEST ABOUT HUMAN SEXUALITY

There really is no place to escape from the reality of the subject of human sexuality in our experience, or to seek to duck it … because it is delicate, enormously complex, and replete with landmines. But the recent news of the enormous scandal of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church in Pennsylvania makes it inescapable, … not to mention the “me too” expose’s in the media industry. It is not new, nor hidden, nor is it only a Roman Catholic problem. (Buried in most traditional church budgets is a huge insurance item to protect against sexual assault lawsuits.)

A big part of the problem is that we seek to deal with the issue by making it non-discussable. One of my good friends offered her boys this word as they entered puberty: “Boys, you don’t lose your hormones when you’re born again.” Right on. Or, as some secularists state it: Humans are hardwired to reproduce their gene pool into the next generation. Sexuality is an enormous drive in most healthy men and women. Some, to be sure, are happily able to live chaste single lives focusing on some other compelling and challenging goal. But the stimuli are all around us: web sites, most good novels, television shows (case in point: Desperate Housewives of a few years ago), daily newspapers, and on and on ….

It certainly was not new nor un-discussable to the New Testament writers. Paul (who evidently was single) would write to the Christians in Thessalonica that the will of God for their sanctification was that they should abstain from fornication (casual hook-ups). That didn’t say that they weren’t tempted. Then he told those who were ‘hot’ but struggling with a desire to remain single that it was better for them to marry than to burn. He also warned those who were part of God’s New Creation people that they should not make their members to be the members of a harlot. Some of those guidelines were given to the church in Corinth, which was a seaport town and notorious for its sexual industry.

In many of those ancient cultures brothels were a flourishing industry, so that any sexually hungry guy or girl could go to the neighborhood brothel and enter a context of lurid illustrations on the wall, and be serviced. This is the reality. Paul is not denying the reality of the sexual desire, rather, he is calling for wholesome sexual reality and discipline.

Somehow, for the church to make celibacy to be a requirement for the priesthood, seems to me, to be unrealistic and dishonest about the reality of the gift and design of human sexuality. If, out of one’s zeal to serve the Lord as a young person, one takes such a vow it doesn’t make him or her lose their hormones. What it does is to make them incredibly temptable. It denies them the ability to be models of true marital sexuality and family creation, (… but I’ll have to leave that to Pope Francis). Tradition has it that when Francis of Assisi was in his early career in forming a new order, that one of his young disciples confessed to Francis that he was still in love with the girl whom he had known before joining Francis. Francis encouraged him to leave the order without guilt and to marry her, that such was no sin. That’s reality.

Artificial solutions, or the ignoring of the realities of God’s design for such a powerful motivation as human sexuality, only shoves the issue out of sight, but not out of reality. It doesn’t resolve it. God intends human sexuality to be beautiful, to restore intimacy of faithful relationships and to produce family communities that demonstrate his reconciling and recreating design.

That’s just treading the fringe of a huge and inescapable issue. My purpose is to bring it out into the sunshine and look for honest and wholesome expressions of God’s design in creating us as sexual creatures. (God also does not countenance our exploiting or abusing others sexually.)

Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.

BLOG 8/21/18. OUTRAGEOUS, COMPELLING, AND TOTALLY PERSUASIVE

I haven’t made it a practice to promote books on this Blog—after all “of the making of many books there is no end.” But Bob Ekblad has done it again. I mean, like, I’m a guy who has written a book in which I named Jesus as a ‘subversive’, which raised a few eyebrows, … but here’s a guy who describes Jesus as the commandante of a guerrilla movement, sending out bands of guerrillas to demonstrate and announce the new order (i.e., the kingdom of God) which has arrived. I can’t resist commending it to you.

This latest of Bob Ekblad’s books is Guerrilla Gospel. If the author’s Biblical-scholarly credentials were not so impeccable he might easily be dismissed. But Bob is a gifted dude. He has a Th.D. in Old Testament, is an ordained Presbyterian minister, a social activist who cut his teeth after of the university teaching sustainable farming in Central America, then had a life transforming encounter with God, and then, rather than immersing himself in academia (though he has taught in universities, and in many global scenes), immersed himself in a ministry interpreting the gospel to illegal immigrants, to prisoners, to felons, and to the marginal and broken of his Skagit Valley community in the Washington State.

This explains the background for his familiarity with the idiom and vernacular which he employs in using this metaphor of Jesus as being the leader of a guerrilla movement, and sending out bands of guerrillas to announce the new order. He takes us on a scouting tour through the gospel stories using this imagery in a compelling manner, peeling away all the layers of tameness and traditionalism (that too often obscure our understanding of Christ’s message) and revealing Christ’s invasion of this broken scene for what it is: a radical and transformational new order. He also offers helpful guidelines for Bible study … and so much more. The book is outrageous, compelling, illuminating, liberating, and totally persuasive.

I love it. I commend it. Guerrilla Gospel. ˆDon’t miss it.

BLOG 8/17/18. “THE GENERATIONS RISE AND PASS AWAY”

There are times when the scriptures referring to the brevity of our earthly sojourn come very close to home. There is the text which says: “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty … and we soon pass away.” … Then, that is followed by the petition that we are to “so number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” The implication is unmistakable that somehow our legacy to the next generation is to be ‘wisdom’ with whatever such wisdom constitutes.

We need to ask ourselves, then, what our own personal legacy of wisdom constitutes? What kind of a model of wisdom are we to be demonstrating for those who follow us in the next generation? That has become a very poignant question to me this week. Earlier this week my older brother died, which means that I am now the only remaining member of my Henderson generation.

There were three of us Henderson boys, and I was the youngest. We grew up in the difficult days of the great depression and World War II. But the three of us had two gentle, very caring, very principled and very wise parents who modelled wisdom before us every day. Our family culture was disciplined and that principle of wisdom was always before us in our parents. It was never articulated as such, but in these twilight days as my generation passes away I reflect on it with great appreciation.

My oldest brother became an educator and left behind him the legacy of Florida’s community college system of 39 community colleges. He was also a wisdom figure in both his church community and in the progressive social influences of the region. My other brother, who died this week, was of a very scientific bent and left behind him the legacy of environmental stewardship, becoming the chief environmental officer for a major oil company. Yet he also reflected the heritage of wisdom we had inherited from our own parents in with his family and in the church community.

I am, therefore, reflecting on how I am to be numbering my days that I may apply my heart unto wisdom (Psalm 90:12). I can only be conscious that such is a part of my New Creation calling and that I am to, somehow, model wisdom for the emerging generation. How do I model wisdom to the next generation? I am keenly aware that somehow the next generation doesn’t need empty moralisms, but rather needs a model of integrity, of vibrant discipleship, and of whatever wisdom encompasses. I can pray: “So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all who are to come” (Psalm 70:18).

To be sure, “The generations rise and pass away … so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” Yes, and that in the beautiful context of our calling to be the people of God’s New Humanity, what with our great hope endowed to us by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Such is a high and holy calling. God create me and us to be models of such wisdom.

__________

BLOG 8/14/18.  CLARIFYING THE PASTORAL ROLE IN THE CHURCH.

I have often heard, all too often, the charge that the church, and especially the pastor, was indifferent to some crisis or difficulty in a person’s life. Often that accusation was aimed at me in my decades of pastoral ministry. So, let me take a shot at seeing if I can give some clarifying context to the role of the pastor.  First off, the very word pastor is synonymous with that of shepherd, which was rich in meaning in the scriptures, i.e., the shepherd loves his sheep, and calls them by name.

Secondly, God doesn’t intend that any one of his people shall languish in anonymity. When the 600,000+ Israelites came out of captivity, strong leaders were chosen and that large number was broken down into units of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. This, of course, within their twelve tribal units. No one was to be anonymous. As their history unfolded with all its tumultuous episodes, we come to their paradigm king David, who was revered as the shepherd-king. As this structure all began to unravel, and the nation became oblivious to their reason for being, and forgot their covenant constitution which was the Torah, any accountability faded, and their behavior began to reflect the nations around.

Stick with me here. When the “greater than David” or God’s anointed servant-messiah appeared on the scene in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, it is instructive to see how he began to bring into being a new community that would be the living-breathing demonstration/incarnation of God’s New Humanity. Here ,no one who was his follower was to be anonymous. Jesus was the great Shepherd, the “bishop and shepherd (e.g. pastor) of our souls” (I Peter 2:25).

So, then, how did he implement this new community (which was soon to become vast) so that no one got lost, so that each person had a name and a face, and a story. The answer is two-fold, and very instructive. As more and more people began to respond to his message and to his person, and become is followers, … Jesus selected just twelve, and invited them to come and be with him. Those twelve became his intimates. He knew their personalities (and even that one of them would betray him), their strengths and weaknesses. They felt free to ask him questions, and to air their doubts. He, in turn, taught them to duplicate his ministry of preaching and healing. So, that toward the end of his pre-crucifixion presence with him, he would announce that who he was and what he had done was the foundation upon which he would build his church. The clear implication for the twelve was that they would be responsible to be and do the very same kind of ministry after he had left them.

Twelve is still a very helpful number. One cannot be an intimate, or be in a sensitive inter-active relationship with large numbers. One also cannot be anonymous in such a group. It is here that we can interact, share strengths and weaknesses, confess our failures, encourage one another, laugh together, and also to actually pastor one another. Even after the Pentecost event, we find the apostles teaching to a crowd of thousands, … but then those thousands met together “house to house.” Out of those house-to-house units emerged those more mature participants, those who were looked to for wisdom. They were the authentic practitioners of the faith. Pastoring and teaching were gifts given to individuals for the building up of the saints.

Our problem may have to do with the subversive creation of something designated as clergy, by which church leadership is endowed upon someone with an academic degree in divinity, and the approval of some ecclesiastical body.  That is not a Biblical practice or category!

In my own career, I often taught to congregations of many hundreds from the pulpit, but I could only be God’s pastor to the much smaller number in house churches, or gatherings around the table. I, and the church, could indeed be oblivious to real destructive or traumatic things going on in those who were keeping themselves aloof or anonymous, or hiding behind a churchy persona. I hope you catch my drift. Our pastoral ministry to one another is for another Blog.

BLOG 8/10/18. CHRIST’S FOLLOWERS NOT SOME OTHER-WORLDLY BUNCH

We need to stop and remind ourselves regularly that our calling to be followers of Jesus Christ does not make us escapists from the often complex and grim realities of our present-day context. We are not called to be otherworldly, or “so spiritually-minded that we are of no earthly use.” I well remember as a pastor (a couple of decades ago) when the Roman Catholic council of bishops rendered a stinging critique of our government’s military policies. One of my members was a retired officer from the armored cavalry, and he was irate at me for affirming the bishops. I reminded him that they were a highly respected company of church leaders. His response was: “Maybe so, but they don’t know anything about the military.” He was so miffed that he left the church.

That maybe a bit of an extreme illustration, but we need to remember the foundations of our faith. Jesus was the Word of God made flesh and blood and dwelling among us. Our most common prayer makes the initial petition that God’s kingdom will be coming on earth as it is in heaven. This means that the invasion of God’s tomorrow will be taking place in our today, … or that God’s already-but-not-yet New Creation will be an ever present and transforming reality among us.

It was the giant theologian, Karl Barth, who commented that “we must do our theology with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.” To be oblivious or uninvolved in the realities of the community around us, economically, politically, morally, and socially, what with all the complexities and ambiguities is a contradiction of our calling to be God’s New Humanity, and the demonstration of his passion for this very present and broken world that Jesus came to seek and to save. We are called to be radical humanitarians, champions of justice, of peace, and of order.

We will undoubtedly make some mistakes, but our ultimately authority is in Jesus Christ, and we live with his word in one hand and our daily newspaper in the other. Such people are springs in the desert, pools of water in the barren valleys of this present engagement.

What an exciting and all-consuming calling that is. It can be dangerous, but it is never dull.

That’s all I wanted to say.

Blessing on you in that calling.

[http://wipfandstock.com/subversive-jesus-radica-grace.html]

BLOG 8/7/18. “CHRISTIANS … ALIENS IN THEIR OWN NATIVE LANDS”

Don’t we live in confusing times politically? what with so much deception, the dodging of responsibility, the ever-present power of wealth and greed, a seeming absence of any strong sense of justice and humanitarian concern by so many in places of power, and the heart-breaking accounts of the victims of all of this? But then, we are not the first to live in such times. It has been that way since the beginning of the church. Consider these words from a second century official to his superior: “These Christians … live in their own native lands, but as aliens; as citizens, they share all things. Every foreign country is to them as their native country, and every native land as a foreign country” (Letter to Diognetus, from Pliny the Younger).

Sound familiar?

Or maybe the words of the prophet Jeremiah to the Hebrew exiles in a foreign country: “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray for the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” (Jeremiah 29:7). Yes, to be sure, these United States are not our primary country. We live as part of a trans-national holy nation, which lives under the authority of its Lord, Jesus Christ, and under obedience to his radical teachings of peace and order and justice. Our ultimate authority belongs to that one “by whom and for whom all things exist.” Yet, at the same time he places us in the very real temporal nations, in order to be his own salt and light, to be the “sweet aroma of Christ” to our neighbors.

In the background of our formation is always that reality that Jesus is the One in whom the “mystery hidden for ages and generations is now revealed” (Colossians 1:26 in loc). This means that we have a two-fold stewardship in the here and now, i.e., we are primarily citizens of the kingdom of our God and of his Christ, and yet we are commissioned by him to also be his responsible citizens in the very real places in which we live (which can often be non-congenial, even hostile to this calling).

What does this mean, basically?

It means that we must speak the language of our cultural setting, its vernacular, its idiom, its images. We must speak its language. We live in a nation of a whole mosaic of sub-cultures and tribalism: neighborhoods, workplaces, political parties, recreational clubs, … those with whom we hang-out. We’ve got to know the language. We’ve also got to be engaged in its dynamics, but not captive to its power structures, its principalities and powers. We live in a culture so often defined by its “sullenness and hyperactivity” and yet as the incarnation of the love and joy and hope given us as we are in Christ.

It also means that we need to expose it lies, its deceptions, and those of its leadership, and to understand the social pathologies that infect it and make it less humane, less given to justice and peace and order. We identify with those in the political context of our setting who demonstrate such, even though they may be totally unfamiliar with that which motivates us. We are not (as has often been said) primarily Republicans or Democrats, but we seek to place our support behind those in either party who espouse those principles that are at the core of Jesus agenda for reconciliation. And … we vote our Christian conscience!

We are, after all, the light of the world, and the salt of the earth, … not someplace else, or in some other time, but in the here and now, at this moment, it will never return. At this place and at this moment in history is … our high and holy calling. It will never return. Go for it!

[If these Blogs are provocative and helpful to you, recommend them to your friends. Thanks.]