04.29.08
missional rooting
In April and May of 2007 I blogged a series on missional ecclesiology, with a variety of thinkers/practioners expressing their views. In the last post of that series, quoting Howard Snyder via email, I argued that missional-incarnational was the place we needed to begin.
In that final post I referred to the work of Alan Hirsch in The Forgotten Ways. Alan notes that we placed ecclesiology before missiology, and argues for a different order (p 142), with Christology first, then missiology, then ecclesiology. At the time that made sense to me. The shape of the church is determined by Jesus and His mission. Placing mission first helps us understand that form is a conversation between nature, telos (purpose) and context. Then I wrote,
“Since God has always been on a mission, and since the first sent one is Abraham, there is a clear sense in which mission precedes the existence of the church.”
And that is my clue that Christology isn’t a sufficiently thick rooting for considering the Missio Dei. Instead, we need a Trinitarian footing.
God has always been on a mission, and if we begin with Jesus we have a difficult time making use of the Scriptures that Paul used. In fact, without the story of Israel, the covenants and the promises, we have difficulty making sense of Jesus. Mission is God’s ongoing work in history in calling a people to himself, but even more broadly, it is his work in redeeming creation. The call to justice that we hear in the Old Testament is not merely a call to a future salvation, but a call to live under the reign of God now – today. That’s why God is concerned for the land as much as for justice to the poor. And that’s why the resurrection is a physical transformation.
This allows a “thicker” description, where the church is all about showing forth God’s reign in the world, both performing and proclaiming the gospel in transformed communities that live justly, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God. And it prompts memory, without which we are left with no connection to the past, and thus lack identity.
The draw for anchoring mission in Christology is a strong one. Jesus is God made vulnerable, self-emptying, the sent One, the servant, He becomes one of us. But that same story is the Father’s story in sending His Son, and responding with mercy and grace to humankind’s rebellion from the very beginning. He initiates the covenant; He sends the most precious Gift; He pursues us; He sacrifices his Son; He makes Himself vulnerable and present in Jesus; He upholds the world that he created and loves, and invites us to participate in the story. He fathers forth whose beauty is past change – praise Him.
Jonathan Brink said,
April 29, 2008 at 7:52 am
Len, cheers to this post.
It’s funny how Jesus was always going back to the Father. But imagine not knowing who the Father was at all. My hope is that we can find a wholistic understanding of the Gospel that includes the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Much can be said about the loss the the Holy Spirit as central to the mission as well.
grace said,
April 29, 2008 at 9:04 am
Len,
I think you’ve made an important point about the role of the Father and the need for a trinitarian source of mission. And I agree with what Jonathan about the necessity of inclusion of the Holy Spirit in the rooting of mission also.
Peggy said,
April 29, 2008 at 3:24 pm
…on the other hand…I suggest that Alan’s idea of Christocentric is “thicker” or “deeper” than you might think, based on his understanding of “monothiestic”, which is much bigger that most imagine.
As I have heard Alan process his book at his blog over the past year and a half, I sense that his point about the focus of the mission of God being Christocentric comes from a perspective that includes Father and Holy Spirit, but recognized that the focus of the Father and the Holy Spirit has always been toward the incarnation of the Son as Jesus Christ — the one through whom all things were made and who holds all things together.
If we are not remembering or appreciating the active presence of the Father or the Holy Spirit in the midst of a Christocentric focus of the missio Dei, I suggest that the problem is one of peripheral focus. not the reality that Christ must be in the center. If you are looking at following Jesus as Jesus did, you would not be able to escape seeing the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said that if we see him, we see the Father — he carried within himself all the history.
Of course, all of this is basically our finite brains trying to wrap themselves around the infinite reality of our Triune God — that is Three yet always One. Which takes us back to a proper understanding of what Alan means by monotheism.
Jonathan Brink said,
April 29, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Peggy, the problem isn’t that Alan doesn’t get it. He does. It’s that the story of Jesus often becomes simply Christocentric at the expense of the other two.
len said,
May 1, 2008 at 9:39 am
Peggy, Jon, good points both. Thanks for the reminder Peg
Maybe this is part of our experience on the human end.. the paradox isn’t so difficult intellectually, but to walk in the reality of this experience .. it’s beyond us. And perhaps it is also the gift of revelation and one of the gifts of the so recently beleaguered early church councils.. this little word “Trinity” and all that it implies for faith and practice.
Interesting Stuff 16 « Missio Dei said,
May 10, 2008 at 7:03 am
[...] Len hits a grand slam on the roots of mission. This is a must read for anyone interested in missional conversations and discipleship. [...]
Peggy said,
May 10, 2008 at 11:53 am
Jon — oh yes, I’m sure Alan gets it. It’s that some folks don’t seem to get (keep?) how Alan gets it. And, yes, Len — I’m also sure that it is our loss of focus on the reality of the perichoresis that makes the walk challenging.
NextReformation » Trinitarian mission said,
May 19, 2008 at 3:07 pm
[...] Historically we have some terrific examples. The new creation exists in living communities, as the Celtic communities who built their hospitiums near major intersections. Bonhoeffer wrote, “God is beyond in the midst of our life. The church stands, not at the boundaries where human powers give out, but in the middle of the village.†(Letters and Papers from Prison). Somehow the church exists in between two worlds, like the Celtic communities at the crossroads of life; in between and in a liminal space. Related, this post and also Roxburgh on leadership as dwelling in the space between. [...]
jonathan stegall » Blog Archive » Links for May 19th said,
May 19, 2008 at 3:45 pm
[...] NextReformation » missional rooting (tags: theology missiology mission missio-dei) [...]