05.19.08

Trinitarian mission

Posted in ekklesia, mission, theology at 5:30 am by len

Recently I pushed back on one theological foundation for mission. I argued that this paradigm: Christology -> missiology -> ecclesiology should actually be..

Trinity -> Mission -> Church .

Ecclesiology is the final step, growing out of the nature of God, His purpose in creation and redemption and revealed in covenant and kingdom, and then centering on the church as the first-fruits of the new humanity which grows out of God’s reign. When we reverse the order and try to build mission on ecclesiology, we tend to become pragmatic and gnostic. We divorce salvation from creation and get caught in a bipolar paradigm, ending either in a religion of immanence or pietistic, inward and other-worldly. Rather Stephen Seamands, in Ministry in the Image of God: The Trinitarian Shape of Christian Service:

Many Christian leaders fail to live in the radical middle of this bipolar paradigm, and operate either out of an “institutionalistic” or “spiritualistic” paradigm, says Schwarz..[of NCD fame see image below left] “Whereas representatives of an institutional paradigm largely misunderstand these resources in a technocratic way–and in spite of a well-rehearsed litany of denying it–attempt to MAKE the church grow, spiritualists tend to pick out those elements that emphasize spirituality and redefine it in a spiritualistic way…as internal spiritual growth.”..The doctrine of the Trinity with its seeming logical contradiction that God is one being in three persons, invites those of us in ministry not to resolve the tension but to live with paradox….Approaching life and ministry as a mystery to be entered instead of a problem to be solved opens us to hidden meanings…beyond our categories and calculations” (110)

A Gnostic gospel is not good news. The Gospel Jesus preached is summarized by NT Wright,

“Because Jesus is raised from the dead, God’s new world has begun. We are not only the beneficiaries of new creation, we are the agents of it when we do new creation. So when we encourage one another in the church to be active in projects of new creation — of healing, of hope for communities—we are standing on the ground that Jesus has won in his resurrection. God intends to renew the world and what we do in the present matters.” (paraphrase from the interview HERE)

This particular imaginative architecture is furthered by tradition in the early councils of the church, then articulated again by Karl Barth. Barth viewed the church as a culture – represented by a particular way of life as well as immersed in a particular structure of meaning – analogous to Jesus incarnation as expressed in the Chalcedonian formula in 451. Here is the formula:

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Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; “like us in all things but sin.” He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, the Mother of God.

We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division, or separation. The distinction between natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.

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According to the council of Chalcedon, Jesus has two natures, both human and divine, neither confusing nor separating the two. Similarly, I believe we must be incarnational in our living in this world as kingdom citizens, neither confusing culture with the kingdom of God nor failing to find Him there; neither separating ourselves from the life of the world, nor taking on their way of life, their perspective, or their spirit. The kingdom exists in a mystery, not fully arrived, yet present now in seed form. We express a living sacrament of Christ, a visible and outward sign of an inward and invisible grace. And we symbolize this reality in concrete and political form when we share at the table together.

So, we may dress the same, drive the same cars and live in the same houses as our neighbors, but we are “a holy people” separated for God’s kingdom purposes, following Jesus and His way. We observe alternative practices, and we are “the fragrance of Jesus” in the world, His hands and feet of love and mercy, continuing His presence. At our best we are “orthodox” in the old sense, meaning that all that we do expresses who Christ is in practical love and devotion. Orthodoxy is an event.

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.

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