In The Shaping of Things to Come, Frost and Hirsch suggest that as Christians we need to switch to a missional worldview where we go into the world as missionaries not an attractional mindset in which we put up a sign on our churches and expect folks who need God to come to us. They continue that those of us who seek God within the walls of church, within the sanctuary should head into the world, get comfortable living our faith there, and meet God where God is already at work. We often assume that God is absent from “the world” and we must take him there. That could not be further from the truth. The authors suggest we must look for God at work in all things, in all places and at all times!
As I’ve been interacting with the book (I write all in and over books I read – print is truly interactive media for me) I’ve had a few thoughts along these lines. Why is it when encountering the world, brushing up against its edges, we become like it while giggling inwardly (or outwardly). There is a buzz of excitement within us, as if we are doing something we should not be doing. It is like we feel a since of danger when we meet the world. Is it that we are so uncomfortable because we have become separated from that which Jesus came to redeem? We need to firmly grab hold of Jesus hand, hold onto each other for support, encouragement, accountability, and dive into the world. Our faith must remain pure. Our holiness must be apparent. We must learn to relate without compromising into in, so that God can use us as conduits for the message he is already in the process of delivering. God is there. Why do we not find him? We see only sin when we look at the world. Perhaps we are more attuned to sin than to God. Is our attempt to avoid sin so strong that sin is all we think about? Talk about missing the point of the Gospel and of Paul’s writings! We are now free from the bondages of sin – even our minds should be freed to think about Jesus and redemption, yet we continue to focus on that very thing from which God has freed us! Perhaps we need to focus less on sin and more on God! We should be freed to get out into the world with the Gospel – doing whatever we want to do, doing whatever we need to do to reach the world for Christ!
I remember at seminary a Canadian student was sharing in our “world missions” class how he had begun an informal ministry at the local tavern. Each day he’d go down to the bar, sit on a stool and order a beer. Each day before he left for home, he had the opportunity to share his faith and often lead someone to Jesus. This student was chastised for his choice of ministry venues by almost everyone in the class! How tragic. We haven’t become like Jesus, we have become like the Pharisees!
This morning, “My Daily Dig” appeared in my inbox (http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/TimeOfNoRoom.htm?source=DailyDig). Following the link I was taken to an essay by Thomas Merton about the gospel line regarding “no room in the inn.” It seems to tell a similar tale of longing to go to those who are “in the world:”
Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it - because he is out of place in it, and yet must be in it - his place is with those others who do not belong, who are rejected because they are regarded as weak; and with those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, and are tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world. He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst. For them, there is no escape even in imagination. They cannot identify with the power structure of a crowded humanity which seeks to project itself outward, anywhere, in a centrifugal flight into the void, to get out there where there is no God, no man, no name, no identity, no weight, no self, nothing but the bright, self-directed, perfectly obedient and infinitely expensive machine.
For those who are stubborn enough, devoted enough to power, there remains this last apocalyptic myth of machinery propagating its own kind in the eschatological wilderness of space - while on earth the bombs make room!
But the others: they remain imprisoned in other hopes, and in more pedestrian despairs, despairs and hopes which are held down to earth, down to street level, and to the pavement only: desire to be at least half-human, to taste a little human joy, to do a fairly decent job of productive work, to come home to the family...desires for which there is no room. It is in these that He hides himself, for whom there is no room.
I hope this season I’ll take some time to reflect on how to get back into the world Jesus dove into as a tiny, helpless babe. I pray God will give me Godly eyes to enable to see Jesus at work all around me. I hope I’ll throw off the shackles of Phariseism with which I’ve voluntarily bound myself and find the freedom to be a missionary to the world in which I live. I pray my faith is up to the task, and has not just become a shadow of the mountain moving faith Jesus talked about to his band so long ago. I hope I can bring the kingdom I have hidden within into the light of the world so others may see it and meet Jesus! I hope….
No comments:
Post a Comment