on the church…
NOTE: This is part 6 in a series -- which I did not intend on "politics and social concern."
I believe there are 5 great confessional understandings of the Church concerning
1. God
2. Humanity
3. Jesus Christ
4. Salvation and
5. The People of God -- The Church
that will ground, inspire, shape, and commission us. Together, these 5 provide us with a compelling framework for multiplying God’s Kingdom presence in our world today. While I think any of the above is reason enough, I think holding all 5 together will compel us to engage our world as an act of worship, gratitude, and love.
This week, I am focusing on our confessional understanding of the Church and using it as an opportunity to conclude this extended and unintended reflection.
14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. (John 17.14-16)
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15 People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5.14-16)
Jesus, "Yes!" Church, "No!" This seems to be the sentiment among many in our culture today. The interest in "spiritual things" and Jesus has not waned. But the relevancy of the Church is in question, as is the general perception that the Church is, by and large, a decaying building filled with white-haired people who are hostile, self-isolating, and afraid of the world around them. In some quarters, the Church has endeavored to combat this stereotype by attempting to make herself more relevant by watering down our theological confessions, secularizing the Gospels, and redefining moral truth. The results have been just as disastrous-- after all, who wants to be part of a Church whose only offering is a neutered God, smug hallelujahs, and a people whose faith appears to be evidenced in the same "will to power" and material desires that are present in the western world today? For the "loud Church" -- as one of my friends calls us-- these are expressions of the Church that are larger, have "concert worship," and make their political aspirations known. I wonder if our culture looks at this expression of the Church almost like a cult -- "religious" people who do "religious" things while secretly plotting to takeover!
Now, more than ever, we must recover what might be described as the Church’s "double identity." On the one hand, we are a "holy' people," called out of the world to belong to God. On the other hand, we are a "worldly" people, in the sense of being sent back into the world to be an apostolic witness and to serve. What makes us distinct and counter-cultural should be our "holy worldliness." Unfortunately, we have not remembered, embraced, and intentionally preserved our double identity in our long and inconsistent history.
Sometimes, motivated by our quest for holiness, we have withdrawn from the world while seeking to insulate ourselves from it. At other times, motivated by our desire to be immersive, we assimilate to our culture’s standards, longings, and values. We become impressionable rather than influential. Yet without the preservation of both parts of her identity, the Church cannot engage in mission. Mission arises out of the biblical doctrine of the church in society. An unbalanced ecclesiology makes the mission unbalanced, too.
Jesus taught these truths Himself in his famous "in the world but not of it" (John 17.14-16) expression and in his vivid metaphor of “the light of the world." (Matthew 5.16) He implied that the two communities, the church and the world, are as radically different from one another as light from darkness. He also implied that, if they were to do any good, the light must shine into the darkness.
Thus, the double identity and responsibility of the church are plain.
John Stott observed:
In a similar way, the apostle Peter describes the members of God's new people on the one hand as "aliens and strangers in the world" and on the other as needing to be conscientious citizens in it (1 Pet. 2.11-17). We cannot be totally "world-affirming" (as if nothing in it were evil), nor totally "world-denying" (as if nothing in it were good), but a bit of both, and particularly world challenging -- recognizing its potentiality as God's world and seeking to conform its life increasingly to His lordship.
Our redemption sets us apart to God — we belong to Him. But redemption from our slavery to sin has never meant extraction from the world we live in. Our redemption should send shock waves throughout society that multiply redemption’s invitation, Christ’s redemptive presence, and His wholeness to all. Our effectiveness as expressions of Christ’s Church will depend on our intentionality to press into our “holy worldliness.”
Over the last 9 weeks (with a few breaks), I have endeavored to celebrate 5 essential theological confessions that should provide frameworks for how we should think about politics and social concern and have asked you to hold them (guard them?) in their biblical fullness — our confessions of God, humanity, Christ, salvation, and now, the Church. Coincidentally, these five confessions constitute the biblical basis for mission-- for evangelistic and social responsibility, taken together, obligate us, the Church, to intentionally incarnate Christ in the life of the world. This obligation is personal and communal.
First, let's consider the individual Christian. A disciple of Jesus is called to be both a witness and a servant — these are the inseparable twins of a Christian missional life incumbent upon us. While I want to confirm that callings and gifting may differentiate our emphasis towards one direction or the other, our gifting and calling does not exonerate us from our responsibility to identify with both. Whatever our specialist calling may be, emergencies will override it. The priest and the Levite in the Parable of the Good Samaritan could not excuse their shameful neglect of the man who had been assaulted and robbed by saying that their calling was to work in the Temple. If we are called to a predominantly social ministry, we still have an obligation to witness. If we are called to a predominantly evangelistic ministry, we still cannot say we have no social responsibilities.
Second, let's consider the local church. The versatility of a church's missional impact will be maximized when full use is made of all her members with their diverse gifts and callings. A church can mobilize mission as her leadership releases people to coalesce in groups for reflection, prayer, and missional action. A life-giving fellowship can consider the gifts that God has uniquely given them to be Christ's incarnate presence amidst the pain points in their community. One of the most remarkable expressions of this is the ministry of Angelus Temple (Los Angeles) during the Great Depression under founding pastor Aimee Semple McPherson. If people know her, most think of her as a Pentecostal faith healer and evangelist -- and an eccentric one at that. However, I wish every church would be so "eccentric." Under her leadership and through this community, countless lives were transformed spiritually and healed physically. But consider this: in an age marked by inequity, racism, and bias against immigrants, this church welcomed black and white, German and Irish, Mexican and Armenian, the wealthy and the destitute through her doors. Between August 1926 and May 1937, they established a church commissary that cared for 99 520 families, fed over 355,000 people, and gave away more than 257,000 articles of clothing. By 1942, they had fed and clothed over 1.2 million people.[1] This is one example of a Church incarnating the presence of Jesus for missional impact as they brought the whole Gospel to a whole city so that it might experience the transformative wholeness that only Christ can bring.
Let me conclude with what might appear to be a non-sequitur reference to the Roman Catholic Mass. The word "mass" comes from the final sentence of the old Latin liturgical rite, which closes with this phrase: ite missa est. Today, it is usually translated as, "Go forth, the Mass has ended." It literally means, "Go, it has been sent." It begins with a command and concludes with the reason. We know what "Go!" means. The "it" refers to the self-giving love of God that communicants, according to Catholic theology, have literally just received and digested through the bread and the cup. Therefore, I think a more blunt and honest translation would be: "You have been loved; now get out!" Think of it: every week, the Mass concludes with a missional imperative: "You, who God has loved, GET OUT! Go into the world that Christ came into because it is the world in which you now belong."
The late South African Bishop Desmond Tutu said: "I don’t preach a social gospel; I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn’t say, “Now, is that political or social?” He said: “I feed you.” Because the good news to a hungry person is bread."
Dear ones, if Shakespeare was right, "that all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players," then this is the stage the Church must fully inhabit, the platform upon which we will live and love, witness and serve, suffer and, if necessary, die for Christ.
We are the Church... may our "holy worldliness" multiply God's life-giving Kingdom presence in word and in deed in our world today.
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[1] from "Angelus Temple," Dictionary of the Pentecostal and Charismatic Movement.
