Category: mission

A sign of contradiction

I am beginning to wonder about a fairly fundamental orientation of the church.  The church has largely understood and accepted the role of being or bringing Christ to the world.  I do not want to rehearse the misguided ways that the church has understood this mission, namely through colonial disbursement.  It is not hard to understand how people can come to the conclusion that contemporary global capitalism is an extension of an earlier theology.  In both practices there is a message of hope that is articulated by the saved/wealthy and in both cases the message never seems to play out as being truly good news for the pagan/poor.

I came across a sort of ominous foreshadowing of this orientation to the church’s message in The Epistle to Diognetus (2nd century).  In upholding love of neighbour the author of this text states,

[H]e who takes upon himself the burden of his neighbour; he who, in whatsoever respect he may be superior, is ready to benefit another who is deficient; he who, whatsoever things he has received from God, by distributing these to the needy, becomes a god to those who receive [his benefits]: he is an imitator of God.

Now to be sure the early church was not in the same position as it was to rise to in the 4th century but the logic of disbursement is already elevated to a strong paternalistic even divine tone.  While we are uncomfortable with saying that we ‘become a god’ in this imitation, that is essentially what we are saying theologically when we talk about imitating Christ, isn’t it?

In any event, this Sunday I preached on the presentation of Jesus in the Temple in Luke 2.  This is a story of reception, of receiving the Messiah.  And how does Simeon the priest receive Jesus?

Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,
29     “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace,
according to your word;
30     for my eyes have seen your salvation,
31     which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
32     a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.”
A beautiful image hope and peace but then Simeon turns to Mary and says,
This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed (sign of contradiction) so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.
Here are a few excerpts from the tail end of my sermon.
So what does it mean to receive Jesus as a sign of contradiction?  I did a bit of research on this phrase and found that the Catholic Church has an entire doctrine based around it.  This doctrine holds that the church is to be a sign of contradiction; that the church in its holiness it will be rejected or opposed.  There is an element of this doctrine that I can appreciate.  I believe that to live out the vision of the Gospel will lead to contradiction and opposition in the world.  But as I understand it there is a destructive assumption at work in this expression.  The assumption is that it is the church the has the privileged knowledge of how Jesus becomes present in the world.  This doctrine assumes that it is no longer the church that needs to receive the sign of contradiction.  In trying to hold this doctrine the church itself can actually become immune to the presence of Christ.  . . . When you believe that your way of life has a privileged or even exclusive access to ultimate human truth then it will be near impossible to receive a sign of contradiction; you control the rules of the games and determine the value of those around you.
. . .

The church, and particularly the Mennonite church, has elevated the call to discipleship, the call of being like Jesus in the world.  Mennonites have fought theological wars over this matter.  When other churches focused simply on the death and resurrection of Jesus, or the centrality of Communion the Mennonites demanded that we also give attention to Jesus life, how he taught, what he did, how he treated people.  But where is the theology that asks how we might receive the presence of God precisely from outside our theology and our expression?  How does our theology and our practice prepare us to receive something that contradicts our theology and our practice?

. . .

Our tradition affirms that the church is the body of Christ and yet Christ must remain fugitive.  Already as a child in the Gospels Jesus flees to Egypt after Joseph received a vision of Herod’s plot to kill Jesus.  The French activist and philosopher Simone Weil is quoted as saying, “We must always be ready to change sides, like justice, the eternal fugitive from the camp of the victors.”  We cannot secure the place of Christ, but we can hope to receive Christ.  Our vision remains universal because there is no place we will not seek this Christ.  Our theology and practice remains fragmented because we are never so Christ-like that we cannot receive again this child, this man, this saviour, this God.  Our theology and our faith is only as healthy as it is able to receive from outside of its expression.  I am wondering if we have made a fundamental error in our basic understanding of the church’s mission.  We go out not to bring the message of Christ.  We go out to receive it, to encounter the fugitive.

I am not exactly breaking new theological ground and I am not claiming to overturn any notion of having content or a message of some sort.  I do however sense that there is still a horrendous imbalance in how churches continue to view themselves as fortresses of divine truth.  And this line of thinking has helped me to challenge a basic Mennonite goal of discipleship.  While discipleship has always been problematic I have not heard it addressed from the basic shift from giving to receiving Christ.
Thoughts?

Is this heaven? No . . . its the 44.

A few weeks ago in the first Sunday of Lent I challenged our congregation to fast from the fruits of privilege.  One minor act on my part has been to ride the bus as often as possible.  As a country-boy the bus has always been a source of fascination for me and this spiritual exercise paid dividends this last week as my experience ended comprising about half the sermon.

Continue reading “Is this heaven? No . . . its the 44.” →

Between slavery and control

Perhaps this imagery goes without saying but I think there is still significant contemporary theo-political content to be developed from the Pentateuch.  Here are some excerpts from last Sunday’s sermon on Leviticus 19,

I think one of the most misunderstood aspects of Leviticus as well as the first five books of the Old Testament in general is the notion that the commandments given represent some sort of static or fixed law.  The center of Old Testament faith is not the following of particular laws.  This may flow out from the center but the center of Old Testament faith is the presence of God.  Everything in Leviticus as well as Exodus and Numbers finds its orientation in relationship with the Holy of Holies, the center of the Tabernacle, which was the Tent of Meeting, around which the Israelites camped as they travelled in the wilderness and when they first settled in Canaan.  And what is at the center of the Holy of Holies?  Inside that space is the Ark of the Covenant.  The Ark is a box covered with a lid sometimes called the Mercy Seat that had two angels, called cherubim, mounted on either side on top.  I view the Ark as a sort of frame.

At the center of other religions at that time there would tend to be a physical idol that would represent who or what was being worshipped.  However, in the Tabernacle there was an empty space between the wings of the cherubim on top of the Ark.  In the book of Exodus God says to Moses, “There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the covenant, I will deliver to you all my commands for the Israelites.”  What is the significance of this image?  God comes to meet with Moses from the place that humanity cannot control and confine, in the space that is left open and empty.  God cannot be directly equated with our conceptions, with our tradition or with our expectations.  So while we have the framework, so to speak, of ethics and tradition that provide some continuity and stability we must always be open to the newness or aliveness that the love of God will speak into situations.

. . .

The Tabernacle by its nature is movable.  The Tabernacle as well as Mt. Sinai exist in a special place in the Old Testament story.  These sites exist between the experience of slavery in Egypt on one side and the experience of slowing taking power and control in Canaan on the other side. The Tabernacle exists in the freedom of reliance and dependence on God between and therefore beyond being enslaved or being in control.  And as the author of the Gospel of John put it so well of Jesus saying literally that “the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.”  We are to learn to be a tabernacling people. . . . We remain a people with history and tradition but can these things be dismantled, stakes pulled up, to set up the site again in a new place?

. . .

And so like the nomadic Hebrew people of the wilderness we must nourish the ability to migrate, gather and frame the possibility of God’s holiness over the spaces between slavery and control.  We gather and walk with one another and with our neighbours seeing how our objects, our actions and our minds relate to one another.  This is the body of Christ that walked the earth 2000 years ago.  He never grasped for political and social control and even when his body was ultimately grasped by these forms of control he never became enslaved to them.  He always held open that space for the love of God which enters the world as the love of our neighbour as our self.  This is to be the body of Christ today, that is the church, it is to spread and wander with eyes attentive to power and bondage and then to stand between them.

Christ, Who Fills Everything in Every Way

This past Sunday I preached on Ephesians 4:4-16.  I wanted to draw attention to two themes in the book.  First is the abundance of language about abundance.  Believers are filled with riches, power and wealth.  Second, this is set within the context of the body of Christ which (who) fills all things.  A broad theme in my recent reading is on the notion of capitalism as that body which currently (and rapidly) seeks to fill everything.  From last Sunday’s sermon,

The basis of economic growth is of course to make more money.  This requires more resources to make products and more markets in which to sell them, and ideally cheaper labour by which to make the products.  Consider how coorporations scour the entire globe in search of resources and labour.  Consider the manner in which resources that arguably should be public are increasingly coming under the umbrella of private coorporations.  The issue of access to water comes readily to mind; the patenting of seeds for agriculture is another.  Think of ever expanding marketing we face.  Children are marketed, lifestyles are marketed, environmentalism is marketed, health and beauty, relationships, status; the list could go on forever.  The public space for gathering is now the food court surrounded by the constant refrain of the mall to consume.  High-interest money-lenders are popping up everywhere taking more money (and security) than they will ever give.  The market of money knows no limit to its desire to bring everything under its control.

Borrowing heavily from Philip Goodchild I then went on talk about how the financial crisis exposes both the power and the fragility of contemporary capitalism.  Even governments submit to its whims.  Though the ‘limits’ of contemporary capitalism are also becoming more apparent (increase in material costs).  In this way capitalism forms a mocking portrayal of an expanding and universal body which we participate in.

Also, borrowing heavily on Goodchild, I turned to the role of attention as a primary indicator of piety (whether ‘secular’ piety of religious).  To what then does the body of Christ call our attention to?  Here I returned to the Ephesians text and drew attention to what had seemed like a strange insertion for me.

[E]ach of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it is said, “When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people.”  (When it says, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions of the earth? He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) Eph 4:7-10

Here I drew attention to Christ’s descent.  The primary movement for the body of Christ is one of descent.  It is after this movement that ascension occurs, captivity is held captive and gifts are released.  Therefore our attention is turned to the descent.  I described this as attention to suffering and vulnerability.

This is the paradox of the body of Christ.  That in turning our attention to the vulnerability and suffering within and around us we enter in the joy of God’s grace; in feeling bound and helpless by the scope of suffering Christ binds bondage and frees us with his gifts of grace.  We are called to draw near to that strange place where we face each other, where crying and laughing become almost indistinguishable. [I thought of the description of the Cairo protests as by one participant as a ‘wedding feast’]

I had a relatively strong reaction to this sermon both positive and negative.  I ran into one group after the service vigorously discussing the implications of the sermon.  I also ran into other individuals who felt that the message was too ambiguous and loosely connected.  This sermon was part of a small series on ‘lay’ leadership.  In this way I suppose I could (or should) have been a little more ‘practical’.  However, I could not shake the notion that practicality in the church has typically meant ‘plugging into’ existing programs that are often ‘unplugged’ from pressing issues.  While the Mennonite church may have a slightly better track-record in this regard my hope is that ‘abstract’ sermons like this one can eventually build a new framework for church expression.

Book Review – Anarchy and Apocalypse

Ronald E. Osborn. Anarchy and Apocalypse: Essays on Faith Violence, and Theodicy (Cascade Books, 2010).

Osborn’s short collection of essays is one of the more eclectic publications I have read in some time.  Faith and violence are indeed the mingled themes that bind this work together; having said that, however, the collection is somewhat nomadic moving from shorter almost op-ed pieces to longer more technical engagements.  Osborn’s introduction claims that a possible underlying ‘project’ here is an attempt to relate anarchist and Christian approaches to nonviolence.

Continue reading “Book Review – Anarchy and Apocalypse” →

Romans 13 – An Agambenian Reading

Romans 13 has long been a thorn in my Anabaptist side.  Yoder of course went a long way in clarifying the distinction between being subject to those in authority and actually obeying those in authority.  That reading however still left me with many unanswered questions as to what Paul is calling the church towards.  In preparation for the Romans readings of this season of Advent I reread Giorgio Agamben’s The Time that Remains.  In this reading the notion of messianic time functioning as “the time of bringing time to an end” became more clear and relevant as I was reading through Romans alongside his work.  I interpret the structure of the world’s authority as functioning as a sort of limit to the mode in which humanity lives apart from the Spirit.  As such the kingdom of the world is and will be coming to an end.  This becomes significant for reading Romans 13.  What struck me was the simple Greek structure of verse 7
ἀπόδοτε πᾶσιν τὰς ὀφειλάς,
τῷ τὸν φόρον τὸν φόρον,
τῷ τὸ τέλος τὸ τέλος,
τῷ τὸν φόβον τὸν φόβον,
τῷ τὴν τιμὴν τὴν τιμήν.
Pay back every debt
for tax, tax
for revenue, revenue
for fear, fear
for respect, respect
Then Paul adds significantly in verse 8,
Μηδενὶ μηδὲν ὀφείλετε
Be in indebted to no one for anything (I can’t comment on the double-negative in Greek here; I suspect it is common)
The process of relating to earthly authorities is that of closing down their economy, of divesting yourself of its structure (which is different than escaping it).  The work then is not of revolt (necessarily) which is why this passage can be confused for quietism but rather that of rendering it inoperative an important Pauline term that Agamben stresses.  I read this in light of Kierkegaard’s commentary on Paul’s And having overcome all, to stand.  Much of our effort exists directly in relationship to opposition.  Opposition in many cases is absolutely necessary for the existence of our work.  I need the machine to rage against it.  This is a reductionist characterization to be sure but I can’t help think of how many movements will simply fall down when the powers are removed from their pushing.  In any even I take Paul to be doing something different than direct revolt.  This does not necessarily clarify what we should then do with this reading but it demands that we not acquiesce to earthly authority but that we are continually in the active process of liberating ourselves and others from indebtedness.
To the extent that you are invested in this world whether tax, debt, fear or honour pay it back in kind so that all that remains in practice is the opening of love and not the foreclosure of debt.  The work of this ‘flesh’ will continually be present in a humanly inescapable manner (who will rescue me from this body of death).  We become though tools of light which cut through and create a division within the divisions of this world that constantly undermine and deactivate them.  This is all exegetical rhetoric at this point.  I have no idea what sort of tool I will function as what it demands though is that no position within world renders spiritual impossible.  No system is dominant that it can, by its force, reclaim the new creation of the Messiah.  This problematizes the typical leftist project as I would see it which continually stresses system as that which binds and liberates (though it does that at a certain level).  I read this text and larger Pauline theology (in light of Agamben) as one which always supposes the freedom of the individual so that she might work within the place of her calling (and in communion with the saints) dividing the divisions and use this time for bringing time to an end.

A Call for Theo-political Readings

I was sent a link to the following youtube video.  The Messiah continues to strike me as an overwhelmingly political statement and given the context and players involved in this video I started feeling great dissonance.  Was the kingdom of this world becoming the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ through irruptive means?  Was the kingdom of Lord and of his Christ reified as a free toy for your food court meal?  I welcome readings to clear the dissonant and disturbing sounds still ringing my ears.

The Torah’s Vision of Worship – Part II.2 – The Liturgy of the Covenant; Covenant as Sanctuary Building and World Building

(Table of Contents for  NOTCP series)

Exodus 25-40 deals primarily with the construction of the tabernacle which has been a hobby horse for many arm-chair architects over the years.  Though if one approaches this section in such a pragmatic fashion you will be “faced with a unique combination of long-winded description on the one hand and total omission of various particulars on the other” (citing M. Haran, 137).  Balentine, instead, explores the theological construction that is occurring in and around this section.

Continue reading “The Torah’s Vision of Worship – Part II.2 – The Liturgy of the Covenant; Covenant as Sanctuary Building and World Building” →

Peter Blum on Im/possibility and the Church’s Syntactical Relationship with the Poor

The Gift of Difference hit the ground running with Peter C. Blum’s chapter, “Two Cheers for an Ontology of Violence: Reflections on Im/possibility.” The chapter reflects on the strange possibility that Derrida’s ontology of violence and the impossibility of nonviolence may actually offer more resources for peace than Milbank’s ontology of peace which (as almost all contributors to this work identify) actually justifies and ultimately requires violence.  Derrida reduces the impossibility of nonviolence to an assertion that existence in the form of expression will always be an expression of reducing “the Other to the same” (11).  Blum quotes Derrida, “nonviolent language would be a language which would do without the verb to be, that is, with predication.  Predication is the first violence” (12).  Impossibility for Derrida though is not the end but it is where “things get interesting” (15).  Blum raises a case of the Nickle Mines shooting as a case of the madness and impossibility of forgiveness.  Blum is not concerned with whether or not the Amish response escapes violence but the manner in which it forces us to face the impossibility of nonviolence, its madness.

I don’t think I will offer substantive responses to each chapter (though many deserve further reflection).  What this chapter raised was a sort of tangential offshoot in relation to the Kingdom-Church-World Theses over at Halden’s blog.  What I found confusing there was Thesis #11.  The language was muddled especially the church’s syntactical relationship to ‘the poor’.  In this short thesis there are three prepositions used to relate the church to the poor.

Thesis 11: Such kenotic, cruciform solidarity in obedience to the way of the cross leaves no room for the church to be anything other than the “church of the poor.” The church’s kenotic solidarity with the world thus occurs as solidarity with the poor. As Jon Sobrino reminds us, “The mystery of the poor is prior to the ecclesial mission, and that mission is logically prior to an established church” (Sobrino, No Salvation Outside the Poor, 21). Or as Moltmann puts it, “It is not the Church that ‘has’ a mission, but the reverse; Christ’s mission creates itself a Church. The mission should not be understood from the perspective of the Church, but the other way round.”(Moltmann, Church in the Power of the Spirit, 10). With the Catholic bishops at Medellin, the church must reaffirm and exercise the “preferential option for the poor.” This “preferential option” is not simply one of many tasks of the church—it lies at the center and heart of its mission. In fact, it is its mission, because this is Christ’s mission.

To me this clearly indicates the ongoing struggle of the western/affluent church to integrate something it still does not quite understand.  Are we the poor?  Are we with the poor?  Are we for the poor?  Given Blum’s reflection on impossibility I would like to suggest that the church is called to announce and embody the impossibility of wealth.  This was the revelation to the church of Laodicea.  You say, “I am rich.”  But you do not realize that you are poor (Rev 3:17).  There is no such thing as human wealth.  This is our great illusion.  This is found throughout the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament.  The wealth streams to the Temple of God.  It is only there that is has any worth.  We must not be for or with the poor or even attempt to become the poor.  We must rather unveil our poverty in thought, word, deed.  The impossibility of wealth then can be taken up in the gift of God (Come buy food without cost . . . ).  This most certainly does not leave material poverty off the agenda as the unveiling of poverty releases us from the mechanics that the illusion of wealth demand from us.  For me this also helps release the church from a bind that previous theologies tend to place on practice namely what we hope for the poor.  Do we want the poor to be wealthy?  Why would we assume that they would turn out to be anything other than what the wealthy already are?  We must not eradicate poverty as such but eradicate the illusion of wealth that creates security systems that alienate one from another.  It is this alienation more than material poverty itself that must be overcome.  This erases the need to join syntactically with the poor and creates only the conditions for God’s gift.

Alas, many think that the eternal is a construction of the imagination, money the reality – in the understanding of the eternal and of truth it is precisely money which is a construction of the imagination! – Soren Kierkegaard in Works of Love.

An Alternative Question

The question of alternative is becoming more and more pressing for me theologically. With the return or unveiling of universalism manifest in our global economic structure I have begun to wonder whether it is still possible to speak of alternatives with any integrity. To what extent are socially, economically, and environmentally responsible alternatives simply a practice of personal therapy or self-soothing?

One of the reasons I have stayed in the Mennonite church is because I believe it carries a history of alternatives. It has often been called a ‘third way,’ a mode of ecclesial life that does not conform to the binary pressures of Protestant and Catholic (apologies to the Orthodox). It also has a strong tradition of social, economic and environmental responsibility long before it became a trendy or urgent cause. I could offer anecdotal evidence out the yin-yang of average folk in congregations I have been in that practised the most beautiful expressions of care and service that flowed with ease from their basic approach to and understanding of faith. I won’t even start with the Amish and Old Order expressions. But are these any longer true alternatives? Is there any way of living in western/affluent societies in which we actually give more than we take; heal more than we destroy? Framing the question in this way raises a sort of fatalism within me; suicide as our most ethically responsible choice.  This is the sort of all or nothing that the notion of alternative drives home in me.  It creates the assumption that we are complete and definable, able to transfer ourselves neatly from one paradigm to another.  I am thinking this is a dead end (pun partially intended).

For some time I have been exploring the expression of holiness and priesthood as it develops within the Pentateuch.  Holiness in this context is entirely divorced from any modern concept of piety.  Holiness reflects a complex web of relations that is navigated by appropriate boundaries.  Holiness breaks out and what is unclean can transgress and defile what is holy.  What attracts me to Torah’s concept of holiness is first that it is still a largely un-mined resource for contemporary theology, ecclesiology and ethics.  Samuel Balentine notes that the rise of Protestant historical-criticism disdained priestly liturgy and writings as a low-point in hebraic thought which verged at times on being anti-Jewish.  The larger theological thrust of Protestant anti-ritualism also led to the neglect of further study and reflection on these texts.  But I am not interested in these texts simply as a historically neglected curiosity rather I find the paradigm of holiness an embrace of all of life; personal/ethical/religious (maintaining right relationship with neighbour and God; the golden rule is found in Leviticus), biological (the breaching of semen and blood are to be accounted for), social/relational (the stranger within your land is to be treated appropriately), geographical/political (borders and their maintenance are tremendously important), structural (needless to say the Tabernacle functions significantly as an overall paradigm) animate and inanimate objects (mold breaking out on a house needs to be addressed).  It is a complete, a universal model that does not seek a utopia (as the Conquest can be greatly misunderstood) but navigates the daily threat towards and blessing of holiness.  It does not create an alternative but  creates instead a sense or a posture of how to engage a world full of objects and relations that can be otherwise than they are (that are otherwise than they are . . . if that makes sense).  This is a model of creating, maintaining, restoring, and experiencing boundaries that do not violate and do not insulate but rather facilitate right relationships between people and God.

After recently reviewing The Gift of Difference (CMU Press) I found my thinking resonating with Peter Dula’s article “Fugitive Ecclesia.”  Dula’s article explored the extent to which many contemporary theologians appear to have despaired over the possibility of the contemporary western church as constituting any alternative or challenge to the larger economic forces.  To what extent can the church exist ‘outside’ the spaces structured by economic forces?  While Dula offers many possible ways of addressing this situation what I want to take from his articulation is the possibility that the church can still exist as the church even when it is not the church.

[F]ugitive ecclesia could also create the space for a renewed attention to friendship.  If the church is as rare as these theologians think, then all their reflections on the church, while important, also make room for greater attention to pairs instead of communities.  We may even want to revive the long discredited epithet ‘organized religion.’  It may suggest all we can hope for is the occasional intimacy of two or three (127).

With respect to the priesthood this reminds me of the significance of the cloud of presence and the maintenance of the fire lit by God that is to continue burning.  The sacred can become profane but that does not negate the priesthood.  That in fact is what the priesthood is called to which is an exploration of what it means to consecrate.  We do not create or establish a complete alternative, again questioning the possibility of clear and distinct paradigms, but instead we remain at work in the world possible which is the world of objects and relations which can be holy and clean but they can also be profane and unclean.

Over the coming months I hope to return and review earlier work that I have done in this area and review and revise it for contemporary expression.  In this way I hope to develop new resources for a contemporary expression of the priesthood of all believers.