tabletalk

How to Speak Missional: Present the Implications of the New Reality

Dally suggest this as another part of preaching/speaking missionally. What are the implications of the new reality of the Kingdom of Heaven, being presented to your senses?

Let me illustrate simply. This Sunday I will be preaching on a text from Matthew 9:35-38 - The Harvest and calling out laborers into the field.

A while ago a friend of mine was in Las Vegas and came across the following WWJD banner.

If you can't read the writing at the top of the banner it translates WWJD as "Who Would Jesus Destroy". And then the seemingly inexhaustible list. If you look at only the adjectives like "unrighteous" or "proud" or "haters" or "fearful" or "unbelieving" or "malicious" you'd get it right - NO ONE WILL BE LEFT.

When Jesus looks out at the masses he has two responses: 1 - Compassion for people he sees are aimless and wandering like sheep with no shepherd. 2 - Solution - take healing to them - yes, you yourselves go - be the extension of my compassion. Heal and restore.

The WWJD banner - is the antithesis of Jesus. If we believe Jesus' himself, then one of the implications is that we are asked to be healers and reconcilers. But it begins by adopting Jesus' vision of the world - not as something to be hated and feared but loved and restored. Remember John 3:17 - "For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but that through him it might be saved."

Remember Lewis's words from his great sermon "The Weight of Glory" "There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal...But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendours...Our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses."...vere latiat - the truth hidden inside.

The implication(s) of the new reality of God's Kingdom - we are to be compassionate as Jesus is. The implication is that if you adopt Jesus' eyes you will adopt Jesus' posture towards those you see. When we don't, we need to get back with Jesus to see what he sees. And then act in accordance. We don't distance ourselves from others. We engage in compassionate actions. This is what it will take.

So if you want to speak missionally let people know that it will require a different way of seeing and acting. Not merely thinking. Remember, faith is a verb. Act on it.

How to Speak Missional: Present an Alternative Reality

How do we begin to train ourselves to be missional? John Addison Dally in his book "Choosing the Kingdom" talks about preaching in a way that I find helpful for organizing sermons. But more than sermons, I think it is a helpful way for us to form language and images for a witness that practices missionality. Though I will present these ideas in a linear fashion, they need not be thought of as linear in nature, just parts of how our conversation with each other and the world should go.

The first thing Dally suggests is that we proclaim and alternative reality to the present one most of us captive to. Following Jesus' lead, this means proclaiming the reality and presence of the Kingdom of God. It's a world that beats swords into plowshares, where people of different cultures sit at table, where there is no Jew nor Greek, male nor female hierarchy. What he suggests is that we give people another choice besides what is directly in front of them.

It is what the church is supposed to model - a new reality. We are to be a sign and foretaste of this alternative to the way things are. I know we fail miserably at this. But I do believe that some of it is simply attributable to the fact that we have such a limited and beaten down imagination. In many ways this is C.S. Lewis's suggestion in "The Discarded Image", that the medieval church had the right imagination. They saw the Kingdom of God present around them and had an imagination to receive it.

To present an alternative reality to people is to be genuinely creative and hopeful. It is also helpful. The world is mired in its present condition, and this includes Christians. How can one get out of the mire, if they can't imagine more than what is before them. Look again at Lewis's "Silver Chair" in Narnia. Isn't it Puddleglum who states to the Emerald Witch something like - If we're just babies making up a world, then how is it that four babies can make up a world that licks the 'real' world you suggest? The biblical view of the way things should be is sorely different from the way we act and believe. But we need to still put forth a different reality in our speech.

Next we need to begin to put forth an alternative reality in our actions. We need to live into the Kingdom's values. We need to live out - love thy neighbor, turn the other cheek, lay down your life. They are intended to be present realities not merely future promises that end up as cynical critiques of the failure of Christians to live out their faith. I honestly believe that when the bible says "turn the other cheek" it means it. I stand condemned by all the times I've failed to do this. But I also stand guilty, remorseful, grateful, graceful, forgiven, and restored. But not for my own satisfaction. This is intended to be turned out again to the world so that the Kingdom can be proclaimed in word and deed.

This is a bit of a ramble as usual, but you get the point. We don't need more clever ways to be God's people, we need to believe in and live into the Kingdom reality that Jesus began. We need to do all the hard stuff, and realize that the hardest stuff - forgiveness and restoration and love enough to be sustained in this life is accomplished by Jesus.

Next up: Implications of this Alternative Reality.

Lewis For Lent 2: A Welcome Into the Heart of Things

“But we pine. The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view,, the promise of glory, in the sense described,, become highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory means good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door upon which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.” The Weight of Glory p. 40-41

Giving things up for Lent. I’ve never been very good at it. It almost always resulted in a trivial act. By trivial I mean it was always about me losing weight, or eating healthy or going to bed on time or reading the right things so I will feel better about my life. It almost always resulted in what Lewis described at the beginning of his sermon, The Weight of Glory, “as if my abstinence [and my happiness] and not others’ happiness” was the important point Many times we Christians stop in our development at what we get from God, rather than what God intends to do through us.

Lewis at this point of the sermon, touches on a very real intuition – “The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers….” And this being “part of our inconsolable secret.” The we, Lewis refers to, is all of us - humanity. We are all longing to be acknowledged, to be met with a response, to know we are part of an ultimate reality that takes us seriously. When the door to Christ is opened we are no longer strangers to the universe, to God, to each other or ourselves. We fit in. We are part of something bigger.

When we become aware that God in Christ regards us, acknowledges us, meets us and makes us part of an eternal reality that he has created, we also become aware that it is not just for us, but for US! The bigger ‘US’ called humanity. We become aware that our invitation to come through the door is not merely to feel good about being insiders. Our inclusion is all about coming and going through that door. To go out and meet those who are still strangers and regard them, pay attention to them, to include them in the same way that God has included us. We share the glory of God, cast upon our lives, with those around us. We show people the door….not to usher them out but usher them in. We want to extend “a welcome into the heart of things” as Lewis says.

Lewis for Lent 1

"If you asked twenty good men [people] today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has a lot to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself." C.S. Lewis - The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, 2001 Harper Collins San Francisco p. 25-25 - The opening words of the sermon.

I find myself in more and more conversations where this statement by Lewis is most relevant. Many in our time believe the Christian faith to be about denying people things. We deny them fun, approval, attention, even heaven itself. We withhold and withdraw. We become a people who hold on to God’s love as though it were a possession not an action.

Aristotle defined a prodigal as one who has wasted their substance. We see this clearly in Luke 15. The flip side of that same coin is the story of the elder brother. It seems that the religious problem is not in wasting our substance but in withholding it. This is one of Jesus’ points. You can be outside of what God desires for humanity by wasting what you have. You can also be outside of it by withholding your resources from others.

In this time of Lent, it is especially significant that we understand that our abstinence is all about securing “good things” for others. When we “give up” our time, our energies, our safety, our ‘fill-in-the-blank’, we do it with an eye to what we can do for others. I can lower my grocery bill by clipping coupons. Does it result in greater generosity?

Love, like Faith, is a verb, not a possession. It is an action to be taken, not a commodity to collect. Let’s consider how to “do good things” in this season that leads up to Easter, so that others will give glory to God.

C.S. Lewis - Reflecting on Gifts

Christmas has come. That's what we've all experienced. Let's not leave it too quickly for the celebration of a calendar change. We know the real opportunity for change begins with Emmanuel. From The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe:

"Didn't I tell you," answered Mr. Beaver, "that she'd made it always winter and never Christmas? Didn't I tell you? Well, just come and see!"

With that the evidence of Aslan's presence was everywhere as the thaw had set in and Father Christmas arrives.

"And now," said Father Christmas, "for your presents..."
"...Peter, Adam's Son," said Father Christmas.
"Here, Sir," said Peter.
"These are your presents," was the answer, "and they are tools not toys. The time to use them is perhaps near at hand. Bear them well." With these words he handed to Peter a shield and a sword...Peter was silent and solemn as he received these gifts for he felt they were a very serious kind of present.

Susan received a bow, a quiver full of arrows, and a horn. Lucy received a diamond cordial with a remarkable healing mixture inside, and she received a small dagger.

These gifts were all tools to be used to save and protect and heal.

I like gift-giving and receiving. I'm not much concerned about the costs. Gifts are always interesting to me. Great gifts have long stories told about them. Really bad gifts have an even longer life! Their stories are told for years and years and can provide tears of both laughter and sorrow all at the same time.

Lewis's emphasis on gifts is not so the children can look forward to next year for bigger and better gifts, but so that the children are equipped. There are tasks at hand and the children must not tackle them ill-equipped. Not all gifts are solemn but these were.

My previous post talks about being thawed-out by God's Spirit. But we are never thawed simply to enjoy the warmth of our being. We are animated, brought to life, thawed, in order to do the same for others. Blessed to be a blessing. This is one of the purposes of gift giving isn't it? To expand it ever more? We are thawed out not merely to be warm bodies. But we must also be equipped for the tasks of thawing others.

In conversation with a good friend recently, there was a question about how to talk about gifts in the church. So often the "gifts" everyone focuses on, he said, are those that are - how can I say it - exceptional. People want to be titillated by things they can't explain. Many want "gifts" that are supernatural in nature in order to have some super experience. It all has the feeling of magic to me. Not that I deny the presence of supernatural gifts. I believe they exist in the church. But the gifts that I believe God gives the church are almost always tools. Tools to be used to thaw, heal, protect, defend, free.

We are gifted. Not merely at this Christmastime, but throughout our lives. Tools to be used now. What happens when Christmas is over? We take our gifts and put them to use. To thaw, heal, protect, defend, release....there is no end to the good they can be used for.

Post-Advent: C.S. Lewis - After the Resurrection

Christmas Eve, my friend Jerry Tankersley used a section from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe that I want to use here. After Aslan, the great Christ-Lion of Lewis's Narnia tales, returns to life, he takes the girls, Lucy and Susan to the Witch's house. This is what happens.

"What an extraordinary place!" cried Lucy. "All those stone animals-and people too! It's like a museum."
"Hush," said Susan, "Aslan's doing something."
He was indeed. He had bounded up to the stone lion and breathed on him....
..."Oh, Susan! Look! Look at the lion."
I expect you've seen someone put a lighted match to a bit of newspaper which is propped up in a grate against an unlit fire. And for a second nothing seems to have happened; and then you notice a tiny streak of flame creeping along the edge of the newspaper. It was like that now. For a second after Aslan had breathed upon him the stone lion looked just the same. Then a tiny streak of gold began to run along his white marble back - then it spread - then the colour seemed to lick all over him as the flame licks all over a bit of paper - then, while his hind-quarters were still obviously stone the lion shook his mane and all the heavy, stony folds rippled into living hair. Then he opened a great red mouth, warm and living, and gave a prodigious yawn. And now his hind legs had come to life. He lifted one of them and scratched himself. Then, having caught sight of Aslan, he went bounding after him and frisking round him whimpering with delight and jumping up to lick his face...Everywhere the statues were coming to life. The courtyard looked no longer like a museum; it looked more like a zoo."

Two observations. First, I'm reminded often that Presbyterians have, in recent years, been identified as God's frozen chosen. Along with my previous post, I believe it is true enough of many. It is like we have been frozen by the Witch's wand into stony statues. Part of the wonder of Christmas is the unfreezing of human hearts. This is the childlikeness I spoke of earlier. One of the tasks of Christmas for the church is to breathe God's Spirit into the world and bring it to life. For many Christians, it is having Christ break the spell first - we've fallen asleep and become "the frozen chosen". Animated not for their own sake, but so that they can assist in turning other statues into real beings.

Second, I'm reminded that when we do invite new life, particularly in the church where we have become content with being the non-messy statuary, it will look more like a zoo than a museum. A lot messier. A lot more exciting. Certainly more challenging. Don't forget this. If new life is moving into your static congregation or set of friends, it will be more like a zoo. Nothing will be status quo and you can't force it backwards.

The world needs to be transformed into Christ's living beings. But so does the church. Too often we are content to stay in the statue garden. Christ brings life-giving breath to all. May he begin with us this season.

C.S. Lewis - Advent Wonder

It's the day after Boxing Day. The challenge of the Christmas season is always trying to maintain, or retain - the wonderment of the season. Things start to get a little shabby this week as we head towards New Year's Eve.

On Christmas Eve I was privileged to sing my friend Jim Cole's song - Humble Yourself. I prefaced it by saying that we Christmas Eve is a time for child wonderment. And that God invites us to have eyes, ears, hearts, and faith like children. But not merely once a year, God invites us to believe throughout our lives.

In the Last Battle from Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, the children get through the stable door into the "real" Narnia. There they are reunited with old friends and people of older stories. One of the questions they are asked is "Where's Susan?" their sister.

Here's the response.

"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia."
"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about those funny games we used to play when we were children.'"
"O Susan!" said Jill, "she's interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up."
"Grown-up, indeed," said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can."

I don't know if this can be undone once we've rushed on to where we think our individual "progress" is supposed to be. But perhaps we can allow God's spirit to "re-birth" our sense of faith and wonderment and be surprised and marvel at what God does. Maybe this is what Jesus is talking about in John's gospel. That to be reborn is to gain this childlike openness to the things of God. It's a thought. A comforting and interesting thought.

The Nativity by C.S. Lewis

The following poem by Lewis is one that I used in a Christmas card some years ago. The cover was the pen and ink drawing of the stable door from Lewis's "The Last Battle". One of the fine expressions of the incarnation is that eternity invades our finitude through the stable door. So much can be said of it. But it will suffice to enjoy Lewis's poem with little commentary.

The Nativity

Among the oxen (like an ox I’m slow)
I see a glory in the stable grow
Which, with the ox’s dullness might at length
Give me an ox’s strength.

Among the asses (stubborn I as they)
I see my Saviour where I looked for hay;
So may my beastlike folly learn at least
The patience of a beast.

Among the sheep (I like a sheep have strayed),
I watch the manger where my Lord is laid;
Oh that my baa-ing nature would win thence
Some woolly innocence!

The last lines are where I live these days....among the sheep.
(The C.S. Lewis Foundation sent this poem as their Christmas greeting and I enjoy passing it on to you.)

Transforming Church: Transforming People

In this final chapter of Ford's book (right before the appendices - which constitutes another chapter or two!) he summarizes the five areas discussed in these blogs and reminds us of the examples he used to show the transformative movement of churches. He also gives examples of changed lives as well. (A good chapter for preachers!) But most importantly Ford makes the following statement:

"Is your church ready for change? Are there problems that need to be addressed? If you have the courage to face the adaptive issues, the tenacity to deal with inevitable resistance, and the humility to ask for God's help, then be assured: Your church can and will be transformed into the image of Christ - one step at a time." p.201

This is encouraging. It is encouraging particularly in the light of the question I have had about the "Code" of a congregation. My question is, "Is the code of a congregation value neutral when it comes to health or potential health?"

Tod Bolsinger and I had this conversation last week. My concern is, are there congregations where the Code is so opposite of what God would be about that we should walk away from it? In our conversation, what I heard was that the Code simply is. You can't change what was written. But you can change what will be written and this is the work of God. It is painful work to be sure. It is not easy nor simple. It may not even be reasonable. To attack the Code and to question it is to invite difficulty. Be forewarned.

It reminds me of C.S. Lewis' comment to Lucy in the book, "Voyage of the Dawn Treader". When queried about how things might work out with others, Aslan responds to Lucy 'No one is ever told another person's story. But you can find out about your own by getting up and doing what I ask.' (my words) - Lewis reminds us of this throughout his writings and particularly in Narnia. In "Prince Caspian" Lucy wants to know if everything will work out and again Aslan responds by saying get up and find out.

All of this reminds me of the line in "The Fellowship of the Ring" film uttered by Frodo to Sam as they begin their adventure by leaving the Shire. Sam stops in the middle of the cornfield and Frodo turns as asks what is wrong. Sam responds that if he takes one more step that he will have traveled farther from home than he has ever been.

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,” he used to say. “You step out into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

With God's assurance it will be a journey towards health.

Let me suggest that you go to PresbyGrow It is our commitment as a Presbyterian Church to initiate and transform churches into healthy, missional communities.

Transforming Church: Missional/Cloister Part 2

"Being missional is simply unleashing the collective passions of the church - it's code - into the world. What makes the task difficult is the enormous emphasis on self that leaks from our culture into the church. Our default mode is to think of the church in terms of how it meets each of our or our own family's needs. In moving people's focus outward, away from self, the church faces enormous obstacles and embedded cultural dysfunction." - Transforming Church by Kevin Ford, page 141.

The small mantra that I wished for my congregation was, "We exist for those we have yet to meet." I hope it is embedded deeply in the psyche of the church. It can save the congregation from becoming overly concerned with self and to stay outwardly focused and missionally minded. No church is immune from the emphasis on self that "leaks from our culture into the church." But we can be counter-cultural. This is one of the marks of being missional. Can we become truly counter-cultural? Can we be a church that doesn't exist for it's own sake but for the sake of the world? This is, after-all, the way of Jesus - who came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.

We need to nurture in existing congregations the "gene" that is selfless. This would be the Jesus' gene. In new churches we need to implant this. It is the 'dna' that the Holy Spirit implants in every real expression of the body of Christ. It is the Philippians emphasis of emptying oneself.

Ford suggests that it is accomplished by having strategies for moving people: from attendance to commitment; consumption to community; entitlement to entrustment; and insignificance to impact. (p.141-142 ibid)

All of these are outwardly focused, away from self. The irony, which is a biblical notion, is that the self gets cared for, not by clinging to how we're going to get cared for, but when we care for others. Our well-being is God's work not our own. Our neighbor's well-being, now that is our responsibility.

This is Lewis's point in "The Weight of Glory." Remember, he says that one may think too much of one's own glory, but we can never think too much of our neighbor's glory. It's Lewis's way of saying that we can be too concerned with our standing before God, but we can never overreach when it comes to our neighbor's standing before God. We need to see the world as God sees it and cares for it. There is no other way to be church.

Are you ready to read "Transforming Church" yet? If you are in leadership in a congregation, do it.