our twofold worship

Last Friday I taught on the topic of worship at Bethany Bible School, taking as my primary text Colossians 3:12-17.

I needed some fresh insight on worship, and so I selected one text to see what it might suggest about worship.  I did not want to start with my own thoughts on the subject and then find texts to support my pre-existing ideas.  Rather, I wanted a theology of worship to rise from the text.

Of course, even my selection of a starting point showed a pre-existing bias.  I chose a text which I guessed had something to do with worship.  The reason I chose Colossians, then, is its line about "singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God" (3:16).  In other words, I chose the text for its mention of a common feature of the worship service, namely singing.  But by paying closer attention to the broader context for such singing, I was to discover a much larger context for worship than as defined as what most congregations do on Sundays mornings.

Near the heart of the text lie two parallel statements which use the name of "Christ" (at least this is the case in the NRSV).  These are:

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts" (3:15).

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly" (3:16).

These frame a very simple sentence, "And be thankful" (3:15).

If we add the three statements together, we find something virtually equivalent to the summary statement with which Paul ends this text.  As the first statement speaks of the "peace of Christ", the second "the word of Christ", and the middle statement thankfulness, so 3:17 declares,

"And whatever you do, in word or work ("deed" NRSV), do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

If we begin to group like with like, we see that the closing sentence has in common with the cumulative central triplet a focus on "the word".  As there is the "word of Christ" (3:15), so there is "the word" (3:17) which is one of two things which the church in Colossae might "do".  Continuing with exact matches, both the conclusion and the triplet speak of "thanksgiving", whether it is the imperative "be thankful" (3:15) or "giving thanks to God the Father through [the Lord Jesus]" (3:17).

Moving beyond exact matches to like ideas, we see, by implication, that if the "word of Christ" (3:16) finds an exact match with "the word" which the Colossians might "do" (3:17), then that which is parallel to each of these two must also go together.  Thus, if "the peace of Christ" (3:15) is parallel to "the word of Christ" (3:16), and if "the word of Christ" finds its exact match in the "word" which is done (3:17), then "the peace of Christ" must refer to that which accompanies the "word" in 3:17--the "work" which the Colossians might do "in the name of the Lord Jesus".

Thus, if it is fair to say that this text has something to do with worship (a word, admittedly, which does not appear in the text), then Paul is saying that true worship is essentially thanksgiving to God in the name of the Lord Jesus, and that that worship has two basic parts: "word" and "work".

Seen in this way, Colossians 3:12-17 itself may be divided into two halves, the first pertaining to worship as "work" and the second pertaining to worship as "word", before culminating in the one-sentence conclusion which ties these themes together.  Indeed, the first half, ending with "the peace of Christ" in 3:15, pertains to "works" which can be done even without words.  "Clothe yourselves", the text begins, with "compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience" (3:12), over which "love" is put on as a garment which "completes" the outfit (the Greek of 3:14 calls love "a bond of completion").  Between these virtues of "work" is "forgiveness", literally, "generosity of spirit", which has the same root in Greek, charis, which is elsewhere translated as "thanksgiving" ("thankful", "gratitude", etc) and appears no less than five times in the text.  All of these find their natural conclusion in "the peace of Christ" which is to "rule in [the Colossians'] hearts", in the "one body" called the church "to which [they] were called" (3:15).  "The peace of Christ", closing out the first half of 3:12-17 (3:12-15), is the final state of a community which practices these works of love toward one another.

Of course, it is not as if any of these "works" must be done without "words", as if "words" somehow did not enhance the expression of, for example, the practice of forgiveness.  In all likelihood, quite the contrary is true.  It is just to say that, according to the text, there is in life a distinction between worship (or ministry or service) as "work" and worship as "word".

The text itself reflects this distinction, for, separated only by the command to "be thankful" (3:15), it moves from speaking of ministries of "work" to ministries of "word".  It moves from one summary statement--"let the peace of Christ rule"--to its introductory counterpart--"let the word of Christ dwell".  The switch to "the word of Christ" ensues in an unbroken litany of activities which are done principally with one's voice.  The text begins to speak of "teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom" and "singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God" (3:16).  Teaching, admonishing, singing--these are things done with "the word".

And then it is there--after all is said and done--that Paul says, "whatever you do, in word or work, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (3:17).

In contemporary discussions of "holistic" ministry, mission, or service, distinctions are sometimes maligned.  Concerns that distinctions lend themselves to undue prioritizing of work over word or word over work call into question whether we should think in so-called "dualisms" at all.  Yet having distinctions, giving names to things we experience to be true of life, can help us to identify those particular gifts which God has entrusted to us and others for the work of ministry "in the name of the Lord Jesus".  Distinctions can set our sights and focus our energies on that which God has called us to do, "whether by word or work".

-Joe

preaching as brooding

For the topic of Preaching last weekend at Bethany Bible School, I selected three texts: Genesis 1:1-5; Jeremiah 1:1-10; John 1:1-9.

These three texts have in common a focus on the Word of God or, in other words, that which human preachers dare to proclaim when they preach. That preaching is a big job is underscored by the call of Jeremiah, in which the prophet reacts to the coming of the “word of the LORD” to him with self-degradation—“Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy” (1:4-5). Yet proclaiming that word to others is something he must do, though something he can only do because the word is not his but God’s own put within his mouth (1:6, 9).

If it is thus true that the call of Jeremiah establishes for us the preaching imperative, the preacher still needs to know what and how he/she should preach. Genesis 1:1-5, the first words of the Bible, sheds light on the how of preaching. It is interesting to note, for example, that the spoken word is not the first thing in the story; before God speaks (1:3), “God”, “the Spirit of God”, and “formless” material of some kind (along with darkness and water) are in the story (1:1-2). In other words, before the word which is “light” (1:3) is spoken, the Spirit of God has been “hovering over the waters” (1:2). Though the waters are dark, though the earth is “formless and void”, though the creation is not yet really creation, though it is chaos, yet something is there—something over which God is pleased to hover.

The Xhosa translation uses -fukama for what the Spirit was doing over the waters; –fukama, what a mother hen does to her eggs and chicks, is what God was doing to formless matter: lovingly, jealously guarding-protecting-keeping it, considering what it will be until the day it is born. God the Mother was brooding over the waters.

It is from such brooding that the word finally speaks—and orders-creates a world. It is from the hovering of the Spirit of God (1:2), from perhaps the Mind of God (1:1), that the Word of God creates.

This is all to say that the preacher—the one called to speak the Word of God—must hover over the things of creation that will be before his word can begin to order them. Herein lies a “how” of preaching, a method for preaching. Before the proclaimer can speak, he must brood over material as a hen over unborn offspring. She must consider all things—people’s lives and stories, culture, news, proverbs, wisdom and—of course, especially—the text itself. Somehow, out of that consideration, by the Spirit of God, the creative Word speaks (or the spoken Word creates). This is a call for preparation—not of a rigid, inflexible kind but of a prayerful “brooding” over stories and the Story until the preacher has virtually taken them into herself. In short, a preparation of the Spirit.

The hovering of the Spirit of God has a second, equally important, implication for preachers and their preaching. Just as the Spirit hovered before the Word was spoken (not before the Word was), so the Spirit of God hovers over the things of creation before the preacher speaks or fashions them into a world. For the preacher this means that, no matter how chaotic the world to which he comes might be, how much unlike an ordered world it seems, that world—its inhabitants, its stories, its wisdom—is lovingly kept by its loving God. The Mother Hen is guarding her children and watching the preacher, keen to see whether his words will conform to the spirit of care with which God broods over them. Though, as God attested to Jeremiah, the Word can have a rough edge—“to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow” (1:10)—its ultimate purpose is “to build and to plant” (1:10). Tough love must be God’s and not the preacher’s own—it must come from the Word or not at all. God will judge the preacher if his words do not convey God’s love for the people.

Third, on this point, the brooding of the Spirit before the spoken Word contains an obvious connection to the missio Dei, or that common concept in mission theology that Christian mission is God’s and not our own. The implication of the missio Dei, of course, is that—in spite of certain historical mission rhetoric—the missionary does not “bring God” to people who do not know God; rather, the missionary, like Paul, proclaims “the unknown God” from within known cultural categories (Acts 17:22ff.) and toward the revelation of God through God’s Word. The presence of God before/ahead of us with others is essential for missionary patience and trust—virtues through which love is expressed to others.

Finally, a God-focused rather than a preacher-focused approach to preaching resonates with John 1:1-9, the third text here considered. For just as the “man sent from God, whose name was John” was “not himself the light” but only a “witness” to the light, so is any preacher in relation to the Word (1:6-8). For Christian preaching, that “Word” which “was in the beginning with God and was God” is Jesus himself (1:1-2); “for we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake” (2 Cor 4:5). He is, in the end, both “what”—who—we proclaim and “how” we must proclaim what we proclaim. For it was his Spirit that lovingly hovered over the waters at creation as “a hen gathers her brood under her wings” (Lk 13:34).

-Joe

“wiping away”, “laying aside”

Luke 10:1-24 is a text which has come up repeatedly for me during our time in South Africa. Several weeks ago, for example, Wayne Hochstetler, with his wife Lois worker care staff for Mennonite Mission Network, led our Mennonite worker team on a study of the text. Deep reflection on a biblical text, first alone and then in the company of others, never fails to produce valuable insights—words for life.

On that day, then, Lois pointed out something from the story which I had not noticed before: a possible meaning for the dust which the messenger of Jesus “wipes” from his or her feet “in protest” against the towns that reject the messenger. It seems to me, on the one hand, that—as the text states—the wiping away of dust is indeed for the town that rejects those who come with the “authority” of the One who sent them “ahead of him” (10:19, 10:1). Indeed, the wiping away of dust is an act of “protest against” (10:11). Such a recognition, however, need not negate Lois’s point: that the wiping away of dust is also an act for the messenger.

For those who are sent by Jesus do have a job to do. Namely, that is to proclaim “peace” and the arrival of “the kingdom of God”, accept hospitality from those who welcome, and “heal the sick” (10:5-9). But failure to remove the “dust that clings to one’s feet”, the dust acquired in the town to which one has been sent—the dust of rejection—is to destroy the messenger, to take the messenger out of the service of God. For the messenger’s own well-being, for his capacity to remain the messenger of “peace”, an emissary of “the kingdom”, and a “healer” for others, he must “wipe away the dust that clings”. Rejection of the good things that the messenger brings must not derail her calling to bring “good news” to those who will welcome it. Rejection by some must not impede acceptance by others. We must “wipe away” the rejection that “clings”, “laying aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely” (Heb 12:1), in order to remain ourselves within the “love, joy, and peace” of God’s very presence.

Perhaps it was the seventy’s very obedience to Jesus’ command of “wiping away” that enabled them to return “with joy” to the Lord. Their joy was not a feeling wholly dependent upon the good will of others; their identity was not wholly in the success of their work. Or, if their identity did lay in human acceptance or worldly success, Jesus did not permit them to dwell there. It was not the work itself—the demons cast out—but the intimacy they experienced with God while going on their way—that their “names are written in heaven”—that was their “joy” (10:17, 20). Indeed, theirs was as Jesus’ own, who “for the sake of the joy set before him”—and for no other earthly reason or rationale (for there was none)—“endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2).

Our God, as we concluded together on that day, is a God who “absorbs” our burden. God bears the rejection we sometimes take—in order that we might press on “ahead of him . . . to every town and place where he himself intend[s] to go” (10:1). We proclaim, we forgive, we heal, we go the extra mile, in Jesus’ name, but we do not effect the acceptance of our gifts: Reconciliation is “from God” (2 Cor 5:18).

-Joe

trust that this is true

At our recent Mennonite mission worker retreat, our input person, Jack Suderman, led us in eight sessions of "refreshing" our understandings of Christian mission. Among many priceless nuggets of wisdom and stories, he reminded us of Jesus' "first words" in the gospel of Mark. When Jesus first appeared on the scene, "proclaiming the gospel", he said nothing more, nothing less than "the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand" (Mk. 1:14-15). In other words, Jack contended, though the gospel may mean many things to many people, according to Jesus its entire meaning can be broken down to two basic ideas/realities: the time is now (has been fulfilled) and God's kingdom is here (has come near, is at hand). Everything else about the gospel is an elaboration of "the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand."

In response to his gospel, Jesus prescribed repentance and faith in, again, the "good news" ("gospel"). Or, as Jack put it, we are called to "trust" that this proclamation of the good news "is true." We are to trust that the time is indeed, truly, fulfilled and that God is present, is ruling, is King over the world in which we live.

As I pondered trusting the truth of the good news within the theme of Christian mission, an outline for a spirituality of mission (or a missionary spirituality) dawned on me. Just as Jesus was sent by the Father, or in Jesus God sent Godself to the creation, so, through the gift of his Holy Spirit, we too are sent. The mission of God has been extended to us, that is, to anyone and everyone who comes in Jesus' name. If we are thus, in some way, sent as Jesus was sent, then Jesus' mission reflects on our mission and our mission reflects on his. This means that, for Jesus, God in human form, his coming to the earth, his arrival, his engagement with the creation, was as sudden or as in-breaking as ours is. He also had to arrive in a setting that was, in the sense that he was not an original member of it, not his own. Being thus foreign to him, as the flesh is to the Spirit, the creation was for Jesus a field which he had to observe, explore, experience in order to know. The created world was for Jesus a field in which he saw--and proclaimed--the presence and activity of God: "the kingdom of God is at hand". Jesus came to where he came, to whom he came, proclaiming upon his arrival--and therefore, even before he got there--that God was present, ruling, reigning, working.

Indeed, when Jesus taught the nature or character of the "kingdom of heaven", he did not preach himself but identified the presence of God through the creation and its interactions: a woman kneading yeast through dough, a sower scattering seed upon different kinds of soil, a merchant in search of fine pearls, and on and on (Mt 13). All of these were things present before he got there, but they were not things seen because people had neither "eyes to see nor ears to hear". Thus God ordained an outsider to alert insiders to "God with us", God among them. And Jesus proclaimed to them, among them, within them, that "the kingdom of God is at hand". Such a proclamation is at once both a radical affirmation and critique--a judgment--of the creation, wherever it may be. It is an affirmation, for it proclaims, consistent with God's initial act of creation, that the flesh is a worthy carrier of God's Spirit; it is a critique because the presence of anything found not of God cannot reside in that in which God was pleased to dwell. First and foremost, however, simply, "the kingdom of God is at hand."

"The kingdom of God is at hand". Jesus "trusted that this was true." Jesus trusted that God's presence, wisdom was among the creation to which he came. That is the cornerstone of a missionary spirituality that affirms, challenges, transforms, loves.

-Joe

deducing evangelism: an inductive Bible Study

Last night I presented to our Tuesday night Bible Study group a lesson I had done on evangelism at Bethany Bible School in February. Our text was Matthew 4:23-25, three verses directly preceding the sermon on the mount in chapters 5-7.

I chose the text to explore the meaning of evangelism because it is one of the places in the New Testament where the Greek word from which we get the word “evangelism” (or its relatives “evangel”, “evangelist”) occurs. In other words, I did not choose to explore the topic through texts commonly associated with the topic—for example, John 3:16, or a series of verses from Romans meant to illustrate humanity’s sinfulness and God’s response in Christ (e.g. Rom. 3:23, 6:23)—yet which do not contain the word or words from which we get “evangelism.” But by choosing a different starting point, we might gain a fresh perspective.

In the Matthew text, then, the word from which “evangelism” comes occurs in verse 23: Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news [Gk: euangelion] of the kingdom . . ..” Jesus’ “proclamation of the good news” is sandwiched between two of the text’s three key repetitions—the words “Galilee”, the place of Jesus’ activity, and “healing”, the third of the three verbs, in addition to “teaching” and “preaching the good news of the kingdom”, used to describe Jesus’ ministry. A third key repetition in the text occurs just after the word “healing”, that is, Jesus was “healing every disease and every sickness among the people” (v. 23). This basic description is repeated in v. 24 in inverted order: “they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains . . . and he healed them.” Following that, we find the second occurrence of “Galilee”; just as Jesus went about “Galilee” teaching, preaching, and healing, so now “great crowds followed him from Galilee”. This second time, however, Galilee does not stand alone, in geographic isolation, but is joined by “the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan” as places whose people received the blessings of Jesus (v. 25).

Again, the three key repeated words in the text are:

Galilee

healing

diseases

Moreover, these are arranged in the following pattern:

Galilee

healing

diseases

diseases

healing

Galilee

This arrangement, known as a “chiasm”, or an A-B-C-C-B-A pattern, is common in biblical texts of both the Old and New Testaments.

Identifying the repetitions helps us to narrow our focus on the text and moves us toward discovering its central meaning. Once we have identified them, we also begin to identify what lies around them and to what they might point.

For example, we now ask if there is any critical information in the text that lies between the first mention of “Galilee” and the first mention of “healing.” Indeed, this is the case: as noted above, there is the description of Jesus “teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom” (v. 23). This seems too important to miss. Likewise, we ask whether there is any critical information in the text between the second occurrences of “Galilee” and “healing”—and we find that “great crowds followed him”. This is also too important to leave out.

Consequently, if we were to visualize this text, we would need to represent all of this key information as we build toward a central meaning. We can do that as follows:

A Jesus went throughout Galilee

B teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom

C and healing

D every disease and every sickness among the people

D and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains . . .

C and he healed them

B And great crowds followed him

A from Galilee . . .

By now the parallels (marked by corresponding letters) and the chiastic pattern of the text should be obvious. Even still, one piece of critical information is missing. As indicated by the two parts of the text marked “D” stacked directly one on top of the other, the text converges at a “center”. That center, heretofore not revealed, lies precisely between the two lines of information about the diseases that Jesus healed among the people. As a result of that healing of human diseases,

“his fame spread throughout all Syria”

or, “a report about him went out into all Syria” (v. 24).

This is, structurally, the central phrase of the text; therein also lies the text’s central meaning.

What might that meaning be? And what might it say about our understanding of evangelism?

Jesus is the model evangelist. “His fame” or “the report about him” spread seemingly independently of his person, or perhaps—in light of other gospel stories—in the opposite direction of his own intentions. Jesus did not show up on the scene, in “Galilee”, going about “teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming” himself—even though he was, in the words of the Christ hymn (Php 2:5-11), “in the form of God.” On the contrary, he “went about proclaiming the good news of the kingdom.” He did not consider that the kingdom was his own, but that it was the domain of his “Father in heaven” (Mt. 6:9). In other words, he “did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped”, but took upon himself the diseases of the people, having “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave”, a servant of the people. It was thus his compassion for the people, his passion with them, perhaps expressed most concretely in his ministry of healing (but also through his teaching and preaching)—not his exalting himself above them—that drew people to him. “The report about him spread” as a result of his “suffering with.” Forsaking pride or the praise of human beings, he gained their praise. Seeking first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, everything else was added to him as well (Mt. 6:33).

This does not imply, on the other hand, that everyone who came to him—“the great crowds that followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan”—were drawn to his suffering. Many must have come with other motives; they were lured by the report of his power, perhaps wanting it for themselves, not to the source of his power. They desired the manifestations of his relationship to God rather than that obedient connection itself. They wanted the exaltation without the humility, the glory without the suffering, the resurrection without the cross. Knowing their hearts, “he taught them” (Mt. 5:1). Indeed, the “report about him”, “his fame”, which brought to him “great crowds of followers”, gives way directly, from three short verses at the close of chapter 4, to three full chapters—“the sermon on the mount”—of teaching his disciples and the crowds (5:1; 7:28) about the life of the kingdom.

If Jesus himself—true God and true man—prepares for us the way we are to follow, evangelism will take the course of:

• teaching and preaching the good news of the kingdom, not ourselves or our churches. In our time, the good news of the kingdom means also the person of Jesus himself, since the Father’s intention was that “his fame” would go out into all the world—the Messenger has become the Message, the Evangelist the Evangel.
• compassion, passion or suffering with others, not isolation from or exalting oneself above. It is our “suffering with” that also leads to healing of diseases of both spirit and flesh.
• ministries of word and deed, spiritual and physical. Sometimes the language of evangelism is synonymous with the language of “missions”, as if both terms signify proclamation in word. Sometimes, the language of “mission” goes along with evangelism as a corrective, in order to broaden the understanding of evangelism. In this sense, “mission” is meant to encompass ministries of deed, for example, in the direction of “relief and development” work. Neither pairing seems quite right in light of such texts as the present one. In the structure of the text, Jesus’ “good news of the kingdom” is literally between “preaching” and “healing”, therefore also holding together as one the world of the spirit and the world of the flesh.
• discipleship. Teaching about the way of Jesus or the kingdom of God should not be reserved for some later time in the life of a believer; all the words of Jesus have the power to both draw and instruct people. There are no evangelism texts, on the one hand, and discipleship texts, on the other. Neither is evangelism training in order to do narrow proclamation, nor discipleship training in how to do evangelism in the mode of narrow proclamation. Rather, evangelism-discipleship is, from the earliest stage, instruction in learning to follow Jesus/be led by his Spirit.

For the sake of the discussion . . .

-Joe