a conceptualization of ministry

I conceived the image below from several conversations I've had recently about holistic ministry.  The first of these was the whole process of preparing for, teaching, and then responding to students on the topic of worship at Bethany Bible School earlier this month.  Second, the first rough sketch of this image came to me yesterday while discussing experiences of Charismatic churches with Joanna Epp, a young woman from North America who is completing one year with Mennonite Mission Network's Radical Journey program.  Third, the chart reflects conversations I've had with biblical texts, most notably Matthew 4:23-25, going back as far as two years ago.

The Matthew text offers us a threefold description of Jesus' ministry--"teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease among the people" (4:23).  I have suggested that the second of this trio--"proclaiming the good news of the kingdom"--is the overarching concept for the other two.  In other words, "teaching" and "healing" are two primary expressions of communicating or "proclaiming" the kingdom of God.

This understanding of Matthew 4:23 fits well with Paul's twofold description of ministry in Colossians 3:12-17.  In that passage, Paul seems to divide our Christian labor into two halves--that which is done by "word" and that which is done by "work" or "deed" (see my previous post).  It is not hard to see how these--"word and work"--correspond respectively to the "teaching and healing" of Matthew 4:23.  If that is so, then what is the equivalent to Matthew's "proclaiming the kingdom" in Colossians 3?  I suggest below that it is the church's imperative to "clothe" itself with the Christ-like virtues which may be summed up as love.  When we see this, we are very near to what Paul said elsewhere--that "the kingdom of God is justice and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit", or that "the Spirit" is "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Rom 14:17; Gal 5:22-23; compare also with Col 3:12).

Finally, the two parts of Christian work which together comprise a complete witness to "the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ" (Rev 11:15) may be found in Acts 6:1-6.  Because the apostles, consumed with teaching the "word of God", needed help in fulfilling the ministry of Christ, the church selected seven "deacons" to oversee the "daily distribution of food" to those in need.

The various descriptions of ministry from these three texts should be visible in the chart below.

The chart is not exhaustive.  It does not include every activity of ministry "in the name of the Lord Jesus" but paints broad contours which are intended to guide the ministry which God has entrusted to the church.  I notice, for example, that prayer is missing from the chart, though prayer should infuse every act of ministry.  The chart might be used to evaluate the ministry of your particular congregation.  Does your church exhibit a healthy balance between ministries of word and ministries of work?  If so, it is likely that Christ is present in the Spirit and the kingdom of God is visible in your witness.

-Joe

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

the creative cross

I preached twice last weekend, once on Saturday and on Easter Sunday.  This year, deciding to stick with the gospel in the lectionary, I chose the passion-resurrection narrative from Mark.  In this post, I’ll share some things I learned from the crucifixion of Jesus in Mark 15:25-39.  In the next post, I’ll share about the resurrection narrative, Mark 16:1-8.

Mark 15:25-39 encompasses the time that Jesus actually spent on the cross.  The text begins with a reference to time: “It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him” (v. 25).  It follows through with references to time, tracking Jesus’ last hours in this way.  So we read that at “noon, darkness came over the whole land” (v. 33).  Moreover, this darkness lasted “until three in the afternoon” (v. 33).  Finally, three o’clock gets another mention: “At three o’clock Jesus cried out . . .” (v. 34).  There may be multiple reasons for tracking the death of Jesus in terms of time, but one possibility hit me for the first time in my years of hearing and reading this story.  If Jesus’ dying on the cross was from 9 am to 3 pm, then Jesus hung there for six hours.  This invites a comparison with other biblical “sixes”, most notably, the number of “days” God took to create “the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1; 2:1).  Along these lines we might also remember how Mark has chosen to frame his entire gospel, that is, with explicit reference to the story of Jesus being like the story of creation.

“This is the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk 1:1).

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth . . .” (Gen 1:1).

Consequently, it is not impossible that Mark is making the claim that Jesus’ death is something of a labor, a work, of creation again, or new creation.  Just as for six days God, through God’s brooding spirit and enlightening Word (Gen 1:2,3), ordered a world, so Jesus, through his breath and with his voice (see 15:34, 38) gave that world a new beginning.

How does Jesus’ breath, that is, his spirit, and his voice, that is, his word, constitute for us a new beginning?

This question leads us to the heart of the text.  For 15:25-39 revolves around the speech of Jesus, and specifically the speech of Jesus in contrast to the other speeches uttered at the cross.  Indeed, whereas those who look on while Jesus is crucified speak, derisively, about Jesus, Jesus directs himself only to the Eternal Spirit.  The only words upon his lips pertain to God, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (15:34).  Of course, in saying so, Jesus was also speaking God’s Word (Psalm 22).  This sets Jesus apart from the other human characters in the story.  They spend these six hours harassing a dying person, ridiculing his claims to kingship (15:32) and priesthood, one with authority over the temple (15:29).  Their words also assume the failure of his status as prophet, since his hanging on the cross in the face of the temple’s persistence negates the truth of his words.  In fact, however, the age of the temple is quickly passing—and much sooner than anyone at the cross could have feared.  With Jesus’ last breath and loud cry, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom” (15:38).  Thus for the followers of Jesus thereafter, the curtain that marked entrance into the very presence of God (“the holy of holies”) would truly be “his flesh”, his body, that which was crucified (see Heb 10:19-20).  He himself, and no place in particular, would be the means by which, through whom, we worship and live.  All of this he effected because of his faithfulness to his loving Father—because of the steadfastness of his word even to his dying breath.  “When he was abused he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly” (1 Pet 2:23).  He might have entrusted himself to someone else or to some other means.  Indeed, the mockers also believe, in spite of his confession to God, that Jesus is calling Elijah for help (15:35).  But as it stands, Jesus, with no derision toward his fellows, commits his life, his death, into the hands of God.

In this way, Jesus is our model in suffering for others even as his unstinting perseverance in love reveals that something much more than a human was inhabiting his flesh.  God was in Christ reconciling us to himself, not counting our trespasses against us (2 Cor 5:19).  And that is why those six hours on the cross were for us the work that made creation new.

-Joe   

doing discipleship

I had the privilege last evening again to lead, with the pastor, a lesson on discipleship for mostly youth and young adults at Harvest Time Ministries.  Our text was Matthew 21:28-32.

The context of this text is the series of encounters between Jesus and the chief priest, elders of the people, and Pharisees after he has entered the temple during his passion week (21:23, 45).  This parable, like's Luke's better known story of "the prodigal son" (Lk 15:11-32), may be called "the parable of the two sons."  

I share the following insights from studying the text below.

1.  The parable seems to recommend a correspondence between the actions of the father and the actions of his children.  What the father does, he commands the children to do.  In the text, the father does two things: he goes to each child and he speaks to each child.  What he commands the children to do, similarly, is to go and to work--"in his vineyard" (23:28).  As the father has two activities, so his children.  This suggests to me, simply, that the sons and daughters of God must go where he calls us.  That is always the first step.  The second step, simply, is to be about God's business when we get there.  We are to "work" in God's vineyard.  That in turns suggests a challenge, for we must clearly discern between God's work and our own, and then submit to doing God's work when we may in fact prefer our own.

On the theme of this correspondence, one exceptionally bright girl from our study group suggested that "what God does, we can do because we are made in the image of God."  That theology and anthropology has its place, especially in this setting of historic disempowerment (colonialism and apartheid), of people's own sense of their loss of agency as human beings.  On the other hand, that kind of theology and anthropology is in the ascendancy here among types of churches with sometimes destructive effects upon community--since the encouragement to exercise one's authority in the image of God can be taken in a highly individualized sense, as though my God-given authority blinds me to the reality that God has also given his authority to others.  Thus, if two people who are "anointed" are to have a relationship, they must yield to one another.  So the continuing challenge is to affirm human dignity while not robbing others of their own.

2.  "The man" or the father in the story gives to both his children the same, basic tasks.  The text says that he "said the same" or "likewise" to the second child as he had said to the first.  This suggests, in the phrase of the same girl from our group, that "God is no respecter of persons."  And of course, what that old aphorism has always meant is that God does not privilege one of his children over another.  God does not see as humans typically see.  God looks not upon the stature of David, inferior to his brothers, but on David's heart, finding him fit to lead God's people.  In the text, this takes the form of Jesus deeming the unesteemed--the tax collectors and the prostitutes--as worthy of the kingdom as the esteemed, the religious leaders.  In fact, due to the leaders' pride, the tax collectors and prostitutes "are going into the kingdom of God ahead [of the religious leaders]" (v. 31).  But the basic point remains; in the beginning, both children--those who, because of whatever turn, became prostitutes and those who became religious leaders, were called by God "to go and work".  

3.  The difference between the two children is that the first "changed his mind and went" (v. 29), whereas the second did not go.  Of course, for the first child to change his mind implies that he once had a different mind from his father, that is, a mind not to do what his father told him to do.  In this sense, the first child is no different than the second child who clearly shows that he never had a mind to go even though he told the father that he would.  That is, both children did not want to go as the father commanded.  One, on the other hand, did go, after changing his mind--and that makes all the difference.

This means, therefore, that the decisive difference in God's eyes does not lie in what each child has spoken to his father.  If that were the case, then the second son would have been approved and the first not, since the second spoke what was right.  He said, in response to his father's call, "I go, sir" (v. 30).  While we could wish that the first child would have also made a right reply with his mouth, what is of first importance is that he put his actions in line with his father's will.

4.  The priority of doing over saying in Jesus' parable confirms the word of the apostle James, that true faith does not exist without good works (Ja 2:18-26).  The dynamic could be expressed like this: humans beings are justified, "declared righteous by God" on account of their faith, but their faith is justified, "declared righteous by God" on account of their works.  So then, by logic, do works justify us before God.  That still leaves us with the question of what kind of works justify, since works of ritual and purity are "morality" for some as much as compassion and mercy are for others (I believe Jesus sides definitively on that question as well).  Let it simply be said, however, that any confession that denies the place of works for salvation is less than true faith.   

5.  Jesus puts the matter of entering the kingdom of God in the hands and in the mouths of human beings.  He asks the religious leaders for the answer to his riddle--"Which of the two did the will of his father?" (v. 31).  Jesus does not condemn his opponents; they stand self-condemned.  It is they who give the right answer, knowing that the child who went and worked was the one who did his father's will, even as it is they who do not, in their own lives, do their father's will.  It is they who, like the second son, profess with their lips what is right but do not do as they say.  Thus, it is truly "by our words that we will be judged", for our words reveal our knowledge of God's will and leave us without excuse for making an honest attempt to put our actions in line (see Mt 12:36-37).

One final point:

No matter how obvious some of this may seem to works-oriented Christians, it is still worth saying that words are meaningless apart from their confirmation in the actions of human beings.  There is still too much posturing behind words without real substance in the world in which we live.

-Joe

the mirror and the law

As we thought about what we wanted our message to be to the church in North America this summer, we selected James 1:22-25 as our starting point. The text seems to compare two things, two things which human beings might "look into." One, a mirror, appears in the context of a person who, after looking into a mirror, "immediately upon going away forgets what he looks like." James calls this the predicament of a person who "hears the word but does not do it." A second thing, what James calls "the perfect law, the law of liberty", has an opposite effect; rather than the mirror which accompanies forgetfulness, the perfect law, when looked into, leads to blessing.

Of course, on the one hand, it is not simply the "looking in" to the perfect law that guarantees blessing any more than simply "looking into" a mirror is a recipe for forgetfulness; the person who looks in must also "persevere"--then she will "be blessed in her doing." On the other hand, it does greatly matter what we as human beings are looking into. On closer examination, looking into a mirror is not as fruitful as looking into the perfect law of freedom, the story of scripture which gives shape and direction to our lives. For a mirror--if that is what we are regularly looking into--shows us only what we are on the outside, imperfections and all. Moreover, the mirror shows us only ourselves and our most immediate surroundings. But the perfect law, when looked into, is like a mirror which shows us beyond our own time and space; it puts us within a vast history, and in the presence of the God who has gone with our ancestors throughout time. And knowing that story, that law, that movement from slavery to freedom, through suffering to redemption, determines our own walking--our own doing--in the paths of blessing.

-Joe

two-edged mirror

We belong to a Bible Study/fellowship group which meets on Tuesday nights. The majority of members on any given meeting come as expatriates working in Mthatha as missionaries or in NGOs, both in long and short-term stints. The people come from "mainline" churches, Anglican and Presbyterian primarily. We hold down--or is it hold up?--the Anabaptist wing of the Church. For the past two years or so, we have been using the readings from the lectionary to guide our conversations.

As we read James 1:17-27 recently, one of our members gave expression to my own thoughts in her puzzlement over James's analogy of a mirror in vv. 23-24. We never really attempted to answer her query that evening; the conversation quickly took another turn. But as I continued to read James through the week, culminating in a sermon the next Sunday, I decided that the mirror was analogous to the word of God (see previous post on James's teaching about the word).

James says that those who hear the word but do not do it "are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like" (v. 24).

My initial puzzlement was around the assumption that we should want to look at ourselves in the mirror and then try to remember what we looked like. It seemed narcissistic. Why would James be encouraging us to spend time in front of the mirror for the purpose of dwelling in the image of ourselves? Why should we be so keen to remember our appearance?

If, on the other hand, the mirror stands for the word of God, that which it reflects back at us is not strictly a picture of our appearance. It is rather like the "two-edged sword" which the writer of Hebrews used to describe the word (Heb. 4:12). It sends back to us a picture of ourselves in comparison to that which it describes: God's will for human life, revealed to us in its stories and commandments fulfilled in Jesus, the very Word made flesh (Jn. 1:14). The mirror is not one-to-one; it is one-to-two. The word reflects our image as we are--marred by sin and imperfection--and the image of God. In light of God's image, it shows us who we are, what we will be, and how we might get there.

If the mirror's reflection is not of our own but in the light of Jesus, then truly the appearance of ourselves is not a thing to be forgotten. We must not forget what we look like, for we look like Jesus. To forget is to remain in sin. To remember is to become like him.

-Joe

the word is the work

I've been enjoying reading through the book of James, coming up as it has in the lectionary over the past three weeks. I also had the privilege of preaching on James 1:17-27, thereby stepping into a well-established tradition on the African continent; through his research, Philip Jenkins, the respected scholar of global Christianity, has noted that the book of James has long been an orienting point for the worship and witness of African churches.

A few observations:

It is well-known that Martin Luther relegated James to a subordinate status in his translation of the Bible, dubbing it "the epistle of straw" for its insistence that "faith apart from works is dead" (2:17ff), a perceived challenge, of course, to his teaching that salvation is by "faith alone." In the ensuing years, the church came to accept uncritically Luther's original dichotomy, and came to line up on opposing sides, not only "faith" and "works" but also "word" and "deed". It is not hard to see what lined up with what: faith and word were one side, works and deeds the other.

James, of course, did make a distinction: "Be doers of the word," he told his people, "and not merely hearers" (1:22). However, that distinction, contra to how the church has arranged things, was not between word and deed, but between hearing and doing. In James, the force that unites hearing and doing is itself the word; a higher regard for the word in no other book can be found. Indeed, it is "the word of truth" which "gave us birth", the "implanted word that has the power to save your souls" (1:18, 21). In light of this, it is entirely obvious why James spilled so much ink on the subject of that from which the word emanates: the vehicle of speech, the tongue. He counsels his audience to "bridle their tongues" (1:26) because, as he later explains, "the tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity", an "untameable" source of "deadly poison" with which the human being "curses those who are made in the likeness of God" (3:6-9).

Yet, as James says, "this ought not to be so" (3:10). The corollary of the spoken word's great power for destruction is its great power for life. Indeed, we do not only "curse" with the tongue; "from the same mouth also comes blessing". James calls for a bridle, not a screw. He calls not for the cessation of words, but the channeling of right words. He calls for the words that build up the people of God, not the words that ridicule, deride, tear down the poor of the earth.

The word is the work. If we hear it, let us do it. That is "pure religion" (1:26-27).

-Joe

Philip Jenkins's comments can be found in The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2006), pp. 60-62.