#grace precedes #missional

Darrell Guder, an early author on the topic of Missional Church said, “I see the term ‘missional’ everywhere, but can’t always determine what those using it mean.”  He observed, “The term ‘missional’ has become a cliché in an astonishingly short period of time.”  Yet far from being just a cliché, Guder insists that, “mission defines the church."  Indeed it is, "because of God’s mission," that "there is the people of God.”¹

Ponder for a moment the mission of God.  Here is one familiar expression of that mission:

‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.  Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.’  - John 3:16-17

That is a pretty powerful and personal mission.  I can say for myself that, on any given day, my failures usually outnumber my successes. Truly, a mission from God sending his Son - for me - well, that is a mission I would call an amazing GRACE.

Yet here I'd like to lift up a reminder that grace is a quality that precedes mission.  As Guder suggested, it is because of God's grace-filled mission that the Church has been created.  Since grace precedes us, it is worth considering the implications of God's imitative for our engagement with the world.

In my Reformed tradition of the Christian faith, God's preceding grace is always at the forefront of our thought and senses.  At baptism we remember the biblical admonition, "We love, because God first loved us."  This has implications for the kind of "missional" witness our Church is called to offer the world.  Rather than being sent as grand conquistadors into a land which needs to be subdued, we understand our mission as a work of interpretation.  The founder of our tradition, John Calvin, could see the handiwork of God throughout creation:

"Meanwhile let us not be ashamed to take pious delight in the works of God open and manifest in this most beautiful theater.  For ... although it is not the chief evidence for faith, yet it is the first evidence in the order of nature, to be mindful that wherever we cast our eyes, all things they meet are works of God, and at the same time to ponder with pious meditation to what end God created them."²

In many ways, the mission of the church is to help the people of the world discover the grace of God that is all around them - even within them!  Reformed Christians are loathe to dissect grace into a taxonomy of disparate parts.  However we do often highlight a distinction between what is called "common grace" and "special grace."³

In the third chapter of his work, He Shines in All That's Fair, Richard Mouw writes that, "If God is glorified by his non-human creation - which seems to be a fairly modest claim to endorse - then it seems reasonable to assume that God takes delight in those non-human created phenomena.  And then it also seems to be quite plausible to assume that God takes delight in various human states of affairs, even when they are displayed in the lives of non-elect human beings."⁴

This assertion by Mouw encourages us to consider the fact that "missional" Christians should not only point out the grace of God in the beauty of creation, we also should point out the grace of God in the very lives of the people we meet - who may not have any cognition of the saving grace of God.  From this place of spiritual discovery, we are given the opportunity to open the door to a deeper personal understanding.

I love the way that the character Attwater expresses God's grace in Robert Louis Stevenson's work The Ebb-Tide  He says, "There is ... nothing but God's Grace! We walk upon it, we breathe it; we live and die by it; it makes the nails and axles of the universe."  Once we start an astounding journey of spiritual discovery  - the discovery that the grace of God has preceded us and it all around us - a "special grace" begins to dawn in our hearts.

The beauty of "special grace" is that, as Jonathan Edwards put it, "a spiritual [man] loves others as of God, or in God, or some way related to him."  Without the gift of God's saving grace, people may go through life with some sense of how to "love others, but ‘tis someway or other as appendages and appurtenances to [them]sel[ves]."⁵  The "special grace" of God calls us to our true destiny in covenant relation to God and each other.

All the universe is awash in the sovereign love of God.  Even in hardship, we discover the sovereign love of God is suffering with us as we groan for the fulfillment of a new creation. A "missional" Christian carries the Good News of God's saving grace in a deeply personal way into the world.  

My one reminder to "missional" Christians is this: God precedes us, so be an indicator of God's grace.

#grace precedes #missional

---

1 The Presbyterian Outlook Sunday, 26 October 2008, Guder challenges church leaders to help define, fulfill “missional”^↩
2 Calvin, Institutes^↩
3 See John H. Leith, Basic Christian Doctrine, p. 221.^↩
4 Mouw, p. 35^↩
5 Edwards, Works 18, 533.^↩

... and Who is my Neighbor? - A Thought on Immigration

It seems to me that Jesus always encourages us to look beyond the routines and boundaries of our lives.  I am often challenged by what I see.

My wife and I went to the mall a few days ago.  Perhaps I should start by saying, I really don't enjoy going to the mall.  So, to say that my wife and I went to the mall is a significant event.  Even more, we went to the mall on a Sunday.  That is an especially odd event.  Ordinarily Sunday afternoons are an attempt to follow up on some pastoral care and take some needed Sabbath respite from a long day of preaching and worship leadership.

By going to the mall on Sunday, I saw a different clientele than I see on the other occasions I am at the mall - normally my one day off, Thursdays.  What I saw were whole families enjoying the circus of activities, sights, sounds, and smells that fill the mall.

It was also clear that I was seeing people who may work six days a week and only have Sunday for their whole family together.  It was also possible that many of the people I saw were first generation residents of our nation - some may even have arrived in our land without proper documentation.

When you see children holding the hands of their parents, you see people in a different light.

Our nation is embarking afresh on a debate about immigration.  The blogosphere and airwaves are being flooded by statistics and speeches on the dynamics of immigration.  In all of this debate, I find myself considering the challenge Jesus presents.

Jesus is confronted by a clever lawyer who is seeking to justify himself in a story told by one of the gospels, Luke 10:25-27.  Jesus helps the man articulate the fact that our destiny is framed by love: the love of God and the love of neighbor.  In response, the lawyer asks a lawyerly question - "and who is my neighbor?"

In typical fashion, Jesus responds with a story.  The key to the story is found in the eyes of compassion that motivate an outsider to risk caring for a man that others neglected.

Jesus does not say at the end of the story, "the outsider is your neighbor."  Instead, Jesus asks, "who was a neighbor?"  Jesus takes the outsider - the neighbor - and makes us the outsider - a neighbor who acts with mercy.

This morning I heard a fragment of a news story while driving to work.  The subject matter was immigration. Frankly, I was tired of hearing the politicians debate and I turned off the radio before the story got very far.  But one phrase stuck with me, the policy wonk said, "we believe we should send a message," by preventing a path to citizenship.

I think I understood what he meant:  We don't want to make crime pay.  It is a crime to enter our nation without documentation.  We should not reward people who break the law.  Such people should be prosecuted and sent back across our borders.

But after my eyes saw parent and child at the mall on Sunday, I found myself pondering.  Why do people want to come to America?  How hard is it to come to our nation?  As a descendant of Norwegian immigrants, I wondered why we would want to restrict immigration.

Then I wondered, what would cause a person to risk prosecution, hardship, and the loneliness of leaving everything familiar in their family of origin for the opportunity to work 6 or 7 days a week in America?

What kind of message would realistically prevent such a person from taking the risks they currently endure in order to come to our land?

This question caused me to turn the question - not unlike the way that Jesus turned the question about neighbors.

Here is what I wondered next.  How am I called to be a neighbor for people in lands far away from mine?  How can my nation send a message of support that strengthens the health and well being of people who live in far distant lands?

The answer to both of those questions is not easy.  If it was easy, it would have been accomplished long ago.

However I believe the better answer to immigration lies not in messages of prosecution that make our nation seem smaller than we truly are.  I believe that we are required to recognize our global village is closer than ever before.  Every act we undertake to make the world more safe, healthy, transparent, and hospitable is a blessing that fulfills our destiny.

This morning I said a prayer for the families I saw at the mall.  I said a prayer for our leaders who are faced with challenging choices.  Then I said a prayer for myself, asking that God might make me a better neighbor.

... and who is my neighbor? ... Well, ... better for me to be a neighbor.