Thursday, November 13, 2008

Community of the Mission (JDTS teaching) - Part 2

I wrote the following several years ago (at my old blog) and recently shared this story with our JDTS students:

I want to tell you a story. It isn’t a pleasant story, so I will present it to you as simply and straight forwardly as I can.

Several years ago, my wife & I were traveling. As missionaries, we spend a good deal of time meeting with people, from dear friends to perfect strangers. On one such occasion, we had scheduled to meet with a friend of ours. However, when we got there, we were surprised to find that he was not alone, but with a young man we did not know. We thought nothing of it at first.

It soon became clear to us that this new individual was a Muslim man. Moments later, I found myself face down, with both men standing over me, their hands on my shoulders. While I could not see her, I knew my wife was near by. The men laughed as one man sliced my back with a blade, while the other stabbed me with another.

To this day, I have the scars to remind me of this incident.

With the political and social state of the world as it is, such a story is likely to stir great emotion. What did you feel as you read this story? Anger? Shock? Sympathy? Undoubtedly, each of you reading this has a clear mental image of these events, almost as though you had watched them yourself.

I have a confession to make…

The fact is, the friend I was meeting was my family doctor in my old home town. The young Muslim man was a medical student, shadowing the doctor as part of his education. Truthfully, moments after meeting them, they had me laying on a gurney, where they proceeded to removed two moles from my back. One was uncommonly deep, requiring my doc to stab under it more than was typical. The men were laughing (as were we) over a joke the student had made.

Before you collective plan my demise for misleading you, there is a point. While I gave you the facts of the story, I did not tell you the truth. While the rich history of modernism in Christianity leaves us a great deal to be grateful for, its tendency to reduce the Gospel to the bare doctrines, dogmas and facts- through systematic theologies and however many spiritual laws- has often torn the soul from the incarnational message of hope. Can the Gospel be represented on the basis of “just the facts” and still be the Gospel? Or have we ended up with a misleading alternative that could lead to theological and political colonialism?

“Preach the Gospel at all times. When necessary, use words.”
(attributed to St. Francis of Assisi)

As our understanding of the Gospel- of Truth- expands to encompass the fullness of the message of Jesus, we will inevitably come to a demanding reality. The declaration of the Gospel, through the spoken and written word, only finds its authority to the degree that the Truth of the Gospel in embodied in the lives of the Church- not merely in the context of individual “righteousness” and morality, but in the transformational fullness of the Kingdom of God.

I went on to ask the students to consider the question: What is the Good News, the Gospel?  We explored just a few Scriptures, drawing from each how much bigger the Gospel is:

        -  Is. 61:1-3; Matt. 24:14; Matt. 26:10-13, Mark 8:34-38; Mark 16:15; Luke 4:17-21
        - Matt. 9:35; Matt. 28:18-20; Gal. 1:9, Gal. 2:14; Gal. 3:7-9; Eph. 6:19
        - Is. 40-9; Is. 52:7; Mark 1:1, Nah. 1:15; Mark 1:15; Luke 7:22

From there, we explored a few understandings of the story of God (drawing a great deal from Scot McKnight’s great books “Embracing Grace” & “The Blue Parakeet”).  Then setting up the context for the rest of the weeks teaching, I suggested a general understanding of the Gospel as follows:

“Gospel is the work of the Trinitarian God to reconcile human beings to union with God, to communion with others, to fullness with self, and to harmony with Creation, in the context of community for the glory of God and the good of all”

Posted by Jamie Arpin-Ricci at 15:23:34 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Monday, November 10, 2008

Community of the Mission (JDTS teaching) - Part 1

This past week I was teaching on our Justice Discipleship Training School (JDTS) about what it means to be genuinely communities of the mission.  While I can’t share in full detail everything that I taught on, a few people expressed interest in the highlights, so I’ll do my best to give you the general feel of things.  Much of the material can be found in various blog posts on over the past several years.  I will likely have to break this up into a number of posts, as it is too much for just the one.  Feel free to ask for more details if you need them.

The lecturer prior to me was Chad Chomlack from Banff.  During his (excellent) week, one of the things he had the students reflect on was people who they looked up to and/or aspired to be like and why.  While he went on to process the answers in very personal ways, it provided the perfect starting point for my week of teaching.  When I asked the students why they respected these people so much, without exception their answers were rooted in the lived out, incarnational, hands-on, “do something” life of their choices.  It was clear that all of us, while respecting and honouring knowledge and wisdom, were hungry for people who lived their convictions in very real ways.

The world is very much the same.  People everywhere are watching, waiting, searching for others who have embraced their convictions in tangible ways.  And, whether we like it or not, we (the Church) are also being watched and measured according to how our lives measure up to our espoused beliefs.  We reflected on this by watching the following short video montage of just a very few images of Jesus.  These images are some of the ways- good, bad and cheesy- that the world perceived Jesus.  Take some time to watch carefully, considering your feelings towards each image:

Whether it is fair or not, the world is going to form their image of Jesus in large part by how we represent Him in our lives- not as much by our theology, doctrines or propositional beliefs (though each are unquestionably important).  This is only natural because, not only were we created in the image of God, but as Christians are reborn & resurrected into Christ’s Body.  So when people look at us, especially collectively, they should be seeing Jesus.  To use the Lord’s name in vain, more than anything else, means to live lives that are unworthy of His name.

What do they see when they see you with your community of faith?  Can they see you?  What would you want them to see?

Posted by Jamie Arpin-Ricci at 23:29:00 | Permalink | Comments (7)