May We Be Like Jesus
Issue 031
SEPTEMBER 12, 2018
WRITTEN BY JEREMY PENN
“After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.”
|| Luke 10:1-3
Sometimes it feels like I have two daughters. My daughter Riley is often brave and adventurous. Nothing will stop her from doing whatever she wants however she wants. Other times, she is scared, anxious, and tentative. How can the same child live and act so differently for no apparent reason?
This morning as I browsed through Facebook memories, I witnessed both sides of Riley. One set of pictures were from a year ago during Hurricane Irma. It was Riley’s first real hurricane.
There she was cradled in layers of blankets and pillows, wide eyed and afraid, trying to find rest on my closet floor. The sound of the wind terrified her as she cowered under the cover of my wife’s clothes and the pile of blankets. The fear of the unknown paralyzed her.
And then I came across a second set of pictures. In these, Riley, the competitive rock climber, was seen flying through the air as she lept from one rock wall to another. She was climbing higher than I felt comfortable, taking risks, plummeting to the ground, only to get up and try once more. She was brave, took risks, and in the face of failure she was motivated to climb again. The rush of the unknown brought her freedom.
THE CHURCH AS FAMILY ON MISSION
My daughter’s personality extremes reminds me of the church. The church often operates out of fear of the unknown. We hunker down in a safe location, cover ourselves with safe programs and practices, and hope to survive the storm that is blowing outside. The church family exists to protect one another from evil and danger. While strangers are welcome to enter, the world remains untouched by any real presence of the people of God.
Existing as a close community living out kingdom principles in a safe Christian environment with little interaction with the world can be attractive. It is safe and carries little risk. We can gather around with people who think and act like us. We can expel those who shake things up or harm the image we have worked hard to craft and maintain. This is safe and comfortable, but it is also paralyzing
“May we, like Jesus, be a present and redemptive light in the dark corners of the world.
”
This hunker down approach is not the way of Jesus nor his plan for the church, and actually works against the very nature of the triune God who has established the church to be light in the darkness. The church is to be more like the other Riley - the one who takes risks, fails, brushes off the dirt, and climbs again. The church is to be out in the world, revealing what God is doing, partnering with God’s activity, and risking it all as a tangible expression of the Kingdom of God. The witness of the church family requires the church to be on mission because God is a missionary God. He is I Am = Us, for Them THERE.
German theologian Jurgen Moltmann asserts that since “Christ is the ‘subject’ of the church... christology will become dominant theme of ecclesiology.”[1] This means that whatever is said of Christ implies something about the church.[2] The christological foundation of the church leaves us with the reality that the church family is to be a witness on mission.
The opening chapter of John’s gospel reveals to us that God the Son was sent on mission to the world for the redemption of the world. The eternal word became flesh and dwelt among humankind. The incarnate word was light to all and came to draw people by grace out of darkness. The Father sent the Son as a missionary agent and the ever present Holy Spirit now enables the church to join the mission of God.
The missionary character of God and his invitation to his family to join his mission is observed in the tenth chapter of Luke. Jesus invites his followers to join him on his mission as he sends out seventy-two of his brothers and sisters to preach the kingdom, call people to repentance, and heal the sick. The Father sent the Son and now the Son sends his followers. At Jesus’ ascension he again invites his disciples to continue to be his witnesses on mission to the ends of the earth empowered and filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4-8).
The family of believers is to be a church that is engaged in the world. Jesus sending of the seventy-two shows that God’s family is strengthened and the community grows deeper when it is actively pursuing a mission that transcends the individual and the community.[3] Therefore, the church as a family that lives as a witness to God’s Kingdom is anything but static. The church is a dynamic and missional family that witnesses to the alternative Kingdom of God while living as foreigners in the kingdoms of this world (1 Peter 2:9-12).
May we become a church family that isn’t afraid of the dangers in the world. May we enter into the spaces of our cities knowing that God is already there. May we take risks as a church family with the confidence that the Spirit is with us. And may we, like Jesus, be a present and redemptive light in the dark corners of the world.