Resurrection of our Lord - Easter Day
Sixth Sunday of Easter
He is risen! Mission doesn't get more basic than this central fact. God's people are called to share this good news near and far and everywhere. He is risen indeed! During this most important season of the Church year, the lectionary texts for the Gospel come primarily from John. Breaking from the rest of the year, the history texts come from the Book of Acts. The author of John emphasizes that God's mission to God's creation is primarily an act of love. The Acts of the Apostles tell the story of the earliest mission of Jesus' followers as it unfolded. Let us enjoy these adventures in love and service as we contemplate the mystery of Jesus Resurrection. Indeed!
Gordon Brown, Associate Editor for the Easter Season. Gordon is a doctoral student and teaching assistant at Knox College, Toronto School of Theology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario. His research interests are mainly ecumenical missional ecclesiology, with additional work on literary/rhetorical readings of the Bible and faith and pop culture.
Resurrection Sunday
Acts 10:34-43
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
John 20:1-18
The Conversion of a Missionary - A Bible Study from Acts 10
For this MissionalPreacher reflection, I have chosen to focus on the entire chapter of Acts 10, and not just verses 34-43. The lectionary reading concerns Peter giving the first recorded preaching of the gospel to the Gentile world. In doing so, Peter declares that, following the death of Jesus, he is a witness to the resurrection of Jesus. He notes: "...God raised him from death three days later and caused him to appear, not to everyone, but only to the witnesses that God had already chosen, that is, to us who ate and drank with him after he rose from death"i (vs. 40-41). The stunning conclusion and paradigm shift for Jewish followers of Jesus in the story of Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10 is found is verses 34-35 when Peter confesses: "...I now realize that it is true that God treats everyone on the same basis. Those who fear him and do what is right are acceptable to him, no matter what race they belong to."
It may seem strange on Easter Sunday to focus on the story of Peter and Cornelius but, in many ways, this is also a story of resurrection which was made possible by the resurrected living Christ. Jesus was resurrected from death. Peter was resurrected from the deadly captivity of his worldview and its religious requirements. This in turn opened the door for Gentiles like Cornelius and his household to become followers of Jesus, without having to become culturally and religiously Jews.
Today Christianity has become the faith of over two billion people around the globe and approximately one third of the world's population identify themselves as Christians. There are more Christians on the planet today than at any previous period of human history. Christianity is spreading most quickly in the southern hemisphere of Africa, Latin America and in parts of Asia. At the same time the North and the West are becoming increasingly post-Christian.
How did this spread of Christianity around the globe happen? That's a complex and exciting story, but not one that can be told here. How did Christianity which began among Jews in a backwater of the Roman Empire become a universal religion? In some ways we could say that it all began with Peter and the early church. Peter was very reluctant to enter the world of evangelizing Gentiles. It took Peter 11 to 12 years and a weird supernatural vision to conclude that "God has shown me that I should not consider any person unholy or unclean." (Acts 10:28)
Those of us who are called to join in God's mission in the world often see ourselves carrying out the task of conversion. At different periods of mission history, we have used different language to describe this task. For example, William Carey published his famous "Inquiry" pamphlet in 1792, calling for the conversion of the heathen. This was a popular term for over 100 years. Today we are inclined to use the language of reaching Unreached People Groups or taking the gospel to Hidden Peoples. The term "heathen" is no longer politically correct or particularly useful. Despite the language we use, there is, nevertheless, the common understanding that missionaries are in the business of converting others. At the same time, we are always conscious that, in fact, it is the Holy Spirit who brings conviction and conversion and not the missionary.
I want to suggest that in order to be an effective missionary or a true cross-cultural witness, a missionary must undergo two conversions. The first conversion is obvious. We must be converted to Christ ourselves. He must become Lord over our whole life, not just parts of it. Only as His Spirit fills us will we be empowered to lead others to Christ the Savior. In other words, we need a spiritual conversion to combat our egocentrism. We are born egocentric, seeing ourselves as the center of the world, and unless we are cleansed of our egocentrism we will remain self-centered all our lives. Egocentric people come in small packages - all wrapped up in themselves. I say this is obvious. But even this first conversion may be considered an "optional extra" in some mission circles. I remember once a missionary candidate going to Taiwan with a major denominational mission to teach Buddhism in a Taiwanese University. I asked her why she had decided to go to Taiwan with this particular mission. She said they had a nice pension plan and lots of opportunities for travel and adventure and it seemed like a good deal. She said she loved my anthropological teaching focusing on cross-cultural issues, but she also wondered why I talked about Jesus so much in my presentations.
The second conversion for missionaries is less obvious. This is a conversion to cross-cultural understanding and awareness. In a similar way that we are egocentric, we are also ethnocentric. We believe our way of knowing, perceiving and living is better than that of other cultures. Further, we use that as the standard by which we judge and evaluate all others. Ethnocentrism is sin writ large, and every society suffers from it. Indeed, some suffer more than others. Those who come from very homogeneous societies where there is little cultural variation in tend to be more ethnocentric than those from multicultural or multiethnic societies. When missionaries experience this second conversion they begin to see the difference between the gospel and culture. They distinguish following Jesus from simply adopting the cultural patterns and lifestyle of the missionary. If they are Americans, this will mean they no longer confuse the Reign of God with the American Dream.
Unfortunately, there are thousands of missionaries all over the world from many cultures who have not understood the importance of this second conversion. For example, you may have Southern Baptist missionaries from Alabama living in Hong Kong and trying to make Chinese converts into southern Americans - complete with a taste for sweet tea. Or similarly you have Korean missionaries in Thailand, urging the Thais to become Christian in the Korean way without even realizing what they are doing. So, we need this second conversion to counter our ethnocentrism.
The importance of a cross-cultural conversion for missionaries is not a new insight from cultural anthropology. Rather it is a principle clearly laid out in Scripture. We see it very clearly in the Apostle Peter's interaction with the Gentile Cornelius in Acts 10. Peter had to experience what I am calling a "cross-cultural conversion" before he was ready and able to lead Cornelius into a conversion to Christ. The structure and narrative of Acts 10 outlines Peter's cultural conversion, aided by the Holy Spirit and a miraculous vision.
Mission Connections for our Context
Unfortunately, we have had to keep relearning this principle at every era of the church's history. We fall back into our ethnocentrism and confuse our spiritual conversion of following Jesus with cultural conversion to our lifestyle, our values, our worldview, our language and our denominational requirements and theological doctrines. However, the lessons of Acts 10 are clear. We must be prepared to undergo a cross-cultural conversion along with our conversion to Christ if we are going to become effective missionaries or effective cross-cultural witnesses. Like Peter, we missionaries need two conversions, to remind us that: "In Christ there is no East or West, in Him no North or South."
The biblical understanding that God has no favorites is especially relevant today where in our own country we are deeply divided on so many issues. Ethnocentrism is rearing its ugly head and ethnic discrimination is on the rise. People on both sides of the political divide are becoming more entrenched with their views and visions of what our society should be. Civil discourse within and outside the church has waned and too often been replaced with sloganeering and name-calling. On this Easter Day of the Celebration of the cosmic paradigm shift from death to life, let us recall a parallel shift for the church. A shift from exclusive to inclusive. A shift from a select few Jews to the entire Gentile world, thus enabling the church to become a strong, viable missionary movement.
Biographical Summary
Darrell Whiteman, a missiological anthropologist, has served as a missionary in Melanesia, professor of cultural anthropology and editor of the journal Missiology.
Second Sunday of Easter
April 8, 2018
Acts 4:32-35
Psalm 133
1 John 1:1-2:1
John 20:19-31
Introduction
In addition to the Sunday of the Resurrection, Easter is a fifty-day season leading up to Pentecost. Incarnation, Atonement, Resurrection, Ascension - these events in God's intervention in Christ Jesus are interdependent. For instance, the cosmic significance of the cross depends on the fact that it was the incarnation of God who there absorbed the world's anguish and sin. In signifying God's victory over the power of sin and death, Easter represented the culmination of God's mission in Jesus and galvanized the Galilean prophet's following into the global movement we know today. Eastertide is thus inherently missional in its historical import - and the scriptures of especially the early Sundays in the season are rich in missional inspiration.
Exegetical Missional Insights
Acts 4:32-35 - The Jerusalem Community's Communal Lifestyle
The energy at the heart of this short passage is provided by Jesus' resurrection: "With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus." (4:33) The testimony is marturia, from which we have the word martyr. Marturia is not necessarily dying for the faith - but rather about the one who gives witness or testimony to the faith in whatever way. Just as the Jerusalem community's leaders did. Those leaders are here termed "the apostles," the inherently missional term Luke introduces at the naming of the twelve at Luke 6:13. This signals that, among the many people learning from Jesus, some were now sent to represent him and replicate his mission. Here the missional testimony of the apostles is said to be made with "great power" (dunamei megale). The intrinsic dynamism of Jesus' resurrection is now replicated in the witness that those who are sent now make.
The community life of the Jerusalem community convened by Jesus' resurrection was characterized by exceptional unity, for "they were of one heart and soul." (4:32) Disunity arose soon enough - grumbling about food distribution, disagreement about Paul's Gentile mission - as it has throughout Christian history. But this early unity is highlighted as a perennial call and aspiration. Unity is also the hallmark of Psalm 133, the psalm for the day. More remarkable was the Jerusalem group's communalism concerning money and property. The citation at hand is brief, but it introduces not only the generosity of Paul's future mission colleague Barnabas (4:36-37), but the ominous and detailed story of Ananias and Sapphira (5:1-11). There is no further reference to a communal lifestyle in Acts or in Paul's letters, nor is it implied anywhere that the conventional economic relations of other early Christian communities were a regression from this early example. Rather, the initial communalism is highlighted as simply a sign of the transformative power that Jesus' resurrection - and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost - worked in the earliest Jerusalem community.
1 John 1:1-2:2 - Christian Lifestyle: Incarnate, Forgiven, Light-filled
The First Letter of John majors in primal categories such as light and darkness, love and hate, truth and falsehood. Using these, it seeks to discern and explicate the nature of Christian identity and community life amid these alternatives. In fact, the issues are sharpened by the controversies in the Johannine community. The early insistence at 1:1-2, that the word of life could be seen and touched, emphasizes the full humanity of God's incarnation in Jesus. This probably stands in contrast against those who taught a docetic and dualistic view of Jesus that maximized His divinity but minimized His humanity.
This emphasis on incarnation applies to the life of the Christian as well. And it applies because, even as the Christian can claim the light of God in whom there is no darkness, no Christian can claim to be sinless - as perhaps some in the Johannine community did. Rather, the atoning sacrifice of Jesus enables the Christian to confess sin and be forgiven through Jesus - the "advocate with the Father." (2:1) Christ's atoning sacrifice is both the narrative pivot of God's mission and the catalyst for God's cosmic mission of revealing and shedding God's light. While gospel proclamation may be implicit in the missional activity that brought the Johannine community into being, the missional emphasis in 1 John is on the quality of community life shown forth to the world - loving, forgiven, light-filled.
John 20:19-31 - Mission and Incarnation in the Risen Jesus
John's gospel is the most mystical of the four gospels and the one that emphasizes the pre-existence of the Christ incarnate in Jesus. It is in order to guard this cosmic mysticism from misinterpretation that John emphasizes the physical humanity of Jesus in especially striking ways. This is probably to counter the docetic interpretations of the incarnation that were common at the time - and that continue to this day. Thus, while John says that Jesus appeared to the disciples through locked doors on the evening of the day of resurrection, he notes that Jesus immediately showed them his wounded hands and side (20:19-20). Of the mystery of the resurrected body, we can say that while it may have more dimensions than three (a possibility physics may help us with), it also has no fewer dimensions than three.
"As the Father has sent me, so I send you." This statement at 20:21 (which, as elsewhere, uses apostello and pempo interchangeably) is the missional heart of this lection, but it is also the pithiest statement of Christians' missional calling in the Gospel of John and, indeed, the New Testament. As such, it deserves prominence alongside the Great Commission in Matthew 28. Throughout John's gospel Jesus emphasizes that he has been sent by the Father - for instance at 3:17; 5:37; 6:57; 7:14; 8:16; 8:42; 12:49, and 17:3, 8, 23 - and that his sent-ness signifies both a unique relationship with the Father and a unique role in the world for revealing God's presence and nature. The commission at 20:21 is a direct-address version to the disciples of Jesus' statement in his High Priestly Prayer at 17:18: "As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world."
Jesus characterizes his own sent-ness by the Father as signifying intimate relationship, unity of will and full authorization. In sending the disciples on the model of his own being sent, Jesus therefore confers intimate relationship, unity of will and full authorization on them as well. Further, as He anticipates His return to the Father, He gives over and delegates His mission to them, confident that they will replicate His mission in the world. In John's version of Pentecost, Jesus then breathes on them, recapitulating God breathing life into the earth creature at Genesis 2:7. Jesus says, "Receive the Holy Spirit" - thereby empowering them for the mission he has conferred on them (20:22). It is striking that Jesus sums up that mission as one of forgiving and retaining sins, a function often seen as reserved to God alone.
The encounter with Thomas and his doubt (20:24-29) emphasizes again and more elaborately that the physical reality of the incarnate Jesus persisted in the resurrected Christ. Unlike the emphasis on post-resurrection eating at Luke 24:30 and 42-43 and at John 21:12-13, here the persistence of Jesus' bodily woundedness highlights the continuity between the crucified body and the risen body. Jesus' closing words - "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe" (20:29) - commends implicitly those in the Johannine community who have come to faith in Christ through missional proclamation. This is then declared to be the purpose of John's writing (20:31).
Missional Connections for Our Context
For Christians who see their faith principally as drawing them into regular worship in community, Jesus' commission - "As the Father has sent me, so I send you," - can be highlighted as a starkly direct call to mission. This is a statement that all Christians are called equally to participate in and carry out God's mission in the world. Faithful worship is intended to bear fruit in mission, and some congregations emphasize this by posting on the inside of their doors this sign for those exiting out onto the street: "You are now entering your mission field."
But to do what? Here is where the mystical element of John's perspective can be especially helpful, even for seasoned mission activists. For the call is both to be and to do, with the doing arising out of the being. On the basis of his own intimate relationship and unity of will with God, Jesus calls us to a similarly mystical union with God in attentive prayer. It is only out of such union that others will sense the presence of God and be drawn to it. Only out of such union can Christ's authority be clearly perceived.
The specific content of our missional work will arise out of mystical union with Christ. But overall for the continuing Jesus movement, we are to replicate Jesus' own mission: proclamation, healing, justice, reconciliation. As with the disciples, Jesus is ready to confer on us the Holy Spirit to empower us for mission. The remarkable unity and communalism of the earliest Jesus movement testify to how powerfully resurrection joy and the Holy Spirit can transform a community.
The physicality of Jesus' incarnation and resurrection - as emphasized in both the epistle and the gospel - is important to stress in contrast to the docetic views of Jesus that persist in many church pews. If God incarnate in the flesh was truly human, it means that God took a great risk in the incarnation, the risk that the entire venture could fail through sin and thereby compromise the nature of God and the metaphysical stability of the cosmos. The mission of reconciling the cosmos was just that important to God. The physicality of the resurrection also emphasizes that in mission God continues to be committed to the material as well as to the spiritual.
Finally, the wounds persist. The risen Jesus is not a fully healed Jesus, for He continues to bear the marks of crucifixion. All of us have been wounded in one way or another. All of us are in some way crippled. We are nevertheless called to participate in God's mission. As we do so, we live out community with the risen yet wounded Jesus. Equally, we must beware lest we go out in mission pretending to be whole, pretending to be omni-competent, pretending to have the answers. Instead, we offer ourselves in vulnerability and woundedness, standing in solidarity with the world's woundedness, yet in the power of Christ's resurrection.
Biographical Summary
Titus Presler, Th.D., D.D., is an Episcopal missiologist with experience in India and Zimbabwe and, most recently, as principal of Edwardes College in Peshawar, Pakistan. Educated at Harvard, General Seminary and Boston University, he is former president of the Seminary of the Southwest and academic dean of General Seminary and also taught at Episcopal Divinity School, Harvard Divinity School, and Pittsburgh Seminary. He specializes in mission theology and gospel-culture interactions. Former rector of St. Peter's Church in Cambridge, Mass., he was a researcher for the Global Anglicanism Project and a consultant for the Anglican Indaba Project. Currently he is vice president of the Global Episcopal Mission Network and a visiting researcher at Boston University School of Theology. In addition to numerous articles and book chapters, he is author of Transfigured Night: Mission and Culture in Zimbabwe's Vigil Movement, Horizons of Mission and Going Global with God: Reconciling Mission in a World of Difference. He blogs at TitusOnMission.wordpress.com. [email protected].
Third Sunday of Easter
April 15, 2018
Acts 3:12-19
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48
The Universal Saviour
Exegetical Missional Insights
Acts 3:12-19
The opening verses of Acts 3 give the first of many accounts of post-Pentecost healings. Peter and John encounter a lame beggar who receives miraculous healing, which the disciples credit entirely to the name of Jesus and the faith that comes through him (v. 16b). The Missio Dei, God's desire for renewal, continues on through the miracles of Jesus and now through his disciples. This is especially important for the Israelites as Peter and John point out the nation's rejection of Jesus (vv. 13-15), who was the fulfilment of God's prophecies (v. 18) and promises to his people. Forgiveness is available for those who repent and turn to the Lord resulting in times of refreshing and renewal (v. 19), which is the heart of the Missio Dei.
1 John 3:1-7 begins with an all-inclusive statement. All who have repented from sin and believed in the resurrected Christ for salvation are indeed children of God (v. 1). There are no exclusions here. Yet the importance of faith in Christ and taking on his likeness and purity is shown clearly in the next verses (vv. 2-3). God's heart for the restoration and relationship with his children shows through Christ to us via the Holy Spirit. He knows the temptations that hamper us in following the example of Christ and developing as His disciples. As children of God we are able to stand on the truth of God's word, through the sinless example of Christ (v. 5). This is true even in the midst of the temptations of modern day idols. The righteousness of Christ is at the center of God's mission for his children.
Luke 24:36b-48
Jesus completed his earthly mission and claimed victory over the grave. Peace had been made between God and humankind (v. 36b). He made it very clear to the disciples that it was He in His resurrected form who stood with them (vv. 37-43). This Jesus was real! As he had done for the past three years, he again prepared them for the continuation of God's mission. Once again, he explained his mission for the fulfillment of the Law and the prophets and opened the minds of the disciples for a new and deeper understanding of the Kingdom of God (vv. 44-47). The purpose was so that people from all nations would hear of God's love and restoration through Christ. The disciples were witnesses to it all (v. 48) and about to be commissioned into service! (v. 49)
God's Mission in the Text
In each of these texts we see definite connections to the Easter story and the coming commission to go into the entire world and make disciples in the name of Christ. Understanding Missio Dei, the mission of God, reminds us that God is a God-for-people, who desires nothing more than to be in relationship with his children. It is only through the resurrected Christ that we can stand before a holy and righteous God and be declared pure and blameless. The passage from Acts 3 reminds us of the importance of repentance and forgiveness that is available in Jesus all and that has been confirmed in the Law and the prophetic words in the Old Testament. He is the fulfillment of God's love for and restoration of the relationship between the created and the Creator.
Human beings are moved from God's creation to become His children through faith in the work that Christ did on the cross and through His resurrection. The extension of grace found at Easter is to all people, no longer bound by a specific nation and their religion. The Missio Dei is all-inclusive. Not only are all people and nations included, but the holistic understanding of restoration is present as well. Health and well being are reinstated, as in the story about Peter and John told in Acts 3. The power of the resurrection continues through the presence of the Holy Spirit in Jesus' disciples. The post resurrection visits recorded by Luke are evidence of the lengths a loving God will go to in the pursuit of relationship with his creation. Not only was sin dealt with through Jesus' sacrificial death, but the power of the resurrection is now shown in physical reality to the disciples. This includes the promise of the same for all those who place their faith in Him. The Reign of God is a present reality as well as a promise for the future of Christ's return.
Mission Connections for Our Context
The celebration of Eastertide reminds us how much we have been given in the resurrection, none of which was by our own merit. We now have an intercessor that has taken on our sin so that we might be pure and blameless before a righteous and holy God. Our debt has been paid! This alone should give us a sense of joy and purpose as we face our everyday lives and the challenges they bring. The transformation that takes place when we become children of a loving God both encourages and empowers us to continue the mission of sharing the good news of the Gospel message. We are given both power over sin and God's heart for a fallen and hurting world around us. The Missio Dei is indwelling because of the Holy Spirit, allowing us to remind others that God is loving and all-inclusive. Our mission is to share the promise of restoration now and the reality of the coming resurrection. The Reign of God is found both in the now and the not yet. Jesus is the universal resurrected saviour for mind body and spirit and for all people for all time!
Hail, thou once despised Jesus! Hail thou Galilean King!
Thou didst suffer to release us; Thou didst free salvation bring
Hail, thou universal Saviour, Who has borne our sin and shame!
By thy merits we find favour; Life is given through thy name.
~John Bakewell
Biographical Summary
Rev. Dr. Jody Fleming is Lecturer in Practical Theology and Director of Mentored Ministry/Field Education at Evangelical Seminary, Myerstown, PA, where she also earned her M.Div. degree. Her Ph.D. research at Regent University was conducted on pneumatology and renewal in mission theory based on fieldwork conducted in Venezuela. She is an ordained Elder in the Church of the Nazarene, having spent the bulk of her ministry in the local mission field of corporate, hospital and hospice chaplaincy. She also serves as an Associate Editor for Missional Preacher.
Fourth Sunday of Easter
April 22, 2018
Acts 4:5-12
1 John 3:16-24
John 10:11-15
Acts 4
In the fourth chapter of Acts the healing of the lame man resulted in an opportunity for Peter to introduce Jesus to a large crowd. This has now led to a confrontation with authority figures. In this the fourth week of Easter, the death and resurrection of Jesus should be fresh in our thoughts, just as it was to Peter's. We therefore are alerted to see a parallel between the resurrection of Jesus and the raising up from the dust of the man lame from birth.
God's Mission in the Text
This scripture tells us that there is "no other name ... by which we must be saved" than Jesus (v. 12). Jesus was crucified and raised from the dead by God, and that for a purpose. This purpose was to give us resurrection life. We, the church, are the tools by which that purpose is advanced.
Missional Connections for our Context
A challenge is extended here for us to follow Peter's example - to extend our hands in Jesus' name in order to empower our brothers and sisters to experience a resurrected life. This is never something done in our own power, but only by the name of Jesus and by the power of His Holy Spirit.
This may not make us popular. Indeed, there may be severe sanctions from authority figures when we reach out to the oppressed and down-trodden. Sanctions may also be from when we willingly lay down our lives to offer resurrection life to those in our world who are racially, ethnically and economically less powerful.
1 John 3:16-24
John, who writes so much about love, reminds us about Jesus' definition of love, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life." (John 15:13)
God's Mission in the Text
There is a contrast between the prior passage in Acts with Peter's condemnation of Annas and his family as those who crucified and rejected Jesus, and John's words of comfort for those who condemn themselves. God does not condemn those who believe. In fact, God provides a way to prove to ourselves that we are saved believers. We do this through the Holy Spirit's work in us, which is evidenced by the love we actively show love to one another.
Missional Connections for our Context
We all have doubts about our own faith and salvation at some juncture, about whether we truly believe in Jesus. Here we are told how to dispel those doubts. Do we truly love one another? Do we lay down our lives for others - and not simply with empty words. When we look outside ourselves, do our hearts swell with compassion for others? Do we act on that compassion? We are not asked to give what we do not have. We are asked to use what God has given us to help our brothers and sisters.
John 10:11-18
The Psalm for this week's lectionary is Psalm 23, with all its wondrous sheep and Shepherd imagery. Jesus intentionally builds on this familiar metaphor by contrasting the hired hand with the owner-shepherd who will (and He says it twice) lay down his life for what is his. Thus, in this season of Easter, again we see not only the death but also the resurrection of Jesus, who lays down life "in order to take it up again." (v.17)
God's Mission in the Text
This can be difficult, to think of dying for another's wellbeing. But I submit that it is even more difficult to live for another's wellbeing. Yet this is what God calls us to do. We die with Christ in baptism. But are we willing to follow Him into resurrection by taking up our life again and serving others?
Missional Connections for our Context
Each of these texts speaks to the crucifixion of Jesus, to His willingness to lay down his life for us. But this season of Easter is about more than His death. It is about Jesus' resurrection, His willingness to take His life up again for us. Now we are charged to follow him in living for others.
Jesus is the real thing. Are we? Are we ready to lay down our lives to tend to the needs of and protect the "others?" And not just neighbors, but "others!" The missional call here is profound, to follow our Shepherd and be prepared to be assimilated into a single flock, a single Church. Who are the ‘others' that you are being called to embrace in this manner? Muslims? Refugees? Undocumented immigrants? Or, maybe, it's just the denomination in the church across the street?
Biographical Summary
Linda Lee Smith Barkman is a PhD candidate in the School of Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, specializing in Intercultural Communication. Referring to herself as a "Pentecostal Lutheran married to a Mennonite," her heart ministry is providing voice to women in difficult circumstances, but especially to incarcerated women.
Fifth Sunday of Easter
April 29, 2018
Acts 8:26-40
1 John 4:7-21
John 15:1-8
Exegetical Missional Insights
The Book of Acts documents an invasion - God as Holy Spirit is on the loose in the world, invading our every day and our every moment. There is no holding God back - God moves, and we respond. God's actions are decisive - there is no going back to the way things were. We are living in a new reality - a reality that finds its ground and genesis in the resurrection.
We meet the Apostle Philip in Acts 8:26-40, after he had just spent time preaching in Samaria and following the cartographic foundation Luke sets out for the expansion of the Gospel (Luke 24:47, Acts 1:8). He is then sent out to a wilderness road, an in-between place that serves only as the territory connecting one place to the next. There he meets a eunuch from Ethiopia.
The eunuch is an important court official of the queen of the Ethiopians. He is presumably a Jew, as he just spent time worshipping in Jerusalem and is reading Hebrew scripture. The eunuch is different from Philip on account of his dark skin color, his origin in Ethiopia and his sexuality.
This unlikely meeting - on a wilderness road between two very different men - is imperative. The Holy Spirit implores Philip to meet the eunuch and pushes him to literally chase after the eunuchs' chariot. As Philip runs alongside the chariot, he overhears the eunuch reading and asks an invitational question which opens up the encounter: "Do you understand what you are reading?" The eunuch's response results in a joining of stories and a connection of need with skill. The eunuch needs help interpreting the text and Philip can assist him with that task. Reading and interpreting holy word is communal - God does not want the eunuch to be left alone with the text.ii
The joining between Philip and the eunuch draws out the latter's openness and desire to be united with the body of Christ in the waters of Holy Baptism. The eunuch wants God and God has been waiting for the eunuch all along. After the eunuch's baptism, Philip is whisked away, leaving the eunuch to move forward with joy into a new future with Christ.
Connections with notes from other texts for Liturgical Day
The allegory of the vine and branches in John 15:1-8 comes in the middle of Jesus' farewell discourse. The passage is preceded by Jesus' promise to send an advocate, the Holy Spirit. This event is then followed by a fuller description of the challenges of being a disciple. The elements of the allegory are clearly identified. Jesus is the vine. God is the vine grower. The disciples are the branches. Jesus and the disciples are different and yet share a bond and the same life that is cultivated by God's love. As any good gardener knows, pruning is necessary for an increased yield. Thus, the vine should be pruned to yield greater love. The community of the vine and branches is structured by mutual love and a shared identity among friends. Living into, or "abiding in" this mutual love bears fruit that witnesses to the glory of God.
The Epistle reading, 1 John 4:7-21, further illustrates the community of mutual love that is established in John 15. God is the source and definition of love. This love is most acutely expressed by God's redemptive action in the world through Jesus Christ the Son, who was sent by God. God also sends the Spirit so that the community may know and abide in God's love. As recipients of God's love, the community has no choice but to put God's love into action by loving others without fear. This love in action - God's love incarnated in us - is participation in God's great love for the entire world. The community for whom the letter was written was in conflict over boundaries of the community, theology, and false teaching. This explanation of God's boundary-crossing love thereby serves as a model for how they are supposed to love others both inside and outside of their community.
God's Mission in the Text
God is love and God's love knows no boundaries. God is on a mission to share this overflowing, boundary-crossing love with the world through the reflective love of those who abide with the Son.
The Johannine texts give us several insights into the missional nature of this love. First, God's love leads God to send the Son into the world in order to repair the broken relationship between God and the world. Second, God sends the Spirit so that we may fully dwell in this love, and so the love can become incarnate in us. God lives in us and we embody God's love in the world. Third, we are so full of this love that we are compelled to boldly - fearlessly! - share this love with the entire world, overcoming boundaries and breaking down barriers as we partner with God to put God's love into action in the world. We are sent.
The Acts text illustrates the missional nature of God's love. Philip is an agent rather than the author of the drama of this text. He is sent by the Holy Spirit - by God -- to an in-between place that he wouldn't have gone to on his own. It's God's mission and he has a purpose to play in it. He encounters the Ethiopian eunuch and, again, is pushed by the Holy Spirit to run after him. God desires a relationship with the eunuch so much that God is literally chasing after him. Philip embodies God's love as he shares the story of God's great love for the world with the eunuch. The boundaries between what is known and what is unknown are crossed as two very different people are brought together by God to create something new; namely, the eunuch's new life in Jesus Christ.
Missional Connection to Our Context
We live in a divisive time. Our public narrative includes overt encouragement of forces that seek to build walls between people based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, educational status or news media preference. The kind of all-encompassing, boundary-crossing love that God offers is desperately needed to mend the brokenness of our relationships with one another and with God. This is work that communities of faith are called to participate in with the support and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Where are places you see the Holy Spirit at work in your community as the Spirit crosses boundaries to bring together seemingly different groups of people? What walls are being pulled down by people filled with the Holy Spirit? What are stories of when the Holy Spirit has moved your congregation to overcome fear or difference and encounter God's love?
We also live in an in-between time. Many of the institutions and systems that used to hold places of power, influence and trust no longer occupy those positions. Changing demographics, shifting population centers and conflicting cultural values lead to resistance from some and enthusiastic support from others. An old way of doing things is passing into a new way. As with all times of change and transition, members of your congregation and community may feel sadness for what is being lost and anxiety for what the future may bring. Others may feel joyful anticipation. Regardless of the feelings, it's important to remember that God is in those in-between places, as disorienting or undesirable as they may be. To what in-between spaces is the Holy Spirit pushing your congregation? It could be a neighborhood that members drive through to get to the church building; a community of undocumented immigrants caught in a liminal space as lawmakers decide their fate, or a group of de-churched young adults who are wrestling with expressions of identity and spirituality. Keeping the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in mind, a related question to ask your congregation might be: "Who are the people nearest to us that God is pushing us to get to know, come to appreciate and ultimately join - even and especially if we don't want to?" Hold front and center the initiative of the Holy Spirit as it illustrates God's love at work in the world and compels us to join God in the joyful work of sharing that love.
Biographical Summary
Katherine Chatelaine-Samsen is currently serving as the Coordinator and Developer of Young Adult Ministries with First Trinity and St. Matthew's Lutheran Churches in Washington, D.C. She has a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary and is an approved candidate for ordained ministry in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Seventh Sunday of Easter
May 13, 2018
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
1 John 5:9-13
John 17:6-19
Exegetical Missional Insights
God made us as individuals and knows us each by name, with all our differences. This commentary will focus on the passages from 1 John and John. Although God's love is universal, the ways in which God reveals that love is as varied as is the human condition. If you want to reach out missionally to a wide variety of people, it will be helpful to pay attention to the differences which we call "personality," and to notice the ways that God's message addresses the strengths and needs of those differences.
Part of proclaiming the Gospel in light of personality is the awareness that most of personality comes in contrasting pairs Consider, for example, practicality versus imagination. So, anything one says must not deny the validity of the opposite trait - even as one focuses on the other. Sometimes the need of one is the strength of the other. Sometimes they are simply different. In the passages for this week, the contrast of personalities is used between style and content to strengthen the presentation of the one truth of God.
We expect that the important thing in a Bible passage is the content. But in these passages in John and 1 John the style is also important. By bringing attention to the literary style, we have an opportunity to reach out to people who may typically be uninterested in the Bible message. We can point out the ways the writers of these passages use a style which is comfortable to those who prefer hard-nosed logic in order to declare the great salvation which the tender love of God makes available to us through faith. The content of the Gospel is challenging enough. We can at least strive to present it in a way which does not add to the obstacles.
These texts have many direct logical steps and connections. There are statements which have structures like the following:
There are no long leaps of imagination to make connections, nor are there appeals to emotion. Yet the content of these direct, logical presentations is a deep matter of tender-hearted emotion and relates to the long reaches of faith.
It is not uncommon for the Church to tend toward the tender-hearted, because God's love and salvation are so great. It is easy to preach on the imaginative leaps of faith away from in-your-face everyday reality. There is value, therefore, in noticing tough-minded logic and direct, immediate connections - especially when that is the flavor of the text.
So, to whom does a direct, logical style of text speak? Most likely, it speaks more to the mechanic, the engineer or the physics professor than to the artist, the therapist or the day care worker. Our culture has, for the last century or so, been enamored with an image of a precise, scientific world. A world that has no need for faith or for God. Such a worldview can caricature religion as emotional and imprecise. Yet here are texts which give precise, logical statements of Christian faith.
1 John 5:9-13
This passage contains a very precise, step-by-step case for a very wild claim, that belief in the Son of God yields eternal life. It may be worth stepping through the verses, calling out each point in John's presentation. (There is a side comment about not believing. Note that John does not take the ramifications of unbelief farther than pointing out the immediate logical implication of unbelief-it means calling God a liar. This is not a passage about judgement.)
As with any logical argument, if one wishes, one can contest each point. Don't worry about that. It does not negate the fact that John gives a step-by-step, logical presentation. This can be accepted as a way to understand a life-changing mystery, especially for those who value such a direct description.
Also, do not downplay the nature of either the style or the content. Each is particularly comfortable to a particular kind of person. The combination helps declare the greatness of God. A presentation that is a clear, logical, step-by-step argument describes the high mystery of God's love in Christ. This love only becomes active through the belief, which John describes in point-by-point detail.
John 17:6-19
If 1 John 5 was direct statements of life changing realities, this passage is this even more so. The statements are short and direct, making clear connections and parallels. And those statements are world altering! Here the truths are not ornamented in the artistic, imaginative images of the parables. They are stated with shocking directness. What is said is so profound that it is easy to overlook the style with which it is said. The statements are short, clear and direct. Pick a few of them, and step through them. "All mine are yours, and yours are mine." (v. 10) This is simple, clear... and an amazing statement about the relationship to God of those who belong to Jesus. There are great mysteries of the faith in this chapter. But they are mysteries because the meanings are so profound, not because they are hard to state. Let the artist and poets revel in the mysteries, while the practical and hard-nosed take a firm grasp on the solid statements.
An important part of preaching the mission of God is to grapple with the fact that the one mission of God comes to all the variety of the human condition. By speaking in truth to all of that diversity, the preacher is able to call all to one unity in Christ Jesus.
Biographical Summary
John Barkman, with a PhD from Fuller Theological Seminary, integrates a background in the 16 Personality Factor tradition of psychology with his practical theology. He does these things while also working as an academic institutional researcher. His current projects include compiling a personality-based commentary for the entire lectionary cycle.
i Scripture text for Resurrection Sunday from Good News Translation.
ii Willie James Jennings. Acts, Belief (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017) 82-84
