For me recently, the place of significant learning has been last few verses of Luke 4. Before I went to Africa, I tended to skip over vv22-28. So impressed was I by Jesus’ declaration in the Synagogue that I hardly noticed the rage invoked by his teaching in the Synagogue or the murderous intent of the crowd trying to throw him off a cliff. What I failed to appreciate was that when Jesus went back to Nazareth and spoke the truth in the Synagogue, he not only impressed but profoundly offended his listeners. In the desert he had encountered holy otherness & become an outsider in the process.
Jesus speaks truly when he says, “…I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown”. Why ? Because a true prophet is always an outsider. A true Kingdom vision expressed and acted upon is one of reversals. It is a vision of the world where the poor are empowered, where the captives are released, where the blind are given vision and the oppressed go free.
I’ve got to tell you, this is a powerful & threatening alternative for many people in the centre whose interests are best served by maintaining the status quo. Indeed whenever Jesus encounters people in the gospels whose interests are best served by domesticating & watering down the Gospel - offence quickly turns to rage, then to hatred & murderous intent that finally ends in a painful death on the Cross.
Walter Bruggemann says, “the task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish and evoke a perception & conscious alternative to the consciousness & perception of the dominant culture around us.”
That is the way of the discipleship & it is certainly the way of mission !
Outwards & downwards...
Thursday, September 22, 2005
The Prayer of Place...
God maybe all around us but I have a question… are there places in the world where God is more active and present than others ? If so, where are those places ? Have you ever wondered why we don’t seem to see miracles very often ? I tell you its because we aren’t in the places where God is doing them !
What I love about stories is that can take you to a place and make things very clear.
In Matthew 25 we are given an image of Jesus as the great Son of Man sitting in judgement over all people – like a sorting out a mixture of sheep and goats. The criteria he uses for allowing people to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven is what they have done for others – particularly the poor, the weak, the outsiders and the disempowered. Jesus pronounces, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it the least of these who are members of my family you did it to me…” For me the message is clear - God’s holy habitation – the place where his awesome and terrible presence dwells is among ordinary people. The good news is that God is most present among the most needy people among us & beyond.
The discipline of developing awareness and of increasing sensitivity to the places God is most present, I call the prayer of place. Choosing to go & dwell & immerse yourself in those places is mission. The prayer of place is about discernment, it is about choice & it is most certainly about location. I believe the prayer of place is also a communal prayer – something we sense most effectively together. Participating together in places where God is most present, binds us strongly in genuine community. Yet another quality of the prayer of place is that it challenges different groups and individuals to go & dwell in all kinds of different locations. Some are closer & some are very far away indeed !
Outwards & Downwards.
What I love about stories is that can take you to a place and make things very clear.
In Matthew 25 we are given an image of Jesus as the great Son of Man sitting in judgement over all people – like a sorting out a mixture of sheep and goats. The criteria he uses for allowing people to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven is what they have done for others – particularly the poor, the weak, the outsiders and the disempowered. Jesus pronounces, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it the least of these who are members of my family you did it to me…” For me the message is clear - God’s holy habitation – the place where his awesome and terrible presence dwells is among ordinary people. The good news is that God is most present among the most needy people among us & beyond.
The discipline of developing awareness and of increasing sensitivity to the places God is most present, I call the prayer of place. Choosing to go & dwell & immerse yourself in those places is mission. The prayer of place is about discernment, it is about choice & it is most certainly about location. I believe the prayer of place is also a communal prayer – something we sense most effectively together. Participating together in places where God is most present, binds us strongly in genuine community. Yet another quality of the prayer of place is that it challenges different groups and individuals to go & dwell in all kinds of different locations. Some are closer & some are very far away indeed !
Outwards & Downwards.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Concrete Holiness
In Luke 4, when Jesus stood up in the Synagogue he could have read from other places in the scroll of Isaiah. He could have read chapter 42:1, “Here is my servant, who I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight, I will put my spirit on him and he will bring forth justice to the nations”. Likewise he could have rolled onto chapter 63:1 and read, “Who is this that comes… with his garment stained crimson ? Who is this so splendidly robed marching in the greatness of his strength ? It is I, speaking in righteousness – mighty to save.” Both of these readings would have described the identity and the mission of Jesus, yet he chose something different, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me… to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind & to let the oppressed go free…” Why ? Why did Jesus read that passage ?
He read it because he knew that fundamentally the story of the Scripture, the grace of the Kingdom of God exists within people. Ours is an embodied faith, concretely expressed in the lives of you & me. Jesus read, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me” because it is an anthem of holy action. Embodied faith can only be expressed by people engaged in holy action in particular places.
Think about it for a moment. Jesus the God-man, the exquisite & perplexing mystery of the Incarnation. For those of us who follow after him – he was the enfleshed presence of Almighty God himself - accessible, totally interactive and living among ordinary people. Michael Frost says that this sense of God intimately involved among ‘the stuff of life’ means that we need to recover a sense of ultimate meaning in our own actions. While ideas and theology shape our thinking, we are fundamentally formed & transformed by the places we chose to be in & the things we chose to do while we are there.
As disciples we are called to deny ourselves, to empty ourselves & affectively die to ourselves – so that we may come, as Eph 4:13 says, “…to maturity to the measure of the fullness of the stature of Christ”. That’s the Incarnate Word active and powerful & living within us.
The journey of discipleship is the self-revelation of God from the depths of our very being.
He read it because he knew that fundamentally the story of the Scripture, the grace of the Kingdom of God exists within people. Ours is an embodied faith, concretely expressed in the lives of you & me. Jesus read, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me” because it is an anthem of holy action. Embodied faith can only be expressed by people engaged in holy action in particular places.
Think about it for a moment. Jesus the God-man, the exquisite & perplexing mystery of the Incarnation. For those of us who follow after him – he was the enfleshed presence of Almighty God himself - accessible, totally interactive and living among ordinary people. Michael Frost says that this sense of God intimately involved among ‘the stuff of life’ means that we need to recover a sense of ultimate meaning in our own actions. While ideas and theology shape our thinking, we are fundamentally formed & transformed by the places we chose to be in & the things we chose to do while we are there.
As disciples we are called to deny ourselves, to empty ourselves & affectively die to ourselves – so that we may come, as Eph 4:13 says, “…to maturity to the measure of the fullness of the stature of Christ”. That’s the Incarnate Word active and powerful & living within us.
The journey of discipleship is the self-revelation of God from the depths of our very being.
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