Jim Wallis pens the line for an Introduction to a book called The Justice Project, “Since Pentecost the question that has animated the church: ‘How do we as the people of God live out God’s mission for the world.’”
How does the church live out God’s mission for the world? All churches may have different interpretations, theology, ritual, etc. It is hard to pin it down to one or two things. Many churches draft a vision or mission statement. Some churches recite ancient creeds. Some churches rely on the hierarchy to tell them what to do. For 2000 years, we have been struggling and redefining what we believe to be God’s mission for the church.
We could go to the words of Jesus and baptize everyone and make disciples in all nations. We could say that the mission is the commandment of Love. Individuals have different interpretations about what the church should be. Recently a pastor, the Rev. Lenny Duncan, said that clergy are called to “afflict the comforted and comfort the afflicted.” (This is an oft used expression that doesn’t actually come from the Bible, and was originally used to describe the mission of a newspaper.) However, the point should not be lost, because it really does sound like something that a pastor should be: a healer and a prophet.
In other words, the job of clergy is not just to hold hands while praying with people by their hospital beds and offering niceties in sermons and coffee hours, but to preach and challenge by speaking to injustice and bringing those in the center to see those on the margins.
Jesus says that we should love God and love our neighbor and we spend a lot of time explaining who our neighbor is. What we don’t talk about nearly enough is the expression of love. What does it mean ‘to love?’ If Jesus’ message was about ‘love’ then how did he want us to live it out? Seriously, what does it mean to live out the call of Jesus to love? The Sunday school version of that is that we should be nice to everyone. But is simply being nice an expression of love? Expressing his anger in the Temple by turning over tables, was how he displayed his love for his people—but it wasn’t very nice. When Jesus instructed that we should go to someone who has wronged us and pointed out their flaw- seems pretty confrontational, and the one who is being called out might not receive this nice gesture. Jesus knows it so he says that we should bring someone else and if they don’t respond then a team. He isn’t really ratcheting up the nice meter. Another expression of how Jesus may have called us to ‘love’ our neighbor is to convert them so that they can be saved and get to go to Heaven. Over the years I have had a couple of people try to save me from the torments of Hell because they ‘love’ me. Yet, another option might be to express our love by committing to a life of justice. Justice in this case is referring to ‘restorative’ justice and not punitive justice. Capital punishment doesn’t strike me as an act of love. There are certainly many instances in the Bible where capital punishment is used or called for, but there are also many more times when restorative justice is sought. Jesus even says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4: 18-19)
So what is our ‘ecclesiology?’ What is the church’s job? How do we as the people of God live out God’s mission for the world? We’re all still trying to figure that out.
