World-Wide Mission (Lent Study Week 2, 2013)

Peter Baptising Cornelius by Francesco Trevisani

A. Mission and Missionaries

Some passages you could check out in Luke-Acts

• Luke 3:4-6 all flesh
• 4:18-20 the Spirit of the Lord, justice
• Luke 10 the harvest is plentiful but labourers are few
• Luke 15 lost sheep, lost coin
• 19:10  to seek out and save the lost
• 24:44-49 repentance and forgiveness of sins in his name to all nations
• Acts 1:8 you will be my witnesses .. to the ends of the earth
• Acts 10 conversion of Cornelius, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.
• Acts 15 the Council of Jerusalem (compare with Galatians 2:11-14)
• Acts 28 gospel has reached even Rome

When you think of the mission of Jesus/the church/you yourself what do you think of?

B. Acts 10: The Ins and Outs of Community

Acts 10:9-16

10:28 God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean

10:34-35 God shows no partiality

10:36 Israel, peace by Jesus Christ, Lord of all

10:37 that message spread

10:39 we are witnesses

10:43 everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name

10:44 the indiscriminate Spirit! And baptism

1.We are tempted to think that it is relatively easy for a community to remain faithful to its identity (current and historical) and let in new people. But how easy is it really? (Think about the functions of a ‘tribe’ psychologically and sociologically, both positive and negative.) It is easy for members of a community to mask an attitude of assimilation into the existing ‘culture’ of a community with the belief that we are open to new people in our community. When people join an existing community change happens - for the community and for those who join.

How well do we negotiate this tricky boundary at the local church? 

 Where are the points where we need to grow or change? And how might we do that?

2.We take the freedom of the gospel  and its call to break down the barriers separating people for granted after centuries of its inner dynamic shaping Western culture. Some now wonder how it was that people didn’t see this freedom before and act on it. Some wonder if the gospel is now superfluous given that the ethnic and discriminatory barriers between people can be rationally unmasked and dismantled. But is it really that simple? Is it that simple in your life? Without the gospel working over the millennia, would our freedoms have been possible? And what about the future?

Vaticanomics

Benedict XVI: good theology, funny shoes

I can remember being on a church group set the task of making socially orientated statements. You know the groups, that make statements about justice, etc. I have a great deal of sympathy for those who make these kind of statements because most people who do are probably not well enough informed to make the statements they do! However, the cry of the poor and the desire for peace need voice. Anyway, I didn't write anything much in that group, and what I did say was seen to be too conservative. (I think the final straw for my membership of the group was supporting the invasion of Iraq, with some caveats). Here is an interesting article on a possible new engagement between theology and economics via the Pope. It is very interesting, and makes a couple of good points. The most important is, I think, that the church hasn't really turned its mind to the ethics of a social, impersonal system of human interaction the effects of which are often unintended. A system like the market, for example. We are better at more personal relations, or the distortion of what should be more personal into something impersonal. The article is short and worth a read.

I like a lot of what Benedict XVI says, and incidentally, the article mentioned above speaks highly of Caritas in Veritate, in regards the rapprochement between market economics and theology. The author says that many influential business and finance leaders have found it helpful, and not just Roman Catholics.

Avoiding the Call of Jesus

For those who complain about missionary Christianity's claims vis-a-vis other relgions see this. Here is the crunch.

 "What is thus stated in the form of a general rejection of all particularity in favor of a vision of universal validity is, when more deeply seen, more particular and more negative; namely, a specific pattern of avoidance of the particular claims of Christian loyalty in its continuing risk and uncertainty."