Thinking About Mission – Transformed in the enacting of Luke 10:1-12.

Paul writes – This from Ronald Kuhl:

“One such insight is expressed through the Foreword to “Transforming Mission. Bosch states, "at its most profound level, its [i.e., mission] purpose is to transform reality around it" (xv).

Here’s Bosch:

“…This idea of mission that transforms reality is deeply rooted in God's mission. God is not just about doing good in the world -- some may question where God is in the face of all that is not good in the world -- but rather, God is about recreation, of making all things new, of reconciling humanity to one another and to God. Mission is not about coercion and enculturalization into a Western perspective, but it is about recreating humanity and recreating the world. As we develop eyes to see what God is doing in the world and give ourselves to participate with God's action in the world, we are in mission -- mission that transforms reality around it…”

Link via Len Hjalmarson. Original post – Roland Kuhl – see here.

I continue to think about mission – God’s mission. Of late I’ve been reflecting, not so much on how we “participate with God's action in the world”, but rather what that participation does to us as individuals and local churches. I wonder what happened upon the return of the 70 (72)…? There’s some imaginative space – a gap (a hole) at the end of the story. This post is a wondering from that "space".

Recently my “going” (or “sentness” Lk. 10:1) and thus my gathering at table (literally in some cases) has been the result of my having been “invited.” I wonder if being “invited” is the more vulnerable to the two options – being “sent” or “invited”...? What do you think?   

I wonder if somewhere near the heart of Luke 10:1-12 is simply our willingness to “go” and a willingness to “do”. I wonder if somehow our commitment to “going” and “doing” enable us to recognise and name the nearness of the Kingdom, and to point to its possibilities for shalom. In other words we can’t talk of the Kingdom in a priori (deontological) fashion, so my responding (“going”) to the invitations I receive is done in a trusting way, confident that I will find/discover God in my vulnerability and need… (Lk 10:4 “Do not take a purse or bag or sandals…”).

Thus too, it seems to me, our (my) being at the table is equally because God is doing something in us (me) through others at the table. Mission can too easily just be about what we do for others (and that’s important – but it’s not the whole focus of what God is doing), rather than paying attention – being fully present – to the possibility of God’s “doing” and “wanting to do” in us. What if the missio Dei has (also) wrapped up within it God’s longing that we too should more deeply and healingly experience Jesus’ offer of liberation, life and shalom?

In the imaginative gap at the end of the text, I wonder too how being “sent”, “doing” and “discovering” affirms, critique or subverts our experiences of church (or “faith communities”). How might that experience modify, re~form, re~shape and/or re~affirm the place and purpose of, say for example, a local Anglican church, if it read itself into and out of Luke 10?

If we are “sent”, if we “do” and in that process we (the church) are shaped and challenged, what might that experience of “going” and “doing” offer the ways we are church (or “faith communities”)?

I wonder what we might “hear what the Spirit is saying to the church at the ‘start’ of the church year, and the start of a calendar year?”

Here is an earlier post (2006) on Bosch and his spirituality

Comments

[Mick]

Excellent word. It reminds me some of what Bonhoeffer speaks to in "Cost..." when he talks about following Christ precedes believing. Since Christ is risen and the Spirit is present among us, we are "sent" but not out and away from Christ but to where he is going/speaking/doing. In John 5-8 Jesus says many times that he only says and does what he hears and sees his father doing. In this way he was following the father just as we are now to follow him, going/speaking/doing everything we hear/see him saying/doing. So we must be paying attention, responsively.