It is my conviction that the future of the Body of Christ is the prophetic and pastoral embrace of “justice and righteousness” and the restoration, forgiveness, and healing that must accompany it.
Recently I was invited by an organization (AEC) to reflect on this question: “What is the big problem facing the Body of Christ in our country today and how would you see us addressing that problem?” My answer is below, what would yours be?
The problem with the Body of Christ in the US is not that we are too weak or that our power is in decline, it is that we have come to think of ourselves as “too big to fail.” We fear vulnerability and mutuality in our dealings, lest we be diluted by the “secular” or “profane.” We create barriers to God and spread the big lie of isolation and separation. And we demonstrate an absence of trust in our primary faith narrative – Death and Resurrection.
We have traded God’s vision of Jubilee and renewal in death and resurrection for the empire’s vision of “return on investment” and “exponential growth.” We can model something different at AEC. We can model the dynamic and life-renewing cycle of the Gospel in the way we do life together. But we must abandon the fear-based, scarcity-assuming tools of the status quo.
We have traded Jesus’ ministry of reconciliation for an anxiety-reducing discipline in self-righteousness and self-justification. We have chosen “good behavior and right belief now in return for heaven later” over Jesus ministry “to bring good news to the poor… to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor’” (Mark 4).
It is my conviction that the future of the Body of Christ is the prophetic and pastoral embrace of “justice and righteousness” and the restoration, forgiveness, and healing that must accompany it.
These are not just flowery sentiments to me, but the beginning of our collective transformation. If God in God’s nature is relational, then how we do life together is of divine importance. The AEC can change the way we look at relationships, from a passive and unimportant aspect of life to the central concern of religion in the public square. Our ministry of reconciliation is the entry point into the co-creation of the Beloved Community that God invites us into.
Specifically, this means facilitating the co-creation of new relationships at the grassroots level of our congregations. Ecumenical relationships can only be considered genuine if they reach beyond the formal and institutionally sanctioned relationships. You will find with me that I am very open to “what” we do together so long as “how” we do it remains central to our conversation.
In that spirit, the programmatic possibilities for AEC are as broad as the divine imagination. Our mission should not be like the pearl merchant who tries to sell Ecumenism to the broader church. Rather, it is my posture and inclination to act as “treasure seekers” who go looking for the buried treasure of ecumenical community and sell all that we have to participate in its glory. The most authentic and humanizing community is almost always discovered this way. Our mission is to seek with intentionality and urgency the hospitality of our neighbor and to extend that same God-infused love back.
(CC)
