renewals

renewals of various forms, spiritual, liturgical, and others, pop up from time to time in the life and history of the church. in answer to a recent question about the Great Vigil of Easter, i was recalling the liturgical renewal in the '50's that led not only to the restoration of the Great Vigil, but also the restoration of the ancient Baptismal covenant, and even to the restoration of the Holy Eucharist as the primary act of worship on the Lord's Day.

so reflecting on liturgical renewal put me into a mind to reflect on renewal in general. and it occurs to me that we are in the midst of yet another renewal. not so much spiritual or liturgical, but missional.

even that word "missional" is a relatively new word in our usage. the post-modern, emergent churches seem to love that word. at least their writers use it a lot. and i discovered that it has crept into my own vocabulary, unnoticed, until some people i know objected to my using a term they had never heard before. they objected to arcane jargon -- an objection with which i greatly sympathize.

so i began trying to dump the word from my vocabulary, as i generally try to do with any words that sound like jargon.

but now i am wondering. is it really jargon? what if its appearance hints that something wonderful is arising -- a deep and broad renewal in the church's awareness of its own mission?

i remember as a young Christian being told that "vocation" meant call to ministry. so, being the young sponge that i was, i absorbed that understanding. until i eventually expelled it because i knew it wasn't true. yes, we were given mission, but our primary vocation was clearly larger than our mission. i slowly became aware that our purpose in life had less to do with what we do than with how we connect to God. i came to believe that our primary vocation is to deepen our experience of the presence of God.

which led me to question how mission and ministry relates to vocation. and i began to believe these three things:
1) our ministry to others is an expression both of our humanity, created in the image of God, and of our union with Christ: His pouring himself out for others in love is expressed through us as we pour ourselves out for others in love. what that specific ministry turns out to be is always secondary (because it is an expression of our primary vocation: knowing God).

2) our ministry to others is also an essential spiritual discipline: we deepen in our dependency on Christ and our experience of God in our lives by means of and through our ministry to others. What that specific ministry turns out to be is always secondary (because it is a means to accomplish our primary vocation: knowing God}.

3) finally, our circumstances, our external realities, "the story we find ourselves in", is not so much a barrier to vocation as it is part of the particular setting in which we, as particular persons, discover and work out our faith. that is, our circumstances are the setting for the play. our external realities are the stage and the props, not the plot or characters.

and herein lies the renewing of mission: mission and ministry isn't merely something that a good Christian should do, like taking their trash after worship rather than littering the pew rack. rather, if it is truly an expression of our humanity and our union with God, then mission is essential to being a Christian, perhaps in the way that being wet is essential to the ocean. and we escape from the notion of ministry as being something that better, more dedicated, more spiritual Christians do, in contrast to loser Christians. and we further escape from the notion that ministry is somehow helping out the clergy or the institution. mission and ministry is related to our very being.

and, if is an essential spiritual discipline, then we encounter once again the "self/other" paradox: that loving others becomes the means by which i give myself the best kind of self care.

and, if our external realities are merely "the story we find ourselves in," then mission and ministry are not hampered by our circumstances ("i'd like to get involved in ministry, but i just can't right now because of...."). rather, those circumstances are the setting given to us by the Great Playwrite, the Great Director, and the Great Producer, who as kierkegaard observes, happens also to be the Great Audience. which means that the circumstances don't determine whether we have mission or ministry. rather, it is within these very circumstances that we have mission and ministry. we don't have to overcome or circumvent or resolve our particular realities before discovering our mission and ministry. rather it is within our particular realities that God expects us to sing and dance.

after all: the play's the thing. so on with the show.

the Lord be with you.