SCM Studyguide: Christian Mission. Stephen Spencer
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу SCM Studyguide: Christian Mission - Stephen Spencer страница 7
Название: SCM Studyguide: Christian Mission
Автор: Stephen Spencer
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Журналы
isbn: 9780334048046
isbn:
This quotation re-establishes a connection with Moltmann who, when talking of the Holy Spirit, described how it was possible for human beings to enter into the divine life:
The fellowship of the triune God is so open and inviting that it is depicted in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, which human beings experience with one another – ‘as you, Father, are in me and I in you’ – and takes this true human fellowship into itself and gives it a share in itself: ‘that they may also be in us’. (Moltmann 1992, p. 60)
Conclusion
All of this has fundamental implications for mission: ‘the mission of God flows directly from the nature of who God is. It is impossible to be more basic than that. God’s intention for the world is that in every respect it should show forth the way he is – love, community, equality, diversity, mercy, compassion and justice’ (Kirk 1999, p. 28). The doctrine of the Trinity, in other words, ‘is not a piece of “high theology” reserved for the professional scholar, but something that has a living, practical importance for every Christian’ (Kallistos Ware in Bevans and Schroeder 2004, p. 274).
Bevans and Schroeder, in their wide-ranging update of Bosch’s Transforming Mission, summarize this practical application in the following helpful way:
The mutual openness of Father and Son, Son and Spirit, Spirit and Father as a model of relationship, the constitutive nature of relationship for personal identity, the inclusion of diversity in community – all these vital truths and practices are rooted in Trinitarian reality and existence. (Bevans and Schroeder 2004, p. 274)
They add that it has been Orthodox theologians like Vladimir Lossky, John Meyendorff and John Zizioulas who have helped theologians in the West understand the Trinity as ‘an ec-static communion of persons, always involved in the world, always inviting all of creation to share in the triune life of communion-in-mission’ (Bevans and Schroeder 2004, p. 274). It can be added that these writers have themselves been drawing on ancient patristic and mystical writings.
To be part of mission, then, is not just to be an agent, at arm’s length, of someone else’s project: it is to participate in the very heart of who God is, to be caught up within and contribute to the interactive and flowing interrelationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a relationship that gives life and gives it abundantly.
| Discussion questions Think of examples of the way different relationships help to constitute you as a person. How does this affect your understanding of the divinity of Christ? How does it affect your understanding of mission? |
Further reading
Bevans, Stephen B., and Roger P. Schroeder (2004), Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for Today, Orbis
Boff, Leonardo (1988), Trinity and Society, Orbis
Bosch, David J. (1991), Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, Orbis
Cunningham, David (1998), These Three Are One: The Practice of Trinitarian Theology, Blackwell
Fiddes, Paul (2000), Participating in God: A Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity, DLT
Kirk, J. Andrew (1999), What is Mission? Theological Explorations, DLT
LaCugna, Catherine M. (1991), God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life, Harper
Moltmann, Jürgen (1977), The Church in the Power of the Spirit, SCM Press
Moltmann, Jürgen (1992), History and the Triune God, SCM Press
4. In Human Terms The Prophetic Mission of Christ
The walker who is lost in the fells may draw some comfort from their map, but interpreting the abstract symbols on the paper is not always straightforward. Which hill does one set of gradients represent? What is the meaning of the shaded areas on another part of the map? What do all the tiny dots mean? The walker might well find another document of more use, the guide book. This will be an account, by someone who has walked this way, of what it is actually like from a human and practical point of view to follow this route. The guide book will say when to turn left and when to turn right and when to look up and take in the view.
In a similar way the doctrine of the Trinity, as comprehensive as it is, can only be of limited use as a guide to mission. It is a general and abstract doctrine and cannot answer a key question: How in practical terms is the Christian community to engage in mission? How is it to serve the flow of God’s Trinitarian mission as it reaches out into the actual world with its array of specific needs?
The Fourth Gospel begins to provide one answer to this question when it shows Jesus giving the Holy Spirit to his disciples with the decisive words ‘As the Father has sent me, even so I send you’ (20.21). His followers, then, are to continue his mission, the mission that he received from his Father. They are to continue doing what he did during his own life: his ministry of teaching, healing, caring, listening and giving of all. So the Church, as the successor of the first disciples who received this commission, is to continue this work.
The question, then, becomes this: what are the key features of Christ’s mission that should govern the mission of the Church?
Bearing in mind that Trinitarian mission is all about participative relationship, it is to the ways that Jesus relates to those around him that we must pay attention. We shall not look for a certain kind of institutional life or legal code that must always be present to authenticate mission, but for the distinctive ways he interacted with the people he encountered.
A good place to begin is Jesus’ Galilean ministry. This is because the first three Gospels, and especially Mark, make it clear that the Galilean period, before Jesus’ journeys further afield with his disciples, was a defining moment in his ministry, a moment in which the kingdom of God drew near. This is seen in Jesus’ comment at the last supper when he tells his disciples that after he is raised up he will go ahead of them to Galilee (Mark 14.28): According to Morna Hooker, a recent commentator on Mark, Galilee in Mark’s Gospel is ‘the centre’ of Jesus’ ministry and of discipleship, in contrast to Jerusalem, which is the place of suffering (Hooker 1991, p. 345). Also, after the resurrection the messenger in the tomb says to the women to go and tell the disciples and Peter that Jesus is going ahead of them to Galilee (16.7): Galilee is to be the place where the resurrection is witnessed, which means the Galilean ministry of healing and feeding the crowds and preaching the gospel is being resurrected with renewed vigour. The Galilean ministry is therefore paradigmatic of the whole of Christ’s missionary enterprise.
A survey of this ministry can begin with Mark 1.14–45. This is because this passage provides a summary of how Jesus went about his preaching and healing in Galilee (Myers 1988, p. 149). In its pole position, in what is generally regarded as the first written Gospel, it becomes a keynote chapter, introducing a whole range of missionary encounters between Jesus and a variety of different people. It provides an overview of what Jesus did and said before his ministry became dominated by the growing opposition of the religious authorities.
The first two verses (vv. 14–15), describing his entry into Galilee, are a good place to begin. They provide an initial and defining expression of his mission, acting as a summary of all that follows. It is important to spend some time analysing the nature of this entry:
Now СКАЧАТЬ