Who is really poor, what does it mean to be missional to ‘those without’? Can we in our passions for mission forget the Great Commandment to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourself?
I was reading Robert Lupton’s book Compassion, Justice, and the Christian Life on the way to a week of neighborhood restoration ministry in the Bronx last weekend and I couldn’t help but be stirred and challenged by his reflections. Particularly what he says here;
“If you believe that either eternal bliss or eternal damnation awaits every person after death, then the most loving act is to present the truth of the gospel to as many people as possible and thus save them from everlasting destruction. It’s a compelling argument. The problem, of course, is that it leads toward viewing others as souls instead of people. And when we opt for rescuing souls over loving neighbors, compassionate acts can soon degenerate into evangelism techniques; pressing human needs depreciate in importance, and the spirit becomes the only thing worth caring about. Thus, the powerful leaven of unconditional, sacrificial love is diminished in society and the wounded are left lying beside the road. When we skip over the Great Commandment on the way to fulfilling the Great Commission, we do great harm to the authenticity of the faith…”
I repent Lord of treating the gospel like it was merely a matter of a new heaven and not a new earth…
I repent Lord of treating people as souls rather than persons in the midst of their own life circumstances that need redeeming as well…
I repent Lord of isolating the new creation work of Jesus to what one believes in their minds alone rather than what one experiences and embraces with all their life…
I repent Lord for offering your widows and orphane’s a tract while sending them back out into the cold and hard night of destitution, desease, and hunger…
I repent Lord for mistaking sympathy for witness, and the ‘Roman’s Road Conversion Speak’ as the full inacting of the gospel of grace…
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July 30, 2007 at 1:43 am
pbandj
from one former sinner to another, i agree. i too had to repent of my good-hearted, but wrong, “techniques”. i have learned that agape doesnt mean show a little illustration of a bridge and show a cross bridging the gap. God calls us to a much higher standard.
pb
July 30, 2007 at 3:24 am
Caleb White
In the end, it does boil down to binary souls, heaven and hell; in the end, it boils down to God, us, and what’s between. But while I’m here, and while I don’t fully know God, myself, or what’s in between, there’s a great deal of margin around what will eventually be binary. Life may very well be a divine equation; but I sure as hell don’t know the formula, and I have to be charitable and humble in my ignorance and finity.
My problems almost always arise from reducing the Gospel to something I can understand, and fitting God into my mathematical theology. I was reminded tonight that when I really look at God, even through this dim mirror, it breaks me and utterly shatters what I think I understand.
I repent, Lord, of trying to reduce love and the Gospel and your incomprehensible, unsearchable, unknowable everything into my broken, finite terms — of treating your amazing grace as something that can me summed up, or your amazing love as something that can be properly described. I repent, Lord, for trying to minimize the infinity of the indescribable God…and for reducing the Gospel to a count of souls won…
July 30, 2007 at 3:24 am
Caleb White
Thinks to self: Self, you talk way too much.
July 31, 2007 at 2:52 am
setsnservice
pb,
Thanks for dropping in. I enjoyed the look of your blog, I bounced over for a bit.
Caleb,
I was thinking about your response to the Lupton quote, as well as the possible eschatology Lupton hold’s to and I couldn’t help but raise a question: does how we understand ultimate and end things affect how we concieve of the Great Commandment and Great Commission?
Put simply for a postmillenialist in the end it doesn’t boil down to souls but to a new creation which is gradually being brought into reality through the Church’s mission, this of course includes souls but there is a cosmic present aspect to the benefits of Christ atoning work but for an amillenialist the focus on Christ’ future inbreaking consumation is sometimes described so radically that there doesn’t seem to be much if any inaugurated eschatology at work presently…though there are plenty of good examples of this not being the case.
It makes me wonder what Lupton’s eschatology is? hmm…regardless I think his present question the quote above was expressing was what Christ actually said in regards to the manner in which God’s Law is fulfilled in us.
August 6, 2007 at 6:41 am
clint darrah
hmm…well i’m left with no witty words, or anything to make myself sound smart, or some sort of phrase that could get others excited and forget to act.
jason thanks for the brief note.
August 6, 2007 at 12:22 pm
setsnservice
“get others excited and forget to act”, far to much of that sort of language floating about the church today. Thanks for the brief thoughts here clint.
PS I enjoyed a number of your blog links, particularly the Social Justice and Art one. I’ve never seen that sight before…