Further Reflections on Gospel Ministry

I continue to reflect on my role as evangelist in a world where the Gospel cannot be contained in any words or phrasing, either of my own or of my faith community. God is too big to have any sense that I, or Quakers, or even (mono)theists have a corner on that relationship. The response to my previous post has been helpful in aiding me thinking about my faith in relation to my beliefs and my mission as evangelist. When I sink down to the Seed and ask the question with sincerity to my Guide, the answer to my query is revealed: I, like the Old Friends, am called not to be an evangelist of ideas or notional statements, but instead a witness to the Power of God.

The Old Friends were witnesses to the Truth, speaking directly to the Seed of Christ that they encountered in all people. George Fox had a vision of how he "was to bring the people out of all the religions of the world and into the True Christianity." This True Christianity, I am convinced, is not a system of belief, but instead an inward submission to God's guiding, loving, life-giving Spirit. I as evangelist am called to transmit not ideas, but instead to serve as a witness to the testimony of God in the hearts of all people.

And I see that I have striven to create fellowship, to be the agent that brings together church communities. But I recognize now that I myself am incapable of convening any fellowship of God. "We do not [create fellowship]; that is the Lord's work." It is the testimony of the Truth inside of me that reaches out to that same testimony in the other which creates the bond of fellowship. God will gather God's people, God establishes the Church - not me.

Perhaps my role as evangelist is to be receptive to the ministry of the Spirit amongst us and within my heart, to be obedient to that. Perhaps through my obedience to God I might be a light shining in the darkness, pointing towards Truth for those who are seeking it. Reading the book of Acts, it seems clear to me that the early Church grew because of the obviousness with which God was working among them. When others in the area saw the joy, peace, and self-sacrificial love of the church fellowship, many were certainly moved to turn their lives around and hearken to the inward voice of Truth in their hearts. The life of the early Church "so shone before others that they saw their good works and glorified our Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).

By staying low to the ground and humbly hearkening to the ministry of Love in my heart, perhaps my life might be a testimony that draws others into fellowship. I see now that perhaps I have been looking at things wrongly for quite some time now. I have in my mind somewhat separated evangelism from the rest of the life of the Church, as if it were something separate or distinct. But I see now that any fellowship that is living up to its calling will be a "missional" fellowship, because the testimony of the Seed, shining in the life of that gathered community, will draw others in, inviting them into the Body of Christ.

But, if we are not being the Body of Christ, if our fellowship is in a holding pattern, waiting for a more "opportune time," we will not be capable of being missional, even if that is a stated aspiration of our community. If we as a congregation, if I as an individual, if we as families, if we as Christian universities, if we as friends and neighbors are not living a life that reveals the Truth and Life of Christ, no mission statement that we outwardly proclaim will be of any use. We will be "professing that which we are not possessing."

I want to commit myself to living a life that will display the marks of Christ in my person, in my speech, in my lifestyle, and in my love for my neighbors and even my enemies. I want to commit to living a life of radical obedience to God that might reveal the life of Christ in my own flesh. If I can commit myself to seeking the Spirit of unconditional love, if I can dedicate my life to living the incarnation, if I can accept the very real possibility of bearing the sufferings of Christ in my own body - that, by the grace of God, will speak to the world. My life could be an invitation to Christ's table. Am I ready for the consequences of real evangelism?

In Search of the Gospel

My trip to Ciudad Victoria and Mexico City for Earlham School of Religion’s Theology in Context course has proved extremely challenging for me on a personal level. It was not a difficult trip, not a hard experience at the time. I did not feel unduly challenged while I was in Mexico, beyond getting fatigued at interpreting at one point and getting a little sick in Mexico City. The truth is that this excursion felt closer in flavor to a ministry trip rather than a theology course. It felt almost like an extension of my supervised ministry, which involves a great deal of traveling ministry among Friends. I enjoyed very much our time with Friends in Ciudad Victoria, as well as our few days of adventure in Mexico City, and it was not this experience per se which was difficult. Instead, it was the ramifications for me, as one who feels called to evangelism, of the required reading for the course, Models of Contextual Theology, by Stephen Bevans and the reflection that this book demanded of me in order to attempt an answer to the question, “what is the kernel of the Gospel?” My wrestling with this question, along with at the same time observing various strains of Christianity in Mexico and interacting with an American Buddhist friend (via internet), has deeply challenged my own sense of what the core of my faith is, what is essential in my own life of faith and what is merely cultural, and what it is that I am called to communicate.

Before arriving in Ciudad Victoria, as I read Bevans’ book, I felt fairly confident that I had a basic idea of what the gospel kernel was: An essential Quaker vision of a loving and just God that speaks to us today in our hearts and who revealed Godself in the person of Jesus Christ. It was from this kernel that I felt any culture – religious or otherwise – could be judged helpful or harmful, correct or incorrect, true or false – or somewhere in between. In my interactions with Friends in Ciudad Victoria, I got to think a great deal about the interaction between "essential Quakerism" and the culture in which that Quakerism is expressed. Leaving Ciudad Victoria, I wondered very much, “is Quakerism a cultural phenomenon without any ultimate, universal value for all of humanity?”

As we arrived in Mexico City, I was very much struggling with the question of what the core of Quakerism was and whether that Quaker core was the same as the gospel kernel. At first, I believed that I had found both, and that they were one and the same. I wrote in my journal on 11, 1^st month, 2008: “For me the most interesting and fecund part of our conversation [that afternoon, in Chapultepec Park] was discussing whether the Quaker expression of Christianity was universal, or whether it was not essential. That is to say, is the Quaker bare minimum (in my mind, sense-of-the-meeting decision-making, waiting worship, and a witness to the presence of Christ guiding and teaching us today) the universal Gospel, or is it a cultural “husk” that is not essentially true for all peoples, times and places? If it’s not core, then I as evangelist need to let go of proclaiming a Quaker vision and instead ‘know nothing but Christ and him crucified.’ If, however, the core of Quaker experience and testimony and practice is the everlasting Gospel – if Quakers’ experience of how God relates to communities is true for all people at all times – then I have a responsibility as evangelist to proclaim those core Quaker experiences and practices.

Of course, these core experiential-practices might look extremely different in different cultural contexts. For example, in an African cultural setting waiting worship might take place in a drum circle with those moved to give ministry shouting or singing out of the drumbeat, instead of out of the silence. Meeting for business might look much the same way. And Christ might be understood in ways that would seem very foreign to North American Friends. But those cores, the way the Friends experience God’s covenant with humanity, would be an essential reality of the Gospel: sense-of-the-meeting decision-making, waiting (not necessarily ‘silent’) worship, and the testimony that Christ has come to teach his people himself.” This very basic mix of orthodoxy (or “ortho-testimony”) and orthopraxy seemed to be the core not only of the Quaker faith, but also of the Christian Gospel, more broadly conceived. But this was not to be the end of the story. Though it was not a part of the course, I was not going to stay within the Christian, or even a theistic conception of Truth. With all of these questions still percolating inside of me, my engagement with my Buddhist friend from Boston was heating up.

The fact that the Light is shining in my non-theistic Buddhist friend in Boston made it impossible for me to restrict my search for the gospel kernel to the monotheistic faith tradition. It was the certainty with which I felt that I perceived in my friend the Seed of Christ - not as imprisoned Truth crying out for liberation, but as a sprouting branch of God testifying to Truth - which forced me to engage non-theistic Buddhism as a place where Christ is alive, at work, and proclaiming the Gospel even in the absence of any mention of God or Divine Intention. As I returned from Mexico City to Kansas and prepared to make a ministry trip to visit Friends at Hominy Friends Meeting in Osage country, I experienced a crisis of faith. I was unable to justify why Jesus – or even a conception of a God with intention – was essential to the universal Gospel. Any assertion I would make about the centrality of Christ or the importance of God as Lord and not as “emptiness,” would be easily dismissed by my friend, who seemed to be speaking from Truth, but simply had no use for the words I was using, nor for the concepts I was employing.

I am still wrestling with the question: What is the kernel of the everlasting and universal Gospel if even the concept of a God with intention is unnecessary for salvation/enlightenment/liberation? I feel deep inside of me that there is a Divine Center that is beyond words and forms and theologies. Is there nothing that can be uttered that can be universal for all humans? While the Gospel is universal, are all words ultimately limited and, to some extent, futile? What does the Religious Society of Friends have to say to the world if the Gospel is beyond all words? More specifically, what is my mission as evangelist if the evangel is beyond any human expression or conception? Is there any meaning to proclamation of the gospel if the gospel is unutterable?

Casting Out Demons

“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.”

-Ephesians 1:17-19 (NRSV)

This morning, I attended Friends Meeting of Washington, and felt very blessed to be among that congregation. There were three messages this morning. The first came from a younger Friend, who spoke of an old friend who recently committed suicide. He described how his friend, by all appearances, had everything going for him in life. He also described how, having learned of his friend’s suicide, it colored his weekend with hues of beauty – in everything, he remembered his friend and was struck by how precious life is.

The second message of the morning came through me. When I had sat down for meeting for worship, I opened my Bible to the book of Ephesians and read the first chapter. This reading spoke very powerfully to my heart, but I was by no means led to give a message – and certainly not just a few minutes into worship! However, after the first Friend gave his message, my mind was forcefully drawn back to that reading. I picked up my Bible, which was lying next to me, and turned back to the passage, and I began to feel led to speak. I soon rose and read from Ephesians 1:17-19.

The last message, delivered after mine, was about the importance of wrestling with the problems that others have that are not under their control, such as mental illness. He spoke of how Jesus calls us to seek out “that of God” in all people and not be limited by our fear of the mentally ill. I did not immediately understand the connection between his message and my own. After weighing his ministry for a very long time, however, I got the sense that our messages expressed Truth from two different perspectives.

The thrust, I felt, of my message was that we are called into hope and glory by Jesus Christ, and that in trusting in Christ and seeking Christ’s Way, we are led into the inheritance of hope, power, glory, and love, that takes away the occasion for suicide. In my experience, suicide is often the response to a radical sense of meaninglessness. My message this morning was about how Christ calls us to be the recipients and servants of immeasurable greatness and power. If we dare to trust in the Spirit of the living God, to be broken open and penetrated, to live in that intimate, soul-forging relationship with God, we can discover the immeasurable greatness and purpose that we are inheritors of, in Christ.

I felt like the Friend who rose after me was speaking to the systemic nature of sin and slavery to self. It seemed to me that a big part of his story – about his loving response to a woman from his meeting, who was mentally ill and standing in front of his workplace shouting obscenities – was about our duty as Friends to extend our hands in an attempt to show others a way out of their misery.

I see that, in this sense, we are called by our Lord to cast out demons. There are forces of evil that have overcome our fellow beings, and we are empowered in Christ to exorcize these demons, to create a space where our brothers and sisters can step out of their enslavement to sin and begin to see glimpses of the Kingdom of Heaven. We, children of the promise, we, children of the Light of the Day Star, are empowered by that Life and Power that we have encountered in our hearts and in the Body of Christ to shine light into darkness.

For we are all called into completeness in the Life of Christ, but we cannot make it alone. Perhaps there really is no salvation apart from the Church. Salvation as a lone individual is, perhaps, a flawed idea, out of touch with our dependence upon our brothers and sisters in Christ. We are called to know this hope together. We are inheritors of the promise God made to Abraham, not as individuals, but as a people.

So, I see that the two messages that followed the first fit together as one piece. The young man who committed suicide is a reminder, on the one hand, of the depths of despair that are possible when we cut ourselves off from the love and grace of God. On the other hand, it is a reminder to us, the Church, of our responsibility to be a light shining in the darkness, illuminating the Way out of death and despair. Are we living up to our calling as members of the Body of Christ to be living reflections of the glory of our Lord? To extend ourselves to those who wallow in despair and meaninglessness? To witness to the Life and Power of God, not only in words, not only in works, but in our very being?