The Lectio Letter - Issue #95 - The Revolution will be Catered
I'm writing a shorter Lectio today as I'm immersed in a wonderful family reunion in the Devonshire Countryside. The family I am joining here is not biological but, in some very real senses, adoptive. It is the family through whom I came to adult faith in Jesus.
Over the years, and again in my time with them now, they beautifully affirm again and again their commitment to my belonging with them and those words are precious to me.
But those words become real to me in actions. Actions of affirmation, loyalty and encouragement, but most concretely in meal times.
I have often reflected on the phrase coined by NT Wright that
"When Jesus wanted to explain what His death was all about, He didn't give... a theory--He gave them a meal."
There are many ways to unpack this, but what is at its core is that following Jesus is, as has been described in the most basic gospel presentations, 'belonging in relationship'. It is not that founding and descriptive ideas in Christianity are unimportant, far from it. But what Jesus has inaugurated in his earthly ministry and empowered in His ongoing heavenly ministry is not just new ideas but a new creation, a new humanity and a new citizenship.
Our life together as the people of God is our strongest (or weakest) proclamation of the gospel.
So back in this family reunion, I am re-storied and restored through encountering belonging in action and not only in words.
One of the fantastic things about mealtimes with deep friends and family is the ability to hear about lives, but also discuss big issues. I am consistently sharpened by the opinions, perspectives and understandings of those around me. This week, we've already traversed large-scale issues facing the church and global politics. Many of the discussions involving the many wars, tragedies and national crises that exist in the world now inevitably lead to a sense of overwhelm.
So much evil, loss and heartbreak, what can I truly do to make any difference? But so much of the trouble and tribulation of the world at large is due to a lack of listening. A lack of the ability to understand what is at stake for the other, and so what happens is a continual shouting past, and in many cases, then shooting at, the other side.
But it occurred to me that despite the horrors of war, evil and pain, Christians are called to become trained in humble listening relationship with one another as a community of difference.
We are called to be those who are trained by eating, listening and belonging together, in better and in worse, gaining the skills and intuitions that allow us to be, a small, but embodied answer to the problems of the world. In short, to be a colony of heaven on earth. To be a foretaste of what will one day be the only reality that remains.
As we develop the ability, in our small communities and families, to love and forgive our neighbours, spouses, and families, we become a seed of the kingdom which can display an other-worldly virtue, love for enemy. This, of course, sounds hopelessly unpragmatic and romantic, that a dinner table in Devon can be a seed of change in the world, but I think that is part of the point. Jesus gave a weak, unpragmatic and idealistic way for us to grow into more loving persons. Just as when challenged by the violent systems of the world in his own life, gave himself and brought a victory through weakness instead of worldly strength. We too are the one’s who are called to this weak witness that will oneday be shown to be real strength.
Here, in ending, I’ll quote Stanley Hauerwas on the task for followers at length;
The church…is not anti-world, but rather an attempt to show what the world is meant to be as God’s good creation.
The world needs the church, but not to help it run more smoothly or make it a better and safer place for Christians to live. Rather, the world needs the church because without the church the world does not know what it is nor who God is. The only way for the world to know that it is being redeemed is for the church to point to the Redeemer by being a redeemed people. The way for the world to know that it needs redeeming, that it is broken and fallen, is for the church to enable the world to strike hard against something that is an alternative to what the world offers.
Without such a “contrast model” the world has no way to know and feel the oddness of its dependence on power for survival. Because there exists a community formed by the story of Christ, the world can know what it means to be a society committed to the growth of individual gifts and differences, where the otherness of the other can be welcomed as a gift rather than a threat.
I can see that the Table meal that Jesus institutes is a small and slow way to grow a new people who listen, love and respect each other inspite of all our differences. In a world where typing in fustration to a faceless username is our training in conflict, a dinner table conversation might just be the revolution we need and it's the one Jesus said would mark the lives of those that follow Him.
