Risking Fixed Fluidity: "Working for the church while your family dies"

"Working for the church while your family dies"
-Arcade Fire, "Intervention"

That lyric starkly paints the place where pastors/leaders inevitably go if the "instititutional model" is permitted full birth and berth and us.

Len's recent blogs (here and here)on institution vs spirit/organized vs. organic will  keep me from ever singing that song (again). He picks up on my bringing Steve Seamands' ""Ministry in the Image of God: The Trinitarian Shape of Christian Service:
in as a potential balance/discernment:

Dave Wainscott furthers my reflections on institutions, (reflections aided greatly by Alan Hirsch) pointing to the dichotomy of institution vs spirit. At the theological level what he is hinting at for me is the need to hold Word and Spirit together. If we understand the Word as given, fixed, eternal, and the Spirit as spontaneous, fluid, and contextual, then the meeting of the two is Incarnation. We become, and our communities are, living letters, both organic and organized, both structured and adaptable. link

The tethering of Word and Spirit has long been one of my mottos and orthodoxies. But letting God secure it as mainstay and orthopraxy in the practical case studies of daily life has been another matter. So wrestling with Len's suggestions of "the Word as given, fixed, eternal, and the Spirit as spontaneous, fluid, and contextual" will be fruitful.

In any given life or ministry (oops, a Gnostic dichotomy leaked out there) situation, I seek to clear the slate and assumptions and ask prayerfully of God and carefully of the people, "How is the Spirit leading in this particular situation?" That might be reframed as "Is this a time to be fixed or fluid?" And all the qualifiers and nuances come into play: Maybe this is a "fluidly fixed" time...
\ A practical case study for a emergimissional type of church such as ours might be how many "programs" to have; how often to have the children have their own meeting, when to unplug a meeting or move/morph it, etc. Knowing that, be it both bias and God's choice, our deafult mode, magnetic north will be the "spontaneous, fluid, and contextual" actually frees us to trust that when we do feel "It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us in this situation to be more given and fixed" that we can be fixed in our fluid kind of way.

I am afraid of that prayer.
I need to pray about that.

Then Len, as he does so well, jacks up the stakes...or as he more humbly coins it:

Ok, now I am going to further confused the matter by pushing for an alternate paradigm, an historical/theological one. My intention isn’t to argue that the paradigm of the Trinity can’t work, but simply that there might be a better historical precedent. Incidentally, I know who referenced this paradigm in the last century: Karl Barth. Who else? So here is my proposal:
I suggest that the church is a culture - a way of life as well as a particular structure of meaning - analogous to Jesus incarnation as expressed in the Chalcedonian formula in 451. Here is the formula:

**

Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; “like us in all things but sin.” He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, the Mother of God.
We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division, or separation. The distinction between natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.

**

According to the council of Chalcedon, Jesus has two natures, both human and divine, neither confusing nor separating the two. Similarly, I believe we must be incarnational in our living in this world as kingdom citizens, neither confusing culture with the kingdom of God nor failing to find Him there; neither separating ourselves from the life of the world, nor taking on their way of life, their perspective, or their spirit....Orthodoxy is an event. Historically we have some terrific examples. It means that the new creation must exist in living communities, like the Celtic communities...link

Thank you, Len...that not only compassed the model, and kept me from framejacking, it pushes me to consider a further quest: Do we remember to do what Jesus would do: Corporately decide/discern how to respond (versus react) to every given situation or person in front of us with God's Kingdom wisdom (which may well surprise us) and not our own.

As Bono said before (in the context of feeling like he had to prove/improve himself in a given situation to impress others), "I feel like its a fight with yourself, And you just hope that your better half wins."

The point is not that we have two halves. The NIV mistranslates "flesh" as sinful nature", endorsing the old dualistic theology of the "old man and new man." One of my college Bible professors once offered $100 to any student who could prove from the Bible the common teaching that we have two natures (and thus are always in a terrible fight).

He never had to shell out a cent.

The flesh, world and devil are indeed insidious and coordinated in their desire to derail our trust in the Spirit and incarnational community...and we (like Jesus did) have very real choices and gethsemanes before us daily.

But we hope and Holy Spirit to uncmomfort and kickstart us into the Godward action. Orthodoxy is event indeed.

Another college Bible professor cautioned us against adopting a
"schizoid Jesus" that was 50 percent human and 50 percent divine, constantly toggling between "halves" of his brain/brains. Just like marriage is not 50-50 (half and half partnership) as is so often preached, it is instead a 100-100 model(each partner aims to give incarnationally, mutual-submission, 100 percent). Jesus was 100 percent God and 100 percent human. To know that Jesus had a urinary tract may have shaken up the audience at Houghton College when Debbie Blue preached it (audio), but he did. And it is beyond doubt that Jesus had bad hair days, and (yes) erections.

Yes, Jesus had erections....and homosexual temptations. What he did with them is another matter.
(more in that...believe it or not..on my "Jesus...a Tempted Apostle" sermon audio here)



"Because Jesus was tested and tempted in every single way that we can be...." (Hebrews )

!!
But we "can't talk about that in church"??!! Where DO you want to talk about it?

There is an anecdote, perhaps anecdotal (that I can’t find right now) about a former U.S president…probably Hoover or Truman (or someone else with a sly and dry sense of humor) who wanted tp prove to a fiend visiting the White House that visitors at “meet and greet” photo-op receptions were typically so taken with the glitz and hype of the White House that the ten-second of each to “meet and greet” the president was so unreal and rote that he as president could say anything to the person in line he was shaking hands with, and it wouldn’t register. This was a time when the president’s mother was known to be ill, so many greeters as they shook the president’s hand asked “How’s your mother, Mr. President?”, out of nervousness or just to have something polite to say. So the president whispered to his friend, “Watch this, to the third person who asks me how my mother is, I’ll say “She died this morning,” and they’ll say something like “That’s wonderful, Mr. President,” as they smile for the picture and move on. It worked!

I occasionally felt during those years of “meet and great” at the Whue House..uh I mean local church…I mean greeting the line of parishioners at the door… as wonderful a it was, was also at times nothing less than an encouragemnent for them and me to lie. “How are you?” The answer was usually (supposed to be) “ Fine” whether or not the
person had diarrhea, demons, disease or death coming against them.”.link

So in this real world that we are incarnated missionally in, a world of church programs, bad hair days, diarrhea and urinary tract infections...WWJD?

So Len contexting our quest in the two natures of Christ challenges us to actually do as Christ would do if he were in our shoes and world.

Because he is.

But it is as he WAS that the heart of the lesson lies.

Not that in Bible days , "Today Jesus acted out of his human nature, and tomorrow he may act out of his divine nature." The standard Sunday School answer is "Of course, Jesus was God, and he always acted out of his human nature."

Gong.

Jesus indeed was and is God...but perhaps in his earthy years/incarnation he consistently and insistently acted (only?) out of his human nature, trusting the power of the Spirit and what the Father was saying and doing in that moment (John 5: 19, 30); partly to model for us submission, trust, incarnation, and kenosis.

If Jesus did no ministry out his divine nature; than neither should I.

I know, Mom, I do not have a divine nature..even though St Peter shockingly announces that together we are "partakers of it."

Some theologians call this "Spirit Christology" or "kenosis", and whether this proposed theology is consistently true. If it is, it would almost move this question into the realm of "essential" doctrines, because it then provides the very key to how we are to live in relation to daily Christian life, walking in the power and possibilities of the Spirit; doing the "greater works than Jesus" that Jesus flatly and unapologetically predicted we would do. Now, not every proponent of "Spirit Christology" or "kenosis theology" is biblical or orthodox, so hear me when I say that I know I don't agree with everyone using these categories. The basic argument would be this; to put it bluntly, as one preacher did for shock value:

"Jesus did nothing on earth as God! "

Wow, better unpack that! Now, that statement doesn't have to imply He was not God.. He was, is and always will be fully God in my Book! It's just that He didn't. during His earthly ministry, anyway..do anything out of His innate, inherent and intrinsic Godhood. He voluntarily surrendered the rights to use and access His God hood's attributes... such as omniscience, or power to do mighty miracles. Several
Scriptures come into play: John 5:19 and 30 offer that Jesus did nothing in and of Himself, but only did what the Father and Spirit told/led/empowered Him to do. Philippians 2:6-11 asserts that Jesus didn't take advantage of, or even access of the rights and power of His Godhood, which would be "robbery," and a violation of the whole point of His incarnation; His coming to earth. Instead of functioning out of His eternal power and prerogative as Almighty God, He "emptied Himself". A by-product of this, is as Hebrews affirms "Jesus know every temptation we have endured by His own experience" (2:18 and 4:15). I also love to shock congregations by asking "When Jesus did miracles on earth, how was He able to do those miracles?" Well-trained evangelicals of course automatically answer, "Because He was God!" When actually, that may be the wrong answer all together. Of course He was God, no debate. But the only Scriptural answer to "How did He do those miracles?" is "in the power of the Spirit". And witness Matt. 12:28: He cast out demons; not because He was God and could do so, but as a human "by the power of the Spirit." Thus, that is the "key" key, crucial catch, and ancient but overlooked secret as to how we, mere humans, are to do the same works He did, even greater. (Jesus said that, not me. Blame Him: John 14:12)

Answer: We do them through "checking in" with the same Father Jesus checked in with while on earth; and trusting,...radically; to the point where the supernatural almost becomes natural and norm... the same Spirit Jesus trusted. (Note Jesus, a few sentences later, suggests that is His secret, and ours. He simply passes the torch to us, but not without the sharing the same equipping Holy Spirit: verses 16-17).Such deep trust and dependency doesn't make us Jesus, of course, but they do position us to trust the timing and voice of the Father, and prompting and power of the Spirit, as radically as Jesus did...with similar and "even greater" results! If JESUS never did anything in and of Himself (John 5:19 and 30), who do we think WE are?

When Jesus asked, in Mark 5:30, "Who touched me?," did He mean it, or was this a test? If "Spirit Christology" is true, one could answer the former, without sacrificing an iota of essential, foundational evangelical theology. When Jesus said even He (Matthew 24:36) did not know the day or hour of His return, was that a lie?. No, and this "lack of knowledge" on the part of a member of the all-knowing Trinity poses no problem. I would propose that He knows now, but He chose not to know on earth. This was all part of His modeling a complete self-emptying. This, though, is core to my third question:" How consistent and complete is this theology.? Did Jesus ever do anything 'on earth as God', even though He was God? And Lord, is this profound truth so profound that to miss it allows us to miss the 'normal' life you have intended for us?"

Whatever the ultimate answer to this question the Lord would give me, the bottom line question I keep hearing in the meantime. and "real time" is haunting: "Have I yet trusted as completely and recklessly as I could in the leading of the Father and the power of the Sprit? I almost don't even care if I do a greater work or not, I just want to be found faithful, and be an answer to Jesus' wild and waiting prophecy of John 14:12.

I love Dwight Edwards' penetrating, "must-be- wrestled- with" self-questions :

1. What have I done recently that could not be duplicated by an unbeliever, no matter how hard they tried?

2.What blatant evidence of the supernatural God has leaked out of my life?

Questions indeed! link

Working Summary:

If we (not just "I" as Lone Ranger Pastor) seek to be so in tune and touch with God that we catch his heartbeat and marching orders for each practical decision about form/formation/culture in our community...may we so radically trust Word and Spirit to remind us that we are locked into in "life with God" and "life together" that in those (rare?) times when he surely seems to be leading us into some shape that smack us as too institutional/organized... we'll adopt and amen it; knowing some treasures are new and some old even in the new wineskin.

Of course God Almighty won't lead us to start any programs (!), host children's church, (!!), build buildings (!!!) , hire paid staff (help) and all that pagan stuff...

Will he?

Gulp.

Do I have to reclaim my dress from E Bay?

Steve Seamands concludes his book (the one I have been keeping at hand throughout this conversation)  with "Let's consider two common barriers that hinder our participation on God's mission:a church centered approach, and our hesitancy to take risks..."


We can't find you now,
But they're going to get their money back somehow,
And when you finally disappear
We'll just say you were never here.

Been working for the church
While your life falls apart,
Singing hallelujah with the fear in your heart,
Every spark of friendship and love
Will die without a home.