Congregations no Societal Mirror
Comes this week to Tiger Mountain: Pastor Rodney Woo of Houston, court-messenger with an indictment against Christ-follower assemblies. Terms of the indictment: In the first instance, failure to watch Jesus of Nazareth among the masses–male, female, poor, rich, a society of ethnic multi-texturings–as he says, “Come to Me.” In the second instance, Simon bar Jonah’s mystical vision (The Acts) where he learns God makes no distinctions among persons; all are either in relationship or suffering outside relationship. In the third instance, Paul the Commissioned, who as a fulfilled Jew among the Gentiles evokes the Abrahamic promise “All the nations will be blessed in you.” (Gal. 3:8 WEB Bible www.bible.org) And who appealed to Christ “our peace, the one who made both groups (Jew and Gentile) into one” and among other things all “are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household” and who also live in “a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” (Eph. 2:14-22 WEB Bible)
To wit: there’s something perversely un-Kingdom-like in the cultural, ethnic, and caste-like homogeneity of our churches.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ: Kingdom fulfilled! All God’s Children Assembled! (144,000: literal or better, figurative?) Now, it will be that the Lamb becomes the Shepherd! (Rev. 7:18) But why wait when there’s no need to?
In Los Angeles last week we visited the ethnic and cultural spiritual stew that is the Oasis Church on Wilshire Boulevard. Yes, there are others much like it, larger and smaller. Yes, it’s more typical of the new congregations. No, it’s not your father’s church. Yes, it’s diverse. Yes, it is a truer reflection of LA society: multicultural, multiethnic, and visionary. Yes, the music is LOUD, bone-vibrating. And they have six services on Sundays, in an old cinema, nicely refurbished, that works just great for them. I pray them well in their journeys.
ETBU Spiritual Emphasis Week–Pastor Woo–Revelation 7: in the background of it all are Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
Eugene H. Peterson is writing a pentateuch of spiritual theology and already has published one codex called Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, emphasis: the Trinity. In his introduction he writes,
“‘Trinity’ is the theological formulation that most adequately provides a structure for keeping conversations on the Christian life coherent, focused, and personal. Early on the Christian community realized that everything about us–our worshiping and learning, [emphasis mine, are you listening, students?] conversing and listening, teaching and preaching, obeying and deciding, working and playing, eating and sleeping–takes place in the “country” of the Trinity, that is, in the presence and among the operations of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. If God’s presence and work are not understood to define who we are and what we are doing, nothing we come up with will be understood and lived properly.”
He writes further, after discussing the nature of Trinity essentially as relationship,
” . . . the country of the Trinity comprehends creation (the world in which we live), history (all that happens to and around us), and community (the ways we personally participate in daily living in the company of all the others in the neighborhood). Trinity isn’t something imposed on us, it is a witness to the co-inherence of God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and the co-inherence of our lives in the image of God (where we are, what is happening, and who we are as we speak and act and engage in personal relations with one another).
” . . . in the company of all the others in the neighborhood.” How could it be said better? The Country of Trinity is not complete until Rev. 22:1-5, but that doesn’t mean we can’t live, I mean really live, in its frontier outposts in the global village until then. Indeed we can. End
Petersen’s book, www.eerdmans.com