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DAYWATCH TUESDAY APRIL 21ST 2009

by Roger Haydon Mitchell on Tue 21 Apr 2009 10:19 AM BST | Permanent Link | Cosmos

DAYWATCH TUESDAY 21^ST APRIL 2009

The Daywatch for April is provided by David Leigh, part of the Daywatch team. As usual please read and contemplate its contents prayerfully with particular reference to mindset change and being the church serving the world.

This month's post is bit of a departure perhaps to what you've become accustomed to in Nightwatch/Daywatch materiel. First off, to set the stage, I'm an American living in Europe, which has afforded me some rich fodder for cultural perspective. As an adopted son of Europe, my "identity" as a European is not a "given" that runs as an undercurrent, woven into all thought and practice. No, for me, it has been a subject of ardent seeking, joy, consternation, purposeful reflection, frustration, etc. Add to that a call to intercession and I'm reminded of Paul's discourse to the Athenians (Europeans), that God has carefully placed us at a specific time/space intersection in order that we might "grope" to find Him (Acts 17:26-27). The realities and implications of my adoptive cultural identity have often left me groping for God to assure myself that He's still with me and to actively bring Him into my circumstances. Additionally, a bit of distance from the States also gives me new perspectives on the land where I spent the first 38 years of my life.

Consequently, I've come to think that there is perhaps a pseudo-command in the Athenian discourse with respect to our cultures...be they adoptive or native.

He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us

The culture and society in which we find ourselves is not simply to be a "given" in our lives to which we give little to no reflection, as if we were on a raft drifting inexorably with the current of a slow-moving but powerful river. According to this passage, its particularities should provoke us in some way so that we engage more deeply in our seeking (and finding) of God...who apparently is just waiting for us to start asking important, critical questions about our historical and geographical context.

Speaking of Jesus, Paul says in Col 1:18-20:

He Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

Speaking of us, Paul says in 2 Cor 5:18-19:

Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

I like to re-phrase "gave us the ministry of reconciliation" as "appointed us to administer His reconciliation." I think that shakes some of the religious baggage off the verse and gives us a scope that, in my opinion, is more in line with Paul's intention and Jesus' call.

When you put these passages together, you see that God has established our lives in an historical and geographical context (which equates, in fact, to a culture) so that we would find Him in it, and once having found Him would administer the reconciliation of all things to Himself in that context.

As intercessors working to pull the Church in Europe through to her destiny, I believe that we need to call out to the Church, in the Spirit, to:

"Actively grope" for God in this particular historical/geographical context. This is in sharp contrast to living in our native cultures, simply assuming that all our societal interactions are "normal." Rather to actively bring things to God's Throne and seek His perspective.
Meditate on the intersection of our earthly and heavenly citizenships; again asking God what His perspective is and "actively groping" to understand the goal of this intersection in the administration of reconciliation. We see that Paul is neither ignorant nor indifferent to both his citizenships.

To bring this home, and spill the beans a bit more on my particular situation, I want to give an example. In French language school, our professor (a Christian) told us that whenever there is a problem in a French person's life, one of the first reactions is to look to a government-supplied solution. According to him, this was the general reaction amongst Christians as well. Certainly this would be a broad generalization, but there is certainly some truth to it. This is an example of the French Church drifting on the cultural stream instead of hoisting the sail to see what the Wind of the Spirit might be saying. Certainly there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the government providing solutions to problems and certainly God can and does provide using many different agencies. There is something wrong, however, with the Body of Christ (individually or corporately) assuming that the government is their first-stop solution for challenges they face. A similar trap for the Body of Christ exists in the States with respect to tax-exempt status for charitable organizations. And in Canada for example, Christian Schools enjoyed government subsidies for a period. When the subsidies ended, a large percentage of those schools failed.

Our collusion with culture is extremely subtle but also extremely powerful. Now is the time for the Church to begin to earnestly ask the Lord for light to reveal where we are colluding and grace to walk a different path.

David Leigh on behalf of the Daywatch team

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Deferred responsibility?

by Stephen on Wed 22 Apr 2009 12:01 AM BST | Profile | Permanent Link

I'm interested in the comments about deferring responsibility to the government (State) for solving our problems. It is increasingly the story that western democracies are set up in a way in which governments are seen to be there to try to make the problems of society go away so that we as citizens don't have to face them. In that world, we would be content to pay our taxes so that we did not have to see extreme poverty etc. on our doorsteps. Of course the State can be very efficient at dealing with these issues (and certainly much fairer about it than if we left it to the market/business to solve), and it allows us to do the right thing - pooling our resources for the poor/disadvantaged - but it is clinical and not from a place of true community responsibility or love. If you like, it reinforces Enlightenment individualism and removes any real sense of collective responsibility to act. How many of us consider walking on the other side of the road rather than helping our neighbour or our enemy? How many of us complain that the authorities are not doing enough to help those same people?

Come to think of it, that's also very often been our 'church' economic model... we might be prepared to pay others to provide services to us and for others but perhaps not to give away what we have directly to others so that they might prosper and be in health even as their soul prospers as we give them such as we have (whether silver, gold or deeper riches).

But this recession provides an opportunity to get this right. An interesting question might be: should we be looking to governments (or other big centralised bodies) to solve these problems at all or should we be taking responsibility for the levels of greed and/or sacrifice in society? Can government solve these moral problems? What would happen if we sought out and loved the poor and the pariahs as Jesus did?

Re: Deferred responsibility?

by dleigh on Fri 24 Apr 2009 08:45 AM BST | Profile | Permanent Link

There are many complexities, nuances and perspectives to these questions. Some other things to ponder from today's world and from scripture include:

* The idea that governments can "efficiently" be compassionnte. I know in the States that the pervasive concept is that "government = waste/inefficiency" and that the profit-motivated private sector becomes more efficient "naturally." That efficiency, of course, will butt heads with compassion and at that point, an individual's needs are weighed against the efficiency of the machine and typically the machine wins. In that respect, the egalitarian role of the government provides a protection.

* I ponder often the issue of discipling of a nation (perhaps not a nation-state to split hairs?) and wonder whether the Church should be pushing that governments be more compassionate or that the Church itself should view itself as the legitimate response or agent of response to ALL social ills? I.e. do we provide the prophetic voice to the government to be compassionate or do we provide the prophetic action of compassion? Overall, I'd guess that it's both/and, but in any given situation it's a question which bears bringing before the Throne. Certainly one could say that more-socialistic governments exhibit more compassion than less-socialistic governments. Does that become an argument for more socialism? Less-socialistic governments can incent people to self-development and achieving more of their potential...i.e. they can facilitate in some measure that people who would be otherwise always dependant move towards their destiny. Certainly that lines up with God's desires for individuals. Does that become an argument for less socialism?

* We see Paul encouraging the saints to take up a collection for the Church in Jerusalem...a corporate action of compassion...notably for those who are NOT next door to them. Perhaps our corporate compassion is not for our next door neighbor...perhaps that's left by the Lord for us to tackle because we can do it in the context of relationship. Then again, there are certain activities that seemingly cannot be funded by an individual and require a corporate response.

No great answers here, but I believe, as I stated in the post, that the "active groping" in the face of these situations is a very good exercise for a Church that is often accustomed to simply travelling in the ruts left by previous generations.

Re: Re: Deferred responsibility?

by Stephen on Sat 25 Apr 2009 12:39 AM BST | Profile | Permanent Link

Yeah, ultimately we are calling for as much of this creation to be reborn in the image of the risen Christ as possible, whether that is us, our governments, businesses or the land itself. So, although I am all up for unpacking the role of government, I'm going to leave the questions of political philosophy for another time! But underpinning all of this is our attitude to the problems we face in our society. Do we think they are for others to address or do we take responsibility?

It is very interesting how at the core of this recent economic downturn is the exposure of the place we have given to greed in our society. More interesting than that (which many of us have been saying since time immemorial anyway!) is that, although we have all been complicit in that greed, our response to it is that we want the government (i.e. not communities, families and individuals, us!) to take responsibility for it and fix it. If the core of the gospel is unconditional and sacrificial love and if that gospel is the thing which makes possible the new creation, it would seem impossible for the people of God, along with the children of peace with whom we co-labour, to ignore this enemy of greed and selfishness. We must take responsibility and, as Roger was expounding last time, suck up that death, take it through the cross and come out the other side with the firstfruits of the new creation (i.e. taking redemptive/transformative action).

But, in any case, I think we definitely do need creative community initiatives to practise love, justice, hospitality, reconciliation etc. throughout society. The word then becomes flesh and dwells among us in much more than a 'you in your small corner and I in mine' sort of way. But our collective, community incarnation is undoubtedly only possible because it emerges from the choices we all take to lay down our lives for the 'other'.