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Chapter 8
Called to Be Whole
The call Jesus made the relational
imperative to "Follow me" is the ongoing function of discipleship in
which Paul responded with his whole person to be intimately involved
with the whole of God as family together. While doing so, Paul
operationalized the church to be whole. Paul's theology followed the
vulnerable revelation of Jesus and thus he made the church operational
in the dynamic progression of the relational context and process of the
Trinity and the trinitarian persons' involvement with us. Church
practice needs to be the same relational response of discipleship to the
whole of God's self-disclosure in Christ, who was the ultimate response
to the human condition "to be apart" from the whole.
Throughout this study the incarnation
has been defined as the ultimate of God's self-disclosure and loving
response, thus the hermeneutical and functional keys for defining the
human person and the church. The Son was sent by the whole of God, as
the whole of God, for the whole of God. To summarize Jesus'
formative family prayer (Jn 17): "Righteous Father . . . you have sent
me (apostello, send for the specific mission, vv. 8, 25), to
reveal you to them (phaneroo, reveal to them for relationship, v.
6), make you known and continue to make you known to them (v. 26), in
order for them to know you intimately (v. 3), so that the love you have
for me may also be the experiential reality of their heart together and
that I may be intimately involved together with them in the whole of our
family" (v. 26).
The Son was sent for this
purpose/mission which was totally relational. God's revelation and
truth are only for relationship--the relationship of the whole of God.
This relationship is the function of discipleship which necessarily
integrates spirituality (intimate relationship with God) and community
(intimate interdependent relationships equalized together in God's
family) in God's eschatological desires. This relationship is our call
(both individual and corporate) to be whole--the whole of God
constituted in and by the Trinity. For the church to be whole involves
transformed relationships--engaged by transformed persons--which are
both intimate and equalized. Yet, for the church to follow Jesus as the
equalizer in God's redemptive process for his people, for humanity,
creation and all of salvation history requires a deeper and more
rigorous functional understanding of redemption and reconciliation. This
will be the focus of the next three chapters in the attempt to establish
a working basis for the practice of the church as equalizer within
itself (Chapter 8, along with parenthetical Chapter 9) and within the
world (Chapter 10), followed by the concluding chapter suggesting who
will best meet this challenge for the whole of God.
The Work of Equalization
In the process of discipleship,
following Jesus in the relational progression encounters various matters
which can be a blessing or a threat. Equalizing is one of those matters
that is a blessing or a threat. It is a threat for those who depend on
what they do, accomplish and have, in order to establish themselves;
this includes those who misuse Christian freedom and feed on
individualism. It is a blessing, however, for those who need grace and
who want more than reductionist substitutes. Since Jesus equalized
persons by extending the relationship of his Father to us, what
distinguishes his followers, his church, his family is to likewise
equalize by extending this relationship of family love. Yet,
equalization and a reductionist framework are irreconcilable, thus
incompatible as a working basis for church practice.
Reductionist influences diminish or
minimalize the qualitative significance of God's people to an ambiguous
function (diminished "light") and shallow practice (minimalized "salt"). Whether fragmenting into parts the whole of God, reducing the
whole person, constraining God's design and purpose for relationships, minimalizing qualitative substance in life, or even diminishing the
relational process of faith and the relational truth of the gospel,
reductionist practices essentially take something away from what is
authentic and replace it with a counterfeit substitute--though the
substitute may appear in form to be the same, is presented as genuine
and fulfills a prevailing function. By diminishing or minimalizing the
whole, reductionism takes away the qualitative significance clearly
distinguishing God's people and thus makes the church ordinary in
usage, common in function and practice; that is, in effect the church
becomes "of the world." If a church's identity and function as God's
family of sojourners is not to be co-opted by a reductionist process--shaping it, for example, as another well-intentioned social institution
among a plurality, or assimilating its members into a prevailing
sociocultural context--then it is imperative for church practice to make
more explicit and heighten its conflict with reductionism. By its nature
as those equalized by and who now follow Jesus the equalizer, the church
in its practice must be true to the redemptive process which reconciled
all its members together to the whole of God.
In addition to the lure of
reductionism, we should not have any romanticized illusions about
equalizing. The process is rigorous. Whether within the church or in the
world, the process of equalization is a rigorous work. The divine cost
to equalize all of us before God was beyond our comprehension--involving, at the very least, the Son temporarily giving up equality in
the Trinity and submitting his whole person for the relationships
(through redemption and by adoption) necessary to be whole as God's
family (cf. Phil 2:6-8; Col 1:19-20). When we contemplate intently on
the holy, eternal God and truly grasp what the Father did in his Son and
continues to do in his Spirit for its completion, we can understand that
indeed this equalization process is rigorous relational work. All that
the Trinity engages goes into destroying the barriers "to be apart" in
order to reconcile us together as one in the whole of God. The work of
equalization and the cost to implement it, therefore, should never
become ends in themselves because in God's call the work and cost
always serve toward the primacy of relationship in the whole of God.
The human cost for equalizing work--first to be equalized within one's own person and then to equalize all
persons in relationships--is similar to the divine cost. It involves
ongoingly giving up all elements of reductionist human distinctions
which stratify persons, as well as submitting one's whole person (as
is, without those distinctions) to be intimately involved with others in
relationships of family love which equalize and reconcile to the whole
of God. Yet this cost is always for these relationships necessary in
order to be whole. A prime example of this is when Paul operationalized
the ecclesiology of the whole for Philemon in relation to his runaway
slave, Onesimus. Philemon was called to be whole in the rigorous
relational work of equalizing not only his slave but also himself for
transformed relationship together (Phm 9-12). On the basis of family
love, this required Philemon to give up a slave to gain a brother, to
make his household "business" secondary to gain family (Phm 16)--the
importance of the whole person in the primacy of the whole of God's
family.
The primacy of the trinitarian
relational context and process cannot be diminished or minimalized in
any way in order for the relational outcome to be authentic of the whole
of God. When we are establishing our persons not "to be apart" from the
whole of God, we are engaging the redemptive process of reconciliation
God extends to us through redemption in Christ, which is imperative for
relationship with God in particular. To participate in--that is, to be
relationally involved in and have communion with--the whole of God's
life requires the redemptive change that transforms (metamorphoo,
not metaschematizo) the person to be reconciled to God for
intimate relationship as his very own, belonging permanently to God's
family. Additionallly, when we are working on our relationships not "to
be apart" from the whole of relationships in general, we need to engage
the relational process of redemption and reconciliation (or redemptive
reconciliation to be discussed in Chapter 10) imperative for these
relationships to be whole. To participate in and have an equal share in
life together as family in likeness of the Trinity requires the
equalization of redemption and intimate involvement of reconciliation in
family love.
For human persons to be whole is
a dynamic relational condition of coming together, which cannot
be compatible with any presence of the more static relational condition
"to be apart." Therefore to be whole is an ongoing relational condition
that involves reconciliation. Situations and circumstances may bring
persons into common activity or shared space (including cyberspace
connections) but they do not account for (unintentionally or by design)
bringing those persons together--notably to be whole. This is the unique
function of relationship, specifically reconciled relationships. Yet,
reconciliation is not mere peaceful harmony or operational unity. We
cannot fully come together as one in deep, meaningful relationships
unless they are established with the whole person signified at the level
of our hearts. Churches have to reexamine the significance of the
ministry of reconciliation God committed to those of the new creation (2
Cor 5:17-19) and how we practice it foremost within the gathering of the
church.
This becomes an issue in church
practice that often tends to be a threat or burden more than a blessing
and privilege. The Greek term for reconciliation (katallege)
denotes: to change from one condition to another by taking away the root
cause of a broken (or distant) relationship and, thus, leaving no
barriers to restoring communion. This restoring to communion is the
qualitative significance of persons coming together, that is, hearts
coming together. In other words, as noted previously, this is intimacy.
Intimacy is the relational process which underlies all
reconciliation. Clearly then, the ministry of reconciliation
involves specifically the building of intimacy. Building the intimate
relationships necessary to be whole--foremost with God and within the
church, then extending its purpose of reconciliation in the world--becomes the definitive work (cf. Gen 2:18; 1:28) for the new creation
"in Christ." This relational work is what substantively distinguishes the
functional life and practice of the transformed church from the common
usages and ordinary practices prevailing in the surrounding contexts,
and often in churches today. That is, this is the outcome when this
rigorous relational work is not diminished or minimalized by
reductionism, nor avoided because of threat or burden.
Practicing transformed relationships
(both intimate and equalized) is simplified when diversity is the
exception rather than the rule. Human differences, however, prevail
increasingly regardless of the context. How we address differences is
the most crucial issue in this relational work which not only rigorously
challenges church practice but also imperatively calls it forth in order
to be whole.
Its Multicultural Nature
All the global changes and instability
experienced since the latter third of the twentieth century have created
much more uncertainty in our lives, collectively and even individually.
With the extent of the changes taking place around us, relational
changes are the most critical. As noted earlier, globalization is
forcing us to think more about the interrelationships beyond our
provincial boundaries and comfort zones. Additionally, emigration
(voluntary and involuntary) has affected all our lives in one way or
another. At no other time in history has a group of persons "faced" so
many other peoples different from themselves than exists today. This
certainly has strained our comfort zones and either has threatened and
burdened church practice or has challenged, privileged and blessed
churches to expand its relationships, even to change how it does
relationships.
Diversity and human differences have
been addressed in various ways. In the U.S., assimilation into the
dominant culture has been the prevailing approach to deal with
differences, the effects of which may be functionally efficient but do
not have the qualitative outcome sufficient for the persons involved to
be whole as well as necessary for their relationships to be whole.
During this recent period of change, we have been hearing the call from
more progressive segments of our society for pluralism and
multiculturalism. Pluralism is the acceptance of others' differences and
the mutual coexistence of those differences. Multiculturalism attempts
to be more adaptive to differences by mutually establishing a solidarity
of them together, though not to be confused with the myth of a melting
pot identified with the U.S. Whether done with good intentions or mere
political correctness, however, the solidarity of multiculturalism tends
to be essentially a call for pluralism and the tolerance of others'
differences. Though this affirmation of diversity is certainly important
and necessary for our times, coming together and becoming one is
not on their agenda, reconciliation and restoring wholeness are not a
part of their process.
The mere affirmation of human diversity
is not sufficient to define the purpose nor to determine the practice of
the church. Moreover, the presence of diversity in a church is not
necessarily a sufficient basis to celebrate, though such celebration
would be conventional of multiculturalism. This is not the multicultural
perspective to be presented in this chapter.
What distinguishes the church as
equalizer goes beyond these limited efforts in the surrounding context,
and for the church to be whole it cannot mirror them. It would be naive
to think that pluralism is or can be the dominant structure ordering
human life. In contrast to the horizontal structure of pluralism--where
differences are accepted or at least tolerated--the vertical structure
imposed on human differences is what dominates. Divisions in human
relations, for example, caused by human differences are not simply
horizontal partitions. Implied in most divisions is vertical structuring
which stratifies relationships in inequality--as seen between Judaizers
and Gentile Christians in the early church, observed in U.S. race-ethnic
relations under the illusion of "separate but equal," and witnessed in
twentieth-century Balkanization. The human tendency to perceive human
differences on a vertical scale of "better@" or "less" is the dominant
way of human life reflecting the relational condition "to be apart"
from the whole.
Since God intervened in this relational
condition, the action he initiated by his grace constitutes the church
in the process of the rigorous relational work of equalizing.
Furthermore, Jesus clearly led the way to equalize in order to change
this old order of life. Indeed, along with the whole nature of the
cross, the whole week of Jesus' passion demonstrates this equalization:
Sunday's humble but triumphant entry set the tone for the week and for
the equalizing nature of Christ's relational work, purpose and his
church to follow; Monday, Jesus cleansed the temple of its system of
inequality (to be discussed further in Chapter 10) and opened God's
house for "all nations"; on Thursday--assuming a traditional view of
what day this Passover meal took place--he washed his disciples' feet,
demonstrating the new relational order of relational involvement, which
means to be willing to submit one's life for others in order to be whole--ultimately demonstrating this love on Friday; Wednesday was
absent of recorded activity strongly suggesting that Jesus separated
himself in the solitude of prayer, which, for us, is a place of
equalization where there is no one else to be compared to and no work or
role to define self other than our whole person.
This is the week the world and all
history became equalized, when the old died and the new
was raised up, where God's design for relationships was restored to
their true purpose. As discussed in the ecclesiology of the whole, the
redemptive outcome of all this is that the relational work of God's
grace does not allow us our distinctions and takes away differences
which keep us apart from the whole.
Going back to the cleansing of
the temple, Jesus restated unequivocally "my house will be called a
house of prayer for all nations" (Mk 11:17). He was not merely opening
access to God's house for "all nations" by his actions. This has to be
connected to the window of the whole Jesus opened by defining who his
family is (Mt 12:48-50). Whereas he clearly constituted the whole of his
family as his authentic disciples, here he emphatically demonstrates
that the whole of God's house (oikos, household, family) is made
up of "all nations" (ethnos, people as a unit and humankind
together). In the Great Commission, the only imperative Jesus made is to
"make disciples of all nations" (Mt 28:19). Without grasping the whole,
our tendency in evangelism is to make converts over disciples, while our
mission focus is geographical--going to "all nations." This missional
paradigm grasps neither Jesus' call nor his commission. We need to
revisit "all nations" and the imperative call of Jesus because
ethne (pl. of
ethnos) is not about places, situations and doing something but
about persons, relationships and being the whole of God's family.
In the whole of God's family, all the
human differences catalogued under humanity come together, not
simply have access or a presence. This is the multicultural nature of
the whole of God as family constituted in the Trinity--without the
distinctions which stratify in a system of inequality, yet with all the
unique functions necessary to be whole.
A church functioning without
distinctions may sound good in theory but pragmatically it is not the
kind of ideal many churches (mainline denominational or free) would
actually practice. Even the magisterial Reformers did not subject their
ecclesiology to the priesthood of all believers. This issue, however, is
not whether the practice of the church should be left to anybody--thus,
for example, sacrificing orthodoxy or compromising mission--but whether
church function can be the practice of everybody, that is, the
whole. It appears to elude the grasp of conventional Christian wisdom
how the church can operationally function in unity (whether
according to a creed or pragmatic principles) with the participation of
all its existing diversity, and how the church can operate with
efficiency along with the range of differences among its members.
Certainly a reductionist framework influences how unity is approached
and what priority is given to efficiency, which must be reexamined for
church practice to engage the redemptive-reconciling relational work of
God's family.
The relational tension created by
others' differences is directly proportional to the homogeneity of "our
little world," which we construct of ideas, beliefs and experiences.
This world or "box" we live in, this reality essentially constructed
from cultural stuff and relational experiences, tends to define things
presumably as the sum total of the way life is and should be conformed
to. We would all be consigned to "our little world" had God not
intruded in this world by his vulnerable incarnation to relationally
extend family love so we would not be apart from the reality of the
whole. This initiative of God's reconciling work redeems us from "our
little world" and extends us beyond it in the equalizing process of the
ministry of reconciliation.
The imperative call to extend family
love beyond "our little world," however, involves change--major
redemptive changes both individually and corporately. These changes are
nonnegotiable, thus imperative if, in actual practice, the purpose of
the church engages the relational process of family love in which
persons who are different will be embraced equally within the
church family and into the whole of God's family. The transformed
relationships necessary in this process and the ongoing redemptive
dynamics needed to enlarge "our little world," to extend beyond our "box"--that is, effectively transforming our established ways of doing
things in the church--all help us to understand the rigorous relational
work imperative to constitute the multicultural nature (diversity) of
Christ's church and the church's function to represent the whole of
God as family constituted in the Trinity. This becomes the fulfillment
of Jesus' prayer in John 17.
Addressing Change from Without from
Within
The work of church growth and
development must be examined more deeply. The focus on quantitative
goals--defined primarily as production and the activity (labor)
connected to it--reduces the priority needed for the primacy of building
the infrastructure of the church: transformed persons practicing
transformed relationships with family love (cf. Gal 5:6, 6:15; Rev
2:2-4).
Understanding the relational
nature of Jesus' purpose throughout the incarnation needs to be the
basis for determining the working priorities for church practice. Based
on his own behavior in many of what turned into intimate interactions--most of which were unplanned, untimely and even disruptive to his
original plans--Jesus demonstrated how to function in the process of
God's desires and what is important to God in the new creation. This
often caused consternation for the disciples due to their working
priorities, particularly from their perceptions of people who were
different, like the Canaanite woman discussed earlier (Mt 15:21-28).
Nothing was more important to Jesus than persons and
relationships--and
transforming them to be equalized in and reconciled to the whole of God.
Jesus' working priorities were not
about goals to fulfill in a divine mission because his whole purpose was
a function of relationship: its origin, its initiation, its enactment,
its fulfillment, its outcome. While functioning in the primacy of
relationship, Jesus was not an efficient missionary or church planter in
terms of how efficiency controls function today and becomes an unwritten
policy of church operation. Yet, the church as an organic body, as the
family of God, is also a direct function of the relationships which are
necessary to make it whole in likeness of the Trinity. As followers of
Jesus, the nature of the purpose for the transformed church must find
its sum and substance in relationships--the very nature of the whole of
God as intimately relational, vulnerably responsive and lovingly
involved in ongoing function. The structure and process of the new
creation order are based on this priority of relationship. The church's
life is an expression of this qualitative significance, and its mission
is an extension of the qualitative difference of the whole of God. When
authentically practiced, the transformed church's purpose deals with
relationships: their alienation, their healing, their reconciliation,
their restoration and transformation.
This calls for a fundamental paradigm
shift in our approach to church body life and church growth. The
trinitarian relational context of family and the relational process of
family love establish the priorities necessary to build the
infrastructure for the whole of God's people to be whole as family in
likeness not of any type of family or any form of community--including
those of the first-century Mediterranean world, though there is clear
association to its patrilineal kinship group1--but in likeness of the
Trinity. This likeness and purpose are fulfilled as the church ongoingly
engages the relational involvement of family love and becomes equalized
in the multicultural church.
If the church is to be a
household of "all nations" (ethne) as Jesus defined, churches cannot be
selective about the specific persons whom it involves or to whom it
reaches out consistently. The church must not bypass some persons (or
make it more difficult for them) in order to include specific other
persons. In other words, the practical operation of a gathering of God's people must not discriminate between persons--even inadvertently, for
example by charging for programs that make it difficult for the poor to
participate freely--no matter how efficacious it may appear in the
process of church growth, development and mission. The church character
of ethne
is an inclusive approach and suggests no discretionary models or
expedient strategies to fulfill the whole of God's desires as revealed
by Jesus in the incarnation and further revealed by him to Peter and
Paul (cf. Acts 15:8, 9). More importantly, God's family is the
reconciliatory inclusion of human differences and cannot be the
transformed church without the explicit and ongoing effort to be
inclusive for the whole (read all of Peter's argument before the
Jerusalem council in Acts 15). In its practice of family love the church
takes in and involves all persons, overlooking none, neglecting no one,
and especially avoiding no persons. Church practice cannot legitimate
any other approach to the whole of God's desires--with even language
only a conditional exception for ethnic churches.
Yet the church cannot be relationally
involved with the human diversity in the surrounding context of the
world without the full involvement of human differences in transformed
relationships (equalized and intimate) within its own life as family. In
extending God's response to the relational condition "to be apart"
from the whole, the church fails to fulfill its purpose as equalizer as
long as its own members remain functionally apart in this condition--even if unintentional or inadvertent. The equalizing of redemption and
the intimacy of reconciliation are intentional relational practices, in
the total process of which the church naturally and by necessity becomes
the multicultural whole of God's family.
This is "the truth of the
gospel" enforced by Paul invalidating discriminatory distinctions in the
church, and "the mystery of Christ" operationalized by Paul precluding
stratification in God's covenant family. These are not codes to follow
for church structure and polity but the framework of qualitative
significance shaping not only our perceptions but requiring our
obedience in the practice of the church. Functionally, this means, for
example, that any homogeneous model of church growth--or any variation
emphasizing "likeness" other than of the Trinity--is a critical error
in building the body of Christ. The implicit quantitative nature of any
homogeneous church growth approach not only reduces the quality of
disciples making up the church, but it also reinforces (intentionally or
unintentionally) the exclusionary practices characteristic of a system
of inequality. As Paul clearly defined the truth for biblical culture in
applying the new relational reality to exactly this issue (Eph 2:11-22),
Christ wiped out the relational barriers separating and stratifying us
and made us all one whole--that is, "one new
anthropos"
(signifying human being without respect to gender, and thus to any other
distinction, v. 15) with all the human differences structurally and
relationally reconciled into the whole of God's new kinship family.
This makes it imperative for church practice: no more "homogeneous
models," no more "separate but equal" models, and moreover, no more "deficit models" (the treatment, however subtle, of others who are
different as being essentially less).
While being involved with diversity
within the church or engaging diversity within the world, the church
must be extremely careful, even scrupulous, not to use a "deficit
model" for any human differences. Historically, in its extreme usage
this treatment was perpetrated by colonialism and manifest destiny while
its more common usage is subtly employed (even as a norm today) by
paternalism. The stigma of being less is even attached to the
needy and the disadvantaged. Whatever the difference, persons are
perceived as less because ostensibly they do not measure up to the
prevailing standards used in the reductionist process of defining the
human person by what one does or has, as discussed initially in the
first chapter. Besides the process of human definition, these prevailing
standards themselves, not only their application, raise the question:
are these standards based on what prevails in the sociocultural context
or on biblical culture formulated from the whole of God's desires
revealed particularly in the incarnation? I realize that church
tradition at times has failed to illuminate the latter clearly, even at
times has confused the distinction between the latter and the former,
notably since Constantinianism in the fourth century.2
Yet, the truth of the gospel of Jesus
Christ emerges unreduced when it creates a cultural context of its own
in the formation of the church as the whole of God's family--just as
Paul demonstrated. Unless this biblical cultural context is functionally
developed in a church's practice as the trinitarian relational context
of family and relational process of family love, the transformed church
and the truth of the gospel have not been distinguished in the world of
common usage and ordinary function, thus susceptible to the influence of
prevailing cultures and reductionism.
The authentic biblical cultural
context of the transformed church (and thus the truth of the gospel) is
the outcome of the rigorous relational work of redemption and
reconciliation established by Christ and being completed by his Spirit
in cooperative function with his followers. "All nations" is not a goal
for missions, nor is ethne
a church policy of diversity-quotas. The
ethne character of
church is the relational reality from the equalizing of redemption and
the intimacy of reconciliation functioning with family love. In its
authentic practice this new creation context not only generates the
ministry of reconciliation but it also creates a distinct culture of
reconciliation clearly defined only by biblical culture. This
culture--as distinguished from multiculturalism in common usage--is
about restoring wholeness to the person and to all relationships
according to the whole of God's design and purpose.
The transformed church creates this
cultural context which functionally, on the one hand, equalizes the
differences keeping persons apart from the whole while, on the other
hand, affirms those differences which are both important and necessary
for the organic function of the body of Christ, though perhaps of
secondary import for the diverse whole of God's family. The function of
biblical culture defines human significance from the qualitative
framework of God: what differences mean, what differences are
significant, which ones are not necessary, and which are unacceptable.
Prevailing cultures should not define this for the church, nor should
subtle aspects of reductionism determine church practice in common and
ordinary terms. We need to understand specifically from what context,
for example, our standards come and our perceptions of mission and
church growth are determined. Change is imperative where indicated.
This also directly relates to the
issues of unity and efficiency in the church raised in the previous
section. Knowing the context which informs our approach to church unity
and which determines the priority we give to efficiency in church
operation--a priority that emerged in the industrial age which is
compounded in the postindustrial information age--becomes vital for the
practice of any church and for any critical changes necessary to be
whole. In the truth of the gospel, the transformed church context is
incompatible with homogeneous models, deficit models and any other
success models which generate unity and growth primarily in quantitative
terms. For transformed persons to live in transformed relationships
(equalized and intimate) together in God's new kinship family, all the
created differences, contextual differences and the gifted (from God)
differences, as well as the consequential differences we have to live
with until total wholeness and well-being are brought to eschatological
completion, all need to be reconciled to God and to each other--however
difficult and inefficient--in the whole of God's new creation with a
new cultural context. It is within this new context where legitimate
diversity is truly seen (through the perceptual framework of biblical
culture), affirmed, experienced together, and given its full and
rightful place in God's household as a relational function of family
love. This is fundamental to the covenant promise of the mystery of
Christ (Eph 3:6).
Yet, how does the unity of the whole of
God's family preclude becoming an essentially homogeneous context which
only addresses the changing diversity in its neighborhood by a dominant
assimilation approach? The mere presence of diversity is not an adequate
response to this question urgently framed in modern contextual changes
of human migration. While having diversity is becoming an accepted
indicator of church growth, this tends to indicate only a static
quantitative condition rather than having functional qualitative
significance in church relations. The answer we need to pursue further
involves the primacy for biblical culture to inform church practice,
which then will also include imperative redemptive changes.
The authentic church of Jesus
Christ is both local and universal (catholic as defined in the Nicene
Creed). The integrity of this twofold character of the church must be
dynamic (not fluid) by nature and not static where local has no
functional meaning. This necessitates a biblically orthodox
(monocultural) ideological core for our belief system as "one new
anthropos"
which cannot be reduced, substituted for or
redefined by a surrounding context. There is no dialectic at work here
resulting in a multicultural church. The significance of this core also
includes a functional framework to account for multicultural shaping of
secondary areas (defined by biblical culture) for the operation (not the
identity and purpose) of the church in its unique and increasingly
diverse local settings. Any dialectical relationship reduces the church
to common usage and ordinary function and practice of a surrounding
context.
The church universal, however,
transcends surrounding sociocultural contexts with its own monocultural
base while the church local, by the relational process of family love,
vulnerably accounts for the diversity of persons and peoples and aspects
of their culture within the limits of this framework for secondary
matter. Biblical culture maintains the unity (one) and universal
(catholic) attributes of the Nicene Creed and the traditional
characteristics of the church, yet it does so with a dynamic integrity,
not a static integrity of institutionalism. In doing so, biblical
culture necessarily integrates (not assimilates) the human diversity of
the multicultural nature of the church vitally within the practice of
the local apostolic church of the N.T. This is the whole of God's
family Paul made operational in the church. This precludes any
homogeneous simulation of church ontology and exposes any
epistemological illusion of the truth of the gospel. Thus, both the
integrity of the universal and the local church must be maintained. Any
other unity is not whole and becomes a reductionist substitute of the
whole of God.
What shapes local church practice is
certainly an issue which requires ongoing attention. The growing
contexts of human migration (again voluntary and involuntary) and their
intrusive realities have magnified the need in human relations, both
local and global, for redemption and reconciliation. Compounded by the
reductionist influences of globalization and the technology of the
information age, this exponential need exists today at the church's
doorsteps more than ever before. This makes the multicultural nature of
the church that much more urgently necessary. Yet, it is important for
local churches to be multicultural not just because of the surrounding
situation but because of the truth of the gospel and biblical culture.
When biblical culture does not provide the context for our faith and
church practice, they become contextualized by a surrounding
reductionist source.
In order for us to respond and be
relationally involved with our whole persons to Christ's commission to
be the multicultural church, there are various tensions and conflicts
necessary to address both individually and corporately. We began to
address some of these issues in the previous two chapters. As we deepen
this process to the multicultural family of God, the need for change increases--individual changes involving one's personhood, corporate
changes within the church, and changes in how both do relationships. In
the call to be whole, before the church deals with changes in the world
it needs to change within itself in vital areas. In other words, we
cannot be "sent to all nations" before we embody the "call to be
whole"--which is why this chapter precedes the tenth chapter on mission
into the world.
Four Major Aspects to Multicultural
Change
This priority is apparent as we discuss
more specifically what it means for the body of Christ's followers to
be multicultural. There are four aspects involved in becoming the
transformed multicultural church (MCC): two requiring structural and
contextual dimensions, plus two more necessitating individual and
relational processes. In each aspect redemptive changes are necessary--changes which overlap and interact with other aspects.
To stress a point made in part earlier,
the MCC does not automatically mean the church has to be made up of
different races, colors and ethnicities, like a quota system. The
multicultural nature of the ecclesiology of the whole should not be
confused with affirmative-action ecclesiology. The latter perspective
tends to be limited in its focus (for example, more quantitative or
outer in) and in its practice (for example, to merely celebrating
diversity or promoting solidarity). In the deeper perspective of
biblical culture, the first key characteristic of the MCC is the
structural dimension of access. While access can be seen as a
static condition in merely an "open-door policy," from a relational
perspective access is dynamic and includes relational involvement.
In his description of the whole of God's family made operational in the MCC, Paul said:
"for through him we
both [human diversity] have access to the Father by one Spirit" (Eph
2:18). The term for "access@" (prosagoge) was used for an
audience granted to someone by high officials and monarchs; it comes
from prosago, "to bring near." This is not merely an open door
but the opportunity to interact with someone greater, however limited
the interaction may be. Paul goes on to define the nature of this
relational involvement with the Father: "we may approach [prosago]
God with freedom and confidence" (Eph 3:12). "Freedom" (parresia)
involves boldness, especially to speak all that one thinks, feels, that
is, with "confidence" (pepoithesis, trust, from peitho,
to persuade). This trust to share one's person openly suggests a very
intimate relationship, not merely having
access--which Paul further
defines for those who have been equalized to interact with Abba as his
very own daughters and sons (Rom 8:15). Access to the Father involves
this intimate relationship in which his very own are not "treated
differently" (diakrino, Acts 15:9).
What Peter testified about at the
Jerusalem council was the kind of access he firmly believed was
traditionally impossible for Gentiles. Though Jesus changed Peter's
theology, Peter struggled to change the practice of his tradition.
Emotional investment made the issue of change more than a matter of
habit. Change is always difficult if it involves losing something, or at
least the perception of losing something even when it involves
redemptive change.
After the primordial garden, the
relational condition "to be apart" became an intentional process by
human design to secure advantage and maintain self-preservation. The
specific resources for this relational struggle may vary from one
historical context to another. Yet, power, privilege and prestige are
the basic issues around which these relational struggles of inequality revolve--whether the context is family, social, economic, political or
even among God's people. We see these issues in Peter's transition to
the MCC of the ecclesiology of the whole (Acts 10): the privilege of
having access to grace and life's resources and opportunities
(10:34ff); the power of the anointing of the Holy Spirit (10:44-46); the
prestige (status) of being God's children with all the rights and
privileges
(10:47, 48). Any aspects of power, privilege and prestige are
advantages (and benefits) many persons are reluctant to even share if
the perception (even if unreal) means less for them. The control of this
distribution is threatened by equal access.
Access, however, is not a quantitative
resource based on merit. Access is the qualitative relational process
based on grace. The significance of this relational opportunity for all
persons not to be treated differently is the availability of God to
redeem them from the relational condition "to be apart" and to resolve
their relational struggle by reconciliation to the whole of God. In
other words, equal access does not threaten personhood and wholeness for
the church but is instrumental in the qualitative development of them.
Embracing the redemptive change which functionally engages equal access
extends church practice intentionally in the relational involvement
necessary to be whole and deepens this involvement with persons who are
different to receive, experience and belong to the whole of God.
The dynamic structural change in the
early church led quite naturally to a contextual change--a contextual
dimension which is the second key characteristic of the MCC. Though the
MCC is not always of multiracial-ethnic makeup, it is improbable without
it since we live in multicultural contexts. This was true of the ancient
Mediterranean world. Yet the early Jewish Christian community was a
homogeneous group which denied or limited access to others who were
different. Until Peter's transformation and Paul's pivotal arrival, "all nations" had not been perceived to include Gentiles, Samaritans,or
whomever else, into their house churches, table fellowships and
community identity. Despite a missional program to the surrounding
diversity, church practice had yet to involve the reconciliatory
inclusion of those persons for the whole. Such purposeful relational
involvement necessitates a major contextual change, especially for a
homogeneous group (even those based on language).
The mere inclusion of human diversity
is not sufficient to ensure against ontological simulation of the whole
and epistemological illusion of the truth of the gospel. The trinitarian
relational context of the transformed church operates with a culture of
reconciliation by which the vital relational process of its
reconciliation ministry practice intentionally initiates active
relational involvement with all persons in family love. As Peter learned
and testified to before the Jerusalem council, God's family love does
not make distinctions of persons, nor does it give any comparative value
to their differences and thus treat them differently--"He made no
distinctions between us and them" (diakrino, treat different,
Acts 15:9). Yet, in order to be whole, it is not adequate just to
include those persons in the church.
The process of family love simply
extends relational involvement to those who are different, takes in and
embraces as a full part of one's own family those who respond to God.
This is what definitively operationalizes the relational involvement
necessary for the multicultural nature of the transformed church. Yet,
for authenticity of church practice in this relational process involving
reconciliatory inclusion, there has to be significant contextual change
within the church. This contextual change defines the second key
characteristic of the MCC: the process of absorbing differences
into the church and, therefore, the willingness to change and even adopt
differences for the whole of God, all within the framework of biblical
culture.
As Peter was chastened by Christ and
humbled by Paul, embracing this contextual change requires us to humbly
accept the limitations of our working perceptual-interpretive framework
(determining what we pay attention to or ignore) to understand the
significance of all differences in the whole of God, as well as requires
us to honestly admit the practice of our bias in applying our framework.
Without this we tend to be lured by reductionism. Thus, this humility
and honesty are necessary to be whole, the whole of the holy and eternal
triune God.
Moreover, this contextual principle
suggests that the biological family among Christians also needs to be "multicultural" in the sense that it needs to absorb (i.e., increasingly
accept) family differences (especially generational) and change and even
adopt some of those differences within the wisdom of biblical culture--including redefining biological family with the significance of church
as family. When Christians practice this contextual dimension, both the
family of God and the biological family become more loving and whole.
The importance of these structural and
contextual aspects to multicultural change signifying the body of Christ
was first demonstrated by Jesus back at the temple cleansing discussed
earlier in this chapter. The process of becoming multicultural began
when Jesus confronted the system of inequality the Jewish leaders
established to control the temple to their advantage. Of course, this
effectively denied access and use of the temple to those with less
power, privilege and prestige. By his nature and the nature of God's
house, his cleaning out the temple not only gave access to the less
resourceful but absorbed those who were different into one household
without distinctions. Jesus' actions were always in the relational
context and process of God's response to the relational condition "to
be apart" for the purpose of reconciliation to the whole of God. This is
the beginning of the multicultural nature of the transformed church.
The church today has its roots here--not just by tradition, not merely ecclesial roots but, more importantly,
because of the trinitarian relational context of family and the
trinitarian relational process of family love Christ engaged to
establish his body. And this suggests the need for some structural and
contextual cleansing to get back to these roots. What churches today
pattern themselves after defines the context of influence that basically
determines how they will function within themselves and in the world.
When competing influences from contexts surrounding the church diminish
or minimalize the influence of biblical culture, churches increasingly
promote illusions of what the gospel is completely about and thus
practice simulations of church ontology as the whole of God's family
constituted in and by the Trinity. There is only one true basis for the
church (past, present and eschatologically directed) but many
reductionist alternatives for why a church exists and how it functions
today. The latter need fundamental, redemptive changes.
These structural and contextual aspects
involved in becoming the MCC directly relate to the other two major
aspects which are processes for the individual person and our
relationships. These four aspects strongly interact together in
reflexive relationship which suggests no set order of their development
and practice. Yet, there is an obvious flow to each pair of aspects--for
example, there has to be access before differences can be absorbed--while in crucial and practical ways the latter pair will determine the
extent and significance of the former's practice.
The individual process
(third key characteristic) involves our reaction and response to
differences. When a person is faced with differences in others, there is
invariably some degree of tension for that person, whether conscious or
not. This has to do with "our little world" or the "box" we live in--constructed from the limitations of our perceptual-interpretive
framework--which is why humbly accepting its limits and honestly
admitting our bias are necessary to be whole, as noted in the contextual
aspect. What do we do with that tension in those situations? More
importantly, what do we do with those differences in that relational
context? This is important to understand for the ongoing issues of what
we depend on to define our person, how we do relationships in these
conditions and what level of relationship we engage, especially within
the church. These are issues which each person must address as an
individual and be accountable for, on the one hand, while the church
community must account for them in practice on the other.
Two contrasting individual responses to
others' differences can be observed in the Bible to help our
understanding. One response is from Paul. While affirming the existence
of Christian freedom, he constituted it in the relational context of the
whole in order that the significance of Christian freedom would not be
diminished, minimalized or abused. Paul highlighted his own liberty (see
1 Cor 9:19-23) by responding to others' differences simply with the
dynamic relational process of submission (discussed in the previous
chapter) summarized in his declaration: "I have become all things to
all. . . ." (9:22). This is not the variable personality of a person who
has no clear sense of his real identity. Nor is this about assimilating
or masquerading in the context of differences. Furthermore, Paul was not
illustrating what to do with tension in those situations created by
human diversity. Since Paul did not define his person in quantitative
terms from the outer in, he was free to exercise relational involvement
with others in the qualitative significance of inner out--regardless of
outer-in differences to which he would relationally submit for the sake
of the whole.
It is crucial for our understanding of
personhood and human relations to grasp that deeply implied in Christian
liberty is being redeemed from those matters causing barriers in
relationships--specifically in the relational condition "to be apart"
from the whole. Christology and soteriology cohered for Paul in this
practice of freedom for the individual person in the relationships
necessary for the ecclesiology signifying the whole of God.
In response to the sociocultural
conflicts apparent in the diversity of the church community at Corinth,3
Paul demonstrated the relational need to venture out of "our little
world" and beyond the limitations that its perceptual framework imposes
on personhood and relationships in order to realize and experience the
whole of God. He demonstrated the relational need of the whole to have sociocultural sensitivity and responsiveness to others' differences
(without losing his true identity) in order to be involved with them in
the relational context and process of the culture and ministry of
reconciliation (as he described in 9:22-23). Moreover, this also
critically informs us that as long as we maintain the basic integrity of
what we are in Christ and whose we are as the Father's
within the framework of biblical culture, then whatever multicultural
mode we use in secondary areas to express our lives or ministry is not
an issue. Mode is not that important to what we are and whose we are as
long as it does not substitute, distort or diminish the qualitative
significance of our identity as the whole of God's very own.
In contrast to Paul, the second
response to examine involves more general differences in others seen at
Jesus' dinner visit with Martha and Mary (see Lk 10:38-42). Martha had
tension with others' differences in that situation. When Jesus responded
to her being worried and upset by saying "only one thing is necessary,"
it was a vital statement about the meaning of differences and our
reaction to them based on our perceptual framework (acting as a filter
for relationships).
What was Martha worried or upset about?
Essentially, it centered on the repercussion of others' differences--in
this situation both Jesus' and Mary's. Martha had an established way of
doing things based on the prevailing cultural norms: her role as a
woman, the importance of dinner in hospitality, the expectation for
conformity of others in this social pattern. In the established ways of
"her little world," Martha felt comfortable; within this social matrix,
she defined her person and determined how relations should be. Thus, in
her tension about encountering differences outside of her framework, her
response in contrast to Paul was to demand that Mary do the same things
as she. Furthermore, she tried to make Jesus feel guilty for not
enforcing the prevailing norms. Martha's response and solution to
others' differences can be described as conventional: she tried to
control the situation by changing Mary to her established ways of
doing things, that is, to be like her.
Martha's response is understandable
because her personhood and the human relations perceived as necessary
were threatened by differences. In her conventional mindset, differences
to "her little world" had to be controlled. We see this conventional
practice in all contexts and levels of human life, even notably in the
church. What is absent from this response overlaps with the contextual
change discussed above: humbly accepting the limitations of our
framework to understand the significance of differences in the whole of
God, and honestly admitting our bias in imposing our framework on
others' differences. The absence of this humility and honesty is crucial
in the process to be whole because some of the differences of others can
take us deeper and beyond in the whole of God, as Mary's did with Jesus
(cf. also Jn 12:1-8).
Martha's response also helps us
understand that the underlying issue all of us face about others'
differences is the confronting reality: such differences pressure us
to change. The qualitative differences of the whole of God apply
more than pressure; they also make it imperative for us to change. This
issue becomes another burden or blessing--to try to maintain the status
quo or to change for growth. Others' differences either become a threat
to our established ways of doing things (particularly regarding
personhood and relationships) or are an opportunity for further
reconciliation to be whole and growth in God's wholeness. Our responses
converge with either the fear and control of Martha or the freedom and
love of Paul.
Postmodern influences today pressure us
to change, for better or for worse. The lure of reductionism always
pressures us, however, both to change what is whole and settle for less
as well as to maintain the substitutes for the whole. Just as Jesus told
Martha what was important, we need to rediscover those ways which are
truly necessary and essential priorities to the whole of God based on
biblical culture, not prevailing cultures. In his call to be whole, the
structural and contextual integrity of the MCC make it imperative for
individual persons belonging to God's family to humbly relinquish
control of unnecessary ways and honestly stop expecting others to fit
into "our little world." To follow the qualitative difference of Jesus
means to step out of the comforts of our framework--in trust of him to
be whole--by adjusting and changing in order to engage others in their
differences with the relational involvement of family love. In the
significance of the ministry of reconciliation this is the access of
truly being multicultural, not about pluralism; in the qualitative
culture of reconciliation this is absorbing differences, not about
solidarity in blanket tolerance.
These changes within the individual
certainly involve redemptive change (old dying and new rising) which not
only clears the way for the new creation but brings it in. Redemptive
change must antecede and prevail in the relational process leading to
reconciliation to the whole of God.
Yet, for the individual to
authentically engage others (different or not) in the relationships
necessary for the MCC involves not only the significance of this new
relational context beyond "our little world" but also by nature
imperatively requires its deeper relational process in our
relationships (fourth key characteristic). While this deeper
relational process is seen above in Mary, this is the most clearly
visible in Jesus' life.
Along with the various examples of
Jesus' relational involvement previously noted, in the incarnation of
God's glory--revealing the heart of God's being, God's intimate
relational nature and ongoing open presence (cf. Jn 1:14)--Jesus made
himself vulnerable to our rejection (cf. Jn 1:11; Is 53:3). Beyond the
conflict of ideological differences, this is the relational conflict
naturally consequential when the what that is separated from the
ordinary and common (i.e., what is holy) engages those of ordinary and
common usage. When the Son stepped out of "his eternal world" to
encounter the differences in our temporal context, Jesus opened his
whole person to be affected by all those relational consequences (cf. Lk
13:34; 19:41, 42). Nevertheless, the integrity of the Holy One was
maintained even though not separate but relationally involved; and this
mystery of the incarnation establishes its qualitative significance that
revelation of the Truth was for relationship--intimate relationship
together regardless of differences. This is the mystery of Christ and
the whole of the gospel made vulnerable relationally beyond theological
convention and church pronouncement (Eph 3:4, 6).
Despite all the inherent differences
the Holy One of God encountered, Jesus did not insulate himself from
them but openly engaged them with his whole person out of the "box" to
reconcile relationships. In doing so, Jesus demonstrated the basis for
the deeper relational process in all our relationships. The opposite of
control in the relational context of others' differences is
vulnerability in the relational process of love. Based on the new
nature of those who have received the vulnerable family love of God,
Christ calls those to be whole by extending vulnerability to others
(different or not) for the purpose of reconciliation. This call to
wholeness prevails in all of Jesus' nonnegotiable desires for us to
love; to love is how to be relationally involved by opening our whole
persons to others (God included) and being vulnerable--not on our terms
or for ourselves. To love others, especially those who are different--which also includes God in qualitative difference--is not to expect them
to be like me or to come into my little world.
Just as the experience of the
incarnation was unavoidable to the holy God, this deeper relational
process in our relationships is irreducible for those made whole. The
relational process of love always involves being vulnerable to
rejection, challenges to our person or criticism by others, especially
who are different. Jesus extended family love in this way in his
relationships and suffered consequences from it. Does the incarnation
experience suggest that God could have responded to the human condition
"to be apart" in only this way? I have no conclusive answer, yet in
God's self-disclosure there is no other way God does relationship. This
certainly indicates to us that any other way would not have the
relational significance nor have the qualitative substance as the
incarnation. God's vulnerability is "nothing less and no substitutes" than the whole of God. On this basis, Jesus not only created
"access"
to the Father but vulnerably "absorbed" into the whole of God's family
those who received him regardless of their differences. There can be no
authentic practice of these structural and contextual aspects to
becoming the MCC without vulnerability in the relational process of God's family love--which, of course, depends on stepping out of
"our little
world" into the relational context of God's family.
Being vulnerable to others obviously
involves redemptive change from our prevailing way of doing
relationships, including our conventional perceptions. The vulnerability
of love cannot be focused on an issue of losing something, which
can be constraining, if not controlling. Yet, as urgent as this
perception may appear, the significant reality beyond this involves the
greater issue of gaining someone and the greater wholeness which
comes from relational involvement in the relationships necessary to be
whole as God's family.
Moreover, the whole of God does not
sacrifice the individual person for the family, as discussed previously
about Eastern families; it nurtures and grows the whole person in the
whole, for the whole, as the whole of God in likeness of the Trinity. In
the narrative accounts of Jesus' vulnerability, the active trust and
intimacy he experienced with his Father attended to the needs of his
whole person constituted by his heart. His ongoing relational
involvement with his Father is definitive for our practice, making
evident that the vulnerability of love also necessitates the ongoing
involvement of trust and intimacy in our relationship with God.
Relational faith engages God for this ongoing relational experience
which attends to our needs, just as it did for Jesus.
This relational process has a further
relational outcome involving the discovery of faith by freeing us to
determine what is necessary in life and what we need to relinquish
control over. This is certainly of significance because it would affect
our involvement with others, particularly who are different, making us
more vulnerable to equalized involvement for reconciled relationships of
the whole. God's family love functions in this way. Thus, to be
compatible with God's most fundamental response to our relational
condition "to be apart" from the whole, the authentic practice of this
love by its nature requires change in us: individual, relational,
structural and contextual changes.
These necessary changes certainly do
not always occur smoothly nor in linear order. The interaction among the
four key characteristics of being multicultural suggests reflexive
influence each aspect may have on the total process of change. More
importantly, the total process involves cooperative relational work with
God, and God often uses or allows negative situations to bring the
change in our lives necessary to be vulnerable, and then whole. As
discussed in the previous chapter, in the development of the apostolic
church God used persecution to force the church out of its provincial
context and made it vulnerable. For the ecclesial transition to be
whole, Christ chose Paul, a Hebrew of Hebrews, dogmatically
monocultural, to operationalize the church in the new creation as the
MCC. This remarkable development happened because Paul's whole person
was changed from inner out. Indeed, redemptive change is necessary and
often unpredictable in the process to be whole.
Yet change is not the mere product of
unilateral divine action but the mutuality of the Trinity in cooperative
relationship with the intentional efforts of the church accounting for
these changes and the necessary involvement from the individual persons
accountable for change. Moreover, change in itself is not a sufficient
indicator of a redemptive process, nor that that change is significant
beyond mere human effort. Schultze's comment on the technology of the
information age chastens our modern perceptions of change: "cyberculture is so dynamic that it . . . makes change itself into a
symbol for progress."4 In God's qualitative framework, redemptive change
is for wholeness, not progress, and for the deeper involvement in the
relationships necessary to be whole both with God and with each other,
not the quantity of connections.
The call to be whole is the call to go
beyond the common and ordinary--to be transformed from common
usage and ordinary function and practice to the new creation in
likeness of the whole of God made operational in the multicultural
nature of the church as equalizer.
Called Beyond the Common and Ordinary
In the function of the incarnation, it
was critical for Jesus' identity and practice not to be "of the world"
while vulnerably involved "in the world." John the Baptist testified
about this difference which distinguished Jesus from John's own
ministry (Jn 3:31-35). Jesus, himself, testified about his qualitative
difference from the Pharisees (reductionists) with the conclusion "you
are of this world, I am not of this world" (Jn 8:13-23). In his pivotal
prayer for his followers, Jesus also embeds our identity in this
qualitative difference from the world while being vulnerably involved in
it (Jn 17:13-16).
Jesus' pivotal prayer invokes the
transfer of both his identity and function directly to his followers (Jn
17:18). In this transfer, the transmission of the Father's desires for
his family and God's response to the human condition "to be apart" is
passed from his one and only Son to the whole of God's family as the
Father's new daughters and sons, as the Son's new sisters and brothers
(cf. Rom 8:19, 29). We need to grasp the full significance of this
transfer because it qualifies Christ's commission to become the
multicultural family of God.
The foremost imperative Jesus made in
his prayer to operationalize the qualitative difference of this identity
and function is clearly "sanctify" (Jn 17:17-19). The word for "sanctify" (hagiazo) means to cause to be holy, make holy; the
fundamental idea of this word is separation from common or ordinary
usage. We tend not to address this aspect of holy, so what is the
functional significance needed to be holy?
In God's disclosure through Isaiah
that "my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my
ways," that "as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Is 55:8, 9),
we tend to think of God's quantity more than his quality.
While this quantitative distinction is true, it is an inadequate
distinction about God to understand his ways; this quantitative lens
also conveniently does not pay attention to the deeper issue involved in
the above aspect of holy.
God's thoughts and ways are not only
greater from a quantitative yardstick but they are different
using a qualitative measure. Accepting the quantitative gap between God
and us should not diminish or minimalize the more important issue of
God's qualitative difference. It is this primary difference of God
which is in conflict with all the common and ordinary of our surrounding
contexts. By its nature, to be holy functionally signifies this ongoing
tension, the absence of which indicates the influence of the common and
ordinary.
This qualitative difference is what is
revealed fundamentally in the incarnation, not the quantitative aspects
of God. As much of an enigma as it is to understand how the quantity of
God can be contained in a human package, more so the paradox of God's
quality able to be vulnerably present in the human context. Christology
is more significant and compelling for Christ's followers when it
involves the deeper implications of his qualitative difference.
The implication most compelling about
Christ which confronts all who would follow him involves the provoking
reality: the incarnation of God is not only a paradox, it is a necessary
contradiction, the qualitative nature of which cannot be redefined,
diminished or minimalized by his followers if the integrity of their
identity and function is to be relationally significant to God (cf.
again the issue for would-be disciples [Jn 6:51-60, 66] and the resolve
of authentic disciples [Jn 6:67-69]). The vulnerable presence of the
holy triune God is a contradiction with whom Christ's followers have
the opportunity to be intimately involved and in whose life they can
participate. In the transfer to his followers, Jesus asks his Father for
this experiential reality in likeness of the Trinity (Jn 17:11, 20-21,
26). Yet, for this experience to be whole "in the world" it compels a
change for his followers resulting from the imperative "sanctify." His
followers cannot be whole without sanctified life and practice.
To be holy is the functional change
from the common and ordinary to the whole of the Uncommon, which
necessitates this contradiction in order to be involved "in the world."
In the context of the Uncommon out of the world, to be holy is
natural and totally compatible. In the world, however, to be
holy, and thus whole, is a contradiction--life and practice contrary to
common usage and ordinary function and practice. This is pivotal in
Jesus' prayer for the transfer and transmission of God's desires,
purpose and response.
This constitutes following Jesus and
the practice of his church--by its nature in whatever context except the Uncommon--as essentially a contradiction of whatever else competes with
it in the surrounding contexts "of the world." The functional
significance of living a contradiction in the world before others is the
deeper issue about being holy needing resolve from his followers because
this matter has relational consequences, as it did for Jesus (Jn 15:18,
19; 17:14).
Every aspect of Jesus' prayer for his
followers hinges on the imperative to be holy--to be beyond common usage
and deeper than ordinary function and practice. There is no other basis
to be the whole of God and no other process to experience the whole of
God. The call to be whole is the call to be holy--the contradiction
of qualitative difference. To follow Jesus in the world requires his
qualitatively different identity and function from the world. To be with
him in this difference is the outcome of the redemptive change of
transformation (sanctification), which includes the rigorous process of
establishing contradiction with aspects of the world while reconciling
differences in the world to the whole of God. Paradoxically, only the
difference reflected in this contradiction can reconcile the differences
of the world to God's whole beyond the world. This was what
distinguished Jesus in the incarnation and what distinguishes his
followers in the world as the whole of God. This may explain the
motivation for Jesus also revealing in his prayer: "For them I sanctify
myself, that they too may be truly sanctified" (Jn 17:19).
His statement is somewhat puzzling.
Does this suggest that Jesus lacked deity and thus a holy nature (as
Arianism does), or that Jesus was merely a man elevated to divine status
(as in adoptionism or dynamic monarchianism), or that in emphasizing the
distinction of Jesus' divine and human nature (as the Antiochenes did)
Jesus worked on sanctifying his human nature? None of these
Christologies sufficiently explain the whole of Jesus, the whole of the
Trinity and the whole of God's self-disclosure in the incarnation for
relationship in the trinitarian relational context of family and
relational process of family love. Why, then, did Jesus sanctify himself
or even need to?
Since the whole of Jesus is one with
and in God the Father, we can confess with Peter "that you are the Holy
One of God" (Jn 6:69). "Sanctify" was not imperative for Jesus' person
because this "nothing less and no substitutes" God person was hagios
(holy). In saying this about himself right after the transfer of the
Father's purpose (Jn 17:18), Jesus was not focused so much on the
condition of holy but more so on the function of being holy. The issue
here was not about himself but about his followers ("for them . . .
that they too"). Along with being the basis for their transformation,
Jesus wanted to demonstrate his difference to his followers, not his
quantitative difference (which certainly emerged) but his qualitative
difference. That is, he also wanted his followers to have the
experiential understanding of what it means to rise above the common and
ordinary which prevailed in their surrounding contexts and even in their
lives. Throughout the incarnation Jesus defined his person and presented
himself, communicated with others and engaged in the level of
relationship which went both deeper and beyond common usage and ordinary
function and practice. "Sanctify" exceeded the conventional issues of
truth, doctrinal and moral purity and contradicted the prevailing
notions of personhood and how relationships functioned--notions and
practice which reflect having been redefined, diminished or minimalized
by reductionism.
The whole person signified by the
importance of the heart and the primacy of intimate relationships
necessary to be whole are inherent to the whole of God constituted in
the Trinity. This is the whole Jesus functionally outlined in the Sermon
on the Mount which contradicted the reductionism of the Pharisees by
making imperative the function and practice of the whole of God to
surpass the reductionist substitutes in the common and ordinary (Mt
5:20).
In the nature of sanctified life and
practice, Jesus was always confronting reductionism, not only in the
surrounding contexts but even in his disciples (notably Peter) and the
early church (namely in Ephesus, Sardis, Thyatira and Laodicea).
Reductionism creates the tension and conflict with the Uncommon by
shifting the person and relationships to common usage and ordinary
function and practice, by redefining the whole by its parts, and by
refocusing perceptual-interpretive frameworks from the inner out to the
outer in. Yet, the parameters of "our little world" shaped by
reductionism become established ways in which we maintain control and
resist change. To rise above this limit can be discomforting, to go
deeper than this constraint can be threatening. This is the deeper issue
of sanctification which is unavoidable and nonnegotiable, needing our
resolve in our identity and function. To be restored to the whole of God
requires redemptive change in the basic paradigm: the old dying and the
new rising--relinquishing control of certain established ways and
establishing the practice of necessary new ones.
Sanctified Whole
From the demonstration of sanctified
practices throughout Jesus' life ("sanctify myself"), his followers
can grasp the functional significance to be holy, to be whole and not "of the world" (preposition ek signifying emergence from within
and thus separation from the world), yet be relationally involved "in
the world" (en means remaining in place). The call of
discipleship to "Follow me" is the call to be whole and to be holy,
which means to be involved with him in sanctified life and practice "that they too may be truly sanctified" (Jn 17:19b) to receive the
transfer of identity and function from the Son. That is, the call to be
whole is the call to be holy involving life together "in the world" in
the experiential reality of the whole of God as family (signified in
"name," Jn 17:11) beyond the ontological simulations and epistemological
illusions of the common and ordinary. Therefore, Jesus' prayer converges
with his practice to provide the understanding that to be holy involves
two functional aspects: a negative aspect addressing "not being
reduced" from the whole and a positive aspect engaging the relational
work necessary "to be whole."
When church identity and practice
become sanctified from "of the world," the transfer of the purpose and
function of the whole of God constituted in and by the Trinity emerges
in Christ's followers "in the world," just as it did in Jesus. Thus we
cannot separate becoming whole from being holy without being reduced to
common and ordinary usage with no relational significance to God,
however well intentioned. In sanctified life and practice, "the
contradiction of the qualitative difference" expressed in the whole of
Christ's followers also functions by its nature--paradoxically in
likeness to the incarnation of the Son--as the authentic equalizer
within itself and the world to reconcile differences in the
relationships necessary to be whole.
We need to humbly address the most
significant of those differences if the church is indeed to be "truly
sanctified" --that is, in reality transformed to the whole of God's
family constituted in the Trinity. The next chapter serves as a
parenthetical chapter for this purpose.
__________________________________________________
1. See Joseph Hellerman's study for a
discussion of this correlation, The Ancient Church as Family.
2. Roger Olson identifies
Constantinianism, and its symptom in church history, as "the disease of
allowing secular and pagan rulers to dominate church life and meddle in
biblical and theological interpretation," and describes its influence in
theological development in The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty
Centuries of Tradition and Reform (Downers Grove: InterVarsity
Press, 1999), 158ff.
3. For a discussion of its social
organization, see Hellerman, The Ancient Church as Family, 95-99,
and Gehring, House Church and Mission,167-171
4. Schultze, Habits of the High-Tech
Heart, 76.
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