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Lesslie Newbigin was a missionary in India during the middle of the 20th century. When he returned to the United Kingdom after a lifetime of missionary service in Asia, he was confronted with the reality that his homeland was now less Christian than it was when he had left to serve on the “mission field.” Newbiggin realized that the Western world was now just as much a mission field as the regions in which he had served as a missionary. His writing and speaking in his later years urged Western Christians to rediscover the power of the Gospel to capture the hearts of women and men. He pushed the Church to recognize the crucial role that its witness as the people of God served in engaging Westerners with the Gospel:

How is it possible that the gospel should be credible, that people should come to believe that the power, which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross? I am suggesting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it.

Newbigin’s story and his words are crucial for engaging our biblical text. Matt 5:21-37 is drawn from the heart of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The words of our Scripture lesson are difficult ones. Through the centuries, their force have been muted by reading our text as an unachievable ideal to which Christ followers are to aspire or as an “interim ethic” only valid during the period of Jesus’ earthly ministry. But what if we are to read Jesus’ words as a portrait of what a witnessing community is supposed to look like? What if we ordered our lives together as the people of God in ways that brought Jesus’ teaching to fruition? What message would such a lifestyle send to watching world about the power of the Gospel?

Rooted In Love
Later in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus will distill God’s law into two related dictums: Love God and love neighbor. These principles must underlie our engagement of our text lest we become so focused on self that we forget that the purpose of the commands is to shape God’s people into a profound witnessing community to the world.

At the core of Jesus’ teaching is love. Our text is part of a larger segment of Jesus’ teaching: 5:17-48. Jesus’ instructions reach their climax in 5:43-48 where Jesus ends by saying, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect.” The example of perfect love that Jesus provides is the observation that God provides sunlight and rain to both the righteous and unrighteous. God does not discriminate in his love. We must not either. What does a community look like that truly embodies a love for neighbor? What would it mean for our community of faith to be known by love? Jesus unpacks some of the details in our Scripture lesson.

In Matt 5:21-37, Jesus teaches on issues of forgiveness/reconciliation, genuine relationships between men and women, marriage, and solemn promises. In each case, Jesus paints a picture of what true community in God’s kingdom is supposed to entail in contrast to attempting merely to keep the letter of the law.

Forgiveness and Reconciliation (5:21-26)
The law teaches that one should not commit murder. There is nothing particularly pious or impressive about this commandment as most if not all human societies espouse this value. It is clearly a minimum standard for human communities. Duke ethicist and theologian Stanley Hauerwas has a poster on his office door with a provocative slogan from the Mennonite Central Committee that reads: “A modest proposal for peace: Let the Christians of the world resolve to stop killing each other.” Clearly the killing of others is not a Christian virtue, but communities that truly embody the kingdom do not stop at the abolition of murder. Jesus extends the commandment about murder to all ruptures of relationships between people caused by anger or tensions. In fact, in communities shaped by the ethics of Jesus, it is more important to work toward forgiveness and reconciliation than it is to offer gifts and sacrifices to God.

Communities that embody love refuse to fracture due to a lack of forgiveness. They assume that the one who causes the division will begin the work of reconciliation rather than the victim. What a remarkable community that would be where members love each other enough to sense when they have caused tension or a broken relationship and then act to mend it. Mother Teresa advice to families echoes Jesus’ words: “We must make our homes centers of compassion and forgive endlessly.”

Genuine Relationships between Men and Women (5:27-30)
The battle between men and women for power has raged since humanity’s expulsion from Eden. In the realm of sexuality, the modern Western world has found itself in endless cycles of innuendo and lust in its marketing, clothing, entertainment, and interpersonal relationships. Sex is everywhere.
Jesus’ words about adultery and lust in one’s mind have driven devout followers to extreme ascetic practices to avoid sexual sin. But at its heart, Jesus is attempting to say something profoundly beautiful about the possibilities of relationships between men and women in communities that practice the kingdom ethic of love. Our communities are to be less about serving as sexual watchdogs and more about promoting healthy relationships of mutual brotherly and sisterly love between its members.

A community of God’s dreams is one in which men and women can mix without worrying about being turned into the object of another’s lust. Our communities must become safe places for people who have been broken sexually to come for healing and hope. They must be places where the both the beautiful and the scorned can interact and serve together and where young men and women can learn of their value and worth apart from their sex appeal or lack thereof.

Marriage and Divorce (Matt 5:31-32)
Marriage has fallen on hard times in our world. Lifelong partnerships seem to be less and less common. More and more of our members have experienced the pain of divorce in their own relationships, in those of their parents, or in those of close friends. Jesus is not teaching on divorce to heap guilt on those who have suffered through a divorce. Instead, he is lifting up healthy, committed marriages as a grounding point for communities of faith. A community of God’s dreams supports families and offers love and support to those broken by fractured relationships.

Solemn Promises (5:33-37)
Communities are forged on relationships of trust where members keep their word and fulfill their promises. Jesus is not speaking against oaths, but rather is affirming the necessity of truthfulness and faithfulness as the glue that holds a community of love together. Jesus’ alternative to our litigious society is one in which each person’s “yes” really means “yes” and a person’s “no” really means “no.” Humanity craves authenticity in relationships and business transactions. There is no need for legalese or small print disclaimers in a community of God’s dreams.

Conclusion
It’s a high calling to embody the ethics of the kingdom in our communities. But the alternative is a muted witness. Have you ever craved the juicy, mouth-watering cheeseburger that you encounter during commercial breaks while watching your favorite television program? How many times have you gotten in your car the next day to visit the restaurant and ended up disappointed? Instead of the fresh, delicious sandwich in the commercial, you receive a dry burger on a stale bun with toppings that have long lost their appeal. Instead of happy, enthusiastic and helpful servers, rude and disinterested employees greet you. Instead of a pristine dining room, you are unable to find a clean table. These impressions tend to stick with you for a long time. You are less and less inclined to make a return visit. Future commercials cause you to scoff rather than tempt you to eat fast food. Likewise, it is crucial for our communities of faith to embody substance and vitality as a convincing and credible witness to the world around us. Jesus’ words call us to imagine anew what the people of God are called to be and become.

Communities shaped by Jesus’ teaching are the hope of the world. They exist to embody for the world a different type of world. What would it look like if we committed to becoming a community of God’s dreams? What would stay the same here? What would change? What if following Jesus the Messiah were the only means of truly embodying all that God desires for us to be?

Tags: Biblical Studies, Community, Matthew, Mission, New Testament, Preaching, biblical theology, church, compassion, humanity, missional church, missional leadership, missional reading, missionary by brian
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In the book of Joshua, God fulfills his promise to God’s people of life in the land of Canaan. God originally promised the land to Abram at the time of Abram’s initial call (Gen 12:1, 7). This promise was reaffirmed to Abram’s descendants Isaac and Jacob and remained a central theme of the Pentateuch (Genesis - Deuteronomy). As we read and study the book of Joshua over the coming weeks, it is vital to set God’s promise of land into the context of God’s overarching plans for humanity. God promised Abram and his descendants the land of Canaan not merely for their own sake but for the sake of all nations. Genesis 12:2-3 reads, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (italics added). In other words, God raised up Israel as his agents through whom he would bless all peoples. Israel’s vocation to serve as a means of blessing was reaffirmed at the feet of Mount Sinai. In Exod 19:5-6, God announced, “Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” Precisely because God is king over all Creation he has appointed Israel to serve as a special people among all of the other peoples that inhabit the earth. They are to serve a priestly or missional function of connecting the nations to God by reflecting and embodying God’s character before the nations.
How does the promised land of Canaan fit into God’s mission? The land represents a foothold for God’s kingdom as God works to bring blessing and salvation to humanity and all creation following the spread of disobedience and sin as described in Genesis 3-11. God establishes a tiny foothold in the world because it will be in this land and through this people Israel that God will reveal himself most fully in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. But we are getting ahead of ourselves in the biblical story…Nevertheless it is vital to understand the broad story of God’s salvation in order to make sense of the book of Joshua.

As the book of Joshua opens, God’s people stand on the cusp of entering the land. But there are three challenges facing them: Moses is dead, the land is not empty, and Joshua, the new leader, must lead the people forward. But God’s people have a key advantage - they are not alone. God is powerfully present.

The book of Joshua begins with a commissioning speech by God for Joshua. It occurs after the death of Moses. Moses’ death was reported in Deut 34. Moses died with Israel still outside of Canaan on the plains of Moab. God now speaks to Joshua directly in order to empower him to lead God’s people forward in fulfillment of God’s promises. God begins by stating the obvious, “My servant Moses is dead.” The implication is clear. Joshua is now God’s man. It is his time to step into God’s call for his life. The mission is a big one–Joshua is to cross the Jordan River and move into the land that God has promised to them. The emphasis here is on the gift of the land. God is giving it to them. But the gift does not come without action. If our text is steadfast in its insistence that the land of Canaan is a gracious grant from God to God’s people, it also clearly assumes that Joshua and the people must actively move to occupy it. Verse three affirms that God’s promise of land corresponds to the places where the people will actually place their feet. The land is a gift, but it is Israel’s role to occupy it. Verse four describes the boundaries of the land. The land that God is giving to God’s people is a vast one. It extends far beyond what we commonly think of as Canaan. It represents approximately the amount of land that Israel will possess during the heyday of the empire of David and Solomon (2 Sam 8:3-14; 1 Kgs 8:65). The vastness of the gift emphasizes to Joshua the generosity of God. But a gift without the possibility of success is a fleeting one. The reader must remember that Israel is not a super power. It is a people without a land. It is a people without the primary weapons of war: the horse and chariot. Israel is not a military power. It is a people who were enslaved only a generation earlier. The story of Israel’s move into the land is not an invasion by a superior force of arms. Israel will not be successful because Joshua is a skilled general and the people are fierce warriors. Verse five reinforces the previous promises by emphasizing presence of the Lord. The name of Moses is again invoked. The LORD will be with Joshua just as He was with Moses. This language echoes the LORD’s promise of presence to Moses at the burning bush (Exod 3:12). In other words, the God of the Exodus who delivered Israel mightily will now work through Joshua to bring God’s people into the promised land.
The preceding promises serve as the basis for a final exhortation to Joshua in v. 6 “Be strong and courageous.” God’s promises open up a new future for Joshua and Israel. But it is a future into which Joshua and Israel must enter. The future is not dependent upon the physical strength, battlefield ingenuity, or military prowess of Joshua. The LORD is with Joshua. The LORD has guaranteed victory, but Joshua must act. He will be the human agent through whom the LORD will bring Israel into the land. Therefore, Joshua is exhorted to be resolute and courageous. Courage is the key that opens the door to the future that God is offering his people. Joshua must embody this virtue because He is God’s chosen servant for this mission. Courage is the key for Joshua to obey faithfully the LORD’s commands.

Tags: Charles Wesley, Daniel, Gospels, Leadership, Leviticus, Luke, New Testament, Old Testament, Origins, calling, compassion, ecclesiology, incarnation, missional leadership, missional reading by brian
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The following is a list of topics and speakers:

* Culture Making and the Local Church with Mark Batterson & Matt Chandler
* Diversity and Church Planting with Efrem Smith, Mark DeYmaz, & Janet McMahon
* Creating Movements & Networks with Dave Gibbons
* Being Present with the City with Alan Hirsch, Shane Claiborne, & Neil Cole
* Compassionate Justice: Ideation to Implementation with Dave Ferguson & Armando Fullwood

Here is the Hirsch, Claiborne, and Cole video:

The Ideacamp at Exponential 2010 with Shane Claireborne, Neil Cole and Alan Hirsch from The Idea Camp on Vimeo.

Watch the videos here.

Tags: Community, Hermeneutics, Mission, biblical theology, blogosphere, church, compassion, emerging church, missional church, missional leadership, missionary by brian
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Ecclesia Press under the leadership of J.R. Woodward has published its first book, ViralHope: Good News from the Urbs to the Burbs (and everything in between).

ViralHope is a collection of essays by key missional leaders from around the Western World. Each contributor has written an announcement of the good news to his or her city of residence.

Here is my contribution: “The Good News for Orlando”
One of Walt Disney’s core maxims reads: “If you can dream it, you can do it.” Over the last forty years, Orlando has morphed from a sleepy Central Florida town centered on the citrus industry and World War Two era military bases into a gateway city that welcomes the world with top-notch resorts and attractions. Orlando is in the business of fun and offering its visitors a respite from the suffocating status quo of the daily grind of life. The dream of carving out an international city in the midst of former wetlands and citrus groves has largely been achieved. Orlando is known as the City Beautiful. At least, this is what the marketing campaigns proclaim. But as an almost decade long resident of the area, I wonder if perhaps we haven’t dreamed big enough?

It is undeniable that millions of persons enjoy their vacations in Central Florida. But is an existence rooted in manufacturing memories for others of mouse ears, sun tan lotion, roller coasters, chain restaurants, and convention centers truly a dream worthy of our lives? What if instead we were in the business of life transformation? What if people came to Central Florida for a vacation and instead found life? What if vacationers did not encounter only employees of Orlando’s extensive service industry but women and men joyously serving as part of a radically different Kingdom? What if Orlando embraced a bold and daring vision for what it might become—a gateway city that welcomed and ushered the world into a radical new reality?

For this to be possible, we will need a new story to ignite a fresh vision for our community. Let me suggest an encounter with a largely forgotten storyline.

The Bible offers an audacious narrative of a God who is looking for a people with whom to partner to extend blessing and good, life and wholeness, and hope and reconciliation to all peoples, nations, and tongues. This God is the creator of a world in which the final words are Rest, Love, Justice, Mercy, and Peace. In the life of Jesus, this God came to live among us. Jesus modeled true humanity while at the same time subverting strongly held misconceptions about divinity and religion. Jesus came to invite us back to life the way that God had intended. To this end, Jesus announced a liberating message that can be summarized this way: “(Re)align yourselves because the long awaited good future has now arrived in me.” Jesus immediately called into being a new community to embody his life and teaching and freely sacrificed his life for this new vision.

But this isn’t the whole story. Jesus was no mere martyr who inspires us and serves an example to emulate. The full story is this: Jesus is alive. The Creator God of all that exists delivered Jesus from the grave so that he stands today fully alive as the triumphant Lord of a new Kingdom. If we have ears to hear, we can still hear him calling to us today to dream new dreams and envision new possibilities. But most all of all he promises to stand as the vanguard who will lead us to become the women and men whom we were created us to be—a people that exist to reflect and embody the character and nature of the God in and for the world.

What if following Jesus was the way to taste and experience true life—the life that God alone dreams for you and has acted in Jesus to make possible? That would be good news indeed. What would our lives and city look like if we (re)aligned our lives in response to this good news?

Tags: Biblical Studies, Community, Leadership, Mission, church, compassion, conversion, creativity, culture, ecclesiology, emerging church, humanity, kingdom of heaven, missional church, missional leadership, pop culture, world mission, world religion, worldview by brian
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In Steinbeck’s classic East of Eden, Liza Hamilton serves as the matriarch of faith for her family. She is a pugnacious advocate of biblical morality and reads the Scriptures daily as the guide for her life. Yet there are cracks in her pious veneer. Steinbeck describes her use of the Bible sublimely:

Her total intellectual association was the Bible…In that one book she had her history and her poetry, her knowledge of peoples and things, her ethics, her morals, and her salvation. She never studied the Bible or inspected it; she just read it… And finally she came to a point where she knew it so well that she went right on reading it without listening. (p. 43)

The final line is haunting. When we hear today’s Scripture lesson, it is too easy to read it quickly and then move on because of its wide familiarity within our culture. “O the good Samaritan – I know what that one’s all about.” Yet biblical texts that are familiar to us are often the very ones whose messages have often been muted rather than unleashed. Let us come to the story of the Good Samaritan with fresh eyes and ears that truly see and truly hear.

There is much more to this story than a cutting critique of religious leaders who don’t serve or than a mere model of brotherly love. In this text, Jesus explodes expectations for God’s people and tears down expectations about status in ways that invite his hearers to become part of God’s mission in the world today.

Eternal Life
Our text opens with a confrontation between Jesus and a lawyer (an expert on the Mosaic law). It is clear by the language of “test” that this is no mere friendly exchange. The same language was used of the devil earlier in the Gospel. Notice that the lawyer couches his challenge in the language of eternal life. He is interested in personal salvation. He may have been expecting Jesus to make some claim about himself as the source of salvation, but Jesus does not move in this direction. Instead, Jesus responds with a question for the lawyer. He asks, “What do the Scriptures say?” The lawyer answers by quoting from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Lev 19:18. He responds in essence: Love God and love neighbor.

These core texts hold together the dual affirmation that one’s relationship with God is manifest in one’s relationship with others and that our life with others is rooted fundamentally in our relationship with God. The lawyer is dead-on right.

Jesus fully affirms his answer. But notice the action implicit in Jesus’ reply, “Do this and you will live.” Life with God involves more than knowing correct answers. It is about actual practice. It is interesting that Jesus does not include the word “eternal” in his answer. It is a simply “you will live.” In other words, central to the Gospel is its insistence that Kingdom living is a present reality and not merely a hoped for prize at the end of life. It profoundly matters how one lives today. This may have jarred the lawyer. Rabbi Akiba who was born later in the 1st century captures something of the spirit of the attitude of students of Scripture from Jesus’ day: “Study of the Law is of higher rank than practicing it.” Perhaps sensing that Jesus is pressing for a deeper commitment, he asks for clarification: “Who is my neighbor?”

It is at this point that we have to be careful about our own attempts to mute the power of this story. It is too easy for us today to answer the question “Who is my neighbor?” with a quick reply of “Everyone.” Of course this is the correct answer, but Jesus is intent in this passage on pushing us to think about a different question: “Who is not my neighbor?” Before we reply, “No one”, let us engage Jesus’ story.

The Practice of Life
It is in response to these questions that Jesus further subverts the lawyer’s question and calls all who are listening to a profound realignment with God and neighbor by telling a short story with four characters: a unnamed traveler who is assaulted, robbed and left for dead; a priest who passes the injured man; a levite who likewise does not stop to aid the man; and a Samaritan who stops, applies first aid, carries him to an inn, cares for him that night, and leaves enough money with the innkeeper to nurse the man back to health.

It is easy to read this story as a moral lesson in doing good to a fellow human being. This is in fact part of the story. It is also possible to read the story as a critique of religious leaders who are too busy practicing the formalities of religion to apply its teaching to their daily lives. But there is much more here.

Let’s look at some of the details of the story and see if we may have overlooked anything. First, let us notice that the injured man is not identified. Jesus’ audience probably assumed that the man was an Israelite, but the text does not tell us his identity. He is merely an individual who desperately needed kindness, mercy, and hospitality. This invites us to reflect on our own commitments. How much is the likelihood of our loving a neighbor dependent upon ethnicity, gender, or religious background of the person in need? By not identifying the injured man, this text suggests that such issues ought not to control our actions.

Second, both the priest and levite see the injured man yet go out of their way to avoid helping their fellow traveler. This is contrary to expectations. Such figures were expected to show mercy and embody compassion.

By having the priest and levite pass by without helping, Jesus’ audience would have expected a “hero” to emerge who would help the fallen man. If most of us are honest, we recognize that in such situations, we tend to imagine a hero or heroine who is like us. Jesus’ audience may have expected the hero(ine) to be a common Israelite who would model faithfulness and justice. But this is not the story that Jesus narrates, is it?

The unlikely hero who rises up to step into a moment of need is not a member of God’s people. He is an outsider. He is a Samaritan. Moreover, it is a Samaritan who is traveling inside of Israel and who actually exceeds the expected actions of an insider. The Samaritan acts in extraordinary ways to be a neighbor to a fellow human being.

The person who acts as the neighbor in the story is ironically the very person whom the lawyer as well as most of Jesus’ audience would not have considered to be their neighbor yet alone a person who embodies the values of God’s kingdom.

What caused the Samaritan’s actions? The text offers a key phrase: “moved to pity.” Compassion fueled the Samaritan’s deeds. This is a critical note because elsewhere in the Gospel of Luke we are told that this is Jesus’ motivation. The idea is that the Samaritan is touched inwardly by the need of another in such a way as to move him to action. Compassion is the fuel of mission. It drove Jesus. It drove the Samaritan. Does it drive us?

Go and Do Likewise
“Go and do likewise” is a call to conversion for the lawyer and all who heard Jesus that day. Kingdom living is radical. It challenges our assumptions about status and membership. It demands that we manifest the Gospel through our acts and deeds toward others. It assumes a willingness to break down boundaries that separate the human family.

But there is a final subversive element present that calls us to a profound realignment with God’s mission. The presence of a Samaritan who embodies the values of God’s kingdom would have presented Jesus’ audience with a fundamental challenge. It points to the openness of God’s kingdom to persons whom some may consider outside of the boundaries of God’s grace. Who represents the Samaritans in our local communities today? Whom do we consider to be beyond the limits of God’s grace? What would it mean if such persons embodied the Gospel more profoundly than we?

When Jesus said, “Go and do likewise”, he was implying the inclusion of the Samaritan in the Kingdom. Are we ready to reach out to embrace those persons who already embody love for God and love for neighbor and include them within our communities as we seek to follow the Risen Lord Jesus into the world to make disciples of all nations. Let us pray diligently that the Lord would so fill our lives with compassion that we will be able to boldly “Do likewise” when such moments arise. Amen.

Tags: Biblical Studies, Community, Gospels, Luke, Mission, New Testament, Preaching, calling, church, compassion, conversion, emerging church, ethos, humanity, missional church, missional reading by brian
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My good friend Dr. Mike Voigts wrote this piece during the early months of the Real Meal blog. I am republishing it because it is worthy of a wider reading. Mike is one of the protestant world’s leading experts on Bernard of Clairvaux.

According to a 2002 Pew Research report, more than 85 percent of Americans state that they love God. Commitment to God in the United States has risen over the past few years, especially since 911 and the escalation of the Iraqi war. The concept of loving God seems simple enough, especially in light of the popularity of recent popular books that help individuals find their purpose in life. However, when understood in its fullest sense, the idea of loving God becomes more complex than merely expressing positive affection towards the Deity.

In the 12th Century, a church leader and spiritual writer named Bernard of Clairvaux wrote a small treatise on how we are to love God. Entitled simply On Loving God, some have called this little work the definitive extra-biblical text on how humans are to love the Triune God. Bernard writes that there are four progressive stages in loving God. Every person, regardless of their knowledge of God or relationship with God, falls into one of these stages. As we develop our intimacy with God, we move from one stage to another.

Level One: We love ourselves for the sake of ourselves. In this stage, individuals are focused only on themselves in order to better themselves in the world. This may involve vocational/professional pursuits, sensual pleasures, material goods, or even a simple egoism. People in this stage may appear to care for others, but it is only for their own selfish desires. Modern church growth scholars have coined these people as “unchurched” or “prechristian,” although persons at this level may have been raised in the church but left it for the pursuit of their own accomplishments and desires. These people place themselves at the center of their world in order to accomplish that which will have the most benefit to themselves and their own life mission.

Level Two: We love God for the sake of ourselves. In this stage of loving God, people realize that God exists and desire to have a relationship with God, but it is only to serve their own desires, including a fear of hell, self-fulfillment, or social appearances. Many of these persons are actively involved in a local church and have a contagious Christian witness. What keeps them from moving out of this level of love for God is their concern for the sense of self-completion that a relationship with God has in their life. Popular Christian books that ask people to find their purpose in life can only lead people to this level of love for God, since finding one’s purpose is a self-fulfilling quest. Many denominations desire growth to create new Christians in their own image and traditions. Unfortunately, many Christians in North America are under the false impression that this is the pinnacle of the Christian life and love for God.

Level Three: We love God for the sake of God. Bernard of Clairvaux takes the concept of love for God to yet a deeper level. He writes that we should love God without any thought of personal or spiritual benefit. We simply love God because of who God is. He writes that “this love is pleasing because it is free.” This love for God is free because it is not tied to any human desire. Persons who love God at this stage are freed from any aspect of Christian discipleship that is self-fulfilling. Bernard is not saying that this type of love for God is without benefits to the individual — surely life is more worth living when we live this way — but what he stresses is that when we love God this deeply we do it without any personal objectives. Some understand this type of love for God as resulting from a sanctified, or holy life, attainable for every Christian who earnestly desires to place Christ first in his or her life.

Level Four: We love ourselves for the sake of God. Is Bernard going backwards? Loving ourselves for the sake of God seems like a step down from Level Three. Yet understood properly, this level is so lofty that it may only be attainable in heaven. According to Bernard, in this level individuals do not even love themselves except for God. When we can see ourselves as existing only in God, we are able to become fully realized of God’s love for us. The concepts involved here are mystical and complex. Bernard describes this love as when “human feelings melt in a mysterious way and flow into the will of God.” God cannot be all in all to us unless we give everything of ourselves to God.

Looking at Bernard’s second level of love for God, we can see how shallow it really is. Yet for many Christians, this is their ultimate expression of love for God. We cannot fault them exclusively, for pastors and teachers are responsible for the spiritual training and discipleship of persons in their flock. Imagine how the Church in North America would look if Christians moved to a deeper love for God. Could the Church as we know it exist with a deeper love for God? Larger, more aesthetically pleasing sanctuaries and megachurch facilities would become useless if Christians looked beyond the satisfaction of belonging to such impressive congregations. Christian product merchandising, denominationalism, and bureaucratic structures would need to be dismantled. Local church monetary distribution practices would be shifted.

How do we love God, and what are the implications of how we love God? This is a fundamental question, yet it raises significantly more questions for individuals and for the Christian Church in general. In an age of rapid expansion and new ideas, how ironic it is that a monk from medieval France can turn our contemporary Church upside down - if we desire to love God.

© 2005 Michael C. Voigts

Tags: Community, Holiness, Mission, asbury theological seminary, calling, church, compassion, conversion, humanity, missional church by brian
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