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Discipleship as boundary-breaking
Jesus’ kingdom embodying mission cut across the boundaries that commonly divide humanity. The model of Jesus is of a mission that embraces all humanity and one that tends to be offensive to the religiously minded.

In Matthew’s Gospel, Matthew has skillfully constructed Matthew 8–9 into a series of mighty acts of Jesus. The initial segment (8:1-17) is instructive for seeing Jesus’ kingdom signifying actions as involving the shattering of religious and cultural boundaries. Jesus performs three explicit miracles in this segment: cleansing of a leper (8:1-4), the healing of a Centurion’s servant (8:5-13), and the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law (8:14-15).

It is significant to reflect on the reason for Matthew reporting these initial three events as he does. All three of the persons whom Jesus engages in his mighty actions represents a group marginalized in some fashion in the pious circles of first century Judaism. The leper was ritually unclean and forced to exist on the fringes of society as an unwanted outcast. The Roman centurion represented the hated Empire and was a tangible reminder of the ongoing Exiled condition of God’s people evening their own land. Likewise the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law is significant because women enjoyed much lower status than men in the culture of the time. But throughout the Gospels, Jesus associates freely with women. This was uncommon for a spiritual leader.

The importance of boundary breaking is not merely symbolic or politically motivated. It is central to the values of the kingdom. The Gospel is for all humanity. Moreover the Gospel advances through its introduction to outsiders. When former outsiders become insiders through the Gospel, they become new conduits of God’s grace to previously unreached people. Jesus’ boundary breaking created new mission driven people. Reflect on the three groups mentioned in Matthew 8 (lepers, Roman centurions, and women). All of these groups serve as unexpected witnesses for the power of the Gospel. Jesus sends the leper immediately to the priest to serve as “a testimony to them” (8:4). Immediately after Jesus’ death on the cross, the centurion’s present at the crucifixion exclaimed, “Truly this was the Son of God.” This is profound in that their confession mirrors Peter’s earlier declaration at Caesaria Philippi (Matt 16:16), but unlike Peter who balked at an understanding of Jesus as Son of God that involved death on a cross (Matt 16:21-23), the centurions recognize the reality of Jesus’ identity after watching how he died. In essence, they are the first truly public witnesses of Jesus and they are outsiders. Likewise (and perhaps unsurprisingly in light of God’s mission) women serve as the initial witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection (Matt 28:1-10 cf. Mark 16:1-8, Luke 24:1-12, and John 20:1–18). Deploying women as heralds of the good news of God’s victory is profoundly significant and subversive. Women were unable to serve as witnesses in legal disputes yet God unleashes them to be the first proclaimers of the Resurrection. Their message ultimately changed the world.

Thus, by engaging such persons actively and without reservation, Jesus models a cross-cultural and boundary exploding mission that can run against the current of societal prejudice and injustice. The Gospel is liberating and egalitarian in outlook. God’s mission involves extending the message of the Kingdom to all people, especially to those marginalized by society or by religious insiders. Boundary breaking mission also keeps social justice on the front-burner. Jesus demonstrated through his life that God is radically for the marginalized, the poor, the sick, the dying, the foreigner (even representatives of the privileged empire), and the outcast. Christ followers of today would do well to heed this model as they plot to launch to communities of faith.

Perhaps reflection on these question: Where would Jesus establish new communities of faith today? What people in our social location represent outsiders? A missional reading reminds God’s people that a biblical model of missional outreach will always include persons different from us.

Here is another snippet from my forthcoming book:

The endings of the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy are instructive for us to this day. At the end of the book of Exodus, God’s people exist as a sacred community with God’s presence in its midst (Exod 40:34-38). Israel is truly in the world, but not of it. Israel’s role is to serve as a missional community that embodies and reflects God’s character for the sake of the nations around them. Moreover, the end of the book of Exodus presents God’s people on a journey. When moving, God’s presence serves as a vanguard leading the people into the world as a pillar of cloud by day and as fire by night. When settled, God’s glory dwells anew at the center of the community. In a sense, the function of God’s people is sacramental. With God at its center, Israel functioning fully as a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” exists as a means of blessing for all people. Hope is reborn in the world. Israel is a taste of the new humanity that God ultimately will reveal in Jesus of Nazareth.

Deuteronomy concludes with a transition from Moses to Joshua as the leader of God’s people. Yet profoundly, Moses will live on through the Torah. Moses the man dies (Deut 34:1-12). But Moses’ witness continues on through the book of the Law (Deut 28:56, 28:61, 29:20, 29:21, 29:27, 30:10, 31:24, 31:26 and 32:46). The Torah that Moses received from God and taught God’s people on the plains of Moab will abide with God’s people as an authoritative guide to the true way of life and as a warning against disobedience. We find here the beginning of a Torah piety and a mode of life rooted in Scripture. It is notable that the Prophets and Writings begin with exhortations to remain obedient to the Torah of God (Josh 1:7-8 and Ps 1:2).

Thus, God’s missional people advance the cause of God in the world by being propelled by the twin realities of God’s real presence through the Tabernacle and through God’s voice as mediated through the Mosaic revelation.

What do you think?

© 2011 Brian D. Russell

Discipleship as Boundary-Breaking Ministry

One of my favorite sections in Matthew’s Gospel is the collection of miracle stories that Matthew arranges together in 8:1–9:35. This segment of the Gospel involves three sets of miracles (8:1-17; 8:23-9:8; 9:18-35) with two sections of teaching (8:18-22 and 9:9-17) on discipleship in the middle. Matthew 8:1-9:35 follows the first major section of Jesus’ teachings in Matthew’s Gospel, the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5-7). In Matthew 8:1-9:35, Matthew portrays the healing ministry of Jesus, and at the same time, Matthew offers additional insight into the meaning of discipleship. One major aspect of discipleship is disciple as boundary breaker. This is a dimension that desperately needs to be recaptured in our present context as we seek to recover the missional focus of discipleship. Boundary breaking involves at least two aspects: radical outreach and empowerment of the new disciples.

Boundary Breaking as Radical Outreach
In the first of the three sections of miracles (8:1-17), Jesus in rapid succession heals a leper, the servant of a Roman centurion, and Peter’s mother-in-law. It is easy for us to miss the significance of Jesus’ action because these categories of persons are unlikely to stand out in the mind of the modern reader. Yet each of these persons, a unclean leper, a representative of a hated oppressive regime, and a woman were the types of individuals that were marginalized and shunned by institutional religion in the Judaisms of the 1st century. It is impressive that the bulk of those whom Jesus encounters positively in the Gospels tend to be marginalized persons, and it is ironic that Jesus receives the most conflict from the religious leaders of his day precisely for his outreach to the lost and hurting of the world. Yet, Jesus reaches out and forms a community of the desperate – Jesus heals and delivers those who come simply with a faith that Jesus can help them in their time of need. These are persons desperate for the sorts of things that God alone can provide.

How would our ideas about discipleship be different if we reached out to the marginalized of our communities today? What if instead of treating outsiders as threats we practiced radical outreach in love?

Boundary Breaking and Empowerment
The practice of radical outreach is only a beginning. The true challenge comes at the point of entry and inclusion in the community of faith. The story of Jesus’ calling of Matthew, the tax collector, is illustrative and profound. In the call of Matthew in 9:9-13, Jesus makes a bold and daring addition to his band of disciples. He calls a hated tax collector, i.e., a collaborator with the Roman occupational government. Matthew, as a tax collector, represented the agent of the transfer of Jewish wealth and capital from Israel to Rome and also became wealth at the expense of the tax payers.

It is one thing for communities of faith to enter into patron – client relationships with marginalized persons and groups. We take “mission” trips into blighted neighborhoods or perhaps find a “sister” church with a different demographic than our own. But we can keep such encounters at arm’s length and our own communities are not disrupted by those whom we “help.” This is what makes the calling of Mathew so bold. Jesus does not merely heal or help a person and then go on his way. He invites an outsider into his closest circle of followers. He elevates Matthew the tax collector from hated outsider to a member of the twelve. Look at the list of disciples in Matthew 10:2-4. There smack dab in the middle is the name Matthew with the descriptive title “tax collector.” This is boundary breaking in a way that truly empowers an outsider to the position of colleague rather than client. If we want to lead our communities of faith into radical outreach that will lead to growth of our communities, then we need to be willing to empower the newcomers by giving them authority in our communities to act and engage in ministry as partners. Jesus’ willingness to associate with persons such as Matthew brought the abuse and criticism of the Pharisees. Jesus’ response is classic and worthy of deep reflection. Jesus calls upon the words of the ancient prophet Hosea in replying, “Go and learn what this means ‘I desire mercy not sacrifice’ for I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.” In the chapter ten, Jesus will send out his disciples to do similar sorts of ministry with the injunction, “go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (10:6).

If we desire to be faithful disciples of Jesus, we need to lead our communities of faith into radical outreach. There are multitudes of persons hungry, even desperate, for what God alone can provide. Who among us will go to them? Who among us will empower them to be full members of our own communities?

Reflection:
1) Who in your present context would represent a shunned or marginalized person or group?
2) What would it take to reach out to such persons in the name of Jesus Christ/
3) How good am I at “power-sharing”? What would have to change in my life if I began to include fully newcomers into my community of faith?

© 2011 Brian D. Russell

Israel continues to exist as God’s people only as a result of God’s gracious saving actions in the deliverance from Egypt. The story of God’s people is rooted in grace. Israel’s life before God is one of response to grace. This is the heart of covenant. God reaches out and offers Israel a special relationship. The Creator God who delivered Israel from Egypt now invites God’s people to discover the purpose of their deliverance. Israel’s response to God’s grace may be summarized by the phrase faithful obedience. Through faithful obedience, God’s people begin to embody an ethos that reflects God’s character before the watching world. The call of God on his redeemed people is a call to holiness, but it is a holiness in the service of mission. The Sinai Covenant serves as a testament to God’s people of the centrality of mission, holiness, and community. The Sinai Covenant instructs and shapes God’s people into a missional community that reflects God’s character to/for/in the world.

The Sinai is the third explicit covenant in the Pentateuch. Several scholars, Frank Moore Cross and his student S. Dean McBride, Jr., have observed that five explicit covenants (Noah, Abraham, Sinai, Phinehus, and Moab) are embedded within the Pentateuch, which give these books an even greater interconnectedness. These five covenants form a chiastic structure with the Sinai covenant at the center:

A Noahic Covenant (Gen 9:9-17)

B Covenant Grant to Abraham (Gen 17:1-14, cf. Gen 15:1-21)

C Sinai Covenant (Exod 19:1-Num 10:10, esp. Exod 19:1-34:28)

B’ Covenant Grant to Phinehas (Num 25:11-13) – Ps 106:30-31

A’ Covenant in Moab (Deuteronomy, esp. 29:1-32:47)

The outer bracket (A and A’) focuses on the issue of stability. The Noahic covenant is with all living things and guarantees the stability of the heavens and earth. The covenant in Moab is made between God and Israel and serves to sustain Israel’s life in the land without Moses through the presence of God in the Torah. The inner bracket (B and B’) focuses on issues of land and priesthood. God’s land grant to Abraham guarantees Israel land whereas God’s grant to Phinehas (the savior of Israel at Baal-Peor) provides for a perpetual priesthood for Israel’s life in the land. The Pentateuch then centers on the Sinai pericope which focuses on Covenant and the institution of the proper worship of God.

Covenant is the rubric used by God to communicate his vision for God’s people’s life and work in the world. The idea of covenant is not unique to Israel. It is drawn from the wider Near Eastern culture of the day. The use of covenant is another example of the way that God incarnates himself into the culture as a means of communicating to humanity and redeeming discrete human cultures. God borrows an element common to a culture and uses it as a platform for communicating the divine will for humanity. Covenant teaches God’s people the true nature of reality—in particular the transcendence of God and the high value and worth of all human beings including women and other persons whom cultures tend to marginalize. At the center of the covenant’s portrait of God stands God’s holiness. The covenants also reveal God’s desire for men and women to live in an exclusive relationship with God rooted in trust and faithful obedience. God is holy and desires his people to likewise reflect his character in their corporate life together and in their engagement with the nations.

In particular the Sinai covenant and its recapitulation on the Plains of Moab in Deuteronomy offer God’s people a polity for shaping life according to God’s will. In Genesis 12:3, God called Abram to lead a family that existed as agents of blessing for the nations. The Torah as a whole details what this looks life. It is crucial to read the various laws, lore, and instructions for worship within the missiological framework provided in Genesis. The goal of the Sinai Covenant is not obedience, but the creation of a missional community that would reflect God’s character in the world, to the world, and for the world.

© 2011 Brian D. Russell

God acts unilaterally. God actions in the Exodus do not depend on human power or prerogatives in any way. God does for God’s people what they are powerless to do for themselves. Salvation is dependent on the grace and actions of God. There are no competing gods and goddesses from whom God must seek permission. Humans play only minor roles in the drama of the Exodus. Moses and Aaron serve chiefly as God’s visible representatives and speak for God, but they like all other human characters are merely spectators to the power of the LORD. Likewise God’s people, the objects of God’s liberating work, play no direct role in their own liberation. Salvation belongs wholly to the Lord.

The God of Israel is beyond compare. Although our world is full of idols and competing claims to deity, Exodus demonstrates decisively that there is only one being worthy of the title of God – the LORD. Exodus 15:11 points to the LORD’s incomparability: “Who is like you, among the gods, O LORD? Who is like you, mighty among the holy ones? Awe-inspiring in praises, doing wonders.” The deliverance from Egypt is the Old Testament’s preeminent display and pronouncement of God’s saving power and character. No other deity in the ancient World or modern world alike can make the claims that the
God of the Exodus can.

God can even use human intransigence and rebellion to reveal his character and power. The core struggle in Exodus is the showdown between Pharaoh king of Egypt and the LORD, god of Israel. Pharaoh asserts his authority and steadfastly refuses to recognize the LORD’s. But God reduces the most powerful “king” in the world to the status of a puppet as a means of declaring God’s name in all of the earth (Exod 9:16). This is an important word because it reminds the people of God that God can achieve his purposes even in the darkest moments when God’s people are facing the most stalwart of opponents.

God’s deliverance is inclusive of outsiders. God acts for God’s people against Egypt, but this must not be interpreted as God against the world. Egypt and the Egyptian people experience divine wrath because they attempted to thwart God’s mission in the world by oppressing God’s people and acting murderously toward them. This does not mean that God is against Egypt simply because they are not Israelites. When Israel leaves Egypt, a mixture of people follows them out (Exod 12:38). The message is subtle but important. Membership in God’s people is rooted in grace and not in race. The text does not tell us anything more about the identity of these people, but the implication is clear: outsiders are welcome to become insiders. The inclusion of outsiders reminds God’s people of the mission given to Abram (Gen 12:3). God’s people exist to serve as blessings for all peoples.

The liberation of Israel is for the world. God’s actions in the Exodus have creation wide implications. God frees God’s people from bondage and oppression so that God’s mission in and for the world can advance. The emphasis in Exodus is not merely Israel’s liberation from Egypt but on Israel’s liberation for God’s purposes of blessing and redeeming the nations.

What do you think?

Copyright 2011 Brian D. Russell

Who are the people whom God has called us to reach? What are their stories? What worldviews are held? What causes matter to them? About what do they care? A missional hermeneutic must be attentive to these questions. Obviously we are committed to encountering the Scriptures in all of their richness, but if we hope to share its message with others, we must be willing to engage people at a deep level as well. Biblical studies professors often use this quotation to remind students of the centrality of reading the Bible within its literary context: “A text without a context is a pretext for saying anything that an interpreter wants to say.” But it is likewise true that a biblical message apart from a local context of people becomes a pretext for misunderstanding and wasted words. We must be committed to shaping our speech, metaphors, and images in light of the context to which we are communicating. When we combine a rich understanding of the biblical story with a deep connection with the people to whom God has sent us, we find ourselves in an environment in which we can truly speak to fellow humans about biblical message of (re)alignment. We find ourselves with the crucified and risen Jesus calling Christ followers to join fully in God’s mission and inviting those on the margins to become part of God’s work of ushering in a different world.

Moreover, we must also gain a sense of the gods that bind the hearts and minds of the women and men in our ministry context. Only when we understand the idols that capture the hearts of the world will we be prepared to proclaim the Lordship of Jesus in ways that subvert the claims and practices of those idols. A missional hermeneutic recognizes that idols exist within both the church and world. They are easy to spot: sex, consumerism, power, family, security, pleasure, and freedom among others. But these have different localized expressions. A missional approach to Scripture listens to the text in light of the idols who reign over our culture.

What do you think?