You need to bake the bread before you give it away.  Likewise, we need to nurture the church to bless the world.  These are the basic movements of the church gathered and scattered.

So often we forget one of these steps.  For some, the moment of blessing the world is so emphasized, of going to the poor and oppressed, of transforming, of advocating, that they neglect the preparation of the bread.  In the haste to bless the world, some feel the church is expendable, secondary, and often times positively a hinderance to God’s mission in the world.  “Why are you so focused on the church when God loves the world?” they often complain.  But this overemphasis often leads to burnout, self-righteousness, and the lack of a developed maturity in Christ.

For others, the moment of nurturing the church is emphasized, the moment of discipleship, of depth of wisdom and understanding, of community and spiritual formation.  In the excitement of nurturing the church it is mission that becomes secondary, an advance step of discipleship, or something that only those with the gift of evangelism do.  Or it takes the mentality that if we build it ‘they’ will come.  But this perspective often leads to stagnation and also keeps the full maturity of Christ from being manifested in us.

But the life of gathering, of baking, of contemplation leads to the life of scattering, of blessing, of action.  To neglect one is to ruin the other.  To bake bread and not share leads to its wasting and rotting.  But to bless the world with something other than the bread of life within us is not blessing at all.

“May the Holy Spirit fire take the individual kernels of our lives and bake us together into one loaf, that we might be the sweet fragrance of the gospel and a blessing to the world.”

When I say mercy is for mission,  I’m not talking about the mission of mercy and justice in the world as a witness to all of the power of the gospel (at least, not right now).  Rather, I’m talking about the mercy God has poured out on all sinners in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus.  For “Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy.” (Rom. 15:8, 9)

The mission of God has always been to pour out his mercy on all peoples, first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles.   This had always been the purpose of God’s promise to Abraham that through him “All nations will be blessed” (Gen. 22:18).  But this mission causes church conflict. In fact, you should expect and welcome conflict in your church.

Its true.  St. Paul says as much in Romans 15.  Verse 7 says that we should “welcome one another just as Christ welcomed you,” and the act of Christ welcoming us is the act of God’s mercy.  But how each person receives God’s mercy is based in exactly how it is they have been astranged from God.  For me, my pride and arrogance kept me far from God, but the humility of Christ finally overwhelmed me.  But for someone else living in fear, it might have been the love and power of Christ which expressed God’s mercy most potently.  Now, as I reflect and live in the the grace and mercy I’ve come to know, it is usually through a lense of pride because that is where I came from .  But for others it will be different.  Now extend this to entire cultures.

This is exactly what happened when Jews and Gentiles began worshipping together.  God’s mercy extended to the Gentiles and some Jews began wondering if they needed to be circumscribe and needed to follow the Jewish food laws, etc, etc (Read Acts 15 and Gal. 1 for more details, also Romans 14 and 1 Cor. 8 and 10).   God’s mission caused all sorts of church conflicts, the conflict between cultures, but also between individuals.

But often times we end up using God’s mercy against others, we use our faith history as a weapon against others who have experienced God’s mercy differently.  Some want to preach the gospel through social action, some through street preaching.  Some want to save the poor, others the environment.  Some see a besetting sin, others a disputable matter.

And these naturally cause conflicts.  But we must remember that God’s mercy is for mission, and the mercy we have received should help us to build up our neighbor (15:2) and our freedom should not become a stumbling block to a brother or sister (14:13).

Last week I was in LA at the Wesleyan Philsophical Society.  I presented a paper on “Christ in Circulation: The Eucharist and Money.”  The abstract is below and then after the break is the paper.  If you are interested then you should definitely also check out Jason A. Coker’s post on a similar topic: The Begging Bowl, Toward a Kingdom Economy of Gifts, Power, and Justice.

Abstract:
This paper explores the convergence of the Eucharistic gift and the theory of money.  It will argue that the gift of grace enacted in the Eucharist actualizes an alternative economy to that of the dominant exchange of commodities via money, otherwise known as capitalism.  This convergence will proceed between the realms of sacramental theology and political economy, represented by the French sacramental theologian Louis-Marie Chauvet and the Japanese philosopher Kojin Karatani.  Specifically, this convergence will move between Chauvet’s ‘sacramental reinterpretation of Christian existence’ centered on the symbolic exchange of the gift of grace, and Karatani’s critique of the trinity of the capitalist nation-state and its circulation of money.  It will show how Chauvet deploys the anthropological notion of the symbolic exchange to explicate the formation of Christian identity enacted in the Eucharistic.  Through the symbolic exchange of the Eucharistic participant are transformed into graced subjects through the circulation of the historical, sacramental, and ecclesial Body of Christ.  Set alongside this circulation of Christ, this paper will offer a reading of Karatani’s understanding of the four modes of exchange and the circulation of money, and how one might practice resistance to the capitalist nation-state.  In this way Karatani’s explication of the modes of exchange will enhance, by explicitly politicizing, Chauvet’s understanding of symbolic exchange, even while showing that Karatani’s project is untenable without the gracious and gratuitous circulation of Christ in the Eucharist, forming graced and gratuitous subjects.

Paper posted after the break.

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I want to add to the reflections offered by Rozko, Hiestand, Sternke, Hart, Briggs, Fitch, Chandler, and others on the Ecclesia National Gathering.  They have already offered great summaries, but I want to add my impression.  My over all impression is that while disappointed with the church, most there had yet become cynical.

It seemed that this group of people actually still loved the church even though we had all been wounded by the people in it; this group of people still worshiped though we have all been manipulated by music and technique; this group of people still preached even though we had all been merely talked at; this group still prayed even though we’ve all felt the abandoned silence; this group still sought the Spirit even though we have all been burned by those with a ‘word’.  And I could go on.

But for the most part, from what I can tell so far, the people in Ecclesia have not adjusted to what they lack or lost, but are still striving for what they hope.  Certainly we hope for what we lack, but when the lacking dominates, hope is always tinged by cynicism and ironic distance.  At some level with cynicism you begin to sneer at actual belief and practice.  Here’s an example.  Once, at another emerging/missional conference, a woman was asked (on the spot I believe) to lead a concluding prayer-slash-prayer for a meal.  She stood up and stumbled through the Aaronic blessing (equal parts uncertain of herself and how it might be received).  I felt bad for her, but more for the group because she was evidently effected by the pressure of the group and by not knowing whether people actually still prayed in this group.  The conference was so busy deconstructing everything that a cynicism toward actual belief was creeping in.  When I saw that I thought to myself, “I’m done with this.  If people can’t still pray without embarrassment then what is the point.”

But gladly, I didn’t get a whiff of that at Ecclesia, and it’s not like a fair share of the people there didn’t have reason to be cynical.  Because of all this I’m very exited for the future of Ecclesia Network, and look forward to being a part of it for a long time to come.

Do you live in a world of accountants or editors? Are you yourself an accountant or an editor? I’m not talking in the sense of actual professions, but rather in your relationships, in how you understand others, and in your community.

Joe Myers, in Organic Community, speaks of the difference between accountability and edit-ability: the former looks for mistakes and problems while the latter looks for goodness and improvement. Here is the quick and dirty as Myers breaks it down:

- accountability relationships are bilt on the understanding that people are primarily bad and sinful.
- edit-ability relationships are built on the understanding that people are good, made in the image of God.

- the accountabilty partner looks for mistakes and keeps an account.
- the editor looks for trengths and makes suggestions for imporvemnet.

- the accountability partner initiates accountability discussions on a regular schedule or on whatever schedule that accountability partner deems necessary for proper recording.
- in a relationship of edit-ability, one person brings requests for help to the other on an as-needed basis.

- the accountability partner tries to help by creating more structures, rules, and regulations.
- the editor makes suggestions but leaves the major reworking wih the individual.

- the accountability partner is often drawn from a limited resource pool (e.g. someone within the individual’s organized small group).
- the editor is a person of one’s own choosing, in whatever spher of life would be helpful.

- the accountability partner tries to get the individual to cooperate with and conform to certain standards and expectations (a prescriptive pattern).
- the editor allows one to resource oneslef in whatever ways are healthy (a descriptive pattern).

- the accountability partner emphasizes and inadvertently reinforces the negative behavior by concentrating on it.
- an editor celebrates the journey of wholeness.

- the accountability partner holds the power.
- the project–health or wholeness–holds the power.

Now for the most part, I really like the way he construes this, speaking of the accountability relationship as one of cooperation according to a master plan as opposed to edit-ability as a relationship of collaboration according to an organic order.

But I must say, that while great in theory, often life is not so clear cut. There needs to be a connections relationships of accountability to root out sin and relationships of edit-ability to foster grace and the gifts of the Spirit. While one portion of my theology says that humans are created good in the image of God, another part of my theology (and most of my experience) says the Fall messed everything up, so I can’t whole-sale affirm editorial understanding of relationships. However, as Myers says, “when presented with th option, most peole prefer an author-editor relationship over a client-accountant relationship.” And certainly this is true, and a needed corrective to such evangelical spirituality which merely focuses on sin-management. So let us recover this edit-ability where we celebrate God’s grace in each other, but let us not abdicate the responsibility of legitimate accountability