A hermeneutic of love!!

If the following resonates with you then you can not do nothing about it!

Elaine Heath says "Now I see people already being called by the Holy Spirit, already being loved and known by Jesus before I ever meet them. Now I understand that prayer and friendship are the foundation for my relationship with others, in the name of Jesus. With a hermeneutic of love I give myself in prayer and friendship to the people around me not so that I can get something from them, not even a commitment to join my church, but so that I can minister to Jesus in them, Jesus who thirsts.

A hermeneutic of love means that God looks at human sin “with pity and not with blame,” because God sees the complexity of sin and wounds. A hermeneutic of love includes a doctrine of atonement that is non-punitive, meaning Jesus chooses solidarity with us sinners so that he can set us free from sin. When Jesus sets us free, we are free indeed. With the hermeneutic of love I see others’ sin the way Jesus does, not as insurmountable obstacles or permanent stains, but as the consequences of life in a broken world. I see the full power of resurrection for them, before it ever happens. This means I believe in the potential for their healing as well as their forgiveness. No one is beyond the possibility of being made new in Christ. A hermeneutic of love is fully aware of the devastation of sin and evil, yet refuses to give them the last word.

We glibly remark that you can never find the perfect church and then some add 'in mock humility' and if I could I'd join it and spoil it - ha, ha!

I wonder, if we think that there is so much folly in the idea of 'perfect churches' why is it we pour so much time and resource in to trying to create them?


We need to allow the Holy Spirit to stir our imaginations and give us the the courage to engage more and more with a community in to which God is already speaking. I wonder, have we become so timid about the fact that we have the most explosive tool for mass transformation of society, and believe we are largely impotent in the face of the pervading culture of individual pursuit?


The delivery mechanism for this transformation is first the realisation and whole hearted acceptance of what God achieved for us (and all people) on the cross, second the evidence of this in our lives (loving one another as God has loved us that people will know by our 'loving actions' that the Spirit of God is in us and transforming us), and thirdly that we pay attention to the Holy Spirit attempts to recalibrate our agendas for our lives and become the hands, feet and heart of God wherever we find ourselves.

Elaine is absolutely correct when she talks about the need for a hermeneutic of love because only then will we recall that it was 'while we had our faces turned away from God that He first loved us!

It is only then that we will stop seeing through a lens of 'them and us' and start recognising that we were all made in the image of God and regardless of church attendance (what ever that is!) there are many seeking a reconciliation with Him.

Peter Rollins - Belong / Behave / Believe

Peter Rollins unpacks an emergent approach; click on the link and scroll up to 909 and for the sake of the dialogue, up further to 903 Questioning 'emergent' churches

http://www.calvin.edu/innercompass/episode_descriptions/#909

Happy watching

What do the people say that we are?

Recently I have been taking part in a ‘weblog’ conversation hosted by the US site ‘Emergent Village’ – Phyllis Tickle (author of ‘The Great Emergence) threw out the challenge to redefine ‘Church / church’ and unsurprisingly it has become a keenly followed thread with over 50 posts to date.

Phyllis began this way…

Apparently and for some not-very-clear reason, it is incumbent upon the faithful in every new epoch or changing era of Christian history to re-define what we mean when we use the words “church” and/or “Church.” for. There is no question about the fact that this time of emergence Christianity, whether sacred or secular and with no holds barred, is up for scrutiny and that most of everything, once scrutinized, is up for re-defining, including “church” and/or “Church.”

So this New Year, I seek—hope for—am eager to overhear—a sustained and prayerful conversation about exactly what we who are Christian in this time of emergence, hold as a working definition of emergence church/Church. And lest I be accused of doing no more here than passing along some kind of theological hot potato for the fun of it, I will begin the sacred game. I will begin the first round by saying that, as of right now, I believe both church and Church are “a body of people delighting in God the Father, God the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit.”

Here are some of the contributions – including a couple of my own thoughts:

• I’m an engineer, forgive me! But I suggest the “church is a tool useful to advance God’s will being done on earth as in heaven.”
• Thank you for this conversation. For me, the Church is an opening rose, the very fragrance of Christ, especially among the poorest of the poor; May we be the Church!
• Church: The bumbling incarnation of God’s “Yes.”
• In order to define what we are (and consequently how we go about being that thing) we need a firm grasp on the desired outcome, lest our ‘defining’ becomes an unintended prison from which we spend the next few years extricating ourselves – what kind of a definition would lead to us taking forward the ministry of reconciliation that Paul spoke about, and how will it give us the freedom to be truly part of our host communities through incarnational mission.
• I love the idea of delighting in God, but agree with one who observed that so often as Christians we do not delight in God. I see church as serving as the hands and feet of Christ here on earth with and to those around us. Church becomes a collective of like minded people desiring to follow and emulate Christ’s teachings.
• I find my deepest desire is to be a part of a community that desires to live out what Christ taught and modelled. Where questions can be asked honestly and discussed, and yet be challenged in practical ways to really examine what it means to follow Jesus Christ and honour our Creator with our lives. Exactly how that community is structured has become far less important than whether or not it is engaged in and striving toward honouring Christ in how the community lives every day – individually and collectively.
• So the C/church is/are Dream-Realisers, bringing God’s dream (heaven on earth, our real selves and our real home) to reality in small and large ways wherever we find ourselves, and on behalf of all of creation. We can recognize the signs of this Great Dream, when we see wholeness created, forgiveness given, hope restored, joy shared, fear broken, resources shared, people taken care of, and the like.
• Several people have sighted the importance of community in the definition and over time I have been a part of two or three really good Christian communities, but the common factor has been the exclusivity that ‘Christian’ communities seem to straightjacket themselves with. Is this because we essentially ignore the image of the maker in those ‘outside’ our community (for surely that is why they remain out there?) and is it because our dishonesty about our actual daily experience of being a part of the church leaves us vulnerable to crippling self doubt when faced with the ‘wider’ community. When the Spirit came at Pentecost it drove the embryonic church out in to THE community of those loved by God – I for one wish we had never gone back!! Let’s live the dream out there among our NEIGHBOURS loving them as we do ourselves.

Perhaps through ‘comments’ of your own we could continue this conversation this side of the pond!!

Many a slip twixt word and action

Since being involved in coordinating Hope for Belper, I have been much exercised by the more often than not polarising discussion between those who feel the need to emphasise the preaching of the gospel and those who think the emphasis lies more with living the gospel. Exercised, because I believe it is a comforting and almost ritual spat of little or no consequence, between parties in agreement who simply want to let the other know they are orthodox in their faith.

A long time ago I would have been found batting defensively for the word and then not so long ago I would have believed myself to have stood firmly in the activist’s camp, quoting St Francis of Assisi, ‘Preach the Gospel, using words if you have to!’ or saying ‘action speaks louder than words’.

It doesn’t really make things more clear if you go looking to see what the Bible has to say about the interaction between word and action. For example Genesis is full of ‘God said…and it was’ and then fast forward to the Gospels and we see the word become flesh (and why else but for some 'in the raw' action, up close and personal). Then, not much further along, we see word play and action intertwined with the healing of the man in Matthew 9; ‘Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'?’

For those of you still locked in this discussion (and I say discussion advisedly, rather than dialogue), I offer you my latest quote on this subject – Actions don’t speak louder than words, but they sure do amplify them!