The Sower – how bad theologies delay the Kingdom

The parable of the Sower as a critique of church and theology?  I was surprised at how easily the tables can be turned to transfer the ‘onus’ from Gospel-hearers onto the heads of Gospel-preachers whose method and theologies limit our ability to hear and enter into the Kingdom.

“You may as well be pitching birdseed on the Roman road,” Jesus seems to say (Mt 13:18), “if you present to men a Kingdom of God having so little of the flavor of my Spirit that it is perceived as either humdrum or humbug” – the issue in this verse is lack of understanding, a problem which implicates teachers as well as students whenever man-made doctrines are either spiritually or morally flat or unintelligible and therefore misunderstood by large numbers of people.

“On the other hand,” we hear him saying (Mt 13:20-21), “if you think emotional hooks will frighten people into the Kingdom with threats covered by cheap grace, or entice them in with promises of great beds of roses, you are no better than the hardpan farmer who will not plow” – the issue here is lack of depth, and this implicates teachers as well as students if emotional appeals have cultivated shallow joyous puppets who are unprepared for the very tests of doubt and persecution in which their Savior must come to meet them.

“And it is a mistake,” he seems to imply (Mt 13:22), “to pitch my own sublime cares and delights in terms which resemble too much the cares of the world and its delights” – the issue here is confusion of realms, and this implicates teachers as well as students where preaching strives to resemble the everyday wisdom of the world in so many ways that the Kingdom is confused for the world and the spirit is choked by unspiritual meanings and values.

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The ‘great commission’ – success or failure?

If the church was given a divine commission – a worldwide mission and apostolate - how can we call it a success?  And if Christianity has failed to characterize the spiritual life of much of today’s world, how can that be a divine result – isn’t it more likely to be a human result?  Shouldn’t we be asking whether the church has either misunderstood the divine intent of its commission, or  the gospel itself (or both)?  Here then is an opportunity for a little prayer and reflection.

Back in June I wrote a brief intro to a theory of missions after reading Nate Kerr’s provisional theses on Kingdom-World-Church over at Inhabitatio Dei.  My tastes in ecclesiology didn’t extend my interest to more than 2 or 3 or the 13 theses, so I didn’t contribute to the long discussion there, although I got myself into some trouble defending a point of the article over at AUFS (link not available here).

Anyway, I am obliged to Nate and friends for introducing me to the work of Johannes Christiaan Hoekendijk (1912-1975), whose book (The Church Inside Out, 1965) has helped me find my way to valuable points of scripture and useful criticisms of traditional concepts of mission.

In my June post I made the following observation:

“Apostles, ambassadors, messengers, envoys, heralds, missions, embassies – all these concepts I find applicable to the vocabularies of both the Church’s mission and to diplomatic endeavors.  Whereas they do not resonate at all with the vocabularies of temple, army, school, cult, recruitment, confession, etc., etc.”

Hoekendijk, p.21:

“The Messiah is the prince of shalom (Isa 9:6), he shall be the shalom (Micah 5:5), he shall speak shalom unto the heathen (Zech 9:10)… In the New Testament, God’s shalom is the most elementary expression of what life in the new aeon actually is.  Jesus leaves shalom with his disciples – ‘Shalom I leave with you, my shalom I give unto you’ (John 14:27), and the preaching of the apostles is summarized as ‘preaching shalom through Jesus Christ’” (Acts 10:36).

Again, from my June post:

“the mission [constitutes us] envoys of peace to the whole world and everyone in it.  The rationale is that, since Pentecost, every human being may through faith access the protection and ’good offices’ of the spirit, as citizens and subjects [through Christ]…”

Last night I found this in Paul (Eph. 2:17-19):

“And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we… are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God”

Two things.  First, I am not talking about a ‘Peace of God’ whose announcement by missionaries would induce the world’s war-makers to convert their spears into ploughshares without further argument. Second, I am not talking about a universal Peace of God which entails capitulation to the world’s evil.

What, then?  Well there’s more.

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The Church as embassy between kingdoms

The discussion of 13 theses on the church and the world, posted by Nathan Kerr et al, at Inhabitatio Dei, got my attention yesterday and today. I want to put something up here at home to keep me in mind of issues which seem compelling to me. One is the work of Johannes Christiaan Hoekendijk, whose book, Church Inside Out (ET 1965) is, I see, waiting for me at the seminary library. Kerr cites Hoekendijk as follows:

“World (kosmos/oikoumene) and Kingdom are correlated to each other; the world is conceived as a unity, the scene of God’s great acts: it is the world which has been reconciled (II Cor. 5:19), the world which God loves (John 3:16) and which he has overcome in his love (John (16:33); the world is the field in which the seeds of the Kingdom are sown (Matt. 13:38)—the world is consequently the scene for the proclamation of the Kingdom.” (pg. 41)

I have been looking for a chance to develop an idea of church and mission under categories of diplomacy – a divine embassy - wholly in the kingdom of this world, but here in the name of ‘he who reigns’ in the next or higher kingdom.  The ’mission’ is that of being envoys of peace to the whole world and everyone in it.  The rationale is that, since Pentecost, every human being may (through faith) access the protection and ’good offices’ of the Spirit as citizens and subjects of a spiritually transcendent realm.  Hmm.

True, it’s a bit of a stretch from Hoekendijk - not to mention from Kerr and his friends.  I’m just jotting some notes here.  But here in Kerr’s “Thesis 2,” for example, I think I may find something to hang my hat on:

The church’s primary task is apostolic. The church exists as a function of Christ’s own singular apostolicity; that is, its existence is a matter of its participation in Christ as the “sent one” (Heb 3:1). “The church has no other existence than in actu Christi, that is, in actu Apostoli” (Hoekendijk). The church thereby exists to serve the ministerium Verbi incarnati (Barth)—the church’s share in the apostolicity of Christ consists in its being sent out by the power of the Spirit to proclaim the euangelion of Jesus Christ to the world. In this sense, the church’s “priority” with regards to the world is that of a distinctively apostolic precedence.

Apostles, ambassadors, messengers, envoys, heralds, missions, embassies – all these concepts I find applicable to the vocabularies of both the Church’s mission and to diplomatic endeavors.  Whereas they do not resonate at all with the vocabularies of temple, army, school, cult, recruitment, confession, etc., etc.

To be continued.

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