REIMAGINING GOD AND MISSION

1
REIMAGINING GOD AND MISSION
September 26, 2005
2
IntroductionImagination, God and Mission
3
St. Joan, scene 1

• Meeting with Robert de Baudricourt
• Soldiers, horses and armor to rescue Orleans

4
I hear voices. They tell me what to do.
They come from God.
5
They come from your imagination.

• Of course. That is how the messages of God come
  to us.

6
Joans convictionthis evenings reflections

• It is through the imagination that we are best
  able to get in touch with ineffable nature and
  saving action of God
• By exercising the imaginationSpirit continues to
  lead us into all truth (Jn 1425)

7
Feminist theology

• Traditional imagery about God
• Particularly exclusively male imagery
• Idolatry!
• To counteract this healing of imagination
• Imagination is important!
• McFague God language only image language
• Shea dont see images but through images
• Helps us organize and give focus to deepest
  reality

8
Needed therapy of imagination

• Move from exclusively male, dominating images
• To images of God as community of ec-centric,
  overflowing love
• Do this by exercising, playing, reimagining God

9
A second conviction

• The way we imagine God
• Implications for way we understand and commit
  ourselves to mission
• Mission, after all, is Gods mission!

10
Joan was right!

• It is through the imagination
• Only through the imagination
• That God sends messagesrevelation
• Reimagining God a key task in theology
• Especially today!

11
God ?Mission

• Elizabeth Johnson speaking of God is crucial
  theological question. What is at stake is the
  truth about God, inseparable from the situation
  of human beings, the identity and mission of the
  faith community.

12
The symbol of God functions!

• God as self-sufficient, all-powerful male
  monarch?mission as extension of Gods glory
• God as passionate lover?mission as acting out
  that love
• God as communion overflowing with care for all
  creatures?mission as care for creation

13
Id like to image, imagine, re-imagine 3 images
of God
dance
persistent widow
stranger
then see how they help to imagine or re-imagine
Mission
14
This evening
My own therapy of the imagination
Share with you results of my own thought
experiment
15
I. DANCE
16
Joie dvivre
Paula Turnbull, SNJM
17
Paraphrase of LaCugna

• A self-contained God, a closed divine society,
  would hardly be a fitting archetype of the divine
  dance
• Rather, the triune God of Christians is an image
  of total openness, invitation, givenness

18
The triune God, a community-in-mission

• can powerfully be imagined as Dance
• and mission as those women and men who have been
  swept up by the music and have joined in as
  partners in the divine dance

19
St. John Damascene8th century

• Perichoresis
• Each person distinct, yet blends into each other
  to form dynamic unity of communion

20
In Latin Theology
Circumincessio Dynamic coming and going
Circuminsessio Mutual indwelling
21
Especially because of latter

• Legitimate to interpret perichoresis (circular
  movement)
• by perichoreuo (to dance around)
• Kind of a pun

22
Elizabeth JohnsonCountry dance, but

• Dancers whirl and intertwine in unusual
  patterns at times all hell breaks loose
  resolution is achieved unexpectedly. Music, light
  and shadow, color, and wonderfully supple motion
  coalesce in dancing that is not smoothly
  predictable and repetitive, and yet it is just
  as highly disciplined.

23
Traditional theology

• Order or taxis of triune dance
• Procession of eternal Word from bosom of Holy
  Mystery
• Procession of Spirit either thru Word or from
  Mystery and Word together

24
But as the dance irrupts into history

• We speak of the Word sent from depths of deepest
  Mystery
• Incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth
• Sending Spirit to complete and continue his work

25
My own proposal

• Pattern of dance in history begins with Spirit
  being sent inside out into the world
• Gods mysterious presence from first nanosecond
  of creation
• Giving life, stirring up prophecy, healing,
  calling Israel deeper into covenant

26
John Paul II

• Spirit sows seeds of word in the world
• Preparing people of all places and times for Holy
  Mysterys concrete presence in Jesus of Nazareth

27
Jesus gives the mysterious presence of the Spirit
a human face
Gods dance in the world continues in a human body
28
Elizabeth Johnson

• Jesus is the genuine Spirit-phenomenon,
  conceived, inspired, sent, hovered over, guided,
  and risen from the dead by her power.
• Through his human history the Spirit who
  pervades the universe becomes concretely present
  in a small bit of it.

29
He is the Lord of the Dance

• They buried my body
• And they thought Id gone
• But I am the dance and I still go on
• They cut me down
• And I leapt up high
• I am the life thatll never, never die
• I live in you
• If you live in me
• I am the Lord of the Dance, said he

30
Faith in Jesusnot just intellectualaffective
Ill lead you all in the dance, said he!
Ultimately, faith means following, being a
disciple, dancing his dance
Jesus lives in those who recognize his Lordship
by the power of the Spirit!
31
Gods dance in our worldinvitation to do what
Jesus did
Proclaim and Witness
Commit ourselves to healing and reconciliation
To recognize Gods Spirit beyond.
To lock horns with the powers and structures of
evil
To inclusion of all people to invite others to
join the dance
32
One imagea conga line
33
This is mission!

• Not a duty or burden
• But being caught up in Gods vision
• Trinitarian faith practice peacemaking,
  pluralizing, persuading
• Mwolwekanot understanding but imitating
• Imitating the divine dance!

34
II. STRANGER
35
Something about strangers!

• Connection with Gods ineffability?
• Reminder that fear of the Other is ultimately a
  wrong instinct?
• In any case, God of Christians intimately tied up
  with strangers
• God appears as stranger
• Through hospitality to strangers people meet God

36
Already alluded to Rublev

• Maybe not revelation of Trinity, but certainly of
  God
• Common motif on OT
• Jacob wrestling with stranger
• Melchizedek
• Ruth
• Ninevites
• Cyrus
• Kindness to strangers

37
God most manifest, of course

• Sent from his home country pitched his tent
  among us
• In general world did not know him
• marginal Jew, an outsider from heathen Galilee

38
Ministry filled with strangers, outsiders

• Spoke of love of enemiesI.e. those not natural
  neighbors
• Praised faith of foreigners, and even learned
  from them
• Told stories of how foreigners were closer to
  God, more than professionally religious
• Associates with sinners, women

39
Sometimes, stranger to those who knew him well

• When he appeared on the Sea of Galilee
• Mistaken as the gardener by Mary M.
• By the disciples on road to Emmaus
• When he appeared to disciples at end of Johns
  gospel

40
Blindness of disciples before, after!

• Even after Spirit was bestowed
• Actsgradual realization of Jesus meaning
  through encounters with strangers
• Samaritans, Ethiopian Eunuch, Cornelius, Antioch
• Antiochbirthday of the church, move from being
  Jewish sect

41
Martin of Tours and beggar
Tradition we meet God / Jesus in the stranger
Venit hospes, venit Christus
Jesus in gospelsMt. 25
Francis of Assisi and leper
42
Works of Art!
43
Theology of migration Cristos migrantes!
44
Implications for Mission many

• Faith in such a God being committed to being
  open and being transformed by the Otherdifferent
  nationality, culture, social location
• Not enough to be committed locallyuniversally as
  well
• Dialogue with strangersdialogue with other
  religions
• Opposition to all xenophobia and racism

45
Two more implications, however

• First, commitment to children, women and men
  among the worlds poorest and most discriminated
  againstmigrants
• 1 out of 120!
• A particular urgency in Christian mission today
• Not just mission to but mission amonglearning,
  being challenged by, receiving their gifts

46
Secondrelated but more general

• Missionaries need to appropriate their own status
  as strangers
• To embrace the status and role of the stranger
  is to embrace ambiguity, uncertainty, surrender
  and vulnverablity. Jesus did it, and so must we.
  Yet in this very kenosis mission becomes
  possible, God becomes all in all, the empty
  vessel becomes filled, the receiver becomes a
  giver, and the outsider is encountered and
  embraced.

47
Strangers keep us on our toes!

• They can be real sacraments of a dimension beyond
  our comfort zones
• Beyond our imaginations
• Offer rich opportunities to empty self in service
• They can be like God, who calls us to mission

48
III. PERSISTENT WIDOW
49
Barbara Reid on Like 181-8

• unjust judge?
• widow and judge?
• persistent widow?

50
1st step only vv. 2-5 original

• Vv. 1 and 6-8 interpretations by Lk
• V. 1need for prayer
• 6-8reflect concerns about delay of parousia
• Reid not really about prayer at all!

51
Two reasons

• First Judge is not a good image of God
• 2xdoesnt fear God and women and men
• Just opposite of biblical picture in 2Chr.
• Second abhorrent image of God
• Not worthy of worship

52
A negative example?

• If even an unjust judge would give in
• How much more easily would God answer our
  prayers!
• Interpretation of Joseph Fitzmyer

53
Reidan easier interpretation
The widow is an image of God persistently
opposing injustice!
54
Makes sense for 2 reasons

• This is third of 3 parables in the gospel where
  main character is a woman
• Other two are images of Godso
• Second, more profoundlyimages God as vulnerable,
  but ultimately powerful

55
This is in anticipation of full revelation of God
in Jesus on the cross
His seeming helplessness in the face of his
executioners is transformed into the very defeat
of the powers of sin and death.
56
Imaging God as the persistent widow Moves us
away from images of a God who rules by divine
decree and rawif benevolentpower Who might be
moved by our prayers Puts us in touch with a God
fully revealed in weakness and powerlessness of
the cross (our only hope!)
weak is the new strong!
57
Brings to mind

• Seemingly powerless women like Ruth
• Or mothers and wives of Plaza de Mayo
• The Holy Spirit, gentle breath of God, stirs
  women and men to resistance

58
Points to God as one who suffers

• I could neither have worshipped nor respected a
  God who had not himself cried out, My God.
• The first heart to break when my son drove off
  that bridge was Gods

59
Gods gentle but persistent resistance to evil

• What Christians share as they share in Gods
  mission
• God bent on justice, but achieving it justly
• Not just the goal, but the way goal is achieved
  is at center of mission
• Since mission is the presence of God as such

60
Justice constitutive of mission

• But never the work of violence
• True of other components of mission as well
• Always in dialogue and vulnerability
• church proposes
• Crucified minds!

61
Conclusion
Gods missionultimately ours
With Gods vigor and creativity
We are to live this mission
With Gods capacity for surprise
With Gods gentleness and peristence against evil
and injustice
62
David Bosch

• Only if we turn out backs on false power and
  false security can there be authentic Christian
  mission.

63
This grace of mission

• Is ultimately beyond any capacity of ours to
  imagine
• Or re-imagine!