Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham

Diocesan Conference

8-10 October, 2014

If It’s God’s Mission, Where Does That

Leave the Church?

Introduction• First Talk yesterday

• Introduction to the God of Mission

• Can’t meet the God of Mission without meeting the church

• Doesn’t meant that God doesn’t engage in mission beyond the church

• But that the church—like Israel before it—is God’s special partner in mission

• But how does the church partner in God’s mission?

• This is what I hope to reflect on this afternoon

• Roger Schroeder and I—and Cathy Ross and I—through the practice, but especially attitude, spirituality of Prophetic Dialogue

Prophetic Dialogue

Like a dance to the rhythm of a particular

Context—movement between dialogue and

prophecy

Roger Schroeder and I—

SVD General Chapter 2000

Inspiration: David Bosch’s “Bold Humility”

Sometimes more prophecy….

I. Mission as Dialogue

Mission Today: First and Foremost Dialogue!

• Basically, we need to cultivate a fundamental stance of openness, respect, friendship, deep listening, vulnerability

• Not arbitrary! The way God does mission!

• If the Triune God carries out the divine mission indialogue and for dialogue, so must those women and men baptized in the Trinity’s name, as partners

Mission in Dialogue?

“a heart so open that the wind blows

through it”

“Mission in

Reverse”

Evangelized by

those whom

we evangelize

People must be

teachers first!

First Step in Mission/Evangelizaton…

• Deep listening, docility

(ability to be taught),

gentleness, ability to

forge relationships

• Noel Connolly: “most

people listen more

willingly to people who

appreciate them and

are learning along with

them.”

• “Give us FRIENDS!”

Noel Connolly:

• “We are most missionary when we move out to discover what God is doing around us. Then we will be a more authentic and convincing sign of God’s hopes for the world.”

• NCR Editorial during Synod of Bishops:

• Rising groups of “nones”not particularly interested in ready-made answers

“Is it possible that ‘nones’ can teach us

something about God? Or at least we can

learn something from listening to their

questions? The church’s challenge is not to

supply answers but to accompany people

on their spiritual quests.”

New Evangelization is not saying the same

old thing, but just saying it louder!

“Is it possible that ‘nones’ can teach us

something about God? Or at least we can

learn something from listening to their

questions? The church’s challenge is not to

supply answers but to accompany people

on their spiritual quests.”

New Evangelization is not saying the same

old thing, but just saying it louder!

Article by Annie Selak, February 2013

• “What Do Young Catholics Want?”

• Four answers—all revolved around openness and dialogue

• …and not only “young Catholics”

• “We want the church to ask the questions we are asking”

• Women’s equality and participation, sexuality, truth outside the pale of Christianity

“There is an urgency to these

issues, as these are not nameless

people on the margins, these are

our friends, family members,

mentors, and leaders.”

Non-Christians among “the holiest

people we know”

“Not taking a situation seriously is

an act of

disobedience…Disobedience,

lamented by officeholders, often

results from the disobedience of

those in office.” (Martin Werlen)

“There is an urgency to these

issues, as these are not nameless

people on the margins, these are

our friends, family members,

mentors, and leaders.”

Non-Christians among “the holiest

people we know”

“Not taking a situation seriously is

an act of

disobedience…Disobedience,

lamented by officeholders, often

results from the disobedience of

those in office.” (Martin Werlen)

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle

• Speech at 2012 Synod:

• Perhaps rather than always speaking, the church needs to keep silent and listen.

• “The church must discover the power of silence. Confronted with the sorrows, doubts and uncertainties of people she cannot pretend to give easy solutions.”

An open church, a learning church, a

vulnerable church—what a witness

we could be!—Real partners of the

God of Mission

II. Mission as Prophecy

Within, and only within dialogue:

prophecy• Proclaiming hope, the

message of the gospel, witnessing to its transforming truth, confronting injustice

• Dialogue, however, is the “condition for the possibility” of prophecy

• Archbishop Bernard Longley: first step has to be “profound listening”

“There can be no effective

proclamation of the faith

‘without an attempt to

understand how the message

is likely to be heard, how it

sounds to others’.”

Archbishop Bernard Longley

“There can be no effective

proclamation of the faith

‘without an attempt to

understand how the message

is likely to be heard, how it

sounds to others’.”

Archbishop Bernard Longley

The Nature of Prophecy

Ironically—

Rooted in dialogue:

Listen, discern, see

“speaks forth” (in deeds, in words)

Speaks forth a message

Speaks forth the future in hope“speaks out” (in deeds, in words)

Against injustice

Warns about future

Can be joyful

Can be difficult

Needs to be faithful,

Even to death

A. Prophecy as “Speaking Against”

1. Without Words: Being a “Contrast Community”

• Christian life goes against the grain

• Not “anti-cultural,” but “counter-cultural”

• Different “drift” than the natural current of society

• Simple life, standing for justice, forgiveness, life, living convinced that “unless the grain of wheat dies…”

• Not success, self-interest, having power over others

A Community Different from the World

• Living in Christian community is also countercultural and prophetic

• Praying together, community life, living as reconciled and reconciling, living out justice with one another

• Gerhard Lohfink: Contrast Community

• Hauerwas and Willimon: resident aliens (cf 1Pet)—a colony of the Reign of God

• Mission of the Church: to show the world that it is the world!

Church

World

2. With Words:Speaking Truth to Power• “evangelism is … a prophetic

vocation which involves speaking truth to power in hope and in love” (CWME)

• Christians speak out against any form of injustice, or of the “culture of death”

• Individually in the workplace, neighborhoods, editorials, demonstrations

• Teaching Office: Evangelium Vitae, U.S. Bishops pastoral letters, Bishops of Appalachia, Bishops of Malawi, Church of England Bishops of Tax Reform

• Statements of other churches Need to “tender” our hearts

Gustavo Gutiérrez:

Annunciation / Denunciation• Risky business!

• Church’s position of respect in society/church

• Continuation of its privileges

• Persecution in many contexts

• Risk has to be a calculated one

• No doubt, though, that standing with the poor, for human life, for creation, for community’s integrity is part of being missional church

• End of the Constantinian era!

B. Prophecy as “Speaking Forth”

1. Without Words: Witness• Church witnesses to the truth, joy,

life-giving power of the Gospel• So often—just the opposite• Nick Spencer: “dull, narrow,

bigoted, hypocritical, unfriendly, uneal, prescriptive, judgmental, patriarchal, inflexible…”

• “first means of evangelization is the witness of an authentically Christian life”

• People today do not listen to teachers, but to witnesses, and if they do…

• Newbigin—“Hermeneutic of the gospel”

• Nietzche and Pope Francis!• Francis–“preach always…”• Sometimes, willingness to dialogue

is prophetic!

Craig van Gelder:

“Demonstration Plot”“It was not uncommon for farmers to remain

skeptical throughout the summer as the crops grew. But there was always keen interest in the fall when the crop was harvested. Invariably the innovation

performed better than the crops in the surrounding fields. By the next year many farmers, including my dad, would be using the innovation as if it had been their idea

all along.

The church is God’s demonstration plot in the world. Its very existence demonstrates that his redemptive reign has already

begun. Its very presence invites the world to watch, listen, examine, and consider

accepting God’s reign as a superior way of living.”

2. With Words:Proclamation

• Christians prophesy the future—what the world will be like…like Isaiah in the midst of Exile—hope!

• Full flourishing! Peace, justice, freedom, harmony of all creation

• That future is possible now—at least a taste!

• Tell the world about Jesus—“God is like Jesus!”(Sobrino)—”Jesus is God’s body language” (M. Oakley)

• creation-centric—God’s cause is the cause of human and cosmic flourishing!

• Good news! Not judge, tyrant, but respecting human freedom, humble, joy in midst of suffering, calls women and men to work together for flourishing of creation

William Placher“. . . If God’s primary characteristic were

almighty power, then . . . the crucified rabbi could not be the self-revelation of God. But if God is, first of all, love, then, odd as it might seem, God is most God in coming to us in the form of a servant for the sake of our salvation. Starting with

love, we can then even see what Gregory of Nyssa said about God’s power: “God’s

transcendent power is not so much displayed in the vastness of the heavens or the luster of the stars or the orderly

arrangement of the universe or his perpetual oversight of it, as in his

condescension to our weak nature”

To be prophetic in our mission is to share with the world the good news of God’s

future, the good news of a gracious, gentle God, who calls us to work for the

flourishing of all.

A commitment to inculturation

• Pay attention to

the context!

• Whiteman—we

do inculturation

so that the

gospel is

rejected for the

right reasons!

Conclusion

A Spirituality more than a Strategy!• How we do mission is

more important than what we do

• Not asked to be successful—but to be faithful!

• Ultimately, we need to assume a vulnerability—in dialogue, in prophecy

• Not unlike God’s Word who “emptied” Godself

• Not unlike Mary, whose sinlessness made her totally available for God’s work

A powerful article…• Benedict XVI: only when

church is freed from

“the material trappings

and privileges” of the

past can it “show a face”

that reveals the gospel

to today’s world.

• Pope Francis: the

positive aspect of this in

his inaugural homily:

“…caring, protecting, demands

goodness, it calls for a certain

tenderness. In the Gospels, Saint Joseph

appears as a strong and courageous

man, a working man, yet in his heart we

see great tenderness, which is not the

virtue of the weak but rather a sign of

strength of spirit and capacity for

concern, for compassion, for genuine

openness to others, for love. We must

not be afraid of goodness, of

tenderness!”

“…caring, protecting, demands

goodness, it calls for a certain

tenderness. In the Gospels, Saint Joseph

appears as a strong and courageous

man, a working man, yet in his heart we

see great tenderness, which is not the

virtue of the weak but rather a sign of

strength of spirit and capacity for

concern, for compassion, for genuine

openness to others, for love. We must

not be afraid of goodness, of

tenderness!”

Tenderness.• Perhaps that single word

expresses it all.

• Given the lack of credibility of the church for many today,

• Given absolute beauty and importance of the gospel

• A tender church would be wonderful, good news indeed!

• I think to develop a church of tenderness!

• As we dialogue, as we prophesy

• In imitation of the tender God of Mission

Since God is indeed a

God of mission, I think

this is where it leaves

the church!

Since God is indeed a

God of mission, I think

this is where it leaves

the church!