Setting off

Traveling with 3 large suitcases - all mine.

Stewardship out of our need not our wealth.

Last January the 5 men and I distributed mainly children’s clothes and then food parcels to the people in the squatter’s camp in Richmond, KwaZulu-Natal.  One of the group said to me following the distributing of the clothes:  “It does not make sense to me.  They have no food, no clothes and no money and yet they are happy.”  A number of things did not make sense that day.  One observation that did not make sense was that they had nothing and yet when we arrived there was great concern expressed to us that there were people who would not be there to receive their share of clothes and food.  What also did not make sense was that we found that the children and adults were happy, an expression of emotion that their condition did not merit.   Among the children’s clothes there were clothes for infants.  Among those gathered there was a mother and her infant.  Her child was the smallest child present.  As the clothes were sorted and distributed the small sizes were automatically handed to the mother.   After receiving some of the clothes, this mother refused to accept any more stating clearly that her child had sufficient and that other infants needed to benefit from these gifts as well.

Their behaviour was unexpected and surprising. There was no rush to grab but a patient waiting to receive.  Even more surprising was their concern for one another and their desire that all share in the gifts.  We realized that they had a lot to teach us and in particular they had an important understanding of stewardship that we in the West needed to see and hear.

In North America we perceive ourselves as being richly blessed because of the abundance of things we accumulate.  We see ourselves, especially when contrasted to the poor in the rest of the world, as rich.  This attitude has permeated and influenced the church’s approach to stewardship.  We automatically shape our stewardship message to reflect this belief in our abundance and stewardship appeals call upon members therefore to share out of their abundance.  This underlying stewardship message we proclaim implies that since we are so richly blessed we are to share these so called blessings.  This message apparently has not resonated very well  with our members since the issue of stewardship is not always joyfully received or welcomed.  Stewardship out of our abundance has also become closely linked to tax receipts which may create a sense of satisfaction but not much joy especially in April.

The poor in the squatter’s camp had a very different understanding of stewardship.  Their stewardship came out of their poverty.  They graciously and generously desired to share the little gifts they receive with one another even remembering those who could not be present.  There was no resentment about having to share but a deep sense of sharing with others in need.  This joyful response to sharing was reflected in one particular girl of about 14 years.  She had just arrived from school while a girl’s dress was unpacked.  The dress was given to her. Her response can only be described as an explosion of joy.  She beamed from ear to ear and started and could not stop dancing.  This was probably the only dress she has ever had and probably the first gift she has received.  Her response of joy made a deep impression on all of us.  What I learnt from the people was a stewardship out of poverty.  They had no money, no food, no clothes yet they shared joyfully.   This was truly an expression of stewardship out of poverty that overflowed with joy.

What would our stewardship look like if instead of starting from an assumption of riches and abundance, started instead from an understanding of our poverty?  This understanding of stewardship should not surprise us since the root of Christian stewardship is not an expression of our abundance but rather rooted in the cross of Jesus the Christ.  The cross reveals the one who emptied himself and out of his emptiness gave himself for the cosmos.  Christian stewardship is a stewardship of the cross and part of our problem in the church is that we in North America have failed to acknowledge our poverty. Compared to those in the squatter’s camp who had no money, no clothes, no food, we are spiritually poor.  Desperately we have tried to satisfy this spiritual poverty by accumulating things.  We have fooled ourselves that our riches are sufficient to fulfill life’s deepest longings.  But this only leads to a fool’s paradise in which we must accumulate more and more since what we have never satisfies our poverty of spirit.  We are like the hamster on the treadmill.  We expend lots of energy but get nowhere.  We are trapped in a vicious circle with no escape.  As a result we have made the malls into our temples and we sacrifice ourselves to the great god of consumerism.

If our approach to stewardship is to change, how can we talk about our profound spiritual poverty in the midst of abundance?  What would a stewardship programme look like informed by the cross instead of the implied assumption of abundance?  Perhaps we need to spend more time with the poor of the world so that we may humbly confess our poverty of spirit and then perhaps they will teach us how to recapture the true spirit of Christian stewardship.

The Imagination of Faith

Faith and mission are closely related.  The relationship between faith and mission became evident by the response of members of a number of Lutheran Churches to the invitation to participate in a mission trip to South Africa either by joining the groups or by donating towards the proposed project.  The invitation to participate in the mission triggered a new and more profound understanding of faith.

Mission is about the future.  The Church is called by God to live out God’s mission within the world.  This call to mission provides not only identity but also purpose and direction for the church. As a movement into the future, the source and understanding of that mission is rooted in the promises of God. A community led and guided by the promises of God into the future is never a static entity.  It is a movement, enlivened by the Spirit participating in the advent of the Kingdom of God.

As the people defined by God’s future, the Church in mission is a community of faith.  Faith is at the core of the nature of the relationship with God.  Since it is God’s Church, it is God who leads the Church.  Faith is about relationships, with God, others, self and the rest of nature.  The Reformers were specific about faith as relational term.  Faith is trust; trusting God’s leadership of the Church into the future.  They challenged the institutional understanding of faith as assent to some theological doctrines or teachings.  Faith as assent distorts faith and transforms it into obedience usually to some authority such as a religious leader or even for some a blind obedience to scripture. Luther was clear about the very nature of faith as trust.  It is this essence of faith as trust, a term that describes the relationship with God that informs Luther’s explanation of the first commandment in which he clearly states that we are to fear, love and trust of God above everything.   When faith and mission are separated, the Church loses the dynamism of a movement and becomes simply and institution stuck in the present.  Faith then loses its ability to foster the imagination.

When God called Abraham and Sarah to leave their home and travel into the unknown future, all they had to sustain them on their journey was God’s promise. This promise inspired their imagination and led them to persevere towards their goal.  When Moses led the people from the slavery of Egypt all they had to focus on was the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey.  So too the promise of anew future framed as the coming of the New Jerusalem, or the Kingdom.  Then there is the promise of a new society pictured in the concluding chapter of the Revelation to John.  The society is pictured as one of justice in which there is no hunger, where there will be plenty of food and water, no poverty, sickness, grief and death.  This image has captured the imagination of Christians over the centuries and encouraged them to keep moving towards that future and praying that the promised future may come to them too. Or as Jesus taught “

The problem for the church today is the way we have over reacted to distortions in our proclamations.  At the turn of the twentieth century the church was perceived as being the handmaiden of the wealthy and the powerful. This view of the church was reinforced by the emphasis in much of the church’s proclamation on “going to heaven” as the central message of the Gospel.  This focus on “going to heaven” largely ignored the suffering and poverty of a large number of people and was parodied in the 1911 workers song which mockingly coined the phrase “pie in the sky in the sweet by and by.”  During that period Karl Marx referred to religion was the opiate of the people, meaning that religion deadened people to issues of poverty.  The focus of the church’s proclamation on heaven led to it being criticized both from within and without.  It was claimed that the church was so heavenly minded that it was no earthly good.

The response to rectify this aberration led to an overreaction which then led to the loss of the future orientation of the church.  The debate between social justice and the future orientation of the church’s proclamation became extremely polarized.  For some it was an either – or situation.  There was little room in the debate for a ‘both and’ position. The debate continues in the church.  Upon my return from South Africa I was asked whether we had proclaimed the Gospel as well as doing construction.  These two actions were seen to be mutually exclusive by the questioner. 

The church continued to understand the centrality of faith but this was a static view of faith, a faith that had lost its imagination since it had lost its future orientation.  When faith loses its imagination the church loses its understanding of itself as a movement and as a result its dynamism.   God may be unchanging, the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, but that is not what the Church is called to be.  A movement is never static since it is focused on its purpose.  When the imagination of faith which is shaped by the promises of God is lost then the spirit of adventure is lost and the curiosity of faith becomes wooden.

Reflecting on the response by members of congregations to the two mission trips it became increasing clear to me that they were desperately seeking something that would reorient and encourage their faith journey.  They responded generously and integrated into their own lives of faith the spirit of adventure.  For them, as for the participants in the mission trip, there was a new found excitement, new sense of participating in bringing in the Kingdom of God.  Awakened in them was the imagination of faith.

Mission: The Exciting edge of the Church.

Last Fall I extended an invitation to men to travel with me to South Africa to do some construction work on the children’s section of an Aids hospice. The initial invitation did not mention the word mission, but it was quickly understood by members of the congregations that this was a mission trip.  As I continued to invite men to join me, I reframed the invitation as a mission trip.  The response by both men and women was unexpected, surprising, overwhelming and for me, intriguing.  There was a level of excitement expressed by their comments and generous financial support that was overwhelming and humbling. Their interest and excitement did not wane and continued even after we returned from South Africa.  A number of men expressed their deep regret that they were not able to join us while others enquired about future mission trips.  A number of women wondered whether there would be a trip for them as well.

The most surprising comment made by some members was that this was the first, in many years, that they had heard mission promoted in the church.  If their comments are factual then the church has a serious problem.  Mission is at the very core of the church’s identity and self-understanding.  If the church has lost its reason for existence then it is only a self-serving social club.  Perhaps the church is confused about the relationship between mission and ministry by shifting the focus away from mission and onto ministry or ministries?  If it has, then the church put the cart before the horse.  Mission defines ministry and not the other way round?  The function of ministry and ministries is to assist the church to fulfill its mission.  Perhaps the focus on mission has been limited in the church to the drafting and approving a of mission statements? 

The interest in mission has continued throughout this past year as my wife extended an invitation to women to join her on a mission trip to South Africa.  They leave for a month on the 31^st December.  Once again the interest and excitement has been expressed through interest and incredible generosity by church members. 

My experience this past year has convinced me that the road to renewal of the church is for it to hear God’s call for it to be in mission.  How may the church once again hear and commit itself to the call to be in mission?