You look but you don’t see cause for discomfort. But the next time you handle something, there it is, a fork of pain, a jab. There must be a splinter, embedded out of sight, but real enough.
Likewise there was a splinter rooted somewhere in my thinking such that when I handled missional stuff it would needle me anew. Alan Hirsch’s comment in David Fitch’s post was just the poultice needed to bring the prickle issue to the fore. Alan writes,
Just to clarify, part of my concern for binding ourselves to any cultural system like postmodernism is Barth’s old warning that ‘he who marries the spirit of the age will be divorced in the next.” Hence my reticense to allign myself with modern, postmodern, or the like. I do believe a missional stance will relate to any culture, no matter what that might be. But we do need to maintain a discreet distance with any culture to be genuinely missional as well.
The discomfort I had been feeling was the idea that to be missional, one needed to embrace the spirit of the day, one needed to be postmodern in outlook. That is not the case, any more than it is the case that to be modern is to be missional.
I agree with Hirsch not only do we need to distance ourselves from any one cultural perspective; I would add we need to intentionally fashion our lives by the ethos of the kingdom.
Jesus in his prayer for his followers petitions the Father,
15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth (Jn 17:15-19 ESV)
Before Pilate Jesus says,
Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” (Jn 18:36 ESV)
The ethos of the kingdom is not from this world, not today’s, yesterday’s or tomorrow’s world. But it is very much for the world. We engage the world, not to emulate it, but to serve as emissaries of Jesus, giving witness to our neighbour of kingdom life into which they might enter.
Yet in my experience, we seem to garble all this. We are dominated by either separation from the world or syncretism with the world. What would lead us toward what Jesus spoke about in his prayer and in his testimony before Pilate?
