Hermetic Homiletics

1 May 2005, part 2

There is a popular phrase among missiologists (those are the people who study “mission”). Christians are a missionary people of a missionary God. Sounds nice doesn’t it. But I suspect that this statement is often used in a self-aggrandizing way that validates abusive mission.

Saul and Paul may very well typify two types of spiritual orientation, two ways of understanding who God is and how God operates in the world.

Saul seems to have the type of spirituality that sees God as demanding, overbearing, and on a mission. That mission is to be worshiped properly. Saul, of course, is the herald of this God, in whose image he is conformed. Therefore, his approach to mission is to bring God to others, in the form of righteous indignation and holy wrath if necessary, for the worship of God will not be compromised. His primary mission: bring God to the people.

Paul approaches mission quite differently. Note what he says: “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, 'To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.” When I hear him talk of “an unknown god,” I think of Socrates. Socrates was a philosopher who believed, in a nutshell, that the high god of the universe was at once a god who is love and yet truly unknowable. Paul seems to be saying to the Athenians, “Yes, the god whom you worship here is indeed Love, but let me tell you how that God can truly be known. Let me tell you the story of Jesus whom we call Christ.” This is a very different approach to mission than that which we find in Saul.

Whereas Saul is seeking to bring God to the people (whether they want it or not), Paul is looking for where God is already at work in the midst of the people, and then he tries to participate in that divine activity that is already at work. For Paul, God is always at work everywhere seeking to be known more fully, seeking to draw people deeper and deeper into intimate and loving relationships, and Paul’s task is to help that along.

Paul does not bring God to the people. Paul does not expect people to conform to his image and his form of worship. Rather, Paul helps people to come to know more fully the God who is already active in their lives just a little bit more. Whereas Saul is a hammer, Paul is an unveiler. Whereas Saul promotes purity and obedience, Paul promotes attentiveness and openness to the Holy Spirit, which naturally transforms us into vessels of divine, self-giving Love, thus taking us down the path that we call “repentance.”

posted by irreverance @ 1:29 PM