Bishop David Kendall's Blog

As we have travelled, preached, taught, and held conferences throughout Nigeria these past two weeks it has become obvious that the only thing we have to offer people is Jesus.  We may be able to fund some special projects, but funds are limited and most of what we could do other agencies and NGO could do.  In many cases those other groups could do the same things better than we could.

Indeed, the one thing we can offer that other groups cannot, is Jesus—the true, back from the dead, Lord of all.  Only we are equipped and especially called to offer Jesus!  Like Peter said to the man begging at the Temple gate, “I don’t have money to give, but what I do have to offer is Jesus and what Jesus can do … .”  That’s who we are as well, and that is what we have to offer.

On the face of it, this doesn’t seem like much.  After all, the countryside here in Nigeria, and in much of the world for that matter, is “littered” with church signs, serving notice to passersby that Jesus is being offered.  So, it seems less than remarkable for us to say, “The only thing we have to offer is Jesus!”

Perhaps we do not really have the Jesus we offer, I mean the real Jesus.  We have His name.  We have any number of places that accommodate gatherings of people who talk about Jesus and claim to follow Jesus.  We have programs, classes and projects all in the name of Jesus.  We have memories, some of them wondrous, of Jesus’ presence and breaking out in the midst of his gathered people and then through them to others with  unmistakable power.   Or, if we do not have such memories ourselves, we know people who do.  But do we have Jesus the person?  Or, does Jesus, the person, walk with us, move among us in power, and carry out his ministry through us as church?

Perhaps we are not convinced ourselves that to offer Jesus, I mean the real Jesus, would be much of an offer.  Offering Jesus—even what we understand as the real Jesus—doesn’t seem all that practical or helpful given the serious and pressing needs facing many places and people today.  What good would it do to offer Jesus in such circumstances?  Let me comment on that.

If we offered the real Jesus, we could do it only in the way that Jesus first offered himself.  That is, we would offer him personally, through our own actual physical presence in various places and with its peoples.  The real Jesus would insist on drawing near to people, engaging with people, feeling the pain of people, reaching for and touching people, serving people through real bodily presence.  We cannot therefore offer the real Jesus apart from offering our own real selves.  

But when we offer ourselves, it cannot be just a part of ourselves, but only as whole persons (we are not able to divide ourselves up and offer only fragments, we are whole people who must be present with and in relationship with others as we are—whole and entire—or not at all).  Then, again, we could not offer our whole selves without also offering whatever we have or could have, what resources we already or could own.  If we offered the real Jesus, in the only manner the real One could be offered, then along with the real Person of Jesus would go all sorts of resources that could become the means of helping and blessing others.  Not just resources we have or could have personally, but the resources of at least some other people connected with us.  Suddenly, you see, to offer Jesus—the real Person in the only way he can be offered, through our very selves somehow offered to others, is to offer who knows what bounty Jesus might bless and multiply for who knows how many!

To offer the real Jesus would also be to offer a way of living.  There is no receiving of Jesus without walking with Jesus.  We cannot say “yes” to Jesus and let Jesus move on to other places and people.  Our “Yes” can have meaning only as we follow.  We follow on a path, on a way of being, thinking, feeling, willing, responding, acting and reacting.  We follow and invite others to follow in the way Jesus lived.  If we offered Jesus, we would offer Jesus’ way of dealing with whatever rises up to face us, with whatever customs or conventions non-followers of Jesus have come to observe.  If we offered Jesus we would offer Jesus’ alternate way of responding to the hurts of life, to the wounds inflicted by others, to the uncertainties of the future, to the fearful and anxious strategies by which so many seek to live.  If we offered Jesus we could show the superiority of Jesus’ way to other ways.  We could be sign-posts to other paths people might take in their lives, paths that give and enhance life.

At the end of the day, we have only Jesus to offer.  But to offer Jesus, the real, living Jesus, is to do so through the offering of ourselves and all that the whole of our selves entails, along with all the people and means and resources that somehow connect to us.  To offer Jesus is to place in Jesus’ hands all of us and all of this, to make all of it available for use at his wise discretion.  And to offer the real Jesus would be to offer his very way of living, demonstrated by our walk on that way, a way that goes counter to other ways.

At the end of the day, to offer Jesus, the real Person, to the world, is to offer potentially and ultimately everything!

As we head to Nigeria in a matter of hours, I’m reminded of what I heard Dr. Timothy Tennent say recently.  On the occasion of his inauguration as President of Asbury Theological Seminary, Dr. Tennent, and outstanding missiologist, observed that ground zero for the church has shifted in recent decades.  He put it in this graphic way.  At the turn of the 20th century the prevailing profile of Christ-followers was a 41 year old man living in England.  One hundred years later, the prevailing profile is a 34 year old woman living in Nigeria.
 
Ground zero for the church, epicenter of our Lord’s awesome transforming reach into our world has moved south and east (from our perspective).  Indeed, stories of Holy Spirit movement and courageous obedience of Christ-followers who enter that movement generate and spread as gospel goes viral.  And as a result we hear about Pentecost-like ingathering of people and transforming of world.  Such stories always bring me to places of great joy and deep sadness.  Joy because how dare we not celebrate what God is doing!  Sadness because Pentecost-like stuff appears oh-so-rare where we live and serve most of the time.
 
Lately, however, I’m coming to other places, places of willing support and of eager expectation.  The mighty deeds of God in Christ elsewhere do not mean we’ve been bypassed.  There are ways the U.S. church may support all that God is doing in the world.  Our prayers count as we pray God’s will to be done everywhere as in heaven.  Our wealth waits to be spent (read “invested”) so that kingdom blessing flows to unreached and untouched people.  Our expertise and talent and experience represent huge gifts to be offered to the world.  I am thinking of retired people, rapidly on the increase in numbers, who are young enough to use their skills, gifts and passions for global impact.  Wouldn’t it be so like God if it turned out that what many imagined was their career is actually the training for the real world-changing work God created them to do in their so-called retirement years?
 
Our support in these and other ways in the Pentecost happenings elsewhere may also help the Spirit shape us more exactly in Christ’s image.  We don’t have to be in the lead, in the place of “prominence,” in the driver’s seat, to make a huge contribution to what Christ does around the world.  In fact, it may be good for us to be in some other lesser or lower place.
 
All of this is not to say we should aim low or be content with the status quo or with whatever … whatever.  Not at all!  In fact, a move to places of willing support is also a move to places of eager expectation.  Weaned of the illusion that we are world-changers, we may run toward, enter into, and move with the flow of the grace that truly transforms everything everywhere.  Again, wouldn’t it be so like God to respond to our willingness to play any role he assigns as the basis for new outbreaks of Pentecost-happening.  In the beginning of the gospel story, an unassuming young lady said, “Lord, let it be to me as you have said,” and we have yet to see the end of that story.  I’m sensing that a similar humble and steady willingness today will yield outrageously wonderful kingdom consequences in his time and in his way.

Earlier this month the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) issued a policy statement on immigration reform.  It is an excellent statement.  I urge all to read it–I mean, actually to visit the website (see https://www.nae.net/resolutions/347-immigration-2009), click where you should and read it.  

I say this so emphatically because I know for a fact that many have not read it, but have not allowed their personal ignorance of the actual statement to keep them from decrying its presumed contents.

A blogger labeled the statement an "amnesty statement," and this has triggered a frantic effort to protest the "unjust, cruel, horrifying stance your church has taken."  This quote is not exact, but it expresses well the sentiments of hundreds of form-letters of protest we have received at the Free Methodist Church World Ministries Center.  Permit me just three anguished observations about this.

First, it seems so ironic that followers of the One who claims to be the way, the truth and the life, should care so little about the truth.  No wonder people on the outside of the "Household of Faith" in Jesus look side-ways at us when we talk about the truth.

Second, it seems so out of character for followers of Jesus to become so angry at the idea of "amnesty."  PLEASE BE CLEAR, the statement is not an amnesty statement.  I'm commenting on the red-faced, vein-in-the-neck-bulging anger over the idea that "illegals" should receive amnesty.  What causes me such wonderment is the fact that all true followers of Jesus benefit every day of their lives and will throughout eternity, they believe, as result of something very much like amnesty.  I mean, while they were still sinners, and didn't care that they were, Christ died for them and set them free, and offered them a clean slate, never mind their multiple crimes, some of which were truly horrific.  Yet, they received new life and a new start free and clear, in a place and on a path none of them deserve to be!  Wow, sounds like good news to me!  How come the very idea of it should make some of us so angry?  To be sure, maybe it would be unwise, and perhaps it's not a good idea.  Maybe it would be foolish as public policy.  But why should people whose very eternity hinges on an incredible "free pass" become so angry over the possibility of some others experiencing a bit of what they have?  Again, BE CLEAR, the NAE statement is not an amnesty statement!  Earning citizenship and assuming all the responsibilities of citizenship by definition could not be amnesty.

Third, it seems truly outrageous to me that some of these form-letter protests actually describe the imagined amnesty policy as "horrifying." This is outrageous because there are so many truly horrifying things in our world today, things that make Jesus weep.  How about the billions of people who do not know the free-gift Jesus offers them?  How about the millions of people who are starving, suffering from scarce or unclean water, victimized by tribal and racial animosity, enslaved by human traffickers, and languishing in refugee camps in drought stricken deserts?  How about the innocent, vulnerable children the world over not aborted by their desperately poor parent(s) (praise the Lord!) but whose living conditions should really more accurately be named "dying conditions"?

How about this final horrifying reality?  All of these horrific facts of life on planet earth could be eliminated or greatly relieved if enough people had the moral and spiritual will to do so, if enough of Jesus' followers became so outraged over these truly horrifying things and so driven by the Lord of love that something simply had to be done?

Early this week, the Rev. Leith Anderson, President of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), commented on a recent position paper adopted by the NAE dealing with the issues surrounding immigration policy in the US and the presence of perhaps millions of undocumented persons in our nation.  Anderson’s references to the policy statement  (see https://www.nae.net/resolutions/347-immigration-2009) set off a firestorm of protest among conservative peoples, some of them Christians, alarmed at a policy of “amnesty” which they mistakenly see in the NAE’s position.  Since then the FMC, as a member of NAE, has received a number of phone calls and faxes expressing dismay and alarm over our support of “amnesty” and all it portends in the minds of these protesters.

First, please read the statement on its own merits.  The controversial sentence sparking the firestorm is presumable this one:

“That the government establish a sound, equitable process toward earned legal status for currently undocumented immigrants, who desire to embrace the responsibilities and privileges that accompany citizenship.” 

Friends, this is not a call for amnesty.  This is a call for policy that is sound and equitable that would allow for earned legal status.  If it is earned it is not amnesty, by definition.  Furthermore, this is for persons desiring to embrace the responsibilities and privileges that accompany citizenship.  As such, it is not irresponsible and not contrary to any sound understanding of the Scriptures.

Indeed, there are many reasons for support of such a proposal.  Consider the following reflections.

The scriptures tell earnest followers of Jesus, “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God … “ (1 Peter 2:9).

If we are the new people God makes us (chosen), we will understand that our birth-race, tribe, culture, government can never trump the claims of our rebirth-race—as children and servants of God, members of the new humanity created by grace and pioneered by the embodiment of grace Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ.  We will delight in the Father’s pleasure to show the world how to be human the Jesus-way, how to find and actualize His way of dealing with the foibles and failures of the all but wrecked story—His-story—that he will surely bring to a very good ending, or new beginning.  We will receive blessing and share blessing with all the families on earth.

If we are kingdom people (royal) we will seek first the interests of the king, indeed above all other interests.  The King declares his love for all, and especially for the last and least, those for whom no one will speak or act.  The King commands that we take care of the aliens and sojourners among us, for that is what we are—sojourners seeking a better country—when we are true to His call on our lives.

If we are the body of priests God calls his people to be, in fact, together constituting a priesthood for the sake of the many who do not know our God, the many who need to find some connection to the One who made and loved them and gave himself for them, then nothing will take priority for us than to be in position to sign-the-way to the true homeland of everyone our God claims as his own.  No competing interest can deter the priesthood in the fulfillment of their sacred duties.

If we are truly a holy tribe, an out-of-this-world ethnicity living and serving the many other ethnicities and showing them that what they most seek comes not through strategies of self-seeking and striving, but through receiving what God freely and lavishly rains upon us, and then sharing with others, then we will find ways to give of ourselves as a primary means of helping others receive.  We will commit to this way of losing ourselves in the pursuit of the others’ good, trusting God to see to their and our ultimate wellbeing.

For these reasons, we need have no fear but rather warm-hearted compassion for the many among us who are not documented.  We will want to find a way to protect the vulnerable, the weak and the imperiled whatever their circumstances.  We will seek to discover and bring to justice those who abuse and exploit them.  In many though not all cases we will want to find some means of offering them a place among us, not in violation of the law, but within the framework of the law of our land that, at its best, always aims to protect those who live under threat no matter the particulars of their situation.  In the faces of the strangers in our midst we will expect to see the Lord Jesus who chooses to be identified among the least of these—the homeless, the hungry, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned.  Indeed, in relation to the strangers we have strategic opportunity to act for them as Jesus would, which will be good for them—now and later, and will position us to hear a final well-done from the One whose judgment matters most.

For many years now I have been passionate about understanding, advocating, and facilitating what I call "authentic church-being."  Quite simply, what if Jesus' idea really took hold and we were church, and we accessed the grace necessary to make us the people of His envisioning?

What if as church we were all about them–the others not yet aware or accessing the grace that will literally make their lives.  Jesus was all about them!

What if as church we were all about blessing–as chosen people, like Israel of old and now the church if God gets God's way with us, blessing fairly summarizes life and mission.  They receive blessing–indeed, what blessing!  And the very receiving of it draws them into sharing that blessing with others, and doing so until all the families of the world have opportunity to know, receive and live blessing.  (I know, talk of blessing is really slippery, and we are soooooooo good at satisfying ourselves by mouthing slippery platitudes.  I know.  But please get into the word and unpack that word "blessing."  What did it mean for God to bless people?  What happened–both to them, to their network of folks, to their entire world?  I think yo'll see some pretty nitty gritty stuff that could spell deep transformation–if indeed we were all about such blessing).

What if as church we were about kingdom–as Jesus was.  That was his message: Kingdom come!  That was his call–turn around and deal with it.  As much as he was in the world, he was clearly not of it, not gripped by it, excpet by love for it, not enthralled with it and its systems, not decieved by its lies, not trapped by its sickness and dysfunctions, not about to settle for its limited and empty promises.  He called people out of darkness into stupendous light.  He insisted we were made for more and better, and pointed the way.  Convincingly he pointed the way, so convincing that people followed.  What if instead or championing a cause entirely bound by here-and-now stuff we became obsessed with the realm Jesus brought our world?  What if there were a truly better way to be human–the Jesus way, and the conditions necessary for even us to live that way were now right in front of us?  What if we embraced those conditions so desparately and tenaciously that we got thoroughly conditioned ourselves, and it was noticeable to them? (on "them" see above)

What if as church we were all about connection–that is, if we became the communal connecting point between God and people?  What if the world became for us the arena where God was not only present, but also not passive, but powerfully at work, and we developed the eyes to see this?  What if we understood that we are not to send missionaries, because we are ourselves the ones who have already been sent?  What if we as church understood we are God's missionary right here and right now? 

What if we were a holy ethnicity or tribe–as God insists we are?  What if we were unlike any and all other ethnicities in the world?  If in fact, all the things, experiences, opportunities, blessings, resources, etc. etc. that any tribe or ethnic group wants in the worst way, so badly they are willing to kill for them–what if we wanted such things for them (there's that word again!), and we wanted such things for them so deeply that we were willing to die to see it happen, if necessary?  Kind of like Jesus did! 

What if?  Makes you think, doesn't it? Or dream or pray or expect!  In several weeks in the center of the US we gather to imagine together what could be if God got God's way with God's people.  Who can tell what the Lord of the church might do!