Chapter 2: A New Apostolic Era

If we are going to think about a new “apostolic” era, let’s begin by making the distinction between “disciple” and “apostle,” since some may think the two roles synonymous. A disciple is a learner; a follower. The disciple has chosen to listen to a particular teacher with the intention of learning something new and of following in the path of a particular leader. An apostle is one who is “sent.” The word “apostle” is based upon the Greek word, “apostolos,” and means “one who is sent away;” as a messenger or ambassador. The apostle is the bearer of information to others presumably uninformed. To speak of a new apostolic era, to me, means to consider new means by which apostles—or bearers of God’s liberating love—bring the news. Or, it may mean the renewal of apostleship or a re-sending of the faithful.

Zscheile describes some religious and spiritual realities of our contemporary society that cry out for a different sort of apostleship. He observes that many people he and you and I know care deeply and live consciously. They are “constructing their own narratives of meaning and purpose and building their own expressions of community.” Here are people who seek meaningful lives and the company of others and yet, writes Zscheile, “The churches in their area have not meaningfully engaged them, and while they may be seeking God, they’re not seeking a church.” (p. 32) What a telling observation! We who live and serve in traditional church settings need to know and think about the fact that there are many people seeking a deeper spiritual life, seeking God, who are not even considering the local church as a place where God or community may be found. This condition rings true to me as the mother of four children, none of whom attend church and all of whom are actively engaged in meaningful work that contributes to the lives of children, women, the poor, and the oppressed.

Even more provocative and disturbing observations come out of the research cited on pp. 34-35 of the book, one piece of which is this: “a young adult is more likely to become more actively involved in church if she or he grows up in a nonreligious home than in a mainline Protestant home.” What does this say about how we are Christians in the mainline? It begs questions like, “Does our faith show in the way we live our lives?” “Have we loved the church more than God, so that our children have seen only faithfulness to an institution and not faithfulness to life-giving gospel imperatives?” And how do we change that?

Zscheile’s reflection on the historic secularization of western society and the “excarnation” in which “religion became disembodied,” and God “came to be seen as distant from daily life” (p. 36) helps us to see a cultural and religious progression that has significantly impacted the Episcopal Church. My own experience echoes Zscheile’s description that “many church members struggle to name God’s presence or activity in their daily lives or the world,” (p. 36) and yet I find this is changing the more we look, together, at scripture and share our stories unselfconsciously.

Finally, Zscheile declares the potential for the Episcopal Church to offer a new way toward spiritual growth, communal faith, and the work of the gospel in the world. He writes, “Anglicanism offers a richly textured Christianity with ancient roots, expansive sources, a living commitment to justice and reconciliation, and space for people to explore, question, and grow along the way….Its historical embrace of whatever cultural context it finds itself in mandates that it speak the language of the people.” (p. 41) If we can get past traditionalism, elitism, and a lack of clarity and if we could find in ourselves a sense of urgency to fuel renewal, then we might rediscover our identity as a sent people.

This material reflects upon Chapters 5 and 6 of Zscheile's book.  We talked a little bit last week about accepting or receiving the hospitality of others and how that reverses the traditional paradigm of the Church going out and giving to the needy or going out and bringing Christ to the world.  Here is an entirely new orientation to discipleship.  Well, actually, not new at all, if we look at Luke 10.

Still, all the movement to “get out into the neighborhood” and to “go see what God is doing out there,” and to “join God in God’s work outside the confines of our daily environment” still begs the question HOW?  Last week, we suggested that it is time to SHUT UP AND LISTEN, a rather harsh advisory, but strong and true and urgent.  We can begin by listening wherever we are for where we hear God and our neighbor.  And perhaps we are doing this all the time but not very consciously and certainly not intentionally.  So, if I hear that someone’s child seems “stuck” in an unhealthy behavior, do I simply hear the information and move on to the next topic, or do I “stay” with that person and “be” with him in his concern and join into further reflection with him on his child.  Do I look and/or listen for where God is in this? 

There is an endless list of “conditions” of people to which Jesus would have us be present and to which he would have us bring peace.

What if someone feels the need to respond in a larger way than individually to an issue bearing upon her life, say, school bullying or violence?  Is her passion or intention a sign of God’s presence?  Do we join with her in whatever way we are able and become part of what she has initiated, totally apart from our church life?  What is the connection there?

Is this what is meant by being “missional,” “seeking the world’s hospitality” and “living as disciples?”

p. 84:  “Disestablishment invites a new form of public engagement that depends instead upon our lived identity as disciples of Jesus rather than a privileged social location.  James Davison Hunter uses the phrase “faithful presence” to describe this form of engagement—being present faithfully to God in worship, to each other, to the tasks and vocation God has given each of us to do, and without our spheres of relational influence.”

The life of Christians “points beyond themselves to a heavenly citizenship, which gives them their true idenity, yet also calls them to share in the struggles and suffering of the world.”  P. 88

“…discernment must be a way of life for Christian disciples and Christin communities seeking to participate in God’s reign.  It is a cultivated capacity for attending to God’s presence and movement—for seeking and serving Christ through the Spirit.

“Incarnation means translation and adaptation.”  P. 101…in Christ we see God “translated” and “adapted” for human understanding.  (Look at all the sacrificial theology that fits perfectly into the tradition of animal sacrifice practiced by many religions for millennia before Jesus.)

“Hungry for anything that was nourishing:” peace, community, company, spiritual connection, belonging.

The story with which Zscheile begins Chapter 3 speaks of a person who hungers.  In reality, much of our human initiative, growth, and progress originate with hunger.  Everyone experiences emptiness to be filled or longing that motivates or desire that becomes an engine for change.  I wonder if some form of hunger is always present in every human being and if it is always a potential path to relationship with God.

When I read Melissa’s story, I couldn’t help but think about our plans for an “alternative” worship service that is, at least in part, intended to serve people who haven’t a spiritual home or community.  I believe that many of us are hungry, sometimes in ways we aren’t even aware of.  Our committee engaged in a discussion about whether or not to offer Eucharist at every “alternative” worship:  on the one hand, some expressed a concern that our sacred meal might be “foreign” or “exclusionary” to people unaccustomed to it.  On the other hand, some insisted that it is the very heart of what we have to offer.  Clearly, Zscheile would agree with the latter group.

The description of the Greek word for communion, “koinonia,” as sharing, participation, fellowship, belonging, togetherness, solidarity, unity, reciprocity, mutuality and the   “reconciliation of difference into a common life,” (pp 44-45) certainly described a rich and hearty “meal” for all the hungers we humans suffer.

Another piece of the picture that is challenging to me comes from the ancient story of Israel in the wilderness, trying to find their identity between slave and free.  God gives them laws to govern their lives, ways of justice and mercy.  And then a whole generation passes before they settle in the land that God has promised.  I wonder if a whole generation (or more) of traditional church-goers has to pass away before newness can be received.

Finally, I was captivated by John of Damascus’ term to describe the relational life of the Trinity:  “perichoresis,” which means “circulating around the neighborhood.”  Here is a way of life we might imitate, like Jesus on the road.

Only a few weeks ago, in a discussion about the future of the Church of St. Luke and St. Mary, I heard an intelligent and faithful person say, “We need to do more things and let people know what we are doing so that more people will come. We just need to get more people.” This, to me, is an expression of what Dwight Zscheile calls our “common imagination,” the one from which “we still largely assume that people are looking for a church and that they will know how to find us—that we can simply welcome them when they show up (especially if they look and act like us.) We assume that people come to us already Christian, and that we can just make them church members.” In this regard, many of us have been blind to the changes in our culture that make the church increasingly mysterious, distrusted, and alien to new generations. I like Zscheile’s insistence that we listen to the voices of those who have walked away from active church involvement and “to the stories and perspectives of neighbors who have never been part of the church in order to discern a new future” for God’s church. The Foreward and the Introduction show us that at the heart of Zscheile’s book is the deep conviction that there is a new future for the Episcopal Church. I believe, with the author, that we Episcopalians can “live more deeply into our identity as people of [Jesus’s] Way.” In Chapter 1, Zscheile gives us a brief and concise summary of the historical and cultural identity of the Episcopal Church as a privileged preserver of cultural, governmental and social structures during its first 300 years in this country. Recognizing the role of the Episcopal Church in upholding “the status quo of a stratified economic system and a rationalistic faith” helps us see within ourselves some of the ways we continue to do so. Naming the historic tendency of our mission work to fall within a “benefactor paradigm” will help us to break out of that and take what Zscheile describes as “the deeper step of identifying with and receiving from those who are persecuted or marginalized.” (p. 27) Zscheile raises our awareness of where we have come from and how we have become who we are today. This is preparation for changing perspective and growing out of those ways that inhibit our discipleship as followers of Jesus. Reflection upon the questions at the end of the chapter help us personalize the information by leading us to see where these influences and assumptions are at work and discernable in our current experience.