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.)