Mission and Development - part 3

Each Sunday, I am posting one (of 10) theological thesis, from a paper written by Steve de Gruchy, about how mission and social justice or development can be integrated. Often in the church it has been an “either / or”, but it seems to me that God moving among his church so we understand that His mission encompasses both, as we grapple with the Scriptures concerning God’s mission.

We have looked the nature of God activity being consistent with who He is (Part 1) and (in Part 2) how God is at work in the world to bring Shalom (”peace with justice”). Part 3 looks at role of Jesus in bringing “shalom”.

Jesus incarnates God’s work of shalom

The Scriptures tell us that this life of shalom was more often than not absent from the experience of the people of the earth - due to a falling away from God, creation and our neighbours through sin. The life created by God, too easily became sickness, suffering, oppression and death. The missio Dei involved restoring this shalom through the exodus of the slaves in Egypt, the granting of the Law at Sinai, the prophetic call for justice, and the restoration after Exile. But the workers in the vineyard did not heed these messengers. And so - as the parable has it (Luke 20.9- 16) - the owner sent his son. To understand Jesus within the sweep of what God is doing in history, and to recognise the links between the Old and New Testaments, we can simply state that as the incarnation of God, Jesus incarnates God’s work of shalom. This is what it means to call him “the way, the truth and the life”. The kingdom of God which he proclaimed and incarnated, is the kingdom in which this shalom is known and experienced.

With this in mind it is not difficult to see how the birth, ministry, proclamation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus is a profound proclamation of shalom. Christ is the peace of God, the bread of life, he who promises abundant life. The inner embrace of the Trinity finds expression in the physical embrace of Jesus. He goes to the lost and the outcasts, the marginalized and the excluded, and invites sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors, children, lepers and political rebels to his table. He brings healing to the sick, food to the hungry, sight to the blind, hope to the despairing, good news to the poor, life to the dead. In a system in which religious control legitimated this exclusion, Jesus undermines the whole judicial system, causes a religious and political scandal and hastens his own demise by proclaiming the forgiveness of sins in the name of the
God of life. Jesus makes clear what other parts of scripture testify, that God has a particular concern for those who suffer in the absence of shalom, those whom we call the poor.

My Comment: I am grappling to understand “shalom” … a Hebrew word that means so much more than peace … perhaps “wellbeing” or “wholeness” might sum it up better. It seems elusive, but significant. It is about my life now, and my hope for the future. What I am beginning to see is the scope of the gospel is far wider than I have previously understood. That is what I love about these couple of paragraphs: the good news of the Kingdom is all about alleviating “sickness, suffering, oppression and death“.

Tags: Development, Gospel, Kingdom, Kingdom of God, Missio Dei, Mission, Missional Church, Social Development

Tags: Development, Mission, Shalom, Social Justice