The Missional Network

Jeremiah 29:1-7

01Jeremiah 29:1  “These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.”

The Israelites traveled from Jerusalem to Babylon. Some perished along the way. Jeremiah delivers a word from the Lord to those who survived. In essence, Jeremiah says, to those of you who remain, you will not be home soon. Find a job, build a house, get married…you’re going to be there for awhile. The words are not particularly comforting, but there is hope in the fact that God is speaking.

A friend of mine went to prison a few weeks ago and he will be there for the next eighteen months. He left his wife and teenage daughter at home. Their main hope is that their husband/father will find a community to help him build his faith. He must pay the penalty, but he is not cut off from the Lord. In the greatest disruptions of our lives, a word from the Lord is spoken.

01I often holiday in those parts of France where vines grow in abundance. They represent a wonderful sight in summer. The size of the bunches of grapes, so full of juice that the full grapes almost touch the ground, makes you want to pick and eat. Fruitfulness is wonderful to see and taste.

01 Cooperating with the Holy Spirit
Ephesians 4:3

In his book Union With Christ, Lewis Smedes talks about cooperating with the person of the Holy Spirit;

“The Spirit is not exclusive property of the church. He is always free. Nor does He quietly run an assembly line where He pours into members a substance-like stuff called life. Moreover, there is possibility that he may be ignored, denied, and offended. His presence does not offer a unilateral guarantee. He works and the members must work; He acts and they must join Him. And where the human side of the dynamic equation is lacking, the body is dormant at best, dead at worst.”

A core conviction of a missional people is that the Holy Spirit is not confined to the church. At the same time Paul makes it very clear to the church in Ephesians 4 that the Spirit is at work in the midst of God’s ordinary people. The Holy Spirit is the glue that holds the people together. As we dare venture out into our neighborhoods, it is vital to remember that this is an act of cooperating with the Holy Spirit. As we move into the neighborhood the Holy Spirit will hold us together.

• Where in your life are you resisting the Holy Spirit?
• How are you confining the work of the Holy Spirit to familiar patterns in the church and in the world?

Luke 10:1-12

01The opening verses of this passage remind us that this missional journey in which we have been called to participate is not about us nor is the outcome -- the harvest -- our harvest. Jesus is "Lord of the harvest" and the harvest itself is "his harvest." We are simply called to "go." I am reminded of a portion of a prayer by Oscar Romero, martyred Archbishop of San Salvador:

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

Exodus 2:23-25

01A long time passed. So much life is held in these four words. This describes not just one person but a group of people, the Israelites. They are suffering because of their hard work as slaves. In a way it doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem to give their suffering the hearing that it deserves.

Talk shows feature people’s suffering. Audiences are drawn to the telling of these stories in excruciating detail. Talk show host’s ratings are bolstered.

The telling in Exodus 2:23 is simply, “a long time passed.” The audience is just one, “their cry to be rescued rose up to God.” It’s not even clear that they were directing their cry to God in particular or whether they were simply crying out because the suffering was so heavy and God simply was around.

But “God heard their cry of grief . . .” The audience of one hears the grief. The audience of one hears the suffering. The audience of one hears the weight of groaning in “a long time passed.”