John H Armstrong

Living a Whole Life

 

I have greatly profited from the writing and spiritual insights of Fr. Richard Rohr, the well-known Catholic mystic/teacher/writer from New Mexico. His books have helped me grow in areas where my evangelical background left me short in terms of grasping how action (which defines so much of my life) meets solitude and contemplation (which I’ve discovered only in the last few years). Rohr directs the Center for Action and Contemplation. Each day the center emails an excerpt from something that Rohr wrote that is intended for personal reflection. A recent entry from the Center for Action and Contemplation underscored once again just how valuable his insights can be, especially when you are my age and longing to love God with a Christ-centered love that is growing deeper by the day.

The first half of life is invariably about creating identity, finding some boundary markers (traditions, trustworthy authorities and structures), making some money, getting an education, marrying, and raising children—which we then must defend for the rest of our lives. Most of us are so invested in these first answers by the age of 40, that we can’t imagine anything more—not realizing that “It’s still all about me!”  Christians in the first half of life became obsessed with dying a happy death and going to heaven. Even religion became a rather privatized evacuation plan for the next world, and the clergy seldom recognized that much of religion was trapped at the individualistic and egocentric level. No actual love of neighbor, outsider, the poor, or even God was really necessary. This is “garden variety” first half of life religion, and it has passed for the real thing for much of the Christian era. Adapted from Loving the Two Halves of Life: The Further Journey

 

 

Speaking of God

We have always had a difficult time when we speak of the living God. Most people, including the most ardent believers, treat this as a non-problem. This reveals a profound lack of understanding biblically and historically. The ancient Jews did not even speak the "revealed" name of God. So how do we, living in the time of Christ who is still with us by the Spirit he poured out on us all, properly speak of God? 

I suggest that we should speak of God relationally. By this I mean that we should speak of God as the Source and energy/dynamic of relationality. In reading Genesis again during the first week of 2012 I was struck by this in the entire book. The Creator is a relational being who made us in his image. We were brought into being, that is into a relationship with God and creation, when the Source of all Being "breathed the breath of life into us" (Genesis 2:7). Trace this point throughout the entire Old Testament and you will see that it remains true. 

If God, who is the Source of all life and relationship, is perfectly revealed in Jesus Christ then he embodies this relationality in his incarnation. He is embodied, divine/human relationality. Jesus is the human expression of God ("logos") enacted among us and accommodated to a particular time, culture and context. This is why we must come to know the human/divine Jesus if we are to know God in deep friendship/relationship/relationality. 

This kind of theology helps explain why Jesus said things like "the father and I are one" (John 10:30). In the words of Peter Traben Haas, in his amazing book which I discovered on New Year's Day, The God Who is Here (2011):

If Jesus Christ is the embodied demonstration of Divine relationality enacted among us in human form, then the Spirit is the non-embodied continuation of Christ's relationality to and within us for the purpose of reawakening us to our role in embodying the reality of the Divine relationality.

Peter Haas adds that if this is true the church is a community of embodied members of the household of God living in a relationship brought about by the Holy Spirit. Jesus' demonstration of love is the real key to understanding everything he taught and thus everything we need to know in order to live relationally; e.g. John 13;34-35. By the Spirit we participate in the Divine loving presence of the Triune God. In the Bible this life is called "union" with Christ (Romans 8:9-11) and "sharing in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). We make far too little of this when we teach Christian faith as propositions and constructs in our minds that do not actually transform us internally by the Spirit. Our propositions might be correct but we miss the point and thus name God by words that do not actually help us know God. 

By this understanding God, through Christ and by the Holy Spirit, is all in all. Amen.

The Greatest Commandment

The Greatest Commandment

    ³⁴ Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. ³⁵ One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ³⁶ “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

   ³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

For the religious leaders of Jesus' time religion was a very complicated business, much as it became over time in the Christian church. It was full of rules and regulations, often so many no one could even keep up with the list. It had become so complex that a great many people could not hope to fulfill the demands of the Law or experience peace in practicing their faith. It is not surprising then to find a devout man asking Jesus about this in Matthew 22. He seemed to genuinely want to know, "What is most important in all this detailed instruction about living?" 

In his reply, which we read in the text above, Jesus goes to the core of the matter. All true religion and spirituality (including morality) depend on man's loving God with his whole being (his self, his inner essence, his personality) and then loving his neighbor with the same love that he had for himself. 

The Apostle Paul said the same thing in Romans 13:8-10 where he says that all moral and religious demands are not found in determined human effort but in a heart opened fully to the love of God and prepared to love other people.

Love Fulfills the Law

    ⁸ Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. ⁹ The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰ Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

"Love is the fulfillment of the law." 

I hear some Christians say, in essence, "We cannot fulfill the law. Only Christ can." True, in one sense. But not true in another. This clever theological shell game misses the point here and denies the reality of Christ's love working in us by the Spirit. 

Whatever denomination or group you belong to it behooves you to go back to the heart of the matter at the end of 2011. All our creeds, formulas, mission statements and programs are worth nothing if we do not fulfill the most basic command of all, the love God and our neighbors. 

Is Jesus watering-down the moral law here? Is he weakening the Ten Commandments? If you think this then you have not followed the way of Christ or understood what is going on here at all. If you follow Jesus in the coming year I promise you that you will surpass the demands of any set of laws and your actions will surpass those of people who try to follow the Law of Moses. The Ten Commandments may produce law-abiding people, albeit people who fail to keep the Law at every point, but the Law of Christ produces those who live as sons and daughters of the living God. 

I recently read a post in which a friend asked people to say what family characteristic is important to focus on in 2012? I was amazed at some of the responses. I wrote: "Love." Nothing else comes remotely close. Don't you think I'm right? And if not please help me understand why. "The greatest of these is love." 

 

 

God’s Love Brings About Real Change

I was taught, like most, that God loved me if and when I changed. Simply put, if I repent then God will love me. But 1 John 4:8 and 16 says, “God is love.”

Love is the supreme revelation of the Christian faith. Divine love is the chief characteristic of living faith. Other religions know something about a God who is compassionate (to varying degrees) but no other religion has known the dynamism of divine love, a love that moves the entire creation toward the Creator. This God-Love is the most distinctive quality to be discovered in true Christianity. But listening to much of what I hear Christians say about God and faith you’d never know this to be the case.

Because God-Love is who God is we are loved. God loves you and me so that we can change. Richard Rohr says, “What empowers change, what makes you desirous of change is the experience of love. It is that inherent experience of love that becomes the engine of change. If the mystics say that one way, they say it a thousand ways. But because most of our common religion has not been at the mystical level, we’ve been given an inferior message—that God loves me when I change.”

Most of our religion is lived at the level of propositions and intellectual knowledge. This easily becomes a form of moralism. Believers of all the major Christian historical families are guilty of teaching moralism instead of love. (Note: Love will lead to true morality, not immorality! But we fear this is not the case until we know this love firsthand.) Moralism puts the motivation for deep change back on you. But you will never be holy enough, pure enough, refined enough, or loving enough. Never, no matter how long you try and how hard you work.

Richard Rohr is insightful when he concludes, “Whereas, when you fall into God’s mercy, when you fall into God’s great generosity, you find, seemingly from nowhere, this capacity to change. No one is more surprised than you are. You know it is a gift.”

The Apostle John links God-Love with our love for others. A true Christian, says John, begins by loving God through faith and faith is “believing in God’s love, that God is love (1 John 4:16). So faith and love are inseparably linked in biblical theology.

I can’t believe it took me decades to deeply grasp this truth since it is self-evident to all who read the Holy Scriptures with real faith.

When the great theologian Karl Barth was asked what was the most profound theological truth he had learned in his lifetime of deep biblical study he answered: “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” That says it as well as anything I’ve heard. Do you really believe that he loves you?

Marriage Is Difficult

I rarely pay attention to celebrity gossip and the daily news about Hollywood marriages and divorce. The media seems interested and based on the interest of a good number of people it seems warranted by our culture’s preoccupation with the private lives of the rich and famous.

This is why I was so surprised that I ended up reading the story of the divorce of Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore. I would hardly have known they were married in the first place if so much attention had not be given to Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, her previous husband. Moore, for the record, is 49 years old while Ashton Kutcher is only 33. I suppose this in itself caught the attention of many when they married. This really was an older woman-younger man marriage. Would it work? How does it work? Curiosity about the bizarre and unusual reigns in pop culture.

Well, now that this famous couple is breaking up who actually cares? I don’t care I can assure you. But there was the story in my daily copy of USA Today. Nine times our of ten I would have skipped it. But for some odd reason I read it. I learned about Moore’s three children: Rumer (23), Scout (20) and Tallulah (17). (I did not come up with these names I assure you!) All three of Moore’s children have Bruce Willis for their father. But Ashton Kutcher said he loved all three children. What a strange world the children of these celebrities grow up in.

Demi Moore said of her breakup, “It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I have decided to end my six-year marriage.” Really? Six years? It is hard to believe it lasted that long given the way their romance unfolded in the first place.

I thought Ashton Kutcher actually offered a rather insightful statement (in a simplistic way) when he said: “I will forever cherish the time I spent with Demi. Marriage is one of the most difficult things in all the world and unfortunately sometimes they fail.” You think? Wow, knock me over with insight. Marriage is difficult. Marriages fail.

How is it that we have celebrated these celebrity marriages and then followed their routine divorces so openly in our culture? And how many people really believe that “marriage is (really) difficult” to nurture and preserve? My guess is that the answer to this last question is “most people,” at least most people who have remained married long enough to endure the hardships that all couples eventually face. After all, we marry “for better or for worse.” Or at least we used to do that. 

The truth is marriage is almost impossible without love and most of those who talk about love have no idea what it really is.

Mercy Imitates God

St. John Chrysostom (347-407 AD) says, “Mercy imitates God and disappoints Satan.” That got me to pondering lately how much I really comprehend and believe in the mercy of God.

Mercy is defined as compassion or forbearance shown especially to an offender or to one subjected to the power of another. Webster adds a second definition by saying mercy is “a blessing that is an act of divine favor or compassion.” It is clearly this latter idea Chrysostom had in mind.

Paul says in Ephesians 2:4-7:

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. ⁶ And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, ⁷ in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

God is rich in mercy! This means that his mercy, as is his divine being, is infinite. God’s love for us assumes a very special character, one that is adapted to our nature as frail, weak creatures. Thus his love leads to his mercy. Mercy is love bending over misery to relieve it, to redeem it, to raise it up to itself. It seems as if God, in loving us, is attracted by our weakness not because it is lovable but because he is infinite goodness. (Read that again!) His compassion stoops to compensate for our weakness because of his mercy. He desires to heal all our impurities by his purity, all our weakness by his strength. The supreme and eternal good, God himself, wants to be the remedy for all our trials and ills. The Psalmist says, “For the knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 102:14).

What is our greatest evil? Sin, of course. In fact, sin is the only real evil. So what is the remedy for sin? Infinite mercy. God hates sin for sure but his mercy finds a way, through Jesus, to love us and forgive us. But what about those who presently refuse his son? Well he loves everyone as a creature and clearly longs for their good too. And he commands us to love as he loves. 

There is no limit to God’s mercy for the believer. God never rejects us because of our sins. He never grows weary because of our infidelities. He is always ready to restore us and forgive all our offenses. He will repay ingratitude with graces and never reproaches us for our offenses no matter how many times we’ve failed. That is mercy, pure mercy.

And we who know the mercy of God in our experience are called to show his mercy to everyone. Listen to our Lord Jesus in the Gospel of Luke (6:32-36):

³² If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.³³ And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. ³⁴And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. ³⁵ But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. ³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

We are clearly told: “Be merciful just as your Father is merciful.” How merciful is our Father? How far does his mercy go? Your answer to that question will actually determine whether or not you  will show mercy to those who forget you, offend you or even harm you.

God does not require us to be sinless in order to show us the fullness of his mercy. He requires us to show mercy to our neighbor, and moreover, to be humble in all ways. We must humbly acknowledge our sins and come to our Father with complete confidence that he will always show us mercy. If you do not believe this then you will not come to God but linger outside the house and refuse to go into the celebration of mercy.

St. Therese of Lisieux said, “What pleases God is to see me love my littleness and poverty; it is the blind hope I have in his mercy. This is my sole treasure.”

Is blind hope in God’s mercy your sole treasure? This treasure will supply all that you need. And with this treasure nothing can unsettle us from the love of God.

God Is a Community of Persons

Perhaps the most astounding discovery of my last ten years or so has been the realization that God is a community of persons existing in an eternal relationship of love. The Father loves the Son. This is more than a source of doctrinal acknowledgement or confession. It is even more than a source of inspiration. We actually share in this community of persons because He loves each of us with that same unconditional love. This is what St. John tells us when he says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.”

To be a Christian is much more than imitating Jesus. It is certainly more than following his commandments, as important as this really is to living faith. Authentic faith leads us beyond these limits into the richness of a divine relationship. We are called to not only imitate Jesus but to live our lives in Him.

Through faith and Christian baptism we share in the glory that was his before the world began. This gift enables us to share in the interpersonal life of the Trinity. Jesus’ prayer to the Father during his Last Supper (the prayer that began to shape and change my life in the early 1990s) was “As you Father are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.” In our baptism we are baptized into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is proper to Christian baptism because we are baptized into the triune love of God.

Contemplate this mystery: “The glory I gave to him, he has now given to you (those who believe), so that you may be one in love with us and with all believers” (John 17:22).

The Problem with Labels

Christians are divided by many labels. None, at least so far as I can tell, divide us more than conservative and liberal. People on both sides recognize the other as being extreme and want little to do with each other. And once you have a label for a viewpoint, a perspective, then you can be done with having to deal with the messy business of dealing with the person who is “liberal” or “conservative.”

As these two labels are broadly used I accept them, at least to a certain extent. But I have found them increasingly useless in terms of loving and serving others. This does not mean I stopped thinking. Quite the opposite actually. It means I think a great deal about Christian beliefs and practices but I refuse to draw back from a brother or sister I disagree with based on this label. Almost every week I meet someone who so shatters the way I once used these labels that I am required to let my prejudices go if I am to be kind and tenderhearted.

The one thing I am most sure about is that Jesus told us to love. He didn’t say, “Love those who agree with you.” He said, “Love.” Even if the person in question is a “theological” or “personal” enemy you must still love. Love might draw you into a context where you are required to speak truthfully, as you understand it, but you must never speak without love.

The big shift for me goes something like this – I want to believe and teach a Christian faith that is Christian at its core. And I want to believe it in a way that is faithful to biblical teaching and church tradition; i.e. in a way that is genuinely catholic. But, and this is important, I want to believe in a way that keeps me ever open to searching for the truth in areas where I need to better understand both me and the way the faith challenges my ideas and practice.

If I had to use a label for this I suppose I would say I am more “moderate” than the extremes I see all around me. The loudest voices in both church and culture are on the left and the right. A “moderate” is caught in the middle. A “moderate” looks a bit like a wimp, like a person who is “facing both ways.” So I am really not sure I like this label either.

What I know is that God created the world and sent his Son into the world to redeem it. He loves it, all of it. Why? “God is love.” To follow Jesus requires more than anything else a stance of love. This stance can be inquiring and open. It can also be critical and thoughtful. It will be mindful of teaching such as this, in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians:

¹ This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. ² Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. ³ I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. ⁴ My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. ⁵ Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God (4:1-5, bold text mine).

How does the ordinary Christian make sense of their faith in Jesus while they continue to think and work out the implications of various complex issues and concerns that challenge them in 2011? This is not easy. The simple solution, it seems to me, is to opt for a stance (left or right) and then dig in and show how this is the “biblical view” on this or that. Understand, that I am resolutely committed to the ancient creeds of the Christian church, those creeds that almost all Christians publicly affirm in one way or another.

I see two great dangers for the soul in this labeling and standing on one side or the other in conflict. One is fear! "1 John 4:8 says, “Perfect love expels all fear.” Most of the time I fear that I might have to change my mind about something and this fear keeps me from seriously considering what I ought to think more deeply about.

The other danger is arrogance. We have the tendency to think that we can explain and understand the deep mysteries of God. We then equate these mysteries with our explanations of them. But Paul says our faith is rooted in these “great mysteries” (cf. 1 Timothy 3:9, 16). The greatest is the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus. Even here we can and must confess the faith as Christians in community with the whole church but we cannot explain these mysteries adequately.

I think Paul sums all this up quite well in one of the most famous of all portions of the Scripture (1 Corinthians 13:8-13). He makes it clear that what we know right now we can only know “in part” because right now we “see only as in a mirror.”

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

No Greater Love

Jesus says, in the Upper Room Discourse, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). When the deadly tornado hit Joplin, Missouri, a few weeks ago Dean Wells proved what Christian friendship looks like by laying down his life. As 200 mph winds bore down on the Home Deport store people fled to the back of the store to be safe. Others in the parking lot were trying to find a way into the store. About a dozen people were tapping on the door at which point Dean Wells let them into the store. Wells was near the front door, having just let in a father and two young children, when the storm hit. Those who made it to the rear of the store survived but six did not. Among them was Christian saint Dean Wells.

When the funeral for Wells took place some days later his daughter said, “Today, we gather for the absolute No. 1 quality my father had. He served others before he served himself. The store manager said, “Wells put himself in a very dangerous place to allow other people to survive the storm.”

At Wells’ funeral service friends and co-workers said he was an optimistic, overwhelmingly friendly man who loved fly fishing and took pride in his grandchildren.”

When Wells’ two daughters went back to his home, after the authorities had released his personal effects, they searched through their dad’s desk for a CD of him whistling “Amazing Grace.” Finding it they played it as his service. Its sound filled the church at his funeral. They also found a note from a sermon. Wells wrote: “No greater sacrifice can be given to them than to give one’s life for another.” Amen. RIP, M. Dean Wells. You are a real hero and you demonstrate what a Christian saint is really all about.

How Missional-Ecumenism Became Praxis at Cape Town

More than a few Christians leaders will admit that missional-ecumenism lines up with the teaching of John 13:34-35, John 17:20-23 and John 20:31. But the problem often arises when it comes to praxis, or implementation. The question is rather obvious: “How do we actually put this vision into practice?” The Cape Town Commitment answers this as beautifully and succinctly as anything I’ve ever seen or read.

As I noted yesterday the Cape Town Congress wanted to reaffirm core doctrinal convictions while at the same time it sought to address the oft-neglected practices that should flow from good theology. This is why Part 2 of The Cape Town Commitment is so important for missional-ecumenism.

Part 2 is titled: “For the World We Serve.” It begins: “Our covenant with God binds love and obedience together. God rejoices to see our ‘work produced by faith’ and our ‘labor prompted by love,” for we are God’s workmanship . . .” And then it adds, “As members of the worldwide Church of Jesus Christ, we have sought to listen to the voice of God through the Holy Spirit.” This was done by The Cape Town Commitment by focusing on Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians and hearing the voices of Christians from around the world.

The first theme is bearing witness to the truth of Jesus Christ in a pluralistic and globalized world. The second is building the peace of Christ in a divided and broken world. Here we are encouraged to be peacemakers who seek reconciliation and healing in the world. The poor and oppressed are particularly addressed, underscoring the importance of the whole church contributing to this statement. Following this section is the third theme. It is a statement about living the love of Christ among peoples of other faiths and religions. As you would expect of solid evangelical Protestants the fourth theme is the will of Christ for world evangelization. And this is not the “same old kind of statement” from the past. Again it reveals the genius of having many voices in this conversation. There is a part of this theme that deals with “oral cultures.” How I wish I had read this thinking when I was 21 years old. It would have helped me be a better pastor to people who were not well-educated in the printed text and good readers. My ministry was simply too strongly tied to reading and books. The fifth theme we encounter calls the church to humility, integrity and simplicity. Who can argue with the need for this in the modern world after years of being associated with nations and empires?

But it is the sixth, and final, theme that struck me so powerfully because of how it specifically works out the thesis of my own mission and the book, Your Church Is Too Small. This sixth theme is partnering in the body of Christ for unity in mission. Since you can read the entire document online I will not simply copy whole sections, with one exception. The opening statements of this final theme are so central to my message that I copy them and make some observations, Here we read:

IIF. Partnering in the body of Christ for unity in mission

Paul teaches us that Christian unity is the creation of God, based on our reconciliation with God and with one another. This double reconciliation has been accomplished through the cross. When we live in unity and work in partnership we demonstrate the supernatural, counter-cultural power of the cross. But when we demonstrate our disunity through failure to partner together, we demean our mission and message, and deny the power of the cross.

1. Unity in the Church

A divided Church has no message for a divided world. Our failure to live in reconciled unity is a major obstacle to authenticity and effectiveness in mission.

A)    We lament the dividedness and divisiveness of our churches and organizations. We deeply and urgently long for Christians to cultivate a spirit of grace and to be obedient to Paul’s command to ‘make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.’

B)    While we recognize that our deepest unity is spiritual, we long for greater recognition of the missional power of visible, practical, earthly unity. So we urge Christian sisters and brothers worldwide, for the sake of our common witness and mission, to resist the temptation to split the body of Christ, and to seek the paths of reconciliation and restored unity wherever possible (65-66).

The Cape Town Commitment then urges us to establish partnerships in global mission. It says: “The supremacy and centrality of Christ in our mission must be more than a confession of faith; it must also govern our strategy, practice and unity.” Where we can stand together and accept one another in mission as one body we should do this in every possible way. Such partnership is not simply about money and programs since money is often injected into controversies and rivalries, not into unity. I love this statement: “Let us no longer impose our own preferred names, slogans, programs, systems and methods on other parts of the Church. Let us instead work for true mutuality of North and South, East and West, for interdependence in giving and receiving, for the respect and dignity that characterizes genuine friends and true partners in mission.” Working with and for “genuine friends and true partners” could not be a better description of what I live for and seek to teach in every way possible.

The whole document ends on this same missional and ecumenical note:

Three times Jesus repeated, ‘A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.’ Three times Jesus prayed ‘that all of them may be one, Father.’ Both the command and the prayer are missional. ‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’ ‘May they be brought to complete unity so that the world may know that you sent me.’ Jesus could not have made his point more emphatically. The evangelization of the world and the recognition of Christ’s deity are helped or hindered by whether or not we obey him in practice. The call of Christ and his apostles comes to us afresh: ‘Love one another’; ‘Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.’ It is for the sake of God’s mission that we renew our commitment to obey this ‘message we heard from the beginning.’ When Christians live in the reconciled unity of love by the power of the Holy Spirit, the world will come to know Jesus, whose disciples we are, and come to know the Father who sent him.

I have read no statement which more powerfully reflects my own vision of the church and the mission of our sovereign Lord Jesus Christ than this. The love of Christ compels us to this vision. This surely must be the finest consensus document on missional-ecumenism in print. I urge you to read it and then seek to follow its wise counsel in partnership with every Christian and mission possible.