Perspectives

Been thinking, but my thoughts are not always so deep and profound, so here are a few reflections on the above title. We believe we are doing what the Lord wants us to do – at least most of the time we can affirm that. It shapes our response to invitations, personal and corporate. It shapes our time and what we give ourselves to, what we prioritise. And in all that there are times we simply do whatever comes up without a great amount of consideration to the ‘why’ of doing it. My guess is that is pretty much how we all approach life.

So we can say ‘God led me’ with some measure of conviction – but what does that really mean? I am reflecting on the set of posts with respect to the trajectory from corporate priesthood through to Temple (which I obviously found were so good that I put them together as an e-book: A Redemptive Trajectory!!). In that reflection where God goes with the people where they go. He ‘leads’ them in the choice of a king (both Saul and David). But what does that mean? He leads them on a course where the very base of it is out of kilter.

That is the humbling part of ‘God led me’. Yes he probably did, but it does not mean that I would be on the same course had I been in a different, a better a higher place in God and the understanding of the kingdom at the time of decision making.

God leads but it seems he leads within our limitations, within our understandings, within our weaknesses – the ones that are obvious and ones that are hidden. Likewise we prophesy and God is in it. This is also what we see in Scripture. The law does not reveal the will of God, but it points toward his will, his will being revealed in personal not propositional terms in the life of Jesus.

We can be confident that God does and will lead us. We should also be somewhat humble in our affirmation that we have heard God and are ‘at the centre of his will’ even when he is showing up all around us and in what we are doing – after all where else is he going to show up?!!

Thank God he leads us. Thank God he is with us, and by the grace of God his leading will change over time – as I change.

We watched a 5 minute promotional for a political party (elections again in June in Spain) yesterday. It has a strong focus within it to blame another party for the failure to come on board and bring about a coalition (this would not be our perspective of why the discussions failed…) The party they blame for the failure has a phrase ‘Sí, se puede’ (‘Yes we can’, or ‘yes it can be done’). The campaign slogan for the party with the video promotion also has a slogan: ‘Sí, un sí por un cambio’ (‘Yes, a yes to change’). The party they oppose had a major march for change in Madrid Jan 2015, there they spoke about the year of change and they used the imagery of the clock to proclaim ‘tick tock the clock is ticking’. The end of the promotional video is of four ticking clocks.

No political party holds the keys to the future. Jesus did not come to start a political party but a political movement, and as I wrote a few days ago the huge challenge is whether or not a movement can sit at the centre or in seeking to be true to its calling will always live at the margins, existing in the liminal space. It is not about the rights and wrongs of political parties I wish to write about but about language, for the interaction between what is established and new upstarts seems to follow a pattern.

This established political party has been and will continue to be rocked and destabilised by the new upstart, who in its origins declared that they wanted to be part of a political method and not to be swamped by politics of parties. Any new movement will always be a threat to what is established, but will soon become the bigger threat to what is established and should in theory be closer. The charismatic movement was a threat to the Pentecostal movement in the early days. ‘Toronto’ to third-wave etc. Once a threat of that nature appears there is a process that unfolds. The new movement is not normally an immediate threat so does not need to be taken seriously. It can be ignored, or even made humour of. When it becomes apparent that it is not going to go away any time soon, the ignoring phase goes and a hostility rises. Post hostility comes the phase of seeing if the new movement can be colonised in some way. To colonise is to both benefit from the resources and to blunt / control its cutting edge, to domesticate it. After all domestication is important as a new movement does not have the experience of how to live within the boundaries of the ‘house’!!

I perceive a new phase has now opened up in the inter-relationship of these two entities. Hostility continues as there has been no colonisation to date, but all is not lost! Language. Take the language, and speak it oneself and of oneself. Language is so closely tied to identity – Adam is told to name the animals, for example. So the next phase is take the language, and rather than submit to what the language is calling for, take it, apply it to what is already taking place, and in one quick movement energy for change is nullified while claiming that future change is firmly where it always belonged – with the status quo. The changed future can then look very much like the present.

The process of the powers!!

The process of the movement though is to go to the heart of power and eventually be crucified, or so was the Jesus-narrative that the disciples, and in particular Judas did not get.

There are so many movements that take their impetus from Pentecost (consciously and unconsciously). Those movements have language, and probably have spokespersons, but if they are to make a significant lasting impact they will learn to live with stolen language, stolen resources (oh yes what did Judas look after?) and when they face their own crisis of identity, which will take place whenever they discover the liminal space has moved again, they will humble themselves and submit to the reality that new language is carrying.

These are enormous challenges to movements that are engaged in the political arena. Likewise it is a major chalenge to the political movement that Jesus began, one birthed not from seeing what needs to change but that change begins in the heart, with a personal ‘think again’. Movements that look not just to the world, but see the other world, the one that is the other side of the resurrection. Crucifixion is not the end. Even at the cross there was a battle over language, so we know that ultimately not all language can be stolen.

Yesterday was the Western Pentecost Sunday and also coincided with the 5 year anniversary of an anti-austerity movement in Spain known as 15-M. One precedes the other, will outlast the other but is probably also the source of the other. Watching yesterday it again raised for us the question of the nature, purpose and longevity of a movement. Or to put the question we have in a nutshell – can a movement ever be positioned at the centre?

First a working definition of a movement. A movement has a shared core vision with the conviction that the wider context in which they find themselves has not embraced or does not live by that core vision. The movement believes that the wider context needs to be transformed by, and reflect, the values of that core vision. Hence their raison d’etre is the transformation of the wider community, not their own existence.

This is why I view the early church community primarily defined as a movement, and the very choice of the word ‘church’ / ekklesia indicating this, the word being so political. If we are uncomfortable with protest movements then imagine the nervousness of the Roman empire!

If the primary existence of a movement is wider transformation around values, and that as this is verbalised and acted out (often with great symbolism) the movement is subjected to hardship such as imprisonment, persecution, rumour from those who carry power within the wider context, can a movement ever exercise power from the centre? Are movements meant to fulfil their calling and no longer exist? Or if they continue to exist are they to go on to another level of vision, once their has been a real shift? (Of course I realise that once there has been a shift that can be lost all over again – so maybe movements never fulfil their calling.)

Pentecost echoes with the Creation narrative: wind and speech being at the core of both narratives. Creation was a movement that initiated a process with steps along the way and at each step there was a ‘good’ verdict given. Pentecost likewise was a movement and a movement continuing to this day, and will continue till he comes. That movement was embedded in the wider context – Jerusalem, Judea, then Samaria then the ends of the earth. In every setting a politico-religious context. No different to today with the overarching deification of ‘the invisible hand of the market’ shaping so much of politics and media.

We watch with great interest and with a considerable amount of prayer the movement(s) in Spain that 15-M represents. Indeed as far as we are able we consider that they are in part our responsibility to nurture in the Spirit. If they are to bring about change is the pathway to get to the centre, or in getting to the centre are they inevitably corrupted once they reach that place? Are movements, by definition, to be situated on the edge?

We have some great examples of God positioning people at the centre, but the end result is not always so positive. Daniel seemed to fare better than Joseph for example. It is probably to do with how those from a movement occupy a centre that is the key.

My tentative thoughts are:

• A movement cannot have the goal of being at the centre. It cannot have the mantra of ‘when we are in power…’
• It cannot measure success by the numbers that can be quoted as part of the movement.
• It can only measure its effectiveness by the stories told of the changes others have experienced.
• If those in a movement find themselves in what might be termed ‘the centre’ they must never suggest that this can be seen as success. They must treat it with suspicion, and regularly experience their feet being washed.
• Any who find themselves at the centre have to dispempower themselves and empty out the seat they occupy (I consider pope Francis is so embodying this – the trajectory will lead the wider Catholic church to a new place all-together.

A movement can find itself positioned at the centre, but if there is no de-centralisation, the movement will only have rhetoric left. A religion without power. Pentecost had wind and speech. The wind blows where the wind blows, the effect might be that a spokesperson rises up (Peter) but that element can only rise from a base of ‘and they all spoke’. Movements produce spokespersons, when a movement wants to promote a king, or the spokespersons are transformed to embody kingliness, we know the plot has really been lost.

Is the church today primarily shaped by the movement dynamic? Is 15-M and what has come from that still a movement? Will it still be in 5 year time? We might sadly think ‘no’ to those questions. Even if we do Pentecost predates and will outlast all the above… and every other movement. I still see significant traces of the pentecostal movement inside the church. And I see significant traces beyond the church… for the pentecostal movement is the creation movement. It is the wind and speech movement.