The Source of Faithfulness

For I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God leading to salvation for all who believe, to the Jew first and to the Greek. For the righteousness of God is revealed in it from faith to faith, just as it is written "The righteous out of faithfulness will live."  Romans 1:16-17*

These are widely recognized as the theme verses of Paul's letter to the church at Rome. They are the thesis of what turns out to be one very long, sustained argument. As a result, there is a lot to unpack here. (After all, Paul will spend the rest of the letter doing just that.) But it is those final words, the quotation from Habakkuk 2:4 which I find most interesting and most enlightening for understanding these verses and the whole of Romans.

Habakkuk is a little prophetic book that begins with a familiar question:

"O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save?"

 The first four verses of Habakkuk paint a bleak picture of Israel as a violent and unjust place. Habakkuk says that the law is "paralyzed" and "justice goes forth perverted." This is an especially poignant depiction of corruption given that the law to which Habakkuk refers is the good and perfect law given by God. The corruption and injustice in Israel are so severe that even God's perfect law is powerless to correct it. The overwhelming sin of Israel perverts the instrument of God's own justice so badly that it only serves to produce more injustice. It is this dismal circumstance which causes the prophet to cry out to God asking "How long?".

To say that God's response to Habakkuk in 1:5-11 would have been "surprising" or "unexpected" would be an understatement overwhelming in its imprecision. "Jaw-dropping, difficult to wrap your brain around, alternative reality" would come closer to an apt description. God proclaims that his answer to the problem of violence in Israel will be Babylon: the pagan, know-nothing about Yahweh, worshipping other gods, soul-crushingingly-powerful nation of Babylon. This is the evil empire of the Bible; a nation so infamously etched in the memory of God's people that the writer of Revelation would still use them as a code name centuries later for the pagan, know-nothing about Yahweh, soul crushingly-powerful empire of his own day (Rome). In spite of this, God intends to use Babylon to clean up Israel.

This is a hard pill for Habakkuk to swallow to say the least. Habakkuk questions it, wondering how a holy God can use such an unholy instrument to correct the people God called to be holy. It is in the midst of this exceedingly strange circumstance, this frighteningly new and uncertain action by God that we hear the words "The righteous will live by his faithfulness." The call of God through Habakkuk is for the righteous to live out of faithfulness (whether their own or God's is, perhaps purposely, ambiguous)** even in these violent and terribly uncertain times.

In the context of Romans 1:17, the quote from Habakkuk is often seen as a call to a righteousness by faith rather than by works. Correspondingly, the whole of Romans is thought to be Paul's detailed exposition of the righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus rather than good deeds. There may be a shade of truth to such a reading of Romans but I think that truth has more to do with Martin Luther's guilt-laden conscience and his reading of Paul than it has to do with Paul's own writing.*** Instead, if we allow the narrative of Habakkuk to set the tone for Romans as Paul himself seems to do, we will find that there are remarkable similarities between the two.

Similar to what we have seen in Habakkuk, much of Paul's writings are about the strange, completely unexpected, frighteningly new thing that God has done in Jesus Christ. No one, no one, expected a crucified messiah. "Crucified" and "messiah" are themselves mutually exclusive terms. If you were one, you couldn't be the other. As if that weren't odd enough, Paul's experience was that Gentiles, not Jews, were the ones responding most readily to God's, that is, Yahweh's, the Jewish God's crucified messiah. These were strange, new actions on God's part, indeed. So strange that Paul referred to them as a new era, a totally new epoch in the history of the world, the beginning of a new creation. 

With this in mind, we can see why Paul would feel the need to say that he was "not ashamed of the gospel" (a religion with a crucified leader would have been a very shameful thing) but we can also see why he would call it the "power of God" (powerful enough to cause non-Jews to proclaim Israel's failed messiah as "Lord"). We can see just how it is that "the righteousness of God is revealed in it" as it makes sinful people (Romans 1-3) into righteous, just, and faithful people (Romans 6 and 8); something God's own perfect law had been powerless to accomplish (Romans 7). Likewise, we can see that just as the prophet Habakkuk has some questions about God's righteousness, Paul wonders aloud how it is that God will remain faithful to the promises God made to the people of Israel (Romans 9-11) even as this new righteousness/faithfulness is revealed in Christ (Romans 3-5). But in the midst of all this newness and uncertainty, the call upon those who proclaim Jesus as Lord is to live out of the faithfulness of Christ into a faithful imitation of Christ (1:17; chapters 12-15).

After 2000 years of Christian history and tradition, we too easily forget what an odd thing it is that we, who are nearly all Gentile, worship a crucified Jew. By doing so, we also forget what a strange, new thing God did in Jesus. If we read it carefully, Romans will help to remind us just how unbelievably good this good news really is for us. It will remind us that God keeps his promises even when it looks like they are most certainly being abandoned, whether it be as Abraham raises the knife over Isaac or as Jesus lays in the tomb or as Paul's kin reject their own savior. It is especially in these most uncertain of times that God calls the righteous to find in God's own faithfulness the source of their endurance to live faithfully.





*This is my own translation. Readers familiar with most English translations may be surprised by my use of the word "faithfulness" rather than "faith." The Greek word Paul uses here can be translated either way and really means both. Separating faith as a kind of mere cognitive belief from faithful action would have likely been a foreign idea to Paul. The single word faith/fulness encompassed both and bound them together. Furthermore, the Hebrew word Habakkuk uses has a much stronger leaning toward the idea of faithfulness than mere belief. 

**It is ambiguous for a couple reasons. First, the "his" in Hebrew probably refers to "the righteous one" but it is possible that it refers to God. Second, the Greek version of the Old Testament known as the the Septuagint, reads "my faithfulness" and portrays the verse as being spoken by God thus making it God's faithfulness. To make things even more interesting, Paul leaves out the pronoun entirely in his quotation of the verse so rather than "his faithfulness" or "my faithfulness" we have simply "The righteous will live out of faithfulness." This serves Paul's purposes well because he wishes to talk about both God's faithfulness in Christ and and faithful human response. 

*** There are a plethora of books that make this argument. A few are: 
Krister Stendahl's Paul Among Jews and Gentiles. http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Among-Gentiles-Krister-Stendahl/dp/0800612248/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379470781&sr=8-1&keywords=paul+among+jews+and+gentiles
E.P. Sanders Paul: A Very Short Introduction. http://www.amazon.com/Paul-A-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192854518/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1379470965&sr=8-2&keywords=e.p+sanders
http://www.amazon.com/Justification-And-The-Perspectives-Paul/dp/0875526497/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1379471201&sr=8-6&keywords=New+Perspective+on+Paul
http://www.amazon.com/Perspectives-Old-New-Paul-Lutheran/dp/0802848095/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1379471201&sr=8-5&keywords=New+Perspective+on+Paul

My Dad

Tomorrow I'll be headed to South Carolina to wrap up things with my dad's possessions there. As a result, I've been thinking about my dad a lot once again. Its actually been difficult to do that with everything else that has happened since his death - leaving our home, leaving our church, my grandmother's death. These are all things that need to be grieved in their own right. As a result, they have made it difficult to grieve the loss of my father the way I need to. As difficult as I know this trip will be, there is part of me that welcomes it as an entry point back into the grieving process that has been stunted but remains just as necessary. The words below are what I shared at my dad's funeral back in June. 

I’ve thought a lot about what I wanted to say about my dad here today. I’ve pondered how to put into words who he was. What was his defining quality? What am I most thankful for about him? What will I remember most? I’m sure that many of you would think of his warmth and friendliness, his ability to strike up a conversation with absolutely anyone about anything, his free and joyous laughter. These are things I will remember as well.

But as I thought about what it was I would remember the most about him, I realized it was one very simple but profound thing: his love for me. My dad loved me with a tremendous and unconditional love. Whatever I did, he was proud of it and he made sure he told me he was proud of it. And not just as a kid either. Even as an adult, my dad was always telling me how much he loved me and how proud he was of me as a husband, a father, and a pastor. He was always there for me, always rooting for me, always hoping for the best for me even if it wasn’t what was best for him.

In some ways, that may seem a small thing and I confess that at times I may have even taken it for granted. After all, these are the kinds of things that good fathers are supposed to do. But then I remember that we live in a world where good fathers are in short supply. In this world where fathers are often absent or distant, mine was always present. In this world where children often strive for their father’s love and approval, mine lavished his willingly and graciously. In this world where a man might choose to do all kinds of other things, where he might choose to pour his energies and passions into a million other “more important” tasks, my father willfully and joyfully chose the humble task of loving his one and only son, of pouring everything he had into me.

By doing that, he gave me what may be the greatest gift of all. He gave me an earthly image of our heavenly Father: a Father who is always present with us and one who is always lavishing his love upon us. In his love for me, my dad embodied the love of a God who could have quite literally poured his energy and his passion into a million other things but who willfully and joyfully chooses the humble task of loving his sons and daughters.

If that is who God is, if we are right to call God “Father” as we Christians do, then I am tempted to believe that perhaps the way my dad spent his life was no small thing at all. Perhaps it was a far greater accomplishment than our world usually acknowledges. Mother Theresa is often quoted as saying something along the lines of “Don’t aspire to do great things. Only aspire to do small things with great love.” My dad isn’t one who will be remembered for any great accomplishments. He’s just another guy who loved his son and brought joy to the people around him but I believe it is in those very things that he has given us a glimpse into the very heart of God. I, for one, will be forever grateful that my dad did small things with great love.

My Grandmother

I imagine that most people who knew my grandmother knew of the immense time and care she put into her garden. I eventually came to learn that if I was arriving for a visit and the weather was nice, there was little point in ringing the doorbell or knocking on the front door. I knew I might as well head toward the backyard where I would almost certainly find my grandmother bent over her garden, removing what didn’t belong and caring for what did. The love she poured into these plants even extended to our own home in Illinois where we planted what she had shared with us from her own garden.

It seems to me that my grandmother’s gardening was more than a mere hobby. In many ways, it was representative of who she was. It is remarkable to think that even the most beautiful plants have the simplest of beginnings as small and unremarkable, plain and ordinary seeds. But when those seeds are sown and properly cared for, they can blossom into extraordinary expressions of life. Gathered together and ordered into a garden, they can become a place of peace and tranquility; a small reminder of the creative power that God has sown into the fabric of our world.

Such was my grandmother’s life. By the standards of many, my grandmother’s life could be seen as quite plain and unremarkable. She spent much of her days doing small and ordinary things like gardening, cooking, and talking with friends and family; hardly anything that would cause the world to take notice. But in these small and unremarkable acts, my grandmother sowed seeds of grace and peace and hospitality, the very kinds of seeds that blossomed into extraordinary expressions of life in so many of us who knew her.

I think especially of the few times in my adult life when my grandmother and I had the opportunity to sit down and talk together, just her and I, and how those conversations were grace filled occasions. I think of how she was always welcoming people into her home, including me and my friends from seminary, or even the youth group from our church. Teenagers from the church where I pastored still speak to this day of what a kind and gracious person my grandmother was and how glad they were to have had the opportunity to meet her.

I also think of the seeds of faith my grandmother sowed in my own life. She handed down a legacy of faith that came through my mom to me and now continues on in my own three children. As the only grandparent I had the opportunity to know beyond my childhood years, she also continued to be a formative example of faith and holiness for me even into my own adulthood.

My grandmother’s life was like a well ordered and cared for garden. Her presence became a place of peace of and tranquility for so many who came to know her. Her grace and hospitality were small reminders of the creative power that God has sown into the fabric of our world and our humanity. Her life was not unlike the garden described in Genesis as the original act of God’s creation; a place where one might walk with God in the cool of the day. We mourn because the body of that first creation has failed her but we look forward to the day when God’s new creation will fully take root in our world. I imagine that when it does we will once again find her sowing seeds of grace and peace and hospitality for the kingdom of God. 

What do you expect from your pastor?

A friend of mine posted this link recently and it got me thinking again about an issue I wrestled with in all my time as a pastor: meeting the expectations people have of you as their pastor. The article frames the discussion in terms of given hours in a work week but I've found it can also easily extend to other things like personality traits (Is he friendly enough? Is she a strong leader?).

At different times I've wanted to identify the problems in different ways. Sometimes it has taken the form of "People expect too much of pastors." That's true in a sense but it is also true that we should have high standards for those in ordained ministry. Other times I've thought of it as "People expect the wrong things of their pastor." There is probably truth in that statement as well but I think what this article helps to point out is that a lot of it has to do with the accumulation of expectations from a whole congregation of people. For one parishioner, the most important trait they look for in their pastor is that he or she be personable. For another, the pastor must be a prayer warrior. Others want a great preacher or a visionary leader. Its not that any of those desires are bad. It is just easy to see how expecting them all to be fulfilled by one person to everyone's liking is nothing short of impossible.

Of course, I think most people would recognize this in theory. The challenge is practicing it with your pastor. To be sure, there are unfortunate and painful instances when pastors really are failing to live up to their calling but, in my experience, many of the complaints I've heard about other pastors haven't fallen into that category. They often come down to differing expectations concerning the role of the pastor within the community of faith. I think it is actually good news that, scripturally and historically speaking, that role is actually fairly limited. That is to say, the pastor is not the foundation of the Church, it is not the pastor's job to "build" the Church, and the pastor is not the savior of a struggling church. In my opinion, the role of the pastor is nothing more and nothing less than to nurture the spiritual growth of those in his or her care. Surely this will take a variety of forms but that is essentially the pastor's role. If your pastor does this for you, be thankful. Anything else is just gravy.

It may be even more important and more challenging for the pastor to recognize and practice this reality for himself. I know that it was always a temptation for me to try to be everything that everyone wanted me to be and I suspect it is something with which most pastors wrestle at least occasionally. In this sense, the simple word "No" can be one of the most important words in a minister's vocabulary. While the pastor would do well to be aware of the expectations of those in her church, she will also do well to not always fulfill them. Given that we are finite human beings with limited time, energy, and resources, we can only say "Yes" to the things that really matter if we are able to say "No" to the things that are not the most important, even good things. Jesus knew how to say "No" the desires of the crowds and the religious leaders in order to say "Yes" to his Father's mission. Through long, arduous, and ongoing work, the minister of the gospel (and every disciple of Jesus, for that matter) must always be learning to do the same.

This idea always reminds me of the story of Mary and Martha in the Gospel of Luke. Martha is busy being hospitable, a good and important, even Christ-like activity. Jesus has just told a parable about the importance of loving and serving others in the previous story in Luke's Gospel. But when Martha complains because her sister is sitting at the feet of Jesus while she does all the work, Jesus responds "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things but Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her."

Whatever expectation others might have of us as pastors, our first task must always be to sit at the feet of Jesus, to delve deeper into the mystery of the Triune God, to nurture our relationship with our creator and redeemer. It is only by this that we will be of any help to others as they attempt to do the same.

The Allure of Jesus

Proverbs 8 extols the virtues of Wisdom; a proper noun deserving of its capital letter because in Proverbs Wisdom is not merely something people gain by learning or experience. It is not a mere character trait or personal attribute. Wisdom itself is personified as a woman who calls to the men of the city. She calls out on the heights, at the crossroads and at the city gates that she may be found. She is depicted as a kind of righteous temptress. She is one who is attractive and even aggressive in her appeal but who stands in contrast with the ways of Lady Folly whose appeal is skewed to the shallow and short-sighted. The allure of Woman Wisdom, on the other hand, is a seduction into the ways that lead to life and wholeness. The book of Proverbs could be characterized as an attempt to help us see past the the make-up and air brushing of a magazine cover kind of life to a less attention grabbing but more deeply alluring and fundamentally beautiful life with God.

As a part of that attempt, the writer of Proverbs describes Wisdom as being fundamental to God's work of creation. Proverbs 8:22, notorious for the ambiguity of its main verb, has Woman Wisdom say "The Lord possessed/established/created me at the beginning of his work." Although it is unclear whether Wisdom should be understood as one who has always existed alongside God, a creation of God, or an extension of God's own self, what is clear and seems to be the more important point of this and the verses that follow is that Wisdom was and is present in the foundations of creation. Proverbs describes Wisdom as being there from the very beginning of creation and also as being a key player in the work of creation itself. In v. 30, Wisdom says "I was beside him like a master workman." (As long as we are talking about magazine covers, perhaps this would be an appropriate alternative for envisioning Woman Wisdom as she is described in this verse.) Wisdom's fingerprints are left all over the created world because it is by her hands that it was built. Perhaps this is why she is both so readily available (her handiwork surrounds us and attests to her presence) and deeply alluring (she is woven into the very fabric of our own being).

The writers of the New Testament found this depiction of Woman Wisdom to be quite alluring as well - though for reasons that might surprise us. They found the character of Woman Wisdom to be a readily meaningful way to talk about Jesus. A thorough study of those connections is something that exceeds both my own knowledge and the space of this blog post but a few examples will suffice.

"But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."  -1 Corinthians 1:24

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him all things hold together." - Colossians 1:15-17 (notice the similarities with Proverbs 8:15-16, 22-30)

What is even more significant, however, than any simple verbal parallel between Proverbs and the New Testament is the likeness to Jesus that the first Christians found in Wisdom as one who is both intimately connected to Yahweh but also somehow distinct. We've already seen how Wisdom is personified as being an entity somehow distinguishable from Yahweh though obviously also belonging to/being a part of Yahweh given Israel's strict monotheism. This lent itself as a perfect precedent for precisely what the early Christians believed about Jesus; that he was one who was somehow distinguishable from the one he called "Father" but that he was also a true and whole manifestation of Yahweh. This idea is reflected in the prologues of John and Hebrews:

"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and the Word was with God." - John 1:1

"Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power." - Hebrews 1:1-3

 It is precisely these kinds of statements which push us toward the doctrine of the Trinity to which we give special attention on this upcoming Trinity Sunday. The doctrine of the Trinity arose because the Church needed a way to articulate who Jesus (and later, the Spirit) is; someone who is both God and along side God, someone who does things that only God can do but who is not the Father. As the Church sought for language to articulate this reality, they found Woman Wisdom to be readily available and alluring indeed for she captured quite well the reality that those first disciples had experienced in the person of Jesus.

Perhaps, like the authors of the New Testament, we can also come to a better understanding of who Jesus is by hearing his voice in the words of Woman Wisdom. Then we can see that when we encounter Jesus, we encounter one who was there at the creation of the world, whose fingerprints are all over us and the world around us because it is by his hands that we were made. It is for that reason that his beauty is attested by so much in our world, especially our fellow man and woman, so long as we will resist the temptation to air-brush and computer edit what does not fit our standard of beauty. It is also for that reason that when we truly behold the beauty of the life of Jesus; his mercy, compassion, and righteousness, we find it deeply alluring. In fact, we find it down right seductive because it resonates with the very core of who we are and what we long for the world to be. Jesus is not merely one who utters commandments to be obeyed. He is one with whom we are enraptured because he lives life in all the ways we've hoped it could be lived. And this is the way it should be because this is who he created us to be - to be like him. At every turn - on the heights, at the crossroads, at the city gate - Jesus is calling us to come to him and to find in him the source and satisfaction of our deepest and most pervasive longings. This is one seduction we do well not to deny.

Peopled Grace: An Open Letter to Clinton First Church of the Nazarene

My brothers and sisters in Christ,

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism and our theological forefather, spoke and wrote often about the means of grace. When Wesley referred to the means of grace, he was talking about things like prayer, scripture reading, communion, and preaching. These are a few examples of some means by which God’s grace comes to us. That is, they are places where God has promised to meet us over and over again. They are regular conduits of his healing mercy. Even if “means of grace” is not terminology you find familiar, most of these practices are familiar ones if you’ve been around the Church for very long. We engage in these practices so that the Holy Spirit may use them to shape us into the likeness of Christ.

There is one means of grace that has become particularly important to me over the last several years even though it may not be one we typically consider alongside of things like prayer and scripture: other people. I’ve come to realize just what a gift from God other people are for shaping us into the likeness of Christ. Other people can obviously serve as friends and people of encouragement and support but they can also serve as a kind of mirror to our own incompleteness. They may do this directly in their words or their actions toward us but more often it is simply by being who they are. Simply by being “other,” by being something other than I am, others can remind me of the vast array of what it means to be human and therefore also remind me of what it means to be whole in Christ.

I’ve experienced this in a number of ways in my life. I’ve experienced it in parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles who have shown me godly love. I’ve come to know it in a wife whose loving presence has rescued me from a solitary life that would come all too naturally to me. I’ve come to know it in children whose constant desire for my presence is a constant reminder that I need to truly be present with those around me. I’ve experienced it in professors and mentors who have deepened and enriched my faith. I’ve experienced in strangers, mere acquaintances, and new friends every time they force me to see life from a perspective other than the one to which I’ve become accustomed. But neither is it merely a matter of my own personal experience. I think it is of the greatest significance that when God wanted to reveal God’s character to us in its fullest and deepest sense that revelation came not in the form of law or prophetic utterance but in the form of a person; namely, Jesus.

                                                                                                               

Over the past six years, I’ve also come to experience this same truth and grace through the community of people among whom I’ve had the privilege of fulfilling the role of  pastor. For the last several weeks, as I’ve reflected on my time here in Clinton, I have been reminded of the many things about ministering here for which I am thankful; the many years of faithfulness by so many, the willingness to serve others, and the hospitality and care you have shown to my family and I. But there is one thing for which I am grateful above everything else; that you have helped to shape me into a person who is a little more like Jesus than the person who became your pastor six years ago. It is perhaps obvious that the role of the pastor is to be an instrument by which a congregations is urged to be more like Christ. What may be less obvious is that a congregation can also shape the pastor to be more like Christ. Clinton First Church of the Nazarene has done that for me. You have been a means of God’s grace in my life. By allowing me to be your pastor, with all of my weaknesses and incompleteness, you have made me a more whole person and a more faithful follower of Jesus. What greater gift could you have given me than that? Thank you for being a gift of God and a means of God’s grace in my life. 

Ends of the Earth

"Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"

Acts 1:6 is the only place where it is recorded in scripture that Jesus' disciples asked this question but I have to imagine it was one that was on their minds frequently. They had seen Jesus' miraculous power and they hailed him as Messiah and savior. They're expectation was that Jesus was the one who would usher in God's reign in Israel and over all the nations. I imagine that when Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem at the time of Passover and all the people are shouting "Hosanna!" and Jesus begins to make his way to the temple the disciples must have been thinking "Is this it? Is Jesus finally going to begin the rebellion?" Instead, Jesus is crucified just days later and we hear the disappointment in the disciples who walk the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus as they say "We had hoped that he was the one who would redeem Israel."

Now the disciples encounter with the resurrected Jesus has restored their hope; namely, that hope that God's kingdom would be established. Not only is Jesus alive again but here, in the opening of Acts, he begins to speak about the promise of the Holy Spirit. If the prophecy of Joel is any indication, it is likely that the gift of the Spirit is something that the disciples would have associated with the establishment of God's reign. So its natural with Jesus now resurrected and promising that the gift of the Spirit is near that this same question would be on their minds once again: has the time finally come for the kingdom to be restored to Israel?.

Its not only those first disciples who seem to be preoccupied with that question. There are plenty of disciples today who seem to spend enormous amounts of time and energy on the same question - whole segments of Christianity with the newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other trying to discern whether the end is near. To them and to us, Jesus very plainly says "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority." It doesn't get much plainer that that.

Jesus also goes on to say "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth." Jesus is not merely turning their attention away from speculating about chronology. He is also turning their attention to  mission. The focus of the disciples is not to be on the end of the world but the ends of the earth.

Immediately after commissioning the disciples on this mission, Jesus does an unexpected thing - at least I imagine it must have been a surprise to his disciples - he leaves! The disciples are just getting geared up to follow Jesus wherever he leads, even to the ends of the earth, and then he is out of sight. As their leader, teacher, and friend ascends into heaven two men appear and essentially say "Why are you staring into the sky. He'll be back." And the implication seems to be "But in the meantime you have more important things to do than stand around watch for his return. There is an urgent mission at hand."

It strikes me as remarkable that Jesus leaves in order to get this mission underway. Shouldn't Jesus be the one leading the mission? Shouldn't he be our general, our CEO, making sure we get it right? Isn't this an abdication of leadership on Jesus' part? Jesus has given us this remarkable mission, one to the ends of the earth, and he expects us to carry out with his Holy Spirit empowering us to do so. To me, that speaks volumes as to how much responsibility God has put in our hands. Jesus has entrusted this kingdom mission to us with all our fragility and failures and he expects us to be able to carry it out so long as we wait upon his Spirit to empower us for it.