Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Sam Wells - Nazareth Manifesto
A nazereth manifesto - God with Us Sam Wells
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Salvation does not mean freedom from care, anxiety fear pain or threat. Fiery furnace / their salvation take place in the fire, as they discover that God is with them in the flames.
God is with us. That is salvation pp75
Coping with mortality . Offset/ escape. The essential problem of human existence although is in fact isolation (moltmann Rejection isolation loneliness because spiritual darkness)
Matthew starts with Emmanuel finishes with remember I Am with you always ... Trinity makes sense with each others withiness. Then includes is.
While there is a place for working for, working with, and being for, it is being with that is the most faithful form of Christian witness and mission... a being with approach generally assumes the whole point of creation was that God would dwell with us 24
God's fundamental purpose to be with us - not primarily to rescue us, or even empower us, but simply to be with us, to share our existence. 24
A Nazareth manifesto
1) our calling is to imitate the way God is
2) our clue to how to imitate is to follow the way God is with us in Christ
3) our first awareness is the abundance of God and or own scarcity together with our gratitude that we have been given so many ways to transform our scarcity with god's abundance.
4) it is a miracle of Grange that his meets our scarcity through the abundance we discover in those apparently more exposed to scarcity than ourselves.
6) we do not configure situations as problems needing solutions - we are not the source of their salvation: they are the source of ours
8) there is no goal beyond restored relationship: reconciliation is the gospel
10) being with its the heart of mission, because it imitate the primary way God interacts with humanity.
The fundamental human problem is assumed to be mortality, but is instead isolation 44
Isolation is closer to the heart of the human condition than mortality and that relationship is the telos of God. 86
Four approaches to social engagem,ent
Working for is relying on one's own resources and skills to address a person's problems on their behalf.
Being for is orientating one's life toward the well-being of others, without actually making direct contact with those others or engaging in any material actions to enhance their well-being.
Working with is seeking to help others address their problems by using critical awareness to activate a coalition between one's own skills an resources, and others
being with is never in isolation from the person in question by seeing that person as the principle source and activator of their own well-being and not a problem.
100
Being with seldom gets serious attention because the human predicament is widely assumed to be mortality rather than isolation, because restored relationship is widely taken to be a means to an end rather than the goal of salvation, because the Bible is widely read as the account of gods action for us rather than God yearning to be with us, because Jesus' ethic is widely thought to encourage us to work for others in their scarcity rather than find ways to receive gods abundance through them, and because the other approaches-working for, working with, and being for-in their different ways affirm our sense of ourselves, of others, and of the world.
123
Being with is, before anything else, a description of what it means for the persons of the trinity to be so eternally with one another that they are called one, and yet one in such a dynamic and creative way that they are called three. 125
Being with means, first, presence. The layer above presence may be time, attention. Attention requires a degree of “unselfing“, The concentration on the details of anothers existance. To pay loving attention to the other discloses a third layer of being with-mystery. A mystery is something I cannot just look at. It absorbs me into it.
Resting on mystery, attention, and presents, is delight. Persons of the Trinity take the light in one another, in one another’s existence, diversity, activity, and expression. The fifth dimension of being with, resting on those that proceeded, is participation. Here, perhaps most explicitly, belong the positive aspects of with. The Trinity displays that God is a shared enterprise. A Closely related, but subtly different, dimension of being with is partnership. Partnership is the recognition that each party brings different and vital qualities to the table. Partnership says “if you do your part and I do mine, we can do something beautiful together“. If there is a single word that sums up the character of being with in Trinitarian perspective, and draw together all of the themes explored that word is enjoyment. Glory is the cumination of all these layers of being with. Glory is the wonder of the full presence of God that reveals gods utter desire to be present to us all in joy and delight and attention and love; at the same time it is magnetic, billowing aura that draws us inexorably into intimate, thrilling, everlasting, and fulfilling discovery of our destiny in god.... it is not for keeping; it is something for sharing. Glory is what God created us to enter, to enjoy, and to share. Glory is the complete and over overwhelming revelation of gods character: gods character is ever expanding, ever embracing, ever enfolding enjoyment of us. 237
Resting on mystery, attention, and presents, is delight. Persons of the Trinity take the light in one another, in one another’s existence, diversity, activity, and expression. The fifth dimension of being with, resting on those that proceeded, is participation. Here, perhaps most explicitly, belong the positive aspects of with. The Trinity displays that God is a shared enterprise. A Closely related, but subtly different, dimension of being with is partnership. Partnership is the recognition that each party brings different and vital qualities to the table. Partnership says “if you do your part and I do mine, we can do something beautiful together“. If there is a single word that sums up the character of being with in Trinitarian perspective, and draw together all of the themes explored that word is enjoyment. Glory is the cumination of all these layers of being with. Glory is the wonder of the full presence of God that reveals gods utter desire to be present to us all in joy and delight and attention and love; at the same time it is magnetic, billowing aura that draws us inexorably into intimate, thrilling, everlasting, and fulfilling discovery of our destiny in god.... it is not for keeping; it is something for sharing. Glory is what God created us to enter, to enjoy, and to share. Glory is the complete and over overwhelming revelation of gods character: gods character is ever expanding, ever embracing, ever enfolding enjoyment of us. 237
All these stories demonstrate the same principle: but Jesus takes for granted that being with father means being with this whole range of people and that it is so intrinsic to his ministry that he only articulate it when he is criticised by Those who find that practice of being with problematic ..... being with emerges as central to the prophetic Embodiment of Jesus Person and work. 149
creation occurred as an expression of gods perfection. Thus creation is a demonstration of the glory of God-regardless of whether anyone else is watching; it is a perfect synthesis of power and glory 231
237
Atonement = rewithment 239
Salvation means health. Salvation means safety, and permanent relationship with God 245
