Faith Seeking Conviviality

Reflections on Ivan Illich, Christian Mission, and the Promise of Life Together

Samuel E. Ewell

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781532614620
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Faith Seeking Conviviality traces the journey of a U.S. missionary into Brazil (and beyond), seeking to be faithfully present while also questioning the default settings of "good intentions." Taking Ivan Illich as the primary theological guide on that journey, Faith Seeking Conviviality narrates the discovery of a renewed imagination for Christian mission that arises as a response to two persistent questions. First, given the colonial history of Christian missionary expansion, on what basis do we go on fulfilling the "Great Commission" (Matt 28:16-20) as Christ's disciples? A second question, intimately related to the first, is: What makes it possible to embody a distinctively Christian presence that is missionary without being manipulative?In doing theology with and after Ivan Illich, Faith Seeking Conviviality does not offer a pull-off-the-shelf model for mission, but rather a framework for embodying the incarnational logic of mission that entails a "convivial turn"--delinking missionary discipleship from the lure of techniques and institutional dependence in order to receive and to share the peace of Christ relationally.

Part 1—Itinerary

Prolonging the Incarnation

Virada (Part One):

Being Turned toward Brazil

Being Joined and Sent

The story of how our family ended up in Brazil begins on May 29, 1999, when I married Rosalee Velloso da Silva, a Brazilian-American who was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil. We took our wedding vows from the book of Ruth, recognizing and celebrating the idea that through our life together, somehow our people’s lives would be joined as well. In the light of those vows, there is a real sense in which our journey to Brazil was a Ruth narrative in reverse. In our case, her people would become his people, too.

In 2000, at about the time that our first child, James, was born, we received an invitation to serve as theological educators at Faculdade Teológica Sul Americana, a theological seminary in Londrina, Paraná, Brazil. At that time, Rosalee was in the middle of her PhD studies at Duke Divinity School, so there was no rush toward an imminent move. Nonetheless, after a subsequent visit to Londrina and the seminary, we sensed that the invitation to come was an “open door” (Rev 3:8) for us, so we began to pray and discern with others about a possible move to Brazil.

Many of the key figures in the discernment process were members of our local church, Mount Level Missionary Baptist Church, historically an African-American congregation in Durham, North Carolina. The congregation was founded in 1864 by former slaves who were emancipated from the plantations that covered the landscape of North Durham at the time. Mount Level was decisive in our discernment regarding Brazil, for just as the congregants made it possible for us to cross the “color line” by being joined to their worship and life together, they also recognized and strengthened our call to cross a different kind of threshold—that of being sent to Brazil as their missionaries. By late spring of 2003, Rosalee (great with child) successfully defended her PhD dissertation, and in the early summer of 2003, Isabella was born. Within a three-month window, Rosalee became Dr. Rosalee and our second child was born. Less than a month later, Mount Level commissioned us to serve as missionaries in Brazil. We were riding a wave of newness, even as we prepared for another season of newness in Brazil.

The text for the commissioning service sermon came from the sending narrative at the end of the Gospel of John.

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:19–22)

Pastor Turner’s sermon that Sunday was entitled “Breaking Out of the Huddle.” He illustrated how in the same way that in American football the huddle happens before the players are sent out to execute the play, so too does our gathering represent a moment of coming together for the sake of being sent, or “breaking out.” In football, the function is not to stay in the huddle, for the huddle exists for the sake of the play that follows. In the same way, the function of the church gathering together cannot be limited to a kind of “holy huddle,” as he put it. Rather, while the church today, like the church described in John 20, may be tempted to remain in the insularity of its holy huddle, out of fear of what lies beyond its doors, the alternative lies precisely in receiving and sharing Christ’s peace and being led by his Spirit that he breathes on us. By the time Rev. Turner finished, his sermon had developed, nuanced, and even exploded the analogy between the “holy huddle” and the gathered church. The question before us was not so much “Has our ‘huddling’ given us an effective game plan or strategy for what we are going to do after being sent?,” but rather, “Are we willing to submit to the One around whom we gather?”

During that service, we were commissioned by being encircled, and during the Altar Prayer, the church reenacted the scene of John 20 where the circle of disciples took shape around Jesus, the one who occupied the center of the circle. The church prayed for us, blessed us, anointed us, and even breathed on us, just as Jesus breathed his Spirit on the gathered disciples. As we were being encircled, I recalled how we had been drawn to Mount Level five years earlier. It all began with a simple visit to the church where my professor pastored. Yet, during that visit we found ourselves encircled during the passing of the peace by those who could not have had any other reason to embrace us except the conviction that Christ had made peace between us (Eph 2:14). We had been “caught” by this peace extended to us by our African-American brothers and sisters, and now they were commissioning us to share that same peace in Brazil.

In July 2003, therefore, we arrived in Brazil not only with the prospect of being theological educators, but with a wider frame of orientation and purpose: we arrived as those who had been sent there. For Rosalee, having been raised in Brazil, there was a sense in which this was a return trip. For even though we were not in the same city or state where she had been born and raised, she sp...