Seven Practices for the Church on Mission

David E. Fitch

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780830887446
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Jesus gave his followers seven key practices: - The Lord's Supper- Reconciliation- Proclaiming the gospel- Being with the "least of these"- Being with children- Fivefold ministry gifting- Kingdom prayerWhen we practice these disciplines, God becomes faithfully present to us, and we in turn become God's faithful presence to the world. Pastor and professor David Fitch shows how these seven practices can revolutionize the church's presence in our neighborhoods, transform our way of life in the world, and advance the kingdom. Our communities can be changed when they see us practicing our faith. Go and do.

ONE

THE LORD’S TABLE

The Lord’s Table is about presence. Surely it is about eating, but ultimately it’s a practice that shapes a group of people to be present to God’s presence in Christ around the table, where we eat. Then, in the process, we are able to connect with the other people around the table. Our lives are then reordered socially by his presence. This practice was inaugurated by Jesus himself and given to his disciples on “the night he was betrayed.” Today, almost all Christians practice it. This first practice we explore shapes a community into God’s faithful presence.

Though there are differences in the way Christians practice the Lord’s Table, there is a common core to what we do together. All churches, for instance, incorporate the “words of institution” as the means to remember together the meaning of the bread and wine. “This is my body that is for you.” “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Cor 11:24-25).

There is almost always a communal invitation to peace and reconciliation prior to the table. The presiding leader challenges all believers to make sure there is no enmity between us as we come to the table. There is almost always a prayer of thanksgiving (eucharist) and a blessing that inaugurates the celebration of the table. Usually the Holy Spirit is invited to this table, making possible the living and real presence of Christ at the meal. Then there is the actual breaking and distribution of the bread and the sharing of the cup. His broken body and shed blood becomes a meal we ingest into our bodies as the very basis of life itself. Last, an offering of material goods often is taken as part of the Lord’s Table. We believe that this abundance shared around the table will flow forth from the table through the whole of our lives and then return all over again.

Now, let’s try to understand how the table shapes us to know and discern God’s presence among us and in the neighborhood.

Discerning His Presence

When we sit around this table and tend to Christ’s presence, our eyes are opened and we know his presence is here in a special way. The first reported time this happened post-resurrection was on the road to Emmaus when Jesus joined the two disciples on their walk (Lk 24). On this day of his resurrection, as they came near their village, they invited Jesus to join them in their home, which always meant a meal around a table. While they were at the table, Jesus “took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them,” and their eyes were opened to his presence with them (Lk 24:30-32). So also today Jesus’ presence is “known . . . in the breaking of the bread” (Lk 24:35). Jesus’ presence historically has been uniquely real and recognizable around the table.

Each of us must come to grips again with the reality that Christ is present at the table in a real, sacramental way. We must tend to his special presence because his presence always brings the reordering of our lives together into his kingdom. This is what makes this table so revolutionary at the core: here God shapes a people to be his kingdom in the world.

It’s hard for evangelical Protestants to conceive that there is something unique happening around the table. Yet here we have perhaps the single best opportunity to train ourselves to tend to his presence for our lives. Here we can recognize and receive the forgiveness that flows from his broken body into our lives, the healing of reconciliation, the renewal of all things through the cup of the new covenant relationship we have with God the Father through the Spirit.

A Kingdom Is Being Born

Around this table God’s kingly rule over the whole world meets his incarnational presence in this particular time and space. There is no kingdom without subjects to the King, so we must begin by subjecting ourselves to him. As we submit to Christ’s presence there, we are realigned into his reign. Our submission to Jesus spreads out into mutual submission to one another. And a new social order is birthed out of this, which is nothing less than his kingdom.

In John 13:1-17, Jesus gets down on his hands and knees and washes the feet of his disciples to demonstrate submission. He could not be more explicit about the way we will relate to one another in this kingdom. The whole scene prefigures the kingdom and points to the new world coming (Lk 22:30). This kingdom will be founded on mutual submission to one another under the lordship of Christ, where anyone who rules does so through submission to the work of God happening in the midst of us.

Think of how earthshaking this experience of Christ at the table must have been for the early Christians. The very presence of the risen Lord is here at this table. Something so special, even dangerous, is happening when they gather around it. It’s a matter of life and death (1 Cor 11:29-30). Yet as each person submits to him, our relationships with one another and to Christ are opened up. The socioeconomic relationships among us are realigned as we share mutually out of what we have and what we receive.

In this space we submit all of our divisions and personal agendas to Christ’s presence. All of this must die. There we sit, tending to one another and to his presence. And an amazing social dynamic breaks forth that can only be described as a new political order subverting all other allegiances. Just as the first tables of the early Christians subverted Rome and Caesar and started a new way of life before the watching world, so this table subverts all other politics of self-preservation, accumulation, and individualism. A profound flourishing in the kingdom results.

It is essential then that we lead one another into submission to Christ at the table. Because God will not impose himself on us or overwhelm us, our submission to his reign opens up space for him to work. The people who carry the most power must submit first, just as Christ did when he washed the disciples’ feet. By example, the leader will lead the community into a place of submission to the one Lord and to one another under his lordship.

The Table in the Three Circles

Most people think of the Lord’s Table as being practiced only on Sunday mornings by committed Christians. But the life of Jesus and the pattern of the primitive church reveals multiple spaces where the table is practiced. These spaces can be summarized in terms of three circles: the close circle, the dotted circle, and the half circle.1

The Lord’s Table in the close circle. The close circle represents the first space of the Lord’s Table. We carefully discern our relationship to God in Christ before we dare approach it. Are we in full submission to Christ? Is there any enmity between me and someone else around this table? Because of this discernment, there is the closest of fellowship and unity with one another.

This closeness around the table is evident on the night when Jesus was betrayed. Here, at the celebration of the Passover, Jesus is seated as the host. He presides, and yet he washes his disciples’ feet in a display of utter and total vulnerability. Intimate conversation is happening. The disciple “whom Jesus loved” reclines next to Jesus in closeness (Jn 13:23). And the one who eats the bread unworthily walks out in disdain, to his own doom (Jn 13:27-30). He cannot stand the intensity of the closeness. It is almost as if we are forced to deal with who we are and our submission to Jesus and his mission. The presence of Christ, by the Spirit, reveals our brokenness. It forces renewed commitment. It orders our lives intensely, either further into or away from the kingdom.

This closeness marks the table after Christ’s ascension as well. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul is shocked at the Corinthians’ disregard for one another in Christ’s presence. The Lord’s presence there is so intense that they indeed get sick and die because they have disregarded him. This table therefore requires discernment. At this table the closest of fellowship is experienced with the resurrected Jesus.

The Lord’s Table in the dotted circle. But the table doesn’t stop there. It extends into the neighborhood. Here, around our neighborhood tables we gather to eat regularly. We start with Christian friends, and then, over time, our neighbors, as they look on, are welcomed around our tables. The dotted circle represents this second space for the table. It is constituted by Christians forming a circle of those submitted to Christ’s presence. Yet there are openings in the circle, where strangers are welcomed in. So the circle is porous or dotted.

In this dotted circle the Christian in the world becomes the host. Typically, this table takes place in homes in neighborhoods. But it can happen wherever Christians meet regularly to share a meal in the hospitality of Christ’s presence. This meal is initiated by a Christian, hosted by a Christian, and yet is always open and hospitable to strangers who are becoming regular parts of our lives. Christ’s special presence is extended into the neighborhood.

In Mark 6:30-44 we see thousands of people gathering around Jesus. They were not yet part of the kingdom. In many ways this is a circle of Christians (“the apostles gathered around Jesus” [v. 30]), yet with people “from all the towns” gathering as well. In other words, this is a dotted circle.

The disciples come to Jesus and report the need to send the crowds away so they can get something to eat. Jesus directs them in no uncertain terms to host the “table,” saying, “You give them something to eat” (v. 37). Here is where the dynamic of the dotted circle kicks in.

The disciples immediately ask, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?” (v. 37). They assume that they must do everything, take control, and provide out of their own resources. But this is not what it means for the Christian disciple to host the Table in the dotted circle. So Jesus shows them how to host. He asks them to bring him what food they have. Nothing more, nothing less. They find among the crowd five loaves and two fish, and bring it as an offering into the abundance of the kingdom in Jesus. He takes the loaves and fish, blesses and breaks them, and gives it to the disciples for distribution. These four words signal that this indeed is a Eucharistic celebration around the presence of Christ. In the midst of this meal, people meet the abundance of the kingdom as “all ate and were filled,” and there was an abundance of food left over (vv. 42-43).

In this stunning story we see how the table extends the presence of Christ into places where curious onlookers are invited. We see that Christians are to host these tables. However, there is no presumption that all who partake are reconciled. Certainly the Christians around the table are practicing the reconciled life. But there is no discernment required of the onlookers. We send no one away, including people in conflict. We invite them to be with us among Christ. The host does not somehow take control of the table but facilitates the table around the presence of Christ, who reorders the world into his kingdom. The host allows the space to be opened for Christ to meet all our needs and more. This is what Christ was trying to teach his disciples at the feeding of the five thousand.

This dotted circle happened at our home every Friday night. Every one of us would bring food as our offering, place it in the kitchen, hold hands, gather as a circle, and pray a prayer of thanksgiving (eucharist) and invoking of Christ’s presence (epiklēsis). Then we would sit and eat and talk. Sometimes the talk became egocentric and self-serving. Sometimes mayhem erupted as everybody scurried for attention or the need to be seen and heard. We would gently calm all this down, generously admonishing one another to be present and listen to the other person.

Some would move to another room and sit and talk while in front of the TV. They did not yet know or understand Eucharist. We had to make a rule: Everyone, no matter how many in the group, must always sit around the table. Smartphones were not allowed. We ate together, aware of the forgiveness, reconciliation, and renewal of all things that we had shared as a result of Sunday Lord’s Table. As months rolled on, we learned how to be present with each other and to Christ among us. We discovered a different dynamic shared across a table between me and another person. It was the presence of Christ.

It took months to cultivate mutual submission and tending to Christ’s presence. And I had to learn how to model as best I could a posture of submission and presence to each other and Christ around the table. (The one perceived in power always submits first.) When I spoke, it was to direct attention to someone other than myself, and (generally) I did not speak unless spoken to. It took months to cultivate trust, listening, and paying attention to the Spirit. A year later the presence around the table was so intoxicating, people’s lives, attitudes, and physical health were transformed by the interactions.

At the time for dessert, the host would pose a question to center some conversation around what was going on in our lives. We sometimes focused on our personal lives or struggles with God, sometimes what was going on among us, and sometimes our lives with God in our neighborhood. The gifts of the Spirit were set into motion among us. After an hour or so, we all prayed, submitting these things to God and his kingdom. The presence of Christ became real among us as we became present to one another.

One time a couple in the neighborhood of one of our members was going through disruptive times with their teenage daughters. They knew about our Friday night group and wanted to attend. They were welcomed. In a way that was more comfortable than any of us had felt for the first six months of our table fellowship, they immediately began to share their wounds with us. I asked our guests if we could include them in our prayers. They hesitated, but said yes, and we did. They saw an unmistakable glimpse of the kingdom that night.

The Lord’s Table in the half circle. The table however does not stop with the dotted circles of our neighborhoods. The table extends further through the half circle into the world, where the hurting and marginalized people live. Into these half circles Christians go, imitating Christ as he enters the homes of the outcast, the publicans, and the sinners. Here we no longer serve as hosts; instead, we come as guests, giving up all control. In all our weakness we submit to Christ’s presence among us and allow him to work. We pay attention to what God is doing as we listen, tending to his work.

Something marvelous happens in this space. Christ’s...