Gods's Mission Many Models: in Theology, Art and Poetry

The Revd Canon Dr Graham Kings is Vicar of Islington. Previously he was founding Director of the Henry Martyn Centre for the study of mission and world Christianity in the Cambridge Theological Federation, and the Vice-Principal of St Andrew’s Theological College, Kabare, Kenya.

This is a shortened version of his presentation to the conference. The full text will be available on www.rethinkingmission.org.

I have chosen to look at our theme by shining some missiologial lights on six key doctrines and exploring the issues through art and poetry: Creation, Incarnation, Cross, Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost.

Creation and World Mission.

This is an Indonesian batik. What comes across is an explosive movement and a burst of energy and that’s what God’s creation is and that’s what leads into God’s mission. Think of the irony in the recent tragic earthquake in Java. You have this massive energy in creation –but also creation is groaning.

Interestingly, it is by a Christian painter in an Islamic context. In the shop in Camden Lock I got into conversation with the secular seller of batiks about Christianity and Islam. In God’s spectacular creation is the awe and wonder of worship. It is delight in creation and wonder at the creator that leads into mission - and so you start meeting – and talking - with people.

Josiah Wedgwood made a wonderful medallion to advertise the abolition of slavery. On the medallion is a black slave and round it the words ‘Am I not a man and a brother?’ The very importance of human beings made in the image of God is crucial in theology and the Wesleys and Wilberforce knew this. It is based on the doctrine of creation; things are ALL made in the image of God.

God takes his material world seriously. So much so that he became part of it, embodied and embedded. I love William Temple’s profound remark, ‘Christianity is the most materialistic of all religions’. This is because of our doctrines on creation and incarnation.

Matter of Great Moment

For God, matter matters:
For the Word became flesh.

In the beginning was the Meaning,
And the Meaning became matter,
And the matter became moment,
And the moment became movement,
And the Meaning moved us.

For God, matter matters:
For the Word became flesh.

Incarnation and world mission

I wanted a sculpture that related to the context but also had African Christian theology deeply embedded in it. At St Andrew’s College the whole building faced Mount Kenya and in the traditional Kikuyu way of worship you face Mount Kenya. The mountain is the father and, embedded in the mountain is the cross, hidden at the heart of the mountain. The river flowing down is the Holy Spirit and the people at the top are the apostles, as Kenyans. So God was there already, as opposed to the idea that missionaries brought him to Kenya. Why not think of it in African terms, that Christ is already there in Africa and he is calling in his messengers there? He is already made known and Africans are spreading the Gospel phenomenally.

The Cross and World Mission

In this aluminium sculpture, Jonathan Clarke’s ‘The 8th Hour’, Christ is actually in the Cross rather than on it. What strikes me is that Jesus is strong and muscular, taking on evil. There is a tension between a theology of glory in mission and a theology of the Cross. There is suffering in mission and there is failure in mission, sometimes seeming failure, sometimes real failure. The amazing thing about the Cross is that death is at the centre of what we believe. And we celebrate it every Sunday. What did Jesus think as he gazed into Lazarus’ tomb?

Between the rolling of the stone
    and the crying of the name
    came the agonising.

Shuddering, Jesus stares into the tomb
Making a deal with death in the depths.
A greedy exchange is strangely agreed:
Lazarus comes out and he will go in,
The prize of life for the price of death.
 
The hour of starkness fully come,
The Dealer is struck and laid in the tomb,. 
Then is the end, but the end is of death:
Through terrifying life in the depths,
Death is destroyed, exploded inside.

Before the rolling of the stone
    and the coming of the women 
    came the rising.

A hostage exchange? You let Lazarus out and I go in? And death thinks he’s grabbed Jesus - but actually Jesus destroys death by going into the depths. The amazing thing about the Cross is that you can only kill death by dying.

Resurrection and World Mission

Maybe the Resurrection is this massive explosion inside death, which destroys death forever. Here are the gardener and Mary. How different from the Da Vinci Code!

The painting is by Silvia Dimitrov, a Bulgarian Icon painter. Many paintings depict the moment, about five seconds after this, when Mary tries to touch Jesus. I hadn’t seen a single painting or sculpture of the moment when her face changes and her faith comes alive. So I asked Silvia to paint one. When it came she’d added Jesus, the trees and the angels and on the bottom left there’s a dark empty tomb.

Rabbouni

Who is this woman facing this man?
Head lightly inclined, 
eyes wide open, gazing;
hands uplifted, palms upward, surprised;
gorgeously arrayed.

Who is this man facing this woman?
Coming from the right, 
profile clear, bearded;
hand outstretched, palm down;
gloriously apparelled.

Behind her, two angels hover
reflecting her shape:
behind him, scented trees lean 
setting the scene:
below her, a dark opening hints.
All silent witnesses.
The eyes have it: 
focus of tension and attention.
One word awakes her: ‘Mary’.
One word responds: ‘Rabbouni’.

Their hands shape a triangle 
at the centre of meeting:
her two, shocked and suppliant;  
his one, blessing, calming, sending.    

We are shown the importance of the material. – the Resurrection body, the importance of women, of witness and sharing the good news. Mary is the first apostle to those who were apostles,

Ascension and Mission

Jonathan Clarke: ‘Harvey’s Lectern: Ascension and Christ blessing the children’ This is a memorial given to our church by the parents of a child who died aged three months. Maybe we can see the Ascension as the return home of the missionary son, bringing back into heaven everything he has learnt. Humanity came back into the Godhead. When missionaries return they come with whole new experiences.

Pentecost and Mission

Jonathan Clarke: maquette for a sculpture in Ely Cathedral: The 10 metres high ‘The Way of Life, The dynamic of the Holy Spirit.’

There are many paths within the ‘way of life’ and this relates to many models of mission. Christ is baptised in the spirit. On the day of Pentecost the spirit is poured out on the disciples who then go out in mission. But mission isn’t straightforward. It meanders, but you are accompanied; there are many paths and they go in different ways.

Look back on your life. How is God leading you? The ‘Way’ is not a canal cut through rock; it’s more a meandering river. And there is unity and diversity in the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

I want to finish with a prayer poem written in a Jesuit retreat house in Nairobi in 1996.

I leave aside my shoes, my ambitions;
    undo my watch, my timetable;
    take off my glasses, my views;
    unclip my pen, my work;
    put down my keys, my security;
    to be alone with you,
    the only true God.

After being with you,
    I take up my shoes to walk in your ways;
    strap on my watch to live in your time;
    put on my glasses to look at your world;
    clip on my pen to write up your thoughts;
    pick up my keys to open your doors.

Amen

(Poems by Graham Kings)