Incarnation and Incarnational - A Person and a Ministry - by Brad Jersak

The following articles are my reflections in response to John Starke's article, "THE INCARNATION IS ABOUT A PERSON, NOT A MISSION," in which I both affirm and resist in our joint quest for truth.

Dedicated to Bob and Gracie Ekblad and Tierra Nueva Ministries.

John Starke's article on the "Incarnation vis-a-vis incarnational ministry" is a good reminder that compassion ministries who work on the margins must not forget the person of Jesus. Period. With an asterisk or two.

 

I'd like to respond with some reflections of where I think the conversation is  more complex than what Starke presents. Pastorally, I want to affirm his call to Christ-centered ministry, while resisting the ways his article might diminish and discourage 'incarnational ministers.' Among the flaws and omissions (which are natural in a focused article that doesn't purport to say everything) I would flag as worrisome a. the either-or mentality of his premise, and more radically, b. the oversight the obvious Synoptic emphasis on God's criteria for judgment clearly based in deeds, and esp. deeds done unconditionally, without any thought even for their Christian purpose. Let me say a word to these points as I think need to be held in tension:

 1. First, I am glad for the call to remember that the Kingdom of God should not be reduced to every act of humanist philanthropy, but rather, is founded on Jesus Christ, empowered by Jesus Christ, focused on Jesus Christ, and to the ultimate glory of Jesus Christ. I hold a high view of the Incarnation and think that if Christianity is about anything, it is about Jesus Christ, the divine Word made flesh for our redemption. Scot McKnight clarifies this same concern by resisting the label 'kingdom work' for every good deed done by any good person. He wants to reserve 'kingdom work' (as a label) for church ministry. This seems a little narrow to me, but I can take both Starke and McKnight in the spirit they intend it.

 

2. Second, point 1 on it's own does not tell the whole truth. Inherent in the Incarnation is an overt call to not only 'believe in' Jesus as the Incarnate Son, but a direct call to 'follow' the Son in his commandments (love one another, love your neighbour, love your enemy) and 'follow' him as disciples who replicate his Incarnation ministry. Unless the Word becomes flesh in us--unless we are incarnational--we are simply not followers and we don't actually 'believe' Jesus (which is as important as 'believe in' Jesus), who again and again urges his disciples to "good deeds." To pit Incarnation proclamation versus incarnational action as some sort of either-or binary is to miss the essential union of the two ... To play them off as competitors is to recreate the old evangelism only versus social gospel only split that plagued us over a century ago. No. The Incarnation of Christ and the incarnational ministry of his disciples are intimately connected.

 

3. Third, and most difficult, disciples of Christ are to take the Gospel of Matthew seriously, so we must say something that almost swings to the other end of the spectrum from point 1. To believe Jesus is to believe his message. His message in most of the Matthean judgments texts marks deeds as the central criteria. This is troubling to those, like me, raised as Pauline sola fide folks. Yet we're not permitted to use Reformation theological assumptions to negate the words of Christ.

 

In Matthew 25, the final judgement where Christ presides in glory concentrates on a 'reverse incarnational' ministry done in utter ignorance of and without any thought to Jesus at all. What do I mean by 'reverse incarnational'? Reading from the Matt. 25 text, the main points are these:

• Matt. 25 describes parabolically the final judgement. Clever tricks to make this a preliminary, secondary judgment (as in the dispensationalism of my childhood) are an obvious abuse of Christ's intent in the text, rooted in the need to avoid the difficulties the parable presents. 

• The sole criteria for the final judgement is how we treated those on the margins and those in need: the sick, the hungry, the naked, the immigrant and the prisoner are the main examples. St James, whose epistle frequently echoes the Jesus of Matthew, makes his own summary include widows and orphans.

• The criteria focuses specifically on deeds done for the sick, hungry, naked, etc., and note well: only because they are sick, hungry, naked, etc. That is, these deeds are done unconditionally, as pure gifts, as acts of grace for the sake of the presenting need. They are not done with any other motive. They are not done to lead people to the Lord; they are not knowingly done 'in the name of Jesus' (as elsewhere) or as 'acts of service and worship for Jesus' (as elsewhere). Jesus strips even the possibility of a future reward from their motives. And perhaps this is, in one sense, what makes them truly incarnational. That is, as true manifestation of pure, selfless grace (God's self-donation in the Incarnation). Jesus pictures the righteous (just) serving immigrants and visiting prisoners, NOT in order to receive a reward or look good or feel better about themselves. Their compassion is rooted in the unconditioned impulses of self-giving love, which is exactly what the Incarnation was. Yes, elsewhere Jesus explicitly appeals to reward-punishment rhetoric, but the parable itself envisions a people for whom Jesus and his kingdom are the far from their minds.

• The judgement is peculiar in that is imagines 'reverse incarnational ministry,' where it is not the minister who represents Jesus, but rather, the recipient of the ministry. That is, where is Jesus in the story? He is the sick, poor, naked and so on. So in this case, the Word becomes flesh at the margins, so completely disguised that the compassionate ones have no awareness at all of (and thus, no motivation based on) the fact that Christ is somehow Incarnate by identification in everyone who has and will suffer (as he is about to in his Passion). 

And while this third point is also not the whole story (John says something quite different, for instance), Jesus preaches it as the climax of his Matthean preaching ministry and in his most detailed eschatological parable.

 

Having said all that, for those engaged in incarnational ministry, allow me three applications corresponding to the above points: 

1. First, agreeing with Starke, in our ministries at the margins, don't forget Jesus. He is the true Incarnation of God the Word made flesh, restoring the world through his life and ministry, death and resurrection. Don't just remember it--say it. To Francis of Assisi's statement, "Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words," I might ask, when isn't it necessary, if the Gospel is the story of Jesus? Share that story freely. Let's not divorce or negate proclaiming Jesus from compassionate service. 
2. Second, in our ministries at the margins, let's not just be talkers: emulate Jesus. As the Father sent Jesus (the Incarnation), so the Son sends you (the incarnational). The Word made flesh now indwells and empowers us and in fact, continues his own incarnational work through us. So the converse of point 1 is: let's not divorce or negate compassionate service from proclaiming Jesus.  
3. Third, let's grow in the Incarnation Model (Jesus himself) of self-forgetting love and unconditional grace so that in treating the marginalized like as if they are Jesus, we will begin to naturally respond without thought of secondary motives. In so doing, the surprise welcome for serving the needy only because they are needy may even surprise us. Matthew 25 shows that It's not always about our awareness of 'being Jesus to others' or even 'seeing Jesus in others'--our failure to perceive either makes it no less true ... and sometimes even more true.