The Incarnational Stream: How Broad Is The Kingdom Of God?
February 26, 2006
Intro:
In a certain suburban neighborhood, there were two brothers, 8 and 10 years old, who were exceedingly mischievous. Whatever went wrong in the neighborhood, it turned out they had had a hand in it. Their parents were at their wit’s end trying to control them.
Hearing about a priest nearby who worked with delinquent boys, the mother suggested to the father that they ask the priest to talk with the boys.
The mother went to the priest and made her request. He agreed, but said he wanted to see the younger boy first and alone. So the mother sent him to the priest.
The priest sat the boy down across a huge, impressive desk he sat behind. For about five minutes they just sat and stared at each other. Finally, the priest pointed his forefinger at the boy and asked, "Where is God?"
The boy looked under the desk, in the corners of the room, all around, but said nothing.
Again, louder, the priest pointed at the boy and asked, "Where is God?"
Again the boy looked all around but said nothing. A third time, in a louder, firmer voice, the priest leaned far across the desk and put his forefinger almost to the boy’s nose, and asked, "Where is God?"
The boy panicked and ran all the way home. Finding his older brother, he dragged him upstairs to their room and into the closet, where they usually plotted their mischief. He finally said, "We are in BIIIIG trouble."
The older boy asked, "What do you mean, BIIIIG trouble?"
His brother replied, "God is missing and they think we did it."
The Incarnational Stream:
This morning we are looking at the sixth and final “stream” in our series entitled “How Broad Is The Kingdom Of God?” The five we have already covered are: 1. The Evangelical, or Word-Centered, stream; 2. The Charismatic, or Spirit-Empowered, stream; 3. The Contemplative, or Prayer-Filled, stream; 4. The Holiness, or Right-Living, stream; and 5. The Social Justice, or Compassionate, Stream.
The Incarnational Stream offers a very definite response to the question posed by the priest to the poor delinquent boy. Where is God? They answer, very quickly, everywhere.
“What is the Incarnational Stream? A life that makes present and visible the realm of the invisible Spirit. Why should we explore it? Because through it we experience God as truly manifest and notoriously active in daily life.” (Foster, Streams Of Living Water, p. 272).
The Force Of This Stream:
It is far too easy for us to get lost in life – in the problems and responsibilities and commitments and relationships. Ask anyone how they are, and you are likely to get a first response of “fine” and a second response of “busy”. In the middle of our hectic lives, we easily get lost. At most, many of us exist by carving out some time on a Sunday morning to go to church where we hope that we will get “filled up” enough to face another week of the craziness of our lives. We really hope the preacher feeds us something good, because it is all we are going to get until next week. We really hope the music suits our liking, because we aren’t going to sing any songs of praise to God until we meet again. We know that isn’t healthy, we feel guilty about it, but then Monday morning rolls around and we go through the whole thing all over again without making any changes. Of course that is not true for all of us, but it is for many. Our lives are cluttered, chaotic, consumed, while we wonder why we are miserable and unsettled. We long for something different, but lack the courage to do something drastic like quit a job that demands more time than we should give, or refuse to involve our kids in a vast array of extra activities, or turn off the television. We live on empty, and get mad at God, at the church, at our spouse, because they are not meeting the needs we feel we have.
Against that tide flows the Incarnational Stream. It calls us to notice – to become aware – that God is not waiting to meet us once a week in a corporate worship service. God is waiting to meet us in every moment, in every circumstance, in every challenge and joy and bit of beauty. The Incarnational Stream confronts us with the simple truth: where is God? Everywhere. So let us live like it!
The Problem of Expectations:
Why don’t we see it? I think it is a problem of expectations. On both sides of the extreme – we don’t expect anything, and we expect everything. Let me explain:
Most of us don’t really believe that it is possible to meet God while cooking dinner. Or cleaning toilets. Doing laundry. Driving kids. Going to work. Paying bills. You know, most of the stuff of life that all of us have to do. We see it as existing, not really living. It is routine, mundane, regular. And so we don’t really expect anything Godly in it.
Conversely, our expectation is that if we were to meet God, it would be absolutely mind-blowing and soul-stirring and world-rocking. We expect that we should be overwhelmed, amazed, euphoric, enraptured. We expect it to be incredible and emotional and unrepeatable. And I praise God that sometimes it is. But when we expect that to characterize our every meeting with God, we miss the still, small voice.
Not In The Wind…
“11 The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by."
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"” (1 Kings 19:11-13).
We expect nothing, or else we expect everything. What the Incarnational Stream teaches us is a middle road – that we can meet God in every moment, and it can become a normal way of living. It is not an emotional high – it is a living reality of a dynamic and intimate and constant relationship. Waking up and thanking God for rest, showering and thinking of the “showers of blessing”, eating breakfast with an awareness of God’s goodness and variety, seeing the blanket of snow and rejoicing that “though our sins were like scarlet, they shall be white as snow”, and onward throughout the day. It is living as though life is a long journey, and Jesus is not a rest stop along the way, where occasionally we stop and have a conversation or get directions, but rather a companion in the car, sharing each sight and need and moment, hopefully being the one behind the wheel. There is always something to see and pay attention to, if we’ll listen to Him.
Jesus:
Jesus was completely human. He lived for 30 years before He was baptized, before He every preached a sermon or healed a sick person or cast out a demon. What do you think He did for those 30 years? Pretty much the same thing as you and I. He did chores. He ran a small business. He laughed and danced with family. Most likely, he wept at the grave of His earthly father. He probably wrestled with his siblings, invested in friendships, went to family weddings. Even after He began His ministry, He still walked for days. He prepared His sermons. He cooked some meals (one even after His resurrection!). He even washed His disciples feet. All the stuff of life; Jesus did it too.
And, I’m sure, saw God in it. He must of, for that is where so many of His images and parables and descriptions come from. “Consider the lilies…”, “The Kingdom of God is like a seed…”, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men”.
God clipped His toenails. God took naps. God smelled flowers. God told jokes. And in it all, saw love and joy and goodness. That is the truth which the Incarnational Stream proclaims – God is with us in everything.
Why We Miss It:
On Friday I read an incredibly thought provoking article by Alan Roxborough. One of the things he writes is this: “throughout Western societies, and most especially in North America, there has occurred a fundamental shift in the locus of the understanding and practice of the Christian story. It is no longer about God and what God is about in the world; it is about how God serves and meets human need. More specifically, the God who encounters us in Jesus Christ has become the spiritual food court for the personal, private, inner needs of expressive individuals. The result is a debased, compromised, Gnostic form of Christianity which is not the Gospel at all.” (from http://www.christianity.ca/faith/theology/2006/02.001.html)
Why do we miss God in all the little, daily goodnesses? Why do we walk out of church sometimes feeling “well, that could have been a lot better…”? And by the way, I’m asking these questions of myself first. Why do we miss it? I think Roxborough nailed it right on the head: we’re not looking for God, we are looking for God to meet our needs. To do what we want Him to do for us.
I want to challenge you to do a little experiment this week. At the end of the day, go back mentally through your whole day and look for where God was in your day. You might not have noticed it at the moment, but you might be able to looking back. What was God doing? As you do this experiment, try to take yourself off of center stage and put God there – it is not about what God was doing for you, but bigger than that – what was God doing? If you practice this for several days, you’ll start to see it in the moment, and begin to live the Incarnational Stream.
Examples Of The Incarnational Stream:
The Renaissance painters understood the idea that we see God everywhere we see beauty and goodness, and they are good examples of the Incarnational Stream. The Celtic Christians have a deep understanding of the holiness of all of life, and respond with prayers for absolutely every circumstance of life. A very influential monk, know to us simply as “Brother Lawrence”, met God daily while serving in the kitchen of his monastery, washing pots, cooking, sweeping floors; and his writings “The Practice Of The Presence Of God,” are some of the most profound writings in Christian history. Closer to home, the ministry we call “Second Hour” has this incarnational focus as its primary goal – we have a painting option where we hope that participants will learn to see God’s presence and beauty through the flowers they paint; we have a science option where we hope that participants will learn to see God’s presence through the amazing laws of the universe; we have service options where we hope that participants will learn to see God’s presence through caring for others. In each of those examples, the journey is to see God all around us, and to respond by living a lifestyle of worship.
By the way, those of you whose spiritual temperaments are naturalists and sensates, this stream will be something that resonates deeply with you.
Wrapping Up The Series:
I want to take a few moments to wrap up this whole series, since next Sunday is the first week in Lent and so we will begin our journey towards celebrating the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. By the way, that means that this coming Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, and I encourage you to set aside time that day to begin your personal devotional journey towards the cross and empty tomb.
The goal for this series has been simply this: to call us to love and to unity across the streams and across the pathways. We all have unique personalities and histories, we each worship God and serve Him in different emphasis. And I firmly believe this: The Kingdom Of God is about love and unity with all of those together. Problems come when we fight for our way to be first, and when we pass judgment on others’ pathways and streams. Sometimes it is more subtle – we have experienced something great of God in our stream of pathway and we assume everyone else is “missing it” until they have that same experience.
The Kingdom of God comes when we choose relationships of love – covenant, self-giving love – as the most important thing. Yes, it would be easier to divide up into all these groups and then just do one thing, but that is not the Kingdom of God. That is like having a church full of hands with no eyes or brains. That is like eating nothing but potatoes, all day every day. Boring, myopic, dangerous, and unhealthy.
The alternative is that we come together and celebrate the fact that we are different. We rejoice that some remind us that the Holy Spirit came so that “you will receive power” (Acts 1:8), that others ground us in the truth of Scripture, that others hold us accountable to live in holiness and integrity, that others call us to love God through prayer, that others call us to work for justice for all, and that others point out the daily walk with God.
Conclusion:
It seems fitting to conclude this series with Richard Foster’s own words: “a new thing is coming. God is gathering his people once again, creating of them an all-inclusive community of loving persons with Jesus Christ as the community’s prime sustainer and most glorious inhabitant. This community is breaking forth in multiplied ways and carried forms.
I see it happening, this great new gathering of the people of God. I see obedient, disciplined, freely gathered people who know in our day the life and powers of the kingdom of God.
I see a people of cross and crown, of courageous action and sacrificial love.
I see a people who are combining evangelism with social action, the transcendent Lordship of Jesus with the suffering servant Messiah.
I see a people who are buoyed up by the vision of Christ’s everlasting rule, not only imminent on the horizon, but already bursting forth in our midst.
I see a people… I see a people.” (Foster, p. 273).
