"Wow, that totally sucks." Hardly a day goes without someone uttering such a statement. That phrase, however, reveals something quite profound: something's not right in the world. Sexual abuse. Pornography. Addiction. Divorce. Laziness. Passivity. Boredom. Lies. Envy. Jealousy. Evil. Greed. Disrespect. Loneliness. Unfulfilled longing. Vandalism. Hypocrisy. Weird Cats. In a sinful and broken world'a world that really does suck for lots of people - a missional worldview invites Jesus followers to bring Jesus to redeem and heal and invite people into a life of shalom.
Adam and Eve's disobedience to what God said in Gen. 3 was not merely a sad story, it was an absolute disaster with consequences beyond the imagination. "The Fall," as the episode is rightly called, did not only affect human beings but the entire nonhuman world as well. In fact, there is no created thing, in principle, that is untouched by the corrosive effects of the fall. The natural world (esp. cats), social structures (governments, schools, commerce), relational structures (family, sexuality, friendships), our consumption of goods (food, alcohol, clothing), and everything else in creation has been drawn into rebellion against what God originally created those structures to produce: a life in harmony with the goodness and glory of God.
"For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now, writes Paul (Rom. 9:22, ESV). Earthly creation has been perverted, twisted, distorted. Famine. War. Pollution. Slavery. Bad art, bad music, bad food, irrational thinking, ungodly thinking, inefficient time management, disease, mental illness, confusion, pain, difficult work environments, mean cats, etc., all resulted from the fall (Gen. 3:16-24).
Anything in God's good creation that's wrong, anything we experience as abnormal, evil, sick, twisted, there we meet the perversion of what God intended. The fall is at the root of all that is evil in our world today, yesterday, and tomorrow.
Human nature once disposed toward living in harmony with God is now bloated with guilt and enjoys living in disharmony with him (Rom. 1:18-32). The human heart delights sin and evil. Since the fall, humans are prone to actions that are egregious to God their creator which craft much pain for themselves and other people. Our wounding of others and our woundedness are direct consequences of the fall. However, just as all of creation participates in the drama of man's fall the entire creation will ultimately benefit from the liberating work that comes through Jesus (Rom. 8:19-22; Rev. 21).
Culture, then, is not the enemy-sin is. Culture, although deeply perverted by the fall is NOT something that Jesus followers are to avoid. God established and set up culture (Gen. 1:26-31; Gen. 2:15-24). Culture is a part of creation. God did not give up on culture because of the fall and neither should we. He intends the gospel to influence culture through Church and individual Christians living with mission.
The fall destroyed the reign of shalom (the Hebrew word for "peace") on the earth. Jewish theologians understood shalom simply as the way things ought to be. Cornelius Plantinga says that biblically speaking shalom is "the webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, harmony, fulfillment, and delight." Sin and evil vandalize shalom. We have all been complicit in vandalizing shalom in our relationship to God, with other people, and with his creation. The good news is that Jesus came to inaugurate the final restoration of shalom as he "reconciles to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross" (Col 3:20).
Jesus followers, empowered by God himself, are people who bring shalom wherever shalom is needed. This might take on the form of evangelism, going to sit with the "loser" kid at the lunch table, manufacturing products that improve people's lives, creating good music, picking up trash in your neighborhood, caring for AIDS patients, teaching science well, babysitting for your neighbor's kids, letting your son's friend from a broken home move in with your family, rescuing children from forced prostitution, and so on.
Loving God and neighbor (Matt. 22:36-40), being salt and light (Matt. 5:13-16), doing good work (Eph 2:10), going to the nations (Matt 28:18-20, Acts 1:6-8), are all biblical imperatives identifying God's people as his chief agents for spreading shalom to a sinful, broken, fallen world. Living missionally means that Jesus followers are examining their relationship to Jesus, their families, neighborhoods, bars, high school sports teams, parks, schools, campuses, cities, nations, etc. asking God to equip and send them to bring shalom to a world in desperate need of it. This role in God's ongoing redemptive work is a profound and invigorating mystery. Shalom.
Adam and Eve's disobedience to what God said in Gen. 3 was not merely a sad story, it was an absolute disaster with consequences beyond the imagination. "The Fall," as the episode is rightly called, did not only affect human beings but the entire nonhuman world as well. In fact, there is no created thing, in principle, that is untouched by the corrosive effects of the fall. The natural world (esp. cats), social structures (governments, schools, commerce), relational structures (family, sexuality, friendships), our consumption of goods (food, alcohol, clothing), and everything else in creation has been drawn into rebellion against what God originally created those structures to produce: a life in harmony with the goodness and glory of God.
