Missio Dei 8
April 30, 2009
Without compassion there is no missio dei. The compassion of God, intermingled with the compassion he sows in human hearts, are the sine qua non (meaning literally in Latin “without which nothing” i.e. most necessary thing) of the sending enterprise of God and the church.
A popular way of my tribe in our call to mission is to find where God is working in the world and to join him there. This is sound biblical advice. But this is not meant to be the final biblical word on missio dei. The reverse is just as true and perhaps more revealing of the premise behind the statement. The church or group who receives a call to be compassionate will not only try to find God in the heart of the world (for where is God not working?) but will also find the world in the heart of God (a paraphrase of Nouwen). This dual understanding of our modus operandi is crucial for the mission of God. Prayerfully we seek our call to missio dei in the heart of the Father. Was it John Piper who said in Let the Nations Be Glad: “Missions begins in the Heart of God.”
The healing pen of Henri Nouwen in his book Compassion resonates with all this when he marries prayer and action into one enterprise:
Prayer and action… can never be seen as contradictory or mutually exclusive. Prayer without action grows into powerless pietism, and action without prayer degenerates into questionable manipulation. If prayer leads us into a deeper unity with the compassionate Christ, it will always give rise to concrete acts of service. And if concrete acts of service do indeed lead us to a deeper solidarity with the poor, the hungry, the sick, the dying, and the oppressed, they will always give rise to prayer. In prayer we meet Christ, and in him all human suffering. In service we meet people, and in them the suffering of Christ.
Missional Order is about compassionate praying, ever-changing into Christlikeness, and being sent into the world as a way of life.
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