Reframing the Gospel

8/8/2019 Reframing the Gospel

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CULTURE | FUTURE | CHURCH | GOSPEL

REFRAMING THE GOSPEL

by TIM KEEL

Q SHORTS


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Tim Keel s the fundng pastr

f Jacbs Well n Kansas Cty,

Mssur. He s marred t Mm and

tgether they have three chldren:

Mabry, Anne, and Blase. Tm

receved a BFA n Desgn frm the

Unversty f Kansas and a Master

f Dvnty frm Denver Semnary.Tm s an avd reader and lves

t learn, wrte, and teach. He s

passnate abut creatng spaces

fr peple t cnnect t Gd,

themselves, and thers. He s als

the authr f Intuitive Leadership:

Embracing a Paradigm of Metaphor,

Narrative, and Chaos (Baker, 2007).

I love the church calendar. I know, it is a bizarre confession, but Imean it. Perhaps I feel so strongly about it because I discovered itlater in life than many others do like those who give up the hope ofa relationship after years on their own, only to be surprised when theymeet their soul mate and discover a part of themselves they thought

was dead has been awakened, and now adds a dimension to their lifethey never knew possible.

When, after many years of following Jesus, it dawned on me that someChristians observe and celebrate time according to a different rhythm,I was curious. In my world, time had always flowed according to thedictates of the civic or academic calendar. I grew up in mostly evangelicalchurch settings; it was no different there. Christmas and Easter wereholidays, not holy days pulsing at the heart of sacred seasons. Thatis not to say we didnt understand or celebrate Gods miraculousactivity in Christ. Its just that it seemed isolated, disconnected fromanything beyond the days themselves, and somehow muddied by thesurrounding noise of a cultural narrative of consumption.

Discovering the church calendar opened me to a new way of beingrooted in time, in Gods kairos and not just the cultures chronos.Christmas and Easter no longer existed in a long line of other holidayslike Labor Day, Presidents Day, and the Fourth of July, but took theirproper place with Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Pentecost, and somethingcalled Ordinary Time. How extraordinary! Since then, holidays have

been transformed into holy days that locate me in a story larger thanmy own or even that of my particular culture. Christmas and Easterhave become not just singular, isolated events in themselves, butrather joyous culminations of the whole expanse of time: Gods lifeand story unfolding among us.

EvEnT AnxiETy

All that being said, however, I have another confession to make. Asa pastor of a local church, Christmas and Easter still function likeevents and, as such, they create anxiety for me. It took me a whileto realize that though. Initially, I was just aware of a vague sense ofdread shadowing me whenever I thought about Christmas Eve andEaster morning worship services. I now think I understand why thosedays generated the anxiety I felt. Let me give some context.

I spent my formative years worshiping in a Southern Baptist church.I cut my ministry teeth within para-church organizations largely

Edtr | Nrtn Herbst

Cntrbutng Edtr | Gabe Lyns


by TIM KEEL


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focused on evangelism. Both of those institutions placed a premiumon winning souls. Within that framework, Christmas and Easter

became the ultimate opportunities to win souls by presenting thegospel. Why? Because Christmas and Easter are those blendedtimes, events where civil holidays and spiritual holy days overlap,

when non-churchgoers might darken the doors of a church. Thus,the responsibility of the pastor was to preach the gospel in hopesthat such people would be converted to it. Practically, that meantthat a truncated version of the Christ story was told in the form ofpropositions. The invitation to accept Christs death as the sacrificefor sins was extended the promised result being that once thatsacrifice was accepted by the individual in faith, he or she would besaved and assured of eternal life in heaven. Perhaps you can sense

why, despite my exploration of the wonders of Gods story unfoldingin the beauty of the liturgical year, singular days like Christmas andEaster held residual anxiety for me, a pastor, framed as they had beenfor most of my life as evangelism events.

Reflecting on this tension I have discerned two dynamics at work distinct, yet intimately connected. The first dynamic is the tensioncreated by approaching evangelism in the way I have described. In a

broad sense, my struggle is a methodological one. But that distinctiondoes not hold long by itself. It quickly collapses into the seconddynamic, fueling the tension I, and many others, are experiencing,

both within and without leadership contexts: the theological tensionof how we have understood and framed the gospel itself.

QUESTiOninG METHOdSHave you ever been invited to someones home for what you thought

was a party, only to discover that the invitation was a ruse to try andget you to buy something? Maybe it was nothing more sinister thanmakeup or Tupperware. Or perhaps you were aggressively recruited to

be someones next level in a multi-level sales scheme. Either way, bothscenarios leave me with a multi-level reaction.

My first reaction is to feel a little less human, somehow hollowedout by the experience of being seen as a means to anothers desiredend. At least advertisers are (generally) honest about what they want

from you. My second reaction is to be offended and angry on a deeperlevel. Why? Because such a scenario proffers something good anddesperately missing in our culture: hospitality and the space it createsfor relationship. Hospitality is a Christian virtue meant for the benefitof the guest. Under the guise of hospitality, what I am describingtakes guests and uses them for the financial benefit of the host. It is a

bait-and-switch, plain and simple. Its not that a guest isnt receivingsome benefit, but rather that the host offers/sells the benefit knowingthe whole time that it is his or her own self-interests that are beingadvanced.

Hospitality is a Christian virtue

meant for the benefit of the guest.


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I am afraid that such an orientation has invaded our conception andpractice of evangelism, including (but not limited to) the Christmasand Easter gospel sales pitch. Its as if the same consumer mentalitythat threatens to overtake our holiday celebrations has also infectedour orientation to the gospel and evangelism. These presentationsoften take on the same bait-and-switch mentality as what is describedabove. We invite people into our spaces and they are often intriguedor even excited to be there. But why is that so? I think that mostpeople have a sense of something sacred when drawing near to theseholy times. Inasmuch as the civic calendar overlaps spiritual realities,people are often drawn to come and participate in the amazing dramathat is the story of Christ. Whether or not that is always the case, theycertainly have not shown up in order to become the focal point of an

evangelistic sales pitch. After twenty years of Christian ministry andleadership, I have become convinced that such an evangelical bait-and-switch is bad hospitality. Many may think what we present isthe ultimate benefit offered freely good manners be damned. But

what is also true is that we ourselves are not neutral in the mix. Weare always as invested in the outcome as the person to whom we areselling our goods. Our culture is rife with cynicism about this verydynamic and it doesnt take much in the way of discernment to pickup on it.

So one aspect of my methodological wariness toward evangelism as anevent (holiday or otherwise) stems from a violation of what I believeis the basic impulse of hospitality: generous space for others in ourmidst, created for theirbenefit at ourexpense. The other aspect behindmy suspicion is far more practical: beyond the numbers of people Iknow who have been turned off to the gospel by being presented toin such a way, I know very few who have actuallybecome followers ofChrist through such means.

Of course, such a statement sets me up for a flood of testimonies thatcounter my personal observations. Even so, I hold this to be true: veryfew people can point to a moment-in-time conversion experience. It isindeed the case that some can point to a specific moment that marks theirturn to Christ, and it may have even happened at an event designed forthat very purpose! But even in such instances, many of them have been

left wondering if that moment was all that there is to their faith. Othersfeel the need to somehow continually get back to that moment (maybethrough additional events where the invitation is to rededicate oneselfto Christ). And for those who have not had such definable moments, thisorientation is confusing, particularly because it has become the normativenarrative for becoming a Christian in most peoples eyes.

Early in the life of our church community, Jacobs Well, a group of usmet at a neighborhood bagel shop one morning. As we ate bagels and


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drank coffee, the time somehow turned from casual conversation tothe seven gathered telling the stories of their lives and faith journeys.

When the last person had shared, someone made the offhand commentthat not one person in our group described his or her faith story inconventional conversion terms. No one could point to a moment intime when they were out, then in. It was a surreal moment becauseprior to that conversation, each of us had thought something was wrong

with our stories. As we continued to talk, we realized that our faithwas made up of a series of mini-conversions spaced out over time. Infact, our conversions were less like Pauls dramatic Damascus Roadexperience and more like Peters plodding and clumsy discovery thatthe one whom he had been following was the One long promised by God.Our faith seemed to be more of an ongoing and progressive surrender of

ourselves to God that was integrally tied to a simultaneous ongoing andprogressive revelation of God to us. Our narratives were characterizednot so much by a moment in time that we had become Christians (though

we had), but by a process of responding over time, more or less, to Jesusinvitation to join him and participate on this journey.

That conversation in the bagel shop with my friends became an AHA!moment for me. But even as it was comforting, it was also unsettling.

As evangelicals, we were prepared to examine our methodologyand reengineer our methods in order to be more effective in ourproclamations of the gospel message. However, our own experiencesseemed to reflect that something more than methodology was askew.Its as if something in our theology was not quite right. Initially, I

was not prepared for that. Even so, I began to wonder if it was notjust that we were doing something wrong, but if something in ourvery understanding of the gospel itself was off-kilter. If that was thecase, then it was scary to contemplate. But if it was true, then it madesense of why everything else in my understanding of the scaffolding ofsalvation seemed to be wobbling. I needed to know more.

THE ORiGinS OF GOSPELThe word gospel is one of the most important words for understanding

what God is up to in Christ and it may be one of the mostmisunderstood. For many, the word gospel has become a shorthand

way of describing Gods action to save human beings from their sin

through the atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross. When peopleaccept by faith Christs death as the payment for their personal sin(s),then they are assured eternal life. That basic premise has become asort of formula that many Christians use to describe and share theirfaith with other people. Reduced in this way, however, I believe thegospel has become for many nothing more than a ticket to heavensecured by praying the sinners prayer in response to an altar callor some such personal or corporate presentation.

Our faith seemed to be more of an

ongoing and progressive surrenderof ourselves to God that was

integrally tied to a simultaneous

ongoing and progressive revelation

of God to us.


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For me, and many of my friends, that is all we ever heard or knewabout. Ministry was largely about getting more people to personally

believe that faith formula. And I suppose that is good as far as itgoes. But I dont believe it goes far enough. Why? Because the focus ismostly on sin and the solution for sin: the cross. Dont misunderstandme. Sin is a problem and the cross is the means by which God deals

with it. But that is not all that God is up to in Christ. The Bible talksabout gospel and salvation in a far more robust and multi-faceted waythan just sin and solution. But most people dont know that. In fact,most people are surprised to discover that the word gospel, or goodnews, originates not with Jesus in the New Testament, but rather

with Yahweh in the Old Testament.

One thing I have loved discovering over the last several years is thatnearly everything we read in the New Testament has its precedent inthe Old Testament. Another way of saying it is that the Old Testamentprovides a back-story or framing story for all that we encounter in thepages of the New Testament. When we become familiar with thoseframing stories, we begin to better understand what is happening withJesus and why he says what he says and does what he does throughoutthe Gospels. It goes without saying that the Scriptures Jesusinteracted with were what we now call the Old Testament. Readingthe Gospels, we see that Jesus was intimate with these Scriptures. Hisfluency and agility began at a young age and continued all throughhis life and ministry as did his ability to confound and frustrate thereligious authorities who were certain that their understandings andapplications were sacrosanct.

The most famous teaching of Jesus is found in Matthews Gospeland is called the Sermon on the Mount. Yet this discourse is not newcontent delivered out of nowhere. Rather, in the sermon we discoverJesus radically reinterpreting Old Testament teachings that Jewsalready knew, but apparently had not understood. This is why manyof the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount contain the refrain, Youhave heard it said...but I say to you... That is but one example. As

we read about Jesus and see him going about his mission, we oftenfail to recognize that both his words and his actions are a constantand continual dialogue with the words, people, and events of the Old

Testament Scriptures. While we may miss these cues, we can be surethat his first century audience did not.

Gospel is an Old Testament idea. The Greek word euangelion, fromwhich we derive the word gospel, literally means good news. In theGreek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, the wordeuangelion first appears. The final section of Isaiah, chapters 40-66,describe what life with God will look like when Gods people, Israel,return from their exile in Babylon. Because of their disobedience to God,

The Old Testament provides aback-story or framing story

for all that we encounter in the

pages of the Ne w Testament.


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Israel came under Gods judgment. That judgment was executed whenBabylon, acting as Gods agent, attacked and destroyed Jerusalem andmany of the remaining Jews were taken to live as a conquered peoplein Babylon. It was a humiliating time for Israel and her people. Inkeeping with Jeremiahs prophecy though, they were held in captivityfor only 70 years. At the end of that time, they returned to rebuild andrepopulate their homeland. Isaiah 40:1-5 begins this new chapter inIsraels life and outlines Gods intent to restore his people to his favorand their land.

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,and proclaim to her

that her hard service has been completed,that her sin has been paid for,

that she has received from the LORD s handdouble for all her sins.

A voice of one calling:In the wilderness prepare

the way for the LORD;make straight in the desert

a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be raised up,every mountain and hill made low;

the rough ground shall become level,the rugged places a plain.

And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,and all people will see it together.

For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.(TNIV)

When John the Baptist appears on the scene quoting part of thispassage, first century Jews would have understood that he was claimingthat God was about to usher in the Messianic Age in fulfillment of hispromise. As far as they were concerned, this age would be the time

when Israel was finally rescued and restored to her full glory. Indeed

she had already returned from Babylon, but since that time Israel hadbeen invaded and occupied by a series of empires, most recently theRoman Empire. Such a state of affairs was unacceptable to the Jewishimagination, and they anticipated the day when Yahweh would finallyovercome all their adversaries through the long-promised and awaitedMessiah. This messiah was imagined to be a military leader like KingDavid, a ruler who would restore Israel to its place of prominence onthe world stage and demonstrate that Israels God, Yahweh, reigned.

When John the Baptist came in the garments of a prophet and quoted


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this text, he created a sensation. Why? Because he was proclaimingto the Jews of his day his belief that Israels salvation was at hand,that the Messiah was arriving. It is in that same section of Isaiah thateuangelion, or good news, first appears:

How beautiful on the mountainsare the feet of those who bring good news (euangelion) ,

who proclaim peace,who bring good tidings,who proclaim salvation,

who say to Zion,Your God reigns!(52:7, TNIV)

This is gospel and salvation, as the Jews, including Jesus, would haveunderstood it: that Israels God, Yahweh, reigns. And what madeup the reign of Yahweh? The proclamation of peace, or shalom, theHebrew word that conveys the sense that all creation was living inharmony with Gods intentions for it. With John the Baptists propheticintroduction from Isaiah in the background, Jesus arrives in Israeland announces that in him, Gods reign has indeed begun, the daysof salvation and shalom have been inaugurated. The time has come,he said. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe thegood news (euangelion)! Mark records Jesus saying (1:15, TNIV).

Amazing. But before we get too deep into that, lets do a little moreexploration of the Old Testament and the context into which Jesuscomes announcing the good news that Gods salvation is at hand.

diSCOvERinG GOd in STORiESIn exploring the origins of the word gospel, we discover that there ismore to it than we might have initially understood. First we discoverthat it has a context in Isaiah, it is Israels return from exile. We alsolearn that gospel has specific content it is the announcement thatGod is acting in Israels context (history) to bring about his purposes(salvation) for his people Israel namely that Gods reign has begun.It is salvation understood through a different lens than the one thathas come to dominate our religious landscape. Or maybe it is moreaccurate to say that it is salvation understood through more lensesthan we are aware of.

For first century Jews, there were four primary Old Testament storiesthat framed their imaginations and interactions with the worldaround them. The four stories that animated Israel were the creationstory, the exodus story, the exile story, and the priestly story. Each ofthese stories describes some aspect of Gods interaction, intent, andprovision for his people. If we read the Gospel accounts and examineclosely the behavior and teaching of Jesus with those framing storiesin mind, we start to see that he is almost always interacting in some

Jesus is almost always interacting

in some way with one of these four

framing stories.


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way with one of these four framing stories. As Jesus incarnates Godsplan of salvation, he is constantly reclaiming, reinterpreting, orrenegotiating some aspect of the creation, exodus, exile, or priestlynarrative. And for Jesus, it is not just a salvation story for Israel, butfor the whole world. Lets briefly examine each of these stories to geta sense of what God was up to.

The first story is the creation story. The book of Genesis recordsGods acts of creation: he speaks and his word creates the cosmos.Day by day, Gods creative power orders reality, and as he creates,he divides one thing from another, names it, and calls it good. Thereis only one time when God pronounces something that he has madenot good: when he sees that Adam is alone. So God creates male

and female beings fashioned in his own image. It is now good. Adamand Eve are then called to join God in his creative work, to divide onecreature from another, to name them, to act as Gods stewards overcreation. The one thing they are not invited to do is determine goodand not good to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good andevil is prohibited. Only God can do this. And, of course, that is theone thing they do. The result is that Adam and Eve are ejected fromthe garden. Even so, the creation story describes Gods intent for adynamic relationship where human beings, made in his image, arecalled to live in harmony with God and the world and join him in his

work stewarding his good creation.

The exodus story begins in Genesis and spans the Torah, coming to aclose in Deuteronomy with the death of Moses and Israels arrival onthe edges of the Promised Land. The exodus story is a massive dramathat chronicles Israels oppression in Egypt and the way that God actedto save her from that oppression. Hearing her cries, God raises upMoses and uses him to confront Pharaoh. Through many interactions,God demonstrates his power and the reality that it is he, not Pharaoh,

who reigns. And so Pharaoh finally, though temporarily, relents andreleases Moses to take Israel from Egypt to the land that God promisedthem. Two events dominate the exodus narrative: the Passover and thecrossing of the Red Sea. Even though the events of the exodus storyplay out in the first five books of the Bible, its significance continuesto be felt throughout the rest of the Old Testament (especially in the

Psalms) as this story is narrated again and again in Israels ongoingliturgical life. Jews in the time of Jesus continued to celebrate thePassover and would go on pilgrimages to Jerusalem reenacting the

journey of faith that Moses led Israel on as they followed God fromslavery to freedom.

We have already discussed the third story, the exile story, in light ofIsraels time in Babylon, as well as Gods intent to restore his people tofullness and blessing. The story of Israels struggle to remain faithful


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to their covenant with God is recorded in the book of Joshua andcontinues through 2 Kings. It includes many of the prophetic books,

both major and minor. The books of Nehemiah and Ezra tell of Israelsreturn to the land and the reforms that religious leaders instituted toensure that Israel would never again transgress Gods law and so comeunder judgment. We can see the impact of these reforms continuing toplay out in the New Testament through the teachings of the Pharisees,a holiness movement that sought to keep Israel pure by adding to Godslaws additional restrictions meant to deter Jews from the possibilityof sin. Jesus continually crashes up against the Pharisees and the waythey see the world and the purpose of the law. The weight of the exilestory and Gods deliverance of Israel from the margins back to a placeof fullness and restoration cannot be overstated for the first century

Jewish world. That the Jews were still awaiting this storys fulfillmentfigures enormously in the life and ministry of Jesus.

The final story that gave shape to Israels identity as Gods peoplewas the priestly story. In order to make provision for Israels sin, Godinstituted a system of sacrifice as the means of atoning and cleansingthe people and the community from their sin. This system was enacted

by a family of priests, the tribe of Levi, given the task of mediating thefractured relationship between humans and God. The book of Leviticusdescribes this sacrificial system, though the laws and terms of Godscovenant with his people are found throughout the Torah. This systemof sacrifice offered for sin continued into the time of Christ.

I believe that the church has been obsessed with the priestly story. As a result, we have framed the gospel and Jesus exclusively in thepriestly story. This is then how the good news of Gods salvation ispresented: that our sin has made us unclean, but through the sacrificeof Christ on the cross, we have been cleansed of our sin and the guiltassociated with it. And like I have said, that account of salvation istrue and good as far as it goes. But it doesnt go far enough, nor doesit focus on that which interested Jesus himself. Of the four framingstories of the Old Testament, the priestly story seems to be the onethat Jesus spends the least amount of time engaging. When he doesinteract with it, he engages it in a way that subverts the conventional

wisdom of his culture regarding who is clean and unclean, what is holy

and unholy. And he infuriates many in the process.

REFRAMinG THE GOOd nEwS As we reread the Gospels, allowing them to be framed by a deeperunderstanding of their Old Testament context, we begin to see thatJesus was up to something much more robust and dynamic than wemight have originally understood. He was not merely satisfying thedemands of the law in order to make people clean. That renderingof the good news is too small and doesnt do justice to the accounts

I believe that the church has been

obsessed with the priestly story.


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of his life and ministry. Nor does it account for the different waysin which salvation played out in the different stories that framedIsraels imagination. Jesus constantly engages the stories and themesof creation, exodus, and exile. He then reframes them in light of theannouncement of good news: that in Christ, Gods reign has begun.Johns gospel is fascinated by the creation story. His account begins

by echoing Genesis 1: In the beginning... His writing is rife withimagery and language that demonstrates that through Christ, God isrecreating all things and restoring people to the garden. Indeed, twiceJohn tells us that Christ rose on the first day of the week (20:1,19): anew creation week has begun! Mary, in that same account, stumblesunaware into Jesus, mistaking him for the gardener (20:15). Markand Matthew seem more focused on the exodus story and how Jesus is

reconstituting Israel and leading her on a new exodus. Their accountsrecord different instances where Jesus symbolically reenacts criticalmoments in the exodus narrative that would have been obvious tothose around him.

And Luke? Lukes priority resonates with the themes of Israelreturning from exile, that Christ is restoring to wholeness those whosit on the margins. In fact, Luke allows us to peer into how Jesushimself conceived and understood his calling. Near the beginning ofhis public ministry, Luke tells us that Jesus stood up in a synagoguein Nazareth and read from the Scriptures.

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,because he has anointed meto proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisonersand recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free,to proclaim the year of the Lords favor. (4:18-19, TNIV)

Lukes account says that Jesus rolled the scroll back up, handed itto the attendant, and sat down. Then with all eyes locked on him, hedrops the bombshell: Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing(Lk 4:21, TNIV). Perhaps by this point we should not be surprised todiscover Jesus was quoting Isaiah, from the very section that describes

what life will be like when God restores Israel from exile and they begin to live in harmony with his purposes for them. Jesus says tothem that that long-awaited time has come to pass and that they are

witnesses to the in-breaking of Gods kingdom and the arrival of theMessiah. Lukes gospel goes on to describe the many ways that Jesus

went about fulfilling his proclamation of good news as he interactedwith the marginalized people inside and outside of Israel.


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EnGAGinG THE STORiESThough we have understood the gospel primarily through the priestlylens, we discover the salvation story is about so much more. In thecreation story, salvation is a restoration of all things, includinghuman beings, to their original intent: a dynamic relationship andparticipation with God in his care over what he has made and calledgood. In the exodus story, salvation is the invitation to journey withGod from bondage to liberation. Salvation in the exile story is Godsrescue of Israel and their journey from the fractured edges of belonging

back into the center of life with God. In each of these three stories,salvation is dynamic and filled with motion. Gods people join himas he brings about his purposes for them. That is not the case in thepriestly story. The priestly story is more static than dynamic. It is less

about joining God and more about a transaction with God: you aredirty here is how you become clean. Salvation in the priestly storyis about unholy people becoming holy by brokering a sacrifice.

I believe that the priestly story is essential to the gospel message.But regrettably, I fear that we have made this one aspect of the goodnews the entire gospel and ignored the parts of the story that Jesushimself seemed most passionate about. The irony is that our worldis consumed by the themes represented in the creation, exodus,and exile stories. You dont need to listen very hard to hear them.Listen to people who not only want freedom from guilt but freedomfrom the meaninglessness that characterizes the lives of so manyin our culture who are outwardly rich but inwardly poor, and thenreconsider the creation story and the invitation to join God is his workof stewarding and restoring creation to Gods purposes for it. Listen toaddicts of all kinds trying to figure out ways to move from bondage tofreedom, but feel powerless against the powers in their lives, and thenconsider again the exodus story and the gospel of liberation. Listento marginalized people hoping to somehow find a way to be includedand experience wholeness, and then reckon that with the exile and thegospel of reconciliation. Salvation is not merely static or somethingthat happens at a moment in time. It is about movement and thedynamic relationship that God extends in Christ.

People around me are excited about engaging spiritual realities,

especially when they are framed as dynamic engagements thatinvite movement, participation, and the journey toward restoration.However, most dont believe that Christianity has anything to say tosuch hungers. We keep making the gospel about the transaction, aboutthe moment in time when we were unclean, then clean. When peopledont respond to us, our strategy seems to be to turn up the volume.But again, this is ironic. My own faith story demonstrates that thislimited orientation toward the gospel is not even working for those ofus who are already deep into the life of God in Christ. Why? Because

Our world is consumed by

the themes represented in the

creation, exodus, and exile

stories.


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the good news is about so much more that being forgiven and going toheaven one day. Its not just a moment in time, but a dynamic journey.Heaven is not the point it is the outcome. The gospel message is not

just about sin and solution, but creation, sin, solution, and restoration.Holy days like Christmas and Easter are celebrations of the victory ofGod over sin, but also of Gods reclamation of creation, the liberationfrom bondage, and the restoration of all things in Christ.

As much as I have enjoyed embracing the church calendar and a holyway of observing time, it has been this robust understanding of Godsstory and how Jesus came to fulfill and reframe it in such explosive andsurprising ways that is reshaping my faith. Just as those in Nazareth

were stunned to silence by his astounding claim to Messiah, so are we

overawed when we begin to come to grips with what Jesus has doneand the implications for us...his people. It is truly good news, betterand even more relevant than we ever knew or hoped to believe.

Our church community in Kansas City is seeking to discover how notjust to live differently in time, but also to live differently in the story.I am sure for many practical-minded leaders, such a statement begsthe question of how it is that we do such a thing. Such a question is noteasily answered though. It is not as if we are trying to do somethingdifferent at least initially anyway. It is more that we are tryingto see things differently. It is as if we have been asleep to so muchof the message of the gospel, but the voice of Jesus has pierced ourslumber and we have awoken to a bigger and brighter world than theone we thought we knew. Coming to grips with how we are invited toparticipate in the creativity of creation, the liberation of exodus, andthe restoration of exile is just beginning to affect the scope of what

we understand Gods kingdom to include: how we preach, practice justice, do spiritual formation, read our Scriptures, interact withour children, and have spiritual conversations with our friends andneighbors. The list could go on. We are discovering so much, yet westill we have more than a long way to go. It is a journey, after all. But

we have discovered this much: the gospel is not something that wereceive or accept. It refuses such a limited container. It must be lived.The good news of Gods salvation is an alternate reality that startles usfrom our slumber. Once awake, we are invited to join and participate:

to live in Gods time and Gods story with Christs call to join him asagents in his work of mediating shalom in his good creation. It is thisreality that proclaims and incarnates the good news: our God reigns.

The gospel is not something we

receive or accept. It refuses such a

limited container.


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DiSCUSSioN QUESTioNS1. Have you ever felt tensions in your own church communityregarding the use of Christmas and Easter events to preach the gospelto attendees who arent regularly present? If so, how have you resolvedthese tensions?

2. How would you describe your own conversion narrative? Isit characterized by a dramatic moment-in-time conversion, or aplodding and clumsy discovery?

3. When you think of sharing the gospel with someone else, which biblical texts come to mind regarding your articulation of the goodnews? Why are these texts significant for you?

4. Tim Keel suggests, The priestly story seems to be the one thatJesus spends the least amount of time engaging. Do you agree? Whyor why not?

5. What are the pressing needs of people in your neighborhood andcommunity and how might the creation story, the exodus story, or theexile story be more relevant to them than the priestly story?

6. What are some ways your own community of faith might reframethe gospel so as not to neglect the priestly story, but to give more

weight to the creation, exodus, and exile stories than has historicallybeen done?

Tim Keel and Fermi Project, 2008

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Reframing the Gospel

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Transcript of Reframing the Gospel