This is Part Four of a series of posts using David Fitch’s little book Seven Practices for the Church on Mission (IVF, 2018) as a lens for thoughts on discipleship and mission. This precis of Faithful Presence: Seven Disciplines (2016) provoked questions and responses I felt worth sharing. Fitch writes about practices Jesus gave his disciples for opening themselves to his presence, in community and in mission.
In Matthew 28: 20 Jesus promised to be with us always, meaning “Christ’s presence is the way God works,” says Fitch, a theological teacher and member of the pastoral team at a Chicago church. In response, God’s people are called to “be present” to that presence, to discern it and cooperate with it, to live out the Kingdom in restored relationships. As God is faithfully present in our lives, we are to respond by being faithfully present to him in the world. Fitch calls on Christians to recognise and participate in Jesus’ presence in the world.
The fourth of the seven missional practices is "Being With the Least of These", a phrase from the parable in Matthew 25 about sheep and goats. Jesus’ picture of Judgment Day has him filtering out goats (who will be destroyed) from sheep (who will be saved) on the basis of “acts of mercy” or kindness. Being welcomed into the Kingdom is based on people’s willingness to minister to the Lord when he was hungry, thirsty, naked, imprisoned or alone. The blessed say “Huh? When did we do that?” and the King replies, “when you did it for the least of these, you did it for me” (Matt 25: 40). Jesus is saying he is present when we are with “the least of these,” a parallel to Matthew 18.5 where he says “welcoming a child welcomes me” Fitch asserts: “His real presence is sacramentally located in the practice of being with the poor.”
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| The Seven Works of Mercy by Master of Alkmaar, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
The chapter begins with a description of Western society, an operational world where people become “pieces to be managed”. That reminded me of a management axiom which says businesses tend to see human resources as liabilities, when they are in fact assets. While organisation, accountability and leadership are needed, something is missing; Fitch believes it is a sense of kinship as fellow human beings. He says when we gather in the presence of Jesus, we experience that non-hierarchical kinship. “I do not call you servants; I call you friends” says Jesus in John 15: 15, and he washes his disciples’ feet.
The archetype of “being with” is God’s coming into the world as Immanuel, God with us. This is the posture we learn at the Table (Part One) and practise in Reconciliation (Part Two) and in proclaiming the Gospel (Part Three). Jesus spent time with people, eating, proclaiming, restoring. His very presence gathered people around him, and miracles of faith, trust and obedience occurred (see Mk 6.13). The early church was known for “being with”, as they practised almsgiving, provided for widows and orphans, and shared economic resources even at a distance (see 2 Cor 8). But it also a pattern for today’s disciples “being with” the hurting, the impoverished, and the broken. Such acts of mercy are described in the Matthew 25 parable, and also in Jesus’ Messianic manifesto in Luke 4. We are to be present to the other person and so attend to the presence of Christ between us. In that welcoming space, no one is an object or a project. We are kin, not benefactors or caretakers.
However, there’s a ‘but’, says Fitch. Too often we make the poor into a programme or distribute resources at a distance. Whole ministries dedicated to justice and mercy are professionalised, and we often require the poor to come to us. Programmes have their place, he says, but we should not be deluded into thinking this is God’s plan to redeem the world. Be careful that our ability to organise and manage does not keep the poor from becoming part of our lives. Being with the least of these in person is how we encounter Christ in our midst.
Boy, that’s challenging. It got under my skin. I have studied Biblical justice and the theology of money. I try to practise generosity, and I am involved in a range of ministries to the poor, in our own city, and in other countries, in sponsoring a child, a teacher and a woman theological student. Our church has a partnership with a neighbouring congregation in a low socioeconomic area. But at this present moment, most of what I do is at arms’ length. Fitch says I am missing out on a key practice for experiencing and sharing grace.
I could defend myself by noting how even the early church delegated deacons to do the actual work of acts of mercy, just as I am entrusting the use of my monetary gifts to missionaries and NGO leaders. I could cite the addiction counselling and weekly hospital visiting I did when I was a full-time minister. And I could note that the blessed in Matt 25 were serving Christ unawares, and that perhaps there are things that I do which are part of God’s mission, without me being conscious of that. But frankly I’m a failure at this chapter. Perhaps the next one about Being With Children will helpfully reveal my passion for kids and serving them.
We do need to learn how to be present with those who hurt. Fitch says every Christian should spend regular time in hospitals, prisons, halfway houses or homeless shelters, because these contexts are ripe for outbreaks of kingdom grace. This is how God changes the world.
I found this a tough chapter. How do you respond to the challenge of Being With the least?
“Christ has no body now but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
St Teresa of Avila, C16.
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