Leadership: A word from Mennonite Church USA

I was struck by a recent blog post by Jeremy Yoder. He wrote, “While there will always be rural and small town Mennonite churches, I also believe that Mennonite Church USA’s future also lies with the non-Anglo and urban congregations that may better reflect the theologically diverse and multicultural world many of our young people grow up in.” His post confirmed for me that the pressing issues surrounding immigration may have profound missional implications.

The two World Wars were a time of heightened marginality for many Anabaptist immigrants who had come earlier to North America seeking a place to pursue their faith in freedom. The climate in many places across the United States today, and particularly in Arizona, stirs up feelings of marginality among more recent immigrants. We see images of people dying in the desert or being arrested in the streets.
In contrast to these images, which evoke pain, suffering, conflict and struggle, John Driver offers compelling depictions of the believing community in his book Images of the Church in Mission. The images John draws out of the biblical text are potent metaphors that cause us to see relationships that did not exist before the use of the image; for example, the images of the Bride of Christ and the Body of Christ created new understandings of the nature of the church.

Because images in the Bible often overlap, it may be more productive to think in terms of a “field of imagery.” Against the backdrop of our current context, we may need to consider images of the church in mission that show displacement. Displacement alludes to the tension the church experiences from being “in the world but not of it.” The essence of mission, being sent (to advance God’s purposes in the world), suggests displacement. Every Christian (and the church as a whole) is displaced in the world by virtue of our calling. The tension is exacerbated when we take seriously our identity as “citizens of heaven” who are at the same time set apart as “ambassadors” to the world in which we live.

Just as often, marginality is reflected in biblical images of the people of God. The term describes the experience of people who live between two cultures without fully belonging to either one. The reality of marginality is reflected in the journeys of Jesus among the cultures (and subcultures) of his time. It is also exhibited in Jesus’ ministry in the marginality of the Galilee and his witness to the center at Jerusalem. In Jesus, the church finds itself on the way to both the margin and the center, on the way from both and in between both. The missional church is called to walk with Jesus in the way of embracing its marginality as a peculiar people redeemed by God and as the community of those sent by God to engage the world with the good news of God’s reconciling love in Jesus. As the church embraces that dual identity, it becomes an agent of reconciliation and transformation in the world. It is in this journey that the church discovers its true identity and gives witness to its essence.

I confess that my personal, social-historical reality as someone who grew up in South Africa predisposes me toward this image of displacement/marginality. I share that with those on the growing edge of Mennonite Church USA, many of whom are recent immigrants. More importantly, however, my spiritual heritage/location as an Ana­baptist also joins me to many others whose history and convictions compelled them to embrace a pilgrim identity. The pilgrim imagery carries with it a suggestion that identity is found on the journey of differentiation from the dominant culture as a contrast/alternative community and of witness within that culture as an apostolic community. The apostolic dimension of our identity reminds us that we are sent into a profound and intentional engagement with our culture for the sake of God’s good news of healing and hope that comes to us in Jesus Christ.

As Anabaptists, our identity is not circumscribed by particular boundaries, whether of national identity, blood or cultural heritage. Walls and borders do not define us. Our primary identity is that of a people of the Way. We are a people on the Way, called to cross frontiers of culture, language, ethnicity and religious affiliation. Our humanity is defined by God’s reign of love and forgiveness, of justice and peace, of hospitality and generosity. As we embrace this distinctiveness, we will be fashioned as a people of witness in a world that is increasingly fearful, exclusive, xenophobic and intolerant. We will be created as an apostolic peoplehood. Is this not what it means to be a missional people? Is this not the vision we have set before ourselves?

Stanley W. Green is executive director of Menno­nite Mission Network, the mission and service agency of Mennonite Church USA.