One of the things that the 21st century evangelical church doesn’t seem to cope with is wildness, perhaps especially in men. Now, let me clarify that. I’m not talking about the ‘unruly barbarian’ type of wild, or the brash and violent kind of wild, or even the unkempt kind of wild. I’m talking about the kind of wildness you see in John the Baptist and even Jesus himself. Men who were not hampered by the academic concerns of polity, by the keeping up of appearances, or about the piety of careful association. Men who would upset a pharisee to sit with a pauper, who’d upset a chief priest to dine with a petty thief, or break a rule to communicate a godly passion. More than that, men who knew the wildness of following the Holy Spirit who comes like the wind, where you don’t know from whence he came or where he goes…but follow anyway.
One of my attractions to men like Aidan, Cuthbert, Columba and the like is that sense of uninhibited wildness, even although they were part of an increasingly tamed church system as the Roman rule infiltrated and subdued the missionary spirit of the northern Celtic and Britonic monks and abbots. These men were charged as being ‘gyrovagi’ – as unruly wanderers. People who would not settle in one place because they were continually on the move, out in community, and from community to community for the love of Christ. People like Brendan whose curiosity took him beyond safe seas into the unknown, as they sought their place of resurrection – the place where they’d plant their lives until they go to Glory. This was a form of martyrdom for them – to give up their lives for the pursuit of Christ and his mission.
What initially attracted me to mission in The Salvation Army were the fiery stories of the early missionary endeavors where you took up your cross, burned your boats, and expected to be on a mission for Jesus. The stories of primitive missioners were astounding and thoroughly inspirational… soon tamed by bureaucracy, coffee mornings and jumble sales.
The other thing that limits the passionate scope of the disciple is self preservation or a theology detached from the incarnational reality of life lived out in the real context of everyday life. Both of these have the effect of avoiding the fact that discipleship is costly, but you should do it anyway.
Jesus said that he only ever did what he saw the Father doing, and that led to some pretty wild and creative encounters, fuelled by the unrestricted Holy Spirit in the day to day thrust of mission…but also in the radical decision to go to the desert and hear from God, to wait on God, and move in the Spirit. The world is won and the Kingdom is advanced in these ways.
Andrew S M Clark 