CHURCH COMMUNITY FOR THE KINGDOM

JOHN FUELLENBACH, SVD

PART I:
THE CHURCH IN SCRIPTURE AND IN VATICAN II

PART II: MODELS OF THE CHURCH

Every human person, no matter what his of her faith and religion, may effectively be saved by following his/her own religion and conscience.

SALVATION MUST BE HELD POSSIBLE OUTSIDE THE CHURCH -Lumen Gentium

 All this holds true not for Christian only, but also for all men of goodwill in whose hearts grace is active invisibly -Gaudium et Spes

SALVATION AS BOUND TO COMMUNITY

Salvation is conceived as communitarian is rooted in the TRIUNE GOD. God is FAMILY and the ultimate goal of creation is to participate in the communitarian life of the Truine God.

Being a Christian as a Call to Mission

To be called by God means to be drawn into Gods own plan and into the mission of the Son, which extends into the mission of the church.

The Keys of the Kingdom the meaning is not that only those who join the Catholic Church will enter the kingdom.

JESUS AND THE KINGDOM

Throw like fire into this world Luke 12:49 This fire is not to be understood as an abstract idea or as a worldview but as a world-transforming power. Its sole aim is to extend the life of the Trinity into the whole of creation, to draw all that exists into Gods own communion and love.

Jesus without the reign of Reign of God is an incomplete Jesus, Jesus whose life and mission are not shaped by it is not way, the truth and the life (John 14:6)

Gods Plan for the World

The deepest desire of every human heart is complete union with God, a union that includes union with all of Gods family and harmony with the universe.

The Dream of God for Creation

In a broad sense the Bible as a whole is the story of the dream of God, beginning in Genesis with paradise and ending with paradise restored in the great concluding vision of the Book of Revelation.

The first paradise is two individuals in a garden, and the second paradise is communal and urban- the new Jerusalem, the city of God.

THE DREAM OF GOD IS A SOCIAL AND POLITICAL VISION OF A WORLD OF JUSTICE AND PEACE IN WHICH HUMAN BEINGS DO NOT HURT, DESTROY, OPPRESS OR EXPLOIT ONE ANOTHER. IT IS THE DREAM EXPRESSED WITH MANY IMAGES AND BY MANY VOICES IN THE BIBLE.

The dream of God is a vision of SHALOM.. -a rich Hebrew word often translated PEACE. For this vision Jesus lived, labored, suffered and died. THIS IS THE VISION HE ENTRUSTED TO HIS DISCIPLES: As the Father sent me, so I send you(Jn. 20:21)

The exclusion of some(hell) is possible and cannot be denied as a real possibility. However, if some really will be excluded from the banquet, it is not ours to know or to decide who they will be. ONLY GOD WILL MAKE THIS DECISION.

What is impossible for human beings, God can still make possible (Mk. 10:27)

The Kingdom cannot be separated from the person of Jesus of Nazareth if Christianity is to remain true to its name. the good news is CHRIST. (Redemptoris Missio)

Christ is universal in the sense that He is available to all who bear His peoples proclamation of the Gospel, but effective only to those who believe.

The early church came to understand its own identity and its mission in different ways, as the New Testament clearly indicates, depending on the different situations and cultures into which it planted the gospel of the kingdom of God.

Only by returning to the Jesus as He JESUS AND THE CHURCH presents Himself in the Gospels will we find anew foundation for our selfunderstanding not only as individual Christians but also as Church.

The Churchcannot solve the crisis of its historical identity and its societal legitimation in a purely interpretative or hermeneutical manner, but only by practical identification.
The Churchs crisis is due to a deficit in discipleship and to difficulties in adapting to Jesus.

 The way out of the situation in which we find ourselves today can only be once again a way into fellowship with Jesus the Lord.

SIGNPOSTS OF DISCIPLESHIP:
the obedience of the cross poverty freedom and joy attitudes and behavior that counted so high in Jesus own life

They (the bishops) felt the urgent need to return to the root of the Christian commitment, to the Jesus who walked the earth and died for a vision the world today needs so badly.

COMMUNITY OF DISCIPLES A new conception of the church.(Avery Dulles)

The basic vocation of any Christian is first and foremost to be a DISCIPLE To follow the Lord as He walked over this earth. The emphasis here is on following the LORD rather than following the CHURCH.

The church must be seen as the community of those who have made it their lives profession to follow the Lord and, as such, to build a community called CHURCH.

Discipleship gives to the individual as well as to the Christian community a unique identity and purpose.

THE EXODUS STORY

God intends to lead all of humanity by choosing one particular people to be the sign and instrument to accomplish this goal.

SCHEME OF ACTION IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

1. People are in distress 2. They cry out to God 3. God hears their cry and sees their distress 4. God intervenes and alleviates the distress

The Exodus opens up a new vision of what it means to be human in the eyes of God. The covenant with the people is Gods view of how he envisions a society in which human beings will live as Gods children in JUSTICE and PEACE with one another.

Jesus main mission must be seen in this context of a broken covenant. The dominant social vision of Jesus time was centered on HOLINESS and PURITY.

He understood His community to be a place where all people would be brothers and sisters, where justice and compassion would reign under the Fatherhood of God.

KINGDOM AND CHURCH IN THE GOSPELS The word church -found only twice
on the lips of Jesus (Mt. 16 and 18) kingdom-92 times in Jesus own words. In comparison: (VATICAN II) Church-2, 000 Kingdom of God-75

Ekklesia Simply means public gathering(Greek) The early Christian community perceived the term ekklesia from this original meaning: God had called or convoked them and established them into a sacred assembly

The early Christians called themselves different names: Followers of the way The koinonia Christians

But the most important and lasting name the Christian community, universal as well as local, gave itself from the moment of its birth was EKKLESIA

It is therefore correct to say that the kingdom of God and the Church are two key New Testament concepts, both are crucial for the understanding of Gods plan for humanity.

The Kingdom Vision Mediated through the Church Some scholars claim that the
ineffectiveness of the church in many sectors of its apostolate today is due to the fact that we have no adequate image of the church into which people can plausibly fit what they think they ought to be doing.

IF WE COULD FASHION AN INSPIRING AND REALISTIC IMAGE OF THE CHURCH, WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO ACT CONFIDENTLY AND IN SUCH A WAY THAT OUR SELFUNDERSTANDING WOULD BE REINFORCED BY FEEDBACK FROM OTHERS.

Although Jesus may have seldom if ever used the word church, it is amazing to see with how much ease the early Christian communities linked Jesus to the church and the church to the kingdom and Israel of Old.

 the Church originated from the death and resurrection of Jesus, through the work of the Holy Spirit. It remains a provisional entity. What is ultimate is the kingdom of God.

The better the Church understands its interim status and is determined by the ultimate (the kingdom) , the more it will be able to correspond with Jesus ministry.

The kingdom demands the transformation of all human reality, and the church must be an agent of this transformation.

The council starts off by describing the church as the mystery of Christ. In it is realized the eternal plan of the Father, manifested in Jesus Christ, to bring humanity to its eternal glory.

God has inaugurated the kingdom in the world and in history in two stages. First, the kingdom was initiated through the earthly life of Jesus, his words and works, and fully inaugurated through the Paschal Mystery of his death and resurrection. This kingdom, present in history, must now grow through history to reach its eschatological fullness at the end of time. ..

it seeks to be, first, objectiverational and theological; second, pastoral-witnessing, creating, and strengthening our faith; and third, spiritual-nurturing, enhancing, and vivifying our own faith (Fuellenbach)

Karl Rahner, envisioning the church of the future, voiced the same concern. Facing the crisis of the church in Europe, he insisted that the members of that church would have to be mystics.

What he meant was that in a world of secularism only those who had a deep personal experience of God and who in their lives could make this experience accessible to a totally secularised world could survive in their faith. Secularism is a worldwide phenomenon and affects every society.

Secularism may stem from explicit unbelief, the denial of the existence of God or of any religious dimension to human life. Such unbelief is rarely the product of a formal,atheistic, rational philosophy

In the face of secularism the model of small faith communities can be seen as one answer to help the individual believers to preserve their faith.

As the saying goes, faith that is not shared dies.

Individuals may not be able to maintain their enthusiasm for Christ and his message without the support of a community that shares with them that enthusiasm and joy which come with a true encounter with Christ and his Spirit.

THREEFOLD MISSION

To proclaim in word and sacrament that the kingdom of God has come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth

To create church communities(local church) everywhere and, in so doing, present the church community as a place where the kingdom of God makes itself visible.

To engage in dialogue with the world and with the other religious traditions. First: to challenge society as a whole, to transform itself along the basic principles of the kingdom now present: JUSTICE, PEACE, BROTHERHOOD/SISTERHOOD AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Second: to engage in dialogue with other religious traditions in which Gods kingdom makes itself present as well.

The Churchs mission is to reveal through the ages the hidden plan of God and to lead humankind toward its final destiny.

The CHURCH is not placed at her own service: she entirely oriented towards the Kingdom of God that is coming.

For only the Kingdom, as the fullness of Gods manifestation, is ABSOLUTE

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE WILL HAVE TWO MAJOR ISSUES TO DEAL WITH IF IT WANTS TO REMAIN FAITHFUL TO THE KINGDOMENTRUSTED TO IT:

1. To inculturate the Christian message in a way that it can be understood and offer salvation in respective cultural contexts is demanded from all local churches, wherever thay may be.

2. Solidarity with the poor and marginalized of the world, refers to the basic root of Jesus message of the kingdom. If the church puts its concern for these people in second or third place, it will not have much to say in the future.

If the church loses the poor, those left out, the ones who do not count, it has betrayed the very purpose for its existence, which is to proclaim the good news of the kingdom to the poor in the way Jesus understood his mission.

Christ yesterday, today and tomorrow! WE KNOW HE WILL NOT LEAVE HIS CHURCH.