On a recent flight from Indiana to Colorado with my wife and son, my mind went to the story of Jonah and his time in the belly of the whale. As I fought a migraine, my wife was experiencing the discomforts of first trimester pregnancy, and my son was acting the way two year olds act. It also happened to be one of those turbulent flights into the Rocky Mountain wind currents that allow you to imagine you’re on one of the wildest roller coasters Six Flags has to offer.

As I sat there rubbing my temples and comforting my son in that last row of the plane I looked up the aisle and imagined that this just might be a slight glimpse of the misery Jonah experienced as he rode through the sea accompanied by the nauseating smells and juices that exists within the guts of a whale.

As much as I would have liked to have escaped those circumstances I had no choice at 30,000 feet but to sit there, ride it out, and think about the comforts and quiet of resting in my own bed in a few short hours.

The Jonah analogy is one Jesus seemed to return to as his preferred symbol for transformation in life. Both Matthew and Luke’s gospel record a scene in which an antagonistic crowd of religious folks demand that Jesus perform an impressive and miraculous sign. Jesus responded, “The only sign I freely give away is the sign of the prophet Jonah.” (See Matthew 16:4, Matthew 12:38-39, & Luke 11:29)

What did Jesus mean by this?

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The Church is where natural enemies gather…

Mark Twain wrote of his famous experiment:   He placed a cat and a dog in a cage and to his amazement they became friends.   Encouraged, he added a rabbit, a fox, a goose, a squirrel and even some doves and a monkey.  They too became friends and lived in peace.

In another cage he confined an Irish catholic.  When he seemed tame enough he added a Scotch Presbyterian.  Next he added a Turk from Constantinople, a Greek as well as an Armenian Christian, a Methodist, a Buddhist, a Brahman and finally a Salvation Army Colonel.

He left both cages for two days.  When he came back he found the animals still at peace.  But in the cage of religious leaders he found “a chaos of gory ends, of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh, not a specimen alive.”  Twain concluded that the religious leaders disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.

Here at CTM we have learned (the hard way) that attending to “theological detail” and doctrinal distinctives almost always results in “a chaos of gory ends,” especially when doing grassroots theology in hard places.

Whereas theological detail tends to divide us into “a chaos of gory ends,” honest conversation that is done within the crucible of mission has the potential to unite.  We have found that if we raise missional questions high enough and pose them strong enough – I mean to the point where our neat theological formulas fall helpless before the harsh realities of those we serve, we can actually build a table in which the possibility of unity emerges.

Sometimes desperation is not only the best way forward, it is the only way forward.  I am convinced that the overwhelming impossibilities of those on the margins are the key to unity within the Body of Christ.  It takes only a little humility and all of two minutes to learn that when serving among the least, no single spiritual stream is enough. High-risk communities require the best of all the spiritual streams that the Church has to offer, and then some.  Authentic service among the poor creates room at the table for us all and I do mean ALL.  In this sense, it is the poor who hold the key to our salvation.  Perhaps this is why Jesus said, blessed are the poor for theirs is the Kingdom of God.

(This was first published as a Word from Below email on June 15, 2009. To receive the weekly Word from Below by email, click here.)

Kris Rocke
Serves as director of Center for Transforming Mission
Bumps into Reality by accident, most of the time
Heard God laugh once