HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies ISSN: (Online) 2072-8050, (Print) 0259-9422 Page 1 of 8
Original Research
The Church as Christ’s broken body responding to the emerging global challenges in a divided world Author: Roderick R. Hewitt1 Affiliation: 1 School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Corresponding author: Roderick Hewitt, hewittrod@yahoo.com Dates: Received: 11 May 2017 Accepted: 26 June 2017 Published: 25 Oct. 2017 How to cite this article: Hewitt, R.R., 2017, ‘The Church as Christ’s broken body responding to the emerging global challenges in a divided world’, HTS Teologiese Studies/ Theological Studies 73(3), a4648. https://doi.org/ 10.4102/hts.v73i3.4648 Copyright: © 2017. The Authors. Licensee: AOSIS. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.
Public debate about the role of the church within society has gained momentum especially because the contemporary changing global political and economic landscape has resulted in deeply a divided world. People are asking questions about the missional identity and vocation of the church. If the church is the broken body of Christ in the world, what are the ways in which it is expressing that brokenness in practical ways? This vulnerable status necessitates modelling the politics of Jesus that risks putting up resistance against all threats that prevent people from experiencing fullness of life. The contemporary era of global governance is characterised by ‘moral lowlifes’ in political leadership that uses judicial and executive overreach to weaken democracy and empower the wealthy elites. Furthermore, the impact of technology and computation on shaping human relations has produced a consequential decline in human trust and relationships. Therefore, the missional agenda of the church as the broken body of Christ serving a divided world, calls for building life-affirming relationships that overcome dehumanising barriers.
Introduction The thesis of this chapter argues that the Church’s ecclesiological identity as the ‘Body of Christ’ as described by St. Paul (1 Cor 12:27; Rm 12:4–5) constitutes an important missional metaphor to interrogate its response to the emerging global challenges in a divided world. The church describes Christ as the Head of this body (Eph 5:23; Col 1:18) who sets the missional agenda for this ‘gathered people’ who are commissioned to serve the world in his name. The Christological significance of the church’s identity as the body of Christ gives it both a human/empirical identity as a visible, concrete, gathered community of believers and a super-empirical reality that is not visible to the human eyes (Hegstad 2013). This body of Jesus is however a broken body that has experienced great pain, wounds and shame from human wrongdoing. The Church therefore is also a broken body and this brokenness is aptly described by what Henri Nouwen (1979) has coined as ‘Wounded healers’.1 This state of brokenness seeks to serve others in a state of deep humility that recognises its own vulnerabilities. The resurrected Jesus in his Emmaus accompaniment walk with his depressed and dejected followers who had witnessed his crucifixion and death at the hands of the political and religious authorities sought to explain the significance of his death that was not the end but only a precursor of something much more life transforming that God promised would happened (Lk 24:13–38). However, even though the resurrected Jesus was with them and taught them that the scriptures had promised about him, this knowledge did not on its own result in belief. Despite the 11-kilometer walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus that allowed sufficient time to know each other, the disciples still did not recognise the resurrected Christ as the same Jesus with whom they had journeyed with for about 3 years (24:16). It was only when they reached their destination at the house of Cleopas and they invited the stranger in to spend the night and share an evening meal that ‘their closed eyes of faith’ became opened and they recognised that it was Jesus who had accompanied them along the way. During the meal, they invited him to say the blessing for the meal and he took the bread, gave thanks, broke it and shared it with them. In doing so, they recalled their last Passover meal that they had with Jesus in which he also told them that it was a symbol of his broken body that was shared for the salvation of the world (24:31).
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These disciples who became part of the early church interpreted their resurrection experience of seeing Jesus and the breaking of bread as a symbol of his broken body as an invitation to become witness of this life transforming power. They did not wait for the next day to share their experience but returned to Jerusalem soon after their meal to tell other disciples that they had seen the risen Jesus (24:31–34). 1.See also Joe Colletti perspectives on The Wounded Healer in Nouwen (1979).
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