VULNERABLE MISSION

MISSIO DEI 4.1 (FEBRUARY 2013): 21–32
ECONOMY OF GRACE IN THE MISSION OF JESUS AND THE
EARLY CHURCH
The letter to the Ephesians, by identifying the church as God’s economy of grace affirms
and clarifies core themes of the Hebrew/Christian narrative that underpinned the early
Christian movement. In broad strokes, those themes included:
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1. From the beginning men and women were designed to display—in their collective
diversity—the image of God. 21
2. Although people have been broken and estranged from God by sin, God nevertheless
has chosen through Abraham to bless all the families of the earth.
3. Through Jesus Christ, Abraham’s descendant, the power of sin has been broken
and by the Spirit of Christ, God’s design in people is again being revealed.
4. People from all the families of earth are now being gathered in a divine family that
displays God’s multifaceted wisdom—an economy of grace.
This framing narrative came to deeply shape the thought and action of the early followers
of Jesus.
In view of this vision of church as God’s economy of grace, I want to reflect briefly on
three themes illustrated by the earliest Christian mission that I believe bear directly on
the nature and practice of vulnerable mission. These include the locus of initiative, the
nature of leadership, and the context of mission.
The Locus of Initiative in the Economy of Grace
The initiator in the economy of grace can be none other than the economy designer and
grace-dispenser, God. If God has chosen to display God’s multifaceted wisdom in this
economy, then those who would follow the Master’s lead must learn to pay attention to
God’s gracious initiatives in general, and to those initiatives in people.
Just this kind of deep attentiveness to God’s initiative characterizes the life and mission
of Jesus. 22 And as Jesus trains his disciples this theme features prominently. Jesus sends his
disciples off in pairs to the surrounding villages with these instructions: 23
Go! I am sending you out like lambs surrounded by wolves. Do not carry a money bag,
a traveler’s bag, or sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whenever you enter a house,
first say, “May peace be on this house!” And if a person of peace is there, your peace will
remain on him, but if not, it will return to you. Stay in that same house, eating and drinking
what they give you, for the worker deserves his pay. Do not move around from house
to house. Whenever you enter a town and the people welcome you, eat what is set before
you. Heal the sick in that town and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come upon
you.” (Luke 10:4–7) 24
21 See, e.g., Gen 1:26–27.
22 See, e.g., John 5:19: “I do nothing of my own initiative.”
23 Roger Gehring, House Church and Mission: The Importance of Household Structures in Early Christianity (Peabody,
MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 42–61. Gehring considers this passage pivotal for understanding the subsequent
expansion of Christianity.
24 The economy of grace is already on display as evidence of the arriving kingdom when a church of two or