1. The Search for Jesus

"In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, 'Everyone is searching for you'" (Mark 1:35-37).

We can take this saying as a metaphor for what is happening in the church today: everyone is searching for Jesus. They want to know who Jesus was and what his life and teaching mean for life in our age. One thing has become certain: the imitation of Christ will no longer do. It served the church well in an earlier age, when life and the world were simpler and when less was known and understood about the inspired word of God. In today's more complicated world, the task is not to imitate Christ but rather to rediscover Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, and to follow him wherever it leads us. Liberation theology has been particularly forceful in helping us understand that "the riches to be found in the Bible" must be "brought face to face with today's realities," and that "we need to see whether changing historical circumstances make it possible to imitate the disciples, or whether we need a creative re-production of their following of Christ if we are to face the challenges of our day."¹

Those who pray and work for the coming of the kingdom search for Christ because they sense that the essential clues to the answers to the complex social problems of our day are hidden in the Jesus-event, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, in the Word of God made flesh, in the Christ of faith. We know that this search is never-ending and that there is no guarantee that we will ever reach a complete, or even a completely satisfying, understanding of the Christ. Nevertheless, we proceed forward with the faith of the woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage. "If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well" (Mark 5:28), she said, in a remarkable show of faith. If we but touch his clothes, if we can at least come closer to a knowledge of Jesus so that we can follow him with greater faith, hope, and love, then we will have placed not just another block in the building of the kingdom, but its cornerstone.

2. Who Do You Say That I Am?

The question of Jesus placed before his disciples has been asked in every age and is being asked again in ours. Who do we say that Jesus is? Who is the Christ we serve? Is he a domesticated Jesus at the eternal service of the powerful, the wealthy, the defenders of national security, or is he something else, a counterforce? "We must ask whether Christ is presented as liberator of the oppressed or as champion of an unjust status quo, and whether our gospel is 'good news to the poor' or a rationalization for the rich."² What is Christmas for us, a celebration of wealth and a reminder to the poor of what they do not have, or a festival honoring those who have had to deal with poverty and injustice? What is the cross for us, a tree of life, standing upright, on which hang the sins and sufferings of a redeemed humanity, or is it "a sign of the execution of an innocent victim having been turned around to function as a sword that could be used against Jews (culminating in the Holocaust), Muslims (the Crusades), redskinned Indians (Indian wars), and blacks (slave trade and slavery)."³

Who we say Jesus is will depend in large measure on where we find Jesus, which in turn will depend on where we look for Jesus. If the only place we look for Jesus is in church buildings during religious ceremonies, then we will see Jesus as a sort of monk, isolated from the world and doing nothing other than praising God in song and prayer. If the only place we look for Jesus is in the Bible, then we will see Jesus as the prisoner of this book, unable to be set free except by those who have the special gift of preaching and interpreting. If we look for Jesus in all the props of our way of life and standard of living, then we will see Jesus as the defender of the status quo, the bulwark against radicals and other troublemakers who call for change in society.

Jesus himself told us where he can be found. In the parable of the judgment of the nations (Matthew 25:31-46), he presents people as being either welcome or unwelcome in the kingdom on the basis of how they treated him when he needed them. Both groups are caught off guard by his suggestion that they had met him: "when was it that we saw you hungry?... when was it that we saw you a stranger?... when was it that we saw you sick or in prison?" They had met Christ and did not even know it.

Jesus is among us, too, and we can find him if we but look in the right places. The liberation theologians of Latin America live among the poor because they know that they will find Christ in those miserable slums. The black theologian James H. Cone has learned that "Jesus is where the oppressed are and continues his work of liberation there.... If he is not in the ghetto, if he is not where people are living at the brink of existence, but is, rather, in the easy life of the suburbs, then the gospel is a lie."⁴ The great Vatican II theologian, Karl Rahner, learned a beautiful lesson about finding Christ in prisoners:

When we go to meet this wretched neighbor in the way that we should, when we care about him without any supporting feeling of instinctive, physiologically-conditioned sympathy, when we forgive even while feeling that we are being made fools of by doing so, when we really pour ourselves out without the reward of a feeling of satisfaction and without any return in gratitude, when our very encounter with our neighbor makes us unutterably lonely and all such love seems to be only an annihilating leap into an absolute void, then that is really God's hour in our life; that is when he is there.⁵

Searching for God "in a world with more starvation, more wealth, more waste, more economic tyranny than ever before," the American theologian John H. Yoder has learned that "the God who put humankind in a garden to till it, has made His will most fully known in a propertyless man who shared his bread with the poor; and who, when the powerful of his age destroyed him, would not stay dead."⁶ Living among the poor of Peru, Gustavo Gutierrez has learned that "to be a Christian is to believe that a human being of this concrete history of ours, who loved us in loving the men and women of his time to the point of giving his life for them, who loved the poor by preference and revealed God to us as a Father, and who therefore came into confrontation with the great and powerful of his time and was finally executed as a subversive, is God."⁷ These are the kinds of lessons we are going to have to learn, and we will learn them only by searching for Jesus where he can be found.

I do not mean to imply that there is only one valid answer to the question Who do you say that I am? Our first--and divinely inspired--source of knowledge of Jesus are the Christian Scriptures, and within them there is not a uniform presentation of the God-human Jesus Christ: we are provided with four gospels, four different perspectives on the Jesus event. To add to the diversity, we can recognize in the writings of Paul still another perspective on the Christ, and some of the remaining New Testament writings contain still different perspectives. Each perspective is valid in its own right, and if there is one message that comes across clearly, it is that the Jesus-event is open to many different understandings, interpretations, and applications. Jaroslav Pelikan has done a wonderful job of tracing down through the centuries the various images of Christ that have dominated Christian thinking and carried Christians through good times and bad times: The King of Kings, The Cosmic Christ, The Son of Man, The True Image, The Monk Who Rules the World, The Bridegroom of the Soul, The Divine and Human Model, The Universal Man, The Mirror of the Eternal, The Poet of the Spirit, The Prince of Peace, The Liberator, The Man Who Belongs to the World.⁸ Anton Wessels has performed another service for us, showing how Jesus is perceived and portrayed in non-European cultures, and he writes of Jesus: A Jew, The Christ of the Muslims, The Scourged Christ, The Black Christ, The African Christ, The Asiatic Face of Christ, and the Christ of the Indian Road.⁹ Other contemporary theologians struggle in their own ways to answer Jesus' probing question Who do you say that I am? Brennan Hill's Jesus the Christ: Contemporary Perspectives (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1991) speaks of Jesus as Teacher and Prophet, Miracle Worker, Advocate for Women, Man of the Earth, Savior, and Liberator.

The remainder of this paper contains my own perspective on Jesus Christ. I do not present it as in any way an exhaustive list of perspectives, but rather as a collection of images that seem helpful to those who are dedicated to working for a better world and for the coming of the kingdom.

3. God With Us and One of Us

We follow Jesus Christ, who is God-With-Us and who is one of us. Our faith is in Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, the Son of the Father, the Word of God. This is not for us an abstract 'word,' but rather the Word Made Flesh, the Word incarnated in such as way that we can see, hear, touch, and even eat it. The word became flesh not in the sense "that previously the Word was outside history and that at a particular moment it entered history" but rather in the sense "that at a particular time we recognized it in the countenance of the man Jesus and in the countenance of humankind, so much so that we understand that true love for God is expressed in the practice of family-spirited love. From that point onward, there has been a qualitative shift in the history of humankind."¹⁰

The message of the scriptures, revealed in the experiences of the Jewish people and the early Christians, and fulfilled in Jesus Christ, is that God is with us. Jesus is Emmanuel, and there is no existence outside of the presence of God.

Jesus Christ is God-with-us in the poor, revealing the power of God in the powerlessness of people. Jesus Christ is God-with-us in the homeless, leading us to God as our shelter and protection. Jesus Christ is God-with-us in the hungry, turning us towards God for our sustenance. Jesus Christ is God-with-us in the victims of war, revealing to us the peace that can be found only in God. Jesus Christ is God-with-us in the oppressed, helping us understand that our only source of liberation is God. Jesus Christ is God-with-us in the prisoner, teaching us that freedom is only in God. Jesus Christ is God-with-us in the helpless infant and the bedridden dying, making clear to us that we are to depend on God for all our needs. Jesus Christ is God-with-us in the refugee, with whom we long for our home in God.

Jesus Christ is God-with-us in the slums and ghettos, summoning us to change our lives and recommit ourselves to each other. Jesus Christ is God-with-us in the despised cultures of the world, encouraging us to open ourselves to the other and also to the Other. Jesus Christ is God-with-us on death row, calling out to us for love and forgiveness. Jesus Christ is God-with-us in the sweatshops of the world, begging us for rest and a decent life. Jesus Christ is God-with-us in the wetlands and rain forests of the world, screaming out for just treatment and a chance to continue in existence.

God is present among us in Jesus Christ as we discriminate against each other and also as we take steps to live together in harmony. God is present among us in Jesus Christ as we batter and mistreat women and also as we work for their liberation. God is present among us in Jesus Christ as we fight our wars of religion and also as we pray together as brothers and sisters. God is present among us in Jesus Christ as we load toxins into the air and also as we work to reclaim our streams and lakes.

"Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20).

4. God Become Poor

In Jesus Christ God "became poor, so that by his poverty (we) might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9). Jesus of Nazareth was the son of a poor carpenter, and he passed through life with little or no possessions. His teaching emphasized blessing on the poor (Luke 6:20) and the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3), and he was himself a blessing to the poor, visiting with them, caring for them, healing their illnesses, and lifting their spirits. He considered it part of his mission "to bring good news to the poor" (Luke 4:18). His famous dictum, "you always have the poor with you" (Mark 14:7; Matthew 26:11; John 12:8), sounds very much like an indictment of a society that oppresses the poor. He taught his disciples: "when you give a banquet, invite the poor" (Luke 14:13), and he told the story of a rich man who ended up in hell because he had neglected the poor man at his gate (Luke 16:19-31). He told a rich young man that "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor" (Matthew 19:21), and he praised Zacchaeus for giving half his possessions to the poor (Luke 19:8-9).

Jesus made it clear in his beatitudes that there is blessing for the poor, those who mourn, and the meek as well as for the advocates of the poor: those who are merciful; those who seek righteousness or justice; those who are peacemakers; and those who are persecuted for the sake of justice.¹¹ What is blessed about the poor--and by association, about those who make a preferential option for the poor--is their powerlessness, their marginalization, and their need for reliance on God (since they have little else to rely on). It was that powerlessness and marginalization that God took on when the Word became flesh.

What does it mean to follow Christ, who is God Become Poor? It means, first of all, that in any struggle between the rich and the poor, there can be no doubt about whose side God is on. It means that in our search for God, we will succeed in finding God only to the extent that we mix with the poor, living and working among them. It means that whatever we do the poor, we do to Christ: "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40). Most importantly, the following of Christ means the following of the poor, listening to the voice of their experience and following their lead in the struggle for justice.

What would happen if we simply listened to the poor? Perhaps they would tell us a story. They might tell us the story of a man who once walked upon the earth, but whose life and work is emblazoned upon their hearts forever. He associated with tax collectors, prostitutes and outcasts of every sort; he even sat down to meals with them. He was homeless; he reminded his followers that he had no place to lay his head. He once remarked that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. He said, quite prophetically it turns out, that the poor would always be with us; yet he always seemed to take their side of the argument. He was, in fact, poor himself. He told us we should relieve the misery of the poor, not by making them more like the rich, but by offering them the simple necessities of life--food and water and shelter and clothing--without conditions or restrictions of any kind. He died for our sins, and he was raised up from the dead. He thus reminded us that it is God alone who saves us--not social institutions, not economic systems, not even clever arguments. He triumphed over all such powers and principalities, and his dominion will have no end.¹²

Listening to the poor and following their lead will inevitably change us. It will help bridge the gap that Archbishop Desmond Tutu had in mind when he said that "black and white Christians look at Jesus Christ and they see a different reality."¹³ The oppressed and their oppressors, the poor and the rich, see a different reality in Jesus Christ. Jesus as God Become Poor makes it clear which of the two realities is closer to the one, true God.

5. God's Power against the Powers

We follow Jesus Christ, who "confronted the powers of legalism, ritualism and abuse of authority that contradicted the freedom of the kingdom of God" and who was put to death "because of his battle against the powers, and especially against the abuse of power in organized religion."¹⁴ Jesus fought against the powers behind the system that marginalized the poor, lepers, tax collectors, and women. Luke understood the dimensions of Jesus' taking on the centers of power, and he built his two gospels around journeys to the center of Jewish power (Jerusalem, in the gospel of Luke) and world power (Rome, in Acts).

In spite of their knowledge of the power of God as presented by the prophets, the Jewish people of Jesus' time were expecting a political messiah. Their messiah came, however, in the form of a child, a carpenter's son from an insignificant village, a man convicted and executed as though he were a criminal. This "Christ the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24) came to take on the powers of the world, and at his coming it was announced that God "has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly" (Luke 1:52). In the end Jesus was condemned "not precisely because he claimed to want to overthrow the reigning power, rather because his critical attitude to all power made him an insupportable nuisance to all those in power."¹⁵

Jesus cautioned Pilate not to absolutize his power, for he would have no power if God had not given it to him (John 19:11). Jesus taught his disciples a different kind of power from what Pilate knew: "You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all (Mark 10:42-44). This is the great revelation of the suffering messiah, God become poor, that "power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9).

The followers of Christ align themselves with the power of the Spirit of Christ, which came upon the disciples in the form of wind and fire. They align themselves with the power of Christ's poverty, which he took on so that we might be rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). They align themselves with the power of the cross of Christ, which "is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18). They align themselves with the power of the resurrection of Christ (Philippians 3:10), which conquered death, and with the power of the Easter celebration, which "dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy."¹⁶ They align themselves with the power of prayer, which ends searches and unlocks doors (Matthew 7:8). They align themselves with the power of love, which "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1 Corinthians 13:7). They align themselves with the power of the truth, which sets us free (John 8:32). They align themselves with the power of the Word of God, which created the heavens and the earth (2 Peter 3:5), cannot be chained (2 Timothy 2:9), and endures forever (1 Peter 1:24). They align themselves with the power of the justice of God, who "gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless" (Isaiah 40:29). They align themselves with the "power in (God's) loving plan of salvation,"¹⁷ and they worship this powerful God of providence who "orders all things in such power that even the tensions and the tragedies of sin cannot frustrate your loving plans."¹⁸

The followers of Christ align themselves against the power of the spirit of the world, which brings ruin and destruction. They align themselves against the power of wealth, which consumes people's hearts and gives them a false sense of security. They align themselves against the power of oppression, which crushes human lives and leaves entire races, classes and cultures in ruins. They align themselves against the power of death, which destroys life and brings despair. They align themselves against the power of selfishness, which causes people to seek happiness in self-sufficiency. They align themselves against the power of hate, which turns brother against brother, the strong against the weak, the rich against the poor. They align themselves against the power of falsehood, which leads people down blind alleys to their own destruction. They align themselves against the power of consumeristic, violent, and pornographic mass media, which poisons people's minds and proposes a way of thinking that is alien to God. They align themselves against the power of injustice, which fills every nook and cranny of our suffering world. They align themselves against the power of damnation, struggling with all their might against the power of the demons that are within and among us and against the power of the Demon who personifies all the evil that is standing in the way of the coming of the kingdom.

6. The Liberator

The prophets of Israel preached freedom for the oppressed and foretold a messiah who would free the people from their oppressions. Their prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus the Liberator, whose mission was clearly stated at the outset of Luke's gospel: "He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free" (Luke 4:18). Jesus went about his work freeing people of their burdens and oppressions, feeding the hungry, opening the eyes of the blind, welcoming the outcasts, making it possible for the deformed and disfigured to walk on their own. Along with physical freedom, he brought spiritual freedom, as in the case of the paralytic lowered through the roof, because "if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8:36). He is the Word of God made flesh, declaring to us that "you will know the truth and the truth will make you free" (John 8:32).

Just as Yahweh had freed people from the slavery of Egypt, so now Christ frees people from slavery to sin, "for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death" (Romans 8:2). This new freedom goes beyond the freedom experienced by the Israelites, for "by this Jesus everyone who believes is set free from all those sins from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses" (Acts 13:39). It is total freedom, the highest freedom achievable by humans, a freedom that is its own raison d'être: "For freedom Christ has set us free" (Galatians 5:1). It is a freedom that is offered to the whole human race. It is not a self-serving freedom, allowing us to do whatever we want without regard to others. It is, in fact, a freedom that appears in the form of slavery: "you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God" (Romans 6:22); "through love become slaves to one another" (Galatians 5:13). Jesus, who "emptied himself, taking the form of a slave" (Philippians 2:7), leads us back into slavery in a kind of reverse Passover, and reveals to us the reality of true freedom, which is the freedom to give oneself to others, the ultimate freedom exercised by Jesus when he "bowed his head and gave up his spirit" (John 19:30).

In the name of Christ, his followers work for spiritual liberation: from falsehood, deception and delusion; from bondage under law and the injustices that arise from it; from sin-solidarity; from anguish, overscrupulosity and guilt complexes; from sloth, flight, and alienation; from the powers of oppression, greed, racism, sexism, cult of violence; and from the fear of death.¹⁹ In the name of Christ, his followers work for physical liberation: from poverty, hunger, and homelessness; from unsafe water; from the ravages of war; from displacement resulting from political controversy; from the suffering brought on by preventable diseases; from torture and abuse; from crime and terrorism. In the name of Christ, his followers work for psychological liberation: from ignorance and illiteracy; from the mental anguish suffered by all those who are made to be second-class persons; from the humiliation of being mistreated because of one's race, culture, nationality, sex, sexual orientation, religion, political ideology, or economic class.

Anton Wessels quotes a beautiful African song from the Transvaal:
Jesus Christ is the conqueror;
by his resurrection he overcame death itself,
by his resurrection he overcame all things:
he overcame magic,
he overcame amulets and charms,
he overcame the darkness of demon-possession,
he overcame dread.
When we are with him,
we also conquer.²⁰

The song approaches liberation in Christ from an African perspective. It would not be difficult to rewrite the song from an American perspective.
Jesus Christ is the conqueror;
by his resurrection he overcame death itself,
by his resurrection he overcame all things:
he overcame militarism,
he overcame Cadillacs and suburban mansions,
he overcame the darkness of consumerism,
he overcame racism.
When we are with him,
we also conquer.

7. The Living Bread

We follow Jesus Christ, "the living bread" (John 6:51), who appeared with the announcement that God "has filled the hungry with good things" (Luke 1:53). At Jesus' birth he was placed in a manger, a feeding trough, as a sign of his being food for the people of the earth. All four gospels tell stories of Jesus feeding large crowds of people (Mark 6:30-44 and 8:1-10; Matthew 14:13-21 and 15:32-39; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-14), but John links this story with the startling saying of Jesus: "I am the bread of life" (John 6:35). When it came time for Jesus to give his life for us, he left us with a memorial of his death that consisted of a meal of bread and wine which he said was his body and blood.

The followers of the Living Bread do not rest easy as long as there is one hungry person in the world, and they fight mightily against a world hunger problem of monstrous proportions. The followers of the Living Bread eat the body of Christ and drink his blood, and, strengthened with this sustenance, they resist energetically all the forces of evil for which Christ's body was tortured and pierced and for which Christ's blood was shed. The followers of the Living Bread sit at the table of life with their brothers and sisters, respecting them as their equals and celebrating their unity in the human family. The followers of the Living Bread respect the wheat and the grape from which the bread and wine are made, and they have a profound reverence for the earth that produced them.

8. Rabbi Yeshua bar-Joseph

We follow Jesus the rabbi, Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth, Rabbi Yeshua bar-Joseph, the teacher of the Torah. We follow Jesus the amen, the prophet, the second Moses and the new Elijah, the fulfillment of the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the other Hebrew prophets. We follow Jesus the messias, the promised savior of Israel. We follow Jesus the mar, the Lord of the nations and the Lord of the universe. We follow a Jew, a descendant of Abraham of the family of David, born in Bethlehem of Judea and raised in Nazareth of Galilee.

"Jesus was not a Christian but a Jew."²¹ The implications of this are several.

We follow someone who was born into a despised cultural minority on the outer edge of the Roman empire. The Jews were an occupied people who had lost their freedom centuries before and were on the verge of being thrown out of their land and dispersed as outcasts throughout the world. They were a marginalized group with little or no power on the world scene.

The followers of Jesus make a preferential option for the outcasts of the world, the marginalized and the powerless, those who belong to the despised cultural minorities. They are on the side of the captives, not the captors; of the oppressed, not the oppressors; of the slaves, not the masters; of those on the edge, not those in the center. In a world dominated by men, they stand alongside women. In an America dominated by whites, they stand alongside the people of color. In a world centered around the middle and upper classes, they stand alongside people with little or no income.

We follow a Jew, a member of that race which Christians have hounded and pursued and outlawed and massacred through the centuries.

The followers of Christ behold the face of Jesus and they see a son of Abraham. They rejoice in the Jewishness of their Lord, and they "deplore the hatred, persecutions, and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews at any time and from any source."²² They recognize the historical roots of anti-Semitism and the reasons for its continued existence, and they ask with Jaroslav Pelikan:

"Would there have been so much anti-Semitism, would there have been so many pogroms, would there have been an Auschwitz, if every Christian church and every Christian home had focused its devotion on icons of Mary not only as Mother of God and Queen of Heaven but as the Jewish maiden and the new Miriam, and on icons of Christ not only as Pantocrator but as Rabbi Jeshua bar-Joseph, Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of David, in the context of the history of a suffering Israel and a suffering humanity?"²³

We follow Jesus, who was Semitic, not European. The Christian West that has dominated Church history has also Europeanized Christ, downplaying his Semitic features, origins and background and making him into something he was not: a European peasant, perhaps, but certainly not the son of a Jewish carpenter. Jesus was darker than many Europeans would like to admit; more African and Asian, more like an Ethiopian than an Anglo-Saxon, more similar to Boutros Boutros-Ghali than to Kurt Waldheim.

The followers of Jesus welcome the internationalization of the Catholic Church, its de-Europeanization. They look to a beautiful future when popes will be not only non-Italian but also non-European: African, Asian, North or Latin American. They work for the day when the language of the Church will be not Latin but international. They work for the day when the theologies of the non-European world will be treated with the same respect as those of Europe. They support the work of the United Nations, which they encourage to become more and more a world body, representing the interests of every part of the world on an equal basis.

Jesus the Jew was welcomed as a light to the Gentiles. The people of the world have been redeemed by this Jewish rabbi, and his Jewishness was an essential component of the salvation he brought us. We must never forget the deliberate choice made by the Son of God to be Jewish, not Roman.

9. Teacher

We follow Jesus Christ, our only teacher: "You have one instructor, the Messiah" (Matthew 23:10). The Father sent us his son with a message that we must hear: "This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!" (Mark 9:7).

Jesus was a great teacher, and he amazed people with his teaching: "They were astounded at his teaching, because he spoke with authority" (Luke 4:32). "Who gave you this authority?" the chief priests and the elders of the people asked him (Matthew 21:23). Jesus did not answer them because they would never have understood: the authority of Jesus' teaching came from the fact that he lived what he taught.

We follow what Jesus taught and exemplified.

Jesus taught his followers to put God first: "Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness" (Matthew 6:33), and "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart" (Matthew 22:37): these are the first obligations of the followers of Jesus, whose approach can be summed up in his statement in the garden of Gethsemane: "not what I want but what you want" (Matthew 26:39). Relationship with Jesus is determined on the basis of doing God's will: "Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother" (Matthew 12:50).

Jesus, the Son of the Father, taught his followers to relate to God as abba, daddy. The prayer that Jesus taught begins with the words "Our Father." One of his most memorable story-lessons was about a father whose love for his children was overwhelming, and we have always understood the father of the prodigal son to be a metaphor of God, our loving Daddy.

Jesus taught his followers the importance of following him. Follow me, Jesus said to Simon and Andrew, and they left their nets and followed him. Follow me, Jesus said to James and John, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat and followed him (Mark 1:16-20). "Come, follow me" (Matthew 19:21), he said to those seeking perfection. This following of Christ must come before everything else. One man agreed to follow Jesus but insisted on first burying his father; another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." But Jesus insisted that they both put following him ahead of their other concerns (Luke 9:57-62).

Jesus taught his followers to be God's people, a community of love: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). Community must be maintained if there is to be true worship of God: "So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift" (Matthew 5:23-24).

Jesus taught his followers to be of service to the world, to be the servants of others. At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus cured Simon's mother-in-law so that she could serve others (Mark 1:29-31). At the end of his ministry, Jesus gave his disciples a lesson in service by washing their feet and calling attention to what he had done: "So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet" (John 13:14). He taught us that "whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve" (Mark 10:43-45). When Jesus asked the blind man, Bartimaeus, "What do you want me to do for you?" (Mark 10:51) he was being the teacher: he was teaching us the important lesson of service.

Jesus taught his followers to let go: "do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear" (Matthew 6:25) and "do not worry about tomorrow" (Matthew 6:34). He taught them to let go of their possessions: "If anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well" (Matthew 5:40), for "You cannot serve God and wealth" (Matthew 6:24). "Sell your possessions," Jesus tells his "little flock" (Luke 12:33); "sell what you own, and give the money to the poor," he tells the rich man (Mark 10:21).

Jesus taught his followers nonviolent resistance to evil: "If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also" (Matthew 5:39). When they came to arrest Jesus, he refused to defend himself and rebuked the disciple who raised his sword in defense of Jesus.

Jesus taught his followers to transcend national boundaries and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19). He overturned the old patriotic ethic: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies.... For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?" (Matthew 5:43, 46). Jesus taught us to have a global vision.

Jesus taught his followers to value wholeness: the wholeness of their person, health that is physical, mental, psychological, emotional, cultural, and spiritual; the wholeness in their relationship with God; and the wholeness in the relationship among people, the peace that results from justice.

Jesus taught his followers to forgive. "Son, your sins are forgiven" (Mark 2:5), he told the paralyzed man who had been lowered through the roof so Jesus could heal him. Jesus' instructions are to forgive not just seven times, which is always, but seventy times seven times (Matthew 18:22), which is every-single-time-without-exception-always. One of the most powerful stories told by Jesus was about a father who joyously forgave his prodigal son and a brother who could not find the internal resources to forgive his brother. Jesus himself lived his message of forgiveness, announcing from the cross: "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34). And after he had risen from the dead, Jesus appeared to the disciples with a message of peace, never once referring to their abandonment of him at his hour of suffering and overwhelming them with his loving forgiveness.

Jesus taught his followers to value the smallest and the least. The teaching of Jesus centers around the mustard seed, not the Sears Building; children, not kings and presidents; fishermen, not business people and university professors; prostitutes, not high priests; the widow's coins, not the wealth of nations; Nazareth, not Rome. The door to heaven is unlocked by caring for "the least of these who are members of my family" (Matthew 25:31-46).

Jesus taught his followers "to seek out and to save the lost" (Luke 19:10). He told parables about a lost sheep and a lost coin and a lost son (Luke 15). Jesus spent much of his time rescuing people who had been lost in society: lepers, Samaritans, women, the possessed, the blind, tax collectors, the woman with a hemorrhage, the man at the pool of Bethesda who had been ill for thirty-eight years, the criminal hanging on the cross.

Jesus taught his followers the equality of all human beings. He taught that God "makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous" (Matthew 5:45). There was an "equalizing" aspect to all the teaching activities of Jesus. His wonderful deeds of restoring sight to the blind and wholeness to lepers can be viewed as placing people on a level of equality with others in society, giving them an equal chance to survive and flourish. In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, Jesus taught a basic principle of equalization, a balancing of the scales: "Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony" (Luke 16:25). The principle is stated by Jesus in this way: "The last will be first, and the first will be last" (Matthew 20:16). Jesus taught that in the end everything will come out equal.

Jesus taught his followers that religion must involve social activism, that doing something about the injustices in the world is a primary function of religion: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13). In the parable of the judgment of the nations (Matthew 25:31-46) Jesus identified our actions for those who suffer as the source of our salvation. He criticized the Pharisees for defining religion in terms of prayer while excluding justice from their definition: "They devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation" (Mark 12:40). Jesus, on the other hand, interrupted his prayer to help the disciples (Matthew 14:23-25). He taught that "the sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath" (Mark 2:27). In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37), Jesus, by making one of the passers-by a priest, taught his followers that religion must never be distant from the physical needs of people.

Jesus taught his followers that working for a just world creates divisions: "Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division" (Luke 12:51); "You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death" (Luke 21:16).

Jesus taught his followers that they are to make the world taste good to God (Matthew 5:13), to make the beauty of the world shine (Matthew 5:14-16), and to help the world rise (Matthew 13:33). They are not to shun the world but rather they should live in and for the world, to rescue it and not to condemn it. At the same time, they are to keep a certain distance from the values of the world, for he taught that "what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15).

Jesus taught his followers to make a preferential option for the poor, "to bring good news to the poor" (Luke 4:18). To the poor themselves, his teaching was clear: "blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God" (Luke 6:20). To those who are not poor, his teaching was equally clear: "when you give a banquet, invite the poor" (Luke 14:13) and "sell your possessions and give the money to the poor" (Matthew 19:21).

Jesus taught his followers to feed the hungry. To the hungry he announced: "Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled" (Luke 6:21). To those who encounter the hungry, he taught: "You give them something to eat" (Matthew 14:16). The feeding of the hungry is a serious matter, and Jesus taught that it is a factor in determining one's salvation (Matthew 25:31-46). He taught his followers to feed the hungry and to let God take care of their own need for food: "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat ... For life is more than food ... Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!" (Luke 12:22-24).

Jesus taught his followers to work for an all-inclusive world. His parables conveyed a message of inviting everyone you find to the wedding feast (Matthew 22:9), of throwing out a net to make sure everyone has a chance to enter the kingdom (Matthew 13:47-48). Jesus himself gave an example of all-inclusive ministry, dealing with tax collectors and others who were regarded as sinners, prostitutes, women, Samaritans, the crippled, the sick and dying, and even lepers.

Jesus taught his followers to respect women and children. His encounter with the woman at the well (John 4:1-42) was an obvious lesson to his disciples about the treatment of women, as was his meeting with Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42). His teaching against divorce (Matthew 19:1-12) was not only about the sanctity of marriage; it was also about the fragility of women's position in that society and the need to be concerned for their protection. As for children, Jesus taught his followers to welcome them and respect them, "for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs" (Matthew 19:14).

10. Norm of Morality

We follow Jesus Christ, who is more than the great teacher of morality; he is the norm of Christian morality. "The demand of Christianity, that is, its Law, is concentrated in the Person of Christ."²⁴ The best description of the challenge of Christian morality is not obedience to the teachings of Jesus, or the imitation of Christ, but "put on the Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 13:14), and the best statement of what it means to be a moral person in the Christian tradition is not to say that we are true to the commandments of the Bible or that we are loyal to the teachings of the Church but that "we have the mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2:16).

Thomas Jefferson published his own gospel, excising from the original four gospels everything about Jesus that did not fit in with Jefferson's conception of Jesus as a teacher of common sense. In so doing, Jefferson missed the whole point. He reduced Jesus to just another philosopher, whose value to the world consists of the intelligibility and applicability of his thoughts. But Jesus is not just another philosopher. He is the Word of God made flesh, and as such, he is the goal toward which we strive and the measure of where we are as we progress toward that goal. "It is Christ's word that is the judgment on this world; it is Christ's cross that is the measure of our response."²⁵

To be sure, Jesus presented a body of teachings--we reviewed some of them in the previous section--but even with respect to them, the specific content of this or that teaching is less important than the overall attitude of Jesus and the expression of that attitude in his actions. Jesus' "attitude is at the same time historically situated and normative for all times, and since he is the supreme norm of moral theology, his attitude is decisive. His practice not only confirmed his words, but also showed the way for his followers."²⁶

The distinctive characteristic of a Christian conscience is its roots in Christ: it grows out of the person of Christ as he is revealed in the Scripture, worshipped in the liturgy, experienced in the church, and known in the outcasts of society. If we are deeply rooted in Christ, then we think and act as Christ. The determination of what is right and wrong is based on what is linked to Christ. If you can link racial oppression to Christ, then it is moral. If you can link the subjugation of women to Christ, then it is moral. If you can link militarism and wars of national security to Christ, then they are moral. If you can link greed and the accumulation of wealth to Christ, then they are moral. If you cannot link these things to Christ, then they are not moral.

11. Lord of History

We follow Jesus Christ, the Lord of history. "All things came into being through him" (John 1:3); "in him all things hold together" (Colossians 1:17); he is "the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end" (Revelation 22:13). We believe that in Christ "can be found the key, the focal point, and the goal of all human history,"²⁷ and that "life has been fundamentally changed by the entry of the Word made flesh into human history."²⁸

We follow the Lord of history, confident that the ultimate victory will not be with the forces of evil, the powers of the world which sustain wars and injustices, but with the "God of justice" (Isaiah 30:18) and "Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6). We follow the Lord of history, who leads us not down the destructive path of wars of religion, holocausts, and economic oppressions, but on the road to the kingdom, where "righteousness and peace will kiss each other" (Psalm 85:11). We do not follow the lords of the world, who lead us into the blind alleys of racism, sexism, war, and poverty; instead we follow the Lord of history, who leads us into the promised land of love and justice.

The following of the Lord of history is an acknowledgment that our past, present and future belong to Jesus Christ. We study the past, therefore, in order to understand the ways in which God has dealt with the human race and also to understand the consequences of separation from God. We read the present, the signs of the times, in order to understand what God is telling us now about the directions in which we are heading and in which we should be heading. We long for the future, when all injustices will be redressed in Christ, "when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven" (2 Thessalonians 1:7) and we "will be revealed with him in glory" (Colossians 3:4).

12. The Rejected One

We follow Jesus, the rejected one: the Messiah rejected by his brother and sister Jews; the last of a long line of rejected Hebrew prophets who fulfilled the prophecy that "he was despised and rejected by others" (Isaiah 53:3); the embarrassing family member who was rejected by his family for seeming to have gone out of his mind (Mark 3:21); the teacher who was rejected by many when his teaching cut too deep; the arrested master who was rejected by his own disciples and even denied by one of his best friends; the tortured and battered prisoner who was rejected by the mob in favor of a convicted criminal; the crucified Son who repeated the words of the psalm about being forsaken by God; the originator of Christianity rejected by millions of people down the centuries.

By all the standards of the world, Jesus died a failure, and yet he is the one we follow. We follow the rejected one, and we are at our best when we are rejected and when we align ourselves with those who are rejected. The best of the saints, like Paul of Tarsus and Thomas More, were thrown in prison and martyred by those who rejected them. The best of Christians, like Francis de Sales and Mother Teresa, have been those who serve the rejected of society. The best of the theologians, like the original scholastics and the liberation theologians, have been rejected by their ecclesiastical superiors. The best periods of Church history, like the early centuries, have been periods of rejection and persecution.

The least commendable leaders of the church have been those who aligned themselves with worldly success. The least effective Christians have been those who turned their backs on the rejected of the world and committed themselves to the well-being of the already successful. The worst periods of Church history have been those in which the church attached itself to the powers of the world, to those who knew only success in the process of establishing themselves over everyone else.

"He began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected" (Mark 8:31). Notice the word must: the rejection was a necessity! Indeed, the rejection was our salvation. Until we can fully absorb that view of rejection, we will continue to value success and to miss the point about Jesus Christ and about the following of Jesus Christ.

13. Our Peace

We follow Jesus Christ, who "is our peace" (Ephesians 2:14) and "proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near" (Ephesians 2:17). Through Christ "God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross" (Colossians 1:20).

Jesus was a man of great peace, even when surrounded by turmoil (Matthew 8:23-26). He insisted that the paralytic be brought to peace within his soul before his body would be cured (Mark 2:1-12). In his parable of the sower (Matthew 13:1-23; Mark 4:1-9; Luke 8:4-15), he taught his followers to have peaceful confidence in the face of obstacles. He identified the major obstacles to peace: the desire to be first (Mark 9:33-35), the desire to cling to one's own clan (Mark 9:38-40), placing blood ties above higher bonds (Mark 3:31-35), using religion to destroy life rather than to preserve it (Mark 3:1-6), and equating religion with patriotism (Mark 12:13-17). He taught that peace comes from reaching out in faith for wholeness (Mark 5:25-34); that peace involves reconciliation and forgiveness (Mark 2:13-17); that the ideal of peace reflects childlike innocence (Mark 10:13-16); and that peace includes strong action against social wrongs (Mark 11:15-17). He faced the sinful woman and responded with a message of peace (Luke 7:50). He faced the woman with a hemorrhage, and responded with a message of peace (Luke 8:48). The risen Christ faced the disciples for the first time since they had betrayed and abandoned him, and he responded with a message of peace (John 20:19). The revelation in Christ was that of a "God not of disorder but of peace" (I Corinthians 14:33). It was a revelation that included commands to turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39), to love your enemies (Matthew 5:44), and to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9).

We follow Christ our Peace every time we pray for peace; every time we make any kind of move to break the cycle of violence and to break the link between violence and courage; every time we puncture the myth of war as noble and glorious; every time we are aggressive in the struggle against militarism; every time we speak out for peace and vote for peacemakers; every time we encourage the right kind of patriotism; every time we support international peace organizations such as the United Nations; every time we participate in an active peace movement; every time we educate our children in peaceful ways; every time we examine our consciences from a peace perspective; every time we are peacemakers in our personal and public lives; every time we are at peace with ourselves and with others.

14. Man

We follow Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, who was born a male human being. The maleness of Jesus has not been a significant issue in the theological tradition of the Catholic Church, but it has been appealed to in our century in an effort to justify the refusal of clerical ordination to women, and since the official church wants the issue to be on the table, we should oblige and discuss it. It is especially important for us to confront the issue because "of all the doctrines of the church, christology is the one most used to subordinate and exclude women."²⁹

Jesus the male contradicted in his life and teaching all the standard male stereotypes. Where men are supposed to be strong, Jesus tried to convince his followers to be yielding: "if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile" (Matthew 5:40-41). Where men are supposed to be forceful, Jesus taught that the meek will be blessed (Matthew 5:5), and he described himself as "gentle and humble in heart" (Matthew 11:29). Where men are supposed to be confrontational, Jesus taught his followers to be peacemakers. Where men are supposed to be always the adult, Jesus taught his followers to be childlike: "unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3). Where men are supposed to be competitive, Jesus encouraged his followers to be cooperative, teaching them that "whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave" (Matthew 20:27). Those Christians who value the maleness of Jesus should be at the forefront on counteracting the notion of the male which dominates our society, for that notion stands in direct contradiction to the image of the male that comes to us from the male human being, Jesus of Nazareth.

We follow Jesus, the male human being who is coming to be recognized more and more as a feminist³⁰ and an advocate for women.³¹ Our following of Jesus teaches us that "anyone who wants to overemphasize Christ's maleness in order to establish prerogatives of males ('priests') over females has not understood Jesus as the liberator of all people, men and women, and has not understood the way he liberated us."³² Our following of Jesus also teaches us that any man called and ordained to the priesthood "should realize that he cannot represent Christ, the prophetic priest, unless he has a natural and supernatural resemblance to Christ, the Servant, and therefore renounces all kinds of sexism."³³ We follow Jesus Christ in working for the liberation of all women from the oppressions imposed on them by a male-dominated society, and we follow Jesus Christ in working for the liberation of all men from the terrible burdens placed on them by a society that expects them to be something they are not and should not be.

15. The One Who Belongs to the World

We follow Jesus Christ, who came to save the whole world and therefore belongs to the whole world. The Word was made flesh precisely at that point where Europe, Africa and Asia meet: it was God's way of indicating that the Incarnation was a world event, and Jesus a world figure. We who follow this world figure work to change the old attitude that "the Faith is Europe and Europe is the Faith."³⁴ The faith is European and Asian and African and Latin American because Jesus belongs to the world. He cannot be appropriated by Catholics or Protestants or Orthodox, and his Spirit speaks not only in the voices of those who call themselves Christian but also in those who speak the truth, for "all truth, whoever utters it, is from the Holy Spirit."³⁵

Jesus Christ belongs to the Jews, for he is their brother in a blood sense and he suffered, as they have, at the hands of unjust oppressors. Jesus Christ belongs to the oriental religions, with whom he shares so much in common that we can speak, for example, of The Unknown Christ of Hinduism.³⁶ Jesus Christ belongs to Catholics, for whom he is primarily the Crucified Lord and the head of the Church. Jesus Christ belongs to Protestants, for whom he is primarily the teacher and the Word of God. Jesus Christ belongs to the Orthodox, for whom he is primarily the Risen Lord. Jesus Christ belongs to the humanists of the world, who find in his compassion and openness a kindred spirit. Jesus Christ belongs to the outcasts of the world, who have him as their liberator, their source of hope. Jesus Christ belongs to the powerful of the world, who find in him a loving challenge to free themselves from their slavery to power. Jesus Christ belongs to the poor and hungry and homeless of the world, who have in him their justice, their vindication. Jesus Christ belongs to the wealthy of the world, who have him as their friend, calling them to a new way, a way of being rather than having. Jesus Christ belongs to all who work for the coming of the kingdom, for "Christ is at work wherever people are struggling for freedom and renewal, seeking for fullness of life, peace and joy."³⁷

Any attempt to appropriate Christ to oneself will not work. The rest of us will simply ignore the move and go about our business of following Christ.

NOTES

¹ Moser and Leers, Moral Theology, p. 107.

² Thomas D. Hanks, "Why People Are Poor," in Kenneth Aman, ed., Border Regions of Faith, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987, p. 417.

³ Anton Wessels, Images of Jesus, Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1990, p. 17.

⁴ James H. Cone, "Black Theology and Black Power," in Border Regions of Faith, p. 155.

⁵ Karl Rahner, SJ, Christian in the Market Place, New York: Sheed & Ward, 1966, pp. 70-71.

⁶ John H. Yoder, "Minority Themes," Walter Block and Irving Hexham, eds., Religion, Economics and Social Thought, Vancouver, BC: The Fraser Institute, 1986, p. 301.

⁷ Gutierrez, The Power of the Poor in History, pp. 60-61.

⁸ Jaroslav Pelikan, Jesus Through the Centuries, New York: Harper & Row, 1987.

⁹ See footnote 3.

¹⁰ Ivone Gebara and Maria Clara Bingemer, Mary: Mother of God, Mother of the Poor, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1989, p. 6.

¹¹ See Kammer, Doing Faithjustice, p. 46.

¹² David S. Cunningham, "Structures of Interest, Structures of Love: A Response to Michael Novak," America, 22 April 1989, p. 371.

¹³ Desmond Tutu, Hope and Suffering, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983, p. 84.

¹⁴ Häring, Free and Faithful in Christ, vol. I, p.137.

¹⁵ Jose-Maria Gonzalez-Ruiz, "The Political Meaning of Jesus in the Christian Community's Political Commitment," Political Commitment and Christian Community, Concilium, Vol. 84; New York: Herder and Herder, 1973, p. 38.

¹⁶ Easter Vigil, the Easter Proclamation (Exsultet).

¹⁷ Third preface for the Sundays in ordinary time.

¹⁸ Second Sunday in ordinary time, alternative opening prayer.

¹⁹ See Häring, Free and Faithful in Christ, vol. I, pp. 121-22.

²⁰ Images of Jesus, p. 94.

²¹ Julius Wellhausen, Einleitung in die Drei Ersten Evangelien, 2nd ed., Berlin: Reimar, 1911, p. 102.

²² Vatican II, Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (1965) 4.

²³ Jesus Through the Centuries, p. 20.

²⁴ William Davies, "The Significance of the Law in Christianity," in Christians and Jews, Hans Kung and Walter Kasper, eds., Concilium, 8:10, New York: Seabury Press, 1974/5, p. 26.

²⁵ U.S. Bishops, Brothers and Sisters to Us (1979), art. 23.

²⁶ Moser and Leers, Moral Theology, p. 92.

²⁷ Vatican II, Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (1965), a. 10.

²⁸ U.S. Bishops, Economic Justice for All (1986), a. 54.

²⁹ Elizabeth A. Johnson, "Jesus, The Wisdom of God," Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, 1985, p. 263.

³⁰ Leonard Swidler, "Jesus Was a Feminist," Catholic World (January 1971), pp. 177-83.

³¹ Brennan Hill, Jesus the Christ: Contemporary Perspectives, Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1991, chapter five, pp. 99-121.

³² Häring, Free and Faithful in Christ, vol. I, p. 139.

³³ Ibid., p. 140.

³⁴ Hilaire Belloc, Europe and the Faith, New York: Paulist Press, 1921, p. viii.

³⁵ St. Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, 1.8 in contr. 1.

³⁶ Raimundo Panikkar, The Unknown Christ of Hinduism, London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1964.

³⁷ Stanley Samartha, "Mission and Movements of Innovation," Mission Trends No. 3, G.H. Anderson and T.F. Stransky, eds., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976, pp. 242-43.