Simplicity comes first. We do not proclaim ourselves, says St Paul, we don’t offer ourselves as the answer to everyone’s questions. We bring the knowledge of the great gifts God has given in his promise of reconciliation and renewal, and we bring our own struggles to live in the atmosphere of reconciliation and renewal ”“ pointing always to God as the one who begins the whole story and brings it to its full realisation. We learn to walk lightly and to travel light, grateful for the gifts of human culture but not making them an absolute.
Risk and solidarity come next. We don’t seek to protect ourselves, to do no more than keep the little circle of the Christian family warm and secure. We walk along the roads of human suffering, accompanying the lost and anxious and oppressed in the name of Jesus.
And reverence comes third. We approach our neighbours not with arrogance and impatience but with a readiness to learn and a willingness to rejoice in the rich texture of their human lives, individual and cultural. We look and listen for God in all that lies before us.
If we can continue in this ‘barefoot’ mission, we shall be opening ourselves up to the simplicity of Jesus himself and so to the transforming grace and beauty of his own mission.
Very nicely and sensitively put; perhaps I was looking to hear a little more of the good news as well as the costs of mission, but then perhaps this church knows more than many what those costs may entail. I hope this gives encouragement to Anglicans in Japan, and for the rest of us to learn more about them. Prayers for that amazing church.
If readers are interested in the church in Japan and in its history, I would urge them to learn more about the remarkable Bishop Henry St. George Tucker. AND if they’re really interested, to consider writing a biography of him. His papers are readily available (for East Coast residents, anyway) at VTS and I think also in Richmond. If anyone’s interested, see my short article on him in American National Biography, which includes biblio.