You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached — how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how He went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with Him. Acts 10:37-38
What follows here is a study of some of the dimensions of faith that are front and center when we consider the materiality of our faith. That material aspect of faith is grounded in our conviction about creation: the world is God’s creation that God has called good. It is further grounded in our conviction concerning the incarnation, the confession that God has come bodied (“became flesh,” John 1:14) in Jesus of Nazareth, who “went about doing good” (Acts 10:38) of a vigorously material kind: The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them (Luke 7:22).
That materiality performed by Jesus is not to be confused with materialism, because the gospel accent on the material is grounded in the conviction that the truth of our life summons us to hope-filled obedience, an obedience that is always referred back in gladness to the goodwill of the creator God. Nobody called Jesus a “materialist” because He healed the sick or brought good Jubilee news to the poor. I judge that, after the manner of His ministry, attention to the material dimensions of our common life and our capacity for critical, honest, faithful thought and action is urgent in our cultural context.
I intend to suggest that the church, and most particularly its leadership, have both an obligation and an opportunity to reengage the materiality of faith after a very long run of avoidance. In what follows I explore aspects of our shared bodily existence wherein all of the gifts and tasks of evangelical faith are deeply operative. I can readily think of five dimensions of this materiality – money, food, the body, time, and place – and readers may think of many others as well. The aim is that we may ingest “solid food” and become more “mature,” with skills and faculties for moral thought and moral action in the real world. I have no wish to deny the personal or the otherworldly aspects of our faith, but I have no doubt that redress about the centrality of the material is urgent among us.”
Walter Brueggemann in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), Introduction.
I board a plane for Newark, then Dubai, then Hyderabad, India, were I will serve until 30 August. Thanks for your prayers. In the meantime let’s lean into our obligation and opportunity.
Rather than allow those we serve linked to the gospel to fall into materialism, let’s challenge them to a life of doing good everywhere with materiality. And notice why we can do this from today’s Scripture.
Jesus did good everywhere, the text says, because God was with Him. God is with us too. And Jesus said the same power at work in Him to cause Him to rise from the dead is at work in us.
I go to India expecting to do good, to bring healing to broken lives, and to bring deliverance from the power of the devil. Why? Because I know that God is with me.
Let’s do this. Let’s make this journey from materialism to materiality. Let’s invite others to explore money, food, the body, time, and place. And let’s do this not just as an obligation but making the most of the opportunity!