“he prefers partnership to mere accomplishment”

Michael Frost and Alan Hirsh, The Shaping of Things to Come

There’s a riddle in the Talmud that goes like this, “If God intended man to live by bread, why didn’t he create a bread tree?” And the answer is that, in fact, God could have created a tree that produced crusty loaves of bread, but he prefers to offer us a grain and invite us to buy a field and plant the seed. He prefers that we till the soil while he sends the rain. He prefers that we harvest the crop while he sends sunshine. He prefers that we grind the grain and knead it and bake it while he gives us air in our lungs and strength in our arms. Why? Because he would rather we become partners with him in creation.

Of course, God could simply supply our every need and solve our every problem. But our God invites us into a creative partnership with him. . . . We suppose he could have converted the whole world by now, but he prefers partnership to mere accomplishment (159).

Aaron Orendorff

It is striking and admittedly a bit jarring to entertain the thought that God “prefers partnership to mere accomplishment.” My basic orientation towards the two is exactly the opposite. I see partnership as the means and accomplishment and the ends. In other words, I regard accomplishment as the point and operate as if the real business of life was about “getting something done.” God, on the other hand, appears to think quite differently about the matter. The real business of life is partnership itself. Relationships are ends (not means) and “getting something done” is in many ways little more than a clever and handy excuse to partner.

Why?

Because God is interested in people, not projects. Real people demand real relationships. By inviting humanity into the process of creation and recreation—by making us agents of his kingdom’s coming—God is deliberately forfeiting productivity for the sake of process. He is saying (on purpose), “Yes, I’ll get less done and it’ll get done slower and there’ll be a lot more pain in the getting, but that’s the way I want to go. I want to go the way of people.”

In a similar way, we must begin to see our own relationships as ends in and of themselves. We love because we’ve been loved and because loving is good (morally and existentially), not because loving gets us somewhere. How would our approach to work, school, family, ministry and life all change if we adopted the same attitude as God? How would our approach to people be different if they themselves were what we were after and not what they might do for us?

“. . . to the end of the age.”

Matthew 28:16-20

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 2)

The “age to come” has already broken in to the “present age.” But, as Paul makes so clear, not until death itself is destroyed, and the whole world comes under the rule of Jesus, will God’s purpose be fully accomplished. How are we to conceive of this?

To answer, we come back to the Lord’s Prayer once more, set my Matthew at the heart of Jesus great Sermon (6.9-13), and forming a fitting way for us to take out leave of this great gospel. Bread, forgiveness and deliverance are, of course, always going to be needed as long as the present world continues. But there will come a time when those needs are swallowed up in the complete life of the new age: when God’s will is done on earth as in heaven, because heaven and earth have been joined together in the new creation; when God’s kingdom, established by Jesus in his death and resurrection, has finally conquered all its enemies by the power of the divine love; and when, in line with the ancient hopes of Israel, and now with the central intention of Jesus himself, the name of God is honored, hallowed, exalted and celebrated throughout the whole creation. Every time we say the words “Our father . . .” we are pleading for that day to be soon, and pledging ourselves to work to bring it closer (210).

“. . . the God who wills to be known.”

Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God

YHWH presents himself as the God who wills to be known. This self-communicating drive is involved in everything God does in creation, revelation, salvation and judgment. Human beings therefore are summoned to know YHWH as God, on the clear assumption that they can know him and that God wills that they should know him. . . . Accordingly, making God known is part of the mission of those who are called to participate in the mission of the God who wills to be known (74).

In the New Testament this divine will to be universally known is now focused on Jesus. It will be through Jesus that God will be known to the nations. And in knowing Jesus, they will know the living God. Jesus, in other words, fulfilled the mission of the God of Israel. Or to put it the other way round: the God of Israel, whose declared mission was to make himself known to the nations through Israel, now wills to be known to the nations through the Messiah, the one who embodies Israel in his own person and fulfills the mission of Israel to the nations. . . . Jesus is not merely the agent through whom the knowledge of God is communicated (as any messenger might be). He is himself the very content of the communication. Where Jesus is preached, the very glory of God shines through (122-3).