Lausanne World Pulse – Urban Articles – Theology of Place and the “Bethel” in Cite Du Peuple, Cap-Haitien, Haiti
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All too often, we limit the sacred to places of public worship. However, wherever Jesus is present in his followers, that place becomes “Bethel.” |
Yet Nathaniel is no hypocrite—only forthright. “How do you know me?” (literally, “Where do you know me from?”) he inquires. To a question that only Nathaniel would be able to affirm the answer, Jesus lets him know he understands more than could have been conceivably possible. “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you,” is Jesus’ reply. Nathaniel is invited to come and see. He realizes that Jesus was present before and saw him! The one who manifested such intimate knowledge of his person and movements had to be the person to whom the tradition pointed.
Nathaniel now affirms what Philip had explained. “Teacher, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.” These two titles will be unfolded as John continues telling the story of Jesus through his Gospel.
It must have been somewhat difficult and stunning to Nathaniel when Jesus said to him, “You will see greater things than these.” What possibly could be greater than being with someone who manifests such intimate knowledge into one’s person and one’s movements?
“Bethel” and the People of Cité du Peuple
John 1:51 is a true summary statement: “Let me firmly assure you collectively, that all of you [not just Nathaniel] will see heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” The reference to Jacob and the vision at Bethel (Genesis 28:10-22) is inescapable. The specific place where the presence of God on earth is experienced became “the house of God” for Jacob and subsequently for Israel.
But now Jesus changes the locus of divine glory and states that the point of contact for sacred places was not where the angels touched ground, but where he, the sacred person, is! Jesus appropriates sacred place. This is the greater thing that Nathaniel and all the people of God were now going to experience.
A theology of place begins to take shape. Wherever Jesus is, one is in a sacred or holy place. All too often, we limit the sacred to places of public worship, imparting to those sites the title, “the house of God.” John challenges us to remember that where Jesus is present in his followers, that place becomes “Bethel.”
As I walked the streets of Cité du Peuple with Mario, I unpacked this text with him. “Mario, where you are, because Jesus by his Spirit lives in you, this street becomes Bethel!” The smile on his face pointed to a new perspective on God’s project in the city. Mission takes place in the particular, specific details of God’s action in the story of Jesus all the way to the universal coming establishment of his authority in all spheres of the cosmos. This includes the very streets we walk on, the offices wherein we work and the neighbourhoods where we raise our kids.
There is no such thing as a disposable neighbourhood in God’s project for human history. Over the next year, you will meet many of the wonderful people who are taking people and place very seriously.
Endnotes
1. Peter is accused of a dialect in the scenes leading up to his third denial of Jesus in Matthew 26:73.
2. Holzmeister, U. 1940. Biblica. 21:28-39.
3. Genesis 27:35. F. F. Bruce interprets the verse, “Here is a true son of Israel…one who is all Israel and no Jacob.”
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Glenn Smith is senior associate for urban mission for the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization and is executive director of Christian Direction in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is a professor of urban theology and missiology at the École de théologie évangelique de Montréal at the Université de Montréal and at the Université chrétienne du Nord d’Haïti. He is also professor of urban missiology at Bakke Graduate University in Seattle, Washington, USA. |