These words we've just heard are called The Great Commission. They are the last words Jesus spoke in the Gospel of Matthew. They are a crystal clear call to mission. No other permission needs to be received. “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go, therefore....” There is work yet to be done.
Have you noticed that you don't hear a lot these days about “foreign missions?” Is that because every place on earth has now been reached by the Gospel and there's nothing more to do in Asia, Africa, the Pacific islands, South America? Does it mean that there's no money for it any more so we just quietly stopped doing it?
When my parents were young they went to “mission rallies.” They were like pep rallies for foreign missions. Rousing songs were sung. Exciting stories-from-the-front were told. Money was raised. No one does that any more. How come? I actually owe my life to mission rallies! That's how my grandparents met. Herman Borchers was hand-pumping an organ in some sweltering Oklahoma church, and Anna Friis felt sorry for him and brought him a lemonade. But young couples no longer meet at mission rallies. We don't have them. Why? What are we doing overseas?
When the first Christian missionaries went to China with early explorers and traders, they would march into a village, round up all the peasants, march them down to the river at spear point and baptize them in Dutch or Portuguese. This had two results: it bewildered and annoyed the peasants (though it did not convert them); and it aggrevated the local Chinese warlords. They said, 'you can't treat our peasants this way,' and thdy threw the missionaries out of China. When European missionaries were later allowed to return they realized they needed a more subtle approach. They'd learned that the warlord was the gatekeeper to the people. So they'd work on converting the warlord... who then marched his peasants down to the river to force them all into baptism! When it had become clear that this was bringing China no closer to accepting Christianity in any meaningful way, the Pope sent in the Jesuits, the Seal Team 6 of the Vatican. The Jesuits learned Chinese, dressed Chinese, ate Chinese, studied Confucius, engaged Chinese academicians in debate, trying to establish the intellectual superiority of Christianity, with the hopes of opening a door that way. But the Jesuits were all called home and chastised for becoming too Chinese.
We are not sending many missionaries overseas any more. We're bringing their students here to receive Masters Degrees, then sending them back to pastor their own people. And we're bringing their pastors here to receive their doctorates in order to go home and teach in seminaries at home to bring up the next generation of pastors right there.
So what do we do now with the Great Commission? How do we go, making disciples? Baptizing? Teaching? How do we do that, other than by financially supporting seminaries that teach foreign students?
When I lived in Sandusky, OH there was a fella there who was a breeder of hunting dogs. He felt the call to build a church and call himself the pastor, so he did. He had about 12-15 people that would worship in a barn. Then he felt a call to feed the hungry. So he went into the city and bought an old house on the poor side of the tracks and converted it into a soup kitchen. He's cooking along, serving about 50-60 people a night, when the city inspectors wrote him up for a violation: he didn't have the right kind of range hood and vent for his industrial kitchen. He was given 30 or 60 days to remedy that, and during that time an acquaintance of a friend of a friend who sat on the board of Cedar Point, the big amusement park that makes Sandusky famous – this third party asks the park to support the local community by supporting the soup kitchen. $30,000 worth of upgrades are installed in the kitchen to bring it up to code and the kitchen goes on.
This all happened before my first visit to the kitchen. I took youth groups there to peel potatoes and do dishes. About this time Herb Thompson retired. He was a plumber. He retired and after about two days of pacing around the house he started making his wife Betty crazy. I invited Herb seven months in a row to come with the youth and peel potatoes before he finally did. Herb loved it, and made every Thursday afternoon his day to go volunteer. He soon started talking about it with his buddies at the VFW and invited them to go with him on Thursday afternoons.
Now, which part of this story is a fulfillment of the Great Commission? Every bit of it! Answering the call to serve, feeding the hungry, volunteering, inviting, a cup of cold water for the least of these, stewardship, giving as generously as one has received... we love, because God first loved us. It's all the Great Commission.
Did you know that indiginous churches in Africa and South America look at North America and Europe, whom they refer to as the “neo-pagan North,” and are sending missionaries to our cities because it's so obvious that we need to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ? Rather than being embarrassed by that can we see that as a sign that our “foreign missions” of the 20th century were successful enough that they've come full circle? Grandpa and Grandma's mission rally had a hand in this.
Now, if we choose to focus on domestic missions, which is what is left to us, and what is most needed, how do we do it? How do we carry out the Great Commission here at home? We do it by teaching and remembering. Jesus said, “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, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” So that's what we'll do. We'll teach the people of the world to do everything Jesus has commanded us to do. In other words, we'll ask people to do as we do. And we will do what Jesus has commanded, namely,
- you will be my witnesses, starting in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
- Love one another as I have loved you.
- Take and eat; take and drink.
- Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone;
- Feed my lambs, tend my sheep;
And all the while we're doing this, amid our doubts, and self-doubts, facing our fears and frustrations and distractions, we will remember that the Living Christ is with us always... to the end of the age.
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