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Mission
Possible
by Major Daniel
Freeman
We are called to be missionaries. I know that this is a loaded
statement with many cultural and historical context.
Perhaps there are
other words that may not carry as much baggage; however,
instead of creating a new phrase or using some ambiguous term,
allow me to take you on a walk through what it means to me to
be a missionary.
One of the best places to begin is with the Great Commission
where Jesus tells us in just a couple sentences what our job
as the body of Christ is —“…be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and
in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts
1:8 NIV) It is
interesting how this list of locations is a progression from
the known to the unknown, from the comfortable to the
uncomfortable, from the appreciated to the despised.
The first location that Jesus starts with is Jerusalem.
Jerusalem can be seen as a metaphor for the people who
we can connect easiest with such as our families, friends,
coworkers or others we socialize with.
They understand us.
They know our story and perhaps they have been exposed
to Christianity in a positive way so that you have a common
ground.
Judea is a step away from the familiar.
Perhaps in Judea you
do not have as much in common.
Maybe the same language, the same sports team, or the
types of food you eat. But
it is going to be harder to connect because you do not see
things the same way and their values may be different than
yours. Perhaps
what they think is important, you do not and it may be that
what you see as important they see as irrelevant.
It is with Judea that our work as a missionary begins.
Being a missionary or being missional is about
communicating the Gospel of Jesus Christ across boundaries. It
is about presenting the Gospel in a way that is understood by
others. It is so easy to say and so hard to do.
Jesus then presents the big challenge: Samaria.
A people and nation
despised by the Jews. If there is one group that was hard to
tolerate by the Jewish community it was the Samaritans. They
were the perverters of the Jewish faith.
They could be seen as
the worse of the worse as they took the Jewish beliefs and
twisted them for their benefit.
Jesus is challenging
us to reach out to the very people who we despise.
Who is that person? It
is different for everyone. It could be the foreigner.
It could be the
physically impaired, the very poor, the stinking drunk, the
drug addict, followers of our religion, the homosexual, the
transvestites, or perhaps the politician, the police officer,
or the very wealthy.
Just in case He missed anything, Jesus also adds, “to the ends
of the earth.”
This may seem extreme, especially after already mentioning
Samaria, but wasn’t that the very experience Paul had?
He found himself at
the ends of his earth, bound and imprisoned in the foreign
land of Rome. Admittedly,
Paul did have some connections to the Roman Empire as he was
citizen of that nation. Yet
his environment couldn’t get much different from his home
Jewish community. I would categorize this as “the people who
we can’t even possibly imagine exist.”
It is beyond our ability to see these people who
desperately want to connect with our God of love and grace.
Again we may not have
to travel for days by boat, plane, train or foot to find them.
They may live just around the street from our home.
I believe the bigger challenge is not in knowing the Great
Commission but rather in the implementation of it. I think we
can all agree that history is rife with examples of the
proclamation of the Gospel done wrong. Sometimes it was out of
selfishness, methods of exerting power, or just plain
ignorance. This is why we all need to be missionaries not in
the historical context of the past (regardless of right or
wrong) but rather in the Scriptural mandate to bring the
Gospel across all cultural boundaries. Again, this is what
being a missionary is about. Communicating the love of God and
the Good News of Jesus Christ to people who we have little in
common with and whose ways of thinking, habits and customs
clash with ours.
Unfortunately there are no formulas to follow.
There is no set of
instructions or checklist. However, there are basic principles
to practice. When reaching out past the Jerusalem to the
Judea, Samaria and beyond, the best advice we have is to
understand what Paul had to say about it.
His advice can be
found in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 where we are told to be all
things to all people so that they may be saved.
As a word of caution, I am not contending that we give up the
fundaments of our faith.
These we must never lose. Nor should we allow some
synchronistic molding of beliefs for the sake of winning
others. However, it is surprising how many of our perceptions
of our faith are not necessarily tied to our theology but
rather tied to our culture. This is what we need be ready to
sacrifice for the sake of others in order to be all things.
Like the story of Pilgrim’s Progress, we are all on a
spiritual journey, whether it is in our discovery of God and
His boundless love or the seasoned saint continuing to be
molded by God. If we
are to help people on their journey, then we need to be able
to walk alongside them, helping them along their way. To help
with their journey, we should consider three things.
The first is dialog. We need to hear what they are saying and
respond accordingly. It won’t help to go off a script.
We you need to discover where they are at in their
journey. We need
to use the greatest self-control to stop talking and listen to
what is being said.
Instead of planning the “great response” in our heads,
we should be listening to their words and the message behind
them so that we can respond to them where they are at in their
journey as opposed to where we used to responding by rote.
Second, we need to be sensitive to the moving of the Holy
Spirit. Philip was led
by God so that he would meet an Ethiopian on the road who was
trying to understand the Scriptures (Acts 8:26-40).
We need to be listening to the Spirit, for without the
intervention of the Holy Spirit there is no understanding of
the ways of God (1 Corinthians 2:9-16).
Third, we must love. I don’t mean in words, for that is far
too easy to be distrusted. I
mean in our actions. We
love by making little sacrifices of ourselves, of our time,
our money, and our resources. We show our love by giving
people our full attention. We love by our willingness to give
up what seems important to ourselves for the sake of others.
Jesus stated that the harvest is ready but it is the workers
that are lacking.
The farmer cannot treat a crop of corn like he would potatoes.
He does not expect the potato to act like corn when we
wants to harvest it.
Nor can we approach people with one method of
presenting the Gospel and expect them to be responsive.
Unfortunately, I have hardly skimmed the subject of
what it means to be a missionary.
I do hope this gets
you thinking about your “Judea, Samaria, and ends of the
earth.” The world is
full of people who need to hear the Gospel and need to hear it
in a way that they can understand.
If you challenge
yourself to approach them with love, a desire to dialog, and a
sensitivity to the working of the Holy Spirit, I pray that you
will become all things to all people so that they can be part
of the Body of Christ.
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