Category — Mission

People will lie to us, cheat us, treat us badly, and disappoint us.  It is not if, but when.  And when they do, how are we to react? 

One response that I am continually tempted to make and one that I must guard against is what might be called ’holy license’.  In this response, the bad actions or attitudes of the other gives me license to come down on him or her in holy indignation and wrath.  If he cheats me, then he deserves to be robbed of reputation.  If she mistreats me, then I have license to mistreat her verbally or emotionally.  If he does not meet my standards of morality and behavior, then I have permission to reject or to trash him in public.  I confess that as a religious person my tendency is toward holy license.

The problem with holy license is twofold.  First, Jesus, of all people, could have acted with holy indignation and wrath toward cheats, scoundrels, prostitutes, and thieves, and yet, he responded with overwhelming grace and love.  The cheat and swindler Zaccheus, the thief on the cross, and the prostitute Mary Magdalene received grace and love from Jesus, and as a result, redemption and transformation took root in their lives.  On the other hand, Jesus judged the Scribes and Pharisees for their self-righteous condemnation of these people.  Jesus’ response to the marginalized, non-religious, sinners jolted and confronted the religous types with an entirely new way of treating men and women. 

Second, license is predicated on the assumption that I am above cheating, lying, or moral failure.  The truth is that I am not!  I am a cheat and a liar.  I can be a jealous, coveting, unfaithful, and selfish person.  Oh, I am being transformed by God’s grace and love, but this transformation is by God’s grace and not because of my innate or natural goodness.  I am the tax cheat in the tree, the thief on the cross, and the petty person passing judgment on others.  The only difference is that I am on the way to being changed by Jesus’ response and, in like manner, called to live by the same response.

Jesus says, “you have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’  But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on the your right cheek, turn the other to him also.”  However, religious culture says just the opposite.  From every direction, I hear that I am above or better than certain kinds of people (e.g., homosexuals or the homeless).  Or I am told that I should expect certain people and institutions to protect my Christian rights or my Christian way of life over against the rights and lifeways of the non-religious or Muslims.  I am allowed to live within a legal and social bubble that protects me from encounters with ‘illegal aliens’.  I am told to construct and maintain walls that insulate me and my family from the ‘moral degenerates’ or ’social misfits’.  I have permission to slander and verbally abuse a ‘liberal democrat’, because of his or her stance on social and moral issues.  I am encouraged to use whatever powers necessary to establish a conservative, Christian culture in school, the mall, courthouse, media, and government.  Religious culture grants me license to react, defend, correct, insulate … even insult.  If love is prescribed, in most cases it is easy, cheap love or demeaning pity.

To the contrary - following Jesus means that I forfeit holy license and righteous indignation, my religious and cultural rights.  When the world strikes me on the cheek because of my confession of Jesus, my moral choices, or my stance on abortion, I am to turn the other cheek toward them for another blow.  The Jesus way means that I do not hit back or push away but reach toward and embrace in grace and love. 

When I was a young man living in Sri Lanka, an elderly Christian man living in a village in the north visibly demonstrated for me the Jesus way.  Because he was the only Christian in a predominately Buddhist village, he was treated poorly.  In fact, he was cheated, ridiculed, and ostricized.  One day after arriving back to his home from a trip to the market, he noticed that the man at the place where he bought his vegetables had given him too much money in return.  My friend put down his goods and walked the mile plus back to the seller and return the excess money.  The man exclaimed - “everyone here tries to cheat me out of money and you bring money back to me.  Why didn’t you keep it, I would have never known.”  My friend replied - “I have a master who counts my money, and he would have known.”

A friend has disappointed me.  A brother is lying to me.  A colleague is saying things about me that are not true.  Do I live to get back at these people, or do I hope that they know my Master through my love and embrace?  License or love - Jesus has liberated me to choose love; the world is liberated through my choice of love.

Grading is the hard but necessary part of my job.  However, it does give me opportunity to read through some great stuff from students.  The following is excerpted from a student’s statement of her personal mission theology.

The collective blessed ones, the people of God, are known as the church. The mission cannot be separated from the identity of God’s people.  Mission is who the church is, not what the church does. It is God’s mission, however, and not the church’s mission. The mission of church is to actively and faithfully bear witness to who they are and to their God.  God has a church for his mission, and not a mission for the church.  Through the participation in God’s redemptive and restorative mission, both the church and the world are changed.

Well said, Ashley!

I performed a wedding this past weekend for two dear friends.  When I asked what scripture passage they wanted to use in the service, their response was Psalm 126.  At first I thought ‘how strange and different’, but given who this couple is and their unusual commitment to live in service to God’s mission, Psalm 126 is perfect.  Below is the text of what I said.

Psalm 126
This is the end of the beginning - a beginning that is more than just the two of you meeting, the trip to Indonesia, and your proposal.  This beginning has been the years of love, care, and prayers of family, teachers, friends, and mentors.  All of us who have been part of this beginning are gathered to witness and launch you into this next half of the journey.

The Psalm you have chosen is about people on a journey - its a pilgrim Psalm.  It was read or recited as Israelites ascended to Jerusalem and the temple.  Its purpose was to remind them of certain things along the way.  In it we hear lament, as they recall the hardship of captivity.  But it is also a Psalm of great joy - their mouths filled with laughter, and with joyful shouting.  As they journeyed, they wanted to remember both the lament and joy.

This is not the normal wedding passage.  Usually we hear about love, or how wonderful life will be together.  But then, you are not the normal couple, are you?  By choosing this passage, I believe you want to say some particular things about who you are and what you want your marriage to be.  You are making three choices:

You choose to be like those who Dream.
In the Psalm, the children of Israel were returning from 70 years of captivity in Babylon.  They were returning to ruined homes and empty fields.  They were living with the reality of loss of power, possessions, and status.  But they were also dreaming of what could be.

In the same way, you have decided that you will not live with what is, or what others might define as normal or expected, or with the fears you might put on yourselves.  Instead, you choose to live like those who dream.  The fact is - God has already done something beyond your wildest dreams.  So, why not believe him for even greater things? - his promises, his best, his purposes!

As witnesses to your union, we want to say - Dream!  Dream of what God could do in your lives and through your lives.  My guess is that it is beyond your wildest dreams.

You choose to Laugh.
The Israelites knew they were returning to a mess - walls needed to be re-built, fields prepared and replanted, homes re-established.  They knew this was going to be hard and difficult work, but they also knew there would be joy in the end.  So, with the mess in front of them, they laughed.  The Psalm says “their mouths are full of laughter and their tongues with joyful shouting.”

You have already said … we want to walk off the beaten path, in far away places, and we know it will be tough.  In fact, I think you are saying we want it to be tough because we want to reap a great harvest.  And knowing this … your mouths are full of laughter and you are shouting for joy!  You are saying we want to live contrary to a mindset that hoards and protects.  You want to give much, so that you will see much fruit and joy.

Jesus says the same thing in John 12:24:
‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.’

As those who know your commitment to the difficult places and hurting people in this world, we say go with confident to those places, give yourselves completely so that you may be full of joy.  As you journey to these places and endure the hard sowing, anticipate the joy.

You choose to be Witnesses.
The Israelites were aware that as they returned, the nations were looking on, wanting to see how the Israelites would live and what their God would do for them.  In the Psalm, they are saying - we hope the nations take note of how our God carries us in the midst of ruin and destruction, and say ‘The Lord has done great things for them’. 

Ashley and Jayson, your ultimate hope is not marital bliss, a two-storied house with a white picked fence, or even old age.  Your hope is that in your marriage, in your work, and in your bodies, that the power and glory of God might be made visible and clear.  Your hope is that friends and family, Burmese and Indonesians will take note that Ashley and Jayson’s God has done great things.  Your hope is that God is glorified through your lives.

I charge you, from this first day of your married life to the end of your days - be dreamers, joyfully hope in God’s power, and give witness to his glory.

“Missionary work must be either the relation of the Church to the world, or a fad of a few.” 
 -Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church, p. 98.

Mother Teresa witnessed the power of God’s Light shining in darkness.  Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the ‘Saint of Calcutta’ (Doubleday, 2007) exposes the inner life of Mother Teresa and gives fresh explanation for what motivated her.  She recounts that on September 10, 1946, while traveling by train from Calcutta to Darjeeling, she encountered Christ.  He simply said to her, “I thirst.”  She took this to mean that Christ was the diseased and dying of India and that she was to give water to them, and thus to Him.  And then she said that Christ invited her to join him as “a victim of India.”  She was to take to herself the suffering and death of those abandoned, left to die.  And then toward the end of this encounter, she heard the words, “Come be My Light.” 

Her years of service in Calcutta were not a call to become a saint or a Noble Laureate.  Her call was to suffer and to be light in and through that suffering.  Her victimization led her to embrace the diseased and dying and to stand in solidarity with the poor.  She did not stand at a distance to offer consolation and pity, but shone as light from within the prison house of death and darkness.  Her letters and diary entries repeat over and over that the darkness is real, brutal, painful, lonely, difficult - it is dark!  Her calling was to be God’s light in its midst.

Boldness and confidence in ministry and proclamation arise from weakness.  While God uses our sharpened skills and trained minds, in the end it is by his grace and mercy that any of us are used, and it is through his power that our words have effect.  The problem is that too often an acknowledgement of my honed skills and my mind turns into a triumphalism that lauds my abilities to accomplish much for God.  Or I rely on my gadgets, technologies, and technique to bring in the kingdom of God.  Or I elevate my national or cultural achievements above the ways of God.  In the end, I turn the mission of God into my mission. 

Worst of all, in this triumphalism, I fear the darkness.  I am unable to confidently confess Christ because I am afraid of becoming victim to others who might inconvenience me, use me, or trample me.  I have to fear the darkness because it might engulf me, and I become unknown and pass into obscurity.  Triumphal mission and ministry cannot go to prison, will not embrace those dying, and must not suffer as a victim.  Because the darkness scares us to death, we run from it and thus as well from the power and purpose of the Spirit.

The witness of Mother Teresa and many others is that we can trust the Spirit’s power and purposes.  In fact, in this kind of trust there is great freedom to believe God and to witness God’s power.  The good news is that the mission of God does not rise or fall on my skill or mind.  The good news is that God meets us in the dark and difficult, uses our weakness, and thereby, shines his light.

In 1792 William Carey wrote a short pamphlet entitled An Enquiry into the Obligation of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens.  In just a few pages, he highlights the state of the world, reasons with his Baptist brethren about their obligation to obey Christ’s commission, and issues a call for them to take radical steps in order to “spread the knowledge of [the Lord's] name.” 

During this past week I was in a workshop on the training of church members to give cross-cultural witness to Christ.  I noticed that the lady sitting next to me was reading Carey’s Enquiry.  After some time of reading, she turned to me and pointed out a passage toward the end of the pamphlet.  It reads …

We must not be contented however with praying, without exerting ourselves in the use of means for the obtaining of those things we pray for.  Were the children of light but as wise in their generation as the children of this world they would stretch every nerve to gain so glorious a prize, nor ever imagine that it was to be obtained in any other way. 

She remarked that these words reminded her of the Olympic games and the quest of so many for prizes of gold, silver, and bronze and for the honor of country.  No more had to be said.  Her remark and the look on face said it all.  She was asking, does the mission of church even come close to the significance of the Olympics and might this mission require the same level of pursuit?

A total of 10,500 athletes have traveled to Beijing to compete in the XXIX Olympiad.  Of course, tens of thousands trained in the hopes of competing in Beijing but did not qualify.  All of these men and women have expended their best efforts, sacrificed their youth, laid aside other hopes and dreams … just to compete.  Only a minority will compete, and an even smaller group will win the prize.  Millions of us sit transfixed at the dedication and valor of these athletes.

Carey, along with the apostle Paul, calls the children of light of his generation to the same kind of dedication and valor - “to press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14).  Carey says stretching every nerve is not an extra obligation, but it is the only manner in which the prize can be obtained.  With the intensity of a swimmer reaching for every inch in his quest to reach the wall first, or the sprinter exploding from the blocks with every ounce of energy she possesses, or the gymnast straining to hold his body steady suspended between rings … with the same stretch of every nerve, I am to labor, live, and love in my calling to make Jesus Christ known. 

I have to admit that I do not stretch every nerve in this calling.  And this is simply because I do not regard this prize as worthy of my best effort, sacrifice, and dreams.  Nevertheless, I am told that this prize will not rust but is imperishable, will not fade but is eternal, will not become old news but remains fresh.  This is because the prize is not an award, fame, or news clippings but Jesus himself - to know him and be found in him.  When I clearly see that the prize is not self-righteousness, church growth, or even ministry and missions but Jesus, then I find myself desiring to turn my whole being toward this quest.  The questions for me are …

• Is Jesus enough? - Is he the gold that I will sacrifice everything to obtain?
• Will I discipline and train my appetites, desires, and hopes so that loving and serving Jesus and others consumes and possesses me? 
• What will disqualify me from running this race to end of my life?

This is the race I want to run - the prize I hope to gain.

I have a friend - Heather Herschap.  She is truly one of the most remarkable people I have had the privilege of knowing.  I am so fortunate to know her and call her my friend. 

Since graduating from Truett Seminary one year ago, Heather has been trying to get to India to work with those who are physically challenged.  She has already worked in India, and so this is not just a wish or something she wants to try; it is her life commitment.  She has found an agency to send her, gone through their training, and raised the necessary funds.  She is ready to go … but can’t leave.  Heather needs an assistant/care giver to accompany her.  This not just a matter of hiring someone but this person would need to be led by God to work in India and with the disabled, and she would need to be a team with Heather, helping her with her physical as well as administrative needs.  Heather needs someone, and someone needs Heather. 

Maybe you know someone who should pursue this calling with Heather.  For sure you can pray that God will speak to the right person about joining Heather in loving well a special group of people in India.  For more information regarding Heather and her time in India, see her story in the Baptist Standard.

I eagerly await Dana Robert’s forthcoming book on the history of the Christiam mission.  Christian Mission: How Christianity Became a World Religion (Wiley-Blackwell) will be released in March 2009.  My hope is that in Robert’s book we have a replacement for Stephen Neill’s A History of Christian Missions.  It is time for a fresh re-telling of the story of the expansion of the Christian faith.  The story needs to be retold in a way that a broader audience can read and appreciate.  Previews indicate that in Part I, Robert chronicles “The Making of a World Religion,” and in Part II, she deals with “Themes in Mission History.”  Dana Robert is the Truman Collins Professor of World Christianity and the History of Missions at Boston University.  She has authored numerous works on the history of Christian missions and non-Western Christianity.

J. E. Lesslie Newbigin (1909-98) stands as one of the towering figures of the 20th century.  As missionary, theologian, ecumenist, and churchman, he uniquely addresses the trinitarian nature of mission, the gospel in culture, and the church’s role in God’s mission.  Ten years after his death, he is read more than ever. 

Newbigin.Net contains an extensive bibliography and document archive of Newbigin’s writings.  Much of the same information is located at http://www.newbigin.net .  However, the strength of the CD version is the powerful AskSam search engine.  I have done several searches and found it to be amazingly easy to use.  The back of the CD case reads: “It contains a comprehensive record of his writings, over two hundred items written by him-including, for example, items such as the previously unpublished ‘The Mission of the Triune God’, and his classic The Other Side of 1984 - and notable interactions with his thought. … This CD is a must for every student of Newbigin’s thought.” 

Lesslie Newbigin provides a prophetic voice for the church’s mission in the 21st century.  Newbigin.Net turns up the volume of this voice.  You can purchase your copy through the Gospel and Our Culture Network.