In thinking about what it means to be
a missionary to my community and culture, I’ve had to ask myself, “Do I have
any meaningful relationships with non-Christians?”
Honestly, the answer is that I don’t
know too many people who are not Christians. This means that I need more
practice at being missional. Jesus was a man of scandalous inclusion. He
regularly spent his time with known
drunkards, and prostitutes, and people commonly referred to as “sinners”. He
hung out with people you and I would never dream of hanging out with, and not
as an outreach, but simply because he loved them and wanted to have a
relationship with them.
“While Jesus was having dinner at
Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and
his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does
your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” On hearing this, Jesus
said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn
what this means: ‘I desire
mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not
come to call the righteous, but sinners.”- Jesus (Matthew 9: 10-13)
God’s heart is for those who are the
least and the lost. If we’re honest, we’d be scandalized to find out our pastor
was spending time partying with the prostitutes, drunkards and ‘sinners’ in our
community. Yet this is where Jesus was most often to be found, at the home of
someone the righteous would never be caught dead with. In my own heart, I want
the scales to fall off so
I can really love people the way Jesus
did. I want to love them for who they are, not judge them because of what
they’ve done. This means risking my own reputation in favor of caring for the
unlovely.My own scandalous inclusion could result in my being radically
excluded from many “righteous” gatherings. Am I really ready to make that
choice? Can I learn to love that way?
I am fascinated with the person of
Jesus. He is more incredible, more unsettling, more confounding than my Sunday
School teachers lead me to believe. His words have a bite that most sermons
play down, and his commands are more than enough to make anyone squirm in their
chair. There seems to be a huge gap between the life that Jesus led and the
life that I live each day.
“Whoever claims to live in him must
walk as Jesus did.” (1 John 2:6)
That’s an astounding and unsettling
statement. In my Bible I’ve penned the word, “Yowza!” next to this verse. You
might want to do the same. I’m finding more and more that my comfort
zone isn’t pleasing to God. I realize
that Jesus didn’t have a comfort zone and that means that neither should Many times I’ve excused myself from helping
people in need because I rationalize that they will only use the money for
drugs or alcohol, and so I’ve justified not helping them at all. I’ve even
assured myself that this is really what God would want me to do because I’m
actually being a “good steward” of my money by withholding such assistance. The
funny thing is that Jesus didn’t seem to act this way. In fact, using this
logic, Jesus was a really bad steward of his resources because he healed eyes
from blindness knowing that those people would surely use their eyes to lust or
to covet. He healed withered hands knowing that they would probably use those
hands to steal or to do violence to others. He healed lepers who would most
likely re-enter society and commit crimes.
Obviously, Jesus wasn’t as much
concerned with “being a good steward” as he was with showing compassion on
those in need and advancing the Kingdom of God. Of course, we should be wise in
the ways we help people in need. If someone says they’re in need of food, we
can offer to stand in line with them at a nearby fast-food chain and buy them
whatever they
want to eat. We can engage them in
conversation. Ask them their name. Listen to them as they speak. Offer to pray
for them as they sit down to eat their food. This is much better than simply
throwing money at someone who says they are hungry, and certainly more
Christlike than justifying our lack of assistance as “good stewardship.”
I’ve come to believe that the Holy
Spirit is all about making us uncomfortable when it comes to the poor, the
lost, and the broken around us. I believe we need to embrace our discomfort
zone because that’s where Jesus is usually operating in compassion and power.
Mother Teresa once said, “If sometimes
our poor people have had to die of starvation, it is not that God didn’t care
for them, but because you and I didn’t give, were not an instrument of love in
the hands of God, to give them that bread, to give them that clothing; because
we did not recognize him, when once more Christ came in distressing disguise,
in the hungry man, in the lonely man, in the homeless child, and seeking for
shelter.”
Do I have the right to my own comfort
zone?
Not if I’m trying to follow in the
footsteps of Jesus, I don’t. As long as I’m operating within my comfort zone I
will continue to be totally ineffective for God. Jesus was not safe. His
version of the Kingdom of God was not safe. Why, then, is my version of
Christian life so often about safety and comfort?
Faith seems to only be necessary for a
dangerous life. If my journey with Jesus is all about my safety and my comfort
or security, I’m probably not really walking where Jesus is walking.
Living out my calling to be missional,
then, is something that involves risk. It involves stepping into my own
discomfort zone. It requires real faith. It is not for the faint of heart.
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normal;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none'>I finally started to wake up to the
fact that mints were mints and labels were irrelevant. “All authority in heaven
and on Earth has been given unto me, therefore go and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey
everything I have commanded you. Surely I am with you always, even unto the
very end of the age.” - Jesus (Matthew 28:18)
It’s in the going that we experience
life with Christ. It’s not so much in the sitting or the attending that we
encounter Jesus, or become empowered by the Holy Spirit. We have to be in
motion, we have to “go”, in order to be the Church that God has called us to
be. As I’ve looked through the Scriptures I don’t often notice that the power
of God falls on people when they’re in the meeting. Instead, it is when the
disciples are in the marketplace, or walking along the way, that the Spirit of
God falls on His people in power.
When God pours out His Spirit on us,
it’s for a purpose. It’s not for our personal enjoyment. God fills us up in
order to send us out. The gifts we’re given are for others, and they’re meant
to be spent on others and given away for the benefit of others. I believe this
is why sometimes when a church has grown old, or when Christians have grown
tired, we see less and less of God’s power flowing through the people. It’s
because we’ve started to build reservoirs to hold the blessings, rather than to
trust God to give us more if we continually give His gifts
away to others. The reason God doesn’t
give us more is often because we’ve started to hoard what He gave us to share with others. Much like manna, which
would rot if the Israelites took more than they needed for a single day, the
gifts of God are for sharing, not for storing up. God wants us to trust that if
we give away the blessings, He will supply us with more. In order to
demonstrate that we trust Him, we must
let go of our gifts, our talent, our
time, and even our money, and share freely with those who are in need. God will
make sure we have enough when we need it. Our job, as ambassadors of Christ, is
to develop a discipline of letting go and giving away the blessings God gives
to us so that we can be continually refreshed and blessed with the ongoing
ministry of Jesus.
Whether or not you decide to start a
house church is beside the point. The issue of who we are as Christians is
still just as important, if not more important, than what we say we believe in
our heads. Our message, the Gospel, is only relevant if our lives demonstrate
its power. Following Christ, from the very beginning, was a practice. It was
intended as a way of life, not simply a set of beliefs. The truth is that we
must begin to live out the power of the Gospel in our everyday lives, no matter
what. We must begin today.
