Mission is Who We Are

Sermon

Christ Church, St. Michaels Parish

Sunday, May 17, 2015

John 17:6-19

Last week I traveled to Atlanta, Georgia to present at two separate conferences. The first conference was sponsored by the Global Episcopal Mission Network, also known as GEMN. GEMN’s mission statement proclaims, “GEMN is dedicated to the principle that every Episcopalian (and, indeed, every Christian) is a missionary.  We are committed to providing global mission conferences, global mission training, and global mission resources to all those who would like to participate in discerning where God is leading us in mission, as individuals and as a church.”

The second conference was organized by Gray Dove, Inc., an organization that I represent. Grey Dove’s mission statement proclaims, “Grey Dove, Inc. is an organization whose mission is to build healthcare capacity and sustainability in rural communities throughout Haiti. Through direct care, technical assistance, and the training and enhancement of available resources we encourage local leaders to become effective agents of change in their own community.”

You might say, Grey Dove is in the business of operationalizing the theology inherent in the mission of GEMN. Proclaiming and witnessing to the Kingdom of God in ways that bring justice, well-being and the Light of Christ into communities living in darkness.

At the close of the GEMN conference and prior to the beginning of the Grey Dove conference there was an incredibly moving noonday Eucharist service. The celebrant and preacher at this service was Bishop Stacy Sauls, Chief Operating Officer of the Episcopal Church.

To say that Bishop Stacy’s sermon was stunningly eloquent is certainly not to do it justice. In simple words and stories he emphasized over and over again – “Mission is not what we do – it is who we are.”

Mission is not what we do – it is who we are.

Following the Bishop’s sermon there was a Hand-Anointing Litany and Blessing of the Oil. Together we prayed,

 “Loving God, we hear your call as you invite us again to share in your ministry. Our zeal in the past has not set the world on fire and our attachment to convenience shields us from the urgency of needs in our global community. And yet you call us to the work of reconciliation and justice, of equity and renewal…it is God’s purpose that we serve as a community when we share our gifts in ministry…We ask you to renew and restore us in our call to serve. We ask that you give to us faith and the confidence to bear it; hope and the openness to be continually expectant; and love, the only true beginning.”

Mission is not what we do – it is who we are.

So, you may be asking yourself…what exactly is mission? What does Holy Scripture say about mission? The Rt. Rev. Ian Douglas, Bishop of Connecticut and one of the four candidates in the upcoming election for a new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, says about mission:

“…it must be pointed out that the word mission, per se, is not found in the Bible…The reason we do not find the word mission, as such, in the Bible is…that the whole Bible, Hebrew Scripture and the New Testament, is a revelation of God’s mission in the world…God’s mission, not our mission…ultimately, it is God’s mission that our Lord Jesus Christ came to bear witness to, it is God’s mission that the Church proclaims in the world today, and it is God’s mission that we share by virtue of our baptisms.”

Douglas speaks at length about God’s mission and God’s missional efforts to rebuild the bonds of love which are continually severed through human sin, or falling away from God. God’s mission was always, and still is, a mission to reconnect humanity and to heal the divisions that separate us. The central mission of God is to restore to unity that which has become broken; to reconcile a divided world.

Throughout history God has chosen particular people as the entry point into the world: Abraham and Sarah; Moses; the prophets, perhaps especially Elisha and Isaiah; and finally, of course, Jesus Christ.

Abraham and Sarah, Moses and the prophets were called by God to direct people to him – to be the vehicles, the mechanism through which all the nations could be joined to the almighty Creator and to each other.  Israel’s role in God’s mission was to serve as the central force that would pull all humanity back into relationship with God.

In the incarnation of Jesus Christ, God entered the world anew and took the responsibility for God’s mission directly upon himself. In Jesus, God created a new way through which the world could be joined to the Creator.

As the human form of the creator God, Jesus’ mission is one and the same with that of the Creator. His mission is God’s mission. Jesus demonstrates in word and deed that the Reign of God, made real in the sending of God’s son, must continue to expand, to move out to the ends of the earth. Jesus sends out his disciples, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to be the bearers of his mission, of God’s mission, in the world.

The ultimate act of Jesus’ participation in God’s mission is his sacrifice upon the cross and his victory over death. The joining of Jesus’ pain and suffering with our pain and suffering upon the cross is where we are passionately connected with God, with one another, and with all creation.

In Jesus’ death and resurrection we are given the means by which we become one with each other and with God…the divisions between God and humanity are overcome, and the promise of reconciliation is made real.

In his book Transforming Mission, David J. Bosch elegantly summarized these concepts when he wrote, ““Mission is, quite simply, the participation of Christians in the liberating mission of Jesus, wagering on a future that verifiable experience seems to believe. It is the good news of God’s love, incarnated in the witness of a community, for the sake of the world. This is the deepest source of mission…there is mission because God loves people.”

Mission is not what we do…it is who we are.

Jesus High Priestly Prayer draws to its conclusion in today’s gospel reading from John. As Jesus prepares to offer himself as a sacrifice for our sins and the sins of the world, he intercedes on behalf of his disciples.

Jesus prays, “I am asking on their behalf…Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one…I am not asking that you take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one…Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they may also be sanctified in truth.”

Jesus prays that we may go forth into the world with a unity of heart and purpose. He asks God to sanctify us – to make us spiritually whole – holy. Jesus lays the groundwork for his disciples – Jesus lays the groundwork for us – for all God’s children to carry forth his incarnational ministry of bringing the world into relationship with God.

Mission is not what we do…it is who we are.

In a sermon preached at the Trinity Institute in 2006, the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, Bishop of North Carolina, and also a candidate in the upcoming election for Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, proclaimed,

“…the reconfiguration of the nature of life by God was what Jesus was talking about--that anyone in Christ is a new creation, and that "he [God] has given us the ministry of his reconciliation."

"This mission of reconciliation is about God's reconfiguration of the landscape of our realities. From the nightmare that it often is into the dream that God has intended for the foundation of the world."

"The ministry of reconciliation is about participating in God's work of reconfiguration. The work of reconfiguration is calling the creation back to itself, to its origin, to its momma, to its roots, to God, to each other and when that happens, life can flourish."

"Reconciliation is about the very life of the world," said Curry. "As the world and the creation lives into the loving purposes of its creator [and] as we live in the communion and love in relationship with God and with each other, we will discover that that is the context for life that not even death can destroy."

Curry ended by saying, "this mission, this work is the difference between civilization or mutually assured self-destruction."

Mission is not what we do…it is who we are.

Participants in last week’s two Atlanta conferences, 80 people in all, heard these and similar messages over a somewhat exhausting three-day period. A three-day period during which we all struggled with how best to be, not do, but be missioners in this complex and troubled world.

We participated in wonderful conversations, rich worship that frequently brought tears to our eyes, and we all grew a little in our spiritual formation as Disciples of Christ, knowing that there was a lot more work, a lot more growing to do.

As I sat in stunned silence after Bishop Stacy’s sermon at the closing noon-day Eucharist, I wondered how in the world I had ever gotten into the space in life that I currently occupy. The blessing and the privilege of being among so many spiritually whole – and holy – fellow missioners literally took my breath away, as did Bishop Stacy’s closing remark, “As you go out into the world, take care. It is not your world, it belongs to God. He has charged you with its care.” AMEN