Rev Chris - thoughts on Mission

(Psalm 104. 26-30/ Isaiah 42. 5-9/ Luke 10. 1-9) “What is our mission here?” asks Fred Pratt Green in a line from the hymn “What shall our greeting be?” (StF 691). Our task today is to begin some thinking about mission. I wonder what the word “mission” conjures up in your mind. Mission used to be a word we applied in my youth to special events or a week’s activities. Cliff college students or staff used to come to churches and circuits for a week’s mission. I am old enough to remember characters like Herbert Silverwood, Howard Belben, Tom Jones (not the Welsh singer). My parents met on the circuit bus one Whit Monday going to Cliff College. As I once famously said to Howard Mellor in front of the Ministerial Synod, “I wouldn’t be here today if it had not been for Cliff College!”. In a slightly later period in the 1980’s Billy Graham came for “Mission England”. We also used the word “mission” to describe the work funded by collecting boxes of the Home Missions or Overseas Missions varieties.

The first time I encountered the word “mission” outside of this Christian context was as a young minister some thirty years ago when I was visiting an elderly member in a nursing home. On the wall of the home was displayed a “Mission Statement” indicating its purposes, goals and aims and ethos.

Mission has, since those days, come more into or common speech in Methodism. Indeed twenty years ago we had presented a summary of the Our Calling document outlined as this “the Methodist Church- a discipleship movement shaped for mission”.

So what do we mean by the word mission? I looked in my small Oxford dictionary and found this- “persons sent out as envoys or evangelists, or task that one perceives oneself appointed to carry out”. So we get a sense here that mission does not belong to the people doing the tasks or being sent it is in Christian terms that which belongs to God, though God invites others to share in it. Absolutely fundamentally mission is God’s- “mission dei” in Latin. God is a God of a mission. God has a mission and God invites us as disciples of Christ to share in it. It is not ours, it is God’s just as the Church is not ours, it too belongs to God.

The psalmists words (Ps 104) remind us that when God speaks God creates things and renews things. This goes to the heart of our understanding of God as a God of mission. In Isaiah 42 we heard that God’s mission is no small, narrow agenda, the one who created the heavens and the earth and who gives breath to all peoples, invites his people to be a covenant to the people and a might to the nations. A missionary people who see their mission to the whole world. In Jesus Christ this mission comes to a fulfilment as Simeon proclaims in the words of the Nunc Dimittis “he is a light to lighten the Gentiles” as well as “being the glory of God’s people Israel” (Luke 2.29).

And sending Jesus to come among us is part of this mission of God. But Jesus doesn’t just announce and perform God’s mission himself, he invites others to share in it. So in Luke 10 we see Jesus sending out his disciples on mission.

I want us to notice five things:-

INTENTION- Jesus sends out disciples to the places he himself intends to go. They go out with intention, not with a vague feeling of it being something nice or interesting. Intention is a word which has come to the fore in much Christian thinking recently. It has come to the fore because we have previously lacked it. We are not always intentional. If asked what we are doing or why we are doing something we often would hesitate to know what to say. Why do we want to keep the chapel open, because we do. That is often the vagueness and generality that I hear. We need a clearer idea of our intention. We need to be intentional. Knowing what we are doing and why we are doing it. To have a clearer sense of purpose and aim and goal. Intentionality is often lacking and we need to find it. We often tend to bumble along without the clarity of intention.

The HARVEST is plentiful. Over recent weeks I have witnessed the work of combine harvesters gathering in the harvest. But Jesus says about the world and the people in it, the harvest is plentiful. John Wesley said often to remind the Methodist people that “we have nothing to do but save souls”. We might balk at some of the techniques used in previous generations but the task remains the same. We have perhaps more folk than ever who have no idea of the gospel message. We have a massive harvest field. The number of people who need to hear the good news (not the bad news that they are wretched sinners) that God loves them so much that he sent his Son, is a massive number of people. We need to re-shape what we do so that we are clearer that what lies behind our efforts and our activities and events is a passion about sharing the good news of Jesus.

And Jesus SENDS his followers out. Sent with a mission and a purpose. And a sense of urgency which meant they were not to dilly dally on the way but to be fleet of foot and swift in the execution of their tasks. Perhaps we need to find or re-discover something of that sense that we are sent. This is the essence of the word apostles- those who are sent.

Ad we are sent out with the clear instruction GO. Not stay. Go, go to the people, not stay within the safe confines of the household of faith. We are sent out. In every act of worship we are at the end sent out. Whilst it is good to share fellowship and to gather together (something many are missing very deeply) we cannot remain in the sanctuary for ever, we must go out into the world where the people are. We must go to be among the people, gather where they gather and use every opportunity we have to proclaim the good news (I don’t mean button-holing people and asking them “Are you saved, brother”? like some insensitive evangelist did in past times). But finding a way to share your story of faith in ways that makes sense to people. The one good thing this pandemic may have brought us is to realise that we must be outside the building because we cannot be inside it. And we must be wary that as we now reflect on re-opening our buildings, we don’t just slip back into our old ways and habits.

And the fifth point I wish to emphasise is the centre place of the KINGDOM. Jesus gives his instructions and says you are to say “The kingdom of God has come near to you”. Now the kingdom of God is a massive topic and has a wide-ranging agenda. All of what the followers of Jesus sent out on mission were to say and do seems to be couched in terms that place that range of activities like healing the sick, proclaiming the gospel is an expression of the kingdom. We know that the kingdom involves feeding the hungry, challenging injustice, releasing captives, announcing sight for the blind etc etc etc. We might ask of any activity we are thinking of re-starting, is this extending the kingdom? And that might focus our minds a bit.