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On this the fourth Sunday devoted to the Social Witness Ministry of the church, the subject is mission. There is hardly a word in the Christian vocabulary that has evoked more pride, provoked more embarrassment, or undergone more redefinition than the word mission. The only other that comes close is the word evangelism. Yet one could argue that from the earliest days of the Church, Christians have seen their mission as evangelism. The concluding verses of Matthew’s Gospel report Jesus as saying to the disciples, "Go therefore 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."

Our mission is to preach the gospel to the world. But if we unpack that simple assertion, we find it is bristling with problems. Preach is a tough word. It implies, does it not, that the preacher has knowledge or wisdom that the hearer does not? How can one preach without a tacit sense of superiority by the preacher? And what is the gospel exactly anyway? Matthew’s Jesus says, "Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand." How is that good news? A man as noble as Albert Schweitzer ultimately rejected orthodox Christianity because he concluded that Jesus was wrong about predicting the end of the world. And if gospel means "good news" what’s so good about fire and brimstone and being told we are "sinners in the hands of an angry God"? What are we preaching? And finally, to whom? There was a time in the not too distant past when the mission of the church was to preach the gospel to the ignorant savages on far-off continents. Today, it is safe to conclude that this 19^th century understanding of mission simply doesn’t work. At least it doesn’t work for us of the United Church of Christ. We have come to realize that we live in a religiously pluralistic world and age. Many faiths worldwide are competing for followers. The old understanding of mission is based on the claim that Christianity has an exclusive corner on the truth. Today we are more open to the idea that each of the major religions may, in fact, be an authentic expression of the divine, and that the biggest differences have more to do with culture and history than belief. And we as Christians have to confess that the missionary enterprises of old were, at best, very mixed blessings. They brought education and uplift to many. But they often brought new diseases and disruptive change and oppression. Some have charged that the missionary movement was essentially the cultural arm of an arrogant and self-righteous European and American imperialism. Yet there can be no doubt that had there been no Christian mission to Africa, there would have been no Desmond Tutu, as well as many other mission educated leadership.

And the question of what that gospel really is that we are asked to proclaim is more of a challenge than ever before. One of the most important questions raised by biblical scholars is what really was the message of the historical Jesus? Matthew tells us what he thought it was, but he wrote his gospel fifty years after Jesus lived. Somewhere along the way, starting with Paul, the Christian gospel seems to have become more about Jesus himself than what Jesus himself actually taught. Maybe. But just how similar or how different those messages are is what such scholars are trying to determine.

Many hard questions. And we may just have to live with them. But, speaking for myself, let me at least attempt some answers. To do so I would like to recall briefly the historic functions of the Christian Church. These include at least three things: proclaiming the gospel to the world; engaging in acts of service and healing in the world; and being a community that embodies and expresses God’s love. (The three Greek terms historically referred to are: kerygma, diakonia, and koinonia). These are the three basic activities that constitute a faithful church, like the three legs necessary for a stable stool. What I would like to do is briefly explore each. And my main point will be that all three, taken together, constitute the mission of the Christian Church.

First, the proclaiming of the Gospel (kerygma). If you have got some good news, such news cries out to be shared. Carolyn and Jim Hoskinson became parents last Tuesday night. Great news! You just have to want to get that good news out. Why wouldn’t you? It is that emotion and vitality and joy that the Gospel evokes. Having such knowledge doesn’t make you better than others. It is not a joy you want to hide but to spread. That’s the energy. And you have to feel it. And there is content to that message. For me the Gospel message is that the power of God’s grace absolutely surrounds me and engulfs me. Heaven is near. The Kingdom of God is at hand. That is fabulously good news. All that needs to happen is for me to become aware of it. And the only thing that can get in the way of this awareness is me. To repent is to realize that everything I have been yearning for is right under my nose. I think that is it. This message gets spelled out, articulated, expressed in an infinite number of ways in historical Christianity. And, I don’t think it is an exclusivistic Christian message at all. I personally think this is the message at the heart of every great religion. For me, given my culture and history, it comes together in this person Jesus. He leads me into this awareness. Maybe that can be so for others, so they need to hear about Jesus. For others, maybe they will be better guided by Buddha or Mohammed or Vishnu. But, for me at least, it is this experience of this awakening to the presence of God that provides a joy that I can’t imagine not wanting to share?

Second, the mission of the church includes service (diakonia). This means acts of compassion and truth telling and healing in the world. This is part of what I was trying to say last week on the subject of advocacy and service, taken together as the prophetic ministry of the church. This has always been a part of Christian overseas ministry. But here we are faced with a difficult theological as well as practical problem. What is the relationship between deeds of healing and service and explicitly naming Jesus? This is always an issue, abroad or at home. For example, the United Mission to Nepal, which is supported by a wide range of Christian denominations, has a pretty straight-forward understanding with the government of Nepal. The Mission may run schools and hospitals and literacy programs and conduct its own worship services. But it is not allowed to openly proselytize. There are converts, but they kind of find their way into the churches.

And in our own country the relationship between overt expressions of religion and deeds of service is an issue at the very heart of the debate on the so-called faith-based initiative of the Bush administration.

Jesus frequently says, "Your faith has made you well." But it is not always clear what he means: faith in him and his power to heal, or faith in God, or just a generally faithful and trusting attitude? Why, for instance, can’t God can be at work through the hands of a non-Christian or atheistic surgeon. As he neared his death at the hands of the Nazis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer came to conclude that for today Jesus could simply be defined as "a man for others." To be a person for others in the world is the fullest expression of our calling, and one can be such a person without ever mentioning the name of Jesus. Indeed, Bonhoeffer called for us to be anonymous Christians in our world.

Is this is so, then the third leg of the Christian Church, the community (koinonia) becomes critically important. The Christian community is to embody the love of God, to celebrate it, and to nurture it. It is the place where Christians proclaim God’s love, name the name of Jesus, and love and support one another. And it is within this community that worship takes place. Litourgia means the work of the people, and from this comes our English word liturgy. It is that which we do as a gathered people that brings together God’s love in word and deed. Liturgy is that act in which we affirm that God is present among us. It is in community (koinonia) that God’s love ceases to be abstract and becomes concrete. And importantly, when the love of God becomes concrete in a people and in a place, there appear very visible signs of that love. It is one thing to say that we seek to embody the love of God as Christ Congregational Church and in the United Church of Christ. But it is also just as important to say that we do this by striving to be a Just – Peace, Open and Affirming, inclusive, and accessible to all church. That is where the rubber hits the road, as they say. These are the visible signs of an inward sacred presence. Historically we know that the mission of the church took place, not only with Paul and Barnabas and Silas off on some voyage. Mission took place when people observed what went on in the early Christian community and remarked, "See how they love one another!"

A book came out years ago with the interesting title: Jesus Christs. The message was simple. Our mission is to each of us become a Jesus Christ in the world. It is one thing to simply worship God or Jesus or even to encounter God in Jesus. But it is another to trust that it is possible for each of us to so welcome Christ into our hearts that, as the Apostle Paul says, what dies in us is ourselves, and what then lives in us is Christ. What amazed the people who met Jesus was, in addition to all he said and did, the fact that he spoke and acted as a person with authority. He had none of the pedigrees of education or class. Yet he possessed an authority that only the presence of God in him could bestow. And Jesus made it perfectly clear that that kind of authority is available to you, and that each of you, in your own unique way, can be a Jesus Christ. Those who joined him joined a mission. They became fishers of people. What does it mean for us to cast our nets today, like Peter and Andrew and James and John were called to do?

I included the opening verses of the Book of Jonah among the scriptures today for a reason. God called Jonah to a mission - to preach to Nineveh. And Jonah said "No thanks." And he took off in the opposite direction. He apparently possessed neither the will nor the temperament to be a missionary. But guess what? It didn’t seem to matter. By the end of the story, Jonah’s mission had been accomplished. And Jonah was just as obnoxious at the end as he was in the beginning. But, never mind. God is God. And if God could accomplish the salvation of a whole city with such a difficult person as Jonah, just think what God can accomplish with you. AMEN.

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