As I mentioned last month, I have been reading 2 Corinthians once again recently. (Actually, we have been reading the book together at our headquarters in Minneapolis.) In a single verse in chapter nine, I came upon an edgy description of New Testament faith – the liturgy, confession and fellowship that bound the fellowship together (v.13). St. Paul describes a liturgy that tests its participants, a confession that commands their lives, and a fellowship that connects them in authentic relationship to the church around the world.
But we moderns have tamed our faith experience, by comparison. We are not often “tested” or “commanded” by our faith life. We are accommodators. We like to blend in.
Consider the word “mission.” Our English word comes from the Latin, missio – found in dozens of variations and combinations throughout the English language. Commission is finding a place in mission. Admission is entering upon it. Omission is losing our place in mission. Intermission refers to a temporary leave. Submission is accepting our role in mission. Transmission is extending the message of mission. Permission is ordering our lives or activities “per” the mission that is before us.
The Latin root connotes, simply, “a sending or dispatching.” But the subject of New Testament missio is clear. God is sending. God is dispatching. Biblical missio refers to the wonderful activity of God in the earth – and the astounding invitation to partner within it. Missiologist David Bosch explains: “Mission is, quite simply, the participation of Christians in the liberating mission of Jesus….”
The Almighty is on the scene! He is binding up the broken-hearted. He is setting loose the captive. He is drawing men and women to himself. He is making faith in the hearts of believers and making believers into heaven’s ambassadors. And not only that – everyone gets in on it! Tax-collectors may become ambassadors. Fishermen are welcome, too. Prostitutes may participate. And soldiers, preachers, students, politicians, etc. – everyone made new by encounter with Jesus.
But we have made the word into something rather different. “Mission” has become something we do, rather than God’s happy activity in the world. It has become a profession, rather than a movement of God’s own Spirit. It has become something we choose, rather than something that chooses us and sweeps us into action. It has become, in short, another part of our agenda, rather than its burning center. And in the bargain it has become a burden, rather than a thrill and a privilege.
For the Apostle Paul, the mission of God is the beginning and the end of the church. God’s mission brings us together; God’s mission sends us into the world. God’s mission is the purpose of the church itself, and all that we are and do. This, too, is pretty edgy stuff.
Jesus invites us to participate in the wonderful mission of God in the world. As we find in 2 Corinthians, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us…” (5:18-20).