What mission is to me

About Mission

Right from the outset God is a man, or rather a non-gender specific deity, on a mission. It doesn't take long before he sets off to rescue his people from slavery...

He continues to spend most of the rest of the Old Testament on his mission - tackling injustice in the world. The number of times Israel gets rescued and pulled out of trouble quickly becomes more than you would want to count. And as for his interventions in sinful and unjust societies...

Then you get the New Testament - a book almost entirely about a mission. From the start of Jesus' ministry he's got an agenda going. The lowest in society are blessed, the first are going be last and the last first. The order of society is going to be turned on its head and unjustice swept away.

Jesus is also busy gathering followers.. We all know about the 12 - the designated or marked followers if you like - but there are more. The people whose lives he turns around and who immediately go and tell everyone about him and his message must run into the hundreds (thousands if you include the people he managed to feed from a small packed lunch).

I think Jesus' mission is two fold and a single thing at the same time. Firstly there is what we tend to think of as mission today - going out and telling people about the message of Christ and his life. This is what missonaries do. This part of the challenge isn't seen in the Old Testament where God's people are a specific grouping descended from definite anscestors.
Secondly we have the mission that continues from the Old Testament - changing the world, overcoming injustice and defeating God's enemies. The difference is that in the New Testament this all so much broader. God's people suddenly seems to include everyone and God's enemies anyone that would do them harm or wrong - in the Old Testament that's likely to be the direct oppressors of Israel, Egypt and Pharoh for example.
Both these things go hand in hand for Jesus though, his mission is both at the same time.

And Jesus calls us to his mission. The disciples experience get their first taste in Matthew 10 when they get sent off to heal the sick (and spread the word). At the start of their first mission they are instructed to take nothing and rely on the people they go to preach to.

The call is repeated at the end of the Gospel. The key point of needing to reach everyone is reiterated - the disciples are to tell everyone - not just the Jews, not just those ready to listen.

Its radical, it upsets people and everyone needs to hear - these are the defining characteristics of the mission we're set.

We have a tendency to concentrate on particular aspects of mission. We forget God's plan is far broader and would have the whole world turned upside down (or maybe just the right way up?).

Mission for me

2000 years on, I believe that mission is the centre of the christian faith. Its not an optional extra on the side. Its the point of Jesus' life and everything he preached. If we want to follow him then we have to take this mission to heart and do something about it. That's going to mean sacrifices and changes in our lives.

We need to look after the world that God gave us, we need to get alongside those on the margins of society (those who Jesus himself loved and lived with) and we need to tell everyone we can about Christ and what was done for us.

In all honesty I want to cling onto my comfortable life with posessions amassed around me, talking to my friends and living in a nice house - evangelising to those who come to me to listen.

Trouble is that this isn't mission. Mission is radical and life changing. Its about travelling light and giving up the comfy lifestyle. We need to go to those who society forgets about and derides. But it all requires something else altogether less palatable - talking about Christ, explaining why we're doing what we're doing.

Mission ought to be holistic and rounded. We can't do everything but then again we get salvation by grace, not as a result of our own efforts. When it all seems like a tall order that we can't fulfill, the fact that we can't do everything will be quite liberating but simply not trying isn't an option.