Missionary? Me?

Mark 6:7-13, Luke 9:1-6, Luke 10:1-12

We have all had conversations with our Christian friends about what God expects of us once we recognize who he is. God is the one in charge. And, the one in charge wants something from us. In almost every case during these conversations about our hesitancy of being a fully, active Christian, the subject of being a missionary comes up as the biggest hump to following Jesus.

The call of Jesus Christ frightens us because we will be torn from our comfortable life and thrown into the worst places on earth. Is that true? Is that what missionary work is?

Regardless of our upbringing, only a few, rare Christians get excited about the idea of foreign lands missionary work. The bulk of us are reticent about it. Our voices almost drop to a whisper when we discuss what a missionary goes through. We express our shared worry that the more we get to know God the more we are afraid that he will eventually ask us to head off to Nigeria or Syria or Colombia and live in a hut in some remote bombed out, desolate village, speaking a language that we have only recently studied, and eat food supplied by the UN.

It’s not uncommon to have this fear. It is surely misguided, but not uncommon.

We hesitate to fully embrace what we imagine God would want us to do, because our imaginations are based upon sales pitches that twist the truth. “You’ll love it!” We are skeptical. The exercise of faith outside of our cultural home is how we envision missionary work. We conjure up twisted ideas about poverty stricken, bare-footed journeys on muddy paths in jungles, looking for pagans who just might eat us. We are fat, bible bearing Christians heading into smoky suicidal pits of martyrdom. Or something like that.

Even the fully committed, those who have already signed up for the third world mission work, as priests or religious or lay volunteers, have shared with us their original struggle to accept what they believed God wanted them to do in heading off for mission work. And, even when they’ve come back from their distant land, years of service already in the books, we can sense the relief when they are finally back home. They mention the stark differences of being home, difficult to reconcile with the paltry, beggarly living conditions they endured on their mission. When back each missionary has compared their recent travels with the home of their upbringing. In a few short months, or years, they had forgotten the grocery stores of home, laden with 40 different kinds of bar soap, rows of bread choices, meats in overwhelming heaps, and stores circled with sidewalks. In the final analysis of U.S. opulence, against the backdrop of poverty, missionary work is always defined as an amazing experience, but a difficult, challenging time.

Yes, the faith of the poor is remarkable, the pace of life is both more friendly and more full of life. Nonetheless, with evidence from our missionary friends, we consistently come to the conclusion that missionary work isn’t for everybody (meaning us), because we are used to a different lifestyle. We will fall short of being a fully Christ-like disciple, because we’ll never leave our comfortable culture. don an empty backpack, and then wander into the desert, the jungle, or the roadless mountain.

I have met missionaries who excitedly tell me of their love of missionary work, and their yearning to go back. These few comprise the certain saintly folks I know, by the way. According to my own statistics, eager, gratified missionary assignments and sainthood are remarkably associated. Sainthood, then, probably means giving up the life we live here, right?

Today’s New Testament reading, sending out the 12 apostles in groups of two, to proclaim the kingdom of God and heal the sick (Luke, Chapter 9), bothers both the committed and the reticent Christian. Well, that’s what the apostles had to do. That leaves us disciples out. Right?

No. Mark tells just the missionary story of the 12 apostles going out, driving out demons in their wake. Luke, however, retells the story of the apostles in chapter 9 and goes further. In chapter 10, Luke adds a similar missionary charge for 72 disciples to head out to do pretty much the same work as the apostles.

See? It’s a purposeful pattern. Jesus expects us leave home, penniless, and go knock on doors in a distant village! It’s clearly evident, isn’t it!

Kind of. In truth, mission is at the root of discipleship. When we accept the call of all Christ followers we become missionaries. Mission work, though, means something different than getting on a boat and traveling to the hinterlands. How far do we have to go to drive out the demons, heal the sick, and announce the coming of the Kingdom? That was what Jesus asked his disciples to do. How long were they gone? How far did some of them go? A few miles, probably. How long were they gone. Weeks, months? When they came back, were they done?

We can’t help ourselves. We categorize the announcement of the Kingdom into something that would be more reasonable. We imagine the 72 folks who headed out as a formula for our lives, but we disregard the actual request by Jesus.

I think we’re improperly primed for missionary work. I certainly have been.

“OK, guys. I want you to drive out demons and heal the sick. Here’s a walking stick and some sandals. Leave here. That’s how it’s done.”

That’s what we hear. What’s actually taking place, though, is a two-pronged set of relationship marketing about the Kingdom (announce it) and physical evidence that Jesus is real (driving out demons and healing). Jesus isn’t waiting for us to die before showing us the Kingdom. He wants us to live like the Kingdom is here, and then show people that very Kingdom life. In the Kingdom there is no evil. In the Kingdom there is no illness.

Our missionary pumps, however, are not primed for this. We seldom run into Christians who walk in the Kingdom and dispel evil and disease as they walk. That, though, is an exciting concept. That vision is something I would like to experience.

In order to experience something like that, however, we need to belong to a community of faith, where there is more than just our selves. Where there are folks who whisk evil away in their wake. Where disease disappears and the dying wave goodbye because they know they will see us again soon.

Jesus is bringing this all to us right now by driving away the evils that haunt us and curing us from the fatal disease of hopeless death. But, he needs missionaries.

That doesn’t just sound better. It’s freaking amazing. And, it’s not just a promise, like our marketing infused brains register. We translate promises as exaggerations. We have been trained to associate that drinking a Coke will put us in a convertible on a sunny day, or that by buying from IBM we will rub elbows with geniuses and celebrities. We don’t actually believe that, though. We drink the Coke, knowing it’s a fraud.

Jesus’ promises follow a lived out mission where we participate in helping to eradicate sadness and misery. We get to not just tell people that Jesus conquered death, but show them. Can we change our imaginations about this missionary work. Can we absorb such a terrific reality?