Made for Mission: Who Is My Mission?
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Over the last few weeks, we have spent a bit of time talking about Mission and what it means to be called in mission and that we all have been given gifts and talents that God expects us to use to advance the message of the cross. We also talked about what it means to discover and determine to act on what it is that God calls us into. Last week, we spent some time talking about our message and how we deliver that message to the world. Today, I want to spend some time digesting the who of this whole mission thing.
Today’s message, to be perfectly honest, is the one that most people check out on, usually saying, wait, you want me to talk to people about my faith, yep, not one of my gifts, so I’m out…thanks, see ya...
We, in general, are so afraid to talk to people and more importantly to share our faith with them. Why? Well, I will give you 3 guesses and the first two don’t count…over time, there has been this misconception that all we care about in the church is collecting the offering, paying the pastor, and letting the pastor handle all of the “messy stuff” of ministry. We don’t like to tell others how God has touched our lives, even if by our telling, someone else can see hope and promise in what it is that God has done for us. Society doesn’t help us here either, does it?
I mean for the most part, we are seen as that awful 9 letter word starting with an “h”. Christians, as a whole, have become much like the Pharisees of Jesus’ time. We all think we have the only and right way of doing things and understanding God’s words for us. Many have deemed it necessary to beat us up about our faith because we see all people the same, like our new sign out front, in here, we are all just God’s children. But, there are some who do not see it that way and because we are like a house divided, we cannot stand up to society’s view. With me?
I am going to be brutally honest gang, as Christians in the 21st Century, it is really, and I mean, really important for us to get this message today…because our very future depends upon it. You see, to me, if we continue to keep our faith to ourselves and just expect that people are going to find their way through our doors and when they do, we expect them to mold themselves to be just like us, we might as well plan our legacy now. Time to get real gang…and I am not apologizing for this today. It is time to stop being held hostage, by the world, society, and each other. Things need to change, period.
It is time for us to start loosening our lips and spreading the news of what God does for us each and every day of our lives. And now you might be asking the question of what does the first miracle of Jesus have to tell us about telling others about our faith? I would argue, everything…and I am going to point to one character to make my point this morning…Mary.
The Story...
The Story...
First things first, let’s just spend a brief moment looking at what John’s purpose might have been in writing this gospel…some have said that John set out to write these stories as a way to evangelize to the Gentile world because he writes stories which point directly to Jesus’ divine nature and abilities. Some argue that John’s gospel was written to show that God works through Jesus and that God can work through all of us. For me, I see John’s gospel as always directing our vision, our listening, and our feelings toward the nature of who Jesus came to be for us, in other words, it is all about how Jesus touched lives for the sake of faith.
This first miracle story in Johns’ gospel gets right to the heart of this for me. However, it is not necessarily about Jesus spreading the gospel message but more about what his mother believed about him right from the very moment he was conceived in her gentle, tender, young womb.
A Mother’s Expectations...
A Mother’s Expectations...
Like many mothers who only believe the best about their children, we can look at this story from the perspective of someone who lacks in patience and wants to get going with the “good stuff” so to speak, or we could look at this story from the perspective of someone who cannot hold her tongue any longer and wants everyone to see and feel the pulse of what is to come. I liken this story to an event that most of us can relate to in our own lives. That moment when we finally realize that we can ride a bike or maybe it is the moment you find out that you are going to have a child or maybe it is the moment you realize that doing what you have always feared the most in life is not really something that needs to be feared after all. It’s that heart quickening, breathless moment and when all is said and done, you feel like you are on top of the world.
I can imagine Mary feeling like that when she realized that the wine was all gone and she knew someone who could do something pretty spectacular to fix the problem…listen to that moment again...
When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”
I can hear panic in her voice but I can also see that insistence that something needs to be done. Can’t you hear it in her voice...
She says to Jesus, “They have no more wine but you know what, you can do something about it. I believe in you and I know that you have the ability to make this right.” Here’s the thing, like most of us when we are challenged to do something we really don’t want to do or aren’t ready to do, Jesus says to her...
“Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”
Here’s what I hear Jesus really saying, “Why are you pressuring me mom?!?! I can’t do anything yet, God hasn’t told me it’s time!!! I am not ready!!! I don’t know what to say or do!!! Why would you ask me to do this thing??? I don’t have the gifts or abilities to do anything about it. It’s not my place to step in, I mean it is not even my party, go ask the real host about where we can get more wine. I don’t feel like doing anything right now.” Or maybe he said the biggest one I hear so often…“Why should I do something, no one pays attention or cares any way.”
Here’s the thing though…when we are pushed into going above and beyond, especially when it is not expected, do we not come out the other side feeling like we are sitting on top of the world?
So why are we so afraid to step out in faith? And that is the key to all of what we will talk about over the next two weeks as we finish up this study on Mission and then venture into a study of the book of Philippians (at least part of it). We need to be continually examining our faith, learning how our faith inspires us to do the things that we do in our lives, and finally how we are sharing that faith with others, whether that be those who already believe or those who do not already believe.
So Who is Our Mission?
So Who is Our Mission?
So the question that Jesus needed to face, in that moment, is the same question that we face each day of our our lives. Who really is our mission? Really the question is or should be, who do we seek to touch with our faith?
And as we contemplate this over the next few weeks, I want to answer this question very simply…everyone is our mission, regardless of who, where, or when we encounter them in our lives. Everyone deserves to know that we believe that God provides all the love and resources we need to live our lives and more importantly that God loves all people the same, even if we can’t.
The challenge is how are we going to tell others about our faith…
Prayer
Prayer
Let us pray…God, direct each of us to someone who needs to know your love and when we are face to face with that someone, open our hearts to hear your voice speaking love and then open our mouths to share that love, Amen.