Commissioned to Go!

(This is an abridged version of the sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Blatimore on 10/2/11 on the occasion of World Communion Sunday, and our "Change the World Mission Commissioning Day)

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations (teaching all nations), baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

I believe that most – if not all of us – can affirm that Christian ministry is not easy in this contemporary age. Churches face many challenges to minister prophetically and holistically to a world that - in many ways - seems to be at odds with what the church is all about. Still it is our collective task – our shared commitment and calling - to faithfully offer Christ to the world.

Ours often seems to be a mission impossible – and yet we are called to faithfully persevere and share the love of Christ with those among us who are in need of hope and healing in their lives… hope and healing that only the church can offer.. the least, the lost and the left out among us.

When thinking on the task of the church and its leaders, I’m reminded of the 1960’s and 70’s television show – Mission Impossible. Some of us might be old enough to remember the show where – at the beginning of every episode - a secret agent was given a mission that seemed to be impossible and insurmountable. So difficult and complex (and often dangerous) was the mission that the secret agent was given – that he was offered the choice of whether or not to accept the mission.

If he chose to accept the mission, he would somehow find a way to overcome great odds and obstacles, and find a way to accomplish what seemed to be the impossible task he had been given.

Well, the mission that Christ has given us seems to be impossible at times. It often seems that God has given the church and its people more than we can bear. Too often now it seems that we face the task of making ways out of no way. In these fast-changing, often apathetic times, it seems that ours is often a mission impossible.

I believe Christ had a sense of the difficulty of the mission that was before the church when he offered his disciples what has come to be known as the Great Commission. He said:

“Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations (teaching all nations), baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

This indeed seems to be a tremendous, humongous, huge, impossible, audacious, incredible, insurmountable task that we have been given. The Lord says that we are to go and make disciples of all nations, and baptize everybody, and teach everybody to obey the commandments of the Lord.

But it’s good to know that the Lord did not stop there. For he says, “Remember, I am with you always, even until the end of the age.” It’s good to know that ours is not simply a mission to go, but we have received a commission to go. In other word, we don’t go alone. The Lord said, “I am with you always.” We are commissioned to go.

And as we go, we take our faith in God and the fortification of the Lord with us. We need to know that our faith in God makes us a holy people. Our faith makes us God’s people, called by God to serve God’s people. For Methodists – our faith – our holiness is expressed in both personal holiness and social holiness. John Wesley said that we are to be about the purpose of “reforming the nation and spreading scriptural holiness.”

And furthermore, we know that as we are commissioned to go, we are made strong – fortified in the in the Lord. In the Book of Acts, Jesus expressed the Great Commission another way when he said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) We go to serve the present age with and in the power of God.

Thanks be to God that we are commissioned to go… to help somebody… to love somebody… to serve the world age. And as we are called to go, God goes with us.