The
Mother of All Missions
Introduction
The call to follow, the call to mission
Luke writes that, “When the days for Jesus’ being taken up were fulfilled, he set his face toward Jerusalem” (Lk 9:51). That same expression “being taken up” is used for the assumption of the prophet Elijah into heaven (2Kgs 2: 9-11), and for the exaltation of the suffering servant in Isaiah (Is 42:1), and for the ascension of Jesus into heaven as recorded in the first chapter of Acts (1:2,11). “He set his face to Jerusalem” suggests that Jesus was setting out upon a very somber and solemn journey, which, he knew, would end up on Mt. Calvary, a hill just outside Jerusalem.
In the gospel today Jesus invites us to follow him, just as in the first reading the Prophet Elijah calls Elisha to follow him (I Kings 19:16, 19-21 and Lk 9:51-62). That raises a question: Jesus calls us to follow him, but what’s the following all about? Or stated a little differently: Jesus calls us to mission, but what’s the mission all about?
An uncomfortable
feeling
Through fifty years of preaching, I’ve never felt too comfortable with this subject. For one thing, there’s something unrealistic about a call, which calls for an absolutely whole-hearted commitment that asks people to go sell all that they have, give to the poor, and follow Jesus (Lk 18: 22). Something unrealistic about a call that calls for people to leave their nice homes for which they’ve worked so hard, and to follow him “who has no where to rest his head, unlike the foxes which have dens and the birds which have nests. Something unrealistic when the call calls people to be so gun-ho about following of Jesus that they are to waste no time in burying their parents (Lk 9:58-62).
And something else disturbs my comfort on the subject. Too often we perceive the call to follow Jesus, the call to Christian mission, as a call to get up and do “something Christian” for some poor unfortunate person or persons out there, or as a call to get up and do “something missionary” for some unfortunate unbeliever out there who doesn’t know Jesus. We who are already loaded down with more than we can handle do not lend a willing ear to such a call. Already exhausted, we are reluctant to take on one more burden that will exhaust us even more.
Not one more
item
Christian mission is not one more item to be
added to an already exhausting
list. That’s not what Christ calls us
to. In the second reading, Paul reminds
us that, “Christ has set us free; so stand firm in your newly-found freedom,
and do not ever take up again that old slavery that used to be yours” (Gal 5:1). “That old slavery that used to be
yours.” Paul is referring to the
religion of his day, with its countless rules, regulations, statutes,
prescriptions, and commandments that weighed heavily upon the masses. Paul is
referring to the Law of Moses which, he says in Acts, was “a burden which neither our
ancestors nor we ourselves were able to bear” (Acts 15:10). Paul is referring
to the burden of religion which Jesus promised to lift from the weary backs of
the people, when he said, “Come to me all you who are tired from carrying your
heavy load, and I will give you rest…. The yoke that I give you is easy and the
load that I put on your backs is light” (Mt 11:28-30). The call to Christian
mission, the call to follow Christ, is not one more item added to an already
exhausting list.
Then what is it? The journey to which Jesus sets
his face continues for the next few Sundays. Then on the fifteenth Sunday of
Ordinary Time (two Sundays from now) he will utter the greatest of all
his parables, The Parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk l0: 25-37).
Most of the time, I am reluctant to use superlatives but here I have
no reluctance whatsoever: The
Parable of the Good Samaritan is indeed the greatest of all Jesus’
parables. What Jesus says about the first and the greatest of all the
commandments I say about this parable: “Upon it rest the whole Law and the
Prophets” (Mt 22:40).
The parable does not talk about the call to follow Jesus, the call to
Christian mission. Instead with
powerful imagery it paints a picture of what the following of Jesus
looks like. It paints a picture of what the mission of every single Christian,
and for that matter, every single human being (Moslem, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist)
looks like. That mission or call is
neither more nor less than this: to stop and make a difference on the
highway of life. It’s a mission outward toward a neighbor in need. Good old Latin has a nifty way of saying
things. Latin calls it the “missio ad extra,” i.e., “mission outward toward
others,” the mission we owe others.
But my dear brothers and sisters, that’s really not yet
the real heart of the matter. There’s
something much more important and much more profound than that. Before the “missio ad extra “ “the mission
outward towards others,” there is first what
Latin calls the “missio ad
intra,” “the mission inward towards one’s self.” Before any mission we owe others, there is first the mission
we owe ourselves. That, indeed, is the real heart of the matter. It is, in fact, The Mother of All
Missions
What in the world is that mission which we owe ourselves?
Our very birth into the human family writes one basic law into every single
human being: “Thou shalt be the human being you were created to be, i.e. thou
shalt be kind and compassionate, caring and sharing.” (Call it “The Law of Our Creation.”) But here is something
important that escapes us most of the time: what’s first and foremost in the
mind of that law is not some person out there who is hurting and is in need of my humanity but rather me myself, for I need my humanity
more than anybody else. I need it
even more than the poor man out there, waylaid by robbers and left half-dead on
the road to Jericho. That’s why the
mission I owe myself comes first, and is The Mother of All Missions.
On the other side of that coin is The Mother of All Disasters: that is to be created in a human womb but to come forth either as non-human or sub-human or worse of all inhuman. The Mother of All Disasters is to be born to be a human being but turn out to be a monster. Like those monsters in Nazi Germany whose inhumanity consumed six million Jews. Like those two monsters in Littleton, Colorado, Dyland Klebold and Eric Harris, who staged America’s most renowned school massacre. Like that monster, Timothy McVeigh, America’s most renowned domestic terrorist. And then there is a whole generation of monsters all over the place, spawned by the culture, not as “renown” as the Nazi’s or as Eric Harris and Dylan Klebod or as Timothy McVeigh, but monsters nevertheless. The ”me, me, me” chant of the culture has taken over their lives and has left no room for the mission they owe others.
On automatic
Once the mission we owe ourselves is accomplished, once we turn out to be the human being we were created to be, the mission we owe others almost automatically takes care of it. Automatically we do all those great human things that human beings do, like stopping and pouring the oil of compassion upon someone wounded and hurting on the highway of life. That’s mission. That’s the following of Christ.
Automatically we do the great human things that human beings do, like telling the little lady behind you at the check-out counter, who has only one sole item in her hands (a bag of Greek coffee beans for her Greek husband), and you have a whole mountain of stuff in your cart) – like telling her, “Come on, honey you’re first.” I bet you never thought that that’s mission; that that’s the following of Jesus. It is indeed, and oh how realistic that is!
Automatically we do the great human things that human beings do, like turning down the screaming and yelling and the boom-boxing and the revving of your motor and the screeching of your tires on a late hot balmy summer evening -- turning it all down, because there are people all around trying to sleep with windows opened. I bet you never thought that that’s mission; that that’s the following of Jesus? It is indeed, and oh how realistic!
Automatically we do the great human things that human beings do, human beings like that great human cabbie whom we celebrated in one of our past homilies. He picks up a little old lady late one August night. She’s on her way to a nursing home, and it’s the end of the line for her. But first she asks to be driven around town to a few important places that hold very powerful memories for her, good and bad. And when the cabbie realizes what a supremely human and momentous moment is before him and her, he turns the meter off and lends himself wholeheartedly to it. After a good hour around town, he delivers the littler lady to the nursing home in the wee hours of the morning, charges no fee, kisses her, the attendants wheels her in, the door closes, and so does that momentous moment. That’s mission; the cabbie was out on mission. That’s the following of Jesus, and the cabbie knew it. Reminiscing years later, he said, “As I look back now, I do not think that I have done anything greater in my whole life.”
Once the mission we owe ourselves is accomplished, once we become the human being we were created to be, the mission we owe others automatically takes care of itself. Automatically we do the great human things that human beings do, like being concerned about your neighbor: she has five kids and she looks utterly exhausted, and you wonder what you can do to help. You lay aside that convenient rule “to mind your own business,” or that cynicism which warns you that “no good deed ever goes unpunished,” and you do what you can to help, which might turn out to be nothing, but you tried anyway. That’s mission; that’s the following of Christ. And oh how realistic!
Conclusion
God’s glory and ours
Once we’ve become the human beings we were created to be, not only does the mission we owe others automatically takes care of itself, so does the mission we owe God (to give God glory) automatically takes care of itself, for as one of the great church fathers has said, “Man fully human, woman fully human, is the glory of God.” And we fully human is our glory as well.