Sent for
what?
Introduction
Memorial Day
The Nation has a liturgical cycle of its own. It
begins with Memorial Day summoning us to the joys of summer. It explodes and
peaks with the Fourth of July. It starts to wane with the falling leaves of
Labor Day and is finally put to sleep with Thanksgiving in gratitude for the
blessings of the harvest. Today we wish each other a joy-filled Memorial Day weekend
with get-togethers and barbecues. We also wish each other a thought-filled
Memorial Day weekend. Remind yourself and your kids that originally Memorial
Day began not with picnics in parks but with solemn services in cemeteries which
bear the remains of those who have fallen in battles past and present.
The mission
mandate of the gospel
But
before we get on to barbecuing we have the business of the Ascension to take
care of this morning. The gospel of St. Mark has Jesus bestowing a great
mission mandate upon his disciples as he ascends to his Father in heaven. “Go
into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Whoever
believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned“(Mk
Matthew’s
mandate has Jesus commanding even the very words to be used when baptizing: “Go
baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” My
gosh, you’d think that Jesus had a Roman Catholic ritual in his hands with the very
rubrics themselves for validly conferring baptism: “As the celebrant pours the water he is to say,
`I baptize you in nomine Patris et Filii
et Spiritus Sancti.’”
Scripture
scholars think it’s quite unlikely that Matthew’s explicitly Trinitarian
formula for baptizing is really the words of Jesus. The synoptic gospels were
written about forty years after his death. By then the early church had a well-developed
Trinitarian formula for baptizing, and when Matthew wrote his gospel, he simply
put that formula into the mouth of Jesus. That’s no big problem.
My gosh!
The mission mandate of the gospel raises a more substantial
problem than that one. “Go into the whole world and preach the good news. Whoever
believes and is baptized will be saved. Whoever does not believe will be
condemned” (Mk
“Go
into the whole world and preach the good news. Whoever believes and is baptized
will be saved. Whoever does not believe will be condemned.” My gosh, that
sounds like a mission of conquest which basically sees people as jobs to be
done— converts to be made. That sounds like a mission that does something to people (makes them converts) instead
of doing something for people. How ambiguous such a mission can be! Some of
the most embarrassing pages of church history were written by missionaries of
the past.
An
institutional mandate?
We wonder whether a mandate
which threatens condemnation for not believing and being baptized is more a
mandate of the early church herself than of Jesus. We wonder whether the church
as a budding institution in need of assuring its survival and propagation made
the claim to be absolutely necessary for salvation and then put that claim into
the mouth of Jesus to give it authority. At the end of the day, we ask is it at
all possible to put such a bleak claim, which excludes Chinese, Indians, Jews
and Muslims from heaven, into the mouth of him who said, “In my Father’s house
there is much room for everyone” (Jn 14:2). We ask is it possible to put such a
bleak claim into the mouth of him who is the Savior of the world? Without the Chinese,
Indians, Jews and Muslims there isn’t much more of the world left.
Judaism is not
mission-minded
Of
the three great monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam)
Judaism is the least mission-minded of all. The Talmud (which is a great reservoir of rabbinical
teachings of many centuries) says that the righteous people of all faiths have
a place in paradise. In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter says, “It’s beginning
to dawn on me that God has no favorites but gives welcome to anyone who fears him"
(Acts 10:34-38). If the righteous people of all faiths have a place in paradise,
if God gives welcome to anyone who fears him, then it is not incumbent upon Judaism
to go forth on mission and make disciples of all men. Bernard Lewis calls this the
“relativist approach” to religion. It says, “I have my god, you have your god
and others have theirs.” So peace! There’s no reason for nervous mission and
much less for war.
Christians
and Muslims have rejected the relativist approach to religion. Both have shared
the conviction that there is only one true faith--theirs. When you figure yours
is the only one true faith then it is incumbent upon you to go forth into the
whole world and make disciples of all men. When you figure you are the
privileged recipient of God’s final message to mankind, then it is your duty to
go forth into the whole world and bring that good news to others (which you
fortunately have but others don’t have) instead of keeping it selfishly to
yourself.
Bernard
Lewis calls that the “triumphalist approach” to religion. He says it’s
classically summed up in the formula “I’m right, you’re wrong, go to hell.” The
triumphalist approach divides the world into believers and infidels. Muslims
speak of themselves as believers and others as infidels. Christians do the
same. We speak of ourselves as believers and others as infidels. That approach,
Lewis says, is increasingly under attack among Christians (thanks be to God)
and is rejected by a good number of Christian clerics (myself among them). He
adds, however, there is little sign as yet that something similar is happening in
Islam.
Islam is
mission-minded
Unlike Judaism, Islam is very mission-minded. One of the five great pillars of Islam is Shahada: a personal, ardent, one-line profession of faith that “Only Allah is God, and Muhammad is his Messenger.” There is a mountain of mission mandate implicitly packed into Shahada. Implicitly, at least, it mandates conquering the world for Allah by converting or even by eliminating, if necessary, the infidels--those people who don’t profess that “Only Allah is God, and Muhammad is his Messenger.”
Sometimes considered as a sixth pillar of Islam is Jihad,
Holy War. That can mean something as innocent and as spiritual as a battle with
one’s self to surrender completely to God.
(Remember that “Islam” in Arabic means “to surrender.”) On the other
hand, Jihad can also mean
nothing less than a downright declaration of a mission of holy war to spread Islam.
Islam, in fact, is the fastest growing religion
today. It is on a veritable roll in
Christianity
is mission-minded
Like
Islam Christianity, too, is very mission-minded. It cannot be otherwise. Jesus chooses not only
twelve apostles but also seventy-two disciples and mandates them to go forth on
mission (Lk 9:1; 10:1). The rite of
baptism chooses us and mandates us to go forth on mission. Every Sunday Mass
concludes with an ”Ite, Missa est”— “Go, the Mass is ended.” That weekly dismissal is not simply
permission to peal out of church and get on with real life. It’s a mandate to
go forth on mission.
[1]
The question
We
are, indeed, sent on mission but the question is what’s the mission we’re sent
on? Are we sent on a mission to get people to believe in Jesus? Are we sent on
a mission that sees people as jobs to be done, converts to be made, infidels to
be baptized? That smacks of conquest and triumphalism. We are, indeed, sent on
mission but what’s the mission we’re sent on? Is it to do something to people (convert and baptize them) or to
do something for them? The gospels
say that Jesus chose twelve apostles from his many disciples and sent them
forth with the instruction, saying, “Go. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse
the lepers and cast out the demons” (Lk
St. Francis Xavier, a Jesuit, has
gone down in the books as the greatest of all Christian missionaries with the
possible exception of
One day this great missionary was
speaking with a Muslim who complained that devotion was declining in his Islamic
community. The man wondered whether that was because of some great sin of Muslims. Xavier couldn’t help telling the poor guy
“that God, the all-faithful one, did not abide with infidels and took no
pleasure in their prayers.”[2]
On one missionary trip Xavier grew attached to the ship’s captain, a Chinese,
who conducted him through some very dangerous waters and proved a more
trustworthy comrade than most of the Christian Portuguese sailors. The man
eventually died. From Japan Xavier wrote, “All through the voyage he was good
to us, and we were unable to be good to him, for he died in his infidelity.
Even after death we could not help him by our prayers to God, for his soul was
in Hell.”[3]
(I’m right, you’re wrong, so off to hell you go.) That’s the man who went down
in history as the model for Christian missionaries. People cut off his right
arm and carried it to
Mother Theresa: a new
missionary model
After Vatican II there’s a new model for Christian missionaries.
It is Mother Theresa of
That great missionary lady with her army of nuns gathered
thousands of dying Hindus from the streets of
The Good Samaritan: an old missionary model
Conclusion
The new mandate
In this new day, it is a relief
to know that the mission is not to make our Jewish or Muslim friends or anyone
else a Christian like ourselves. It is a relief to be freed from that vague nagging
feeling that people of other religious persuasions are jobs to be done--converts
to be made. It is a relief to be able to accept and respect other believers and
not merely tolerate them. The new mandate
is not to do something to others but for others. The new mandate
is to not pass by someone in need but to stop and make a difference on the
highway of life. That won’t get your right arm cut off as a trophy, but it will
get your name written in the book of life, side by side with the names of the
Good Samaritan and Mother Theresa.
[1] Though Islam
and Christianity are both very mission-minded, historically they have been
capable of tolerance. When and where Christianity was in power, it was tolerant
of Islam. When and where Islam was in power, it was tolerant of Christianity.
But tolerance is no feather in anyone’s hat. At heart it says, “I am the boss.
I will allow you some, though not all, of the rights I enjoy as long as you
behave yourself according to the rules I shall lay down.” That is tolerance,
and it is not a virtue.
[2] James
Broderick, S.J., St Francis Xavier (
[3] Ibid., p. 357.