3/21/54

Scripture -(Read Romans 10: 1-15)

We have done some thinking here, during this Lenten season, about the power of Christ that is in us (and that should be in us) --- “Power in our penitence;” “Power in Christian hope.” Now, today, let us consider “Power in Christian Commission.”

Truman Douglass has said that: “The first mark of the living church is that the church thinks of itself as a mission. It does not merely have a mission. It is a mission.” The church is the body of Christ. And Jesus Christ is a living event -- not just a person who lived on earth for 30 to 33 years; not just a realization of generations of hope for a messiah; but The One who sent forth his own with the assurance: “I am with you alway, even to the close of the age” or “the end of the world.” [Matthew 28: 20]. The “living event,” Jesus Christ, commissioned his own to go into all the world and teach all nations. And so, into as much of the world as we can yet reach, Christians have tried to carry out his commission. It is a vital part of our faith that we do so. The mission of the church is the proclaiming, the witnessing, the sharing of the “good news.”

In writing to the Christians at Rome, Paul eloquently proclaims the mission of the church to all people. There is no difference between Jew and Greek in the need for the gospel, and it is available freely to both. Paul quotes his Old Testament scripture: “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” Then Paul carries his logic ahead: “How are people to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how can they hear without a preacher? -- [a messenger] - and how can men preach unless they are sent?” The whole line of persuasions assumes that the church is a mission. Its power both resides in, and derives from, its mission.

Speaking principally to Congregational Christians at this moment, I want to join with Dr. Douglass in suggesting that a Congregational Christian church should perhaps be the easiest of all churches to get in; and the hardest to stay in. A Congregational church is hospitable to all who affirm their Christian faith and purpose. But once a person has entered its welcoming doors, that is into its communicant membership, one ought to find that he requires much of himself. For our Christ requires much of us. Each of us is made responsible for the church’s mission. Each of us ought to “sign up” for that mission at one or more points. Not the minister, alone, in a Congregational Christian church, but all of the members, have a direct ministry, and a personal apostleship. Each is responsible for the church’s witness and message.

At this time of year, we have opportunity to engage in a ministry of mercy. Each year for several seasons now, we have joined other churches in “One Great Hour” of sharing. These offerings of substance and of concern have been channeled through our own Congregational Christian Service Committee to the work of relief and reconstruction among the needy of the earth. Some of this offering a couple of years ago helped the interdenominational Church World Service to carry one and one-half million pounds of food and clothing to folk who desperately needed it in Europe, India, Korea, Okinawa, Japan, Jamaica and the Philippines. A man who has served with distinction as a Congregational missionary, then later as secretary of the American Board, Rev. Wynn C. Fairfield, is now the executive director of Church World Service.

Another facet of the aid given is in support of the Service Committee’s work with displaced persons. Over 4,000 Displaced Persons have found new homes and a fresh start in the US. And our committee has had a large, helpful hand in it. Special services are provided in military areas. Help is given in the rebuilding of some of the churches devastated by war. “Care” packages are sent; “Crop” gifts transported; Inter-church refugee service aided; orphan mission helped; Koreans made homeless by war befriended. The list is far longer than that.

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One expression of our Christian mission is expressed in this offering of mercy which I trust you will make generously next Sunday. But “the gift without the giver is bare,” in the overall mission experience, as well as in personal expression to someone near you. We ought not to have to “sell ourselves” on “benevolence,” or “mercy” or “missions.” To the extent that we have to be sold on these things, we have not yet waked up to our nature as a church and as Christians. The complete church, the church of wholeness, is ready to be a mission because it knows that those who suffer adversity, or ignorance of the gospel, or dangerous error, are all people! They merit Christian fellowship quite as much as did all the folk upon whom Jesus lavished his compassion, encouragement and salvation.

In his prayer for us all, as recorded in that wonderful 17th chapter of John, our Lord consecrated himself for our sakes. Not alone did he pray for a dozen wavering disciples, one of whom already had treason in his heart, but he prayed for us. “I do not pray for these only,” said He, “but also for those who are to believe in me through their word.” [John 17: 9-26]. And what does He ask for us? What does he feel that we must have from God if we are to be faithful to the trust in us? He lays his hand upon that all-important oneness. The ages seem to single out these requirements for the church: (a) that we should live near, and with, and in God; and (b) that, following out of our oneness with God, we draw nearer to one another -- not just as some exclusive little group, or exclusive big group, but as folk constantly reaching out with Christ’s offer of inclusiveness.

The gospel of Matthew ends with a great commission given to all his followers by Christ: “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo I am with you always, to the close of the age.” [Matthew 28: 18-20]. Actually the gospel of Matthew, in these three verses, ends with (1) a claim; (2) a commission; and (3) a promise. These words, as the writer received them from Jesus or from those who had been present with Jesus, seem to reflect the meditation and experience of the early church. And it should be ours.

The casual remark of our time that “one religion is as good as another” is disastrously shallow. Not even all the denominations of the Christian faith are each “as good as the other” for you. There is one that will establish you in Christ’s discipleship and service better than all the others -- and that is the one that is best for you. And as for the intellectually lazy and spiritually irresponsible speculation that the “heathen’s” religion is as good for him as the Christian faith might be, “so why disturb him in his own ways?” --- that is to turn a deaf and unfaithful ear from the word and spirit of our Lord. For Jesus finally voiced his claim to all authority, given to him under God.

(1) His authority means supreme right to appoint us to the office to which he calls us, to require our obedience to his way. His is a faith which people not alone choose, but which chooses people. It is not something to put on or take off like a hat or cloak; it is a very life. Christ claims to be Lord of Life. Christ has spoken the word about God; for God is in him. There is one central question for us then. Perhaps it may not be “What would Jesus do?” for none of us is Jesus; but “What would Jesus Christ have me do?” This authoritative demand of his that we supersede such reasons as “what will our friends think?” and “the wisdom of men,” or “the majority” or “the calculated risks” of some political move, with “what is Christ’s righteous demand?” His command is spoken in the gentleness of love and the rigor of holiness. Sometimes his command runs counter to what appears to us to be “practical wisdom.” But the issue of his dictates is joy.

(2) Christ’s great commission has a world-wide view. “All nations” is a recurrent theme in his teachings. Go through his recorded sayings and see how often he speaks of “the world” in broad and all-inclusive sense. He has always been beyond narrow loyalties. Just as parts of the food supply come from, and portions go to, the ends of the earth, so the message of Christ’s good news should move without limitation or boundary. We ourselves, through our ancestors, were the recipients of the gospel through missionary outreach. We are under His marching orders, even when we do not feel either gratitude or joy, even when we may feel too “low” to “go therefore.” Authority is Christ’s, but he does much of his work by his commission to us. His “marching orders” remain: “Go therefore.”

The method of his commission is “make disciples,” “baptizing” them and “teaching” them. The Christian rite of baptism has its place. It had its antecedent in the Jewish rite of baptism in the synagogue for those who were proselytes to their faith. But Jesus gave it new meaning when he first received baptism himself and then later commissioned his disciples to baptize believers all over the world. To be baptized into his faith should bring profound meaning to the experience of his followers.

Teaching reflects the finely ethical strain in this Gospel. The life of the kingdom of God is not alone an emotional response, but is also understanding in righteousness. It goes beyond the ethic. It is life and joy. If other lands refuse Christ at our hands, the fault is not in him, but in the uncleanness and unworthiness of our hands. And the solving of the difficulty is not in our silence or neglect, but in our penitence. The Christian teacher must be silent at times, for he is never coercive. And he himself is a learner; sometimes through his silence. But sing and speak and teach we must! To hold a known joy and peace is a perverse as holding one’s breath!

A German pastor, placed in concentration camp by the Nazis, had only one really grievous complaint: his captors would not let him sing! “So we sing without voice: with our souls do we the singing, a loud resounding Gloria!” The end and aim of the great missionary commission is to bring people into the power and possession of God the Creator, Christ the Redeemer and the Holy Spirit who is our guide. There is no finer challenge than the privilege, in some way, of introducing souls to their Savior and his righteousness.

(3) And the great Promise that goes with the commission is this: “I am with you always.” The pledge is more than one of “influence.” We yearn for more than the comfort and encouragement of “influence.” We yearn for the person. The pledge is more than a for off light from Palestine, reaching us after 19 or 20 hundred light years of travel. It is the assurance that Jesus, our Savior, is a risen, present reality --- Christ alive; Christ with us.

This transforming presence is what makes everything fall into place as Christ matters. He is with us, to the close of the age. He is our contemporary and eternal Christ, our Redeemer, Friend, and Sovereign Lord.

He is the power in our Christian commission to go to any of the world -- all of the world -- baptizing, teaching, healing people’s woes, proclaiming hope, promising His peace.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, March 21, 1954.