Living the Great Commission in the Cruciform Life

We have come now to that part of the Church year that has often been called, “The long green season”. It is the time for growth and for maturing of fruit and the reaping of the harvest. This Sunday’s Gospel plants us firmly back in the Gospel of Matthew and in the “Mission” discourse. Last Sunday we heard of the Great Commission of Jesus to his Church to making disciples, to baptizing and teaching them all that has been commanded of the Church by Christ and recognize that in the going, teaching and baptizing Jesus will be there with us in it all.

The Gospel (Matthew 10.24-39) this week is about being a disciple and where the disciple’s focus needs to be and where it need not be. The disciples are asked to do two things. First, they are to participate in the marvelous signs that Jesus is doing among the people. Namely, they will be healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, causing the lame to walk, curing lepers, exorcising demons, and raising people from death to life. Secondly, the disciples will need to learn what it takes to be followers of Jesus and to be a part of the community he is creating through his teaching, his authority and ministry. The disciples will have to unlearn what they have learned and will have to learn to live a new life: one dependent upon God and each other for the building up of the Church and the kingdom of heaven.

I had a conversation with a friend this week and we were talking about ministry and the things that clergy do. He was amazed at what he saw in me and said that he could ever be like me. I reminded him that I have been a public Christian for a very long time – nearly 25 years now. I pointed out that when I started I was young and foolish, and as bold as brass. I have had to learn how to be the Christian and Christian leader I am now and I did not get there overnight. I have had to learn to let go of some things and learn to trust God to provide when there is need. I have had t learn to move forward to follow and not look back. I have had to learn to deal with opposition from both outside and inside the Church to the Gospel – people who have chosen walk away from the Church and people who have worked to bring me down in a public manner.  I have had to learn to live with a life with safety nets and vices stripped away – things that we hold onto to help and keep us safe.

The lesson I have learn is that the only real safety is in learning to live, to die and to rise like Jesus. He asks that we learn to give ourselves away because in trying to hoard life and shield it thinking that it is ours, what we have we are actually limiting ourselves and moving away from God. As I look to God, he is the source of my life and my strength. He is my portion and my song. He calls us to cross bearing and self denial. He calls his Church to cruciform living. And he demands that we remain in him to remain strong in spite of the conflicts that the cruciform life requires. Intentionally living for God and proclaiming the truth about God is going to be divisive in this world. We are going to find ourselves in conflict with our culture and its ways. There are many in the world that are still listening to the Church, to hear and discern what it is that God is saying and doing. The cruciform life is meant to put Christ on display for the world to see. If we are not willing to swim upstream against our culture, to declare the Good News, the truth of God in Christ, are we really worth knowing? Are we really saying as a community of faith, anything that is worth someone else listening to?

Many in the Church these days are afraid – fearful of loss buildings and structures, of rejection of themselves by the world or by God and sometimes both. Many contemporary Christians are fearful of failing to be the people, the disciples that we are each and all called to be. If you are a person of faith and you are thoroughly committed to seeing the kingdom of heaven here on earth, and you are out there trying to do your level best, isn’t that what God asks of us? We are called to be faithful and fruitful not successful. Success, fame and failure of things belong to God and God alone. The conflict, the problems and protests of this present age rest within God and his relationship with the world. So keep on looking up. He who has called you is faithful and he will do it. Come with me and follow me as I follow Christ. Keep your focus on God, bearing your cross, producing spiritual fruit and walking into the kingdom.

Jason+