Five Practices of Fruitful
Congregations – Week 4
Risk-Taking Mission and
Service
Midweek Meditation – October 17, 2012
BMC- Matt 25:31-46
Introduction:
This evening, we turn our attention
to the area of mission and service. This
is an area that we probably feel like we have a pretty good handle on
right? After all, our denomination’s
commitment to mission and service is part of what drew me into this stream of
Christianity. I was struck by a people
that took their faith so seriously that they were intentional about putting it
into practice.
We could list off an alphabet soup
of denominational ministries that focus on mission and service, right? We have MCC, MMN, MDS, VS, EMM, & CPT to
name a few. All of these are
organizations that put faith into practice by doing various mission and service
activities.
And locally, our congregation is
very involved in mission and service through things like Mennonite Women, Our
Daily Bread, West Liberty Cares, Bethel Homework Help and the soccer camp. We take our faith seriously and are
intentional about putting Biblical principles of caring for those in need into
practice.
Matt 25:31-46
In Matthew
25, we read of the sheep and the goats.
It is a story of the end of time in which Jesus will judge the people of
the world separating them into sheep and goats.
Now we might expect Jesus to base this separation on very spiritual
looking things like time in prayer and reading the Torah. But Jesus bases this separation on what seems
to be very earthy things and in the process raises their importance in our
faith.
On his
right hand, he has his sheep and he offers to them their inheritance. He does so because they were the ones who
gave people something to eat, something to drink, invited them in, something to
wear, cared for their sickness and visited them in prison. These are the people who put their faith into
practice and lived a life of mission and service. These are the people that Jesus rewarded.
On his left
hand are the goats that he casts away.
They are the ones who did not give something to eat or drink or
wear. They are the ones who did not care
for the stranger, the sick or the imprisoned.
They did not live out God’s instructions and they will suffer for it.
And so in
this passage we see the importance of living out our faith through mission and
service. We see that faith is more than
a series of doctrinal truths that we must give our assent to. Faith involves practicing mission and service
in very tangible and real ways. And as I
said, I believe that we do this very well overall. And yet, our United Methodist author challenges
us to continue to go deeper.
Making it Risky
The author suggests that this is
about more than practicing mission and service.
This is about Risk-Taking Mission and Service. This is about more than sending our money,
dropping by to help out, or doing mission to
people. Risk-Taking Mission and Service
involves going out of our comfort zones, building relationships and doing
mission with people.
Outside Our Comfort Zones
Sending money and supplies to
people half way around the world who are struggling is a good thing, but it is
also a very safe thing. In the grand
scheme of things, it typically does not cause us much discomfort or trouble to
write a check or to gather supplies. It
does not really require us to sacrifice much or to take any risk.
So while this is an important part
of mission and service, our author challenges us to look beyond this to see
other opportunities that may involve a bit of risk on our part. He encourages us to consider mission and
service that requires us to put ourselves out there a bit. And he suggests that in the process, we
become more dependent on God and grow deeper in our own faith.
Involves Personal Contact
The author
also suggests that Risk-Taking Mission and Service calls us to move beyond
providing a service to developing a relationship. He says that those involved in Risk-Taking
mission “value contact, engagement, and long-term relationships, and they
measure the impact of their work in lives changed rather than in money sent or
buildings constructed.”[1]
We do a lot
to help a lot of people, but are we also building relationships with the people
that we help? Are we showing them that
we value them as people and that we want to get to know them? Or do we appear to be do-gooders who come
into help for a time, but then pull out once the crisis has been dealt
with? Do we welcome those people that we
serve into our lives or do we hold them at arms length?
Doing
Mission with Rather Than to
And our
author suggests that Risk-Taking Mission involves doing mission with the people rather than to the people… with the people rather than to
the people. How many times do we go in
confident that we know what is best for the people in need and minister to them
from our positions of power or wealth?
How often do we go into a setting and organize to do all the work while
the people in need are left to sit around and watch?
Our author
suggests that congregations that practice Risk-Taking mission and service “go
the extra mile and put forth the effort to see that the people they serve feel
respected, confirmed, confident, and blessed, not dependant or helpless or
indebted. They do mission with people of
other cultures and not ministry to them; they don’t view service as a one-way
street, as if their members hold all the answers and have all the resources and
are helping people who have nothing.
They sharpen their sensitivity to the inequalities of power and wealth,
and work toward partnerships and mutual ministry in which they learn as much as
they teach, receive as much as they offer, and grow in Christ through their
sharing of Christ’s compassion.”[2]
At the Ohio
Conference Annual Assembly this past year, we heard the story of a food pantry
in eastern Ohio that is set up a little bit differently. Instead of receiving calls and handing out
bags of food as we do, their food pantry is set up like a grocery store. People in need of food get a shopping cart
and one of the workers goes around with them and helps them in selecting their
food.
In the
process, the people receiving the food feel empowered and the pantry workers
are able to develop a relationship with those in need. They become a part of the ministry rather
than simply recipients of the ministry.
ConclusionOur passage in Matthew 25 calls us to put our faith into practice through mission and service. And we have a history and a culture of doing this. Yet our author calls us to continue to work at taking this to the next level. He calls us to Risk-Taking mission and service in which we go outside of our comfort zones, develop relationships with people, and minister with rather than to.
Each table
has a sheet with some starter questions.
Feel free to use them in any order or to go in a different direction as
the spirit leads. If one person could
serve as a facilitator and take some notes, I would be very thankful as it will
help me in my sermon preparation for Sunday.
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