With this short piece, I’m launching a series of stories about life in a village in Mali, where I worked off an on for a period of about 8 years, establishing a small evangelism/ church planting team that continues to share Jesus with the local population. My hope is that you will be inspired and encouraged to be the ‘Word made flesh’ wherever you find yourself in this world.
Matthew 28:16-20
I love this final scene in Matthew’s Gospel. It so clearly defines our mission as followers of Jesus, and it is simple – so simple, in fact, that it’s easy to overlook the key elements of Jesus’ charge to his disciples, and to end up doing everything but what He said to do, in an effort to fill our churches and achieve results. We can end up accomplishing ‘great things’ that have nothing to do with the actual mission. And what is that mission exactly?
• Go into the world (not attempt to fit the world into a building).
• Make disciples of all nations (enthicities or people groups). A disciple is simply a learner, a follower, or more practically, an apprentice.
• Baptize them ‘in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. (Name speaks to identity – invite people into this divine family where they receive a new identity. In baptism, people are identifying with the family of God into which they’ve been born anew by faith).
• Teach them to obey everything Jesus has commanded. This is where it gets intensely practical, where it becomes an apprenticeship. In other words, ‘don’t just tell, but show them how to do it.’ Show them HOW to follow Jesus in this world.
For this mission, we have the assurance of Jesus ultimate authority in every realm, and the promise of His empowering, accompanying presence all of the time. But this master plan depends on a partnership between the human and the divine. I’m all about the divine, the supernatural, the ‘God-side’ of this thing. Woohoo! Bring on the miracles! But none of it works without the human element. Yes, fallible, frail, ridiculous, annoying, ordinary people. I’m one of them. Apparently, what Jesus had in mind would involve, real, raw, life-on-life human relationships. People showing other people how to follow Jesus, ordinary people showing other ordinary people what it looks like to walk with God in this world. Think about this with me. Think about the disciples in this scene in Matthew.
They have all just come through the harrowing events of Jesus’ arrest, trial, crucifixion, and glorious resurrection. When you read the Gospel accounts of those events, you realize that none of these men had been star performers. As a matter of fact, during his arrest, “they all left him and fled.” Now here they are, reassembled with the exception of Judas, worshipping the risen Christ, but even now ‘some of them doubted.’ Jesus is about to leave planet earth, and He commits the future of THE mission – the one thing for which He came to earth, lived, suffered, died and rose again – to this group of average people.
When you read the continuing story in the book of Acts, the success of this group is amazing, given their humble beginnings. Of course there is the divine element – the power, presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit. Miracles. A sense of awe. God present among His people. But is that the whole story? We also see community, family, and deep friendships. And without these, the mission does not move forward – at least, not the mission that Jesus entrusted to his disciples.
In most studies I’ve read about Jesus’ training of the disciples, there is one simple but powerful aspect that gets overlooked: friendship. Jesus took a diverse, difficult collection of individuals and formed them into a tightknit group of friends. Jesus modeled it. He formed friendships with the disciples and others, like Martha, Mary and Lazarus. He nurtured and encouraged the friendships they formed with one another. At the end He said, ‘I no longer call you servants, but friends.’ He urged them as strongly as He could to love one another, to remain committed to one another. And they did. The disciples and their tribe continued to live, model and reproduce this way of life. And that was the strength of the early church – a network of friendships that couldn’t be broken. It was not buildings, and programs, and branding, and institutions, and slick productions that wowed audiences. None of those things will change a single life, no matter how great the experience. What we need is the raw, real sharing of one life with another. Inviting someone to eat with you, to walk with you, to know you, to watch how you follow Jesus, how you do life, even when it’s not perfect. Even a casual reading of the New Testament letters will tell you it was pretty messy – diverse groups of people from various backgrounds, races and social strata learning to follow Jesus, and learning to do it together in community. Conflicts, friendships, controversies, and God in the middle of it all working in and through the lives of flawed human beings, not much different from us. Can we bring back the human element? Can we bring back friendship? I sure hope so.
Know This Love 