What is Missions?

Since I graduated college a few years ago, I've been attending a church whose foundational statement is Jesus's Great Commission. For those who are unfamiliar with Christian-isms, this passage (Matthew 28:16-20, specifically verses 19-20) is one of Jesus's most famous soundbytes: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

In other words, Jesus is telling his followers, spread the word. With that as our foundation, my missions-oriented church organizes several short-term mission trips every summer, has sent out longer-term missionaries who are residing/have resided in foreign lands, and hosts a parade (in a good way) of speakers to motivate and teach about this thing that all Christians are supposedly called to do.

Oftentimes, this fact that all Christians are indeed called to some sort of "missions" seems to be one of the rare points of irrefutable agreement in missions discourse (of course, there are some givens, like that whole bit about Jesus being the Messiah). With each presentation displaying missions under different filters, the actual definition of missions is often clouded and confusing. Of course, given the relational nature of the gospel, it makes sense that each individual who promotes missions and testifies about God is only able to show a small sliver of an infinite-faceted God. And sometimes, certain puzzles pieces just do not look like they are pieces of the same puzzle.

It certainly doesn't help that different parts of the Bible are used in conjunction with missions. Some will point to God's command to honor widows and children, others will highlight helping the needy and oppressed, and others still will adhere to the Great Commission and its calling to make disciples. To make extracting a simple, coherent definition even more difficult, the issues of location and methodology bake themselves into the debate.

However, what if our missional calling was actually much simpler and broader than all of these technicalities we've assigned to it? Perhaps this is an obvious connection for some, but it took me an embarrassingly long time to understand that God is not simply calling us to assist these people, but he is actually calling us to be husbands, fathers, providers, liberators, teachers. Paul (top 5 missionary, IMO) hints at (punches us in the face with) the strength and model by which we can succeed in these roles - a certain God-turned-carpenter-turned-savior, a.k.a. the ultimate husband/father/provider/liberator/teacher.

In other words, all Christians (definition: follower of Christ) are called to follow Christ. While this tautological argument is probably considered garbage in the logical world, a progression that has the same alpha and omega is priceless in the Christian realm. As we circle this logical track where the end is the beginning, we begin discovering some of God's infinite attributes. God has filled this space between the alpha and omega with a story of redemptive love, a story that can only be told in fragments, through the limited perspective of each follower. And again, we are brought back to Christ, who told his own story through prophecy, parables, miracles, and every other part of his life.

Perhaps that is what missions truly is - following Christ both directionally and mimickingly.

The Plague of Sin

Numbers 25: 1-2, 7-8

While Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughers of Moab. For they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. 

When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he arose from the midst of the congregation and took a spear in his hand, and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and pierced btoh of them through, the man of Israel and the woman, through the body. So the plague on the sons of Israel was checked.

In the verses above, the Israelites have again broken God's decrees and commandments. Enticed by the gods, customs, and women of their newly acquired land, they worship, follow, and love.

Interestingly, however, Moses does not simply refer to these actions as sin. He does not blast their moral code or infidelity before the Lord. Rather, he calls Israel's shortcomings a plague. And this new moniker seems to be much deeper than just a new phrase for the tiring, redundant narrative of the unfaithful Israelites. It actually suggests a different perspective by which to view sin. This perspective is humble, and it hints at a deep understanding of sin.

Centuries later, pharisees would monochromatically view the world as sin or not sin, following the law or breaking it. However, disease is not quite so simple; there are an infinite number of ways to catch a plague - different modes of transmission, different pathways to being introduced to the body. The text shows that the Israelites were indeed swayed in multiple ways: the bold red of pride, the pink hues of lust, the dim yellow of foolishness, and the murky brown of gluttony. The perspective that the pharisees failed to gain, one that Moses astutely pierces, is that these seemingly varying colors are not in themselves an end. These temptations and sins in themselves are not the black that the pharisees so keenly avoided. Rather, these sins coalesce to form the deadly black from which no man is safe - separation from God.

One of the basic tenets of humanity, by nature of being a social species, is that everyone follow some sort of social code (laws, norms, etc.). This human experience makes it so easy to condemn those who break these codes, verbal or not. Thus, the Christian experience is littered with judgment, condemnation, shaming, and overall self-righteousness.

But what if we were to view these sins as illness? What if the sinner was not only the perpetrator, but also the victim? Moses (maybe I am reading into it too much here) seems to be suggesting that the Israelites were victims of an illness from which we must always question our immunity, regardless of the great (and they can be great) preventative measures taken, an illness that can just as easily overtake anyone else, an illness that plagued mankind since before man's first progeny and still persists today. He makes it awfully difficult to judge and condemn our peers. After all, nobody points a finger at a lung cancer patient, blaming him for his illness.

Patients do not avoid condemnation simply because blaming the sick is a faux pas. Once it comes to a terminal illness like cancer, those who understand the gravity of the situation - the possibility of death - can not make less of it, and there are few actions more belittling to a circumstance than retroactively investigating blame. Once the full ramifications are understood, people prepare for the future, be it peaceful acceptance or painful preparations for a fiery fight.

Paul would write centuries later that the wages of sin is death, and 24,000 of God's own Israelites pay those wages in the desert. Unfortunately, we modern Christians often forget the consequences of sin. Sin is not trivial, and it does not end at ill. Sin is death.

Fortunately, the same God whom the Israelites betray did not betray us:
"Jesus said to them, 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'"