Sermon: Know the Living God

The Mission of the Church is our only way of getting to know the living God

In my extended family we have a retired RAF Wing Commander, who just hates the word “retreat.” So whenever I am around him I am careful not say anything like “I’m going on a retreat. “

Of course, in military terms “retreat” is a negative word, it might be synonymous with a failed military strategy. It might even be a dirty-word associated with cowardice in the face of the enemy.

But what bothers my uncle-in-law so much about associating the word “retreat” with pray is that by doing that Christ and the mission of the Church are cast in terms of disengagement: To retreat, in prayer, sounds like a “closing down,” a turning inward, a withdrawal from the world. When, Christ and the mission of the Church are actually all about going out and engaging with the world. And that’s a very valid point to make.

Indeed, the word “mission” comes from the Latin missiō which refers to the missa (the dismissal) of the people at the end of the Eucharist:

“Go in peace to love and serve the Lord”

The missa (or, the dismissal) took on, over time, the deeper meaning of “mission.” It became, over time, not just the ending of the divine liturgy but came to be thought of as a starting-point for the mission of the church. The “sending out” of the People of God to carry out the “mission of God” in the world.

So if the Christian mission is about being empowered by Jesus to go out and engage positively with the world why do we read in Matthew’s gospel that Jesus withdrew to Galilee? (Matthew 4.12) The word used is anachōreō which means ‘to withdraw, to go back, to retreat.’

What I am saying here is that the language which we use about God is vital. Since the words which we choose to use in association with the mission of the Church convey to those on the outside of the Church, nothing less than, who we are saying God is.

Now, it was on hearing that John, the Baptist, had been arrested that Jesus withdrew, to Galilee.

Galilee was a much safer place for him. It was the hill country of the North. It was that bit further away from the Jewish political capital – Jerusalem. It was something like how Scotland is in relation to Greater London. It was the land of Zebulun and Neph’thalim, called “Galilee of the nations,” it was where Israel interfaced with foreign states. The region had a long history of being contested territory and was, thus, somewhat ethnically mixed. Whereas, Jerusalem was literally a dangerous place for a controversial figure such as Jesus, he was left alone to move around and teach in the borderland region of Galilee.

It was on hearing that John had been arrested that Jesus withdrew: and this close link which Jesus had with John is thought to be historically verified. The fact that three gospels record that Jesus was baptised by John is considered to be evidence that this is historically true.

It is widely thought that Jesus may have actually been a disciple of John’s before going solo and beginning his ministry proper, as we now know it. But this picture of Jesus as working in a collaborative way with John, and perhaps others also, corrodes the prevailing Christian sense of Jesus as very much a solo figure.

I have been thinking about the mission of the Church and how the Church interfaces with the rest of the world. And I think there is a prevailing Christian sense that Jesus knew all and did all with the commanding competence of an almost un-touchable, unattainable, solo genius. Such that his divinity excludes all of his humanity. This sense of Jesus’ remoteness is then fed-back to the church when we find that people’s view of the church, from the outside, is that it is also untouchable and is simply a different thing, altogether, from ordinary life.

People say things like, “that’s not for me,” and, “I don’t do church,” and when they say such things perhaps what they conceive of is the church of a separatist god. An optional god , for some.

Looking at another aspect of Jesus’ withdrawal: We are told that Jesus withdrew to Galilee “to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah” (Matt. 4.14). (Jesus as the fulfilment of prophecy being a key theme for Matthew.) But what if Jesus withdrew simply because it was a sensible thing to do. Could it have been just a very human decision, and common sense, to withdraw at that time? Perhaps he needed to have think about what was going on, with John’s arrest and all.

Unique Son of God he was, and we proclaim him, but, the divinity of incarnation has little value unless we see that it is a divinity wedded to all humanity. We need to identify with the humanity of Jesus.

Perhaps it was in the human decision to withdraw that Jesus entered, somewhat haphazardly, into his universal significance. And, what could have been just another culturally bounded message for one particular people group (that is the Jews) became us – the international, missionary church. As Saint Paul says in today’s reading (1 Corinthians 1.10-18) a people unified in faith but dispersed throughout the world.

So as you can see I have been thinking about the mission of the Church and how the Church is seen from the outside. And, perhaps the mission of the church is not so much any kind of program to run, or a task for an organisation to accomplish, or even a principle to adhere to. Perhaps the mission of the Church is the only way to know who God really is. For the road to salvation is to know a god who himself is a missionary – who sent himself out from his own being, his own centre, and into the foreigner territory of this material world. In entering into the mission of the Church we enter into the living God who is a missionary God.