Mission First
Luke 4:21-30
The word “missional” was quite the buzzword when I was in seminary 15 years ago. I wasn’t familiar with the word prior to attending seminary. I don’t think most people were, other than seminary professors and students. Why do I say that? Because every time I typed the word in a document using Microsoft Word, it was always underlined in red, which meant that the most widely used word-processing software in the English language didn’t consider it a word.
In the classroom I heard the word “missional” used mainly as a descriptor of the church, i.e., the “missional church.” The idea of the missional church emerged gradually in the 1990s and 2000s as a response to the church-growth movement. Beginning in the 1970s there was a movement within American Christianity that sought to bring the principles and practices of the business world into the church. The success of any business being based on continual growth, the same principle should be applied to the church, so the thinking went.
At its best, the church-growth movement addressed the elephant in the room—the emptying of America’s churches in the latter half of the twentieth century. At its worst, it treated the gospel like any other product for sale, with congregants viewed as consumers and churches as one-stop shopping centers with gymnasiums, coffee bars, and bookstores, and worship services designed for mass appeal featuring Christian rock music and pastors in skinny jeans.
Reacting against this type of Christian consumerism, the missional- church movement sought to return to the New Testament vision of the church as the sent community. The church was not a place for drawing people in but rather for sending them out. The purpose was not to keep people in the building by meeting as many of their needs as possible. The purpose was to equip disciples for mission, i.e., to be witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
A leading voice in the missional church movement was Darrell Guder, my professor at Princeton Seminary. (Picture Walter White, the antihero from the TV show Breaking Bad, before he shaved his head and became a crystal-meth kingpin.) Professor Guder thought that the church mostly paid lip service to mission, reducing it to nothing more than a line item in the budget, right next to office supplies. As I went over the 2025 budget with the Session two weeks ago and saw the line for “mission,” I felt the heat of Professor Guder’s gaze.
The church of God doesn’t have a mission, the mission of God has a church.
The good professor had a gift for the turn of phrase, for coming up with short, clever lines that were memorable and meaningful. “The mission of the church is mission,” he would say with fervor, his voice rising with emotion on that second mention of “mission.” Print that on a bumper sticker and slap it on the church van!
My favorite line of his, however, was a bit too long for a bumper sticker…maybe a t-shirt: “The church of God doesn’t have a mission, the mission of God has a church.”
Let’s unpack that. It’s a matter of which comes first. What is the subject and what is the object? If the church of God has a mission, then the church is the subject and mission becomes something that the church does, along with buying office supplies. But if the mission of God has a church, then mission is the subject and the church is the means by which God carries out God’s mission of love and justice, forgiveness and reconciliation.
I find Professor Guder’s formulation of mission-first to be liberating. It frees us from the anxiety that comes with obsessing over the numbers—the number of people in the pews or the number of dollars in the church checking account. Trust me, I am preaching to myself right now because as much as I consider myself a man of words, the numbers are never far from my mind.
When mission comes first, the church is not an end in itself focused first and foremost on its own survival. When mission comes first, the church doesn’t feel the need to turn inward, anxiously hoarding its resources so as to keep the doors open as long as possible. Rather, when mission comes first, the church is free to turn outward in faith, in hope, and in love and free to embrace its calling to witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In the reading from Luke before us today we see a community that is focused inward, set against the mission of God in Jesus Christ that is moving ever outward. Jesus’ hometown congregation welcome his message of God’s good news for the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, and liberty for the oppressed, as long as they are the beneficiaries. But when Jesus declares that God’s mission of mercy crosses the border, they become enraged. The very idea is so threatening to them that they drive Jesus out of the synagogue and out of the town and lead him to the brow of a hill so that they can throw him off the cliff. I would say that they gave the sermon a thumb’s down.
As promised, we pick up the story precisely where we left off. Jesus has returned home to Nazareth to preach before a hometown crowd. He reads from the scroll of Isaiah God’s declaration of good news for the suffering. He then proclaims that this good news has been fulfilled this very day. It’s a mic-drop moment. He means that he himself is the fulfillment of God’s promised salvation.
And you know what? The initial response of the congregation is not anger but wonder and amazement. Verse 22: All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.
It’s not only the words that came from his mouth that fill them with wonder, it’s whose mouth they’re coming from. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they ask. Isn’t this Jesus, the kid we knew in middle school? I had third-period carpentry with him. When did he become so holy?
There is such a thing as being too familiar. The folks in Nazareth can’t quite wrap their heads around the fact that these gracious words are coming from one of their own. But that’s not what turns them against Jesus. That’s not when their wonder morphs into anger and resentment. It’s when the hometown hero refuses to be the hometown hero.
Verse 23: He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’ “
Remember, Jesus has returned to Nazareth as a celebrity. Reports of his healings and other miracles have spread throughout Galilee all the way to Nazareth. Now the hometown folks want Jesus to perform for them. Come on, Jesus. Do for us what you did for them over in Capernaum. Do it for us. After all, you’re one of us.
Understand, this is not doubt that they’re voicing. They’re not questioning whether Jesus can perform miracles. They’re demanding that he perform miracles for them. After all, they’re the ones who know him from back in the day. They’re the ones he grew up with, went to school with, played soccer with. They remember his father Joseph. His mother Mary lives among them. It’s only right that Jesus should use his gifts for his own people. Israel first.
Have you ever been in a room when the mood suddenly turned sour? That’s what’s about to happen. When Jesus goes from quoting a proverb (“Doctor, cure yourself”) to referencing the prophets who were sent to minister to outsiders—to the undeserving—it’s a record-scratch moment. There’s a brief silence before all hell breaks loose.
The mission of God recognizes no borders and knows no boundaries.
First Jesus brings up Elijah and the widow of Zarephath. This was early in the reign of Ahab, a corrupt and faithless king of Israel who served only his own interests and nursed grievances against his enemies. Elijah warned the king that drought and famine would fall upon the land, a sign of judgment upon his sins, for which the king accepted no responsibility.
Yet amid widespread famine across Israel and surrounding nations, the Lord sends Elijah to work wonders not among any in Israel but to a widow across the border in Sidon, a woman who doesn’t know the Lord from Adam. This widow has just enough meal and oil left to make one small cake for herself and her son, which they plan to eat and then die, there being no more food. But Elijah asks that she first prepare one for him and assures her that the meal and oil will last until the day that the Lord makes it rain.
Jesus then references Elijah’s protege Elisha and the blessing that he gave to Naaman the Syrian, who suffered from a skin disease. Namaan was not only an outsider, he was a commander in the army of Aram, Israel’s enemy. Yet amid all the people in Israel suffering with a skin disease, it is the outsider, the nonbeliever Namaan whom Elisha heals.
A widow from a foreign land, a commander of a foreign army, the mission of God recognizes no borders and knows no boundaries. It cannot be contained by those of us on the inside nor kept at bay by those on the outside. It will not be confined within the walls of our churches nor kept from going wherever the Spirit wills. The mission of God does not wait for the church.
As you know, immediately after worship today we will have our annual congregational meeting. In preparation for the meeting I was pouring over the budget, looking for places to trim. My eye fell to the word “mission.” Almost all of our other expenses are fixed. We get a bill and we pay it: electric bill, gas bill, water bill, cable bill, insurance bill, tax bill. Even my salary is mandated by the presbytery. But with mission we have some leeway. There’s no bill, no mandated minimum. We can set whatever amount we see fit.
For a split second I thought about taking an axe, or more of a scalpel, really, to that line item in the budget that said “mission.” And then I remembered Professor Guder: The church of God doesn’t have a mission, the mission of God has a church! My fear was getting in front of my faith.
Fear turns us inward, creating a kind of bunker mentality. “Forget about those outsiders, we need to take care of our own.” Fear is the opposite of faith. Faith trusts that, in some form or fashion, God will provide.
God always provides a way for his church, and that way is Jesus Christ—the way of love and justice, the way of mercy and compassion, the way of forgiveness and reconciliation, the way of mission. It is the mission of God that gives life to the church, not the other way around. Remember, mission first. And that mission calls us to turn away from fear and to step out in faith, for step out we must if we are to keep pace with the God who is ever on the move.