What is the Missional Church ? (Part 3)

What is the Missional Church? (Part 3)
The End of the Gospels: Matthew

The end of Mark’s ending places the reader in the crisis of decision: will he or she shoulder the cross and go to Galilee and join the risen Jesus in his servant ministry to the world? Or, like the women at the tomb, otherwise faithful in following Jesus throughout Mark’s story, will they allow the magnitude of the claim and the immensity of the power involved to render them mute? Such is Mark’s intention by the way he crafts and concludes his gospel.

As the first gospel written, it seems fitting for Mark to lay out in stark fashion the challenge of resurrection faith as the call to cruciform living and loving in the imitation and power of the risen One. A missional church is one that risks taking up this challenge and lives restless and relentless in following Jesus wherever he sends them. The other gospel writers, who have the more traditional gospel endings with angels, appearances of the risen Jesus to the disciples, and formal commissioning stories, fill out the picture of what such missional, cruciform ministry entails. We’ll look at Matthew today.

Matthew’s resurrection story (ch.28) has its own peculiarities: the earthquake (v.2), the guards’ reaction (v.4), and the authorities cover up what happened that first Easter morning (vv.11-15). The astonishing and outrageous challenge highlighted by Mark remains in the note that doubt mingled with worship among the disciples on the mountain with the risen Jesus (v.17). Yet the Lord imparts to these believing/doubting disciples what we have comes to call the “Great Commission” (vv.18-20).

This latter is, I believe, Matthew’s pastoral acknowledgment of the place that most of us are in most of the time – “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!” If the story of Jesus’ resurrection seems a tall tale hard for us to swallow, we are not alone! It seemed like that to the first disciples too! Yet Jesus called just this group of folks to carry on and carry out his ministry to the world!

In this commission Jesus responds to what he knows is our “mixed faith/doubt” condition. His fourfold “all” stresses the utter sufficiency of what he provides for our mission – “all authority” is his (v.18), “all nations” (v.19) belong to him, “all that I have commanded you” (v.20) assures us that have the resources necessary, and “all days” (v.20, usually translated “always” in English) means we are never, ever alone in our work.

In promising his ongoing presence with his people Jesus draws two Old Testament images of God together. And they make a powerful impression. “I am with you always,” he asserts. “I am” alludes to the divine name revealed to Moses at the burning bush in Ex.3. This God, this “I am what I am” (or perhaps better, “I will be what I will be”), also identifies himself as “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex.3:15). Jesus is telling us that God’s great drama of redemption and restoration, begun with his promise to Abraham and Sarah of a great and blessed people who will be the vehicle for spreading his blessings to everyone else in Gen.12:1-3, continues on. And Jesus commissions his followers to enlist in that movement and move out and bless the world! That’s the missional church in lock step with God’s mission of redeeming all creation.

If the “I am” is “with you” this can be nothing other than the great promise of “Immanuel” (“God with us”) with which Matthew began his story (1:23). Now this Immanuel has been identified as Jesus of Nazareth and as the risen and exalted One he himself accompanies on our way. Just as Moses knew his mission of leading the people of Israel to the promised land was futile if God did not go with them (Ex. 33:15-16), so we sense that if the risen Christ is not with us we too will fail. But he is! He is! And Matthew brings his gospel to its climactic conclusion with just this affirmation.

Matthew’s commissioning story also makes clear that “disciple-making” is the content of the work of the missional church. “Make disciples” is the main verb of this sentence. And this disciple-making involves a double-movement of baptism and teaching, “membering” and “mentoring,” we might say. Both aspects are crucial. A missional church will be intentional in seeing that “members” also get “mentored” (learning by apprenticeship and practice rather than in a class-room) into the lifestyle and ethos of God’s Kingdom.

So, from Mark we learn that a missional community is one that embraces the risky call to share in the risen Jesus cruciform (cross-shaped) ministry in the world. Matthew adds to this profile assurances of Jesus/God’s powerful presence with us. Indeed, only divine power could transform an instrument of humiliation, torture and death, the cross, into the very power of salvation! In the power of the cross and cruciform ministry we go out to invite others into God’s kingdom movement and habituate them to their new life as part of it. Knowing who accompanies us transforms our “doubt” into faith and enables us go!

Mark’s ending tells us: “If you want to know, you’ve got to go!"
Matthew’s ending tells us: “If you want to go, you’ve got to know!

Next time we will see what Luke’s ending adds to our profile.

"What is required--what Jesus Christ continually requires--are rocks like this who are certainly not perfectly untainted people, who are perhaps seriously objectionable in many ways and will have much to answer for, but are nevertheless ready to do something quite specific, to render obedience to a specific word by undertaking a specific service." Karl Barth