Mission - Joining in with what God's up to! (Part Two)

Now back to that scroll of Isaiah... did you know that Isaiah is drawing on an even earlier passage in the Old Testament, a passage in the book of Leviticus, chapter 25? Now don’t freak out but Leviticus is one of these strange books of the Bible full of laws and it can be a challenging read, but in chapter 25 it opens up into an amazing story about the Year of Jubilee.

Let me explain…

God was really into Holidays… Christmas, Easter, Queens Birthday! ( Maybe not back then). You see, God commanded that His people (the Israelites) take a holiday every 7^th day, He also commanded that 3 times a year they went on holiday, to go another step further He also said that every seventh year they should stop working and take a holiday. How awesome is that!  This meant a whole year off so that the people and the land could rest in order that they reconnect with each other and with God!

Now this happened 7 times, 7 times 7 is 49, this meant the 49^th year was a holiday! The following year was the 50^th year, a special year, another year off - The year of Jubilee. That’s two years off in a row, which only happened once in a generation. And in that Year of Jubilee amazing things happened. Dept. got cancelled, slaves were set free and everybody got their land given back!

You see, in the Old Testament land was everything; it was where you lived, where you ate, where you worked and how you earned money. It was everything. When the children of Israel went into the land, God said to them ‘the land belongs to me and I am going to lend it to you’, He divided up the land of Israel amongst the tribes and families fairly so that nobody had too much and nobody had too little, everybody had a chance to be what they could be. Some people made good choices, they worked really hard, were lucky, they prospered and got rich. Others made bad choices, were lazy, became ill, were unlucky and they became poor – and had to sell their land in order to survive. So that when the 50^th year came around some people had loads of land and others had none. But in that year of Jubilee everybody was given their land back and chance to start again from scratch. That’s because God didn’t want some people to get richer and richer while others became poorer and poorer.

So, what does that all mean?

It means that when Jesus stood up and said “today this is fulfilled in your hearing” those who were listening and knew the Old Testament would have known exactly what he was talking about. First of all they would have heard him saying that there is a way back to God, a way to be forgiven. Second they would have heard that God’s Spirit has been poured out and we can experience God’s presence, healing and blessing today. And finally (and this is the important bit!) they would have heard that having got cleaned up themselves, they were to join Jesus in cleaning up the world. Jesus asks us to join him in this adventure as well!

That was the point of it all, to Reclaim the Image of God by going and sharing God’s great grace and love with the World. And this is what we are invited to join in with, going with Jesus to the lost and the least in order to tell them that they are made in the image of a God who loves them.

Stop. Pause. Question - How do you think you could share God’s love and Grace better in your Lunchtime Group and in your school?

I remember when I was in High School I had this epiphany that I really wanted to go and share God’s love with the poor. And so I asked the question “God, what can I do that you will bless?” But it wasn’t until years later that I realised I had been asking the wrong question!  The question should be - “God what are you doing that I can bless?”

There is a latin term, Missio Dei, that translated means 'God's Mission' or 'God sending'. The big moment of 'God sending' in scripture comes in the great commission (Co-mission, joining with God) in Matthew 28. Here Jesus says "go and make disciples of all nations... and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you". Now we know that the greatest commandment of Jesus was "to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and to love your neighbour as yourself". The bit that can sometimes be a bit tricky though is figuring out who our neighbours actually are?

Jesus addressed this question as well.

So there is this guy, and he is talking to Jesus and he’s saying ‘Jesus, how do I get to heaven, how do I get eternal life?’ and Jesus says to the guy “you’re an expert in the law, what does it say?" and the guy replies “love the Lord your God’ and love your neighbour as yourself”. “That’s it” says Jesus, and then the guy is like “but Jesus who’s my neighbour?” – and then Jesus tells a famous story, the story of the Good Samaritan.

Here is a shortened version of the story that goes down in Luke 10:25-37.

‘A man, a Jew, is lying in the middle of the road naked; he has been beaten within an inch of his life and mugged. He is in real bad shape! Along walks a Priest and a Levite (both Jews themselves), but neither do anything to help the man in his distress. Then along comes a Samaritan (these guys weren’t very popular back then), when he sees the man in trouble he takes pity on him, takes him to an Inn, flips the bill and promises to reimburse the innkeeper any extra expense (just in case the injured man goes crazy on the minibar and uses too many off the little free shampoos!).

When he is done Jesus asks the question, “Which of these three do you think was the neighbour to the man in distress?”  “The one who has mercy on him” replies the man.

You see joining in with what God is doing in the world and loving our neighbours means much more than just loving our friends, it even means loving our enemies!  And sharing God’s love with the world around us doesn’t mean we have to go to Africa, or a tropical island, we don’t even have to get on a plane! We can "do Mission", sharing God’s love in our own City, Suburb, School and Lunchtime Group! How awesome is that.

The heart of what it means to be a Christian is relationship with God who loves us. God’s love for us was displayed when Jesus laid down his life for the entire world through death on a cross. Relationship with God means that He invites us to join Him in His work and He has promised to provide us with all we need for the adventure! Mission is not supposed to be a separate ‘spiritual’ activity but rather it’s about everything that we do, it means deep engagement with Christ and the world He loves with all of our hearts, minds, emotions and relationships.