Make disciples of all nations
Matthew 28 contains what is often cited as the "great commission" of Jesus. I have no idea why this is 'greater' than other commissions of Jesus, such as to feed the hungry, wash the feet of others, or forgive etc. It just has gotten that name in the modern era.
Anyway, the other day I ran across the "great" commission again and I thought for a second what if we have misunderstood this? I am not saying we have, just go with this thought for a second.
Jesus says to the disciples to go into the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
I noticed that Jesus does not say to go into the world and make disciples in all nations but make disciples of all nations. Put another way, Jesus does not say to make disciples of Jesus but of all nations.
What does it mean to be a disciple of all nations?
What does it mean to learn from all the nations? What does it mean to respect others in such a way that you feel that you have something to learn from them? What does it mean to be a disciple of the world?
What if Jesus was telling the disciples to no so much make more disciples of Jesus, but what if Jesus is calling the disciples to make disciples of the world.
Christian history can be seen as a religion that has forced others to be like us. Under the banner of "making disciples" we have justified our actions as a Church in the past to make others convert to our way of being. Out of love we try to convince others to abandon their way of life and become like us. It takes a posture of being one who has truth and the gatekeeper of truth and others who are not like us do not have truth.
If however, just for a moment, we entertain the idea that we are to make disciples of all nations, are we being called to make people who are learners of the world? Disciples of the world in such a way that the Christian is one who is not the keeper of truth, but a seeker of truth. A Christian is not one who tries to convert but one who tries to commune with their neighbor. A Christian is not one who tries to make clones of ourselves, but one who acknowledges the worth of others an even (gasp) learn from them?
What if making disciples of all nations was a call to humility and not conversion?
Anyway, the other day I ran across the "great" commission again and I thought for a second what if we have misunderstood this? I am not saying we have, just go with this thought for a second.
Jesus says to the disciples to go into the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
I noticed that Jesus does not say to go into the world and make disciples in all nations but make disciples of all nations. Put another way, Jesus does not say to make disciples of Jesus but of all nations.
What does it mean to be a disciple of all nations?
What does it mean to learn from all the nations? What does it mean to respect others in such a way that you feel that you have something to learn from them? What does it mean to be a disciple of the world?
What if Jesus was telling the disciples to no so much make more disciples of Jesus, but what if Jesus is calling the disciples to make disciples of the world.
Christian history can be seen as a religion that has forced others to be like us. Under the banner of "making disciples" we have justified our actions as a Church in the past to make others convert to our way of being. Out of love we try to convince others to abandon their way of life and become like us. It takes a posture of being one who has truth and the gatekeeper of truth and others who are not like us do not have truth.
If however, just for a moment, we entertain the idea that we are to make disciples of all nations, are we being called to make people who are learners of the world? Disciples of the world in such a way that the Christian is one who is not the keeper of truth, but a seeker of truth. A Christian is not one who tries to convert but one who tries to commune with their neighbor. A Christian is not one who tries to make clones of ourselves, but one who acknowledges the worth of others an even (gasp) learn from them?
What if making disciples of all nations was a call to humility and not conversion?
It is not about taxes, it is about trust
Taxes are always a hot button issue. People believe that the money they earn is theirs and they do not want anyone putting their hands into their bank accounts. So every election season people protest when any talk of a tax raise might be needed. And when these talks happen, people sometimes look foolish.
For instance, here is this sign in protest:
You may be thinking - how can a government run program stay out of the government run program?
I don't know. This sort of thinking runs amok when taxes are discussed. All sort of people get irrational.
The bottom line in this post is that paying taxes is not the issue. It is that we have a growing distrust. We just do not trust others to take care of our money. We believe that we are better managers of our money than anyone else and, if given the opportunity, we could do what others do at a lower cost and faster.
It is not about taxes, it is about trust. When we do not trust our fellow persons, then we will rail against anything that forces us to trust them.
So we rail against taxes.
Members (and many times clergy) of the UMC rail against apportionments and the appointment process.
We rail against FOXNews or MSNBC.
We rail against God when things don't go a desired way.
We rail against other drivers while we ourselves are guilty of poor driving habits.
We rail against our bosses who "don't know what they are doing."
It really has very little to do with the issue(s) voiced, it has everything to do with trust. When we trust others then the level of angst goes way down.
The concern from this clergy person's stand point is that the more we are secularized the less trust is promoted between people. The more we rail against the machine of government the less trust there is. The more we think others are idiots and we are immune to irrationality the less trust there is.
For instance, here is this sign in protest:
You may be thinking - how can a government run program stay out of the government run program?
I don't know. This sort of thinking runs amok when taxes are discussed. All sort of people get irrational.
The bottom line in this post is that paying taxes is not the issue. It is that we have a growing distrust. We just do not trust others to take care of our money. We believe that we are better managers of our money than anyone else and, if given the opportunity, we could do what others do at a lower cost and faster.
It is not about taxes, it is about trust. When we do not trust our fellow persons, then we will rail against anything that forces us to trust them.
So we rail against taxes.
Members (and many times clergy) of the UMC rail against apportionments and the appointment process.
We rail against FOXNews or MSNBC.
We rail against God when things don't go a desired way.
We rail against other drivers while we ourselves are guilty of poor driving habits.
We rail against our bosses who "don't know what they are doing."
It really has very little to do with the issue(s) voiced, it has everything to do with trust. When we trust others then the level of angst goes way down.
The concern from this clergy person's stand point is that the more we are secularized the less trust is promoted between people. The more we rail against the machine of government the less trust there is. The more we think others are idiots and we are immune to irrationality the less trust there is.
Form: Shaping Spirituality: Trans-form
In a final post about a way of spiritual formation, we will look at transform.
I credit Rev. Nancy Allen on the following visual. She said she got it from a Companions in Christ study, but she was not sure where she first saw it.
It is one of the better ways I have come across to describe what a transformation through spiritual formation "looks" like.
Many of us begin to talk about God in abstract terms and use language that speaks of God as "out there". As such, we relate to God as an "other" not related to the self (see fig. 1).
Some people find that to talk about God in the abstraction is not helpful or "Biblical" and so there is a very powerful movement in which there is a talk of getting Jesus into your heart. Whereas in fig 1 God is outside of the self, in fig 2 God dwells in the temple of the body.
The fact of the matter is in both fig 1 and fig 2, the protagonist is the human being. Fig 1 has the human story and God's story moving in parallel. There are times when the stories come close (Christians call these mountaintop experiences or thin places) but they do not touch. Fig 2, God becomes a personal deity in which prayers are offered and the person who prays them becomes convinced that God does not love them but is in love with them. This is parodied in this SNL sketch:
Jesus (Phil Hartman): Tina.. Tina.. all I'm saying is, prayers like, "Please don't let the rice get sticky." You know.
Tina (Sally Field): Yeah! Yeah!
Jesus: I mean, do you really need My help with stuff like that? See?
Tina: [ crying profusely into her apron ] I'm very, very sorry..! I guess I was justwasting your time..! I certainly wish you had told me about this sooner..!
Jesus: Well, I thought about it, and I decided to finally say something..
Tina: Oh, God, I'm so embarrassed..!
Jesus: Well, believe me, there are a billion people with the same problem! [ chuckling ]
Notice in this sketch and in fig. 2, the person center stage is not God, but the human.
Through the process of reforming, we are transformed. Fig. 3 visually expresses that when we are transformed we are not longer looking as God or hold God in our heart, but we become enveloped in God. We have our story but our story is just one story of God's story. We have a relationship with God, but the relationship is not exclusively ours.
Fig 3 is a life transformed. The protagonist of fig. 3 is not the human - it is God.
Transformation is beyond being a better person. It is beyond doing good or living by the golden rule. If we are religious or spiritual just to be better people, then the main actor in our lives is still, well, us.
Rather, the call of Christian spirituality is a call to transform so that we are no longer the main player in our lives. We are not the protagonist. Transformation leads us to losing our story in God's story so that God's story becomes our story.
Spiritual formation is about moving toward fig 3. It is about being formed so that we are not the center of the action in our life. It is about learning God's story so that God's story becomes our story.
Spiritual formation is bound together in information, preformation, conformation, reformation, and transformation.
I credit Rev. Nancy Allen on the following visual. She said she got it from a Companions in Christ study, but she was not sure where she first saw it.
Many of us begin to talk about God in abstract terms and use language that speaks of God as "out there". As such, we relate to God as an "other" not related to the self (see fig. 1).
Some people find that to talk about God in the abstraction is not helpful or "Biblical" and so there is a very powerful movement in which there is a talk of getting Jesus into your heart. Whereas in fig 1 God is outside of the self, in fig 2 God dwells in the temple of the body.
The fact of the matter is in both fig 1 and fig 2, the protagonist is the human being. Fig 1 has the human story and God's story moving in parallel. There are times when the stories come close (Christians call these mountaintop experiences or thin places) but they do not touch. Fig 2, God becomes a personal deity in which prayers are offered and the person who prays them becomes convinced that God does not love them but is in love with them. This is parodied in this SNL sketch:
Jesus (Phil Hartman): Tina.. Tina.. all I'm saying is, prayers like, "Please don't let the rice get sticky." You know.
Tina (Sally Field): Yeah! Yeah!
Jesus: I mean, do you really need My help with stuff like that? See?
Tina: [ crying profusely into her apron ] I'm very, very sorry..! I guess I was justwasting your time..! I certainly wish you had told me about this sooner..!
Jesus: Well, I thought about it, and I decided to finally say something..
Tina: Oh, God, I'm so embarrassed..!
Jesus: Well, believe me, there are a billion people with the same problem! [ chuckling ]
Notice in this sketch and in fig. 2, the person center stage is not God, but the human.
Through the process of reforming, we are transformed. Fig. 3 visually expresses that when we are transformed we are not longer looking as God or hold God in our heart, but we become enveloped in God. We have our story but our story is just one story of God's story. We have a relationship with God, but the relationship is not exclusively ours.
Fig 3 is a life transformed. The protagonist of fig. 3 is not the human - it is God.
Transformation is beyond being a better person. It is beyond doing good or living by the golden rule. If we are religious or spiritual just to be better people, then the main actor in our lives is still, well, us.
Rather, the call of Christian spirituality is a call to transform so that we are no longer the main player in our lives. We are not the protagonist. Transformation leads us to losing our story in God's story so that God's story becomes our story.
Spiritual formation is about moving toward fig 3. It is about being formed so that we are not the center of the action in our life. It is about learning God's story so that God's story becomes our story.
Spiritual formation is bound together in information, preformation, conformation, reformation, and transformation.
Be the change by Jason Valendy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.