What Jesus Said . . . and Didn’t Say

We must now repeat what has already been said many times. The call is to mission and not to go to heaven. God did not say to Abraham and Israel, "I will bless you so that you will go to heaven." Rather: I will bless you ... so that you will be a blessing" (Genesis 12:2). Or as Peter puts it in speaking to his fellow Israelites, "You are the descendants ... of the covenant that God gave to your ancestors, saying to Abraham, 'And in your descendants all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Acts 3:25.

At this point we need to utter a caveat. When we do acknowledge that our call is to mission we must not interpret that to mean that our call is to "religion." To be "religious" is not the equivalent to being "Christian." Religion brings its many rules and regulations in its search and a deep bass voice rumbling, "Be moral!" Christ's call to mission is not a call to morality. It is a call to action. Morality has to do with the nature of the one who is engaged in action. Is that moral nature important? Absolutely! But when one opens one's life to God-revealed-in-Jesus, enabling a reflection of the relationship of the Son with the Father, one is promising to carry out the mission in the lifestyle of Jesus. And that means through one's present personality. When Jesus chose a tax cheater (Matthew), a murderer (Simon the Zealot), a denier (Peter), and a betrayer (Judas) he chose them for the mission. They did not have to pass a character test first, "Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest" (Matthew 9:35-37) The laborers would be taught the Jesus-way-of-living on the job.