The More You Think About It…
“As the Father has sent me, so I send you…” From John 20. It is what Jesus said to His disciples when he appeared to them on the evening of Easter. That was our passage from Sunday. But it needs more, a more focused consideration of going from the command of Jesus to what was (facetiously) entitled "the Mission Margarita" in the previous post.
If we look to that command, “so I send you…” a little more seriously, there is a WHOLE lot packed into those four little words.
OBJECTION
PASTOR: Those words were spoken to the disciples, in the context of the gospel account, to the disciples, not to us. How do
we then know they apply to us?
I think
that is made clear in the last verses of this story. Jesus says to Thomas, “Have you believed
because you have seen me? Blessed are
those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” In Sunday’s sermon, we talked about Jesus ‘breaking
the fourth wall’, shifting his focus from Thomas (and the other disciples) to us, the believers across church history. Nothing has
changed in the message.
“So I send
you…” This is the call to the disciples. The eleven were the first ‘named’ class, but
there have been many, many since, like us.
FPC Merchantville has an historic statement for this, “Touching the Heart
of God and the Hearts of People in the Heart of Merchantville”. The newer one begins “We are a people who
encourage one another to celebrate our life in Christ.”
OBJECTION
PASTOR: Should not things begin with the confession of Jesus Christ as Lord and
Savior? Should not the mission/vision/values
as you flippantly "triple" it be led by our belief that Jesus is our Lord and
Savior, by His blood shed for us for our sins?
I believe it already is, all baked in to being Presbyterian. The
PCUSA has a two-volume Constitution. The
second is the one that gets more day-to-day attention, our Book of Order,
because that’s more our book of “how” we do things. But the first volume is our Book of
Confessions (intentional plural), that brings historical depth to our theology
(how we express our belief in God).
These confessions comprise declarations of faith, teaching tools of the
basics of the Christian faith, responses to crises in the world at moments of
high stakes.
OBJECTION
PASTOR: We are supposed to believe the Bible, not the confessions.
Yup, but believing what the the Bible says and saying what the Bible teaches are two different things. The first one is only satisfied by speaking the entire Bible. The second, drawing out what the Bible teaches, when I have done that, I have made a “confessional” statement. I have confessed that from among all the glory that is God's Word, this is one of many pieces that teaches me.
So 'confessions' are our stock and trade in speaking about the Bible. We Presbyterians build our understanding of the Bible on the guidance of the Holy Spirit. When we gather as a Session, as a Congregation, as
a Presbytery, up and down the structure of the denomination, in our 'Committees' (for which we take such a ribbing) we are bringing the Holy Spirit out through our assembled
voices. In different times and different
places, the wisdom granted by the Holy Spirit has come out in our confessions
of how we believe the Word of God is expressed.
This, because Jesus is clear in John 11 that he remains with us in the Holy Spirit as surely as he was among the original eleven.
“So I send you…”, thus sayeth the Lord. He sends us to teach the Good News of the Gospel to all. What is that Good News? Jesus saves (hard to get any more focused than that). It is...the heart...of what we believe the Bible teaches. It is expressed in our Book of Confessions gathered from across the History of the Church. From this foundation, our little neighborhood in the Kingdom of God expresses its Mission, how the Spirit moves among us as we fulfill Jesus' Sending.
Peace
pastor pete
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