Your Mission, Our Mission

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

September 7, 2014

Genesis Sunday

Your Mission, Our Mission

Matthew 18:20

“For where two or three are gathered in my name,

I am there among them.”

[Cue theme from Mission Impossible]

There aren’t many pieces of music

more familiar than that,

the theme from “Mission Impossible”.

What has become a movie franchise starring Tom Cruise

began as a television series back in 1966.

It starred Steven Hill as Dan Briggs,

the first chief of the Impossible Mission Force.

Each episode began with that stirring, driving theme.

It was on the television show

that we first heard that voice on the tape recorder,

that voice that said those words

that became as familiar as the music,

words that have become part of our culture,

“Your mission, should you choose to accept it…”

Brian McLaren, author of

“We Make the Road By Walking”,

the book our Christian Education Team

will be using for our Adult class this fall,

clearly is a Mission Impossible fan

because he uses the “your mission

should you decide to accept it” theme

in one of the chapters in his book.

He writes:

“Your mission, should you choose to accept it,

is to conspire with the Spirit

to bring blessing to others.”

McLaren is right: that is our mission,

to bring blessings to others,

to be a blessing to others;

Your mission, my mission,

if we choose to accept it,

is to be filled with the Spirit,

and be a blessing to all

bringing blessings as we share

God’s grace and love.

                                                                       

Of course, it isn’t the only mission

we are called to,

called to choose to accept;

It is just one of many missions

we are called to as disciples of Jesus Christ.

McLaren could just as easily  
have adapted those words

to any of the other chapters in his book,

any of the other themes he writes about:

“Your mission, should you choose to accept it,

is to love your neighbor as yourself.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it,

is to welcome the stranger;

Your mission, should you choose to accept it,

is to be a light to all the world;

Your mission, should you choose to accept it,

is to forgive,

as God has forgiven you;

Your mission, should you choose to accept it,

is to store up treasure in heaven,

not on earth;

Your mission, should you choose to accept it,

is not to worry,

not to judge,

but bear good fruit,

and be doers of the word,

not just hearers.”

I could go on;

Our list could be longer than

the list we heard last week

from Paul’s letter to the Romans:

“Your mission is to let love be genuine,

to outdo one another in showing honor,

to be ardent in spirit,

to rejoice in hope.”

Your mission, my mission,

should you, should I, should we,

choose to accept it,

is to be faithful,

joyful, disciples of Jesus Christ.

And the only way we can accept that mission,

is within community, with one another.

We cannot do it alone.

For as our Lord teaches us,

“For where two or three are gathered in my name,

I am there among them.”

Our Lord calls us to mission and ministry

within community,

with one another.

Our mission is to be the body of Christ,

so that together we can do

Christ’s work in the world,

take on all the other missions

we are called to do,

all of us together:

loving, welcoming,

feeding,

encouraging, lifting up.

Dan Briggs, Jim Phelps, and Ethan Hunt

all knew they needed a team.

And so do we: We need one another:

teams, groups, circles, classes,

all bodies of Christ within the larger body,

each of us given gifts by the Spirit,

each of us called to share our gifts,

all of us working together.

        

Living and working,

doing our mission and ministry,

within community isn’t always easy.

We don’t always agree,

we won’t always agree.

Henri Nouwen has written,

“As soon as you have community,

you have a problem…”

What community does offer, Nouwen writes,

is a place where

“we try to love one another

and receive the love and care of others….”

as we work together.

Nouwen goes on to say,

“In community we learn what it means

to confess our weaknesses and

to forgive each other.

In community we discover what it means

to let go of our self-will

and to really live for others.

In community we learn true humility. …

We need community.”

(Spiritual Direction, 113)

Nouwen is right: we need community

because it is in community

that we learn how to be disciples.

In community we learn about Christ,

and in community we learn how to follow Christ,

as we engage in our mission and ministries.

In community we also learn

how challenging it can be

to accept fully and completely

the missions Jesus calls us to.

It can at times seem like

we are called to do the impossible:

feed the hungry, when there billions of people

in this world without enough food?

Work for peace, when the world all around us

seems filled with violence and warfare?

Bring righteousness and justice

when we live in a fractured,

polarized, angry world?

Love our enemies? Feed them?

                                                     

But doesn’t our Lord teach us,

that with God all things are possible?

(Mark 10:27)

                          

Your mission, my mission, our mission

is to bring light,

bring life,

bring hope,

bring grace,

compassion,

peace;

bring the love of God given us,

through the one who is present,

here, now,

calling us,

leading us,

inviting us to his table,

all of us, in community.

Frederick Buechner would tell us that

our mission is to see the “holiness,

goodness and beauty that is crying out

to be born within ourselves and within the world”

and to give life to that holiness,

goodness and beauty.

Ultimately, our mission is to reflect

God’s grace in Jesus Christ,

reflect God’s love in Jesus Christ.

This is your mission,

This is my mission,

this is our mission –

should we choose to accept it.

                 

AMEN