Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35
“When
you lower the definition of success to such a level that any person can reach
it, you don’t teach people to have big dreams; instead you inspire mediocrity
and nurture people’s inadequacies.” Shannon
L. Alder
In more than one instance, Jesus proclaimed – or
instructed His disciples to proclaim – that “the Kingdom of Heaven has
come near”. Yet
we have been taught by tradition that when Messiah returns, the age of the
Eternal Kingdom will be upon us. Until then, we are instructed to “go
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I’ve
commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20).
We should also understand that the emphasis on this
Commission is in teaching –
not in telling these new disciples
what they must believe but, rather, showing
them what is worth believing and how believing and trusting it can truly change
one’s life.
The Great Commission is the marching order of the
Church. It is the basis and the foundation of our very existence, that
being our mission, and it has everything to do with how the Church is to order
its daily life. If something is being
done within any particular church that does not meet the criteria of the Great Commission, that practice or policy must be
revisited, adjusted, or outright eliminated – if there is no evangelistic component
to the practice.
Evangelism
is the heart of the Great Commission, the task of the whole Church rather than
a few individuals. It is not about preaching from the pulpit or in the
street. It is entirely about living
the Message we have been entrusted with – that “the Kingdom of Heaven has
come near”. Anything short of this is a betrayal of that which we
claim to know, to trust, to believe.
I’ve always been curious about the nearness of the Kingdom.
Does this mean “close but no cigar”? Or does it, can it mean the Eternal
Kingdom is entirely within our grasp in the here-and-now? What we choose
to believe has everything to do with how we will conduct ourselves, how we will
go about our evangelistic mission to
make that very declaration. Or we will continue to believe “our” church to be our own private
club to which only a select few are invited or even welcome - and a hobby we
attend to as time allows.
If the Kingdom of Heaven has “come near” – and this
must be true if Jesus is Messiah – what does this mean for us? For the Church? For society in general? It does not change the nature of the Revelation, of course, because we are
being told about a time in which the reality of the Kingdom will leave no doubt. What we see in The Revelation, I think, is the fulfillment, the perfection of The
Lord’s desire. This perfection, however,
is not quite yet.
So … what do we do until that time?
I think our clue is in Jesus’ encouragement to His
disciples. It is a strange thing that Jesus would deem His commandment to
be “new”
in any sense of the word since the Great Commandment requires that we “love
our neighbors as we love ourselves”.
Easier said than done, to be sure, especially when
said “neighbor”
is not quite loveable, but the principle is a necessity for the
well-being of the whole community, the whole congregation, the whole ekklesia.
In this regard, then, there is nothing “new” … unless
we consider that the standard of “love”
has not quite changed but, rather,
perhaps shifted; and the bar has been
raised. It seems clear that in a most
general sense, we don’t really know what “love” is; hence our Lord’s “new”
commandment. It is “new”, perhaps, to
us. We have allowed the word to be
hijacked by force and redirected against its own nature. We think “love” is an emotion, how we “feel”
about any particular thing or person. So if we ain’t feelin’ it, we ain’t doin’
it!
Christians cannot take this position, however, without
denying Christ altogether. We cannot
claim to “believe” in Him or “love” Him if we are unwilling to listen to Him, unwilling
to trust Him enough to follow Him in daily living and interactions with even
what we deem to be the worst among us – however we may define “worst”. We cannot claim to be disciples ourselves –
let alone “make disciples” – if we cherry-pick only those portions of
Jesus’ life and teachings that please us as individuals.
So we cannot pretend Jesus was referring only to that
particular gathering, that particular crowd.
And it may be less than honest to think Jesus was suggesting this depth
of love can only be extended to those we claim as our own – whether it be
family or members of the same church or close personal friends whom we choose
while keeping others out. And the reason
we cannot make that claim is because the depth of Jesus’ love is measured not
only in what He taught – but in what His teachings led to: The Cross. His Cross, of course; but no less our Crosses. Those who mocked Him, those who spit on Him
and even cursed Him; even these Jesus lifted up to the Father in His final
moments: “Forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing”.
It has occurred to me lately, however, that even
this profound depth of love can come to mean even more to us as The Body of
Christ, the Church. I used to work with
a guy who was a master picker, a teaser who took great joy out of just trying
to get rise out of people. He was a
good, hard worker, but he also loved to play with people. He would do anything he could for anyone he
could (call this “love”), but he also enjoyed
his life and his work because he enjoyed
people by his active engagement in these people.
He came to mind as I listened to a eulogy this Sunday
past about a dear lady who fully “enjoyed” life. She “enjoyed” her family, she “enjoyed” her
church … she “enjoyed” her husband and her life with him. Honestly, how many of us can say this? That we “enjoy”? I don’t mean “patiently tolerate” – because “enjoyment”
means active engagement.
I have no doubt we love our spouses and we love our
friends and we love our church, and we find enjoyment with them here and there, but can we honestly say
we always find enjoyment? Because it seems to me that any relationship
lacking this component – pure enjoyment – is lacking in something else
altogether; something that can degrade the relationship or enhance it.
It is possible to become a little too “comfortable” in
any relationship to the point that we begin to take that relationship for
granted. We assume too much and,
consequently, neglect the better part of those relationships. This is true not only of our human
relationships but also of our relationship with Christ and His Church. These are not mutually exclusive, for one
cannot claim to “love” Christ Jesus while regarding His Body the Church with
disdain!
It is written in the Proverbs (27:17 NRSV): “Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens
the wit of another.”
What this means for us – for the Great Commission, for
“loving one’s neighbor”, for enjoyment of all that is before us – is not merely
“patient tolerance” but active engagement. If we are not happy with our spouses, perhaps
it is we have somehow disengaged at least on some level and stopped trying. If we are not content with our church and we
find more reason to cast blame than to look inwardly, we have disengaged. If we are not getting from our friendships
all we hope or expect to get, perhaps we’ve placed too great a burden on them –
on all these, in fact – to somehow make
us enjoy them more fully. We have
removed ourselves from the dynamic and placed the blame for our lack of
enjoyment on others.
It has been said that, “The greatest sweetener of human life is friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of
enjoyment is a secret which but few discover.”
Joseph Addison
So how do we “raise the pitch”? By demanding more? By expecting more? Or by giving of ourselves more freely? When we consider that Jesus was speaking to
everyone equally by issuing this “new” commandment, we have to consider that
our Lord would say the very same thing to us today. And this “commandment” cannot be construed to
mean we should raise our expectations.
Rather we are to raise our level of engagement, for this is the very
heart, the essence, of Christian love; not to expect or demand but to give … and to give
freely and fully.
This is the life we are called to, not the life that
is called to us. We have to make these
things reality not so the Kingdom can come near but because the
Kingdom already has come near. And those
who are invested in the reality of the Kingdom are invested in the reality of
human relationships. And if we are not enjoying
those relationships fully, it is because we are not invested fully in those
relationships.
This, I think, is the “love” that seems so “new” to us
because we have forgotten what it means to truly and fully love. Love has nothing to do with what we can
expect or what we think we can demand; it has everything to do with what we are
willing to give. And give according to
what has been given to us.
We must therefore love freely and fully in order to
find that elevated standard of enjoyment our Lord has intended for us. There is no reason for us to be miserable,
and there is no biblical call for us to not enjoy discipleship and the
relationships encumbent to that life of devotion. So we must resolve to “give, and it will be given. A good measure, pressed down, shaken
together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure
you get back” (Luke 6:38).
Glory to You, Lord.
Amen.
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