Dear People Whom God Loves,
GOD IS LOVE – III
We turn now to understand more deeply about what God is Love tells us about the mission of the church. Jesus’ commission to his disciples was to make disciples of all nations. Being a disciple of Jesus means to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and to have the mind of Jesus.
Jesus called God, Abba. Jesus knew that he was loved by God in the way that a little child is loved by a loving parent. Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them how to pray to “Our Abba”. Today, we know that as the prayer “Our Father”. This meant that Jesus realized that Abba’s love was not just for him but for everyone.
Jesus put flesh on these words by the way he lived and acted. He reached out to the many different kinds of people in his society. He paid particular attention to those his religious society rejected or at least marginalized: the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the sinners, the sick…especially the lepers…to all of those that were proclaimed to be unclean by his religious society. He made his concern clear by eating with all those unclean people. As a good Jew, he was forbidden to do this.
He called for loving our enemies. He made this concrete by calling for love for the Samaritans. These were people from Samaria who were considered heretics and of mixed blood.
He reached out to the righteous, but often in a different manner. He often, then, spoke sharply. I imagine that was because he knew that sharp words were needed to crack through their hard shell of feeling righteous and superior. To those who were not caught in righteousness, he was gentle and up-lifting. There must have been Jewish territory to the cities of Tyre and Sidon. He cured the daughter of a Canaanite woman.
It appears to me that when Jesus told his disciples to make disciples of all nations, he was saying to them: This is the way you are to live and help others across the world to live this way.
This to me is what the mission of the church is. More next time.
Smile, God Loves You,
Father Clay
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