Sermon Preached By: Rev. Mac Schafer
Date: Sunday, Jan. 6, 2008
Scripture: Luke 9: 1-6
Sermon Title:

"What Does Mission Mean Today?"

Our second scripture reading this morning is Luke 9: 1–6. The disciples have become more involved with Jesus in chapter 8 of the gospel of Luke and now in chapter now they are literally becoming co–participants in the work of Jesus. Let’s listen for the word of god and listen to how they may be doing that.

Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to heal diseases. And he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to perform healing. And he said to them, “Take nothing for your journey – no staff nor bag nor bread nor money; not even an extra tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there. Wherever they do not welcome you, as you are leaving that town shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” They departed and went through the villages bringing good news curing diseases.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Our scripture today parallels a story in the gospel of Mark. Jesus gives power to his disciples to overcome demons that appear, to heal the sick, to proclaim the kingdom of God. The disciples then received three instructions for their mission trip. Number one, they are told by Jesus to take nothing. Number two, they are told how they are to receive hospitality wherever they go. And number three, they are told how they should respond to rejection wherever they go, shaking the dust off their feet. Tomorrow, we will go to Haiti for a weeklong mission trip with eleven other people, mostly from the state of New Jersey – there will be doctors and nurses and practitioners and laypeople like us. So I was thinking about how Wane and Roy and I are stacking up with Jesus’ three instructions from the gospel of Luke. Well, there’s Jesus’ third criteria, “Wherever you’re not accepted, shake the dust off your feet”. Well, there’s lots of dust in Port de Prince, and many of the roads are not paved in Haiti, but I am hoping that we will only be in places where we are accepted, unlike the disciples. But if you don’t hear from Roy or Wane or I from next Monday, please feel free to call the State Department and check up on us. Jesus’ second criteria is “Accept hospitality which is given” and hopefully we’ll be fine here too. We are staying in the motel which is called “Ideal Villa” and our host will be providing meals for us. They’ll be our guide, they’ll be our interpreters, and they’ll keep us as safe as possible. And we plan to accept this hospitality graciously. Then there’s Jesus’ first criteria, “Bring nothing”. I believe we’ll fail at this one. Not only are we bringing a change of clothing, toiletries, and money, we’ll have a second bag with fifty pounds of supplies for painting and medical clinics and various other things. So hopefully two out of three of Jesus’ criteria isn’t so bad.

Historically, Haiti has several “firsts” to its credit. It is the first independent black–led republic. It is the only nation to ever form a successful slave rebellion. It is the second oldest non–native country in the Americas, next to the United States of America. It is the first Latin American nation to declare its independence and that happened in 1804. The official language is Ancient Creole, which is similar to some ways to French, and we will bring several translators with us on our trip. The population is almost nine million people, and I am sure many of you know some of the recent history from the 1960s to today. Haiti has dealt with its fair share of difficult leadership – you might recall names such as Papa Doc and Baby Doc who were dictators from the 1960s to the 1980s. And in 1991 Aristide became the first democratically elected president of Haiti. And in 2004 he was forced to resign with rising violence and a rebel army against him. He fled to Africa, you may remember this. Today Préval is the president and is promising peace and stability, so we will see as we go down there. Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere and only 52 percent of the population is literate. 80 percent of the population lives under the poverty line. 80 percent of the population is Catholic; only 16 percent are Protestant. Two–thirds of the workforce doesn’t have formal jobs and most of these people depend heavily on the agricultural business down there – small farming.

In terms of who we’ll be with, Pastor Luc Deratus, a minister there, grew up outside of Port de Prince. He was raised by an uncle who exposed him to the Protestant church, and Luc had early desires to become a minister. Luc runs Harmony Ministries today, which has three churches which has schools and medical clinics attached to them. I was last there in 2001. Luc has Harmony Church #1, which is his largest church in Port de Prince and Cite Militaire, where on any given Sunday there can be 700 people worshiping. They have amazing music – the singing in the churches is just wonderful – along with their Sunday School program. There is Harmony Church #2 which is in the Sugarcane Postal region of Haiti. And there is Harmony Church #3 which is in the mountain town near the Dominican Republic border. What Luc does so effectively is meet tangible needs along with the spiritual – educational, medical, job training, along with spiritual needs of the community. I have watched with my own eyes Luc bring order out of chaos as he works with the people within this church. Our journey to Haiti is a quote-unquote, “Mission Trip.”

The purpose of this mission trip, as stated on the information sheet in your order of worship, is one, we will visit these three churches and schools which I have described. Number two, we will witness Pastor Luc’s work with Harmony ministries. Three, we will explore how we, as a church, might partner and help with Luc’s ministry in the future. Number four, we will return with news to you of what we have seen and heard on our journey. Pinnacle Presbyterian Church has done several mission trips over the past few years, looking at border issues in Mexico, going to Nogales with our music program, going to Gulfport, Miss., and New Orleans for Katrina Relief, going to Alaska to work with a college. Now our youth will be going to Hollywood, Calif., for a mission on the streets there. With these trips and with mission in general, we see how mission in general has changed over the years.

What do I mean by that? Well in the 19th and early 20th century, often the idea of mission trips or missionaries was that those going would bring the gospel message to people who didn’t know it. Or those going on mission trips were going to help people who it was perceived could not help themselves. Embedded in this former way of looking at mission was the attitude that we have something that others do not have and we are going to share this gospel or share these gifts with others who are without. Heavily prevalent was the misconception that the missionary was bringing God to a place where a God was not, was bringing Jesus to a place where Jesus was not. The novel Things Fall Apart by a Nigerian author, which has also been adapted to theatre, highlights these old attitudes. It is about Christian missionaries who supposedly bring the gospel to a Nigerian community, but the gospel has been fused and confused with Western cultural norms and values. The book is about all the repercussions of this confusion. And if you have ever gone to the museum downtown and seen the exhibit on the Indian boarding schools, the same fusion of the Christian message and European cultural norms and values are highlighted there, often tragically.

I am pleased with the direction of mission trips today. Kristin Willet added to our Minute for Mission on the New Orleans trip a few weeks ago highlights the shift in attitude. She talked about how she and others on the trip were literally ministered to with hospitality and love by the very people they went to serve. The shift in mission trips today I would term in the word “partnership”. We know today that we go to serve, that God is very present wherever we go. We don’t introduce God into the environment; we know God is already there. As we go on mission trips, the best way to go is with humility – we go to walk alongside the people. We go to listen and learn, to help when asked, and in the way it is desired by the ones who we go to work in partnership with. We do not go to push our version of the gospel or even our evaluation of what we think is best for the community we go to. We go to be good guests, to be grateful for the hospitality we receive, to show interest in the life there, the needs there, the gifts of the ones that we visit. I believe it is through listening and being good guests and being interested, serving when asked and walking with equality that God’s word is best proclaimed today. We go on mission trips knowing that the gospel might be proclaimed more to us than we may well proclaim it. That is what partnership is. That is what the oneness of the global body of Christ is today, knowing that the wind, the spirit, can blow from the people we visit and blow from us in the mysterious way that God works. Not pushing our agenda, or them pushing their agenda, but being together in a non–patriarchal, non–patronizing manner. That is the freedom of the gospel in mission trips today – using our gifts together as God’s people.

In the Presbyterian church we do not have an altar – we have a table. The table we come to today is the great equalizer. We sit with our global community around us. In the spirit of Jesus’ words to his disciples before they went out, reflected in Luke Chapter 9: This is the table where hospitality is given and received. It is a table we come to metaphorically naked – we don’t need to bring our staff, our bags, or our money. God simply wants us. It is a table where we will never need to shake the dust off our feet because we will always be welcome to the hospitality of this table. We sit around this table knowing we are called to humble missions around the world, whether it is sitting with a friend here in Scottsdale, or working on a Habitat for Humanity house, or going to Haiti or being with someone who is lonely. We come to this table together and then we move out into the world together, as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. Amen and Alleluia.