Fifth Purpose of the Church: Service/mission
Romans 12:13-21; Matthew 25: 31-45
by The Rev. Ajung Sojwal

Today we come to the end of our preaching series on the purpose of the Church. Some of you may be wondering why it is that Mission or Service is the last in the series? In terms of purposes of the Church there is really no competition. And the ideal is that we should be able to embrace and engaged in all the five purposes we have been talking about, which as a reminder are: Worship, fellowship, discipleship, evangelism, and service or what I like to think of as the transforming mission of the Church. But to a large extend I do want us to look at the aspect of service or the purpose of getting involved in issues of oppression, poverty, injustice or any other social illness as something that stems out of our love and yearning for God, as well as a hope and belief in a God who transforms.

I must say that I am actually quite amazed and trilled at how much people in this country, all of you included, contribute toward alleviating the conditions of the poor and the oppressed. So today I am not going to appeal to your generosity to give more of your money toward those who need so much from us, because I know you will always rise to the occasion to give as much as you can if there is a need. In fact, from today, all through the month of June we are making contribution envelopes available for anyone who wants to donate toward the earthquake recovery efforts in China, and I know you will give much toward this cause too.

In order to understand why we give and get involved in social issues, or maybe to even understand how much we should be giving or getting involved in missions of various natures, I want us to look at the passage from Matthew that we read today. This particular passage is part of a long speech that Jesus gives to his disciples about the end times that stretch through chapter 24 and 25. The underlying theme of Jesus’ speech here is the definite and purposeful involvement of God in human history and the direction of that purpose of God toward the establishment of His holy Kingdom on Earth. So given the reading, you may ask just what does Jesus’ coming back got to do with getting involved in outreach missions today. I say everything, because getting involved in missions or service to others is not about fixing a problem or not even about taking on a spiritual discipline, rather it is about stewardship and hope.

The great scene of the last judgment before the throne of God can be understood fully only in the light of the whole speech that Jesus gives his disciples in Chapters 24 and 25. Taken out of context our passage may come across as saying as if good works and charity are all that it takes to makes us righteous before God. But, if you look at the parables that Jesus tells his disciples to make them understand just why it is important to hope as well as feed and care for the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the oppressed, the prisoners and the aliens, it is because we have been entrusted to look after and care for the Kingdom of God. It may seem rather strange that we are talking about the Kingdom of God being in our midst when we have to deal with so much of pain and brokenness in our world. When we talk about the Kingdom of God we think it is the perfect world where all sadness, brokenness and sorrow are absent or taken away. And every single day as we walk in our city never too far from a homeless person, it is hard to understand that God’s kingdom is already here. It is hard to see hope when we have the largest prison system in the world. As I speak to you there are children and adults dying of not just diseases, but of starvation and war. And in the past weeks we have been hearing and seeing the thousands of lives lost in natural disasters in Myanmar and China. All these are enough to make us think there is really not much we can do, or that even if we do something it amounts to nothing much. But if you look at his discourse, Jesus had already told his disciples that all these things will continue to happen. He told them, that there will be wars; famines, earthquakes, false teachers; lawlessness, lack of love; great suffering and that life will go on as we have seen it for centuries.

But then, in the midst of all the gloominess Jesus tells them a few parables. Amongst them, one about the ten bridesmaids, five of them wise who were prepared and waiting for the groom and five of them who were foolish, unprepared, and they never got to be part of the wedding. The other parable is about the talents given out by the owner of the estate to his servants entrusting them to make wise investments. In all the parables, the theme is about taking care of and being responsible for something that has been given to people. In other words, all that we have and even all that we have earned are not really ours. It is God who has given us everything, and He has given it to us fully trusting that we will invest our blessings wisely for His Kingdom.

If we look at what defines wisdom in the parables, it is the faith and belief of the servants or the bridesmaids that the owner of the vineyard, the master of the house or the bridegroom will definitely come even though the wait was long. Jesus in the end ties all the parables to the crux of the matter, which is, live your lives as faithful stewards who hope and believe in the Kingdom of God. Hoping and believing in the Kingdom of God completely changes our perspective on service and missions. Like the wise servants who invested wisely of the money that the Master had given them, like the wise and diligent bridesmaids who made sure to fill their lamps for the feast, reaching out and embracing the poor, the oppressed, the defenseless and the needy are what it means to invest in the Kingdom of God. Because, the Kingdom of God is about restoration, healing and transformation just as Jesus demonstrated with his own life. The investment that multiplies in the Kingdom of God is not money, but love, healing, peace and joy. Jesus clearly showed that God cares deeply for the brokenness of our world when he touched the sick, the defenseless and the marginalized. Not only did he show us, but he goes on further to say that he is the poor and the voiceless when he says, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”
This scene of the last judgment always manages to catch my interest every time I read it, because there are just so many layers of meaning to the whole scene. One of the thing that is very interesting is the fact that the people from both the left and the right ask the same question, when they say, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” So what is the difference between the righteous and the wicked if both parties are asking the same thing?

My nephews, who have visited here once, are as different as day and night most of the time. The older one is in a lot of ways the typical first born, wanting the attention and focus on him all the time, so we know of every award he has won in school, and we get to hear of all his academic achievements, making it all seem like he is a far better student than his younger brother. My sister-in-law tells me that many times she finds a piece of paper in her younger son’s bag that is few days old with “best student of the week award” written on it, she has also been surprised to find that he had gotten 100 percent on his math test often which he forgot to tell them until she found the papers weeks later. When asked why he had not told them of all he had done in school, all he says is that he just does what he needs to do as a student. For the righteous, being stewards of the kingdom of God means a certain way of life and taking care of and getting involved in the lives of the poor, the oppressed and the defenseless as a lifestyle and not something that is out of the ordinary.

The other thing about this gospel passage is how Jesus defines the involvement of the righteous with the poor, the oppressed, and the needy as something directly connected to his identity when he says, I was hungry, I was in prison, I was sick, so on and so forth. He does not say you gave to the hungry, visited the prisoners, or the sick, which tells me that it is not just about giving but that it is more about how and what we see in service and mission. What we are willing to see in our involvement in mission brings back to what I was talking about earlier, which is that mission or service to others is not only about stewardship but also of hope. Brokenness and suffering may be very much a part of our lives, but in Jesus we cannot look at the pain and suffering of our world as symptoms of defeat. Instead we know and believe that Jesus has ushered in the Kingdom of God right here in our midst, which means that our mourning has now turned into dancing. In Jesus there is healing and transformation of our deepest sorrow and pain into joy and peace. Within the kingdom of God, we can no longer look at the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized as causes that need to be taken care of, rather they are the incubators of the resurrection hope that Jesus brought into our broken world. It is amongst the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized that we too are transformed because it is where God has chosen to reside. So when we get involved in missions or serve others we must do so with the hope that there is transformation of this world from brokenness to restoration and life.

We have to understand that the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized are not outsiders or those that are different from us instead they are very much an extension of who we are. Like the imagery of the body that Paul gave us, if some of God’s children are suffering those of us who are well have all the more reason to work toward taking away that suffering. It is in our best interest to make sure we live our lives in such a way that being on a mission with Jesus becomes the normal thing not the extraordinary.

Given the fact that Jesus came to save the world and give the great privilege of becoming God’s children to every man and woman, we can no longer justify our perception of people in the categories of the poor, the hungry, the prisoners, the sick, the homeless, or the many other categories we have for those who we feel must qualify for our charity. In our giving, in our hospitality, in our love for others we are merely sharing what is rightfully meant to be shared. Jesus himself left us the example when he said, “the son of man did not come to be served but to serve.” To be a mission-oriented church is not about charity, it is about love, about walking and living with God with hope in the midst of our brokenness. Missions is about knowing and understanding that God has purposefully blessed us so that we can be a blessing to others, especially for our brothers and sisters who happen to be poor, oppressed, defenseless and marginalized by the larger society. May God teach us and give us the courage to live a lifestyle that is always about bringing hope, healing and restoration. On that glorious day when Jesus comes back as King and Lord of God’s Holy Kingdom, may we be amongst those that hear him say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of your master.”