presbytery :: blog

Missional Mondays September 1, 2008

Jesus on the Mainline :: by outofcontxt on Flickr

“Meanwhile, the eleven disciples were on their way to Galilee, headed for the mountain Jesus had set for their reunion. The moment they saw him they worshipped him. Some, though, held back, not sure about worship, about risking themselves totally.”

Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: “God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I’ll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age.”  

So reads the Great Commission as translated by Eugene Peterson. Not much like the NRSV, but then again it’s not supposed to be. 

I like that there is movement, pace–that it’s relational and simple. I like the emphasis on Jesus ‘reunion’ with his disciples, and that instead of doubting, Peterson says that some ‘held back’ or had reservations. The emphasis is on the encounter with Jesus rather than on some textual dialectic on worshipping/doubting that comes across in the more traditional translations. Risk is involved–personal risk–in seeing Jesus. There’s no pew to sit in here in this encounter, there can’t be as the disciples are either standing in bewilderment or bowing in fear and trembling before their Lord. 

But this translation has its problems too. Worship turns into an early ‘wedge issue’ for the disciples, setting the ones who ‘get it’ against the ones who don’t. Not so in the Greek text as it clearly states that upon seeing Jesus they worshipped him–meaning that the eleven disciples worshipped him–but some doubted. In other words, neither the doubters nor their doubts are named. This wasn’t a who’s in, who’s out affair, but rather a tranfixing moment for all. Though I like what Peterson does to update the text, unfortunately for me he takes ‘worship’ to be a controversy when the text remains (I think) purposefully ambiguous.

The missional church today (as since its founding) is challenged by its Lord to evangelize its doubts on behalf of and in front of the whole world. Worship and doubt are always in conversation in the believing community, not in contradiction. Those early ‘doubters’ still became apostles, and those who ‘worshipped’ on that mount later doubted. What the church needs to relearn is not how to worship, but how to live faithfully even when it doubts.

I’m writing this because there’s lots of enthusiasm in the church about being missional or renewing the church’s sense of mission. I’m certainly not against that. But what I think is needed even more in this effort is a wholesale reevaluation of what it truly means to be missional. And for me, since most roads in the missional discussion either start or end up focusing on this passage from Matthew 28, I’d like to offer my own thoughts along the way. Thus Missional Mondays. Stay tuned.