After spending my formative years in the American evangelical tradition, I’ve had to face the lingering effects of what I’d call missionary guilt: never doing enough to make disciples.
Missionaries are often hailed by white evangelicals as the real heroes of the faith who have truly counted the cost, left everything behind, and done whatever it takes to follow Jesus. I would guess that many who didn’t become a missionary at least felt some missionary guilt.
Perhaps some missionaries feel missionary guilt for not being a good enough missionary!
Missionaries tend to command so much respect that I found I could often get an edge in an argument with my fellow evangelicals if I demonstrated that respected missionaries agreed with my point of view. Seeing the ministries of female missionaries also opened my eyes to the inexcusably bad arguments against women in pastoral roles.
This emphasis on missions and sharing the Gospel is tied in part with Jesus’ final words to his disciples. Matthew passed on what has become known as the Great Commission at the end of his Gospel:
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20, NRSV
What should we do with that command from Jesus? Does it mean that we should all become missionaries and feel guilt if we don’t?
My issue isn’t whether we should listen to the words of Jesus. We should ALWAYS listen to the words of Jesus. I’m asking whether we should rethink how we have interpreted and applied these particular words of Jesus to this particular moment.
It’s clear that quite a few of Jesus’ earliest followers thought they should go preach the message of Jesus all over the world. Then again, some of Jesus’ followers also stayed put to either teach or to serve others as deacons.
Even during the great missionary expansion of early Christianity, there wasn’t a one-size-fits-all application of making disciples of all nations.
I’ve also heard quite a few preachers and commentators note that the commission from Jesus has two parts to making disciples: baptize them and then teach them. In other words, Jesus didn’t ask us to merely convert people. He asked us to participate in the longer term, deeper work of discipleship that teaches people how to obey what Jesus taught.
This all is part of my larger project to rethink what it looks like to be a Christian after I cut ties with conservative evangelicalism and joined an Episcopal Church.
What does faithfulness look like if I’m not a missionary or if I’m not driven by the evangelical emphasis on evangelizing others?
Surely my religious practice as an Episcopal Christian involves more than attending church each Sunday and voting for Democrats each election. (That’s a joke, folks!)
For me, the crux of things is that I think people are better off if I they have an awareness of God’s love and make room each day for prayer, scripture, and obedience to the teachings of Jesus.
If more people treated each other according to the example set by Jesus, our world would be a better place.
Our lives would be better if we sought meaning and purpose through love and service in humble deference to God’s will and the upside down kingdom Jesus brought to earth.
In that sense, I haven’t changed in my desire to share the good news of God’s Kingdom coming to our world through the loving ministry, death, and Resurrection of Jesus. I want others to find the love and peace that comes from God and the meaning that comes through serving others.
Yet, all of the things I have described are practices and ways of living that call for my own commitment and complete embodiment in my own life. This isn’t a message that is just “preached” to others. It’s a path of discipleship that is learned and modeled through personal commitment to the risen Lord.
There is a place for teaching others to follow the way of Jesus, but it remains a “way of living,” not just a way of thinking.
And that brings me back to the lingering power of “missionary guilt” that is so pervasive among evangelicals and former evangelicals. At least in my own experience, my guilt originated from feeling like I was never doing enough to “tell” others about Jesus.
At this moment in history, the majority of people are aware of Jesus. They could learn all about him if they desired. For most people, and just about everyone I meet in a typical day, there is no need for a preacher to show up and teach them the story of Jesus.
The majority of people today need to see what it looks like to be transformed by the power of the Spirit and a life dedicated to following the way of Jesus. You could say that there is now a different cost for the majority of Christians who are surrounded by people who know about Jesus but may not follow him.
The majority of Christians, especially those in my own North American context, don’t need to go and tell people about Jesus, but they do need to demonstrate what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.
My own theory is that Christians in America have generally underestimated the damage done by Christians behaving badly. We don’t account for the many who have turned away from the church because we were perceived as uncaring toward the poor, racist, political partisans, cruel to immigrants, disparaging sexual identity, covering up sex abuse, blaming victims, imposing strict rules on others, and generally not caring for people more than our own theology and rules.
At a time when more people have either de-converted or said, “No thanks” when hearing about Jesus, the need isn’t for more information about our faith. Our message has been undermined by the conduct people have witnessed.
Whether their conclusions are fair or not, our calling is to go deeper into the way of discipleship, experiencing what it means for God to love us and how we may respond with love. Our hope today at a time of deconversion and disinterest is to show what it could look like to be shaped the presence of Jesus, the risen Lord who conquered death and evil.
Instead of worrying if we’ve done enough or measured up like a missionary “sold out” for Jesus, we can turn our gaze toward Jesus and ask where he may be leading us today.
Where is Jesus going? Where is he inviting us to meet him? Who is with him? How can we help?
Those are the kinds of questions that can help us replace our missionary guilt with discipleship hope. We have hope in the way of Jesus, and we trust that he will never leave or forsake us.
Jesus has called us to follow him, and if we ask him to show us the way forward, he will show us in one way or another. The way may not be the one we expect or would choose, but I’d wager that our commitment to the way will speak more to the de-converted or disinterested than the most forceful message a missionary could preach.
