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"World Visions"
Matthew 28:16-20
A Sermon Preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley
October 21, 2001
University Baptist Church
Minneapolis, MN
The television and the newspapers are full of world events like never before. We are deeply connected with incidents in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Pakistan, Great Britain and the former Soviet countries. We know more than we care to about anthrax spores and how one country’s actions, or one group’s actions affect us all.
In this season, we are hearing that we are more a part of a global community than ever before. But I wonder if there is such thing as a global community. Community implies us looking out for one another. Community implies that the safety of all members is a basic assumption. Community implies that terrorism is not allowed by any member. Community implies that justice for all is a basic assumption. So there may not be a global community after all. And yet, is that not what we should seek? Is that not what Jesus was saying in today’s scripture? "Go ye into all the world and preach my gospel to every creature."
What we have are conflicting visions for the world and that is where we get all messed up.
We have fundamentalists on the fringes of all religions who tell us that God has a plan for the world. This is to bring all people into their understanding of religion.
To bring them into their understanding of God. But it is not only religious fundamentalists. It is also economic fundamentalists. On top of that, we have political fundamentalists. When religious systems get in bed with economic and political systems, the results can be catastrophic. You can even end up with a world vision far from God’s vision, no matter how much religious language it is dressed up in. That’s why the early Baptists insisted on the strict separation of church and state.
There are those world visions which say that we must all sacrifice to one type of economic system. The communist economic system has all but died away, but the capitalist system is alive and well. The IMF and the World Bank have made their loans to third world countries dependent upon their acceptance of reforms which make things easier for their own exploitation. They need to do away with land reforms, do away with unions. Do away with public works projects in favor of private projects to preserve investor’s rights. Investor’s rights in this world vision are more important than human rights.
The World Trade Organization successfully bypasses laws of nation states in favor of unbridled capitalism. Environmental laws and workers rights are ignored in this New World Order. This New World Order is a economic system and as such has no soul.
Then there is the work of exporting democracy to the world. A noble effort to be sure, assuming democracy means more than free elections, but also the leadership to keep people free which means keeping people fed and opposing all forms of terrorism, even if it comes from another "democratic" state.
And then we have the great Commission from Jesus, "Go ye in to all the world and preach my gospel to every creature. This has been taken too often as holy license to rob another faith, another culture and in the process "westernize" another country to the glory of God. Gandhi was asked once what he thought about Western civilization. He said he thought it was a great idea.
Barbara Kingsolver wrote a great book a few years ago called The Poisonwood Bible. It speaks of a world vision popular in Christendom. A Baptist minister goes to the Congo in order to deliver them the word of God. But his word is one of judgement, condemnation and intolerance. He was not interested in helping the people, aside from helping save their souls. He was interested in his own blind faith world vision that did not have room for another’s perspectives.
His daughter, Adah told of her own search for faith in the midst of this world vision: "According to my Baptist Sunday-school teachers, a child is denied entrance to heaven merely for being born in the Congo rather than, say, north Georgia, where she could attend church regularly. This was the sticking point in my own little lame march to salvation: admission to heaven is gained by the luck of the draw. At age five I raised my good left hand in Sunday school and used a month’s ration of words to point out this problem to Miss Betty Nagy. Getting born within earshot of a preacher, I reasoned, is entirely up to chance. Would Our Lord be such a hit-or-miss kind of Savior as that? Would he really condemn some children to eternal suffering just for the accident of a heathen birth, and reward others for a privilege they did nothing to earn? I waited for Leah and the other pupils to seize on this very obvious point of argument and jump in with their overflowing brace of words. To my dismay, they did not. Not even my own twin, who ought to know about unearned privilege. This was before Leah and I were gifted; I was still Dumb Adah. Slowpoke poison-oak running-joke Adah, subject to frequent thimble whacks on the head. Miss Betty sent me to the corner for the rest of the hour to pray for my own soul while kneeling on grains of uncooked rice. When I finally got up with sharp grains imbedded in my knees I found, to my surprise, that I no longer believed in God. The other children still did, apparently. As I limped back to my place, they turned their eyes away from my stippled sinner’s knees. How could they not even question their state of grace? I lacked their confidence, alas. I had spent more time than the average child pondering unfortunate accidents of birth."(p.171)
I am very proud to know my share of American Baptist missionaries. I have not experienced any of them like the one we might find in The Poisonwood Bible. In fact, Barbara Kingsolver actually spoke favorably about American Baptist Missionaries who were less interested in saving souls than the bodies that the souls occupied.
On my many trips to Nicaragua, I spent most of my time with American Baptist missionaries Gustavo and Joan Parajon. I first met Gustavo when I was a small child, when our church commissioned him and his wife Joan as American Baptist Missionaries in Nicaragua. Gustavo, limping from childhood polio contracted in his home country of Nicaragua, came back to our church many times to tell us about the plight of the Nicaraguan people. He established a program call Provadenic which offered vaccinations to the people in the countryside and trained rural healthcare workers.
After the 1972 earthquake leveled Managua, he established CEPAD, the Evangelical center for Aid and Development to work as a channel for aid and reconstruction in the aftermath. CEPAD brought together 70 denominations in Nicaragua to aid the poor.
When Kim and I went to Nicaragua in 1984 for the first time, we stayed in their home and rode in their jeep all over the country snapping pictures and hearing story after story of heartache and bloodshed. Gustavo Parajon in addition to being a medical doctor serves as the President of Provadenic, the Director of CEPAD, the Pastor of First Baptist Church of Managua and was part of a select team of reconcilers and peacemakers who fostered dialogue among the people in the years following the revolution.
By his tirelessness, his hard work, his deep faith, his humility and his willingness to march into hell for a heavenly cause, Gustavo Parajon is a model of ministry to me.
When we have these world visions before us, we are given a choice. Which vision are we to follow?
Are we to follow an economic vision of the world? Are we to look at economic determinism as our saving grace?
Are we to follow a military vision of the world? Are we to look at the one who has the biggest army or the most savvy media to save us?
Are we to follow a vision of the world which says that we must believe a set of doctrines in order to get into heaven?
Hear this. The vision we need to follow is the vision embodied in the ethics of Jesus. When Jesus said, "Go Ye into all the world and preach my Gospel to every creature" he was not saying we are to export our economic or political system. He was saying that we are to export Jesus’ ethics. That’s the gospel. That’s the good news.
And those ethics are precisely those of economic justice. Jesus’ ethics are those of welcoming the outcast.
Jesus’ ethics are exposing the places where the politics are in bed with religion and calling us all to accountability. Our problem is that we as a people, as a nation, as a world, have forgotten Jesus’ ethics. In our evangelistic zeal, we have sought to export our economic and political system, we have come to believe that this is what our faith tells us to do.
We see evangelism, spreading the Gospel, as a dirty word. Too many of us remember how coming to the altar was a private confession to make us better than others, not a time to commit to a new way of life that will change the world.
The writer of Revelation warns us to beware of the popular lure of empire. For to become caught up in this ecstasy is to become drunk with the wine of the beast. Revelation says that the world vision of God is a world vision that does not oppress, but sets free. And we are to keep the faithful witness in the midst of a world that ignores things such as justice and mercy and love and equality and compassion.
We are to remember that nothing we do is out of God’s sight, but plenty that we do is out of God’s vision.
So, how do we get a hold of God’s vision?
In order to get a handle on this, I would encourage you during this difficult and confusing season, to take that bible off your shelf. Dust it off and start reading it. Get a hold of the radical nature of Jesus. Delve into the fundamental text of our faith, the gospels. Sit down and take an hour and read the gospel of mark from beginning to end in one sitting. If you can’t do that, then take on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. Then find out what Jesus has to say about warfare. Then find out what Jesus has to say about World vision. Find out anew what Jesus has to say about the direction and posture we should embrace as followers of Christ.
When I am confused, I find it helpful to read an entire book like Mark in its own context. I have read it and reread it a number of times. I am always amazed to find out how much Jesus heals people and in effect heals systems of abuse. I revel in Mark’s take on salvation. I am renewed in finding out how much time Jesus spent doing things for people and how little time he spent talking about it. We in American Christendom spend a whole lot of time talking about it, but not a whole lot of time doing it.
I know that there is a vision for us to cling to. It is a vision where all people are created and treated equal.
Where justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream.
Where people do not have to fear going to work and no one wakes up in the middle of the night wondering about what might be waiting in their mailboxes.
Where people treat each other with respect.
Where there is no racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism or classism.
Where the wolf lies down with the ram and the fattling and the calf together.
Where nation shall not raise up sword against nation and neither shall they study war any more.
Where the leper and the outcast and the religiously impure and the blind beggar at the gate are all given the highest seats at the great feast.
Where God brings kingdoms down from their thrones and lifts up those of low degree.
Where everyone is named, known, respected, even welcomed and affirmed.
That is what God wants us to preach to every nation.
Go ye into all the world and preach that vision, and then maybe we can begin to be on the right track.
That’s what we work for.
That’s what we pray for.
That’s what we live for.
We live, work and pray for God’s kind of world vision to inhabit the very core of our beings. For God’s vision will save the world from itself and from us.