Lori Tisher
June 19, 2011
“Go and Make Disciples of all the Nations”
Matthew 28: 16-20
We all wear many hats in life. Some wear chef’s hats … some wear firefighter hats ... some wear baseball hats. What we wear influences our actions. Our faith is one of the most meaningful “hats” we “wear” throughout our lives – it is a hat that we sometimes try to hide and sometimes we forget that we still have it on, but it is something that we carry with us at all times. I brought a hat with me today too ... it says “CPT” on it. CPT stands for “Christian Peacemaker Teams”. I got this hat a couple of weeks ago when I was with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Colombia, in South America.
Christian Peacemaker Teams is a faith-based organization that intervenes in war-torn areas around the world by introducing nonviolent alternatives. Instead of fighting and using violence to resolve national and international disputes, Christian Peacemaker Teams encourage dialogues, negotiations and other creative ways of solving conflicts. In the past 10 years, CPT has worked in Bosnia, Mexico, Israel and Palestine, Haiti, Iraq, Colombia and many other places around the world. CPT currently has 40 full-time global peacemakers and nearly 200 part-time volunteers who lead violence-reduction projects around the world. CPT has prevented hundreds of deaths and deterred violent actions throughout the world because they have stopped armed groups from acting in violent ways. Civilians living in the midst of armed conflicts throughout the world repeatedly say that they feel safer because of CPT’s presence and work. Those who work with CPT have felt God calling them, just as Jesus called the disciples into ministry in the scripture passage we heard this morning.
This story in Matthew takes place on the top of the mountain. There is something special about God and mountains. God has a way of showing up in the mountains and inviting people into doing something special. God met Moses at the back side of a mountain – Mt. Horeb. God met Elijah at Mt. Carmel. When Jesus, Peter, James and John gathered together on the mountain top, the transfiguration of Jesus took place. And, once again, in the passage we heard this morning, the disciples met Jesus on a mountain in Galilee. The presence of this Galilean mountain in this story signified right away that something new and powerful was about to happen. Jesus’ ministry was about to expand in amazing ways because of the hard work of his disciples.
Jesus commanded the disciples to “go” - to move beyond where they were standing. “Don’t get stuck where you’ve been,” Jesus says. “Don’t get stuck where you think you are; dare to move!” Too often, we are willing to settle for the status quo. We get stuck where we’ve been or when we think that what God is doing in our lives is all that God is ever going to do. But, in the scripture reading this morning, Jesus says “Go! Move from where you are. Go out and be about the business of spreading God’s love!”
“Go and make disciples of all the nations” Jesus says. “Making disciples” is not the same as recruiting new people for the church rolls. It is not synonymous with building up church membership. It is not a contest to see which church has the most members.
“Making disciples of all the nations” is a matter of taking time to enter into relationship with others throughout our neighborhood and around the world. These faith-filled relationships need to be much deeper than superficial acquaintances. “Making disciples” is the act of daring to share our time, our lives and our faith with others. This act of reaching out is based on solidarity with others. Solidarity is a matter of standing beside and supporting those who are oppressed and downtrodden. For CPT, solidarity is based on the common desire to work together to achieve peace, in the midst of violence.
When CPT accompanies those living in war-torn areas, CPT team members become the eyes and ears in the situation. They become witnesses for hope, helping to deter human rights violations and violence. Those who represent CPT in these situations often tend to have “passport privilege” – which means that because CPT members are frequently from the northern hemisphere, those initiating human rights violations and violence in places like Colombia tend to listen and respond to CPT’s observations more often than those of native Colombians, simply because of the power and status that we unconsciously carry with us, as people from the north.
When Jesus said “Go and make disciples of all the nations” it was not an invitation to participate in imperialistic evangelism – conquering other lands and make them believe the same as we do, like missionaries did so long ago when they were “sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ” while at the same time spreading their political and cultural beliefs. Through the years – especially in the United Church of Christ - we have come to better understand that Jesus’ commandment to “make disciples of all the nations” is really an invitation for us to move beyond our own narrow worldviews and encounter God’s love throughout the world, so that we might learn, grow and be strengthened ourselves from these relationships.
“Go!” Jesus says. “Go beyond what you know. Encounter God in other places. Carry the love of God that is in your heart to those places and receive the God’s love that is lived out and known in places that you never knew existed before.
Over 200 years ago, our Christian predecessors began sending missionaries to places like India, China and Korea – throughout the world – to fulfill Jesus’ commission to “make disciples of all the nations.” Unfortunately for so many years, U.S. Christians were very good at going places, baptizing and teaching through our own culturally-conditioned eyes and ears and we were not nearly as good at listening. Our ancestors often interpreted this scripture passage as a calling to talk a lot about their beliefs and how they think people should live. They thought that since these Christian understandings had worked well for them, that their perceptions could be universally applied.
Jesus said “I send you out to make disciples of all the nations.” How we do this has changed over the years. Christian Peacemaker Teams and many others today believe that Jesus sends us outside of this building – into our neighborhood and throughout the world - not in domineering ways, but in humility and in love. God sends us out to be in relationship with the people we meet as we go along. God sends us, not to tell them how to live or how to believe, but rather, God sends us in order to listen to the heart-felt emotions and stories of our brothers and sisters and to find places where Christ’s compassion and love can connect with those in need.
There was once a professor who loved to lecture. Every class period, he would go on and on about all of the knowledge he had gained from reading and studying over the years. And then one day, he happened to take a breath between statements and a student in the room actually spoke up! The professor was thrown off a bit. It was “unnerving” for him, when this student began to talk. The student was a real smart aleck. He had opinions, points-of-view and perspectives that the professor had never considered. The professor was rather irritated at first. And then he began to reflect on the situation. He began to understand that his work as a professor was as much about listening, as it was about speaking. There was truly something to gain, he realized, not by imparting answers, but by raising questions and listening to the perspectives of everyone in the room.
Listening can be hard to do, not only figuratively, but also, at times, quite literally. For example, Robert Shippey is an author who has lived most of his life with diminished hearing. When people speak, he has to tilt his head a bit and move his ear toward them. For him, listening requires intentionality; it doesn’t just happen. It is a full body experience.
This is what CPT does in their work – listen humbly, with an open heart, filled with love. CPT team members in Colombia explained to us how they do their work. They said that struggling communities contact CPT’s Colombian headquarters and request CPT’s presence in their village or city because violence has erupted in their midst. Then CPT visits the community in need, they spend time with the people, they share in life with them, and then sometimes, the CPT team members said, “we say some words.” What they was trying to say was that CPT’s work is based on listening, first, and then doing and talking, as opposed to the way missionary work was so often done in the past. CPT team members follow the community’s directives and in the end, some aspect of the community’s struggle is always strengthened by CPT’s presence.
CPT’s first project in Colombia – in 2001 – was to accompany a community that was leaving Barranca – a large city about the size of Akron, OH – where they had been living while the fighting was too harsh in their own hometown, Opon. Since helping the people of Opon return to their own land, CPT has accompanied several dozen, similar Colombian communities in their struggle to live in the midst of a national armed conflict.
There has been fighting in Colombia for nearly 70 years, with the guerillas – which are the Marxists and Communists – fighting against the paramilitaries, who are more conservative citizens, who protect the interests of the large landowners and the elites. The Colombian struggle is a struggle over the land. For you see, Colombian land is very rich with natural resources – with gold, oil and coal. As a result of this fight over land, 5 million people have been forced to move away from their land so that rich, big companies can profit from their resources and hundreds of thousands of people have been murdered during these conflicts. After so many years of fighting, the land conflicts, unfortunately, continue in Colombia today.
To find out more about this armed conflict and to accompany those living in the midst of it, I visited a small gold mining village in the St. Lucas Mountains, which is right in the center of the current armed conflict. A Canadian mining company is trying to take these villagers’ land away from them, to increase their own profits. The local miners have been in conversation with the multinational company and they have refused to give up their land, even when the company offered a very nice price. For them, the land they live on is like a paradise. It carries their heritage; it provides them with their daily sustenance; and the way they are mining, the land will still be rich with resources for a long time, providing space for future generations to grow and survive. Yet they continue to be pressured to leave the area. Those looking to make a quick buck get the military and the state on their side and these groups do all that they can to make the villagers’ lives as difficult as possible, hoping that they will soon give up and leave. A Colombian military base just up the mountain from the village uses water and then passes it down the mountain to the villagers, dirty and contaminated. The military has even completely cut off some of the water lines to the village – keeping it all for themselves. Members of the military have stolen the villagers’ firewood and have verbally harassed the local miners on their way to work. In addition to the military, the State is very slow to fix the dirt roads surrounding this small village – making travel nearly impossible. Believe me, I have the muddy boots to prove it! In the past, the State has also put bans on carrying gas and certain foods up the mountain, as a way to deter these villagers.
Even in the midst of all these struggles, the Colombia people continue to live life as fully as they can, keeping their spirits high and dreaming of peace and justice for all! One woman whose son was killed by the paramilitary in 1998, said that the work she does with victim rights is “not only about justice for myself, it is about justice for everyone – rich and poor alike!”
Jesus commissioned his followers to “Go and make disciples of all the nations.” And God continues to call each of us to do the same today. Some of us travel throughout the world, building relationships and journeying with those of different cultures. But this work of “making disciples” can also be done right here in Cleveland! Every day of our lives, we can stand in solidarity with others all around us. For example, we can support those who are oppressed and downtrodden, by providing emergency assistance and advocating for expanded social services. We can work together to achieve peace, in the midst of violence through the city, by teaching our young people about the power of nonviolence. We can teach the world about tolerance and acceptance of everyone in our diverse community, through our witness of extravagant welcome right here at St. Paul’s. How is God urging you to live out this call to “make disciples of all the nations”?
