The only mission is love! Daniel Mosby

What do you think of when you think of the Church?

The biblical definition of church is the group of people who identify as followers of Jesus. In Ephesians 5 Scripture says The Church is the bride of Christ, and in 1 Corinthians 12 the body of Christ. The Church is a collective group whom God has equipped with the Holy Spirit so they can work in partnership with the divine to restore the world to God’s original perfect creation. The Church is beautiful, powerful, compassionate, and full of grace. The Church is as close to God in human form as it is possible to be, except for Jesus, and working everyday to become more like him.

But to many people the Church isn’t the above. To many people the Church is an institution or a group of institutions. Over the last two millennia the Church has been corrupted by human wants and desires and has deviated from it’s original calling. This institutional Church has been and still is responsible for much good in the world. Countless numbers of individual and corporate good deeds on every scale. I firmly believe the world is a better place because of the Church.

However, we also have to recognise that the institutional Church has been, and still is, responsible for a great deal of hurt in the world. Historically from the Crusades, the Spanish inquisition, colonialism, countless decisions made by Kings, Emperors and rulers of all shapes and sizes who claimed to be acting in the name of God but were actually all about their own power. Also contemporarily in sexual abuse scandals, spiritual abuse and it’s treatment of the LGBTQ+ community the church in many cases has a poor reputation at best.

I believe no acts pain God as much as those that claim to originate from him but couldn’t represent his will less. These acts assassinate his perfect character and present a false impression of the Creator. Too many people have been hurt, physically, emotionally and spiritually in the name of Jesus, that is abhorrent. Jesus only brings good, if it isn’t good it isn’t God. If you have been hurt that wasn’t God. But that doesn’t make it any less painful, or any less wrong. If you have been hurt by the Church, I apologise, I’m no archbishop or high profile preacher but I want you to know this: I and many others hear you and are appalled by the way you have been treated. I understand if you never want to be part of a Church again. But remember blame God is not to blame for the way a person or institution has treated you even if they claimed to be representing the Lord. If you have been hurt if, and when, you feel able to try and engage with God again, he is ready and I would be honoured to help you on that journey at your own pace.

If you’re cross with God let me ask you, are you cross with God or are you cross with how a human has represented God to you. Do the characteristics of the God you think you’re cross with match up with who God really is?

But how do you know what the true character of God is? Well you need to look no further than Jesus. Jesus was fully human and fully God. Jesus isn’t a part of God he was and is the perfect representation of God. He was quite literally God in human form and we have a huge wealth of historical evidence to describe his character. In Matthew 22 Jesus is asked:

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

What does Jesus say is the most important thing? Love. Love for God and love for humanity. Not judgement, not damnation. Jesus never “smites” anyone, Jesus never scares anyone into following him with threats of Hell. Jesus is love. So what is love? The Bible defines this for us too, in 1 Corinthians 13.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

Therefore, if God is love, Paul’s description of Love above is correct and the Church’s aim is to represent God on Earth then that description should also represent the Church.

We are the Church, the Church represents God, God is love.

If someone was seeking mercy, would the Church be somewhere they’d go? I suspect not and I think that’s a problem.

Does that description of love describe you, does that describe the Church you know?

I don’t think any of us can honestly say that is us 100% of the time. I’m proud of what we do At All Nations but we do get things wrong at times as does every other expression of Church. The last thing I want is for anyone to a give up and admit defeat with a cry of “I can never be like that” why should I even try? The point of the cross was to absolve us of guilt and pain, to encourage us to continually get back up and try again. One of my favourite songs contains the lyric “There’ll be days I lose the battle but grace says it does not matter, because the cross has already won the war”. Something being apparently unobtainable doesn’t mean we shouldn’t reach for it. Anyway aren’t all things possible with God?

But let us imagine for one moment though that the Church and all those in it did accurately reflect Paul’s definition of love. Those words have to be our aspiration, when we don’t manage it we receive forgiveness and aim to do a better job next time. But when we are fully restored, when the church is fully restored that description of love will be a description of the Chruch. And what a world that would be!

I want to be clear on one thing for a moment I’m not saying that the Church shouldn’t challenge immoral behaviour. As Christ did we must stand up for the oppressed and disadvantaged around the world and the Church should challenge immoral behaviour within itself. However, when we do so it must be from a place of love and not judgement as it was with Christ. It must never be from a sense of judgement or one upmanship to make the accuser feel better about themselves. Correction in the Church must always be from a point of love. From a point of “we’re in this together, let me walk with you and help you to let God help”.

It’s worth noting that one of the few times the Bible recalls Jesus getting angry is with the traders in the temple (John 2, Matthew 21). The traders who were misusing the church building, the Pharisees who were using God as a means to judge others and make themselves look good.

I am often taken by lines or phrases in contemporary media and see God in them. Someone once suggested to me that God speaks to us in this way because the Church doesn’t listen when he tries to speak through them. Perhaps there’s some truth in that. A line that I heard once recently and has been stuck in my subconscious ever since was from the cult Sci-Fi classic Dr Who. In an otherwise below average episode a character named Bel (in response to an angry alien set on revenge) when asked what her mission says “Love, Love is the only mission, idiot!”.

Love is the only mission, idiot, that quickly got me thinking. Love was the only mission of Jesus and it should be the only mission of the Church. As Jesus himself said the greatest commandment is to love God and to love your neighbour as yourself. To love the community both those who are part of the church and those who are not.

The 21st Century Church in in crisis and I am convinced the only way it is to survive is to return to how God created it to be. To return to a state where the only mission is love. To acknowledge it’s past mistakes, work to rectify them. To continue and expand the many acts of goodness and kindness. To work to fully represent Jesus the God of love. To make the only mission love, every kind of love. Because if the Church is to restore the world to God’s original creation it first has to restore itself.

The phrase deconstruction has become prominent in Christian circles recently it’s a phrase that describes a crisis of faith from which an individual either revaluates some of their core theological values or sadly decides to reject Christ. To some one of those values to deconstruct is the existence of Church itself# To be clear I am huge believer in the Church I see it as the only vehicle through which restoration can be achieved. So I don’t believe in deconstruction in that sense but I do know that some deconstruction is needed of some widely held beliefs. For example the misconception that God is in control and sends both good and bad (he only sends good). Can I suggest that before the church and individuals can undergo restoration there first needs to be a period of deconstruction.

Now Deconstruction and restoration are not the same as demolition, demolition is crude any idiot can destroy something. Restoration however is a fine art it requires skill, training and understanding. Rather than demolishing faith and losing it for good, restoration is about removing the excess dirt from the Church and from our own theology stripping away the layers of human corruption and greed and getting back to how God created it with love being the only mission.

Can I encourage you to rather than rejecting out of hand ideas that would seem to contradict what you’ve always believed to ask yourself one question. Does this theology match the character of God revealed to us by Jesus, if the answer is no then I would suggest that theology needs deconstructing. When I am debating a point with myself I like to deliberately seek out the opinions of both sides and evaluate both arguments through the lens of Jesus before asking the spirit to speak to me about it.

Remember the only mission is love.

But how do we make the only mission of the Church love? Well it starts on an individual basis, we each need make love our own primary mission.

We’ve talked about Dr Who but I’m going to reference the far superior sci-fi series Star Trek for a moment. In Star Trek the federation have a prime directive and whatever the cost any other mission is secondary. To violate the prime directive is an unthinkable act for any star fleet officer and the ultimate betrayal of their values.

The prime directive for Christians is love. Love God and love your neighbour and love yourself. Before everything we do we need to think am I doing this out of love?

We will lose battles, doing everything out of love won’t always be the case but if we work in partnership with God the cross has already won the war.

We need to seek a more intimate relationship with the Spirit, we need to spend more time involved in activities that reflect our mission and we need to be an active part of a not yet perfect local church that also makes love it’s only mission. We need to challenge, with love, those who claim to be speaking God’s word but are actually on their own mission violating the prime directive and speaking the words of their own pet version of God.

Love is the only mission:

Another phrase I like is “If you don’t love yourself, how on earth can you love anyone else”.

Jesus said to love your neighbour as yourself. He didn’t say love your neighbour and hate yourself. I think it’s part of our national identity that we always feel the need to self-deprecate. I hate writing job applications where you have to make yourself seem wonderful. But you know what I am wonderful, God said so and so are you. That doesn’t mean you have to go around telling everyone how wonderful you are expect in your CV, love does not boast. In the new testament the Greek for humility is tapeinois which is defined as “low, in situation; of condition, humble, poor, mean, depressed”so when Peter says in 1 Peter 5:

6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.

Does Peter mean God wants us to be poor mean and depressed? Well in Matthew 11 Jesus says this

29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Was Jesus poor, mean and depressed? I don’t believe that when Peter and the other Bible writers tell us to be humble they mean think you’re rubbish. I would suggest they simply mean don’t boast and be a show off, don’t think you’re better than everyone else. Because after all God thinks everyone is wonderful. You can be humble and still know your identity as a son of God. Jesus was humble and Jesus was God. Jesus claimed to be King but he did it in a different way

When Pilot rode into Jerusalem he did it on a warhorse, when Jesus did it he did it on a borrowed Donkey that’s humility being so assured of your identity that you don’t need status symbols to know your worth.

Stop putting yourself down and see yourself how God sees you.

If your mission is love that’s not just love for others it’s love for yourself. God’s mission isn’t love for the whole world except you. If we are to truly make love our mission we have to accept that we are loved, we have to see ourselves how God sees us, forgiven, perfect, worthy, beautiful and whole. Again that’s not easy we all jump very quickly to our negative conclusions and perceptions of ourselves. But if we are to love others, we must first love ourselves. God loves you just as you are, why do we find that so hard. Another attitude that I have personally deconstructed, and I hope you have too is that of being a worthless sinner unworthy of God’s love. God thinks you’re amazing why do we insist on thinking something else? Learn to love yourself. I’ve spoken before about how actually we seem to be more bothered about what we think others think about us than what we know God thinks about us. I’ll say that again be more bothered about what we know God thinks about us than what we think other people think about us.

Let me summarise:

The beautiful divine concept of Christ’s body the Church has been corrupted over the millennia and whilst still being a huge force for good has falsely represented God to many people, hurting many people in the process. We need to restore the Church to it’s original state where it’s prime directive, it’s only mission is love. To do that we need to deconstruct some ideas we have been taught about who God is, how the Church should act and who we are. We need to see ourselves the way God sees us.

Love is the only mission, for the Church for us individually Love is the only mission. Love for God, love for others, love for ourselves.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love always wins.

Please, for God’s sake, for the world’s sake make love your only mission and let’s agree as the Church, as the body of Christ as Christ’s bride to support each other in making love our only mission.

Guest User20 February 2022Comment