Missional Outreach

How do you all feel about just getting down to business today? Can we dispense with the gripping introduction part of public speaking and just dig in? Glad we are in agreement. Lets get after it.

We are in the midst of a series called “This is Us.” We are looking at the core values that we embody here at First Church, because we believe that these values are who we are called to be, and what God is going to use for us to live out our mission of Flooding the Treasure coast with the transformational love of Jesus as well as accomplish our vision of creating, equipping, and mobilizing 610 Disciples by 2030 so that heaven and earth collide on the treasure coast.

why 610? Well because in Matthew 6:10 Jesus says: Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

As people who follow Jesus, we believe in the incarnation of Jesus Christ: the ultimate collision of heaven and earth — God and human coexisting in the same space, the same body.

And we believe that the Spirit of God raised Jesus from the dead, and that same Spirit has come to live in and among God’s people — heaven and earth, God and human coexisting in the same space. We are, you and me, each and every one of us, a place where heaven and earth collide.

Every single time that we gather, every single time that we speak life into someone’s heart, comfort the afflicted, invest in someone else’s life… we are engaged in the collision of heaven and earth.

So what I want you to understand is that all of this language of heaven and earth coming together is not just something that we threw in there to make it sound idealistic and Christian-ey. This is literally what Jesus and the Church are in the business of doing and have been doing for ages. And it’s actually a continuation of what God has been doing since the very beginning of time.

Way back in the beginning of things, when God finished creating the earth, he created a place called Eden. And Eden was a place where heaven and earth met. God stooped down and created humans out of the dust and placed them in Eden and in Eden God met with them and walked with them. Eden was filled with the presence of God, with the presence of heaven.

But as you may know, things didn’t stay that way, human disobedience caused heaven and earth to separate. There is an irreconcilable difference when creation rebels against its creator. But God never stopped trying to reconcile it anyway. Through a series of holy places, God brought the presence of heaven to earth. In the tabernacle and then the temple of Israel God met with humans in an attempt to mold them into a society that more closely reflected heaven.

But that plan was only temporary. God would once again come to earth. In the form of a baby born in a manger, God became the space where heaven and earth truly met once again. This baby, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ and Messiah of Israel would grow up and begin a life of missional outreach to the world.

And that is our core value today. We’ve talked about Passionate Worship, Faithful Development, Pastor Jeff talked about Radical Generosity (thank you Jeff!) and today we land on our 4th core value: Missional Outreach.

Missional Outreach is what separates the church from the rest of the pack of people in the world who seek to do good. Missional Outreach is a distinctly Christian value, because it focuses on helping and reaching those in need with the express mission of seeing transformation in Christ. We want lives to change physically and spiritually. Christ came to heal mind, body, and spirit. Christ came to bring holistic help. And as the living breathing image of Christ on this earth, that is what we have been called to do as well.

There’s a lot of stories about Jesus’s ministerial work. Almost too many to choose from. But one in particular sticks out when I think about this whole business of missional outreach as an extension of God’s work all the way back in creation.

This is what’s happening: Jesus is in Jerusalem teaching and preaching and garnering a lot of negative attention from the religious leaders… as he always seemed to do. But after really getting under some folks skin by essentially telling them that he is God come to earth, he takes a break and walked through Jerusalem. This is John Chapter 9.

John 9:1–7 NRSV

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.

So the first thing that we need to understand is that in the ancient world the handicapped were not viewed with the same eyes that we view persons with limited ability today. In today’s world it is common practice to make the world around us as accessible and accommodating as possible.

In Jesus’s world, those with limited ability, with birth defects, with incurable disease were cast off. They were seen as unclean or even cursed. And that’s the kind of thinking that we encounter when in John 9. We are introduced to a man who has been blind since birth. His entire adult life - at least - has been spent at the mercy of those who might offer him money.

The disciples immediately upon seeing him are wondering why he’s blind. They are trying to make sense out of human suffering. This is something that we all do right? And so they ask Jesus if this man sinned or his parents sinned causing him to lose his sight (or in this case be born without sight). And this seems like a really insensitive way of framing the question… but the disciples are simply working with the toolbox that they have. What they understand theologically is that people who are disabled are disabled because they sinned.

Which honestly is sometimes not far off. Even in today’s world. Sometimes our physical bodies fail because we have not cared for them, because we’ve been reckless and engaged in dangerous behaviors. So don’t get your noses all stuck up in the air at the disciples. They are trying to understand the world… and they are in the presence of the all-knowing God. So they ask.

Jesus’s response though is so beautifully cryptic. Jesus is like “there is not sin involved in this man’s infirmity. There is only the divine plan of God to reveal how wonderful God is.

What Jesus is communicating that God overcomes suffering and that god will overcome this man’s impairment. The man is born blind because the world is not perfect and the human body is frail. But God has known from the moment of his birth that someday he would be restored. That the broken reality of his humanity would be overturned.

And in that moment Jesus does something that harkens back to the opening pages of the Bible. He stoops down and picks up dust… Just as God had done when creating Adam… and he spits or breathes on it and uses it to restore the man’s sight.

In a moment’s time, Jesus’s outreached hands have completely transformed this man’s life. They have given him a potential that could never have been realized without the Power of Christ. In this moment, heaven and earth have collided for this man. His life long prayer has been answered and he’s been set free for joyful and obedient living. But let’s see what happens next:

John 9:8–12 NRSV

The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

So the man is then walking along in his neighborhood and no one can believe it right? They are like… is that him? It can’t be. Look he can see. And he’s like oh no it’s me friends. I met Jesus. Now I can see.

I met Jesus. Now I can see. Like the old and wonderful hymn amazing grace.

And this is really the goal of Missional Outreach. To give sight to the blind. Maybe not literal sight to the literal blind. But missional outreach is the means by which we offer spiritual and transformational light to those in dark places. It’s how we give people a vision of who they could become if they simply stretched out their hand to embrace the love of Christ.

It’s how we plant seeds. It’s how we say “you matter.” It’s how we often show people that they are worth more than the life that has been handed to them. It’s how we help people recognize the fact that they can and should take a leap of faith to embrace the transformed life.

And the thing with missional outreach is that it comes with a lot of disappointment. A lot of the time people don’t see the value in what we offer them. They want the physical help but they don’t want the spiritual or the emotional help.

They want to come take a shower and get clean clothes on Saturday morning but they are in a place where they are unwilling or incapable of embracing the transformational experience that Jesus offers. It’s sometimes unfortunate, but Jesus doesn’t force transformation on anyone. Jesus simply extends a hand, knowing it often isn’t grasped onto right away. But the hand is still there.

So as a church we need to remember these realities in our efforts. WE are going to cause heaven and earth to collide on the Treasure Coast through missional outreach, through real transformed lives. Through those who say I met Jesus. Now everything has changed. But in the midst of that work we are going to face set backs. Times that are exhausting and people that stretch us to the limits without ever embracing this gift we offer.

But where everyone else saw a blind man, a hopeless beggar, Jesus saw just the opportunity God had been waiting for.

That’s our job too. Look for the opportunity. Look for the glimmer of hope, the sparkle in someone’s eyes as you offer them the possibility of transformation. In that glimmer of hope, in that soft sparkle you are seeing the place where heaven and earth will collide. You are seeing the work God created you for, and then take that leap.