THE HEALING MISSION

           

Sermon delivered on S. Luke’s Day, the 18th October 2009 by Fr Nicholas JG Sykes in the congregation of St. Alban's Church of England, George Town, Cayman Islands.

Scriptures: Acts 16: 6-12a                    2 Timothy 4: 5-17                     S. Luke 10: 1-9

 

S. Luke 10: 8f “When you enter a community and they receive you, heal the sick there and tell them: The Kingdom of God has drawn near to you.”

 

In a rather sad report some time ago, coming I think out of central or South America, some of the indigenous peoples had set up a posthumous trial of Christopher Columbus. They found him guilty, and then proceeded to shoot arrows at his effigy, being the nearest they could get to actual execution. Elsewhere in that country, “Hispanic Day” was being observed in a manner that honoured the memory of Columbus.

 

Columbus’ memory has been sullied because of his association with a mission that has turned sour for subsequent generations of indigenous peoples in this hemisphere. There is no question that it is mistaken to judge the happenings of one historical period with the perspectives of another. Nevertheless, it seems undoubtedly true that the European mission to the new world, both in Columbus’ activities and later, involved for the people of the Americas conquest, servitude, sickness, encroachment on their lands, a deteriorating quality of life, and violent induced death. It is true that in the midst of this trouble, some godly men were sent by the Church to do good for the people and to protect them somewhat, as well as to bring them eternal salvation, but the coverage of such missions or sub-missions was very patchy. Ironically, the people who came to conquer, sometimes referred to as the conquistadors, often thought and spoke of their own mission as the coming forth into a new land of the Cross of Christ to conquer. Understandably, the repercussions of this have been serious, up to the present day. The post-Christian mind of our own time points fingers at all this for proof that the Christian religion is at best no less warlike than any other religion, and at worst historically the most destructive of all. The Name of Christ has been dishonoured amongst the world’s peoples because of many such activities of those who might be identified with the Faith through their Baptism and their cultural ethnicity, but not through their spirit and their desire to please God.

 

So are the judgements against Christianity of these voices of today’s post-Christians correct? Our readings today on St. Luke’s Day give us a perspective on the matter that is most important. All of the readings today are of comings and goings, but in no case does human enforcement enter the picture. If in the European mission to the new world there were those that claimed a religious or a Christian motive for their conquering, it appears they did not consider scriptural texts such as these, as providing a model for them. This was a mistake of theirs. Considering such texts may help us to avoid making comparable mistakes, or mistakes of a similar character, ourselves.

 

On St. Luke’s Day we appropriately consider the mission of the church to be fundamentally one of healing. Jesus gave that power to the 72 (or 70) going in pairs as his advance party to places He intended to visit. Not only were they to declare to them the imminent Kingdom of God, but they were to demonstrate that by their acts of healing. Moreover, the style of these missionaries was to be the very opposite of enforcement. In a phrase that says it all, Jesus told them He was sending them as lambs in the midst of wolves. Far from having armour or indeed any kind of protection they were to go without provision, money or footware. They were to be wholly dependant on the willing provisions of those to whom they went with their powers to heal and their news of the Kingdom of God. What if the prospective hosts were unwelcoming? They would indeed be warned that they were making the gravest mistake of their lives. But then they would decisively leave them and move on. If those to whom they went chose to mistreat them, they had nothing other than spiritual and moral force to react to it. The “wolves” would have to choose to desist from mauling the “lambs”. On this fundamental model of mission it is indeed unfortunate that the European mission to the New World, identified rightly or wrongly as a Christian mission and undertaken to those without knowledge of Christ, was often undertaken not as lambs to wolves, but rather as the reverse. Interestingly our first lesson from Acts may describe the very first intentionally Christian mission ever undertaken after the Resurrection into Europe – at least it is the first we have any reliable record about, because S. Peter may have reached Europe before this. How did St. Paul’s mission to Europe begin? - possibly as the answer to a prayer from a European, a man from Macedonia, whom St. Paul saw in a vision. In the vision, “a man of Macedonia was standing beseeching him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’” The mission to Europe was certainly not with the intention of conquest or gain. St. Paul and St. Luke, Silas and Timothy went to Europe to help the people of Europe with the Gospel. And in their turn Europeans down the centuries have conducted missions to many other areas. Many have been conducted with a similar spirit to the mission of St. Paul and St. Luke, Silas and Timothy to Europe. Not a few missions, however, including that of the great explorer Columbus, have been of mixed motivation, when motives of gain and conquest were set  to overshadow motives of temporal and eternal caring.

 

Why are we where we are, we should ask ourselves, both those of us who have come from here from elsewhere, and those either who have come from here, or who belong here. And we should remember that our whole life is a mission, for from an eternal perspective none of us belongs to the earth, as our true destiny and home must designate us as citizens of eternity. What sort of a mission on earth are we conducting? Is it one after the model of S. Paul, or one after the model of the conquistadors? When the account books are finally opened, will it be said that our mission here on earth was one of caring for people and helping them reach  the kingdom of God? Or will it be said that he “did well” for himself but cared little or not at all for those he was sent to. Let us pray that after the example of St. Luke the Evangelist and physician we may bring truth, light and peace to our communities and may be a healing presence. For when the chips are down, so to speak, it is the eternal perspective that counts.