ALL - Luke 24:44-49
There was a business man driving down this country road when he spotted a little boy that had a lemonade stand. It was hot and he was thirsty, so he decided to stop.
Once he got up to the little boy's stand, he noticed a sign that said “All you can drink 10 cent,” and a single, very small glass. Well, he thought that it was an awful small glass, but since it was only 10 cents for all you can drink, he decided to get some anyway. He gave the boy a dime, and shot down the whole glass in one swig. He slapped the glass back onto the table and said, “fill 'er up.”
The kid replied, “Sure thing, that'll be 10 cents.”
To this the business man said, “But your sign says all you can drink for a dime.”
“It is,” the little boy replies, “that's all you can drink for a dime.”
In our reading this morning, the Gospel of Luke relays Jesus’ words in this way, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
Matthew relates that same commission, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”[i]
Mark offers them in this way, “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.”[ii]
One thing that this passages have in common in their commission is the word, “all.”
Somehow we have developed different understandings of the word, “all.” For the business man, he understood the word “all” to mean that he could have an unlimited supply of lemonade for the simple price of ten cents, until he was satisfied. The little boy understood the word “all” to signify a limited amount, for ten cents, all you can drink is what fits in this little cup. The Merriam-Webster dictionary offers four different definitions (based on the part of speech) that include twenty different sub-definitions.
The question for us today, my brothers and sisters, is what does “all” mean when we hear the commission to go into “all nations,” and “all the world.” Last week, we began a series focused in on understanding our purpose statement, so the question for us also is, what do we mean when we say our purpose is “to make ALL disciples of Jesus Christ through love and service.”
Why focus in on the word ALL? Isn’t that just a little too elementary or simple a focus? Well, it would be, if it were not for the fact that we, as Christians, have often gotten it wrong. In some cases, we have taken “all the world,” to mean that the focus of our disciple-making should be on the poor heathens in third-world countries. In other cases, we have taken the “all” in “all the world” meaning that we should reach out and invite “all who are just like us” to be part of the church. And finally, in other cases, we have taken Jesus’ command to “make disciples of all” to mean everyone else but ourselves.
I want to suggest to you this morning that ALL means ALL. Going with the very first definition from Mirriam-Webster’s “the whole amount, quantity, or extent of” the world. We are responsible for making disciples of Jesus Christ of every last person in the world.
Who are we talking about? We can break it down into three groups. Let’s walk backward through those groups to gain a better understanding of who this ALL entails.
The first group are not the “poor heathens in third world countries,” because putting it that way comes across in a very condescending way, a way in which Jesus and the early church never sent out a single person. These are the folks, though, that we traditionally think of when we think of whom missionaries are sent to share the Gospel. These are the folks that live in the remote and maybe not so remote parts of the world…villages and communities where the Gospel may have never been preached. Jesus did intend for the Gospel to be shared with these folks, and so it is important that we, as Christians, as followers of Christ, go into these locations and let the people know about the God who Created them, Redeemed them, and will Sustain them. In doing so, we share with them the love of God that accepts them right where they are, just like they are, no matter how different their culture is or their way of life is, and then calls them into a loving relationship with himself, with a love so great that it refuses to leave them as they are, but calls them into a holy relationship with God Himself.
However, before our ALL includes people on the far reaches of the earth, places like Iraq, the Suddan, Brazil, India, or any other overseas nation, we must remember that ALL includes folks closer to home. In the book of Acts, which is the companion book to Luke, considered to have been written by the same author, before those who followed Jesus were to take the Gospel to the “ends of the earth,” they were to first, be His “witnesses in Jerusalem, in al Judea and Samaria, and [then] to the ends of the earth.”
All too often when we think of sending folks out in mission to all the world, we think of it as being overseas…I mean why not, we keep calling our nation, a “Christian nation.” In doing so, we neglect that Jesus’ command to the disciples was to begin a lot closer to home than the other side of the world. According to Gallop polls, in 1951 92% of Americans associated themselves with the Christian faith. In comparison, a recent Gallop poll shows that only 76% of Americans consider themselves Christian.[iii] Before we go to the other side of the globe, ALL the world, is a little closer to home. In fact, the need for a missionary focus in America is so great, that even before 1997, churches in Africa were sending missionaries to the United States. God’s Church in Africa is growing so fast and so powerfully, that we have become their ALL the world. That means that we should also remember that all around us is part of the ALL the world that we are sent into by Jesus.
We also have to remember, as we focus in on our surrounding communities, that when Jesus sends us into ALL the world, he does not send us only to folks who are like us. Jesus does not call us to simply share the Gospel with folks who are our same gender, our same age group, our same social standing, our same ethnicity, or even our same lifestyles.
Now don’t get me wrong. Jesus shared the love of God with those who were just like Himself…He and the disciples did not neglect those who would have checked off the same blocks as themselves on any national census. However, what we read quite often are the criticisms of the religious leaders condemning Jesus for being with those who were not part of “the in-crowd.” He reached out and shared the love of God with the tax-collectors, and they were viewed as a lot worse than the IRS, they were considered to be traitors to their own people. He offered the love of God to the prostitutes…those women and men who offered their bodies for sex…and what we often forget is that these prostitutes were often associated with pagan temples, not simply the street-walkers of our day and time…they were the paid-escorts under the name of false gods. Jesus shared the presence of God with other “sinners” that were looked down upon by society, including folks that were not of His own people, such as the number of Samaritans whose lives he touched, reaching out across ethic and religious barriers. Each of these received an invitation from Jesus to be part of God’s family. He shared with them the love of God that accepted them right where they were, right in the midst of their sin, and said to them, I accept you and I love you, just as you are, and then loved them enough to call them out of their sinful lives and into a redeemed relationship with Himself.
The one commission we did not look at was the one from the Gospel of John, where Jesus comes among the disciples and says, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”[iv] When we go about making ALL disciples of Jesus Christ, we are sent in the same way and to the same people that Jesus shared the love of God with. I am not talking about literally going after tax collectors, prostitutes, and Samaritans, but the folks we are called to reach out to include the tax collectors and prostitutes, they include the heterosexual and the homosexual; they include the faithful spouse and the adulterer; they include the folks dressed to the nines and the scarred and tattooed, do-rag wearing gang members; they include the wealthy CEO’s and the single, welfare moms; they include the model with the perfect teeth and the meth addict missing most of his; they include the athlete with massive biceps and the teenage girl with cut marks up her arms; they include the hard working born and bred in the US of A citizens, and the illegal aliens…the ALL we are to take the love of God to, the Gospel message to, includes each one of these and more…ALL of those that society has welcome and especially those who society has turned their backs on…we are to share with them the Love of God that accepts each of them right where they are, just like they are, no matter where they are, and calls them into a loving relationship with God, who loves them so much, He takes them into His arms and refuses to leave them as they are.
If that seems hard to us, we have to remember that those folks, even if they live on Shawnee Drive or Trail Two, are the Judea and Samaria of “all the world.” There is still the third group that ALL includes when it comes to our purpose “to make ALL disciples of Jesus Christ through Love and Service.” “Jerusalem” sits much closer to home. For those Jesus was talking to, Jerusalem was home, or at least considered their “home base.” My brothers and sisters, for many of us, for all of us, the disciple-making has to begin first within these four walls…within the four chambers of our hearts. The ALL includes each and every one of us right here. Unlike the limits imposed by the word “all” at the little boy’s lemonade stand, God’s use of “ALL” knows no bounds.
“But preacher, I am already a member of the church.” Jesus did not say to go into all the world and make folks members of the church, marks on the church rolls…He said go into all the world and make disciples…our purpose statement does not say that we are “to make church members of Jesus Christ through love and service,” but “to make disciples of Jesus Christ through love and service.” What’s the difference? What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? That’s for next week. All we need to remember today is that ALL includes those on the other side of the globe, the other side of the street, and right in our seats…and with ALL… God that accepts each of us right where we are, just like we are, no matter where we are, and calls us into a loving relationship with Himself, and He loves us so much, He takes us into His arms and refuses to leave us as we are.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Thank you for sharing your message, it makes me feel that I'm home.
ReplyDelete