Saturday, June 18, 2011

Matthew 28:16-20

Going Out (West) and Making Disciples of all Nations
 

In 1842 the medical missionary Marcus Whitman . . visited the East Coast, where he pled with the ABCFM [American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission] and the federal government to take more interest in Oregon. Although historians no longer subscribe to the view that Whitman single-handedly saved Oregon for the United States [from Great Britain and the Hudson's Bay Company] , his return to the Pacific Northwest in the fall of 1843 coincided with the migration there of almost a thousand American settlers, who benefited along the way from his knowledge and advice.

- Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: the Transformation of America, 1815-1848, (Oxford University Press, 2007), pg. 712 (bracketed italics my own)

Manifest Destiny was in the air, along with the Millennial belief that the United States was God's Israel for the 19th Century. The young nation was divided between those who believed Native Americans should be converted to Christianity and brought into the fold of a U.S.-styled civilization, or shoved out of the way to make room for new settlers. As the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Muscogee and Choctaw people could readily attest - as Lewis and Clark's old friends, the Nez Perces, would soon understand - it was the latter course that prevailed. The attitude of those settlers the missionary Whitman led out to Oregon, was, as the old addage goes, “What's yours is mine, and what's mine is me-own.” Andrew Jackson's doctrine of white supremacy, given explicit form by Southern radicals in South Carolina and the Democratic Party wing of U.S. government up to the Civil War, eased the way out west. President James Polk, a disciple of Jackson, was in power in 1848. Just as the Oregon country was beginning to be settled, the Republic of Texas was taken into the Union so that, among other things, it would be a new slave market for Southern planters to sell off their excess “stock” when cotton prices were down. The slave price per head shot up on the New Orleans market when Texas came in. The newly independent Mexico, of which Texas had been a part, was of no concern: they weren't white people. If this wasn't the opinion of all the U.S. populace, and it most certainly was not, it was the prevalent opinion of those who held power in the nation's capital. And the settlers Whitman helped get out to Oregon.

When we separate popular human movements from the gospel, we might remember the part of baptizing the nations in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. In other words, we join Christ in his death in order to be raised up in his life. His life. Not our life. It's a very different agenda than the prevalent ideologies that would throw “God” in or out of the mix to suit their own purposes.

According to the Hebrew saga, Abraham and Sarah are the parents of the nations to whom Jesus' disciples are being sent They are, theologically at least, the common ancestor, be we Creek, Celt, or Hebrew. The old couple never permanently owned any of the land where they pitched their tents. No cause or mission of their own making gave them direction. They wandered at God's bequest. Generally speaking, apart from the demands of animal husbandry, and the occassional encounters with God showing up at their tent, they had a pretty light agenda. Jesus said the burden of our missionary life is light. If it seems otherwise, we might take a fresh look at the causes with which we have attached ourselves in our own wanderings.

The genuine missionary is not empowered by the fact that God is the centerpiece of his or her agenda. That would be overwhelming, not to say presumptuous, idolatrous, and a few more unsavory adjectives we could come up with. We are, rather, disciples and pagans alike, the centerpiece of God's agenda, and therein lies both the promise and the judgment that keeps us inspired and honest. Only that fact blesses our vision of the world. That's what keeps the followers of Jesus moving out. Wandering. Mixing. Baptizing. It is an irresistible commission – so different from anything people out there have ever heard of.

© 2011 Andy Gay