On Missionaries, Martyrs and us

This week the church recognizes Henry Martyn, an 19th century martyr who served as a missionary in central Asia. Among his achievements were translations of the Bible into Farsi and Arabic as well as some other regional dialects. He died from an illness he contracted in his travels. We will celebrate his life at the peace and justice service this coming Tuesday morning at 8 AM. Wink wink.

I want to take a moment to lift up Henry because, as you know, I have been working with some friends and colleagues on various Afghan relief efforts. And, there are some Christian groups that feel it is important to only help Christians get out of Afghanistan. Now, this is obviously not in keeping with the life and ministry of Jesus, but I think there are other reasons why this is not just a bad idea but also bad theology.

Henry’s work and other missionaries of his era was less about only helping people who had converted, and more about opening up people's eyes and ears to the never failing love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What they did with that information was up to them, but his role, and I would say our role, is merely to make it plain that we have love for all of God‘s people and that we work with all of God's people to bring about the kingdom of God.

The missionary field has gotten a bad rap in recent years, and many of you probably would think that it was a terrible idea for someone to become a missionary, especially in a foreign country. In my service on the national churches standing commission for world missions I have discovered that we are as a denomination exploring a whole new way to view mission work. That it is not just about conversion, or even about providing badly needed resources to those in need, but about relationships. The work of the missionary is to develop relationships between a local community in the church and the church, and let God do the rest.

I hope you will join us Tuesday morning to hear more about Henry Martin, and perhaps to reflect on what a modern missionary is.