The following sermon I will not be preaching. I wrote it up but decided that the first part of it is too focused on a missiological issue that too many in seminary may not connect with. My point is, after all, not to complain (again…) about “Fast” missions, but rather to drive home the idea that a proper understanding of our future (on earth) as Christians should guide us to faithfulness to God. Simple idea. I am still delivering a sermon on this topic, but just changed considerably.
Around 60 years ago, Evangelical missions was starting to embrace a separate identity from other Protestant or Conciliar Missions. Leaders of this movement wanted to embrace mission work that they saw as more Biblical and more in line with Evangelical tradition. In this time, the mid-1960s there a serious controversy developed at the heart of what it means to do mission work as an Evangelical.
At risk of oversimplifying at bit… Two camps developed. One group was driven by the followers of Donald McGavran, as well as Billy Graham, Ralph Winter, and Peter Wagner. They believed that Missions should be limited in scope to Evangelism and Church planting. Things like discipleship, theological education, and social ministries like community development and health care should be downplayed, or even not considered to be missions. The other group, led by John Stott, Lesslie Newbigin and others, believed that missions was broad… as broad as God’s mission. As such, social ministry, transformational development, theological education, discipleship, and leadership development are a part of Christian missions along with evangelism and discipleship.
Although it was a controversy among Evangelicals, the issue was not primarily about what is “Biblical.” Clearly meeting physical, social, psychoemotional, and so forth is Biblical. Rather it was predominantly a conflict over eschatology. One group argued that Jesus was returning any day. Could be today, it could be tomorrow. Perhaps the day after. Because of that, we don’t have time to wait. We must evangelize as many people as possible in as short of a time as possible. The other group, led by Stott and Newbigin did not disagree that Jesus could return any day. But we should carry out the whole work of Jesus every day.
I am not trying to make this a History of Missions class. But I want to give a little example of how one looks at the future greatly affects how we do ministry. This is nothing new, in the decade before 1900 and the decade after, the Southern Baptists had a group known as the Gospel Mission Movement. They had some commendable beliefs. But they believed that Jesus would return any day and therefore, we should focus only on evangelism and not discipleship, leadership training , and so forth. More recently, some Missions textbooks teach that we need to reach every people group on earth as soon as possible… that when we do, Jessu will return sooner. A very popular recent Southern Baptist book, on chrch planting suggests that doing social ministry is not a good idea because it slows things down. Planting new churches as fast as possible is good, and doing anything that slows that work is bad… again, because Jesus might return any day.
How we look at Eschatology… how we view futrue events can have a huge effect on how we do ministry. And that is not jst my opinion. We can see what Jesusu says on this topic.
Consider the Parable of the Faithful and Wise Servant. Matthew 24:45-51.
We start with one servant. The master of the servant is going away for a time… exact length of the time is uncertain. The servant, or steward, is responsible for all that the master owns while he is away. Things go along well. He does his job well. He takes care of the business of the master. He takes care of the other servants of the master. He takes care of the property and goods of the master. He takes care of the financial books of the master, and he takes care of planning for the next year and the year after that. Every day, he does what he is supposed to do.
But one day, he had a thought. “My master is delayed.” I don’t know. Maybe the steward thought the master would only be gone a month, but after a month he had not returned. Maybe the steward thought the master would be gone a year… but now it had been a year and he still had not returned. I don’t know… maybe it had been 5 years. But here is one of those pivotal moments. Jesus gives two scenarios… two paths, but does not explain the thinking pattern behind them. However, based on what was done, we might make some guesses.
In one scenario, the servant, or steward, simply keeps going on as he had before. He took care of things that needed to be done that day. He prepared things for the next day. He probably planned for the changes of season and the coming year. He may have even planned years in advance. Perhaps he planted olives and pomegranates— trees that would only bear fruit many years later.
Perhaps we could call his understanding of the future as Confident Uncertainty. He was confident in his master, and he was confident in what he said. The master said he would come back. But he was uncertain about what the master did not say. He did not say when he was coming back or how he would show up. Therefore, the servant said, I better do ever day what I was told to do, because the master could return tomorrow. OR the master may return in 30 years. Either way, I and his place will be ready for him.
But Jesus says at the critical point when the servant was thinking about the fact that the master was delayed, that there was a different direction he might go. In this scenario, he does his job poorly, begins mistreating the servants, and using everything that the master has as his own, and takes everything that the master created and treats it like his own garbage dump.
What was the servant thinking that led to this? We were not told, but it was clearly a misplaced confidence. I can think of two possibilities.
Possibility One. Perhaps he thought to himself, “The Master is delayed. I believe the master will NEVER come.” Perhaps the master changed his mind and decided not to return. Perhaps the master is now dead, and everything here is mine to enjoy. This was the mindset of the vineyard keepers in a different parable.
Possibility Two. Perhaps he thought to himself. “The Master is delayed. But I can figure out when he is coming. That way I can do whatever I want, but before he arrives, I can clean up everything and will be impressed by everything he sees.
I tend to think the second possibility is more likely. It is certainly the more interesting possibility. Nothing in the text suggests that the servant believed that the master would never return. So, if he was doing a poor job while still believing, he had to believe either that his master would be very forgiving, or that the steward could get everything fixed up before the master arrived. Frankly, many of us can remember when we were younger… perhaps teenagers. Maybe our parents went somewhere and we were supposed to take care of chores and maintaining the place while they were gone. Many of us, I suspect were a bit lazy in maintaining the house or doing the chores. Perhaps we thought… I think they are coming back tomorrow afternoon, so I can get everthing done around lunchtime, and they will never know the difference.
I think that mindset is pretty common today—- the idea that we can figure out the mystery of when Jesus will return. I mean go into a Christian bookstore. It is quite likely to have a wall of books on Eschatology. When is Christ returning? Some books will even give a date? And when that date is past, the writer will give a new date. Other books will tell you how to look at current events through the lens of some theological perspective to come up with a roadmap for understanding when He will return and how He will return.
In the parable, in both scenarios the master returns. That is certain and unaffected by whether the servant did his job well, or did it poorly. What is also certain is that in both cases the servant did not have time to prepare for the master. The master did not give warning. One day, there was a knocking at the gate of the courtyard and there he was.
But what happens after is dependent on what direction the servant chose. If the servant had said to himself, I know the master will return but do not know when… so I must do what I am supposed to do every day, he was surprised when the master returned, but not disturbed. Everything was as it should be. The master came in and found everyone doing what they were supposed to be doing, and every aspect of the household being properly managed. The master is pleased, and rewards his servant with even greater responsibilities.
But it might not happen that way, there is a knocking on the gate, the master is at the gate, and it is too late to do anything. The estate is in shambles, the financial books are a nightmare. The servants show evidence of neglect and abuse, and the farm is barely cared for. No amount of manic activity will fix things. It is too late… with only punishment to follow.
This is not a story that helps us understand some sort of abstract truth. This story is not merely an ethical story, it is deeply personal. Each of us is quite literally, not just figuratively, that servant. Jesus, the Master, has literally and specifically given guidance for what we are to do, and has gone away. We know what we are supposed to do, and we know that Jesus will return, but we do not know when. We face the exact same situation that the servant in the parable did.
Years ago, I had a friend who was a self-funded missionary. I will call him Tomas. He was Filipino but had worked for many years in the United States. Tomas retired, and decided to return to the Philippines, and serve God over here. His home church in the US said we are supporting three local pastors… church planters in the Philippines. We get periodic reports from them, but we are hoping you can go over there and see how they are doing and encourage them. So Tomas traveled to the Philippines and went to visit each of these pastors. But he did so without warning that he was coming.
Tomas told me that the visits were very interesting because each one was so different. Tomas visited the first pastor. This pastor had a church. It was small. He opened it up at 9 in the morning on Sunday, he preached and led the Sunday school. At noon he closed the door and he essentially did no ministry until 9 am the following Sunday. This pastor took the support he was given and did the bare minimum with it.
Tomas then visited the second pastor. Things were very different. This pastor had a very vibrant and growing church, and there were other church plants that he had started, training local leaders to take them over. This pastor took the support he received and used it faithfully every day.
Tomas then visited the third pastor. Things here were different still. There was no church. The inforrmation he sent to his supporters was a lie. This pastor had set aside all ministry work. Instead, he was using the money he received from his benefactors to put into his tricycle business.
Would Tomas have found things different if given warning? What might have happened if Tomas called each of them, “I am coming to the Philippines to check on your work. I will see you in three months.” Maybe the third pastor who was doing nothing could have done some things to make it look like he was serving God as he should. Most definitely the first pastor who did little could have quickly started some Bible studies and added some things to make it look like he was much more active in ministry than he really was. But for the second pastor, he had no need to change. He was ready every day, because he did what he was supposed to be doing every day.
But they had no warning. Tomas never told me what happened when he sent his report back to the supporting church. I am sure they cut off all support to the third pastor. Perhaps they shifted that support to the second pastor who was doing so well. I am not sure. I am most unsure about the first pastor, the one with only a minimal ministry.
What I do know is you all are here today. You don’t know what will happen tomorrow or the day after. But I do hope you trust the One who has called you. I do hope you have confidence that He is coming again. I do also hope that based on that surety, you will choose to be faithful every day.
While you are at seminary, you will develop yourself spiritually to serve God faithfully every day as if Jesus could come very soon, even today. I hope you will also study and develop yourself, and serve relationships and partnerships to prepare you to serve God for 10, 20, 30, maybe 50 years.
The faithful servant is a good steward of the future— prepared for his master to return today, or decades from now.
Overall, be good stewards of your past, to learn and grow from that in the present. Be good stewards of your future, faithfully serving in the present for that future that will come when we don’t expect it.
