How about really having a Missionary on Missionary Sunday?
Sounds crazy right. For so long in the long religious history of my experience, Missionary Sunday has been a day for the church to highlight the charitable works of senior ladies who dress up in white on the 5th Sunday of the month to be recognized. As much as I value publicly appreciating people for great work; as my understanding evolved I began to embrace a broadened idea of what a missionary was and wondered where they could be found in my religious context. No not the type of missionaries who went into Africa with Bibles, white supremacist theologies, and guns, but the missionaries who joined in the life journey alongside those of other cultures/beliefs with no hint of superiority and/or judgement.
Upon hearing the complaints from the Missionary Ministry about inactivity and disinterest among the congregation where I’m blessed to serve; I knew the timing was ripe to introduce a new component of Missionary Sunday within the traditional context so as to marry the old with the new so to speak.
So on the 5th Sunday in May, we invited a missionary intern from the United Methodist Church to be our morning messenger. Bro. David Hosey brought forth a presentation during our 11AM worship about his year and a half stay in the Occupied Territories and in Israel. He isn’t the pass out tracks and holy water type of missionary. He’s more of a social justice and peace missionary. His presentation was dramatically different than what the church was used to. He spoke about what he saw – the daily humiliations of life under Israeli occupation. He spoke about his waiting at checkpoints. He showed pictures of ordinary Palestinian men being accosted by Israeli Defense Forces Personnel. And most importantly he “humanized” those whom we are only accustomed to seeing cruel, stereotypical, snippets of on the nightly news. It was extremely eye-opening.
To prepare the people for this kind of presentation; for the entire month of May we had a study in our Adult Sunday School Class on Christians and the Middle East. We discussed a variety of issues and questions like, “Are the Jews God’s Chosen People?” “What might God require of us in light of human rights violations?” and “Is the oppression of another group of people ever justifiable?” I know that Israel is a touchy subject for a lot of Christians so we made sure to maneuver very delicately around these issues. Though I’m extremely opinionated about the Middle East on this blog, I tried my hardest to stay out of the conversations and just facilitate and/or provide historical background.
By the time Bro. David showed up on the 5th Sunday they were ready to “hear” him. Afterward, in the question and answer period, there were a few people who asked how they could help bring an end to the injustice in the Occupied Territories. It was beautiful.
One of the ways that we all can help on this issue is to check in with U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. They’re currently promoting an action targeting Caterpillar – one of the leading bulldozer companies in the nation who sells their machinery to Israel who in turn uses it to raze Palestinian homes and build the apartheid wall. Caterpillar’s shareholder’s meeting is June 10, 2009 in Chicago, IL and organizations from a variety of groups (including Jewish groups) will be protesting at that meeting.
While there were some congregants who were enthusiastic about the nontraditional Missionary Sunday presentation; others didn’t seem to care for it too much. That’s okay. I plan to keep it going and bring in a variety of people serving in different places and/or working on different issues hoping that something will encourage them to embrace a more missional orientation in their Faith.
All in all, I am very excited about Missionary Sunday and am beginning to think that we’ll have to move it somewhere within the 1st to 4th Sunday slot in order to more regularly examine what it means to walk in the great “co-mission” of impacting the world with God.
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"Not the type of missionaries who went into Africa with Bibles, white supremacist theologies, and guns, but the missionaries who joined in the life journey alongside those of other cultures/beliefs with no hint of superiority and/or judgement."
I hope I can live up to that! Thank you again for having me, for the great write-up, and for answering the Spirit's call to all of the amazing work that needs to be done!
I LOVE it!!! This is so needed! I can’t tell you how disappointing the reception was when I was stateside this past summer.