The Great Commission

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing the in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to end end of the age."  Matthew 28.18-20.

The great commission spoken by Christ to conclude the gospel of Matthew speaks of the role the church is meant to live out. The church is first and foremost a mission to all nations. Many countless examples can be given about missions to all of the nations. The greatest example is the Apostle Paul travelling throughout the Roman Empire and preaching the good news to all nations. Another example that is closer to home is St. Innocent and St. Herman of Alaska who came from Russia carrying the good news to the natives of Alaska. The Great Commission is the expression of love in the body of Christ beginning in the chalice and being preached to all nations. However, the paradigm has been shifted with the immigration of different ethnic groups moving to America and Canada. We must critically evaluate the great commission that has been brought with the immigration of these different ethnic groups to the west. Is the church still living the words of Christ spoken to conclude the gospel of Matthew? If you were to walk into a Greek, Russian, Serbian, Egyptian, Syrian, Italian, or any church does the church represent the nation it is present in? Can we critically and truly say that all nations are represented within the church today? Or are we caught in our "ethnic ghettos" that when we see an individual that is not "of the same ethnic background" we begin to gossip and whisper in each other ears judging the individual forgetting first and foremost we are all sinners? Sadly, many times we think that the church is the source of salvation for only "me" and no one else deserves this salvation OR if they want to practice they must practice "under our own terms". Professor Schneider said a profound statement that is relateable to these questions we are considering...

"Orthodoxy has to tell the world what the world needs and what that need truly is...this is missiology, this is mission outreach, missiology doesn't say come to the Orthodox Church because we're the true Church or because we have the true Tradition and only with us will you find salvation...missiology says I can help you understand yourself in ways you never imagine...and what is what we mean when we sing 'God is the Lord and has revealed himself to us'".
Professor Richard Schneider

The great commission is build on love for the human being! What it means to become a human within the church and to mission to the world is not about throwing a Bible to someone expecting him or her to come to the faith but rather it is how we relate to each other. Christ did not come and speak to tax collectors and prostitutes but he eat with them and sat down with them to serve them! If we are called to emulate Christ in our actions because Christ has become our example of what it means to be God then we to are called not only to speak to the homeless and hungry but to sit with them and bring them into the church and give them the bread that gives life to all. The mission of the church is not to baptize the "rich" but also the poor. The church is the mission to all nations not seeing color or race but seeing Christ in all. The church is the place were we, being given life in death, become poor in order to speak to the poor, become hungry to speak to the hungry, become rich to speak to the rich, become Christ in order for others to see Christ in us. Bishop Anastasios wrote on this exact idea when he said:

The saints of the church did not simple speak for the poor, but, above all, shared their life. They voluntarily became poor out of love for Christ, in order to identify with Him, who made Himself poor."
Bishop Anastasios of Albania, Mission in the way of Christ, 11.

St. Paul echoes the same message when he said that he became a Jew in order to speak to the Jews, he became a gentile to speak to the gentiles. How does this translate today? The great commission in focused around the society and world that we live in. Many speak of the society and world as being a "evil and bad place". However, how can this be if God created everything and it was good? We must be engaged in the world and society in order to see Christ in all. In order to live out the great commission for the life of the world we must become Americans and Canadians to all in order for all to see Christ in us. We must emancipate ourselves from the cultural ghettos we can created for ourselves in order to live out the great commission. St. Paul deals with this same issue when he found out that Jews and Gentiles were sitting at different tables at the table fellowship. He was outraged, and rightly so, because the body of Christ had been fragmented by this action. This is no different today with our actions! We have fragmented the body by creating specific "mission" churches and designating other churches for specific ethnic groups. We have fragmented the body of Christ by celebrating multiple liturgies and designating them as "a youth liturgy" the "adult liturgy" the "English liturgy" and by dividing up the community in this fashion we have divided the body of Christ. The great commission, the calling to live out the body of Christ can only produce fruit in the unity of the church. The church has never known division and it will never see division. Division of the church is a man made concept that has distorted the great commission. The Ecumenical councils was meant to unite the church but it has divided the church. The great commission lies in the person of Christ as the community comes together from all nations sharing in the one body.  

In the epistle of Barnabas, a second century writing, in the sixth chapter he writes "a human being is earth that suffers". This profound statement speaks volumes to the calling to mission to all nations. What it means to mission to all nations rests in how we see each other as human beings. If we continue to box people in as "doctors" and "priests" and the list can go on we lose the true value of the human being. The human being is the creature made in the image and likeness of God. When we mission to the nations we do not see race ethnicity or culture but rather we see Christ who is in all. We need to learn to drop our "ethnic walls" we have created for ourselves because of the fear that grips our hearts! Let us become the church of Christ that missions to the nation and not the church that we keep to ourselves!