The Kingdom Movement

A Literary & Pastoral Study Guide to the Gospel of Matthew

The Inspiration of Matthew,

by Caravaggio

On the King's Errand

Devotional Reflections on Matthew's Gospel

The Movement:  Extending the Reign of Jesus, Part Two

‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…’ (28:19)

Inigo (Ignatius) Lopez de Loyola was born to a noble family in the kingdom of Castile, in Spain.  The youngest of thirteen children, he spent his youth in court and later as a soldier in the service of the Spanish king.  He was trained in the code of honor and chivalry, always ready with his sword to avenge any disrespect to himself or to his master.  But in 1521, he was struck in the leg by a cannonball while defending Pamplona unsuccessfully against the French.  Back in his family castle, he went through some excruciating operations, including having his leg re-broken, with a stub sawn-off, his leg reset and stretched by weights (Yikes!!). During his long recovery, to take his mind off the pain, he asked for something to read. He loved chivalrous romances but instead, he was given a collection of biographies of Christian saints, many of whom dared to leave home and safety to tell enemies about Jesus.  At first, he only read these books because he was that bored.  But gradually, he started to find them…strangely fascinating!  When he was fully recovered, he made a resolution to live his life for Jesus, allowed Jesus to change his life, and began to imitate the example of the saints he had read about.  Earlier in his life, he would have gone abroad for war, as a soldier for his king.  What an even greater honor to go abroad for peace, as a soldier for a different King. 

When Ignatius was well enough to walk, he set off on a pilgrimage to a church.  After a night of prayer, he exchanged his rich clothes with a beggar and laid his sword and dagger on the church’s altar.  Then he walked to the town of Manresa, where he spent several months in solitary reflection.  This eventually led to his famous book Spiritual Exercises, a series of guided meditations basically designed for ‘busy people’ to pray reflectively.  He went to France to study at the University of Paris.  While there, he persuaded a small group of six to join him in forming a new spiritual order.  They became the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits.  They expanded and set out immediately for foreign lands to do missionary evangelism.  Many died as martyrs.  Their commitment to social justice and their tendency to put the gospel cause ahead of national interests provoked the suspicion of many secular rulers.  But Ignatius was the dynamic leader of the order.  Despite all the obstacles, he saw the Jesuits increase from ten members to a thousand.  (distilled from Robert Ellsberg, All Saints, p. 327 – 8)

          Jesus inspires these kinds of noble biographies; he certainly has one (in a sense, four).  But he also inspired those we now call ‘saints’ to continue his mission to the world.  St. Ignatius was inspired by them, and beyond them, by Jesus himself to care for the world.  As a result, Ignatius defined a new way to pray (now called the examen and used very widely), invented the ‘Christian retreat experience,’ and founded a new evangelistic and intellectually rigorous ‘society’ in the late medieval Catholic Church, whose members, in turn, led many others to Christ around the world.  That illustrates Jesus’ process of discipleship.  Jesus’ teachings are meant to be embodied, so they can be passed on, from person to person.  And they are to be constantly directed outward, to the world which does not yet know him.  ‘Go, make disciples of all peoples.’

Jesus’ mission is to bring people under his Lordship.  But how does he do that today?  Primarily through his disciples:  Jesus trained his disciples to manifest his kingdom – his reign over them – to the world and continue his mission.  From the beginning to the end of his earthly interactions with his disciples, everything he did was for the sake of imparting his mission to them.  Thus, all four Gospels conclude with Jesus commissioning the disciples to reach the world.  The Christian community calls the one recorded in Matthew 28:16 – 20 the ‘Great Commission.’  Jesus said, ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations’ (28:19).

          How did Jesus impart his mission?  From the time he first called his disciples, he set their expectation that they would be ‘fishers of people’ (4:19).  He promised to renovate their hearts, first with regards to anger (5:21 – 26) particularly towards their enemies, whom Jesus instructed to love (5:38 – 48)!  The hated Romans were the Jewish disciples’ closest real enemies, though the Samaritans and other factions in Israel might have come in for a close second or third place.  Jesus taught them to reach the world.  When Jesus had them do evangelism in Israel, he would follow that up quickly with evangelism in the Gentile lands across the Sea of Galilee (8:27 – 34 and 15:21 – 39).  He called them to forgive radically, especially enemies (6:14 – 15 and 18:21 – 35).  Then Jesus modeled for them the sacrificial life he was calling them to lead when he went to his death on behalf of others, even his own enemies (26:47 – 27:54).  By the time Jesus finally met with the disciples on the mountain and gave them the ‘Great Commission,’ they could have probably guessed that he would say, ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.’

The Great Commission is the climax of Jesus’ training of the disciples, and his baton-passing to them.  We have to pass this heart for global evangelism onto others, as well.  We must not take new Christians and simply acculturate them to the Christian culture of our little group, which is sometimes implicitly characterized by the statements, ‘we don’t drink,’ ‘we use this weird Christian language,’ and ‘we attend these meetings.’  That leads to a self-satisfied Christian arrogance, as well as a shallow, stale spirituality; if our Christian community is characterized this way, it’s probably because we don’t have Jesus’ heart for the world at all.  Not to mention that the Christians often get bored, and become rather boring people as well.

Instead, we are to point people beyond ourselves to Jesus and his love for the world, hopefully because we, too, are seeking to grow into Jesus’ heart for the world.  World evangelism is the sharp edge of the love of God.  He is constantly transforming us in himself and into his mission.  If our mission field for now is the whole campus, or the whole city, because the world is represented there, then we must continue on in the love of Christ to engage others with Jesus.  That is what keeps us always praying for, hoping for, and reaching beyond what our little group looks like now.

Notice what happens when we see the Great Commission this way?  Everything else Jesus did prior to this makes sense.  Why love your enemies?  Not just because of some individual moral code, but because of Jesus’ mission.  Why pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven?  Because of Jesus’ mission.  Why ‘cross the Sea of Galilee’ to reach the Gentiles?  Because of Jesus’ mission.  Why remember Jesus’ death and resurrection?  Because of Jesus’ mission.  It’s not that everything we do is evangelism, evangelism, evangelism.  But everything we do ought to be for the sake of evangelism, in other words, for the sake of the world.  Far from losing everything else, we find new meaning for all we do.