Lesson 1: The Church is Missionary by Nature

At the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

1. identify elements that make the Church missionary;

2. discuss the missionary dimension of the Christian life;
3. explain some biblical texts related to the missionary nature of the Church; and
4. identify attitudes that promote missionary involvement.

CONTEXT

Any organization is meant for something. It is set up to address or answer a need or a problem
or concern. If, in the end, that organization did not successfully address the need for which it was
set up, then it failed in its mission. It has not been faithful to its nature and purpose.

Think of an organization you know very well (what it is). Explain what the organization was meant
to fulfill (what it is for; its purpose).

1. Name of Organization
2. Description
3. Purpose of the Organization

The above activity is only meant to be pondered.

Human organizations no matter what they may be are essentially established and
continually kept alive for certain purposes and goals. This is also true for the Christian
faith as a whole. More than just human organizations, the different Christian
communities today are called to faithfully emulate the mission of Jesus as deduced
from the Gospels.
 INSPIRED WORD

Although the Church is more than just an organization (because it is a community of faith), it
shares with other organizations that it has a reason for being; it is meant for something. It has a
mission that flows from what it is as a community of faith.

In his letters to the Christian communities he started, Saint Paul had specific essential ideas
about the Church. Sometimes these are referred to as the Scriptural images of the Church. These
images include “People of God,” “Body of Christ,” and “Temple of the Holy Spirit.”

One of these is suggested by the following texts from Paul’s letter to the Romans. Read the texts
guided by these questions:

1. In the texts, whom does Paul refer to as God’s people?

2. Was Paul a member of this people?

3. Was it “undeserved grace” that made Israel God’s people?

4. Was Israel always faithful to its being God’s people?

God’s Election of Israel (Rom. 9:1-5)

I am speaking the truth in Christ, I am not lying;

my conscience bears me witness in the HolySpirit, that I have
great sorrow and unceasing anguishin my heart. For I could
wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for
the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen by race. They are
Israelites, and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the
covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the
promises; tothem belong the patriarchs, and of their race,
according to the flesh, is the Christ. God who is over all
be blessed forever. Amen.
The letters of Paul are our oldest sources in the New Testament to reconstruct how the early
Christians defined their identity as a Church. Two of the three images of the Church that we find
in them (People of God and Temple of the Holy Spirit) are Jewish. The image or notion of the
Church as the Body of Christ is borrowed from Greek political life.

The image of the People of God was the most basic way for the Jewish people to express their
identity. In the Exodus experience, God made them into a people, into a nation in which God
reigns (in Hebrew, “Israel”), into an assembly of God (in Hebrew, Kahal Yahweh; ekklesia in
Greek). The early Christians applied this important Jewish idea to their community, and they
called themselves the new people of God. They believed that their community gathered not only
because of the Exodus experience but also because they were convinced that they received
salvation or wellbeing from God through Jesus.

As the people of God, the early Christians believed that they were the true Israel, the community
where God truly reigns. They were also the true seed of Abraham. We note here that the Jews of
Jesus’ time were proud to refer to themselves as children of Abraham, whom the Bible describes
as a man of faith and the father of the Jewish nation. As people of God, the early Christians
understood themselves also to be the true circumcision. For the ancient Jews, circumcision was
a mark of belonging to God’s chosen people. By claiming that they were the true Israel, the true
seed of Abraham, and the true circumcision, the early Christian communities were saying that
they belonged to the faithful People of God.

Paul’s writings illuminate how the disciples and first generations of believers came to understand
themselves concerning Christ and to one another. Every generation since his time has continued
to feel challenged and shaped by these images. In his correspondence with the Christians in
Corinth, Paul provides a rich language for the Church’s self-understanding. One such image is the
Church as a body. Using the body to describe the functions of an organization or society was quite
ordinary in the secular speech of the day, where the seemingly more significant members
employed such language to keep the lesser members in their place.
Paul takes that image in a new direction in 1 Corinthians 12. The body used in his analogy is now
the body of Christ, and in Christ, there is no distinction between Jews or Greeks, slaves or free,
woman or man — no sense of the seemingly lesser members being insignificant.

Paul says, “the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, and those
parts of the body that we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor ... so that
there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one
another” (12:22-25).

Individual and diverse responsibilities within the Body of Christ are also highlighted in the fourth
chapter of Ephesians. Paul says to the local church in Corinth, “you are Christ’s body” (1
Corinthians 12:27), a lesson that will be echoed through the centuries. St. Theresa of Avila’s great
prayer begins, “Christ has no body now but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours.”

The Second Vatican Council revived the use of this Pauline image in its “Dogmatic Constitution
on the Church” and its “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,” where it
speaks of the Church using this imagery and others the people of God. In his first letter to Corinth,
Paul addressed the local church’s concern that some follow him while others follow Apollos. Paul
assured them that whoever plants and waters means nothing since God causes the growth, and
then he says, “For we are God’s co-workers; you are God’s field, God’s building” (3:9).

When speaking to the local churches, he affirms their identity as the building that comes forth
from this foundation. This image comes with a particular emphasis on the call to holiness. To the
Corinthians, he says, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God
dwells in you? ... For the temple of God, which you are, is holy” (3:16-17).

A temple is a place where humans meet God, and in Christ, that meeting place is in the hearts of
believers and communities of followers. The Church is the community where its members meet
God in one another and where those outside the community are drawn to meet God.

Paul’s letters express his desire to build up the community (2 Corinthians 10:8; 12:19; 13:10;
Galatians 2:18). Likewise, he encourages behavior worthy of God’s call to holiness (Ephesians 4:1-
6; Philippians 1:27; 1 Thessalonians 5:11). The Church, then, should be alive with compassion,
forgiveness, and truth (Ephesians 4:25-32), a community that rejoices in hope, endures in
affliction, perseveres in prayer, and conquers evil with good (Romans 12:9-21).

Paul crafted language and imagery that has informed the Church about its identity for almost 20
centuries. In his time, he could never have imagined a worldwide institutional Church, but his
words still stir our hearts and imaginations about the kind of community we are called to be.

CHURCH TEACHING

As people of God, the Church is missionary. It does not exist for itself. Therefore, according to E.
Castro, a missiologist, the mission is the “fundamental reality of Christian life.” When we were
baptized, we took upon this mission.

Read the following excerpts from the message of Pope Francis. Focus on the relationship
between baptism and mission.
“Baptized and Sent: The Church of Christ on Mission in the World.”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

For October 2019, I have asked that the whole Church revive her missionary awareness
and commitment as we commemorate the centenary of the Apostolic Letter Maximum Illud of Pope
Benedict XV (30 November 1919). Its far-sighted and prophetic vision of the apostolate has made
me realize once again the importance of renewing the Church’s missionary commitment and giving
fresh evangelical impulse to her work of preaching and bringing to the world the salvation of Jesus
Christ, who died and rose again.

The title of the present Message is the same as that of October’s Missionary Month:
Baptized and Sent: The Church of Christ on Mission in the World. Celebrating this month will help
us rediscover our faith's missionary dimension in Jesus Christ, a faith graciously bestowed on us in
baptism. Our filial relationship with God is not something simply private but always about the
Church. Through our communion with God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we, together with so many
of our other brothers and sisters, are born to new life. This divine life is not a product for sale – we
do not practice proselytism – but a treasure to be given, communicated, and proclaimed: that is the
meaning of mission. We received this gift freely, sharing it freely (cf. Mt 10:8), without excluding
anyone. God wills that all people be saved by coming to know the truth and experiencing his mercy
through the ministry of the Church, the universal sacrament of salvation (cf. 1 Tim 2:4; Lumen
Gentium, 48).

The Church is on a mission in the world. Faith in Jesus Christ enables us to see all things in
their proper perspective, as we view the world with God’s own eyes and heart. Hope opens us up
to the eternal horizons of the divine life that we share. Charity, of which we have a foretaste in the
sacraments and fraternal love, urges us to go forth to the ends of the earth (cf. Mic5:4; Mt 28:19;
Acts 1:8; Rom 10:18). A Church that presses forward to the farthest frontiers requires a constant
and ongoing missionary conversion. How many saints, how many men and women of faith, witness
to the fact that this unlimited openness, this going forth in mercy, is indeed possible and realistic,
for it is driven by love and its most profound meaning as gift, sacrifice, and gratuitousness (cf. 2 Cor
5:14-21)! The man who preaches God must be a man of God (cf. Maximum Illud).

This missionary mandate touches us personally: I am a mission, always; you are a mission,
always; every baptized man and woman is a mission. People in love never stand still: they are drawn
out of themselves; they are attracted and attract others in turn; they give themselves to others and
build life-giving relationships. As far as God’s love is concerned, no one is useless or insignificant.
Each of us is a mission to the world, for each of us is the fruit of God’s love. Even if parents can
betray their love by lies, hatred, and infidelity, God never takes back his gift of life. He has destined
each of his children to share in his divine and eternal life (cf. Eph 1:3-6).

I am a mission, always; you are a mission, always; every baptized man and woman is a
mission. People in love never stand still: they are drawn out of themselves; they are attracted and
attract others in turn; they give themselves to others and build life-giving relationships.
 I am a mission, always; you are a mission, always; every baptized man and woman
is a mission. People in love never stand still: they are drawn out of themselves; they are
attracted and attract others in turn; they give themselves to others and build life-giving
relationships.

Our mission, then, is rooted in the fatherhood of God and the motherhood of the
Church. The mandate given by the Risen Jesus at Easter is inherent in Baptism: as the Father
has sent me, so I send you, filled with the Holy Spirit, for the reconciliation of the world (cf.
Jn 20:19-23; Mt 28:16-20). This mission is part of our identity as Christians; it makes us
responsible for enabling all men and women to realize their vocation to be adoptive children
of the Father, to recognize their dignity, and to appreciate the intrinsic worth of every human
life, from conception until natural death. Today’s rampant secularism, when it becomes an
aggressive cultural rejection of God’s active fatherhood in our history, is an obstacle to
authentic human fraternity, which finds expression in reciprocal respect for the life of each
person. Without the God of Jesus Christ, every difference is reduced to a baneful threat,
making any absolute fraternal acceptance and fruitful unity within the human race
impossible.

The universality of the salvation offered by God in Jesus Christ led Benedict XV to
call for an end to all forms of nationalism and ethnocentrism, or the merging of the preaching
of the Gospel with the economic and military interests of the colonial powers. In his Apostolic
Letter Maximum Illud, the Pope noted that the Church’s universal mission requires setting
aside exclusivist membership ideas in one’s own country and ethnic group. The opening of
the culture and the community to the salvific newness of Jesus Christ requires leaving behind
every kind of excessive ethnic and ecclesial introversion.

Today too, the Church needs men and women who, by their baptism, respond
generously to the call to leave behind home, family, country, language, and local Church, and
to be sent forth to the nations, to a world not yet transformed by the sacraments of Jesus
Christ and his holy Church. By proclaiming God’s word, bearing witness to the Gospel, and
celebrating the life of the Spirit, they summon to conversion, baptize and offer Christian
salvation, with respect for the freedom of each person and in dialogue with the cultures and
religions of the peoples to whom they are sent. The missio ad gentes, which is always
necessary for the Church, thus contribute in a fundamental way to the process of ongoing
conversion in all Christians. Faith in the Easter event of Jesus; the ecclesial mission received
in baptism; the geographic and cultural detachment from oneself and one’s own home; the
need for salvation from sin and liberation from personal and social evil: all this demand the
mission that reaches to the very ends of the earth.

To men and women missionaries, and to all those who, under their baptism, share
in any way in the mission of the Church, I send my heartfelt blessing.
Under baptism, the mission is a Christian responsibility. The word baptism has its origin in the
Greek in the Greek word "bapto," which means “to dip” or “to immerse.” We usually associate
baptism with water, which relates to life, death, cleansing, and, to some extent, growth. Baptism
is understood as dipping or immersing oneself into the water, symbolizing death or being buried.
And when one comes out of the water, one symbolically begins a new life. In baptism, we die
from an old way of life of selfishness to a new way of life that resembles that of Christ – selfless
and compassionate.
In the olden times, the Church Father Tertullian used the word “Sacramentum” to refer to
baptism. But before the word was used for baptism, it referred to a soldier’s oath of loyalty. Along
this line, baptism can be understood as a pledge of our loyalty to Christ by living according to
how he lived. In the process, we are transformed, and we transform society by our lives. That is
why there are times during our liturgical celebrations (particularly during Easter) when we are
asked to renew our baptismal promises to be true to what Jesus stood for. If we are faithful to
these promises like loyal soldiers, then our baptism is meaningful.

One concept in the Filipino culture that expresses our nature as human beings constituted by
relationships is “kapwa.” The kapwa is defined by the Filipino theologian Jose de Mesa as the one
with whom we share a common humanity, who we are in solidarity. Everybody is kapwa. If we
recognize that we share a common humanity with others, we will care for them as we care for
ourselves. This recognition is the beginning of
empathy that enables us to do something for others
even when it becomes inconvenient, even if it
entails sacrifices. In Christianity, the model of
authentic pakikipagkapwa is Jesus, of course. He
made the ultimate sacrifice – giving up his life that
others may live.

As human beings, as a Church, we are other-

directed. We are missionaries according to our
nature. There are many songs in our Churches that
express this reality. Look for some of these songs;
learn them, sing them, and teach them to others.
Below is an example of the song “Sino Ako” by Fr.
Jose Castañeda that describes who we are and our
role flowing from that identity.