The Sermon on Mission (Reimagined)

I reimagined the Sermon on the Mission as a sermon that I believe Jesus Christ might give today. I shared this as part of my sermon at Paradox on March 28, 2026. You can watch the full sermon here.

introduction

My Friends,
we live in a multi-religious, multi-cultural, multi-national,
multi-gendered, and multi-moral world.
And as technology builds connections between us
that seemed impossible to our ancestors just a generation ago,
that same technology gives us
indiscriminate algorithms.
which now glom on to our IP addresses
and feed us a steady diet of dramatic differences.
This curated dissonance between
our religions, cultures, nations, genders, and morals
drives us to live with a posture of fear,
a posture of anxiety,
and a posture of suspicion
toward the people who are dissimilar from us.

But is this how our Creator desires for us to live
on this diverse and wondrous planet?
Of course not!
Imagine if Jesus Christ walked around on this earth and said,
“Follow me and I will show you
how to live with even more fear, more anxiety,
and more suspicion than you do now!”
Would you drop everything and follow him?
Not at all.
For this promise of fear, anxiety, and suspicion
can only be classified as bad news.

Two thousand years ago,
Jesus Christ asked his disciples to go out into the world
and proclaim not bad news, but good news!
Specifically, to declare to the world that “The kingdom of heaven has come near!”
And today, here in Redlands, this divine invitation remains unchanged:
Jesus Christ still exhorts his disciples to live in the world
and proclaim not bad news, but good news!
Specifically, to declare to the world that “The kingdom of heaven has come near!”

And while this declaration may seem complicated in our multifaceted world,
I want to discuss with you this morning how we can share this good news
without the nefarious agenda of conversion
but with only the inspiration of love.

Therefore…

matthew 10:5-15

5 Don’t go to the atheists, or to the Muslims, or to the Jews,
don’t go to Asia, or to Africa, or to South America, or to Europe,

6 but go rather to the churches in America
and speak to the lost Christians.
For religion without self-critique is idolatry,
and you cannot love another imperfect religion
without first learning how to love your own imperfect religion.

7 When you arrive in these churches,
preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Tell them that heaven is not
some far-off, distant, and ethereal reality
which can only be accessed after we die.
Testify to them that heaven, the very presence of God,
is on the tip of their tongue
and as close to each of them as their next breath
And God invites us to be partners
to bring about the reality of God’s Kingdom
in the present day.

8 But don’t just tell them about this reality, show them this reality.
If you are in healthcare, then cure the sick.
In you are a therapist, then help people find peace with their trauma.
If you are in real estate, then build affordable housing.
If you are a chef, then feed the hungry with something tastier than a rice cake.
If you are in sewage, then show up to work, so (stuff) doesn’t get everywhere.
And while this may all seem very ordinary in our society,
the miracle occurs when we do all of these things
not with the motivation of profits, payments, and influence,
but with the sole inspiration of compassion.

In America today, whenever we ask,
“Why are things the way they are today?”
So often the answer is, “Because money.”
But this is not how God’s Kingdom works.
Money and tax breaks and shareholders do not dictate the form of society.
Rather, love is the driving force behind every shape,
every policy, and every decision of God’s Kingdom.
And this is why the Gospel is good news for the entire world!

9 Be cognizant then, of what possessions you take with you
when you tell others about how money does not motivate you.
For the things you own can undermine your testimony
and people will see right through you
if you find security and stability in the things you purchase.

10 Instead, show up in simple clothes and without a backpack.
And, while you may not know where your next meal is coming from,
you will discover a basic kind of hospitality,
even from Christians who have misunderstood the entire Gospel,

11 For in every church,
even in the most fundamentalist churches,
at least one of them holds questions deep within their heart
which they feel afraid to bring to the surface with their voice.
And while they may stammer
and employ offensive terms
and cite misinformation
we must learn to trust that every sincere question
deserves a compassionate answer.
We must learn to trust that open minds exist in conservative spaces
because we know firsthand that closed minds exist in liberal spaces.

12 So walk into these churches and homes
with an expectation that an open mind and an open heart
can be found in this place
and anyone who makes an honest attempt to understand

13 For the thing you are looking for is not blind agreement to your words.
Rather, the thing you are looking for, in every space, is openness.
For God is a God of love.
Which means God will not force anyone to go
where they do not want to go.
And if one chooses to be closed off to the Kingdom,
then our God loves each of us to respect our decision
and live in the world we choose for ourselves.

14 Therefore, if you go out among these Christians,
and they turn you right around
and run you back out the door from whence you came,
do not take it personally.
Instead, remember how God respects our decision to be closed or to be open
and then offer that same divine respect to them.
Develop a ritual to remind you of this respect,
a ritual which will help you to let go,
a ritual to help you rise above the temptation of jaded bitterness,
so that you can move on to another community or home
with an unwavering hope that you will find an open heart there.

15 When communities or families shove you out the door
it may feel like hatred, power, and money win in the end.
But I want to assure you that
taking the gift of the human mind
and closing it off from the wonder of the world
is the worst kind of punishment one could receive.

matthew 10:16-25

16 God’s calling for us to share the Gospel with Christians in America
arrives at an urgent time.
The sin of Christian nationalism runs rampant through our way of life
and many Christians seem to have no qualms with elevating
the stars and stripes
to the same level as the bread and wine.
Navigating conversations and actions among this widespread sin
requires a commitment to wisdom and a commitment to doing what is right.

17 Beware of the Christian nationalists.
For they believe in a tiny god that loves the people of one country
more than the people in the one-hundred and ninety-four other countries.
The good news of God’s kingdom disrupts their theology
and demands they change the paradigm through which they see the world.
And rather than politely saying,
“No thank you, I’d prefer for my mind to stay closed.”
they will hold theological councils and condemn you in the church,
gossip about you around their tables,
and then remove your name from their books.

18 But they won’t stop there, for they also wield tremendous political power.
They will seek to make an example out of you
through a new bill or
through a corrupt agency such as ICE or
through the courts
to demonstrate to everyone what happens
when someone attempts to challenge the status quo.

19 But even in those moments of great fear
the Gospel thrives with great courage.
Do not worry about what you will say,
whether you are sharing the good news with your uncle at Thanksgiving
or testifying about the good news before a judge in a courtroom.
For if you are fully committed to
the transcendent love of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
you will always trust that God is with you,
and, if God is with you, then you will always know what to say.

20 For the Gospel is not a script for you to memorize
and regurgitate in difficult situations,
but a way of life that, once lived, will be as easy to articulate
as your favorite color.

21 Your uncle may storm out at Thanksgiving,
your parents may tell you they are disappointed in you,
your brother may never speak to you again,
your sister may tell others that you have lost your way,
and the church you grew up in may disown you.

22 Ironically, your commitment to giving love away
leads us to an unintentional commitment to receiving hatred.
But continue to trust love in the darkest circumstances.
For only after we have felt the sting of that hatred
can we experience Christ’s salvation
by repaying that hatred with love.

23 This does not mean God condemns you
to suffer endlessly in toxic churches, families, and relationships.
As we discussed earlier,
there is a time for a ritual for us to say good bye
so that we can rise above jaded bitterness.
But the promise of the Gospel is that the misery you experience
in one community will not be the misery you experience in every community.
You may need to leave.
You may need to put boundaries in place.
You may need to love someone from a distance.
But if you do these things, and you move on to the next set of relationships
the promise of the Gospel is that you will live in the presence of God
in the very near future.
For one community or family does not own exclusive rights to God’s Kingdom.

24 For every pastor you meet,
no matter how big their congregation may be,
no matter how many times they visit the White House,
no matter how many views they acquire on Youtube,
they simply cannot substitute for the Son of Man, Jesus Christ.

25 But they can illuminate what it means for us to follow Jesus Christ.
Pay attention to how your pastor handles and discusses their imperfections
for their imperfections reveal how they make peace
with the fact that they are not God,
a fact that all of us face on a daily basis.

matthew 10:26-33

26 So do not be afraid of Christian nationalists.
Do not be afraid of hatred.
Do not be afraid of the injustices you witness.
For in the words of abolitionist preacher Theodore Parker,
“The moral arc of the universe is long and it bends toward justice.”
And the very name of God, Emmanuel, promises us
that God will be with us in all that we experience.

27 When the world feels dark
and you can barely see your hand in front of your face,
but you catch just a faint glimmer of hope,
then tell everyone you know about that light.
No matter how small it may seem at the time,
that light is the evidence of God’s Kingdom here on earth.
If the world feels noisy from the unrelenting sirens of breaking news alerts
but you hear a whisper of beauty,
then stick a microphone on that whisper,
crank your amp up to eleven,
and amplify that beauty from the highest points on earth.

28 For no matter how long they may attempt to place your body in jail
try as they might,
they cannot imprison your mind.

29 Consider the marvel of your unlikely existence.
You live on a rock suspended in space hurtling
through nothingness at 67,000 miles per hour
around a star 93,000,000 miles away
that could fit 1.3 million earths inside of its volume.
From this perspective,
how small does the threat of Christian nationalism appear?

30 But also consider the marvel of your intentional existence.
The one who created all of the known universe
knows your name,
knows your heart beat,
knows the number of hairs on your head,
and loves you with such extravagance
that the Apostle Paul once described God
as emptying all of the blessings in storehouses in heaven
so that you and I might live today.

31 So do not be afraid,
for the God who is, paradoxically,
both infinitely transcendent and infinitely intimate
loves you without condition
and is with you always.

32 So in all things,
live with the trust that God’s Kingdom is closer than the skin of your own body.
If you live with that openness to something good,
in a world that so often feels overwhelmed by evil,
then you will find the presence of God is all around you
and the Kingdom is available to you right here, and right now.

33 But if you choose to close yourself off to the light in the darkness
and you choose to turn up the volume on your device
to drown out the whisper of hope
then God respects our choice
and allows us to wallow in our despair.

matthew 10:34-39

34 Do not think Jesus Christ came to this to ensure
that you would avoid any and all conflict in your life.
The Gospel exposes corruption, hatred, lies, and the pain of humankind
and then demands that we do something about it.

35 In the name of the Gospel,
your actions and words will not just anger the veiled masses of the internet,
but your actions and words will anger the people closest to you.

36 For as unlikely as this may seem,
a closed mind can be stronger than the love of a parent.
Which means an open mind can be more healing
than the most elaborate and expensive medical care.

37 So do not use your family’s approval
as a barometer of how well you proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
For anyone who places the avoidance of family conflict
above the urgency of the Gospel
has missed the point of the message of Jesus Christ.

38 This mission will cost you everything.
It doesn’t work if you merely dip your toe in the shallow end
to check the temperature.
Instead, the Gospel teaches us how to live with an open posture
toward everything
toward every one
and toward every circumstance.
And if we are open, then we will receive.
And if we are closed, then we will miss out.

39 For it is only in the mystery of giving our lives completely away to this Gospel
that we can discover what it means to receive a life that is worth living.

matthew 10:40-42

40 So when you venture out into the world,
recognize the open hearts all around you.
This is not nearly as difficult as it may seem
for the one who opens their door to you
and listens to you
and carefully considers what you say
and asks questions
is the one with the open heart.

41 Whoever welcomes new teachers into their lives,
who profess love and kindness as the will of God,
will soon understand what it means to live in the Kingdom of God.
Whoever makes time for the people
marginalized by the billionaires
and then seeks to correct the injustice of the wealth gap
will receive the reward of justice from the Kingdom of God.

42 And whoever sees someone thirsty,
on a scorching hot day in the middle of August in Redlands,
and then offers the thirsty an ice cold cup of water,
then truly, I tell you,
that person will know that they are living in the presence of God.

closing

My friends, may you proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ
and tell the world that the Kingdom of God is near.
May your words and actions testify to others
that money does not sit in the driver’s seat of your mind
but love directs the way you live your life.
May you trust that an open heart
can always be found in the most closed community
and may you be humble enough to recognize
that closed minds exist in even the most open communities.
May you practice rituals of letting go
so that you may rise above jaded bitterness.
And may you always rise above the temptation to close your mind
and live with an open heartexpecting to see the presence of God
in all that you encounter.

In the human name of Jesus
and the eternal name of Christ,
Amen.