Moltmann on Mission

Mission is taking part in the messianic sending of Jesus and as such taking part int the people, with which he so much identified himself, to the extent that mission stands as a representative for him: 'Whoever visits them, visits me.' Therefore this mission should neither bring the people again into the church nor the church into the people, but rather discover the church of the people and live the brotherhood of Jesus in the brotherhood of 'the least of these.'

This happens best in and through basic communities and groups which live intensively with the gospel and their neighbors and which come together in prayer and in the breaking of bread. This can lead to a break with the churches as we know them up to now. But it cannot lead to a break with Jesus. The church of the people will then ask how it can become independent of the money, the programs, and the staffs of the missions of other churches. The talk of a "moratorium on Western missions" for the purpose of allowing the indigenous churches to become independent has...a kernel of truth: The indigenous, national churches should become the subject of their own history and therefore should become independent from other churches. The "world mission" should begin...

Participation is an expression of solidarity. When people have common goals, they work together. It is good to be engaged in this way. But in this common work people also criticize and correct each other. When we work in common with non-Christians for liberation, for human rights, and for the life of the people, the people must stand at the center in all of our commonality and in all of our mutual criticism - not as objects of our common efforts but as subjects of our common life. The functionary ideology and the staff mentality hinders this, for they seperate an elite from the people. It seems to me that the Christian community is singular in that it discovers Jesus in the people, and the people as the people of the kingdom. Before this community initiates programs and concludes historical alliances with other groups, it eats and drinks with the people and breaks the bread of poverty in the common hope... Participation means in the first place to eat, to drink, to live in common...

In conclusion my thesis is this: Hope in the struggle of the people is to be found in the people's becoming subjects of their own history. To take part in the community of Jesus means to take part in the history of the people and to rejoice with the people.

-Jurgen Moltmann, 1977

Peace,
Matt