The "Meat" Is In The Street: Knowing and Following Jesus into His Mission | Jeremiah Lepasana | Reframing "Mission" for the Cynics Like Us | Mt 28.16-20, Jn 1.43-51

This past Sunday, we continued our series The Meat Is In The Street: Following Jesus Into His Mission by simply acknowledging that in this part of the country it is easy to be cynical about mission! "I have to do, so others can behave" And, we are cynical because if we are honest, our underlying suspicion is that mission can be boiled down to, "I have to do, so I can get others to change how they behave." We are tempted deep down to believe that what religious communities really want for us is nothing more than 1) to do and 2) to behave. And, if we are honest, this hardly feels like "Good News" to our friends in the office, our neighbors, or our skeptical family members. "Reframing Mission"We spent the bulk of the sermon trying to reframe the mission by asking, what is the Good News? And, I simply wanted to put forward that in a world marked by alone-ness, the Good News is that the Kingdom has come near! We looked at four quick stories from the Gospel of John of 1) Nathanael, 2) the Woman at the Well, 3) the Woman caught in adultery, and 4) Lazarus to see how each has a sort of similar testimony that reads: Alone and ________________,He Saw Me and came near.I was changed.I want others to exp the same.Their stories were different, yet also the same! Jesus draws near--and because of this, we have not been left alone. And this is Good News for us and for those whom we love! This is the mission! To let those around us know that the God of all the Universe has drawn near to meet them in their aloofness, in their shame, in their fear, in all the places where life seems absent of hope.