Help us spread the news:

           

Recently I read an excellent book called “Christianity Rediscovered” by Vincent Donovan, a missionary to the Masai people of Tanzania. He makes the following statement;

“A missionary essentially is a social martyr, cut off from his (sic) roots, his stock, his blood, his background, his culture. He is destined to walk forever a stranger in a strange land. He must be stripped as naked as a human can be, down to the very texture of his being. St Paul said Christ did not think being God was something to be clung to, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave. He was stripped to the fiber of his being, to the innermost part of his spirit.”

 When I used to talk about missions at home I would point out that all of us who wish to follow Jesus are missionaries. Some, like Wendy and I, have recognised a call to leave our ‘homeland’ and be missionaries in Cambodia, but those who remain in New Zealand are still missionaries and no matter where you are, Vincent’s comments above still hold – to be a missionary is to be a social martyr.  

My hope is that we all have the courage to recognise that even in our ‘homeland’ we are essentially strangers in a strange land. I hope that we can all have the courage to be stripped as naked as humans can be as we follow Christ, recognising how he was cut off from his roots, his stock, his background, his culture, as he loved his enemies, forgave those who nailed his hands to the cross, refused to call down legions of angels in his defence and made Peter put away his sword. To follow Jesus in showing extraordinary  love and justice, forgiveness and non-violence, even to those who are seen as sinners, or less than cool, or a stubby short of a six-pack, is seen as social suicide where I come from.

Here in Cambodia every day I am reminded that I am a stranger in a strange land. Back ‘home’ we also need to recognise that in choosing to follow Jesus we are cutting ourselves off from the culture we have come from and so we are just as much destined to walk forever as strangers in a strange land.