Missionaries to the Extent of It

In the last post, I brought up the question of whether religion is primarily an ethical endeavor, or primarily a search for existential truths.  No topic in the Gospels bears more on this question than the accounts of Jesus sending forth missionaries.  I give the reader credit for being able to visualize certain realities.  On this topic two realities impinge: one, that some of the hearers of Jesus' missionaries would die before Jesus' resurrection; and, two, that some of those hearers would have only this exposure to Jesus' teachings in their lifetimes, due to geography or other limiting factors.

I am careful to mention the inescapable presumptions described above (that some hearers of Jesus' missionaries would hear nothing further of his message) because I wish to head off a certain notion that haunts Gospel scholarship--the idea of "dispensations."  This horrid sort of thought entertains the notion that some of the things taught before Jesus' ministry, or before his resurrection, are superseded by later teachings--typically those teachings of the Epistles.  A moment's sober reflection will discern that such thought is infinitely malleable, leading this or any belief system into a morass of convenient revisions.

So I say that Jesus' missionaries were true missionaries, preaching the true Gospel, and preaching real salvation--that is, to the extent to which they were ever intended as missionaries at all (as we know the meaning of the word.)  Or perhaps it would be better to notch back our conceits about Jesus' followers on their journeys, and better to consider them to be simply true disciples of a true master, teaching the truths by which all people might live.

It helps in understanding all this to turn first to the ministry of John the Baptist and his followers.  It is usually held that John offered a sort of proto-salvation, a foreshadowing (of questionable effectiveness in itself for soul-saving) of Jesus' real teachings about salvation.  The Gospels themselves--the Synoptics, that is--seem to start this way, such as John's saying in Matthew:

"I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire" (3:11, KJV).  Yet Jesus' pronouncement, delivered shortly after that, is, "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (4:17).  And when Jesus sends out his apostles (along with the "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils" (10:8)), he tells them, "as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand" (10:7).  John's "water unto repentance," so often considered ineffectual "works," is replaced merely by Jesus' exhortation to repentance.  Maybe there is something to that "repentance" business after all.

And then there is Mark, which says that "John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. . . .I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost" (1:4-8).  Then comes Jesus, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel" (1:15); and later, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (2:17).  Later, the twelve are described on their mission: "And they went out, and preached that men should repent" (6:12).  Again with the repentance.

And in Luke, here is John again: "And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. . . .saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire" (3:3-16).  Jesus' ministry was more extensive and powerful than John's, but in Luke he does not forsake "repentance for the remission of sins"; "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (5:32); the twelve were sent "to preach the kingdom of God" (9:2); and upon their return they witnessed Jesus with the people: "and he received them, and spake unto them of the kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing" (9:11).

If indeed the core of Jesus' ministry was something other than that people ought to be nice, to do good, and to refrain from doing harm--then most assuredly Jesus entwined that message throughout the Gospels with a subtlety that would shame the serpent of Eden.  And this is the very Jesus who maintains that his message is simple and our burdens are light.

"Light" burdens, of course, must be meant in contradistinction to the niceties and complications of organized religion.  We all know that, in the final analysis, the burdens to which Jesus makes us liable may well be anything but light.  But do those fearsome burdens have to include harrowing questions of doctrinal rectitude, presented to us so often by the denominations as though theological distinctions of dizzying complexity and ramifications are what stand between us and the kingdom of heaven?

To try to answer this, we will turn again in the next post to the ministry of John.