Catch the vision!

Have you ever seen the film the “Blues brothers”. The whole premise of the film is their attempts to raise money for the “penguin” - the chief nun who runs the catholic orphanage they went to as children.

They used to say that “they were on a mission from God”.

That is what you call getting “the big picture” if ever there was one.

Expanding our own vision of what we are doing is something that would help us all.

We can all be very dismissive of our own roles and contributions to church life. We see them all as so little and ordinary

“Oh, I just do this or I just do that. I just make tea or I just help prepare the altar. But everyone and every contribution is needed to make a church community run. The more people get actively involved the church starts to not just “run” but thrives and prospers.

In the Blues brothers, everything they did was seen in the context of the big vision – the mission from God.

That is true for all Christians. We are all on a mission from God. That is the Big vision and catching hold of that vision and holding on to it is the best motivating force we have.

Proverbs 29:18 in the KJV says “Where there is no vision the people perish”. Everything is reduced to the lowest common denominator, trivialised and easily dismissed. But with vision we raise our sights, do what we do with greater clarity and are motivated to do much more.

Why did we bother to raise money for our repairs? Well, there are at least two answers to that question. One set of answers would be. So we can keep dry or turn the lights on without being electrocuted. But in the context of the Christian vision we are doing these things for the glory of God to provide a house where the gospel of Christ can be effectively preached, where God can be worshipped where the Kingdom of God can be proclaimed and people’s lives enriched by hearing the good news.  It helps us further our mission to bring the Christian faith to the people.

Our vision should flow from the vision of Jesus Christ. For Jesus, his preaching, his parables all concerned the “Kingdom of God”.  Everything he did and preached about was to that end. He held his vision always before him and every aspect of his life was a reflection of the kingdom.

Seeing ourselves as emissaries from God – people on a mission from God is the highest calling anyone could ever aspire to and Jesus tells us that anyone who welcomes us as a Christian or receives a cup of cold water from us when they are thirsty are actually welcoming Him and the Father – they are being helped by us, who is also Jesus helping, who is also the Father helping them.

In talking about and proclaiming our faith, and in helping others in his name we are doing God’s work. We are on a mission from God.

Jesus said to the twelve: whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one that sent me. Whoever becomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward. And whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”