When Jesus said, “make disciples of all nations”, the picture that is conjured in my mind is of dusty back roads and forgotten slums. However, what I often forget is that “all nations” also happens to include prestigious businesses and bourgeois schools. To be quite honest, this transition of thought has been difficult. Last month, in Medellín, I knew Jesus had called me to work with “the least of these”; homeless people, refugees, the poor, the hungry, the needy. This month, in Quito, we are working with the well-fed, iPhone-holding students of Anderson School, and I am left wondering if Jesus actually called me to such a place of comfort.
I won’t lie, this month, I’m practically living in the lap of luxury; I live in a beautiful house with beautiful grounds, use toilets that actually flush and don’t leak, take (occasionally) warm showers, work at a nice installation where I get free WiFi and tea, eat amazing food, and haven’t seen the first rat since the first day I’ve been here. Where is the “take up your cross” sacrifice? Where is the “give up everything and follow me” abandonment?
In the usual course of things, missionaries take the gospel to the poor, helping alleviate physical need, and then use this social work as a platform to alleviate spiritual need. In the usual course of things, I picture the admirable charity and sacrifice of the doting missionary who leaves the comforts of home behind to serve others and share Jesus in some obscure place. And, this is precisely what we are doing; we are still leaving the comforts of home behind to serve others and share Jesus, just that it happens to occur in a well-known place. As I’m beginning to realize, just because a person doesn’t have any noticeable physical needs, it does not mean that they don’t need missionaries.
The crux of the issue is this; everyone needs Jesus.
This truth is essential, but I still forget it easily. Just because the rich are better at hiding their need for Jesus behind good educations and decent lives, it does not mean that at their core, they don’t need Jesus as much, if not more, as the poorest of the poor. So, if I believe that the Gospel is truly universal, as in applies to all mankind type of universal, it, then, should be shared with all mankind, even with the rich.
