November is mission month. Racism harms the body of Christ and God’s reconciling mission. But God has made a way to receive forgiveness — the repentance that leads to life! Mission Network November mission month materials invite MC USA to witness across the church to God’s plan for reconciliation.
Introduction
Two plagues have erupted in 2020 — COVID-19 and the systemic injustice of racism. The killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and many others have exposed the United States’ ugly history of terrorizing Black people to maintain the power and privilege of White people. Even though Christianity has made an indelible mark on American society, our legacy of racism is anything but Christian. On the contrary, the name "Christian" was first applied to Jews and Gentiles who were learning to overcome hostility and share life together through their faith in Jesus Christ. Mission, or the sharing of the good news of Jesus across cultures, lit the fire of the reconciliation of former enemies in one body. Indeed, Greek-speaking Jews from the Mediterranean and Africa ("Cyprus and Cyrene") were the first to tell the story of Jesus to the Syrian Gentiles among whom they were sent (Acts 11:19-26).
On the other hand, these were not the first Jews to cross land and sea to proclaim a message from God to the Gentiles. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God exhorted the Jews in Babylon "to seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you" (Jeremiah 29:7). And in the book of Jonah, God sends a Hebrew prophet to announce repentance to Nineveh. Nineveh was the great and glorious capital of Assyria, the mighty and merciless empire which destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th century before Christ. Like the Ninevites, the call "to turn from our evil ways and from the violence that is in our hands" confronts us who live in the shadow of 21st-century racism. Like Nineveh, the message of repentance comes not for our destruction, but that we might lament, turn, and be healed (Jonah 3:8-9).
With its focus on the mission of Jonah, may these materials inspire your worship and invigorate your witness to Jesus Christ, our hope in a diseased and divided world.