Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

God the Father created us out of a divine act of love and with the intention that we be brother and sister to one another. God called Moses to lead his people out of slavery, the most brutal system of exploitation, and guide them into the Promised Land. God raised Israel up to be an enduring sign of resistance against enslavement in any time and any place.  In the course of history, God gave us his son Jesus the Christ, the INCARNATE WORD of the FATHER. Jesus the Christ died for all creation thereby restoring the human family once and for all to God’s original intent: equality and community.  From the Father and Son, we were given the Spirit, so that future generations of disciples would maintain the struggle for liberation with courage and steadfastness, wisdom and strength, prudence and spiritual sensitivity. This is the Trinity.  The power of the Triune God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is like a mighty river of Justice washing away the structures of exploitation and inequality. Jesus calls his disciples to go forth and let water flow into the desert, “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  This is the evangelization of the nations - to proclaim the Good News.

Making disciples and baptizing them, means…

•      We proclaim FREEDOM: We open doors for those held in captivity, that we make a way where there is no way.  We confront the exclusion and bust open the doors of injustice that keep people in darkness, in isolation and in fear.

•      We proclaim VISION: Jesus gives us a vision so that we can see the possibilities that cooperation, forgiveness, self-sacrifice are ultimately more rewarding than acquiring things for ourselves.   

•      We create a COMMUNITY of disciples by welcoming people to the table! Our evangelical task is to find ways for people to share in the harvest and not feel shame and guilt so that they excuse themselves from participating fully in the banquet of love. Rather than insisting on conformity and uniformity, we would focus on inclusion and making space for a diversity and dialog.

Jesus was not initiating a massive membership drive to “sign people up” to be members of the Church. He was calling his disciples to change the world.  A world in which the blind can see. That those who live in conditions of darkness, would finally seen the dawn of a new day. In a changed world the mute speak for themselves and the deaf hear. In a world transformed by Jesus, those who were controlled by debt and poverty are given a reprieve, a “forgiveness of debt” as it were, and they can begin to live for a future that they can control.

In a society transformed by freedom, vision and community, the millions of people held in prisons, detention centers and secret holding facilities would finally have a chance of securing a strong defense and access to a fair jury trial. Those in bondage because of human trafficking and forced labor would be freed from their captors and the homeless man, the refugee, and the immigrant family would all have a chance to live without the fear of arrest, deportation or exploitation. In a transformed world, the emotionally isolated and physically incapacitated are connected to a caring and nurturing community.

When we baptize, we dismantle the fundamental structures of exclusion in the world. We confront the system of economic disparity where the owner is disproportionately rewarded from the toil of the worker, where racism masquerades itself in “law and order”, where creeping fascism becomes evident in the militarization and brutality of law enforcement, where people’s civil liberties and due process are ignored in our court and immigration system. Let’s step back and think about this.  Are we ready to shift our thinking about what it means to evangelize the nations? Can we be a Church that stands with those who yearn for freedom, that is guided by a vision where all are welcome? Can we be a Church that is BOLD?  

If we want to be bold, we cannot replace the Good News with rules and demands of obedience and our relationship with God cannot be expressed only on Sundays.  Remember our reading from Romans: we received the Spirit of freedom so that we no longer are enslaved by fear. We are the adopted sons and daughters of God and have been graced with a relationship with God, that we can call him “Abba/Father” and thus are co-heirs to eternal life with Christ.  If we believe these simple statements, then what do we have to fear in being a bold Church? 

A bold faith with high aspirations demands a faith response: to follow Christ, to imitate Christ - even to the point of giving our lives. If we do our job right we will probably suffer.  We will face opposition as we advocate for greater freedom and participation and there will be people trying to keep us down.  Opposition may be strong and at times and even overwhelming, but let us take our strength from this meal where we are nourished enough to  continue the Lucha, the Mission: to free captives, give sight to the blind and proclaim the Good News to the poor.