The Missio what? Missing a Day? Misseo Dei? Why the Missio Dei?
I’ve heard it all. But, what exactly is in a name? Identity.
Our community, the Missio Dei, is named after God’s own mission in and for the life of the world (literally Latin for “God’s Mission”). That being said, we chose that name because we wanted to reflect that reality in the life of our community. We wanted to reflect God’s dance of love with all of creation and be agents of restoration and change in all we see.
Now of course, just wanting to reflect God’s mission will not do. Case in point? If we understood God’s mission to be one of wrath, spite and general genocidal regret at having created such a mess–our desire to reflect *that* God would necessarily manifest in the same sort of manner and make us generally terrible people.
On the flip side of that, if we get a glimpse of who and how God is in the world, our imaginations are opened to be the same sort of force for goodness and beauty and love in the world. That’s not to say that we have to get it absolutely right. After all, anyone who claims to know the fullness of this God is nothing if not an idolator with a box too small to fit their own ego let alone the creator of all that is. Yet, in the human Jesus, we glimpse what is possible when one is able to proclaim ‘not your will but mine be done’ in the face of a contrary hope for the future. Jesus simply said yes to God’s dreams for the world rather than to his own schemes of self-preservation and self-actualization (eat crow Maslow).
What’s more? The same Spirit of love and beauty and truth and goodness that was available to Jesus, The Spirit that he relied so heavily upon to live into God’s mission of love and restoration for creation, is available to us as well…and we are called to be agents of that new creation.