by Tad de Bordenave

During a recent interview Pope Francis described the plague of the world as “the Globalization of Indifference.” When St. Paul described the source of healing for our world, he stated, “The Riches of God’s Grace.” Living in the crease between those two statements, the Church endeavors to be obedient to the Great Commission of Jesus Christ.

With a new series of articles I will examine the impact of these dual influences on the church–indifference that stagnates and grace that transforms. Our attention will be on groups indistinct and barely recognized in the mission world, far from the locus of most Christian work. They are not unlike those Jesus referred to when he was refused in Capernaum. He told them that followers will come “from the East and from the West.”  Today, new followers are coming to him from unexpected territories. 

In these articles we will look at four of the world’s most challenging groups, four distinct world families: refugees, the least evangelized, Muslims, and Jews. Each group has known the indifference of the church, but many members have known the redeeming power of God’s love.

In my life in missions I have had unusual adventures that have landed me among these four groups. I have been privileged to sit at their tables and share their food, hear their stories, learn their beliefs, and make some hilarious faux pas. Here I give a brief profile of the groups; later, a closer look with my stories interwoven.

• Refugees. There is hardly a border that does not know these desperate people, surging towards dreams of safety and food and away from violence and famine. My wife, Constance, and I have visited ministries to refugees in Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic. The tales we heard have saddened us. One family we met had escaped from Syria and had been living in Athens for two years–stateless, without documents, isolated by language, unemployment, and neighbors. Their two sons have been denied the normal activities of adolescents – no schooling, no friends at playgrounds, no socializing. And no hope of recovering these losses. The saga of this family is multiplied many times over with a myriad of variations.
• The Least Evangelized. These people live in territories where Jesus Christ is unknown.  Darkness governs all corners of their existence, crushing culture, dignity, and hope. Their numbers are massive: over one billion people, more than 25% of the today’s population. I was profoundly shocked at this reality, so stunned that in 1993 I resigned from the parish I served in Richmond, Virginia, and began a missionary society devoted to the world’s least evangelized ethnic groups. Anglican Frontier Missions now thrives alongside many other agencies and workers. 
• Muslims. They make up the second largest religious block in the world. My focus will be on the mosques found locally in our neighborhoods. These houses of worship are filled on Fridays yet are barely noticed by non-Muslim neighbors. I often visit these mosques in my Richmond neighborhoods with a former missionary.  We are welcomed with courtesy and, no doubt, with the hope of us being converted. Our prayers are for them to find the true faith.
• The Jews. They are the chosen people of God. Any outsider must regard their history and their culture with awe and respect. The spiritual riches in their heritage hold the root and substance of the Christian faith but are largely underappreciated or unrecognized by Christians. At the same time, from my Jewish friends I learn that their education often omits basic teaching about Jesus Christ and the study of their sacred scriptures. 

These are the groups where I will take our deep look. 

The heart of mission is God’s passion for the world to know his unlimited and unbounded goodness. That is his showcase. He wants that love to be on full display so it will draw our fullest satisfaction in his grace. As fountains overflow their waters into waiting pools, God wants the grace of Jesus Christ to overflow into every heart and every people group. That is his passion and his pleasure—for the world to see his unbounded mercy and grace. And it is precisely these overlooked global families who are places of unexpected overflow. And these  become God’s showcase. 

The history of the church often carries the unhappy doubt that God’s grace really is for every nation and every group. Surely some do not fit–too remote, too barbaric, too hostile. Best to leave them aside and concentrate on those more available. 

This lamentable reasoning shows up in the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, from John 4. The disciples returned from purchasing food, and what they saw was beyond their comprehension. They were stunned. Was it proper for Jesus to speak to this woman? And her a Samaritan? Did she fit? Is there a place in the kingdom for Samaritans? They thought not. 

Similarly, some today would dismiss groups that do not seem to fit, deemed as God-forsaken. Grace may be for sinners, but does that include the ugly, the mean-spirited, and the violent? Those whom we would exclude, however, are the very ones who most loudly testify to God’s goodness. They are the ones who give the clearest illustration of his unbounded love. 

Those who follow the call to the “God-forsaken” find pathways opened by God’s passion. They do not find the way easy or the progress rapid; they endure hardship as did their Lord. But in this they are returning praise for what they have received of the grace of God. Their courage, their perseverance, their sacrifice are their applause for the God of mercy.

In spite of global indifference, the riches of God’s grace prevail in least expected places. We will see God’s passion for his goodness alive and at work in each of the four global families – refugees, Muslims, Jews, and those yet unreached. Indistinct and overlooked they may be, but through God’s mercy these people become his showcase.