When the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl, you would not have believed the unification in Kansas City. It doesn’t matter what the ethnicity is, what the socioeconomic level is, what the histories are. People who wouldn’t ever be found in a room together were unified. Half of the city showed up for the parade after they won. There was this ocean of red, and people were chanting, “Kingdom! Kingdom!” People of incredible diversity and uniqueness are all covered in red, and they’re one big family. It’s a picture of the Kingdom. What would it be like for a city to be chanting together with all of its diversity as a family saying, “Kingdom! Kingdom!” Chanting together, covered in the blood of Jesus, knowing that we are forgiven. We are made whole. We have a new identity. We are brothers and sisters singing, “We are royals, children of the king.”
At South City Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, this kind of Kingdom unity is exactly what we’re pursuing together as a community. In order to achieve that kind of unity, there has to be a change in the way we see things. We call it a paradigm shift. It’s where you can be looking at the same thing; you haven’t moved. Nothing in your frame of reference has changed, but you suddenly see something completely different in the same frame of reference.
In the movie, The Matrix, there’s Neo. He’s living an ordinary life stuck in a cubicle. Then he meets Morpheus, and he offers him the red pill or the blue pill. The blue pill is you just go back to the same thing. But the red pill is a paradigm shift. He said, “I’m going to peel back the cover that’s over your eyes so you can see the real world.” That is such a powerful image of what the Holy Spirit is inviting all of us into. There is a cover that is over our eyes, and the Holy Spirit can flip this. You haven’t gone anywhere else. You didn’t move to a new place. You don’t have a bunch of new friends. You’re still at the same job, but you see everything differently.
What Does “Peace Be With You” Mean? Understanding Shalom
John 20:19-21 is our red pill. It says this, “On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. And he says to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ And with that, he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”
He says to them twice, “Peace be with you.” That word peace when we hear it in the English language, we think of something like a ceasefire. If you’re a parent, we think, “I need some peace and quiet. Kids are driving me crazy.” But when Jesus uses the word peace, he’s referring to the Hebrew word shalom, which is something much bigger. Shalom is this idea of universal flourishing where we are living in this place of flourishing in our relationship with God, our relationship with self, with others, and with creation. Everything is just the way it was meant to be. Every once in a while in life, you have these moments of incredible shalom where you feel a sense of deep connectedness to the people you love. Moments where things are how they’re supposed to be. And the problem is someone always messes that up for us, right? And usually, it’s ourselves.
Jesus is not saying you need some peace and quiet, or that you need a ceasefire. He’s saying that he wants you to be filled with this kind of never-ending, fully-alive life. Jesus connects that shalom interdependently to what he says, “Peace be with you.” And what’s the next thing he says? “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” You could call that mission. The Chiefs are a picture of God’s mission. This universal family that’s living in unity and bringing glory to God. So peace and mission are actually interwoven and interdependent, and I can’t experience the flourishing of Jesus in me apart from joining the mission of Jesus around me.
What Is a Missionary People? South City Church’s Call to Little Rock
Mission is the red pill. Something happens the first time you really care about someone who doesn’t know Jesus. You have an urgency to share the truth with them. You’re hit with the cosmic significance of this single person’s eternity. When that sinks in, then you start to look at your workplace or your school and realize that God feels this way about every single person. Suddenly, you’re looking at the same things completely differently. Your heart syncs with the heart of God. The cover over your eyes is pulled back. People who are strangers suddenly matter to you.
Notice Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” Jesus isn’t asking you to do anything he hasn’t already done. In other words, the Father sent the Son. The Father and the Son have sent the Spirit. And now the Father and the Son and the Spirit are sending us. We get to join Jesus on the mission. And when God came, he didn’t part the clouds and yell down, “I love you. I’m sending a book called the Bible. I will be here once a week to have a sermon for you. Everyone, show up. See you next week.” What did he do instead? He became one of us. He actually moved in the neighborhood. He lived in Nazareth. When God came, he spent 90% of his time in a poor backwater village on the far side of the Roman Empire. Isn’t that amazing? God lived in the neighborhood, and people didn’t even know it.
God has placed you in a Nazareth like where you currently are. It’s not an accident. For many of us at South City Church, that Nazareth is right here in Little Rock — our neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces. Jesus wasn’t in Nazareth by accident. And he’s inviting us to wake up and realize whatever your Nazareth is, he’s already there. He’s already at work. He’s moving in people’s hearts to draw them to himself. He’s looking for partners. It’s going to be dangerous. You’re probably going to get hurt. It’s going to require sacrifice, but you’ll be with the living God, and you’re going to see miracles happen. But you only get peace when you join him on mission. Because mission is actually the thing that pops your bubble and allows you to see where God is really at work and how you can join him.
Next, mission is not first about the activity of God, but the identity of God. Our God is a missionary God. Mission is like the heartbeat of God. 2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” At the core of mission is love. And if our God is a missionary God and we are his children, then we are a missionary people. Jesus’ mission continues through me.
How Can I Join God’s Mission in My Neighborhood?
A missionary is a sent one. It’s an ordinary person who’s taken the red pill. To be a missionary, you don’t have to cross an ocean or go through a jungle. You don’t even have to move from your zip code. All you have to do is cross the fence, cross the street, cross the gym, cross the cubicle. You have already been sent. You are probably already in your Nazareth. Jesus is already at work. Ask Jesus, “Where are you at work where I live, work, learn, and play? I don’t want to sleepwalk anymore. I want to be awake. I want to join you, Lord. Jesus, how can I join you?” Be ready to worship like you’ve never worshiped before because you will have joined God, and maybe you’ll be out of the matrix. If you’re in Little Rock and you’re ready to take the red pill, we’d love for you to join us at South City Church.
Rob Wegner