But the thing that made me think about a mission, the thing that got me going was a very disturbing sign I read here in Upper Sandusky.  It is one of those large message board signs outside a business on a main road.  Maybe you’ve seen it.  It reads “Sadaam is in hell.  Mission Accomplished”.
 
 Please do not hear me say I condone in any way the atrocities committed by this man.  What he did was evil and if my family members or friends had suffered and died at his hand I would certainly wish him the worst.  And he needed to be captured and tried fairly and he needed to pay for the crimes he had committed.  But Sadaam is in hell…Mission Accomplished?  Was that our mission?  To take one more life in response to those taken by him?
 
 Luke’s Gospel offers words, I believe, that speak to this question.  I think it is important, for us, as followers of Christ in the world, as people on a mission, to consider them.  John the Baptizer tells the people: “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” 

 At first glance it may seem that this text offers support to the actions applauded on that sign board.  The chaff has been burned, cleared from the threshing floor.  But the caution is to see that this task of sorting, this winnowing, has been given to Jesus alone.  John does not say it is to be our task as well and Scripture never tells us that it is our job to determine who is right or wrong, good or bad, wheat or chaff.  Scripture tells us that our task, our call, our mission here is to do three things: Love God, and love our neighbor as ourselves.  Clearly the world has ways that  deal with those people whose actions are so evil, so violent, so horrific, they can no longer live among us, but our task, our mission as the people of God is not about judgment.

 In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is baptized along with the other people being baptized.    “Jesus' baptism inaugurated his public ministry by identifying with what Luke describes as "all the people." He allied himself with the faults and failures, pains and problems, of all the broken and hurting people who had flocked to the Jordan river. By wading into the waters with them he took his place beside us and among us. Not long into his public mission the sanctimonious religious leaders derided Jesus as a "friend of gluttons and sinners." With his baptism Jesus openly and decisively declared that he stands shoulder to shoulder with me in my fears and anxieties. He intentionally takes sides with people in their neediness, and declares that God is biased in their favor: "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:15–16, NIV). God's abundant mercy, Jesus declared, was available directly and immediately to every person; it was not the private preserve doled out by the temple establishment.”  

 Our mission, then, is to declare that good news of grace and mercy as a free gift.  This is the essence of the Gospel and it is the foundation of our identity as Lutherans.  Saved by the grace of God, through faith, not works.  And this is a message that the world is longing to hear, that the world needs to hear.              

 Each of us were called to this mission at our own baptisms.  We were held by our parents or sponsors, we were immersed in a large pool, we bent our heads over the font, but we were claimed and called in those very waters to participate in the mission.
 
 And the mission takes us, by necessity, outside of these doors.  Just like Jim in Mission Impossible, we have to move outside of what makes us comfortable in order to do the job.  Because, my sisters and brothers, the world is a hurting place.  People are hungry, sick, and impoverished.  People have been judged as unworthy or unclean or unloved, sometimes, oftentimes, by the church that claims to show the love of God.  People are frightened, scared, and alone.
 
 Your mission, Beth and your mission Russ, and your mission Austen and my mission and the mission of every person here…is not an impossible one, for we know that with God, all things are possible.  Our mission, as the baptized people of God is not to judge, is not to condemn, our mission is simple: we love God, we love one another as we love ourselves and we share God’s love with all we meet, without exception, without exclusion, accepting them without condition, just as we have been accepted in the waters of baptism, just as we have been welcomed, just as we have been loved, claimed, and called into mission.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.