The following article appears in the Forward, the newsletter of the Diocese of Fort Worth:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” Matthew 28:19-20

This is the imperative of every evangelism campaign, every missionary team, and every mission-minded parish worth its salt. This is the text which has inspired the saints through the ages to be missionaries, wherever they are. And yet, how often we ignore the bread of the sandwich for the strong meat in between.

“I am the Bread of Life,” Jesus says in the Gospel of John. Here, He reminds us that all authority has been given, not to us, but to Him. In the end of the Gospel, after the command to disciple, baptize, and teach the nations, He promises to be with the disciples in all that they do. In short, it is Jesus Christ who is the bread of the Church’s mission, undertaken on His authority and in His presence. Because of this, it follows that the teaching of the Church is to be the very teaching of Christ – meaning that there is no other version of Jesus than the Church’s version. Oh how unpopular this is in today’s world!

I had the opportunity this summer to serve as the Chaplain at the Samaritan House in Fort Worth. The Samaritan House is a home for AIDS patients in Fort Worth, just south of downtown. It is funded with government funding as well as the giving of various church organizations, of which our diocese is one. A majority of the residents are drug addicts, many of them grew up in absolute poverty. I prayed with them, presided over the burials of two of them, and held numerous counseling sessions.

The sad fact of HIV/AIDS is that if these men and women, of all ages and races, had been taught the commandments of Our Lord and had observed them, they would not be living with the tragedy of AIDS. Had they not shot up a spoonful of heroin, been involved in homosexual relationships, or committed adultery, the AIDS virus would never have entered their bloodstreams.

The salve of Jesus’s saving blood is not merely effective upon the soul, but for the healing of our bodies and our minds. Because of this – the Gospel is not morally neutral - it has a moral content. Thus the necessity of teaching the commandments of Jesus is made clear. Sadly, many churches, including our own, have believed the divorce of moral teaching from the Gospel to be necessary, claiming that accessibility to the Gospel is hindered by the difficulty of moral demands.

Allow me to tell you what this does to unsuspecting recipients of this false gospel.

A homosexual man I met was in “long-term” relationship with another man. Both of them relapsed on cocaine one weekend. Both of them have AIDS, both of them are on anti-depressants, and both of them attend a church which affirms their lifestyles while trying to feed them the Bread of Life. Certainly, they cry out for compassion, but they cry out for the compassion of a Savior who says “go and sin no more.” They cry out for the authority of Jesus which will lead them to salvation. They long for the presence of Jesus, present with them in temptation, who will not allow them to be tempted beyond what they can bear.

However difficult it was to see this day in and day out, I saw the glimmer of hope in the eyes of the Christians I came to know and love. One had committed himself to life-long celibacy. Another gave up a life of drug-running and promiscuity for discipleship to Our Lord. He is a deacon in his Baptist congregation. Another was baptized recently, desirous to leave her former life in the dust. One man prayed with me to be able to forgive his unforgiving wife who had tossed him out on his ear. He had contracted the disease before meeting her, while in college, and while she was never infected, she was still angry. Jesus was with me every day at the Samaritan House, and I went with His authority.

There are those who say that we, the Church, ought to send money for AIDS research rather than point fingers. Send money? Of course. Point fingers, no. It is Jesus who convicts the world of sin. Our mission is to preach the Gospel and baptize. But, the Church’s mission also includes the teaching of the possibility of holiness, the commands of Our Lord and His victory over sin and death. To dare to teach chastity, even if unpopular, to dare to believe that Jesus can change the hearts of the most hardened sinners, this is our calling and mission. Our imperative has been given, let us merely be faithful.

-Lee Nelson