As I wrote last week, when we read the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) we tend to focus on actions: the “go and make disciples” part. This can make it seem as though mission were a task to be added on top of discipleship. But in giving the Great Commission, Jesus frames it with two declarations that are just as significant: a declaration of his authority (“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”) and a declaration of his continual presence (“I am with you always”).
When we overlook those declarations, evangelism can start to seem like something separate from the life of faith itself. It suggests a sequence: first we love Jesus, then we obey Jesus, and then we tell others about Jesus. And then evangelism becomes an extra responsibility rather than a natural expression of life in Christ. It’s no surprise, then, that many Christians live faithful lives without ever speaking about Jesus outside church walls.
But the Great Commission has a unifying theme: the love of God which is made known to us in Christ.
Let’s slowly work around to that claim, starting with Jesus’ teaching in John 15:1-8. Five times in this passage he says, “Abide in me.” And he illustrates this with the metaphor of a vine (most likely he means a grape vine). It’s a striking metaphor because it so strongly emphasises the need for connection. Only if the branch is “in” the vine, can it bear fruit. Cut it out, and it dies. Leave it in and it bears fruit. And it does so simply by virtue of being “in” the vine.
This image helps us understand what Jesus means when he promises to be “with” his disciples. Fruitfulness—whether in holiness, love, generosity, or mission—is not something added to discipleship. It is the consequence of abiding in Christ. “Whoever abides in me bears much fruit,” Jesus says. “Apart from me you can do nothing.”
Here it’s helpful to point to what Jesus says in the verse immediately after Parable of the Vine. In John 15:9 Jesus says this: “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.” It turns out that to “abide in Christ” has everything to do with love—love for God, love for Christ, love for neighbour—just as the two great commandments tell us (Matthew 22:34-40).
To my mind the most vivid picture of this sort of love is seen in Acts 2:40-47. Here Luke gives us a snapshot of a community devoted to teaching, fellowship, prayer, shared meals, and mutual care. Which is to say, devoted to Christ and to one another. It is a community characterised by love. But Luke adds one more thing: “The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Evangelism is happening—but not as a program bolted onto church life. I’m sure there were those, like Peter, who told others about Jesus. But I can’t for the life of me shake the impression that here, in the early church, we see a church for whom growth was the natural consequence of a community living in the presence of Christ. People did not merely hear a message about Jesus; they encountered a people shaped by him because they “abided in him.”
This is where contemplative spirituality enters the picture. That phrase can make some Christians uneasy, often because it is associated with New Age or Eastern practices. But “contemplative” simply means attentive. The question is not whether we contemplate, but what—or better whom—we contemplate. Christian contemplative spirituality is about attending to Christ: becoming aware of his presence with us.
Here we can get a little theological! St. Augustine in On the Trinity wrote:
…the Holy Spirit, by whom we love God and our neighbor, is God as love…and He is in a certain way the mutual love of the Father and the Son.
Which is basically to say that the presence of the Holy Spirit and the presence of God’s love are one and the same. The loving community that we saw in Acts 2, is also a community of the Spirit’s presence. Which is to say, it is the community of Christ’s presence. And if “attending to Christ” is the goal of contemplation, then it’s a short step to realise it also means “attending to love.” Contemplative practices—prayer, Scripture, worship, shared life in the church—are ways of attending to love, of becoming aware of the presence of Christ which I so easily missed but which is absolutely fundamental to the life of the believer and of the church.
If we want to bear fruit, we must begin where Jesus begins: not with frantic activity, but by paying attention. Christ is with us. The challenge is to notice.