Sermon on the Great Commission, mission history in New Zealand, and what it means to live missionally
A sermon by Rev. Harry Newton at SumRed Church, delivered August 3, 2025, on Matthew 28:16–20.
Summary
Rev. Harry Newton preaches on the Great Commission, using it as a springboard to explore what "mission" actually means — historically, theologically, and practically. He opens by acknowledging the painful legacy of missionary complicity in New Zealand's colonial history, citing figures such as John Whiteley and Bishop Selwyn, before offering a counter-narrative through the life of Henry Williams, a CMS missionary who advocated for Māori sovereignty and suffered for it. Newton draws a parallel between Williams and the Apostle Paul, arguing that genuine mission flows not from cultural superiority or political ambition, but from a personal encounter with the grace of Jesus. He introduces the five marks of mission to show that mission is multi-dimensional — encompassing proclamation, service, justice, reconciliation, and care for creation — and closes with a challenge to his congregation to adopt a "missional mindset" in their everyday lives.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Scripture Reading: Matthew 28:16–20
Rev. Harry Newton: Today's reading is from Matthew 28, verses 16 to 20.
"Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.'"
What Does "Mission" Actually Mean?
What does the word "mission" actually mean? Who here speaks Christianese? If you don't speak Christianese, awesome. I'm multilingual — I can speak many dialects of Christianese. "Bless your brother," for example. All those strange things. You know when sometimes you see something on Instagram, it pops up and you think, that guy's a little bit crazy? The other day I saw one — this morning my wife made me pancakes and she put fruit on it, and that got me thinking about the fruits of the Spirit. So today we're going to talk about Jesus and why you should vote Republican. That was on my Instagram this morning. It's hilarious, and it's not AI — that's the best thing about it.
What I mean by that is we bring a bit of cultural baggage to certain terms. We also assume that certain people think like us, but we don't all think the same. In fact, a healthy church is a church full of people who are all a little bit different. And so I thought it might be interesting to explore briefly what mission actually means, because as I say, we bring meaning, significance, and sometimes even baggage to the term.
I also want to take a moment to acknowledge that for some people, the word "mission" is a really loaded term — particularly for those of us who are not Pākehā — in part because of what we're told nowadays about the complicity of the missionary movement and the colonialist endeavours of the European powers. I think we need to own that. There is probably an element at times of revisionist history going on, but nonetheless, we have to own up to the fact that at least in our own country, the church has a murky past.
John Whiteley and the Taranaki War
For example, John Whiteley. Anyone heard of John Whiteley? John Whiteley was a Wesleyan minister. He came to New Zealand in the 1850s — so post the Treaty of Waitangi — and set up shop in the Taranaki, where my brother and my parents all live. If you know that part of the country, it's quite wild even to this day. There are some very remote areas, like where my mum and dad live — it's about three or three and a half hours to the nearest town. Pretty remote out there.
He went out there as a missionary, and he started to side with the local settler government regarding land disputes, particularly and most notably in regards to the Waitara block purchase. If you haven't heard about it, long story short, someone tried to sell some land that didn't actually belong to them. It turned into a full-on war — it's called the Taranaki War. We often think of the New Zealand Wars and the Māori Land Wars, but actually the Taranaki War was its own standalone war. Horrific. Entire villages razed to the ground, terrible suffering on both sides, ambushes left, right and centre, starvation, trench warfare — the whole nine yards. It was terrible.
And in the midst of all that, you had old John Whiteley advocating to the Māori — who he was supposed to be ministering to — about how great the Pākehā were. Throughout his ministry, he started to tell them that they needed to submit if they wanted to be Christians. If they wanted to go to heaven, they had to submit to the colonial powers. And he started to take intelligence. Imagine here this morning, we were all having a bit of coffee, and I'm walking around listening in and getting some gossip, and I go down the road and start reporting it to my old mate in Wellington — Christopher Luxon — so he can keep an eye on you. That kind of stuff. He started doing that. He started taking intelligence from the Māori and feeding it to the colonial powers.
Eventually, as the conflict in the Taranaki War escalated, he was actually killed in an ambush by the very Māori he had been embedded to serve. It's very easy, I think, to be dispassionate about death when we don't see it close up and say, "Oh, he deserved it." I can understand that — he sounds like a right ratbag. Terrible nonetheless that he died. He had a wife, he had kids. They had no money, no means, no land. They were stuffed without him. Horrific that he died and what happened. But you can understand from the warrior's perspective why they did that to him. They saw him as being complicit in the colonization and confiscation of their lands.
Bishop Selwyn
Now, you might say, "Rightio, Whiteley was a bit of a bad egg." Because there's always a few bad eggs out there, aren't there? But it wasn't just him. Bishop Selwyn — anyone heard of Bishop Selwyn? If you haven't, he was the first Anglican bishop of New Zealand. Absolute ratbag. He really was, actually. I'm not supposed to say that because I'm an ordained priest — I'm supposed to be very pro my bishops. I wouldn't follow that guy into bathwater, let alone into anything else. He went on the march with the British troops and blessed them as they marched into combat. He went into areas after Māori villages had been razed and blessed the land and consecrated it to the use of the settlers. And when the Māori saw him doing this, they understood it as the church's blessing of an agreement with the aims of the settlers.
Henry Williams — A Different Kind of Missionary
So the point of all this is that as Jesus followers — and if you don't consider yourself a Jesus follower, all good, we're stoked you're here — for those of us who do consider ourselves Jesus followers, we must own the fact that some of the early missionaries and the early church in New Zealand mean that we have a painful history in terms of colonialism. But we do need to make sure that we don't fall into the trap of simply accepting revisionist history. Not all the missionaries were complicit in terrible things.
For example, Henry Williams. He was a Church Missionary Society — CMS — missionary who came here in the early 19th century. He's actually portrayed by many revisionist historians as being a bit of a bad guy — a colonial who helped write the Treaty of Waitangi as a way of trying to steal Māori land. That's a quite common view in some circles, particularly back in Wellington where I'm from. James Belich, some of you may have heard of him, helped popularize that opinion to a degree. Yet all the evidence available to us shows this simply is not true.
Far from being a colonial-minded person who came here to civilize the Māori, he instead insisted that all sermons be preached in Te Reo Māori, all scripture readings be done in Te Reo Māori, and that the Eucharist — the communion — must be done in Te Reo Māori. Why? Because he wanted to share God's grace and the good news of Jesus with people, not make them be more like him. He advocated for both the rights of Māori and settlers. He wasn't just all about the Māori — he was this person who tried to advocate for all groups. There was a point where he physically stood between warring factions as they shot at each other, as he sued for peace. And despite some fairly significant translation issues, he helped co-write the Treaty, and then he traveled New Zealand encouraging Māori to sign it because he wanted to protect their sovereignty.
Now, as we now know, he mistranslated some things in there with some genuinely significant consequences to this day, and we're seeing the ramifications of that right now. But his heart was pure. He didn't set out trying to steal their land. He did amazing things, and he won the affection and respect of both Māori and Europeans.
Part of his legacy, I think, is a reminder to us that mission is not synonymous with colonialism. Despite some missionaries' complicity and early church complexity, Williams shows us that mission is not inherently imperialistic, nor is mission about cultural suppression or land acquisition. Mission is about something else entirely.
Here's the thing about Henry Williams. Despite his incredible legacy, he endured some terrible treatment at the hands of his fellow Europeans, both within the government and the church. The governor of the day pressured Bishop Selwyn, and Bishop Selwyn managed to mastermind having Henry Williams kicked out of his beloved CMS and out of the church for a season. He was eventually allowed back in, but he was essentially ostracized from his own people.
What had happened was that the Māori were losing land. He went and bought large tracts of land for next to nothing, and then the Māori happened to live on it rent-free. So he was protecting them. Settlers knew he was doing this, so they accused him of ripping off Māori in illegal transactions, and so he had all the land taken off him, including his home, leaving his wife and children with nothing. He was vilified in the press and treated awfully — all because he advocated for the rights of Māori. And yet he didn't give up. He didn't change course. He stood his ground until the day he died. He proudly called himself a missionary. Why? Because his heart had been captured by the good news of Jesus.
Paul and the Motivation for Mission
When I look at his life, I see echoes of Romans chapter 15. It says:
"Thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation. But, as it is written, those who have never been told of him will see; those who have never heard of him will understand."
That's from a letter written to the church in Rome 2,000 years ago by a man named Paul. I talk about Paul a lot. Paul was a very influential leader in the early church and the most successful missionary in the history of the church — not to be confused with David Livingstone, who was the missionary in East Africa, quite famous, who was considered the worst missionary in the history of the planet because he had one conversion. And when he went back to visit the guy, he found out the guy had actually adopted a different religion by accident. Unlike him, Paul actually did a really amazing job.
Early in that same chapter, chapter 15, Paul tells us that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum, he had fully proclaimed the good news of Jesus Christ — Jerusalem being in Israel, Illyricum being in the Western Balkans, and Rome, of course, being in modern-day Italy. Like Henry Williams, Paul traveled incredible distances to share the good news of Jesus. Why? Because his heart had been captured by grace.
Now, if you come to this church regularly, you'll know I harp on about grace a lot, and I don't apologize for that. The reason I talk about grace a lot is — to quote Tim Keller — grace changes everything, and we see that in the reality of Paul's life.
Paul's original name was actually Saul. He was a terrible human being. There was just nothing redeemable about the guy. He openly persecuted Christians. He oversaw and approved of the murder of a young Christian man called Stephen. And he openly opposed anyone sympathetic to the Christian faith. He tells us that he went from house to house, ripping men, women, and children from their homes for being suspected followers of Jesus.
And yet, despite all his evil intent, he one day encountered the risen Jesus. We're told that he was on his way to Damascus — which is still a city to this day in modern-day Syria — planning to arrest Christians and hand them over to be tortured and killed, when a blinding light stopped him in his tracks. He says he heard a voice saying, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" To which he responded — which is a completely legit question — "Who are you?" In other words, what's going on? And the reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting."
And that moment changed everything in his life. Instead of striking Saul down — which is what a Greek demigod would have done, for example — Jesus confronted him with the truth of who he was, and then led Saul, physically blind and completely humbled, into the city. Jesus then sent a man called Ananias to come meet him and pray for him. Ananias prayed for him, and we're told something like scales fell from his eyes. Saul's sight was restored and his soul was restored. He was baptized that day. He was forgiven. He changed his name to Paul, symbolically, and he was welcomed into the very church that he had tried to destroy.
The point there is he did not earn his redemption, and he didn't deserve it. He was a terrible human being. It was simply given to him — this fresh start — which is what we mean by grace: that unearned, unmerited favor and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.
Paul described this intense experience in a letter — it's called 1 Timothy. It says this in chapter 1:
"Even though I was once a persecutor and a violent man, the grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly. Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst."
Paul was a terrible human being. He was complicit in all sorts of brutality and horrific acts of violence and evil and terror, and yet he found freedom from his past, purpose in his present, and hope for his future through the grace of God which he experienced through Jesus. And because of this, he dedicated the rest of his life to, quote, "preaching the gospel so that those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand."
A personal encounter with the risen Jesus is what underpinned both Paul's and Williams' motivation to travel the world telling others about Jesus. They were not motivated by cultural superiority or political ambition or wanting some nice beachfront property here in Sumner — as nice as that would be. They were motivated by a deep conviction that the love, grace, and life transformation they had received in Jesus was too good not to share with others.
They took seriously Jesus' command in our reading this morning to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that he had commanded. They took this seriously. Why? Because of their grace-filled encounters with Jesus.
Mission Is More Than Words
But — as good as all that might sound — it's important to remember that mission is more nuanced than simply yelling at people about Jesus. I was in Tauranga a few years ago. Amy's family had a bach there, and we went for a walk around the shopping area. Has anyone been to the Margaret Mahy playground there? It's awesome — there's like Harry McLary. It's huge. And we're walking past and this guy starts — probably about my age — starts yelling at me. I thought, oh, he's obviously a mental health patient. That's fine, I'll ignore him. And he starts following me, and Amy's like, "I think he wants your attention." And she walked off and left me by myself. He pulled out this placard — "Repent or burn" — and he's yelling at me. I said, "Brother" — I told you I'm fluent in Christianese — "I'm already bathed in the blood." He goes, "Oh, bless you, brother," and he walked off.
Now, that is not mission. He thought he was doing mission. The guy's crazy. Jesus loves him. Good on him, and everyone needs a place to belong. But that is probably doing a lot more harm than good. That is not what we mean by mission. Mission is not simply yelling at someone with a placard and speaking Christianese.
Paul and Henry Williams were both incredible evangelists, yes, but their mission extended beyond verbal proclamation. They were both deeply concerned with building up the church, caring for the vulnerable, advocating for justice, and living lives of service. Paul, for example — we're told this in both Romans 15 and later in the letters to the Corinthians — he took up what we consider to be the first international aid relief for people suffering from famine and to alleviate poverty. And Williams, we're told, put himself in harm's way when Russell — Kororāreka — was sacked.
Russell being up in the far north — Hone Heke, remember him? Coming up at the flagpole. When that happened, all escalated and turned into quite a bad bit of violence. Hone Heke's men raided Russell, burnt down a large chunk of the township. There was fighting, the whole thing started to escalate out of control. And do you know what Williams did? He ran into the fray unarmed to help rescue people from burning buildings. The guy took seriously the idea of mission beyond words.
The Five Marks of Mission
And that's why we have something called the five marks of mission. It's this thing we use to try and describe what mission is in the church, so we can understand that it's more than just speaking.
The first mark is to proclaim the good news of Jesus — so yes, using your words.
The second is to teach, baptize, and nurture new believers — so it's about coming alongside people. The Christianese word is "disciple." We might say mentoring.
The third is to respond to human need by loving service. That's why we have the city mission. That's why Jeff's down the road at the Sallies. Same with Robin and others doing their thing there.
Our fourth mark of mission is to transform unjust structures of society, to work for peace, and to pursue reconciliation. After World War II, when the Nazis bombed Coventry, they completely flattened Coventry Cathedral, and it was rebuilt. Some of you may have seen it. They went around and got the big metal pegs — nails — out of the old rubble, and they milled them together to make crosses, and they handed them out to a bunch of bishops across the world. The bishops to this day hand them on to the next bishop. What they are there to do is to remind those bishops who live in war-torn regions that it's their job to advocate for peace and reconciliation at all times, because that is part of the mission of God. My mum and dad have a replica made of it, and it's put on a pou — like a Māori pou — outside their house. And it's there to show that they're there to help work for the reconciliation between the iwi in that area who have warred for a long time.
And the fifth and final mark of mission is to safeguard God's creation.
These five marks are used across the world by all sorts of different churches — Anglican and all sorts — and they help define what it is we mean by mission. What they do is remind us that mission is not one-dimensional. It's not about just yelling at someone with a bullhorn. Mission is both word and action-based. It involves proclamation, but also participation in God's redemptive work for the planet.
If I'm going to put this really simply: mission is nuanced. It's not just about preaching or sharing a testimony. As powerful as that is — particularly sharing your testimony — mission is nuanced. It means ministering to someone when they face a terrible diagnosis. It means sitting there holding someone's hand as they breathe their last, petrified about death. It means doing what my wife did back in Greytown — going with women who had been abused through the courts and being there for them as their only form of support through a system that was designed not to support them. It means that mission involves standing up for the vulnerable and advocating for peace, even when it might cost us something.
And I have noticed the church's silence on Gaza and the West Bank is deafening. We're scared to say anything outright in case it offends someone. And yet mission involves standing up for the vulnerable and those who are being harmed, regardless of politics.
It also means that mission involves raising our children in the way of Jesus. And it also means that mission includes forgiving the unforgivable when the world tells you you should retaliate.
Grace Is What Makes It Missional
But here's the crucial thing. You can do all those things and it won't be missional. It's not the act that's missional — it's what underpins it.
It's become popular in the last 15 years or so — I know people have said this for a long time, but particularly in the last 15 years — it's become quite in vogue for people to start saying everything is missional. Which, to a degree, it kind of is, because as I've just said. But who remembers Kiwi cricket? When I moved to New Zealand, I thought Kiwi cricket was the weirdest thing in the world, because I didn't know what cricket was. My dad explained it to me. I went out, and then I got told I got bowled out. I got told it didn't count. Why? Everyone's a winner in Kiwi cricket. If everyone's a winner, then no one's a winner. And in the same way, if everything is missional, then nothing is mission.
For something to be missional, it needs to be ultimately aimed at proclaiming the testimony of God. That's what it tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 2. That's why we can't define mission by simply activity. We need to define mission by its source and its direction. Mission flows from a heart transformed by grace, and it points people to Jesus — which is what we see in the lives of people like Paul and Henry Williams. Mission flows from an encounter with Jesus, and that encounter also sustains it.
Do you know 50% of missionary couples divorce? Do you know that the average person doing my role burns out within five years? I'm in my 12th or 13th year — I'm well beyond that. Do you know the average youth pastor only lasts 18 months? Do you know that the average person who becomes a social justice advocate in their parish lasts less than a year? Why? Grace sustains you. You need to be connected to Jesus. You need to have daily encounters with Christ. That's what drives proclamation, and that's what motivates and sustains our service, and that's what gives meaning to justice, reconciliation, and care for the world.
You can be as conscientious as you need to be, and it's great to be conscientious — genuinely, it is. But that over time becomes meaningless and can't be sustained unless there's something behind it to make it inherently missional.
And while mission does not simply equate to evangelism, mission is nonetheless inherently evangelistic because mission always points towards the life-transforming grace of God made knowable to you and me through Jesus. Grace, therefore, is not contained to certain moments or certain places. Mission isn't just something that happens out there in deepest darkest Africa or Pakistan or the Middle East or wherever. Nor is it something that happens here at church, or when you do an Alpha course, or when you go to home group or youth group or those kinds of formal environments. It happens in the daily lives of everyday Jesus followers who have encountered God's grace and choose to live differently because of it.
A Missional Mindset
And when grace reshapes how we see ourselves and others in the world, it will always lead you to adopt a new way of living — what I refer to as a missional mindset. I'm sure you all remember it from two years ago in my sermon on Missions Month when I talked about the mission mindset. I won't rehash it, but two years ago I talked about the importance of adopting a missional mindset and how that underpins how we live our lives.
A missional mindset is about having a way of living in which every part of your life — your relationships, your work, your habits, your social life, even how you spend your money — is intentionally oriented around representing Jesus and embodying his good news. It's not about rigid evangelism or forced awkward conversations over the water cooler. "Hey, where did you get up to on the weekend?" — hoping they're going to ask you where you got to so you can say, "I went to church." That's not evangelism. If you have a natural way of talking to someone about it, great. But that's not all that we mean by mission. A missional mindset is about intentionally orienting your entire life around representing Jesus, and it's about letting God's grace shape your character, your compassion, and how you live on the daily.
So over the next few weeks, this is what we're going to do. The preaching series for this month has only got three weeks — it's this week, next week, then Annie's sharing, then there's the week after, and after that we've got another guest speaker. But what we're going to do is unpack what this actually looks like in real life. We're going to unpack how you and I can live missionally in our normal everyday lives — at work, at home, at school, at uni, in our social lives — and how we respond to the brokenness of our world.
But for today, I just want to encourage you to remember: mission is not just about verbal evangelism, nor is it synonymous with colonialism. Mission is about joining in God's redemptive work for the planet — a work that begins in grace and overflows out of our lives into the lives of others. It's about proclaiming the testimony of God in your words and in your actions, through your justice, your compassion, and your courage. It's about letting your whole life speak — your relationships, your work, your social life, and dare I say it, even your suffering.
You notice that relationships, work, and social life could all be construed in positive ways. Suffering's not. If there's anything that 21st century middle-class Kiwis fear more than anything, it's suffering. We don't fear death — that's why we're in favor of the euthanasia bill as a society. But we fear suffering. And yet even your suffering can be used to speak of the hope, love, and redemption of Jesus.
At its heart, mission is the outflow of grace. That's what we saw in Paul. That's what we saw in Henry Williams. And that's what we can see in your life and mine.
Challenge for the Week
Now, here's a challenge to take away for your week. What would it look like this week to adopt a missional mindset? Not just in theory, but in practice? What would it look like for your words, your choices, your priorities to reflect the grace of Jesus?
Because to quote an old Christian band — back in the day, a long time ago — "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge God with their lips and then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."
Put your faith into action. Have a think about what that looks like for you on the daily. Adopt a missional mindset. What would it look like for your words, your choices, and your priorities to reflect the grace of Jesus this week?
Amen.