Jesus sends (apostellô) his messengers (apostoloi) out into the world to share his message and his ministry, but the sending of the apostles is not so much about traveling vast distances as it is about being present for the people around them. Wherever you live, that is the place evangelization occurs.

Jesus stresses this aspect of presence when he says, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave.” A word missing from this translation (NRSV) is the Greek adverb ekeithen, “from that place.” As a whole the sentence would read, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave from that place,” indicating presence in the place where you are. We are to be grounded to a place, which today we might call inculturation.

In Canada, First Nations people today are dealing with the aftermath of residential schools, in which a number of Christian churches contracted to run schools on behalf of the government of Canada. Such schools, instead of being sources of Gospel presence, were often places of sexual, physical and emotional abuse and even death. They were also called by Judge Murray Sinclair, the head of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a source of “cultural genocide.” The prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, apologized for the residential schools in 2008, as did the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Presbyterian Church of Canada and various groups within the Roman Catholic Church of Canada at earlier dates. Much still remains not just to be said, but to be done.

But how could evangelization turn so foul and lead in so many cases to abject cruelty? A large part of the sinfulness had to do with not respecting the inherent dignity of native peoples and not living with them in their place, but attempting to turn the Gospel into a particular instantiation of European Christianity. Pope Francis reminds us in “The Joy of the Gospel” (No. 190), that “the mere fact that some people are born in places with fewer resources or less development does not justify the fact that they are living with less dignity.”

Jesus sent his apostles to live with people as they were and where they were, and to invite them to live with him. Indeed, when two disciples of John the Baptist encountered Jesus, they did not ask him, “Who are you?” but “Where are you staying?” Jesus told them to “come and see,” and they remained with Jesus that whole day (Jn 1:38).

It is the encounter with and dwelling with Jesus that creates disciples. The apostles are able to represent Jesus because they know him and have lived with him. Just as he welcomed them, they are to welcome and stay with all they meet, relying not on material goods but on God and the kindness of strangers.

A part of their evangelistic proclamation of the coming of the kingdom of God is the call “that all should repent.” Embedded in the call, though, is the cost of rejection. Those who hear the message and reject it bear a burden, but it is a burden that weighs especially heavily on those who have been commissioned to proclaim the message but refuse to live it. We all need to hear the message anew and to be prepared always to repent, for “the church does not evangelize unless she constantly lets herself be evangelized” (“The Joy of the Gospel,” No. 174).

What is amazing is how many First Nations people heard the Gospel message in spite of its flawed and sinful bearers, in spite of the cruelty inflicted on their people and their culture. This is because the Gospel, when encountered in its joyous truth, reveals “a single home” for all people in the church to dwell (“On Christian Joy,” Pope Paul VI, 1975). This “single home” must always be ready to welcome strangers into the family.

Even more, we must be able to repent when the Gospel of joy and hospitality has been tarnished with the cruelty of racism and prejudice. When we bring the Gospel, it must be with a spirit of humility. If we are asking people to stay with us in our single home, we must be willing to remain with them, where they are, and recognize that God dwells with them too.

This article appears in July 6-13 2015.

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.