World Mission Sunday: An Anglican Perspective

The Second-to-Last Sunday of Epiphany

The Second-to-Last Sunday of Epiphany occupies a distinctive place in the Anglican liturgical year. It is not a Principal Feast and not a Red-Letter Holy Day. It is a Sunday within the Season of Epiphany, and it has a name: World Mission Sunday. The BCP 2019 appoints a Collect on page 604 and lectionary readings on page 720 for this Sunday, and provides a rubric allowing the Collect, psalm, and lessons appointed for World Mission Sunday to be substituted for any Sunday of Epiphany except the First or the Last. This provision gives World Mission Sunday unusual flexibility within the Epiphany season, allowing its missionary propers to be used when that emphasis is pastorally most fitting.

World Mission Sunday falls one Sunday before the Last Sunday of Epiphany, one week before Transfiguration Sunday, and ten days before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. It arrives as the Epiphany season is drawing toward its close, after the long unfolding of Christ’s identity through his ministry and before the great disclosure of the Transfiguration. Its placement is fitting: the season of manifestation has been building the Church’s understanding of who Christ is, and World Mission Sunday presses that understanding outward, asking what it means that the one manifested through the season must be made known to every race and nation.

The Missionary Character of Epiphany

The Season of Epiphany has always carried a missionary character. The feast that opens it, the Epiphany of January 6, commemorates the Magi’s arrival from the East: Gentiles coming to worship Israel’s Messiah and a firstfruits of the nations coming to the brightness of his rising. Isaiah’s vision had promised it: “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.” (Isaiah 60:3, ESV) The whole season unfolds in the light of that promise. The manifestation of Christ does not terminate upon those who first receive it. The light revealed in Israel’s Messiah is light for the nations and salvation reaching toward the ends of the earth.

World Mission Sunday gathers this theme explicitly and places it near the season’s conclusion. The Epiphany season has been asking who Jesus is as his identity is manifested through his Baptism, ministry, teaching, healing, signs, and authority. World Mission Sunday presses the next question: what does the Church do with the revelation she has received? The movement is from light received to light proclaimed, and on this Sunday the missionary logic of Epiphany becomes especially explicit.

The Appointed Readings

The lectionary readings for World Mission Sunday are found on page 720 of the BCP 2019. The Prayer Book appoints three sets of readings, one for each year of the lectionary cycle, each carrying a distinct missionary emphasis. The rubric permits the World Mission Sunday Collect, psalm, and lessons to be substituted for any Sunday of Epiphany except the First or Last, allowing the missionary emphasis to be observed elsewhere within the season when pastorally appropriate.

Year A appoints Isaiah 49:1–7, Psalm 67, Acts 1:1–8, and Matthew 9:35–38. Isaiah 49 is the Second Servant Song, in which the Servant’s mission extends beyond the restoration of Israel toward the nations: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6, ESV) Acts 1:1–8 records the risen Christ’s final commission before the Ascension: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8, ESV) Matthew 9:35–38 then shows Jesus looking upon the crowds with compassion because they are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd, and telling his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:37–38, ESV) Year A therefore joins the Servant’s mission, the apostolic witness, and Christ’s command to pray for laborers.

Year B appoints Genesis 12:1–3, Psalm 86:8–13, Revelation 7:9–17, and Matthew 28:16–20. Genesis 12 records God’s promise to Abraham that “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:3, ESV) The missionary horizon of Scripture therefore begins not with a late change of divine plans but within the covenant promise itself. Revelation 7:9–17 displays the eschatological fulfillment: a great multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language standing before the throne and before the Lamb. Matthew 28:16–20 supplies the Great Commission: “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.” (Matthew 28:19, ESV) Year B places the Church’s mission within the great biblical arc from Abraham’s calling to the worship of the redeemed multitude before the Lamb.

Year C appoints Isaiah 61:1–4, Psalm 96, Romans 10:9–17, and John 20:19–31. Isaiah 61 is the passage Jesus reads in the synagogue at Nazareth and declares fulfilled in the hearing of his congregation: the Spirit of the Lord upon him, good news to the poor, and liberty to the captives. Romans 10:9–17 gives Paul’s missionary logic: “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” (Romans 10:14, ESV) John 20:19–31 then brings the Church to the risen Christ, who tells his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” (John 20:21, ESV) Year C grounds the Church’s mission in the sending of the Son and the gift of the Spirit: the Church is sent by Christ and participates, by grace, in a mission that begins with God rather than with herself.

The BCP 2019 Collect and Preface

The BCP 2019 appoints the following Collect for World Mission Sunday on page 604: “Almighty God, through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, you revealed the way of eternal life to every race and nation: Pour out this gift anew, that by the preaching of the Gospel your salvation may reach to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

The Collect moves from what God has already done to what the Church now asks him to do again. Through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, God revealed the way of eternal life to every race and nation; the Gospel has gone out, sinners have believed, and peoples once far off have been gathered into Christ. Because God has acted, the Church now asks him to “pour out this gift anew.” Mission therefore begins not with the Church’s ingenuity or energy but with the gracious action of God. The Church prays for the renewed gift of the Spirit so that, through the preaching of the Gospel, God’s salvation may continue to reach toward the ends of the earth.

The Collect ends, as Anglican Collects characteristically do, in a Trinitarian doxology: the Church prays through Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit. That conclusion places mission within the life and action of the Triune God. The Church does not generate her own missionary power but asks the Father, through the Son, for the renewed outpouring of the Spirit by whom the Gospel is carried to the nations.

The Preface of the Epiphany, found on page 153 of the BCP 2019, is appointed for World Mission Sunday: “Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who took on our mortal flesh to reveal his glory; that he might bring us out of darkness and into his own glorious light.” (BCP 2019, p. 153) The Preface names the movement that World Mission Sunday carries outward. Christ has brought his people from darkness into his glorious light, and those who have received that light are sent to bear witness to the one who gave it. Mission is therefore rooted in manifestation: the Church proclaims the Christ who has first made himself known.

The Flexible Rubric

The BCP 2019’s provision that the World Mission Sunday Collect, psalm, and lessons may be substituted for any Sunday of Epiphany except the First or the Last is a practical expression of the season’s missionary character. Any Sunday from the Second through the Second-to-Last may therefore bear the World Mission Sunday emphasis. The rubric recognizes that explicit missionary proclamation is not foreign to Epiphany but arises naturally from a season centered upon Christ manifested as light for the nations.

In practice, a parish may observe World Mission Sunday on its appointed Sunday or use these propers on another permitted Sunday when the missionary emphasis is especially fitting: perhaps when missionaries are visiting, when the congregation is considering a particular missionary commitment, or when the life of the parish gives unusual occasion for sustained prayer for the Church’s mission. The flexibility serves the mission of the Church without changing the theological character of the Epiphany season.

World Mission Sunday in Anglican Worship

World Mission Sunday stands within the ordinary movement of the Season of Epiphany. The liturgical color is green, fitting the season’s themes of growth, discipleship, and mission. The First Sunday of Epiphany, the Baptism of Our Lord, and the Last Sunday, the Transfiguration, carry their own festal emphases, while World Mission Sunday belongs among the intervening Sundays in which the manifested Christ forms and sends his disciples. The green therefore fits a Sunday concerned not only with hearing who Christ is but with growing into the missionary life that follows from knowing him.

The day provides a natural occasion for a congregation to hear from missionaries, support missionary work, pray for peoples among whom Christ is little known, and renew its own participation in the Church’s global commission. The Great Commission of Matthew 28 in Year B, the missionary logic of Romans 10 in Year C, and Isaiah 49’s Servant as light to the nations in Year A all direct the Church beyond herself. The Gospel must be preached, laborers must be sent, and the nations must hear, yet all of this remains dependent upon the God who calls, sends, gives his Spirit, and brings sinners to faith.

The Collect’s petition, “pour out this gift anew,” is therefore especially fitting for congregations that have grown comfortable in the faith they have received. The Spirit who brought the Gospel to us was not given so that the Church might hoard the light of Christ. World Mission Sunday presses Epiphany’s manifestation outward, calling the Church to bear witness to the one who has first revealed himself to her.

Observing This Sunday

World Mission Sunday falls on the Second-to-Last Sunday of Epiphany, the Sunday before Transfiguration Sunday and ten days before Ash Wednesday. The Collect is on page 604 of the BCP 2019, and the lectionary readings are on page 720. The World Mission Sunday Collect, psalm, and lessons may also be substituted for any other Sunday of Epiphany except the First or Last.

Pray the Collect with the weight of its central petition: “Pour out this gift anew.” Read the appointed Gospel for the year and allow its missionary summons to become concrete. In Year A, hear Jesus’ compassion for the harassed and helpless crowds and pray earnestly for laborers to be sent into the harvest. In Year B, stand with the eleven in Galilee and hear the Great Commission addressed to the Church in her present generation. In Year C, hear the risen Christ say, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you,” and ask where obedience to that sending may lead.

It is also an appropriate Sunday to bring the congregation’s missionary commitments deliberately before God: pray by name for missionaries supported by the parish, for peoples among whom the Gospel is scarcely known, for the Church in places of persecution, and for those preparing to be sent. The Collect asks God to pour out the Holy Spirit anew, and a congregation that prays such a prayer should also be willing to be used by God as he answers it.

Conclusion

World Mission Sunday is Epiphany pressing its light outward. Through the season the Church has been shown who Christ is, hearing the Father’s testimony, watching his ministry unfold, receiving his teaching, and beholding the signs by which his identity is manifested. Near the season’s end, World Mission Sunday reminds the Church that revelation is not given for private possession. The Christ who has made himself known must be proclaimed.

The Collect therefore teaches the Church how mission begins. She does not first ask how clever, courageous, wealthy, or organized she can become. She asks God to pour out the Holy Spirit anew, because the salvation proclaimed to the nations is God’s salvation, the Gospel is God’s Gospel, and the harvest belongs to the Lord. The readings then show what Spirit-enabled mission looks like: witnesses are sent, laborers are raised up, preachers proclaim Christ, disciples are baptized and taught, and the nations are gathered into the worship of the Lamb.

World Mission Sunday therefore does not allow the Season of Epiphany to end in contemplation alone. The light that has been revealed becomes light proclaimed, and the Church moves toward the Transfiguration already remembering that the glorious Christ is the Lord who sends his people into the world. The prayer of the day gives that missionary confidence its proper foundation: “Almighty God, through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, you revealed the way of eternal life to every race and nation: Pour out this gift anew, that by the preaching of the Gospel your salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” (BCP 2019, p. 604)