Misioneros: Motives

We've been thinking some about motives and motivations lately. One of the questions that complements "What is a missionary?" is "Why be a missionary?" For all of us involved in God's mission (i.e. the Church), this is an important question - why do we do what we do? And for us, as we've relocated ourselves to another place and are often referred to vocationally as "missionaries", these questions of motivation are close.

Henri Nouwen lists lots of reasons that people decide to be "missioners"--which he defines here as people working in Christian/humanitarian work in a cross-cultural setting. Escaping our home culture, looking for adventure, breaking away from family, experiencing an urge to help the poor, searching for self-affirmation, having an intellectual interest in another culture . . . there are more.

Even more challenging for us is Nouwen's warning about the two most damaging motives: guilt and the desire to save. Compassion and guilt are deceptively similar--one often slips into the place of the other. Seeing extreme poverty is hard, especially when we think about our material wealth. The inevitable feelings of guilt can drive us to "compassionate" service, but these motivations can be dangerous. The guilt won't go away and can lead to burnout because "we're never doing enough."

The desire to save, whether it be saving people from poverty or saving their souls, can also be a detrimental motive. Mainly, who are we to save anyone? It's God that does the saving, not us. To assume that we can save others, whether from physical or spiritual problems, is arrogant--and even idolatrous--on our parts. And it harms human relationships, where one person is set up as the 'savior' while the recipient becomes dependent on former, when both are just humans in need of saving.

We will always have mixed motives, but we like Nouwen's reminder: "The issue is not to have perfectly motivated missioners, but missioners who are willing to be purified again and again as they struggle to find their true vocation in life." Humility and the willingness to be shaped by God are the most important characteristics for all of us seeking to live God's mission!

We would love to hear your thoughts and comments on this topic!