Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• One of the unique organizational features of Matthew’s Gospel is it combines the teachings of Jesus into five long speeches. This is the second of those five speeches, what is known by scholars as the Missionary Discourse. Both Mark and Luke contain a missionary charge to the disciples, but only Matthew brings all of these teachings together into one location.
• The Missionary Discourse is organized in a chiastic structure (a common literary organizational tendency of Matthew, a simple example would be two ideas A and B, and two variants A’ and B’, organized A, B, B’, A’). The structure for this speech is A: sharing the authority of Christ and his reception (10:5b-15), B: the fate of the disciples (10:16-23), C: call to courageous confession (10:24-33), B’: the cost of discipleship (10:34-39), A’: sharing the presence of Christ and his reception (10:40-42). Today’s reading is the very end of the speech, about sharing the presence of Christ. At the beginning, Jesus addressed the disciples about how they were to spread the message, Jesus ended with how they were to receive.
• Implied in the phrase “whoever welcomes you welcomes me” is the Christological claim that Jesus is God. Not only are the disciples representatives of Christ under his own authority and power, but through Christ they represent God who is Christ.
• This section also makes clear that the focus of this message is not only on the Twelve, but on all the disciples, both those called to travel and spread the message and those called to stay and welcome the travelers.
• “Prophets” is an important phrase to unpack. The modern understanding of prophet is along the lines of a fortune teller or future predictor. But the Greek and Hebrew understanding of prophet was quite different. A prophet wasn’t someone who predicted the future; a prophet was a person who told the truth about the present. The prophets in the Old Testament recognize the hard truths of Israel’s failures and share those failures and the natural consequences of them.
• “Little ones” (v. 42) is a common Matthean phrase for ordinary Christians, new converts, and/or people with low societal status.
Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
The extraordinary can look so ordinary
Thursday, June 29, 2017
Monday, June 26, 2017
Bringing the Kingdom of Heaven is Not Always Peaceful: A Sermon on Matthew 10:24-39
Our Gospel reading for this week gives us the next section of the speech we heard last week, Jesus’ message to his disciples before he sent them out to try their own hands at proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. These final instructions are pretty challenging and if we are looking for a rousing message to send us out boldly into the mission field, we may find ourselves questioning Jesus’ skill as a motivational speaker. We don’t hear the disciples’ response to this speech, but after a similar speech, Peter will pull Jesus aside and basically tell him to lay off the death and persecution talk, so we can guess the disciples probably didn’t find this section of Jesus’ sending instructions any more uplifting than we do. But it was early in their time with Jesus, so they may have just been too intimidated to mention it to him yet.
Especially jarring, for me at least, is the part where Jesus said “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Did any of the rest of you hear that and think, “wait, what?” Jesus didn’t come to bring peace? But Jesus is the one we call the Prince of Peace. This is turn the other cheek, walk a mile with the other’s bag, proclaim release to the captives Jesus, what’s with the no peace but violence thing?
To make sense of this I think it’s helpful, as it so often is, to get a sense of this history. Because peace, even today is a pretty complex word. It seems simple, the absence of war. But think about the scope of it. New parents might long for “peace and quiet,” but it’s often quipped that the time to worry the most about toddlers is when they’re quiet. Peace talks may or may not lead to peace, and in fact historians make the argument the uneasy peace following World War One directly led to World War Two.
The word peace was equally as complex, and probably even more loaded, during Jesus’ time. Jesus lived during a period of the Roman Empire known as the Pax Romana or Peace of Rome. Stretching from 27 BCE to 180 CE, it was a period of Roman history marked by relative peacefulness and minimal expansion by the Roman Empire. Although, historian Walter Goffart noted the volume of Cambridge Ancient History that covers that time frame called it the Imperial Peace, “but peace is not what one finds in its pages.” In fact, the period of Pax Romana included the First Jewish–Roman War, the Kitos War, the Bar Kokhba Revolt, the Roman–Parthian War, Trajan's Roman–Parthian War, and Boudica's war in Britain. Which seems like a lot of war for a period known for its peace.
The other thing to keep in mind about the Pax Romana is this peace was not like how we might think of peace, where things are calm and safe, and people have the freedom to do what they want. It’s not like Rome knocked on Israel’s door and was like, hey guys, we’re going to establish a period of peace, want to join us. And the Jews were like, yeah, that sounds like a great idea! And then they all became Romans and lived happily ever after until Jesus showed up and spoiled the whole thing. Friends, the Jews were conquered. They did not want to become part of the Roman Empire, but they were. In fact of that list of wars I rattled off earlier, three of them were in Judea. Three. By the time Matthew got around to writing the Gospel we read today, the Temple had been destroyed by Rome, in a battle so violent that historians recount blood running in the streets. This is what is meant by the Peace of Rome. It was a peace kept in place by strength, by oppression, and by silencing—through violence—anyone who attempted to disturb that peace. Jesus died on a cross because that was the death of a political prisoner, Jesus died because he disrupted the peace.
Not only did he die for disturbing the peace, but the people in power warned him it would happen. The religious leadership, who were puppets put in place by the Romans, warned him, don’t heal on the Sabbath, don’t associate with outcasts, don’t gather the poor and downtrodden and promise them the kingdom of God. Jesus knew what he was doing, he knew what teaching, healing, and proclaiming the good news would do to Rome’s so-called peace. But Jesus did it anyway. He did it anyway because the Prince of Peace was concerned with bringing peace with a capital P. True Peace, lasting Peace, the kind of Peace that is freedom and hope and grace and life. Peace that is restorative and reparative and changes lives. The peace of Rome was a lower case peace, it was peace in the moment, peace that is more quiet, edged with cautious, peace like tip-toeing past a big dog so it doesn’t bite you, or biting your tongue against a bully so you don’t cause trouble. That’s not peace, its fear, but so often we label it peace. The Prince of Peace came to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth. And what Jesus knew, and the disciples hadn’t understood yet, was that bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth was going to mean disturbing the peace in the process. Because the kingdom of heaven is capital P Peace, it is freedom, it is grace, it is hope, and joy, and life. It is restorative, it is reparative, it lifts up the lowly and casts down the mighty, and the lion lies down with the lamb and a little child shall lead them. It is all of those things. But to bring those things to life, the status quo is going to be disturbed. And if there’s one thing that humans don’t like, it’s change. Obviously this is going to anger the people in power, those who have the most to lose if the lowly get lifted up and the mighty cast down. But even some of the lowly are probably not going to like it. Because yeah, it isn’t much fun being lowly, but if that’s been your story, that you are a person who’s lowly, then changing to be something else, even if the change is good, is uncomfortable. As good as the good news of Jesus is, it is a different reality, a better one yes, but different, and different, no matter how good, is painful. And it’s going to disturb the peace.
So what’s the good news for us in this Gospel? Well, remember from last week, when I said the Gospel of Matthew is both a history of the life of Jesus and a guidebook for the followers of Jesus after his ascension? I think that’s key this week for seeing the good news. Because, honestly, I don’t think this was good news for the disciples at the time. Jesus said, don’t be afraid, but people are going to try to kill you, and no matter how I spin it, I can’t make that good news for them. But it is good news for us, and here’s why. It’s good news for us because it promises that when things get hard, it means we’re doing something right. It means that when we are bringing the kingdom of God, when we are calling our congresspeople who advocate for the poor, when we are opening the doors of our church to our neighbors and feeling like we’re not getting anything in return, when we find the courage to call out that friend who makes inappropriate comments, or offer to pray for a friend who’s hurting, when we step out of our comfort zone and it is uncomfortable, even painful, we can listen to these words of Jesus, we can hear that the disciple is not above the teacher, and we can know that we are doing it right. That Jesus was uncomfortable, so it makes sense that we will be uncomfortable, that Jesus needed time to rest and pray, and we need time to rest and pray, that Jesus faced opposition, and we will face opposition.
This may not feel like good news yet, but I think it is. For me at least, it’s wonderfully refreshing that Jesus has the confidence in us to be honest about the fact that being his follower is hard. He didn’t sell us a phony bill of goods, he spelled out the truth right off the bat. This will be hard, you will face struggle, but the kingdom of God in the end is worth every minute of the journey, because there is life at the end. And if it not life, then it is not yet the end. It’s not easy good news, it’s not really feel-good good news, but it is capital G Good News. It is good news that is freedom and hope and grace and life; that is restorative and reparative and changes lives. I think of it as the difference between a mentor and a ponzi scheme. A ponzi scheme says if you just do this one easy thing then everything will be amazing. But a mentor tells it like it is, a mentor is honest with you, coaxes you, sees more potential in you then you see in yourself, and challenges you to be more than you thought you were capable of. Growth like that is hard, and it’s painful, but man oh man is it worth it.
Dear friends in Christ, this is how highly Jesus thinks of you, how much potential he sees in you. He sees so much hope in you, so much power in you, so much life in you, that he is going to push you and challenge you and coax out of you more than you thought you could do. He’s not going to sugar-coat it for you because he thinks too highly of you for that, he trusts you enough to be honest with you about the struggles. So get out there, as Jesus commanded you, and proclaim that the good news of the kingdom of heaven has come near. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. It’s not going to be easy. It would be easier, certainly, to go along to get along. The status quo does not like to be changed, and people, including you, are going to resist being brought to new life. But trust me on this one; Jesus knows you can do it. And the gifts you will receive in the journey are worth way more than the challenges. Thanks be to God who gives us the power to be more than we know we can be. Amen.
Cambridge Ancient History quote from: Walter Goffart (1989,. Rome's Fall and After, Hambledon Press, p. 111, accessed: 22 June 2017.
Especially jarring, for me at least, is the part where Jesus said “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Did any of the rest of you hear that and think, “wait, what?” Jesus didn’t come to bring peace? But Jesus is the one we call the Prince of Peace. This is turn the other cheek, walk a mile with the other’s bag, proclaim release to the captives Jesus, what’s with the no peace but violence thing?
To make sense of this I think it’s helpful, as it so often is, to get a sense of this history. Because peace, even today is a pretty complex word. It seems simple, the absence of war. But think about the scope of it. New parents might long for “peace and quiet,” but it’s often quipped that the time to worry the most about toddlers is when they’re quiet. Peace talks may or may not lead to peace, and in fact historians make the argument the uneasy peace following World War One directly led to World War Two.
The word peace was equally as complex, and probably even more loaded, during Jesus’ time. Jesus lived during a period of the Roman Empire known as the Pax Romana or Peace of Rome. Stretching from 27 BCE to 180 CE, it was a period of Roman history marked by relative peacefulness and minimal expansion by the Roman Empire. Although, historian Walter Goffart noted the volume of Cambridge Ancient History that covers that time frame called it the Imperial Peace, “but peace is not what one finds in its pages.” In fact, the period of Pax Romana included the First Jewish–Roman War, the Kitos War, the Bar Kokhba Revolt, the Roman–Parthian War, Trajan's Roman–Parthian War, and Boudica's war in Britain. Which seems like a lot of war for a period known for its peace.
The other thing to keep in mind about the Pax Romana is this peace was not like how we might think of peace, where things are calm and safe, and people have the freedom to do what they want. It’s not like Rome knocked on Israel’s door and was like, hey guys, we’re going to establish a period of peace, want to join us. And the Jews were like, yeah, that sounds like a great idea! And then they all became Romans and lived happily ever after until Jesus showed up and spoiled the whole thing. Friends, the Jews were conquered. They did not want to become part of the Roman Empire, but they were. In fact of that list of wars I rattled off earlier, three of them were in Judea. Three. By the time Matthew got around to writing the Gospel we read today, the Temple had been destroyed by Rome, in a battle so violent that historians recount blood running in the streets. This is what is meant by the Peace of Rome. It was a peace kept in place by strength, by oppression, and by silencing—through violence—anyone who attempted to disturb that peace. Jesus died on a cross because that was the death of a political prisoner, Jesus died because he disrupted the peace.
Not only did he die for disturbing the peace, but the people in power warned him it would happen. The religious leadership, who were puppets put in place by the Romans, warned him, don’t heal on the Sabbath, don’t associate with outcasts, don’t gather the poor and downtrodden and promise them the kingdom of God. Jesus knew what he was doing, he knew what teaching, healing, and proclaiming the good news would do to Rome’s so-called peace. But Jesus did it anyway. He did it anyway because the Prince of Peace was concerned with bringing peace with a capital P. True Peace, lasting Peace, the kind of Peace that is freedom and hope and grace and life. Peace that is restorative and reparative and changes lives. The peace of Rome was a lower case peace, it was peace in the moment, peace that is more quiet, edged with cautious, peace like tip-toeing past a big dog so it doesn’t bite you, or biting your tongue against a bully so you don’t cause trouble. That’s not peace, its fear, but so often we label it peace. The Prince of Peace came to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth. And what Jesus knew, and the disciples hadn’t understood yet, was that bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth was going to mean disturbing the peace in the process. Because the kingdom of heaven is capital P Peace, it is freedom, it is grace, it is hope, and joy, and life. It is restorative, it is reparative, it lifts up the lowly and casts down the mighty, and the lion lies down with the lamb and a little child shall lead them. It is all of those things. But to bring those things to life, the status quo is going to be disturbed. And if there’s one thing that humans don’t like, it’s change. Obviously this is going to anger the people in power, those who have the most to lose if the lowly get lifted up and the mighty cast down. But even some of the lowly are probably not going to like it. Because yeah, it isn’t much fun being lowly, but if that’s been your story, that you are a person who’s lowly, then changing to be something else, even if the change is good, is uncomfortable. As good as the good news of Jesus is, it is a different reality, a better one yes, but different, and different, no matter how good, is painful. And it’s going to disturb the peace.
So what’s the good news for us in this Gospel? Well, remember from last week, when I said the Gospel of Matthew is both a history of the life of Jesus and a guidebook for the followers of Jesus after his ascension? I think that’s key this week for seeing the good news. Because, honestly, I don’t think this was good news for the disciples at the time. Jesus said, don’t be afraid, but people are going to try to kill you, and no matter how I spin it, I can’t make that good news for them. But it is good news for us, and here’s why. It’s good news for us because it promises that when things get hard, it means we’re doing something right. It means that when we are bringing the kingdom of God, when we are calling our congresspeople who advocate for the poor, when we are opening the doors of our church to our neighbors and feeling like we’re not getting anything in return, when we find the courage to call out that friend who makes inappropriate comments, or offer to pray for a friend who’s hurting, when we step out of our comfort zone and it is uncomfortable, even painful, we can listen to these words of Jesus, we can hear that the disciple is not above the teacher, and we can know that we are doing it right. That Jesus was uncomfortable, so it makes sense that we will be uncomfortable, that Jesus needed time to rest and pray, and we need time to rest and pray, that Jesus faced opposition, and we will face opposition.
This may not feel like good news yet, but I think it is. For me at least, it’s wonderfully refreshing that Jesus has the confidence in us to be honest about the fact that being his follower is hard. He didn’t sell us a phony bill of goods, he spelled out the truth right off the bat. This will be hard, you will face struggle, but the kingdom of God in the end is worth every minute of the journey, because there is life at the end. And if it not life, then it is not yet the end. It’s not easy good news, it’s not really feel-good good news, but it is capital G Good News. It is good news that is freedom and hope and grace and life; that is restorative and reparative and changes lives. I think of it as the difference between a mentor and a ponzi scheme. A ponzi scheme says if you just do this one easy thing then everything will be amazing. But a mentor tells it like it is, a mentor is honest with you, coaxes you, sees more potential in you then you see in yourself, and challenges you to be more than you thought you were capable of. Growth like that is hard, and it’s painful, but man oh man is it worth it.
Dear friends in Christ, this is how highly Jesus thinks of you, how much potential he sees in you. He sees so much hope in you, so much power in you, so much life in you, that he is going to push you and challenge you and coax out of you more than you thought you could do. He’s not going to sugar-coat it for you because he thinks too highly of you for that, he trusts you enough to be honest with you about the struggles. So get out there, as Jesus commanded you, and proclaim that the good news of the kingdom of heaven has come near. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. It’s not going to be easy. It would be easier, certainly, to go along to get along. The status quo does not like to be changed, and people, including you, are going to resist being brought to new life. But trust me on this one; Jesus knows you can do it. And the gifts you will receive in the journey are worth way more than the challenges. Thanks be to God who gives us the power to be more than we know we can be. Amen.
Cambridge Ancient History quote from: Walter Goffart (1989,. Rome's Fall and After, Hambledon Press, p. 111
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Conversation Points for Matthew 10:24-39
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• One of the unique organizational features of Matthew’s Gospel is it combines the teachings of Jesus into five long speeches. This is the second of those five speeches, what is known by scholars as the Missionary Discourse. Both Mark and Luke contain a missionary charge to the disciples, but only Matthew brings all of these teachings together into one location.
• The Missionary Discourse is organized in a chiastic structure (a common literary organizational tendency of Matthew, a simple example would be two ideas A and B, and two variants A’ and B’, organized A, B, B’, A’). The structure for this speech is A: sharing the authority of Christ and his reception (10:5b-15), B: the fate of the disciples (10:16-23), C: call to courageous confession (10:24-33), B’: the cost of discipleship (10:34-39), A’: sharing the presence of Christ and his reception (10:40-42). Today’s reading is the center point of this speech, the call to courage for the disciples, and the variant on the cost of disciples. In 10:16-23, Jesus told them that they would be handed over to councils, flogged, hated, etc. In 10:34-39, he repeated some of those hard truths, not bringing peace but a sword, setting families against each other, etc.
• V. 24-25 are the transitional verses in the speech. That the disciples are to be or become like their teacher is conventional wisdom. Since only Jesus could be the teacher, this moves the speech from generalities to the specific relationship of Christians to Christ. Just as Jesus was persecuted, so too will be his disciples. Just as he did not retaliate but withdrew, so too should his disciples not retaliate.
• This honest portrayal of persecution, and the persecution the disciples may already have faced, may have caused some disciples to already be afraid to speak. To counter that, Jesus twice repeated the command not to be afraid. It should be noted that the harshness of v. 32-33 is not directed at new followers of Jesus making an initial confession of faith, but of disciples who already profess faith and yet are afraid to speak out.
• V. 34 with its peace and sword language is confusing, especially when we think of Jesus as the “Prince of Peace.” Two thoughts, one from Pastor Kjersten’s own head, and one from Dr. Boring. From Pastor Kjersten’s own head, “peace” in the Roman empire was a loaded political term. The “pax romana” or “peace of Rome” was not peace like equality or justice, it was peace through strength. “Peace” was held in place by control, and anyone who broke the peace was killed or otherwise removed. Jesus, in fact, will be crucified essentially for disturbing the peace. The peace of Rome, a peace that relied on violence, fear, and the oppression of those on the bottom by those on top, was not what Jesus came to bring. Jesus came to bring eternal life, but to bring eternal life requires toppling the power structures that keep some oppressed, and toppling those structures does not feel very peaceful. From Dr. Boring on the sword Jesus came to bring. Boring says the “sword” here is not a political symbol, not a reference to violence, but an eschatological (related to the judgment at the end of days) one.
• V. 35-36, “I have come to set…” family members against each other reflect the very real situation the people who were reading Matthew’s Gospel were experiencing, where they were at times called to choose between their family and their faith.
• The abruptness of the cross reference in v. 38 is another example of the post-Easter perspective of the writer of Matthew’s Gospel. The disciples in the moment would not have understood what Jesus was talking about, but there is no mention of their surprise or confusion, because the audience reading the Gospel already knew where the story was headed.
Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• One of the unique organizational features of Matthew’s Gospel is it combines the teachings of Jesus into five long speeches. This is the second of those five speeches, what is known by scholars as the Missionary Discourse. Both Mark and Luke contain a missionary charge to the disciples, but only Matthew brings all of these teachings together into one location.
• The Missionary Discourse is organized in a chiastic structure (a common literary organizational tendency of Matthew, a simple example would be two ideas A and B, and two variants A’ and B’, organized A, B, B’, A’). The structure for this speech is A: sharing the authority of Christ and his reception (10:5b-15), B: the fate of the disciples (10:16-23), C: call to courageous confession (10:24-33), B’: the cost of discipleship (10:34-39), A’: sharing the presence of Christ and his reception (10:40-42). Today’s reading is the center point of this speech, the call to courage for the disciples, and the variant on the cost of disciples. In 10:16-23, Jesus told them that they would be handed over to councils, flogged, hated, etc. In 10:34-39, he repeated some of those hard truths, not bringing peace but a sword, setting families against each other, etc.
• V. 24-25 are the transitional verses in the speech. That the disciples are to be or become like their teacher is conventional wisdom. Since only Jesus could be the teacher, this moves the speech from generalities to the specific relationship of Christians to Christ. Just as Jesus was persecuted, so too will be his disciples. Just as he did not retaliate but withdrew, so too should his disciples not retaliate.
• This honest portrayal of persecution, and the persecution the disciples may already have faced, may have caused some disciples to already be afraid to speak. To counter that, Jesus twice repeated the command not to be afraid. It should be noted that the harshness of v. 32-33 is not directed at new followers of Jesus making an initial confession of faith, but of disciples who already profess faith and yet are afraid to speak out.
• V. 34 with its peace and sword language is confusing, especially when we think of Jesus as the “Prince of Peace.” Two thoughts, one from Pastor Kjersten’s own head, and one from Dr. Boring. From Pastor Kjersten’s own head, “peace” in the Roman empire was a loaded political term. The “pax romana” or “peace of Rome” was not peace like equality or justice, it was peace through strength. “Peace” was held in place by control, and anyone who broke the peace was killed or otherwise removed. Jesus, in fact, will be crucified essentially for disturbing the peace. The peace of Rome, a peace that relied on violence, fear, and the oppression of those on the bottom by those on top, was not what Jesus came to bring. Jesus came to bring eternal life, but to bring eternal life requires toppling the power structures that keep some oppressed, and toppling those structures does not feel very peaceful. From Dr. Boring on the sword Jesus came to bring. Boring says the “sword” here is not a political symbol, not a reference to violence, but an eschatological (related to the judgment at the end of days) one.
• V. 35-36, “I have come to set…” family members against each other reflect the very real situation the people who were reading Matthew’s Gospel were experiencing, where they were at times called to choose between their family and their faith.
• The abruptness of the cross reference in v. 38 is another example of the post-Easter perspective of the writer of Matthew’s Gospel. The disciples in the moment would not have understood what Jesus was talking about, but there is no mention of their surprise or confusion, because the audience reading the Gospel already knew where the story was headed.
Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Monday, June 19, 2017
The Harvest is Plentiful: A Sermon on Matthew 9:35-10:8
You’ll notice this morning the paraments on the table are green and I am wearing a green stole. I’m also not wearing an alb this morning, alb is the proper churchy name for the white robe that I and the assisting minister often wear, but that has nothing to do with the season of the church year. That’s because it’s hot and I long ago decided that it was less distracting if the pastor did not pass out during the sermon, thus no alb in the summer. But the green stole and the green paraments do have to do with the season of the church year. I point them out this morning, because soon they are going to become so commonplace that you will forget to notice them. That is because we will be in the green season for the next six months. I hope you like this stole, because you’re going to be seeing a lot of it. I will be wearing an alb again before you get to see a new stole.
The green season represents a growing time. Having spent the first six months of the church year being steeped in the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the sending of the Spirit out into the world at Pentecost, this season turns the focus of the church from Jesus to us. Namely, now that we have walked with Jesus through his life, ministry, death, and resurrection, now that Jesus has sent us the Spirit at Pentecost who has filled us with Christ’s own authority, how then do we live out the calling to which Christ has called us? To answer that question, we read Jesus’ teachings again. Only, whereas before we read to learn about the history of who Jesus was, now we read scripture as a manual for how we are to be. Jesus’ teachings have new meaning for us as post-Pentecost people, they are the words Jesus left for us as we do the work of fulfilling the Great Commission, and “mak[ing] disciples of all nations.”
All this to say, for the next six months we will be reading, chronologically for a change, through the Gospel of Matthew. And while we read, I invite you to focus not on what this teaches you about the historical Jesus, but what Jesus is teaching you about how you are to live.
And there’s really no better place to start this journey then with our Gospel reading for this morning. Because our Gospel reading for this morning is the beginning of what is known as the Missionary Discourse. It is a speech by Jesus to his disciples about how he wants them to carry out their mission of spreading his message to the world.
So as I was pondering the text this week, and thinking about what Jesus was trying to teach us about how we are to be church, there was a couple different things that caught my attention. First off, was the very opening line of the speech in chapter ten, verse five, where Jesus said, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritan, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Jesus telling us not to help outsiders seems weird anytime; after all, he was always trekking off to Samaria and helping Gentiles. Jesus’ whole thing was helping outsiders. But it’s especially jarring when just last week we read the Great Commission, where Jesus literally told the disciples, “make disciples of all nations.” So where’d this come from? I read a bunch of commentaries, and scholars are all over the map on this, but the theory that captured my imagination the most is I wonder if there is a pedagogical aspect to this restriction. This is the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, the disciples have only just gotten on board. So I wonder if Jesus held them back a little bit, so they could practice in safer territory before he turned them out into the big, wide world. I wonder if Jesus was treating this like an internship, letting them practice their skills on friends and neighbors, so that as the kingdom of God spread the disciples would have the experience and the confidence to spread with it.
The other possibility for why Jesus may have encouraged his disciples to stay close to home, at least at this point, was the reality of the limitations of an incarnate God. When Jesus was on earth in the flesh, he was fully human. This meant he was subject to the same limitations that we all are, he could only be in one place at one time. During his time on earth, Jesus’ mission could only be to the immediate countryside of Israel, because that was as far as one man could travel. Once he had ascended to the Father, and was with them through the Spirit, he was freed up to be all the places where they could go, he could be all the time in all nations. That the incarnate Jesus is no longer incarnate in the same way is why we can say with confidence that Jesus is with us, here, at Trinity Lutheran Church in Battle Creek, Michigan at ten-thirty on Sunday mornings and he’s also at St. Mark’s on Illinois, and at my home church in Washington, DC, even though all these services are happening at the same time. He couldn’t do that when he was with the disciples any more than you or I could. The ability to be everywhere at once is something Jesus gave up for a time in order to be in the world in the flesh.
This limitation of humanity also seems to be some of what prompted Jesus to send out the disciples on this first mission. Our text tells us that as Jesus went through the countryside teaching, proclaiming the good news, and curing diseases he looked around at the gathering crowds and he had compassion on them. He saw they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he knew that he could not reach all of them personally, under the limitations of his own finite human body.
Jesus looked around this great expanse of needy people, and he knew that the crowds he saw were only part of the need. Knew there were people further out, who were desperate to hear the good news of the kingdom, desperate to learn, desperate to be healed. People who may not even know they were desperate yet, because they didn’t even know that the possibility for healing, for learning, existed. Knowing the rich harvest that was out there, Jesus turned to his disciples and said, “The harvest is plenty, but the laborers are few;” there’s a lot of need out there, a big, wide world full of hurting, hoping people, and there’s only one of me and a few of you. “Therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Right off the bat, he empowered the disciples. There is a bit need out there, I see it, you can see it, pray that God sends us someone to meet it. Pray that there would be enough laborers to bring in the rich harvest of the kingdom of God.
And here’s where it gets really cool. Because Jesus turned to his disciples and asked them to pray for laborers, and then he summoned them together and gave them the authority to be laborers. Jesus literally made the disciples the answer to their own prayers. There’s a quote from Pope Francis, “you pray, then you do something, that’s how prayer works,” and that’s what Jesus did with his disciples. Not only did he ask them to pray for a need, then he gave them the power to be the ones to fill those same needs.
So what does this mean for us? This is all very interesting from a historical perspective, but what is Jesus teaching us about how to live? I don’t know about you, but I haven’t raised any dead recently. And if you come to me with an illness, I’m going to refer you to a doctor. If I read this text literally, then either the authority to cast out unclean spirits and cure sickness was only for the disciples, or Jesus forgot to give that authority to me. But as I thought about it more, I thought, Jesus had all that power in himself, but he sent out twelve disciples. And what’s more, he sent them out in pairs, Simon and Andrew, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, etc. And we’re not reading this as a handbook of individual discipleship in a vacuum, but as a guidebook for how to be church. So maybe the authority does not rest in us individually, but communally in the body of Christ. Some of us are called to be healers, to be doctors and nurses and therapists and nurses aides, to literally cure the sick. Some of us are called to work with systems to make sure that there is access for sick people to reach the care that they need. There’s a story in the bible about a guy who couldn’t reach Jesus, so his friends lowered him through the roof. Jesus did the healing, but if those guys hadn’t been there, he never would have been healed. Some of us have the authority to be healers, while others have the authority to be rope holders, and healing needs both jobs. Some of us may cast out literal unclean spirits, whereas others cast out unclean spirits of greed, poverty, selfishness, violence, and hatred. And we do this in a bunch of different ways. In as many ways as there are people. Just in this congregation, for example, we have people who work at the food bank and literally cast out the unclean spirit of hunger and we have people who bring food in for the food bank, and without the people who bring the food, there would be nothing for the food bank volunteers to give out.
And as I continued to ponder this thing Jesus did, of empowering the disciples to fulfill their own prayer for help, I started to think about how the very act of harvesting grows the pool of labor. Because, as is true for so many of Jesus’ metaphors, there are not two distinct groups of harvesters and laborers. Rather we are all, at the same time, both harvesters and laborers, in our laboring we find ourselves drawn in as harvest for the kingdom of God, and in the act of being harvested we find ourselves filled to labor.
And because this authority is not individual, but communal, each of us only called to a small part of a big task, it means the labor pool too, is bigger than we might imagine. Specifically, in our context here at Trinity, there are not many of us. We might at first look around the small group of us gathered here and read this as a lament, “the harvest is plenty but the laborers are few,” so God you better get busy and send us some more laborers because there is too much work for the forty or so of us who gather here on a Sunday morning. But as I worked through this text, and thought about Jesus flipping the script on the disciples, I started to wonder if maybe this time in our congregation’s history is Jesus flipping the script on us. We are not as big of a congregation as we once were, and that’s true for a lot of congregations across the country. But if we truly believe that Jesus gave us this authority, then maybe Jesus has done to us what he did to the disciples, and has answered our prayer already, and the answer is us. But more than just us, maybe part of that answer, as we will see it will also be for the disciples, is people who are already laboring alongside us who we do not yet recognize as laborers in the harvest. Maybe what harvest and laborers look like has changed over the years, and the problem with the church is not that Jesus has stopped sending laborers and a harvest, but that we’ve stopped recognizing the harvest and the laborers that Jesus has sent.
That is, for me, both the good news and the challenge that is Jesus’ lesson for us this week on how to be disciples. The good news is the harvest is plenty, and though the laborers are few, Jesus is increasing the labor pool by giving us the authority to continue in his work. The challenge is, what does that harvest and what do those laborers look like in our community, in this place and in this time, today. And that’s the question I want to leave you, leave us, with this morning. For us, at this time, at Trinity Lutheran Church in the summer of two-thousand and seventeen, what is the plentiful harvest which God has prepared, and who are our fellow laborers in this work? And how might we recognize them, will we be open to seeing them, if they don’t look like what we expect, or what we have been accustomed to? My sense, my hope and my prayer, as the pastor of this congregation, is that we will be. And as we start on this journey together, I cannot wait to see where God is leading us. Amen.
The green season represents a growing time. Having spent the first six months of the church year being steeped in the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the sending of the Spirit out into the world at Pentecost, this season turns the focus of the church from Jesus to us. Namely, now that we have walked with Jesus through his life, ministry, death, and resurrection, now that Jesus has sent us the Spirit at Pentecost who has filled us with Christ’s own authority, how then do we live out the calling to which Christ has called us? To answer that question, we read Jesus’ teachings again. Only, whereas before we read to learn about the history of who Jesus was, now we read scripture as a manual for how we are to be. Jesus’ teachings have new meaning for us as post-Pentecost people, they are the words Jesus left for us as we do the work of fulfilling the Great Commission, and “mak[ing] disciples of all nations.”
All this to say, for the next six months we will be reading, chronologically for a change, through the Gospel of Matthew. And while we read, I invite you to focus not on what this teaches you about the historical Jesus, but what Jesus is teaching you about how you are to live.
And there’s really no better place to start this journey then with our Gospel reading for this morning. Because our Gospel reading for this morning is the beginning of what is known as the Missionary Discourse. It is a speech by Jesus to his disciples about how he wants them to carry out their mission of spreading his message to the world.
So as I was pondering the text this week, and thinking about what Jesus was trying to teach us about how we are to be church, there was a couple different things that caught my attention. First off, was the very opening line of the speech in chapter ten, verse five, where Jesus said, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritan, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Jesus telling us not to help outsiders seems weird anytime; after all, he was always trekking off to Samaria and helping Gentiles. Jesus’ whole thing was helping outsiders. But it’s especially jarring when just last week we read the Great Commission, where Jesus literally told the disciples, “make disciples of all nations.” So where’d this come from? I read a bunch of commentaries, and scholars are all over the map on this, but the theory that captured my imagination the most is I wonder if there is a pedagogical aspect to this restriction. This is the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, the disciples have only just gotten on board. So I wonder if Jesus held them back a little bit, so they could practice in safer territory before he turned them out into the big, wide world. I wonder if Jesus was treating this like an internship, letting them practice their skills on friends and neighbors, so that as the kingdom of God spread the disciples would have the experience and the confidence to spread with it.
The other possibility for why Jesus may have encouraged his disciples to stay close to home, at least at this point, was the reality of the limitations of an incarnate God. When Jesus was on earth in the flesh, he was fully human. This meant he was subject to the same limitations that we all are, he could only be in one place at one time. During his time on earth, Jesus’ mission could only be to the immediate countryside of Israel, because that was as far as one man could travel. Once he had ascended to the Father, and was with them through the Spirit, he was freed up to be all the places where they could go, he could be all the time in all nations. That the incarnate Jesus is no longer incarnate in the same way is why we can say with confidence that Jesus is with us, here, at Trinity Lutheran Church in Battle Creek, Michigan at ten-thirty on Sunday mornings and he’s also at St. Mark’s on Illinois, and at my home church in Washington, DC, even though all these services are happening at the same time. He couldn’t do that when he was with the disciples any more than you or I could. The ability to be everywhere at once is something Jesus gave up for a time in order to be in the world in the flesh.
This limitation of humanity also seems to be some of what prompted Jesus to send out the disciples on this first mission. Our text tells us that as Jesus went through the countryside teaching, proclaiming the good news, and curing diseases he looked around at the gathering crowds and he had compassion on them. He saw they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he knew that he could not reach all of them personally, under the limitations of his own finite human body.
Jesus looked around this great expanse of needy people, and he knew that the crowds he saw were only part of the need. Knew there were people further out, who were desperate to hear the good news of the kingdom, desperate to learn, desperate to be healed. People who may not even know they were desperate yet, because they didn’t even know that the possibility for healing, for learning, existed. Knowing the rich harvest that was out there, Jesus turned to his disciples and said, “The harvest is plenty, but the laborers are few;” there’s a lot of need out there, a big, wide world full of hurting, hoping people, and there’s only one of me and a few of you. “Therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Right off the bat, he empowered the disciples. There is a bit need out there, I see it, you can see it, pray that God sends us someone to meet it. Pray that there would be enough laborers to bring in the rich harvest of the kingdom of God.
And here’s where it gets really cool. Because Jesus turned to his disciples and asked them to pray for laborers, and then he summoned them together and gave them the authority to be laborers. Jesus literally made the disciples the answer to their own prayers. There’s a quote from Pope Francis, “you pray, then you do something, that’s how prayer works,” and that’s what Jesus did with his disciples. Not only did he ask them to pray for a need, then he gave them the power to be the ones to fill those same needs.
So what does this mean for us? This is all very interesting from a historical perspective, but what is Jesus teaching us about how to live? I don’t know about you, but I haven’t raised any dead recently. And if you come to me with an illness, I’m going to refer you to a doctor. If I read this text literally, then either the authority to cast out unclean spirits and cure sickness was only for the disciples, or Jesus forgot to give that authority to me. But as I thought about it more, I thought, Jesus had all that power in himself, but he sent out twelve disciples. And what’s more, he sent them out in pairs, Simon and Andrew, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, etc. And we’re not reading this as a handbook of individual discipleship in a vacuum, but as a guidebook for how to be church. So maybe the authority does not rest in us individually, but communally in the body of Christ. Some of us are called to be healers, to be doctors and nurses and therapists and nurses aides, to literally cure the sick. Some of us are called to work with systems to make sure that there is access for sick people to reach the care that they need. There’s a story in the bible about a guy who couldn’t reach Jesus, so his friends lowered him through the roof. Jesus did the healing, but if those guys hadn’t been there, he never would have been healed. Some of us have the authority to be healers, while others have the authority to be rope holders, and healing needs both jobs. Some of us may cast out literal unclean spirits, whereas others cast out unclean spirits of greed, poverty, selfishness, violence, and hatred. And we do this in a bunch of different ways. In as many ways as there are people. Just in this congregation, for example, we have people who work at the food bank and literally cast out the unclean spirit of hunger and we have people who bring food in for the food bank, and without the people who bring the food, there would be nothing for the food bank volunteers to give out.
And as I continued to ponder this thing Jesus did, of empowering the disciples to fulfill their own prayer for help, I started to think about how the very act of harvesting grows the pool of labor. Because, as is true for so many of Jesus’ metaphors, there are not two distinct groups of harvesters and laborers. Rather we are all, at the same time, both harvesters and laborers, in our laboring we find ourselves drawn in as harvest for the kingdom of God, and in the act of being harvested we find ourselves filled to labor.
And because this authority is not individual, but communal, each of us only called to a small part of a big task, it means the labor pool too, is bigger than we might imagine. Specifically, in our context here at Trinity, there are not many of us. We might at first look around the small group of us gathered here and read this as a lament, “the harvest is plenty but the laborers are few,” so God you better get busy and send us some more laborers because there is too much work for the forty or so of us who gather here on a Sunday morning. But as I worked through this text, and thought about Jesus flipping the script on the disciples, I started to wonder if maybe this time in our congregation’s history is Jesus flipping the script on us. We are not as big of a congregation as we once were, and that’s true for a lot of congregations across the country. But if we truly believe that Jesus gave us this authority, then maybe Jesus has done to us what he did to the disciples, and has answered our prayer already, and the answer is us. But more than just us, maybe part of that answer, as we will see it will also be for the disciples, is people who are already laboring alongside us who we do not yet recognize as laborers in the harvest. Maybe what harvest and laborers look like has changed over the years, and the problem with the church is not that Jesus has stopped sending laborers and a harvest, but that we’ve stopped recognizing the harvest and the laborers that Jesus has sent.
That is, for me, both the good news and the challenge that is Jesus’ lesson for us this week on how to be disciples. The good news is the harvest is plenty, and though the laborers are few, Jesus is increasing the labor pool by giving us the authority to continue in his work. The challenge is, what does that harvest and what do those laborers look like in our community, in this place and in this time, today. And that’s the question I want to leave you, leave us, with this morning. For us, at this time, at Trinity Lutheran Church in the summer of two-thousand and seventeen, what is the plentiful harvest which God has prepared, and who are our fellow laborers in this work? And how might we recognize them, will we be open to seeing them, if they don’t look like what we expect, or what we have been accustomed to? My sense, my hope and my prayer, as the pastor of this congregation, is that we will be. And as we start on this journey together, I cannot wait to see where God is leading us. Amen.
Thursday, June 15, 2017
Conversation Points for Matthew 9:35-10:8
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• One of the unique organizational features of Matthew’s Gospel is it combines the teachings of Jesus into five long speeches. This is the second of those five speeches, what is known by scholars as the Missionary Discourse. Both Mark and Luke contain a missionary charge to the disciples, but only Matthew brings all of these teachings together into one location.
• The speech starts, “When he [Jesus] saw the crowds…” which is the same way Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount.
• The sheep/shepherd metaphor Jesus used in v. 36 is a common one from the Old Testament in referring to the nation of Israel (cf. Num 27:17; 1 Kgs 22:17; 2 Chr 18:16; Jer 23:1-6; Ezek 34:8; Zech 10:12). Numbers 27:17 especially is about Moses transferring authority to Joshua. Similarly, here Jesus is transferring his authority to the disciples.
• Harvest imagery is also a common one in scripture. Harvest is often a metaphor of judgment at the end of days. Boring has an interesting take on v. 38, “therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest.” According to Boring, the disciples are to pray for laborers, and then the response to their prayer is their own mission. Reminds me (Pastor Kjersten) of a response Pope Francis gave to the current trend of offering prayers after a crisis. The Pope quipped, “you pray, then you do something, that’s how prayer works.” What’s key in this though, is that Jesus is sending them as a response to their prayer. The disciples’ mission is not a voluntary activity initiated by them, they are chosen, authorized, and sent by God through Christ to this work as the answer to their prayer.
• In the synoptic Gospels (this is in contrast to John’s gospel, where the listing is more fluid) there are twelve disciples, often referred to as “the Twelve.” Twelve is a key number representing the reunification of the twelve tribes of Israel. The symbolism is more important than the actual historical list of persons included in the group. The list is carefully constructed with six pairs of two, perhaps reminiscent of Jesus sending them out two by two (Mark 6:7).
• Jesus mission is continued in the work of the disciples. While this is a pre-Easter story, the disciples are stand-ins for the post-Easter work of the church. Once again, this story frustrates the attempt to make a neat distinction between Jesus’ historical ministry and the work of the church. It is a story about Jesus AND a handbook for how the church is to live in as post-resurrection people.
• V. 5 “do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans,” is strange, because it is in direct contradiction with the Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, where the resurrected Jesus sent the disciples to “make disciples of all nations” (28:19). A couple of things could be going on here. 1) Jesus’ historical mission was to Israel, and the disciples’ mission following the resurrection was to spread the message wider. This sentence could reflect the early church’s struggles to develop and mission beyond Israel. (this is the only time this comment comes up in Matthew, and is definitely not present in Luke or John, where Jesus deliberately went to Samaria several times). 2) I (Pastor Kjersten) also wonder if there could be a pedagogical aspect to this. This is early in Jesus’ ministry. Maybe the command to stay in Israel is to restrict the disciples and give them time to practice in a small area, before they are sent out to wider ministry. Like training wheels on a bicycle.
Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• One of the unique organizational features of Matthew’s Gospel is it combines the teachings of Jesus into five long speeches. This is the second of those five speeches, what is known by scholars as the Missionary Discourse. Both Mark and Luke contain a missionary charge to the disciples, but only Matthew brings all of these teachings together into one location.
• The speech starts, “When he [Jesus] saw the crowds…” which is the same way Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount.
• The sheep/shepherd metaphor Jesus used in v. 36 is a common one from the Old Testament in referring to the nation of Israel (cf. Num 27:17; 1 Kgs 22:17; 2 Chr 18:16; Jer 23:1-6; Ezek 34:8; Zech 10:12). Numbers 27:17 especially is about Moses transferring authority to Joshua. Similarly, here Jesus is transferring his authority to the disciples.
• Harvest imagery is also a common one in scripture. Harvest is often a metaphor of judgment at the end of days. Boring has an interesting take on v. 38, “therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest.” According to Boring, the disciples are to pray for laborers, and then the response to their prayer is their own mission. Reminds me (Pastor Kjersten) of a response Pope Francis gave to the current trend of offering prayers after a crisis. The Pope quipped, “you pray, then you do something, that’s how prayer works.” What’s key in this though, is that Jesus is sending them as a response to their prayer. The disciples’ mission is not a voluntary activity initiated by them, they are chosen, authorized, and sent by God through Christ to this work as the answer to their prayer.
• In the synoptic Gospels (this is in contrast to John’s gospel, where the listing is more fluid) there are twelve disciples, often referred to as “the Twelve.” Twelve is a key number representing the reunification of the twelve tribes of Israel. The symbolism is more important than the actual historical list of persons included in the group. The list is carefully constructed with six pairs of two, perhaps reminiscent of Jesus sending them out two by two (Mark 6:7).
• Jesus mission is continued in the work of the disciples. While this is a pre-Easter story, the disciples are stand-ins for the post-Easter work of the church. Once again, this story frustrates the attempt to make a neat distinction between Jesus’ historical ministry and the work of the church. It is a story about Jesus AND a handbook for how the church is to live in as post-resurrection people.
• V. 5 “do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans,” is strange, because it is in direct contradiction with the Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, where the resurrected Jesus sent the disciples to “make disciples of all nations” (28:19). A couple of things could be going on here. 1) Jesus’ historical mission was to Israel, and the disciples’ mission following the resurrection was to spread the message wider. This sentence could reflect the early church’s struggles to develop and mission beyond Israel. (this is the only time this comment comes up in Matthew, and is definitely not present in Luke or John, where Jesus deliberately went to Samaria several times). 2) I (Pastor Kjersten) also wonder if there could be a pedagogical aspect to this. This is early in Jesus’ ministry. Maybe the command to stay in Israel is to restrict the disciples and give them time to practice in a small area, before they are sent out to wider ministry. Like training wheels on a bicycle.
Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Sunday, June 11, 2017
"But Some Doubted": A Trinity Sunday Sermon for Trinity Lutheran Church (notice a theme) on Matthew 28:16-20
So it’s Trinity Sunday this morning, that great day of the church year which the people who created the liturgical calendar set aside, in their great wisdom, to celebrate a complex theological concept which theologians have been arguing about for millennia. As you may be able to tell from that opening sentence, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Trinity Sunday. I love it, because I’m the pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church, this is our day! There’s something wonderfully symmetrical in preaching on the trinity at churches named trinity. But, then the flip side, it’s, as I stated earlier, a complex theological concept which theologians have been arguing about for millennia. And nothing says really boring sermon like trying to explain complex theological concepts. Dr. Karoline Lewis, who’s blog I often read in my sermon prep, described trying to explain the trinity as attempting “to domesticate wonder, to clarify awe, to tame transcendence.” She concluded: “Any sermon that tries to explain the Trinity will likely end up as interesting as the proverbial watching paint dry.” All this to say, we’ll get to the Trinity, I promise we will. We are, after all, Trinity Lutheran Church. But before we get there, I’ll spare you the risk of a paint drying sermon, and let’s start with the Gospel.
Our Gospel reading for today is Jesus’ final words to his disciples in Matthew’s Gospel, often called the Great Commission. A commission is an instruction or direction for a group of people. This is a rarity for Jesus, he actually told his disciples exactly what they were to do. If you like direction, here it is. Jesus said: “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, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” That’s it; it’s that simple. The job Jesus left us with after his resurrection, make disciples, baptize, and teach. That’s the job, are we doing it?
It seems simple, but of course, we know it’s not. First off, what does it mean to make disciples? What does Jesus want us to do here? And then, the bigger question, how? How are we to make disciples? At the council retreat yesterday, we were reading our church constitution, and one of the jobs of the council, per our constitution, is to encourage all members of our congregation to witness. Which prompted the question, we’re Lutheran, do we witness?
There’s a lot of loaded words that get thrown around in our culture these days around making disciples. Witness is one, but also evangelism, or evangelical. If you want to make disciples, you need to witness to them, or you might say you need to do some evangelizing. Which immediately, for me at least, brings up images of knocking on doors, or chasing people with Bibles, or the folks standing on the corner at the Cereal Festival yesterday passing out really terrifying tracks about how God is going to be really mad if you do certain things. The word “evangelical” has even entered our political conversation, we heard candidates trying to appeal to the “evangelical voters.” But hey, we are part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. We’re evangelical Lutherans. So what does the word evangelical mean? Well, here’s your fun Greek lesson for the day. Evangelical comes from the Greek word evagelion, which means good news. Evangelion often gets translated as Gospel, but in the simplest, least church-coded language, it literally means good news. So when I said this morning’s reading came from the Gospel according to Matthew, that means this is Matthew’s version of the good news of Jesus. When we say we’re part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, that means we’re claiming we are the Good News Lutheran Church in America. We are Lutherans with Good News to share to the world. It’s a good name for us. Think about all the good news we have to share. We believe that the love of God, which we call grace, is a gift, that there’s nothing we have to do to earn it, and nothing we can ever do to lose it. We believe that that grace, that love of God, transforms us. We believe that even though we are grace-filled transformed people, we still can screw up sometimes, and when we do screw up, God forgives us completely and entirely. And because we believe we have been transformed by this love, we believe that we live out that love by caring for our neighbors, both near and far. Lutheran-affiliated agencies are the largest providers of social services in the world. In the world. We’re only halfway through the year, and look at the map over there, look at all the places where Lutherans are caring for and serving our neighbors. Just in Michigan, just in our little synod, at synod assembly we learned about how Living Water Ministries, our summer camping program, is gaining a reputation for being one of the best at doing anti-racism work. Our environmental justice group, which our own Laurie Swanson is a part of, is doing all sorts of cool things to bring awareness about the need to care for God’s creation. Pastor Erick, who was the interim pastor here before I came, partnered with Linn Kraft from St. Peter to lead a hunger bike ride to raise money for ELCA World Hunger. This is good news worth sharing! And, it’s good news that maybe feels a little bit easier to share then “let me chase you with this Bible and tell you about what you need to believe.” When I first meet people and tell them I’m a pastor, I can get some weird responses initially. Honestly, it usually seems like the person is scanning through the conversation to make sure they haven’t accidentally cussed in front of me. But once I start telling them about all the cool stuff we do, about the ways in which our belief that the unconditional, saving, transforming love of God calls us to live out our faith in all of these amazing ways, oftentimes the response changes from apprehension to excitement. Because that’s the thing about sharing good news, it’s contagious.
Sharing good news is I think what Jesus meant when he told the disciples to make more disciples. I really do think it is just that simple. And I think it has to be that simple, because of what happened right before. Let’s listen to the beginning of Matthew again: “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. [Pause] And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples.” Did you catch that? They saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted, and then Jesus said to all of them, Go make disciples. Jesus didn’t say Go make disciples to the ones who worshiped and didn’t doubt, he didn’t correct the doubters, or explain himself again, or try and set anyone straight. He said to the whole mess of disciples, worshipers and doubters alike, go make disciples. Go share the good news. Go baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and go teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
Which gets us, believe it or not, back to Trinity Sunday, and this wonderful, awe-inspiring, transcendent complex theological concept which theologians have been arguing about for millennia, and after which our congregation was named. Because if we run with this idea that since Jesus gave the great commission to all of the disciples, without any kind of proof of loyalty or even a test of understanding, I think it gives us permission to lay aside the complexity of trying to explain or understand the trinity and just focus on the good news of it. And Dr. Karoline Lewis, who, if you remember back to the beginning of the sermon, is the one who cautioned that trying to explain the trinity is as boring as watching paint dry, summed up the good news of the trinity as simply the second half of the last verse of Matthew’s gospel, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” The Trinity, Dr. Lewis wrote, “asserts God with us. The Trinity affirms God’s presence. The Trinity avows that no matter what and in whatever circumstances God will be there.” The Trinity, this inexplainable relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit that makes them one God, and yet three things, three parts who somehow always hare, and always have been, one, since the beginning, to the end of the age, and beyond. That thing, that relationship, that we cannot quite get words around, affirms for us this same promise that Jesus made, that also is hard to get words around, that Jesus, though we can no longer see and touch him, is with us, always, to the end of the age. And in fact, I think the fact that we cannot put words around it is freeing in its own way. There’s a Jewish wedding tradition that you break a glass during the ceremony in order to get the first mistake out of the way, so you can get over the idea of a perfect marriage and start living. And I think the Trinity is like that. Since we cannot explain the inexplainable, we don’t have to worry about not saying anything until we can say it perfectly, because there is no perfect way to say it. I don’t know about you, but for me, that really helps to take the pressure off.
When we worship, when we doubt, when we doubt our worship and worship our doubt, all authority in heaven and on earth is with Jesus, and he is with us in making disciples, in baptizing, and in teaching. So go out, share the good news. Jesus is with you, Jesus is in you, in this wonderful, awe-inspiring, transcendent, and confusing way, and will be, always, to the end of the age. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Our Gospel reading for today is Jesus’ final words to his disciples in Matthew’s Gospel, often called the Great Commission. A commission is an instruction or direction for a group of people. This is a rarity for Jesus, he actually told his disciples exactly what they were to do. If you like direction, here it is. Jesus said: “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, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” That’s it; it’s that simple. The job Jesus left us with after his resurrection, make disciples, baptize, and teach. That’s the job, are we doing it?
It seems simple, but of course, we know it’s not. First off, what does it mean to make disciples? What does Jesus want us to do here? And then, the bigger question, how? How are we to make disciples? At the council retreat yesterday, we were reading our church constitution, and one of the jobs of the council, per our constitution, is to encourage all members of our congregation to witness. Which prompted the question, we’re Lutheran, do we witness?
There’s a lot of loaded words that get thrown around in our culture these days around making disciples. Witness is one, but also evangelism, or evangelical. If you want to make disciples, you need to witness to them, or you might say you need to do some evangelizing. Which immediately, for me at least, brings up images of knocking on doors, or chasing people with Bibles, or the folks standing on the corner at the Cereal Festival yesterday passing out really terrifying tracks about how God is going to be really mad if you do certain things. The word “evangelical” has even entered our political conversation, we heard candidates trying to appeal to the “evangelical voters.” But hey, we are part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. We’re evangelical Lutherans. So what does the word evangelical mean? Well, here’s your fun Greek lesson for the day. Evangelical comes from the Greek word evagelion, which means good news. Evangelion often gets translated as Gospel, but in the simplest, least church-coded language, it literally means good news. So when I said this morning’s reading came from the Gospel according to Matthew, that means this is Matthew’s version of the good news of Jesus. When we say we’re part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, that means we’re claiming we are the Good News Lutheran Church in America. We are Lutherans with Good News to share to the world. It’s a good name for us. Think about all the good news we have to share. We believe that the love of God, which we call grace, is a gift, that there’s nothing we have to do to earn it, and nothing we can ever do to lose it. We believe that that grace, that love of God, transforms us. We believe that even though we are grace-filled transformed people, we still can screw up sometimes, and when we do screw up, God forgives us completely and entirely. And because we believe we have been transformed by this love, we believe that we live out that love by caring for our neighbors, both near and far. Lutheran-affiliated agencies are the largest providers of social services in the world. In the world. We’re only halfway through the year, and look at the map over there, look at all the places where Lutherans are caring for and serving our neighbors. Just in Michigan, just in our little synod, at synod assembly we learned about how Living Water Ministries, our summer camping program, is gaining a reputation for being one of the best at doing anti-racism work. Our environmental justice group, which our own Laurie Swanson is a part of, is doing all sorts of cool things to bring awareness about the need to care for God’s creation. Pastor Erick, who was the interim pastor here before I came, partnered with Linn Kraft from St. Peter to lead a hunger bike ride to raise money for ELCA World Hunger. This is good news worth sharing! And, it’s good news that maybe feels a little bit easier to share then “let me chase you with this Bible and tell you about what you need to believe.” When I first meet people and tell them I’m a pastor, I can get some weird responses initially. Honestly, it usually seems like the person is scanning through the conversation to make sure they haven’t accidentally cussed in front of me. But once I start telling them about all the cool stuff we do, about the ways in which our belief that the unconditional, saving, transforming love of God calls us to live out our faith in all of these amazing ways, oftentimes the response changes from apprehension to excitement. Because that’s the thing about sharing good news, it’s contagious.
Sharing good news is I think what Jesus meant when he told the disciples to make more disciples. I really do think it is just that simple. And I think it has to be that simple, because of what happened right before. Let’s listen to the beginning of Matthew again: “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. [Pause] And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples.” Did you catch that? They saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted, and then Jesus said to all of them, Go make disciples. Jesus didn’t say Go make disciples to the ones who worshiped and didn’t doubt, he didn’t correct the doubters, or explain himself again, or try and set anyone straight. He said to the whole mess of disciples, worshipers and doubters alike, go make disciples. Go share the good news. Go baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and go teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
Which gets us, believe it or not, back to Trinity Sunday, and this wonderful, awe-inspiring, transcendent complex theological concept which theologians have been arguing about for millennia, and after which our congregation was named. Because if we run with this idea that since Jesus gave the great commission to all of the disciples, without any kind of proof of loyalty or even a test of understanding, I think it gives us permission to lay aside the complexity of trying to explain or understand the trinity and just focus on the good news of it. And Dr. Karoline Lewis, who, if you remember back to the beginning of the sermon, is the one who cautioned that trying to explain the trinity is as boring as watching paint dry, summed up the good news of the trinity as simply the second half of the last verse of Matthew’s gospel, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” The Trinity, Dr. Lewis wrote, “asserts God with us. The Trinity affirms God’s presence. The Trinity avows that no matter what and in whatever circumstances God will be there.” The Trinity, this inexplainable relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit that makes them one God, and yet three things, three parts who somehow always hare, and always have been, one, since the beginning, to the end of the age, and beyond. That thing, that relationship, that we cannot quite get words around, affirms for us this same promise that Jesus made, that also is hard to get words around, that Jesus, though we can no longer see and touch him, is with us, always, to the end of the age. And in fact, I think the fact that we cannot put words around it is freeing in its own way. There’s a Jewish wedding tradition that you break a glass during the ceremony in order to get the first mistake out of the way, so you can get over the idea of a perfect marriage and start living. And I think the Trinity is like that. Since we cannot explain the inexplainable, we don’t have to worry about not saying anything until we can say it perfectly, because there is no perfect way to say it. I don’t know about you, but for me, that really helps to take the pressure off.
When we worship, when we doubt, when we doubt our worship and worship our doubt, all authority in heaven and on earth is with Jesus, and he is with us in making disciples, in baptizing, and in teaching. So go out, share the good news. Jesus is with you, Jesus is in you, in this wonderful, awe-inspiring, transcendent, and confusing way, and will be, always, to the end of the age. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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