Go, Teach, Baptize

Matthew 28: 16-20

It is Trinity Sunday and the earliest ‘formula’ for even thinking about the Trinity is in the Gospel of Matthew.  But rather than focusing on what or how the Trinity really works – that’s waaay too doctrinal for a sunny Sunday morning after a busy and very strawberry infested Saturday so I want to focus on what is called the ‘Great Commission’ which is also part of this morning’s scripture reading.  The Trinity is of course important to our faith because that’s what makes us uniquely Christian as opposed to being Unitarian, Buddhist or Jews.  But the great commission is why Christianity is still alive today as one of the world’s faith traditions.

Today’s scripture comes from the end of the Gospel of Matthew. The women who followed Jesus, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, have come to the empty tomb looking for Jesus.  After much rumbling of an earthquake they come to find an angel parked at the tomb instead.  The angel tells them to run and tell the disciples that Jesus has been raised to life and that he would meet them up in Galilee.  And so following celestial orders they run back and are met by Jesus who also lets them know that they should meet him up in the Galilee region.  Galilee was home to these fisher men. I find it reassuring that Jesus wanted to meet them up in their old familiar place. So let’s pick up the Gospel of Matthew, the 28^th chapter.

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. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

This is not a lot of passage but it packs a punch for its buck.  After the disciples get themselves back home in the Galilee and to the mountain Jesus directed them to…Godly things always happen on mountains in the Bible….they finally saw Jesus and they worshipped him.  This was the first time that they had seen their risen Lord and they were happy to see him and probably fell to their knees and prayed. But also scripture says, some doubted.  Funny how Matthew sticks this little bit of information in there.  Some weren’t sure of all this and some had reservations as to how this could be.  Jesus was dead and now he is alive.

There are probably a few of us who have some uncertainty to as to this resurrection story or any part of Jesus’ story.  Right after college I went to talk with my pastor because I thought that I was sensing a call to missionary work.  Well after much soul searching I realized that I had some doubts of my own about this whole Jesus thing and really didn’t want to tell that ‘old, old story’, or be a witness in the world.  Obviously that has changed, God brought me down few notches right to where God needed me to be and now I love to talk about, to preach and to live that ‘old, old story of Jesus and his love’ because the truths that lie within and the hope for my life and my living are all contained in them. 

So doubt is ok, we can still tell our stories of faith, it may not be as overt as a preacher but any way you manage to live out Christ’s story and then tell about it works.  That is effective witness.  The key is living it out, not keeping it in which is what Jesus says next to his disciples in this passage.  Go. Teach. Baptize. Remember.  These are pretty basic instructions. He commissions them for service in the world. If ever you wondered what God wants from you, remember this.  Go. Teach. Baptize.  It is the ‘great commission’ for the disciples and for us too.  

But let’s admit it, fulfilling this great commission go, teach baptize, might seem like just one more thing to do doesn’t it?  Or if not that, it might just make some of us downright uncomfortable to talk about our faith with others or even with those inside of our four walls.  Do we really even know how to begin to share our faith?  And what part of our faith do we share?  The command is to go and immerse the world in the Christian story and your faith.

‘Go’ seems to be the operative word here.  Simply go. Do not stay put and get comfy in your cushioned pews, do not stay within these beautiful sanctuary walls and contemplate the deep meaning of life, you can only do that for so long.   

Jesus didn’t say ‘If you build it, they will come.”  Remember that line?  It was spoken by the character Ray Kinsella played by Kevin Costner in the movie “Field of Dreams” way back in 1989.  He saw a vision and heard a voice urging him to build a baseball diamond in his cornfield in Iowa. He follows that dream and Shoeless Joe Jackson appears as do others for the windup and the pitch.  Hundreds of people stream to the cornfield baseball diamond all because of the voice he heard, “If you build it, they will come”.  But that is the movies where anything can happen and usually does. Well we do not live on a movie set and ‘Jesus didn’t say, if you build it they will come’[i], not even close.

White clabbered sanctuaries didn’t even cross his mind as a carpenter in the first century!  It’s the real unusual person who will just come on a Sunday morning because we have a pretty bucolic footprint here on the Green in Orange.  No, we need to go out and tell the story of our lives and how that intersects with our faith.  And you can do it without going all doctrinal on people who might roll their eyes at the hint of doctrine.  Tertullian and Athanasius wanted doctrine.  We do not.  And yet our faith and the tenets of it are very important to our lives.  And so is witnessing, Go. Teach. Baptize.

So here’s one way to witness your faith in public.

Let’s say we had a strawberry festival recently. And after the sweet aroma of strawberry pies wears off from your clothing, after you’ve had a chance to soak your feet, massage your lower back, that realization hits you like a brick on the head that you have to go back to work, or your normal routine.  Monday happens.  And people will inevitably ask about your weekend. 

What will you say?  A generic response, “Oh it was fine, busy but fine”.  Or might you say with all of the enthusiasm that you can possibly muster, “It was fabulous.  MY CHURCH, the Orange Congregational Church (note the commercial here) had a strawberry festival and I worked it.  It was great, I got to see old friends and work right along side someone that I hadn’t see in ages.  And it was so wonderful to see everyone of all ages working so hard together.  But honestly, it wasn’t work, it’s just something we do as a community of faith so that we can help others in the area”!!!  

That’s witness!  This is Go. Teach. Baptize.  This is where your life’s story interests with Christ’s life story and we must tell it.  If you are not excited about your faith and what your faith community does then chances are others will not be interested either and so why bother?  To make money for our coffers?  Nope, that’s not it, if that’s all we do then we will fail as Christ followers.  Everything we do at Orange Congregational whether it is to make jam, polish our red cars, hull strawberries ad nauseum, flip burgers is for Christ and others, not ourselves.

When looked at that way it becomes a powerful witness to the miraculous power of God’s love.  All I can say is go and tell.  Be assured.  Be confident that God is with you every step of the way creating opportunity and growth for you, that Jesus the Christ will redeem you from every ill that will consume your life, and that the Holy Spirit will sustain you in God’s love, God’s grace and God’s abiding energy and affirmation of your life.

Amen.

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[i] Idea from Jennifer Copeland, The Living Word from the Christian Century Magazine.  p 20 June 11, 2014 issue.

End. Of. Footnotes.

1 Corinthians 12: 3b-13

The confirmation class, Renee my co-teacher, and I have an inside joke that we will share with you today.  When we first began our journey together last September we would read the 23^rd Psalm at the beginning of class in hopes of memorizing it.  So what I had done was to copy and paste a particular version from ‘Bible Gateway’ an online source to make a handout, but what I had inadvertently copied as well was something at after the last line, ‘and I shall dwell in the house forever’ which said, “End of Footnotes”.  Well I didn’t realize that until we read it together the first time and one, outspoken confirmand continued with, ‘and I shall dwell in the house forever. End of Footnotes’.

As you can imagine, that took on a life of it’s own.  Whenever we prayed the Psalm it always, ALWAYS concluded with “End of Footnotes” rather than Amen.  It’s their signature ending to this most beloved Psalm. Well as you know a footnote is placed at the bottom of a page of a book and it comments or cites a reference for part of the text or story.  Ultimately I think that a footnote is apropos for today; for the confirmation of these seven talented, committed and spirited youth of our church. 

You see each of our lives is a story. And there are unique and memorable events in our life stories that mark the passages of time.  One might call these events footnotes because they call out, above all the rest for the reader to understand, that this moment is special.  This moment in time was transformational to the story of this person’s life.

And so it is with confirmation.  Confirmands, confirmation is a footnote in your personal journey of faith.  It is a time called out that you will remember for the rest of your life.  Whether you remember the Killam’s point retreat, or ‘Be, Be, Be, Be Be’, or the drudgery of six plus 300 word essays that you wrote, or visiting Life Haven, or being in the Prayer Walk, or having an ‘aha’ moment about God.  Confirmation marks a very holy time in your life and in the development of your spiritual life.  You embraced it, you engaged in it to make it meaningful for yourselves and that’s exactly how it should be.  Renee and I both thank you for that.  But what I can unequivocally tell you is that this is NOT the ‘End of Footnotes’ for you. 

You have got a lot ahead of you.  There are going to be many footnotes in your journey of faith, many significant ones that might be filled with joy and also with sorrow.  But they will no doubt be a time of transformation and growth and I hope experienced within a community of faith.

If you remember one of the activities that we did at the retreat was to talk about the body of Christ and our place in it.  We put together a jigsaw puzzle of a body with Christ as it’s head and we identified the gifts that we each possess as a part of the body of Christ.  That little exercise speaks to the message that the Bible has for us today which is the Feast of Pentecost.

The Apostle Paul writes his letter to the people at Corinth, a bustling urban community that was ethnically, culturally, and religiously diverse. Corinth was the heart of Roman Imperial culture in Greece and it is more than likely that this small fledgling church population mirrored the larger community.  So you can imagine that there were clashes because of this diversity.

So Paul writes as a mediator between the members.  Hear the words of the Apostle Paul in the 12^th chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians.

Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. ⁴Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; ⁵and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; ⁶and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. ⁷To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. ⁸To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, ⁹to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, ¹⁰to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. ¹¹All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

¹²For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

As only Paul can do, he illustrates his point in many ways.  In fact he just hammers that point in over and over again like a jackhammer on stone. The church body at Corinth was not working out so well, they were a fractured church community and Paul tries very hard to bolster their confidence and remind them what being the body of Christ is all about.

So he uses the metaphor of the body to illustrate how the body of Christ should work. Each foot, each hand, each eye, each ear is essential.  Not one part is superfluous.  One body, one spirit.  They all work in harmony with one another yet each maintains its special function within the body.  Every member is significant and every member has a gift that will uniquely benefit the church.  Every member has the responsibility to tell his or her story of God’s love in their life with many footnotes!

And what binds this conglomeration of people together is baptism in Christ.  It is our shared story of love and pain, joy and sorrow, laughter and tears that we hold in common.  And yet we are free to express our unique and diverse gifts for the good of the common weal.  I don’t think it gets any better than that.  Unity and diversity are not incompatible; they are interdependent on one another[i].   

Baptism is where this journey for you began Confirmands and Confirmation is one of many footnotes that will punctuate it but will not end it.  This has been a remarkable year in your faith life. You have affirmed today, the promises made long ago by your parents on your behalf. You have made a good decision - a life altering decision – one worthy of a footnote.  Because you are God's own, God has chosen you and you have chosen God.  Continue to speak and express God's love, continue to follow the ways of Christ in your own unique manner because you are the body of Christ.  Grow into your fullest knowing that God formed you in your mother's womb and that God has called you thus far and that God will abide with you and grow with you, today and always.  

And remember that we are here for you, loving you, supporting you and accepting you because you are beloved children of God.

Amen.

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[i] Rethinking Interim Ministry

On Being Prepared

John 14: 1-14

I have stayed in some pretty classy five-star hotels in my travels throughout the years.  I can say that they are prepared for me!  From the crisp white clean sheets and towels to the fruit basket with local fresh fruit that’s so delicious you know you are welcome.  And then, when you return from your day’s adventures to the museums or local café’s your bed is turned down and there is a luscious little chocolate mint waiting for you on your pillow.   One hotel in Costa Rica was really creative in that the chamber maid folded very cute little animals out of clean hand towels and left them on your bed to greet you.

And then I have stayed in some questionable hotels and motels where the veneer is peeling off of the furniture, the lampshades were askew and there is some mold in the crevices of the tile in the shower making you want to run to Target first to get a supply of antiseptic wipes.  One place, as I was getting ready to go to sleep, I laid in bed and watched a gecko scurry across the ceiling only to pounce on a spider that had been unknowingly resting on the far side of the ceiling.  I prayed that night as I finally drifted very slowly and cautiously off to sleep that whatever makes a spider and a gecko stick to the ceiling would not unhinge that particular night.  It was creepy.  Places like there are not as prepared to greet their guests with a fine welcome that makes you want to leisure in the hotel room.

I’m sure you have all had experiences with great accommodations and some that are less than stellar.  It’s deceiving when choosing your lodging because what you see on the internet is not always what you get.   In the hotel business being prepared for your customers is of utmost importance.  It says we care about you and your comfort and want to make your stay the most comfortable and pleasant as it can be.

In the grand scheme of the Gospel of John our scripture reading today falls just after Jesus washes his disciples feet and foretells his betrayal, so it is actually a pre Easter passage.  The disciples have questions, they have fears, they have doubts about their own mortality and in this farewell discourse Jesus attempts to show them how to live once he is gone and to convince them that, in the words of Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.”  He also let’s them know that he is preparing a place for them too in the very same place that he is going.  Let us hear those comforting words in the Gospel….

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.

Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

The disciple’s hearts are very sad and perplexed.  They have come to the realization that their time on earth with Jesus is limited now. Thomas asks, ‘Lord, we just don’t understand where you are going, how can we know this?’  And then Philip also questions Jesus, ‘Lord, just show us the [father] meaning, God.  Just show us and then we can understand and be satisfied.  Their hearts were truly unsettled and troubled.  They know he is leaving but they don’t understand to where he is going nor what is happening next.

So Jesus endeavors to prepare them as best as he could.  But first he consoles them, don’t let your hearts be heavy or burdened, don’t let them be troubled, I’ll tell you where I’m going and where you’ll eventually wind up too.  So while Jesus is talking about where he is going he is talking about their mortality too.  Just believe, Jesus says, just believe.

Then as we look deeper into this passage we see he lays it all out before them, the destination, the travel agent, the accommodations, the directions and who will be greeting them when they get there! This is much better than the Lonely Planet or a Rick Steves travel guild can ever foretell.

The destination is his ‘father’s house’ or in other words, he’s going home to God.  He is saying that we are going to live and dwell in the eternal presence of God for that is home.  If you have ever travelled with little ones on board you know they ask a lot of questions like are we there yet, and where are going?  It’s important to know where you are headed.  Jesus ultimately goes back ‘home’ and there he will wait and prepare for their arrival too.  God’s eternal presence is our inheritance too, it is our ultimate destination.

Jesus tries to make it as pastorally compassionate and direct as possible for them.  Clearly he’s the travel agent!  Jesus is handling this, he’s got their backs.  ‘Believe me, you believe in God so believe in me.  Live in my ways that is to live into each day as a gift and blessing from God and to live into the truth of who we are as God’s beloved and named children.  When it comes to our eternal destination we must trust in God that we will get to that divine presence.

Jesus was preparing not only a home with many rooms, one for each of them.  The accommodations!  No matter what that might look like, our room will be prepared for us probably without those little mints and also without the geckos but it will be grand.  This eternal dwelling place will meet and go way far beyond our expectations, how can it not?  I’ve know many people who have gone there and have not returned, so it’s gotta be great!  Our hearts need not be troubled any longer. 

And the directions.  Well the disciples may not have known what Jesus was talking about but it’s clear that they are to follow Jesus because he knows the way.  It’s like finding a good tour guide that will show you how to get into the museum’s or who will help you trek off the beaten path only to receive a grand view that you might never have seen if you had stuck with the ‘tourist map’.  You follow because Jesus knows already the way.  Could there be other ways, certainly but Jesus for our purposes and our Christian belief is the way.  He is our guide, our model, our GPS system that never drops in poorly receptive areas.

And of course, God and Christ Jesus will be waiting for us.  Much like the prodigal son whose life was lived in questionable ways, and who returns home after being gone for so long, he is greeted lavishly by his father with the fatted calf of forgiveness and love.  God awaits and we have that promise through the forgiving work of Jesus Christ. 

This entire passage for today is our assurance of what is ahead of each one of us as we live in the present reality knowing that living and dying are intrinsically bound together.

Death has got to be the saddest reality of our living.  It makes me sad to think of losing my parents so very long ago, it horrifies and saddens me to think that I could loose one of my children and it saddens me to think about my own mortality because, you know what? I love life! I love my life and what I choose to do with it.  So it is in sad and distressing moments, when I think about the reality of life and death, that the words of Jesus become powerful words of hope, “Let not your heart be troubled”. 

Let not your heart be troubled, you will make it through the night, you will be able to face the day, you are loved and redeemed from your sorrow, God’s ceaseless presence is prepared for you.

These words also encourage me to live boldly today and be grateful for the gift that today really is and for the wonderful blessings that are before me.  In the words of departed Pauline Blaney when I would see her coming in to church, “today is a bonus day!” meaning she knew that she was living with the end in sight and she was going to make the absolute best out of each day.  She was prepared to die into the eternal presence of God and God, was waiting with open arms to greet her.  Christ’s room that he prepared for her was ready.

The only time that we have is right before us so it bids us to live, to cherish and appreciate, to be content and to be grateful in the moment, and to love deeply, dearly, and compassionately.  To enjoy the people around us as other children of God.  To make this world a better place through compassion and justice.

I want to share some reflections of Henri Nouwen, Catholic priest and author,

“The love with which we lived our lives is the life of God within us.  It is the divine, indestructible core of our being.  This love not only will remain but will also bear fruit from generation to generation…..

How we leave others depends largely on how we prepare ourselves for death.  When we can die with grateful hearts, grateful to God and our families and friends, our deaths can become sources of life for others.

And so it is.  Our living can be a source of life for others just by living today as an abundant blessing of God’s love.  Now don’t let you heart be troubled, there is way too much living to be had for today.  Let us be grateful for our very lives and live them as a blessing to others.

Amen.