Texts: Isaiah 56: 1-12; Matthew 28: 16-20
As a young Baptist girl, I was a true believer, convinced that God had called me to go preach the Gospel to all nations. My parents were not as convinced. And the more I enthusiastically embraced what I saw as my calling, the more my parents became worried. My mother kept telling me that she hoped I would go to college and find a nice professional man to marry – this was the 50s after all – and my father just kept looking at me like I was crazy. They both became incredibly relieved when my religious zeal for going off to unknown places was transformed into other academic areas of interest.
Over the seventy years since I first announced my intentions my sense of what this morning's Gospel passage means has only changed focus, for as St Francis of Assisi once said, “Preach the Gospel at all times; use words if necessary.” Like others of us here, I am sure that our attempts to preach the Gospel in the manner of St. Francis drove our parents to distraction, if not downright crazy.
There are, of course, many ways to preach the Gospel, and many of us carry out this call to mission in our daily lives in many different ways. It is, of course, one of the reasons why Western development work is attacked by those who oppose see such work as a subterfuge for inculcating Western values in conversion. They get it.
Looking at the text from this particular Gospel's perspective, we unconsciously merge it with other post-Resurrection stories in John or Luke. The so-called longer ending of Mark is clearly an addition by a secondary redactor. When we read a particular text, we often read it in the context of how we blend one text into another. This section of the text should be read only in the context of the words of the Risen Jesus in verse 10 earlier in this chapter to the two Marys: “Go and tell my brothers [i.e., disciples] to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
There is no indication of the date that the eleven disciples actually go to Galilee. There they see, or rather, experience, the Risen Jesus. The Gospel does not present this as an other-worldly event but rather as if it were an ordinary, this-worldly event. Like the women who encounter Jesus, their response is not amazement, fascination, or curiosity, but kneeling in worship. There is also an element of doubt.
It's really not clear from the text who was doing the doubting. The Greek word translated as doubt in the text is used by this Gospel writer in only one other place, when Jesus is walking on the water and Peter steps onto the water and then sinks. The Greek word really means more like wavering, fearfulness. This text needs to be read in its historical context to clarify its meaning.
Scholars believe that this Gospel was put into something close to its present form between 85 and end of the first century. In form and structure, it clearly relies on Mark, which is more apocalyptic in tone due to the fact that it was probably written right after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The writer of Matthew's Gospel seems to be more concerned with presenting Jesus as the Son of God not just to a particular community but as the Messiah – the anointed one of God – for the whole world.
The Gospel, that is, the Good News, is for everyone.
Although this is a text traditionally used for this first Sunday after Pentecost, called Trinity Sunday, the text does not present a doctrinal statement of what we have come to call the Trinity actually is. There is no harbinger of the controversies to come, the theological battles that preceded the Council of Nicacea or the differences that still exist between the Eastern and Western Churches. It is, however, a giant step away from Paul who only has people baptized in the name of Jesus as Lord.
Reading this text carefully, there is no ascension, only the final words of Jesus to the disciples to baptize and to teach all that he has taught them, a reference back to the words of the Sermon on the Mount and his actions in the world before he was crucified, which are those of building a community of justice and peace. And the Risen Jesus tells us to continue building the community he established.
So what does this mean for us in today's world? In our matter-of-fact world, we don't go around with visions of the Risen Christ – and those who do are usually put on medication. If we look at Jesus' life and teachings, we can see they are very close to what the reading from Isaiah says: Maintain justice, and do what is right. Doing what is right includes accepting any who “join themselves to the Lord,” that is, anyone who lives according to the commandments and teachings of God and, in this case, of Jesus. The kingdom is an inclusive one, open to all. No one is turned away.
The words of Jesus constitute a call to evangelization, a call that spurred the enormous growth of the missionary movements of the nineteenth century. In the mid nineteenth century David Livingstone, after witnessing the horrors of the slave trade and British colonialism in Africa established a clinic in what is now Zambia. Half a century later Albert Schweitzer gave up his career as an organist, biblical scholar, and doctor for the rich and famous of his day to go to the jungles of what is now Gabon and establish a medical clinic for the people there.
Missionaries went to China. John Hersey's novel The Call explores the lives of young men and women who responded to the text we read in Matthew this morning. Eric Lddell, the Scottish runner in the movie Chariots of Fire, was among them; he died a prisoner in a Japanese internment camp in 1945, just before the war ended.
Mission work had its darker side, of course, primarily driven by the attitudes of imperialism and its accompanying attitudes of cultural superiority. Our American missionaries were not immune either. In our drive to Christianize our Native American population, we created “Indian schools” to eliminate the traditions as well as what most missionaries considered the heathen beliefs of Native Americans. When children wrenched from their tribal homes did not respond, physical abuse usually followed. Fortunately, we have grown beyond a narrow interpretation of the Gospel text, realizing that making disciples involves more than simple ritual baptism.
We are faced in our century with the question: What does it mean to go, baptize and teach all the things that Jesus commanded? We need to think about what Jesus commanded and taught; this second part of the command cannot be separated from the first. Neither can the closing statement that the Risen Christ is with us. There's no statement of how the Risen Christ is with us. For each of us we experience the Risen Christ in different ways not just from one another but at different times in our lives. The important thing here is that we do experience the presence of the risen Jesus.
Experiencing that presence enables each of us to respond to the command in our own way. For some it is in teaching, for others through caring for animals, and others through special projects that demand our time and energy. There are many ways that people are baptized into a beloved community. In first century Palestine, baptism also meant a variety of things. For some it was a ritual form of immersion; for others, passing through ritual baths as in Qumran. Our understanding of the word baptism should be as inclusive as our understanding of the word teach.
In first century Palestine and in the early mission work of Paul, baptism was a sign, visible to the community, that one had accepted Jesus crucified and resurrected. After the institutionalization of Christianity by the Empire, although its meaning was hotly debated, it became more of a definition of who belonged to the community.
Some believed it washed away sins; thus Constantine, fearful of the sins he had committed and would commit as Emperor, was not baptized until on his deathbed. The early medieval church developed a theology of baptism that permitted such a rite and still offered forgiveness to those who sinned afterward. Augustine's theology of original sin permitted baptism to wash away that sin while preserving the power of forgiveness.
Some of us in the Protestant tradition see baptism as a symbol of community; others see it as a sign of repentance. But it does not mean much without the second part of the verse – the receiving end of being taught – which is learning. That means studying how we can best respond to the call to teach all the things commanded. Realizing that none of us has a corner on truth, that we see through a glass dimly, as Paul wrote, perhaps the best way is the admonition of St. Francis: preaching through living, using words only when necessary.
Let us pray: Holy One who gave us Jesus to show us how to live, help us to more fully understand the meaning of his life through ours. In the name of the One who shows us how to live, even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.