Christian studies can be roughly divided
into theology--talk about God--and ecclesiology--talk about the church. And
there are few passages that are so chock-full of both as this one. On the
theology side, Jesus mentions the three persons we now know as the
Trinity--although Matthew, for one, wouldn't have called it that--and he says
that all authority had been given to him. And Jesus' authority is a major topic
of both practical and theological concern in the Gospels.
On the ecclesiological side, this
passage contains the Great Commission, the marching orders for the church.
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations," Jesus says,
"baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit,"--there's that Trinitarian formula--"and teaching them to
obey everything that I have commanded you." And to top it all off, it's
the last scene in Matthew, and like a lot of important stuff, it happens on a
mountain, but unlike in Luke, there's no ascension. Or at least Matthew doesn't
mention one . . . Maybe he'd never heard of the ascension (remember he was
writing decades after the fact) or that he knew about it, but thought it not
worth mentioning. Or maybe he thought it complicated the picture too much:
Jesus' last words can be read as a promise: “I am with you always, to the end
of the age," and then if he left,
well . . . it would be confusing, to say the least.
Anyway, I think it's fascinating how the
two--theology and ecclesiology, God-talk and church-talk--entwine in this
passage. In particular, how one flows
from another, depends
on another, and it hinges on the word “therefore. " As in "Go,
therefore, and make disciples." That one word makes the entire Great
Commission--a word about the church--a dependent clause, and what it's
dependent upon is the the theological fact that "all authority has been
given" to Christ. Our authority to make disciples and baptize them and
teach them and preach at them does not come because we are wonderful, morally
upright souls--although of course we certainly are--but because all authority in heaven and
earth has been given to Christ. Our authority to be the church comes from the
authority of Christ, who grants it to us. We serve, in other words, at the
pleasure of the King.
But who does the King serve at the pleasure
of? Who is it that
has given all that authority to Christ? Well, right at the beginning of
Matthew's gospel, at the start of Jesus' ministry, on another mountain top no less, we see
Satan offer him the whole world. Remember? The devil takes him up onto the
highest peak and shows him everything, all the people and rivers and rocks and
ants, the whole shootin' match, and offers it to Jesus for the measly little
price--just a trifle, really--of falling down and worshipping him. But there's
only one catch: ol' Scratch has been known to lie from time to time, and that's
what he's doing here. He can't
give Jesus the world to rule: he's the adversary,
not the creator, so it isn't his to give.
In fact, we know that the only one with
the capacity to give authority over anything
is the one who owns
it all, who created
it all, and that's God the Father, maker of, and ruler over, heaven and earth. And
by the end of Matthew's gospel, and the end of Jesus' ministry, he's done just
that. God the Father has given the Son power over the earth--all of
creation--and heaven--all the spiritual realms--to boot.
And so the church's authority derives
from God the Son's authority, which derives from God the Fathers's authority,
and it makes a nice little chain, doesn't it? In fact, that's how it works here
on earth and, as far as we know,
all of creation: the universe, the cosmos or whatever you choose to call it.
Whenever we do something in the cosmos, when we preach the gospel with our
actions--using words if necessary--we do so under God's authority. When we do
otherwise, when we do what we
want to, without the blessings, without the permission
of the Divine, what we do is not destined to turn out so well in the end.
But it's so much more than permission
... it's an umbrella of power, of aid, of comfort, and that's where the Holy
Spirit comes in. We may not know where or to whom the Spirit goes, but we do know that if we are
acting under God's umbrella, under God's sponsorship,
it is there for us.
And speaking of the Holy Spirit, here's
where the Trinity comes in . . . As part of this bubble, of this force field, this
transcendent atmosphere
within which we operate, we are to invoke the name of the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit, we are to wrap ourselves and our ministries in the full life
of the Divine in all its aspects. The awesome creativity of God the Father, the
transcendent source of all; the redemptive and incarnational work of the God
the Son; and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in the world as the one who
empowers, comforts and advocates.
And when we baptize folks in the name of the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit, as we still do 2000 years after these words of Jesus, we
acknowledge that this fullness has indeed come upon the one we have just
baptized. And do our actions, our invocation of the holy names somehow help
enable the action of the Godhead? Do we cooperate with the Divine in this like
we do in the nurture and maintenance of our world?
Well. We're to make disciples of
everyone--that's what "all nations" means here: black or white, young
or old, male or female, Ugandan or Sicilian, gay or straight--we're to make
disciples of everyone. And we usually think of “disciples” as followers of
Jesus, and of course they are that, but the Greek word we translate as disciple
means, literally, "one who is being taught." That's right: the
primary meaning of disciple is student.
Thus the Great Commission can to be understood as: first, we're to make
students and second, we're to be their teachers. And here's what we're supposed
to teach them: to obey all
that Jesus has commanded.
Ok. So that includes quite a bit,
doesn't it? Doing unto others, getting the log out of your own eye first,
judging not lest ye be judged and etc. And over in the Gospel of John, we're
assured that whatever the Son tells us, the Father has told him to tell us, and so
all of his verbal commands are as if they came from the Creator (there's that
chain thing again).
But over in John we're told something
else: not only is Jesus the mouthpiece of God, but he is the very Word of God, incarnate. Embodied. In the flesh. So God's
words, God's commands
are instantiated, made tangible, touchable
by the flesh of Jesus. This means we're talking not just verbal commands, or
even primarily
verbal commands. That's one of the main points of the incarnation.
And so Jesus' actions--the things he does--are literally words from God, commands,
just as if they had been spoken by the Divine. For example, Jesus' extreme (at
least for the time) inclusivity, his conscious welcoming the outsiders of the
time into his fellowship, into the circle of who is welcome in Gods kingdom, is
an embodied Word from the Divine, a command just as much as if one of the Ten
Commandments had said "Thou shalt be extremely inclusive, welcoming the
marginalized into the fellowship of God's kingdom." Jesus' actions in
healing the sick--both mentally and
physically--is a word from God, a command
every bit as much as if he had said to his disciples "oh by the way, guys,
you gotta heal the people, no ifs, ands or buts about it." That's what
being the Incarnate Word means.
And Jesus' actions--healing the blind
man, speaking to foreign women at wells, overturning the tables in the temple,
I could go on and on--are not only his
commandments but God's,
every bit as much as those first ten up on Mount Sinai. Come to think of it,
maybe that's why he goes up onto a mountain this one last time.
So. Here are our marching orders: we're
to make disciples, to make students of Christ and teach them to obey his
commandments. In doing so, we consider Jesus' life--his words, actions, and all
the rest of it--the subject of our teaching. When we hold up Jesus' earthly
life as a model for ur own, that's what we're getting at.
But wait a moment . . . Aren't we
disciples as well, aren't we
students? We are indeed, we are students who teach other students. And if we
cease to teach others--using words if necessary--if we cease to teach other
students by example and word, do we not cease to be followers of Christ, cease
to follow the Great Commission? And by the same token, if we cease to be
students, if we cease to be taught to obey Christ's commandments, embodied as
they are in deed and word, do we not cease to be disciples? Hmmm . . . All
things to think about when pondering the decline in Christian Education
attendance . . .
Well. Always leave 'me smiling, and
that's what Jesus does: after giving them a seemingly impossible task--he tells
those eleven people, huddled shivering on a mountain top to go convert everyone--he ends on a
hopeful note: Remember, I will be with you always, until the end of the age.
Only the Greek original doesn't have "Remember" as in our
translation, it has "Look! Behold!" Jesus is not a mere remembrance,
Jesus as the Christ is a living presence. We are not alone in this, we have not
been given a Herculean task, an impossible task, and expected to go do it by
ourselves. Behold! Jesus is
with us in our trials, in our sufferings, in our triumphs and
setbacks, always, until the end of the age. Amen.
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