Tag: Trinity

(re)Called and (re)Commissioned

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

We are all called to participate in God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation. Everyone who can say, by the Spirit speaking through them, “Jesus is Lord” (1 Cor 12:3-13), is commissioned by the same Spirit to represent Jesus in the world by working for the wellbeing of the neighbor to the glory of God. Our call (individually and corporately) is a full Trinitarian affair; every person of the Godhead is not only invested but deeply involved in the life of us Christians (individually and corporately), breathing life and energy into and through our words and deeds of love and loving service born from faith. We never have to go it alone, because we are never out there fending for ourselves. The God who flung the stars and the planets into their courses has wed God’s self to us (Eph. 5), fulfilling the long promise that God will never leave or forsake God’s people.

But sometimes, we forget that our calling and our commissioning are of God. We take matters into our own hands, we confuse our thoughts and ideas for God’s thoughts and ideas, and we strive to accomplish tasks promoting the kingdom of humanity rather than the reign of God. And as we wander away, forgetting the source and substance of our call and commission, we end up hurting people, especially hurting those desperate to know the love and care of God the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sustainer.

The good news is that God calls us back from our wandering, putting in our paths teachers and leaders who remind us not only about our call and commission, but remind us—especially—that God is our ground and source. Today, God is bringing to St. Luke’s a great and capable leader and teacher, Liz, to remind you, the beautiful body of Christ, that not only does God love you always and forever, but God is your sure foundation. Today we celebrate the Great Commission that defines the lives of all Christians, and we celebrate God’s specific commissioning of Liz to help love and lead you for the wellbeing of others to the glory of God.

Matthew 28:16-20

Matthew tells his audience, Now the eleven disciples traveled into Galilee toward the mountain where Jesus appointed for them and they saw him and worshipped him, but some were of two minds (vv. 16-17). The disciples, the eleven left after Judas’s departure, follow the proclamation of the women; they are on their way to Galilee as the women told them to do, they believed the testimony of the women.[ii] (The women traveled to the tomb on Easter morning and were commanded by both the angel from heaven and Jesus himself to go and tell the disciples to travel to Galilee where they would see Jesus (Mt. 28:1-10).) The newly minted eleven are moved to obey these women, trusting that what they witnessed was true;[iii] so, they traveled to Galilee.

When Jesus is there and meets them, the disciples worship him…but not all of them. The word translated as “doubted” has more nuance to it than just intellectual “doubting”; some were of “two minds” about Jesus being in front of them, they didn’t know how to respond to this familiar Jesus who was currently unknown to them in his risen form.[iv] Caught like deer in headlights, some of the eleven froze…just like you and I would do no matter what great faith we think we have. Their hearts thudded, was it really him? Their minds short-circuited, what do we do now? Some sunk in reverence, some had to let reality sink in.

With care and concern, bringing comfort and assurance,[v] Jesus moves towards his beloveds. Matthew tells his audience,

And Jesus approached and spoke to them saying, ‘All authority in heaven and upon the earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of Abba God, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to guard over all that I commanded you. And, behold!, I, I am with you every day until the consummation of the ages (vv.18-20).

Jesus stands before these humble eleven of mixed minds and assures them: I AM. In the fullest way possible, Jesus tells them that not only has he been vindicated by God[vi] being risen from the dead, defeating death, but that this Son of Man and Son of God is now in possession of all the authority in heaven and upon the earth. His authority is fully established.[vii] TL/DR: nothing, absolutely nothing can defeat him. And in this unalterable celestial and earthly, cosmic,[viii] reality born in the risen Christ is another unalterable reality of both celestial and earthly proportions: the disciples (even though only eleven now) are restored to their place alongside Jesus as his representatives. Jesus’s “task-force” can continue to proclaim the gospel[ix] and they are commanded to do so unto the ends of the earth, proclaiming the good news not only to Israel but to all the nations including (but not limited to[x]) the Gentiles.[xi] In these shocked and humbled (very) human disciples, Jesus’s mission—God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation to bring all the world into God’s love[xii]—goes on.[xiii],[xiv],[xv]

How are the disciples to continue God’s mission made known in Jesus the Christ? By making disciples. Not by forcing people to believe (!!) but by proclaiming the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ crucified and raised and Christ’s new law of love.[xvi],[xvii] There’s no other message that participates in the furthering of God’s mission than the gospel, the proclamation of Christ. The Disciples must begin here and always begin again here at this basic message, which is the foundation of their lives, of their calling, and especially of their commissioning. Now, how they make disciples falls to two actions: baptizing and teaching. Less about “growing the church” and more about furthering the calling and commissioning of more disciples[xviii] who will, one by one and together, cause the church by the power of the Spirit.[xix] John’s baptism becomes the gateway for all people to enter into union with God as a result of faith; [xx] Jesus’s law of love will be distributed far and wide, letting it usher in the reign of God across lands and through nations, overturning the abuses and violences of the kingdom of humanity. On Good Friday, the disciples thought this Christ event was over and dead in the ground; but now, here, in this moment with Christ, what looked like an end, is a beginning…the commencement of their calling and commissioning to further God’s reign and righting wrongs.[xxi]

In this calling and commissioning are embedded two new realities for the disciples. First, is the trinitarian formula Jesus announces to them; the second is that Jesus will be with them always. According to Jesus, new disciples are to be baptized into the full name of the God-head, the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sustainer. Jesus, the Son of God and of humanity, the one who was crucified and who is now standing before them, is to be counted as God and thus Jesus’s name participates in the full name of God, the Trinity.[xxii] In other words, Jesus is God, just as the Holy Spirit is God and Abba God is God. (The I am is no mistake here.) Following this is the promise the gospel closes with:[xxiii] I, I am with you every day until the consummation of the ages. It is no mistake that Matthew closes his gospel with this promise, considering he opened it (1:21) with the announcement that Jesus was Emmanuel “God with us”;[xxiv] all of Matthew’s gospel points to the continual presence of God among God’s people.[xxv] Without the power of Christ to call them, commission them, and compel them, the disciples cannot carry out their making of disciples; this is more than just a comforting thought, it is the very source of their lives and living as sent and powered disciples.[xxvi] Because of Jesus’s resurrection and the sending of the Spirit, Jesus can be with his disciples now and forever unlike when he walked the earth with them before Good Friday.[xxvii] God is with us, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Conclusion

The calling and commissioning of the disciples is also our calling and commissioning (or, rather, recalling and recommissioning). This morning, we are called back to the root and ground of our lives as Christ’s disciples who are to live in such a way to proclaim God’s love in Christ to others and to the glory of God. We are to represent Christ in our words and deeds, knowing that we are not out here bumbling about alone; we are enveloped in the full love and presence of the Trinity, reminded of this fact every Sunday through our common worship together and in the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We do not need to make up a message; we already have one and it’s revolutionary. We do not need a new law; we already have one and it is built on and from love. We do not need to keep trying to find ourselves; we are found in Christ and given new life in him. We do not need to search for keys to unlock the captives; we have been given the key to bring liberation to all the oppressed and marginalized. This morning, hear your call and commissioning anew.

And, to Liz, you, too, are summoned this morning to help lead and instruct in the name of our Triune God. These here are now your charge (along with AliceMarie); to care for them, to bring comfort where there is affliction, and affliction where there is comfort, and, when necessary, to get into a little bit of good trouble as you participate as God’s called and commissioned leader of this humble church in Delta.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Anna Case-Winters Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2015), 337. “The disciples…are following the instructions given for them to the women from the angel and from Jesus himself. Apparently they believed these women.”

[iii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 337-338. “Though they have not seen the risen Lord, they see the effect of the risen Lord on these women.”

[iv] R. T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Gen. Ed Joel B. Green (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 1112. “More likely it indicates that they did not know how to respond to Jesus in this new situation, where he was familiar and yet now different… [like transfiguration]”

[v] France, Matthew, 1112. Jesus “approached” Jesus came to his frightened disciples (assurance); Jesus “speaks” restoration of broken relations; and Jesus “says” words pushing their failures in the past, “swallowed up in the much greater reality of the mission to which they are now called.”

[vi] France, Matthew, 1108. “Jesus himself, risen form the dead, is now revealed in all his glory as the vindicated and enthroned Son of Man, a status which he has hitherto spoken of only as a future expectation, but which has now become a reality.”

[vii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 338. “Now there is no doubt of Jesus’ authority. God has raised him from the dead; it is a validation of his life and ministry. Now he announces ‘All authority in heaven and on earth have been given to me.”

[viii] France, Matthew, 1113. “…now what had been a vision for the future, albeit the imminent future, has become present reality. The risen Jesus, vindicated over those who tied to destroy him, is now established as the universal sovereign, and his realm embraces not only the whole earth, which was to be the dominion of the ‘one like a son of man’ in Daniel’s vision, but heaven as well.”

[ix] France, Matthew, 1107-1108. “In these few words many of the most central themes of the gospel reach their resolution and culmination. The preparation of the Twelve as Jesus’ task force, which had apparently ended in irreversible disaster in 26:56, is now resumed as they (or rather elven of them) are restored to their position of trust and responsibility and given the final instructions for fulfilling the emission for which they were originally called in 10:1-15.”

[x] France, Matthew, 1114. “The commission is of course to go far beyond Israel, but that does not require that Israel be excluded.”

[xi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 338. “His command to the disciples is that they should ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Greek panda ta ethē). In much of Matthew ethnē means the Gentiles. The mission that was only for the ‘lost sheep of Israel’ is now decisively opened to the Gentiles.”

[xii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 339. “God’s work with Israel is not abolished or abrogated, it is rather extended outward to others who will be included even as was the Jewish eschatological hope. All will be judged—not on the basis of their religious affiliation or ethnic origin but on the basis of their love of God and neighbor as demonstrated by what they actually do.”

[xiii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 338-339. “The mission to Israel is never abrogated, just as Jesus comes not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.”

[xiv] Amy-Jill Levine qtd in Case-Winters, Matthew, 339. “‘It is because the promises to Israel have been fulfilled in Jesus’ mission that the message….can now be proclaimed to the Gentiles.’”

[xv] France, Matthew, 1108.

[xvi] Case-Winters, Matthew, 339. “The outreach to the Gentiles must include the teaching of the law; teaching all nations to obey everything that Jesus, the authoritative interpret of the law, has commanded them (28:20).”

[xvii] France, Matthew, 1118. “…they are to teach not their own ideas, but what Jesus has ‘commanded,’ entellomai, a term which hitherto has been especially associated with the ’commandments’…given by God through Moses. The basis of living as the people of God will henceforth be the new ‘commandments’ give in by Jesus.”

[xviii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 339. “It should be noted that this passage is not about ‘church grown.’ It is about ‘discipling’ (teaching) and baptizing (calling people into ministry).”

[xix] France, Matthew, 1108. “And at the heart of this new community of faith is the risen Jesus himself, as he had said he would be (18:20): they are to be his disciples, obeying his commands, and sustained by his unending presence among them. This new international community will be his ekklēsia (16:18) because it is he who now holds all authority heaven and on earth (an authority greater than that which he was initially offered by Satan and refused, 4:8-10)…”

[xx] France, Matthew, 1108. “The almost imperceptible mustard seed is now about to grow into a mighty tree; the kingdom of heaven is to be established over all the earth. The baptism which John had originally instituted as a symbol of a new beginning for repentant Israel (3:1-12) is now to be extended to people from all nations.”

[xxi] France, Matthew, 1110. “For the disciples, and for Matthew’s readers, this conclusion is in fact a beginning, a commencement.”

[xxii] France, Matthew, 1118. “The human leader of the disciple group has become the rightful object of their worship. And the fact that the three divine persons are spoken of as having a single ‘name’ is a significant pointer toward the trinitarian doctrine of the three person in one God.”

[xxiii] Case-Winters, Matthew, 339.  “The gospel closes with a promise.”

[xxiv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 340. “‘I am with you’ is the beginning, middle and ending of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus is identified from the beginning as “Emmanuel’ (1:21), which means “God with us.’ Midway in the Gospel Jesus comes to the disciples across the storm tossed sea and addresses them with his assuring presence: ‘“Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid”’ (14:27). Now the promise is given, ‘I will be with you always, to the end of the age.’ It is the final word of the Gospel, and perhaps the only word we really need.”

[xxv] Case-Winters, Matthew, 339. “‘I am with you’ has been a central theme for the Gospel.”

[xxvi] France, Matthew, 1119. “But the presence of Jesus himself among his people…ensures that it is not simply a relationship of formal obedience. In context this assurance is focused not on the personal comfort of the individual disciple but on the successful completion of the mission entrusted to the community as a whole.”

[xxvii] France, Matthew, 1119. “Jesus’ physical presence with his disciples was limited to the period of his earthly life span, but the spiritual presence of the risen Jesus has no such limitation: it is an eternal, divine being that Jesus will be among his obedient people, ‘God with us.’”

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The [extra] Ordinary Time of Pentecost

Psalm 139:16-17 How deep I find your thoughts, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I were to count them, they would be more in number than the sand; to count them all, my life span would need to be like yours.

Introduction

The beauty of “ordinary time” is that, quite frankly, it is anything but ordinary. If we are following the story line and taking seriously the extensive breadth of the reach of the Triune God extending through space and time, then we are left—after Pentecost/Trinity Sunday—in the exact same spot the disciples were left when Jesus ascended to God and the Paraclete descended to be with, in, and among the disciples, bringing God intimately close. Being left behind by Christ and yet indwelled by the Spirit, the disciples had to figure out how to move forward, one step at a time. Be not mistaken, even if this (visible) church has been around for decades and the larger (invisible) church for millennia, we are, as of this Sunday, (re)located—through story and narrative—back at the beginning, with the recently left and spiritually emboldened disciples.

While it may seem odd that this is the case, it’s only odd because the story seems chopped off at Pentecost/Trinity Sunday, truncated to the time between Advent 1 and Pentecost/Trinity Sunday as if the church is only about the feasts of Christ and not of the continual feast of the Spirit. We dismiss this liturgical season as a non-event. It’s banal, nothing really changes, we have nothing to celebrate or events to plan; no one makes a point to come to church because it’s Pentecost 16. It’s a “down-time” for the church. Vacations happen now. It’s time that isn’t time, it seems to exist at the end of and before time as if the story stops with Pentecost and picks up again with Advent. But it’s the start and end of time; it is during the long season of Pentecost, of ordinary time, where we see time begin for the church—begin and end in God.

So, if we are taking the story—the entire story—very seriously then we can see (and hear!) that during every season of Pentecost we are re-called, re-substantiated, re-created, re-minded that our story, our being, our presence in the world, is dependent and nurtured and sustained by God in God for God’s glory. And every year we must figure out, once again, what it means to be such as us in this world, at this time, in this shape and form. And in this way, the church’s liturgical “ordinary time” becomes the most EXTRAordinary because here it becomes personal and public, here we wrestle with God, here we watch as God continues unfolding the stories—from Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost—in our living (together as this church here in this building and together as the church outside of this building). Here we are called to find ways to participate in God’s mission and proclamation in the world, and here we are forced to ask the same question the disciples asked when they found themselves needing to become a new community in the world of God for God’s glory: what now?

2 Corinthians 4:5-12

For we do not preach ourselves but Lord Christ Jesus, and ourselves as your slaves through Jesus. Because God—the one who says “Let light be radiant out of darkness”—radiated [and continues to radiate] in our hearts toward the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. (2 Cor 4:5-6)

So, as we dive into [extra]Ordinary Time, we are presented with Paul, in a letter to the Corinthians, reminding them that this isn’t about them but about God. It was started by God, it is being sustained by God, and it will continue to go forward by God’s power. This isn’t about us in the sense that we are to proclaim our ideas of what the church is or should be or our own authority. Rather, we proclaim what God has done (from Christmas to Pentecost) for the beloved which includes us,[1] thus continuing the story forward through our proclamation, making Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost real for others.

What does Paul say we proclaim? Jesus Christ is Lord. This, for Paul, is the foundation of our confession—then and now.[2] It is the public and private confession—inspired by the Holy Spirit—that Jesus of Nazareth is also Jesus the Christ, that Jesus is God’s child, the author of the cosmos and the church, that death and evil don’t have the final word but hope and life do, that Jesus is the righteous judge of all, and that all of this demands a rejection of former allegiances in the kingdom of humanity.[3] Thus, for this reason, Paul says that he does not proclaim himself but Christ Jesus, Lord; and, for this reason, Paul insists on the importance of the neighbor (the beloved of God) and the demand that insistence makes on the believer to forsake “personal rights,” because that is exactly what Christ did while he was here.[4]

Behind all of this is Paul’s personal confession that everything that he is doing and saying, and the basic establishment of the church is all God’s doing. There’s no way that Paul would see himself as a slave to his neighbor apart from the illumination of God’s word in his heart; everything Paul does and says is informed by God who beckons cosmic light to be born in cosmic darkness and who is the same one who beckons the light of the Gospel to be born in darkened hearts by the power of the divine Spirit.[5],[6],[7]

And how does God make God’s illumination known? Through fragile and expendable vessels, cheap and unattractive. It is human beings, in frail bodies, who are charged with the “privileged guardianship” of the message of God’s word.[8] (Priceless contents enveloped by meager, breakable material.[9]) And by virtue of everything being dependent on God, these fragile, breakable, relatively worthless vessels become the most powerful of God[10] through their call to take up and participate in the mission and proclamation of God’s divine revolution of love, life, and liberation in the world, on behalf of God’s beloved.[11] Thus, Paul lists the ways human weakness is made strong through God’s divine power.[12] The disciples of God by God’s power and word sustaining them are distressed but not restricted, perplexed but not thwarted, persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed (vv. 8-9). Paul, as a meager, breakable vessel, is utterly dependent on God’s power.[13] And it is through this human weakness and fragility that God’s strength and durability are made known through Paul; it is in the daily dying of the disciples as they move forward step by step as this new community called into God’s mission and proclamation in the world where God’s life is made manifest; in the disciples’ suffering, Jesus’s risen life is articulated and made real.[14]

Conclusion

So this simple season of Pentecost is [extra]Ordinary Time because we are reminded that everything about our entire enterprise as the church (both as church visible and participant in the church invisible) is totally and completely dependent on God: Creator, Reconciler, and Redeemer. Everything we are, have been, and will be is defined and dependent on the work of the triune God in three persons: We are each called together corporately and individually to God by God through the incarnate Word of God, Jesus Christ proclaimed and made known to us by the power of the Holy Spirit. God calls us, God determines us, God sustains us. We are each here together as this body of Christ called by name, determined as this church in this time at this moment in history, and sustained to participate in God’s mission and proclamation in the world. It’s this utter and total dependence—this being called, determined, and sustained—that makes every day in this “Ordinary” season positively extraordinary.

And by saying this it means that we have a vital role to play in this mission of God in the world, the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation aimed toward upending broken human systems and ideologies determined to bring indifference, death, and captivity. Sometimes, when stressing utter dependence it’s tempting to “let go and let God” as if you are nothing more than a puppet on divine hand in God’s drama. But this would be the opposite of being in the world but not of the world, the opposite of being filled with the presence of the divine spirit (the Paraclete) who comes to expose and judge the world in the way it has failed to support and defend all of God’s beloved. So, going into this season of Pentecost, our longest liturgical season, we are to press into the Spirit to find our strength and resolve and be guided by that same Spirit to actively participate in the mission of God in the world made known to us in Christ. We are to face the question, what now?, head on and dare to answer it for us and for the world, today and then again next week. We are to be in the world as breakable and fragile vessels, members of God’s royal army, not wielding weapons esteemed and sanctioned by the military. Rather, we wield the divine instruments of God: the declaration of love, the bringing of liberation, and the affirmation of life.

[1] Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC, eds. I Howard Marshall and Donald A Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 331. “…[Paul] may be observing that though he sought to commend himself to everyone person’s conscience….he never advertised or heralded himself, never pressed personal claims.”

[2] Harris, Corinthians, 332. “…κύριον is predicative, ‘Jesus Christ as Lord.’ The two earliest Christological confessions were ὀ Χριστὸς, ‘Jesus is the Messiah’… and κύριος Ἰησοῦς ‘Jesus is Lord’…”

[3] Harris, Corinthians, 332.

[4] Harris, Corinthians, 333. “[Paul] envisaged his relationship to Christ and his relationship to fellow Christians as one of slavery, that is, as unquestioning service for the benefit of the other, as the result of the unconditional but voluntary surrender of all personal rights. In this lowly service to others, Paul was following in the footsteps of his Lord, who himself had adopted the status and role of a δοῦλος…”

[5] Harris, Corinthians, 333-334. “It was because God had dispelled his darkness by illuminating his heart and had given him a knowledge of Christ he wished to share. The spiritual principle is this; the person who has light (v. 5) is responsible to share that light (v. 4).

[6] Harris, Corinthians, 335. “Paul is not only depicting the heart as by nature dark through sin but also implying that conversion is the replacement of that darkness by light, a theme frequently expressed in the NT.”

[7] Harris, Corinthians, 335. “…the knowledge that produces illumination is nothing other than knowledge of the gospel.”

[8] Harris, Corinthians, 339.

[9] Harris, Corinthians, 340. “Such vessels were regarded as fragile and as expendable because the were cheap and often unattractive. So the paradox Paul is expressing is that although the container is relatively worthless…the content are priceless. Although the gospel treasure is indescribably valuable, the gospel’s ministers are of little value in comparison.”

[10] Harris, Corinthians, 340. “σκεύη refers to whole persons, who, although insignificant and weak in themselves, become God’s powerful instruments in communicating the treasure of the gospel.”

[11] Harris, Corinthians, 341. “Because the gospel treasure has been entrusted to fail mortals who lack inherent power, the δύναμις displayed through preaching and in suffering is demonstrably divine and not human.”

[12] Harris, Corinthians, 342. “…the first element in each antithesis illustrates human weakness, the second illustrates divine power.”

[13] Harris, Corinthians, 345. “…it is clear that in Paul’s estimation this ‘hardship catalogue’ demonstrates, not his virtuous character or his buoyant self-sufficiency or his steadfast courage amid adversity…but his utter dependence as a frail human being on the superlative excellent…of God’s power.”

[14] Harris, Corinthians, 347. “First, the resurrection life of Jesus is evident at precisely the same time as there is a ‘carrying around’ of his dying. Indeed, the very purpose of the believer’s identification with Jesus in his sufferings is to provide an opportunity of the display of Jesus’ risen life. Second, one and the same physical body is the place where the sufferings of Jesus are repeated and where his risen power if manifested.”

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