Matthew 28:16-20 April 27, Make Disciples! In twenty-three years as a pastor, and longer than that preaching

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1 Matthew 28:16-20 April 27, 2014 Make Disciples! In twenty-three years as a pastor, and longer than that preaching sermons, I would say that the hardest part for me in writing a sermon is ending well. There s at least some comfort in knowing that this puts me in some very distinguished company. For instance, if you listen to Beethoven s Fifth Symphony for as renowned and beloved as that piece may be, it seems as if Beethoven had a devil of a time trying to figure out how to wrap it up. And as much as I have always enjoyed J.R.R. Tolkien s Lord of the Rings trilogy, he too didn t exactly nail the ending. The ring is destroyed, the good guys win, but then it takes several more chapters to tie up all the loose ends and wind it down. It has been said of the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew is only gospel which has anything that can properly be called an ending. Now, in defense of the others, we could point out that in Luke s case his ending is really only the conclusion of Part 1 of his story, since he goes on to Part 2 in the Acts of the Apostles. In the cases of Mark and John, if you look at modern editions of the Bible, you ll see in the footnotes that, because of some problems in transmitting the text, we have no clear idea of how they intended their books to end. Matthew however ends on a resounding high note, with Jesus commissioning his disciples to carry on his work the passage that is called the Great Commission. Almost 2,000 years later that is still his commission to the church. So let s take a few minutes open this up and take a little look under the hood. 1

2 To begin with, notice that this is really one commission with two parts. Jesus sends his disciples and that includes us into the world to make more disciples. And that involves two things: baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit; and teaching his disciples to obey his instruction. Now, disciple is not a very modern word in fact it has become a very churchy word, to the extent we hardly hear it used anywhere else. However, the word in the original Greek of the New Testament is very simple. A disciple is basically a learner, and the word that may best capture its essence is the word apprentice. Of course, apart from its use on TV by Donald Trump, apprentice isn t all that common a word either which is our loss. Because historically, being an apprentice has been an important way for a person to learn his or her life s calling. Although they didn t actually use the word apprenticeship, that s how my mother learned to be a registered nurse. When she went to nursing school in the 1940s, it wasn t even called nursing school. She always referred it by just one word, training. In those days, nursing schools weren t ordinarily based in colleges or universities, but in hospitals. When my mother finished high school she left home and moved into a dormitory at the Deaconess Hospital in Buffalo, NY, where she lived year round for the next three years. There was an academic component to her apprenticeship. She d like to remind us every now and then that she had several college credits on the books 2

3 at the University of Buffalo, in subjects such as anatomy and chemistry. But while she was taking classes she also worked practically full-time on the floor of the hospital. Nurses in training began as what we call CNAs today passing bedpans and changing dressings. When they were far enough into their apprenticeships to qualify, the student nurses took their state boards and qualified to be LPNs, and took on greater responsibility on the job. By the time they had finished their apprenticeship they had both the academic training they needed and three solid years of nursing experience. Of course, the learning never stopped, and almost 50 years later my mother was still collecting continuing ed. units to keep her license up to date. When you stop and think about it that s how Jesus trained his twelve apprentices. The book-learning or its equivalent and following Jesus in his mission went hand-in-hand. When Jesus approached Peter, James, and John on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he didn t give them a scholarship, but invited them to join him in his mission. They did get a chance to learn and absorb his teaching. They sat with the people as Jesus taught them, and they received some private tutorials afterward as they were walking from point A to point B. But they followed and watched and that s how they learned what it meant to belong to Jesus. In the Great Commission, Jesus identifies two key elements to the apprenticeship process and I d like to make just a couple of brief comments about them. The first is baptizing. Literally, Jesus sends his church out to baptize 3

4 into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. That has a different ring than saying baptize in the name the way it usually is translated. Because when we say baptize in the name it sounds like we are going into the world as Jesus representatives doing something to people. But baptizing someone into the Triune name of God is about initiating that person into a relationship with God. Paul says in the sixth chapter of Romans that being baptized into Jesus means being united with him in his death and resurrection, dying to the power of sin and rising to a new way of life. That s pretty powerful stuff. Along with baptizing, Jesus sends the church into the world to teach his to obey everything he has commanded us. But what has Jesus commanded? It may be so obvious that we don t notice, but maybe best way to answer this is to go back and read what Jesus has taught in the previous 28 chapters of Matthew. In other words he wants us to teach things like the Sermon on the Mount. But notice that he says doesn t just say teach he says teach them to obey. So Jesus doesn't mean, have them memorize the Sermon on the Mount or have them write an essay on the Sermon on the Mount but teach them to live the Sermon on the Mount! Jesus issued that commission almost two thousand years ago that may make the church s mission of disciple-making the world s oldest continually operating apprenticeship program. But what might disciple-making look like in the twenty-first century? 4

5 We might begin by saying that making disciples in the full sense of what Jesus means is as important today as it ever has been and in fact we need a new emphasis on making disciples. A hundred years ago, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Christian pundits were declaring the new century, the Christian Century. Leading voices in the church declared that Christianity had truly arrived: It had become a truly global movement, and America was a Christian society. By the early 1930s a commission of leading Protestants proclaimed that the church had outgrown things like evangelizing and disciplemaking mission should be limited to education and philanthropy and interfaith cooperation. But as the church backed off from the Great Commission it lost something important. It s not an exact parallel, but I m reminded of statement once made by our nation s second president, John Adams: I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain. Except perhaps for some elites in our society, that time Adams looked forward to has still not arrived. And although our Christian forbears a century ago may have thought that the church had arrived it s clear in hindsight that Christ s mission in the world has not been served well by leaving his commission behind. For the church to thrive in the twenty-first century it will be crucial for us to reclaim the Great Commission. In the days ahead our strategic planning 5

6 group the group we re calling the GPS team will be sharing a first report with the members of the Session and then with us all. Over several long evenings together, studying Scripture, and praying, and talking about church and community, that group has identified what it thinks are the three strategic priorities for our church: 1. going outside our walls to do mission in the community, 2. learning how to share our faith using words! 3. making disciples. Just in terms of thinking about making disciples, that raises a host of questions both about what we do as a congregation and how we do it. Do we know how to make disciples for the twenty-first century? As time went on in her nursing career, my mother would comment about the new young RNs who came to work on her floor, fresh out of school. They all had degrees associates degrees at least and she appreciated the fact that their academic training was much stronger than hers. But then she would add that they had very little practical understanding of how to be a nurse. In other words, they had been to nursing school but she had been an apprentice. The church in our time has gotten quite good at the classroom part of disciple-making. We have great children s curricula, and informative and stimulating adult programs. But how well do we do the other part the teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you part? How will we 6

7 take the learning outside the classroom into homes and committee meetings and the streets? What would it look like to live as a community of apprentices? All of that may seem extremely demanding just asking those questions is enough to make my head hurt! It will mostly likely mean re-directing our priorities, including our personal priorities. It may indeed involve more time and energy than we re used to investing. Given our age-profile as a congregation, it may be a call for our younger members to take the lead in this next phase of our mission. But remember and this is my attempt to end well! that the challenging words of Jesus Great Commission are surrounded with words of encouragement. He begins with, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. And he ends with, And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Jesus is the one who sends us the mission is his mission! And Jesus is the one who accompanies us he is our gracious and patient mentor, and teacher, and guide. The resources and strength we need come from him. Our risen Lord sends us. Will we receive his commission? Will we go and make disciples? Rev. David Spaulding First Presbyterian Church, Dixon April 27, 2014 *W.F. Albright and C.S. Mann, Matthew (Anchor Bible Commentary), p

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