Trinity Sunday - Sent in God’s Name

Matthew 28:16–20 NRSV

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.”

Exegesis:

Let’s talk a little bit about where this text fits and how it compares with the other Gospels. These are the final words of the Gospel of Matthew. We will a good portion of the next few months going through the Gospel of Matthew, with Jesus’ teachings and healings taking center stage. Matthew closes his Gospel with the account of Jesus’ resurrection. It’s told differently here than in John’s gospel, which we hear often on Easter Sunday. John highlights the specific encounters with the women and with John and Peter in the garden. Matthew’s story is a bit more shocking, with blinding light, loud voices, and a promised payoff if the Roman soldiers would just keep this whole ordeal quiet. Matthew’s account echoes with some intrigue and the question, “what happens next?”

This all builds up to Jesus’ final words on a mountain near Galilee. Jerusalem is no longer the center focus location — the disciples and Jesus’ followers have regathered where work all began, as Jesus instructed them.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus appears to the disciples following the vision of the two on the road to Emmaus. Jesus gathers with them to remind them of the story of God which has led them to this point and then foreshadows the coming of the Holy Spirit, which we heard tell of last week in the Pentecost narrative. From this, Luke has Jesus ascend into heaven and the disciples return to the temple to continue praising God, which leads us to the opening stories of the Acts of the Apostles.

In Mark, of course, it is a briefer, but similar narrative to the Gospels which succeeded it. Mark is the oldest Gospel, a source for the other synoptic Gospels of Luke and Matthew. Mark tells of Jesus commissioning the disciples, very similar to what we just heard from Matthew. Mark includes how the disciples will do miraculous signs in Jesus’ name and how the Good News will be proclaimed. Mark then closes with a very short statement on the ascension, where Jesus is taken back to heaven and the disciples go on spreading the good news.

Why am I going through all of this?

Because how the Gospels close shows us how they intend to wrap up and direct the story. Mark, in fact, has two possible endings, the first which closes immediately following the “stone rolled away” tomb. It’s only a Longer Ending of Mark that explores the commissioning and the ascension.

Interesting, for sure. And problematic, at some level.

Colonial problems

Why? Can’t we just sit with the discordant, yet related endings of these Gospels? Why does it matter, anyways? The story gets told, the good news gets passed on.

Well, before we get to the good news and hope of this text, we need to wrestle with how this Great Commission and other similar versions of the story, get misused and appropriated for the purpose of power and superiority.

Let’s focus back on the Matthew text and consider how this might be improperly applied.

Jesus opens with the statement, “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” In the positive, we hear this as an affirmation of the lordship and supremacy of Christ. We believe that God has given Jesus authority over creation, to direct and guide and disciple humanity. Therefore, it can be assumed that Jesus has jurisdiction and mandate to be over and authority of all.

Those who know Jesus and have been discipled in his way know that this authority extends into our individual communities and even our selves. We take this to mean that we are servants of Christ, that all authority is secondary to him.

How might that get problematic?

Well, empire has used this gift of authority to claim justification for unilateral overreach and claiming of societies and people groups for Christianity at the expense of their cultures or histories or languages or religion.

Think of the crusaders, carrying the banner of Christ and claiming authority over savage peoples. Think of Manifest Destiny and the conquering empires which over-road indigenous cultures, baptizing and Christianizing whole peoples, claiming the authority of God to do so.

You see, we humans have a really strong tendency to dominate and capture. And historically, we have used this particular text to justify it. All authority is given, so therefore we take it.

Lest we get caught up in empire building, we need to keep mining this Great Commission for the good news and hope for the world.

Trinitarian formula

On of the commentaries in often consult, the Feasting on the Word series, opened their take on Matthew 28 this way:

This is Trinity Sunday, but people who have cancer probably do not care. This is Trinity Sunday, but those young couples who cannot get pregnant probably do not care either. “But, this is Trinity Sunday,” proclaims the worship committee. Even so, the family dealing with the wayward teenager, the couple headed for divorce, the person who has lost a job, they do not care. Does it really matter to them that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? They just want to know that God is God and that God somehow knows who they are, where they are, what they are doing, and what they need.

Pastors and theologians are well-trained to quickly unpack the nature of the Trinity. Perichoresis, union, mutuality, giving and receiving — all these are well worn statements about what we call the Trinity.

Of course, embedded in this text, there is also a foundational teaching about the structure of the Godhead, the Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is one of the places this is first explicitly named, the Trinitarian formula.

But does the inter-related nature of the Trinity speak to our suffering? Does it really matter?

Does God care about our needs? Is God present in our suffering — those are the real questions we ask.

And until we can answer those questions, maybe, like…who cares? We all know what it’s like to come across someone who are can argue all the finer points of theology and philosophy, but who have no concept for how to empathize or offer compassion, to others, or to themselves.

Thankfully, in God’s interrelated structure, within God’s self, we get the answers we’re looking for. God, in complete love and submission to Christ and the Holy Spirit, dances the brilliant dance of loving relationship within God’s self. In fact, we can see in the beautiful relationship of persons in unity.

At my graduate school, they have a very large triptic, a three-part art piece, that covers a main wall near the entrance. The piece is a recreation of Henri Matisse’s “La Danse,” a depiction of 5 human bodies, hands clasped in a circle, whirling in a unified dance.

This picture represents that Trinity, not in number, but in the Trinity’s invitation for you and me to join in with the dance. For as God is inter-related and loving of God’s self, so God also invites you and I to participate in this divine dance. God calls us in.

Is this good news for the afflicted, the hurting, the sick?

What if we can’t dance?

What if we’re too tired?

Is God still there for us?

Or is this all just a way to justify empire and colonizing and submission of the masses?

Baptism and discipleship

If I’m honest, I feel a little jaded at the Great Commission when I think about all these realities. Is this, as some scholars hint at, just some text added on at the end to justify missionary exploits beyond Jerusalem? Is this ultimately another tool of empire? Is Jesus telling us to go consume and devour all other cultures so that they come under the supremacy of God’s justice?

Lord, have mercy, for this is what your people have done to your gospel. Forgive us.

What good is baptism in the name of the Trinity?

What good is discipleship in the way of Jesus?

At this point, I realize this is where I need to keep it super simple, at least for my own sanity and heart.

What if it’s not about domination? What if it’s not about assimilating?

What if Christian discipleship and baptism are something else?

We know the history. Christianity does spread. The word gets out.

Mandate vs. Good News

What if we heard this message for it’s good news and not for its mandate?

What if the message of Jesus, the instruction to baptize and disciple the nations, what if it is about inclusion, not dominance?

Here’s where I find a link between our theological understanding of the interrelatedness of the Trinity AND the Good News of Great Joy for All Nations.

From the witness of the Scriptures and the mouth of Jesus, we come to understand God as a united, interrelated, connected, mutually giving and receiving, loving Trinity. Three in One. Augustine used the example: The root is wood, the trunk is wood, the branches are wood: one wood, one substance, but three different entities.

Within that reality, diversity. Within that diversity, unity.

So for God’s people to be sent out is for them to be sent out to bless diversity and gathering it in unity. For us to see the many nations of the world, and all our cultural and social particularities, and to bless them as a part of that divine dance. Because the Good News is not that we are invited in simply to be consumed, but the Good News is that we, in our individual belovedness, we are invited to dance, as ourselves, in the divine choreography.

Think back to last week and the Pentecost text — many voices, many languages, spoken, but understood in native tongues. Brilliant diversity, united in the gift of the Spirit.

What if we began to know our part in this? What if we realized that we are, too, invited in to the dance? What if it didn’t matter if we knew all the parts, but that we were celebrated for the way we bring in new life to the dance?

This is Christian baptism and discipleship. Come, dance with us, share your gifts. Make us more whole.

All nations, all people.

Baptized, washed clean, united in one shared allegiance, to the God who unites what is different. Discipled, learning, working together, learning from one another, growing in faith, members of the nurturing family of God. Not consumed, but participant.

I’ll close with this: When we go out into the world to baptize and disciple people so that they conform and start acting just like us — well this misses the point. Our work is not to go out and make people like us. We are sent in God’s name, our work is to go into the world and remind people who much they are beloved by the one who created them. To celebrate and learn from our differences. To grow strong and be people of light because of our collective gifts and strengths.

To God be the glory, the one whose name we bear.

Amen.