Reflections on “Do You Really Mean the Whole World?” Matthew 28: 16-20

This sermon takes a little bit different approach to Ascension Sunday.  Instead of focusing on Jesus ascending, it focuses on his last command to his followers.  The third point would not have been a part of the sermon a year ago, but the pandemic has forced us to think beyond the normal way we do and understand things.

“Do You Really Mean the Whole World?” May 17, 2020; St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, Denton; Matthew 28: 16-20

Matthew 28: 16  Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Introduction:

Today is Ascension Sunday, the day we remember the resurrected Christ ascending to heaven.  

typically, the Scripture read on Ascension Sunday comes from the first chapter of Acts in which the story of Jesus ascending from Mount Olivet is told, complete with a cloud whisking Jesus to of sight into the heavens. 

the story we read today from the Gospel of Matthew, however, takes place on another mountain.  it is Jesus’ final words to his followers as found in the Gospel of Matthew as the resurrected Christ urges them to go and make disciples of all the nations.

It begs the question - Jesus do you really mean all the nations?

not just my neighborhood?  not just my local community?  Not just my country?  But all the nations?

“Jesus, do you really mean the whole world?”

Move 1: Let me be clear - the resurrected Christ does indeed send his followers to all the world.

a.  In a way, this expansive charge may surprise Jesus’ followers.

1.  May surprise us as well, particularly if we remember what Jesus told the disciples earlier in Matthew.

2.  Just after calling the twelve disciples, Jesus sends them out with these instructions:  “go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of Israel” (Matthew 10:5-6).

3.  A very focused ministry.

4.  A tight circle to whom the disciples are sent.

b.  But now Jesus expands the circle.

1.  not just the lost sheep of Israel;  but the Samaritans and Gentiles.  In fact, all the nations.

2. Jesus does not tell them why. but surely they have seen the clues as Jesus has continually broken down barriers and taught new understandings that push and expand the circle more and more.

3.  I suspect it has something to do with the resurrection.

4.  Cynthia Rigby, a renowned professor of theology at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in a sermon preached at Grace Presbytery on the day of Ascension a few years ago, noted that for Karl Barth the ascension of Christ was important because it tells us that the resurrection was not temporary.   

5.  When Christ overcomes sin and death, he resets the trajectory of the world and points us to a vision of reconciliation and connection between all of God’s created beings.  

6.  A vision only possible by the power of God to resurrect. 

7. So Jesus sends his followers, sends us into the world to expand and push beyond ourselves to others, and to keep pushing and expanding until all the world knows the love of God.

c.  When we quit going outside of ourselves to invite people into our community of faith; when we quit going outside of ourselves to find people with whom to minister, we turn away from the calling Jesus gave us when he sent us into the world.

1.   have you heard the story of how the Children’s Health Insurance Program started?  Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church in 1984, when recently unemployed steelworkers came to church to protest their plight.

They lined the walks, carrying dead fish, to greet parishioners as they had at other churches where company executives worshipped. 

They came into the church and filled the front pews, then stood to face the congregation when worship began, intending to stand throughout the service. 

Church leaders had been alerted that this might happen, so they had a plan.  A different plan than other churches who had either kept them out or escorted them out.

Fox Chapel’s minister, The Rev. John Galloway greeted them and asked them to tell the congregation what they needed. Their spokesman tearfully explained they were hurting, most of all because they couldn’t provide their children adequate health care.

Rev. Galloway thanked them and invited them to continue standing or to sit and join them in worship. They sat. He then offered to meet them after church to find a way we could help them, his graciousness disarming them.

the church members heard the stories and decided to do something.  They formed a committee!

They began with the idea to insure one child.  Then, they decided to see if they could insure all the children.   Initially, 100 children were insured by church members contributing $13 per month, or $156, for a year’s coverage. With matching funds from BC/ BS, the church ended up insuring 200 children that first year. 

Thus began a partnership with the church, and other churches and non-profits, and businesses.   It led to a state-wide program put together to care for uninsured children, which then became the model for our nation’s program to care for uninsured children.

“It was a miracle that all segments of society got together to accomplish this wondrous thing — the religious community, business, labor, all political parties, schools, civic groups, the media. Wilberta Pickett, “The Children’s Health Insurance Program began in Fox Chapel” Pittsburgh Gazette, 12/22/17)
https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/2017/12/23/The-Children-s-Health-Insurance-Program-began-in-Fox-Chapel/stories/201712230011)

3.  A Presbyterian congregation living into the call to go outside of its own group to the community, then to the state, and then it went to the whole nation.

4. Jesus sends us out into all the world.

Move 2:  Jesus does more than just send us, he sends us with his authority.

a. Jesus is very clear - God has vested all authority in heaven and on earth in him.

1. I was reading an article recently on authority.  The author wrote that “True authority is what gives people the confidence to follow“ Craig R. Koester

http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=936

3.  in other words, authority leads to followability.

4.  So here the disciples are, on a mountaintop with the resurrected Christ being sent back into the world, to all the nations.

5. Do they go? 

6. Yes, they do?  Why?  Because the resurrected Christ, the one whom God has given authority sends them.

7. We who proclaim the resurrection of Jesus Christ have it on his authority that we are to go to all the nations, baptizing and teaching.

8. Are you willing to act on the authority of the resurrected Christ?

b.  do not miss one other important aspect of Jesus’ command.

1.  Jesus also promises to be with us, until the end of the age.

2.  As we push beyond ourselves, as we extend the love of Christ to new people and new places, we do so in the assurance that Christ is with us.

c.  Did you notice that as this story begins in the Gospel of Matthew, we are told that some of the followers doubted. 

1. could you blame?  all they have heard is stories about an empty tomb and the resurrected Christ being seen by others.

2. Now as they gather on the mountain in Galilee where they were told to go, they see for the first time the resurrected Christ.

3. Not only do they see him, but now he is sending them into the world.  

4.  what can overcome their doubt?  What can make them go at his command?  They can dare to go only because they are sent with the authority of the resurrected Christ and the assurance that he will be with them.

5.  We can dare to go into the world because we are sent with the authority of the resurrected Christ and the assurance that he will be us.

Move 3: Can we go into the world now?

a.  We read this story, in fact, you hear this sermon, as you sit at home watching worship on your TV, or computer or hand-held device.

1.  how can I go into the world, expand the circle, when I am not leaving my house these days to go out into the neighborhood, much less the world.  

2.  Craig Barnes, another of our former Fall Festival of Faith keynoters here at St.  Andrew reflected on how we live out our calling in time of pandemic and social isolation. He reminds us of the monastics like St. Benedict or St. Gregory.  

The sixth-century “was a long, horrible time in Rome. The city had long fallen to a succession of invading armies. The economy was in shambles. And the Plague of Justinian was ravaging the city. People were frightened for so many reasons.”   The sixth century was also the time when St. Benedict and St. Gregory led other monastics into removing themselves from the busy-ness of the world to focus on prayer and singing laments before God.  

The beginning point of their prayers was humility as they acknowledged the agitation of the world they could not resolve.  So they prayed and sang.

so Barnes calls us to pray.  Not just for ourselves or our community of faith, but for all the world. To be clear, Barnes’ point is not that we might as well pray if we have nothing else to do while stuck at home.    he invites us to join the ministry of the monastics who have prayed for the world for the last 1500 years.  

As Barnes writes:  “Through prayer, we demonstrate our resolve not to flee the dangerous virus and hide at home, but to turn those homes into monastic cells that actively call for God’s salvation to find its way to the ends of the earth. These are prayers not just for our family, our community, and our neighbors but for the world. The whole world needs our prayers for holy intervention today.

If we stay in prayer long enough, Gregory promises, we will find the vision we need that today is not the end of the story because a savior is still at work. The God who was so clearly faithful in our past is going to be faithful today, tomorrow, and through eternity. And then we are led to humility in gratitude that God is with us.

(Craig Barnes, “On the Spirituality of Quarantine,” Christian Century, May 8, 2020, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/reflection/spirituality-quarantine)

b.  As I read his article and his call to pray for the world as we try and minister to all the world, I was reminded of Sandy, a woman in the church I served in OH.

1. The church had prayers of the people in worship each week, but instead of listing the prayers in the bulletin, the church would ask if anyone had a prayer request, and if anyone did, he or she would sort of shout it out (over the course of time, we added prayer cards).

Good and bad with this approach.   you perhaps can imagine how it could go badly.  Competing joys over whose child had accomplished more; or birthday after birthday mentioned; or the person who gives much more detail about a medical issue than most can stomach; or the person whose prayer request goes longer than the sermon did.

And, of course, to me the worst thing that could happen would be for the church’s prayers to never mention anyone or anything beyond the church’s doors, meaning our prayer time would cause us to retrench into ourselves, instead of engaging the world.

Enter Sandy - she was an older woman, who did not sleep well, and when she awakened very early on Sunday mornings, she would watch the news for several hours.

At the 8:30 Chapel service, she would be sitting on the third row each week.  And each week she would list the top two tragedies, or natural disasters, or deaths that had taken place in faraway places across the globe.

she set the tone for the prayers every week.  Her expansive understanding of God’s concern for all the world and our church’s responsibility to pray for and perhaps even find ways to reach out to those far away places shaped how we understood our relationship with and calling to the whole world.

2.  We went out to all the nations each week because this woman pushed us there every week.

Conclusion:   Four soloist Sing song with all parts to “The whole world is in God’s hands.”

God sends us to the whole world, the whole world which is in God’s hands.

Reflections on "Why Did You Call the Body of Christ?"

Another sermon in the sermon series "Questions we might ask the resurrected Christ."  I suppose they are actually my questions, so the congregation is stuck with them.  As I preach through the series, it also occurs to me that a better sermon series with the same type sermons would have been, "Questions the resurrected Christ has for us!" 

We have been having the younger kids build wind chimes with charms the Children's mInistry team has mailed to them.  This week, the charm was an Ichthys.  it hangs with a fish, a heart, a cross, and a sheep charm, each of which symbolizes one of the themes for each week's sermons.  It has been a very good visual for the Time with Young Disciples in worship and for our younger kids to have at home to connect to the sermon.

“Why Did You Call the Body of Christ?” May 10, 2020; St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, Denton; Colossians 3: 12-17; Acts 5: 27-32

(Colossians 3:12-17) As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other/ just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (NRSV)

Introduction:  We continue reflecting on questions we might ask the resurrected Christ.

this week: Why did you call the body of Christ into being?  

Two different approaches

First, we have the Colossians passage - a beautiful commentary on the possibility for human relationships we have because in Christ's death and resurrection we who have been freed from sin and death.  

 in fact, we are using it as our Call to Faithfulness in this Easter season., a reminder of who we are called to be as people of the resurrection.

Then we have the Acts passage - a glimpse at the earliest church members, if you will, living out the new found role of the body of Christ in the world

Preaching professor might suggest this should be two different sermons, but maybe you will just feel lucky that you have a two for one sermon today!).

Why call the body of Christ into being?

Move 1:  Reveal to the world the nature of our relational God.

a.  the disciples instinctively recognize the need to be in relationship with one another after Christ’s and stories of his resurrection.

1.  Remember what happens immediately following the discovery of the empty tomb.

1. the disciples gather together behind closed doors.

1. Or they go off to places like Emmaus and Galilee to gather together.
   4. No surprise – as those impacted by Christ’s death trying to figure out what's next, they gather together, in community.

b.  their instinctive response reflects the very nature of the relationships they developed as followers of Christ and of the Trinitarian God they follow.

1.  Three in one - Father, Son, and Holy spirit; creator, redeemer, Sustainer.

2. God’s very own nature is relational.

3. as we live out our calling as the body of Christ, as we live in relationship with one another, we struggle sometimes but still lift up being in right relationship, it speaks to the world about the relational God who puts us in relationship with God and with one another.

b. In his letter to Colossians, Paul reminds the church what they are called to be.

1. It's a beautiful image of being in relationship.
   
1. As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another forgive each other;14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 

1. When we get it right, when the church manages to treat each other with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience;  when we turn to others in the world and extend compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience;  when forgiveness abounds - the body of Christ reveals to the world the very nature of who God is.

1. c.  If we go back to the beginning of the chapter in Colossians, we realize that Paul is telling us that we can live like that because we follow the resurrected Christ.
   
1. because of what Christ has done, we can dare to offer ourselves in love and offer forgiveness to one another.
   
2. and we can hold others accountable to living like that.
   

3.  the Colossians passage suggests that following the resurrected one calls us into community and demands we live better and treat each other better.

  d.  John Buchanan, former minister of 4th Presbyterian Church in Chicago “Being Christ's Body,” Christian Century, 3/5/14 (3): Buchanan tells the story of church member Glen who is dying of AIDS at Hospice. Glen tells about at night when he is restless and cannot sleep he puts on headphones and listens to the church's worship service on the Internet (we now know what that is like, don't we?) 

“It settles me down,” he said. “Sometimes I fall asleep while the choir is singing. I doze off a lot of times during your sermon – I know I'm not the only one,” he added with a grin. “That's how I go to sleep every night, her in my Hospice bed but also with my church.” 

1.  Buchanan notes that Glen reminds us that the church does what no one else does – it provides community that speaks to us at all stages of our lives and transcends all things.

2.  The be clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness  and patience, to forgive others is not bound to one particular time in life, but instead speaks to meaningful relationships that matter across all spectrums of life.

3. We have learned a lot about that in the past six weeks haven’t we - the importance of community and being bound together in Christ, even we are in our separate places.

3. As we live out community, the church becomes a place where people turn in those singular moments of birth, crisis, and death.”

4.  I suspect Glen did not fall asleep solely because of the music or a sermon.

5.  He fell asleep because of the peace he discovered while listening to the body of Christ in worship and being reminded of the relationships he found in the body of Christ that spoke to him as death neared and exemplified for him the hope he had in the God they were worshipping.

6. We baptize infants, join with others as they profess their faith, gather to celebrate the covenant of marriage, join together when death arrives –  in part because it is good to be together, but also because we witness to the world about the God who is in our midst calling us into right relationship, claiming us in the waters of baptism, giving us hope in the face of death, and guiding us in our lives of discipleship.

The body of Christ exists to show forth the relational God.

Move 2:  The body of Christ is also called to infuriate!

a.  I do not mean infuriate as in the little things that drive us crazy about life as a community of faith.

1.  Top Ten things that infuriate.

2.  If I asked for a list, you could probably rapidly tap out a text with your list, and laugh a little along the way.

b.  But, I am talking about Infuriating the world in ways that hold the world, and the powers in the world, that hold us accountable to the ways of the resurrected Christ.

1.  Look at what these earliest members of the body of Christ were doing in Acts.

2.  They were driving the authorities crazy and making them mad

3.  They are preaching about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, teaching about Jesus Christ, calling people to a new way of life.

4. The authorities haul them in and demand they cease and desist - no more teaching or preaching about the resurrection.

5. Can you imagine any sermon preached here at St. Andrew being such a threat to the city of Denton, or the state of TX or the government of the United States, that they would throw me in jail.

6.  Or can you imagine any ministry that would so upset the authorities they would throw the session in jail?

7. maybe we are not infuriating enough these days?

c.  The Roman authorities, indeed the religious authorities, feel threatened.  

1. Why?   because if Jesus is really resurrected, then it means that Jesus’ way was, in fact, God’s way and it will ultimately overcome all powers in the world.  

2.  the way of peace, the way of healing, the way of freeing the oppressed, the way of reaching out with hope to the hopeless will have the final word.

3. And what infuriates the authorities is, as William Willimon describes it, these early followers of the resurrected Christ speak of a “power that cannot be contained, channeled accredited, or stifled by the powers that be.” (“Easter Continued; Journal for Preachers,Volume XLI, Number 3, Easter, 2018”  Will Willimon, 10-13)

b. the body of Christ not only reveals the relational God to the world but is God’s persistent presence in the world.

1.  We exist to continually call out the ways of the world that allow power to oppress the poor; the ways that overlook the sick; the ways that deny hope to the those mired in hopelessness; 

2. When Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote to the church from his cell in Birmingham, he was writing to the broader church, including the Presbyterians in Birmingham, who had asked him not to march, not to cause trouble, but instead let the justice system in place correct the injustices found in race relations.   

In his letter, King reminds us that there was a time when early Christians entered towns and the people in power became disturbed.  Why?  Because the Christians believed they were called to obey God’s voice rather than human voices and would persistently call people to a new way of life.

3.  King was calling the church to continually infuriate the world by persistently insisting that the God of resurrection was calling for an end to segregation and power denying those without power  (“Easter Continued; Journal for Preachers, Volume XLI, Number 3, Easter, 2018”  Will Willimon, 10-13).

The body of Christ is called into being to live out the ways of Jesus Christ and to call out the world when we stray.

Move 3:   Final thought on the Ichthys, the sign of the fish that has been a sign of Christ’s followers since the early days of the church when they were persecuted for being Christian.

a. Fish, of course, is a nice symbol. 

1. Ties into the fact that some of the disciples had been fishermen.

1. Reminds us that we are called to fish for people.

2.  it also, I hope, reminds us that the Greek word for fish, which was Ichthys, is also an acronym for an acronym for the phrase Jesus Christ, Son of God, [Our] Savior

3. In common use today, there is lots of jewelry and things for car bumpers made in this design.

b.  As we talk about it this morning, we are reminded that the sign of the fish was a very important symbol in the early church.

1.  A sign of their being together as fledging members of the body of Christ - an identity.

1.  In the Roman empire where a Christian could be persecuted for his or her faith, they could mark meeting places and tombs with the sign of a fish as a sign of their hope and their common identity as followers of the resurrected Christ.

2.  'According to one ancient story, when a Christian met a stranger in the road, the Christian sometimes drew one arc of the simple fish outline in the dirt. If the stranger drew the other arc, both believers knew they were in good company. Current bumper-sticker and business-card uses of the fish hearken back to this practice. — Christianity Today, Elesha Coffman, "Ask The Expert” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthys⁾

b.  They were marking not just their shared identity, but an Identity grounded in Christ Jesus, the son of God, their savior.

1. The one who saves.

2. the one who calls us into relationship with one another.

3.  The one who calls the body of Christ into being to live out his saving grace n the world

conclusion:  We ask Jesus, “why did you call the body of Christ?”  

And he asks us:  Are you living in relationships in ways that reveal God to the world?