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)
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
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.
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