Wednesday, June 29, 2011
June 19, 2011 - Holy Trinity Sunday
I've got a big reunion coming up in a few weeks. It's my 20th high school reunion. And I have to tell you, I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I'm both excited and a bit nervous. You see, I haven't seen most of these people since we graduated or shortly after that. I've reconnected with some of them on Facebook – actually that's how we're doing most of the planning, but most of my classmates don't really know me. Sure, they knew me way back when, but I've changed since then, like we all do. Twenty years is a long time. But you worry, don't you?, or at least I do, that when we first meet again, all they'll see is the person I used to be, that I'll immediately be pigeonholed as the person I once was, that my past will define who I am to them in the present.
I wonder if the disciples felt any of these kinds of mixed emotions on their way to their reunion with Jesus that Matthew's gospel tells us about. Excitement yes, joy & anticipation about seeing the risen Lord, because when we pick up their story, the disciples haven't seen the risen Jesus yet, remember. They've just been told by the women who had gone to the graveside that the women had seen 1st an angel and then Jesus himself, tell them to go tell the disciples to go to Galilee, that there they would see Jesus. Now it's a long trip from Jerusalem where Jesus had died all the way up north to Galilee, something like 70 or 80 miles. On foot. Plenty of time to get nervous, to wonder what Jesus will say & do when they see him again for the first time. Plenty of time to replay the scene of those last 3 days out in their minds over and over, and remember in excruciating detail how they had failed Jesus, how they had all deserted and denied just when he needed them the most. Plenty of time to wonder as they walk along if he would hold their past against them; if Jesus would look at them and see only the people they had been, that he would only see their failure and regret, and what they had done in those tense, frightening 3 days. What kind of reunion will this be?
We share in these mixed feelings about Jesus, I think. Great joy, deep anticipation about seeing him face to face someday, yet uncertainty, fear, trepidation as we look back at our lives, looking at who we have been, knowing all the times we have failed to live up to his expectations for us. Even as we listen to his words to the disciples in the gospel - “Go therefore and make disciples... baptizing and teaching them...” Most of us Lutherans at least don't hear this “great commission” as anything all that great. We hear this commission from Jesus to his original disciples and know that they are meant for us too, and we think, “Oh. Great.” Because we know we haven't done this. We haven't made disciples. We, most of us, don't really even know where we should start. And let's be honest, we're not even sure much of the time how good we are at being disciples ourselves! We look at what we have and have not done for the sake of the gospel, and we fear that we will forever be defined by that past. Who are we to carry this good news into the world? Who are we to try to make disciples? Who are we to teach anyone else about following Jesus?
But when we look at this story of these last words of Jesus to his disciples as Matthew records them, we see that those fears are unfounded. Even as they see Jesus, Matthew says, “they worshiped him; but some doubted.” They worshiped, but some doubted – but even then, even in the middle of that doubt, even with all that had gone before, even with all of the times they had questioned and misunderstood and got Jesus all wrong, even knowing all that about them, Jesus still gives them this mission. He still passes his work on to them. He still trusts them to carry the story of what God had done and was doing and will do in Jesus to the corners of the earth.
Because when Jesus saw them, he didn't just see them as they were and as they had been. Jesus sees them as they can be, the men (and women) God had created them to be. Jesus sees what they are capable of doing, what they will do in his name. He has faith in them, even as their faith in him was tinged with doubts. And so he sends them forth to change the world, to spread the story of God's deep saving love for all people and all of creation, to train others in Jesus, the Way, to instruct them in the practice of everything Jesus had taught them – about love and compassion and mercy, about reaching out to the sinner and outcast and orphaned, about feeding the hungry and healing the sick and welcoming the stranger because that is how God loves. That is how Jesus loves. That is how disciples learn to love.
Norah has a book that someone gave us after she was born. It's called God knows all about me. The words go like this: “From my fingers to my toes, from my knees to my nose, God knows all about me. When I'm good, when I'm bad, when I'm happy, when I'm sad, God knows all about me... From by bottom to my belly, when I'm sweet and when I'm smelly, God knows all about me... When I run, when I skip, when I stumble and I trip, God knows all about me. From the beginning...to the end, God will always be my friend. God knows all about me.”
What a good reminder that no matter what we do or don't do, no matter who we are or are not, there's nothing we can do that surprises Jesus. He already knows all there is to know about us – but that's not all he sees when he looks at us, because he knows more about us than we know about ourselves. Jesus doesn't define us by our past, by the times we stumbled or tripped, because Jesus is always calling us into his future. He knows what we are capable of, even when we can't see it ourselves, even when we doubt him and us. And so he gives us this great commission. He trusts us to share the story – his story – of grace and mercy and love and forgiveness, of walking with him in his path, learning to become his disciples, and inviting others to learn with us too. The faith he has in us is amazing, and he promises to be with us as we go, even to the end of the age.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
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