Today, we find ourselves once again in the gospel according to Matthew. Chapter 28 details Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, and in this gospel, the risen Jesus greets Mary Magdalene and tells her to send the disciples to Galilee, where he will meet them. There’s a few verses in between about the reaction of Pilate and the high priest, which wasn’t great, and then we pick up the story in verse 16.
Scripture: Matthew 28:16-20
16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 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 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
“We’re on a mission from God.”
My mom’s favorite movie of all time has always been The Blues Brothers. If you haven’t seen it, it’s the story of two brothers, Jake and Elwood Blues – one freshly out of prison, who decide they need to raise money to pay $5000 in back taxes to save the Catholic orphanage they grew up in.
To do this, they try to put their old blues band back together, play some shows to earn the money, and get it to the city of Chicago by the deadline. What follows are shenanigans, minor crimes, property damage, and what’s probably the most ridiculous police chase ever pictured on the big screen. But throughout the movie, Elwood – played by Dan Aykroyd – repeats the same line over and over, especially when he’s trying to convince someone to go along with his wacky plans: “we’re on a mission from God.”
Although Jake and Elwood Blues don’t have the most organized, most legal, or the most sensible plan, they are crystal clear on their end goal: make $5,000 and get it to Chicago to save the orphanage.
They eventually succeed, although they do wind up back in prison because of all of the aforementioned shenanigans.
This moment, which we call The Great Commission, is a neat and tidy way to end the gospel according to Matthew – four verses where the disciples gather with Jesus one last time to receive a charge and a benediction. A blessing and a challenge. A mission and a reminder.
Go. Make disciples across the world. Baptize. Teach.
And no matter what comes, I am with you.
For the past two thousand years or so, Jesus’ disciples have followed this directive to places and peoples near and far. Some have started churches or nonprofits or Bible Studies or kids clubs in their own backyards. Some have crossed oceans and continents to tell the story of Jesus to people who had never heard this name before.
Some of those folks went with love and care and compassion and curiosity, and taught new disciples of Jesus who carry on that legacy.
We can also be honest and say that some of them were more like the Blues Brothers – they went with all of the urgency, but did some really not-great things in order to achieve this mission. They believed that the ends justified the means, so they forced conversions and baptisms, and they vilified or destroyed other people, cultures and practices. They conquered in the name of Jesus, and called it making disciples. From crusades and wars and enslavement in faraway lands to things like Indian Boarding Schools right here in the Midwest, followers of Jesus have also done a whole lot of harm in the name of this mission.
This is why the word ‘evangelism’ makes a lot of mainline Protestants (including some Presbyterians) nervous. We do not want to carry on that legacy. We have repented of and lamented that harm, and we do not want to repeat those mistakes.
We want to help. We want to teach and debate and get curious together. We want to offer the love and hope that we have in Christ Jesus—but we have no interest in forcing it.
Nevertheless, this commission was not just for those original eleven disciples. This charge was never meant to end with them.
Reclaiming the Great Commission and the practice of discipleship from those who used it as an excuse to do battle will not be a quick or simple task. But either we’re going to figure it out, or our great-grandchildren will have to.
It’s a running joke for anyone who visits Jenison, that there are so many churches here. No matter which direction you come from, in order to arrive here at Parkwood you have to pass at least a dozen. I counted a couple years ago, and I came up with a list of 66 churches just in the Jenison and Hudsonville zip codes alone.
This is why our question at Parkwood has been, for the past several years, what is OURS to do here in Jenison? In the midst of so many churches and so much complex history, what is the Holy Spirit leading US to do?
Every time we ask that question, the answer comes back the same: love. We hear God calling us to love and be loved, to know one another and be known by each other, to care and be cared for, to learn and to teach – and to encourage the people in our communities to do the same.
In a world full of distrust, hatred, and division, I am convinced that the best discipleship ministry we can do is the kind that empowers people to love God and one another well. And there are a million ways to do this!
We can empower caregivers to love well by offering them a supportive space to rest, to process their own feelings and needs, and to gather the information and skills and supports they need to love their person well.
We can empower newlyweds to love well by giving them skills to work through conflict, helping them turn toward one another instead of away.
We can empower parents to love well when we offer them a village of support, and ways to teach their little ones about the big, never-ending love of Jesus.
We can empower people who live alone to love well by giving them social outlets and opportunities for community and connection.
We can empower all kinds of people to love well by giving them tools to understand what the Bible actually says, so they don’t have to rely on a dude in a basement with nothing but a bad translation and a podcast microphone.
Has anyone ever seen or played the game Hungry Hungry Hippos? Am I just a 90’s kid who saw too many commercials?
It’s a game where each player has a little mechanical hippo, where you push a button and the hippo’s mouth opens and closes. You let a bunch of little balls onto the board, and everyone has to try to hit their button as fast as possible to get as many balls as they can – because the one with the most wins.
Sometimes, I think churches imagine this call to ‘go and make disciples’ a little bit like a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. We have to be as fast and efficient and flashy as possible and get as many as possible, because if we don’t snatch that one little ball up, someone else will. It’s a zero-sum game, and you are either winning or losing.
I don’t love that image.
But what if we think of it more like an invitation to God’s community garden? Some don’t care and won’t come, and that’s fine. But just as many would love some free tomatoes, and a quick tutorial on what kind of fertilizer they like, and sure, I’ll pull a few weeds while we’re chatting. By the way, what do you even do with so many zucchini, and is that a weed or a flower growing over there?
The Great Commission is an invitation to cultivate a beloved community in the name of Jesus, where the Holy Spirit is growing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control, where we can share those gifts with one another and with the world, continually growing that garden ever wider, ever deeper, ever longer.
Friends, here is the good news: the love of God, the grace of Christ Jesus, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit are a little bit like a garden full of zucchini – there is too much of it to keep it to ourselves.
Thanks be to God. Amen.