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This is a the final paper I wrote in my seminary class and I will present it on Thursday. It goes along with a paper I wrote earlier in the class. Basically the assignment was to pick 5 verses from Matthew and dwell on them for 8 weeks. The picture is of me and my brother, a person I admire and love very much.
Matthew 28:16-20
I have been putting off writing this paper because I could not find an angle to take it that had not been done. The one thing I found from the three commentaries and five versions I have read on this passage is that they are all very similar. It seems to just be given that Jesus is telling the disciples and us to go out and spread his word.
My question that I have been dwelling on is, what is that word. The obvious and what I have heard preached is that Jesus is the son of God, if you want salvation you must come through him, be Christian like the rest of us. But what if there is more here than has met the eye for the last 2000 years?
This is what I have been thinking…
It started when I wrote my paraphrase and tried to get inside the minds of the 11 who were there on that mountain. How had they felt? What had their thoughts been? And it went further when I was sitting in church last Sunday listening to the sermon. My pastor preached on the ascension in Acts 1:1-11. She talked about how the disciples watched Jesus ascend into heaven and just stood there starring up at where he’d been. She went on to say that she would have done the same thing. But is it what we should be doing.
If we stand and stare up to heaven, who is here to get things done? Who will do the work Jesus has asked us to do? She played a song by Johnny Cash called “No Earthly Good.” The main line is, “ But you're so heavenly minded and you're no earthly good”
It was a good sermon and got me to thinking about what we are to be doing here and now. But it wasn’t until a day latter when my brother, who was visiting and had been at church with me, commented on the sermon. He just briefly said how much he had enjoyed it and how he had never heard before a pastor say that we ought to be more focused on earth than heaven, or at least as much. He even confessed that he had gone to the pastor’s blog and reread the sermon.
That was the moment it finally hit me, and the moment I realized what the Spirit was saying in this text. For you see, my brother is gay, and has been very hurt by the christian faith. In fact, I was shocked he had even heard the sermon; I thought he had just been playing with his blackberry, and I had given up hope that he would ever see God as more than a ploy to damage those who are different than us, because lets face it, that happens all the time, in all religions.
What if we read this text again, but we wipe out everything we have ever heard about Jesus, Christianity, the disciples, and the kingdom of heaven. I encourage you to do that for just a minute. Try very hard to come at this as a total stranger to all things religious. Look at it as if you have never before heard of any of these people.
(NIV) Matthew 28:16-20
16Then 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.
18Then 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 you in the name of the Father, Son, and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
I did, and here is what I heard. Eleven scared, confused and lonely people, they have been hurt by their very own. Their religion, their God, these things have turned out to be nothing they thought they were. Where was their happy ending? Where were the trumpets and victory that the scriptures promised? The faith they had devoted themselves to all their lives had killed their teacher, master, and friend.
Had a faith with so much promise really turned into an angry mob that would go to any length to silence some one who would challenge conventional thinking? Even if that someone was God himself? They had become no earthly good.
And then, there he is, their teacher. A man they had known, and yet not known at all. Coming back to them after being killed by the very faith he believed in. He was not a man or teacher in their eyes now, but he had become a God. Or, they were finally able to see him for what he had been all along. And does he tell them to go out and avenge his death? To right the wrong the world has done? To prove to everyone that they were right all along and that now, finally every one will know it and realize how sinful they are?
No, he tells them to go to all corners of the earth and make everyone a teacher, disciple, baptizing them in the Father, Son, and Spirit. And what happens when you baptize? You submerse, cover, and surround.
In this new light after letting the past go about what I’ve heard this means, I saw something new. I saw this through my gay brothers eyes, through the homeless eyes, through the eyes of the oppressed and battered, and I can never again unseen it.
I have dwelled in the word, and the spirit has shown me that I, along with the eleven, have been called to embrace ALL of the earth, all of God’s children. Submerse them in Jesus’ love, cover them in God’s grace, and surround them with the Spirits strength. In short, love the unlovable, comfort those who have been hurt, be what Jesus was, and do what Jesus did.
What similarities do we share today with the world back then? Are we so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good? Our we worshiping tradition over God? Dwelling in the word is an amazing thing, it can allow us to let go of preconceptions and see in God’s word what God needs us to see. This can be a fresh light, a new way of coming closer to being the people we are called to be.
I think of my brother and others like him. They have been hurt by the very book, and people that have been called by God to baptize them. Jesus did not say, “Change them to be like you when you baptize them”. Or “If you try hard enough you can make a gay person straight, the homeless man on the corner wealthy, or even a sinner to repent.” He simply asks us to embrace them, and surround them in God, Himself, and The Spirit.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
My question that I have been dwelling on is, what is that word. The obvious and what I have heard preached is that Jesus is the son of God, if you want salvation you must come through him, be Christian like the rest of us. But what if there is more here than has met the eye for the last 2000 years?
This is what I have been thinking…
It started when I wrote my paraphrase and tried to get inside the minds of the 11 who were there on that mountain. How had they felt? What had their thoughts been? And it went further when I was sitting in church last Sunday listening to the sermon. My pastor preached on the ascension in Acts 1:1-11. She talked about how the disciples watched Jesus ascend into heaven and just stood there starring up at where he’d been. She went on to say that she would have done the same thing. But is it what we should be doing.
If we stand and stare up to heaven, who is here to get things done? Who will do the work Jesus has asked us to do? She played a song by Johnny Cash called “No Earthly Good.” The main line is, “ But you're so heavenly minded and you're no earthly good”
It was a good sermon and got me to thinking about what we are to be doing here and now. But it wasn’t until a day latter when my brother, who was visiting and had been at church with me, commented on the sermon. He just briefly said how much he had enjoyed it and how he had never heard before a pastor say that we ought to be more focused on earth than heaven, or at least as much. He even confessed that he had gone to the pastor’s blog and reread the sermon.
That was the moment it finally hit me, and the moment I realized what the Spirit was saying in this text. For you see, my brother is gay, and has been very hurt by the christian faith. In fact, I was shocked he had even heard the sermon; I thought he had just been playing with his blackberry, and I had given up hope that he would ever see God as more than a ploy to damage those who are different than us, because lets face it, that happens all the time, in all religions.
What if we read this text again, but we wipe out everything we have ever heard about Jesus, Christianity, the disciples, and the kingdom of heaven. I encourage you to do that for just a minute. Try very hard to come at this as a total stranger to all things religious. Look at it as if you have never before heard of any of these people.
(NIV) Matthew 28:16-20
16Then 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.
18Then 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 you in the name of the Father, Son, and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
I did, and here is what I heard. Eleven scared, confused and lonely people, they have been hurt by their very own. Their religion, their God, these things have turned out to be nothing they thought they were. Where was their happy ending? Where were the trumpets and victory that the scriptures promised? The faith they had devoted themselves to all their lives had killed their teacher, master, and friend.
Had a faith with so much promise really turned into an angry mob that would go to any length to silence some one who would challenge conventional thinking? Even if that someone was God himself? They had become no earthly good.
And then, there he is, their teacher. A man they had known, and yet not known at all. Coming back to them after being killed by the very faith he believed in. He was not a man or teacher in their eyes now, but he had become a God. Or, they were finally able to see him for what he had been all along. And does he tell them to go out and avenge his death? To right the wrong the world has done? To prove to everyone that they were right all along and that now, finally every one will know it and realize how sinful they are?
No, he tells them to go to all corners of the earth and make everyone a teacher, disciple, baptizing them in the Father, Son, and Spirit. And what happens when you baptize? You submerse, cover, and surround.
In this new light after letting the past go about what I’ve heard this means, I saw something new. I saw this through my gay brothers eyes, through the homeless eyes, through the eyes of the oppressed and battered, and I can never again unseen it.
I have dwelled in the word, and the spirit has shown me that I, along with the eleven, have been called to embrace ALL of the earth, all of God’s children. Submerse them in Jesus’ love, cover them in God’s grace, and surround them with the Spirits strength. In short, love the unlovable, comfort those who have been hurt, be what Jesus was, and do what Jesus did.
What similarities do we share today with the world back then? Are we so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good? Our we worshiping tradition over God? Dwelling in the word is an amazing thing, it can allow us to let go of preconceptions and see in God’s word what God needs us to see. This can be a fresh light, a new way of coming closer to being the people we are called to be.
I think of my brother and others like him. They have been hurt by the very book, and people that have been called by God to baptize them. Jesus did not say, “Change them to be like you when you baptize them”. Or “If you try hard enough you can make a gay person straight, the homeless man on the corner wealthy, or even a sinner to repent.” He simply asks us to embrace them, and surround them in God, Himself, and The Spirit.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
