David Antonson’s Sermon – 5/18/08
The Great Unfinished Task
Psalm 8
Matthew 28:16-20
The Great Unfinished Work, a sermon based on the Last Commission of Jesus found in Matthew 28:16-20, preached by Rev. Dr. David B. Antonson at Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church on May 18, 2008.
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Pray with me: Father, may the Holy Spirit that descended on Pentecost, take these words of scripture and etch them on our hearts and minds, enabling us to become more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ, who will then disciple others. Amen.
First of all, I want to say a word of thanks to Dr. Chris Taylor. At his invitation I’m here this morning and his friendship means a great deal. Thanks Chris.
I’ve been trying all week, in my mind, to picture what it might have been like to be with Jesus and the disciples on the mountain that day, in Galilee, as he gave them this Last Commission. I know we sometimes call this reading “The Great Commission,” but this morning I would like us to think of these very important words of Jesus as “The Final Commission” or “The last Mandate of the Resurrected Lord.” Matthew ends his gospel with these words. (Surprise: there are four Final Commissions, five if you count Acts 1, all slightly different, but we’re staying with Matthew this morning). He is saying to us, “pay attention, I’m bringing it all to a conclusion and these final commissioning words are critical. Remember them. Memorize them. Live them.”
But back to the mountain. I believe the disciples were saying to themselves that day, “OK…the Master told us to meet him here up north in Galilee…we all know the spot…and some of the “sermons” he has given us here have been rather long…but now, with his mysterious rising from the dead and showing himself alive to us…I’m baffled by all that and don’t understand it…but surely, now his words will have special significance. There seems to be a new urgency about him. I wonder what’s on his mind.”
Instead of a long sermon, the Last Commission…the Last Mandate…is very short. It was repeated at all five baptisms last Sunday!
(say it with me if you know it) “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (NRSV)
That’s it. A three sentence sermon that day (I can hear the disciples that day and I can hear maybe some people here this morning saying, “Yes! A three-sentence sermon – I could go for that!). End of Gospel. No reaction from the disciples. No Q & A. No disciple raises his hand to say, “now wait a minute, just how are we doing to do this? The world is a big place. Our group of twelve has shrunk, now we’re eleven and you give us more work to do. Just how is all this going to get done? We feel totally overwhelmed!” He simply commissions them to go, go out – earlier they had gone out two by two “to the household of Israel” to the Jewish community only – but that was a warm-up, a preview, for what’s to come! Now
it’s the whole world,
all people-groups,
all ethnic groups,
all language groups and nothing less! No one is left out.
This morning I’m not going to talk about the entire Last Commission/Mandate…but instead I want to focus on the first part of it…just four words…”Go, and make disciples...” Making disciples, that’s the great unfinished work of our day, and that’s what was first and foremost in the mind of Jesus as he gave them the Last Commission. These are words not just for some of us, but ALL of us.
I. “Go, and make disciples…” should be the measuring tape for everything we are doing in the life of the church today. Does what we do, what we are offering, where we spend our money and energy contribute to making and shaping disciples for Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit? If the confessional is open this morning, I confess that over the years a lot of the ministry-stuff that I have been involved in, could have been done by any social group in the community…golf outings…ski trips…strawberry festivals…river rafting…endless dinners…the list goes on. These things were enjoyable. It brought people together. But our Lord asks us this one question: does what you are doing contribute to making and shaping informed, committed followers/disciples for my cause? That’s the yardstick.
Hueng Rae Lee was a Presbyterian elder in his home church in South Korea in 1992. Elder Lee was a big thinker; small plans didn’t interest him. This humble man heard from a speaker one day that followers of Christ are called to create other followers for Christ…and he adopted an immense goal of finding 10,000 people for Christ. As the story unfolds, he sold his successful business, traveled from South Korea to Russia and there met Koreans who had become Muscovites. He didn’t know Russian, but a vision developed to open an academy, a kind of seminary to develop pastors and plant Presbyterian congregations in the former Soviet Union. Today there is a Moscow Presbyterian Theological Academy in a former factory. The staff is mostly Korean. The food served is Korean. There are now over 100 congregations in their network, mostly meeting in rented space. But it began 18 years ago with a businessman asking “what can I do to make disciples for Jesus Christ?” (The Presbyterian Outlook, April 28, 2008, p. 11)
II. “Go, and make disciples…” is everyone’s task, it’s not just for ministers or missionaries or seminaries or church professionals…we all are to be engaged in this great unfinished work.
If we leave the Last Commission of our Lord to “professionals,” it won’t get
done.
If we leave the Last Commission to someone else, we miss a great opportunity.
If we simply overlook the Last Commission, we will be doing challenging things,
even education things, serving meals, but we will be missing the central
purpose of our calling in Christ – to make disciples.
After I retired from my last installed church in the North Hills of Pittsburgh, Judy and I visited a number of churches, over a dozen. One of the most memorable was Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community on the Southside of Pittsburgh. This new church development by Pittsburgh Presbytery met for many months for worship in the 3rd floor cafeteria of Goodwill Industries on East Carson Street. Average age: about 25. Lots of tattoos. It’s the only church I know that sponsors a Bible study each week in a tattoo parlor. The first thing I reached for when we walked in was my tie – no one was wearing a tie. There were some 400 in worship, sitting on folding chairs in the shape of a cross. Drama is used weekly. The pastors are Jim Walker and Jeff Eddings. The service ended that day with a communal meal and I would say 300 stayed to eat hotdogs, beans and chips. As we left, after close to three hours there, discipling was going on in small groups. People were praying together, there was deep sharing. It was powerful. Hot Metal Bridge has just bought a corner bar and are converting it to a church. Making disciples is something everyone is involved in.
I was talking this week to Rev. Don Dawson, head of World Mission Initiative at Pittsburgh Seminary. Don and many other people are focusing in today on what is called the 10/40 window or the 10/40 corridor as some call it. It is a rectangle of our world that is 10 degrees north latitude to 40 degrees north latitude, running from Northwest Africa to East Asia, and in that corridor, according to Don and others, live 2 billion unreached people. Another way to state it, 90% of the unreached peoples of the world, live in that corridor. Another way to state it, is that 6,000 distinct ethnic groups live there, and those very people have not heard the name of Jesus Christ even once in their own language. And so a few years ago, the World Mission Initiative commissioned two women to go and live among the Cham people in Viet Nam - Rebecca and Elizabeth. Some of you may have met them – they have spoken in a number of our churches. Only their first names are used for their protection. But there they are, teachers, living and working among one of those unreached people groups…attempting to be faithful to the Last Commission, the Final Commission of our Lord.
One of the finest mission papers that I have read in the last couple of years is called Presbyterian Mission in a Flat World by Dr. Scott Sunquist (http://nwmcmission.org/fors/thread/99.aspx), professor at Pittsburgh Seminary. Scott has spent a lot of time in Asia especially Indonesia. In his paper, Scott takes the book The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century by Tom Friedman, the New York Times op-ed columnist and applies it to a flattened world of making disciples for Jesus Christ. His thesis is that lots of things have been flattened in recent years and decades. The Presbyterian Church (USA), one of the so-called main line churches has been flattened – we don’t have the inside track and haven’t had the inside track on mission for quite a while and mission can spring up anywhere anytime by indigenous people. The internet has flattened our world – and disciples can be made and discipled by way of new technology. The missional world is flat and anyone can step forward. In a flattened world no one mission agency, no one denomination, no one country “owns” the gospel or does all the sending of people. God is using surprising peoples in surprising places to accomplish the Final Commission. Dr. Sunquist says there is tremendous energy right now to make disciples for Christ, and it is especially found among Brazilians, Mexicans, Senegalese, Cambodians, Indonesians and the list goes on. He writes:
The old-line churches are being flattened and the global church is now the Church of the non-western world. This is where the power and creativity in mission is to be found. People and institutions who understand this can provide even more leadership than ever. (p. 4)
III. “Go…and make disciples” is the on-going work of all of us, and there is much that each of us can do on a daily basis. I made a quick list this week of what I call “40 Way to ‘Go, Make Disciples.’” It’s in your bulletin this morning – it’s suggestive, not exhaustive. It’s an attempt to list things we can all do to make disciples right under our own roof like
praying before mealtime whether at home or out in public,
volunteering to play in the Praise Band at H2O,
singing praise choruses to your children or grandchildren when you rock
them before bedtime. We can all sing or hummmm…and children
love it and you’re affirming God’s involvement in our lives:
He’s got the whole world, in his hands
He’s got the whole world, in his hands
He’s got the whole world, in his hands
He’s got the whole world, in his hands.
(And you can make up verses as you go…)
Friends, the Last Commission, the Last Mandate of the risen Christ did not come with a manual of exactly how to do it, though I do believe that for every generation the clues to doing it are in the Gospel of Matthew itself. (Dr. Krister Stendahl, the Swedish theologian who died recently believed that there was a “School of Matthew,” to interpret the significance of Jesus for the Jews and the gospel was a handbook for teachers and church leaders in their missionary work with Jews and Gentiles). Each new generation has to figure out how it is going to go about this tremendously important task of making and shaping disciples for Jesus Christ.
It is a way of life.
It is a calling to live a certain way.
It is the great end toward which we live our lives.
Discipling others makes possible a new generation of believers.
It is the missional end toward which we move.
It is ultimately to bring and demonstrate the Good News of Jesus Christ
to all people.
And so this morning…there are four key words from our Lord that he wants us to take with us into the coming week. Just four words. He said (help me) “GO – AND MAKE DISCIPLES.”
Amen – may it be so.