Disciples

Matthew 28:16-20

Trinity Sunday:  June 15, 2014

Today is Trinity Sunday.  This passage, the conclusion to the gospel of Matthew, is often cited as evidence that there was a doctrine of the Trinity in the earliest churches.  Jesus commands the disciples to go “baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”  Those are, of course, the traditional three parts of the Trinity that the church continues to talk about today – though I admit we at 1^st Pres don’t talk about it a lot!  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – the trinity…God as three persons in one.

The only time this passage shows up in our lectionary cycle is on Trinity Sunday – so the focus tends to be on that part of the passage. But, if we use this passage to always talk about the Trinity, I think the rest of it gets short shrift.  And the rest of the passage is pretty important, Trinitarian formula or not.  So with apologies to the larger Christian religion – and probably with the joyful consent of all of you – I want to step back from the doctrine of the Trinity and look at another part of the passage.

The tag line for this passage is “The Great Commission.”  It’s the last passage in the gospel of Matthew.  The risen Jesus has met the disciples on the mountain, because Jesus had directed the women at the empty tomb to tell the disciples to meet him there.  And Jesus gives them parting instructions.  Among them he says, “Go and make disciples of all nations.”  That is quite a request!  And one those of us sitting here would probably have to admit we don’t spend a lot of time doing.

I have been aware lately that we humans don’t deal well with spectrums.  Let me give you an example.  Many people would agree that, at least in the narrative of the United States, capitalism and socialism, stand at the far, opposite ends of the spectrum of economic systems.  And I often see two mistakes made when dealing with this spectrum  - and many others as well.  The first is that any suggested move, no matter how small, toward the opposite end of the spectrum is seen as an extreme suggestion.  Any move away from the capitalist end makes us socialists when really it’s a small move on the very long spectrum. 

The second problem is related.  We fail to recognize where we currently sit on the spectrum.  Any move toward socialism in our current environment still puts us centimeters away from the capitalism extreme.  In one way we mean this to be the case – we call ourselves a capitalist society.  But when someone suggests a move away from some of the problematic elements of capitalism, they are called socialists – even though the move would keep us squarely in the capitalist realm…and then some.  We are so afraid of being even a little bit socialist…because we’ve seen the horrors of that extreme... we cling ever more tightly to our own extreme. It would take a heck of a lot from where we currently sit on the spectrum for our society to be socialist, but our fear pushes us as far away from the other side as we can get.

These are problems, of course, because we know what’s it’s called when you stand teetering off the end of a spectrum refusing to move even an inch:  Extremism.  And we know being an extremist generally has costs…often high costs.  You have a dictatorial world with no freedom, or you have a world where it’s every person for themselves and the weak are eaten up by the powerful.  But we’re afraid to live on the spectrum, rather than the extremes, and so we tend to downplay the costs…or, more often, we justify them.  We refuse to loosen our grip even a little, even though movement might mitigate some of the costs or suffering.

Jesus calls on the 11 to make disciples of all the nations.  For some of us, this is an uncomfortable instruction.  We know the history of Christian missions in other countries.  We know the destruction done in the name of baptizing all nations.  We would never suggest going in to a Muslim country and attempting to baptize all Muslims into Christianity.  In other words, we have learned our lesson.  And we’ve learned it well.  That is an extreme we would like to avoid at all costs – and we should.

In service of that, these days we are very concerned with being welcoming.  With not judging.  With accepting everyone.  With not expecting conversion and conformity.  This is good.  This is, in fact, very good.  This is not an end of a spectrum that I would ever want to move too far from.  It comes from knowing the pain and suffering of people who have been judged by the church, or coerced, or hurt by moralistic codes enforced by authorities.  We have seen, and may know, people who have been ostracized by a Christian community because they didn’t meet the community’s standards and requirements.  We rightfully respond by being a loving, nonjudgmental, welcoming community.

I, probably like many of you, believe this is the Christian thing to do.  It fits with what we know of Jesus and his life:  Love others…that sounds pretty clear.  And because I am so afraid of the evils of the other end of the spectrum, I cling as tightly as I can to this end – to the welcoming, affirming, unconditional acceptance end.  When something starts pulling me toward the other end, I get terrified, and cling more tightly, even though I am nowhere in the vicinity of being a Christian who demands certain moral behaviors of others in the name of “making disciples.”

Such it was this week when I read an article by Stanley Hauerwas.  Hauerwas is a professor of ethics at Duke University Divinity School.  I have a long history with Hauerwas…not personal, but through his many writings.  Now reading Stanley Hauerwas is something of a spiritual discipline for me.  I don’t do it because I necessarily like it; I do it because I know it is good for me and my faith development. 

He’s brilliant, irreverent, and subversive, often in harsh and in-your-face kinds of ways.  When I read him, I always feel challenged, often convicted, and sometimes even feel caught in a shameful act.  Obviously I wouldn’t feel this way if I didn’t respect him and, on some level, trust him.  We don’t tend to feel convicted by people we don’t like or respect – we just ignore what they say.  Bottom line:  I can’t ignore Hauerwas, as much as he upsets me sometimes.

So, this week I read an article by him that challenges Christian communities like ours that, he argues, have gone to an extreme at the expense of, well, being Christian communities.  Make disciples, Jesus says.  We each, individually, tend to believe we should be disciples, but we’re not so good at making disciples of others.  We’re certainly not very good at being made into a disciple by some authority other than ourselves. 

Making disciples requires , as Hauerwas reminds us, discipline.  Not spank a child discipline, but run 5 miles a day kind of discipline.  This discipline, in our tradition, is telling people to pray regularly, read the bible daily, volunteer with the poor often.  We are uncomfortable with this.  Very uncomfortable with this.  We are happy to encourage people to do this, but we definitely don’t expect or, God forbid, require, them to. We generally think we fulfill the command to make disciples if someone comes into our church and joins. Now they are Christian, or at least they really like this community, so job done.  All that’s left is to be nice to them.

Hauerwas is concerned that our liberal, protestant churches do not have a community of discipline that is necessary for making disciples.  He writes, “The called church has become the voluntary church, whose primary characteristic is that the congregation is friendly.  Of course, that is a kind of discipline, because you cannot belong to the church unless you are friendly, but it’s very unclear how such friendliness contributes to the growth of God’s church, which is meant to witness to the kingdom of God.” 

What I take him to be saying is that witnessing to the kingdom of God requires a life that looks a lot like Jesus’, and being friendly was not the primary quality of his life.  It was probably one, but he stood up against convention, status quo, and power, and very few people, especially those who are a part of the status quo…read, us…find that welcoming and friendly. 

When we make friendliness our primary purpose – hang on to that end of the spectrum because we are so afraid of being a tyrannical, moralistic church – the cost is we are less capable of helping each other live like Jesus.  That capacity – to live a life as counter-cultural and courageous as Jesus – is not in-born.  It’s hard. And requires sacrifice.  We have to be taught and we need lots of practice, and it takes discipline.

We do some of this.  We practice by coming to worship every week.  We listen to the bible and study Jesus’ life, and we call him master, teacher and try to learn from him.  We do good works in the community and world.  Probably where Hauerwas would say we fall short is in challenging each other on the ways we live that do not reflect the kingdom of God.  The ways we live that reflect the Roman Empire.  Because that challenging doesn’t always feel nice, or friendly, or nonjudgmental.   But without it, we compromise our ability to live as disciples.

One big albatross around our necks in this day and age is our dependence on “things” to feel comfortable and secure.  Churches probably should be places where people are asked to bring their checkbooks and share with each other how much we made last month and what we spent it on, then evaluate that against what we think the Christian faith would have us do.  Pretty uncomfortable, no?

Now, Hauerwas likes to push the extreme – he does so often.  But I think it’s in service of pulling us just a little bit away from where we are toward a more balanced way.  He wants to loosen our grip a little and help us reclaim that which we have lost because of our fears.  We have to recognize where we are on the spectrum and realize that one small move doesn’t make us tyrants. 

Hauerwas knows what we all know – at each extreme you have sacrificed the other end completely.  And each extreme, while always carried too far, has elements of truth and good…they have something to offer, and sacrificing the whole thing is almost never good. 

I think we need to ask whether we have lost our sense of responsibility for holding each other accountable for being disciples in the name of being “friendly.”

I don’t know where we are to sit on this spectrum.  I am apt to think the goal is not always to sit in the middle.  The middle of the spectrum is not always a nice balance between two equally good ends.  I’m always going to believe we should err on the side of love and acceptance every time.  But we have to recognize where we currently sit: when we are all the way at one end, moving just a little ways back isn’t going to make us harsh disciplinarians that require strict behaviors of members of the church.  In fact, I feel secure knowing we will probably always land well toward the welcoming end.  Thank God.

But what would those small steps be?  I’m not sure.  I’m doing that unfair thing where I ask you to just sit with me in a question that haunts me without any clear answer as to where to go next.   But I wonder, what could we do for each other to help shape us into better disciples of the one we follow?  I wonder if we’re willing to be a little uncomfortable in service of living the very uncomfortable life Jesus did?  I wonder, when someone comes through our doors, can they expect anything other than friends?  Can they expect to be trained as a disciple?  Can they expect a community that will teach them the language, customs, disciplines necessary to lead a life transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit?

Jesus certainly doesn’t let us off the hook.  Not only are we to make disciples of those of us in this church, and those who come into the church, we are to go out and make disciples of all the nations.  Shudder.  I’m more drawn to the model of making of ourselves disciples and then going out into the world and living accordingly.  Our behaviors will be a witness to the kingdom of God – to the good news of resurrection and hope.  But we don’t have to make people be like us.  I certainly think we need to figure out the disciple thing here before we try to make anyone else one.  The question is, “How might we here fulfill this great commission in new and creative ways?”

This world needs disciples – it needs us to be the best disciples we can be.  It needs that more than one more, particularly nice, voluntary association.  There are a lot of poor who need to hear good news; there are prisoners who need to be released; there are oppressed who need to be freed; and there are enemies who need to be loved.  Ours is not an easy call, but nobody said it would be easy…certainly not the guy who hung on the cross.  And so we need training, the right tools, practice, and of course a community willing to go the distance together.  Amen.