Trinity Sunday

Preparation

Please begin by reading Matthew 28:16-20 in your Bible. If you do not have one at hand, we have provided the text for you at the end of this reflection.

Reflection--A Lifetime Companion

In this passage Jesus gives his final “marching orders” (often called "the great commission") to the eleven remaining disciples (Judas had already taken his own life).  By extension, these are the orders he leaves for disciples through the ages:  “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.” 

This is Jesus’ blueprint for the life work of the church, in other words for all of God’s assembled people everywhere including each of us.  We may each do different things to earn a living,  as we must, but this is our true vocation; going where God leads us, making disciples of those to whom God leads us, baptizing in the name of our God who is both Three and One, and teaching them about the things of God.  And amazingly, it is a task we can do, even though we may have doubts just like the eleven.  It is a task we can do because the one who sets our work before us has power to spare, “all authority in heaven and on earth,” and will give us what we need to get the job done!  Carrying out our commission is not limited by either our doubts or our weaknesses.

The great commission is of such huge importance that Jesus’ very last words in Matthew can get overlooked.  We who are Jesus’ disciples do not go through life alone.  Jesus made a promise before leaving:  “remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  This is the culmination of another announcement that opens Matthew’s gospel.  In recounting the story of Jesus’ birth, Matthew reminds us of the words of the prophet Isaiah:  “‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us.”’ 

Some of life’s hardest lessons are about loss.  We begin to learn them early on.  Beloved childhood pets have relatively short life spans.  Playmates move away.  With some confusion, we attend our first funerals as cherished relatives and friends finish their lives and begin to leave us.  Later, the incredible joys of first romantic loves are dashed as the objects of our affections do not return our love, or leave us for others when first infatuation fades.  Even when our affections are genuinely returned and deep and trusting relationships are formed that last for years, we may suddenly find that our trust has been betrayed or that our truly faithful loved one is still a frail mortal subject to illness or accident that brings their death.

Sometimes a single event can bring loss overwhelming in scale, as a clear, bright September 11^th reminded us here in America not that long ago.  There can also be serial losses whose cumulative burden is almost too much to bear.  There is a huge blank space in my own generation created by AIDS.  I remember going to the grounds of Washington’s mall some years ago where the AIDS quilt was spread out before me almost as far as the eye could see.  Each small panel in the vast quilt told tender stories of loved ones and friends lost.  The reminder of this great, cumulative loss brought tidal waves of grief. 

But no matter how deep life’s losses may be, there is still a ground for hope to get us through.  There is one constant in our lives.  Jesus is not just a “fair weather friend.”  We do have one lifetime companion who will never leave us alone or abandoned; a companion who is not subject to the emotional fickleness or bodily frailty of humanity.  “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

revclay

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Matthew 28:16-20

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.  When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 

And Jesus came and said to them, “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]