Graduation Day
Matthew 29:16-20
This is the
time of the year when Colleges and High Schools and even preschools have
graduation ceremonies. People where
black robes and funny hats and walk in two by two. Mom and Dad and everyone else who could get a
ticket stand up with their cell phones and take pictures and videos to remember
the day that could stop paying tuition.
But, before
they get their diplomas someone noteworthy or someone you’ve never heard of at
all will stand behind a podium and give a commencement speech. These words of wisdom are intended to send
the graduates out into the world with energy, excitement and enthusiasm. They are usually filled with bromide like
“This is the first day of the rest of your life” or “Your future is filled with
opportunity – carpe diem, seize the day” or “make a difference” or “a stitch in
time saves nine” or “it’s always darkest before the dawn.”
But, no one
remembers what was said at their graduation.
Do you?
The gospel
of Matthew ends with Jesus’ graduation speech, and that I do remember because
it is short and simple and to the point.
That’s where we’re going today.
Let us pray:
Prepare our hearts, O God, to
accept your Word. Silence in us any
voice but your own, that, hearing, we may also obey your will through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.
This
command to “Go and make disciples of all nations” has come into a lot of
criticism lately because of its refusal to be bound by the walls of a church or
the boundaries of a nation or the rules of other religions. Many believe Christians should just stay in
their churches and leave everyone else alone.
There a many reasons for that; some historical and some philosophical.
Indeed,
Christian mission in past has at times been arrogant and patriarchal. Sometimes it was even violent.
This temptation to power has been
as seductive for the Christian Church as it as been for everyone else and it is
a sin we ought to confess. There is no excuse for such behavior. For some even that apology would not help. They say, “It’s too late. Christians ought to
just stay where they are and let everyone else be.”
Others sing
out “Amen” to that not because of history but because of philosophy. They
believe truth is what you make of it. It
is in the eye of the beholder. It is what works for you and nothing more, so
there are many truths and they are all relative to the time and culture and
individual. So, these truths can be easily changed through popular mandate or
by individual conscience. The only absolute truth they affirm is that there is
no absolute truth, no reality that transcends perception.
So, if people have a religion or belief system
or worldview or a way of living that makes them happy or gives them peace,
Christians ought not intervene and disrupt that status quo with the
gospel. Whatever people are is what they
should be - forever. No one should ever
change or be given the option or choice to make up their own minds.
Simply quoting Jesus’ words, “I am
the Way, the Truth, and the Life” is an affront to those who hold this
post-modernist view and so seen as arrogant.[1] Anyone who says I know the truth or at least
know someone who has the truth or is the truth is foolish and a fanatic and
therefore dangerous.
To be sure, people of faith, do
sometimes come across as “superior”. You
know, and I know, people who seem a little too eager to challenge and tear down
what you believe so that they can replace it with what they believe. If you’re like me you try to avoid such folks
because you know that they will never stop until you surrender.
Hardball evangelism is not
something we see from Jesus. What does
the Bible say? “Do nothing from selfish
ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own
interests but to the interests of others.
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus who did not regard
equality with God as something to be exploited.”[2]
When Jesus said, “Go into all the
world and make disciples”, he did not mean conquer through the power of a
clever argument and especially not at the end of a gun. How do I know that? He said this is what we should be doing,
“Baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and teach them all
that I commanded you.”[3]
How did Jesus teach? What was his method? Look in the twelfth
chapter of Mark and you will see five encounters between Jesus and the
religious leaders of his day. The Priests and Sadducees, the Pharisees and the
Herodians and the scribes who were the intellectual elites of their day all
lined up for a crack at Jesus. Each time
they try to set him up and lure him into a useless theological tennis match
where the point is only to smash your serve so hard the other side has no chance
to respond. These kinds of arguments
always generate more heat than light and no one ever changes their mind because
they are so busy thinking about what they are going to say next they never take
time to consider what the other is saying.
Jesus’ words, though, ignite more light than heat. Nowhere in the gospels do you ever see Jesus
browbeat or put someone down to bring them into the kingdom of God. At no time
did he ever pick up a sword and command someone to believe. He didn’t even hand
out a course curriculum and tell them to study for tomorrow’s test. How did he do it?
Stanley Hauerwas, a professor of
theology and ethics at Duke University said the best way to understand what
Jesus does is to watch the way someone learns a craft, for example, to lay
brick.
He said, “to learn to lay brick, it
is not enough for you to be told how to do it; you must learn to mix the
mortar, build scaffold, joint, and so on.
Moreover, it is not enough to be told how to hold a trowel, how to
spread mortar, or how to frog the mortar.
In order to lay brick you must hour after hour, day after day, lay
brick.
Of course, learning to lay brick
involves learning not only a myriad of skills, but also a language that forms,
and is formed by those skills. For
example, you have to become familiar with what a trowel is and how it is be
used, as well as mortar, which bricklayers usually call “mud”. So, “frogging mud” means creating a trench in
the mortar so that when the brick is placed in the mortar, a vacuum is created
that almost make the brick lay itself. Such language is not just incidental to
become a bricklayer but is intrinsic to the practice. You cannot learn to lay brick without
learning to talk “right”.
The language embodies the history
of the craft of bricklaying. So when you
learn to be a bricklayer you are not learning a new craft, but rather you are
being initiated into a history. You
learn from someone more experienced who already knows how to lay brick, whose
been there and done that. In other
words, you learn from a master craftsman.”[4]
The relationship between the
apprentice and the master craftsman is not democratic. They are not on equal
footing. The apprentice cannot say to
the master craftsman, my truth is as good as yours, my way of laying bricks
though not the same is just as good, but that’s alright because we are all
different and free to celebrate our diversity.
The apprentice who tries that will soon find himself looking for other
work, or if the craftsman tells him to try it his own way will find that his
wall will not be as straight or strong and it will probably lean and totter and
soon fall down.
The relationship between the
apprentice and the master is based on the assumption that the master craftsman
knows what he is doing and the apprentice should just try to learn as much as
he can so that one day he or she may become the master craftsman. That’s the way it works for bricklayers and
surgeons and preachers almost every other profession. We learn how from those who know.
Those who follow Jesus Christ
believe he does know better than the others how we should then live. He does know this because he knows the mind
of God. He is so close to the Father in heaven and the Spirit who moves over
the face of the earth, the relationship can only be described as three-in-one –
“God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
If becoming a disciple is the same
as learning a craft, that means we must learn the language and we must learn by
doing. We must read the textbook and it would probably be a good idea to sign
up for an Adult Ed. Class to help us with the parts we don’t understand. Reading textbooks is not enough though. At some point you have to pick up a brick, to
do what Jesus calls us to do – and that, remember, is to make disciples of all
nations.
That command does not mean you have to pick up
and go to some far off land, learn a new language, and preach to a people who
have never before heard the name of Christ. Sometimes the opportunity to share
Christ just falls in your lap.
Most of you saw on TV an example of
that only a couple of months ago. Early
on Saturday March 12, a single mother, Ashley Smith, returned to her suburban
Atlanta apartment and was ambushed by Brian Nichols. He had been the focus of the biggest manhunt
in Georgia history, wanted for the murders of four individuals in a killing
spree that began the day before.
In the hours that followed Ashley
engaged the fugitive in conversation.
She told him her husband had died four years earlier and that if
anything happened to her, her five-year old daughter wouldn’t have a daddy or a
mommy. Nichols untied her.
Then she pulled out a Bible and a
copy of a book called The Purpose Driven
Life. She read from both and told Nichols we all
have a purpose, God gives us the talents and abilities and resources to fulfill
that purpose. How did she know
this? She learned it from the Word of
God and from the people of God.
His response to her was, “I’m already dead.” She said, “You’re not dead yet. It’s still your choice. You are here for a reason. You’re in my
apartment for some reason.” Then
incredibly courageously she told him, “You need to be caught for this. You need to go to prison, and you need to
share God’s word with the prisoners there.”
Nichols then allowed here to leave and call 911.
Ashley was only able to respond with such
courage in that terrible circumstance because she had been walking with the
Lord, deepening her life in prayer, learning God’s Word, and doing whatever she
could wherever she was to share that good news.
She had been able to lead another because she had been led herself.
Now, it is my fervent prayer and
yours that you will never be placed in such a situation, but there will be
times when you will be in the presence of others who more than anything need
the love of God in their lives. You won’t need to go to China or Ghana or
Pakistan to find them. They may work in
the next cubicle or live down the street or even in the bedroom of your own
house. The choice between silence and
service is yours.
The prospect may seem to scary and
the responsibility too large, so you need to remember as one preacher put it,
“Only Christ can do the big things like convert, win, bring repentance, or move
a person to decision – all authority in heaven and earth is his alone. But, disciples can, must and will do the
little thing of ‘discipling’
others. That is, they will spend good
time with people in the confidence that sooner or later Christ will create in
these people the decision for baptism.”[5]
In other words our job is to just
show up.
Charles Colson in his book, Kingdoms
in Conflict, told of visiting a prison at Jessup, Maryland. Governor Hughes was there to greet them. Gospel singer Wintley Phipps was there to
sing, and Herman Heade, a former inmate who had been converted to Christ while
in solitary confinement, gave a powerful testimony. But, when asked what had meant the most, one
of the prisoners said with a crackling voice:
“I really appreciated Chuck
Colson’s message. Wintley Phipp’s
singing stirred me beyond words, and Herman’s testimony reached me right where
I was at. But, frankly, those things
didn’t impress me as much as what happened later. When the TV cameras left, the ladies among
the volunteers went into the dining hall, with all the noise and confusion, and
sat at the table to have a meal with us.
That’s what really got to me.”
You don’t have to sing like an
angel, or preach like Peter and Paul.
You don’t have to have a title or credential. You can care and show it in a thousand little
ways.
The last thing Jesus said was a
reminder, “I am with you always until the end of the age.”[6]
This promise follows this Great
Commission. So, you will find in those
times when you do care and share in a thousand different ways the good news of
the Gospel – Jesus will be more fully present in your life and heart. Those of you who have done that even once
know this is true. So, “go and make
disciples and teach them the love of God through Jesus Christ” through your
attitudes and actions. Whatever you do
in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to
God the Father through him.”[7]
We are in awe of your assurance,
Lord that you will be with us always to the end of the age. We cling to that when we feel weak and heavy
laden, but often forget it when we feel strong and in control. Remind us that we will see you best in the
faces of others who are empty and alone and in need of some good news. So, send us forth with this great commission
and grant by your Spirit the power to fulfill it. Amen.
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