Matthew 28:16-20
May 31
David A. Davis
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The three kids are called to the dinner table. It will be yet another quick dinner between baseball practice, piano lessons, and the spring concert at school. Mom is running late and will head right to the school, so it’s Dad’s turn to get the food on the table and moderate what has become an important family table ritual of sharing the day’s highs and lows. After the two girls, 2nd grade and 6th grade, offer their take on the day, it’s Ryan’s turn. He’s in 4th grade and getting him to say anything about the day is a challenge, especially when compared to his sisters. On this night, however, he seems strangely prepared. The two lists sort of blend into one, as if Ryan assumes everyone knows the difference between a high and a low. “We played football before school. It was pizza day for lunch. The teacher liked my idea for the science project. I had to go to art class. I pitched in practice. And, oh, I failed my spelling test.” Ryan is developing the art of the understated, afterthought.
Or how about the daughter who calls her 80-year-old parents who live four states away. They talk probably three times a week or more. Her mother usually goes overboard when it comes to detail: what they had for breakfast, who sat next to them in church, activities of grandchildren, cousins, and distant relatives. This particular conversation was no different. At least that’s how it sounded as mother rehearsed the activities of the last three days. Grocery shopping. Stuffing bulletins at church. Programs on television. “Oh, and your father had a cataract removed yesterday.” Information shared, slipped in, as if he had gone to lunch with the retired men’s group from work.
Important news slipped in as if it were nothing. We do it with good news and bad news. The most important of details tucked in among the matter-of-fact events of the day, as if we were reading a grocery list. A practice so common, so downright routine, that we can all relate to it. Afterthoughts. Understatements. Accents on wrong syllables. Ledes buried. Examples abound.
Our oh so familiar text for this morning here at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, “the great commission” as the tradition calls it, has a few examples. “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they 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.”
The eleven disciples went to Galilee. That’s the original twelve minus the one, Judas, the betrayer. They went to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. You remember that mountain visits in the biblical tradition ought not to be taken for granted. Important things happen at such places. The call of Moses with that burning bush at Mt. Horeb. The Ten Commandments. Elijah and the still small voice. Here in this gospel of Matthew alone, there is the Sermon on the Mount and the Mount of Transfiguration, and the feeding of the thousands up on a mountain, and Jesus heading up the mountain for solitary prayer. Here at the end of the gospel, just the other side of Easter morning, soon after the Marys went to the tomb and the angel appeared and the stone rolled back, the eleven disciples went to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. As another preacher describes it, this was an Easter mountain. Along this well-traveled faith journey of ours, there are mountaintops, and then there are Easter mountaintops. The taste of God’s presence and God’s hope and God’s future, a taste that comes with an exclamation point.
Just a few years ago, I preached this text from Matthew and was stunned in my office when I read the translation of the New Revised Standard Updated Version before us this morning. “When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted.” The eleven all worshiped. The eleven all doubted. The same disciples worshiped and doubted. Not doubting Thomas and a few others. All of them. No inner circle of the more faithful disciples. All of them. Worship and doubt all within the same disciples. That’s provocative. That’s compelling. That’s really comforting. “When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted.” The doubt isn’t an afterthought.
I had never come upon a translation that dropped the “some”. As in “When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.” Some of the 11 doubted. I checked again this week. 58 English translations, not counting paraphrases. Only one version drops the “some. “They worshiped him, but they doubted.” I know better than to opine on the Greek text from this pulpit, but I couldn’t find any word for ‘some” The eleven disciples are back in Galilee. Back to the region of their ordinary lives. Back to fishing, back to their families. Back to where they listened to Jesus teach, and watched him heal, and saw him touch the outcast and welcome the stranger. They are back to life as it once was. You remember in Matthew’s empty tomb, it is only the women who see the Risen Jesus, and then here we are at the “Great Commission.” No other resurrection appearances except here up the mountain. “When they saw him, they worshipped him, but they doubted.” Worship and doubt mushed up in all of them after the resurrection. That pretty much sounds like you and me!
There is another example of a possible afterthought that should not be missed in the text. Part of Christ’s promise that should not be lost as an understatement, a lede not buried. “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they 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.”
Always. It’s always. “I am with you always”. Again, in almost every English translation, “I am with you always”. One recent translation has Jesus telling the disciples, “Look, I will be with you every day until the end of the present age.” Every day doesn’t seem the same as always. Every day isn’t the same as always because every day doesn’t include a long, long night. Every day isn’t the same as always because every day doesn’t include the times in life when darkness wins the day. Every day isn’t the same as always because every day doesn’t include what St John of the Cross called “The Dark Night of the Soul”. Every day isn’t the same as always because every day doesn’t quite cover the shadows of doubt cast over our desire to worship the Risen One. Jesus said, “I am with you always”.
“Practicing the Presence of Prayer” is an ancient book by a member of a monastery whose name was Brother Lawrence. The work is best known for Brother Lawrence confessing that he felt closer to God in his daily duties in the kitchen of the monastery, preparing meals and serving his fellow monks, than when participating in the daily offices of prayer in the chapel. “Completely immersed in my understanding of God’s majesty,” he writes, “I used to shut myself up in the kitchen… At the beginning of my duties, I would say to the Lord with confidence, ‘My God, since you are with me, and since, by your will, I must occupy myself with eternal things, please grant me the grace to remain with you, in Your presence. Work with me so that my work might be the very best. Receive as an offering of love both my work and all my affections”. Brother Lawrence on the Risen Christ’s promise. “I am with you always.” Not just in the chapel, but in the kitchen,
Sue is the sister of my sister-in-law Helen. She is my age and lives with Helen and my brother Tom. Sue is differently abled and has always enjoyed being with our son Ben. Years ago, Ben was playing a college soccer game in Pittsburgh. The extended family gathered for the game. Ben didn’t get into the game until the last few minutes when they happened to score and win the game. After the game, Sue teased Ben, asking him why he was tired since he didn’t play all that much. But in celebrating the win, Sue said, “Jesus take the wheel”. That is Sue’s take on “Always”. The promise of the Risen Christ, “I am with you always”.
Always. You and I are back in Galilee. The daily grind. The work. The school. The family. The chores. The bills. The mundane. The car pool. The routine. Always. The spring morning when creation sings. The long winter when creation’s finger wags. The hottest of summer days when creation’s parched earth chokes. Always. A first day on campus. A last day of graduation. At the bus stop for first grade, and tossing a cap 12 years later. Always. When caring for the children. When caring for the parents. During the chemo, the infusion, and the CAT scan. At the break of dawn. At the dark of midnight. Surrounded by those you love. As alone as one could be. Always. Celebrating a big win for the 12-year-olds. Comforting a broken-hearted 18-year-old whose admission portal didn’t say the right thing. Convincing your father he shouldn’t drive anymore. Raising a glass to your parents’ 50th. Sitting with a grieving friend and having nothing to say. Holding a grandchild for the first time. Always. When the news of the day eats at your soul. When the voices of young people give you hope. When the wisdom from a generation ahead drips down. When the generation to come dares to speak of serving the common good. When leaders in the nation and the world continue to disappoint. When an unexpected act of kindness is observed on the sidewalk, in the Wawa, in the waiting room, at the office, or in the school cafeteria. Always.
You and I are back in Galilee, where worship and doubt are all mushed together. In the aftermath of a spiritual mountaintop like a mission trip or an arid spell of belief, where even the coattails of the great cloud of witnesses doesn’t help. When Jesus feels so real you can touch him, or you give a hoot, or you couldn’t care less about all this belief nonsense. Always. Always. When you worry about a family member who just doesn’t care, claims no faith or worse. When you remember and celebrate the life of a parent now gone to glory, rightfully taking their place among the communion of saints. Always.
“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they 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.”
Not I will be with you. No, I am with you. Always. Always. Always.