Sermon, Trinity Sunday, May 31st: “God with Us,” Matthew 28:16-20.
***Note: I will be “unplugged”, not posting on Substack or checking email June 2-23. My next post on Substack will be on June 26.
The earliest memory I recall of feeling deep fear, I was perhaps around four years old.
I got separated and lost from my mom in a department store. One moment I was standing right next to my mom, and the next moment she was gone. I felt completely disoriented. I felt physically sick. I felt fear. She was gone.
Truth be told, I had probably been distracted. I was probably not paying attention. I cannot imagine how my mom must have felt as a mom in that situation; one moment her little boy was there and the next moment he was gone.
Looking back, I realize it was hardly a dramatic situation.
Though that was a long time ago, I will not soon forget that sudden and gnawing feeling of standing in the aisle of the store and being completely disoriented, separated, and lost. I will not soon forget that early feeling of fear. We were, of course, reunited, and we went home together. But, apparently, it has left a deep impression on me.
The Gospel of Matthew ends with earthquakes and mountains. The story ends with doubt and uncertainty and fear. And the story ends with completely unexpected beginnings.
When the women arrive to the tomb where Jesus’ body was presumed to be, they are welcomed by an earthquake and an empty tomb. And they hear those gospel words, “Fear not…he has been raised.” It is as though the world turns upside down. It seems as though the very foundations of the world have been rearranged and reordered.
After the women share their experience with their friends, they gather again where it all began. They return to Galilee where they first met Jesus. They return to the region where Jesus said that the meek would inherit the earth and the merciful would receive mercy. But when they return, many things have changed. And, they are filled with uncertainty.
Today, we find Jesus’ final words to his disciples. We may very well find these words echoing through the years and into our present moment.
The mountain as a symbol of divine revelation has significance throughout Matthew. So, in this final scene in Matthew, Jesus meets the eleven disciples on a mountain, or perhaps in the hills in Galilee. This is significant. This is the seventh mountain referenced in Matthew’s gospel.
It was on a mountain that Jesus was tempted to receive authority over all the kingdoms of the earth. It was on a mountain where Jesus taught the way in which his community is called to live, breaking the common cycles of hate and anger with the down to earth practice of persistent forgiveness. It was also on a mountain that Jesus revealed his identity in a special way to Peter, James, and John.[1]
So, the mountain is a symbol of revelation, and in this case, it is on this mountain that Jesus reveals the way in which he shall extend and grow his kingdom, his beloved community in the world.
In this final scene, we find the eleven disciples encounter the risen Jesus.
They, perhaps, respond in the only way possible. They worship. Yet, much has happened. The disciples have passed through an extraordinary range of experiences in a short time.
They have experienced the immeasurable joy of entering Jerusalem with Jesus as multitudes of people welcomed him as a messiah, a savior. They have experienced the intimacy of a close family meal when they gathered for the Passover meal. They have also experienced heart-wrenching sorrow when Jesus was arrested and put to death. They have also experienced guilt and shame when they came to terms with the fact that they abandoned Jesus.
Now returning to a mountain in Galilee that perhaps has many memories for them of Jesus healing and teaching about his kingdom, now they return to a mountain in Galilee, and they encounter the risen Jesus. And so, still carrying with them sorrow and joy and probably some guilt and shame, they worship and they doubt.
In response to their range and mixture of experiences, Jesus does as he has done the entire gospel of Matthew. Just as he did with the two blind men on the side of the road outside Jericho, he draws near to them. He offers them his presence. He is Immanuel, God with us. He draws near, and he meets them in the midst of their hope and uncertainty.
Here, at the end of Matthew, we see the Jesus restoring his relationship with the disciples. Here, we see Jesus restoring trust and responsibility. And, we find Jesus goes beyond healing the old relationship. He invites them into a new kind of relationship. This appears to be Jesus beginning to kindle in them courage for the task that he is about to give them.
God is no stranger to giving people of faith mixed with doubt a task to do. In the Old Testament, Moses, Gideon, and Jeremiah were each in their own way mixed with uncertainty and fear.
When God called Moses to lead the Israelite people out of the labor camps of Egypt, Moses said, “Who am I that I should go?”[2] When God called Gideon, Gideon responded, “Lord, how can I deliver Israel?”[3] When God called Jeremiah to be a prophet, Jeremiah responded, “Ah, Lord God, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.”[4]
But this admixture of faith and doubt, of uncertainty and fear often marks the beginning not the end of a calling. In each of these cases, God’s presence sustains these individuals through their uncertainty.[5] God said to each of them, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you.”
In Matthew, as he draws near to them and prepares them for the road ahead, Jesus echoes this ancient divine promise that we hear throughout the centuries in the Old Testament.
This ancient divine promise of presence is how the gospel story began in Matthew. Remember, Joseph hears in a dream that Mary’s son will be Immanuel, God with us.[6] From the outset, this is who Jesus is.
Now, we find that this ancient divine promise is also how the gospel story concludes. At the end of Matthew, Jesus echoes this ancient promise. It becomes only fitting for Jesus to remind them with his final words, “I am with you always.”
The Anglican, Rowan Williams, has said, “To be in the Church is to be in the middle of the divine life – the outpouring and returning and sharing, gift and response and renewed overflow of giving, the threefold rhythm of love, Father, Son, and Spirit.”
And, Rowan Williams continued, “When we think of life in the Church, perhaps we ought to think less in terms of signing up to a society and more in terms of swimming in an overwhelming current of divine loving activity.”[7]
As the church, we are right in the middle of the divine life, swimming in the current of divine loving activity.
In 1985, when she was a seminary student, Diana Butler Bass had an opportunity to attend a class taught by Henri Nouwen, the Dutch priest and spiritual author.
At the time, Diana Butler Bass did not know Nouwen apart from a little book she had received as a gift years earlier, entitled, The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life.
Bass recalls that book begins with a question, “What does it mean to live a life in the Spirit of Jesus Christ?” Bass admits that at the time, in her twenties, all she wanted were answers, not questions.
And, she recalls in that book Nouwen goes on to say, “This book does not offer answers or solutions but is written in the conviction that the quest for an authentic Christian spirituality is worth the effort and the pain since in the midst of this quest we can finds signs offering hope, courage, and confidence.”
Dianna Butler Bass recalls that after reading this sentence she was hooked,[8] though she confesses that sadly she ended up not taking Nouwen’s class.
At the end of Matthew, we do not find a book full of answers. We find the promise of presence: “I am with you always.”
On a cold December morning, the Jewish professor, Elie Wiesel, was singing to his students. He was singing a song from his childhood, conveying the beauty of a lost world.
The song had no words – it was a wordless melody. It shifts from a major to a minor key and back again. The effect is eerie and poignant. He was a baritone with a strong yet delicate voice. His eyes were closed, and he swayed with the rhythm and melody. His hands moved up and down, as if he was conducting an invisible choir. When the song picked up, he snapped his fingers, then clapped his hands.
He ended the melody and waited for a moment in silence before opening his eyes. He said, “This [wordless melody] is the best way I know to return to my childhood. And to share it with you. Why do I tell you about this other than because it is an essential part of my childhood? Because this teaches us to build from ruins.”
After the class, Wiesel’s teaching assistant came to him and said, “Can I ask you a question?”
He finished writing something on a small piece of paper and looked up.
“I’m curious,” said the teaching assistant, “why did you decide to sing today? You’ve never done that before, at least not while I’ve been your [teaching assistant]. It was beautiful and moving…but why today?”
Wiesel looked at his teaching assistant and said, “Sometimes, we must move beyond words. As you know, teaching and learning do not happen only through the sharing of information; there must be an added element. I have been lecturing all semester, the students have been reading wonderful novels and plays, we have discussed and questioned. And yet I felt that something was missing: melody. So I decided to sing.”
The teaching assistant had noticed that this particular group of students had been less engaged than others in previous years. It was subtle, but it was still noticeable. That moment of song opened some hidden door, and in the class meetings that followed, the discussions were more alive; the students raised their hands more often, asked deeper questions.
They had begun to share more of themselves because he had shared more of himself.[9]
When we become more fully present with one another, we begin to join each other and open up to each other.
I am convinced that presence is something the church has to offer the broader society, especially now in a digital age in which seemingly everything is online and at a distance, distance learning, distance meetings.
Church gathers. We gather. We are present. We pray together, sharing in our deepest longings, wounds, dreams, aspirations. We fellowship, gathering to eat and laugh and cry together.
Presence is a vital part of church. Even if or when we do not have the right words, we show up for each other. We open ourselves up to each other.
In the midst of all we feel and experience, in circumstances and in relationships and in the world, we find ourselves on this quest, not filled with answers, but trusting that the presence of God is with us each step on our journey together.
As we attune ourselves to God’s presence, as we seek to pay attention to what God is doing among us together right now, we can live in hope and confidence, as we carry with us those ancient and yet no less contemporary words, “I am with you always.”
In the name of our Creator and Redeemer and Sustainer, and all God’s people say together, “Amen.”
[1] Matthew 4:8; 5-7; 17:1.
[2] Ex.3:11.
[3] Judges 6:15.
[4] Jer. 1:6.
[5] e.g. Ex. 3:12, Josh 1:5, Judges 6:16, Jer. 1:7.
[6] Matthew 1:20-25.
[7] Williams, Tokens of Trust, 136.
[8] Bass, A People’s History of Christianity, 286.
[9] Burger, Witness, 189-90.
Yes! Presence—God’s with us and ours with each other—can turn sadness into joy, hurt into hope, powerless fear into powerful trust and service. Thanks for reminding us of this and for demonstrating it faithfully.