Matthew 28:16-20
"Trinity" Sunday - Year A
At the opening worship of the first gathering of United Methodist Transitional-Interim Ministry Specialists in Nashville last week, Kenneth Lambert reported a conversation he had been part of where the statement was made that the Great Commission has already been accomplished. We can take that off our plate. The question for today revolves around a ministry of reconciliation.
How, in the church, do we live and move and have our being with people who have heard, have been baptized, and have been reconciled with God, but not each other? The challenge to those of us in transition ministry was re-enunciated: reconcili-action.
An interplay between the trinitarian polarities will lead to repentance and reconciliation by all the parties -- including the fourth part of the trinity - creation/humanity and including the unitive whole as God. This suggests a static doctrine of a trinity is false and a dynamic sense of a trinity involves all aspects of relationship including a new heaven and a new earth that grow from reconciliation of old experiences.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/may2005.html
A comment from the New Interpreter's Study Bible: "The Gospel again imitates the imperial patterns and perspectives that it resists throughout."
Yes, it is so easy to fall into that pattern of power we find all around us. Authority trumps humility; making disciples trumps the transformation of mutual teaching; baptizing takes on an institutional formulation rather than an empowering experience; obedience takes precedence over breaking new ground and doing greater things.
Can we be clear about where we have fallen prey to the imperial patterns around us? It takes a village of prophets and progressives to keep our eyes open to such temptation.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/may2005.html
It is easy to see how we can get to a Christian doctrine of Trinity from the Christian scriptures. This does seem to be significant jump from the Jewish scriptures and their focus upon G*D being one.
It is next to impossible to tell whether Trinitarian language rolled trippingly off the tongue of Jesus or was put in his mouth. It is possible to tell that this is a uniquely Christian doctrine. As such it has gotten in the way of Christian talking to Christian as well as between someone who is a Christian and someone who is not.
Ultimately this construct, no matter how helpful some think it is, needs to take a back seat to an appeal to live in peace (2 Cor. 13:11). This peace begins to be seen with three key (but not exclusive or exhaustive) descriptions of peace as grace, love, communion.
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heads trip on making patterns
where none is to be foundhearts trip on breaking patterns
where too many are present
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html
The lection passages this week have been chosen to give authority to the idea, concept, reality, hope, relationships that has come to be deemed "Trinity." A key question is whether this metaphor is still constituent for Christians or if it has passed its helpfulness. My sense is that we are moving past this doctrinal formulation, but there are miles to go. What will be helpful is our not taking it more seriously than a vision of the past can bear. If the Trinity can't take being laughed at, it probably needs to be sidestepped in favor of a larger picture. Panentheism would broaden it to Infinity and monotheism would return it to Unity. Are you on one pole or the other or on the continuum between?
Paying attention to context is helpful. Here we have travel-tired disciples worshipping and doubting, at one and the same time. This is key to the on-going debates about Trinity and how difficult it is to teach this concept.
I am presuming that more than Thomas are doubting, that others learned from him that doubt is an acceptable beginning spot for interaction with Jesus.
In this mix of tired, worship, and doubt Jesus draws nearer than his worshiped distance would otherwise allow to say four things, with the Trinity being but a subset of one of them:
• Be.
• Baptize.
• Teach.
• Re-member.
In these we find some basics.
Go can also be Be. There is a journey and we are on it. Authority that can motivate to journeying is helpful. Authority that constrains to pre-ordained outcomes is not helpful.
Baptism and it's qualities of Repentance, Turning, Belovedness takes precedence over any institutional words that define and limit it. To be baptized by John is as significant as that in one, two, or three names of what we call Trinity. Whatever leads one to a reconsideration of life and recommitment to larger life is holy.
Baptism is an entry into learning; learning even from temptations. Teaching is thus a holy endeavor as significant as journey and baptism. Teaching how to love one another, love enemies, love self and neighbors, and love G*D goes beyond mere obedience, all the way to life itself. What else are we teaching all day long? What else are we learning all day long?
Each of these points finds new and renewed life in the context of an on-going experience of G*D's incarnation – re-membering or rebirth in the mangers of our hearts. This experience vivifies authority and journey, visions new baptisms, challenges teachings and doubts.
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Recast:
A census of remaining disciples brought them back to Galilee. Here angelic song and shepherdic doubt came together one more time. In this crucible Christ was heard to say: I'm entrusting the creative authority John sees in me to all of you. Get moving to share what you know. Start with repentance from past and present (use any experience base you find helpful – that of creation, resurrection, or interconnection) and move deeper into a preferred future through the five love images I taught. Most importantly know that Love never ends and my participation in that will help sustain you all along life's journey. We are yoked together – onward – Emmanuel begins again – in you!
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Don (Reader) said...
Hi Wesley,
I am interested in your comment on Matthew 28: 16-20 where you say. "Go can also be Be." Does this weaken the 'making' of disciples. I would be interested in your understanding of 'making disciples'.
My reason for asking is that I keep thinking that those of us (and I am one) who have chosen a more progressive theological position have chosen not to make disciples as a reaction to conservative, evangelical theology and the church is suffering as a consequence. What can we say that is helpful here?
Regards
Don
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Wesley (Author) said...
Don -
You've pointed to an important question. I'll respond a bit more later. Right now I have to go and wonder who it is that will arrive.
Wesley
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Wesley (Author) said...
Don, here are the further comments. Thanks for the questions. They need more than this, but this is what is available after a day of more going than being.
For me the "making" of disciples is a part of "going on to wholeness". The mechanistic frame for "making" ends up with product like creeds. I prefer "calling" folks into the light or the light forth from folks. This allows response, movement, a still becoming. It also permits steps backward without having to be remade.
The 2 Corinthians passage this week speaks to this with the phrase, "Jesus Christ is in you." We are called to reveal that which is already present, not to remake some pig's ear into a silk purse.
I appreciate the addition of direction for those who do what they can to reveal Jesus – to transform the world.
My hesitation about "making" disciples is not so much a reaction to an approach that would simply have one repeat the right formula with sufficient emotion, but that the sense of modeling and calling are more powerful and on-going images. This would explain a preference for language of being over that of going. I have a preference to Be Christ, not to Go after Christ somewhere within someone else. I know this runs dangers aplenty, but with good friends attempting the same we can keep the ego from running amok overmuch.
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Don (Reader) said...
Hi Wesley,
Sorry I didn't get back earlier.
Yes I understand the concept of being. To give a practical example. In one of my congregations we set up a cafe and we specifically used the model of 'being a presence' so that the spirit of God could be at work.. and at work God was as we offered ministry to many many people. The opportunities and ministry was endless and the cafe still runs today. However the issue for many of us is that we were and are still running out of people to continue that ministry. It seems that people were really grateful to receive ministry but not willing to make the next step to become disciples with us.
I guess this is where I am coming from when I think about 'making' disciples. This is particularly relevant for us in the Uniting Church in Australia when we expect, based on current statistics and given that the average age of our congregations is 62 years of age, to lose at least 40% of our membership in the next 15 years.
I love the being - am i being impatient here.
Regards
Don
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html
Note that one can worship and doubt at the same time. We are strangely made to be various. Our experiences conflict with one another. One part of our body has one need and another has yet another and so there is the wonderful picture of snacking while sitting on a toilet. Our relationships shape our demeanor while in the presence of different people which is always interesting when our various relationships are in the same space together. Yes, worship and doubt are no strangers to one another.
If an antidote to doubt is trust, how might it best be established. Here a declaration of authority is used. That didn’t seem to work when Jesus was with the disciples as they continued to argue among themselves as well as with Jesus. Authority doesn’t hold up very well when there is distance between an authoritative pronouncement and the consequences of not jumping on the bandwagon announced. Pretty soon we are in a case of distributed authority where what Jesus says is overlaid with theories, doctrines, and competing authorities of interpretation.
Jesus did leave us with a pretty clear trinitarian starting point for evaluating our gifts and call. It is the old: Love G*D, Love Self, Love Neighb*r. It wasn’t long before Jesus added Love One Another to Self and Love Your Enemies to Neighb*r. We sometimes add Love the Bible, One Doctrine or Another, and Jesus to Love G*D.
The original is an ancient way to extend the dynamic of Original Blessing, Original Insight, and Original Service/Gratitude/Humility.
If talk this day about a doctrine of trinity doesn’t include how it is we live with all our various parts and how we live together with competing, doubt raising, derivations and variations, then it will soon enough fade, unable to even raise a faint doubt.