My wife shared a video with me this week that has stuck with me. There’s a lot going on in the world right now and news agencies are covering it all 24-7, and I hope you’re all staying abreast of what our local, state, and national leaders are saying and more importantly, watching what they’re doing as our country faces the truth of a history of systemic racism and oppression of people of color.
The protests continue, the outrage continues, and we are confronted with a desperate need for change, here in our country, and all throughout the world, because black lives matter.
But I want to tell you about this video Misty shared with me. It was brief, maybe about 10 seconds or so, and the first time she played it, all I heard was the audio- a man speaking said in a hasty voice, “I’d like to take a minute to talk to you about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
She laughed, and showed me the video, and I laughed too. It was nice to have a brief moment of levity. In the video, there is a man dressed in a suit, chasing a duck down the sidewalk in a park, and he says to the duck as it speeds away from him, him chasing the duck faster and faster, “I’d like to take a minute to talk to you about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!”
Obviously, it’s a little far-fetched that a man would attempt to share faith in Jesus with a duck, but we have the example of St. Francis of Assisi who famously would go out into the woods and preach to the birds and the rabbits and fish and wolves, and as the stories are told, the animals would listen as St. Francis preached, and then leave happily, chirping or barking or whatever noise it is rabbits make cheerfully. I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve told our dogs that Jesus loves them, and from time to time while we’re outside together, we all pray together.
Jesus gave us the Great Commission, our text for today- “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, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” This is our mission as followers of Jesus. Go into the world, make disciples of all nations, baptize them in the Holy Trinity of God, Father, Son, and Spirit, and teach these new disciples to observe all that Jesus told us, namely and chiefly to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, all our strength, and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.
So there’s our mission: tell the world about Jesus. Go tell all the world about Jesus’ love and grace for us, a love so great that Jesus came from Heaven and took on human flesh and gave His own life on the cross for the sins of all humanity, even those sins we continue to see committed day after day on our TV screens. Jesus died and rose again for everyone, for all of God’s Creation.
Then we get to the bigger question. How? How do we live lives that preach the Gospel of Jesus? How do we begin the process of carrying out Jesus’ Great Commission to us to make disciples?
If we look at Jesus as the ultimate example, which Jesus certainly is, Jesus always developed relationships with people, particularly before He began to explain to them about the Kingdom of God. Jesus poured Himself into the disciples for three years as He prepared them to go into the world and make disciples. When a huge, hungry crowd approached to hear Jesus speak, Jesus met their needs by providing a meal from two fish and five loaves of bread for thousands of people. Jesus developed a relationship with the Samaritan woman at the well before He offered her His living water.
Preaching the Gospel of Jesus, telling others about Christ’s love for everyone, explaining how faith is such a crucial and integral part of our lives is something that can happen without building relationships first, but like the man chasing the duck in the video earlier, that truth will fall on deaf ears.
I certainly don’t want to take anything away from anyone who would preach the Gospel, but we see examples of people who do this very thing- preach Jesus without first establishing some sort of relationship- in people who stand at street corners and tell passersby they are sinners and going to Hell without Jesus. Sure, this is true, but who wants to be told by a random stranger screaming at them they’re wrong, without having any conversation first to see where they are in their faith journey? This kind of action, like handing out or leaving tracts that explain the Gospel surely isn’t what Jesus had in mind because He said so Himself.
We cannot speak about what we do not know, therefore, we must know the love of God, the salvation of Christ, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit ourselves, wholly and completely, before we can ever begin to make disciples and tell others about Jesus.
Making disciples of Jesus doesn’t stop with preaching the Gospel. The next step Jesus gives us in the text here from the Gospel according to Matthew is to baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and once that happens, then Jesus implores us to teach them: “Teach them to observe all I have commanded you.”
Running after ducks to preach the Gospel to them is silly. That video made me laugh because it was ridiculous, but isn’t that what we do when we tell people we don’t know or haven’t taken time to get to know, “You need Jesus,” and nothing more?
I will be frank. Over the past couple of weeks, I have seen and heard many people who are quick to pass judgement or offer their own opinions about all that is happening, with the coronavirus closures and sheltering in place, with the tragic death of George Floyd and the protests for justice which continue, and I’ve heard and seen a lot of negative comments. It’s easier for us to say, “Well, protests are fine, but people shouldn’t be looting.” Or, “All lives matter.” Or, “There are good and bad on all sides.”
Judgement, Scripture tells us, is reserved for Christ and Christ alone. George Floyd said in a video, “One day it’s just going to be you and God.” Hebrews 9 tells us this much- “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes the judgement.” Once we die, we will stand before Christ with the Book of Life opened to our page, and if our name is covered with the blood of Jesus, if we are found to be believers and followers of Christ, we will enter into paradise with our God. If not, then our lot falls to the lake of fire. Only Christ may judge, because only Christ died for the world.
Not us. None of us died and rose again so we can post what we think on Facebook. None of us died and rose again so we can oppress other people. None of us died and rose again so we can be racist or embrace hatred or espouse ideologies which elevate some and devaluate others.
The Gospel of Jesus is for all the world because Jesus died for the sins of humanity. The Great Commission, our mission from God, is for anyone who deigns to follow Jesus. We have been told by the Messiah Himself to love God with all we are, to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and to make disciples. This involves building relationships with people. This involves meeting people where they are. This involves denying ourselves the ease of passing judgement on someone else as a first response before we know anything more about their situation.
We are reluctant. We have a reluctance, a great hesitance, to live outside of our comfort zone. Just like we enjoy air conditioning when it’s 90 degrees outside and heat when it’s 30 degrees outside, people generally tend to stick to what they know, what is safe. This is why our churches for the most part all look the same on Sunday mornings at 11:00 A.M. This is why we have such a great racial divide in our country. Reluctance to get to know one another; reluctance to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, this is the sin which we face and must overcome if we are to truly live our lives as followers of Jesus.
Jesus said, “I have not come to condemn the world, but that the world through me might be saved.” Even Jesus, who has the authority to judge, refrains from judgement until that final day when our race on earth is finished and we stand before Him. That means wherever we are now, as long as we have breath in our lungs, we have the ability to follow Jesus with our whole lives.
Following Jesus means loving God with all we are- our hearts and our minds and way down in our soul, and with all our strength, physically and mentally and emotionally. Following Jesus means loving our neighbors just like we love ourselves- without passing judgement, getting to know them intimately, building relationships with them. And following Jesus means we make disciples of Jesus- once we build and form relationships with others, we share the love of Jesus with them through hearing and sharing stories, and also through our deeds- through meeting needs and sharing love through our actions to come alongside and help where help is needed.
We must defeat our reluctance to change, our reluctance to reach out to those who are different from us and embrace the beauty God created in the world together.
For this reason, Jesus came to the world, died, and rose again.
We are on a mission from God here. Let’s not make it any harder than it needs to be!
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