“Weakness and With-ness”

June 4, 2023 — Trinity Sunday

Matthew 28:16-20

Pastor Mike

This famous last scene in Matthew’s Gospel is commonly referred to as the Great Commission. It’s called that because it’s the moment when Jesus gave his disciples final instructions about who they were to be in the world and what they were to do. “Go,” he says. “And make more disciples by baptizing and teaching the nations.” Those commands – going, discipling, baptizing, teaching – they’ve have shaped the Church’s sense of itself. Our own denomination’s mission statement, for example (which you are reminded of every Sunday at the top of your bulletin), is “making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” That language come right from these verses. From the time of the disciples until now, this ‘Great Commission’ has offered direction and meaning to God’s people. It’s a wonderful thing to live inside your purpose.

But wait a minute, let’s pump the breaks. Did I hear Matthew correctly? Did he say eleven doubting disciples? Yea, that’s what I thought. Eleven doubting disciples. They were the ‘Church’ who received that Great Commission.

Eleven doubting disciples. They started with twelve, but then they went down a man. And here they are doubting, even as they worship. Even as they experience the resurrected Jesus, they are not fully convinced that they can trust what they’re seeing. It’s one thing for Jesus to claim to possess all authority in heaven and on earth, and it’s one thing for him to give  his people a sense of purpose, but is this really the group he’s going to stick by and keep calling? These eleven doubting disciples? I suppose so! He neither seems fazed by their weakness, nor deterred by their doubt.

I’m personally drawn to anything the Bible has to say about doubt, because I find time and time again that, even as a pastor, I live with more questions than I do answers. So, I looked up this word for doubting and discovered something extremely helpful. This word only appears in one another place in the whole New Testament, and it happens to be at the center point of Matthew’s Gospel, the very Gospel we’re in this morning. It shows up in a story with lots of parallels to this one, the story of Jesus and Peter walking on water. I want to read that for us now:

Immediately he made the disciples get into a boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.

“Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and, beginning, to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’ (Matt. 14:22-33, NRSVUE)

There are many rabbit trails we could take comparing these two stories: they both mention mountains; they both involve water either explicitly or implicitly; they both begin with the disciples being separated from Jesus yet obedient to his command; they both resolve with Jesus reuniting with them or promising to be with them always. But I want to point out one major parallel: that faith and doubt can be held together when Jesus is present in his power. Presumably this was the moment when at least Peter participated in the power of God most profoundly – walking on water, for crying out loud – and he both believed and doubted at the same time. According to his faith, he found himself held up by the elements. According to his doubt, he found himself caught, held, and carried by Jesus. A doubting disciple.

Sometimes we doubt. Sometimes we think that our doubt disqualifies us from living in the power of our purpose. Sometimes we’re weaker than we’d like to be. Down a man, as it were – some part of us is not at full capacity. Sometimes, like Peter, we get going and then we notice the winds of the storm; we fell that there’s some resistance to what Jesus has called us to, and we start to sink. These are inescapable, human experiences: doubt, weakness, distress. Yet for some reason we get to thinking that we have to hold those experiences apart from our discipleship, apart from Jesus, apart from the with-ness of God, and figure them out before getting back into the game.

I wonder if Jesus has ever called you to something that you’ve held yourself back from because you had some doubts about who Jesus is in the first place, or you weren’t sure you were strong enough, or you knew there’d be some bumps in the road, some high-velocity winds. I wonder if Jesus once gave you a purpose, and you lived it for a while until the doubt or the weakness or the obstacle appeared, and you felt like you’d disqualified yourself from serving. I even wonder if any of you have had your purpose sabotaged by someone else, someone who told you that you needed to be better than you were before you could say Yes to Jesus. When we give up on ourselves or allow other voices to tell us what we’re worthy of, we forget that Jesus gave the Great Commission to a beleaguered, doubting Church. We forget that Peter did walk on water, and that Jesus’ question about his faith was asked in the moment of embrace.

Here's a question it’s always good for us to ask ourselves: What difference does the resurrection make in our lives? What difference does it make that Jesus rose from the dead? I ask because, when you hold up these two stories next to each other – one pre-resurrection and one post-resurrection, stories where the disciples are arguably experiencing Jesus at his most powerful, there’s still doubting, there’s still weakness, there are storms that assail the call. It sure doesn’t seem like the resurrection removes our doubt; it sure doesn’t seem like the resurrection replaces our weakness with superhuman strength; it doesn’t seem like the resurrection promises smooth sailing through the world. So what difference does it make?

Why does it matter that Jesus was more than a good teacher and more than a compelling prophet? Why does it matter that his rising is more than a symbol or even a story. Why does the Church confess that his resurrection was an event in the very body and life of Jesus of Nazareth? It’s a hard question, not easily answered. I know that when I ask it, I become painfully aware of my own doubts and weaknesses and all the obstacles I face to being a person of this kind of faith.

But let me suggest one possibility, gleaned from the story of Peter walking on the water. The resurrection matters because the very terrain has been transformed. What is the one certainty, the one unbreakable rule of biological life? Once born, it dies. What is the one political certainty of killing someone on the cross? That they are humiliated, and their power is extinguished. But Jesus broke these basic rules of life. He rose and is exalted, the Creator and Re-Creator. He changed the terms.

Death is the end of life, right? Wrong. Betrayal, executions, payoffs, and schemes can squash movements for love, right? Wrong. You step on water, and you sink, right? Wrong. You only have a handful of food so there’s no way you can feed the crowd, right? Wrong. Women can’t be credible witnesses, right? Wrong. I can’t be a true worshipper and a doubter, right? Wrong. I can’t live out my purpose from inside my weakness, right? Wrong.

The terrain has been transformed. Life with Jesus is like looking through a kaleidoscope; we think the pieces stack up one way, but he turns the dial and all of a sudden, they line of differently; new things are possible, and old rules are bent, broken, or transgressed. What Peter got to experience for a moment on the Sea was the new way of being in the world that Jesus achieved for all of us, for all time, through his rising. That’s the difference the resurrection makes. We may doubt, but Jesus is sure, so we can move forward through his confidence. We may be weak, but he is strong, so we can move forward through his strength. We may run up against winds and waves that scare us, but he is the Creator of heaven and earth.

When we give up ourselves or abandon our purpose, we are telling ourselves a story about our unworthiness. But with Jesus, the question is not are you or are you not worthy to live life in the abundance and joy of God’s mission, the question is rather, will you step out in faith?

Because here’s the thing: the only way to experience that the terrain has been transformed, the only way to experience the difference that the resurrection makes, the only way to discover that doubt and weakness are simply part of the greater story is to actually get out of the boat and start walking. It is in the going, the risking, the trusting, the baptizing, and the teaching, that all these mysteries become real to us. If you have ever put down a call until you’re surer and stronger, you won’t be at peace until you pick it back up again. It’s time to reclaim your call. It’s time to let the risen Christ take care of the certainty, the strength, and the way through the circumstances.

It’s the only condition for living in our purpose and taking up Jesus’ ‘Great Commission’: we must take that first step. Having not seen him yet, “the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them…” and all the rest fell into place from there. Peter got out of the boat and felt that something in him or in the water was different than it had been.

You know, we sometimes speak of the ‘Great Commission” as if it was a Ra-Ra locker-room pump-up talk. But I hear it now as a kind of plea: When we baptize and teach, we get to share with others the mystery that the rules of living and loving have been overhauled by the one risen from the dead. We get to be the ones who remind one another that we can all do things we never thought we could do, go places we never thought we would go, love people we never thought we’d love. We get to be people out in the world who live as if all things are possible, because Christ is with us. We get to help others pick up their abandoned dreams.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.