My wife and I made the rounds of the carpet stores one evening last week. She is a member of the church’s Building and Grounds Committee and has been given the assignment of refurbishing my office. It was an educational experience, but not a particularly entertaining one.
At one carpet store we saw something we thought would look good. We got a rough quotation on the price; it sounded reasonable, but the store didn’t have exactly the right color, and they suggested we check back a couple of days later. We did that, we found the color we wanted, and were suddenly treated to a new price quotation about 50% higher than the original one! We walked out. We thought that was hostile behavior. We thought that was an aggressive, negative relationship.
At a second carpet store we looked around; we saw a few things. We had some questions and tried to find an employee who could help us. When one of them finished his rummaging around in the remnants and the rags, he pointed across the room to something we might want to look at, he ducked his eyes back to his other pursuits, and he muttered something about maybe getting some new stock in in a couple of weeks. We walked out. We thought that was passive behavior. We thought that was a rather disengaged relationship. It felt as though he just didn’t care.
At a third carpet store we opened the door and were greeted immediately by a group of salesmen who pounced on us, asked us what they could do for us, and pushed their business card at us. When they sorted it out among themselves as to who would wait on us, the gentleman who won us as his prize walked us all over the store, showed us fragments and remnants of everything under the sun, figured up prices, and made doubly sure we had his name and his phone number. Now we still walked out. We still didn’t buy – too much money – and I still have the old grass green stuff with huge ink stains on it. But at least we now know where we can get positive behavior. At least we now know who seems interested in meeting us halfway. At least we now know who asserts himself toward us and who will make an effort to do something for us.
We may not have any carpet yet, but we sure do have a whole set of lessons in human relationships. We certainly do see that you can deal with people in one of three basic ways: you can deal negatively, with hostility and with aggression; you can make people feel as though they have to defend themselves.
Or you can deal passively, just not getting involved; you can make people feel as though they are being ignored and that they don’t count.
Or you can deal positively, you can try to get involved and you can try to assert something. You can help people feel significant and important and wanted. You can go share something good with them.
Does Jesus Christ have a word for us on this basic issue in human relationships? Negative, passive, or positive? What is His expectation of us?
Matthew 28: 16-20
I
Go …make disciples …teaching. The verbs are powerful, positive, assertive. If you take Jesus seriously you cannot stand around defending yourself against the world’s attacks; that would be negative behavior. And you cannot sit around keeping cool; that would be passive behavior. If you take Jesus seriously, you neither stand around nor sit around, you walk around teaching something, sharing something, positive behavior. Go … make disciples … teaching.
We call this passage of scripture the Great Commission. We use it, and rightly, to call people into foreign missions. We focus on the going: go to all nations. And that’s OK, but that is also daunting, isn’t it? That’s a big one to swallow. If I listen to this Scripture, does that mean I have to get on a: slow boat to China in order to be obedient to Christ?
The folks who look carefully at the language of the New Testament point out that in this passage the word "Go" is not really a verb, not really an imperative. It’s a participle. English teachers in the congregation, are you with me on this? "Go" in the original is a participle, so that really the translation ought to be, "Going, therefore make disciples." "Going … therefore make disciples … teaching."
The point is that you and I are going. We really have no choice about that. We are going into the world. We’re going anyway. We’re engaging the world anyway. So, "going, teach." I like to translate it this way: "Since you’re going anyway, you might as well make disciples … teaching". Since you’re going anyway, teach. Positive behavior toward the world.
You see, unless you are planning to be cloistered in a monastery somewhere or unless you are a candidate for solitary confinement at Lorton, you are going into the world anyway. We intersect with all kinds of people in everyday life. We go all kinds of places. We have all sorts of natural intersections with the world. Since you’re going anyway, teach.
The Lord is telling us to use the natural intersections of life as an opportunity to teach. And he is telling us we do not need to wait. You do not need to wait for somebody to send you somewhere … as you’re going anyway, you can teach. You do not need to get somebody to send you across the ocean or install you in a classroom or give you a license. As you’re going, since you’re going anyway, you can teach. You can share. The natural intersections of life. And we miss them because either we think we should defend ourselves (negative behavior) or hide ourselves (passive behavior), but we fail to see that what Jesus Christ calls us to do is to assert ourselves, share ourselves, in positive behavior.
When I was a college student I worked for a time in a government office. I noticed after a while in that office that one of the engineers whose desk was back-to-back with mine would perform a little lunch hour ritual involving something in his desk drawer. He’d get out his brown bag and then he’d do something down in that desk drawer; he’d take a bite of sandwich and then he’d lean over and just squint and stare a something. Every now and again he’d reach in one hand and move something, as if he were turning a page, maybe.
Well, curiosity got the better of me. Was it some sort of top-secret document? Unlikely, because we were not the CIA or the FBI; we were the U. S. Geological Survey, and figures on the number of gallons of water flowing down the river were hardly security clearance items. Was it the latest edition of Playboy, maybe? Now you’ll know I had to peek!
Guess what I saw in his desk drawer? What was the object of his attention? A Bible! He was secretly reading the Bible on his lunch hour. And when I mentioned what I had seen, he turned six shades of red and asked me not to tell anybody; "These folks wouldn’t understand", he said.
What a shame! What a shame to miss the natural intersections of life! What a shame to be gathering knowledge of the Lord and understanding of the Scriptures and then not be willing to share it with anybody!
Some of us are in the business world or the professional world; we have co-workers who need what we have to share. Since you’re going to work with them anyway, why not teach? Some of us are going to be in school again; and since you have to sit with classmates and have to room with roommates and have to interact anyway, why not teach? All of us live in neighborhoods, in homes or in apartments. Jesus says, "Since you’re going anyway, teach". "Since you’re going to be there anyway, you might as well teach.”
Use the natural intersections of life. All we have to do is open our eyes and see the folks that God has surrounded us with, and I guarantee you there will be somebody who needs to learn what you can teach.
Since you’re going anyway, teach.
II
Well, but, Pastor, you say, I’m not ready for that. I don’t feel adequate for that. I am not trained enough for that. What if they ask me a question I cannot answer? What if my witness isn’t well informed? Yes, I intersect with a lot of folks out in the world, but how can I teach them until I have the answers myself?
And Jesus says, let’s understand what teaching is. Let’s understand that teaching is not always having all the answers; teaching is helping someone else to join you in the path of learning. Teaching is not dropping answers on people; teaching is nudging them to join you in the search. And that you can do.
You see, what Jesus really says in the "Great Commission" is "as you go, make disciples … teaching". The only real imperative verb in the whole sentence is "make disciples." Make fellow learners. You are a disciple, you are a learner and you are also a teacher. Not get some other folk to join you on the way.
Our problem is that we think we have to be qualified, credentialed, prepared, and up to snuff before we can teach. And we don’t. All we have to do is to invite others to join us in the journey of learning and living, and trust Christ to do the rest. Sometimes, you see, the best thing you can say is, "I don’t know".
Have you ever tried to stand and teach, and there you are in front of the class, and you realize all of a sudden that you are out of your depth and that you haven’t got a clue as to what is going on and what to say? That makes for some pretty interesting learning. I remember back in my junior high school days that there was one substitute teacher that the school system just kept calling to our school. Her specialty was physical education, and she looked like Godzilla and sounded like a country-western singer. Quite a creature.
Well, she may have been a pretty decent physical education teacher, but they kept throwing her into all these other classes as a substitute. She tried to wing it through algebra; and that sort of worked because there was a step-by-step teacher’s manual that she used. And she slugged it out through American history, primarily by reading the textbook to us. But one day she showed up in Science class, and the poor soul tried for a half an hour to make sense out of the idea of molecules to explain why water "berled," as she put it (thank goodness they never, never put her into an English class). She valiantly tried, one hand holding her book and the other hand mopping her fevered brow, to sound like she knew what really happened when you "berled" that water! Of course we worldly-wise eighth-graders snickered and grimaced and got her own "berling pernt" up.
Suddenly she slammed her book down on the windowsill; she stared out the window for a moment, and then turned to us and said, "Hey, I don’t know this stuff either. Maybe you can explain it to me and then we’ll all understand"
Well, the atmosphere in that classroom changed all of a sudden. Now we were all learners. Now we were all trying to figure it out together. And we learned something! I submit to you that it took courage for her to say, "I don’t know." But then we all learned. And I submit to you that since you’re going to be in the world anyway, and since you don’t know it all, just go ahead and recruit some fellow learners, make some disciples, and learn together.
I’ve always liked the Stephen Leacock story about the fellow who thought that he was not spiritually prepared to invite his lady love to be his bride, and so he spent sane two years of his life toning up his spiritual life, doing things like memorizing the names of the Kings of Israel and Judah in chronological order, so he’d be good enough for her. The only trouble was that by the time he had finished all of that she had married a fellow who didn’t know the difference between Ahab and a hole in the wall!
You know enough already to get started. You know enough already to make disciples. And since you’re going into the world anyway, you may just as well make disciples, teaching. You may not be able to preach like Peter and you may not be able to pray like Paul, but this one thing you can do: you can tell the love of Jesus and say “He died for all.”
The one sure thing I can say to you is that you do not have to be afraid of failure as you make disciples. You do not have to be afraid of failure, because the Master Teacher has promised, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age." You might read it this way: "Look, I am right here learning and teaching with you, even until this lesson is over."
The Lord’s Table today I see as a sign of the presence of this Teacher. It is no accident, I think, that we set this Table right here at the crossing, the intersection, where the north-south aisle and the east-west aisle meet, for it was at the crossroads of the ancient world that he was crucified and at it is at the crossroads, the natural intersections of our lives with others, that He meets us still.
Since you’re going to the crossroads anyway, teach. He will be there.
And the Lord’s Table speaks to us of preparation too. He was not ready! And yet He was! He cried out in the Garden, "Let this cup pass from me … my soul is exceedingly sorrowful" And yet He also said, "The hour has come for me to be fulfilled." He knew that the moment had arrived for which He had been preparing. And so this morning, come to the Table, just as you will approach the world tomorrow, knowing that you are not ready, you are not fully prepared, but the hour has come anyway. This is your moment. You must go. And since you are going anyway, make disciples, teaching. And He will be with you always, even unto the end of that lesson.
