Anchorage Presbyterian Church
R. Joseph Owles
August 16, 1998
[Based on Matthew 28:16-20]
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me; therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Mt. 28:18-20).
His name was John, his hair was wild, he wore a tie-dye T-shirt with holes in it, ragged jeans, and he went about barefoot. This was literally his wardrobe for his entire four years at college. He was brilliant, a little esoteric and abstract, but very bright. He attended college on a campus that had a well-dressed, very conservative, proper church located across the street. The church had long wanted to develop some kind of ministry to the students of that campus, but they simply were uncertain as to how to go about it.
One Sunday, John decided to go to this church. He walked in with no shoes, dressed in jeans, and his tie-dye T-shirt, and his long, wild hair. He was a few minutes late and the service had already begun, so he started down the aisle in search of a seat. The people of the church began to look a bit uncomfortable, but no one said anything. The spaces in the pews seems to get tighter and tighter as he drew near, so John kept moving down the aisle, looking for a seat, getting dangerously closer-and-closer to the pulpit. When he saw that there were no seats, he simply squatted down right on the carpet, in front of the sanctuary, which was perfectly acceptable behavior to John’s college-world-view. However, it did not seem to be perfectly acceptable behavior to many people located in the sanctuary that Sunday morning. Nothing like this had ever happened before, and although nobody said anything about it, the air was thick with tension.
Now, about this time, the pastor of the church, still in his pulpit, who had observed John’s trek down the aisle and the church’s growing tension, noticed that from the very back of the church, a respected member and elder was slowly making his way to the front of the church, toward John. The elder was in his eighties, a very dignified man with neatly trimmed silver-grey hair, an expensive three-piece suit, complete with pocket watch. He was well known in this congregation as a “godly man.” This “godly,” dignified, well-groom, elder courtly walked down the aisle with his cane, toward John, toward this young antithesis of everything that this elder seemed to be. And as he walked toward John, the people began to mutter softly to themselves, “You can’t blame him for what he’s going to do. How can you expect a man of his age and of his background to understand some college kid on the floor?”
It took an agonizingly long time for the elderly man to reach the young man. The only sound in the church was the clicking of the man’s cane, no one was breathing as the man reached John. All eyes directed toward what was about to happen, everyone knew that even the minister could not do anything until this man did what had to do. And the elderly man, who symbolized all that was dignified and proper, dropped his cane to the floor. And with great difficulty, and with creaking and popping of joints, he lowered himself to the floor, and sat next to John, so that John would not have to worship on the floor alone.
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me; therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Mt. 28:18-20).
The well-known, and well respected minister and scholar, Fred Craddock, tells of the time he and his wife once slipped away to the Smokey Mountains for a few days. Fred was desperately in search of relaxation, and was in the mind-set that he didn’t want to be bothered with anything pastoral or theological. He simply wanted some time away.
He and his wife found a little restaurant, and after they had spent some time sitting in it, they saw a man going from table to table, greeting the diners. Fred, not wanting to be disturbed, avoided eye-contact with the man as best he could, hoping that he would not approach his table. Eventually the man made his way to the Craddock’s table, and learning that Fred was a minister, he exclaimed, “Oh, I like preachahs” and sat down with them and began to tell them his story.
The man said that he had been born just a few miles from that spot, across the mountain. His mother had not been married when he was born, and the criticism directed at her also hit him. His schoolmates learned from their parents how to ridicule, and the boy learned to stay to himself at lunch and recess, lest their insults strike too hard. Even more difficult were their trips to town with his mother when he could feel the looks and the shaking of heads, and he heard the question, “I wonder who his father is?”
When he was about twelve, a new pastor came to the little community church. People talked about his skill as a preacher, and the boy began to go hear for himself. He was fascinated by the preacher, but he was always careful to slip in late, sit in the back and leave early, so that no one would catch him and ask, “What’s a boy like you doing here?” But one Sunday, he was caught up in the service, and he forgot to slip out before it was over. As he was negotiating the crowd to escape before he was noticed, he suddenly felt a huge hand on his shoulder, and as he turned around, he saw the face of the preacher. The preacher said, “Who are you, son? Whose boy are you?” His young heart sank at the question, but then the preacher went on, “Wait a minute. I know who you are. The family resemblance is unmistakable. You are a child of God!” And with that he patted the boy on the back and added, “Boy, that’s quite an inheritance. Go and claim it!”
As the boy once more changed into manhood in the restaurant, he said to Fred and his wife, “That one statement literally changed my whole life.” Then he said, “My name is Ben Hooper, I’ve twice been elected governor of this great state of Tennessee. Enjoy your visit.”
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me; therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Mt. 28:18-20).
A friend of mine, whom I will refer to as “David” went to a large city to watch his favorite baseball team. He had made the trip zillions of times and was lost in thought as he was driving down the highway. Because he was so lost in his thoughts, he missed the exit that would lead him to the stadium. Realizing what he had done, he took the next exit. He knew he was going to be late, and he was meeting people at the stadium, so he decided to call the people he was going to meet and tell them of his delay. He found a pay phone but it was being used, so he decided to wait in his car for the phone to be free. While he was waiting, a man approached the car and asked David the time. David looked at his watch and as he looked back up to tell the man the time of day, he saw a large gun pointed at his face. The man climbed into the car and instructed David to drive. David drove with a gun pointing toward his head, held in the shaky hand of a young man. After a few moments, David began to calm down enough to say a few simple words. He said to the young man, “I don’t know what’s going on with your life, but if you have to resort to this kind of behavior, your life isn’t going as well as it could be going. But I just want you to know that there is a God who loves you very much.” And the young man with the gun acquired a pensive expression and muttered an almost imperceptible, “Yeah.”
A few moments later, David was instructed to stop the car. Another man jumped in the back seat of the car, also brandishing a gun. He too pointed it to David’s head and said, “Come on, let’s do this dude, and get outta here.” David knew that his life was now over. But he was surprised to hear the first young man arguing with the second. He was saying that they didn’t have to kill him, they had the car, David could get out and everything would be cool. The second man was adamant about shooting David, but the argument of the first man won the day, and David stepped out of the car alive, and reasonably well. David found a phone and called the police, and when they arrived, they told him that this was the first time they had ever heard of anyone surviving this kind of car-jacking.
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me; therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Mt. 28:18-20).
The good news is that we are not only saved “from,” we are also saved “for.” We are saved from whatever circumstances from which we come, and we are saved for lives of service and ministry. The good news is that my salvation is not only reserved for after death, my salvation occurs on a daily basis. The good news is that the gospel has power. The gospel has real power in the real world. The gospel has the power to stop murderous intent. The gospel has the power to remove years of shame and low self-esteem. The gospel has the power to get one through situations that seem impossible. The truth is that the gospel saves lives. The truth is that the gospel redirects lives. The truth is that the gospel changes communities. The truth is that the gospel confronts us with the lives of real people who have experienced real grace. The truth is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is to be offered to the world. It is to be freely extended to those who are deemed unworthy. It is to be freely extended to those who are embarrassingly different. It is to be extended to those who would do us harm. The gospel is proclaimed through our lives, through our actions, as well as through our words.
Through our witness, through our mission, through our deeds, through our sharing of ourselves, through our statements of what Christ has done for us in our lives, we extend a real grace for the real world, and through this extension of grace, real lives are saved, both spiritually and literally. The good news is that God is not a remote, unknowable mystery. God is known through the life, ministry, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is presented to and experienced in the world through the proclamation of the church. And this proclamation, in the words of Paul, comes not in proclaiming “the mystery of God... in lofty words or wisdom... my speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom but on the power of God (1 Cor. 21-5).
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me; therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Mt. 28:18-20).
Amen.
