Recently we seem to be hearing a lot about changing the world. Part of the reason for this may be
that this is an election year. In increasingly hard times, change sells. This year is one in which
many people seem to be more energized than we’ve seen for a while. And I think this is healthy for
a democracy. People are asking good questions about how we can be a force for positive change.
This isn’t the first time in my life that I’ve seen this kind of energy. Many here are old enough to
remember the turbulent 1960’s. We were haunted by an unpopular war and for the first time were
facing the reality that our consumer ways and our population pressures were taking a toll on this
garden planet with which our God blessed us. As a somewhat naïve and impressionable youth I
remember reading a book called The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. It was about a group of young
people who called themselves the “Merry Pranksters” and drove around the country in a wildly
painted bus doing some pretty bizarre things, some of which were, frankly, pretty stupid.
But there was one scene from the book that left an impression on me. They were in Berkeley,
California, I think. There was this big anti-war rally in which people were spouting revolutionary
invective, and some even calling for a violent overthrow of the government. One of the Pranksters
got up onstage in front of this riled up mob and began calmly playing his harmonica. The crowd
became increasingly uneasy, and weren’t sure what this guy was up to. Eventually he started
talking about how politics and violence aren’t the answer. That we need a whole different
approach. These were not popular words in this crowd. And not too many years later in their song
“Revolution” the Beatles said something similar. They suggested that the real answer lay in inner
transformation. Unfortunately the kind of vague transformation advocated by both turned out not to
be very enduring. But in one sense I think they were on the right track. Transformation begins on
the inside and proceeds outward.
I think this is the truly revolutionary thing about the Great Commission. We receive, we’re changed,
and we pass along the blessing. In today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel we hear Jesus
commissioning the disciples and their spiritual descendents, the church, to go out and change the
world with the Good News. I notice that, in doing so Jesus uses some pretty un-P.C. words. Now,
please remember that we’re talking about an appearance of Jesus after his resurrection. So the
words are coming from the One who had been crucified, had descended to the dead and had risen
again in a new body on the third day. The claims he’d made about himself as the Messiah, the Son
of God, and Savior of the world, were attested to by the miracle of the Resurrection.
But He does something which, though typical for Jesus, doesn’t necessarily match up with what we
might expect from the greatest superhero in human history. He doesn’t put on titanium body armor
and jet off to single-handedly right all the wrongs of the world with flame throwers and rocket-
propelled grenades. Instead, he chooses those with whom he desires a close relationship (that
being us) to take up the challenge of gradually expanding the kingdom of God until He returns to
complete the job.
And Jesus uses a word that isn’t very popular with many these days. Authority. He says, “All
authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” This word “authority” is interesting. A
word search in the Gospels alone reveals that there are some three dozen times in which that word
is used. The vast majority of these have to do with Jesus’ own authority on this earth. There are
passages regarding Jesus’ authority over evil spirits, authority to drive out demons, authority to
forgive sins, authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and over spiritual enemies, authority to
judge, authority to give his own life as a sacrifice, and authority to give eternal life to those given him
by the Father. And as the resurrected Christ stands before his disciples he summarizes by saying,
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” And it’s through this authority that
Jesus commands the troops. He says, “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, and teaching them to obey
everything that I have commanded you.”
OK, so how did they do this? How do we do this? This is one question that has plagued the Christian
faith at various points in its history. Since the time of the Emperor Constantine in the Fourth
Century, there’ve been periods of uncomfortable coziness between political power and religious
power. It’s an issue that good Christians continue to grapple with: How do we make disciples of all
nations—how do we change the world and still abide by Jesus’ other teachings about not living by
the sword, returning good for evil, and so on.
I’m not going to trivialize this by pretending this is an easy question. For instance we’ve struggled
over the years to figure out ways to protect the innocent, using force when necessary, and still be in
line with Jesus’ teachings. And we’re reminded by the Crusades of the Middle Ages of how an
initially well-intentioned effort can totally go off the rails and let sin and power-hunger ultimately
dominate. In the past we’ve had powerful rulers impose the Christian faith on surrounding peoples
at the point of a sword. Perhaps much of the West’s rejection of Christianity has to do with this
kind of behavior. We should never forget these lessons of history.
I think one critical way not to forget is to remind ourselves of the people to whom Jesus gave the
Great Commission. We talked last week about the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This is
absolutely key to expanding the kingdom of God in a godly way. If we don’t respond to the law
written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit, it’s much easier to fall into the human passions that end up
being destructive to the name of Christ. The disciples who Jesus instructed in Galilee were given
the gift of the Holy Spirit in order to accomplish the task Jesus gave them, Jesus assured them that
he would give them the words to speak when under the gun of persecution. OK, these weren’t
Shaolin priests. They weren’t trained in the martial arts to defend themselves from the sneering
masses, but instead were given the words of truth and hope with which to invite people into God’s
eternal kingdom. It’s an expansion of God’s kingdom by exposition, not imposition. We expose
people to the good news, but don’t impose it upon them.
Now, the disciples were flawed people who had to learn humility and obedience. You may recall that
a few were in a puffing contest at one point debating about who was the greatest of the disciples.
After probably clapping himself on the forehead Jesus had to sit them down and talk about the last
being first. Well, apparently the disciples learned this lesson well. Each except for Judas Iscariot
carried out the work of the Great Commission by fanning out and spreading the Gospel. They were
tireless and faithful to the point of violent death in each case except for the Apostle John, who after
spending time imprisoned on the Isle of Patmos, probably died of old age in Ephesus. Hardly the
“lifestyles of the rich and famous.”
But as we now know, this means of expanding the kingdom of God caught on like wildfire. People
hungry for peace of mind, for a relationship with the Creator God, which they intuitively knew was
desperately important, people hungry for the assurance of forgiveness, cleansing, and eternal life in
a barbaric world that didn’t place a particularly high value on life; they came just as they were, to
hear and receive the message of salvation from the disciples and then become Christ-bearers to
others, right on down the ages to us, right here in this building this morning. You see, we don’t need
to coerce or manipulate to make people disciples. In fact those things are very likely to be self-
defeating. Rather, we’re called upon merely to speak the truth in love, baptizing and teaching them
with the precious words entrusted to us by our forebears. As Deacon Jane so ably emphasized a
couple of weeks ago, we do this in the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s a new, peaceful, and
countercultural type of “conquest.”
It’s like the quiet revolution taking place in China right now. There are now many millions of people
in that country who follow Jesus as their Healer and Leader. They’re not making political waves or
getting in the faces of those who persecute them. But person by person, soul by soul, the kingdom
of God is expanding in that repressive country. The ironic thing is that the very country that
represses them is, in all likelihood, benefitting from the positive changes that are happening in their
lives. Christians who follow Christ’s teachings make good citizens.
And this is another thing that it’s good to remind ourselves of from time to time. The media excitedly
sells commercial time by trumpeting the failings of believers. You know, the colorful stories of lust
and greed that have sadly brought down people who were unprepared for the reality of temptation.
And of course, as I mentioned, we have a long list of tragic events in our history that are often held
in our faces: The religious wars of Europe and political and moral corruption in the church are but a
couple. Yet I think this perspective is dangerously unbalanced without the acknowledgment of all of
the good, practical things that have come out of the quiet revolution of a biblical faith. Hospitals, as
we know them, came directly out of Christian monastic communities whose mission it was to relieve
human suffering. We at Hope Church are specializing in this ministry by acting as vessels for divine
physical and spiritual healing. Western science came directly out of God’s revelation to the Jews
and their heirs that the universe was created in beauty and order. This fired peoples’ passion to
explore and discover more about it. In a time and place of extreme subjugation of women, the
scriptural revelations introduced to us the notion that men and women are created equally, in the
image of God. Christian thinkers and doers ultimately spearheaded the abolition of slavery.
Christian missionaries helped combat the repressive caste systems in various countries, and did
away with the practice of widow-burning in India. These are but a few of many examples of
worldwide social good coming out of God’s work through His people. If you want to get a real picture
the impact of our faith, try to imagine a world in which these things never came into being. I believe
that they represent evidence of God’s kingdom slowly but surely expanding to bring in the good that
will precede our Lord’s completion of this project when He returns to this earth bodily. Obviously, we
still have much, much work to do. We really are in a spiritual battle.
But the joy we have is the joy of knowing that God loves us so much that he offers us healing,
salvation and eternal life through His Son, and that he promises to be with us always, to the end of
the age. Jesus has breathed on us a wind of love that continues to sweep across the earth. Today
in many places people sadly are rejecting God’s most precious gift. But we find that when the winds
dies down in one place it begins blowing in another. Who knows where it will begin blowing next?
Could it be that our current situation in America will set the scene for people opening their eyes to
their need for something beyond material things? We’ll see.
Our election may or may not drastically change the world. Based upon past experience I tend to
suspect the latter. But wherever the Spirit blows, one by one people are being transformed from the
inside out. And the love and freedom people are finding are being passed from person to person,
just as in the days of the disciples. The wind is blowing, and I think it’s not a bad idea for us to have
our sails trimmed and ready. Amen.
that this is an election year. In increasingly hard times, change sells. This year is one in which
many people seem to be more energized than we’ve seen for a while. And I think this is healthy for
a democracy. People are asking good questions about how we can be a force for positive change.
This isn’t the first time in my life that I’ve seen this kind of energy. Many here are old enough to
remember the turbulent 1960’s. We were haunted by an unpopular war and for the first time were
facing the reality that our consumer ways and our population pressures were taking a toll on this
garden planet with which our God blessed us. As a somewhat naïve and impressionable youth I
remember reading a book called The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. It was about a group of young
people who called themselves the “Merry Pranksters” and drove around the country in a wildly
painted bus doing some pretty bizarre things, some of which were, frankly, pretty stupid.
But there was one scene from the book that left an impression on me. They were in Berkeley,
California, I think. There was this big anti-war rally in which people were spouting revolutionary
invective, and some even calling for a violent overthrow of the government. One of the Pranksters
got up onstage in front of this riled up mob and began calmly playing his harmonica. The crowd
became increasingly uneasy, and weren’t sure what this guy was up to. Eventually he started
talking about how politics and violence aren’t the answer. That we need a whole different
approach. These were not popular words in this crowd. And not too many years later in their song
“Revolution” the Beatles said something similar. They suggested that the real answer lay in inner
transformation. Unfortunately the kind of vague transformation advocated by both turned out not to
be very enduring. But in one sense I think they were on the right track. Transformation begins on
the inside and proceeds outward.
I think this is the truly revolutionary thing about the Great Commission. We receive, we’re changed,
and we pass along the blessing. In today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel we hear Jesus
commissioning the disciples and their spiritual descendents, the church, to go out and change the
world with the Good News. I notice that, in doing so Jesus uses some pretty un-P.C. words. Now,
please remember that we’re talking about an appearance of Jesus after his resurrection. So the
words are coming from the One who had been crucified, had descended to the dead and had risen
again in a new body on the third day. The claims he’d made about himself as the Messiah, the Son
of God, and Savior of the world, were attested to by the miracle of the Resurrection.
But He does something which, though typical for Jesus, doesn’t necessarily match up with what we
might expect from the greatest superhero in human history. He doesn’t put on titanium body armor
and jet off to single-handedly right all the wrongs of the world with flame throwers and rocket-
propelled grenades. Instead, he chooses those with whom he desires a close relationship (that
being us) to take up the challenge of gradually expanding the kingdom of God until He returns to
complete the job.
And Jesus uses a word that isn’t very popular with many these days. Authority. He says, “All
authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” This word “authority” is interesting. A
word search in the Gospels alone reveals that there are some three dozen times in which that word
is used. The vast majority of these have to do with Jesus’ own authority on this earth. There are
passages regarding Jesus’ authority over evil spirits, authority to drive out demons, authority to
forgive sins, authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and over spiritual enemies, authority to
judge, authority to give his own life as a sacrifice, and authority to give eternal life to those given him
by the Father. And as the resurrected Christ stands before his disciples he summarizes by saying,
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” And it’s through this authority that
Jesus commands the troops. He says, “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, and teaching them to obey
everything that I have commanded you.”
OK, so how did they do this? How do we do this? This is one question that has plagued the Christian
faith at various points in its history. Since the time of the Emperor Constantine in the Fourth
Century, there’ve been periods of uncomfortable coziness between political power and religious
power. It’s an issue that good Christians continue to grapple with: How do we make disciples of all
nations—how do we change the world and still abide by Jesus’ other teachings about not living by
the sword, returning good for evil, and so on.
I’m not going to trivialize this by pretending this is an easy question. For instance we’ve struggled
over the years to figure out ways to protect the innocent, using force when necessary, and still be in
line with Jesus’ teachings. And we’re reminded by the Crusades of the Middle Ages of how an
initially well-intentioned effort can totally go off the rails and let sin and power-hunger ultimately
dominate. In the past we’ve had powerful rulers impose the Christian faith on surrounding peoples
at the point of a sword. Perhaps much of the West’s rejection of Christianity has to do with this
kind of behavior. We should never forget these lessons of history.
I think one critical way not to forget is to remind ourselves of the people to whom Jesus gave the
Great Commission. We talked last week about the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This is
absolutely key to expanding the kingdom of God in a godly way. If we don’t respond to the law
written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit, it’s much easier to fall into the human passions that end up
being destructive to the name of Christ. The disciples who Jesus instructed in Galilee were given
the gift of the Holy Spirit in order to accomplish the task Jesus gave them, Jesus assured them that
he would give them the words to speak when under the gun of persecution. OK, these weren’t
Shaolin priests. They weren’t trained in the martial arts to defend themselves from the sneering
masses, but instead were given the words of truth and hope with which to invite people into God’s
eternal kingdom. It’s an expansion of God’s kingdom by exposition, not imposition. We expose
people to the good news, but don’t impose it upon them.
Now, the disciples were flawed people who had to learn humility and obedience. You may recall that
a few were in a puffing contest at one point debating about who was the greatest of the disciples.
After probably clapping himself on the forehead Jesus had to sit them down and talk about the last
being first. Well, apparently the disciples learned this lesson well. Each except for Judas Iscariot
carried out the work of the Great Commission by fanning out and spreading the Gospel. They were
tireless and faithful to the point of violent death in each case except for the Apostle John, who after
spending time imprisoned on the Isle of Patmos, probably died of old age in Ephesus. Hardly the
“lifestyles of the rich and famous.”
But as we now know, this means of expanding the kingdom of God caught on like wildfire. People
hungry for peace of mind, for a relationship with the Creator God, which they intuitively knew was
desperately important, people hungry for the assurance of forgiveness, cleansing, and eternal life in
a barbaric world that didn’t place a particularly high value on life; they came just as they were, to
hear and receive the message of salvation from the disciples and then become Christ-bearers to
others, right on down the ages to us, right here in this building this morning. You see, we don’t need
to coerce or manipulate to make people disciples. In fact those things are very likely to be self-
defeating. Rather, we’re called upon merely to speak the truth in love, baptizing and teaching them
with the precious words entrusted to us by our forebears. As Deacon Jane so ably emphasized a
couple of weeks ago, we do this in the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s a new, peaceful, and
countercultural type of “conquest.”
It’s like the quiet revolution taking place in China right now. There are now many millions of people
in that country who follow Jesus as their Healer and Leader. They’re not making political waves or
getting in the faces of those who persecute them. But person by person, soul by soul, the kingdom
of God is expanding in that repressive country. The ironic thing is that the very country that
represses them is, in all likelihood, benefitting from the positive changes that are happening in their
lives. Christians who follow Christ’s teachings make good citizens.
And this is another thing that it’s good to remind ourselves of from time to time. The media excitedly
sells commercial time by trumpeting the failings of believers. You know, the colorful stories of lust
and greed that have sadly brought down people who were unprepared for the reality of temptation.
And of course, as I mentioned, we have a long list of tragic events in our history that are often held
in our faces: The religious wars of Europe and political and moral corruption in the church are but a
couple. Yet I think this perspective is dangerously unbalanced without the acknowledgment of all of
the good, practical things that have come out of the quiet revolution of a biblical faith. Hospitals, as
we know them, came directly out of Christian monastic communities whose mission it was to relieve
human suffering. We at Hope Church are specializing in this ministry by acting as vessels for divine
physical and spiritual healing. Western science came directly out of God’s revelation to the Jews
and their heirs that the universe was created in beauty and order. This fired peoples’ passion to
explore and discover more about it. In a time and place of extreme subjugation of women, the
scriptural revelations introduced to us the notion that men and women are created equally, in the
image of God. Christian thinkers and doers ultimately spearheaded the abolition of slavery.
Christian missionaries helped combat the repressive caste systems in various countries, and did
away with the practice of widow-burning in India. These are but a few of many examples of
worldwide social good coming out of God’s work through His people. If you want to get a real picture
the impact of our faith, try to imagine a world in which these things never came into being. I believe
that they represent evidence of God’s kingdom slowly but surely expanding to bring in the good that
will precede our Lord’s completion of this project when He returns to this earth bodily. Obviously, we
still have much, much work to do. We really are in a spiritual battle.
But the joy we have is the joy of knowing that God loves us so much that he offers us healing,
salvation and eternal life through His Son, and that he promises to be with us always, to the end of
the age. Jesus has breathed on us a wind of love that continues to sweep across the earth. Today
in many places people sadly are rejecting God’s most precious gift. But we find that when the winds
dies down in one place it begins blowing in another. Who knows where it will begin blowing next?
Could it be that our current situation in America will set the scene for people opening their eyes to
their need for something beyond material things? We’ll see.
Our election may or may not drastically change the world. Based upon past experience I tend to
suspect the latter. But wherever the Spirit blows, one by one people are being transformed from the
inside out. And the love and freedom people are finding are being passed from person to person,
just as in the days of the disciples. The wind is blowing, and I think it’s not a bad idea for us to have
our sails trimmed and ready. Amen.
Changing the World
Matthew 28:16-20 - Trinity Sunday
Matthew 28:16-20 - Trinity Sunday
May 18, 2008
Fr. Dan Tuton
Fr. Dan Tuton