encouragement – Grits and Grains

A sermon for Trinity Sunday reflecting on the last words of Paul to the church in Corinth and the last words of Matthew’s gospel: 2 Corinthians 13.11-end & Matthew 28.16-end

Final words matter.
We know this.

When someone knows these may be the last things they say, they do not usually waste words.
Final words are often concentrated words.
Distilled words. Words carrying weight.

And this morning we have two sets of final words.
The closing words of Paul to the Corinthians.
And the closing words of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel.

Famous last words.

And what strikes me is how full of verbs they are.
So much doing.

Paul concludes his difficult letter with a flurry of verbs:
Rejoice.
Strive for full restoration.
Encourage one another.
Be of one mind.
Live in peace.

And then perhaps most awkwardly for many English Christians:
Greet one another with a holy kiss.

That is quite a list. It’s a lot to be doing.

Paul is not writing these words into a peaceful, tidy church.
Something has gone wrong in Corinth.
There has been conflict, bruised relationships, suspicion, division, hurt.

This letter has carried frustration and pain.
So these verbs are not decorative.
They are medicine and prescription,
born of blood, sweat and tears.

This is what you must do, says Paul,
if you are to become again the community God calls you to be.
Not merely what you should believe.
But what you should be doing.

And then we come to Matthew.

Matthew ends his gospel in much the same way.
Again—final words.
Again—a mountain.

That should sound familiar.
Matthew has brought us up mountains before.
The mountain of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus taught his disciples how life in God’s kingdom works.

And now, at the end, the disciples are doing what Jesus told them to do.
They go to the mountain.

Already, before Jesus speaks, they are obeying.

And there Matthew gives us an honest little detail:

When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.
Isn’t that wonderfully human?
Not certainty and triumph.
Not spiritual superheroes.
Just disciples –
worship and doubt standing side by side.

And to that mixed-up group—to worshippers and doubters alike—Jesus gives his final command.
And again the verbs come tumbling out:
Go.
Make disciples.
Baptise.
Teach.
Teach them to obey all that I have commanded you.

Again—so much doing.
And perhaps we hear these as tasks. Instructions.
A church to-do list.
A very different list to how we normally list all we do in church!

Why all these verbs?
Why this insistence on action?

And the answer, I think, is because the God revealed in Jesus is not static.
The God we meet in scripture is alive in relationship.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Trinity, not solitary.
Not self-enclosed.
But eternally giving,
receiving, loving, sending.

The doctrine of the Trinity was never meant to be a mathematical puzzle to solve.
It is an attempt—our stumbling human attempt—to say something true about the God we have encountered.

God is relationship.
God is communion.
God is love shared and given.

And if we are made in the imago Dei—the image of God—then we discover who we are not in isolation but in relationship too.

Which means these verbs are not arbitrary religious duties.
They are invitations into God’s own life.

Rejoice. Because joy belongs to God.

Encourage one another. Because God is giver and sustainer.

Live in peace. Because peace is the atmosphere of God’s kingdom.

Go. Because God is always sending love outward.

Make disciples. Not recruits or customers or winners of arguments—but people learning the way of Jesus.

Baptise.
And notice here, this is Trinity Sunday after all, –
Jesus says:
Baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Not names.

Name.

One name.

One life.

One communion of love into which people are welcomed.

Baptism is not simply joining an institution.
It is immersion into the life of the triune God.
Into belonging.
Into relationship.
Into grace.

And then:

Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.

That word obey can sound severe to modern ears.
But Jesus is not asking for cold compliance.

What has Matthew shown us Jesus commanding?
Love your enemies.
Bless the poor.
Forgive.
Show mercy.
Seek first the kingdom.

Obedience here is learning the practices of love.
Learning how to live God’s life.

And perhaps that matters especially for us gathered here today,
the 5th Sunday of the month,
a gathering from six churches,

not a huge number,
not hugely impressive by the world’s arithmetic,

but enough for now.

Paul wrote to small churches.
Jesus entrusted his mission to a small uncertain group on that mountain.

Small is beautiful.
Small numbers count in the kingdom of God.
Where two or three gather, there I am among them.
The shepherd leaves the ninety-nine to search out the one lost.
God seems remarkably unembarrassed by small beginnings.

And then Matthew ends with what may be the greatest verb of all.
Or perhaps not a verb, but a name.
A promise.
After all the commands:
Go.
Make.
Baptise.
Teach.
There comes this:
And remember…

Or more literally:
Behold.
See this.
Never lose sight of this.

And then the great divine declaration:

I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Not I was.
Not I will be, if you get things right.

I AM.

The eternal verb.
The name God has always spoken to those he loves.
The name spoken to Moses from the burning bush.
The deep grammar of God.

I AM.

And perhaps this is the truth holding all the other verbs together.
We do not rejoice, restore, encourage, go, baptise or teach in order to make God present.
We do these things because God already is present.

Because the great I AM is with us,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit –
not distant,
not abstract,
but the living God drawing near,
inviting us into the holy work of relationship,
the joyful labour of love,
and the shared life of God.

Always.
To the end of the age.

A sermon for the third Sunday of Easter (April 23rd 2023) for Holy Trinity, Leamington, based on the gospel for the day – Luke 24:13-35 (text below)

When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark

At the end of a storm
There’s a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark

Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
For your dreams be tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone
You’ll never walk alone.

This Rogers and Hammerstein song has stood the test of time. It was originally part of their 1945 musical, Carousel. It is the anthem of Liverpool. It is also the anthem for Celtic and Borussia Dortmund, several Dutch teams, a Belgian team, and also became the anthem of support for medical workers, first responders and those in quarantine during the pandemic.

It’s an anthem which has stood the test of time. It’s seen us through the pandemic and saw Liverpool fans through Hillsborough and other tragedies. It was sung as a tribute to the Busby Babes at Manchester United’s first home game after the Munich air disaster in 1958 and was also used to support those affected by the fire at Bradford City’s Valley Parade which killed 58. Some of you may have YNWA tattooed on your body somewhere.

This is a song with legs. Behind it is a truth with even longer legs. The last words of Matthew’s gospel are “Remember, I am with you to the end of time”. These are the words of the risen Jesus even though he has walked through the valley of the shadow of death. Remember, I am with you to the end of time. These are the daddy long legs behind the Liverpool anthem and all the songs of faith which have sustained so many on their long and difficult walks to freedom through storms of betrayal, injustice and pain.

In today’s gospel, Jesus, the I AM of “I am with you always”, joins two people on their way home from the festival in Jerusalem. He asked them what they were discussing, and Luke tells us “they stood still, looking sad”. They had reason to be sad. They had hoped that Jesus was the one to free Israel, but their own leaders and priests had handed Jesus over to be condemned to death by crucifixion.

They walked on. They walked on with Jesus. They walked on, with Jesus listening to the hope that was in their heart and his response: his explanation of things in all the scriptures about him.

Here, as in other resurrection appearances, Jesus appears as stranger. They don’t know the one who has joined them is Jesus, and only discover his identity when he broke bread with them and reflected on the change of heart they felt as they walked with Jesus.

Jesus becomes known in the breaking of bread and through companionship. Companions are literally those we eat bread with. That is the meaning of the word companion.

When Jesus accepted the invitation of these two (Cleopas and the other whose name isn’t given) he joined them as companions, and they found him in the intimacy of companionship.

Was the revelation, and is the revelation, through the way the bread was taken, blessed, broken and shared? Was it, and is it, through the visibility of the scars and vulnerability. All of us will have our stories to tell about how Jesus has become known to us through the companionship of breaking bread together.

Through Ezekiel (Ezekiel 36:26) God promised God’s people a new heart – a heart of flesh instead of hearts of stone. When the penny drops, Cleopas and his companion say to each other with the benefit of hindsight, “Were not our hearts burning within while he was talking to us on the road?” Is this not the fulfilment of that promise?

The road home from Jerusalem had been a road of desolation for the two of them – they shared their heartbreak with the one who joined them at their side and then found all the consolation they could ever have wished for, and more. It was with a fresh heart that they rushed back to Jerusalem and told the eleven what had happened to them on the road. We’re not told what happened next for them. We can only assume that their next steps were to walk on, with that fresh heart to their being, with hope at their heart.

I was leading worship in a strange church a couple of weeks ago. It was a service I had never led before. I sat in the church beforehand, on my own when someone joined me, sitting at my side. She was calm, a non-anxious presence, who quietly engaged me in conversation. I knew her slightly – enough for us to have a conversation about what matters to us. So it wasn’t small-talk. I immediately knew what she had done. Of all the things that she could have been doing, she had joined me, she had taken my side.

She will never know the effect of that simple action – taking my side. It was certainly heart-warming. It was immensely encouraging (encouraging literally means heartening). It gave me confidence. I knew I wasn’t on my own.

All of us, feeling vulnerable,
love it when others take our side,
when they sit with us,
when they walk with us,
when their heart goes out to us,
when they make sure
we never walk alone.

When they join our side
with a love that is patient and kind,
that isn’t boastful or rude,
that bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things –
well, (in the words of Andrew Lloyd Webber),
that changes everything,
doesn’t it?

Is it not Christ
in such love
who takes our side
even as a stranger?

Isn’t it this love,
joining us at our side
who gives us new heart,
a heart-warming of flesh,
emboldened and encouraged?

Emboldened and encouraged
enough for us also
through Christ and in Christ
to take the side of others
along their roads of sorrow,
even through the valley
of shadows marked Death

heartened to side with them
as part of the promise
“You’ll never walk alone”,
joined by the insistence of Jesus,
“I am with you always,
to the end of time.”

So, who is it who has joined you on your journey, particularly when you have felt like Cleopas and his companion? Who has taken your side, particularly when you have felt forsaken? Who has stayed by your side through thick and thin? Who has loved with a love divine? These are the people who have encouraged us and given us fresh heart. These are the people through whom Christ lives his life in ways we often don’t recognise.

We give thanks for them and their presence in our lives – and we pray that we too may commit ourselves to Jesus’ risen life by siding with those Jesus sides with – those who are poor, or lost, or broken – in fact, everyone apart from the proud and self-satisfied – walking with them, standing up for them, taking their side, joining them.

Note: the information about YNWA is from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27ll_Never_Walk_Alone

Luke 24:13-35

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognising him. And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along? They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’ He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it s now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they indeed had seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him.’ Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

As they came near to the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘stay with us because it is almost evening and the day in now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’ Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Tag: encouragement

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