Trinity in Action ~ Matthew 28:16-20 ~ Holy Trinity Sunday

Image courtesy of Evegeni Dinev / Freedigitalphotos.net

My first day of school in seventh grade was also my first day learning the French language…

The course curriculum was called French in Action.  Instead of teaching us to translate English words into French, the curriculum uses a teaching method called immersion.  We watched thirty-minute videos in which French was the only spoken language.  They featured a cute little storyline about two college students who meet in Paris and fall in love: a French woman named Mireille and an American student named Robert (who’s still learning the language).  Every so often, the storyline would be interrupted by “the professor,” who’d cut in to teach us using the dialogues of the characters.

This method may sound absolutely nuts—but it worked.  I discovered that this curriculum was adapted from a WW2-era language training program for the military, which was found to be very effective.  The soldiers learned the French language by immersing them in the French-speaking world.  Isn’t this the way we all learned to speak as children?

And yet, it’s incredibly intimidating to learn a new language!  No wonder we say, “it’s all Greek to me,” when we’re confronted with something we don’t understand.

But are we any more comfortable learning a new language than we are with this Great Commission Jesus lays upon all of us in today’s Gospel?

In a few brief words, Jesus presents us with a gargantuan task: to GO and MAKE DISCIPLES of ALL NATIONS, BAPTIZING them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…

Do you consider yourself up to the task?

I don’t know about you, but the Great Commission does not exactly fill me with a great deal of excitement—probably less even than seventh-grade French…

I personally respond to it in one of three ways:

1.      I tend to think it doesn’t apply to me; just to those people who have the right skills, the time, and the drive.  It applies only to those people with the guts and the wits to knock on strangers’ doors or go to a foreign country.

2.      I know that it applies to me, but I feel guilty—because I don’t know how to convince an unbeliever to be baptized.  If I did, I can tell you this church would be much more full!

3.      I look for ways to fulfill the commission that are easy and comfortable; that don’t cramp my style or take me to where I’ve never been to do what I’ve never done…  In other words, I look for the easy way out…  If it’s too hard to do, then it’s not worth doing. 

Yet, Jesus does not give the Great Commission as the way that to make the cut for heaven.  The Great Commission is a gift to us—and it’s a gift to the whole world.  A gift of compassion, and love, and hope.  This isn’t marching orders.  This is Jesus inviting us into the dance of the Holy Trinity, as one God in Three Persons brings healing and new life to a dying world. 

If you were hoping for a sermon that explains the mystery of the Trinity to you in a simple and understandable way, I’m sorry to disappoint you! 

But what I can tell you is that you are immersed into the reality of the Trinity.  One God acts in three persons to claim you; to form you; to sustain you; and to save you.  The Trinity is in action to reveal God’s love to you.

However, to really know the Triune God, you receive the Great Commission as God’s plan for your life.  You accept as your foremost vocation to magnify the presence of the living God in the world.  The power of the Trinity lives in you to GO and MAKE disciples.

How this will happen is not for me to say.  But don’t think you have to become like a Mormon missionary, going door-to-door.  (If that’s your gift, however, do it for the glory of God.)  But you don’t have to be what you’re not. 

Simply begin where you are.  Put your eyes, your ears, and your heart to work.  Opportunities for you to fulfill the Great Commission already exist. 

There is going to be an anxiety threshold.  The Spirit will burn within your heart to act in faith, but your flesh will be weak.  But we meet Jesus when accept the weakness and move forward, trusting that he meets beyond our fears, our comforts, and our abilities.  The Trinity is strongest as God’s love so burns within us that we must share this great treasure.  The Trinity is stronger when we go to do God’s work, even though we lack the experience and the comfort and the know-how to do it.  God is strongest in those moments when we know we have nothing else to rely upon.

You are immersed in the life of the Trinity—the joy of being a Christian comes in immersing yourself in the Trinity’s action.  You may never understand the Trinity in your mind; you may struggle to believe in your heart that one God can exist as Three Persons.  You know the Trinity in sharing and witnessing.  You know the Trinity as your are immersed in God’s will being done, on earth as in heaven.