Easter 2 (NL1) John B. Valentine
Matthew 28:16-20 April 16, 2023

“DON’T JUST SIT THERE”

It must have been like a year-and-a-half ago now ... right smack dab in the middle of the pandemic ... that my beloved and I decided it was time to go shopping for new patio furniture.

You see ... we’ve been working ... ever-so-slowly ... on a backyard overhaul ... and we needed ... no, make that ‘wanted’ ... some new patio chairs.

So we wandered to patio furniture store down in Danville ...

• and were greeted by a couple of helpful ... hopeful ... salespeople ... which is often what you get when your days-off land on Mondays ...

• and were quickly overwhelmed by all the options as regards color and style and finish.

And then ... when we got around to actually SITTING in those chairs ... we quickly discovered that they weren’t all cut from the same cloth:

• some were too tall for our liking ... and others were too short ...
• some were too skinny ... and some were too wide ...
• some were too soft ... and some were too hard ...
• some had too little back support ... and on and on and on.

You might have thought we were living through a remake of ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’!

Then ... if by chance you found one that worked for you ... it probably didn’t work well for she with whom you’re shopping!

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It all kind of reminded me of a book review I read a while back that touted a book about society’s pursuit of the perfect chair.

I kid you not ... someone apparently actually wrote a whole book on the search for the perfect chair ... a journey that led from first-century Greece to tenth-century China to twentieth-century Sweden and beyond:

• Of the first chairs known to have had a curved backrest and the first chairs designed with lumbar support ...

• Of rocking chairs that helped alleviate back pain and dental chairs to make it easier to treat cavities ...

• Of ergonomic desk chairs and La-Z-Boys and Barcaloungers.

But the main point of that book ... the main MAIN point ... is this:

“The search for the perfect chair will never end” ... the author writes ... “because humans aren’t built to sit.”

“We’re good at walking and running ... and we are happy lying down .... it’s that in-between position that is the problem.”

And I want you to hold onto that thought ... that “we aren’t built to sit” ... as we look at this morning’s Bible lesson.

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You see ... this morning’s Bible lesson is the last five verses from the Gospel according to Saint Matthew ... Matthew 28 ... verses 16 through 20.

It’s actually a pretty familiar piece of Scripture to many ... and it usually gets referenced as “the Great Commission” ...

That “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. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” thing.

For Christians ... ever since Jesus first intoned those words ... they been taken as a calling and a challenge”

• To “Go and make disciples” ...
• To “baptize” ...
• To “teach” ...
• To “remember” ...

All fo which means we don’t get to sit and we’re not made to sit ... because we have work to do!

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But there’s a little comment Matthew includes in that closing snippet of his gospel which I think we tend to overlook.

You see ... it’s right after Easter ... and the disciples have gone to Galilee just as he said they should ... and they have this rendezvous with the resurrected Jesus ...

And “when they saw him, they worshiped him; but they doubted.”

THEY DOUBTED????

With the resurrected Jesus standing right there in front of them in plain sight ...... they doubted???

What’s going on with that???

I mean ... I guess maybe they could have thought that their eyes were playing tricks on them ...

But maybe Matthew’s comment about their “doubting” had less to do with the particular experience of seeing Jesus ... and MORE to do with all that was happening up there in Galilee in the first place.

I mean ... some times our doubts ... sometimes my doubts at least ...

• Are less about what’s going on “out there” ... outside of us ...
• And more about what’s going on “in here” ... inside of us.

Doubting that we have the wherewithal to believe ourselves capable of something that’s been asked of us.

And Jesus very clearly is asking his disciples to embrace some hard things!

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First off ... Jesus says: “Get up and go! ... and make disciples of all nations.”

THAT’S A CHALLENGE ... for sure!!

But the real challenge for the disciples about it has less to do with the distance they’re going to find themselves having to travel to get from nation to nation to nation ...

And more to do with the distance they’re going to have to travel inside of themselves to get there!

You see ... those original disciples had grown up in the world in which fostered a latent distrust of foreigners.

They weren’t well-traveled cosmopolitan multi-cultural folks ...

They were down-home, homespun, culturally-isolated folks.

And their childhoods would have been littered with lessons ... spoken and unspoken ... about:

• why we avoid unclean strangers ...
• why we despise those Samaritans ...
• why we distrust those imperialistic Roman occupiers ...
• why it’s best NOT to relate across cultural and racial lines ... EVER!

Not that any of our childhoods were littered with lessons ... spoken and unspoken ...

• about how and why it’s best to keep to one’s own kind ...
• about how and why it’s best to avoid things foreign ...
• about how and why it’s best to trust only those who look like us and distrust those who don’t!

Maybe part of the reason they “doubted” when they saw Jesus there in Galilee was that challenge to “Go turn the world upside down” sounded to them like a monumental undertaking that they weren’t quite sure they wanted to own!

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The second hard thing about what Jesus is calling ... commissioning ... them to do has to do with those words “baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit” ...

Because you can’t very well go in and baptize people unless and until they’ve heard something of the Gospel in the first place!

He was telling them to share the gospel with strangers ...

He was telling them to publically identify themselves as followers of someone who had just been officially declared an outlaw and executed!

Maybe part of the reason they “doubted” was that they weren’t quite sure they wanted to put themselves out there in quite that way ...

After all ... I can’t imagine that there’s anyone here in this room that hasn’t ever shied away from owning their faith in public and telling others why Jesus matters to you! Yeah ... right!

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And a third hard thing that may have stirred a few doubts in their hearts ......

They were asked to TEACH but they didn’t have any curricula.

Seriously ... they were called to teach ... right???

“Teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” ....

But even if they did have the gift of teaching ... what were to be their classroom tools???

• The gospels hadn’t been written yet.
• The apostle Paul hadn’t been converted yet.
• No doctrines had been formulated yet.
• No creeds had been articulated yet.
• No church had even been formed yet!

No wonder they “doubted”!

No wonder they wondered about why they should “get up and go”!

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Folks ... Jesus never told his disciples that this work was going to be easy ... but he did say “Just do it!”

• Loving our enemies can be hard to do!
• Turning the other cheek can be hard to do!
• Rejoicing when people revile you can be hard to do!
• Going the second mile can be hard to do!
• Forgiving others their trespasses can be hard to do!
• Not worrying about tomorrow can be hard to do!
• Doing unto others as you would hope they’d do to you can be hard to do!
• Being doers of his words and not just hearers of can definitely be hard to do!

You see ... Jesus doesn’t say that this Great Commission thing ... is easy.

After all ... it is WORK!

He calls us to be goers ... and movers ... and shakers ... and tellers ... and proclaimers ... and explainers ... and teachers ... and witnesses ... and doers.

He doesn’t call us to be sitters ... at least not for long.

It’s okay to sit down now and then ... for sure.

Jesus DID ... after all ... sit with his disciples.

Jesus DID sit with the outcasts and the outliers ... with prostitutes and tax-collectors and the like.

But he didn’t sit for long ... because he ... like us ... wasn’t made to sit!