The Great Commission

Romans 8: 14-17
Matthew 28:16-20

We’ve been talking a lot about the Holy Spirit lately in this Church. A few weeks ago I talked about how the Holy Spirit is doing its work through the discernment process of our search committee. Last week we confirmed _________ and _________ affirming the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Today on Trinity Sunday we celebrate God the Father, Jesus Christ the son and the Holy Spirit working together to bring about God’s kingdom here on earth. It is easier for us to talk God and Jesus in the context of the daily life and worship of our church but it is more challenging for us to talk of work of the Holy Spirit. To talk of the Spirit can feel like we are talking about a bunch magical mumble jumble. In the more charismatic traditions of the Christian faith the Spirit is celebrated through physical manifestations of speaking in tongues and wild abandon, which is fine for them, but for us of the New England Congregational tradition we are more comfortable with a more the subtler ways the Spirit makes its presence known in our lives. But how to describe the Spirit’s work in the church, that’s the rub.


This morning’s Gospel we hear Jesus’ great commission to his disciples, “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.” (Matt. 28:19) Biblical Commentaries note that for Matthew’s church the Trinity was not a sophisticated theological creedal doctrine to submit to. This came much later in church history. But rather it was more descriptive of the kind of intimate loving relationships that existed among the Father, the Son and the Spirit. We remember that in Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit descended tenderly like a dove on Jesus and God spoke a word of blessing “This is my Son, The Beloved.” (1)

The commission goes further, “Teach the nations to obey what I have commanded you.” Jesus is telling the 11 disciples then and for us now “to go out to the nations not as an army of occupation but as a humble tutor, teaching mercy and righteousness and forgiveness and peacemaking.” (2) Talk about a mission impossible. How does a Church go about doing this difficult work?

In the early 1990’s in East Los Angeles in a neighborhood called Boyle Heights, a group of women formed a prayer group in the Dolores Mission church. The neighborhood that the church was located in was a war zone riddled with gang violence, drugs and prostitution. Everyday there were gang killings and injuries. Within the church itself there were members of eight gangs and so you can imagine the heart break these women felt over the fact that their sons were killing each other over such things as turf, drug trade and reputation. In a locked room they would pray every night for the violence to end and studied the bible together for comfort and assurance.

One evening they were studying the scripture about Jesus walking on water and calling the disciples out of the boat. After their bible study they prayed together and as they prayed “one of their number -- electrified with a sudden sense of discovery and consternation -- shared with others what she saw as the parallels to their own predicament.” (3) This woman caught a spark of inspiration from this story and realized that their prayer group was being called to get out of their locked room and to “enter the violence saturated streets and…calm the storm together.” (4)

The other women looked at her like she was nuts. “What are you saying?” They asked. And she explained to them that “they were being called to walk together in the midst of the war zone of the gangs.” And after a long discussion and more prayer and discernment that night seventy women began to walk the streets as a procession from one gang turf to the next throughout the Boyle Heights neighborhood. When they encountered gang members preparing for battle they gave them food and offered to pray with them. “Throughout the night, in eight war zones, the conflict was bafflingly, disorientingly interrupted. People were baffled; the gang members were disoriented.” (5)

Every night thereafter the mothers would walk the streets and talk to each other’s sons. Now the gangs were reluctant to engage in warfare because it was their mothers who were putting themselves in the crossfire. The love that the mothers gave on their nightly walks made the gang members see that there really were people who cared about them. Eventually the mothers called their nighttime walks, “Love Walks.” Within a week there was a dramatic drop in gang violence. Eventually through community organizing the mothers and gang members created a tortilla factory, a bakery and a child care center thus creating jobs and giving the gang members an opportunity to learn job skills. Also the members of opposing gangs were learning how to get along through the community work that they were doing with their mothers. The call that pushed these women from their locked room out into the streets is the same call that the disciples heard in the great commission “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” (Matt. 28:19)

The Holy Spirit is a gift that God gives to all God’s children freely. As Paul states in his letter to the Romans, it is given to us in the spirit of adoption, we are God’s children just as Jesus is God’s child and we become joint heirs to the Kingdom of God with Christ. The gift of the Holy Spirit is not given to a select few but to all who wish to change the world into the ways that God would have it.

In her book, “Unbinding the Gospel: Real Life Evangelism.” Rev Martha Grace Reese writes about how the Holy Spirit uses the church as a means of transformation. She states, “Church is an igniter of faith, an instigator of growth that affects your whole life. Thinking extraordinary new ideas about surrender of self, healing of bodies, addictions, marriages, wounded souls, and surviving others-these thought come to mind when members of great congregations hear the word church.” (6)

The great congregation Christian Church was started by 11 disciples called by Jesus to transform the world by going out and making disciples of all nations through the power of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This same call for transformation was heard by great congregation of the women of Dolores Mission Church when they went into the battle zone of the gang infested streets of East Los Angeles to bring peace. Where is the Spirit calling the great congregation of our church to go to transform the world in this time and in this place?

May it be so.

Amen.
(1) Thomas Long, Matthew (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 227.


(2) Ibid., 227

(3) http://www.thirdside.org/stories_01.cfm

(4) Ibid.

(5) Ibid.

(6) Martha Grace Reese, Unbinding the Gospel (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2006), 65.