“No Other Plan"

                                            The Reverend Joanna M. Adams
                                       Covenant Network National Conference
                                               Trinity Presbyterian Church
                                                          Atlanta, GA
                                                      November 3, 2007

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They come, when the baby’s crying, don’t they? Around dinnertime. The phone is
ringing; the dog is barking. You are just about ready for a straight-jacket, and there’s
the doorbell, and there they are: two clean-shaven, square-jawed, smiling young
people who want to make their witness to you about Jesus Christ. You are not
particularly interested in Jesus Christ at that moment. You are, in fact, drawing on
all your spiritual resources in trying to resist the impulse to hit them in the head with
your cooking spoon, but your mother told you to be nice when someone comes to
the door, and so you admit to them that you are a believer and say they can go to the
next door neighbor’s if they’d like. That doesn’t help, because they’ll not be
deterred in their mission of making their witness to you; from their point of view,
it’s your soul or your supper that’s going to burn, and you would be wise to make it
the latter.

One has to wonder if this is what Jesus actually meant when he came to his disciples
after his resurrection and said to them, “Go therefore and make disciples of all
nations.” I remember a student chaplain with whom I worked at an Atlanta hospital
some years ago. He couldn’t wait for our chaplaincy program to end so that he could
go, in his own words, “to save the lost souls in the Philippines.” I don’t know why the
Philippines exactly but he was fixated on them. I told him that there were more than
a few Roman Catholics already in the Philippines, but that didn’t bother him. I recall
one occasion when our CPE supervisor was unhappy with Bill because he’d failed to
write a sympathy note to a family whose loved one had died. “Why didn’t you write
the letter, Bill?”

“Because,” he answered, “I am usually able to write reassuring words about the loved
one’s going to heaven to be with God, but I couldn’t do it this time. The patient had
not accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord. It is going to be hell for him, so I thought it
would be nicer just to say nothing.” Is this what Jesus meant when he gave the Great
Commission to share the good news of his coming?

This morning, I want to reclaim the word “witness”. I want to reclaim the Great
Commission of Jesus to spread his teachings to all the world. I want to take it back
from the doorbell ringers and from those who love to bear bad tidings. I want to take
it back from those who have turned the life-giving gospel of Jesus Christ into a hardedged,
mean sort of thing. Our task, our glad responsibility is to bear witness to the
saving love of God as revealed in Jesus Christ, to make visible his reign wherever we
can and however we can, but always with love and respect for human dignity. I think
of the Great Ends of the Church in our Presbyterian Book of Order and how they so
perfectly parallel key New Testament words that describe the mission of the early
Christian movement: “kerygma – preaching the good news; didacae – attention to the
truth and the teaching of doctrine; koinonia – the development of and nourishment of
community; the diacone – rendering compassion and service; and then this wonderful
word maturion – bearing witness to the will and purpose of God for humanity.” (1)
Surely the will and purpose of God for our humanity is revealed completely in Christ
our Savior – by how he was and what he did and how he taught and spoke and for
whom he gave his life. Our commission is to bear witness to our Savior.

Matthew concludes his gospel with the unforgettable post-resurrection appearance of
Jesus to the eleven remaining disciples. He has been raised from the dead. They had
gotten word that they are to meet him on the mountain. In the Hebrew tradition
from which he and the disciples came, the mountain, the high place was associated
with God’s revelation. Even though they had been instructed to go to the mountain,
the last person on earth they expected to encounter was the crucified Jesus. Perhaps
they expected to hear his voice from heaven. But there he was with them, their
beloved Lord on earth. “When they saw him, they worshiped him but some
doubted.” I wonder who the “some” were? Some of the disciples doubted? Some
others had come, and they were the ones who doubted, but all the eleven were
without doubt? I don’t know, but I do know that since the beginning of the Christian
movement, the circle of witnesses has included some who doubted, and some who
were not so sure but were trying to get it. I don’t know about you, but there are
times when my faith is a flame and there are times when it is a flicker, because I’ve
become discouraged, and because the wait is long, and the goal is not in sight, and I
wonder, and I sometimes doubt. I am sometimes a member of the Doubting Thomas
Sub-committee, and I am comforted in knowing that Jesus needs me, needs us all, all
the time in whatever state our faith is in. He doesn’t separate the doubters: “Now
you stand over there, and I’m just going to speak to these others…” He reassures
them all that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him, and now he
is blessing them with this authority that comes from Almighty God.

I love the way the words read: He came near to them. Not above them. He was with
them at their side, indicating that he was with them then and would be with them
and their descendants until the end of time. They, he, we, are all a part of the great
eschatological plan of God. We all have a role to play. Jesus fulfilled his role. Scorned
by the authorities, both religious and civil, he had suffered a martyr’s death and now,
because of the cross, now “all authority in heaven and on earth” were his. He wore
the crown. Throughout his ministry, he had demonstrated his authority in his
teaching and healing and power over evil spirits. His was an authority that hadn’t
come from Pontius Pilate. It had not come from the high priests. It had not come
from the people. It had come to him from God. Jesus was saying, “Because of what
God has done through me, I am now asking you to go therefore and make disciples of
all nations.”

One of the best words in the Bible is that word “therefore”, which means “for this
reason.” You can DO it because of what God has done. I love how, in the 15th
chapter of I Corinthians, Paul ends his brilliant explication of the resurrection of
Christ, and the resurrection of the dead and the resurrection of the body. For 58 long
verses, and then, “Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be ye steadfast,
immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord for you know your labors are
never in vain.”

Go, therefore, and create a world-wide community of hopeful people who look not
to themselves or to their rulers for salvation, but who look to God. Create an
inclusive community of Jews and Gentiles, of the circumcised and the uncircumcised,
if you will, an alternative community that functions according to the rule of love, a
community whose power is the power of compassion, whose message builds up
rather than tears down. You are to be the kingdom within the kingdoms of this
world, and yours is the one that will endure and at the end of time will be victorious.

“Baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Though that is not a
formal doctrine of the Trinity when Matthew’s gospel was written, this was the
testimony of a living breathing community that had experienced God in God’s
greatness, had experienced God’s life-giving spirit, had experienced God as one who
walked with the people all the way. The mission of the church of Jesus Christ is to
baptize people in the name of the God who creates, redeems and sustains the world,
“teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you”. Notice that it is not
in the preaching of the post-Easter community that Jesus says he will be present to his
disciples and will establish finally and fully God’s reign on earth, but in teaching.
This is bad news to people in my line of work – I wish it had said preaching, but it
says “teaching them to obey all the commandments.” To be fair to the doorbell
ringers of the world, there is emphasis all over the New Testament on the
importance of preaching, but Matthew has a different point to make. He wants the
church to walk the walk.

Baptism marks the beginning of the life of obedience, obedience to the
commandments of Jesus. And what were the commandments of Jesus. Here are a
few from the Sermon on the Mount:
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
“Judge not lest you be judged.”
“Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom, but those who
do the will of my Father in heaven.”

“And when Jesus finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his
teaching, for he taught as one who had authority, not as their scribes” who were
considered the experts on the law and presided over judicial proceedings and
enforcement of the rules. People were astounded. People are astounded today when
the church lives according to the laws of Jesus. People are transformed. The world is
transformed.

I love the fact that our Covenant Network’s video is called “Turning Points.” We
once saw it this way; today we see it a new way , through the grace of God. We tell
the story. We are always ready “to give an accounting for the hope that is within us.”
I remember an occasion when I was not ready to honor the Great Commission, but
had to get ready very quickly. I had been ordained only a short time when I had the
privilege of preaching at a Lenten service at Ebenezer Baptist Church, the home
church of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his family. I had gotten through the
sermon all right. Though my knees had knocked and my heart had pounded, I had
done it! I was savoring a wave of relief that I had not fallen over in a dead faint. We
were singing the closing hymn, the last verse, when the pastor, the Reverend Dr.
Joseph Roberts, leaned over to me and said, “Joanna, I want you to open the doors of
the church.”

I looked toward the back of the sanctuary and I said, “Joe, the doors are standing
wide open already.”

He said, “No, I want you to give the invitation to people to come to Christ.”

The hymn ended…the organist started playing softly, “Just As I Am” and I got up and
took my Presbyterian self to that Baptist pulpit, and I did my best. No one was saved
that night, but I was reminded of the ministry of Jesus Christ and the ministry of his
great servant Martin Luther King, Jr. – that we really do need to open the doors and
invite people in. We need not only to open the doors, we need to go out the doors
ourselves with the message of hope and a message of reconciliation we have to share
and without which the human race will not survive. The doors must be open. The
good news is not ours to keep, it’s ours to share, and every time we share it, the
good news just gets better and better, and hope is reborn again and again. I pray for
the day when the Presbyterian Church USA opens its ordained offices officially to all
whom God calls to serve, not simply to be nice to gay, lesbian, trans-gendered and
bi-sexual people, but because the church will be so blessed and enriched by the
spiritual gifts of all whom God calls to serve.

I think today how Jesus did not instruct his disciples to go carry the good news to
certain categories of people. I’m thinking how he said, “Baptize them all, sealing
them in the great promises of salvation.”

As we work with the new authoritative interpretation, let us remember who has the
final authority in heaven and on earth. Jesus said, “All authority has been given to
me.” Surely his teachings, his passion for the left-out and the marginalized must be
authoritative in all cases. Wherever the people gather in his name, let us never tire of
pressing on to the goal of a church that is as just and generous as God’s grace.

I want to close today by getting personal with you. I want to ask you how you came
to know Jesus Christ. I don’t mean that he was a good man and all of that. I mean,
how did you come to know that his way was THE way you wanted to follow? How
do you know that God is love? How do you know that your sins are forgiven? How
do you know? I would suggest to you that you know because someone made a
witness to you, by how she lived, by what he said, by what his values were, by the
courage she was able to muster. The church made its witness to you, and you became
a believer. Some teacher, a parent, friend showed you, in word or deed, the way to
the fountain that never will run dry.

It’s the most amazing miracle I know that Jesus would come near to the likes of us,
whose faith can flame one day and flicker the next and say, “All that I have, I am
giving to you to pass along.”

It has been said that when Jesus arrived in heaven after his ascension, he hurried to
the throne to report on his adventures on earth. All the angels and archangels
gathered around and listened intently. When Jesus got to the part about intrusting
the spreading of the Good News to his followers, one of the archangels asked in
horror, “Oh my Lord! What if they don’t do it? What if they fail?”

Jesus answered, “I had no other plan.”

Let us make our glad and confident witness to this saving power of our Lord Jesus
Christ, whose final word was his promise of his presence and his strength, no matter
how long the journey or how distant the goal, I will be with you always, to the end of the
age.

Thanks be to God.

(1) “The Cross and the Crown,” The Presbyterian Outlook, 4/2/91