Sunday 9th November
Matthew 28: 16-20
John 15: 16-17
Matthew’s gospel climax is the Great Commission. Jesus’ eleven disciples are sent out to the nations, and go in faith and doubt. The gospel began jumping from person to person, community to community with transforming power.
The church’s mission of training apprentices, encouraging followers is underscored by Jesus: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always ….”
Baptising
Today Debbie and Lucy, mother and daughter, are being baptised. They have been nurtured by this church over the past eighteen months or so. It is a privilege and responsibility as we are a cradle in which faith is nourished. Becoming followers of Jesus, growing as Christ’s body involves a lifetime of community, fellowship and companionship. Baptism calls for participation, sharing with people who choose to worship, serve and witness in Christ’s name for the common good.
From early in the church baptism was practiced. Acts of the Apostles tells of the encounter of Philip with a black African, an Ethiopian, who asked to be baptised after hearing the gospel. (Acts 8:26-38) Men and women asked many questions about Jesus as they explored whether, or not to become disciples. This formal process was known as the catechumenate (lit being taught), and baptism and full congregational participation was reserved until Easter Day.
Christian formation has changed a lot since then. For centuries baptism became a convention visited upon babies to ensure salvation. It was the radical Baptists of the sixteenth century who protested that indiscriminate infant baptism treated this sacrament as a spiritual inoculation, rather than first steps in Christian formation. They affirmed adult baptism only.
The UnitingChurch stands with its legs in both streams – infant & adult baptism – understanding that this is the beginning of Christian identity.
So – the good news is in this sacrament we welcome Debbie and Lucy into what they, and we , are called to be – people growing as faithful disciples.
Welcoming
Also today, we welcome Dillon, Lilly and Ann into membership of the UnitingChurch. They have got to the UCA by circuitous routes – Ann participating in the Anglican Church, Dillon a Pentecostal church and Lily an independent Church in Singapore.
Membership is an institutional matter, and Jesus had nothing at all to say about church membership! Institutions are important, but often there are nominal members who sit on the sidelines. The UnitingChurch began as a movement, but all that organisation makes it institutional. We certainly get it wrong if we think our mandate is helping a religious institution survive!
Ann, Dillon & Lily were baptised as adults, and circumstances have brought them to their decision to say the UCA is our home (particularly KoonungHeights). This is an opportunity for them to re-commit to participating in the life of discipleship, church-building and for us to welcome them as part of God’s international community – the body of Christ.
Becoming members is not joining a religious club. Rather it is making a commitment to a particular Christian community and saying that we are prepared to be active participants in serving, participating, deciding and taking responsibility for developing our life together as disciples. As we meet in worship, share in witness and explore faith issues we encourage others to live out the implications of baptism, that we are brothers & sisters in Christ.
Obedience
Being the church at its heart is simple. It concerns relationships-in-community practicing the way of Jesus. The eleven disciples were commanded to make disciples, baptise them in God’s name, and teach “them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” There are two ways we might understand these commands. One is to take Matthew’s Gospel and focus on the teachings of Jesus, both through his words and his relationships. His passion was for the Kingdom of God, the vision when God’s will would be done on earth as in heaven. Blessings for the poor, peacemakers, mourners and merciful. Loving enemies, doing good to those who might hate you. Not retaliating. Giving generously, praying without ostentation. Not becoming obsessed with money, choosing not to be judgemental of others … I’m simply paraphrasing teachings from the Sermon on the Mount.
It’s about living inspired by the inclusive, reconciling message of Jesus. If you wonder why the churches have declined I think the answer is quite simple – often the arc of church history has colluded with what St Paul called “the world”. Riches, revenge, hating enemies, retaliation, obsession with possessions, seeing the specks in another’s eye and not the log in my own!!
Of course, it’s more complex because the church became barnacled with so many ideas, doctrines, conflicts over doctrine, attempts to clean up and reform – and two thousand years later offers very mixed inheritance for the world. Today many live as post-Christians in a world that is as violent, greedy, envious, confused, power-driven as the world in which Jesus and the first Christians lived the gospel.
The second way is even simpler than reading, digesting the gospel message. It’s simply practicing a four-letter word.
John 15 is at the centre of all true spirituality and religion. “This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends … You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to bear fruit .. love one another.”
Love is simple and difficult. It is universal and has no boundaries, it embraces people regardless of tribe, colour, language or race.
Love seeks to stand in the shoes of the other. Love, hope and faith are spiritual commodities which great life and room to move with all our differences.
Love is the wellspring of justice, the arc of reconciliation, the embrace of forgiveness – embodied in the life, death & resurrection of Jesus the Christ.
Today as Debbie & Lucy are baptised let us remember our own baptism long ago. Today in welcoming Ann, Lily & Dillon let us continue to make others welcome as we build a simple church which flourishes with spiritual fruit.
Today may we recommit to this journey together another in encouraging faithful disciples of the Jesus-way.
Rev David Carter