2 Corinthians 13:11-13 / Matthew 28:16-20

I really don’t like conflict.  Sometimes I even surprise myself at the extreme’s I’ll embrace to avoid upsetting someone or introducing touchy topics.  I’m guessing I’m not alone.  The scriptures suggested for us this morning go a long way to prove that.  It drives home the fact that, when studying God’s Word, it is important to know what goes before and what happens after every scripture quote.  Beware those who pull a verse from one place and smash it together with a verse or verses from someplace else.  It is very easy for such things to change the meaning and intent of Holy Script.

Take for instance today’s readings from 2 Corinthians.  11Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. 12Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. 13The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. (NRSV)

Today has been set aside as “Trinity Sunday”; a time to touch on this mysterious way of putting the wonder of God into language and experience humanity can almost understand.  The whole idea comes from trying to answer the question, “Who (or what) is God?”.  Most likely the Words we read today were chosen because they contain the words “Father”, “Son”, “Holy Spirit” or at least words (like Jesus Christ) that point toward one of these words (Son).

As Paul ends this letter (perhaps one of two or three that editors have smashed together, or maybe not) he pens what is most likely the most loved and often used benediction in Christian Worship, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you.”  There it is, all three images of the Trinity in one beautiful, powerful, succinct sentence.  Grace comes from Jesus (Son).  Love comes from God.  (BTW…I’m told this is the only place in either testament that the phrase “love of God” is used.)  Communion or fellowship comes from the Holy Spirit.  How nice.  You wouldn’t guess this letter was written because of the conflict that had developed between Paul and the people of Corinth.  Translators have titled this last chapter, “Final Warnings.”

The Message….1 This will be my third visit to you. “Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”[a] 2 I already gave you a warning when I was with you the second time. I now repeat it while absent: On my return I will not spare those who sinned earlier or any of the others, 3 since you are demanding proof that Christ is speaking through me. He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you. 4 For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God’s power we will live with him in our dealing with you.

Sounds to me like Paul is setting the stage for a final showdown between his understanding of God’s gospel of Jesus Christ and that of those he called “super-apostles”.  (I don’t think that was a compliment.)  Much of the letter is written to reclaim Paul’s authority as a disciple of Jesus Christ.  I learned this week that authority could be defined as “followability”.  Paul wants them to remember why they chose to follow him towards God’s vision of life and the vision of Good News first revealed to Paul by a blinding flash of light on the road to Damascus to imprison followers of “The Way” to God proclaimed by Jesus.

You can taste the conflict dripping from the first 5 verses of this thirteenth chapter.  The next 10 tell the Corinthians how to live through this conflict.  5Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? —unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test! 6I hope you will find out that we have not failed. 7But we pray to God that you may not do anything wrong—not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. 8For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. 9For we rejoice when we are weak and you are strong. This is what we pray for, that you may become perfect. 10So I write these things while I am away from you, so that when I come, I may not have to be severe in using the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down. (NRSV)

Now we can hear what Paul is trying to say about how to connect to the power God offers.  The NRSV translates, “Finally …..farewell.”  A commentary suggested that the NIV was more accurate, “Finally….rejoice!”  I guess the NRSV (and the KJV, RSV, NRSV, ASV, CEB, CEV, GNB, NCV) couldn’t imagine Paul suggesting a time to rejoice.  They thought the situation demanded a stern “farewell.”  But others (NIV, NASV, Darby, ESV, NLT, TNIV, The Message) used the words “rejoice!” or “be cheerful!” always with an exclamation point.  Most likely because they realize that Paul knows something about power that the powers of this world don’t.  God’s way of life is power.  God’s vision for life provides power.  God is power.  In God’s vision for life we discover the connection between power and love.  When the kind of LOVE God practices is revealed, it overpowers every other practice of power.  That is the source of the “rejoice!”.  Paul knows what the super-apostles don’t.  Paul wants us all to experience the same kind of power he did on the Damascus road.  This kind of LOVE is not easy or simple or soft.  The God of LOVE changes everything.

Matthew ends his Gospel with an amazing display of that LOVE.  Chapter 28 begins with Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary on their way to Jesus’ tomb as morning dawned.  “And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.”(NRSV-Mt 28:2)  The guards froze while the angel told the women that Jesus had been raised from the dead.  They were invited to see the place where Jesus used to be and then told to rush to tell the Disciples the news and that Jesus would meet them in Galilee.  On the way the women met the risen Jesus and worshiped him.

Matthew says nothing about Jesus appearing in a locked room to comfort his followers.  He doesn’t mention a sea-side breakfast or the Emmaus road.  Instead Jesus meets his Disciples on a mountain in Galilee where it was prophesied that the light of the world was first suppose to shine.  While the Disciples journeyed, the powers of the Temple and Rome got their story straight, “Jesus’ disciples had come in the night and stolen Jesus’ body.”  They paid the bribe and made the pact and promised to protect each other’s back.

16Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (NRSV)

The Message translates a key verse, “The moment [the Disciples] saw [Jesus] they worshiped him. Some, though, held back, not sure about worship, about risking themselves totally.”  My first instinct is to think how odd that those who were actual witnesses to the risen Christ were not all of one accord in their worship.  I want to be amazed at their lack of faith in the evidence before them.  I’d like for Jesus to divide the faithful from the unfaithful right there; sheep on the right, goats on the left.  Goats on their way to wherever goats go and the faithful into the world with a commission, “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, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (NRSV)  That would be justice.  That would display the kind of power I think I want God to wield.         

But….I see myself in those old goats if I stare into the image too long.  Maybe you do to.  If I follow Paul’s advice to self examination, the truth, the testing and trying; I find a goat where there ought to be a child reclaimed by God’s LOVE.  Too often I still don’t act like a child of God through the grace of Jesus Christ in communion with the Holy Spirit.  I do pretty well within this sanctuary but out there….outside these walls….away from the safety and security of the saints that fill this place, I’m a goat.  We forget that God’s LOVE is meant to empower us everywhere.  It is not limited to this holy sanctuary.  We’re suppose to carry it with us to our ball games, civic club meetings, work places, break rooms, restaurants, homes, into the heart of every peaceful moment and conflicted relationship that’s part of our life.  And so I need the Good News.

And the Good News is that even in the face of worship and doubt, Jesus gave us the full measure of his trust and called us all to go and make community for God’s House.  Jesus passed along to us the source of the ultimate power that did and does and will change the world, completing with one mighty breath, the creation God envisioned when all that existed was chaos.

To misquote an important thought, the problem is not that God’s LOVE has been tried and found lacking.  It is that truly living and practicing God’s LOVE for the world has been tried, found difficult, and abandoned in favor of our own way acting upon the world.  Our way produces Sin and hell.  God’s way, described as the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the LOVE of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit will produce paradise.  We’re reminded that even when we fail the test, the LOVE of God is more powerful than our failure.  That’s why Paul can end his letter with “rejoice!”  God has chosen.  God has chosen to LOVE us and there is nothing we can do about it.  That’s power.

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