On this day, Trinity Sunday, we rejoice in the Trinity of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Three in One and One in Three, holy, blessed, Trinity.
The Trinity is the triumph of light over dark, and good over evil. In our liturgical cycle it is the culmination of all that went before; that is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Yet the disciples who followed Jesus in his earthly life were not at that stage of rejoicing. In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus commissions them to ‘go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’. In this passage there is a reference to the Trinity, but the disciples have a journey ahead of them in spreading the word and, as Matthew’s Gospel presents it to us, not all of them are sure about who Jesus is as he appears to them on the mountain of Galilee. They doubt his authority and, aware of this doubt, Jesus gives a resounding response that all authority in heaven and earth has been given to him and this authority expresses itself in his commission to the disciples to baptize and teach the baptized to obey everything that he has commanded them.
There is a stern, rather military, quality in the tone of this commission. As such, it stands in contrast to the progression of appearances of Jesus that lead up to this commissioning. This progression, as David Pawson writes in his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, is a gentle one of the appearance of Jesus to Mary, then to Peter, then on the road to Emmaus, then to the eleven and finally to every tribe on earth. The tone is quite severe, perhaps to ensure that the disciples will undertake the mission not just to the Jews but also to the Gentiles. The mood then softens in the assurance he gives them that he is with them always, to the end of the age. This is the covenant that God will never desert his creation. It is rather like a parent saying to their child that they must do as they are bid, but their command is rooted in love; a love that is there for their child always.
Here we see authority as an expression of love. I believe that this is where things went a bit awry in the ‘be what you want to be, do what you want to do’ philosophy that took flight in the 1960s. There was a good intention behind that philosophy as it wanted to offer freedom of the spirit to everyone. A freedom that says do not be bound by any rules but choose what you want to do when you want to do it. Yet I believe that this philosophy leads to a void in human affairs because it does not readily accept duty and service to others which can involve a certain self-discipline and working through difficult situations to produce good outcomes. That working through difficult situations involves service to mankind and that service is at the heart of the Christian faith. God served mankind by offering his Son’s death on the Cross for our salvation. Jesus served mankind in his obedience to God’s will to the point of agonizing death, and we serve each other in our journey through life. In the Commission, the disciples are told that their service will be, as the Jerome Biblical Commentary gives it, to carry on Jesus’s teaching ministry, lay the foundations for Christian education, theology and intellectual work. None of this means a fanatical adherence to the rule book but rather a world ruled by love that manifests itself in helping each other along the road.
What authority does is that it allows for you to be challenged. As Ian Boxall writes in his Commentary on Matthew, ‘Jesus challenges his followers to be in a constant state of readiness until his coming at the end of time’. They must be alert to God’s will in the onset of the mission to all nations which is a shift from the mission to the Jews towards the time of the church. Boxall writes that this is so that the Gentiles can share with Jesus in the post-Resurrection of the church. He goes on to say that today’s Gospel reading reflects Matthew’s emphasis on the aftermath of the Resurrection in its effect on the disciples and the world.
If we look at this effect beyond the time of the Commission to the life of St Paul, we can read in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians a similarity with Matthew’s text in Paul’s farewell when he calls upon them to put things in order, listen to what he asks them to do and live in peace. He asks them to ‘love one another and greet one another with a holy kiss’. Here we see a gentler version of the Commission text but there is an instruction given by Paul for the Corinthians to follow. An instruction that is rooted, as the Commission is, in love.
Since love is the motivator for authority let us rejoice in that love that is the Trinity of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
AMEN