Cedar Valley Lutheran Church
Holy Trinity A May 31, 2026 Matthew 28:16-20
It ends where it all began at the shores of the Sea of Galilee. It was here where Jesus first walked and called his first disciples. He said to two brothers, Peter and Andrew, “follow me and I’ll teach you how to fish for people.” And they dropped everything they were doing and without hesitation followed him. A little further down the shore Jesus saw two other brothers, James and John, who were mending their nets in their dad’s boat. He called them to follow, too, and they did … they left the boat and their dad and followed Jesus. That was three years ago and so much had happened – so much had changed.
Now, just days before, the women had gone to the tomb after Jesus had been crucified. There, they met first an angel and then Jesus, himself, risen from the dead. They got a strange message from both, “tell my brothers to go to Galilee and I’ll see them there.” Now, at Galilee, where it all began, on a mountain, they are all together – Jesus and the eleven. They worship him and their worship is co-mingled with doubt.
To tell you the truth, I appreciate Matthew’s honesty in speaking of this dance between worship and doubt – faith and disbelief. I appreciate it because I have found it to be so true in my own journey as well. I have to admit that there have been times when I’m preaching and I can’t believe what I am saying. Oh, I can believe that I’m saying such things, it’s just that, at the moment, I have doubts that it is true. Grief can do that, so can disappointment and injustice and a host of other circumstances that can throw an unwavering faith into question. It is then that I find my worship is enough to cradle my doubts and my faith is enough to make room for my doubts. Maybe that is true for you, too.
Jesus now speaks to his disciples for the last time. He speaks of the authority that has been given to him. It is the same authority that brought about his resurrection from the dead. It is an authority that doesn’t look like what most think about as authority but it is the strongest and most life-giving authority there is. The authority of which he speaks is the authority of love and we have seen this authority at work throughout his entire earthly ministry.
It is the eyes of love as he looks upon a woman caught in adultery when he lifts her to her feet and frees her from the scarlet mark upon her life and sends her on her way to sin no more.
It is the lap of love that welcomes little children and blesses them.
It is the hands of love that smears mud into the eyes of a man born blind and when washed away he is able to see for the first time … rejoicing in the colors and shapes and textures of creation.
It is the words of love that welcomes sinners and tax collectors around a banquet table heaped with hospitality.
It is the shoulder of love that carries the cross to Golgotha and bears the weight of our sins and the sins of the world.
This is all the authority in heaven and earth that has been give to Jesus and it is with this authority that he sends us to go and make disciples, baptizing and teaching. We call this our Great Commission … our mandate to make the love of God known wherever we go and whomever we meet.
Well, their time on the mountain in Galilee with Jesus is about to come to an end and his final words to them are words of promise. “Remember,” he tells them, “I am with you always to the end.” Now, obviously, this promise isn’t that he will not literally – physically – be with them. What he means, of course, is that he will be with them in spirit … in the Holy Spirit. And this is why we can claim this promise as our own. The Spirit of Jesus is always with us, too, and will be with us forever until the end of time. Such is our hope and our strength even when our worship is co-mingled with doubts and our faith is twisted together with uncertainty.
LIVING LOVING LIVES, Steve Garnaas Holmes
What Jesus commanded was love.
Our calling is not to manipulate people
to change their religious affiliation.
It’s to help people become students of the way he taught:
to live loving lives.
How do we do that?
The same way he did: we show them.
In the worst of conditions, in the awfullest of times,
we show love.
We throw ourselves on the mercy of God
to help us love, for we can only manage with God’s help.
Only by loving
will we help others love.
And it will happen beyond our knowing and seeing.
This is the grace of God: that the little mustard seed
of our love of a single neighbor
changes the nations.
Pentecost 7B July 7, 2024 Mark 6:1-13
We see in our gospel reading for today the continuation of a theme that has been running through the life and ministry of Jesus from the beginning. Again and again, Jesus has been forced to deal with rejection: rejection for what he teaches, rejection for what he does, and rejection for who he is.
The Pharisees criticize him for healing on the Sabbath. His disciples chastise him for sleeping in the middle of a stormy sea. Even his mother and his family try to get him to stop working so hard because his zealousness is proving to be an embarrassment to them. And today, Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth and it happens again. The people who sat next to him in worship, who celebrated with him at festivals, who watched him play and grow up, can’t accept what he has become.
At first, listening to Jesus teach in the synagogue, these family friends and neighbors are astonished by his eloquence and spiritual insight. They are impressed: “Where did he learn all of this?” they ask each other. “How did he get to be this good?” they wonder. “When did he get so wise all of a sudden?” they question. “After all, he is one of us. Up until recently he was just a local handyman, patching our roofs, framing our doors, and fixing our wobbly tables and chairs.” What happened? Where did Jesus get all of this?
Well, the answer to their questions is that he got all of this from them. He got it from his parents and siblings and relatives. He got it from his teachers at the synagogue. He got it from the values kept by his neighbors and from the stories he learned of his hometown heroes and his local scallywags. Jesus, in essence, is a mirror, showing them who they are and the role they played in shaping his identity and his place in the world. And the same is true for us. So much of what it is that makes us who we are and the things we do is shaped by our environment. And the history we carry and the people who have left a mark on our lives play a big part in our identity.
But their amazement suddenly shifts and they take offense at him. Someone in the crowd – perhaps a jealous neighbor, or maybe a childhood rival, or possibly the village gossip who loves to stir up trouble – questions the fact that Jesus has stepped out of his lane and ignored his place in the community. “He was one of us and now he thinks he’s something more – he has become something we didn’t expect him to be – something that doesn’t fit into the box we put him in.” And their doubts leave him powerless to do what he would love to do for them – what he has done for so many others.
But before we judge them too harshly, let’s imagine that we are also standing among his homies wondering the same thing ourselves. Like them, how often have we missed the holy among us because we could only see what we wanted to see? How often have we missed the new thing God is doing in Jesus because what we could only see is the old and familiar? How often have we not allowed Jesus to surprise us?
I remember something a wise friend told Pam and me when we were newly married. She said that we should surprise each other every once in a while with something unexpected. That surprise, she said, keeps the intrigue and the mystery of love alive in a relationship. I believe that part of the gospel mission for us involves an element of surprise. Because our openness to being surprised, keeps us open to the intrigue and mystery of God’s deep love for us so that it doesn’t get old and boring and meaningless.
My prayer for you, my friends, is that when you listen to Jesus you can hear a new thing God is doing underneath the comfortable traditions and the familiar habits of your faith. I pray you will be surprised by the mystery of the abundant life God has for you in Jesus – a life filled with love and grace … with mercy and forgiveness … with freedom and peace. May you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear the surprising good news God has for you in Jesus Christ, our Lord.