You’ve possibly heard of a woman called Jackie Weaver. She was the star of a viral video of a virtual meeting of Handforth Parish Council, in Cheshire. Ms Weaver was famously told, “You have no authority here,” by the Council’s chairman. To prove how wrong he was, Jackie Weaver – as host – promptly removed him from the Zoom call.
Ms Weaver was
facilitating the meeting of the dysfunctional group on behalf of Cheshire
Association of Local Councils. The
chairman, Mr Brian Tolver, may not have recognised Weaver’s authority, but she
certainly had it. Perhaps this was an
authority that transcended the normal structures of the group.
With today marking
the Christian Feast of the Ascension, I wanted to round out my musings on
Matthew’s version of Easter and the events afterwards, by turning to the final
words Jesus delivers in that Gospel. His
remaining disciples had gathered, as per his instructions, on a hill in
Galilee:
“And Jesus came and said to them, ’All authority in heaven
and on earth has been given to me…” (Matthew 28:18)
Jesus had been crucified because people refused to recognise
his authority. But now, after his resurrection,
Jesus tells his followers about his authority.
It had been commented on before – at the end of the Sermon on the Mount
(Matthew chapters 5-7, also on a hill in Galilee), Matthew reports that “the
crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes” (Matthew
7:28, 29, emphasis added). There’s a
sense here of Jesus actually knowing the stuff he teaches, and not just
regurgitating someone else’s teachings.
What we have here, at the end of Matthew, is the vindication
of Jesus. All authority in heaven and on
earth has been given to him. Given – by whom? The witness of Hebrew scripture and thought says
that only God could give that authority, because it belongs to God. Some examples:
“heaven and the heaven of heavens belong to the LORD your
God, the earth with all that is in it” (Deuteronomy 10:14);
“The heavens are yours [ie God], the earth also is yours;
the world and all that is in it – you have founded them” (Psalm 89:11)
These are just two of many verses that make it clear: heaven
and earth belong to God.
So this authority is devolved, it’s given, by God
alone. This is in opposition to the
dominant views that say Rome or Caesar has all authority (even though that
seemed to be the case) or that the priests and teachers of the law, and “their
scribes”, were the custodians of authority.
Jesus subverts that, by asserting this transcendent authority. Despite appearances to the contrary, the
final authority lies with God, and has been given to Jesus.
This is inextricably linked with the idea of Messiah. In Daniel 7:13-14, there’s a vision of
“one like a human
being [or, son of man, Jesus’ favourite self-designation]… And he came to the
Ancient One… To him was given dominion [in the Greek version, it’s the same
word as Matthew uses for authority] and glory and kingship, that all peoples,
nations and languages should serve him…”
This became a pretty solid picture of a Messianic king. And Matthew suggests that Jesus fits the bill.
Remember when Jesus started out? Way back in Matthew 4:17, his message was
clear and simple: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near [or, is at
hand].” In other words, an alternative
reality is close, you can reach out and touch it almost. In the person of Jesus, there was a visible,
tangible manifestation of this reality – that God really is in charge, and that
God really will do things God’s way.
This is important because the first word of the so-called
Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20 is “therefore”. And that always refers to what was
immediately previous: ‘in light of what we have just said…’ So, bearing in mind that all authority in
heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus, bearing in mind that God’s heavenly
kingdom – the rule of truth and peace and hope and love and justice and faith –
is present among us in its greatest emissary – so what? What about it, what next?
Well, the next line, the commission itself, is what I would
term, ‘the phrase that launched a thousand ships.’ It has been responsible for almost any ‘missionary’
endeavour that has ever been undertaken by the church. The line is, “Go… and make disciples of all
nations…” (Matthew 28:19). Most Western
empires, the entire colonial project, were built on this. It was used as a rationale for powerful people(s)
to “make disciples” of all nations – subjugating them, enslaving them, converting
them by force often. Yet, on so many
levels, this missed the point.
Firstly, from a purely linguistic perspective, it’s a
misinterpretation. There is one actual
verb in the sentence, in the Greek. And
it’s not ‘go’ or ‘baptise’ or ‘teach’.
Each of these words are actually participles in the original, and some carry
that in the English (“baptising”, “teaching”).
The only verb is ‘to disciple’. That’s
the command. Not go. The disciples were not being told to go
anywhere. The sense of it is more like, ‘going’,
or ‘as you go [about your life, for example]’.
The verb and command is ’disciple’.
In Greek, the verb is actually the same whether it’s being a
disciple or making a disciple. So it
could be an instruction to ‘be disciples’ or to ‘make disciples’. What is a disciple anyway? It’s a learner (Latin discere = to
learn). A student. The idea and the term was already in use
among Jews. A rabbi, a teacher, would
have disciples who would follow him around, just as Jesus’ disciples followed
him, learning from their master, so that they could eventually be like him and
pass on his teachings.
So, here Jesus instructs his disciples to make disciples –
or simply to be disciples – as they go about their living, among all the people(s),
cultures, etc, they find themselves in.
The word that’s translated “nations” is a very strong word, that Jewish
hearers or readers (if they knew Greek) would recognise. “Ethnoi” was the word for Gentiles, or
the nations – basically, this was the whole world of non-Jewish people. But the Greek word – from which we get the
term ‘ethnicity’ – actually has to do with a group of people connected by
custom or culture (the way we do things round here).
This kind of makes me think that disciples of Jesus maybe
shouldn’t put limits or boundaries on who they mix with, and on who can be a disciple
of Jesus. People of all customs, cultures
and colours can be disciples of Jesus.
All sexes and sexualities and gender identities and ages. All demographics. They can be invited into this radical,
alternative lifestyle that recognised the sovereignty of God and goodness, and
lives in response to that. Could this
even include people of other traditions?
I think it could. Let’s review
some of the radical inclusion of Jesus.
There were women in his group, and one of them, Mary (Martha’s sister)
even takes the position of a disciple in Luke 10:39, sitting at his feet and
listening – that’s what disciples do. In
Acts 8, an Ethiopian eunuch is baptised as a believer, after they ask the
question, “What is to stop me?” Just to
be clear, this was a black, African, Gentile, castrate (sexually ambiguous),
and a slave. And there was nothing to stop
this person being baptised.
That brings me to my next point: “baptising them in the name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…” (Matthew 28:19). It sounds very formulaic, like something we’d
actually hear in church. And it is. This phrase was used by early Christians in
the ritual of baptism. In a very early
text (mid-late first century perhaps) known as The Didache, there is
instruction on baptism: “immerse in running water, ‘In the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’”.
The preference was for cold, running water, but if not available (it was
Palestine after all), then warm would do.
And as a last resort, water could be sprinkled on the head. In fact, the Didache may been written
for the same audience as Matthew: late first century Christians in the Syrian
hills?
Baptism, then, is about immersion. The word literally means to dip or immerse (Greek
baptizo). The Trinitarian formula
is interesting to me, partly because Jesus doesn’t really talk about the
Trinity in Matthew, but especially interesting when we take into account that
the preposition ‘in’ could also mean ‘into’.
So it could be about immersion into the mystery of God as Trinity. In Hebrew thought, someone’s name was their essential
character.
My own experience of baptism speaks to this. There was nothing especially magical or even spiritual
about it – no doves or voices from heaven.
I was in a large inflatable paddling pool with cold water and 2 good
friends, one on either side. And at the
appointed moment, they dipped me into the water. It was a strange moment. I felt completely at their mercy – hoping they
would lift me back out! But that is what
true community is. It is opening
ourselves up to the other. Mutuality. Like the Trinity – sharing of personality,
giving and receiving. There’s a vulnerability. Once again, this is a key aspect of being disciples:
sharing of lives. Look at Jesus – he was
rarely alone. Something about Jesus generated
community. And disciples of Jesus seek
to do the same – to create spaces where we can all experience something of God
in and as community.
Disciples follow their master’s lead. They do as the master said and did. And they also look to pass on the teachings
of their master. I think this is a lost
element in much of Christianity. We
spend a lot of time celebrating ‘what Jesus has done for us’ (i.e. his death on
the cross, and sometimes his resurrection), but fail to take seriously what
Jesus said, and we have a good collection of his sayings – especially in Matthew
where Jesus is presented as a teacher as much as anything else. To paraphrase C S Lewis, it’s always Easter but
never, well, any other time. I actually
think Jesus did expect his followers, then and now, to obey his teachings. To try to live the way he taught and lived,
to embody the kind of life and world he spoke of.
It's reminiscent (perhaps unsurprisingly) of the book of
Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Its name means ‘second law’ because it is a
recapitulation of the law (Torah) already laid out in Exodus and Leviticus –
with a different angle and from a different time (possibly written down earlier!). There’s almost a refrain running through the
book, to observe the entire commandment of God that Moses has commanded. This, says Deuteronomy, is the way to life –
the way of life. The alternative – disobedience,
failure to keep the law – would result in death and disaster and exile. I think we are faced with the same choice by
Jesus. We can follow his teachings –
actually take seriously his words and his vision for life – and find life, or
we can pay little or not attention to those words and find ourselves in a kind of
exile, in patterns of destruction – of the self, of others and of
creation. Disciples learn, and disciples
teach – they pass it on.
A final thought, to tie it all up. Ascension is not unique to Jesus, or to
Christian tradition. Of course, there
are stories of people ascending bodily to heaven in the bible, and traditions
outside the canon around people within it.
Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a prime example. The prophet Elijah’s story, in the books of Kings,
concludes with his ascent in a whirlwind, and passing his mantle to his disciple
Elisha. The patriarch Enoch in Genesis
disappears – it’s unclear, but there’s a sense that he was ‘taken up’ alive.
Other faiths have similar stories. Muhammad is said to have ascended into heaven
at site of the Dome of the Rock, although he returned and eventually died. There are stories of Hindu kings entering
heaven in their human bodies as well.
The tradition of Jesus’ Ascension is recorded in Mark and in
Luke-Acts (2 volumes by the same New Testament author), but not actually in
Matthew. The scene is set for Jesus to
rise on the clouds, from the top of this mountain, but he doesn’t. Jesus doesn’t leave, he doesn’t go anywhere. His final words in Matthew: “And remember, I
am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). The absence of Ascension here underscores the
message, “I am with you”. Jesus stood on
a hill in Galilee – near where Matthew’s community found themselves. And Jesus never left. They could meet him in the story Matthew had
written down for them. They could meet
him in community, in one another. So can
we.
Above all, we can
meet Jesus as we follow him – as disciples who disciple in daily stuff, living
as though Jesus really is in charge, as though all authority in heaven and on
earth has been given to him. Despite how
things may appear, and no matter who recognises his authority, Jesus has the
last word.
