They had lived in a single community, following their favorite teacher, expecting to rule the world by the time they graduated but then they began being stretched by their experiences. Their favorite teacher was probably not going to win any awards from the Board of Trustees. Jesus taught differently, forcing his disciples to leave their families, their jobs, their safety nets, to follow him. Jesus avoided the stuffy classrooms inside the temple walls, taking his students outside the gates of the pristine campus into the real city right on their doorsteps.  They shared meals together. Their rabbi lived with them.  He inspired them.

When I imagine Jesus as a teacher, I think he might appear similar to Dr. Keating, Robin William’s character in the movie, Dead Poets Society.  Keating starts off his teaching career by encouraging his students to rip out the “Introduction to Poetry” from their literature textbooks.  These books which had been such symbols of safety and reliability to these students were destroyed in a matter of minutes. Keating paces the aisles with trash can in hand listening to the rip… rip of pages.  He delights in explaining that trying to categorize the deepest expressions of feelings on a chart which measures rhyme and theme only takes away the very soul and depth of such beauty.      

In the same way Christ turned the Jewish law on its head and left his followers bewildered as he died on a cross.  Yet, their teacher returns resurrected to give one final earthly lesson to his disciples: the Great Commission. 

Now the blessing and curse of our heritage as Baptists is that certain texts are singed into our minds.  The Great Commission has been the scriptural rallying cry for the amazing Baptist mission movement for centuries.  We don’t take time to examine his commission, because we already know what it calls us to do.  I am not attempting to dismiss the fact that it calls us to mission.  But in the spirit of being lifelong learners ourselves, I do want us to look at Jesus’ words with fresh eyes – taking a few moments to reflect on what Jesus had in mind. 

The first point we notice when turning to the text is what is absent.  Jesus offers no timetables, no Power-Point, no strategic plans. I am sure, even then, Christ knew the temptations we would face to turn this commission into a numbers game.  This is no Amazing Race, crisscrossing the globe, leaving Jesus’ name as parting gifts along the way, and reaching the finish line first with conversions in hand.  No, instead Jesus is interested in making disciples.

Discipleship is a vastly different perspective than the head knowledge games our education conditions us to play.  We think that to believe you have to get your head around something.  You have to convince me you are right.  And after belief, then authentic behavior can follow.  Yet time and time again, in the stories of the Bible and in our lives – we find that belief does not extrinsically precede right behavior but the two are intrinsically intertwined.  Behavior – Belief.  Sometimes one first, sometimes the other.  But together they help to make disciples-they help to shape an entire way of life.

Think of the word disciple.  It is more than just a believer.  It is a follower, an apprentice, one who has a mentor.  Discipleship is like a fine art, a craft we have to learn. [See StanleyHauerwas, “Discipleship as a Craft, Church as a Disciplined Community,” The Christian Century (October 1, 1991), 881-884.]  I was a history major in college.  When I graduated, I knew how to do history- which meant I could talk and write a lot about dead people.  Not exactly the most marketable skill in today’s ever-changing economy.  But my cousin went to work for his dad, a master welder.  Father taught son the art of welding.  How to hold the arc in his hand. How to make a fine bead that would hold for years. The son was the father’s apprentice. There was no way he could simply learn his craft in the classroom.  To learn to weld, you must weld hour after hour, day after day. 

These days, our society very seldom appreciates fine craftsmanship. We don’t have time.  Our judge is cost and efficiency.  Yet those standards are terrible judges for the Christian life.  The Great Commission is not a mission model for efficiency: Jesus’ one size-fits-all short and sweet gospel.  Instead, Jesus’ commission is teaching us about making disciples, life-long followers.  And to that end we must practice and pass on the disciplines of the faith.  There are too many to name, but prayer, the reading of Scripture, holy friendships and community are just a few.  As we are called to make disciples, our daily habits of Christian living might be our most important witness tool to share.  And developing our own habits might just be the place to start.

In making disciples, Jesus calls us to baptize them – as an initiation into the Christian life – into the practices of the faith.  Yet we also initiate them in the Triune name (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) – into our language of the church. Our language is not just words, but these words lead to a way of life.  “Knowing the language” remains intrinsic to our practices.  You can’t be a welder, a bricklayer, or a musician without knowing the vocabulary.  Right?  Likewise, the language of the church must be taught to new disciples in order to better understand this life of faith.

But that becomes an issue doesn’t it: the peculiar vocabulary of our faith.  You college graduates have heard this conversation before if you haven’t experienced it yourself.  “People our age just cannot seem to connect with God.”  In part, they blame the church’s traditional, peculiar language.  They don’t understand the language because they have no experience with it.

What is our response to such a real and pertinent question?  Well, for one, we must remember that the church’s responsibility is to invite others into our way of life.  As baptism is an initiation, we do not start everyone on the same diet.  It is true that we must make a better effort to translate our faith into a language that all can come to understand.  However, we cannot give up our language just because it becomes less pervasive in the culture.  When we baptize in the Triune Name, we profess that this name is bigger than any one of us.  We are invited into the language which informs the life of the church that has been going on before us for centuries.  

We know the power of words.  It doesn’t take long to learn that the rhyme “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is so not true.  Words can wound.  But it is also true that “words fitly spoken are things of beauty and power that bring life and joy.” [See DallasWillard, “How To Be a Disciple,” The Christian Century (April 22-29, 1998), 430-439.] You can’t assume that people will understand what is going on just because you live out your faith. They may simply regard you as another human oddity.  Sharing your faith through words is important.  But in Jesus; commission we see that words and practices together make sense out of each other.   

Think about, when you have felt close to God through living out your faith, you’ll find yourself with a rich reservoir of authentic and creative analogies to interpret your faith to the world.  But when those practices aren’t there, you find yourself falling into textbook language that just doesn’t translate outside the walls of the church.

Let’s take the Trinity as an example. It’s a confusing concept, but we can’t give it up because it forms the bedrock of our faith.  If I was trying to explain the Trinity to a friend, I would avoid introducing the concept as the perichoretic nature of the divine Godhead.  But we might start by sharing how the Trinity helps us to explain the depth of God’s love.  One of the church fathers has said, “When we talk about the Trinity, we must forget how to count.”  He recognized that at first glance the Trinity is a mathematical impossibility.  After all, how can one equal three?  We must put our math aside, not because the Trinity is illogical, but because we need a different kind of logic.  A logic based on love. [See William Willimon’s Sermon “The Extravagance of Trinitarian Faith,” Duke Chapel (May 30, 1999)]

You quickly see that you cannot talk to someone about the faith until you know somebody – until you build a relationship with them and share some context together. Building relationships isn’t immediate conversion.  It may take time for someone to accept Christ’s invitation. 

Sarah Groves, a young contemporary Christian singer helped me to understand this point.  She tells the story that as a young mom of a four-year-old, she needs constant support. She and her sister, also the parent of a four-year-old, share a special bond, talking to each and praying for one another everyday.  One day her sister called with some exciting news.  “Her son Parker had just asked Jesus to come to into his heart.”  Sarah was overjoyed at her nephew’s decision but maybe a little disappointed that her own son hadn’t yet reached that point.  But her sister’s call was followed by another one the next day with different news.  “Well, it seems today that Parker also just asked Spiderman into his heart too.”  Context becomes important in our lives. 

Jesus calls us to make disciples, baptize, and teach them to obey everything that he had commanded.  Here we learn what our teachers have known from the beginning: teaching is about relationships.  Jesus calls us to obey everything he commanded.  But what did he command us.  Not five fundamentals or first and foremost a list of theological doctrines.  It seems to me Jesus’ commands in Matthew center in the Sermon on the Mount.  Love your enemies.  Turn the other cheek.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Following these commands takes time.  Jesus gave us to the end of the age for a reason.  As we teach others how to live as disciples, Christ reminds us we cannot live our Christian life in a vacuum. 

We have definitely picked up on the command to go to all the nations.  But who are those people?  Do they have faces?  Are they all in Africa, or are they next door to us too?  I have been struck recently by the words I have heard from Albert Reyes, President of the Baptist University of the Americas, a predominantly Hispanic school in San Antonio.  Reyes is also this year’s president of the BGCT.  He has taught me how “all the nations” are at our backdoor.  Anglos already no longer constitute a majority population in Texas.  Demographers predict in the next ten to twenty years – in Texasalone the Asian population, Asian, will triple from 3 to 9 %.  And one out of every two Texans will be Hispanic.  [See Albert Reyes, “America’s Bible Belt Doesn’t Fit Anymore.” Review and Expositor, 101 (Summer 2004), 369-388.]  These are just numbers.  But they represent people – potential disciples.  Those with whom Jesus calls us into relationship.  In light of examining our practices, language, and our context, how will we begin to forge new relationships?  I hope as a church we consider these questions as we examine our missions’ ministry for the future. 

This is the commission Jesus gave to his 11 disciples.  Not too specific… no strategic plan in place.  He didn’t give them any special powers, titles, offices.  They were already a man down, and they would leave this mountaintop in Galilee the same believing and doubting disciples that hobbled there a few hours earlier.  Jesus told them to “Go!” but with such a mission where do you start?

At first glance, Jesus’ commission looks like many of the commencement addresses I have always heard.  You are the next generation – you will achieve what those before you could never do, you will make amends for all the wrongs of the past – you will overcome all obstacles.  But the difference is that in the Great Commission we are not asked to do it on our own. 

Jesus is not like that favorite professor that changes our lives and then fades away into our memories after college.  Jesus’ commission to us is not simply a command, but also a gift of grace.  Christ promises the supernatural: that no matter where we go or where we are sent, he is always with us.  He is the teacher that keeps on teaching.  And as we continue to grow in the faith, he compels us to invite others alongside.  We begin to understand that we never graduate from the Christian life, that the lessons always change, and that we are all in the same class.  When we become lifelong learners together, sharing the practices, language, and relationships with one another we have begun to follow our teacher’s lead.