Worshiping and Wavering
Matthew 28:16-20
by Rev. Rick Thompson
A little girl in a Sunday School class was very busily drawing
something. She was using all her colors, and her face was pinched in
concentration. Her curious teacher strolled over to watch, and
finally asked, “Sweetheart, what is that you’re drawing?”
“Well, I’m drawing a picture of God!” the girl replied.
“That’s a wonderful idea,” her teacher responded, “but nobody
knows what God looks like.”
To which the girl replied without breaking her crayon strokes,
“They will when I get through!”[i]
On this Festival of the Holy Trinity, I wish I could promise you
that. I wish I could promise you a clear and conclusive picture of
God when I get through preaching today. But I can’t. I can only hope
that you will be drawn more deeply to worship and serve the God who
is, at the heart of God’s being, a deep and profound mystery.
Garrison Keillor was speaking about the sometimes-perplexing
experience of being in love when he said, “We should not think that we
have figured love out, because it is not a problem to be solved. It
is a mystery, and it always will be.”
Keillor was speaking of love, but he might just as well have been
speaking of the Trinity: “It is a mystery, and it always will be.”
The greatest minds in the history of the church have probed and
plumbed the depths of this teaching—the teaching that God is Father,
Son and Holy Spirit, and yet one God. They’ve prodded and proposed
and posited and puzzled, and they’ve deepened our understanding of God
and God’s ways, but they haven’t penetrated to the core of the
Trinity. These great thinkers through the ages have been brought to
their intellectual knees, and have had to finally say, “We can’t
entirely figure it out, but that is not a problem; it is a mystery, and it always will be.”
This is Trinity Sunday, and we come, today, into the presence
once more of the majesty and mystery of God. As we do so, we read
again the stories of our faith. Reading these stories together is
invaluable because, while we may not fully understand God, and we’re
not given a complete picture of who God is and what God looks like, we are brought closer through these stories, read together, closer
to the mystery, closer God.
In our first reading, that majestic and poetic story of creation
from Genesis 1, and the Psalm that comments on it, we are reminded of
the power and awesome creativity of God. Out of chaos and
nothingness, God is the One—and no other—who has created and ordered
the universe so that it sustains life. God has created humanity with
a unique position in the cosmos—in God’s own image, with the ability
to think and relate and create and seek to know and love God. And in
that unique position, God has commanded us to care for the earth so
that it will continue to sustain life far into the future. And, we
are instructed to rest, as God rested, so that we will remember it’s
all a gift—a gift from the hands of a loving God.
That’s part of the picture of the God who is Father, Son and Holy
Spirit.
And we get another picture in our Gospel readings, centered
around the person of Jesus, the Son of God. There we are given a
clear vision of the power and majesty of Jesus—echoing the power and
majesty of God the Creator. Jesus has been raised from the dead.
Jesus has instructed his disciples to meet him on a mountain in Galilee,
and they have actually obeyed! He meets them there, and commands them
now to go into all the world to baptize and teach in the name of the
Triune God. He promises that, even though they will not see him
visibly, he will continue to be with them for all time, for, as our
readings have reminded us in recent weeks, he pours out the Spirit
among us. And, in response to his presence and promises, the
disciples bow down and worship the risen One as their Lord and Savior.
That’s another part of the picture of God who is Father, Son and
Holy Spirit.
But there’s one little complication. It’s not so easy for the
disciples, just as it’s not so easy for us—or, speaking for myself,
it’s not so easy for me.
Did you catch that little note in Matthew? Tucked into the story
about the presence of Jesus, the power of Jesus, the instructions and
commands and promises of Jesus, and the worship of the disciples when
they saw him in his risen glory, we read this note: “They worshiped
him, but some doubted.”
Isn’t that interesting? “They worshiped him, but some doubted.”
Isn’t it interesting that there’s a note of doubt and uncertainty in
every one of the gospels, when it comes to reporting about the
response to the risen Lord? Go ahead, read those stories at the end
of each Gospel, and see for yourself. It’s interesting that there’s a
strong tradition in all the gospels that, when his followers
hear Jesus has been raised or see him in his risen glory, they respond
with joy—and with fear and doubt. And that’s how it is here in
Matthew: “They worshipped him, but some doubted.”
And there can even be a strong case made for translating that,
“They worshipped him, and they doubted.”
I can appreciate that. I can appreciate worship and doubt
mingled together—especially on Trinity Sunday, when I’m asked to
profess confidently that God is Three in One yet One in Three. I can
appreciate the mingling of worship and doubt when confronted with the
awesome mystery of God!
Especially when we understand that doubt does not mean
“disbelief,” but rather “uncertainty” or “wavering”. That’s what’s
behind the Greek word “doubt”. So, we are to understand, the
disciples on the mountain in Galilee both worshiped Jesus and wavered in their faith.
Worshiping and wavering. Does that sound as real to you as it
does to me?
Could we possibly even say that we don’t worship because we’ve
got it all figured out, but rather because we don’t? Could it
be said that the reason we gather here, together, week after week, is
in the hope that, perhaps for one more week, God will keep us and hold
us close to God, in spite of our weak and sputtering faith?
Alex was home on a break from his church college, and he had
questions—spiritual questions. He made an appointment with his
trusted Pastor, Nick Marsden. “I can’t question anything in my
religion class,” Alex complained. “The professor, Old Beady-eyes,
thinks anyone’s a heathen who questions one little thing.”
“So you decided to dump all your doubts on me,” responded Pastor
Nick.
“Yeah, I think I can talk with you—and you can’t flunk me,
either!” Alex replied. “So, for example, what about the Trinity? I
can’t even begin to figure that out!”
“Join the club!” Pastor Nick answered. “So far I haven’t heard
of anyone who can.”
“Well, how can I believe something I don’t understand?” Alex
asked.
“Oh, we believe all kinds of things we don’t understand,”
said his pastor. “For example, we believe in gravity, don’t we? I
know that I can’t jump to the top of the steeple of this church! I
know gravity exists, but I don’t understand it; do you?”
They talked some more about the Trinity and other questions about
Christianity. And finally they agreed that doubt could be a
good thing when it compels us to probe. Probing our faith, after
all—especially in the company of the church—can cause us to grow
spiritually.[ii]
At least, it seemed to work that way for the earliest disciples.
What did they do, after all, when they doubted, when they wavered on
that mountain? They worshiped Jesus just the same, and they heard his
promise that he would be with them always, and they heard him command
them to take the good news to the ends of the earth.
And they must have obeyed—or we wouldn’t be here today,
worshiping and wavering, wavering and worshiping. They must have
obeyed Jesus, or we wouldn’t be sharing life in the church, and
serving God and the world, and telling others about the glory of the
risen Lord.
So maybe--maybe there’s a place for our wavering. Maybe it’s OK
that we don’t fully understand the mystery of the Trinity, as long as
we keep gathering to worship the God we do know.
Maybe our wavering is OK if it compels us to keep on--
worshiping and growing together in Christ,
and serving and reaching out joyfully to all.[iii]
AMEN!
___________________________
[iii]
Mission statement of Holy Shepherd Lutheran Church, Lakewood, CO.
