Go, baptize, teach, remember.
With such basic instructions, I wonder how church got so complicated. We have committees, ministries, task forces, councils, conferences, doctrines, dogmas. Some churches even have courts and trials to enforce it all.

This structure may have something to do with how we refine and revise our processes. New procedures are usually built on what came before. When we want to reform, we go back only as far as the last thing – more like renovating than reforming. We never go all the way back to the basic building block – a true remodeling project.

Basing our latest, greatest ideas on the most recent idea, which may not have been so great or has ceased being so great or we wouldn’t be revising it, runs the risk of continuing down a path that is already off course. And this can put us even farther afield. A few centuries of this and before we know it, we don’t recall the basics anymore, much less the reasons for implementing them.

So today, we go back to the basics – to the original purpose of the church – which in Jesus’ time was the disciples. And what he offers is refreshingly simple:
Go and make disciples.

I fear that over the years, our favorite construction model has instead become “wait and welcome.” And because we want to extend the utmost in hospitality to those we are waiting for, we pour our resources into the place where we wait. We wait in the comfort of our beautiful sanctuaries, and when newcomers arrive we offer programs and meetings and more committees.

And if the newcomers don’t show up we begin to get anxious and the revising and renovating starts all over again.

But Jesus never said, “If you build it, they will come.” He said, “Go.”

The church, true to its first purpose and founding is not the end goal of the Christian life, the destination of our journeys. The church is to be the launching pad, from which YOU are sent to tell others about Jesus.

Does that make you uncomfortable? Sound risky even?
IT IS! And that’s okay – Because this riskiness is the first act of going.
And because risk taking should not be entered into unadvisedly, Jesus’ directive is to “teach.” We need to learn how to live the Christian life, how to be the church which is faithful to the Bible and Jesus’ teachings. We need to learn how to go and what to say.

Back in the 1950’s when both black and white folks had organized to fight the racism of the time, they spent hours teaching and learning the art of nonviolent resistance before they ever went to sit down at a lunch counter or march across a bridge. That is because it takes some time to learn how to face billy clubs, barking dogs, and fire hoses.

And similarly, disciples have to be taught how to follow Jesus – and there’s no guarantee we’ll pass the test. After years of following Jesus, even the 12 named disciples had two colossal failures at test time. Before the night ended, one had died by his own hand (Judas).

Another (Peter) got a second chance and went on to tend the lambs and feed the sheep. He became so good at this that he died the same way as the one who had taught him (Jesus). Living faithfully takes practice and is risky.

But this tough course – Go, baptize, teach – can only be sustained if we also remember. We must remember WHY we baptize and teach as well as WHAT we teach. (Adapted from Living By The Word, Jennifer Copeland, The Christian Century, June 3, 2014)

And the answer to this question is found in the most important word in the Bible -WITH.

Which has a lot to do with Trinity Sunday in fact!

The Trinity is, at heart, about with. The trinity is a dance in which the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one being, existing through their mutual relationship. And God is always gathering all humanity into that undivided relationship, bringing us all into life with Him.

Remember, at the beginning of John’s Gospel: “The Word was with God.” And Proverbs: “When God fixed the foundations of the earth…I was there, ever at play in God’s presence, delighting to be with the children of humanity.”

In other words, before time began, before anything else, there was a with. And until the end of time, there is a with, as Jesus promises: Behold, I am with you always. With is the most fundamental thing about God.

And so we open our worship saying: the Peace of Christ be with you.
And we proclaim that the Word made flesh came to dwell with us.
And we call his name Emmanuel, meaning: God with us.
And we bless our gatherings saying: the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all.
Notice: with, not for.

Because God is not actually for us: except in our crazy, private triumphalist fantasies in which God, who takes our side always, will magically appear and smash our enemies. God is not doing nice things for us. God is not for us in the sense that God is always going to be giving us what we want, protecting us from illness and harm, and making us rich.

God’s just with us. God sticks with us. Accompanies us. Delights in us, plays with us, suffers and abides with us. In trouble and in doubt, when everything goes perfectly and when things fall apart: God is with us.

The Trinity has a reputation for being difficult. But maybe it doesn’t have to be.

The Trinity is not three separate beings. He is One God who is also three persons who are in constant relationship with each other. With himself, and with us. And that is the challenge. Because this understanding of the Holy Trinity, if we model our lives on it, changes everything. Our lives as Christians must mean being with others the way God is with us. With, not for.

Doing for, is easier and often feels safer than being fully with.
Let me act on your behalf, doing something for you as if my being were somehow separate from yours.
Let me hand you a sandwich at a sanctified distance.
Let me solve your homework problems without getting entangled in your other problems.
Let me send you some flowers to apologize when I’ve been hurtful, without having a real conversation.

Being with is riskier. If I wait and listen and show you what I’m really like, my life becomes implicated in yours: we are no longer separate. And I might get changed by our relationship.

Sara Miles tells of a time when this “being with” became real for her:

Recently, I was at home working on a deadline. It was a beautiful warm day, and all the windows were open, and I was trying to focus on my writing and not get distracted. And then from the street I heard someone loudly wailing: “Help, help, help, help…” I looked out the window but couldn’t see anything. I waited, thinking that maybe a neighbor, or a teacher from the school across the street would respond. The wailing continued. “Help, help, help.”

“Oh, man,” I thought. “I bet it’s just that drunk lady who hangs out on the corner, but I guess I should go down and make sure everything’s OK,” and I went outside.

It was that drunk lady on the corner…a puffy, bruised, middle-aged woman who bounces back and forth between the street and the hospital and the county jail without ever getting sober; who mostly either sits on the sidewalk and moans, lies on the sidewalk in a stupor, or passes out.

I’d talked with her a few times before, when she was a little more alert and had been able to walk down the block. Once she wanted to chat about the baby she was expecting—this was a total fantasy, as far as I could see––and it occurred to me that she might be mentally ill, as well as suffering from alcohol poisoning.

But now she wasn’t talking. She was just moaning. “Help, help, help.” I asked if she wanted me to call an ambulance for her. No, the drunk lady said. Did she want me to get food for her? No, she said. Then she started wailing again—not even “help,” this time, just moaning.

She was crying. She was impossible. I couldn’t do a dang thing for her. And so I just sat down with her while she wailed. I think I said something stupid like, “I’m sorry you feel so bad.”

And after a while she stopped, and closed her eyes, and we sat there some more. I got up to go home, and crossed the street, and she started crying again, and a neighbor came out of her house and addressed me. “This is very upsetting,” she said, crossly. “I have little kids, and I don’t want them to hear this. Can’t we call someone to take her somewhere they can do something for her?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t think so.”

She reflects further on what this means:

Sometimes there is nothing to do for anyone. I hate that. I can’t tell you how much I want to make things better by doing something for people, and how little it turns out I want to just be with them. Because if I have to be with them—well, then someone is drunk and crying, and she just wants another person to be with her in her unhappiness, and I have to sit there.

Or she’s upset and worried about her kids, and she just wants another person to be with her in her anxiety, and I have to stand there and let her see how useless I am. Or I’m scared –about meeting my deadline, or not doing the right thing, or being snappish, and I have to let my own weakness and neediness show to all kinds of other people.

Being with people means we can’t leave messages for them on their phones, at a time we conveniently know they won’t be there. We can’t do good deeds for them and go home. In fact we can’t do anything for them: we have to abide with them––even if for ten whole minutes––and allow them to abide with me.

The most important word in the Bible is the most important word in our lives: and it is a word made flesh. God lives with us, just as Jesus lives with the Father, and we with one another, and the Holy Spirit, the very breath of life, lives with us all.

Without the memory that Jesus is with us always, to the end of the age, we will quickly align ourselves with the next novel thing coming up the street. Without gathering around the table to remember the lesson of self-giving love, we will soon succumb to the louder voices of self- sufficiency and self-reliance. Without focusing on the basic instructions, we will lose track of our purpose. (Copeland, 2014)

Which is to GO! Go and teach. And what we teach is this: The Lord is with you – and so am I.
But you’ve got to go, because going is how it all begins.

Amen.