To what end?
Sermon for the First Sunday after Pentecost: Trinity Sunday (June 4, 2023) at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. A video of the entire worship service is available here.
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And Jesus came and said to the disciples, “…Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit... And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 16:18-20
Edited Transcript
May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please be seated.
Who here is sleeping with their windows open? In this summertime season the birds are very active, and they wake us up if we have our windows open, right?
And speaking of mornings...as our Bible study group looked this week at this first story of creation in Genesis, we noticed that the light appears before the sun. Did you catch that in today's reading? When God creates the heavens and the earth, first God creates "light," and then God creates the "two great lights, one to rule the day and one to rule the night."
These summer days, when we are laying next to our open windows in the night, the very first thing that happens—it must be around 4:30 in the morning—is that where it was dark, there starts to be a little bit of light.
And then you can hear the wind, so you know the vegetation is there. And then the birds start talking and the whole world seems to light up.
In Archbishop Desmond Tutu's "Children of God Storybook Bible," when he retells the Genesis story of creation, after the birds are created, he says "suddenly the world became very noisy!"
So we have this light and then the creatures of the earth and the vegetation, and then finally... the human kind of drags herself out of bed. And a new day begins.
The story of creation, of the beginning, echos the story of the beginning of each day. God's creation is a gift and each day is a gift to us. In the beginning, God creates all of this. And God says that all of this is good.
So we have this reading about beginnings. And then, on the other hand, in our Gospel reading, we have Jesus talking to his disciples about "the end of the age," right?
So today, we have in our readings both a beginning and an and—or at least talk of an end.
And somehow in the middle things got messed up along the way, after that good beginning. We can tell, because our middle reading is St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, pleading with them: Let there be peace among you! Please agree with one another! And you know, nobody tells that t a congregation unless they're having a little bit of trouble being at peace.
So in the beginning, God creates the heavens in the earth. And it is good. Then, somewhere along the way, we fall short, we turn against one another, and we turn against God's creation.
But let's go back to Jesus, talking to the disciples about the end of the age. He promises them, "Remember: I will be with you always, to the end of the age."
Perhaps when we hear this we think about a cataclysm, or at least an ending like an end to a story. Where everything comes to a stop.
But there's a more old-fashioned use of the word "end" that more accurately captures the meaning behind Jesus' phrase, "the end of the age." Have you ever heard someone ask, for instance, "Why did you do that—to what end?" In this case, we are using the word "end" to mean the purpose or the reason. The Greek word used here is less like the end of a story or the end of a bookand more about the purpose, the completion, the consumation.
So "the end of the age" is not the moment in linear time when the story is cut off. The "end of the age" is the season when God's world will again be complete, will be whole, will be consummated and fulfilled for the purpose it has always had... from the very beginning.
From the very beginning, the creation and this world were declared good. And everyone in this world was made and is made in God's image. And the purpose of this good creation is that we would all know and see and realize ourselves to be part of God's dream for the world. A dream, a purpose, that has been here from the very beginning.
In the beginning, God says, let us make humanity in our image. Every one of them made in the image of God. And God tells the people, and all the creatures—at the beginning—to be fruitful, and multiply. Just so, Jesus, standing there in Galilee with his disciples, tells them: Go forth to every nation. Tell all of them the Good News and baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
He's telling the disciples to bear fruit and to multiply. He's telling them to fulfill their end, their purpose: making sure that everybody knows what God's dream is.
Our purpose is that everybody knows what God's dream is and was and will be. From the very beginning: the world is good, and heaven and earth and every human being are full of the love of God.
In the beginning, God charged humanity to be fruitful and multiply and to join with God in sharing and creating more love, more goodness, and more beauty. That purpose, that end, has never been lost. Our purpose, our completion, our end, is to create with God: to be with God, as agents of God's love.
Even in those seasons where we've turned against one another and against creation, where we can't agree, where we need to be admonished to find peace and to be at peace with one another... even in these seasons, God has promised that the end of all of this is that goodness and that love which was there from the very, very beginning of creation.
And there is no point—from the beginning of our day to the end of the day—from the beginning of God's creating the heavens and the earth to the very end of the age—there is no time that God is not with us. There is no time that God will not be with us.
Jesus said, I am with you always to the end of the age: until God's purpose for this world, which is love, is truly complete.
Amen.