“The Great Commission”
May 31, 2026
Matthew 28:16-20
“The Great Commission”
St. Paul AME Church, Manchester, KY
David A. Shirey
There are a trio of Scriptures titled with the adjectives “good” or “great.” The Good Confession — “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” The Great Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and might, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This morning we focus on The Great Commission: “Go make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.”
What do you make of the fact that the people Jesus commissioned with the Great Commission weren’t all that great? According to Matthew, the commissionees (if there is such a word) fell asleep on Jesus during his agonizing prayer in Gethsemane. They woke up only to run off when Judas came to betray him. They were nowhere to be found on Good Friday. There’s not a word of their whereabouts on Holy Saturday. According to Matthew, Mark and Luke’s accounts of Easter, none of them were at the empty tomb when Christ was raised from death to life. The commissionees of the Great Commission weren’t all that great. Those eleven were an imperfect bunch. In his comments on this passage Dale Bruner wrote, “The number ‘eleven’ limps; it’s not perfect like twelve…Jesus commands a defective eleven. The church that Jesus sends into the world is ‘elevenish,’ imperfect, fallible.[1]” I like that word “elevenish” to describe that imperfect bunch to whom Jesus gave the Great Commission. They weren’t playing with a full deck, weren’t the brightest crayons in the box, weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer. They were a taco short of a combo plate. Their elevator didn’t go all the way to the top. Their lights were on but no one was home.
And here’s the best one of all: When they saw Jesus, “they worshiped him; but some doubted” (Matthew 28:17). What’s up with that? Even after standing face-to-face with him “some doubted?” Unlike John’s Gospel where Thomas doubted until Jesus stood before him and then he believed, in Matthew’s Gospel “some doubted” even after they saw him. But they worshiped him, too? I learned this week the word translated some is not found in the original Greek. The Greek text can literally be read: “They worshipped him and doubted.” So why is “They worshipped him and some doubted” in most English translations? Apparently, Matthew uses a grammatical construction that could mean the word some is implied. But in the seventeen other instances Matthew uses it no translators ever think the word some is implied in those places. So why here? One pastor, Mark Allan Powell, says he asked a Bible translator that very question one time and the guy said, "The verse wouldn't make sense otherwise. No one can worship and doubt at the same time" Whereupon Powell says, “I invited him to visit [my church]. We do it all the time.[2]”
How refreshingly honest! It’s possible to have doubts and still worship. To have unresolved questions and still sing hymns of praise. To be confident about some things and not so sure about others. Someone said the opposite of faith is not doubt, it’s certitude. And Mark Allen Powell notes that the one group of folks in the Bible who have no doubts are the Pharisees. He says, “They are always certain about everything…It never occurs to them that they might have overlooked something or misunderstood something. As a result, they are often wrong, but they are never in doubt.” Often wrong, but never in doubt. I know people who are often wrong, but never in doubt that they’re right!
By contrast, disciples of the risen Lord Jesus Christ worship and doubt at the same time. A healthy faith can be seasoned with a measure of healthy doubt. Paul Tillich said, “Doubt is not the opposite of faith but an element of faith.” Frederick Buechner wrote: “Doubt is the ants in the pants of faith. Doubt keeps faith awake and moving.” How reassuring for those of us whose faith is founded more on trust than certitude to know, as Fred Craddock put it, that “whatever the nature of the resurrection, it did not generate perfect faith, even in those who experienced it firsthand”[3]. “They worshipped him and [some] doubted.”
And what did Jesus do with those imperfect, ‘elevenish’ worshipping/ doubting disciples? Did he:
A) Scold and shame them?
B) Excommunicate them?
C) Did he tell them, “You’re not up for the Great Commission yet. Before I send you to teach other people about me, you need to get your act together first. You need to know your Bible forward and backward and be able to answer every question any skeptic, cynic, or non-believer throws at you.”
D) Did he send them to Disciple Finishing School – also known as seminary –where, when you finish you know it all, have no doubts or questions, and are fully equipped and empowered to change every heart, right every wrong, overcome every injustice, and usher in peace on earth, goodwill to one and all? You do know, don’t you, that I have an M. Div. degree. Master of Divinity. I have mastered divinity. I know everything there is to know about God. Not!
The answer is E) None of the above. What Jesus did with those elevenish worshiping/ doubting disciples was to commission them then and there and send them off “as is” saying, “Go, make disciples.”
I wish he hadn’t. You know why? Because if Jesus hadn’t given them the Great Commission, then I could excuse myself from doing Jesus’ bidding in this world because of my own elevenish, imperfect faith. If Jesus had given the Great Commission to Great Disciples with Great Minds and Great Souls then I could excuse myself for lack of greatness. Apply for a deferment. But since he commissions them in spite of their doubts and incompleteness that leaves me on the hook…and you, too! As one guy wryly observed, “One wonders whether this is a good idea, to have this group of disciples who do not have their act together going out to make other disciples. Jesus might have been more selective in whom he called and sent.[4]” But he wasn’t! He sent them and he sends us to be his ambassadors to the whole world, saying, “Go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (28:19-20).
I say all this to say to you that none of us is qualified in and of ourselves to carry out the Great Commission of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. But neither were those first eleven perfect choices. The glory of the gospel, according to St. Paul (a man who was utterly imperfect) is that God “is able by the power at work within us to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine” (Eph 3:20). Carolyn Morris, one the elders of Jennie and my North Carolina congregation, used to say to the nominees whose names were put forth by that church’s Nominating Committee, “God doesn’t call the qualified, but God qualifies the called.” The proof of that is what God did through those eleven who worshipped and doubted. God made disciples out of their imperfect witness who taught and baptized and made disciples out of their imperfect witness who in turn taught and baptized and made disciples down through twenty centuries until the imperfect progeny of those original elevenish disciples taught and baptized and made us disciples. Now, tag, you’re it. We’re it! We’re called and sent by Jesus, imperfect as we are, to be his witnesses and to make new imperfect disciples.
So, what’s it take to be a witness? Think about witnesses in a courtroom. There are two things prerequisites to be a witness: 1) You have to have seen, heard, or experienced something. 2) You have to be willing to talk about it. Both are required in order to be a witness. As one of my colleagues (Troy Sybrant) put it, if you didn’t see something but talk about, you’re not a witness. You’re a liar. And if you did see something, but don’t talk about it, you’re not a witness. You’re a coward. A witness is someone who has seen, heard, or experienced something and is willing to talk about it.
Translated into Christian terms, being a witness means that you have seen, heard, or experienced the presence and power of the Living God and you’re willing to talk about it…and live it. The risen Lord Jesus Christ needs witnesses in order to “make his case” if you will, the case that God’s kingdom is breaking out here, there, and one glad day everywhere. Kennon Callahan, a Methodist pastor and renown church consultant, described God’s kingdom in a nutshell as God bringing “help, hope, and home” to this world God so loves.
So what do you witness to? How when you were in a bad way, God brought help. How when you were in the depths of discouragement, God brought hope. How when you were alone and lonely, God gave you a home. It’s up to you to fill in the blanks as to the particular circumstances in your life when you needed help, hope, or a home and how exactly in your life God provided what you needed, but only you can do that. And God needs you to do that– to bear witness to how you have experienced help, hope, and home in your life.
But there’s more: witnessing is not just an individual, but a social act. We are commissioned to be a source and force for witnessing to Jesus’ kingdom vision of a world where everyone receives help, hope, and a home. To advocate for a more just and equitable society is witnessing to the hope for a better tomorrow. Anything done that helps feed or clothe or heal or shelter or safeguard the dignity of another human being is a witness. When earthly authorities’ actions or policies or laws counter or do not conform to God’s desire for this world as embodied in Jesus, we’re called to witness to his will and way through our citizenship.
It’s Great Commission Sunday. Just as Jesus called those elevenish imperfect disciples to be his witnesses, so today he calls we dozen disciples of St. Paul, the imperfect progeny of imperfect St. Paul to make disciples. We’re all being sent today to go and make disciples by our lives’ witness, assured that we do not go alone. “Remember” Jesus says, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Pastor Mike Stachura said, “The mark of a great church is not how many it seats but how many it sends!” So, let it be known that God is sending twelve this morning. We’re not ending this service with an altar call with everyone coming up here. We’re ending it with alter-nate call with everyone going out there. Having made the Good Confession, we’re being sent out by the Great Commission to live out the Great Commandment: loving God and neighbor.
Go forth with these words as a Benediction. Here’s Matthew 28:16-20 from the RSV edition of the Bible: Revised Shirey Version
16 Now the twelve disciples went to Manchester, to the building on Town Branch Road to which Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 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 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Let all the imperfect, elevenish, divinely called, greatly commissioned and duly sent disciples say AMEN
[1] The Churchbook; Matthew 13-28, Frederick Dale Bruner pp. 805, 806
[2] Mark Allan Powell, Loving Jesus
[3] Fred Craddock, 103
[4] Craig Koester at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching_print.aspx?commentary_id=936
