Endings and Beginnings

This week we have danced with the beauty of doubts...and faith...together.  We have explored how those two might influence and impact our discipling in the world.

Now, we reach Matthew's ending...which is really a beginning.

Matthew says, "Go."  Go to all the nations.  Go being a light to the world.  Go and share.

And if we wonder what to share...remember the setting is teaching and telling us that.  Jesus and the disciples are on a mountain...which is where Jesus preached his first sermon.

What do we share?  We share the Sermon on the Mount.
How do we disciple?  We let the words and wisdom of Matthew 5-7 continue to be what inspires our lives ~ not that we have it all figured out ~ that is where the doubt and faith dancing together is so important.

We return to the wisdom from the hill of the sermon on the mount.  The beatitudes of faith to go to the fringe and fray as a place where God hangs out.  The invitation to be light and salt for the world.  The call to love our enemies...here is where doubt really comes in ~ can I do that?....be an constant and continual invitation daily in our lives.  To let the prayer Jesus taught be our daily prayer. 

What do we share with the world?  Maybe more than words, it is to embody and fully embrace the sermon on the mount in such a time as this. 

Suddenly, we start to understand that Matthew's short ending is really a long beginning to the life of faith (and doubt) every day.  He doesn't need extra stories or prolonged appearances of Jesus ~ because we are called/commissioned/summoned to be the appearance of Christ.

And if that causes some doubt to stir in you...as it does in me.  Jesus says, "I am with you."  Or in a modern translation, "You got this...because you are not alone."

And there is more than a trace of grace that can feed and fuel our lives if we live and lean into that promise and presence of Jesus.  To remember this isn't the ending...it is just the beginning of your call to live the blessings we encounter/experienced in a God-soaked and saturated world.

Amen.