Embracing Faith's Journey
Trinity Sunday – 2011 – year A
As I look over the lessons appointed for a particular Sunday, I often reflect on advice given to my class by our New Testament Lecturer, the late Professor F. E. Vokes, affectionately known to us all as Freddy. In the course of a series of lectures on St John’s Gospel, he had been dealing with the passage describing the raising of Lazarus and the nature of his emergence from the tomb. Someone challenged him on one point. He grinned and asked of us, ‘Tell me, what does the text actually say? Not what do you think it says. What does it actually say?’ He went on to give us an object lesson, whether we were coming at things from a liberal or conservative viewpoint on the importance of taking the text seriously. I have found that advice invaluable in keeping the scriptures fresh, in trying to come to each passage, however familiar it may be, with an open mind, open to fresh insights.
Take the passage we have just read as our Gospel reading for this Trinity Sunday, the closing section of St Matthew’s Gospel, telling of the risen Christ’s final meeting with his disciples prior to his Ascension. It is a passage I have heard any number of times; it is one of those passages we could recite off by heart. But maybe it is so familiar that we can all too easily stop listening. This was brought home to me as I shared in a group in Taize when one of the group said, ‘Have you ever noticed the passage says “when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted.” – but Jesus says to all of them, doubters included, “Go and make disciples”?’ This is where Freddy would have said, ‘Take the text seriously – ask yourself, “Why has the evangelist put in ‘but some doubted’ but makes no reference to them being excluded from the mission to go and make disciples”?’