Matthew 28:26-28
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 teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
Reflection
This passage is often interpreted to mean that Jesus is saying Christians must convert all people to become Christians or else God’s love is not accessible to them. The great commission of the church is to make everyone like us. This is part of a larger understanding of Christianity that says that Christianity is the only way to God and God’s only way to us.
In this passage, Jesus expands his earlier command to the disciples about the geographic location of their mission. These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans’ (Matthew 10:5). This was not a permanent limitation, but a community in which to begin to announce the Kindom of God.
In Matthew 28, Jesus expanded the geographical and cultural scope. Disciples are now working throughout the world and can include people of every mishpachah.
The Christian Scriptures were written in Greek, the most common written language in the Mediterranean world. Greek is different from English. The word we translate as “of” has a range of meanings, including “among.” In this context of expanding the possible geography for the disciples, the translation “among” makes the most sense. Let’s read this verse with the word “among”: Go therefore and make disciples among all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…. This translation suggests that Jesus’ community can include people of all cultures and traditions but does not require it for God to love and accept them.
“Among all nations” is about what land and cultural contexts Jesus’ teachings can be taught, not saying that all people must join the church or be forever damned. It’s about geography. It is not a claim that all must become Christian.
The traditional translation is not necessarily the best. As Christianity became a part of the Roman Empire and its descendants, the Christian faith was used to bless the colonization of other people’s lands. The traditional translation offered divine approval for this, as empires required people to become Christian as a means of control and as an explanation for why what they were doing was right.
Even if we keep the translation of “make disciples of,” we still must take the rest of the text seriously, including: “Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” What did Jesus teach? To love God and neighbor, that everyone is our neighbor, and that, for instance, the Samaritan’s own tradition taught him to love God and neighbor enough to risk his life for a stranger. Jesus taught this out of faithfulness to his tradition’s teachings of One Creator and the call of Abraham.
I recognize that many people have oriented their entire lives to trying to convert other people to Christianity because of their interpretation of this passage. For many years, I did, too. I still rejoice when someone becomes a part of Jesus’ community. I also rejoice when people find lives of meaning and service in other traditions.
The traditional translation and interpretation of this passage suggests that Christianity is an exclusive in-group that has exclusive access to God and, therefore, is superior. This has led to the dehumanization of people of other traditions and cultures, which in turn led to motivating and justifying violence against them in the name of God. Dehumanization and violence are not faithful to what Jesus commanded his disciples to do. Jesus commanded his disciples to love their enemies. Christians sometimes reduce love to making other people like us or claiming our superiority over them. When it is, Christians neglect the weightier matters of the law and fail to love people as they are. Further, Christians begin to harass each other, judge each other, and begin to doubt and question God’s love for each of us, wondering who is sufficiently Christian for God to accept.
It is not up to us to determine how the Creator may reach out to people in various cultural contexts and times. I am grateful that the Creator reached out to me in the Christian faith. Still, it is beyond my “pay grade” to assume that the Creator can only reach other people through me and my tradition. I do not determine where the Holy Wind blows.