1 June 2026

The Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s Gospel needs to be tempered by the other two commissions which Jesus made. Interestingly, they are both recorded in St. John’s Gospel.

The first is the great prayer which Jesus makes at the Last Supper.  It is the prayer which defines our relationship with the world. We are in the world but not of the world. The world’s definitions of success and failure are not ours!

Jesus prays that ‘they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.’  We find our true home in the Holy Trinity.

Through the Spirit, we are drawn to Christ and into his relationship with the Father. This is the place where we are truly at home and at one with each other. It’s through our unity that the world will believe.

The second is the commission which Jesus gives the disciples in the Upper Room. He appears to them after the resurrection and says, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ That’s his commission.

He breathes on them, ’Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ It has to do with forgiveness, peace and reconciliation.

This is not about articulating strategies for growth and managing success. This is all about establishing relationships with people through the love which ‘binds all things together in perfect harmony’. It’s about being rather than doing!