Trinity Church in the City of Boston
The Rev. Morgan S. Allen
May 31, 2026
Trinity Sunday, John 28:16-20
In you, O Lord, have we taken refuge; for the sake of your name, lead us and guide us.1From Psalm 31. Amen.
Today we hear the last verses from the Gospel of Matthew. This valedictory speech from the risen Christ concludes the brief, final chapter that began with the Easter morning story of Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” visiting the tomb.2Matthew 28:1. An angel tells the faithful women that Jesus has been raised, and “is going ahead of [them] to Galilee.”3Matthew 28:7. When they leave in a rush to tell their friends what they had seen and heard, Jesus stops them on the way and reiterates the angel’s direction: “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers and sisters to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”4Matthew 28:10.
Today’s lesson finds Jesus’ companions following those divine instructions, and while the authoring community chooses to headline the attendees as “the eleven disciples,”5Matthew 28:16. we can read into the scene the wider narrative context and righteously imagine that the obedience of all his brothers and sisters brought many more than only “eleven” to the mountain. When this teeming, faithful crowd sees Jesus, “they worshiped him; but some doubted.”6Matthew 28:17. A brief margin scribble to note here a foreshadow of life in the Church: even with the dadgum risen Christ standing before them, some in the congregation still scratched their chin, tilting and shaking their head, and giving it the “Yeah … hmmm … I’m not so sure,” unable to accept the Good News literally standing before them – Lord, have mercy!
Jesus then declares, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”7Matthew 28:18-20.
We hear this appointment on this occasion because of the Trinitarian formula Jesus voices in his commission. And while I have some wonderings about the editorial conveniences of such a tidy ending, I am also willing to encounter the text as we inherit it; to consider the evangelical mission Jesus delivers; and then to bring my skepticism to bear, in search of a witness.
So, how do we at fair Trinity Church in the City of Boston, on our “Feast of Name” in this, The Year of Our Lord 2026, how do we suppose our disciple forbearers understood that evangelical charge, and how do we now “make disciples of all nations”?
On the road to some answers, biblical scholar Michael Floyd8Dr. Floyd was my Old Testament professor in seminary. An intimidatingly brilliant character, his teaching of Second Temple Judaism founds my biblical theology. I am delighted to quote his article from the Winter 1998-1999 issue of Ratherview magazine (that title is a play on words – the seminary’s street address is on Rathervue Street), that my friend and classmate, the Rev. Daryl T. Hay conjured on demand last week when I asked a question on the topic of Genesis 12 and 17. This particular issue overviews the new curriculum the seminary would debut the year of my arrival. proposes we look to the Old Testament, noting, “the people of New Testament times – including both the movement led by Jesus and the early church led by the apostles – did not see themselves as inventing a new kind of community. They were creating a variation of the model” established in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures. While we will not find “evangelical mission” in our Old Testament concordance, we can read the Abrahamic story to describe and witness a faith community of “particular significance for the other peoples of the world … The people of God exist to show and thus communicate [the good news] of God’s intentions toward [the other peoples of the world], namely that God intends their good[, as well].”9Ibid.
Though the ancient tale of God’s blessing the whole cosmos begins in the creation narrative we heard this morning,10Genesis 1:1-2:4a. Dr. Floyd points toward two evangelical models later in Genesis: the first in chapter 12, and the second in chapter 17. Between the beginning and those later episodes, humankind fails to honor our responsibility to uphold the goodness imbued in the creation. As the story goes, God decides to wipe out the earth with a great flood, leaving only Noah’s family and his ark-based, Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom to start over. Yet, despite the olive branch, the rainbow, and God’s promise never again to take such cataclysmic action for the renewal of the world, we humans continue to prefer fallenness before faithfulness.
Therefore, God takes up another approach to restore creation’s blessing and chooses one people to reveal what was and remains intended for all people. See, God calls Israel into being to bring the message of salvation to the rest of the world. God blesses Israel in order that Israel would become a blessing, and by Israel’s blessing, the whole world would be blessed, would be restored to its original goodness.
As one model of how to accomplish that glad end, God commissions Abraham in chapter 12: “Go from your country and your kindred … to the land [I] will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing … and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”11Genesis 12:1-3. Most bibles indicate that “last phrase can also be translated, ‘in you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.’”12A note from Dr. Floyd. See, by this model “there is no need for [Israel] to incorporate other nations into the people of God.”13Ibid. Instead, Israel communicates and “makes effective” God’s blessing by the character of their beloved community, “by the way in which the descendants of Abraham live within the [larger] community of nations.”14Ibid.
Genesis 17 presents an alternative model. “In this episode, God establishes the custom of circumcision as a sacramental sign of the covenant relationship.”15Ibid. God tells Abram: “No longer shall your name be ‘Abram’ [meaning, exalted ancestor’], but your name shall be ‘Abraham’ [meaning ‘ancestor of a multitude’]; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations’ … According to [this model], the people of God – as the descendants of Abraham – are eventually to encompass many nations.”16Genesis 17:5.
In the first model, God’s people “remain a distinctive member [in] the community of nations,” and they need not “take over” others to share God’s blessing.17Floyd. Declining proselyte tactics, they give their first energies to the quality and character of their life together, not how others choose to live. And by their covenant witness – their constancy and grace, mercy and love as “leaven in the loaf,” a light to the world18Ibid. – their neighbors receive God’s blessing as their own.
The second model prioritizes a different set of values to preserve and spread God’s blessing: purity and holiness first among them. Indeed, Chapter 17 begins with God instructing Abram, “walk before me and be blameless.”19Genesis 17:1. We could add orderliness and obedience to this roster of priorities, as Israel incorporates neighbors into its covenant life. Israel shares God’s blessing by bringing other nations into conformity under its law. That is, they will not live a common life among many others; instead, they will incorporate many others into their common life.
Considering these evangelical models of leaven and light … purity and persuasion … we consider the ministry of our Trinity companion, Robert Edward Yearwood:
I confess conscripting my friends and family into an unpopular game that offers perspective of time’s passage. I take a past event; measure from those days to now; and then set the same span of years before the common past event. For example: it has been 17 years since Pedro Martinez20The most dominant pitcher of my lifetime, all due respect to Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, and the rest. Paul Skenes has a chance to challenge Pedro’s mantle. retired from the Red Sox; looking back from Pedro’s final pitch that same length of time, Bill Clinton was elected President [See how that works?]. Or again: the great Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band played Boston last Sunday,21The Boss has slowed down a lot these last ten years – but not on Sunday. That show was the most energized I’ve seen him and the band since ’03. The setlist was stellar, and I think it helped they were not promoting a new album. Mighty Max thundered, and the great, great Nils Lofgren shredded like it was 1988 again. “Absolutely nothing – say it again!” and hard as it is to believe, it’s been 42 years since the release of his iconic, Born In The USA; the same length of time before that album’s release? Well, the top-grossing film was Casablanca [“Here’s looking at you, kid”].
So let’s put in perspective the 57 years since Tom Kennedy recommended the hire of one Bob Yearwood; the same length of time before that glad season when Bob introduced himself to Trinity, what was happening at Fenway Park? Ummm, it opened. Or from another sightline: next February, Trinity Church will celebrate the 150th anniversary of these buildings’ consecration – well, Bob Yearwood will have served better than a third of those years, more than quadrupling the amount of time Phillips Brooks spent within these walls.
By any measure or perspective, Bob Yearwood has taken up his post at Trinity Church for a very, very long time, watching over this congregation and our shared Boylston corner through generations of change – across three designs of Copley Square, if you’re counting. Importantly, though, Bob now stands at the lead of a legacy more than only the accumulation of years, for he chose to bring his whole heart to his work at the Clarendon Desk and well beyond. For a host of reasons, that choice made him vulnerable and demanded enormous courage and humility – not once, but as a daily devotion. No matter that difficulty, he invested in the character of his time here, not merely as a job, but as a calling, as a vocation.
While we will have opportunity to applaud Bob later, let us give thanks to God for Bob’s enduring commitment and give him a foretaste of the cheering to come. [Applause]
Though Genesis does not explicitly elevate one evangelical strategy over the other, the resurrected Jesus of Matthew’s Gospel seems to prefer the latter of the Genesis models. This tidy Jesus commissions his friends to “make disciples of all nations” by baptizing them in the Trinitarian formula we inherit. Read in continuity with the Abrahamic covenant community, baptism serves as a proxy for circumcision, and Jesus calls his disciples to bring others into God’s favor by their shared obedience to all the Law commands.
Even if we affirm the intended end – the restoration of God’s favor – these tactics can offend our contemporary understandings of difference. And if we pull Jesus’ commission taught enough, we might even see how proselytizing conformity can run against the very identity of God as the Three-and-One, that mysterious unity borne of difference.
While I acknowledge the peril of choosing a single life as familiar to us as Bob’s to be the hero of a Gospel interpretation, we dare do so on this occasion without the burdens of either beatification or perfection, but with admiration and gratitude as a hearty few among the far greater legion who have witnessed and received his ministry.
Though the Genesis 12 evangelical strategy can fail to look much like evangelism at all – its critics will press for a more conspicuous movement, one aiming outward a partisan activism – consider the efficacy of Bob’s ministry and the reach of his impact. Bob has modeled a mission that offered a smile and made a connection, that gave a fist-bump and delivered a rhyme. He needed neither water nor font to bless everyone he met with the powerful gift of remembering their name, affording those he met with the dignity of their personhood. Day after day, year after year, decade after decade, Bob has shined his bright light, welcoming the stranger and lending a hand – all as an ambassador, an evangelist of this parish church. Whatever the finest Gospel preached from this pulpit and Broadstep, Bob has voiced the Good News as a living witness.
Trinitarians, God called and blessed Bob Yearwood. And with constancy and grace, mercy and love, Bob Yearwood shared God’s blessing with us and with so many. And more than only receiving his blessing, by his kindness and warmth we found our essential goodness renewed, discovered God’s blessing as our own.
Bob, honoring the model of your ministry, may we now become a blessing ourselves.
For the sake of the whole world
we love with grateful hearts
and offer our gracious lives;