Just as He Is

A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake, Canyon Lake, Texas

the Lectionary readings for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost.

A few years ago, in the good old days when meeting up with a big group of friends for coffee was a typical activity, I was sitting with some good folks conversing about nothing specific as we just enjoyed our beverages and each other’s company in the cozy setting of our local cafe. One of the ladies that I know fairly well had just made a lovely statement about being an image bearer of God. The various conversations around our table quieted as it seemed everyone was pondering the depth of her casual comment. And then someone began to laugh and said, “well if we are created in God’s image then God is a cranky middle aged woman.” And everyone laughed and resumed their previous sentences and thoughts.

Of course the thought that went scrolling through my head is “nope, that’s creating God in your image” and I’ve always wondered if I should have spoken up in that moment but being a priest in that kind of social situation is always tricky and so I decided that it wouldn’t have been productive at all to correct her publicly even if I could have pulled it off as a witty and friendly comment. People would have responded to anything I said as a priestly correction instead of me just voicing my beliefs as they all were. Anyone else around the table could have said what I was thinking and it wouldn’t have brought the gathering to an abrupt halt.

But this moment wasn’t a wasted moment – God has brought good fruit from it as I’ve seen in myself where I was painting God in my image rather than discovering the image of God in me.

In our gospel reading today, we are continuing our walk through the good news story as told by Mark and the bit we are given today that helps us discover how we see God is best understood in light of the what comes before and after it. So, I’m going to give us the bookends to today’s reading:

If you recall, last week the gospel reading was about seeds and growth and provision – a little mustard seed is so much more than what it seems to be at first, just like the parables Jesus uses to teach.

After all this talk of seeds and the purpose of parables, Jesus decides to take a boat ride with the disciples to the other side of the lake, just a he was. Did you catch that part? The disciples took Jesus in their boats: just as he was.

In all the years I’ve known this part of the story, I can honestly say I’ve never noticed those four words before. One of the amazing and life-giving things about God’s word that we have in our Bible is that when we go to it with an open heart and mind, we are given something new. I know these four words have been there all along, but in this time, they are new to me.

They took him into their boats, the Jesus they thought they knew so well, to sail to the other side of a lake they’d been fishing on and walking the shores of their whole lives. They knew this lake well, too. They knew that sudden, dangerous squalls were common and they knew how to navigate in these storms to safety.

And, Jesus, taking advantage of a little down time, decides to take a nap. Our bodies need rest and taking time off was God’s idea to begin with, right? So Jesus is napping. And a storm envelopes them. These men who had navigated probably hundreds of these storms in their life wake Jesus with the accusation that Jesus doesn’t care.

Having grown up with a hobby fisherman, I know the drama with which fishermen like to embellish their stories, something that has apparently been around a long time.

“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

Without hesitation, Jesus calms the wind and the waves. And then he turns to them as says, “why were you afraid? Where is your faith?”

These men hadn’t been working with Jesus for very long at this point, but they had seen him heal people and make them new; they had heard him speak about growth and God’s provision.

I think Jesus’ question about faith is two fold: Don’t you believe in what you’ve already seen me do? AND Don’t you yet believe that you will do amazing things with me? Jesus is asking them where is their faith in God AND where is their faith in their ability with God’s help to do what Jesus has called them to do.

But, before we get into that a bit more, I first want to share what comes after today’s reading because even though I’ll be with y’all next week, the lectionary skips over the next bit that so beautifully frames today’s part of the story. Let me tell you the story:

As they arrive on the opposite shore, they encounter a man possessed by a legion of demons. Jesus speaks and the demons leave the man and enter a herd of pigs who then rush over a cliff to their death.

The disciples weren’t the only witnesses. The people tending the pigs witnessed what had happened and at first they were in awe of Jesus power to restore this man to wholeness and wellness. And then they turn on Jesus because of the pigs. Perhaps they had flashes of what God renewing power would mean for their own lives and weren’t ready for such change. Perhaps they just weren’t capable of seeing anything in a new way. And so they rewrote the story so it sounded like Jesus was out to get the pigs and told Jesus to leave and never return.

They see Jesus for who they need him to be so that they don’t have to change who they are. They aren’t seeing Jesus as he is.

When the disciples are sailing through the storm, they get mad at Jesus because he is letting them do what they are good at. Jesus wan’t a fisherman, he had been trained as a carpenter. And so he trusts the fishermen enough to sleep while they navigate. But this trusting Jesus isn’t enough for them. They need to see him disturbed by the storm just as they are. they aren’t seeing Jesus for who he is but who they are comfortable with him being.

Jesus calms the storm but he doesn’t call any of us to be passive passengers in the boat. We all have something to contribute to the bringing about God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. We have to trust, have faith in God to provide what we need to do what God calls us to do AND we have to believe in our own God given abilities, skills, talents, and treasure to participate with God as we travel across the lake.

When the disciples first got in the boat with Jesus they saw him as they thought they knew him. Perhaps they saw him as they wanted him to be. They saw him as he was to them at that point in time.

And then they saw him in a new way. They saw Jesus speak to the natural elements and to demons. And then they saw others not see Jesus as he is and I wonder if they, like I did, want to correct the Garasenes image of Jesus and yet used the situation to deepen their own view of Jesus?

Where in our own lives do we settle for seeing Jesus as we thought we knew him when we first encountered him?
Where in our own lives do we create God in our own image so that we don’t have to grow and change?
Where have we rewritten the story so we can maintain our comfort zone?

Where in our own lives has God shown us a new glimpse into who God is and who we are in relationship with God?
Where has Jesus calmed our storm so that we are open to letting our knowing of God be made new?

Jesus meets each of us where we are and we take him in our boat as he is. And as we follow Jesus we come to know who God is and who we are in God’s image, as God created us to be, participants in the Kingdom on earth as in heaven. Amen.

Onions and Parfaits

In the Good News story as Matthew tells it, we are told of a series of “woes” that parallel the blessings that we’ve been talking about. Jesus is in his final days in Jerusalem. The religious leaders are working hard to trap him so they can have him executed. They ask him questions so they can catch him teaching false things about God and Jesus responds with stories about how the people of God should live.

While teaching and speaking throughout Jerusalem, in earnest and knowing his time with them is short, Jesus turns to his disciples and warns them about using their leadership abilities for their own benefit rather than to lead people into a relationship with God. Jesus cautions his followers about letting others put them on a pedestal and says,


“Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you’ll get the wind knocked out of you. but if you’re content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.”

Matthew 23:11-12, The Message

This statement brings to light what Jesus means when he says, “blessed are the pure in heart” as most of us are familiar with this beatitude.

To be pure in heart is to know who we re at the core of our being, deep down below all of the layers we have developed over our life to protect ourselves. We all have these layers, whether you consider yourself like an onion or a parfait. When we do the hard work of first recognizing them and then peeling them back, we come to know ourselves as God knows us: the beloved child created and designed to love and be loved. This is the image of God in each of us.

And when we come to see it in ourselves, we see it in everyone else, too.

Jesus tells the religious leaders of his day that polishing the outside of their cup while letting the inside stay filthy is not how to lead or how God calls all of us to live. We have to do the inside work, so that our true motives are to do all that we do for the love of God and our neighbors.

The blessing comes when we do the inside work, with God’s help and the transformation of the Holy Spirit, because that is what enables us to see the world without all the layers we’ve put in place that blur our vision. To have a pure heart is to see the world with eyes of compassion as Jesus did.

With Care

In his description of the characteristics of Kingdom people that we’ve been looking at over the past few weeks, for me, the most challenging to talk about is mercy. What is mercy?

To be merciful implies that we’ve been wronged, or at least we judge that we have been wronged, and we are holding back from delivering what we judge the other to ‘owe’ us or what we judge they deserve. To be merciful, full of mercy, means I choose to set my judgement aside and to respond to the situation in love and compassion.

Pope Francis says that “mercy is the force that reawakens us to new life and instills in us the courage to look to the future with hope.”

Mercy offers hope: the confident hope that God’s love is greater than the worst thing any of us has ever done, the courageous hope that God’s love is stronger than my anger and my need for retaliation or revenge. When I choose to be merciful, God’s love grows stronger in me rather than the bitterness and pain that would grow if I choose anger. And the deeper I open myself up to God’s love, the more love I have to give and the more mercy I can show.

Eugene Peterson uses the word care in The Message: when we are full of care, we are cared for. When we choose mercy, kindness, compassion, love, when we take care to be like Jesus, we are not only caring for the other but for ourselves. Jesus cautions religious folks not to just put on the outward appearance of being good but to tend to the inside of their cup as well.

These descriptions of God’s Kingdom that Jesus gives aren’t for us to throw around like a weapon as a form of judgement on others’ behavior, but the vessels from which we are nourished in the goodness of God so that we are continually formed and transformed as God’s beloved. These are the instruments that equip us to live and love on earth as in heaven, Kingdom people to whom mercy has been given.

Seeds

A sermon preached at Grace Episcopal Church, San Antonio on the Third Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary readings are here):

Before we jump into today’s lesson, as a reminder, let me set the stage as to what Jesus and his disciples are up to:

After Jesus left the house in which we found him in last week’s reading, you remember, when his mother and siblings tried to get him to be quiet so folks wouldn’t think he was crazy, Jesus has continued to speak to the ever growing crowds telling stories of ordinary items and ordinary every day occurrences to teach about God’s kingdom. He tells of a farmer who sows seeds with abandon and all of the different types of soil on which the seeds can land.

And after speaking to the crowds, Jesus is alone with the disciples and he helps them understand what he’s just said before giving them another story of seeds and planting that we read today.

Jesus says the Kingdom of God is like a someone who scatters some seeds and these seeds grow because that’s what God created seeds to do. The miracle of life happens when the seeds do what seeds are made to do. Seems simple enough.

But I wonder if the disciples were looking a him with odd looks on their faces, as many of us do when we hear these stories. Can you picture it: Jesus is speaking and he realizes that they aren’t quite getting the point and so he stops and, thinking out-loud, he asks them:

“What is a good way to describe the Kingdom? What will help you understand?”

And they just keep staring at him.

So he tries again: The kingdom is like a small seed that grows into a great big tree that then provides food and shelter for others in the Kingdom. Because that’s what seeds are created for – to be planted so they can grow and produce not just food and shelter for other creatures but more seeds so more plants can grow.

This story of ordinary things and tasks of their ordinary days teaches us about the extra-ordinary abundance of God’s Kingdom.

Jesus lived in a culture where farming and fishing were the two main sources of income for most folks and so many of his stories were about planting seeds and catching fish. And if we, in our day and time, don’t know much about these activities its easy for us to just say “well that’s a good ancient story but it doesn’t mean much to me so there’s nothing I can learn from it. And besides, we know that the mustard seed isn’t the smallest of seeds and that the mustard plant isn’t the biggest so the story is incorrect, right? And Jesus didn’t even talk about how this little seed makes a yummy condiment that makes most everything taste better. That’s what mustard seeds are really for.”

The point of parables isn’t whether or not Jesus tells a “correct” story, one that matches our worldview but to enable us to see our ordinary as extra-ordinary. Jesus’ parables are intended to change our worldview so that we see from a Kingdom point of view.

Jesus wants very much for us to ‘get it’, to understand that living in God’s Kingdom isn’t about some day, somewhere else but today, here and now, for our every day activities in our every day life.

So, if Jesus were standing here today, asking “What is a good way to describe the Kingdom? What will help you understand?” What illustration would you suggest he use?

How about this:

The Kingdom is like someone who was having a picnic with their family and neighbors and after eating her hotdog with lots and lots of mustard, eats a big slice of watermelon and spits the seeds on the ground.

Some time later someone else is picnicking in the same spot and notices the vines that have sprouted from the ground and finds joy in the anticipation that this little watermelon vine will provide for others and tells the story of this simple yet joyful experience with family and friends.

And finally, someone else walks the same path and finds a fully ripe watermelon, picks it and shares it with family and friends. And one of those friends spits seeds on the ground and some time later the seeds sprout … you get the idea.

No one does anything to make the vines grow; the seeds just do what God designed seeds to do: make plants and more seeds so that the plants and fruit and seeds can continue in abundance. Seeds grow, regardless of our intent, or lack thereof, when we scatter them.

Jesus doesn’t give us a neat and tidy checklist or step by step instruction manual for The Kingdom. Jesus asks questions and gives us stories to equip us to work out the meaning and the answers.

Jesus tells stories not to keep us in the dark or keep secrets from us but to enable us to work out what this Kingdom life looks like for each of us, individually and collectively in 2021 hill country Texas.

“With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?”

What does the Kingdom of God look like at our places of employment?
In our homes?
What does it look like when we are at HEB or driving down 1604? Or on I-10 and someone just cut us off speeding through the construction zone?
What does it look like to live as a citizen of God’s Kingdom then? What seeds do we scatter?

In all that we are and do, we scatter seeds of one kind or another. And the seeds we scatter grow.

Jesus asks questions about what is the Kingdom of God like and tells stories about seeds and planting so that we learn to ask ourselves and each other: What kind of seeds are we scattering: seeds that grow love and kindness and compassion or seeds that grow division and anger and hate?

Jesus invites us all to follow him and learn how to sow seeds of goodness, seeds that build up God’s Kingdom, seeds that grow more and more love and compassion in this world, seeds that make us a part of the prayer ‘Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Amen.

Satisfied

What do you hunger for? What is the one thing/idea/place/person that you just know will satisfy all your desires? Or do you think that complete satisfaction is an impossible goal or ideal?

Jesus’ sermon about life in God’s Kingdom here and now tells us that complete satisfaction comes when we hunger and thirst for righteousness (as some translations use). Notice Jesus doesn’t say people who ARE righteous are satisfied but those who want righteousness, those who are hungry for it.

What is righteousness? The first occurrence of a character trait being referenced that can be translated as righteousness we have in God’s Story is with Abraham (known then as Abram). We are simply told that Abram believed God when God said Abram’s descendants would outnumber the stars and God counted his belief as righteousness. That’s it. Not ‘Abram saved the whole world’ or ‘Abram did everything perfectly as God told him to’ or ‘Abram conquered God’s enemies’ but that Abram believed God’s promise. Abram trusted that although it had been years since God made the original promise, God would in due time do what appeared humanly impossible. And God considered Abram righteous.

Jesus says we are blessed when we know that this belief, this ultimate trust in God’s Way and God’s time, is life giving nourishment to our souls just as food and water is to our bodies. The blessing of complete satisfaction comes when we trust God.

This doesn’t mean that we won’t ever doubt God or sometimes won’t be able to see any possibility of God fulfilling God’s promises. Abram and Sarai got tired of waiting and took matters into their own hands. And God still fulfilled the promise.

To be righteous, to trust in God, means that we live in such a way that we participate with God in answering the prayer “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And it means that we won’t always get it ‘right’. And it means that God will still use our efforts to bring about good. And it means that God will redeem those times when we get tired of being patient and take matters into our own hands.

Being righteous isn’t about being right or perfect. Being righteous is being who God created us to be, living into the image of God in each of us as we seek to see and respond to the image of God in everyone else. When we follow Jesus with the prime directive of loving as we are loved by God, we will be satisfied and fulfilled in all that we do because we know it is God’s righteousness that transforms this world into The Kingdom here and now. What more could be possibly desire?

Invaluable

Good morning! How’s your Tuesday and your coffee?

As we continue our conversation on Jesus’ description of living in God’s Kingdom in the here and now, the third descriptive can be difficult for some to consider because most translations of Jesus’ sermon say “Blessed are the meek.”

Meek in our modern culture is almost always used as a negative quality. Merriam-Webster offers several meanings: Enduring injury with patience and without resentment; deficient in spirit and courage; and not violent or strong. Some good can be tweezed from the first one but the other two are not only terrible but counter to the quality of character that Jesus teaches.

To be patient and without resentment are good qualities, whether or not there is an injury to endure. I would argue that to be meek isn’t to be deficient in spirit or courage but strong in both. If I can resist lashing back at you for injuring me, I am showing strength of spirit and great courage because I know that I will not gain true strength by putting you down. Violence and strength are not equivalent; it takes great strength to resist responding to violence with violence.

As we interpret the meaning of Jesus’ words from a Kingdom point of view, to be meek, to be humble (as the Common English Bible translation reads), equips us with the greatest strength, courage, and self-assurance because true humility comes from knowing who and whose we are. This is the blessing.

When we discover who we are as God’s beloved children, we discover that to God we are invaluable. We discover that we are loved as we are. We discover that we don’t need to earn anyone’s approval or prove ourselves worthy. Being God’s beloved is enough.

And when we discover that being God’s beloved is enough, we can love ourselves as God loves us and then we can love others as we love ourselves. We no longer need to dominate others to feel important. We no longer need to seek revenge or retaliation when we are injured. We no longer need to put others down to lift ourselves up. We no longer need to prove that we are better than others because we not only see the image of God in ourself but in everyone else.

Hear God say, “You are enough; You are invaluable.”

When Small is Big

The Lectionary Readings for the Second Sunday after Pentecost are found here.

It is a small world. When my son was born while I was living in Anchorage, Alaska, a neighbor we had not met yet saw the “welcome baby” lawn sign our friends had put in our yard (on top of the 8 feet of accumulated snow) and brought a meal to us. Their grandchildren lived far away and they wanted to celebrate Ike’s birth with us. As we talked we discovered quickly that they had grown up in the same area as my dad in small-farm-town-Texas and knew my dad! When I lived in California and worked for a major bank, one day a teller walked over to my desk and asked if I recognized him. Embarrassed I said no and he said we had gone to the same high school in New Mexico and that he had been in the class two years behind me. As an Episcopal priest, I’ve discovered that, despite what Kevin Bacon may say, we rarely need more than two or three degrees of separation to find a connection. It is a small Episcopal world!

We all have ‘Small World’ stories like this. What we really mean with the phrase isn’t that our world is tiny but that we are surprised by the specific and unexpected connections we find in this great big amazing world. And these connections actually make our world so very big!

In the Good News story we read today, we have two statements from Jesus that at first glance can seem disconnected but actually explain each other. The crowds have begun following Jesus to hear him teach and to be healed and the religious leaders are getting nervous because they perceive Jesus as a threat to their own usefulness and power. Instead of seeing and experiencing the power of God in Jesus, they accuse him of being from the devil.

Jesus tells them that a house divided against itself cannot survive so why would the leader of the demons send him to cast out demons and he finishes with a curious statement about blaspheming (which means to show contempt for) against the Holy Spirit.

Jesus’ mother Mary and his siblings were there and had tried to stop him from speaking, presumably in an effort to protect him from the religious leaders who wanted to catch him blaspheming. Jesus’ own family, it seems, was letting their fear overpower their trust in what God had sent Jesus to do.

When they send word to Jesus that they are waiting for him, he turns to the crowd and says, “this is my family. My family is big enough to include everyone who seeks to keep the house of God together and to help it grow larger and wider.”

Every human being is created in the image of God; it is the Spirit of God that from the beginning of creation breathes life into us; by the power of the Holy Spirit we are bound together as the Body of Christ. To follow Jesus is to recognize this unity, this community, this family of every human being.

If we seek to divide God’s Kingdom by using Jesus’ teachings to decide who we will exclude, we are denying the power of the Holy Spirit to bind us all together.

When Jesus cautions against dividing God’s Kingdom, he is teaching of the importance of recognizing our unity. When Jesus says these are my mother and brothers, he isn’t discounting Mary and his siblings. He’s including them in something bigger than themselves. He’s including them in the household of God just as he includes every one.

When we put on the lens of who’s in and who’s out, our world can only grow smaller, not bigger. When we seek to prove who’s worthy of The Kingdom, we aren’t participating in building God’s Kingdom but shoring up our own kingdom to keep others out – the very opposite of what Jesus teaches and preaches.

When we define our group by who we exclude, our world can only get smaller because we can always justify excluding more.

When we define ourselves as Jesus does, recognizing we are all created in God’s image, bound together by the Holy Spirit, our world can only get bigger and bigger because that’s how love works. The more love we offer the more we have to give.

It is a small world after all because we are all connected and bound together because we are all beloved children of God. Amen.

Embraced

I was recently reminded of a phrase that was told to me by a mentor as I prepared for seminary and the path to ordination: “the Gospel brings comfort to the afflicted and affliction to the comfortable.” I realized that I’ve incorporated this into my priestly framework but for the most part dropping the word ‘afflicted’. Not because I don’t think people are or can be ‘afflicted’ just because I don’t like that word so I teach and preach that the Gospel message brings us great comfort but will never leave us comfortable.

In his teaching on what life in God’s Kingdom is, Jesus says we are blessed when we mourn because we will be comforted.

We’ve all had so much to mourn, to grieve over this past year plus. We’ve lost loved ones and friends to a terrible virus. We’ve lost jobs and income. We’ve lost relationships because somehow caring for each other became a political issue instead of a human one. Some have lost a sense of security and safety because others have stood up and said ‘we’ve never had that and we have a right to feel safe and secure just like you do.’

Do we feel blessed in all of this loss and trauma? I think all of us know there is no way to avoid grief and pain. I also think that many of us try to compensate for this by downplaying the pain and grief with trite phrases like: ‘this too shall pass’ or ‘you’ll get through it’ or worse yet ‘cheer up’ or even worse ‘God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.’

Somewhere along the way we humans decided that the good life is completely pain free. And Jesus says we are blessed when we experience pain and loss because in our deepest grief, God is with us.

It’s easy to let go of our awareness of God when things are good, when we are comfortable. God’s people have been doing this throughout the course of history. We build a ‘good life’ based on the world’s standards, creating our own kingdoms from the very things we know won’t endure. And we either consciously or unconsciously decide we don’t need God.

Then, when this life we built for ourselves inevitably crumbles, we remember who and whose we are: God’s beloved children. We realize the true blessing is living into who God created us to be: citizens of God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven participating with God to bring love and grace into this world. This is the good life that endures; what no one take from us because it comes from God.

The loss and trauma are not the blessing. The promise of comfort in the loss and trauma is the blessing. The wisdom that comes from sitting with our grief and loss instead of trying to gloss over it or ignore it is the blessing. Growing in our relationship with God and each other, growing our awareness of God through all of life’s experiences is the blessing.

In all that you have experienced in the past year and in all that you will experience today, feel God’s embrace. Know you are beloved. Share the blessing of this comforting love.

Being Satisfied

In last Thursday’s post, we talked about what it is to be a disciple, to follow Jesus and learn to be like Jesus. As we continue our journey together through this Ordinary Time, I’d like to take some time to really dive into what the good news writer Matthew gives us as Jesus’ first major sermon or teaching. I’ve written about this before here and here. This time I want to go deeper, spending time with each statement we call the Beatitudes and really look at what they mean for us as we follow Jesus in our day and time.

Jesus is seeing the huge crowds that he’s beginning to draw because of what he’s taught in their synagogues and the healings he’d done. Matthew tells us that Jesus claimed up a mountain with his disciples and begins to teach them with a series of statements that begin with “you are blessed when ….”

We often use the word ‘blessed’ to mean “I got what I wanted” or in the same way we’d use the word ‘luck’ but we want to sound more grateful. Jesus takes this understanding of blessed and turns it upside down.

He starts with ‘blessed are the poor in spirit.” Other translations say “hopeless” or “at the end of your rope.” Do we feel blessed when we feel this way? Would we ever hear ourselves saying “I’m so blessed. I just lost my job and I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

When Jesus extends the invitation “follow me” he’s asking us to learn to see and experience the world differently, to look at our lives through a new lens. Being blessed isn’t about getting all the good stuff – money, house, clothes, cars, gadgets, etc. – that the world says we should have or that we deserve. Being blessed is about knowing who and whose we are at all times and in all circumstances, knowing we are God’s beloved children so that we can share that love we know with others. Being blessed is about offering who we are and what we have to those around us as we live the prayer “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

When we are poor in spirit, when by the world’s standards we have no hope, when we feel like we are at the end of our rope, we are loved by God. We are blessed when we now that regardless of our circumstances, we are infinitely valuable in God’s Kingdom because when we see ourselves as God sees us, we see others the same way. And when others feel hopeless, we can share the abundance of God’s love that we know so confidently.

Being blessed in the economy of God’s Kingdom means that we find all that we need to be satisfied in our relationship with God and others. If you are feeling at the end of your rope, hear God say, “I love you.” Hear Jesus say, “follow me and let me show you how to be satisfied living life on earth as it is in heaven.”

God’s peace,
Mother Nancy+

Accepting The Mystery: A Sermon for Trinity Sunday

The Lectionary Readings for Trinity Sunday 2021 are found here.

One of the things I most enjoy about doing supply is that I get to worship and connect with lots of parishes as a beautiful reminder that we are all a part of something so much bigger than ourselves. And I really like getting to be at the same place for a couple of Sundays in a row because I get to work in the continuous flow of the good news with y’all.

As you know, last week was Pentecost, the day we celebrate the new birth of Jesus’ Church and today we celebrate the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It’s impossible to talk abut one of these without referencing the other. Pentecost is our inauguration as The Church and the Trinity is the foundation of our communion and community as Jesus’ Followers.

Attempting to explain the Trinity has caused a lot of grief and conflict throughout the history of Jesus’ Church. Much ink and much blood has been spilled. Our human brains have a difficult time grasping this concept of one-yet-three-yet-one.

One of the more common metaphors is the Trinity is an egg: shell, yolk, and white. And while the egg is a good symbol for life, as a metaphor for the Trinity it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. An egg can be separated as all bakers know and as we all learned from Humpty Dumpty, you can’t put it back together again. So, the egg is out. And so is the apple, water, clovers, and any other comparison you can find with Google.

Another comparison I’ve heard is the various roles each of us has in our family units: I am a daughter, mother, and sister all at the same time yet I’m one person. This is close, but my roles aren’t distinct enough to truly reflect the Trinity. And it doesn’t at all take into account Trinity as our ultimate model for community. If I start talking about the daughter me, the mother me, and the sister me as working together to accomplish things, I have a bigger issue than trying to understand the biggest mystery of all time and y’all would need to call a psychiatrist not a theologian to straighten things out.

When I was in seminary, during a late-night mid-semester study session, we came up with a Boston Cream Donut analogy: cream filling, tender pastry, and chocolate glaze. Yeah. By morning we had realized the error of our ways and swore we’d never speak of it again. I’m counting on y’all’s discretion as well.

The greatest lesson I’ve received about the Trinity came from a conversation I had with a Greek Orthodox priest. While in Toronto, I discovered this beautiful Orthodox-church-that-was-once-a-synagogue as part of an ecumenical assignment in my liturgy class and when I could find the time (not often enough), I’d go and just sit in their worship space and pray. I could feel the blessing of years of prayer and worship in this space like a warm safety blanket wrapped around me as I sat. One day the priest came over and asked if he could sit with me and we began to talk. I asked him about the many beautiful icons in the space and in reading one to me that represented the Trinity he said that he didn’t understand why the western church insisted on explaining the Trinity.

The Trinity is a mystery, he told me, a gift that helps to keep us oriented in our relationship with God. Accepting the mystery of the Trinity reminds us that although we are created in the image of God, God is God and we are not.

When we convince ourselves that we can explain the Trinity what we are really doing, whether we realize it or not, is shrinking God down so that we can fit God into our human understanding and contain the very power that created us.

Like our friend Nicodemus in today’s gospel reading, when we try to fit God into our human brain, we miss out on so many gifts.

Nicodemus thought he had it all figured out. He rightly tells Jesus that only God could do the mysterious things Jesus did so he knew that Jesus was from God. “Well said, Nick!” says Jesus and then he tries to take Nick to the next level, which ironically isn’t better knowledge but requires letting go of our need to explain the holy happenings of God in human terms.

Accepting that Jesus is from God isn’t a piece of knowledge we put in a book and set on a shelf, it is the wisdom that reveals who we are and how we are to live.

Jesus says, “Unless we are born from above, we can’t see God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.”

Nick is so sure of his own understanding that he misses what Jesus says. Instead of ‘born from above’ he only hears ‘born’. Instead of letting what Jesus says give him a bigger worldview, he tries to shrink Jesus down to his narrow view.

“How can an adult be born?”

And so Jesus tries again, “Not physical birth but spiritual birth, by baptism, a new life in God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, the life I teach and show and live. Keep your eyes on me and you’ll discover this new birth, the life you are created to live.”

This is the life given by God the Father, revealed by God the Son, and empowered by God the Spirit. The Trinity.

This mystery provides understanding of who and whose we are and teaches us our ultimate purpose: to be in communion with God and to live in community with each other.

The Trinity shows us how we are to pattern our life together: united in love, distinct yet inseparable, all necessary.

Our life together is based on and grounded in God’s love for each of us and our differences are necessary as we talked about last week: it takes each of our gifts and talents and treasures woven together to make the Kingdom complete like a beautiful tapestry.

Our culture and society tell us that our differences are to be used to divide and separate us: Instead of letting your way of seeing the world expand my view, I must preserve my view and tell you yours is impossibly wrong.

But when we let the Unity of the Trinity hold us together, our way of seeing, our worldview, widens to see everyone as beloved children of God.

With a proper acceptance of the mystery of the Trinity we come to know that we are a part of something so much bigger than ourselves. Letting go of our need to fit God into our understanding doesn’t make us less significant but enables us to see our infinite value in God’s Kingdom.

And the more we open ourselves up to each other, the more our understanding of this world grows and together with the Triune God we discover what it is to be a part of the prayer “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

And so, let me end our time together with the words of Paul as he closes his second letter to the church in Corinth:

“And that’s about it, friends. Be cheerful. Keep things in good repair. Keep your spirits up. Think in harmony. Be agreeable. Do all that, and the God of love and peace will be with you for sure. … and may the amazing grace of Jesus Christ, the extravagant love, of God, and the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” Amen.