Trinity Year C

I don't know why those in charge decided to designate one Sunday as "Trinity Sunday." Shouldn't every Sunday be "Trinity Sunday"? A celebration of the great mystery of the three-in-one, one-in-three God? 

As Christians we confess God to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, three-persons, co-equal, co-eternal, one in essence, nature, power, action, and will. It's basic to what we believe as Christians.

But do we really know what that means or know why that's important? To the outsider it might look like a lot mental gymnastics. We have to become theological contortionists, in order to justify a contradiction. 1+1+1 does NOT equal One. Volumes of books have been written trying to sort out the math. How can God really be three distinct persons, yet one God? It simply doesn't add up.

Other than Christ the King Sunday, Trinity Sunday is the day when we feel most tempted to keep God at a philosophical distance. We muse about the mystery of the Trinity. We try to do make the math work. On no other Sunday do most preachers do a weaker job connecting God to peoples' lives.

I think that's because we don't really know how to talk about the Trinity without resorting to mind-numbing philosophy. As fun as that may be for some of us, it can hardly be called "proclamation" and it certainly isn't good news. At best it's a self-indulgent exercise in theological gratification. At worst, it keeps God at an unhealthy distance, unconcerned about the world God created.

We talk about the nature and so-called "Problem of God” which is theological shorthand for saying that we have NO IDEA who God is.

We confess the inner-unity of the Trinity. We debate whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father, or from the Father and the Son. We discuss the fine points of the Greek. We wrap it up air-tight.

But whatever it is that we wrap-up with suffocating efficiency, it certainly isn't God. God will not be so easily contained, no matter how hard we try. We Christians don't believe in the god of the philosophers.

We believe in the God of the bible. Be believe that the God of the bible gets up close and personal with us. We believe that God refused to be relegated to the realm of abstract thought and flighty spiritual imaginings.

As Christians we believe that God became flesh. That God has a face and a name. That God - somehow - touches us.

I think you know this already. This is not new to you. That's why you're here this morning. You’re here in church not to hear me ramble on about the philosophical problem of the Trinity. You’re here hoping to meet the Word Made Flesh. You’re here to encounter the God of creation. You’re here to be encountered by the God who knit you together in your mother’s womb, then claimed you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in the waters of baptism. You are here to bask yourself in God’s love. You are here to truly worship.

True worship, in the name of the God we call "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" is always incarnational, personal, and embodied. True worship takes us by hand and grabs our hearts. True worship makes a home for God in our lives, because that’s where God finds rest, and we find renewal.

But in theology, oddly enough, we tend to take our lead from the ancient Greeks. The gods of the Greek philosophers were distant and aloof. God is high, lifted up, and unapproachable. That's who they believed god to be, because that's what they needed from God, that's what they valued and that’s what they aspired to.

And they're not wrong. But that's only part of who God is. The God who meets us in Jesus shows us God's nearness, approachability, and humanness. This God has sleeves rolled up and muddy boots. This God demands to get personal with us. Maybe too personal for our liking. An incarnate, embodied, God who knows us with an intimacy that we often find unsettling.

But here I go again, resorting to abstract philosophy to talk about the God who more interested in getting dirt under divine fingernails than worrying about the philosophical foundations of the sacred. 

For us, I think it's easier to talk about God in the abstract than in the personal because a personal God will actually do something with us, and we'd rather not have God intruding in our lives. We don't want God disrupting our carefully constructed existence. We want to add God to what we've already built on our own rather than have God leading the construction effort.

We want to keep thinking that we are in charge of our lives. We don't really want to consider that God is in our driver's seat. Because then God might take us to places we don't want to go.

A personal God will ask us uncomfortable questions about our politics, our business dealings, our family relationships.

A personal God asks us about how we spend our money, about that grudge we've been carrying for decades, about the gossip we shared that hurt someone.

A personal God will want us to let go of our anger, our pride, our selfishness. A personal God will want us to care for folks we don't like.

A personal God will sit us down and make us listen to the cries of people in pain and ask us to do something about it.

A personal God will confront our comfortable middle-class lifestyle built on the backs of poor children around the world.

An abstract God won't ask us to change. An abstract God won't stick it's nose where we say it doesn't belong. An abstract God will leave us alone to tend to our lofty thoughts and comfortably elevated speech.

But a personal God, the God of the bible, the God who is called Trinity, doesn't care about our comfort. The God who is called Trinity cares only about how we love each other and God. And that’s not always comfortable.

The God who is called Trinity is more interested in how we get along with each other than in what we believe about God. That's because God knows that we'll never get it just right. There will always be parts of God that we won't understand. And parts we will always get wrong.

That's why, on the one hand, God is a divine, transcendent mystery, and on the other, God is a personal, intimate being that is found in every facet of creation.

The ancient celts - early Christians in Ireland - knew what this meant. Finding God in creation was a big part of how they understood God. My favourite hymn, “I Bind Unto Myself Today” based on St. Patrick’s Breastplate (we won’t sing it today, but you can bet we’ll sing it at my installation!), has, in its third verse, a powerful expression of finding God all around us, living deep inside creation. 


I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the starlit heaven,
The glorious sun’s life giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea,
Around the old eternal rocks.

The ancient celts knew that God the Trinity is everywhere in God’s unfolding creation, through God's love for everything this God has made.

Where life is being birthed, there is God the Trinity. 

Where lives are being changed from self-centred living to serving others, God the Trinity is at work. 

Where ever care for others emerges from the nastiness of human conflict, we see the Triune God in action. 

Whenever bitterness is over come by forgiveness, God the Trinity is there. 

Where ever there is love; messy, uncontrollable, transforming love, there we will find God, who is three in one, and one in three.

We know this because that's who God is. It's love that makes the math work. 1+1+1=1 only works because the love the Trinity has for itself is so strong that it glues them together as one, then that intimate, reconciling, sacrificial love spills out in the world, into EVERYTHING this God created, and continues to transform the world into the image of the lovingly One God.

God reconciles. God loves. God creates. That's who God is and who God made us to be as images of the lovingly invisible God. The God who is Trinity, whose math works in our lives.

May this be so among us. Amen.

Easter 5C

I wasn’t going to answer the door. I should have ignored it.

My sermon is usually put to bed well before Saturday night, but this particular week I guess I was lazy, because I was in my office banging away on the computer when I should have been at home in front of the TV watching Hockey Night in Canada.

Maybe I was being punished for my sloth.

I answered the door.

“We want to talk about God,” one of them said. They were two young men. One was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. The other was dressed in what I can only describe as a long, dress-like, shirt with matching beige coloured pants and sandals.

“Boy, the fish are jumping right in the boat,” I thought to myself.

I invited them to my office and they sat down. They got right to the point.

“What do you believe about God?” one of them asked, but more like an accusation than a question.

I was taken aback. I stammered a bit. How does one sum up Christianity in a few sentences?

“We believe that God, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, died on the cross and rose again three days later. And that we are joined to Christ’s life, death, and resurrection through what we call ‘Holy Baptism.’ And because of this we believe our sins have been forgiven, and God has promised us new and everlasting life.”

A quick answer.

They were unimpressed.

“You also believe in the Holy Spirit?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “We believe the Holy Spirit is the power of the Risen Jesus alive in us and in the world.”

I mentally patted myself on the back for such a succinct answer. But it was clear that they weren’t buying it.

“So, you believe in three gods?” he asked.

“No, we believe in One God, three Persons.”

“What’s the difference?” he asked, his voice rising.

“Think of H20, it is liquid, steam, and ice. Three different expressions of the same substance,” I said, knowing how oversimplified my answer was.


Again, they looked unimpressed.

The fellow in the long shirt then rose from his chair and with his index finger pointing heavenward, he yelled, “There is not three gods, there is only one God, and his name is Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet. The Koran is God’s holy revelation to mankind!”

Whoa! You guys didn’t tell me you were Muslims (although I suspected as much).

“You do not have the authority to forgive sins!,” he blasted while pointing at me, “You do not need priests to mediate between God and man…!”

“How about between God and women?” I thought to myself, “And who said anything about priests? This is a LUTHERAN church. Do your homework, buddy, if you’re going to come in here and start accusing me of things.”

“You don’t need phony rituals like baptism and communion! All you need is to get down on your knees and BEG Allah for forgiveness and turn your life towards him!”

Phony rituals? Baptism and communion? He obviously came with a prepared speech.

His sidekick chimed in. He had a softer tone, clearly the good cop to his friend’s bad cop. “It’s not that we’re trying to convert you,” he said, “We just want to have a conversation.”

Really.

“This 'conversation' is over,” I said ushering them to the door.

And as they were leaving, the loud one turned to me and said, “You’ve been given Allah’s message from not ONE, but TWO Muslims. You need to turn your life over to the true God NOW, before it’s too late. You could die tonight on the way home, and if you don't repent, you will find yourself in damnation.”

Was that a threat?

“Please leave,” I said.

***

This happened about 10 years ago when I living and serving in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I tell you this not to bash Muslims (Lord knows there’s enough of that going around these days, and Muslims are as varied a group as Christians), but because I experienced first-hand how abusive and uncaring religion can be– the very opposite of what most scriptures teach.

My encounter with these Muslims haunted me. I’ve tried to pin-point why it bothered me so much. And I think it was because, despite their warnings, they actually didn’t care about me.

Ultimately, they didn’t care if Kevin George Powell husband (at the time) to Rebekah, dad to Sophie (and Naomi on the way), became a Muslim. I wasn’t a person to them. I was an object. They weren’t motivated by love. They were interested in power. They wanted to hammer away at my faith; they were angry with me for not sharing their beliefs.

They wanted another covert. Another notch on their belt. Another conquest.

They wanted to be superior.

They’re not the only ones who do this. It breaks my heart when I see Christians doing the same thing, Christians who threaten non-Christians with the eternal fires of Hell and call it “good news,” Christians who believe they’re arbiters of God’s judgment. Churches who adopt a hostile stance toward so-called "non-believers" and call it “proclamation.”

For example, a church back in Lethbridge once displayed a sign on their front lawn that said, “Jesus is coming back whether it is politically correct or not.”

When I first saw that sign I thought, “Why the confrontation? Why pick a fight like that? What was that message supposed to accomplish except to alienate people and make members of that church feel superior to others?”

But the bible tells us that we are simple messengers. We have been asked to bring good news where there is bad news. Healing where there is pain. Comfort where there is grief.

We are called to announce that the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of justice, peace, compassion, and life has broken into our world. That God’s New Creation is blossoming all around us.

We are asked to love as God loves.

It’s been my experience that when people strike out at Christians, it is because they’ve been hurt by Christians.

When non-Christians lash out at us it’s usually because we often demand that they adopt our agenda without first receiving our saviour.

When secular people oppose us it’s often because we insist on a privileged position in society, rather than taking our rightful place as servants.

What people do NOT need is dogmatic absolutism. Folks aren’t swayed by hostile arguments or rigid “propositional truth” demands.

People are longing to be loved. They need forgiveness. They’re longing to know that their broken lives can be put back together, and that there is healing for their hurts.

They need to know that there’s nothing they can do to make God love them more than God already does and there’s nothing they can do to make God love them less. That God’s wild and passionate love for them never changes.

It’s love that transforms lives. Not anger. Not confrontation.



It’s love that brings healing. Not threats. Not finger-pointing or shaming.

Jesus makes this abundantly clear in today’s gospel. He even shows us how to “do” love. He wraps a towel around his waist and washed his disciples feet. He takes the form of a servant - a slave - showing his followers what it means to love as he loves.

Notice one thing. For Jesus, “love” isn’t warm feelings toward someone else. He’s not telling us to feel a certain emotion for others. Love isn’t mere words.

For Jesus, love is action. Love is a verb. Love has dirt under its fingernails and mud on its boots. Love gets its hands dirty, because love means dealing people, and get into the messiness of their lives.

People can be petty, angry, mean, self-absorbed, obnoxious, short-sighted, and self-righteous.

But people can also be kind, generous, warm, and compassionate.

Often in the same person.

But Jesus never said it would be easy to love. But that’s the challenge, isn’t it? In fact, Jesus said that people would know we are God’s people by how much we love. People would know we are Christians by our loving actions.

That’s the new heaven and new earth that John talked about in our second lesson, where the world will be healed, where mourning and crying and pain will be no more, where everything will be made new.

John in Revelation is talking about a world - God’s world - where the consequences of our petty and self-centred ways - the ways of sin - are washed away, and only God’s way of love remains.

John is showing us a vision of God’s world where humans live in harmony with each other and the earth, where justice and peace reign over our lives, where life blossoms and grows all around us.

John is showing us God’s resurrection life for the world, where all the destructive forces that defy God’s loving purposes are drowned,  the new heaven and new earth unite, and all creation rejoices in God’s saving work.

And we see glimpses of that world when we find a towel wrapped around our waists, and we wash each others’ feet, when we wash the world’s feet, with no other agenda other than to love, to wipe clean, and to care for others and the world God made.

We see glimpses of that world when our self-centred ways are pushed aside and we see others - even our enemies - as God sees them, as beloved children who are loved beyond our ability to comprehend.

But, again, this is not easy, but it is God working through us. Loving people can be risky. It can hurt. It costs something.

Just ask Jesus. He knows something about the price of love. And he also know its worth.

Amen.