Trinity Sunday

By The Rev. Deacon Christine McCloud

Genesis 1:1-2:32
Corinthians 12:(5-10)11-14
Matthew 28:16-60

In the name of the God who created us, the Son who redeems us and the Spirit who sustains us. Amen.

Today is Trinity Sunday. It is one of those celebrations that is a real oddity for the church. It is the only day set aside on the Church calendar that asks us to ponder and consider, maybe even find some clarity, on one of Christianity's most fundamental and undoubtedly, probably one of the least clear doctrines -- the glorious, yet mysterious doctrine of the Holy Trinity. It is also probably the one Sunday of the year that many clergy seem to suddenly find their long lost relatives to bond with or they search doggedly for a guest preacher for the day. And let us pause in quiet for a brief moment and remember the hundreds of poor seminarians, who after weeks of grinding out research papers and honing up for final exams, find themselves standing in the pulpit on this Sunday to preach because its good practice for them. Me... well, always trying to be the good Deacon, just kind of put myself out there, said what the heck, and here I am.

You will be very happy to know that I'm not even going to attempt to stand here and try to explain the church's funny math to you. I can barely master basic math let alone try to think that I could actually explain, with any clarity, on how it is that Three -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -- equal One. See, to me, that's funny math and I'm staying far away from that. I also realize that the "traditional" definition of the Trinity is not going to help very much either. I remember the last time someone asked me to explain to them the concept of the Trinity. I am sad to report that my explanation left that person… and me… with more questions than we started off with.

So, I thought, let me turn to the real professionals, the theologians who have spent countless years dissecting and studying the Trinity. The Trinity is explained this way in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church: "the one God exists in three persons and one substance, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is one yet self-differentiated; the God who reveals Himself to mankind is one God equally in three distinct modes of existence, yet remains one through all eternity." There! I'm sure we all NOW understand this doctrine better. Right? I don't know about you, but I sure don't. I'll be honest with you, my eyes glazed over at the first reading of the definition and I certainly haven't gained any further insight since.

It's dawned on me that maybe… just maybe, the more I try to explain and define what the Trinity is the more I limit myself in understanding the fullness of the whole mystery of not only the doctrine of Trinity, but of God Him or Herself. When I slow myself down a bit and let the idea swirl around my mind a bit more, I realize that I can find a richness in the ambiguity of the language I struggle to seek in order to define this concept. The fact is, and I believe blessedly so, that I can not put my boundaries or limits on defining who God is -- He is totally without bounds and is limitless in His fullness -- both in my life and yours if we allow Him to be so.

So with all of that, it seems wise to focus on our readings this morning. In the Genesis reading, we have the creation story. God empties Himself into the creation in an act of self-giving love. Out of nothingness -- comes the fullness of life. This early community of faith knew God as their creator and in whose image they were created. Not only did they know God as their creator, but they knew -- sensed and felt it deeply -- God's love for them as children know the love of a parent. God was in an intimate relationship with them. He was the loving God who revealed himself to the prophets and as the protector, led them out of bondage and slavery. This is not a God who was far off -- He was a God in relationship with them -- even when things don't go so well and they strayed -- He continued to love them and showed his graciousness to them in spite of themselves.

God continued to pour Himself out to them and us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. God becomes flesh and dwells among us. It is Jesus who reveals God to us: the God who created us and is creator of all things; the God who watches over us and calls us into constant relationship with Him; the God who is just and loving, who heals and restores, who forgives and sets free. The disciples experienced directly how God acted in profound ways with His people. They didn't necessarily get it right away -- as a matter of fact, they didn't get it until Jesus' ascension. But, in the end, they came to realize the overwhelming love and care that God, through Jesus His son, poured out upon them. In Paul's letter to the Corinthians, he reminds them that when they agree with one another and live in peace with one another, the "God of love and peace will be with them [you]."

And in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus releases the power of the Holy Spirit upon them on the day of Pentecost as he promised them. The gift of The Holy Spirit brings them full circle with Jesus -- they are filled with life-giving and transformative joy -- which empowers them to go out into the world to "make disciples of all nations" and to bring those new disciples into the fullness of God's love and Jesus redemptive grace for all to live in.

Let's just spend a few moments with the Great Commission given in Matthew's Gospel. "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." This commissioning from God, through Christ, is simple and straightforward. Go and make disciples of all. Teach them to obey what I have commanded you – to love the Lord our God and to love one another as God has loved us. Baptize them. And pray down the Holy Spirit upon them so that they too may come to know the fullness of God's love for them.

What is important to remember about the Great Commission is that we are sent out into the world to be the proclaimers and doers of the Word. It is Jesus, through God who has ALL of the authority – not us. We are to be the vessels of grace and peace and hope and to welcome everyone to discover, freely and joyfully, for themselves, the goodness of God's mercy and love. We are not called to impose our standards or cultural norms upon them; instead, we are called to be faithful witnesses of the redemptive power of Christ and God's never-ending love for all.

The Trinity is the name that we give to the God of our Christian story of salvation. It is the adventure story of God, who creates all from nothing. It is about God becoming flesh and living among us – for all time through -- the power of the Spirit. It is God's story of unbridled love for us because it is His love that overcomes and beats down the power of death. It is the story of God's spirit that transforms and sustains us – who calls us from singleness into community with one another and with the One who loved us first and always.

Why do we take the time to celebrate Trinity Sunday? It is a time for us to pause and wrestle with who God is and how God reveals Himself to us -- to wrestle with who we are and how we are to live in our community of faith and how we are connected to one another. We take the time so that we can understand how God acts and lives in our lives so that we can go out and share with assurance the Good News of Christ in the world.

People who are non-believers don't simply come to believe in Jesus because we can articulate some well-formed doctrine or theology. They are drawn to Christ because they see how Jesus is revealed in and through our lives. They are converted and transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit because they witness the grace and love of Christ at work in and through their own lives. They are converted and transformed, because like us, they are caught up in the hands of the God who made us, redeemed us and will never let us go – in other words: caught up in the mysterious life and power of the Trinity.

This Sunday isn't about trying to explain unexplainable doctrine or to work our way through "funny math." It's a day for us to stretch our minds and consider who God is and how God engages us in ways that we might ordinarily take for granted and to examine what our relationship is to God today. It certainly isn't about knowing the right or wrong answers; it's about the willingness to embrace the mystery of the three different faces of God who is One. It's about taking the risk to truly experience for ourselves the completeness of God -- through Jesus – and allowing the Spirit to dwell not only within us, but to blow us out, into the world proclaiming with confidence the love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In Christ, with Christ, through Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit we are made one with God the Father. Let us go forth into the world proclaiming with boldness and assurance, the Good News of Christ, this day and always!

Amen.

© 2008 The Rev. Deacon Christine McCloud

Pentecost

By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector

"Come down O Love divine, and seek thou this soul of mine and visit it with thine own ardor glowing; O Comforter draw near, within my heart appear, and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing." In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

The Spirit of God is celebrated this day in this great feast of Pentecost. From the red streamers that marked the procession to the different clothes of red worn specifically for this day by people in the pews we echo and recall the first reading, that marvelous account in the Book of Acts about the manifestation of the Holy Spirit on the disciples in what appeared to be tongues of fire.

Not only did the surprised congregation see this wonder, they heard preaching, the good news of God's saving love, in their own languages. What for them was an amazing spectacle, a miracle, has become for us an icon of God's power and story of such richness that we can hear in our own ways, in our own languages if you will, what God calls out to us.

This particular story stands in perfect contrast to another story in the Bible, that of the Tower of Babel. The word is pronounced Bay-bell not Babble, as is often understandably used because of all the babbling that ensued, but I assure you the word is Bay-bell. Genesis chapter 11 describes a point in the early time of creation when everyone spoke one language. A group decided to build a tower as a memorial to themselves for future generations. So successful was this tower that God realized ther was nothing people would stop at and that nothing would be impossible for them. Rather than seeing this as a good thing, God put a stop to it by confusing their languages and scattering them abroad over the face of the earth. The implication of the story is that we can get lost in our own success and abilities to the point where we forget that God is still God, and that we are not. The Tower of Babel stands as a memorial, not to human ingenuity but humanity's reckless ambition.

The story of Pentecost takes this and turns it around bringing all the languages together in one voice praising God and living not in competition with God, but in harmony and purpose. The unity of this voice was not to celebrate the greatness of humanity, but the greatness of God's love in saving humanity from ourselves.

Some of you know that last week I took some time and went for a vacation to Germany. It was a wonderful trip where I visited friends who live in Munich, and enjoyed seeing the sights of that great city as well as renting a car and driving around the region from Munich to Salzburg, Austria, to the high Bavarian Alps seeking the Castle of Neuschwanstein, built by King Ludwig II and used by Walt Disney as the model for his signature Magic Kingdom. Talk about a Tower of Babel! The castle was the pet project of King Ludwig as a monument ot his own ingenuity, but the building of it bankrupted him and caused the leadership around him to have him declared insane and removed from power. Two days later his body and that of his doctor were mysteriously found drowned in the lake near the castle. The castle itself was lived in for three months and remains two thirds unfinished in the interior. That which is finished is breath taking in beauty and opulence and set in an alpine beauty of unsurpassed and indeed magical grandeur. But like its Biblical predecessor becomes a monument to vanity and dangerous foolishness.

Pentecost brings God into the world of our understanding through a fire and passion of love that we cannot keep within ourselves but have to proclaim or it will burn inside us. We have to let it out and in doing so let it flow through with healing power and loving gratitude.

This feast day is a cap to the array of Easter stories. The connecting symbol liturgically is the Paschal Candle located in the center of the church. This candle, first lit at the Easter vigil represents the resurrected Christ and burns each Sunday within the body of the church as a symbol of Christ's presence and resurrection.

The movement of stories goes from the Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday through the seeming defeat and brutality of Good Friday, the death and Resurrection of Jesus, the post resurrection ministry for forty days, the Ascension and promise of the Holy Spirit and the fulfillment of that promise that first Pentecost after the Ascension. As stories they are surpassing rich in symbol and spiritual truths. One of the most fantastic things about Biblical stories is that they describe in story themes that occur over and over again in our lives. Themes of great and often misunderstood potential, crushing defeat, rising again from pain, a new understanding and rebirth of hope to the fire of new commitment and outward journey.

We hear these themes over and over again because we need to as our lives take these paths over and over again in different and ever changing ways. Our lives are full of challenges and struggles that can beat us down or build us up and make us stronger. We are powerful and strong people, but it is not our greatness that is energizing us, but the greatness of God moving though us to achieve and be agents of grace and love in a world so needy to drink it in.

A couple weeks ago we hosted a priest from Connecticut who shared some of the lessons learned by the church he serves that brought rebirth to their congregation. They were not new lessons as much as reminders of our mission to bring what we have in here, out there. The mantra of his church is that they are there for the people not yet there. It's a good reminder for us too. We are here not for ourselves alone, but for those not yet here who are looking for us and don't know where to find us. We have the Spirit of God burning in us in a way unique to us. We experience God as inclusive and loving and open without barrier or conditions. There are too many people in this world who have been excluded or hated or denied and barred from communities that present themselves as people of God and yet do horrendous things using God's name. The abuses of one community can turn the seeker away but cannot squash the desire to find God. In the pain and confusion that remains there need to be voices of intelligence and reason, voices of compassion and love, voices of acceptance and toleration, voices of openness and inclusion, voices in different tongues, but speaking the universal language of God's love and grace.

One of the reasons we repeat the biblical stories over and over again is to remind ourselves continually of the healing power it has for us and to take seriously our need to be channels of that love for others. Part of the problem in the religious communities is that we can get stuck in one of the stages of that wonderful Easter saga. Whether it's remaining stuck in a state of perpetual potential, or in a defeated attitude, or in an exalted state of resurrection alone, the community becomes stagnant and in danger of dying spiritually. Each of those segments leads to the need to bring the message outside and have it flow through us to others. We cannot keep God's love bottled up inside us or the hope or promise we've received. We have to let it out and bring it to those desperately looking for it.

What a joy it is to celebrate this wonderful feast on Mother's Day. Our mothers provide another view of giving birth to new life, facing the challenges and frustrations inherent in raising struggling and often willful seekers. And yet find in the joy in the midst. Life is a series of holding and letting go to each new phase of life. Cycles of grace and discovery, promise and fulfillment. Yet even in the midst of occasional disappointment or perhaps even failure, remembering that it is God who is the ultimate source of life and love. We are all channels of it in our own way and with our own voices. And in that way we speak one language declaring the goodness of God. Amen.

© 2008 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ