Playful and Outrageous Ideas will Bring in Gods Dream!

Sermon for Trinity Sunday May 27, 2018

Year B – RCL

Isaiah 6:1-8

Psalm 29

Romans 8:12-17

John 3:1-17

There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Today is Trinity Sunday – or perhaps it is better to call it heresy Sunday for that is often what happens when a preacher tries to explain the Trinity.  It is so easy to fall into the trap of the heresy of modalism.  If you hear a sentence that starts with “The Trinity is like…” then you are likely falling into heresy.  One image of the Trinity that is in this church is in the high altar window.  In the center of the left-hand panel is a representation of the Trinity that is from the Athanasian creed.  The Trinitarian shield in the window has at its center God and the three points of the triangle are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The lines connecting the three say “is not” so the Father is not the son and the son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Son and so forth. The lines that go onto the center say “is”  The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.  I could have us all read the Athanasian Creed but I am still not sure that it would explain the Trinity.  I think it can suffice to say that the Trinity is our feeble human description of God.  And I shall leave it at that for my nod to Trinity Sunday – because the lessons today are too good to ignore and preaching on a doctrine is likely to put us all to sleep.

I love the lesson today from the Gospel of John.  There is a wonderful interplay between the Pharisee Nicodemus and Jesus.  Nicodemus comes in the dark to see the itinerate Rabbi Jesus only to be totally confounded by Jesus.  Jesus in essence tells Nicodemus that the only one who really knows God and heaven is the one who came down from God – that is only Jesus fully knows God.  And poor Nicodemus is further confused when Jesus tells him he needs to be “born again”.  Nicodemus is too literal and cannot imagine going “back into the womb” as an adult.  Jesus tries to explain that it is a spiritual new birth that we need to undergo to enter into relationship with the Godhead. 

This new spiritual birth is about relationship with God.  It is about relationship with creation.  It is not about a personal relationship with Jesus.  It is about a relationship with the God who so loves the world that God reaches out again and again to show is the way.

God so loves this world that he sent Jesus to show us the way.  A way that is relational to all of God’s wonderful creation.  A way that is expressed in Love.  The Love that came down as an infant on Christmas, the Love that walked as fully human among humankind, the Love that we tried to kill on the cross, the Love that refused to die and rose again on Easter.  The Love that we try over and over again to kill. 

We try to kill the Love when we don’t love all of God’s creation.  We try to kill that Love when we do not see our fellow travelers as beloved children of God – We try to kill that Love when we talk about our un-homed brothers and sisters as somehow less than fully human instead of working for a housing system that does not price people out of the market.  We try to kill the Love when we somehow think that people whose skin or language do not match our own are somehow inferior and treat them as less than fully human.  We try to kill the Love every time we judge others.  God’s dream is that we would turn around and learn to love God and Love God’s creation in all its wonderful diversity.  God loves us and wants nothing more than for us to understand that love and multiply it by mirroring God’s love in this world. 

Our Presiding Bishop seemed to stun the world at the Royal wedding last week when his wedding sermon focused on God’s love and God’s commandment that we participate in that Love.  That we go out into this world and base all of our transactions on Love.  If we could do that we would not have homelessness.  We would not have war.  We could not have racism and misogyny.  If we can find a way to operate out of a place of love instead of focusing on making ourselves great and prosperous we will find that Kingdom of God has drawn near – indeed if we can all operate from a framework of Love God’s dream for us would be fulfilled and we will have created a heaven on earth. 

In our Gospel lesson we also hear that God came as Jesus not to condemn the world but to save the world. God came to show us an example of how to Love.  Jesus gathered the most unlikely folks around him – at least unlikely if one was expecting God to come with an avenging army to set us straight.  Jesus did not seek out the rulers of his time but instead drew the outcasts and sick.  Jesus did not Judge the sickness and lowliness of his followers but instead broke bread with them and loved and healed them. 

Jesus called them, and us, into a different world.  A spirit filled world that works to sow love where there is hate.  To sow peace where there is discord.  To open to a new and wonderful way of being.  And after over 2000 years we are still wrestling with what it means to Love God and Love our Neighbor.  We are still wrestling with what it means to live a Spirit filled life.  Our society in general it seems would have us hide in our locked rooms and dehumanize the other.  Our society has entered into a time of self that does not seem to recognize that the diversity of creation is what will lead us to God. 

The myth of the individual will not bring God’s love to earth.  We cannot really love God if we only love ourselves.  We can only love God when we love all of God’s beloved children.  We can only love God when we go out of our churches and operate from a position of love.  And that is hard.  It is just as counter cultural today as it was when Nicodemus used the cover of night to visit Jesus – because Jesus hung out with the wrong people and a Good Pharisee would not want to be seen acknowledging that Jesus was “of God”.

How do we change our society?  At clergy conference this week Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves from the Diocese of El Camino Real told us that in part we help usher in God’s Kingdom when we enter into dialog with each other.  Dialogue not just listening to each other but true two way dialogue.  We do that when we learn with each other in relationship.  We do that when we are creative.  One way is to carefully ask the questions that will create dialogue and draw us into relationship with God and with each other.  And framing the questions is important to figuring out how to change from a closed self-centered society into a love-centered spirit-filled community.

Are we asking the right questions?  Are we asking the questions that will help us learn what God would have us do?  “How do I stay safe?” is probably not the right question.  That type of question implies that we need to exclude “the other” because they will make us unsafe.  It is a question that can lead us to judging our neighbor instead of loving our neighbor. 

But what if we switch it to a relational question such as “How do we work to create structures and systems that support and love all as beloved children of God?”  Then we have a question that focuses on loving God’s creation and does not at the beginning set us up to judge.  We have a question that may still have an aspect of safety and create safe spaces.  But instead of individual safety it is safety for all of God’s beloved children.

If we are to bring about God’s dream of love, if we are going to let the Spirit that was given to us by God lead our lives we need to ask ourselves the right questions.  Questions that will lead us into a learning community.  Questions that will lead us into changing the world. 

Another point that Bishop Mary made was that we should be playful and outrageous when we think of questions and ways to bring God’s dream of Love into the world.  She told us that in Silicon Valley the people who make prototypes of the next great thing are encouraged to make at least one prototype that is outrageous or playful.  It is by being playful and outrageous that has allowed Apple and others to create wondrous products that are not just a linear evolution of the last thing that was built.  And I can tell you as a scientist some of our greatest discoveries happen when we are not even looking for them! 

One of my outrageous ideas for the church is to figure ways to open her to all of God’s beloved Children.  Some of you have heard my crazy ideas before.  What if build a tower in our parking lot that houses un-homed folks.  Perhaps we do that when we open our sacred spaces to programs that are not considered “churchy”.  Programs that help build a just society.

We are doing some of that now.  We open our parish hall to Safe Space.  A program that provides food and services to un-homed youth.  A program that at least once a month includes a creativity area where people can do art or sing along with a band.   They take over our parking lot and our parish hall for these services. 

What if we were to open this space to them?  It is much larger than the parish hall.  What if we turned this space into Café St. Paul’s during the week - and I mean with the round tables set up and the coffee pots going and found ways to partner with the community to bring resources in here to support our community?  Opened to both the un-homed youth and the other people in our area that are in need of support and safe places to rest.  What if we had medical screening in this place? What if we had mental health screenings.

Well for one thing It would likely be messy.  But God never promised that the Kingdom of Love would be neat and orderly.  Much of Jesus’ ministry was messy!  It would likely mean more work to get the place ready for Sundays.  But perhaps it would also help us show that God so loves this world that God was willing to walk among us and with us.  It could just bring a little bit of the Kingdom into being.

Sounds like a fantasy – I know.  But if we don’t try some crazy and playful things our churches are likely to continue to become irrelevant for many in our community.  It sounds impossible for our small congregation to make changes in how our society operates. In our letter from Paul to the Romans we hear that “have received a spirit of adoption. ... we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ…” We are children of God which means that we can change the world because we are filled with God the Holy Spirit.  And I can tell you that Holy Spirit will drive us to do wonderfully crazy and love filled actions.  
Actions that will bring God’s dream of Love to this corner of 15^th and J streets and to the world.  What crazy or playful ideas do you have that will help builds God’s kingdom?

Amen.

And God Said it Was Good!

Sermon for Trinity Sunday – Year A RCL

June 11, 2017

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

Psalm 8

2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Matthew 28:16-20

The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “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.”

Today is Trinity Sunday.  A day where there is a great temptation on the part of preachers everywhere to do one of two – perhaps three things.  The first is to get someone else to preach!  After all that is why we have lay preachers right?  Perhaps if I was smart I would have asked someone else to preach today.  The second is to ignore the Trinity in the sermon entirely and the third might be to actually try to explain the doctrine of the trinity and why it matters in today’s society.  Which will almost inevitably lead down the road to heresy.  My favorite heresy in explaining the trinity is one called modalism.  It is where we look around us and find that matter operates in a Trinitarian nature and try to use that to explain God.  You know you are on thin ice when you start out saying "the trinity is like..."

When I took the General Ordination Examinations – or as some call it God’s Own Exam we were promised that the theology question would never ask us to explain the trinity.  Well… when the appointed hour came I refreshed the browser on my computer and up popped the question.

 “Dorothy Sayers famously observed that if people depended upon the Church to answer the question, "What is the Trinity?" the vast majority of people would respond:

"'The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the whole thing incomprehensible.' Something put in by the theologians to make it more difficult - nothing to do with daily life or ethics."

Drawing on the allowed resources and your own understanding, write an essay of approximately 1,500 words explaining how the doctrine of the Trinity is relevant to "daily life or ethics."

As you might guess a collective gasp could be heard from everyone scattered around the seminary who were taking the exam.  And perhaps there where a few expletives uttered as well.  After all we were promised that we would never have to explain the trinity on the GOEs!

I will save you the torture of reading you my paper.  I will just say that it was the only question that I almost did not get completed in time and it was the only question that I did not do so well on.  So perhaps that makes me completely unqualified to preach today and I really should have asked someone else.

In the years since that fateful exam I have come to the conclusion that we really miss the mark when we try to explain God.  We as humans are always trying to come up with explanation for things.  We are not comfortable with the mystery and so we need something to hang onto.  I think that is why it is hard for some folk to grasp the nature of God the Holy Spirit.  She is too nebulous for us.  A wind and fire. A driving force that flows through us.  Much easier to understand Jesus – the divine taking on human form and walking among us.  It is so much easier to comprehend God the Father – the creator. We can visualize something called a father.  And then when we try to explain how they can all be one God.  Well that is where we loose people – or head straight into heresy.  The doctrine of the trinity is one that was created to try and help the church explain how we experience God and how we relate to God.  It is only relevant to todays society when it drives us out to do mission.  It is only relevant when we let the trinity work through us to usher in God’s dream.

Which is what we are being commanded to do in our lessons today.  In the story of creation in Genesis we have God creating all of creation. As the spirit moves upon the waters of creation all things come into being.  And in relationship with each other God declares that all of creation is Good.  Humanity being created in the image of God is then asked to take care of that good creation.  To be stewards of the creation in relationship with that creation and in relationship with God. 

In the Gospel from Matthew we hear the Great Commission. This is the end of the Gospel and the resurrected Jesus is giving his disciples – both then and now a commandment and a promise.  The commandment is that we are to actively go out and make disciples of the nations.  Making disciples is an active verb.  It is not a passive thing.  We are commanded to go out and make.

And I think it is important here to note that we are not to go out and conquer nations.  That is not the command.  Jesus says we are to spread and follow his commandments as we go forth.  And to recruit other people to follow his commandments.  There are no commandments of Jesus about forcibly making people do things.  If we look at how Jesus recruited his followers it was not with the threat of eternal damnation if they did not follow.  It was with the grace of healing – with words like “your faith as made you whole”  It was with the simple words – Come.  Follow me.  Jesus’ desire was to recruit people to get all of creation back into relationship with creation and with God.  And Jesus demonstrated that to make disciples happens not through force or coercion but through reconciliation and through love. 

The promise in the Great Commission is that Jesus – that God – will be with us always.  Not that we have to invoke God to appear when we find it convenient but that God is always with us.  And with God in us and working through us we are asked to reconcile, heal and love.  We are called to go out of our selves and out of our churches into our neighborhood and into our workplaces and with God in us change society.  Bring creation back into balance.  We are called to be good stewards of Gods creation and see it all as Good. 

What kind of difference would it make in our lives if we recognized the presence of God working through us in everything we did?  What if we started every action with “in the name of God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit” or if you prefer “God – creator, reconciler, redeemer” before we acted?  If we did that it would be hard to do some of the hurtful things that happen around us. 

Oh I know humanity has started wars and mistreated all of creation in the name of God.  But I am talking about making the realization that God is part of all of us and in all of us.  Those who invoke God to hurt and destroy do it by ignoring the God in all of creation.  It really is not possible to follow Christ and say in the name of God I hate God!  You can’t call someone an abomination if you recognize that they too have God with them and within them. Because then you are really calling God an abomination.  Think about it.  If we are following the great commandment to love God and Love neighbor and Love ourselves we can’t honestly invoke God to hate. 

Because our God from the beginning of creation saw that it was Good.  Saw that creation is loved.  God created a creation in relationship and in balance and through time we – as the God given stewards of creation have destroyed relationships and destroyed the balance.  And God’s dream and commandment is for us – with God in us – is to recreate that balance.  To return to God’s economy where all of creation is nurtured and all of creation is good.

We are called and commissioned to show the world that God’s dream is one of peace, reconciliation and love.  It is a dream where we can truly look around us and at our neighbor – and like God did at the beginning of creation say it is Good.  This creation of God’s is very good.  And we are called as stewards to spread that goodness by going out into our neighborhoods and into our workplaces and help to turn society back right side up!

Dancing with God

Sermon for Trinity Sunday 2016

Year C – RCL

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Psalm 8

Romans 5:1-5

John 16:12-15

Jesus said to the disciples, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you."

Today is Trinity Sunday. A Sunday where I would rather not preach!  At least not try to explain to you all the doctrine of the Trinity.  When I took the General Ordinations Examination – or God’s Own Exam as someone joked – we had been promised that we should not worry about the theology question because “the general board of examining chaplains would never ask us to explain the Trinity in 1500 words."  When much to my surprise upon opening the theology question I read:

“Dorothy Sayers famously observed that if people depended upon the Church to answer the question, "What is the Trinity?" the vast majority of people would respond:

"'The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the whole thing incomprehensible.' Something put in by the theologians to make it more difficult - nothing to do with daily life or ethics."

Drawing on the allowed resources and your own understanding, write an essay of approximately 1,500 words explaining how the doctrine of the Trinity is relevant to "daily life or ethics."”

At which point I think I may have uttered a string of expletives.  And then struggled with how – using limited resources – I was to write the essay.  I will tell you it is the one essay that I almost did not complete in time – and it was the one essay that they found problems with.  Probably because I tried to find a rational way to explain the God.  I tried to come up with metaphors using my science background that usually head into what the church would label heresy. 

It is so tempting to start explaining the Trinity  by saying “The Holy Trinity is like…” and then get into trouble.  It certainly is true that the doctrine of the trinity is not one of those things that we sit around the table at coffee hour and talk about.  It is true that some people hear Christians talk about “God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit” and think we worship three separate God’s and not one. 

The important thing for me – right now – is that the doctrine of the Trinity was developed in the early church to explain how they, and we, experience God.  It is that experiential piece where I think – today – that we can start.  And we can start by trying not too hard to figure this all out.  We need to let some mystery be part of this discussion too. 

In the little snippet from John’s Gospel we hear again the promise that once Jesus is gone the spirit of truth will be with us and “will guide us into all truth.”  I notice that there is not the promise that we will have all truth handed down to us on a platter. That we will not suddenly have perfect knowledge but that we will be led into truth.  There is movement - it is a dance through life that guides us unto truth.  It is in community that we find the truth.  It is in the poetry of life that we find truth.  It is the dance with God that is called theology that we find truth.  It is both the beauty and the messiness of life that we find God.

I can’t do theology without other people.  I can’t do theology without all of you.  That wonderful dance with God happens best when it is shared with others. 

On Thursday we had a funeral for one of the members of the community Ricky – who came here for the food closet and for community dinners.  A number of the people who came to the funeral where not regular church goers and did not necessarily know about the service.

But what they did know is that they were here to say goodbye.  They knew that they were here to comfort each other and so during communion there was some wonderful sharing.  Not the silence we are used to during communion.  It was – in a word – messy and un-Episcopalian!  It was in a better word Sprit-filled and wonderful.  God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit – the singular God who comforts and leads us into truth was present.

It was in offering a place for sharing and saying goodbye that I saw God at work.  Where I saw all three members of the Trinity in evidence as God the Father comforted the bereaved, God the Son promised eternal life and God the Holy Spirit breathed life into the community.

[pause]

I saw a wonderful banner for the Trinity recently.  It has the three intertwined circled that is used as one of the symbols for the Trinity.  But instead of the three circles being solid they had the impression that they were in constant motion. They depict a complex dance between the three circles but each circle is also its own dance.  And it is a dance with no beginning and no end.  It is a dance that we are invited to join in and enter into at any point on any of the three circles.

And so I am still left with the quote from Dorothy Sayers “"'The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the whole thing incomprehensible.' Something put in by the theologians to make it more difficult - nothing to do with daily life or ethics."  And I still am tempted to start out and explanation of the Trinity by saying the “Trinity is like…” But really that is not the point.

It is when we approach God from a place of doctrine and dogma that we find no relevance to our daily life and ethics.  But instead when we approach God from a place of love and enter into the dance with the Holy Trinity we will find relevance to our daily life. 

We find God when we feed the hungry, cloth the naked and visit the prisoner.  We find God when we allow the messiness of grief to come into our lives.  We find God when we provide hospitality to those who society believes have no place at the table. 

It is in this wonderful dance with all its messiness, all its mystery, and all its beauty where we find God. A God who calls us into community and calls us to work to bring the Dance of God’s love to all of creation.