Sermon for Trinity Sunday May 27, 2018
Year B – RCL
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 15th and J streets and to the world. What crazy or playful ideas do you have that will help builds God’s kingdom?
Actions that will bring God’s dream of Love to this corner of 15th and J streets and to the world. What crazy or playful ideas do you have that will help builds God’s kingdom?
Amen.
