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This is normally the Sunday you let the junior member of the
Clergy preach. Why? Because they will note that it is Trinity Sunday. In noting
that it is Trinity Sunday they will take on the monumental task of trying (in
one sermon no less!) to explain God and how God is God, being three beings and
yet one God. What I have come to discover is something simple: God has revealed
himself as Father, Son and Spirit and that they are indeed 3 persons, one God. As
such, we need to recognize that the commission that we undertake is from God,
with God and for God’s sake. We need to see how we as individuals and as a
community fit into this mission and how we are chosen, called, blessed, and
sent by Christ, in Christ and for Christ and his kingdom.
The Godhead works together in community to make redemption
and salvation possible and available to all those who will come in the response
to God’s call upon them and their lives. “For those God foreknew, He also
predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the
firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined He also called; those
He called He also justified; those He justified He also glorified. What then
shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against
us?” (Romans 8:29-31 ESV)
What I believe is important in look at and considering
God is not the mental math we try to wind ourselves in because we have to
figure God out. Rather God wants us to God as a community of mission working
out the redemption and salvation of the creation that God loves and created,
that he might be with them and enjoy them forever.
The feasts of Ascension and of Pentecost (and of Easter as
well) that the work of the Church is to multiply the efforts that Jesus himself
was making. The Church is to reach out into the world and draw into its
fellowship, those who are called and bring them in. So in a real sense, this is
the day that the Church gets turned inside out so that we can work at turning
the world right side up again. Maybe you think that I might have slipped there.
I did not. You see, the world when it fell from its original grace into the sin
with the ensuing chaos, destruction, and death, it fell like a piece of bread
you have just buttered on to the floor, butter side down. God has reached down
to pick us up and there is still the need to clean up the floor. That is where
the Church comes in.
We are the Body of Christ and we are called to participate
in the drawing of people into relationship with Christ through the life of
Christ at work in all of us as the Church. As Bonhoefffer once said, ““The
Church is the Church only when it exists for others... not dominating, but
helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live
for Christ, to exist for others.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison. And I think
it needs to be said that trying to be rational, or philosophical is not going
to do the job we are asked to do. We need to be a part of the revelation and
the experience of living for God and with Christ through the Spirit.
In this moment, we go from being inside, in the upper room,
hiding in the dark, fearful what happens next and praying we are not found out.
Now we go from being in that room to be outdoors knowing and understanding that
we live in perilous times and in a wound and broken Church. How do I know that?
We live in a world where we see 20-25 seconds of a 9 minute video and suddenly
the world is a fire for all of the injustices in the world. Have you noticed?
What about the store owner or manager that called the police to come for Floyd
George and the cashier that was handed a potentially fake bill? Why have they
not been considered for anything? What about the person who took the 9 minute
(8 minutes and 46 seconds) of video and stood there while another human being
dies and no one is offended by that. How come? And lastly the wife of the police
officer who immediately filed for divorce: did she do it to avoid the media glower?
Did she do it to protect the property she has in case things go badly to
protect the lives of their children?
Not that long ago, we remember that Good Day when Jesus died
of asphyxiation. We recalled the pain, the darkness, and the suffering on that
hill, not just of Jesus but of others as well. We can evoke the silence and the
fear of the Saturday that leads into the joy, wonder and amazement of Easter
morning. The questions remain before us though: what is our next move? We are
called. We are chosen. We are blessed and we are sent. And as Archbishop Rowan
Williams would point out, “The hardest place to be is where we are.” Are we
staying in or getting out there?
Jason+
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