The Readings--(The Message)
The Scripture:
II Corinthians 2: 11-14
And that's about it, friends. Be cheerful. Keep things in good repair. Keep your spirits up. Think in harmony. Be agreeable. Do all that, and the God of love and peace will be with you for sure. Greet one another with a holy embrace. All the brothers and sisters here say hello. The amazing grace of the Savior, Jesus Christ, the extravagant love of God, the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit, be with all of you.
The Gospel:
Matthew 28: 16-20
Meanwhile, the eleven disciples were on their way to Galilee, headed for the mountain Jesus had set for their reunion. The moment they saw him they worshiped him. Some, though, held back, not sure about worship, about risking themselves totally.
Jesus, undeterred, went right ahead and gave his charge: "God authorized and commanded me to commission you: Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Creator, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I'll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age."
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The Power of Three 6-19-11
God, our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, fill our hearts with a desire to walk in your ways. Grant us your perfect peace and set our feet to dancing in the knowledge of your everlasting love. Amen
I don’t know which is worse—trying to preach about the Trinity or having to listen to yet another preacher trying to explain it in yet another attempt to make it “make sense”. So, I feel a little between a rock and hard place, knowing that, yes, it is Trinity Sunday—the only Sunday in the Christian year where we are called upon to preach not about the teachings of Jesus, or the prophets of the Old Testament, or the historical narratives of the Jewish and Christian people, but rather about a doctrine that didn’t even come into being until 350 years after Jesus walked on this earth. And what is the question that caused the early Church to ponder and try to resolve the mystery of the trinity—it is this, if God is one God, why do we talk about the God-head as three persons?—we just sang about it—“God in three persons, blessed Trinity”—however, that question has never truly been answered in a way that it universally understood or accepted. The Church Fathers (and, yes, sadly it seems they were all men) met and pronounced simply that we would believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We find these declarations in creeds—you may have heard of them: the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed being the two most widely used. But saying it does not necessarily mean believing it and so the discussion continues to today.
Almost two thousand years later, along came feminist theory and theology, and one of the first things these women said was this: it just can’t be—we cannot have a God who is represented by an old man, a young man, and a bird (meaning the dove representing the Holy Spirit). What these brave women did, most of all, is allow us to challenge the traditional ways we have looked at God, to see beyond mere “names” for God and begin to talk about who God is and what God does in this world. We began to see that calling God “father” doesn’t work for some of us—that we need to work hard to expand our notions of the Eternal to include ‘acting’ and ‘being’ words. For some, God is a verb—a force of motion and action. For myself, I use a trinity of being words to describe God: creator, redeemer, sustainer.
Still we do not altogether understand. How is it possible that God places us squarely in the middle of this mystery and, seemingly, fails to give us the answers we seek. Perhaps it is because it is just that, a mystery. And while we have no need to completely understand the “how” of the mystery, we do need to develop language to convey to the world the “what” of the mystery. What is this God doing among us? How does walking with the Divine affect us? Why would anyone else want to do the same?
Many have tried to come up with explanations. Rev. Richard Fairchild, of the United Church of Canada, compares the doctrine of the Trinity to atomic theory. He says, “We all learned in school that everything in the universe is made up of atoms, which are themselves made up of tiny particles called protons, neutrons and electrons. That protons and neutrons together make up a nucleus, and that the electrons orbit around this nucleus sort of like the planets in our solar system orbit around the sun. But there is no scientist who really believes that this simple model fully explains the substance of matter. Nuclear physics is much more complex…. The most educated physicist will tell you we will probably never know everything about atoms and subatomic particles. The atomic theory is just a model that explains something about how atoms work. It doesn't tell everything about what they are.” He goes on to suggest: “So it is with the Trinity. The idea of the Trinity tells us something about how God is revealed to us, how God works in human events. But it doesn't fully tell us WHO or WHAT God is. And I guess that is the secret of this experience we have of God - this understanding we have of God as a trinity - it doesn't tell us fully - but it tells us some important stuff none-the-less.”
And so, this week, I have pondered anew, all of the ways that I have tried to understand the Trinity over the years. Probably the most common attempt to describe the Trinity is the one using the three forms of H2O (water)—ice, liquid, and steam—to illustrate the three forms of God in the Trinity. Strangely enough, that is one of the least satisfying for me because it completely fails to say anything about what God is doing in our midst. Some of you may have memories of other explanations that you have heard—if you want to share those with me, I’d be grateful for next year!
Many of you know that I treasure butterflies. Truth be told, it is because, as an adolescent, when I was the most miserable kid in all of Apopka, Florida, I secretly believed that I would one day hatch into a beautiful butterfly. This thought sustained me more than once when I found myself throughout my life in places where life and, sometimes, God, failed to make sense. This week, I got to thinking about the life cycle of the butterfly as a way to understand what God is doing in our lives, in our church, and in our world, as three distinct, yet unified, processes.
In the first place, the butterfly, which starts as an egg, hatches into a larva or caterpillar. Creation occurs! Catepillars do little other than crawl around and eat leaves and flowers. They eat almost constantly, as the creative process continues as the caterpillar grows and develops. The caterpillar molts or loses its old skin many, many times as it grows and creation continues to get the caterpillar ready for the next step.
After some time, the caterpillar turns into a chrysalis. At this point, to the outside world, it appears that nothing much is happening. We know, however, that many, many things are happening. The caterpillar is being redeemed—transformed. Just as we are transformed by learning and following the teachings of Jesus, we are being transformed from within. We heard it last week: Paul calling us to be transformed from within by following all that we know about the reign of God’s justice as proclaimed by Jesus. As for our butterfly, although many scientists do, it is incorrect to call this stage in the life cycle, the resting stage—transformation is hard work whether in the cocoon of a butterfly or in the quiet spaces of your soul as you allow God to work in your heart through the teachings of Jesus.
I am reading right now, a book called “Wrestling with Grace”, by Robert Corrin Morris. This book was the source of our Centering Meditation today. It is a book about growing in faith in the midst of challenges. I would imagine that our chrysalis is quite challenged in its work of transformation deep in the cocoon it has spun for itself. This is what Morris says about growing up in God through challenges: “Challenge by challenge, we can let the image of God within us be provoked into a growing-up process…What will the next challenge be? Trying to serve God rather than [others]? Learning to say no when we need to and yes when that response is called for? …Taking time to go “into thy closet” to pray in secret? Developing a gift we’ve been given? Forgiving someone from our heart? Reaching out beyond our own comfortable group? Taking up our cross—for example, being willing to speak up against oppression in a situation where we can make a difference even though it may be risky?...More and more we become “partners of Christ”… Only in learning how to live this way do the deepest yearnings and powers of our own nature unfold in health, vigor, and grace.”
And we return to our butterfly process: finally, when the work is done, a beautiful, flying adult creature emerges. Flying in the spirit to places only dreamed of, the butterfly’s energy is sustained, just as is ours, by the Wind of the Spirit. And God, the Sustainer, as the Holy Spirit, infuses our very being, our every thought, our love for ourselves and each other. And the joy of this stage results in the planting of eggs, reproducing the species and the process time and time again. Likewise, as we fly free in the Spirit, as beautifully winged creatures, we reproduce the process in the lives of others whom God allows and leads us to touch along the way.
I do not know where each of you are in your three-fold process today. But I believe that you are all in a process much like the one I have described. Your presence here today is evidence of that seeking for something more or of your need to celebrate such great gifting by this God who creates, redeems and sustains us even as we are loved and treasured into being. Let this be a place where people can stretch their wings of grace and fly. Amen and amen!
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