June 16 -- Holy Trinity Sunday

“Praise, my dear ones, let us disappear into praising.  Nothing belongs to us.” (R.M.Rilke) AMEN. 

When I was a boy, growing up, we used to spend some of our summer vacations visiting Grandma and Grandpa Roschke in Kansas City, Missouri.  

And one of my favorite things to do there, I remember, was to go with my brothers and my cousins, to one of the city centers (I think it was downtown)...and play in the jumping fountains.  Ever seen one of these?

We would put our swim suits and Mom would put our sunscreen on in the hot Midwest summer.  And we’d all go down to the jumping fountains, and try to catch the water,  shooting from one pod to the next.  We’d try to figure out the pattern of the jumping fountain, but we never could.  And then after an interval of sporadic jumping water, the whole fountain would just explode with a huge shower!  And then quiet again.

I just remember so much laughing and squealing with glee and holding onto each other (both in teasing and in joy)...  And I remember when you got hit with that water [gasp] how cold and shocking it was (our parents would take pictures of our faces), and at the same time how refreshing it was.  It’s hard to talk about it and not smile…

The memories of that place—from another time in my life—come flooding back this day as I think about the Holy Trinity on this Holy Trinity Sunday, first Sunday after Pentecost, the beginning of what many of our liturgical brothers and sisters call Ordinary Time, what I have called Outside Time or the Green Season.

And it all starts today, on this Father’s Day, with the celebration of the Holy Trinity!  

What can we say of God, the Holy Trinity?

My guess is that pastors everywhere are sheepishly and humbly approaching church pulpits today—or at least they should be—because whenever you talk about the Trinity, you’re always in danger of committing heresy.

This might seem silly to us now: just say what you want to say about God...it’s a free country, right?  What’s the big deal?  In recent years, I haven’t heard a whole lot of synod assemblies arguing about the nature of Christ, and God the Son’s relationship to and with God the Father.  

   

But please remember today, that the early Christians really went to the mat on this stuff.  (Human sexuality and biblical interpretation, positions on war or women’s rights — the things we fight about: nothing compared to those controversies.)  Some wanted to say that there was a pecking order to the Holy Trinity: God the Father, Jesus the Son (who was a little bit less than God the Father) and then Holy Spirit...just like this extra bird or something.

But Athanasius really put the nail in Arius’ theological coffin.  Arius was the one who wanted to say that that God the Father was greater than God the Son.  Remember the Athanasian Creed from the old green hymnal, the LBW?  We used to always say this on Holy Trinity Sunday...

We worship one God in Trinity, and the Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons, nor dividing the divine being. For the Father is one person, the Son is another, and the Spirit is still another. But the deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, coeternal in majesty. What the Father is, the Son is, and so is the Holy Spirit.

Uncreated is the Father; uncreated is the Son; uncreated is Spirit.

The Father is infinite; the Son is infinite; the Holy Spirit is infinite.

Eternal is the Father; eternal is the Son; eternal is the Spirit:

And yet there are not three eternal beings, but one who is eternal;

as there are not three uncreated and unlimited beings,

     but one who is uncreated and unlimited.

Almighty is the Father; almighty is the Son; almighty is the Spirit:

And yet there are not three almighty beings, but one who is almighty. 

Still with me?  This Trinity stuff is crazy.  But it should not just be tossed out: “Who cares?”  This is the doctrine we confess, to which we cling, which gives us hope and joy (actually) and is the basis for a rich theological tradition...to which Luther subscribed, and we many, many years later still put on this great outfit called the Trinity/our creeds.  To think that God the Spirit, is equal to God the Father, is equal to God the Son, who we name as Jesus!

Just trying to wrap our head around this, with the words of these ancient creeds, we start to enter into the mystery and the wonder of our God.  That God is not someone we can capture.  Saying these old creeds, while at first for us might seem restricting or limiting or too doctrinal — 

I’d actually encourage you to see these creeds (these fabulous outfits) rather as a threshold—or an entry way—into a wondrous relationship with God and with one another!   Put them on, and let the fun begin.

And so I began with an image of children playing in a jumping fountain — I tried to put words around and onto an experience that I really can’t put words around. [pause] But I hope you could at least catch the joy, even in my meager telling of that time in the jumping fountain…[pause]

...so it is with God:

We like children revel in the majesty of God’s splendor...even in this life, not just in the life hereafter.  Can’t accurately put words on it, exactly.  We laugh and run, we hold each other, sometimes we hurt each other, we are soaked with the waters of our baptism — and sometimes that’s shocking and freezing, but mostly it’s a joy, it is refreshing/renewing.  And we keep coming back to those waters to play, whether we’re 3 or 83... 

One of the newer hymns for Holy Trinity in our red hymnal is called “Come, Join the Dance of Trinity”.  Here is a modern hymn writer, shifting away from an explanation of the mystery of the Trinity—not in a heretical way—but rather imagining us people of God as being interwoven with God, caught up in the “dance” of the Trinity...I would say, reveling in the jumping fountain of our Triune God.  

Like that fountain in Kansas City, we can’t really figure out the pattern of God, but that doesn’t matter.  That’s not our job.  

All we can do is bask in God’s splendor and beauty.  Feel God’s love drench us and chill us, and hold onto one another.  This is life in the swirling, jumping Trinity!  We can’t ever fully put our finger on it.   And so we play and enjoy and try; we are helped today by a poem in Proverbs, a psalm, by Paul, and the Gospel of John, by our prayers and several hymn writers, through the text of our liturgy, and a sermon, and the gift of bread and wine.  

Friends, we are drawn together into the life of our unfathomable, “immortal, invisible God, only wise.” We revel in the mystery, we dance in the Trinity, we are swept up, soaked and filled with joy, as our praises today reach the rafters and our spirits soar in thanksgiving!  

To our Triune God be the glory, forever and ever!  AMEN. AMEN. AMEN.

June 9 -- Pentecost Sunday

It is so hard to do Pentecost again, isn’t it?  I mean, in our ordered, structured, controlled and many ways comfortable lives, our Confession and call to worship — more poetic, today — I think, kind of nailed it:  “So we listen, depart, and return to our ordered existence: we depart with only a little curiosity but not yielding; we return to how it was before, unconvinced but wistful, slightly praying for wind, craving newness, wishing to have it all available to us.”  (Those were the words of pastor, prophet and professor Walter Brueggemann.)

He concludes in that piece: “We pray toward the wind and wait, unconvinced but wistful.”  

With all that we have, why would we even need the Holy Spirit at Pentecost?  Right?  She just messes things up.

I mean the Acts story is kind of entertaining, we’re a little curious, but “shake us loose from lethargy, break the chains of sin asunder for earth’s healing set us free, crumble walls that still divide us, make us one in Christ our Lord” (all from verse 3 of the Hymn of the Day we’re about to sing) — that all sounds nice, but let’s calm down here, people: Pentecost is just a day for wearing red, maybe reading and singing in different languages...earth’s healing? crumbling walls? C’mon, Jesus — that’s too much, that’s too “out there”.  We’d rather remain “unconvinced but wistful.”

It’s hard to do Pentecost, isn’t it?  It’s hard to live Pentecost, and — what we in the church call — the Season after Pentecost.  Starting next week until Advent!  We’d rather just return to our ordered existence, only a little curiosity, but not yielding.

This is our dilemma:  It’s hard to yield.  It’s hard to let the Holy Spirit in, disordering, dismantling.

Couple years ago, I heard a story from a new friend about Emma.  I was at a training event in Chicago and met Jan, Emma’s pastor.  She told me about her larger-than-life little Emma, a 7-year-old member of this start-up congregation in suburban Kansas City.  

They had been gathering for only a few months, and they were just beginning another typical Sunday morning service with red hymnals like ours and synthesized organ on the electric keyboard, gathering at the font for the Invocation, the Call to Worship like we do.  Pastor Jan, offering the opening words in the Confession and Forgiveness.  And suddenly Emma says, “Stop!!”  See, they were worshiping in a storefront and one of the walls of their space was all window, and Emma was watching, and she saw that a new family had just arrived, running late with their baby in a stroller, but trying to be discreet.  Emma went running right through the gathering at the font and burst outside to throw her arms open and say, “Welcome!  We’re so happy that you’re here!  My name’s Emma!  What’s yours?”  (It happened to be a same-gendered couple.)  The congregation can watch this whole drama unfold through the glass, and within seconds, little, energetic Emma bursts back into the sanctuary, with her new friends and announces, a little winded now, “This is Anna and this is Julie, and this is baby Simon. [whew] Now we can start.”

When Pastor Jan told me this story, she ending by saying: “Best Call to Worship ever.”  

Crumbling walls, yes?  The gift of a storefront sanctuary, walls that are windows.  Or no walls at all.  I love when we worship outside in the pavilion, and what a gift it is to gather in a place where outsiders can be easily seen and welcomed in.  We have that too, in many ways, with our large narthex and multiple points of entry.  

This is doing Pentecost, and while it is hard, Christ fills us this day with courage and joy to go, and throw our arms open like Emma.  “Welcome, we’re so glad that you’re here!”

Another true story from the West Coast that happened in one of the congregations out in the desert.  Service was beginning.  It was a more traditional, established church, where people even dress up a bit for worship on Sunday (polo shirts).  And all the usual people were gathering and greeting one another, and in comes a very thin woman — we’ll call her Nora — she’s a white woman, but her tan skin is so dark and leathery that you can barely see the strange tattoos exposed by her tank-top, her hair is frizzy and tangled -- also beaten by the sun.  And her worn-out sandals are barely hanging onto her feet.  

The “greeter” — we’ll call her Joan — who is always the greeter and knows everybody who comes in by name (Joan’s even the type of person who knows personal details about just about every member), Joan sees this wild-haired, poorly dressed, age-worn woman coming in from the parking lot, and she immediately gets both nervous and suspicious.  “Hi...” she says to the visitor with a forced smile.  “Can we help you?”  

“Uh, yeah.” Nora’s starts, with a raspy voice from years of smoking, kind of peering into the past Joan toward the sanctuary, “Where are the service folders?” 

“Um,” Joan stops her.  Kind of looking over her shoulder.  In a hushed whisper, Joan offers some advice: “Maybe you’d be a little more comfortable at the church down the street.”  (Joan knows that St. James Episcopal, just walking distance, down on the corner really “specializes” in homeless ministry.)  “Maybe you’d be a little more comfortable at the church down the street.” 

“The hell I would!” says Nora, “I’m coming in.  I need to be here.”  And in she walks, finds the bulletin herself, takes a place in the one of the middle pews (nobody sits next to her), and proceeds to sing and participate enthusiastically...and off key through the service.  

The people remain nervous and suspicious, watching her out of the corner of their eye during worship. But Nora’s not going anywhere.    

[pause]

[slow] Friends, both Nora and Emma are Pentecost characters.  The Spirit bursts out to welcome the stranger and the outsider, and the Spirit sometimes is the outsider that’s “comin’ in!” “I need to be here,” Holy Spirit says, whether we’re comfortable with her or not.  

It is hard to do Pentecost, when we’re settled and comfortable, but friends in Christ, Pentecost is upon us.  We don’t get a say in it.  We have a God who blows out and blows in, with or without our permission or our parameters.  This God is with us and for us.  This God moves among us — sometimes we’re on board with her; many times, we’re ambivalent at best.  That doesn’t stop the Holy Spirit.  (In Greek and Hebrew the exact same word for spirit means wind or breath too.  Why do you think that is?)  

The Holy Spirit, she is wild: sometimes bubbly like young Emma, sometimes raspy and way off-key like old Nora.  Sometimes gathering us in, sometimes, breaking us out..of old ways and old suspicions.  This Holy Spirit is here in our midst today, and even while it is indeed hard to do Pentecost — to not just stay “wistful and unconvinced” — even while it is indeed hard to do Pentecost and this coming Season after Pentecost, the “What now? Season”...friends, the Spirit stays with us anyway.  The Holy Spirit in all her wildness rests even on our heads, burns our psyches, singes our egos, grants us visions and dreams, enables us to prophesy, that is say things that we would never imagine ourselves to be saying...and in all that, we are made free.  In other words, the Spirit moves us to yield.

She moves us to yield and sends us forth to serve in peace, for we are made free...whether we’re ready for this kind of freedom or not.  Pentecost is upon us.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.    

June 2 -- Seventh Sunday of Easter

How’d you like Jesus’ prayer here?  I sometimes struggle John’s Gospel, because I think it’s hard to follow some of Jesus’ words… “I in them and you in me and we one and they one I in them you us we he they…”  I loose track of all those pronouns.  But here’s the bottom line of the loving prayer that Jesus prays:  that Christ is in and with us, and that we’re together.  

Isn’t that beautiful?  And it’s easy to make fun of...

It reminds me a bit of something I’ve heard from loved ones who are tough to get a gift for, “I don’t want any ‘thing’ for my birthday, I just want us to be together, I just want us all to be together.”  Heather’s said this before...and clarified, “I don’t want to be sent away from the family, to a spa for the day or a retreat alone: I just want us all to be together.”  My dad talked this way a lot also...

Of course there’s no “just” about it, like it’s something easy or flippant.  It’s a bold desire.  How hard it is for families to “be” together, even when it’s possible physically.  So much strife amid families, so much history, and pent up bad/sad memories.  So many ongoing disagreements...on philosophies of parenting, or on politics or religion, or life choices.  It’s so hard to “just” be together, in peace, isn’t it…

And yet there are those among us, in this world and in our communities, who continue to call us back together — not idly and dreamily, but boldly and lovingly, calling us back to the fold, back to the community, back to the earth, back to a healthy life and a full life and a life together.  They’re like New Testament prophets encouraging us:  Stay together sisters and brothers in Christ, live kindly and peaceably with one another.  Love one another.

This is what Jesus prays for us today...and far beyond just our immediate family to come together.  Jesus too prays (boldly not dreamily), “I want the family to be together, in peace, and I’m going to be there too.  I’m not going anywhere,” Jesus says to us.  “Don’t send me off to some spa or retreat in the clouds.  I’m staying right here with you, no matter what you have to say about.  I’ll be here in water and word, wheat and wine.  I’ll be here in the faces of both friends and strangers alike.  I’m not going anywhere,” Jesus tells us today. 

Christ. Is. Here. Today.  Loving us, friends.  Praying for us.  (Not sure we think of Jesus praying for us, but here it is, today in the Gospel of John.)  And Christ isn’t going anywhere.  Praying that we come together, cross the divides, have the tough conversations, and greet one another in peace and joy. 

—

I want to shift over to this First Lesson that Michelle read from Acts...because there we have some pretty graphic imagery of family not coming together, of family bickering, not just that, but family hurting each other:  great story from Acts!

Paul and Silas...get annoyed...cast out “the spirit of divination”...upset the business establishment...upset the way things are done.  That’s Part 1 of this account. 

Then they get thrown in prison.  And here’s where we see glimpses of God working and bringing the most unlikely of people together:  the prisoners and the prison guards.  My friend’s dad was a prison guard, and I’ve heard and can certainly imagine that it’s rough in there.  That’s understatement, right?  And yet the other stories I’ve heard, kindnesses that take place, perhaps few and far between.  Perhaps not.  That’s the Spirit working in the unlikeliest of places.  People crossing the divides.  And that’s what happens in this reading for today.  Paul and Silas (the prisoners), befriend and even baptize the prison guard and his whole household!  

They even stay after an earthquake sets them free!

And can you see Jesus‘ prayer almost hovering over this whole scene?  Like when 2 brothers finally reconcile after years of fighting.  Like when 2 sisters finally have the tough conversation that ends in happy tears and a long embrace.  

Have you ever seen this in your own life?  It’s rare.  

And like in the text, sometimes it takes a disaster, like an earthquake, to catalyze the reconciliation, but when peace finally comes into a family’s (or a congregation’s or a community’s) dynamic, it is no small moment.  When after years of being at each others throats, calling each other names, arguing and fighting, or going long spells without ever even talking, when finally peace comes and settles into a family’s dynamic...there’s Jesus‘ prayer for unity and peace and presence, hovering over the whole scene.  It’s no small thing.  It is a gift.  Pure grace.

Friends in Christ, here in our final week of the Easter Season,  here at the beginning of summer, here at the end of one chapter and the start of another, God is here.  And God’s not going anywhere.  God through Christ prays for us today.  Prays for love, longs for us to reconcile with one another, to forgive one another, as we have been forgiven.  That’s the big Christian question, I believe:  

“HOW’S FORGIVENESS GOING FOR YOU?”

     (you forgiving others, yourself...you receiving forgiveness...)  

God is here as we struggle with that, holding us like a strong parent, calming us down.  As we struggle to shed our anger and our resentment, our bitterness and our remorse.  Christ isn’t going anywhere, off to a heavenly spa in clouds.  Christ is right here with us as we struggle.  Christ is right here with us in our pain, in our loneliness.  Christ is right here in our both in our joy and especially in our sorrow.  

This God knows pain (remember the Good Friday cross), this God comes and waits (and wades) with us through our pain.  This God holds us, and gives us hope, gives us peace...  

And we are made one; we are together...this day.

In Jesus’ name.  AMEN.