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Jun 3, 2007
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Trinity Sunday
Well, we made it. Today we celebrate one year of ministry together. And, for me at least, it has been a great pleasure and honor to be here with you. I just have one question…whose bright idea was it to start his tenure at this church near Trinity Sunday? I mean, it won’t happen every year, but here we are at the one year mark and I have been given the wondrous task of preaching about the, confusing, misunderstood, and misappropriated Trinity. I should have thought about that a year ago.
Live and learn.
I don’t usually get preoccupied with the church year like this…well, maybe I do… but as it is the celebration of our one year anniversary and Trinity Sunday…and the first Sunday of Ordinary time, it is appropriate to explore why we mark this day. There’s a great deal going on this Sunday.
Ordinary Time is not intended to be that long stretch of the liturgical year where we wait for Advent. It is not the liturgical equivalent of thumb twiddling. It is not supposed to be the long dull season void of celebration and depth. Ordinary Time is the season where we finally grapple with the everyday encounter with God in community. This is “ordained” time. Here the priesthood of all believers is honored and called into being.
We are called to work.
We as the Church have received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. We have been anointed, ordained if you will, to be the presence of God in the world. It is Ordinary time; a time that marks the commonplace, the quotidian, the everyday life we all share. This is the season that is set aside for the Church to be the Church.
What good would our faith be to us and to the world if it did not meet us in every moment?
Share all our joys and concerns?
Challenge our daily assumptions?
Encourage us to live more deeply into the communities in which we find ourselves?
We have all been ordained into this life. This is the life of Wisdom.When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race. See here how Wisdom is a daily delight
See how she is present with God in all the creation.
She delights in the human race…in our creation and our on-going existence.
At the beginning of all things, God is present in the commonplace. God is present in all creation. God is present in nature, yes, but let’s not limit our definition of creation. God is present in the simplest movements of the world, in every action. God is present in humanity…delighting in us daily…encouraging us with Wisdom to participate in the work set out before us.
The Holy Trinity is the personification of this, of the creative and commonplace love of God. It is the theological expression of the ordinary experience of the Holy, of our work together as a community. The Holy Trinity is love, and love is wisdom.
It is relationship. It draws us together as father and son, as a spirit poured forth, as the loving work of a carpenter’s hands. It teaches. It loves. It challenges and proclaims. It is utterly and completely engaged in who we are.
The Trinity is Hospitality. We are invited into the person of God. We are invited to come to the heavenly banquet as members of the Body of Christ. We sit at the table with God. The Holy Spirit Leads us. Jesus has called us "friend." God calls us His "children."
The Holy Trinity is involved in the world. It is God’s own healing. The incarnation of God that is Jesus the Christ brought healing to those he met. The Church, who has received the Holy Spirit, has that same call placed upon it. We are the healing hands of Christ.
The Holy Trinity is Love. And Love is Wisdom.Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out… There are riots in Germany. Protesters at the G-8 Summit are in open conflict with the German police. How does this bring healing?
Inspectors are still in Iraq trying to find the remains of Saddam Hussein’s arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Our own soldiers occupy the same country. Civilians die there. Our soldiers, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters live and die there.
Our country is divided, it seems, between the Oval Office and our own living rooms.
Our own village is struggling under the weight of an ever-climbing cost of living. And, interestingly enough, such a dynamic runs the risk of devaluing community and not increasing its intrinsic value. Community becomes something that one must purchase and compete for. Only a certain kind of person can afford to be a part of such a community. Diversity of all kinds decreases. The weakest of us, the young, the elderly, others whose economic life has shifted somehow, become the outcast.
In all of this God may seem distant, relationships, simple hospitality, and healing appears impossible.
And this is when we must draw upon the Three in One who invites us into Her own court, Her own presence every Sunday, and every moment of our lives. We hold to the Trinity because She teaches us the truths about being community. And upholds us as we in turn teach those around us to do the same. This is Wisdom. This is the reminder of God’s presence in our commonplace, day-to-day existence. This is the work of the church.
So, it has been one year. One year of getting to know one another. The honeymoon has been glorious. Thank you. And I expect more honeymoon moments. Trish and I just returned from our vacation in Bridgman, MI, where we honeymooned. I like going back there every now and again, to taste a little more of that time, that beginning. It is sacred to me. I hope that we can do the same here in our relationship as Pastor and Congregation in the years to come. But this is also Ordinary time.
It is time to find God in our own lives, and to heed Her call. For the Spirit of Love and Wisdom has been given to the church. And we must share it with the world.
In the name of the One God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit….Amen. |
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