Trinity Sunday - May 26

Separate, But Inseparable

Today is Trinity Sunday. Another of the principal feast days in the church calendar. The only one dedicated, not to an event in Christ’s life or the saints of the church, but to a doctrine. It must be a pretty important doctrine… the doctrine of the Trinity.

Most preachers face this day with apprehension, burdened by the feeling that it is our responsibility to make the doctrine of the Trinity comprehensible to the people in the pews. In my experience, however, the people in the pews either really don’t care at all whether or not they understand the doctrine of the Trinity, or they cling steadfastly, and will not be budged, from their own pre-existing understanding of the Trinity. An understanding which is inevitably heretical. If you think you really understand the Trinity, it’s pretty sure to be heresy.

So whether it’s H2O as water, steam and ice, or St. Patrick’s famous shamrock, or a man who is husband, father and son… those are all heresies.

Fortunately, an orthodox understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity is not an essential element for personal salvation. On the other hand, clinging to a heretical understanding might be an impediment to the life of faith, a prideful barrier to an ever-growing experience of God’s presence.

At the very least, the doctrine of the Trinity reminds us of the mystery of God’s being and of our ultimate inability to comprehend or describe that mystery. If you ever think you’ve got God figured out, remember the Trinity with humility. We can never fully comprehend or describe the mystery of God’s being.

Basically, the doctrine of the Trinity affirms that God is Three. And One. At the same time. Three. And One. It isn’t “like” anything else in our world or our experience. All of the metaphors fall short.

They either describe God as one who happens to function in three different ways or as three different gods who happen to communicate really well with one another and share a common mission.

But as I’ve thought about the Trinity this year, I’ve been using some new language that, at least for me, takes the mystery of the Trinity and applies it to something that is important in our own relationship with God.

The Trinity is made up of separate things or persons who are inseparable. There’s nothing “like” it anywhere else in our world. Totally separate, independent persons that are inseparable.

The persons of the Trinity are distinct, but you never get one without the other two. Separate, but inseparable.

This can be a model for our relationship with God. We are separate from God. We are distinct individuals, each of us entire of himself or herself. Our bodies, our personalities, our wills, are ours. Totally ours. Nothing hampers or limits our individuality or our independence from God.

And yet, by God’s wondrous grace, we share in God’s being. We are inseparable from God.

We are as inseparable from God as the persons of the Trinity are inseparable one from another.

Distinct and separate, but inseparable.

And through our mutual participation in God’s life, we are also inseparable from one another. Distinct and separate as we may be as individuals, we are inseparable as the Body of Christ. And furthermore, we are inseparable, the living from the dead. A reassurance on this Memorial Day weekend when many pause to think of those we love but see no longer. There’s a prayer that we often say at funerals. One phrase says, “Draw us closer to you that we may know ourselves nearer to our beloved who are with you."

In our relationship with God, we are separate, gloriously unique and whole as individuals, but inseparable from God. Separate, but inseparable.

My prayer this Trinity Sunday is that God will increase my awareness and my trust in the inseparability of my life from the life of God. Separate, but inseparable.

Pentecost - May 23

An Ebullient Pentecost
Acts 2:1-21

Today is Pentecost, one of the great holy days in the church calendar.

My sermon for Pentecost is really just a one word sermon. Ebullient. Pentecost is all about ebullience.

I’m reminded of someone years ago at my first parish who commented that to follow an Episcopal sermon you didn’t need a Bible, you needed a dictionary. But ebullient is one of the words that sounds like what it means. It means overflowing with energy and joy. Boiling over.

We just heard the Pentecost story in the reading from Acts. The disciples were huddled together after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. They were lacking in almost everything, it seems. Lacking direction. Lacking courage. Lacking a future. Frightened, unsure of themselves or what to do next.

And then the Holy Spirit came. There was a rushing of a great wind—inside. Tongues, as a fire rested upon each of the disciples.

The Holy Spirit does ebullient.

And the disciples were transformed from people who were lacking to people who were overflowing. They became ebullient, overflowing with joy, boiling over with the energy of the Spirit.

The disciples became apostles, inspired to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ to the people of all nations.

On Pentecost, the Light of Christ is ebullient. After today the Paschal candle will no longer stand in that one spot there near the altar. Its light will split, bubble over into millions upon millions of tongues, as of fire, lighting on us all, inspiring us with energy and joy to carry out our mission in the world.

We are doing three baptisms today. What could be more ebullient? And I pray that Oliver, Owen, and Teddy’s new lives in Christ will always be ebullient.

Pentecost reminds us that the Holy Spirit is irrepressible, uncontainable, unquenchable, bubbling over.

And celebrating Pentecost ebulliently reminds us of the unquenchable, irrepressible, limitless power of God, through the Spirit, to enliven and inspire our lives with joy.

The Seventh Sunday of Easter - May 12

Here in Heaven
John17:20-26

The collect appointed for this day relates to the fact that, in times past, this Sunday would have been identified as being in Ascensiontide. It would have even been called the Sunday after Ascension Day. This past Thursday was Ascension Day. It always falls 40 days into the great 50 days of Easter. It commemorates the event recounted in Scripture when Jesus, after his resurrection and appearances to the disciples, left their sight and “ascended into heaven.”

The collect says that Jesus has been exalted with great triumph to God’s kingdom in heaven. And we pray that God will exalt us to that same place where Jesus has gone before.

The collect (and much of the hymnody appropriate for Ascensiontide) paints a picture of Jesus going away to heaven. Heaven is someplace else, away from here. And in the collect we pray that perhaps someday, somehow, by God’s grace we can join Jesus there.

 In the adult Sunday School class we’ve been studying N. T. Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope. We’re using a DVD with Bishop Wright talking about the points in his book. And I can’t help but think about the ascension in light of Bishop Wright’s teaching. He talks a lot about heaven. And he talks a lot about heaven not being some other place, away from earth. Heaven and earth, he says, are the two spheres of God’s activity and they are intertwined, not separate. I can see the fingers of his two hands intertwined as he talks about it. Heaven is here, intertwined with earth. A different way of being. A different way of seeing. But not a different place.

In a sense the collect appointed for Ascension Day itself makes this same point. It says Jesus ascended far above, or beyond, all heavens so that he might fill all things. He has not so much gone away, as become more fully present. By his ascension, Jesus brings the glory of heaven to all things.

To dwell in heaven is to experience God’s glory here, to be governed by God’s love here. And the closer we are to Jesus in our lives, the more fully we dwell in heaven. Here. That’s our Ascension prayer. Not that we may someday be launched off to heaven and rejoin Jesus there. But that we might share in Jesus’ presence and glory here. The presence and glory of Jesus that now fills all things.

That’s our prayer in today’s collect. And that’s Jesus’ prayer for us as we heard today in John’s Gospel. The reading from John appointed from today is from a section of John often called Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer. These are Jesus’ words after the Last Supper… his prayer on behalf of his disciples and the world before his crucifixion.

One commentator noted that Jesus’ prayer is meant to be overheard. He is teaching as well as praying. These words express his and God’s desires, but he also wants the disciples to know what he desires for them. And it is not just the disciples who are meant to overhear. We are, too. And he is praying for us. He prays for those gathered around him and all those who will come to know him through their words. That’s us.

He prays that we may be given everything that God, the father gave him.

He prays that we may be one with God just as fully as he, Jesus, was one with God during his earthly life. This prayer for oneness is not a prayer for Christian unity (although that’s a good thing), it is a prayer that we may be citizens of heaven here on earth. Just as Jesus was. It is a prayer that we may be with Jesus now, here, and experience his glory.

Jesus is here. Heaven is here. Jesus prays that we may be with him in heaven. Here.

The Sixth Sunday of Easter - May 5

A Vision Glorious
Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5

For several weeks now in this resurrection season of Easter, we’ve had readings from Revelation as part of our Sunday Scripture readings. And we’ll hear from Revelation again next week for the Last Sunday in Easter season.

These readings are from Revelation, chapters 21 and 22. These chapters are the conclusion, the culmination of this strange book. Had we begun at the beginning of Revelation we would have covered some fantastical territory before getting to chapter 21. But Barbara Rossing, a scholar whose specialty is Revelation describes chapters 21 and 22 as “one of the most wonderful eschatological pictures in all of Scripture.”

These chapters describe an apocalyptic vision of a New Jerusalem. It is a vision of things not yet literally seen. It is one man’s vision of the fulfillment of God’s plan, the realization of God’s promise.

It is a vision. It is tempting to say it is “just” a vision. But bear in mind that all apocalyptic or eschatological writing depends upon the seers of visions. As I was reading and researching for my Lenten class on heaven, I was reminded that everything we know about heaven—or everything we think we know about heaven—comes from visions.

Nonetheless, they are “just” visions. Especially with the wild visions of Revelation it is tempting to discount them.

Writing about the book of Revelation, Raymond Brown [Introduction to the New Testament] points out that, at the very least, it reminds us that God’s plan is beyond any sort of human description. He strongly cautions against attempting to interpret Revelation predictively or looking for specific historical referants within the text. It is “figurative language.” “The symbolism of apocalyptic compels imaginative participation on the part of the hearers/readers. It finds its full meaning when it elicits emotions and feelings that cannot be conceptualized." 

The writing in books like Revelation is meant to compel our imaginative participation. It finds its full meaning… this writing does what it is supposed to do when it elicits in us emotions and feelings that we cannot intellectually conceptualize. It is meant to stimulate our imaginations, our emotions and our feelings.

So, we can discount Revelation as “just” a vision or we can choose to be moved by it. We can choose to enter into the vision and let it work upon our imaginations and our hearts. I choose to let the vision move my imagination and my heart. It strikes me that this is not unlike the “choice” to fall in love or the “choice” to forgive someone who has wronged you. These are all choices to let yourself be moved, to let your imagination, emotion, or feelings be affected by something beyond yourself.

So what’s in this particular vision?

First, one important note:

Barbara Rossing again: Belief in a heavenly Jerusalem was widespread in biblical times. What is so striking in Revelation—unlike any other Jewish apocalypse—is that this heavenly city descends from heaven down to earth. Contrary to popular apocalyptic thinking [for example in the Left Behind books], there is no “rapture” or a future snatching of Christians up from the earth in Revelation. Instead, it is God who is “raptured” down to earth to take up residence among us.” The fulfillment of God’s plan, the hope of all God’s creation, takes place here, on this earth. It’s not about escaping this world; it’s about renewing this world.

There’s one phrase in today’s reading from Revelation that seems a bit troubling, where the seer writes that “only those written in the Lamb’s book of life,” will participate in the New Jerusalem. Rossing says that those words are not meant as prediction, but as exhortation. They are not meant to predict that only some have already been or will be chosen. They are meant to exhort us to choose to be the Lamb’s own.

It’s a glorious vision we hear about in today’s reading.

A place with no need of sun or moon , for the glory of God is its light.

Where nothing unclean exists, even our uncleanness and sinfulness are healed. A place where trees are sources of healing.

There is a river bright as crystal. It is paradise, restored.

Remember: This sort of writing finds its full meaning when it elicits emotions and feelings that cannot be conceptualized. It is meant to tickle our imagination with glory. To stir our hearts with hope and joy.

It also invites us to bring this vision into our world, our lives today. We who claim this vision and are moved by it are meant to share it into the world.

In my imagination, my own retelling of the vision, that means something like:

We are to be people who dance in the face of the death with the same joyful abandon that my water dogs dance in the rain. In the midst of life’s storms, even in the face of death, we are to be people of joy.

We are to be people who dress like seven-year-old girls dress today, with layers of bright colors and sparkles and sequins everywhere, so that we bring the light of Christ into this world’s darkness.

We are to be people who offer forgiveness, not curses, to the evil that confronts us.

It’s a glorious vision!