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"I Have Many Things To Tell You" May 22, 2016

5/23/2016

Proverbs 8: 22-31; John 16:12-15

Today is Trinity Sunday, and like with the children, I like to start with a slightly offensive joke since jokes are good as any way to get at this daunting topic:

The Trinity were planning a holiday. The Spirit, manifesting the creative part of the divine nature, was coming up with the ideas. "Let's go to New York," he suggested. "No, no, no," said the Father, "They're all so liberated, they'll spend the whole time calling me 'Mother' and it will just do my head in."

       So the Spirit sat back and thought. "I know, what about Jerusalem?" he said. "It's beautiful and then there's the history and everything."

         "No way!" the Son declared. "After what happened the last time, I'm never going there again!" At this point, the Spirit got annoyed and went off in a huff. Sometime later he returned and found that the Father and Son had had an idea they both thought was excellent:

      "Why don't we do a tour of church headquarters? We could go to Rome for the Catholics, Canterbury, England for the Anglicans; Constantinople for the Orthodox, Nashville to see the Southern Baptists and Louisville, Kentucky to visit the Presbyterians?" said the Son. "Perfect!" cried the Holy Spirit. "I've never been there before!"

Trinity Sunday is the only Sunday where a doctrine of the church, the belief in the triune God, is raised up to be celebrated.   We celebrate major events like Christmas, Easter and Pentecost and special seasons like Lent and Advent. We celebrate the saints triumphant on All Saints Day and the body of Christ on World Communion Sunday, and specific events in Jesus’ life like his baptism, transfiguration and Second Coming of Christ on Christ the King Sunday. Today the church has seen fit to have us wrestle with the doctrine of the Trinity. Not specific ideas of God as Creator, God as Love, or merciful Judge --- although we do frequently speak of God as Father, Redeemer, and Holy Spirit throughout our ordinary worship. Today we focus exclusively on the Triune God – God, Three-in-One; One-in-Three.

After years of observing this wonderful feast day, Trinity Sunday, I appreciate the challenge, but sometimes wonder about its wisdom or reason.   Author Madeleine L’Engle talks about the danger of a creative enterprise is like trying to pull all the petals off a flower in order to analyze it, only ending up having destroyed the flower.   I highly doubt we will do much damage to the Trinity by our poking and prodding; even if we don’t get far, except for perhaps banging our heads against the wall.
There is always something lost in the translation when we try to pull the petals off.   We are a monotheistic religion that believes in a triune God, whereas other monotheistic religions look at us askance, and wonder how we think we get away with it. Yet our earliest creeds, the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed describe God the Father Almighty, Jesus God of God, light of Light true God from True God, of one Being with the Father...and the Holy Spirt the Lord and Giver of Life who proceeds from the Father and the Son and with the Father and the Son is to be worshipped and glorified. The earliest believers thought and fought long and hard on the subject and these words, and it forms the backbone of our faith.

Some of the early church theologians thought it out this way.   “The number 1 as no number at all because it had no diversity. It possessed no discernable strength. The number 2 was weak as well in that it was only a dualism. At best, it could only be two sides of the same coin. The number 3, then, was considered the first real 'number' in that it had an innate stability, a complexity; diversity, if you will, which made it durable and strong." What better number to contain the mystery and complexity of belief in God?   The symbol of diversity and community, present within the Godhead itself, gives form and shape to human life and all creation. The Trinity is the most ancient archetype, a blueprint, the DNA for human life.

So how do we get at Trinity? Saint Patrick is said to have explained the Trinity to the Celts by using a shamrock, three individual leaves, yet still one plant. Augustine said the Trinity was best understood as the Lover, the Beloved, and the love which exists between them. Tertullian, another giant of the Early Church, used the metaphor of The Trinity as a plant, with the Father as the deep root, the Son as the shoot that breaks forth into the world, and the Spirit as the force which spreads beauty and fragrance on the earth.

In our day, radical feminists recall the images of maiden, mother and crone. Brazilian liberation theologian Leonardo Buff describes Trinity it as a primal community; "just and equal within the reality that is God...and, therefore, a model for human society."    So the Trinity models communal life to which we are called; a life together marked by justice and peace, creativity, a place for all marked by equality and held together by love. To an extreme end, some youth pastors have even referred to the example of the “Three in one” shampoo.

The examples go on. Others have tried to capture nuances of the trinity in the natural world. Some say our own human beings, composed of body, mind and spirit, reflect a Trinity of sorts. Others look to the world of atoms and their basic particles of protons, electrons and neutrons. Some say it is fire that needs heat, fuel and oxygen to exist. Or Water, that can take the shape of ice, steam or liquid. Others point to light, that three primary colors blue, red and green produce a white light. Writer Dorothy Sayers says the creative process is Trinitarian:   the creative idea, the creative energy and then creative power. The world is alive with Trinitarian imagery.

We could go on with examples or refute the examples already given. We come to the same conclusion. Our attempts to capture Trinity always elude us. Trinity is the ultimate kaon, a riddle to forever set our hearts and minds to churning, without ever being captured or understood. Perhaps this is one reason for the Trinity. To pull us in, engage us, without ever being fully comprehended. To ignite our longing, and point us to that something more. Perhaps this is why no matter how close we get, how wonderful an example we conjure up, we will always fall short.   We cannot comprehend God, especially a Triune God. We can barely comprehend ourselves, let alone someone we love. We can only enter the part of the mystery that is ours to behold. We can only love God, and in those loving experiences truths that we could not access otherwise become evident to our hearts.

        Jesus told the disciples the night before he died “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”   This means that God always has something to say to us, and is always working to mold us into loving and just beings. It is God who is in charge of revelation, the bringer of grace, who understands us and prompt us in every day and age how to live as the body of Christ.   Our understanding of civil rights, women and marriage equality have only come from the ongoing revelation of the Holy Spirit, acting on the justice of Jesus and the creative power of the Father: the source of love and life that is Trinity. We are reminded we don’t know everything.   God has something new to say to us every moment of our lives – even if it is “I love you,” “I believe in you,” “I cherish you.” “Behold, I am doing a new thing.” This is good news, as the church faces an apparent decline in membership and interest, as the world faces terrorism and unbridled greed, we face uncertainties in our own lives; God has something to say.

It is the Triune God, source of creative energy, vision and love that will guide us, and bring us something new to say. The God always beyond us, never in our grasp, yet as close to us as our breath is with us. The Triune God – perfect community of love– seeks communion with us. So with faith and courage we can be open to new ways and new visions, because of our dynamic, Three-in-One God who loves us and is always there for us. It is a mystery, a riddle yes, but ultimately we are called to respond: in deed but in worship and praise, as we recall the words of St. Patrick:
I bind unto myself today
The strong name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.

With faith, hope and love, we bind ourselves to the strong name of the Trinity. Amen, Amen, Amen!

http://day1.org/4759-what_kind_of_math_is_this

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Midnight Praises (May 8, 2016)

5/9/2016

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Acts 16:16-34, Luke 24:44-53

        Harriet Tubman, the African-American abolitionist whose image will soon grace our $20 bills, was known for her prophetic visions.   While young she kept having a dream about a line that seemed to divide slavery from freedom. She did not know anything about the Mason-Dixon line, but that was what she was seeing. In the dream, she kept seeing people from the North calling her Moses and holding out their hands to her, beckoning her to cross the line. As a slave, she was brutally treated. Once her master threw a two pound weight at her head for failing to help recapture an escaped slave.   This caused her a severe concussion and a lifetime of headaches and narcolepsy. She was 14 years old.

Eventually Tubman escaped to freedom. Not satisfied with her own safety, she founded the Underground Railroad, returning to the South at least 19 times, helping over 300 slaves to freedom. Despite the dangers and trials she face, Harriet Tubman remained true to her vision of freeing slaves, even when a bounty of $40,000 (now about one million dollars in today’s money) on her head.

Last week, we heard how Paul also had a vision of a man from Macedonia (now north-eastern Greece) pleading with him to come and help them.   It was Paul’s longed for vision to go into the west, to Gentiles, a seed planted at his conversion 14 years earlier. This vision came in the midst of change in the fledgling church and in the midst of disagreements and other setbacks.   Yet Paul persevered and managed to get one household to convert – Lydia, a well to do Gentile businesswoman, if we recall last week’s lesson. Not a bad start, but not exactly what Paul expected. Where were the regular, god-fearing male prospects that would lend credence to this new movement?

So who was the next believer after Lydia? Today we learn it is a slave girl possessed by a spirit of divination, whose talent made lots of money for her owners. However this slave girl follows Paul and Silas around for days, proclaiming, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” Instead of welcoming the free advertisement, Paul, in a fit of annoyance, rebukes the spirit and it leaves her.   Angry that their source of income has been destroyed, the slave owners have the mob incited against them claiming they are upsetting Roman customs and disturbing the city. Paul and Silas are stripped of their clothing and beaten with rods. After a severe flogging they are thrown into jail, taken to the innermost, most secure cell, with their feet fastened in the stocks. It is a story in many ways, reminiscent of the treatment Jesus received before his death. So much for Paul’s vision.

So beaten and bloody, bound with chains, in a windowless cell, their future uncertain, Paul and Silas find themselves in the middle of the night. The hour of visions and dreams. The hour of soul searching and self-appraisal.

        At a one hour when one might be filled with doubt, or distress, even anger toward God, or perhaps curse those responsible for this dire predicament, at this midnight hour Paul and Silas did none of that. Instead they found another way to deal with their dilemma. The midnight hour finds them praying and praising God.   And something happened as they prayed and praised God. An earthquake occurred. The doors were opened and the chains were broken. Paul and Silas had the opportunity to escape but they didn’t. Instead they ministered to the terrified jail guard and told him to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and he and his household would be saved.   As a result in the middle of the night the West received another native convert: a hardened Roman prison guard. This very same guard took Paul and Silas home, washed their wounds and set food before them.   So the gospel seed had been planted in the West. The world would never be the same again.

This is a powerful and moving witness that when God gives a vision – whether it’s for moving the gospel to the west or for an Underground Railway, God will find a way, despite whatever conflict and change around us.

          Now we know that the midnight hour does not always come at 12:00am. It descends upon us whenever it feels as if the forces have turned against us. When we have been misunderstood, lied about, manipulated, imprisoned or entrapped in some situation.   At that moment praising or thanking God, praying to God, feels furthest from our lips.

Praising and praying to God at the midnight hour is one of the most misunderstood principals of spiritual life. It doesn’t mean we discount evil. It doesn’t mean we bury our anger. It doesn’t mean we fail to lament. We can praise God and pray to Him while we experience and express all these things. It does mean we try to put into practice that very hard teaching of Jesus from Luke 6: (“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you….your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked” 22-25.”)

The real test of our faith, as Paul and Silas demonstrated is praying and praising God when life doesn’t feel all that joyful and full of promise.   Ultimately it’s about cultivating hope, faith and love --the foundation upon which visions from God are built to last. Tubman knew this. That’s why she was so successful and never lost one slave she brought to freedom.
This kind of praise is true grace. Any individual or church seeking to fulfill its vision must possess this gift. Visions come and grow in the midst of change, uncertainty, challenges and setbacks.   Visions are sustained and grow in the soil of midnight praise, thanksgiving and prayer.

I’ll never forget another woman who found a big vision: Christy, who when I first met her was a near-homeless addict.   At first she thought, “What’s wrong with these people?” The people, at Broadway church’s ministry who kept accepting her, loving her and telling her to keep come back. After a year of sobriety, she wrote this poem about discovering the vision of sobriety and praising God through it all:

Thank you Higher Power, for making me aware
That I am not alone here, you were always there
In my darkest hours, you were the one for me
All I had to do was let you in to be there

Why I was dying, you said, “no, not yet dear,”
Your lessons were all ending
Let’s see if they were clear

You have another ending, but Chris, it’s up to you
I want to see you standing, you can come shining through

My sweet, it was time to bring you through the crisis
And it didn’t take much time
So you may not believe this
But God says thank you too
He’s humble and forgiving
See Christy, he’s a part of you.”

Christy found her vision to stay clean in the context of midnight prayer and praise to God. It is significant to recognize that the western church truly emerged from the ruins of a prison. The walls of the prison were brought down by praise and prayer. Our walls, our prisons can be demolished, the vision emerge, through the power of hope grounded in midnight prayer and praise.
Whatever notions Paul and Silas had, God saw it fit that the first believers to come out of the western effort would be a gentile businesswoman, a slave girl, and a Roman soldier.   There is God’s vision.    Paul kept praying and praising, through all his trials, imprisonments and challenges. Harriet Tubman gave all credit to God

“Twasn't me, 'twas the Lord! I always told Him, 'I trust to you. I don't know where to go or what to do, but I expect You to lead me,' an' He always did. “

         Let us hold onto our visions of hope and a better future, like abolitionist Harriet Tubman, like a recovering addict named Christy, like the disciples Paul and Silas. This Mother’s Day, let us remember the example of countless mothers who cling to a vision of a better future for their children – and who know more than anyone what it means to pray to God at midnight. Let us head Jesus’ words of the Great Commission – to go forth to all the nations with the gospel. Surrounded by so many great examples, let us pray and praise God like them even when midnight closes in -- because no prison walls can withstand the spirit of God as long as hope, faith and the love of Jesus remain rooted in our hearts. Amen.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1535.html
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/harriet_tubman.html

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The Gift of Peace -- May 1, 2016

5/2/2016

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  John 14: 23-29; Acts 16:9-15
UCBR May, 1, 2016

Last week, during a conference on mediation training for churches, someone shared the following story: Mark Twain, the 19th century American author and humorist, described in his essay, “The Lessor Animal,” why man is the cruelest animal, the only animal that takes pleasure in inflicting pain.   He imagined the following:

“Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately.
Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones--not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.”

International sources estimate that over 67 armed conflicts or wars exist in our world today that not only include official governments, but involve separate militias-terrorist-separatist or anarchist groups.   When we add into that mix class or racial ethnic conflict within individual countries, family or clan conflicts, church conflicts, and other group conflicts, intra-personal conflicts, internal conflict all this adds up to a whole lot of conflict – within and without! How do we find peace in the mess of our lives and all around us?

Jesus knew this.   Our gospel reading from John describes how Jesus, on the night before his death, during the greatest conflict of his life, sat at table with his friends. Over the meal he talked to his disciples. He reminds them of the past: his proven love for them and now his commandment to love one another. He speaks of the future, the coming of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, who will teach everything. Jesus ties all this together in the present moment with the gift of his peace.   “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”     As he faced death, Jesus lived in peace.

Jesus gives us his peace, not the peace of the world, which comes through force, fighting, or through false security of material items or success. Jesus’ peace is rooted in relationship that is anchored in God, creator of all beings, who holds all things together by the power of his Love, poured out in Jesus.

So peace is more than the absence of conflict or war. If we were to sum up Jesus’ life we would see that the Peace that Jesus gives is characterized by the presence of right living focused on right relationships, knitted together by love and a sense of respect for the prosperity and care of all beings.

Jesus never promised an absence of conflict. Jesus never promised an absence of struggle. Jesus never promised the absence of uncertainty, risk, or doubt.   Jesus promised his peace. A peace that can face any conflict, uncertainty, risk or doubt and triumph.     Peace which is a by-product of and living expression of love.

It is the peace of Christ that enabled Paul to follow his vision to go beyond Asia Minor into Europe -- Macedonia.   It is the peace of Christ that enabled Paul to travel to Philippi, a Roman colony. It is the peace of Christ that led Paul to search out a synagogue, and finding none, to try going to the river, where some small groups customarily prayed.   It is the peace of Christ that enabled Paul to not walk away from the gathered women he discovered there. It is the peace of Christ that enabled Paul to overcome any chauvinistic feelings and to preach the gospel to these women. It is the peace of Christ that enabled Lydia to become the first Christ follower in Europe – a successful Gentile businesswoman. It is the peace of Christ that enabled Paul and his group to stay with Lydia – and form the first church at Philippi.
If Paul had been overcome by doubt, fear, judgement or anxiety – the gospel may not have spread so fast or as well to the Western world. Paul was rooted and grounded in the peace of Christ – that driving force that motivated him to bring the love and gospel of Jesus into an unknown territory to unknown people in unknown situations. Jesus said, do not let your hearts be troubled or be afraid – and the peace Jesus offers enabled Paul to live courageously and prophetically. Jesus gives us this peace too – to face our anxieties, all our unknowns, all our fears.

Here is another illustration about peace from the conference I attended: Long ago a man sought the perfect picture of peace. Not finding one that satisfied, he announced a contest to produce this masterpiece. The challenge stirred the imagination of artists everywhere, and paintings arrived from far and wide. Finally the great day of revelation arrived. The judges uncovered one peaceful scene after another, while the viewers clapped and cheered. The tensions grew. Only two pictures remained veiled. As a judge pulled the cover from one, a hush fell over the crowd. A mirror-smooth lake reflected lacy, green birches under the soft blush of the evening sky. Along the grassy shore, a flock of sheep grazed undisturbed. Surely this was the winner.

The man with the vision uncovered the second painting himself, and the crowd gasped in surprise. Could this be peace? A tumultuous waterfall cascaded down a rocky precipice; the crowd could almost feel its cold, penetrating spray. Stormy-gray clouds threatened to explode with lightning, wind and rain. In the midst of the thundering noises and bitter chill, a spindly tree clung to the rocks at the edge of the falls. One of its branches reached out in front of the torrential waters as if foolishly seeking to experience its full power. A little bird had built a nest in the elbow of that branch. Content and undisturbed in her stormy surroundings, she rested on her eggs. With her eyes closed and her wings ready to cover her little ones, she manifested peace that transcends all earthly turmoil. That is true peace.

So this is the peace that is Jesus’ gift to us today.   Whatever we face today can be faced with peace. We can face the uncertainties around us, not with troubled hearts, not with fear, knowing in all turmoil, we are loved, accepted and held by God who holds the entire universe together. That is peace, and no matter what we face, may this peace of Christ live in our hearts today. Amen.

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"I Have Many Things To Tell You" May 22, 2016

Midnight Praises (May 8, 2016)

The Gift of Peace -- May 1, 2016

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