Scratching the surface of the relationship into which He calls us . . .

     We are to that day in the church year when every single assistant priest, and probably a fair number of lay preachers, are given the pulpit.  Yes, it is Trinity Sunday.  It is that day in the church year when clergy are tasked with the responsibility of explaining the mystery of the Trinity.  It is a challenging task, to be sure.  I’m not quite sure why we try and explain the Trinity when nearly all who come to church after Pentecost are of the sort not to take an “Episcopal vacation.”  By and large, those who attend this day, particularly as it falls on a three day weekend, are likely to be willing to live into the mystery, the inexplainable.  But I guess we feel it is time to show you that we paid attention in seminary or that we figured out a great way to say that which really cannot be said entirely.  That’s why we end up with sermons about apples or Flatland or even writhing masses of mating eel fish on the moonlit sandy banks of Lake Michigan.  To be fair, that last one was not given on Trinity Sunday, but it was a sermon that attempted to explain the Trinity in strange modern terms.

     I won’t try and bore you with another huge sermon analogy.  You now you are fathers, sons, and brothers or mothers, daughters and sisters and yet one. I learned by accident some nine years ago that most of you could care less about another description of the Trinity.  It’s not that people do not care to understand theology or how God relates to Himself in the Three Persons in One Substance that we proclaim is revealed by God.  If we are here on Trinity Sunday, or any other Sunday for that matter, what we want desperately to understand is how God applies to or informs our lives.  Trinity Sunday is no different.  All those baptized here accept the revelation that God is our heavenly Father, the Incarnate Son, and the Holy Spirit.  But how does acceptance of that mystery inform your life?  That is the question for today.

     Fortunately, to answer that question, our lectionary editors chose well today.  Although the Gospel lesson for this day is short, there is much to mine in its four verses.    The first important impact on our life is Jesus’ promise of the Paraclete.  Paraclete is an interesting word.  It is interesting for what it signifies and interesting for the hope it promises.  If you are of a sort to study your Bible when you are at home during the week, I encourage you to look up the last few chapters of John’s Gospel.  John introduces this term, Paraclete, as a way to describe the third person of the Blessed Trinity.  What is a paraclete?  If you are reading your Bibles at home, you will come across a number of translations for the word.  The fact is, it is challenging to render into English.  Literally, it means “to call beside” or “to call alongside.”  Some will render it counselor, others as advocate, still others as helper.  Those are good terms, at least the first two.

     Part of what informs how we interpret the word, of course, must come from John’s effort.  John, as most of you know, was writing to a people who struggled daily with the ever-present reality of seeming defeat.  Many disciples had expected Jesus to return rather quickly.  Certainly few expected to suffer persecution on the scale they were experiencing.  John faced the faithful pastor’s task of reminding his people that God had, indeed, conquered on the Cross and Easter Sunday, despite the fact that the world testified against the truth that John proclaimed.  So much of his writing embraces the idea of ambassador and envoy and courtroom.  Remember, the last lines of this Gospel, “these are written that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”  John shares the stories so that those whom he pastors will believe that Jesus was the One sent by the Father, that the Paraclete was the One sent by the Father to glorify the Son, that John was one sent by the Son and empowered by the Spirit, and all of that for the purpose of reminding the faithful of the hope to which they were called.

     Some commentators compare John’s effort to a courtroom, and rightfully so.  The world says this.  The Lord says this.  Whom do you believe?  And it is light of that setting that we probably understand why the word paraclete causes so much difficulty.  As I mentioned earlier, the Greek word literally means called alongside or called beside.  In a courtroom setting, who does that?  That’s right, an advocate or . . . a lawyer.  Now you see the difficulty posed to translators.  The word and the setting dictates a lawyer, but we all know that lawyers are the furthest people from holy, right?  We can’t possibly think in those terms, can we?  Or maybe, just maybe, we should be further amazed.  God can redeem even lawyers?  Who knew?

     Before I go further, those of you who are new should know my dad is a lawyer.  I have heard, and probably told, all those lawyer jokes you are laughing at now in your heads.  But on a serious note, think of what John is testifying.  He is telling his audience and you and me that in our courtroom setting, our lawyer, our advocate, our representative will be none other than Himself!  Think of the implication for just a second.  Whenever you are in the courtroom settings of your life, God Himself is with you!  That why our Lord tells us not to fear.  He is always with us.  We don’t have to worry about what we are to say or do.  The Paraclete will empower us always to glorify the Son.

     Of course, that leaves us with at least a couple questions.  How can I know whether I am glorifying the Son in my words or actions?  The Paraclete does not speak on His own.  The Paraclete will speak whatever He hears and declare it to us!  What is He hearing?  The very voice of God.  The Paraclete participates in that eternal Three in One relationship that we celebrate this day.  The Paraclete hears the voice of the Father and the intercessions of the Son.  And then the Paraclete acts and empowers to bring about the will of God in the life of the believer.

     Why could the disciples not bear to hear this now?  Again, the story reminds us of the mindset of the disciples.  This is Jesus’ farewell speech to His disciples.  He is warning them of His suffering and death in the passages around this.  He also knows that the Cross and Resurrection will be the transforming event in their lives.  The disciples are soon to walk a dark path with their Lord.  He will be betrayed by one of their own.  He will be tortured by those who should have known Him best.  He will be put to death by the Romans, even though He claims to be the King of Kings.  Peter will deny Him three times.  One of them will run away naked.  None of them will fight for this man whom they believe to be the messiah.  Some of them, mostly women, will watch His agonizing death.  Think of what they are to experience!  And yet, Jesus knows that His death is not the end.  And once HIs disciples learn that for themselves, once they experience Him risen from the dead, then they will be able to understand better all that He has to say to them.  John can minister to those who are being chewed up by the world because he knows, because he has seen with his own eyes these stories about which he writes.  If God can redeem Jesus’ shameful death on a cross, He can redeem whatever they face now.

     But I’m never in court, so when will I ever need the Paraclete?  Ah, but we are always in a courtroom of sorts.  Every day of our lives you and I are testifying to our belief.  And this leads me to the second important part of John’s teaching about Jesus.  John often uses words like witnessing and testifying in his Gospel to teach us of our purpose.  And this is where the theology of the Trinity “hits the road,” as they they say.  When we are baptized or confirmed, among other things we take on the role of a witness.  Our baptismal liturgy reminds us of this truth.  Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?  Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?  Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?  Our answer at every question is I will, with God’s help.  When we are baptized or confirmed, we expect to be helped by God to accomplish His will for us.

     How do you know whom to serve?  He places them on your heart.  How do you know how best to serve them?  Again, He places it on your heart.  How do we know that He wants everyone to come to that saving embrace on the cross?  Because He reminds us of our need for His grace and gives us His heart during this transformational process.

     Do we always “get it” right?  Of course not.  Our hearts are still fleshy, our necks are still stiff, we see only dimly the glories to which He calls us.  But is the relationship of the Trinity which reminds us Whom we serve.  You see, God does not leave us in these stiff-necked fragile bodies.  In the end, as we looked during Easter, He calls us home and raises us in re-created bodies to worship Him in a re-created earth and re-created heaven.  No doubt you have your favorite “heaven” story, the image which sings to you of the glory and majesty of God that you expect to experience when you are finally called home.  I am here today to remind you, brothers and sisters, that whatever you envision heaven to be, however good you think it will be, you have not even begun to scratch at the surface of the life to come!

     Those of us who ponder the Holy Mystery of the Trinity often focus on the relationship between and among The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Certainly, there is enough there to ponder for a long time.  But where we often err is that we forget that we are intended to be included in that wonderful, mysterious relationship.  I have preached in years past on John Damascus’ “Holy Dance,” the perichoresis, so those of you here for years will not be too surprised or shocked.  We do well to study and consider the Trinity, but we might do ourselves better were we to remind ourselves from time to time that all of this was for the purpose of drawing us into that intimate relationship we call the Trinity.  You and I are not meant to be observers only; we are called to be participants.  You and I are called into that intimate, personal relationship with God.  Like Adam and Eve before the Fall, you and I will one day be able to see God with our own eyes face to face.  We will be able to hear His voice without fear and trembling but with the joy of love and adoration.  We won’t have to have some idiot in a collar try and explain the inexplainable.  We will know it, all of it.  As the author of our Gospel hymn put it this morning, our hearts will be tuned to sing, not just speak, His grace.  What He wants us to know, we will know.  What He wants us to do, we will want to do.  We will know the delight He has for each one of us.  We will be participants in that relationship that we can only barely grasp and must accept on faith because it is the instruction of our Lord and the Paraclete whom He promised.  Our hearts, our minds, everything about us will be remade so that we are unable to fail Him.  And the Trinity not only makes this all possible but desires it for everyone.  The Father wants this for us.  The Son has opened the path for that kind of restoration in us.  And the Paraclete reminds us how we are called to witness His saving grace to those in our lives.

     So often, brothers and sisters, when we explain the Trinity, we focus on the Three Persons in One Unity as we try our best to apprehend.  Like so many of His promises, though, we miss out on so much of the hope, of the glory, and of the joy.  You and I, brothers and sisters, are called into that kind of intimate relationship not just with Jesus, but with the Paraclete and with the Father.  And it is a relationship that He desires, not because He has to, but because He loves each one of us.  As our writer of Proverbs put it this morning, He delights in us, every single one of us who will come to Him through faith in His Son. It is a joyful relationship like we have never known.  It is a purposeful relationship like we have never known.  It is, quite simply, the relationship that He has desired for each one of us since He formed us in the womb.

     But, brothers and sisters, it is a relationship that He desires for everyone one of those whom we meet.  Each one of us, by virtue of our adoption into that relationship which we now see and feel only dimly, no matter how well we perceive it, is now an emissary of God, to use the language of John.  You and I are now a sent people, and empowered people, a people trusted with sharing the Good News of God in Christ, and participating in His efforts to draw all to Himself in love.  Everyone we meet, whether we acknowledge it or not, judges Him by how we act, how we speak, how we serve, and how we love.  And in that sense, you and I are always in a courtroom setting.  Whether we are at work, in our homes, around our grills, at a sporting event, experiencing life’s joys, or suffering life’s sufferings, you and I are always witnessing His grace in our lives.  Maybe now you better understand why we need that holy lawyer John calls the Paraclete; maybe now, the Trinity is not just something up there to be studied, but something to which you are drawn and called to share with those in your life whom you profess to know or love.  Perhaps, if I have done a fair job, you understand a bit better, even if still incredibly dimly, the power, the love, and the purity to which He has called each of us.  Perhaps, if this makes sense in our eyes of faith, we will all be able to raise our voices, this day and always, in hymns of praise from land and sea.

Peace,

Brian†

His calls on us vs. our attempts to call on Him . . .

     Happy birthday to us, the Church!  No doubt many of you who have friends that attend other churches will hear that some sang “Happy birthday” today and that others shared cake to commemorate the birth of the Church.  Pentecost does mark the day on which the promised Holy Spirit was sent to empower His people.  So, it is really the day that commemorates the birth of the Church.  It is important to note, and not just a fine distinction, however, that the focus of this day ought not be the birth of the Church.  Our focus should be on the fact that our Lord had a plan of salvation, and, in His wonderful mysterious purposes, He chose to call a Bride to be His representative, His ambassador, on earth!  Said a different way, we should be celebrating the fact that God chose, for reasons known only to His inscrutable reasons, to use men and women and children like you and me to share His love with the world.  He chose to use those whom He had redeemed to be the bearers of the Good News and midwives of the new creation which He has begun to birth.  That is what we should be celebrating, not the creation of the Church for its own purposes.  Nowhere is the significance of that distinction more evident than in our Genesis and Acts readings this morning.

     Our reading from Genesis this morning focuses on the Tower of Babel.  Everyone learns this story early in Sunday School.  The people of the earth are building a big tower, one that will reach to the heavens.  And God comes down and scatters them, giving them different languages in the process.  Unfortunately, that is probably all the attention that we give to the Tower of Babel.  As with all other stories in the Bible, though, there is a lot of meaning or meanings contained therein.

     Part of that to which we need to pay attention is its place in the narrative of God’s people.  God has preserved the family of Noah during the Great Flood.  All of these people in the story of the tower, we are told in chapter 10, are the descendants of those who survived with Noah.  They are growing in number to the point that, by verse 4 of our reading today, they fear they will be spread over the face of the whole earth.  They do not wish to be spread out too far.  And so they determine to build a tower.  Those of us who have travelled to Chicago or another major city understand the appeal of the city skyline in the distance.  Suburbanites often consider themselves citizens of those cities with skylines for as long as they can see the towers.  How far across in diameter is Chicagoland?  Metropolitan NYC?  DFW Metroplex?  Atlanta?  Even if one lives in cities an hour out, they often consider themselves part of the skyline.  That was the sense of belonging that Noah’s descendants were trying to create.  Maybe. . . . 

     You see, there is also meaning in words.  The name of the tower is Babel.  You probably think of that name in English terms.  Their languages were confused so that they could no longer speak to one another and be understood.  The noises would have sounded like Babel.  But Babel is really the conflation of two different words.  On the Babylonian side is babilu, meaning “gate of God.”  On the Hebrew side of its etymology would be the word balal, meaning “to confuse.”  Why the name choice?  Babylon, of course, will gain notoriety for its impressive ziggurats.  True, ziggurats are not shaped like towers, but they were meant to provide access to the heavens.  Each proper ziggurat was meant to have seven levels, each representing one of the planetary gods, who served as intermediaries in their cosmology, between the heavens and earth.  If one wished to approach the heavens, one needed to pass through each of the levels of of the ziggurat, presumably making the appropriate offerings and prayers.  If the purpose of the ziggurats applies to the tower, the tower literally was thought of as a gateway to the gods.  Hence, part of the name.  

     Of course, the Hebrew people would have had a much different understanding of how to reach God.  undoubtedly, they understood that such effort is the way human beings struggle to approach God.  We strive and strain and create our own obstacles.  When left to our own devices, we human beings confuse ourselves as to how best to approach the throne of God.  And though the Hebrews will know better, they, too, will fail to keep Him and His instruction at the forefront of their lives and worship.  The priests, Pharisees, and other Temple elites eventually will create a system of worship that earns the criticism of Jesus for burdening and confusing the people.  Thankfully, as the story from Acts reminds us, His ways are not our ways!

     No doubt some of us listening to the readings today might be tempted to think of Pentecost as the anti-Babel.  In some ways, it is.  The Gospel, the message of salvation, is what underlies the speech of those disciples speaking in our lesson today.  But notice the hearers are not given ears to hear in the blessed language of Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic.  The disciples, instead, are given tongues by the working of the Holy Spirit to proclaim in all the languages represented the Gospel of Christ.  Each disciple has a story to tell, and the Holy Spirit empowers each to tell that story in a way that can be heard by various listeners.

     Sitting here 2000 years later, you might be tempted to scorn those who heard the speech and the rushing wind and, yet, did not turn to the Gospel.  Despite the fact that a large number of those speaking in these various languages were fisherman from the Sea of Galilee region, a region not known for being a place of excellent education or Rosetta Stone-like language programs at this time in history, a number of people scoff at the obvious miracle.  These fishermen are drunk!  Peter, we are told, full of the Spirit stands and proclaims that those present are witnesses to the fulfillment of the prophesy spoken by Joel.  Reminding his audience that it is far too early for them to be drunk, Peter points out that the event they are experiencing, Pentecost, has been foretold by God.  As with so many of His miracles, God speaks, and then He acts.  By the very occurrence of this miracle, the sons and daughters of Judea, gathered from all parts of the empire, know that they are in “the last days” of Joel.  The Spirit of God has been poured out on all flesh, and all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved!  Yet, how often do we preach by example and word and experience the same scorn?  How often do we find our invitations rebuffed?

     There is in the Church a tendency to focus on the experience of Pentecost as the event which empowers both the Church and its collective members to accomplish the ministry God has given His people to do.  There is nothing wrong with that understanding, except that it falls short of the true purpose and power with which we have been blessed by virtue of our adoption into His family through the blood and body of Christ, our Lord.  Yes, Pentecost marks for us a fulfillment of the promise that He will send the Advocate and give us incredible gifts of power, but it also gives us our purpose.  The gifts of power that we have been given, whether they are healing ministries, ministries of encouragement, ministries of intercession, provision ministries, gifts of tongues--and this list goes on and on--, is for the express building up of His kingdom.  Just as the Church is not birthed for its own sake and purpose, neither are we gifted with power and authority for our own sake or for our own self-defined purpose.  You and I are called and equipped for His purposes, for the building up of His kingdom and the proclamation of His Gospel.  Exclamation point.

     Far too often, we forget the who we are and what we are called to do.  Like those people in Genesis, we may be swayed by the construction of a bigger edifice.  We may come to believe that a particular sacrifice or series of sacrifices on our part will lead us to God.  We may even come to believe that we were worthy of God’s grace with respect to those around us.  Pentecost reminds us that we have been given a mission.  You and I are empowered to go forth into the world proclaiming the saving works of God.  We are called to go forth into the world preaching by word and example of His grace.  And, we are very much like our brothers and sisters who experienced this miracle described in Acts today.

     How so?  Each one of us here gathered has a unique testimony.  We may think all our stories are the same, but each of us here has been on a different journey with God.  As a result, even though we all speak English, we all have different languages.  Looking around this morning, I could go from face to face pointing out your gifts, your story, your language.  Each of you and me are uniquely equipped to teach people about the love of God expressed through the work and person of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.  I was raised in West Virginia, I studied classics, I worked in the financial industries for fourteen years.  My background is crazy different from yours!  I should probably be working among hillbilly bankers to be most effective for God’s glory!  Don’t laugh, they need to hear the Gospel, too.  Both of them.  Just as do the people in your life whom God has given you the task of sharing His grace.  Whether you are a factory line worker, a native Iowan, a child of a farmer, a widow or widower, suffering from mental illness or addiction, retired, healthy or suffering disease, a cancer survivor or a cancer sufferer--and this list could truly go on and on--, you have a language all your own; and there are people in your life who speak that language far better than they do what we call English!

     The miracle of Pentecost of which we read about today is about the gift of tongues.  All that God has done has been for the purpose of providing testimony of His saving love to a world that, like the scoffers in our story today, the world simply cannot accept.  The purpose of Pentecost, however, is the reminder that all our gifts are from Him and for His inscrutable purposes.  We do not determine our purpose.  We work for His.  And because He has reached into each one of our lives, no matter where we were, we each have been empowered to speak uniquely of His saving grace and power.  To those not yet a member of the Church, we may sound drunk or stupid.  But to those who are seeking to be found, to know that they are loved, by God, ours is the sound of angelic choirs and incredible hope.  If God can take miserable sinners like me and like you, and by His empower grace and Spirit transform us into heralds of His Gospel, what can He not do in the lives of those around us?  That, brothers and sisters, is our hope.  That, brothers and sisters, is our purpose.  We leave this sanctuary, this place of worship and thanksgiving, and we head out into the world serving, teaching, and loving others into the kingdom.  From time to time we might reach across backgrounds, the Spirit can certainly accomplish that.  But, for the most part, you and I are called to speak our own language, our own understanding of His love for us, and His love for others, into their lives.  The best way we can do that, of course, is to share how we have been redeemed, how we have been transformed.  It is in that sense that we have experienced the anti-Babel.

     Such a call, brothers and sisters, is not easy.  Many of those of whom we read about this morning were called to lay down their lives for the Lord in the building up of the Church, and so the ministry given to them by our Lord closely mirrored Christ’s.  But what those in the early Church learned and you and I have to remind ourselves is that this magnificent plan of salvation belongs to the Lord.  He is its architect.  He is its offering.  He is its hope.  You and I are but heralds, ambassadors, representatives of the One who saves.  We do well this Feast of Pentecost to remember that He has called us to His mission.  What unites us is not a culture, not a language, not a heritage, and certainly not a building.  Indeed, these aspects of our lives can be very different.  What unites us, though, is our experience of His offering love from the hard wood of the cross,  of the joy of His empty tomb, and of that gift of purpose and hope with which the Holy Spirit anoints us!  Seeing His redemptive purposes at work in our own lives uniquely equips us to speak to those redemptive purposes in the lives of those around us.  That is the significance of this day and the significance of all our calls!

Peace,

Brian†