Trinity Sunday 2011

June 19, 2011

The Rev. John A. Baldwin

When Easter comes late in the year, as is the case in 2011, two important dates coincide on a Sunday morning, Father's Day and Trinity Sunday. Happy Father's Day to all of the fathers here this morning, and happy Trinity Sunday to everyone else.

Father's Day receives a lot less hoop-la than Mother's Day, with florists and retailers not enjoying nearly the same level of business they did earlier in May. Father's Day is nonetheless an important occasion, because it recognizes the great blessing children receive when they have a father who is caring, nurturing, protecting and affirming. The role model our fathers play in our lives can be wonderful, powerful, and life-affirming.

On the other hand, relationships with fathers for many people are often complex. Far too many fathers are absent from their children's lives physically and/or emotionally. My relationship with my own father (who died 3 years ago) was far more complicated and difficult than I would have liked it to have been. Even well into my adult and professional life he felt he had free license to be critical, believing that in doing so he was helping to make me a better person. It was hard to live with at times.

More recently I have been deeply blessed to become a father figure and role model for my grandson, Landon. I am trying to be for him what I longed for my own father to be for me, affirming and nurturing. We'll see how successful I am in doing that as the years go by.

How we view our fathers & their role in our lives does affect our language and understanding of God, the creator & maker of Heaven and Earth, whom the Church down through the centuries has traditionally referred to as "the Father". This was brought home strongly to me when I went off to seminary at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts and encountered Feminist Liberation Theology for the first time.

It was unsettling to have the images of God I'd grown up with, challenged at their very roots. How can people have a positive, loving relationship with the divine, it was asked, if we've had abusive, hurtful, painful experiences with our biological fathers, and we limit our language about the divine to "Father God"? If a father has been absent from our life, how can we feel any warmth or intimacy with God as "Father"? How much pain and suffering has been inflicted on humankind, it was contended, by patriarchal dominance that relegates women to second-class citizenship? I was stretched & pulled in seminary to become more of a "feminist"  man... that is to say, someone secure in my own masculine spirituality, not threatened by feminine spirituality....and instead, aware of & nurtured by the feminine that resides in every complete and whole male person.

Later in time, here in the Diocese of Southern Virginia, I was blessed to experience, unpolluted, feminine spirituality in all of its glory, when I served as the only male clergy person on an all-female Cursillo weekend. Just a few years later I was also blessed to serve on an all-male team, and to savor masculine spirituality at its very best.

At seminary, after some of the initial shocks & challenges to my theological framework, I found I could cope intellectually with an expanded range of images. Of course God is not male or female, but rather both, and much more. How foolish we really are, when we diminish the awesome power & majesty of God by seeking to make God too small, trapping God in language that fools us into feeling like we are in control.

And yet, how is it possible for us not to use human language and images in our theological discourse, and have any kind of intimacy. Praying to an amorphous cloud of gas has no appeal whatsoever. It's only as we personalize God that our religion, our faith, our hope, has the power to move us inwardly and deeply. By referring to God as "Father" (or "Mother" as feminist theologians might prefer), we are making possible a personal relationship with the divine. It's important not to let our less-than-perfect experiences with our parents color those terms too deeply, but to envision what fatherhood or motherhood at its very best is all about, and then focus on that as we envision God as loving, nurturing & affirming. 

One of the theologians who really connected with me in seminary was John McQuarrie, who convinced me that the world religions are not as different & disconnected from one another as some would like us to believe. All religions may be placed upon a continuum, McQuarrie asserted, from God as Transcendent (unknowable, beyond us, distant) at one end, to God as Imminent (in all things, close at hand) at the other end of the continuum.

So for example, atheists would be at one end (transcendence) - God is so far removed from us that there's no evidence God exists at all. At the other end of the continuum (Immanence) would be primitive religions (animism and fetishism) in which God is so close at hand that the divine is present in the good luck charm I hold in my hand, or the idol in my living room shrine.

MacQuarrie views Christianity as being rock-solid in the center of this continuum, affirming both the otherness & transcendence of God, and the closeness & imminence of God, with Hinduism & Buddhism being more focused on God's imminence, and Judaism & Islam focused more on God's transcendence. Thus in the Christian faith we can refer to God in personal terms, yet also being fully cognizant of God's power and might.

Now I know I'm straying here into a lot of theology on Father's Day and Trinity Sunday, and I hope your eyes haven't glazed over yet. Hang with me just a moment longer. The Holy Trinity is one of the unique contributions that Christianity has made to world religions. The transcendent God and creator of all things, becomes fully present and imminent in a human life, Jesus of Nazareth. That presence is not just a once upon a time, historical event, but is an ongoing, ever-present reality in the Holy Spirit of God, which is present in every worshipping community, and in every human heart and life. Although the feast day of Trinity Sunday might seem to be about an abstract theological doctrine, it's really about a reality of our universe. One way of affirming this is with these words, God beyond us, with us, and within us.  Amen.

Pentecost Sunday 2011

The Rev. J.W. Messer

Day of Pentecost
WhitsundayActs 2:1-21, Psalm 104:25-35, 37, 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13, John 20:19-23

PENTECOST 2011

I can’t believe it, but today is a special day for me.  Exactly one year ago, to this date, I was ordained to the transitional deaconate.  And one LITURGICAL year ago, I interviewed at Emmanuel, and knew I was called here.  I was on these beautiful grounds, had met with the clergy, vestry, staff, & many parishioners and recognized what a happy and healthy parish this was (and is). It was on that Pentecost Sunday one year ago, that the Holy Spirit called me to Emmanuel.

Pentecost is a very special day in the life of the Church.  Today, we celebrate the birth of the Church and the power of the Holy Spirit. Even after our readings today, understanding who the Holy Spirit is can sometimes be confusing. Perhaps a story will help. 

Once there was a Sunday school teacher, named Mrs. Smith, who was trying to explain to her class who and what the Holy Spirit is. Mrs. Smith talked about how the Holy Spirit can inspire people, even make leaders out of people who most would not think would be. She explained how the Holy Spirit even gave the followers of Christ the ability to speak in the native tongue of others. Mrs. Smith closed by saying that the Holy Spirit was moving and embodied in flame and wind but the Holy Spirit could also be invisible and inspiring, and could appear anywhere.

Little Tommy, who usually was up to trouble, was really listening to what the teacher had to say, and finally spoke up. “Mrs. Smith, the Holy Spirit sounds cool! It can make people do some awesome stuff, huh!” “Yes Tommy, the Holy Spirit does; that’s very good.”  Tommy went on to say “So if the Holy Spirit is God and God is everywhere and can be big and can be small, then the Holy Spirit is everywhere?” “Yes! Tommy that is right!” “So can the Holy Spirit be in this Church right now?” “Yes, the Holy Spirit can be and is in this church right now!” “Can the Holy Spirit be in this room?” he queried.   The teacher was really proud of Tommy and the fact that he was paying attention made her pretty sure that the Holy Spirit WAS indeed in that room at that moment.  So she affirmed that the Holy Spirit was in the room. Then Tommy held up a glass and said, “Can the Holy Spirit even be in this glass?”  A little more hesitant, Mrs. Smith still affirmed that the Holy Spirit could even be in the glass. SLAM! Covering the glass with his hand, Tommy gleefully looking around, smiling and said, “GOT HIM!”

The idea of a little boy wanting to capture and almost bottle the power of the Holy Spirit can be viewed as an amusing story.   But I think it also touches on an important point--we do not know how, when, where, or why the Holy Spirit inspires.  We just see the results.

We see this on the day that the Church was born, the day of Pentecost. As revealed to us in the First Lesson, Acts 2:1-21, a rush of a violent wind came into the house where the followers of Christ were sitting.  Then suddenly a flame appeared above the heads of everyone there and they were able to speak as if they were native speakers in other languages. 

The significance of the first act of God’s spirit at Pentecost, and at the creation of the Church, is that it honors the diversity and individuality of believers. Everyone is not going to hear or experience God in the same way. And God does not make everyone experience the Holy Spirit the same way.  The disciples came with their own life’s experiences and when they went out into the world, they all had their own unique experiences. 

We are all given battles to fight and abilities to reach others through our gifts and our experiences. Each of our own gifts and abilities work together to help build up the body of Christ, which we heard about in Corinthians. We hear that each of us have been given portions of the Spirit to use for the common good. But it is when individuals work together that the body becomes stronger. No gift is greater than another, no one way to use our gifts is greater than another way, as long as it is done to build up the Body of Christ and to build up each other.

As St. Teresa of Avila so aptly and poignantly wrote:

Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks
Compassion on this world
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good
Yours are the hands with which He blesses all the world
Yours are the hands
Yours are the feet
Yours are the eyes
You are His body
Christ has no body now on earth but yours

We are the body that must work together, and it’s not always the easiest of tasks. We are all scarred; we are all working through our own issues. We bring our issues to the table, just as we bring our gifts and abilities. We bring the ability to make dinners for the food kitchen or for each other at events.  We may have the ability to lay flooring for a house through the Faith Works Collation. We may have the gift of a green thumb that offers beauty and joy to all who see the flowers.  Whatever our call, or whatever our gifts, we are all guilty at some point of discrediting our gifts, by seeing them as nothing special, or seeing them as simple gifts.  Simple gifts are never simple. The call to use our gifts is a powerful one.  If used as God intended, our gifts will bring joy to us and those around us.  The want to share these gifts can set our hearts on fire.

No gift is greater than another; what is important is to try to discern what our gifts are, and how to be involved and participate in the life of the community. The Holy Spirit is a uniting force, which builds the Community of Christ together.  We may not know where our paths will go, but we are called to be open to the Holy Spirit.  Through the Holy Spirit we may be reached by God or we can reach others.  Being open to the Holy Spirit allows our gifts to be used to build up the body of Christ.  Our talents, our gifts, may not appear as we think, but can be shared by simply being present and being open to a ministry of presence. What we are called to do is to use our gifts in the world, to be able to be open and inspired. And we pray that our hearts may be set on fire. 

+In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.+

Sunday, June 12, 2011 - Year A

The Seventh Sunday of Easter/The Sunday after Ascension Day

Sermon

June 5, 2011

Lynne Coates

Acts 1:6-14   Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35    1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11  John 17:1-11

In the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.  Amen

There was a rabbi who was having a heated dispute with his congregation; they couldn't agree on anything. The president of the congregation said, "Rabbi, this can't continue. There has to be a conference, and we have to settle this once and for all." The rabbi agreed.

At the appointed time the rabbi, the president of the congregation, and ten elders met in the conference room of the synagogue. After much heated discussion, it became more and more apparent that the rabbi was a lonely voice in the wilderness. The president of the synagogue said, "Come, Rabbi, enough of this. Let's vote and allow the majority to rule." He passed out slips of paper; the votes were collected, and the president said, "You may examine them, Rabbi. It is eleven to one against you. Eleven to one. We have the majority."

Offended, the rabbi rose to his feet and said, "So, now you think because of the vote that you're right and I'm wrong. Well, that's not so. I stand here and call upon the Holy One of Israel to give us a sign that I'm right and you're wrong."

No sooner were the words out of his mouth when there was a deafening clap of thunder and a brilliant flash of lightning that struck the conference table and cracked it in two. The room was filled with smoke and fumes, and the president and the elders were hurled to the floor. The rabbi stood untouched, his eyes and smile flashing with triumph. Slowly, the president lifted himself out of the rubble. His hair was singed, his glasses were hanging from one ear, his clothing was in disarray. Finally he said, "All right, all right! Eleven to two. But we still have the majority." 

We know that at times there has been discord and disunity in the Church. This disunity is apparent in the numbers of denominations that we have.

In the 16^th century, the “protesters” became the Protestants and they split from the Roman Catholics. But once the squabble started, it snowballed. It wasn't long before the Protestants began disagreeing with each other and different protestant faiths are the result. But then, I believe that God wants us to stand back and look at what we’ve done and understand that we are one. We are all called to love God and love others, no matter what faith we are. These are the two greatest commandments.

Bishop Jack Spong says that what distinguished Jesus from us is that he was able to become fully human. Now, we may not think so much of our “humanness.”  But what I think it means to be fully human is to be truly what God calls us to be. We do have our moments. We can in those moments be like Jesus. When we deny our own comfort and reach out to another, we are being like Jesus. We are being fully human.

Jesus said in the today’s gospel: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” Jesus was giving the disciples his legacy, his call, his own discipleship. He left them with everything they needed to continue his work in the world. The result of that work is of course our church with all its Catholics, Protestants and others who struggle to love God and love others.

There will always be that which separates Christians from Christians and denomination from denomination. Loving God and others is not determined by whether we agree with each other about every interpretation of scripture or doctrine or form of church government. Our unity is determined by whether we love one another, and whether we reflect the love of God in Christ for the world, as we were charged to do at the Ascension. And this is Ascension Sunday.

Shortly after the end of the Civil War, in a fashionable Richmond church, during Communion a black man walked down the aisle. A tense silence gripped everyone. No one got up to go receive the bread and wine, although many had not yet received Communion. The black man started to kneel alone.

 Quietly, a tall, graying man with a military bearing came up to receive Communion. Together, they knelt. People realized that the person kneeling beside the black man without showing any distinction was General Robert E. Lee. Although Lee said nothing, everyone knew he had shown his faith through the act of joining that lonely black worshiper at the altar. Certainly no big deal today. 150 years ago, it was a very big deal.

What if a bedraggled and dirty homeless person struggled up to receive Eucharist in this church. Would we go up and kneel beside that person? The way we kneel beside each other and beside our children? I like to think all of us would. Or do we cast ourselves as judges of others?

 I confess  that when I was young I struggled with tendency to judge others at times as if I were somehow given the wisdom to find fault  and to inform someone else that I had all the answers if he or she would just listen to me. Right? And God must love me more because I was possessed of this wisdom. What I have learned and continue to learn is that God loves all of us equally, no one person more or less. If this is what God does, then this is what I must do. What we must do. I remind myself that the job of God is taken and not by me. I pray that I am not ultimately defined by that long-ago behavior.

In the epistle appointed for today from 1Peter, we hear: “Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.” That passage frightened me greatly when I was little. I figured that my sins were so great that roaring lion would surely have me for lunch. What I see about this passage today is that whatever passes for the devil is that which I must cast off about myself in order to become the disciple Jesus needs in the world. The passage further reads: “…the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen and establish you.”                                                   

In my research for this sermon, I ran across a story about a Roman Catholic deacon who had lost his way, and his work at church had been failing for some time. He had been negative and judgmental toward others. He was asked by his priest to drive some young people to a nursing home to sing. He agreed reluctantly. As he stood in the back of the room and waited for them to finish, he looked down, and there was an old man in a wheelchair. The old man reached up and held his hand all during the program. The next month it was the same. The man in the wheelchair came during the singing and held the hand of the deacon. It happened the next month, and the next month, and the month after that, and the month after that.

Then one Sunday the old man wasn't there. The deacon asked a nurse about him and was told, "Oh, he's down the hall in his room. He's dying, you know, but if you want to go down and pray over him, I guess that would be all right."

So, the deacon found the old man, seemingly unconscious, took his hand and prayed that God would receive him, that God would ease his passage from this life into the next and give him eternal healing.

            As soon as he finished the prayer, the old man squeezed the deacon's hand and the deacon knew that he'd been heard. He was so moved by this that it brought him to tears. He stumbled out of the room and bumped into a woman. She said, "My father’s been waiting for you.”

            The deacon was amazed at this. He said, "What do you mean?"

            The woman said, "Well, my father would say that once a month Jesus came to this place. He would take my hand for a whole hour. I don't want to die until I have the chance to hold the hand of Jesus one more time.”

This story tells me that we can all be the face and the heart and the hands of Jesus for someone else. We can take Jesus’ charge to his disciples at the time of his Ascension and begin to live into it. These moments, opportunities to serve, can take us by surprise sometimes. I pray every day for God to send me opportunities to serve. But I am not always as vigilant as I could be. And I’m sure I miss some of those opportunities. But I still pray.

Those who were present at the Ascension, we imagine, made their way back to where they were staying. With the family of Jesus and a number of women and others they engaged in community-building. They spent time in prayer as they sought to be about the continuation of the work of Jesus. They became the Church. Our Church. Humble, small, tentative beginnings. Now the Christian Church is the largest religious group in the world. How amazing is that!

Now through the Ascension we see Jesus set free from limitations so that his story might continue through the likes of you and me as we are given help and support by the Holy Spirit.

"You shall be my witnesses, in Jerusalem, and in Judea

          and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

A priest once asked his Sunday school pupils how they could tell when the night had ended and the day had begun. "Could it be," asked one student, "when you can see an animal in the distance and tell whether it's a sheep or a dog?"

 "No," answered the priest. That’s not the answer I’m looking for.”

Another asked, "Is it when you can look at a tree in the distance and tell whether it's a fig tree or a peach tree?"

 "No," answered the priest. “It’s still not the answer I want.  "Then when is it?" the pupils demanded.

"It is when you can look on the face of any person and see the face of Jesus. Because if you cannot see this, it is still night."

Amen