What Trinity Can Mean

Today is Trinity Sunday.  It is a day to observe our understanding of God as One, who is known as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Is this confusing, or is it awesome?

Last Sunday in the “Week in Review” section of the New York Times there was an article by two professors of psychology about the experience of awe.  A favorite expression we often hear is that something is “awesome.”  The authors of the article ask, “Why do humans experience awe?”

They respond by stating, “We humans … can get goose bumps when we experience awe, that often-positive feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends our understanding of the world.”  Awe “motivates people to do things that enhance the greater good.  Through many activities that give us goose bumps — collective rituals, celebration, music and dance, religious gatherings and worship — awe might help shift our focus from our narrow self-interest to the interests of the group to which we belong.”

In their research the authors “found that awe helps bind us to others, motivating us to act in collaborative ways that enable strong groups and cohesive communities.”  They also discovered “that participants who reported experiencing more awe in their lives, who felt more regular wonder and beauty in the world around them, were more generous to the stranger.”

At another level they said, “You could make the case that our culture today is awe-deprived. Adults spend more and more time working and commuting and less time outdoors and with other people.”  They are preoccupied with individual needs and the need for personal economic security.

There is a sense in which our understanding of the Trinity is awesome and there is also a sense in which our contemporary understanding of a Trinitarian God is deprived of awe.  The purpose of the doctrine of the Trinity is to teach us something about the nature of God.  It tells us something about ourselves.  Since Christ lives by the very life of God, and we live by the life of Christ, we too live by the life of God. 

The very structure of our existence has been transformed to this basic reality: in being and destiny, through our baptism in the death and resurrection of Christ, we have been taken into the sphere of God’s own life.  We are in relationship with God, with Jesus Christ, and with everyone through the Spirit.  How awesome is that!

Karen Armstrong, in her book, “The Case for God,” states, “The whole point of the doctrine of the Trinity was to stop Christians from thinking about God in rational terms.  Trinity was mythos, it spoke a truth that was not accessible to reason, and it made sense only when translated into practical action.  It was a meditative device to counter the idolatrous tendency of people who perceived God as a mere being.”

God is indescribable. We do not know nor can we know the mind of God.  The Trinity is a mystery; no one is required to believe it as a divine fact.  The Trinity today remains a problem, pointless, incomprehensible, and even absurd because it is understood as an abstract metaphysical doctrine rather than a meditative activity.”

We need to renew our appreciation for mystery.  Living as we do in a rational and objective culture, we deprive ourselves of seeing both with our eyes and our minds what is truly awesome.

Our scripture readings from Paul’s letter to the Romans and from the 3^rd chapter of the gospel of John invite us to know this awesome reality.

In Romans we read, “All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.  For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ-- if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.”

John’s gospel also discusses this awesome reality: “Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony.  If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?  No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man…. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

Let us meditate on what the idea of the Trinity can mean in our lives and, as we reflect on the early experience of the Church, Paul’s letter to the Romans, and John’s gospel, we should focus on restoring experiences of awe.  It is worthy of our consideration that people who experience more awe in their lives feel greater wonder and beauty in the world around them, and are more generous to the stranger.   Amen.

The Gift of God’s Spirit

Following the great fifty days of the Easter season is the Day of Pentecost.  Today is the Day of Pentecost, a time to focus on the gift of God's Spirit.  On this day we celebrate the beginning of the church's outreach to all the nations, and we renew our commitment to the mission of reconciliation, of restoring all people to God and each other in Christ.

The gift of the Spirit of God is for the whole community.  It is the responsibility of the church to create unity among all people who are separated because of fear, pride, or some other reason.  Reconciliation, restoring to wholeness what is broken, and bringing women, men and children into a community of loving worship of God, are the ministries of those who have received the gifts of the Spirit.  We accept the gift of God’s Spirit knowing our need for God's cleansing spirit of love and compassion.

In the Acts of the Apostles we are told, “When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place.  And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.… All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.”

Peter spoke to the crowd that had gathered and quoted from the prophet Joel, “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.  Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy…. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

There is a sense in which God’s Spirit is being poured out on our Church and our Diocese.  We are seeing visions and dreaming dreams about our Diocesan Cathedral building and how it can be repurposed to address issues of reconciliation and justice.

During several months following the suspension of services at the Cathedral, Bishop Knisely formed a task force to meet with members of the Cathedral to study what might be done with the building.  Eventually, a consensus was reached by the Cathedral Chapter to use building for a slave trade museum and a center for reconciliation.  This decision was affirmed by Diocesan Convention last November.

To begin implementing this decision the Bishop appointed a steering committee that has been meeting regularly over the past several months to develop a vision, a mission, goals and guiding principles that would encompass a Center for Reconciliation.  I have been serving as a member of the steering committee and so I share some of the committee’s thinking and my understanding of what we are trying to accomplish.  We envision a restored building that will in time provide for a teaching museum or gallery about the slave trade history of Rhode Island, a space for performing arts related to this history, an education and training center for reconcilers, and worship that would be both Episcopal and inter-faith.

A separate non-profit organization has been formed, and preliminary work is being done to raise funds for development and to engage a project manager to assist with programs and community partners.

There are several reasons for doing this: first, the history of the Rhode Island slave trade has not been told or it has been glossed over in school history books; second, we need to understand what it means to live with the legacy of this history in our time; third, there continues to be economic and social inequality in our society; fourth, the mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other; fifth, we have an opportunity to redevelop and reposition our Cathedral building; and sixth, there is immeasurable value in having a teaching gallery, performance space, training and education about reconciliation, worship and preservation of the historic graveyard and garden that is adjacent to the building.

In summary, the Center for Reconciliation is to be a multi-faceted organization dedicated to reconciliation that builds equitable and respectful relationships to restore unity with God and one another.

In Paul’s Letter to the Romans we read, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

And so today we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit, the giver of life, the One who spoke through the prophets, [and]... the Lord who leads us into all truth.  The Spirit brings us into harmony with God, with ourselves, with our neighbors, and with all creation.”  It is through the blessing of the ordinary things of life that we are in communion with God and one another, and we are in touch with the loving and graceful power of spiritual living.  Amen.                       

Prayer for Equality and Justice

This past Wednesday I attended the 7^th annual conference of the Rhode Island Interfaith Coalition to Reduce Poverty.  The theme of the conference was “Growing an Economy for All Rhode Islanders.”  A featured speaker and small group discussions focused on several issues including race, poverty and mass incarceration; health care and health insurance; legislation; and organizing faith communities to action.

The speaker was the Rev. Dr. Sekinah Hamlin, an energetic Baptist minister who is the Director of the Ecumenical Poverty Initiative in Washington, D.C.  Dr. Hamlin spoke passionately about the anger and hopelessness of people who are trapped so they cannot see another reality apart from their own experience of exploitation and racism.

Her message was that an economy for all must include all at the table in order to tackle disproportionate outcomes.  People who are trapped need to tell their personal stories so others who talk about equality can listen and understand what it means to struggle when there is no opportunity for economic equality.

There are many people who come to All Saints’ Church during the week to ask for help because they are trapped by the systems that are designed to help.  Help is either not available or it is delayed because there is a waiting period.  One example of this happened the next day.  A woman stopped in the church office who has three young children ages 2, 4, and 6 living in a small room at Crossroads.  She is waiting for the Crossroads Family Center to open a place for her, and she is waiting for the State to give her food stamps for which she is not eligible until the first of June.  She brings her children to the City Meal Site on Tuesdays; I gave her a gift card to buy some additional food at Stop and Shop.  Her story is typical of a number of people in our state who are struggling because of hunger, lack of housing, and unemployment.

In her talk Dr. Hamlin referred to Langston Hughes, writer and poet who talked about dreams left behind.  Listen to his poem titled Dreams:

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

It is incredibly sad that so many people are trapped in our otherwise abundant society so that their dreams are either left behind, non existent, or frozen in snow.  Life for them is a barren field.

Today’s gospel is about Jesus spending time in prayer, prayer that all people may be one, that there may be justice, equality and peace in the world.  His prayer as recorded in John’s gospel is one of the most beautiful passages in the New Testament.  Among other things, Jesus prayed that his disciples would be set apart in the service of truth, and they must see themselves sent into the world.  Because of their relationship to God, the disciples shared Jesus' mission.  Jesus prayed to God, "I protected the disciples in your name,....I guarded them,...so that the scripture might be fulfilled.  But now I am coming to you; and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves…. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world."

It is evident from Jesus' prayer that we are meant to continue to live in the world.  We are meant to be right where we are with all the uncertainty, tension, and conflict that exists in the world.  Jesus is aware that life is not always easy.  We are often at odds with the powers that rule the present order and we are easily dismissed as irrelevant because of what we believe.  However, the challenge is clear:  to continue the work of reconciliation in a world that is hostile to that mission. 

Jesus prayed to God, “I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. … They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.  Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth."

When we gather each week for worship we come together to pray and to listen to God’s Word of truth in scripture and in the life of Jesus.  We offer songs of praise and thanksgiving, and then we set a table that invites and includes all people regardless of the circumstances of their lives.  It is the Lord’s Table.  We gather at this table to share the meal of Christ’s Body and Blood in our celebration of the Holy Eucharist.  It is the service of thanksgiving for the gifts, however large or small, we receive from God’s abundance.

Let us continue to live in that truth, to invite others to join us at the Lord’s table, and continue to pray for equality and justice for everyone.  Amen.

Live in God’s Love

Today is Mothers’ Day.  It is a fortuitous coincidence that our collect and scripture readings are about love.  In the collect we prayed, “O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises.”  It is about loving God in all things, living in God’s love that I invite us to think about this morning.

One of the things I enjoy doing when the weather permits is to sit on our sun-porch and read a good book.  I like to watch as birds fly around and perch on the bird feeder in our side yard.  It is a way to relax, to enjoy the scenery, to observe people walking by with their young children or dogs, or ride past on their bikes. 

There are many ways to relax and allow one’s surroundings to fulfill our lives.  It might be as simple as sitting on the beach or sailing on the Bay, lounging on a hammock in the back yard, or taking a walk through the neighborhood.  These are a few ways that I feel we all live or abide within our created world, the world in which God is love.

When Jesus said to his disciples, "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love,” he was saying something very revealing about God’s love.  This word, “love” was increasingly important as the years progressed following Jesus’ death and resurrection.  In the earliest gospel Mark never used the word, love, but Matthew and Luke, both written a few years later, used it only once.  Later when John wrote his gospel sometime around the year 90 or 100, he referred to it seven times.  Then in the First Letter of John the word love is used 18 times:  “Abide in my love.”

One of the offertory sentences we use is from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians,  “Walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.”  The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible has a slightly different translation but the meaning is the same, “Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love as Christ loved us.” 

Walking in love, living in love, abiding in love are ways of being in God’s love.  When I think of “love” I am aware of several meanings we give to this word.  Among them are three types of love that we know and live by.  The first is “eros,” a love that is emotional and intimate as between two people.  The second is “philia,” brotherly or sisterly love, a love of friendship or the love of one’s neighbor.  The third understanding of love is “agape.”  Agape is the love of God that transcends all loves and what it means to live a godly life, a life in the Spirit of God.  God is in us and we are in God, it is immanent and transcendent at the same time.

In an article about our scripture readings for today, the author Susan Palo Cherwein states, “Agape is a conscious, intentional, selfless love, a sign of the indwelling God.  It is ‘I in them and them in me.’  It wells up from the undepleted love of God, changing us, changing life, changing the world…. Every act of love increases Christ’s sway on the universe.  All of our smallest acts, lived out of love, have the potential of helping God’s reign come.”

When we pray the Lord’s prayer we say,  “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”  This is a prayer that acknowledges God’s indwelling spirit abiding in all creation; it abides in us and we live within God. 

There is a wonderful book titled The God We Never Knew, by the late Marcus Borg.  In it the author offers insightful ideas about how Christians today can come to know God in their lives and faithfully respond to God.  It is a book about living within the compassionate love of God and being in relationships of love that really matter.

Marcus Borg makes the claim that "God is all around us" and "we live within God."  "Whatever opens our hearts to the reality of the sacred is what we should be engaged in....The Christian life is not about pleasing God the finger-shaker and judge.  It is not about believing now or being good now for the sake of heaven later.  It is about entering a relationship in the present that begins to change everything now.  Spirituality is about this process:  the opening of the heart to the God who is already here."

"The fruit of this process is compassion..... God's will for us...is to become more compassionate beings.....If spirituality -- a life of relationship with the Spirit of God -- does not lead to compassion, then either it is life in relationship to a different spirit or there is a lot of static in the relationship.  The absence or presence of compassion is the central test for discerning whether something is 'of God.'  As the primary gift of the Spirit, compassion is the primary sign of spiritual growth." 

Compassion is another word about God’s love for all people.  God is love; God is Compassion.  The relationships we share that draw us into this compassionate love are what the Christian life is about.  Let us then live in love and abide in God in all we do. Amen.

Fruit of the Vine

One of the things I enjoy about the spring months of May and June is watching as the branches of vines and trees burst forth with blossoms and leaves.  It is a sure sign that a new season of life is all around us.  The weather is warmer and we are finally glad to be alive and out in the fresh air.

The vines and branches are similar to our own family trees.  What do you know about your family tree, your family history?  Can you trace back through the generations of your parents, grandparents, and great grandparents or even further?  Exploring family histories can be an interesting and often revealing thing to do.  We could learn some good and fascinating things that our relatives accomplished, and we maybe sometimes discover some things we would rather forget.

One of the topics I have discussed with couples who are planning a marriage is their respective family history portraits.  I have shared with them a form developed by the National Institute of Health for individuals and couples to understand their family heritage.  In their family tree, what were the illnesses and causes of death of earlier relatives?  Were there siblings, parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts or uncles, who had life-threatening diseases?  The point of the family portrait is to help couples to understand their respective family histories, and to ascertain whether there are any potential risk factors for genetic abnormalities if they are planning to have children.  Couples who complete their family portrait often learn some things that are interesting and even exciting.

Our family histories are like the vine and the branches that Jesus speaks about in today’s gospel.  Jesus said to his disciples, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. …. Abide in me as I abide in you. …I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, …If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples."

Jesus spoke a word of new life and hope to the community of his followers.  When he said “I abide in you,” he was speaking to the community, his disciples and then to his followers of every age.  Our community is God’s community and we belong to God.  Gail O’Day, a biblical scholar and former Brown student has said that the metaphor of referring to God as the vine-grower and the community as the branches is a “radically nonhierarchical” metaphor. “All branches are equal before God.” 

The First Letter of John also focuses on the community by stating that all of us are responsible for loving one another, as God first loved us. “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.”  John reminds us that there is no room for hypocrisy in a community that truly hopes to preach the good news.  If we cannot love one another—especially those we know—we cannot hope to proclaim God’s love with authority or integrity to those whom we don’t know.

Jesus used the metaphorical language of a vine and branches to link us to what we don’t know and what is unknown and unseen in the culture that surrounds us.  He used parables, stories about ordinary things in life to help us understand our relationship to God.

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower…. You are the branches."  The symbol of the vine explained Jesus’ relationship with God and his disciples.  God is the vine grower, Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. "Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.”  Abiding in Jesus is about his relationship of love with the disciples and with all of us.  Only by abiding in his love can a person bear fruit and live.  Bearing fruit is about living a life of good works and virtue.  Keeping God's commandments of loving God and one’s neighbors is what bearing fruit is about.  It is so essential to a life of faith that, "Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned."  In other words, one who does not behave in a compassionate and virtuous manner is virtually dead. 

Jesus understood his followers as ambassadors of the gospel.  By living virtuously and by keeping the commandments to love God and neighbor, the world will become reconciled to God.  In today’s troubled world we need more ambassadors of reconciliation.  By living as Jesus' disciples God is glorified we can bear much fruit.  The glory of God is the joyful goal of life that is the fruit of the true vine.   Amen.