Perfect People...

Our 9 year old daughter, Fiona, saw this sign today outside of a church in our town and she asked about it. "Is it true that no one is perfect?" she asked.

My wife, Erin, answered, "Yeah, that's right. Only Jesus is perfect."

Fiona quipped, "Then I guess that Jesus is the only one not allowed in that church."

Ouch. Wow. I'm thinking that this is probably not what the pastor intended!

As they say, "Out of the mouths of babes..."

Greet One Another With a Holy Kiss

A Sermon for Trinity Sunday (RCL A) 6-19-2011

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:              Genesis 1:1-2:4a; Psalm 8; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28:16-20

Themes:         creation, the great commission, perichoresis

During the period from the 5^th to the 8^th of May in this year, the Gallup company conducted a random poll of American citizens and discovered that 92% of all Americans say that they believe in God. This is only slightly lower than the 94% who responded affirmatively to this same question in 1947. (see the website: http://www.gallup.com/poll/147887/Americans-Continue-Believe-God.aspx )

Even today, nearly all Americans say that they believe in God – 92%. What is more, a poll undertaken by Gallup in 2002 revealed that 93% of all Americans, regardless of their religious background –if any, claim that Jesus has had some impact upon their lives as a moral and ethical leader. Going back a bit further, a 1993 Gallup poll found that 84% of all Americans at that time said they believe that Jesus is God or the Son of God. (see the website: http://www.gallup.com/poll/7471/Who-Jesus.aspx)

What does all of this professed belief among Americans mean? And what, if anything does all of this have to do with Trinity Sunday?  

Well, let me ask you this: what is the value of belief without action? What is the importance of belief with commitment? What is the purpose of thinking thoughts that make no difference in one’s actions?

In the Gospel of Matthew, the very last words spoken by the Lord to his closest friends have been recorded and handed down to us as the Great Commission. They are powerful words, direct and forceful. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. ”

Let me suggest to you that there is absolutely no correlation at all between the kind of insipid belief in God that is so ubiquitous in American society and the call of Jesus to make disciples who are baptized and who obey what Jesus actually taught us.

To say that you believe in God but you are not really interested in following what God has taught us is the same as saying that you believe in marriage but you are not willing to make the full commitment of your entire life to another human being!

There is nothing wrong with that kind of belief. The problem is that it has no real value, because it is devoid of a relationship.

What our Lord Jesus is interested in is not some kind of general belief in some vague idea that makes no real difference in real life, but rather in a living relationship with those who love him.

And this is what Trinity Sunday is all about: real, loving relationships between living beings.

On the sixth day of creation, God said: “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.” In the Church, we understand this Divine “We” to be a conversation within the Blessed Trinity, and we see this as a plan by all three Persons of the Trinity to crown this wonderful new creation with sentient, aware beings capable of love and relationship.

What, after all, does it mean to be made in God’s image, according to the likeness of the Trinity?

We can never answer this definitely, but surely at the very least it points to the relational nature of human life, in just the same way that God is always, eternally in loving relationship.

The great theologians of the Church have spoken of this as the perichoresis of the three Persons of the Trinity.

This is a beautiful word, but it is foreign to most of us. It comes from two roots: peri – which means around, and choreio – which means to contain or to embrace. Think of one of our words which come from this root, choreography: the planned, intentional, deliberate movements of an entire group.

Perichoresis was first coined by St. Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the 3 great Cappadocian fathers of the 4^th century. It is all about the intimacy of relationships within the Trinity: how three can be perfectly united together so as to act and think and be as one.

It’s a beautiful image, a lovely reality, worthy of our contemplation.

But the reason it is so important for us is that God has created you and me to manifest that same type of loving relationships in this world in our real, daily lives.

The shocking fact of the matter is that the Church is God’s message to the world – and that’s you and me and all those who are disciples learning to obey all that Christ taught us.

 John Yoder, a well-known Mennonite teacher, has written this about the place of the Church in God’s plan for the world:

“The work of God is the calling of a people, whether in the Old Covenant or the New.

The church is then not simply the bearer of the message of reconciliation, in the way a newspaper or a telephone company can bear any message with which it is entrusted. Nor is the church simply the result of a message, as an alumni association is the product of a school or the crowds in a theater are the product of the reputation of the film.

That men and women are called together to a new social wholeness is itself the work of God, which gives meaning to history” (quoted in Common Prayer).  

We are a crucial part of God’s plan to change the world, and we fulfill our part through the relationships that we build with God and with one another.

This is the primary reason why I believe that any healthy, vibrant congregation today will inevitably be shaped by small group ministries. What we do on Sunday morning is crucial and vital. There is no replacement for our gatherings on the Lord’s Day to celebrate Christ’s resurrection and to be formed together by the Word of God and the Body of Christ.

But Sunday morning worship is not enough; it is never enough. If we only gather on Sunday mornings for the Eucharist, then we will not be faithful in being the Body of Christ in the world.

 We must be more than this. And I am not speaking of volunteer work. All of the efforts that many of you make in this place as volunteers are very helpful, but this is not the critical work of the Body of Christ that must be done. Fundraisers, gardening, administrative organizing – all of this is well and good, but we must never allow it to take the place of our true work in building up the Body of Christ.

One of the reasons that small fellowship groups are essential is that they connect what happens here on Sunday mornings to what happens in our lives throughout the week. These groups are a reminder that this place is not the Church of the Holy Spirit (or the Ascension, or St. Luke’s Church).

It is not. This building is a place where the disciples in this area gather together.  

Remember this, please: you cannot ever go to church! What a silly thing to say.

Let’s work on changing our language, because how we speak affects how we think and how we act. It is impossible for you to wake up on Sunday morning and go to church, just as much as it is impossible for you to leave work on Tuesday afternoon and go to family.

Church is who we are; family is who you are with those related to you. You can never GO there, because it is you! You are it, no matter where all of you might be at any given moment.

On Sundays, we gather for worship; we do not go to church. The difference in mindset is critical.

In the Autumn, when many of you begin to meet together during the week in home fellowship groups for Bible study and prayer and conversation, you will be the Church of the Holy Spirit (or the Ascension, or St. Luke’s Church) meeting in that place. The bonds created in reading and studying and learning and praying together in small groups are vital. They are true reflections of the perichoresis of the Trinity: that intimate union of distinct persons in one mind and will and heart.  

I am convinced that this is the great truth that we need to understand and embrace today.

We are God’s plan to redeem, change and restore the world! And our primary task is to be the people whom God has called us and re-created us to be.

We are the yeast of Christ that is sprinkled into the dough of humanity, to slowly leaven it by being the channel through which the influence of the Holy Spirit can spread to all people.

Listen once more to these beautiful closing words of St. Paul’s second letter to the disciples gathered in the city of Corinth: “Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss.”

May it always be so among us here in this fellowship gathered around Christ our Lord. Amen.

  

HERE I AM- Sermon for the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany

Can you think of a time when you heard the voice of God clearly calling out to you? Like Samuel, perhaps you were asleep when the Voice called. Perhaps, like Samuel, you misunderstood the call. You thought that the Voice came from someone else, someone close by and near to you.

What about on the flip side of the coin? Can you think of a time when you felt that God was silent in your life? This, of course, is the context in which we hear of the calling of Samuel as a young boy. “The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread” (1 Sam. 3:1). The people were not hearing God speak to them in those days. Was God truly silent? Or had they forgotten how to listen?
Is there a time in your life when God seemed to disappear from your life? Do you think it was due to God’s failure to act or to speak? Or was it due to your lack of perception?

When Nathanael met Jesus, our Lord explained that he knew Nathanael – he knew what kind of person he was, and in fact he knew where Nathanael had been even before they met! Nathanael was shocked! “Where did you get to know me?” What a great question! Where did you get to know me, O God? From our side of history, we can laugh at Nathanael’s question. “Of course this man knows you! This is God incarnate, you fool!” Nathanael could not have known this. We know it to be true, but do we believe it. Do we truly and deeply believe that God knows us? Listen to these words from Curtis Almquist that boldly declare this truth:

“God loves you. Who you are, what you are, how you've gotten to be where you are: God know and loves all that. God has this passionate love affair going on with you. God has created you as you are, cherishes you, and longs for your companionship. God has plans for a relationship with you that lasts forever and that grows in intimacy over time. It's like an eternal infatuation. When you're sleeping, God is dreaming up ways to be with you. When you're working or walking or weeping, God is catching up with you in the wind across your face, in the singing of a bird, in the free fall of laughter, in the soothing touch of a friend. You are the apple of God's eye. “ —Unwrapping the Gifts: The Twelve Days of Christmas, by Curtis G. Almquist.

God knows us – even better than we know ourselves! “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” And God speaks to us, calls us by name. But we desperately need to learn the art of listening. Bruce Main, the director of Urban Promise in Camden, a ministry to children in the inner city, tells of a time when he came home from work and greeted his wife, Pam, in their kitchen. Bruce was tired from a long day of work and not really paying attention as Pam launched into a story about her day. Pam was explaining that she took flowers over to their friend Kay who recently learned that her husband had an aggressive brain tumor and would not live long. Unfortunately, Kay was not at home. Pam met Kay’s son-in-law and Pam learned that Kay was spending most of her time at the hospital every day with her ailing husband. So Pam left the flowers and began to drive home, but she had a nagging feeling that she was supposed to do something. She felt a deep compulsion that she was supposed to deliver this message to Kay, “God hears you.”

That’s it? Bruce thought, as he listened to her story, now a bit perplexed. That’s the divine message for Kay, “God hears you”? Isn’t that a simple platitude, a really basic idea, not very profound? And was Pam supposed to spend the rest of her day driving into Philadelphia, struggling to find a parking space, hoping to find Kay in the hospital, all in the hopes of giving her this simple message, “God hears you”?
Well, Pam did it. She made it into the hospital, stopping on the way to pick up some sandwiches and juice for Kay. Kay, of course, was a bit surprised to see her, but pleased also. And after a few minutes of small talk, Kay asked Pam why she had come all the way into the city to see her.
“I have a message for you, Kay,” she explained. “What I’m about to tell you may sound a little strange – maybe absurd! … God hears you!” “That’s it?” Kay asked. Pam nodded, and then it began. Kay broke down in tears and cried. Through her tears, she explained that her first husband had died of cancer years earlier. And she had prayed and asked God to please spare her from that kind of pain again. And when she married Jack, her second husband, she had again prayed specifically to ask that she die first before Jack if he were to become ill. But now here she was, with Jack close to death, Kay had given up on God. Kay had given up on prayer. But here Pam came to her –there, at that moment - with a message of hope!

Pam listened to the Voice of the Holy Spirit. God called to her, and she listened. God spoke, and she obeyed. And something important and meaningful was done there in the name of Jesus. (See Bruce Main, Spotting The Sacred: Noticing God in the Most Unlikely Places, 2006, by Baker Books.)

Did you hear that prayer –the Collect – which was appointed for our gathering this morning? “Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory…”
Well, my friends, that prayer is about us. By the grace of God alone, we are his people, chosen and selected to be instruments of grace and blessing to the world around us. But to do this, we must be willing to listen, and to act with courage when the Voice speaks to us. It may only be a hunch, a feeling deep inside. But deep inside is where the Holy Spirit dwells! Have no fear, my friends. God knows how to speak to us, how to communicate in a way that we can hear. But we must listen and follow. When we do, we glorify God in our body. When we do, then we truly go forth into the world with “strength and courage to love and serve [our Lord] with gladness and singleness of heart.” So may it always be among us who share bread together at this, the Lord’s table. Amen.