Trinity Sunday
Matthew 28
16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. 18And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’*
This week I finally asked my brother the question that’s been on my mind since the beginning of racing season: “Andrew, what have you done with my brother Andrew?”
Andrew, it seems, has mellowed. Now this, in and of itself is not a bad thing. He has always been wound a bit tight, the yin to my yang, the anxious presence to my non-anxious presence, the guy I am pleased to give my anger work because he does it so well.
Then this new guy got on the boat. There is no swearing. There is no shouting “Starboard” or “I need room” or my favourite “I have rights.” It’s like someone nefarious switched out my brother and gave us a Zen master instead. I don’t like it.
In racing, you see, the object is to press your rights right up to the moment the other boat threatens to cut you in half, shouting all the while, then taking great pleasure as they are forced to tack away. The word Schadenfreude comes to mind, taking pleasure in the misfortune of others, but only in Humber Bay, and only on race nights.
If there were a Father’s Day message in all of this, it would be that little Jacob, at age 2.5, has done the seemingly impossible, and turned a sailing Pit Bull into a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. And in the spirit of the day I will accept our finishes to date, a third, a third, a fourth and a third, and celebrate the gift of fathers.
***
If we were to get our minds off sailing for just a minute, we might reflect on the lessons for Trinity Sunday. It’s a minor holiday in the liturgical calendar of the United Church, right up there with Reformation Sunday and Christ the King Sunday. It will be marked, I expect, in many of our churches, maybe even celebrated with clover and Neapolitan ice cream, but it will always remain in the minor league of liturgical occasions.
If only we were Anglicans, if only for today. Back in March I had the great pleasure of visiting The Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, known locally as Downpatrick Cathedral, a church that shares the very same name with cathedrals in Bristol, Carlisle, Ely, Norwich and Waterford. It seems the Middle Ages had no trademark law, or it simply points to the popularity of the doctrine.
Now, note the phrasing. The Holy and Undivided Trinity is much more than a cathedral name, it expands our understanding by adding the word ‘undivided.’ God-in-three-persons, the triune God, is always and forever undivided, something that our medieval forbears want to emphasize, and something they found in scripture.
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” Jesus said. “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 teach them,” he continued, “to obey everything that I have commanded you.”
The first reminder is authority. The earthy realm, the heavenly realm, each lives under the authority of the Risen Christ, governed with the Spirit’s help, and perfectly reflecting the threefold nature of God. God came into the world in Jesus to save us, and remains present to us in the sacraments of the church and the Spirit that moves in and among us now. It is a theological system that rests on the authority of Jesus to lead us and intercede for us.
The second reminder is to make disciples. Here again is where the United Church becomes exceedingly shy, or at least cautious, at the command to make disciples of all nations. Some of the caution is appropriate, particularly when we confess that in the past we too often forced our culture on others while we were sharing our religion. It would be sad, however, to allow the mistakes of the past to deter us from sharing the Good News of new life in Christ with so many in our midst who are crying out for meaning.
The third reminder found in this rich little passage is obedience, and concept that can only be fully understood by returning to Humber Bay.
But before I return to my happy place, I will note that obedience is a tough sell in 2011. It is a tough sell among Canadians generally, among young people for sure, and a maybe the baby-boomers most of all. It’s just a tough sell. And of course, it is a tough sell in the church. Sermons on obedience are rare bordering on endangered, and the most popular hymn on the topic is more often mocked than sung:
Trust and obey, for there's no other way
to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
So whatever happened to obedience? How did it go the way of prudence and temperance? How did it become so unpopular that rejecting obedience seems to have become the higher virtue?
Sailing is all about obedience. First you must obey the wind. The direction, the intensity, the variability, every aspect of the wind effects whatever wish the sailor may have. You are not in control of the wind. If you have a powerboat I salute you, because you have achieved a level of mastery over the wind. That is, until there is a storm, then you are back in the same boat (pun intended) as everyone else.
Then you must obey the limitations of your boat. Like everything that is manmade, it is strong and purposeful, but can suddenly become fragile. Shallow water comes to mind first, but also equipment failure or simple mistakes like choosing the wrong sail.
Finally, you must obey the Racing Rules of Sailing, which are really just a fancy way of saying you must share the water. There are literally hundreds of rules, governing every aspect of the sport, but the real action is in Part Two, under the rather prosaic title “When Boats Meet.” From experience, I can tell you that ‘when boats meet’ there is shouting, scraping, and the sudden smell of fiberglass. Better to obey the Racing Rules of Sailing than find yourself in the protest room when you should be upstairs telling tall tales over a pint.
If we were really candid about the structure of our lives, we would quickly see that obedience is pretty central. We obey the rules of the road, not just to avoid punishment, but to protect our safety and the safety of others. We pay taxes, not with delight, but generally with the recognition that the common good is served when our taxes support the things have come to depend on, such as health care and schools. And we obey social conventions, for the sake of maintaining relationships, like answering yes when the question demands yes and answering no when the question demands no. It puts me in mind of my colleague Robin, who has a sign on the door of her office that says “Tell me, does this pulpit make my butt look fat?” The answer is no.
Jesus said “Teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Teach them to be obedient to my teachings, and to follow in my way. Teach them to pick up their cross. Teach them to forgive seven times seventy times. Teach then to turn the other cheek and walk the extra mile. Teach them to visit the sick and the prisoner, to offer cup of water and the clothes off your back. Teach them to have compassion for broken people. Teach them to pray for the living and the dead. Teach them to love one another and never cease to add to their circle. Teach them to remember that they are always a child of God.
Some of these come easily to us, and some, not so much. Some of these come with an obvious reward, and some, no reward at all. Some are deeply counter-cultural and some are just good advice if you want to live with other people. Some we know, if we are really candid, we may never achieve, and they take us back to the forgiveness prayer. No one said obedience would be easy, or popular, or even feasible in this day and age, but try we must.
Maybe the most helpful conclusion comes from Julian of Norwich, in her hut across the town from the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, who wrote:
God did not say,
‘You shall not be tempest-tossed,
You shall not be weary,
You shall not be discomforted.’
But God did say, ‘You shall not be overcome."
Pentecost
Acts 2
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them.
5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,[b] 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”
The wettest spring on record finally came to an end, and the children of Noah and Mrs. Noah spread all over the earth.
And they came to the Plain of Shinar. And they said, let’s build ourselves a city, constructed with bricks from clay and we’ll use bitumen as mortar (must be a biblical story from Alberta). And they decided to include a tower, not just any tower, but a tower to reach to the heavens, to make a name for themselves throughout the world. And so they did.
Now God came down and saw what these people were doing, and God being God, was able to quickly get the heart of the problem. “These people,” God said, “speak one language, planning together and working together, and proving that when they work together, they can achieve the impossible.”
Remember these are early days for God. Punishing Adam and Eve, cleansing the earth at the flood, God appears to be coming to terms with the tension between human disobedience and the power to destroy them all.
Back to our story, God hits upon a plan: ‘If I confuse their language, so that they can’t understand each other, then take the added measure of spreading them all over the earth, it seems unlikely that they will be building any more tall towers.’ It was good in theory. Then the editor adds a note to the end of the story, this story recorded in the 11th chapter of Genesis, saying, “This is why it was named Babel, because the LORD confused the language of the whole world.”
Now, Babel is a funny word. The note in my Bible suggests it comes from Babylonia, the region in the east where all this happened. Then it suggests Babel is Hebrew for confused, a suggestion that might better fit the editors of my Bible. My own theory, though the Internet tells me I’m not the first to think of this, is that Babel is simply onomatopoeia, a word that does what it says. Spoken at once, these languages sounded like nothing more than babble.
I sometimes wonder if Toronto is the story of the Tower of Babel in reverse. Back in 1968, when Canadian National first decided to build a tower to the heavens, Toronto looked pretty different from today. The world was on its way to our fair city, but it was near the beginning of our story of great diversity.
So they began to build, and when it was complete, the world began to notice the city by the lake, and our open spirit, and down to today we have the tower and we have a population that speaks over 140 language and dialects. We are not just diverse, but the most diverse in the world, according to the United Nations, so take that New York and London!
So here we are, sitting in the shade of our tall tower, speaking 140 languages and dialects, and living in relative harmony. Then God spoke:
6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,[b] 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”
I sometimes wonder if Pentecost is the story of the Tower of Babel in reverse. Back in Shinar, languages were invented to confuse and divide, but in Jerusalem that day, languages are used to clarify and unite. Here are the Galileans, humble fishers and farmers, speaking the languages of the known world, and even speaking a dead language, the language of Medes, just in case we forget that the message of Jesus is for all time.
They speak and they declare the wonders of the God, then Peter preaches, and we read that those who were moved by the message were baptized that day and 3,000 were added to their number.
Does this mean that the Babel is ended, that we have overcome the burden of human division? Clearly, no. The scattered peoples of the world erected new towers, and build weapons and defenses, and moved against each other on far too may occasions, and generally made a mess. Pentecost is the birthday of the church, and the beginning of a new age in human development, but not the answer to the very problem that God identified near the beginning: we continue to demonstrate that nothing we set our minds to is impossible.
No, maybe you’re thinking to yourself that this is, in fact, the promise of humanity, that nothing we set our minds to is impossible. And you would be partially right, for our clever minds and opposing thumbs have done extraordinary things, taking us from caves to the moon in just a few thousands years, a mere speck in the sands of time. And for you ‘glass half-full’ people I have only one word: Plutonium.
You see, back at the beginning of the atomic age, the scientists who were developing the brave new world of nuclear energy were confronted with a choice: thorium or uranium. Thorium is more abundant than uranium, it is less radioactive, meaning unable to meltdown in the same way we know uranium can, and useless to anyone wanting to make an atomic bomb. So governments chose uranium, and its evil by-product plutonium, as the atomic fuel of choice. Neil Reynolds, in describing all this, points to the wonderful irony found in the names: Thorium is named for Thor, the guardian of the earth, while Plutonium is named for Pluto, the God of Hell.
So the day of Pentecost was not the answer to the problems of the world, and not the beginning of an obvious progression toward some type of human perfection. Going a step further, the birth of the church was clearly not the answer to the problems of the world, and not the location of an obvious progression toward some type of human perfection. Quite the opposite, in fact. For the church is the place were broken people come together, where those in need find other people in their need and they speak. They speak in any one of 140 languages and dialects (in Toronto at least) and they declare the wonders of God. They declare God’s grace, that unconditional love that only God can give. They declare God’s mercy, the forgiveness extended in the face of all of our foolishness, and they declare God’s compassion, best demonstrated in God’s son, Jesus the Christ.
And is was Jesus, in the simplest way possible, that described the heart of Pentecost long before Pentecost, in close to his shortest parable of all:
And again he said, Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened. (Luke 13.20,21)
To Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome, Cretans and Arabs, the disciples of Jesus were leaven, nothing more than common yeast, hidden in three measures of meal untill the whole world is leavened. It can’t happen over night, or even in 2,000 years, but slowly, mostly hidden, and happening still. It is Pentecostal hope, and the only hope we have. Amen.
Seventh Sunday after Easter
John 17
10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.
11 And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.
There’s a stage near the beginning of life when you imagine that the world revolves around you, that when you leave the room the people you leave behind freeze until you reenter.
There’s a stage in life where you feel completely alone, that the world outside has forgotten you, or worse, never knew you were there.
There’s a stage where you pick and choose your relationships, aware that some make you feel more like the real you and others do not.
Finally, there’s a stage where you accept that you are you, and others are not you, and because you know this, you are better able to love them and forgive them.
You will notice that each stage is unique in how we meet others. In the first, they are our playthings; later they are a threat; then they help define us; and at the last, they live beside us. They are no longer plaything, or threat, or definer, but another child of God.
In the nativity, the world existes more as a tableau than a real situation, and Jesus is the centrepiece, an adoring world frozen around him, time stopped.
In the desert, Jesus is tempted to by the adversary through long conversation and elaborate promises, but is mostly alone, forty days and forty nights, which always means ‘a very long time.’
In his ministry, there were always people who could not follow: the rich young ruler is the best example, but there were entire towns that became shaken dust on the road to the next place, the next set of potential friends.
And at the end, Jesus could only pray. He prayed that his followers be unified, and kept safe, and learn to love and forgive one another for the sake of themselves and the world.
You will notice that each stage is unique in how Jesus meets others. In the first, they are pieces in an elaborate crèche; then they are gone, leaving only the adversary; then people help define him, or at least define his mission in the world; and finally he prays for them, and for us.
***
John’s Gospel is one part introduction and two parts conclusion. It begins at the moment of creation and it ends with a little grilled fish, just Jesus and his friends. And in between the Word made flesh and the shore of Lake Gennesaret, there are many signs, and many wonders, all of which point to Jesus’ relationship to God and Jesus’ relationship to you and me.
And John 17, where we pause today, is a chapter of prayer. Jesus prays that cross and resurrection will demonstrate God’s glory, that eternal life will be known. He prays that the certainty his disciples know through this direct relationship with God will continue, and he prays that God keep them safe.
***
People say it is a comfort knowing that others are praying for you. As a minister, I can tell you that it brings great comfort knowing that people pray for their ministers and wish them well in their vocation. And when we pray in this place, for people in need, I make a point of mentioning it to them the next time we meet. It brings comfort.
If I was going to make a summary, then, I would say simply that prayer brings comfort. We can call this the least mysterious aspect of prayer: that prayer brings comfort. This is not to diminish it somehow, but to acknowledge that it is something anyone can do and anyone can understand.
And it works on reverse too. We gain comfort when we pray for others, or when we express thanks to God, or when we quietly ask God for help. But the act of praying for others, in particular, serves to strengthen our bond to them, and to somehow strengthen the fabric of the universe. And how could it not? The act of prayer creates a bond that lives beyond normal interaction. It opens a third dimension to our relationships, and invites God to enter.
People say it is a comfort knowing that others are praying for you. And I would argue it is a necessity, because human life is something best not attempted alone, something that requires the care and attention of others, something that requires prayer.
***
That Jordan River water I mentioned, a gift to Grayson from Sylvia, appeared quite suddenly on my desk in the middle of the week. It was too small to be a bottle of drinking water, something that we banned from the United Church long ago, and it was helpfully labeled, “not for drinking, for religious purposes only.” Always good to read the fine print.
If we ponder for just a moment the connection we made, baptizing Grayson in the same water that Jesus was baptized in, and in the same water that countless pilgrims were baptized in through the ages, and the same water that modern pilgrims have received and carried off to the far corners of the world, it is hard not to be astounded. Add to that all the people, young and old, who were baptised here at the corner of King and Weston Road, over the last 190 years, it is hard not to be astounded. And add to that the everlasting connection you and I now have with Grayson, and the varied times and places where we were baptized, and it is hard not to be astounded.
And even more astounding are the words that Jesus prays on this very topic: “All mine are yours, God, and yours are mine…protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”
There is a stage, before font and table, and gathered believers, when we imagine we are the centre of things.
There is a stage in life where we feel completely alone, sometimes even in church, unsure how we relate even to the people closest to us.
There is a stage where you approach the font, as millions have before, understanding that is not about who gets to heaven and who doesn’t, but about the relationships formed when we enter into a new life in Christ.
Finally, there’s a stage where you understand that you are a child of God, surrounded by other children of God, and you understand the call to pray for one another, love one another, and forgive one another. It is the stage where we realize that our prayers are also Christ’s prayers and he intercedes for us in a mysterious way we cannot begin to understand. And it is a stage that brings comfort, for us and others, now and always, Amen.
