October 19-21
at Casa de Maria Retreat Center
Piano Concert
Sunday, July 8 2:30 p.m. in the Church
If you want to enjoy a delightful Sunday afternoon, I am part of a 4-hand piano group called the PJ Ensemble. Patti Amelotte and I have been doing small gatherings at my house using my two grand pianos.
We decided to do a program at Messiah on Sunday the 8th at 2:30pm. The music is classical, but we hope that the atmosphere will put you in your own living room.
-Jim Vaskov
If you want to enjoy a delightful Sunday afternoon, I am part of a 4-hand piano group called the PJ Ensemble. Patti Amelotte and I have been doing small gatherings at my house using my two grand pianos.
We decided to do a program at Messiah on Sunday the 8th at 2:30pm. The music is classical, but we hope that the atmosphere will put you in your own living room.
-Jim Vaskov
June 24, 2012 - Father Mark D. Stuart
One of my favorite films since I first saw it in the cinema when released some years ago is “The Perfect Storm.” It is a great adventure saga, based on a true story, about brave (or, foolish, depending on your point of view) sword fisherman who encounter an incredibly powerful, disastrous hurricane in the north Atlantic. They are finally overcome by a monstrous rogue wave over 200 feet high; that terrifying image of the wave coming down over the boat is overwhelming. Even if you’ve faced a rough storm in your life, I think it’s safe to say that you’ve never experienced anything like that! In some of the areas of the country in which I have lived, I have seen some pretty tough storms: from the tornadoes of Kansas to the hurricanes of the Gulf Coast; so I can identify with the effects of nature’s fury.
In today’s Gospel lesson, the disciples faced a storm, which threatened and terrified them. Perhaps it was not “the perfect storm” of the magnitude that the film portrayed, but the disciples were still pretty shaken up. The Sea of Galilee is a good-sized lake, about like Lake Tahoe, and nasty little squalls and storms can quickly threaten a small fishing vessel far out on its waters.
In fact, I recall a similar experience one summer when Bob and I were visiting my sister and brother-in-law at their home in South Lake Tahoe. It was a beautiful calm day and my sister suggested the four of us take two kayaks out on Lake Tahoe to a secluded little beach, which we did. After enjoying a leisurely picnic lunch, my brother-in-law scanned the lake horizon and commented in a concerned voice that we better get back to the boat dock quickly since by the look of it, white caps out on the lake indicated some wind picking up. It was not long after we had started paddling back, that violent winds and waves had quickly moved across the lake to us. As the steep waves undulated our little kayaks up high on peaks and then down into troughs we paddled valiantly barely making headway and fighting not to get dashed against the rocks. When we finally made it back we saw the seriousness of the situation – the sheriffs and coast guard were evacuating people from the lake and though exhausted, we were very grateful that we had made it back without mishap. Remembering that, I can identify with how the disciples must have felt in our Gospel story.
Many of the disciples were career fishermen and were probably justifiably alarmed with the situation in our Gospel story, certain the boat would capsize at any moment. Suddenly in their frantic attempt to save themselves they realize that Jesus is in the front of the boat blissfully asleep, unaware of the calamity about to befall them. If the storm did not wake Jesus, the disciples did as they shouted at him, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are perishing?”
An early Christian symbol for the Church was a boat with a cross for the mast. That symbolism recurred in church architecture centuries later; even here in our own parish church. No doubt the imagery of a storm-tossed little boat, like that in our Gospel lesson, seemed appropriate for the early Church which experienced persecutions from the outside and controversies from within. Recalling the story of Jesus calming the storm, like those first disciples in the boat, the early Christians must have joined in their desperate prayer, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
Little has changed in the intervening years. Many feel the winds of change and the waters of chaos beat hard on the worldwide church, both through persecutions in some parts of the world and at home through controversies which divide many Episcopalians. Our private lives are not spared stress and storm as our individual little boats are tossed about by the tempests of the economic recession, divorce, separation, sickness, and death. Hardly a week goes by it seems that we do not have to face the fearsome realities of these events, either impacting us personally or our neighbors or our friends, or fellow parishioners; and through news broadcasts the troubling images from across the world, our nation, and our city invade the safe space of our homes: “Teacher do you not care that we are perishing?”
In today’s Gospel, Jesus calms the wind and the waves and says to the panicking disciples, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” There is a clear link in His questions between faith and fear. The opposite of faith is not doubt or unbelief - it is fear. We fear the unknown: We fear the undiagnosed lump in the breast, or the persistent cough. We fear mad cow disease or cancer or AIDS. We fear losing control of our bodies and our health because of aging. We worry about how the recession will influence our jobs, our savings, our retirement portfolios, our home values and our friends and partners and even our parish. Some of us may worry about who the next rector will be who comes to Church of the Messiah. Fear is like the storm and waves ever trying to knock us off our footing; our footing of faith.
When Jesus rebuked the wind, He did not promise that there would be no further storms, but rather, that He would always be with the disciples through the storms. That is what Jesus promises us. He does not promise that if we believe in Him no evil will befall us, no crisis, no tragedy, no anxiety will ever occur in our lives. He does promise that He will always be with us. If the power of God working through Jesus Christ can rebuke the wind and calm the storm, it can also take care of us!
“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?! And He said ‘Peace! Be still! Why are you afraid?’”
Amen.
In today’s Gospel lesson, the disciples faced a storm, which threatened and terrified them. Perhaps it was not “the perfect storm” of the magnitude that the film portrayed, but the disciples were still pretty shaken up. The Sea of Galilee is a good-sized lake, about like Lake Tahoe, and nasty little squalls and storms can quickly threaten a small fishing vessel far out on its waters.
In fact, I recall a similar experience one summer when Bob and I were visiting my sister and brother-in-law at their home in South Lake Tahoe. It was a beautiful calm day and my sister suggested the four of us take two kayaks out on Lake Tahoe to a secluded little beach, which we did. After enjoying a leisurely picnic lunch, my brother-in-law scanned the lake horizon and commented in a concerned voice that we better get back to the boat dock quickly since by the look of it, white caps out on the lake indicated some wind picking up. It was not long after we had started paddling back, that violent winds and waves had quickly moved across the lake to us. As the steep waves undulated our little kayaks up high on peaks and then down into troughs we paddled valiantly barely making headway and fighting not to get dashed against the rocks. When we finally made it back we saw the seriousness of the situation – the sheriffs and coast guard were evacuating people from the lake and though exhausted, we were very grateful that we had made it back without mishap. Remembering that, I can identify with how the disciples must have felt in our Gospel story.
Many of the disciples were career fishermen and were probably justifiably alarmed with the situation in our Gospel story, certain the boat would capsize at any moment. Suddenly in their frantic attempt to save themselves they realize that Jesus is in the front of the boat blissfully asleep, unaware of the calamity about to befall them. If the storm did not wake Jesus, the disciples did as they shouted at him, “Teacher, don’t you care that we are perishing?”
An early Christian symbol for the Church was a boat with a cross for the mast. That symbolism recurred in church architecture centuries later; even here in our own parish church. No doubt the imagery of a storm-tossed little boat, like that in our Gospel lesson, seemed appropriate for the early Church which experienced persecutions from the outside and controversies from within. Recalling the story of Jesus calming the storm, like those first disciples in the boat, the early Christians must have joined in their desperate prayer, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”
Little has changed in the intervening years. Many feel the winds of change and the waters of chaos beat hard on the worldwide church, both through persecutions in some parts of the world and at home through controversies which divide many Episcopalians. Our private lives are not spared stress and storm as our individual little boats are tossed about by the tempests of the economic recession, divorce, separation, sickness, and death. Hardly a week goes by it seems that we do not have to face the fearsome realities of these events, either impacting us personally or our neighbors or our friends, or fellow parishioners; and through news broadcasts the troubling images from across the world, our nation, and our city invade the safe space of our homes: “Teacher do you not care that we are perishing?”
In today’s Gospel, Jesus calms the wind and the waves and says to the panicking disciples, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” There is a clear link in His questions between faith and fear. The opposite of faith is not doubt or unbelief - it is fear. We fear the unknown: We fear the undiagnosed lump in the breast, or the persistent cough. We fear mad cow disease or cancer or AIDS. We fear losing control of our bodies and our health because of aging. We worry about how the recession will influence our jobs, our savings, our retirement portfolios, our home values and our friends and partners and even our parish. Some of us may worry about who the next rector will be who comes to Church of the Messiah. Fear is like the storm and waves ever trying to knock us off our footing; our footing of faith.
When Jesus rebuked the wind, He did not promise that there would be no further storms, but rather, that He would always be with the disciples through the storms. That is what Jesus promises us. He does not promise that if we believe in Him no evil will befall us, no crisis, no tragedy, no anxiety will ever occur in our lives. He does promise that He will always be with us. If the power of God working through Jesus Christ can rebuke the wind and calm the storm, it can also take care of us!
“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?! And He said ‘Peace! Be still! Why are you afraid?’”
Amen.
June 17, 2012 - Father Mark D. Stuart
“If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”
The world into which Saul of Tarsus (later to be known as Paul) was born was a world in which people were divided into camps: There were privileged citizens of the great Roman Empire and those who were forced to live under her rule, but granted no special rights. There were those who spoke Greek, the highly educated, and those who spoke their common native tongues. And there were many other social distinctions… For the early disciples, there was also another one: There were the Jews, God’s “chosen people” to whom God had been revealed and to whom all the promises of Hebrew Scripture had been made; and the Gentiles, that is everyone else, the pagan idolaters. From this perspective, the Jews were “us,” and the Gentiles were clearly “them.”
Some things don’t seem to change much. There seems to be something deep in human nature that makes us want to divide the world into “us” and “them” and that causes us to choose up sides, draw dividing lines, and building up walls. We do it all the time in so many ways: In many places it’s about the color of your skin or ethnic makeup or sexual orientation. In other places it’s whether you are Christian or Moslem, or whether you are a Sunni Moslem or a Shiite Moslem; or whether you are a Protestant Christian or a Catholic Christian; or among us Anglicans, whether you are an evangelical or High Church or Low Church. Or these days with the heated debate over sexuality in our Church it can be about whether you support Anglican unity over inclusion and human dignity. Sometimes it’s whether you are immigrant vs. native; or labor vs. management; Democrat vs. Republican; an environmentalist or an oil driller. It’s a world of differentiating “us” vs. “them.” It’s about who is a stranger or “strange” to us, because they are not like us, or do not agree with us. We humans are good at building walls to keep ourselves “safe” and to keep the stranger out.
It’s like the story I was told by the member of a congregation in the South I used to supply regularly, who was a forester. He used to often have to consult property owners to determine boundary lines. Walking up a dirt road to question one such person, he encountered signs all over the fence posts and gate that read: “No Trespassing,” “Beware of Dog,” and “Keep Out… This Means You!” Finally arriving at the door, he talked with the congenial, cooperative landowner. When the forester was ready to leave, the man said to him, “Come and see me again sometime. I don’t get many visitors.”
The great American poet Robert Frost wrote:
“Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall”
St. Paul says in his letter to the Galatians: “…for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith… there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” It is up to us to examine our lives and our hearts to find those invisible but very real barriers that we so easily erect between ourselves and our fellow human beings. God, through Christ Jesus, expands the boundaries of the sacred to include both those whom the rules of high-bound religion would exclude, and those that the secular world would exclude, as well.
We all are in need of the reconciliation spoken of by Paul, because in one way or another at some time in our lives we were meant to feel strange, that we were strangers. We all are in need of a fresh look at just who we are in the eyes of God and where we fit in to the family of God. As St. Paul proclaims, we are all called in Christ Jesus to be one; for through Him we all have access to God by one Spirit. The barriers of hostility, the walls of division, are broken down. In God’s eyes no one is strange; no one is a stranger: we are all citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.
Think again of the racial, economic, gender, sexual, social, theological, or political barriers that mark the terrain of our lives and determine whom we see, touch, and share our lives. If we erect those barriers, they direct our footsteps, where we go and whose terrain we avoid. And when people are avoided because they are different or strange, we are called to offer them hospitality, some space where they are welcome and in which they can be themselves. Hospitality means people do not have to conform to our ways, but that they can be themselves in our presence. This is the message St. Paul proclaims throughout his preaching and writing.
In another powerful passage from Ephesians he says: “But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace; in His flesh He has… broken down the dividing wall…So He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through Him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.”
Amen.
The world into which Saul of Tarsus (later to be known as Paul) was born was a world in which people were divided into camps: There were privileged citizens of the great Roman Empire and those who were forced to live under her rule, but granted no special rights. There were those who spoke Greek, the highly educated, and those who spoke their common native tongues. And there were many other social distinctions… For the early disciples, there was also another one: There were the Jews, God’s “chosen people” to whom God had been revealed and to whom all the promises of Hebrew Scripture had been made; and the Gentiles, that is everyone else, the pagan idolaters. From this perspective, the Jews were “us,” and the Gentiles were clearly “them.”
Some things don’t seem to change much. There seems to be something deep in human nature that makes us want to divide the world into “us” and “them” and that causes us to choose up sides, draw dividing lines, and building up walls. We do it all the time in so many ways: In many places it’s about the color of your skin or ethnic makeup or sexual orientation. In other places it’s whether you are Christian or Moslem, or whether you are a Sunni Moslem or a Shiite Moslem; or whether you are a Protestant Christian or a Catholic Christian; or among us Anglicans, whether you are an evangelical or High Church or Low Church. Or these days with the heated debate over sexuality in our Church it can be about whether you support Anglican unity over inclusion and human dignity. Sometimes it’s whether you are immigrant vs. native; or labor vs. management; Democrat vs. Republican; an environmentalist or an oil driller. It’s a world of differentiating “us” vs. “them.” It’s about who is a stranger or “strange” to us, because they are not like us, or do not agree with us. We humans are good at building walls to keep ourselves “safe” and to keep the stranger out.
It’s like the story I was told by the member of a congregation in the South I used to supply regularly, who was a forester. He used to often have to consult property owners to determine boundary lines. Walking up a dirt road to question one such person, he encountered signs all over the fence posts and gate that read: “No Trespassing,” “Beware of Dog,” and “Keep Out… This Means You!” Finally arriving at the door, he talked with the congenial, cooperative landowner. When the forester was ready to leave, the man said to him, “Come and see me again sometime. I don’t get many visitors.”
The great American poet Robert Frost wrote:
“Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall”
St. Paul says in his letter to the Galatians: “…for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith… there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” It is up to us to examine our lives and our hearts to find those invisible but very real barriers that we so easily erect between ourselves and our fellow human beings. God, through Christ Jesus, expands the boundaries of the sacred to include both those whom the rules of high-bound religion would exclude, and those that the secular world would exclude, as well.
We all are in need of the reconciliation spoken of by Paul, because in one way or another at some time in our lives we were meant to feel strange, that we were strangers. We all are in need of a fresh look at just who we are in the eyes of God and where we fit in to the family of God. As St. Paul proclaims, we are all called in Christ Jesus to be one; for through Him we all have access to God by one Spirit. The barriers of hostility, the walls of division, are broken down. In God’s eyes no one is strange; no one is a stranger: we are all citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.
Think again of the racial, economic, gender, sexual, social, theological, or political barriers that mark the terrain of our lives and determine whom we see, touch, and share our lives. If we erect those barriers, they direct our footsteps, where we go and whose terrain we avoid. And when people are avoided because they are different or strange, we are called to offer them hospitality, some space where they are welcome and in which they can be themselves. Hospitality means people do not have to conform to our ways, but that they can be themselves in our presence. This is the message St. Paul proclaims throughout his preaching and writing.
In another powerful passage from Ephesians he says: “But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace; in His flesh He has… broken down the dividing wall…So He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through Him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.”
Amen.
June 3, 2012 - Father Mark D. Stuart
No matter which diocese you find yourself in, whether in the Episcopal Church or any province of the Anglican Communion, one thing is certain – there will always be parishes named “Trinity” (in fact, I have been associated with three Trinity parishes over the years of my ministry: one in San Francisco, one in Kansas, and the other in Alabama). Episcopalians seem to know instinctively the importance of the Trinity in defining their faith as Christians, and they are proud to bear its name. They proclaim the Trinity week after week in the Nicene Creed and they often begin what they do and pray “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (as I begin my sermons). After all, that is how they were baptized and belief in the Trinity is the main thing that sets Christians apart from others who also believe in one God, like our Jewish and Muslim friends.
For those Christians who live their lives within the rhythm of the liturgical year, and for preachers who faithful preach on the weekly Scripture lessons appointed by the common lectionary, this is the only Sunday in the Prayer Book calendar that challenges us to ponder a teaching of the Church, rather than a teaching of Jesus or an event in His life. The word “Trinity” does not appear in Holy Scripture, although it can be inferred from many passages.
Although the mystery of God revealed in three ways is the core belief of Christianity, many struggle to explain it. Monotheistic Christians do back flips explaining why such a belief doesn’t make them polytheists. We often refer to water as an example: this common earthly element exists on this earth as a gas, a liquid, and a solid – three forms, one substance! Or even better yet, we might consider the complexity of human relationships in our lives – to you I am a priest, to my father I am a son, to Bob I was a life partner, to my sister I am a brother, and so forth – very different roles, yet I am the same person!
We preachers finding ourselves in the pulpit on Trinity Sunday feel the need and the burden to explain. Why? Because the annual recurrence of Trinity Sunday marks the persistent attempt to try to make sense of an abstraction and the very mystery of God; like a puzzle to be solved, an analogy to be cleverly presented, or a formula to be improved upon.
Part of the problem has to do with the feast day itself. Unlike Pentecost, Christmas, or Epiphany, Trinity Sunday has no narrative, no biblical story to ground us in space and time. Therefore, the day becomes the celebration of an idea rather than what it was meant to be – a glimpse into God as a community of Persons.
We might well ask: What is it about the Trinity that puts it at the very center of our Christian faith yet remains so elusive to our everyday understanding? Does the Trinity have any spiritual meaning for us today? Within Christianity these days the doctrine of the Trinity is called many things other than amazing. Some call it archaic, obsolete or patriarchal and have abandoned traditional Trinitarian language for something they consider less out of date. Some have chosen a favorite member of the Trinity and focused just on that. Some concerned that the Trinity expressed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit portrays the Godhead as overly male, have reworked the language to make it less offensive and more relevant. Some opt out of the Father-Son relationship and speak only of the function of the three in terms like: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, thus eliminating all anthropomorphic references. Still others are outraged that Christians dare tinker so casually with the ancient expression of the faith. No doubt the conversations and debates will continue, as well they should.
It seems to me that instead of trying to explain the Trinity – how three persons are really one – we must try to do what the doctrine of the Trinity was originally meant to do – give words to faith. The great historic Counsels of the Church, with their need to clarify and define what they found in Scripture, sought to make sense of the experience of God. To speak of the Trinity, the One God who is made known to us as the Creator, the redeeming Christ, and the life-giving Spirit, is to use a short-hand way of expressing the depth of the faith. Without the Trinity holding us accountable, we might be tempted to worship a one-dimensional deity.
This full view of God lifts up a God who is more than a Creator who made the world out of nothing, more than a God of the big-bang theory who began the universe and left it to run on its own. We do not worship a process, but a very personal God who continues to create and move among us. The God we worship creates being where there is none and at once transcends it. In breathing life into this world and redeeming it, God gives us a glimpse into divine life itself and into the meaning of our own lives.
Because God loves us, we exist. Yet for all God’s care and intimacy with the world and humankind, God is never consumed or overwhelmed by the many loose ends of our untidy existence. God simply loves. It is a fact of life. More than that, it is the fact of life. As paradoxical as it may seem, God is both unchanging and eternal and at the same time ever-changing and deeply involved in time and history, an on-the-move God of the present and of the future. God can have it both ways because God is God and that’s what the Trinity wants us to understand in our heart of hearts.
If we cannot understand the reality in arcane theological nuances, we can begin to understand God through our experience. Like love itself, although difficult to intellectually explain, it has deep meaning to all of us through our experience of it. We need not try to intellectualize God, nor apologize for God’s mysteries. For many Christians, the language of the Trinity has been valuable to personally approach their God. They find such motivation not in complex theological argument, but rather in allowing themselves to be surrounded by the overwhelming presence of God, caught up in the love that is the foundation of the universe.
And that is what we acknowledge and celebrate today.
Amen.
For those Christians who live their lives within the rhythm of the liturgical year, and for preachers who faithful preach on the weekly Scripture lessons appointed by the common lectionary, this is the only Sunday in the Prayer Book calendar that challenges us to ponder a teaching of the Church, rather than a teaching of Jesus or an event in His life. The word “Trinity” does not appear in Holy Scripture, although it can be inferred from many passages.
Although the mystery of God revealed in three ways is the core belief of Christianity, many struggle to explain it. Monotheistic Christians do back flips explaining why such a belief doesn’t make them polytheists. We often refer to water as an example: this common earthly element exists on this earth as a gas, a liquid, and a solid – three forms, one substance! Or even better yet, we might consider the complexity of human relationships in our lives – to you I am a priest, to my father I am a son, to Bob I was a life partner, to my sister I am a brother, and so forth – very different roles, yet I am the same person!
We preachers finding ourselves in the pulpit on Trinity Sunday feel the need and the burden to explain. Why? Because the annual recurrence of Trinity Sunday marks the persistent attempt to try to make sense of an abstraction and the very mystery of God; like a puzzle to be solved, an analogy to be cleverly presented, or a formula to be improved upon.
Part of the problem has to do with the feast day itself. Unlike Pentecost, Christmas, or Epiphany, Trinity Sunday has no narrative, no biblical story to ground us in space and time. Therefore, the day becomes the celebration of an idea rather than what it was meant to be – a glimpse into God as a community of Persons.
We might well ask: What is it about the Trinity that puts it at the very center of our Christian faith yet remains so elusive to our everyday understanding? Does the Trinity have any spiritual meaning for us today? Within Christianity these days the doctrine of the Trinity is called many things other than amazing. Some call it archaic, obsolete or patriarchal and have abandoned traditional Trinitarian language for something they consider less out of date. Some have chosen a favorite member of the Trinity and focused just on that. Some concerned that the Trinity expressed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit portrays the Godhead as overly male, have reworked the language to make it less offensive and more relevant. Some opt out of the Father-Son relationship and speak only of the function of the three in terms like: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, thus eliminating all anthropomorphic references. Still others are outraged that Christians dare tinker so casually with the ancient expression of the faith. No doubt the conversations and debates will continue, as well they should.
It seems to me that instead of trying to explain the Trinity – how three persons are really one – we must try to do what the doctrine of the Trinity was originally meant to do – give words to faith. The great historic Counsels of the Church, with their need to clarify and define what they found in Scripture, sought to make sense of the experience of God. To speak of the Trinity, the One God who is made known to us as the Creator, the redeeming Christ, and the life-giving Spirit, is to use a short-hand way of expressing the depth of the faith. Without the Trinity holding us accountable, we might be tempted to worship a one-dimensional deity.
This full view of God lifts up a God who is more than a Creator who made the world out of nothing, more than a God of the big-bang theory who began the universe and left it to run on its own. We do not worship a process, but a very personal God who continues to create and move among us. The God we worship creates being where there is none and at once transcends it. In breathing life into this world and redeeming it, God gives us a glimpse into divine life itself and into the meaning of our own lives.
Because God loves us, we exist. Yet for all God’s care and intimacy with the world and humankind, God is never consumed or overwhelmed by the many loose ends of our untidy existence. God simply loves. It is a fact of life. More than that, it is the fact of life. As paradoxical as it may seem, God is both unchanging and eternal and at the same time ever-changing and deeply involved in time and history, an on-the-move God of the present and of the future. God can have it both ways because God is God and that’s what the Trinity wants us to understand in our heart of hearts.
If we cannot understand the reality in arcane theological nuances, we can begin to understand God through our experience. Like love itself, although difficult to intellectually explain, it has deep meaning to all of us through our experience of it. We need not try to intellectualize God, nor apologize for God’s mysteries. For many Christians, the language of the Trinity has been valuable to personally approach their God. They find such motivation not in complex theological argument, but rather in allowing themselves to be surrounded by the overwhelming presence of God, caught up in the love that is the foundation of the universe.
And that is what we acknowledge and celebrate today.
Amen.
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