Category Archives: Who is God

Trinity & Unity

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I had two best friends in elementary school; Sarah and Maggie.  Sarah and I lived just 10 houses apart, and we were born 10 days apart–as 9-year-olds, we thought this was very significant; Maggie lived in another town.  Maggie and I both had younger brothers and therefore shared the suffering of older sisters–a unique and very heavy cross we bore; Sarah was an only child.  Sarah and Maggie had been going to the same school together since pre-K; I was new in the fourth grade.  Though we three were devoted to each other and loved each other, there always seemed to be one of us on the outside; a pair of us was always a little bit closer than the other.

Three seems to be one of the most challenging numbers for a group of people to navigate; with two, you’re just a pair, with four, there are two pairs, and once you get to five or six, it’s really just a party.  Three is an awkward number when it comes to close relationships, and yet, that’s exactly the number that God chose to use to communicate to us who he is.  The most challenging of all numbers for a relationship to succeed–that’s the number God uses to reveal to himself to humanity.

Though it’s wrong both to say that God is more unified than diverse, or more diverse than unified, both angles are a bit much to cover in one morning–or at least are beyond my ability to capture succinctly, so I’ll focus on God being three-in-one.

There are many images, or analogies we’re given in our daily lives to help us try to understand how God is three and also one; marriage, though between two people, not three, is a picture of more-than-one-becoming-one.  In Genesis it says “the two became one flesh.”  Some of you know well the challenge of being unified with someone who is very different from you; many of us have seen the beautiful results of a couple who have consistently, for decades, put their unity ahead of their own individual ways. Another picture we see of many-being-one-body is the church.  Now, I don’t have to tell you that we haven’t done a great job of staying as “one” over the last many centuries.  Even before the Protestants and Roman Catholics split off, the Eastern church, the Orthodox Church, split off back in the 11th century, and another branch of churches left in the 5th century–we’ve been doing this all throughout history.  What has happened more recently in the lower part of our state is nothing new. There’s been a lot of upheaval here in the last months, and people have gotten up from the table, they’ve left the room, they’ve removed their presence from us.  We’re left incomplete without them, our church body isn’t whole because we’re missing them.  All our “persons” aren’t here.We worship a God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – three person, one unified God.  The first thing we learn about God in Genesis is that God is singular–it wasn’t, “in the beginning ‘gods’ created the heavens and the earth.”  The three persons of our Triune God aren’t grabbing for the spotlight, crazed to be heard, insisting on their own way or their own distinctiveness.  In the first words of the first book in which God tells us about himself, we meet a creative, compassionate, life-giving, self-sacrificing God.We live in a time and culture that emphasizes individualism.  Our grades in school, our paychecks at work, our email addresses, and our cell phones have one name on them, they belong to one person individually–each of us.  It’s easy to forget that we can’t rely on ourselves, that thinking of individuals as the building block of society is a rather modern notion.This week, Jordan and I are leaving for a trip to see cathedrals in Northern France.  We’ve been doing research and I’ve been calling on my Gothic Cathedrals class from undergrad to prepare.  Did you know that most of those famous cathedrals took more than 100 years to complete?  Not only was life expectancy shorter then, but people who were masons, working hard on the building wore their bodies out even sooner – even 3 and 4 generations might pass before the work was done.Most of those cathedrals are known for the town in which they’re located–Chartes, Cologne, Amiens–the identity is based not on a particular architect or stone mason, but on the community, the whole.  The whole church and community as one.  The name of every person who worked on the building isn’t written down or remembered – what they knew themselves to be working toward wasn’t their own glory or their own kingdom or for the importance of their particular voice, but to glorify, point toward, lift up God’s name, God’s identity.

The church, God’s people on earth, Jesus’ hands and feet in the world–us–existed long before we came along, and will be around long after we’re gone.  Our work is not to be heard or to be remembered or to be concerned and proud and angry about what makes each of us so terribly unique, but to do as Paul exhorts us in this morning’s epistle reading from 2 Corinthians,

“11 Finally, brethren, farewell. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.

12 Greet one another with a holy kiss.

13 All the saints greet you.

14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.” (13:11-14, NKJV)

Selective Memory

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More and more, I’m realizing that the things I remember and the things I forget aren’t just coincidences.

A few weeks ago, Psalm 23 was one of the readings assigned by the Revised Common Lectionary–the schedule of Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament, and Gospel readings that most all Lutheran, Anglican, and Roman Catholic churches use to plan their Sunday services.  The 23rd psalm was one of the first bits of Scripture I memorized; it’s long-since become so familiar to me as to sometimes feel calloused–overused.  I no longer turn to it for comfort or for inspiration, I’ve let it grow cold and unfamiliar in my mind and heart the last decade.

Saying it with a hospital patient this week, I stumbled in the middle, suddenly unable to recall the next verse; I skipped on to the next bit I could recall, and we finished strong, but I wondered what the little phrase was that I’d forgotten.  I looked it up.

It was verse 3: “He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” (KJV)

More than believing that I’m not alone in the valley of the shadow of death, or that goodness and mercy shall follow me, I wonder that God binds up and brings back our souls to health.  God promises to restore our souls, to upright the fallen, spilled, perhaps broken, vase of our lives, and to put it back where it belongs (we may not even know or remember where it belongs, exactly, but I suspect that if we ever get there–“restored”–we’ll know).

Jesus stays, Jesus stays.

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“Crucify him!  Crucify him!”

Last Sunday, we played our part, joining in the dramatic reading of the events leading up to Jesus’ death.  We yelled “Let him be crucified!” along with the jealous crowd (Matthew 27).  Someone told me afterward that she always waffles about whether or not to say those words out loud with the rest of the congregation; it makes her uncomfortable, and it just sounds so horrible.  I knew what she meant–I closed my eyes this year when I joined in the shout; I just couldn’t bear seeing the angry crowd in front of me, it felt so real.

The horror is that it is real.  In dozens of ways, we shout “Crucify him!” every day.  When we respond in anger, when we deceive and rationalize, choosing the easy way out instead of the truth, we turn our backs on the reality that God offers us.  It’s like throwing God’s playbook into the trash and letting the door slam as we walk away.  We insist on our own way and our own wisdom, just like Adam and Eve in the garden, just like Jesus’ disciples who were scattered in Gethsemane’s garden–just like every human throughout time; except for Jesus himself.

What a strange God we worship.  What kind of God leaves his abode to come down to this broken place called earth?  Once arrived, what kind of God takes on the limitations and stresses of human life, living inside the confines of a human being?  As a human, what kind of God endures a fraudulent trial leading to trumped-up death charges and a humiliating spectacle of an execution? What kind of life is that? What is he revealing to us about the truth of love?

As Jesus hangs on the cross (as he did at this very hour), people mock him; someone asks, “If you saved others, why can’t you save yourself?”  Another says, “If you’re really God, the way you say you are, why don’t you come down?  If you did, we’d surely believe you then!”  Can you imagine the temptation Jesus might have faced?  Indeed, in the garden with his disciples the night before, he has already laid his cards out with his Father, begging that he not actually have to go through with the whole thing, desperate to find another way out.

Abandoned and hanging on a cross, Jesus, the Son of God, stayed.  While he was spit on, ridiculed, beaten, and nailed, he refused to turn his back on the people who were torturing him.  Jesus never pulled the release valve, Jesus never left us.  He was committed to showing humanity what love means by never turning his back on us even if that meant that he would have to die.  There was finally nothing else left for Evil to try except to force God’s hand by threatening him with death if he didn’t give up on people.  Jesus stayed.

The same crowds who had shouted a few days earlier that he was their hero turned quickly into the angry, jealous crowds who pushed at him to crack and then turned their backs to let him die. How often do we experience the same swift change in our lives?  Our best friend suddenly becomes our most effective attacker; our well-ordered life is shaken into a disaster; the most reliable part of our day is ripped out from under us, leaving a gaping hole.  We all suffer abandonment that leaves us wondering which way is up.

Though we may not know which way is up, or how to keep moving through the mess of life, or how to withstand the attacks of someone we love, Jesus has shown that God will stay right next to us.  Staying meant death, but Jesus chose not to use his power as God to get him out of the mess humanity had made around him; he only ever called upon the power of God to help others, never himself.

Jesus still calls upon the power of God to help us, even though we’re just as fickle and cowardly and arrogant and skeptical as the crowds who surrounded him at his death.  Jesus never left them alone, even when the price to stay was death.  Even though we turn our backs on God, he will never leave us alone. Jesus stays, Jesus stays.

The Woman at the Well – Sermon

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“Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city.  She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!  He cannot be the Messiah, can he?'” (John 4:28-29)  “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony…  So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them…  And many more believed because of his word.” (John 4:39-41)

Last weekend, Jordan and I went to the mountains outside of Hendersonville; there’s a cabin up there that we love to stay in with our dog, Ben, and the land and air up there rejuvenate us.  The first time we went there was back when we lived in Durham, before we even got Ben.  We’d never been to Western North Carolina before, and for spring break decided to try something new; we visited St. John’s in the Wilderness in Flat Rock, and Connemara, Carl Sandburg’s mountain home, and what has become my favorite antique store in the world–Jane Asher Antiques.  I didn’t know that we’d ever go back–what a glorious realization last summer when we moved to Columbia that we were hardly two hours away from that dear place!  We were so excited to go back, and to bring our dog, Ben, to camp and hike and “see” the sights with us.

What are places, or people, or events in your life that you think of being eager to share with others?

I remember when we were planning our wedding, I thrilled at the thought of my friends from my Upstate New York internship meeting Jordan’s family from North Dakota.  My dear friend Dan, from high school, who I hadn’t seen in years, would drive up form South Carolina; my friends from summer camp in Ohio would be the ushers.  We were so excited to invite all these people from different moments in our lives to be together at the same time.

Are there any places in your life or memory that you love so much that you want to share them with others?  Are you a sort of evangelist for a particular resort or city or restaurant?  Is there somewhere that you’ve got to go to eat every time you visit Charleston, or New York?

The Samaritan woman in our Gospel lesson today had an experience like that when she met Jesus.  There at the well in the heat of the day, though she’d expected to be alone–that’s why she went when she did–there was someone else sitting there, and she joined him in conversation.  It didn’t take long for her to realize that he was not the standard-issue man-sitting-next-to-a-well.  Though it’s a long Gospel passage (John 4:5-42), theirs is a relatively short conversation, and yet it completely changed the course of this woman’s life.  After talking with Jesus, even though she didn’t quite understand everything he said–I don’t understand everything Jesus has said to us, either–she was so taken that she went back to her town and told everyone that they had to come and meet this guy.

She witnessed to them.  She had encountered Jesus, she had been changed by this personal encounter, and so she went and told others about it, about Jesus.  She wanted others to experience the same thing that she had–the freedom, the peace, the joy, the honesty that she knew through this God-man, she hoped for everyone to taste the same transforming water that had quenched her thirst.

Just like Jordan and I were eager for our dog Ben to experience the waterfalls, hiking, and beautiful nature of Western North Carolina, this woman knew that meeting Jesus would change each person’s life, and she didn’t want them to miss out on it.  Just like Jordan and I were excited to bring together all the wonderful people we knew from various parts of our lives to meet each other and enjoy each other at the wedding, this woman told others about this person, Jesus, whom she’d met, and brought them to him, so they could meet him themselves.

Jesus is here, my friends.  That is why we come here every Sunday.  If Jesus isn’t here, there’s no reason for you to come.  If God is not present and transforming in this place, there is no reason for you to show up.  But if God is here, if God reveals himself to you through your quiet prayer, or through the bread and wine, or through the music, or preaching, or teaching, or through each other, then why not tell someone about it?  If your life has been changed, transformed, made new and different by God in Jesus Christ, I challenge you, tell others to “Come and see.”  We are promised that the harvest is plentiful and that many more will believe because of God’s Word.

Amen.

Finding Jesus, or just Seeing Things?

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Last month, Jesus bought me a latte.  A few days ago, I saw Jesus’ eyes.

Did you know that Jesus is still around?  Or is it that my brain turns certain moments over in my head, and soon enough, something clicks in my environment, and poof! out pops a fictitious “God moment”?

Surely, in this, the 21st century, someone with a degree from a top-tier institution wouldn’t be so superstitious and mentally weak as to believe that there’s some kind of mysterious power at work in this big old universe.

A cynical but seeking friend of mine, when I told him about the latte (read on for the story), said, “Ah ha!  So, who’s to say whether it’s God or not, but you were out there, making yourself available, putting yourself in the position to encounter something.  You weren’t forcing ‘God”s hand, or demanding something of the universe, but you didn’t sit at home alone, praying for a miracle and refusing to move either.”

On my birthday this year, I had a very early meeting.  My husband was out of town, and I was pulling especially long hours working on a big surprise (reno project) in his absence.  I was a little bit down the super early, cloudy morning as I drove to work, feeling like I didn’t quite have enough community in this place yet to really enjoy my birthday (how like little children we remain!).  Praying Complaining in my car, I said, “Couldn’t you send me a birthday gift?  You’re supposed to be my comfort and Rock.  I want a gift.  Let me know you’re there.”  (this is nothing like Gideon and the fleece, or Moses and the burning bush–those were people with REAL questions and REAL doubts)  I stopped by my favorite coffee shop on my way downtown, and the owner asked me what brought me there so early; I told him about the early meeting and bribing myself with a latte for my birthday.  He insisted that the coffee be on the house.  When I got back to my car, I shed a tear.  Maybe it was Jesus, maybe it was just small town Southern Hospitality, but I knew that this really was a community in which I was beginning to belong, and that God hadn’t left me alone.

And as for last week, and Jesus’ eyes: on a retreat, we were invited to enter into the narratives of Holy Week in a new way–we read and reread John’s passion stories, and listened to creative writings telling the same story from another perspective.  Good Friday was told from the perspective of a guard, and in his reflection, he returned again and again to Jesus’ eyes–when Jesus had first looked at him on Palm Sunday, during the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, again as the guard kept the people from Jesus while they marched slowly through the city on Friday, toward Golgatha, and finally, when the guard offers Jesus sour wine, the last action taken from the cross, in John’s Gospel.  I found myself envying the guard–he looked into God’s eyes.  He got to see Jesus.  Can you imagine?  I thought, “I want to see Jesus.  I want to look into Jesus’ eyes.  They say that eyes are the window of the soul; what would it have been like to look at God?”  A large part of my work is visiting–and I’ve been working on being more present during these visits, listening more closely to my parishioners in between the lines, and trying to hear how God might be guiding them.  I visited someone last week, and as they held my hand and looked deep into my eyes, I knew I was seeing a glimpse of what Jesus’ eyes looked like.

Is this all just hooey?  An overactive imagination attuned to its environment, making up connections in a desperate attempt to create a Higher Power?  Could be.  I can’t prove that it isn’t.  What I do know is that there’s a lot more to life than meets the eye.  People can indeed surprise you–in good ways and in bad ways–and sometimes things happen that are just a little bit outside the realm of explanation.  Maybe these little witnesses from the last few weeks of my everyday life aren’t from a divine source, but one can’t conclusively rule it out, either.

We’ve lost of a lot of wonder in our modern lives. Controlling our use of time with electric lights, medicines, and machinery makes us less attuned to the mystical moments that happen to us and through us every day.  Things like human love will always have a bit of mystery to them, as do myriad other aspects of our existence, if we let ourselves wonder and let ourselves let go of the illusion that we can control every eventuality with the power of our intellect (it didn’t go so well last time around, see Genesis 11).

Let some mystery sneak into your life this Lent, this spring.  As the world starts to come alive again, marvel at the miracle of life and growth, the wonder of learning something that doesn’t come from a book and on which you won’t be tested.  Maybe make a bit of room and pay a bit of attention to how God might be sneaking around the corners of your life, calling to you.