June 7, 2020 - Trinity Sunday / First Sunday After Pentecost
Trinity Sunday / First Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 1:1--2:4a; Psalm 8; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28:16-20
June 7, 2020
Adapted for print from transcription.
Well hello, Shepherd Family. I did say that I would give you an update here on a regular basis during our sermon time. So I wanted to let you know that, for those of you that don't know, our council meets the first Tuesday, generally of each month, they did meet this last Tuesday. And they adopted our conference plan in terms of when we should come back to what I would call “real-time” worship.
Meanwhile, they have also created a sub-committee and that subcommittee will really discern and more importantly, come up with, our own Shepard plan, in terms of how we will come back to worship. So right now, what we're looking for again is a 14-day downward trajectory of new COVID-19 related cases.
We have not met that yet, so I imagine, at least for the next 14 days, we will be worshiping virtually, but know that your council is hard at work monitoring this situation, and we will make sure that you have weekly, or every-other-week updates here. And as I said, we're doing it here in the Message because there are at least five folks that are not able to watch our worship service on Facebook, or have no internet or smartphone access to watch this. So we do transcribe these sermons and we mail those out weekly. So if you know anyone that is at home that does not have internet service or a smartphone to watch us here weekly, please let us know so we can add them to that list so they can stay connected with what's happening with their Shepherd Family.
So… our readings for this week; this is Trinity Sunday. Last week was Pentecost. The first Sunday of what we would call “The Season After Pentecost,” is known as Trinity Sunday. Trinity Sunday is often very difficult to preach on because we're preaching on a doctrine of the church. Generally, we would look at the readings specifically and we would preach off of the text. Trinity Sunday is a bit different because we're actually looking at a doctrine of the church. So this commentary that I regularly go to, it's my go-to commentary for our Sunday readings. The pastoral commentary says it's Trinity Sunday. But for those in the Pew that are going through a divorce, why do they care?
It's Trinity Sunday. But for those that have cancer, they probably don't care. Maybe we could go through some other stats from this week. By the time you hear this, we'll be nearing 115,000 deaths in the United States alone for COVID-19. 40 million people out of work, but it's Trinity Sunday.
We’re entering the second week of protest. The leading cause of young African American males dying in the United States –go to the CDC website and you can, and look up the racial breakdown for the leading cause of death– the leading cause of death for young African American males in the United States is homicide, but it's Trinity Sunday. George Floyd, Ahmed, Aubrey, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Dion Johnson, who is someone local that was killed by a DPS officer.
But it's Trinity Sunday.
Eight minutes, 46 seconds. But it's Trinity Sunday,
The United States was added to the list of one of the most dangerous countries for journalists, but it's Trinity Sunday.
So what does Trinity Sunday have to do with what's happening in our world that seems so chaotic? That seems like it's running out of control. What does Trinity Sunday have to do with anything? Well, we do remember that last week was Pentecost and Pentecost is the church's equivalent of a birthday celebration, 50 days after Easter. So we find ourselves close to 60 days of lockdown, and 66 days is the magic number to create new habits. For many of us, studies show that an average of 66 days is we create a new habit. Last week, we were empowered by the spirit and being sent out –to be pushed out by the spirit, given, commissioned by the spirit to be different, to be healing, to be a power in the world. This Sunday is Trinity Sunday. And Trinity Sunday is a time we're reminded that this doctrine, this way of being and describing God, the Trinity, this three in one that so many of us don't understand and maybe we don't care. We ask ourselves, “what does this have to do with anything that we're going through now?”
How can this doctrine that maybe some of us would say is locked in time, or maybe we struggle with this, what does it have to do with anything that's happening today? Well, for me, one of the most important things about the Trinity is that we say that the Trinity is community. We're describing God as community. We're describing God as relationship. So first, let us look at our first reading, and just a reminder that during this entire season of Easter, we've been hearing, generally, that first reading which would come from the Hebrew Bible or the old Testament. So that first reading is often referred to as the “Hebrew Bible Reading.” During the Easter Season, we hear from the book of Acts. So this is the first time in a long while that we're hearing this first reading and it's coming again to us from the Hebrew Bible, and not just any place from the Hebrew Bible, but we're beginning at the beginning with Genesis 1. And thank you, Ellen Janiga, for proclaiming that scripture –that long scripture– for us in such a wonderful way, and being that it's so connected to spirituality, it was good to have that reading proclaimed outdoors for us.
What we see in Genesis is that God's perception of creation is that it's good. Even in the beginning when there was nothing, even in the beginning, when there was disorder, even in the beginning, when there was chaos, God saw that it was good. Then later in verse 26 of that first chapter of Genesis, we see that God said, “Let us make humankind in our image,” in our image.
So of course they use this first chapter of Genesis on this Trinity Sunday to give us a glimpse as early as from the beginning that God is community; Us. God is relationship. God sees that the world is good when there's disorder and chaos. So maybe that's what we're called to in the world right now; to be instigators for change, empowered by that spirit in the world, but to also see and proclaim goodness in times of disorder, in times of what may feel like chaos.
But what if, what if, what if it meant being creators? What if it meant creating goodness in our world? So often when I hear our sacred story, when I'm drawn, the places that I'm drawn into the sacred story, I'm reminded that we are called to model this life, whether it's Jesus that we're reading about in our sacred story, or in this case, we're hearing the story of creation. So we're not only looking at this story from the perspective of seeing goodness in the world, but we're looking and engaging the story at being creators of goodness out of disorder. This is our call on this Trinity Sunday, because this is one of the oldest ways of how we see and engage who and what God is.
So what if this Trinity Sunday is calling us to name what is good? Now, in our second reading, and if you were intuitive, maybe sophisticated enough, you'd noticed that we skipped our second reading today. It was very short, just a few verses, so we did leave that out, not to confuse you, but if you want to look it up, it came from Second Corinthians and we did include that in this week's epistle, so you can just click on that link and it'll take you to a page where you can read all of the scripture lessons for Sunday’s worship time together. So this scripture would have come from Second Corinthians. And what is really cool about this scripture, again, it's very short, so I thought we'd just skip it to save some time, but the Second Corinthians passage, we actually hear most of this each Sunday. And so the framers of the lectionary used this reading because this is where we get this Apostolic Greeting that you hear me say as our call to worship each week, “The Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with You All.” And today you'll actually hear this proclaimed in our Benediction, but you do get a sense of the Trinity every Sunday in our greeting, and also every Sunday in our Benediction, where normally you won't hear this today. You'll hear this reading from Second Corinthians today, but normally in our Benediction you'll often hear me say, “The creator, the Christ and the Holy spirit.” So these are all ways that we are calling and naming this God of community; this community of three persons that we believe God to be. The other piece that our second reading from Second Corinthians calls out, is that it says, greet one another with a Holy kiss. And so I thought during this time of physical distancing, it might be a good idea to leave that part out. So we left that out.
We also hear two other pieces from that scripture. Paul tells the Corinthians to agree with one another. He also says to live in peace, then it gets to that idea of greeting one another with a Holy kiss. So we might find another way to do that in this time of physical distancing. Then we hear, “The Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with You All,” and as I said, we normally hear that each week in our Greeting and our Benediction. And then bringing us into Matthew's gospel, we hear today from the 28th chapter, a hearkening back to last Sunday, Pentecost. This idea of the great commissioning, where we hear that all authority has been given to Him.
What we need to hear this Sunday, is that that “all authority” has been passed on to us. We've received that authority. This is the great commission that so many of us maybe remember from our childhood, where the pastor would tell us that this is the great commission of every disciple of Christ: to make disciples.
That's something that you don't often hear in the mainline, and what I will often preach on is, “How do we make disciples?” Well, as in our Lectio Divina this week, someone did point out a quote that I often say that's attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, this idea to “Preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words.” So by making disciples, we're making disciples with our lives. Now it also tells us to make disciples and it points out that we should be baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, or to be inclusive, the Creator, the Christ and the Holy Spirit. So our question today is, “What do we mean by baptism?” Now, in our tradition, we normally baptize infants or young people. And when we baptize infants or young people, we do this when we baptize older folks too, but one of the primary things that we proclaim in baptism is that, “You are a beloved child of God.” “This child is a beloved child of God.”
So therefore, what does it mean to go forth baptizing in the name of the Father? The Creator, the Christ, and the Holy Spirit? It means initiating people into the depths of love, acknowledging everyone’s sacred worth. It means living in relationship, in community with all people, and ultimately, ultimately it means that we are called to embody God in a world that is disembodied. In a people that are divided. And to ask ourselves hard questions. To acknowledge that the world is not the same for everyone. That everyone does not have the same rights. So if we embody this wholeness, this relationship that we proclaim God to be, this community that we proclaim God to be this Sunday, it means we care.
It means that we do our best and we do our best together. Many have reached out this week and asked, “What can we do?” Should we go to these marches that we see on television? And I think that one of the things that I've shared with people is that this is the struggle for justice. This struggle that we talk about in terms of the kindom of God, this is a long term project, y'all.
And what this means is, is that we need to come alongside our brothers and sisters of color, and we need to be allies for people. We need to ask different questions. We need to not assume what people need. We need to come into relationship, again, embody this God that we say we believe in; this God of community, this God of relationship. Embody that.
And once we're in relationship with someone, we can work alongside them and in community with the three in one, we can make the world a better place. We can embody justice, truth and equality for all people.
Amen.
Peace be with you,
Rock+
Rev. Rock R. Fremont Jr., Pastor
Shepherd of the Hills UCC
(480) 280-6598 Mobile
"That they may all be one." John 17:21