June 4th,  Trinity Sunday, Sermon by The Reverend Loree Reed

Matthew 28
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.

Good morning.  It’s Trinity Sunday.  And Trinity Sunday is the one Sunday of the year when we are asked to deal – not just with a story of human characters, people we do understand because we’re just like them — but with Father, Son and Holy Spirit – sacred persons we don’t understand.  No wonder this doctrine of the Trinity – one God in three persons – took the Church four hundred years to work out.  And no wonder that every year, when we try to explain it, we preachers are in awe of the task before us.  For we know we’re walking on holy ground.  We know we’re talking about things we barely understand.
So, this morning it helps to be in the company of Jesus’ disciples on that unnamed mountain in Galilee, where Jesus has asked them to meet with him.  For the way Matthew tells the story, it’s just a day or two after the Resurrection, and at this point those stunned disciples don’t understand much either.
What they do understand is that suddenly, right in front of them, Jesus has appeared, just as he promised he would.  And they worship him, wondering what’s to come next.  But he doesn’t spend much time explaining things or reassuring them.  He’s there to give them their marching orders, to send them out into the world.  “Go,” he tells them.  And maybe he says it twice, because right away he can see that they don’t want to go anywhere.  They want to stay right there with him on that mountain.  They want everything to be just as it was – before he was taken away from them.  But it won’t be.  It’s a whole new era.  So, he reminds them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has now been given to me.  Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”
“Wait, what?” they had to be thinking.  “You want us to go out into the world and make disciples?  We thought we were the disciples.”
“You can do it,” Jesus insists.  “Just remember everything I have taught you.  And know I will be with you, every step of the way.”
Well, right there, you see, we get our first glimpse of the way the Trinity works.  The Father, whose name is love, sent the Son.  And the Son, obediently, went to all he’d been sent to, giving of himself.  Now the Son is sending his disciples – to go and do as he has done – giving of themselves, giving all they have . . . in the loving strength of the Father. And not just giving to their friends, the people they feel comfortable with, but to Gentiles too.  For that word Matthew uses when he tells us that Jesus sent his disciples to all the nations of the world doesn’t mean to nations as we think of areas on the map today.  It meant Gentiles, pagans,¹ people who won’t welcome their message.
So, if those disciples were confused before, they’re really confused now.  It’s as if someone came in here this morning, to our small congregation and said, “Are you all followers of Jesus Christ?  If you are, then right now, in the authority I bestow upon you, I want you to get up out of your seats and go into all the world to carry on his work.  Evangelize the unbelievers, clean up the environment, cure cancer – and oh, while you are at it, establish world peace.²  Just remember everything I’ve told you. . . and know I’ll be with you every step of the way.”  And then our celestial messenger would be gone – just as Jesus suddenly vanished from the disciples’ sight on that unnamed mountain in Galilee.
I think it’s safe to say, after an encounter like that, we would be dumbfounded – knowing we didn’t have it in us to do the things we’d been told to do.  Yet, just like Jesus’ little congregation of eleven, down from twelve the week before,³ we would remember He’d promised to be with us every step of the way.  So, we would try.  And when we did try to reach out in love to others, we would be astonished to discover that he would be with us – helping us to speak with a wisdom we’d never known before. . . and helping us feel a depth of compassion we’d never felt before.  For God the Holy Spirit would be speaking and feeling and acting through us.
And that, in fact, is how I understand the Trinity – the way God works.  The Father, who is love, gives himself – all that he is and all that he has — to the Son.  And the Son gives himself in love to us.  Then the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit to us – so we, in turn, can become people who give – all the time. . .  in love. . . to anyone in need.  And the giving of love takes many forms.
Have you ever known someone who gives, someone who, as they say, would give you the shirt off his back if he thought you needed it?  If you have, you’ve probably never forgotten that person.  I remember such a person – or rather two of them.  My husband and I had taken our two young children camping over Spring Break to Big Bend National Park in West Texas.  The daytime temperatures out there were warm and comfortable.  But at night, up high in those beautiful mountains, the temperatures plummeted to freezing – and below.  Only I hadn’t realized it would get that cold when, back in sunny Texas, I’d packed all I thought we needed for our trip.  But we were woefully unprepared for freezing temperatures.  So that first night we could only hope that our tent would somehow trap our body heat and keep us all from a miserable night – and a ruined family vacation.
But there was one other thing I hadn’t counted on.  And that was our children’s friendliness with the couple setting up their tent on the adjoining campsite.  Seth, then 8, and Melissa, 5, had already met the tan, fit–looking older couple – who turned out to be a retired surgeon and his wife from Connecticut — and had told them how cold it was going to be for our family that night.  So, before we knew it, this couple was standing in front of us with an armful of down vests and jackets.
“Look,” the guy said, “we’ve been camping all over the country.  That’s what we’re doing in our retirement.  And we’ve got all kinds of gear in our van.  Let us loan you and your kids some down vests, at least . . . and maybe a big comforter as well.”  His wife, then, followed suit, bringing over some chocolate chip cookies – and the next day a bouquet of wildflowers in an old enamel coffee pot for our picnic table — just because she thought of us when she saw them.  And together, by their gracious generosity, they saved our family vacation.
Days later, as we broke camp and prepared to go home, Walt and I returned the gear we’d borrowed from them.  “I wish we could repay you,” I said, “for your kindness to us and the kids.”
“Just do the same for someone else,” the doctor said, “as soon as you can.  That way the whole cycle continues.”
I’ve never forgotten that couple’s kindness, their generosity.  And I’ve tried to follow their example whenever I could.  That, in fact, is what Jesus was always doing.  He was always caring for people who didn’t have it all together, people who had been ignored by others.  And in more extreme cases, cherishing people whom others had despised.  It’s all about noticing others, you see, and then giving what we can in love.  Giving, not hoarding.  Caring, not despising.  For when we behave like this, giving of ourselves in love, we are emulating the Trinity.  We are participating in the very life of God.
For that’s the way it works.  When we, who are so loved by God, reach out in love to others – Love Himself is right there with us, every step of the way.
Amen.
¹ Thomas G Long “Trinity Sunday”  Feasting on the Word, Volume 3, Year A  (Westminster John Knox Press; 2011) p. 47

² Ibid. p. 49

³ Ibid. p. 47
 
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