The Most Holy Trinity

Trinity:  It’s About What It’s All About

Prov 8, 22-31 / Rom 5, 1-5 / Jn 16, 12-15 

We are celebrating the feast of the Holy Trinity.  But I have to begin with a confession.  I never look forward to preaching about the Trinity.  If you read about the Trinity, the theologians who write such books always end up saying something like: “Well, we really can’t understand the Trinity.  It’s a mystery of faith.  So, just say yes to it.”  But I can’t do that.  I can’t – nor should I – nor should we – say yes to what we don’t understand.  I don’t mean completely understand.  When it comes to God, we will never completely understand.  But we are conscience-bound to try to understand as much as we can. 

There’s something else that causes me difficulty when it comes to preaching about the Trinity.  It has a lot to do with our imaginations.  I find that when we talk about Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we almost always imagine an old man, a younger man and a white bird/dove somehow existing up in the clouds.  They’re happy.  We say they’re eternally happy to be where they are.  And we hope they’ll welcome us to join with them when our lives are finished here on earth.  But frankly I find that scene unsatisfying.  It’s not something that can get me out of bed in the morning – much less motivate my whole life. 

The Church asks us today to take some time and reflect on the Trinity and its meaning – its real meaning for our lives.  And it’s only right that we do that.  The Church tells us the Trinity is the core truth of what our Catholic tradition has to say about the way God is.  Trinity describes the way God lives and acts.  If you think about that – and think about God being the creator and sustainer of all that is – and if you further think that we are made in the image of God – then Trinity is about what it’s all about.  Trinity describes the life of God and so the life he breathed into all creation and into us. 

I hope what I am saying is making some sense to you.  I think so much depends on how we understand God’s life.  That understanding will shape our understanding of ourselves, our world and how we are to live.  So, what does our tradition tell us about God’s life?  What does it mean to say God is Trinity – Father, Son and Spirit? 

I want to answer keeping it simple – because that’s where the big truths are found – where it’s simple – like the beauty of an infant’s smile.  And I want to answer without benefit of the trio of old man, younger man and white dove.  Let’s keep it utterly simple and plain. 

Trinity says that God’s life is lived by giving that life away.  God lives by giving himself away.  God does not hold on to himself – but just lets himself go. 

If we see that – again keeping it very simple – then we can begin to sense what the early Christians meant when they said – in all simplicity – “God is Love”.  If we see that – keeping it simple – then we can begin to make sense of Jesus’ life and words and especially his death where he did not cling to himself.  And if we can see that –this utterly simple truth – then we will begin to sense the presence of the breath of God’s life in us – what we call “the Spirit of God” – moving us not to cling to ourselves – just like Jesus. 

When we speak of faith, we mean that movement in our lives where we give ourselves over to God – where we entrust ourselves over to God’s care.  Trinity – what we celebrate and reflect on today – tells us our faith is a wonderful response to and reflection of God’s faith.  God has entrusted himself – entrusted his very life and way of living – over to us.  We live God’s life now.  Heaven has come down to earth.  The Trinity is what it’s all about – what we’re all about.

 

The Ascension Of The Lord

Acts1, 1-11 / Eph 1, 17-23 / Lk 24, 46-53 

Where is Jesus? 

The feast of the Ascension puts a question to us:  where is Jesus?  Where do we really find Jesus?  Are we disciples only of a memory?  Or, are we disciples of a living person?  And if of a living person, where does that person live?  Are we disciples of a teaching once spoken in the past?  Or, are we disciples of a teacher still speaking?  And if our teacher still speaks, where – when – how does he speak?

Where do we find Jesus?  That’s the question Luke is dealing with in our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles.  Quite graphically Luke pictures Jesus being lifted up and disappearing into a cloud.  The imagery wants to tell us Jesus is now with the Father.  That’s what the imagery of being lifted up into a clou d meant in Luke’s day.  It would be like our saying: “He has passed on to his reward.”  Jesus is now with the Father.  So that’s one answer to our question.  Where is Jesus?  He’s with the Father. 

But Luke tells us something more.  As the disciples are looking up into the sky, two men dressed in white appear to them and ask: “Why are you looking up into the sky?  Jesus is now with the Father – but he also returns to be with you.”  The same two men dressed in white appeared to the disciples at the empty tomb on Easter morning.  There they asked: “Why do you seek the Living One among the dead?  He is not here, but has been raised.”  Jesus, the Risen One, is among the living – not the dead.  He is to be found in the present – not the past.  And so too Jesus, the Ascended One, is not to be found up above in some faraway heaven.  Don’t look up; he’s not there. 

So where is Jesus?  The gospel of Matthew has Jesus saying to the disciples: “Behold, I am with you always, every single day, day in and day out.”  In Luke’s gospel it is this realization that allows the disciples to leave the site with great joy.  They return to Jerusalem and to the rest of their lives in great joy: “Jesus is with us always.” 

This feast of the Ascension is trying to teach us that Jesus, the Risen and Ascended One, is kind of like a hybrid.  We talk about cars being hybrids – they run on both gas and electricity.  Well, Jesus works as a kind of hybrid.  He runs on the Father but also runs on us.  In fact the clear emphasis of the gospels and epistles is to show us how Jesus runs on us – how Jesus becomes present in us and through us.  In John’s gospel Jesus tells his disciples they will recognize his presence when they “feed his sheep”, meaning:  they will recognize his presence when they actively see to the needs of others.  It is then they will know, as Jesus puts it, that “I am in you and you are in me.” 

The Ascension gives us our mission as Christians:  ever to search for Jesus’ living presence – his nearness, his nowness – in us and through us.  That search is going to lead us deeper into ourselves and deeper into one another’s lives.  It will make a community of us – a church of us – a parish of us.  Just think of it:  being in a community where we actually search for and find the Living Christ – in the love we have for one another – in the lives we share with one another. 

Where is Jesus?  Where do we find him?  Just think of it:  in an awesome, utterly life-defining way, we are becoming the Jesus we have been searching for.  We are his new, risen presence.  We are his return.

Our task is to live his new presence here and now where we are – in Charlotte.  We are the ones who’ve got to show the people of Charlotte Jesus really lives.  Jesus has really returned.

 

Our Holy Communion

6^th Sunday of Easter
 
Acts 15, 1-2, 22-29 / Rev 21, 10-14, 22-23 / Jn 14, 23-29 

Our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles reminds us that the church grew in an atmosphere where there was a lot of debate and dissension.  Certain Christians were trying to impose Judaic law on new Gentile converts.  They wanted to impose the practice of circumcision.  A Christian had to be a good Jew.  So, there arose a great controversy led by no less a leader than the apostle Paul.  He spoke publicly against attempts to place unnecessary burdens on fellow Christians.

Disagreements happen within the church.  We know that to be true for ourselves.  There’s debate in our church about the fitness of some to approach communion.  Some in the church urge that those judged to be not Catholic enough should be refused communion. 

In this Easter season we continue to celebrate the Lord’s Resurrection.  We celebrate the Lord’s new, risen life – now lived through us and among us.  So I think it would be good for us to recall what the gospels tell us about Jesus’ practice of communion.  What was his practice of table fellowship?  What kind of communion and community did he practice and want for his disciples?

The gospels tell us Jesus did not dine just with close disciples.  In fact, he ate with people who were vastly different from him.  The gospels show us a Jesus who clearly preferred diversity and who openly called into question the so-called “purity laws” – laws that would prevent him as a good Jew from sitting down at table with people considered sinners and public outcasts.  Simply put, Jesus ate with anybody and everybody.  Jesus ate with the “unfit and unworthy”.  His attitude was inclusive and his practice was to reach out to outsiders to bring them in, bring them closer, to make them be at home. 

We have a question we need to ask ourselves as church.  Should we be doing now in his name the very opposite of what Jesus did?  Our practice of communion cannot be a reward for the spiritually perfect.  We are simply not doing the Eucharist in faithful memory of Jesus when we demand of one another that we all have our acts completely together.  Jesus never did and never does make such a demand.  And if we do, then I assure you not many of us could come up the aisle to communion – including myself. 

We come to Eucharist – we come to communion – to learn how to love one another more – more like Jesus loved.  We need to learn how to fail less at loving like Jesus.  We come to Eucharist – to communion – so that God may fill us with the full force of his love and powerfully love through us.  Then we will begin to look more like the church of Jesus Christ we see in the gospels – for then we will gather to ourselves all the un-reconciled – all the un-noticed – all the un-fit.  And we will be at home.

Pope Francis reminds us:  we are to see ourselves as ministers and mediators of God’s grace – and not its managers.  In the Eucharist – in our communion we become ever more truly who we are:  the Body of Christ given for the life of the world. 

Just imagine it:  a church whose life and way of living actually takes away the sin of the world!  Let us be that church.  Let us so live as church that we take away the world’s sin and divisions.