Graves Chapel: May 2013

The Trinity: A Unity of Love

Lessons:

Psalm 8

Proverbs 8: 1-4, 22-31

Romans 5: 1-5

John 16:12-15

Since we’ve last met, the Easter season has ended and the season of Pentecost has begun. As the time approached for his death and departure, Jesus tried to prepare his disciples for the difficulties that lay ahead, and he told them he would not leave them alone, that he would send an Advocate to be with them always. This Advocate he called “the Spirit of Truth,” or as we have come to know the Advocate, the indwelling Holy Spirit. Jesus in fact tells the disciples that he has to leave in order for the Advocate—the Spirit—to come to his followers.

On the fiftieth day of Easter, May 9^th, we celebrated the Ascension—when the resurrected and risen Christ, having appeared to his disciples and continued his ministry among them, finally leaves the earth—the human realm—and rises to heaven as the astonished disciples watch.

Last Sunday, May 19^th, was Pentecost Sunday, when the church officially celebrates the arrival of the Advocate. The Spirit falls as tongues of fire on the disciples, and they are able to speak in all the languages of those who hear them. As Christ had foretold, in this way the followers of Jesus, strengthened and guided by the Advocate (the Holy Spirit) were able to spread the Good News throughout the world. A salvation that the Hebrew people, the chosen children of God, originally believed would only be offered to them became available to all tribes of people. We worship here today in Graves Mill because our ancestors were beneficiaries of that spreading word, just as the prophet Isaiah had foretold: “It is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” The Spirit entered the disciples, and the light of the salvation of Jesus Christ made it all the way to this end of the earth!

Now we have arrived at Trinity Sunday, which, as we say, celebrates “God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Since it is difficult for us to grasp an intelligent, communicative being who is not human, we attribute personhood to God. I think that attribution, considering God to be some extremely smart person, may be the source of our common confusion about the Trinity. God is God, far beyond any human’s ability to comprehend or explain, and as such, is ultimately a mystery to us. Dividing the powers of God among three persons has been our human way of deciphering the mystery.

Even as we continue with a discussion of the Trinity, it will be good to remember that we are simply using the tools available to us—human words and human characteristics—to bring God to our level of comprehension. God, thankfully, is willing to meet us there.

I heard of a child once, who in that wonderful way children have of cutting straight to the heart of a matter, explained the Trinity to his Sunday school teacher. She had been attempting to explain the concept of the three persons to the class, when this little boy said: “Oh, I think I see. It’s sort of like the way my mom is my mother, but she is a daughter to Grandma and a sister to Uncle Roy.” One God, but different roles, depending on the situation—that’s a simple way to look at it. St. Patrick, who famously used a three-leaved shamrock to explain the concept of a three-in-one God, emphasized that the Trinity is a Unity of love. What holds the three aspects of God together and plants God within each of us is love. A simple Irish invocation illustrates the function of love in the Trinity in this way: “O Father who sought me, O Son who bought me, O Holy Spirit who taught me…”

By all means necessary, the eternal God ever seeks us and calls us home.

Amen!

The Disciple’s Way Graves Chapel

The Collect for the 5^th Sunday of Easter

Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Gospel for today:

John 13:31-35

At the last supper, when Judas had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, 'Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

Our nation has now suffered another dreadful terrorist attack, this time perpetrated by young men who were both home-grown and Islamic extremists. We ask why and how this could happen, and there are no good answers. We wonder how any religion could condone the murder and mutilation of innocent people, including young children. Our government will respond to this event as it must. But how do we respond? How can we process yet another national tragedy?

It is worth remembering at such a time that the three great world religions of Middle Eastern origin all trace their roots to the city of Jerusalem and, in essence, all worship one God. On that most basic level, Christians, Jews, and Muslims are blood relatives. As Christians, we know we share our faith history with Jews; our Old Testament is Hebrew scripture and contains the law, history and literature of the Jewish people. Jesus himself was a Jew, and the first Christians were all Jews who came to believe that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah, the Saviour of His people.

So how do Muslims fit into this family history? The Father of the Hebrew people was Abraham, and we remember that Abraham proved his faithful obedience to God when he nearly sacrificed his only son Isaac. As you recall, God intervened and stayed Abraham’s hand, providing a ram instead for the sacrifice. Isaac would go on to be the father of Jacob and Esau, and through Jacob, renamed Israel, the entire genealogy of the Jews is traced.

But think again. Isaac was not Abraham’s only son, although it can be said he was Abraham’s only legitimate son. When Sarah, Abraham’s aging wife, believed she would not be able to bear a son for her husband, she gave her servant woman Hagar to her husband, who fathered Ishmael with her. According to Genesis, Ishmael was about thirteen years old and beloved by his father Abraham when Sarah finally gave birth to Isaac. Jealous of Ishmael’s relationship with his father, Sarah insisted that Isaac had to be designated the only rightful and legitimate heir of Abraham. Sarah demanded that Hagar and Ishmael be sent away. And Abraham did indeed send them out into the desert, where an angel intervened and saved their lives, telling Hagar, “Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” Those verses are from Genesis 21:17-18. There it is, in Hebrew scripture, the place where God sends an angel to say that a great nation of people would descend from Ishmael. Arab Muslims would tell you that they are that great nation. They consider Ishmael to be the direct ancestor of the Prophet Muhammed.

There is a long history of reasons why these members of the same family—Jews, Christians, and Muslims—have often become alienated from one another. I won’t go into that sad history now. It is also equally true that there are many places in the world where people of the three faiths live in peaceful harmony. As with the Boston Marathon bombing, it is usually the extremists of any one of these religions who want to impose their version of their faith on everyone around them.

That is as true of Christians as it is of Muslims. Adolph Hitler called himself a Christian when he massacred 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. The Rev. Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church persecutes his fellow Americans, among them many Christians, when he brings members of his church to picket funerals. Rev. Phelps even planned to picket funerals of the children killed in December’s Sandy Hook school shooting. He calls himself a Christian pastor? He is a religious extremist. His way of hateful vengeance is not the Lord’s way.

In 1993, the Oslo Peace Accords were signed, a milestone agreement between the Jews and the Palestinians paving the way for potential peace in the troubled state of Israel. Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and Yasser Arafat shook hands on the agreement, and the two men were awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1994. There was hope at last for Jews and Muslim Palestinians to broker a peaceful settlement of their long conflict. Then, in 1995, before the peace could be finalized, a radical Jewish extremist who opposed the Oslo accord assassinated Rabin.

As Christians, if we but look at the words of the founder of our faith, Jesus Christ, we will see that the way of hatred and violence, the way of extremists, is not His way. Nor did Christ ever suggest that we respond to such hatred in kind. He told us to love our enemies and to turn the other cheek. Jesus, as we are reminded in today’s collect, called himself “the way, the truth, and the life.” The way of Jesus is fundamentally the way of love, mercy, and forgiveness. In a world beset by war and cruelty, by terrorist attacks, that way may seem to be a difficult way. (Boy, is it hard to turn the other cheek!) Sometimes it can be difficult to love our own family members, but love them we must. We may certainly find it impossible to love the young men who perpetrated the bombings in Boston, but we can work at holding back our hatred of them and of Muslims in general. Their extreme position in no way represents all American Muslims. If nothing else, we can begin the healing between Christians and Muslims by working toward better mutual understanding.

As we strive to live in love, as Christ loved us, it is important to remember that His is not a way of weakness. Turning the other cheek takes great courage, and God’s immense power is best demonstrated in love. As Jesus prepared his disciples for his imminent death, he said, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

We demonstrate to a troubled world that we are true disciples of Jesus Christ in this one way: by our love.

AMEN.