June 19, 2011
Trinity Sunday
Call to Worship
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
And also with you.
Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
Glory be to the Father who created the world and all that it is in it.
Hear O People of God, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
Glory be to the Son, who was with God and was God and who became flesh and lived among us full of grace and truth.
Hear O Servants of God, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
Glory be to the Spirit, the living water,
and dwells within us and all who call on God's name and who helps us and guides us day by day
Come - drink from the well that springs up to eternal life
and give praise and thanks to our God who is One.
Prayer
Lord God, you who create us - and redeem us - and sustain us - we rejoice that you have chosen us to be your own and that you visit us and dwell with
us and open to us the way to abundant life. By your Word the heavens and the earth were made. By the bounty of your mercy in Christ Jesus we have been born to new life. Your Spirit fills the whole world with your loving kindness and gives us the power we need to be your witnesses. Bring us closer to you and to one another and in our prayer and our thanksgiving, our hearing and our speaking, and our giving and receiving make us more completely yours. We ask it in the name of Jesus, who lives and reigns with you and the Spirit, one God, now and forevermore. Amen
Commissioning of Otter Campers
We of the congregation are sending you to Camp Christian Today so that you may grow in faith as Jesus grew in his faith.
And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and people.
We hope you will grow in the spirit of God…
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
We want you learn the lessons of nature:
Look at the birds of the air, and consider the lilies of the fields, and do not be anxious.
Have fun, and remember those whose gifts make it possible to attend, and pray for us as we will pray for you.
We always thank God in remembrance of you, in every prayer. Go in the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Spirit.
We pray for these beautiful children today, that you will bless them with fun and fellowship this week. May all that they do be to the good of their bodies, minds, and spirits. We ask you in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Prayers of the People
We thank you God for how your Wisdom calls to us, for how your Spirit speaks to us, for how your Word reaches out to our souls. Grant O God that each of us may have a growing faith and a deepening love, that we may confess with our lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe in our hearts that he is alive within us.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
We pray today for all Fathers--with thanksgiving for those self-sacrificing men who believed enough in your future to bring children into the world. Lift them up and bless them, Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
We also pray to you for those named in our updates, we pray both in thankfulness and in intercession, for healing for them and for those we now name in silence...Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Lord, we pray for all nations, that there may be an end to all injustice, poverty, persecution, and especially for a just reconciliation between nations at war. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
We pray for each person in this congregation today, with personal worry, heartache, pain or distress, that these be given recovery of courage and peace of mind: Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Most loving God, source of all grace, light, and peace, restore to all people the joy and health of Your salvation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and evermore. Amen
Matthew 28:16-20
16Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.
17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.
18And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
“Not Alone”
As I have told you before, Trinity Sunday is somewhat problematic for Disciples pastors and preaching. My colleagues in other denominations are happily explaining away the traditional doctrines of the Trinity. Telling stories of monks who admitted not understanding it, but accepting that their superiors understood it, that was good enough for them. Expounding at length on the paradoxical meaning of one God in three persons.
Not me. Not most of our Disciples pastors. Like Alexander Campbell before us, we're heretics when it comes to doctrines of the Trinity. Trinitarian doctrine is an idea that demands to be served, whereas good theology serves the people who are trying to understand God. Good Theology serves to make it easier to understand God--not merely ideas about God.
So, why, you may be wondering, why am I standing here on Trinity Sunday, trying to explain this to you.
I'm wondering the same thing, actually.
The classical doctrine of the Trinity may or may not be helpful, but we need the Spirit.
I could not do what I do and pray with people for healing and wholeness without a sense of the ways in which God is known to me. God is my Father/Mother--creator of all that is. God over us.
God the Son is my redeemer--God like us who is for us and with us.
And God the Spirit is within us--the very air we breathe, as close to us as our own heartbeats.
Jesus’ followers in the Gospel of Matthew didn’t understand these things--they weren’t able to make sense out of anything they’d experienced of late.
Their Lord had been arrested, tried, executed, and come back to like, and now what? The text says they worshipped him--but some doubted. Not just Thomas, as John reports, but some--plural--doubted.
That’s not surprising. They were confused and disoriented. Now what?
Jesus tells them that they are to go out into all the world and make disciples of all nations. The Greek word used here--eqnasin ethnasin--doesn’t mean nations in the way we think of them. Not countries with sovereign governments. No, it means others--as in not us, not Jews. Ethnasin--ethnics.
Jesus is telling his little band of fishermen and a political activist and a tax collector that they are to go to people not-like-us and teach them about himself.
These men were all Jews, and they knew their Bible. They knew that God had promised Abraham that all the tribes of the earth would one day be brought into God’s family through Abraham and his children.
But, as Tom Long points out, it’s a lot easier to take when it’s written in the prayer book than personally strapping on your sandals to go get this thing accomplished yourself.
Telling the disciples--this confused and unsettled little band that they were to go out to all the world and herd all the foreigners of earth toward God in the name of Jesus would be like standing in front of you today and saying, “go out into all the world and cure cancer, clean up the world, evangelize the unbelievers, oh, and while you’re at it, make world peace.”
And that is the point. They (and we) are being asked to do something absolutely impossible, which means we can only do this by throwing ourselves completely on the mercy of God, and leaning on his strength.
All authority, Jesus says, is not ours, but his. And therefore, we are not commanded here not to utilize our own strength and resources, but throw ourselves entirely on Jesus Christ, in whom God has invested power, and who is willing to always be present to the church.
That’s the real meaning of the Trinity. God the Father--the creator--is over all, God the son--the redeemer--is God with us and for us, and God the Spirit is God the sustainer--God within us. One God know to us in many ways, and beyond being contained by any names or descriptions we my try to use.
And the point is not in understanding God, but rather in knowing and experiencing God.
This is Fathers’ Day. A day in which we give thanks for our Fathers, and those of us who’ve been blessed to be Fathers can quake in our shoes and pray that we’ve be Good Fathers. Fathers’ Day is not a holiday I look forward to--because I’ve never thought of myself as a good father.
Some people are natural parents, but not me. My children are 28 and 22 and I’m still growing into the role.
If I’ve been a good father at all, it is only to the extent that I have thrown myself on the strength and mercy of God the father, whose Son walks my path with me, and depending entirely on the spirit of God within.
Fathers, don’t lean on your own strength, but trust in God. Remember that you have been baptized in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Spirit. That wasn’t just something the preacher said to fill up the silence. There’s power in those words and in knowing to whom you belong.
It occurred to me this week that we have a remembrance of our baptism every year on the church calendar day called the “Baptism of Our Lord” in January. Sometimes, we get our hands wet and say “I am baptized!”
We should maybe spread that activity around a little. Maybe we should do that on Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day--we could put our hands in the water and remind ourselves, “I am baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit”--so that we can apply the power of that memory to the awesome responsibility of parenting.
Maybe we should remind ourselves of this constantly. What activity that you do can you think of that wouldn’t be bettered by leaning ourselves entirely on our relationship with the fullness of God known to us as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer? Let us give thanks today that by virtue of our baptism, we fully belong to God in life, in death, and in life beyond death.
Let’s celebrate this together. Repeat after me:
I am baptized!
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit,
I am baptized!
Thanks be to God! Amen.
Offering Invitation
Giving is a matter of worship, not a business transaction. Let us prayerfully offer our gifts to the Lord’s work.
Offertory Prayer
Almighty God, we gather in the name of the one to whom all authority is given – Jesus, our Christ. As we offer you this money, you ask us to renew our commitment to be your faith-filled disciples. May our lifestyles reflect a desire to be in mission for others. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen.
Benediction
And now, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Spirit guide and protect you, now and each day forward.
Amen.
