Trinity Sunday, May 31, 2015 (full size gallery)
We are now in Ordinary time which in the Episcopal Church it is called the "season after Pentecost" and will cover most of the year – up to 28 Sundays depending on the calendar. Traditionally the color for this season of “Ordinary Time” has been green, and it is a fitting choice. Green has long been associated with new life and growth. It is a time to deal with some of the most important passages of Jesus teaching, this year in Mark. (We kept the red Pentecost panels up another week since they were just so beautiful and striking. Catherine thanked Susan Tilt again this week for her creation.).
Trinity Sunday is a tough Sunday to comprehend because it is a concept. The word does not appear in the Bible but is part of our creeds which appeared three centuries after Christ .
An old story goes that St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the Church fathers, sought to understand the Trinity while resting on a beach. He saw a child trying to fill a seashell with seawater. St. Augustine approached the obviously frustrated boy and asked him the question “What are you trying to do?” He responded “I am trying to fit the ocean into this seashell”. Augustine astutely observed, “That is impossible”. The boy responded simply, “It is equally impossible for you to capture the mystery of the Trinity.”
Essentially the Trinity is the belief that God is one in essence but distinct in person – God the father, son, and holy spirit. The Church had to reconcile the Divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit with Jewish monotheism.
Understanding of all scriptural doctrine is by faith which comes through the work of the Holy Spirit; therefore, it is appropriate that this mystery is celebrated the first Sunday after the Pentecost, when the outpouring of the Holy Spirit first occurred.
Being the last Sunday in the month, we had services at both 9am and 11am. The readings are here. 9am was Morning Prayer Rite II and 11am Holy Eucharist Rite II. While there were only 7 at 9am (slightly under the average) we have 42 at 11am, well over the average. At the latter we had at least 5+ visitors, always gratifying to see. The visitors included Peg Johnson and Shirley Cullop from Fredericksburg who have been to our concerts.
The day was temperate at 8am but which moved quickly to being very warm by noon. The corn around Port Royal seemed to be doing well, though it may be a bit on the dry side. The day lilies are coming up in the graveyeard and around. They usually bloom by mid June and are quite a site. The yellow flowers present a beautiful bouquet in the church yard and others. Cookie fashioned trinitarian flowers out of magnolia for the altar.
The sermon described a Trinitarian experience on horseback where Catherine "felt nothing but overwhelming peace, joy, complete communion and oneness with God and creation." It was a very personal sermon for which she apologized.
"I believe that this communion with God is what we long for and nothing else will satisfy this desire. McIntosh quotes C.S. Lewis as saying that “we want to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”
"That’s what happened to me that day. I was united with God. I passed into God, received God into myself, bathed in God, became part of God, as deeply I think I could experience God on this side of heaven. For that little while, God happened in me.
"What does this experience of unexpected prayer and union with God have to do with the doctrine of the Trinity? Everything.
"As Christians, we believe that the nature of our Trinitarian God is a relationship of sheer love shared in the deep communion of the Lover (God), the Beloved (Jesus) and the One who Enraptures (the Holy Spirit) (McIntosh’s terms).
"Knowing that God is a rich loving creative mutually loving Trinity pouring out abundant life changes the way we pray."
"And so, when we pray, McIntosh points out that God invites us ever more deeply into the exchange of love that is the loving communion of the Trinity. This is when “God happens in us, that is, our coming into fuller being as we pray in the divine communion.”
"The sermon provided examples how ordinary prayer requests can be transformed.
"On that Thursday when I rode through the woods, God gave me the grace to discover that my dream to ride across country on horseback was really the desire to be more fully myself, by being a person more fully in communion with the mutual loving of the Trinity."
At 11am, Betty announced the ECW had collected just over $370 for the spring UTO ingathering. Johnny also described the "gleaning days" in July at the Northern Neck Food Bank. This will help produce for them so that we can purchase at low prices for the Village Harvest. We had Helmut, Susan and Elizabeth back from 10 days on the Rhine River – sounds like the trip went well.
Lectionary commentary by Canon Lance Ousley, Diocese of Olympia, Washington
The readings for Trinity Sunday Year B include Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 29 or Canticle 2 or 13; Romans 8:12-17; and John 3:1-17.
I will go straight to the point, and then give you the back story. I believe that God’s glory is manifested in the perfect relationship of love found in the Unity of the Holy Trinity – the Divine Household. And we, the Body of Christ, have been called out as a people to steward God’s glory through living out this relationship with the world and with one another reflecting our relationship with God and our deepest living into this Divine Economia (household).
Three years ago this week we had the Cafe’ Racer shooting rampage in Seattle and a year ago this week a shooter stormed a science building at Seattle Pacific University killing one student and injuring others before being subdued. These events shook the foundations of the Northwest community raising questions about how such tragic acts of violence can happen among humanity.
And part of God’s response to these questions when these atrocities have occurred throughout human history is found in verse 17 of John 3, "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." I believe that Jesus came into the world to reveal the Truth of God’s glory, as described above, to all of humanity as the way of abundant life for us all. Therefore, I also believe that violence is the result of the failure of humanity to live into an understanding of the Glory of Life. Jesus came to show us the Way, the Truth, and the Life reflected in the Holy Trinity.
Augustine described God the Holy Trinity as the Perfect Union of the Lover, the Beloved, and Love. And anyone of these is found in each of the Persons of the Trinity, each being Lover, each being Beloved, and each being Love. Likewise, God has called us into this relationship through Christ to show forth God’s glory in the world. God calls us to be Lovers of those in the world, through God who is Love, so that those in the world might be and experience being the Beloved. It is hard for someone to do violence when they feel loved and are filled with love.
So many times though, we can become confused like Nicodemus and lose sight of what is important in the Doctrine of the Trinity. I am reminded of a seminary classmate several years ago that was asked by her Standing Committee to explain the oneness of the Trinity. In Nicodemian fashion the Standing Committee was seeking a sterile academic answer. But their particular idea of ice, water and steam are wholly inadequate when anyone of us is attending a person with a dying loved-one in the hospital or anyone else in deep pain or sorrow. What matters is how the Trinity informs us to be present with one another as fellow children of God. And the truth is God calls us out everyday to reflect the Glory of the Trinity, to sow Love and peace. Our whole answer to this call is given with all that we are and all that we have to overcome violence with love for all God’s children throughout the world. This our call to be stewards of God’s glory entrusted to us to share with all of humanity. This is what it means to be called to be the Body of Christ in the world.
How will we answer that call daily in our hearts using Isaiah’s words, "Here I am. Send me?" …Peace be with you.