May 30, 2010- TRINITY - 1st Sunday after Pentecost
St. Matthew’s Church
“In the name of God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - Amen”
Thanks to all the advertising hoopla that accompanies certain days of the year in America, and depending on your own personal relationship with your father, I hazard a guess that many of you will wake up next Sunday and say: “Whoops - Fathers’ Day, I forget to send a card - maybe I can send an e-mail or telephone.” Or maybe you’ll sigh and think: “Fathers’ Day? Forget it!” But I’ll also bet that not one of you woke this morning and said “Oh, boy! Trinity Sunday - must get to church.” But Trinity Sunday it is. If you look up “Trinity” in a Bible concordance (even the immense one in the church study) nowhere will you find a reference to “Trinity”. For of all the special Sunday festivals that the church celebrates, this is the only one that celebrates a doctrine; not a story, as do Christmas, Easter, or Ascension. Why on earth should we care about anything as boring, as dry, as intellectual as a doctrine? What does it have to say to us, and does it matter?
“In the name of God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
It’s too bad, in a way, that most Christians do not share any interest in the doctrine of the Trinity because though it may seem to be nothing but some abstract and abstruse theology, it actually serves to sum up the experience of God: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit.”
No service of Christian worship is ever without reference to this Trinity, one reference that comes immediately to mind is the hymn:
Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.
When we receive the blessing, say the Apostles’ or the Nicene creed, sing the Gloria or the Doxology, hear the words of the marriage service, a baptism, or a funeral service - there are references to the Trinity. And yet, despite the prominence of this most basic article of our Christian faith in our worship and theology, most of us have little notion of, or interest in, the Trinity.
Remember that Jesus and his disciples were Jews. The first Christians were Jews. Paul was an ardent Jew - all, ALL, were brought up on the words from Deuteronomy: “Hear O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord...”
“The Lord our God is one...’
“In the name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit...”
How did we get from the one to the many? One small word can help us begin to trace the history: the Latin word “persona” had a different meaning in the 4th and 5th century when this doctrine was first being formed. For us a “person” is a distinct individual - David is a person. Ferdinand is a person. Dinny is a person. To say that these three different persons are somehow one and the same, doesn’t make any sense. When this doctrine of the Trinity was being formed the word “persona” applied to the mask worn by actors. An actor wore many different masks during a play because he would play many different roles. By using this word “persona” the Church was attempting to say that God is one, experienced in three complimentary but distinct ways.
Let me attempt my own bit of homespun theology. My mathematical son is, as often happens, also a musician. As a boy he would sit reading in the back seat of the car, and I learned that it was a toss up whether he was reading some book on mathematics or some musical score! Were he to come up behind Ferdinand as he was sorting his sheet music for the hymn that begins “Joyful, joyful”, Duncan would with one quick glace at the music, say: “Ah - Beethoven”. But were he to come into the back of the church as Ferdinand began to play what was on this sheet music, Duncan would also instantly say: “ Ah! - Beethoven.” Were I to point to a stout bearded older man and ask “Beethoven?” Duncan would laugh and assure me that that man could hardly be Beethoven who lived centuries ago.
The man: Beethoven who lived centuries ago. The written music: Beethoven’s The heard music: Beethoven’s. All three - Beethoven.
The man: Jesus, who lived centuries ago. The Gospel’s written stories: Jesus. The experienced presence: Jesus. All three together: God. Father, Son, Holy Spirit - three “persona”, masks. Karl Barth put it that the Trinity is about “God’s three ways of being God.”
I am not going to meet Beethoven himself at Hannaford’s when I go to pick up the New York Times any more than I am going to meet Jesus himself there.
I can borrow Ferdinand’s sheet music and try to read the notes for “Joyful, joyful” that are from the 9th Symphony and I can get out a Bible and read any of the four Gospel stories that tell about Jesus’s words and works. Neither the sheet music nor the Gospels give me the complete person.
I can put on CD of the 9th Symphony (or go to Montreal to a concert) and bathe myself in the music itself as it flows around me and into me. So, too, I can let the wind of the Holy Spirit flow around me and into me. I can’t see the music. I can’t see the Holy Spirit. If “seeing is believing” then there’s no believing.
We just heard the story about Nicodemus who came to Jesus in the night and who was puzzled when told that he had to be born anew. Remember that Jesus told him “Do not marvel that I said to you ‘you must be born anew.’ The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit.”
Watch out! You may not have gotten up this morning and said excitedly to yourself “oh boy! Trinity Sunday!” gotta get to Church to celebrate this wonderful day “- but you DID get up and you DID come to church. Whether or not you came expecting to have your life changed, expected to be born anew, you run a risk of this happening, you know. It didn’t happen last Sunday, at Pentecost? Well - that doesn’t mean it can’t happen at any instant! The wind of the Holy Spirit blows where and when it wills; you hear the sound of it, but you do not know when it will catch you - so WATCH OUT. You can be singing Beethoven’s music in the hymn “Joyful, joyful” and, like the goblins in the child’s poem, “It’ll getcha ef yo’ don’t watch out!” and whenever that happens, whenever the Holy Spirit really does “getcha”, then you will know the wonder of what Jesus was telling Nicodemus about being reborn.
‘IN THE NAME OF GOD - FATHER, SON AND HOLY SPIRIT. AMEN
Rev. Virginia Thomas
8th Pentecost
The Rev. Virginia C. Thomas
July 18, 2010 - 8th After
Pentecost
Dr. Theodore Ferris, for
years the rector of Trinity Church, Boston, wrote a prayer once that says what
I covet for myself, particularly in my preaching.He wrote: "In our prayers, O God, draw
us closer to thyself; help us always to be honest and
real, and to say no more than we really think."
"To be
honest and real and to say no more than we really think."
And what I have long really
thought, when I am honest with myself, is that Jesus often makes me mad.Have you ever been secretly ashamed to
realize that you have been thinking, as you have listened to some of the Gospel
lessons being read, "it just isn't
fair?"Once in a while when we are
paying attention we really hear some of the things that Jesus says and are
shocked into realizing that what he is saying are HARD words that make us
angry, puzzled.And we find ourselves
thinking: "But that isn't FAIR!"Let me put just a few of these hard sayings into twentieth century
language:
"The air conditioning
broke down and it was over 100 in the shop, but I worked a full shift - and
then the boss paid that summer replacement kid the same as he paid me, and the
kid didn't even show up for work until late in the day.Wail't'll I see my
Union boss on that one! It's not FAIR!"
"I stayed home, ran the
office, kept the books, never took time off - and then that kid of yours came
home after blowing his wad in the casino on the Reservation and carrying on
with those Indian girls - and you give HIM the red-carpet treatment.That's not fair!"
"I got there early so as
to be first in line to get a good seat - and then I go locked out just because
I forgot to plug in my rechargable battery and went
to get another, and by the time I got back everyone else had gone in and I was
locked out.That's not fair! I was there
first and left my jacket to keep my place."
And now today I just read
these words: "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to serve
alone?"Can't you just hear her
muttering her way back into the kitchen saying: "It's not fair?"Ask any woman here - we know what it's like
when company shows up, particularly the unexpected ones - potatoes to pare,
vegetables to fix, a dash to the Quick Stop for some sodas, table to set, on
and on.Enough to make anyone harried
and cross.
The minute I read the Gospel
appointed for today I was transported back to our cottage on the bay in Stone Harbor, New
Jersey, where there were always at least eight of us
for all meals, but ten or fourteen on the week-ends.
Every woman here can picture
it, I'm sure.Doesn't have to be a
cottage at the seashore, it can be Lake
Carmi or Champlain, a
river, a mountain shack, your own home or wherever you take a vacation.A July day like this is a good time to think
about this Mary and Martha story, for it reminds us all of those times in a hot
kitchen when the rest of the family and the guests would be off swimming,
playing tennis, hiking, fishing, sailing - whatever.Most of the time at Stone Harbor everything
was OK, but then there were those few times, those all too few times, when my
brother Duncan and his family would come for a visit.Can you tell from my tone of voice when I say
the name - DUNCAN
- how I feel about him?I named one of
my sons after this brother.t the news that Duncan was coming was
enough to bring nieces and nephews and friends out of the woodwork.You never got just Duncan and his family, you got the entire Campbell Clan!And it took work to feed a gang like
that.I can see myself now - sweat
pouring off my face, trying to finish up those last-minute jobs so as to get
into the living room, or out onto the dock if the night was a balmy mosquito-free
one, so as to join the talk, the fun, the laughter.And usually by the time I'd finish someone
would say: ""We'd better knock it off now and all turn in - I know Duncan has to make an early start in the morning to get
all the way home to Vermont."And I would try to muffle my sobs in my
pillow because everybody had had a chance to talk with my brother but me.And it just wasn't FAIR!
As if that weren't bad
enough, we'd go to the little Lutheran Church across the street and hear some
pious preacher who'd probably never helped his wife wash a dish pontificate
about how "Mary chose the better part, and we should all be like Mary and
not like Martha who was all harried and rushing about."
And the trouble is - ah! the trouble is - that he'd be right.He'd be right on three different levels:
First - on the practical
level of common, ordinary good sense, I can see now, with hindsight, that I didn'`t have to have a leg of lamb or a roast of beef (with
the oven going on a hot summer day?).I
didn't have to set the table nicely and go to a lot of fuss.I could have had paper plates and hot
dogs.Martha could have had the
equivalent Israeli fast food stuff: dates and figs, pomegrantes
and cheese or whatever didn't take a lot of work.I could have set food out in the kitchen and
let them all help themselves.That would
have been good sense.
Second - on a deeper level of
good manners or decent politeness, I see now that I didn't need to stomp into
the living room in front of everyone and berate my daughter: "You're never
around when I need you! I though I told you to come home early from the beach
to help?"Martha storms in from the
kitchen and says: "Lord, don't you care the my
sister has left me to serve alone?Tell
her to come help me!"Why is it
that it comes so hard to us to ask for help politely?
I don't want you men to sit
there feeling self-satisfied and a bit righteous just because I am talking
about female stuff that you think doesn't concern you -about kitchens and meals and housework.Yes, the Gospel story is about these things,
about women, but how many of you men, tired after a hard day at work, come home
to snap at a son and say "I thought I asked you to cut the grass and here
you are sitting in front of the tube again!"How many of you actually look at your wife and
daughter and pitch in to help instead of tiredly sighing that "I see you
didn't get the car to the repair shop!"
This brings us to the third
level - the really deep one.WHY does it
not come naturally to us to ask for help politely?Why do we feel we have to put on such a show
of efficiency?Because we are ashamed to
admit that we have our limits, ashamed to show that we get tired, overburdened,
and bite off too much.In older times
the church had a word for it, and it was considered a sin.That word is HUBRIS.The dictionary defines it as over-bearing
pride.It is a basic American, a very
human sin.When you dig deep enough you
find that it can be called "origional
sin".Wanting to
run our own lives without any help from anyone.Maybe we should never have been taught that
dreadful poem in grade school by Henley:
"I am the master of my fate, I am the master of my soul." or listened
to that TV ad that said over and over again: "Please, Mother, I'd rather
do it myself."I don't need your
help - yours or anyone else's, much less God's!Hubris.It LIKES having nieces say: "Oh, Aunt Virginia (Aunt Eunice, Aunt
Ruth, AuntDinnie??) you give such marvelous parties - it's no wonder we like to
visit you in Stone Harbor, at Lake
Carmi, on your farm"
- fill in the blanks yourself.
Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem and Martha blew
it.She probably wept into her pillow
many a night and asked herself: "Why, oh why, didn't I keep food simple
and go sit with him while he was here - for now it's too late."
So I come back full circle to
where I began this sermon - that Jesus's demands are
hard and make me mad, because the demands hit me in sore spots and ask me to
re-order my priorities.This particular
story about Mary and Martha speaks directly to me: "Virginia, Virginia,
you are anxious and troubled about many things: one thing only is
needful."And I am told to choose
the better part that cannot be taken from me.
What is this better
part?It is to never forget that I do
not need to learn how to give, how to bustle about serving when the one who
came to do the serving, the one who gives up even his life for me, is sitting
in the living room.It is up to me , to each one of us, to learn that when we are harried
and cross, tired, rushed and discouraged, that it is just then that we must let
Jesus help us.But we have to admit to
ourselves that we can't manage alone, have to ask (politely!) for help, and
accept it when it is given. Then, we, like Mary, will have "chosen the
better part."
May 21, 2010 -5th Easter
Acts 11:1-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
JOHN 13:31-35
It has been said that a church is like a family - a mix of ages, sexes, personalities who are not necessarily all related, but who share the same living space, the same faith. As you all know, families, and churches, can be very, very different from each other, David and I lived for 48 years on a short street in a small town, that was only fifteen minutes from the center of Philadelphia. It was a “have your cake and eat it too” life - all the joys of a big city: concerts, art museums, The Franklin Institute, Independence Hall, and all the joys of small town living: knowing your neighbors, being known by all the shopkeepers.
Avon Road had doctors, teachers, businessmen and women, shopkeepers. It had Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives of every type. It had Baptists and Presbyterians, Quakers, atheists, and Christian Scientists. Route 108 life is very different, yet even more wonderful in many ways. The offspring of the Avon Road families have spread across the country and they are as different in their careers, their lifestyles, their beliefs as were their parents.
For example - take two of those families that we have kept track of - one runs its family like a democracy, with all members having a say in decisions, large and small. The other family has been run more like a dictatorship, with one person making decisions, large and small. Given a beautiful day in June, the second family’s decision-maker announces: “No chores today -too nice a day - get your bathing suits and fishing rods while I make some peanut butter sandwiches for a picnic ” and they are out the door. Someone in the first family might suggest: “nice day! What’ll we do?” whereupon a big discussion evolves and some want the mountains and rock climbing, some want the ocean and surfboarding. A couple want to pack the hibachi and steaks, and others say “nah! stop at a McDonald’s on the way. Eventually - eventually - they, too, are out the door. But by then it has begun to cloud over . . .
It has been said that churches are like families, and we have known some of them, too. Pendel Hill, a Quaker center not very far from Narberth, was certainly like the first family, and all decisions were made by consensus. Our Episcopal Church tended to be run more like the second family, depending upon the rector.
It has been an interesting exercise for me this past week, to speculate about how each family, each church that I have briefly described, would have handled today’s lesson that gives us some of Jesus’s words to his disciples during their last meal together.
The democratic style family and church might say: “Here are some great suggestions that we might want to discuss at our next get-together”. They might well decide to have a sign-up sheet for people to join a discussion group - you know - lunch and a Sunday afternoon hour or supper and an evening, “what do you suggest?” sort of questions. The somewhat dictatorial family and church might say: “Hey! Here are some rules that we should enforce.” And the person in charge would say: “Wednesday night at 7:00 - see you all there - and I’ll expect you to have read the whole section of John and be ready to see how to apply these rules to our family.”
The sections of John that we have been reading recent Sundays are all a part of an extended and troubling discourse that Jesus is having with his friends as he tries to prepare them for what lies ahead - particularly his departure. We know about this “Last Supper”. I suggest that we don’t often think about our own “last suppers”, The disciples may have guessed that this meal they were sharing with each other could be their last time together - but we might well become more aware that each of our meals - even corn flakes with cream for breakfast with our family - could well be our “last supper” together, Each Eucharist here at St. Matthew’s could be our “last supper” together. What would we say or do differently to our child, our mother, our wife or husband or partner - if we KNEW that those would be our last words or actions? OK - these are dreary words, troubling thoughts, but we all know that each moment of our lives is a gift with no guarantees that there will be more.
You know that a split second has been described as the interval between the light turning green and the person in the car behind you blowing the horn Most of us have, at some time in our lives, learned about split seconds and how a life can in that moment change forever: the telephone rings after midnight, a car skids on black ice, a blood vessel bursts in a brain, a bullet hits a chest, an airplane hits a sky scraper. Those who gave a casual wave and no hug to a husband or wife who picked up a briefcase and left to take the subway to an office on the 80th floor of the World Trade center on a September day may be haunted for years by a wish - oh! a wish - that there had been a kiss, a hug, some words of love. But, of course, they didn’t know that they had had their last meal together.
And Jesus said: “This is my command - that you love one another.” He did not say: “I have a suggestion for you to think about after I’m gone...try loving each other, as I have loved you.” He did not pass a sign-up sheet around the table for those who might choose to try this loving bit, He reminded them that they didn’t choose him in the first place; that he had chosen them, and they are to love each other, and they are to even be willing to lay down their lives for each other,
Aye, there’s the rub! Give up my life for you? Forgettaboutit! No Way! Yet our Lord commands us to love each other AS HE LOVED US.” Yes, He promised to be with us as He sends the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to strengthen us - but - .give my life for you, or you, or even my own child?
And yet - and yet -. When push comes to shove ordinary people have indeed found themselves able to sacrifice their lives for another. Perhaps all this loving each other is like exercising to keep in shape - loving strengthens our heart muscles in a different way so that when that split second comes our hearts respond in the way they’ve been trained for. And a voice asked: “Who shall I send?” and I replied: “Here am I - send me” and I’ll bet whoever blurted out those words was as astonished as any of us would be to hear his own response.
For God’s sake let us love one another. For Christ’s sake let us respond to all whom God has made with love and not with careful picking and choosing. I will love my children, but not those of a Hispanic, not a Sudanese, not one who is gay? No way! I will choose to love. Everyone. Period. And if push comes to shove at some future moment in time, then may God grant me the strength to even give my life for you. Jesus did not give us a suggestion - he gave us a command, gave us what was to become our lifestyle.
Hibachi and steaks, or peanut butter sandwiches - whatever our lifestyle, our way of making decisions - let it be love that rules our lives.
Uh -those two very different offsprings of Avon Road life (the peanut-butter or hibachis and steak ones) that I kept in touch with after we moved? They both happen to be mine, and if push ever should come to shove - I pray that my heart has had enough exercise!