Words of Welcome

  2 Corinthians 13:11-13 Today is Trinity Sunday. It may not be as exciting as Pentecost Sunday, but it’s a good time to stop and think about the God we serve and worship. Most Christian traditions affirm the idea that God is both one and yet three. This may sound like some kind of math problem, but thankfully, especially since I’m not a math person, this isn’t about math. It just means that, like our Jewish siblings, we believe that God is one. However, Christianity complicates things by suggesting that God is also three persons. So, we sing: “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee; holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty! God in three persons, blessed Trinity!” (Reginald Heber).     The doctrine of the Trinity that we celebrate this morning is only present in the New Testament implicitly. It took several centuries before early Christians nailed down a consensus view of God as Trinity. The Nicene Creed, which we will ...

  Romans 5:1-5 According to the liturgical calendar, today is Trinity Sunday. On a Sunday like this, we get to reflect on who God is. As history has proven, finding an answer to the question “who is God” has proven difficult. The Creeds define God as being one in substance but at the same time three persons. The first verse of our opening hymn declares:  Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty! Early in the morning  our song shall rise to thee. Holy, Holy, Holy! Merciful and Mighty! God in three persons, blessed Trinity! At least since the fourth century, the majority of Christians have affirmed that definition of God’s nature, even if we still struggle to make sense of our confession. So, if you don’t completely understand the ins and outs of the Trinity, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Nevertheless, together with the majority of Christians throughout history, we proclaim that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This morning, we have heard a reading from the...

  Matthew 28:16-20 Today is, according to the church calendar, Trinity Sunday. Up to this point, since the beginning of the church year, we’ve walked through the seasons of Advent, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter, each of which focuses our attention on Jesus. Then last Sunday we celebrated Pentecost, which reminds us that God sent the Holy Spirit like a mighty wind to fill God’s people with power to take the good news of Jesus to the ends of the earth. This morning we bring the story of God’s presence in the world to a climax as we celebrate Trinity Sunday.  It’s on Trinity Sunday that we ponder the full nature of God, whom we know as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. One God in three persons, Blessed Trinity. Although Psalm 8, which we’ve heard read this morning, doesn’t speak of the Trinity, it does proclaim God’s sovereignty and majesty. When we recited the Apostle’s Creed, we affirmed our belief, or even better, our trust, in God the Father, the Almig...

Psalm 8 Trinity Sunday invites us to contemplate the nature of God. Since Disciples are a non-creedal people, we tend to shy away from conversations about the Trinity. But, I believe this doctrine reveals a relational vision of God’s nature. While all human speech about God is inadequate,  that doesn’t mean we don’t look for ways of confessing our understandings of the mystery that is God’s nature.  If we envision the God revealed to us in Jesus as a communion of persons living in eternal fellowship, then we might be able to envision how this divine communion is reflected in human relationships.  Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff provides us with a helpful description of how this works:  The Trinity is the model for each and every community: while individuality is respected, the community emerges through communion and mutual self-surrender. Grassroots Christians understand this well, better than any theology, and they know how to give it very accura...

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31  In the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade , Indy joined his father, Henry Jones, Sr., on a quest to find the Holy Grail. Just like with Raiders of the Lost Ark, they’re in a race against forces aligned with Adolph Hitler. If you know the Indiana Jones movie series, you know it’s filled with many twists and turns, pitting good against evil, and of course, lots of booby traps to be avoided. According to the movie, legend had it that an ancient order of knights protected the cup, which was hidden in a cave. Henry Jones, Sr., had made the Grail his lifelong quest and had a notebook filled with research that would help lead them to the Grail. At one point or another, both sides get possession of the notebook, and in the end, those on both sides who survived the booby traps ended up in the room where the cup of Christ was hidden. This chamber was filled with many cups and chalices. Most of the cups were exquisite in their beauty and value. So, which ...

Psalm 29 Have you heard the voice of God lately? Did you hear it in the “still, small voice” that spoke to Elijah? ( 1 Kings 19 ). Did you hear it coming out from a burning bush? Did you hear it in the thunder and lightening of the recent storms? Do you hear God speaking through Scripture or maybe through conversations with people of wisdom and grace?  Last Sunday we celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit, who empowers and inspires the church for mission. We listened to the words of Romans 8, hoping to hear a word from God. In that passage, Paul writes that when we don’t have words to speak, the Spirit interprets our groans and sighs to the Father ( Rom. 8:22-27 ). That must mean God hears our voices. That is good news, but what about us? How do we hear God’s voice?  As we gather this morning on what the liturgical calendar calls Trinity Sunday, we are invited to contemplate the very nature of God. We are invited to ask the question: Who is God? As we ask th...

Matthew 28:16-20 Today is, according to the church calendar, Trinity Sunday. On the matter of the Trinity, Disciples of Christ are not of one mind. Thomas and Alexander Campbell were Trinitarians, and Barton Stone was not. One of our important second generation Disciple leaders was  Isaac Errett,  who served as pastor of the Jefferson Avenue and Beaubien Street Church in Detroit during the 1860s. He wrote a pamphlet titled Our Position. In that pamphlet he wrote that while Disciples accept the biblical statements about the “trinity of persons in the Godhead, we repudiate alike the philosophical and theological speculations of Trinitarians and Unitarians, and all unauthorized forms of speech on a question which transcends human reason, and on which it becomes us to speak ‘in words which the Holy Spirit teaches’” [ Historical Documents Advocating Christian Union ,  pp. 297-298].  In other words, we’re going to stick with Bible terms! Of course there are some amon...

Psalm 8 Homiletical theory suggests that the genre of a text should determine how it is preached. When it comes to the Psalms that bit of advice poses a problem for me.  Since I’m not a poet, trying to write a poetic sermon might not work all that well. But, even if you’re not a poet, it is good to regularly visit the Psalms. That’s because they speak powerfully about God and God’s creation. So, in the coming weeks most of my sermons will draw from the Psalms. However, I do want to put your minds at ease. I won’t be writing any bad poetry to share with you!   The Sunday after Pentecost is known as Trinity Sunday. It’s on this day in the church year that we focus our attention on the nature of God. From a theological point of view, the doctrine of the Trinity is a good reminder that God transcends our attempts to define God’s nature. When we look to the Psalms for guidance on such matters there is a Latin phrase that captures the essence of this:  Lex orandi, lex ...

Romans 8:12-17 I’m not a fan of reality TV, so I don’t ordinarily keep up with the Duggars or the Kardashians. Of course, they’re hard to ignore when they break into the regular news cycles.  While none of us are participants in reality TV, many of us share snippets of family life with the broader public on social media. Sometimes we might even share too much information about our family life with the public! But, whether or not we share the contents of family life with the world by way of Facebook or Instagram, isn’t family life fun?  It’s good to remember that families come in all shapes and sizes, so that in some way we’re all part of a family of some kind!  Some people dream of being part of the perfect family. It’s probably not the kind of family we see portrayed on reality TV, but it could be the Cleavers or the Huxtables.  I realize I’m dating myself by mentioning these two TV families of yesteryear, but they do live on in reruns. In many ways Cl...

2 Corinthians 13:11-13 It is Trinity Sunday, which is a good time to stop and think about the God we serve and worship.  Most Christian traditions confess God to be One, and yet three.  This is the confession we raise when we sing: “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!  Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee; holy, holy, holy!  Merciful and mighty!  God in three persons, blessed Trinity!” (Reginald Heber).     This doctrine of the Trinity that we celebrate today is complicated, and yet there are incredible spiritual riches to be found in this confession.  The benediction that closes Paul’s second Corinthian letter offers us one of the more explicit Trinitarian confessions in the New Testament.  While this isn’t a fully developed theology of the Trinity, because it closes one of Paul’s most difficult letters, it might have some practical importance.  Paul wrote to a congregation he started, but which was now dee...