Trinity Sunday 2010

Sermon – Trinity 2010, 30 May
John 16: 12-15, Romans 5: 1-15, Proverb 8: 1-4, 22-31
May my words offer insights and inspiration. Amen.
What's your favourite way of talking about the Trinity? Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Creator, Redeemer, and Giver of Life? Presence, Wisdom, Power? Almighty God, incarnate Word, Holy Comforter? Or the one we used at our Easter service: God of Creation, Resurrection and Eternity? All of these phrases, and many more, have been used to refer to the Trinity. And just in case you couldn't tell from all those phrases, when we refer to the Trinity, we're talking about God. You may have guessed – today is a Sunday in our church year that we reflect on the Trinity – the triune nature of God, God as three in one.
But have you ever tried to explain the Trinity? Or even to understand it? God is one and yet we've got these three, what? Persons? Spirits? Beings? Things? So who and what is God? A triangle? Maybe God is like the Greek God Janus, the one with two faces, except that the Christian God has three faces. Or maybe God is a shape-shifter, one minute holy parent, another holy child, another holy spirit. "God in three persons,"
Talking about the Trinity is not easy, and many people would say, “What's the point of talking about the Trinity? It's the most useless doctrine in all of Christianity", which, on the face of it, sounds pretty cynical. But may be that is how we need to approach such a doctrine to really capture it. Jesus didn't ever mention the word ‘Trinity’; neither did Paul. It wasn't until the fourth century, 300 years after Jesus, that Christian leaders formalized the idea of the Trinity. They did it at the Council of Nicaea in the year 325. And I can tell you now, it was not an easy task and in fact there was much conflict! The result? The Nicene Creed, which we still use today in many of our worship services across the world. Then some more Christian leaders in the fifth century wrote another creed trying once again to clarify the Trinity, particularly the Jesus part. That Council resulted in the Apostles' Creed, which again will be familiar to many of us.
And all of that is well and good. But what do these old councils, creeds, and conflicts have to do with how we live our lives today? Should we simply over look them or even just ditch it? The idea of the Trinity is relatively new, it's hard to understand and nearly impossible to explain, so maybe we should just chuck the whole thing.
But the church has not done this, and I tend to think that all the intelligent, inspirational, creative people that have worked on church doctrine and theology should have least have some credit. If the idea of the Trinity is so useless, why has it stuck around so long? So if we stay with the notion of the Trinity what can we discover? Surely there's something helpful about the idea of the Trinity!
So I went to some trusted sources to get inspiration – I think I have almost exhausted my trinitarian analogies from my theology degree days. So I went to the internet. And the first file I opened up was helpful. The first analogy I found was from Dorothy Sayers. Dorothy Sayers is a Christian theologian and she wrote the book, ‘The Mind of the Maker’. She is actually one of Professor John Morton’s favourite theologians so I think I am on fairly safe ground here! Now, she suggested that we think of the play, HAMLET by Shakespeare? (Or any play for that matter.) Sayers said that the play was first in the mind of Shakespeare. Then, secondly, Shakespeare wrote it down on paper. Then, thirdly, the play was acted out on stage. Now, which of those three expressions are the play HAMLET? In the mind? On the paper? Acted out on stage? All three expressions are HAMLET. These are three different expressions of the same Hamlet. She said that is the way of God: in God the Father/Creator, God the Son/Inspirer, and God the Holy Spirit/Giver of Life; all three expressions are fully God.
Another idea I found in my trusted source suggested that the Trinity reveals the creative, the ethical, and the mystical - all being of God. Which I actually really liked! So let’s explore this.
The essence of God is creative. That's what God does, God creates. And Jesus' whole thing was doing good; God sent Jesus to show us how to live; that's ethics. And the mystical? The mystical is all ‘that Spirit stuff’: “prayer, meditation, being fully present with God, with ourselves, and with others. Now that may seem a little basic for some of us, but I think there is a whole lot in there that we can work with. This idea suggests to me that trinitarian theology takes us away from being too narrow in the ways we talk about, and the ways we experience God. God does not simply just create, but transforms. God does not simply do good, but lives it out in all of life. God is not simply spiritual, but is fully present in all we do. God of trinity broadens us. If we are indeed created in the image of God, then we too need to incorporate into our spiritual lives and our working lives and our families lives and our personal lives all of those things – our creative positive energy, modelling what we believe and what we value, and always bringing into everything we do the mystical, spiritual dimension.
That is indeed our challenge this Trinity Sunday; to be inspired by our concepts of Trinitarian theology so that we can live our Christian lives more fully. Even if we cannot fully understand the doctrine, (and believe me even the best minds on the earth struggle with this one), we can be transformed in what we think and do by reviewing how we create, how we work, and where we find nourishment.
And the important thing about the Trinity - Father-Son-Holy Spirit, creative-ethical-mystical - however we name it, is that all three partners go together, all three are equal, mutually-related, inter-dependent. And the image of God is this mutual balance of the creative, the ethical, and the mystical. And when the creative (our imaginative thinking), the ethical (what we do and how we decide to do it), and the mystical (how we pray) - when the creative, the ethical, and the mystical work inter-dependently in our lives, then we are working within the Trinity – we are in tune with God.
So what does this mean for us here at St Johns Campbells Bay? How can our trinitarian theology inform us and transform us?
Well, first of all I do not think that it is about being 3 different persons. Nor is it about dividing our community into those who are creative, those who do all the work, and those who are prayerful. Rather it is about recognising and bringing together all those things and more into each of one of us – so we can ALL participate more fully – in our thinking, our work and our prayer. Trinitarian theology is actually about bringing together all aspects of who God is and who we are. Contrary to how it may have been interpreted in the past, I do not think that it is about compartmentalising our theology – in other words putting God in different boxes for different occasions - or indeed putting each one of us into a box that might suit our personality or personal contribution as the people of God. Quite the opposite in fact! It is about bringing together everything that we value about God and about ourselves – and naming our diversity and difference within ourselves and God as being vital to our theology and us being church.
So, termed in that way, it means that we must work together inter-dependently. The creators of liturgy cannot work alone, the musicians of the parish cannot work alone; the home groups and prayer ministry people cannot work alone. We all need to work together to truly model our theology – being that of the trinity that indeed recognises the importance of bringing it all together as one.
Compartmentalising ministry is actually one of the most divisive things that church can do in terms of good theology – in my humble opinion. And that is why our Anglican church mission statement cannot be read as 5 separate statements, but rather one. They are to proclaim the good news, to teach and baptise, to respond to human need, to transform unjust structures, and to care for creation. You actually cannot do one without the other. And I do not think that is helpful what has happened in the past where councils have been set up to address just one statement on their own, because we then often omit to see the big picture or address the issues of the other – or even talk to each other, let alone work inter-dependently.
And so it is with God. Trinitarian theology for me is not about compartmentalising different persons or even aspects of God, but rather bringing together something that is very big and complex indeed. That is why explaining such a doctrine is not easy. But we can model such a doctrine in the way we be and do community. All of us – each one of us here – has the God-given potential to be creative (to come up with something fabulous), to do something amazing, and to bring it all to fruition with prayer and God’s spirit leading and guiding us; and to do so as holistic beings.
As I was writing this sermon I had a look at our parish website. We say about our parish – that it is a community that strives to be a loving, safe, welcoming faith community that is intellectually challenging, emotionally supportive, and filled with strength, integrity and social responsibility that spiritually inspires. It actually incorporates what I have been talking about - creative thinking, doing ministry and being inspired in pray. That is who we are! And that is who God as Trinity is!
So let us continue to do as God does! Work inter-dependently, value diversity and the bringing together of difference, recognising the complexities of life and not simply compartmentalising everything into little boxes. Being brave enough to create something new, do something new, and value something new, in the name of God, Creator, Redeemer and Giver of Life.
Amen.

Festival of Pentecost

Pentecost 2010 - Rev'd Shann Craig
We most often celebrate Pentecost as the birthday of the church …however it seems to me from our readings and from our theme gathered and scattered, that a better way to describe Pentecost may be Graduation day!
May of course, is the season for graduations, and in my reading for this week I found this advice to new graduates "Let there be no distance between who you are and what you do."
It could well be our theme!

In the readings we see 2 different interpretations or functions, of the many different ones the bible use to try to describe the Spirit: one from before Graduation and after (though the spirit is one and the same!)

From the gospel reading we see the Spirit as advocate, helper, Paraclete!

There are the disciples gathered with Jesus.
And Jesus is about to leave them.
They have had 3 years of teaching, theory and practice.
They have experienced Easter and the Resurrection, and are now having some more teaching, just before Jesus ascension.

And what happens?

Phillip says. ‘Just show us the Father and we’ll be satisfied.’
Just show us God, that’s all we need!!

We all have times when we have this sense of dislocation or homesickness, or deep loneliness - a need, a longing - when things just don’t come together, when we feel this is all so, so hard, and we want to cry ‘Will you please give us something to hold onto.’

Show me God!

Have you ever felt: ‘I know Jesus is good, but what about God?’

Jesus says to Phillip: Have you not seen me?
All this time I have been with you? If you have seen me, you have seen God!

The unknowable God becomes known in Jesus, and the Holy Spirit who comes in Jesus name, is the one who shows us God, and will continue to do that.
The Spirit comes alongside not only as advocate, helper, comforter, but to make God known to us.
__

And then comes Graduation Day, but it’s not a cap on the head, but noise and wind and tongues as of fire!

And the Spirit experienced in the Acts reading is a Spirit of prophecy.

If we listen to what the Spirit is saying to the church I think we may hear: There is a prophet among us!
There are prophets among us!
By prophecy I don’t mean fortunetelling. I mean - interpreting what God is doing in the world around us. Having eyes of faith to see meaning.

Prophecy is truth telling- where and how we are seeing God at work.. Where God I working - where is God not allowed to be .. where God needs to be .
And interpreting.. making meaning.. constantly making sense of our lives in the world.. and we do it through the eyes of faith - this gift of the Spirit.

Pentecost was graduation day for the disciples. From being gathered, even behind closed doors, they were scattered to the ends of the earth, to do the work of seeing and telling where God is at work and where God needs to be!
We too can be prophets! Noticing God at work, noticing where God is not at work and needs to be! Seeing and telling, letting there be no distance between who we are and what we do!

It is very encouraging to hear people talk about Holy Spirit in their lives, and so we are going to hear some stories now.

Michael, Michelle, Sandy. Amy. Amy - Thank you.

To finish: Why do we tell and listen to stories? Why do we read Scripture? Not just to know what happened in the past, not just to know our history, but to make sense of the here and now. We gather to read and study scripture to be reminded of who we are, to give us the language the ideas the images and the promises that help us to be bearers of hope and joy, workers for justice, carers of creation, as we are scattered in the world.
"Let there be no distance between who you are and what you do."
Amen!


Let us pray.

In nudges and whispers.
Like a seed growing, imperceptible at first.
Like wind, invisible, refreshing, transformative. Like water, cleansing, renewing, powerful.
Unpredictably. Uncontrollably.
Praying: for us, with us, in us, through us.
Convicting, like a judge in a courtroom. Comforting, like a mother with a frightened child in the middle of the night.
We know her work by experiencing it. She will not be pinned down, can only be described with analogies.
But wherever there is forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation, grace, she leaves her fingerprints.
Always the one connecting, making us into the Body of Christ, God's hands in the world.
Amen

Unity

Sam Held. Easter 7, John 17: 20- 26

As some of you know, I’m a linguist by background. I love words, I’m pretty comfortable with them, and never miss an opportunity to share my enthusiasm for language with those around me (whether they want me to or not)
It may surprise you, then, if I tell you that I had to read today’s Gospel passage several times before I was truly satisfied that I had captured all the nuances of meaning it contains. So why should it have caused me so much of a problem? After all, it’s not a long passage, and there are no complicated polysyllabic words in it. The biggest words only have three syllables.
The Gospel reading is not complicated in the slightest, but it is complex, extremely complex.

First there is the ‘surface complexity’, that of the use of language. Today’s Gospel is the third part of what has come to be known as The Great High Priestly Prayer, where Jesus prays aloud to the Father in the upper room on the night before his death on the cross. We must assume he intended his prayers to be heard by the disciples.
Because we are only hearing the third part, Jesus is referring to people previously made explicit by pronouns (they, those etc.), a device known as anaphora, and therein lies the task of unravelling exactly to whom he is referring.

I don’t find the first verse of the passage too difficult if I use my hand as an aid – “I ask not only on behalf of these (the disciples), but also on behalf of those (the rest of humankind) who will believe in me through their (the disciples) word”. Now I’m sure that many of you may have got there much more quickly than I did, but from there onwards, the hand is no longer of any use to me at all. At times Jesus may have been referring to people in general, and at times to the disciples.

I believe though, that in verse 24, When Jesus prays “Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory,” refers specifically to the disciples, and is an indicator both of Jesus’ desire to see the disciples rewarded, and of the Gospel provenance of the great apostolic tradition of the Church. I also believe that in the last two verses Jesus is again referring to the disciples, and referring also to Pentecost and the great Trinitarian unity soon to come.

Then we come to the deeper complexity – the layers of meaning we can find in this prayer.
It is perhaps in anticipation of the revelation of that amazing unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit that Jesus prays for unity, for ‘oneness’ between his people on earth. Or is it perhaps that during his time incarnate among humankind he has seen just how urgent is the need to pray for unity?

On this Sunday, when our theme is breaking chains, perhaps we should consider the origin of the chains that fetter us, for I believe Jesus identifies it in this, his prayer, as our seemingly irresistible drive towards disunity.

As Christians we believe in, and pray for, peace and justice. We pray for the oppressed, whether by war or by totalitarian regimes, and we pray for our Christian bothers and sisters who suffer religious persecution in various parts of the world.
How truly marvellous it would be if all our prayers were answered and these chains of external oppression were to be broken.
Praying for the victims of disunity worldwide is something most of us would consider a natural part of the ministry of all the baptised. Worldwide disunity is somehow a concept that we can accept as a constant more easily than disunity closer to home.
Unity is one characteristic that cannot be ascribed to the human race at any point in its history, and even as followers of Christ often it eludes us. Put bluntly the church has not been a good ambassador for unity over the centuries.

Jesus prays on behalf of all those who will believe in him through the word of the apostles for oneness, for unity, but we might be forgiven for thinking that God declined to answer this part of the Great Prayer. The truth is that it is our stubborn and dogmatic human nature that prevents us from attaining unity.
As Christians we have argued from the first century onwards about the right and wrong way to worship; from time to time we have gone to war with each other just to prove that one way of godliness is superior to another.
Jesus saw the opportunity for worship and community whenever “two or three are gathered together in his name”, but burdened as we are by our humanity, when two or three are gathered together we only see an opportunity to give this group a title, write a set of rules and declare to the world that this group, and no other has all the answers.

The major churches have long recognised this problematic tendency and there are many ecumenical movements and initiatives, but people tend to be wary of unity as they often confuse it with uniformity (as, to be frank, do some of the ecumenical movements). Uniformity suggests to adherents of this or that denomination that they might have to sacrifice what they may feel to be non-negotiable beliefs.
A well-meaning pop song of the seventies suggested that what was needed to counter racism was a great big melting pot, which would turn out only coffee-coloured people, but God gave us our great diversity on earth and it is not ours to meddle with.
Back in the UK I was active in politics for some year in the Labour party, and during one particularly difficult internal upheaval there was a joke going around that went:
How do you know when unity has been achieved in the Labour party?
And the answer was:
When your friends start stabbing you in the front!
Like all good humour there is more than a grain of truth in this – unity is not uniformity, and definitely not conformity. Eli Stanley Jones, the 20th Century Methodist missionary and writer once said “Talk about what you believe and you have disunity. Talk about who you believe in and you have unity”.
Unity is about finding what is common to us all and we can agree on, and also agreeing on what is not, without comprising our love and respect for one another.
This has never been easy. It is quite difficult to love and respect someone who disagrees with you, especially if it’s about a deeply held belief. I can speak from my own experience about this. I have some really good close friends on the more evangelical wing of our church, and being openly on the liberal side, when our conversations turn to what they feel is appropriate to teach their children about (as an example) creation, we differ. We have had some difficult moments but worked through them with our friendship and respect intact.
I believe that in the Great Prayer Jesus recognised the immense difficulty humankind faces in achieving oneness. So much so that he prays to the Father not once, but three times – in verse 21, that they may all be one, in verse 22 that they may be one even as we are one, and in verse 23 that they may be completely one.

This is a staged invocation, each going further than the last, and the third complete. Complete oneness, transcending human divisions and disunity. Complete oneness for those who believe - with Jesus the Son, oneness with God the Father and oneness with the soon-to-be-revealed (at Pentecost) God the Holy Spirit.
That they may be completely one
It is well named the Great High Priestly Prayer, for it reminds us of the Eucharist.
Jesus calls us to unity, to oneness, to put aside our divisions, just as we are called to do at the sharing of the Peace, before invoking the Holy Spirit as does the priest in the Great Thanksgiving.
So what can we do in our own lives to move closer to this oneness? Well firstly, it is right that we continue to pray that the iniquitous chains of oppression across the world be broken, we do indeed have a duty to speak out against injustice wherever it is, but injustice doesn’t always live in far-off countries. It is often right under our noses. And what about those people closer to home, whose way of life might not be what we think of as proper, what about “finding what is common to us” not what’s different. As Christians it’s very easy to think that we’ve found the ‘right’ way to live life, but once again I return to Eli Stanley Jones (who incidentally influenced and was influenced by Ghandi) who wrote:
Victorious living does not mean perfect living in the sense of living without flaw, but it does mean adequate living, and that can be consistent with many mistakes.
I admit to many mistakes in my attempts at adequate living, and repeated failures in my efforts to achieve oneness, but I take inspiration from this Great Prayer that we make break the chains of our own making that imprison us in our divisions and disunity, and pray that you may too:

God of infinite understanding, make us one – not so that we are a single entity but so that as one and at all times we believe in you. We ask you this in Jesus’ name
Amen

St John the Evangelist

Sermon – 2 May 2010, St John the Evangelist
Acts 11: 1-8, Rev 21: 1-6, John 13: 31-35
May my words offer hope and inspiration to live your Gospel. Amen
Are you bored? Do you want something new? We seem to tire so easily of the ordinary in life. Many of us are constantly looking for something new, something exciting. We want to be entertained by life and to have the latest of everything. We are often taken in by the advertisements that insist: This is really new, and you can’t live without it!

Advertisers are not the first to make such claims. Nor are they completely misleading. We are certainly living in times of rapid change. In many cases, we purchase an item one week, and there is a new and improved version the next. Furthermore, it is often extremely difficult to live, much less advance, without some contemporary devices. We are always faced with questions like: How new and improved does everything have to be? And what can I live without?

The readings for today make precisely this claim: This is really new, and you can’t live without it! But the biblical authors are not talking about something that is merely new and improved today but will probably be replaced tomorrow. When they speak of “a new heaven and a new earth,” “a new Jerusalem” or “a new commandment,” they are referring to eschatological reality. The Greek word used here indicates the extraordinary character of this newness. This is an act of God that lasts forever and ever Amen.

The reading from the Book of Revelation talks about this newness. The vision found there is rich in symbolic language. The new heaven and new earth represent all of reality. The scene is really a vision of the new age after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus completely altered the powers of both heaven and earth. He invited his followers to enter into a new way of being, where they would dwell with God in their midst. It might be better to say that they would dwell there in the midst of God. This awe-inspiring vision declares that everything has been transformed, and continues to be transformed by the power of God. So if we are looking for something new, then look no further than our readings today.

And of course today is special for us at St Johns Campbells Bay because this week we celebrate the life and faith of St John the Evangelist – our patron saint, and even though we may ask ‘what is new in all that?’ we may just be able to find new perspectives on life when we think about what and who St John is for us today. So who is St John?

It is difficult to pinpoint exactly who John is. Although one Gospel, three epistles, and the book of Revelation all bear his name, it is far from certain that one and the same person wrote them all. On the other hand, there are striking similarities in style and outlook that encourage us to describe this literature as at least having John as the one who contributed through the oral tradition.

In the West, we tend to find John portrayed as a young, beardless figure. In the East, he is shown as a venerable figure with a long white beard. Let’s stay with our Western identity, and enquire further into the youthfulness of this Evangelist. He was the youngest of the apostles. A Galilean fisherman, who worked with his father Zebedee and his older brother James, was called by Jesus from the Lake to be a disciple. They were nicknamed ‘Sons of Thunder’, which suggests he had a fiery temperament – not scared to challenge and express emotions. He is known as being the fittest and the one Jesus loved. When the woman came reporting the resurrection of Jesus John was mentioned as the one who reached the tomb first – the fittest of all of them. Paul refers to John as the pillar of the church in Jerusalem. So John was a young man with lots of spark.

In contrast with other apostles, whose legends are about how they died a martyr’s death, legends about John are about how he survived martyrdom. The symbol of John holding a chalice out of which comes a snake or dragon relates to the attempt to poison him using the eucharistic chalice. But it was the assassin who died. There is also a story that John was boiled in oil, but he emerged unscathed, rather like the three young men in the book of Daniel (Daniel 3), and, in John’s case, looking younger than ever.

The point I think here is that John did live until he was an old man, and his experiences with Jesus were what formed him as a young man, and indeed transformed him as he experienced the death and resurrection of Jesus. As an older man he proceeded to spread the gospel, establish the church and write the story down. He was a man of depth and great theological insight.

So that is all very interesting, you might say, but what relevance does he have to us today and especially here at Campbells Bay? My first response is let’s explore for a moment what may have inspired him in his amazing faith journey? May be it was the miracles Jesus performed? May be it was the way he was treated as a young man, and called by Jesus to be a follower? May be it was Jesus great acceptance of a man with a fiery temper? May be it was simply his evolving reflection and appreciation of what Jesus offered and who he was? Certainly his theological reflections on a new heaven and the new earth must have been formed by Jesus death and resurrection. There were probably many more things that inspired John, but none of them were simply just a short term fix. It involved transformation and new beginnings over a whole life time of experiences with Jesus in John’s case. And this too is the case for each one of us. All our experiences of Jesus collectively are transformative and life-changing. Just imagine if we, like John, wrote down, or told, our stories of faith. I am sure others around us would be inspired, and we too would certainly be inspired and excited as we put our faith story together.

But I have not answered the question - So what is new?
In the Gospel from St John this morning, Jesus talks about a new commandment; a new way – this is radical – you can’t get better than this in terms of new and amazing and exciting theology! Jesus instructs his disciples to “love one another.” Here he speaks of agápe, a love that requires total commitment and trust. It is the kind of love with which God loves us, a love that should be the model of the love we have for others. When we examine the demands of this love, we realize just how revolutionary it is and what a change in attitude it requires. This is new, not because it is the first time that Jesus mentions it but rather because love is a permanent creation, a daily innovation, the ongoing search of ways to get out of ourselves and make the other the centre of our lives. I am sure John was inspired by this.

The new kind of love that Jesus holds out to us might require us to open doors that we have closed against others, to respond to appeals that cry out for our help, to forgive oversights or mistakes that someone may have made. This love opens our eyes to facts that we might otherwise overlook: that the poor in the world belong to our family; that those who live in despair might be saved by our care of them; that peace can come to the world through our efforts. “This is how all will know that [we] are [his] disciples, that [we] have love for one another.” Old stuff in one sense but potentially radically new, according to how we practice such love.

John’s vision of the new heaven and the new earth remains in the future only because we have failed to live it in our present. Jesus has risen from the dead, and now all things are new. “The old order has passed away.” We have entered the age of fulfilment. It is within our power to fashion a world, a country, a neighbourhood, a family where there is genuine love for one another and sincere concern for the well-being of all.
We have the power through our relationship with Jesus to create a new world for people around us.

And of course many people are doing just this. That is why people who do live this extraordinary love stand out from the crowd. They might be ridiculed for their manner of living, but they nonetheless show by it that they are God’s people and God does indeed dwell with them.

We are Easter people and it is this that brings new and exciting aspects to our lives. We have been raised with Jesus from the dead; we are indeed alive!
So do not hold on to a belief that a new heaven and a new earth is to be reserved for life after death, or a future age; we this very day can experience such a promise. Newness is not always about trying to keep up with the latest things, it is also about trying or striving to bring forward that which is valued by past generations, such as John, that deserve our attention. It is about looking at our world, our creation, the people around us in a completely new way; because the love God is talking about never runs out and it brings new insights and new dynamics and relationships every day. The potential never runs out.

So next time you feel bored with the every day life stuff….think about loving just a little bit more! And who knows, anything is possible where we live in world where God offers us an experience of a new heaven and a new earth everyday. Let us love one another as God loves us.
Amen.
Look here for more about St.John