Trinity + Worthy + 5.26.24

 

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(Isaiah 6:1–8; Ps. 29; Romans 8:12–17; John 3:1–17)

 

Happy Trinity Sunday! This is a Sunday that many preachers fear because they may feel they have to try to explain the triune nature of God. As you can imagine, that can go badly! There is a rather funny video online of St Patrick trying to explain the Trinity to Irish farmers, and one says – that’s modalism or Arianism or another heresy. This silly video helps explain why it is so hard to make a good analogy for God (“St Patrick’s Bad Analogies,” YouTube: Lutheran Satire). But for all the complications of this day and trying to say something faithful and true about our triune God, it is a joy. Because it reminds us of the bigness of God. It reminds us that God cannot be contained. As our Psalm today says,

“The voice of the Lord is upon the waters;
the God of glory thunders; *
the Lord is upon the mighty waters.”

God cannot, will not, be contained. God roars like the lion Aslan. God is not a tame creature. God is Spirit, child and creator/progenitor all at once and God is in an eternal dance with Godself. God cannot be caught, but is a frisky lion always a bit out of our grasp.

You may notice I am bringing in some themes from The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis, and that is because we have begun our Speculative Fiction and Theology series with Mother Sharon on Wednesdays at five pm – you are welcome to join on Zoom or in the chapel.

As I was reading this week’s reading, I was reflecting on the three figures of Mrs. Who, Mrs. Whatsit and Mrs. Which in A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. These ethereal beings who somehow are also very clumsy and unwieldy and seem timeless aren’t fully divine, so perhaps they are a trio of angels, or something else entirely. But their unknowable-ness helps us to remember that God too is unknowable. God is as near to us as our breath, so we may be forgiven for thinking we know God. But every time you say “Heavenly Father” remember that God has so many more names than that. That our first task as people of faith is to remain humble.

This is especially on my mind as we anticipate the month of June when All Saints will have an opportunity to be present at not one but two public events as you choose. We are hosting a booth at the Ventura County Resource Center Event next Saturday from 10-2 at the Boys and Girls Club, and then we are signing up for a booth or table at Oxnard Pride on June 29^th. Whenever I am at one of these events, I have one main message I want to convey- God loves you and Jesus did not come here to condemn, so it is not my job to judge anyone. God is bigger than our preconceptions!
Of course, we also want to share a bit about what we do in the community – the food pantry, Bread of Life, space for group usage and more, but the most important thing we do is try to share a narrative about God’s love and not God’s judgment.

So often we as humans get hung up on a sense of unworthiness. Even in the passage from Isaiah today, notice this interaction, in the words of Isaiah the prophet:

“And I said: ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.’” 

First of all, ouch – a coal to the lips does not sound comfortable. But second of all – did you notice something – did the angel of God say Isaiah was unclean? Or was it Isaiah? It does say your guilt has departed, but is that more of Isaiah’s hang-up, or God’s?

We so often see our imperfections as unworthiness, and God will give us ways to get past that if we invite God in.

This makes me think of a funny song Alene sometimes listens to by an artist named Cheryl Wheeler. It’s called “Unworthy” and it’s a spoof of how a lot of us feel. A part of it goes like this:

“I should learn how to meditate and sew and bake
And dance and paint and sail and make gazpacho
I should turn my attention to repairing
All those forty-year-old socks there in that bureau.

I should let someone teach me to run Windows
And learn French that I can read and write and speak
I should get life in prison for how I treated my parents
From third grade until last week.” (Cheryl Wheeler, “Unworthy,” 2018)

Sound familiar? We all get so focused on our own feelings of unworthiness, but does any of that matter to God? Not one whit. Just loving others and treating them well, those are the important things.

But we come by this focus honestly. Because we all know John 3:16. God so loved the world … God gave God’s only son. And this is very important, key to our faith. But how often do we focus on John 3:17 too? “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.” God did not come to condemn, but so that we are saved! So that we have life. That is the most important thing.

So if today, you feel a little bit unworthy – not fully ready to show up for God, or worried about something in your past or present that might be holding you back, let God touch your lips with refining fire- not to burn or hurt you, but to remind you who you are. And who God is. God is way bigger than anything you can imagine. And love is so much stronger than any reason you may feel unworthy.

God came to bring love and not condemnation. Let us take that in and receive that love. And then, let us be bearers of love. Isaiah, receiving God’s grace and call, says, “Here I am, send me!” How can we be sent into a world that needs to hear of God’s love and forgiveness? Consider a way to share God’s love to those in your life, God’s non condemning, inclusive, diverse, love, this week or month. Consider coming out to one of the events I mentioned, or just showing up in your everyday life in such a way that those whom you encounter know that you know the God of love, and not of condemnation. That you know the God that is wildly complex and celebrates all of us in all our diversity! After all, as St Paul says, we are heirs of God through Christ. Let us be unafraid. Let us be a counternarrative to shame and human judgment and in a black and white world, let us show the world the kaleidoscopic nature of God and God’s love!