We ARE Monotheists

Trinity Sunday Homily by The Rev. Marcia McRae

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA, 15 June 2014

Year A RCL: Genesis 1:1-2:4a; Psalm 8; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28:16-20

Jesus says ...I am with you always, to the end of the age.

May we always remember this blessing.

Jesus gives us this blessing after he gives us our marching orders in today's Gospel: Go & make disciples of all nations, baptizing people & teaching them to obey everything that Jesus has commanded us.

Jesus says to baptize “in the name of the Father & of the Son & of the Holy Spirit.” What he states clearly we commemorate today on Trinity Sunday. We worship the Holy Trinity – the Three in One, One God in Three.

To go & make disciples, baptizing & teaching them, we must know what we are teaching. We must be clear that the Holy Trinity we worship is ONE God.

 We are monotheists.

The One God we follow has “3 distinct personal expressions of the one, eternally rich God who is love...”¹ 

Simple analogies may help. Think of water:

We experience as it as flowing liquid, solid ice, hot steam.² 

Think of bread: 

Its ingredients are from the fruit of the earth God creates in the beginning. We experience its taste, texture,

nourishment.

We don't have to know all about how it nourishes us for it to nourish us.

The bread we eat at this Holy Table, we eat to remember Jesus, who comes to live among, to show us how to live, dies to save us, rises again & ascends, & by his departure increases his presence with us³.

He says: “I am with you always.”

Through the gift of the Holy Spirit,

Jesus increases his presence with us –

not decreases his presence.⁴

We ask the Holy Spirit to sanctify the bread we share at this Holy Table. Like the bread we eat at home, the bread we eat here transforms inside us to nourish our bodies. This holy bread also feeds our spirits. 

How?

How is part of the profound Mystery of God for which simple analogies are inadequate.

The Triune God who creates all, shows us how to live, & comes to dwell within us, wants to be with us. God’s love creates us to be “in a relationship”⁵ (with God & all God’s creation).
God makes us for relationship in community & draws us into God’s Holy Community.

We know God as Creator, Redeemer & Sustainer.  

Theologian & author David Cunningham offers this fluid analogy of God: Source, Wellspring & Living Water.⁶ He says:

 “...imagine a spring of water coming up out of the ground &...flowing out to nourish the surrounding landscape...

The wellspring that comes forth from the ground is different from the water that flows out away from the spring,

 yet we would be hard pressed to say

where one stopped & the other started.”⁷

Scriptures in Jeremiah & John refer to God & the Holy Spirit as Living Water (see Jer. 2:13, 17:13 & John 4:10-14; 7:38-39).⁸ 
The holy scriptures use analogies to help us know something about God.

The Holy Trinity is One. This Mystery hard to comprehend IS ONE. You & I proclaim faith in this Mystery. We declare our faith when we say the Apostles Creed & the Nicene Creed, the result of centuries of work by wise Christian thinkers to clarify that we are monotheists.⁹ 

We worship ONE God, not 3.

“The doctrine of the Trinity is to explain the range & variety of divine action,”¹⁰ says priest, author & scholar Ian Markham, who serves as Dean & President of Virginia Theological Seminary & has led a Clergy Conference for us.

The Creeds help us express the Mystery of the One God, whom we know through different aspects of our relationship with God: creation, following Jesus as our redeemer, & through the guidance of the Holy Spirit that we experience personally & through our unity in the Body of Christ.

Notice: Our Creeds & Scriptures speak of God “concretely & specifically”

rather than generally & indefinitely.¹¹

We “Christians affirm (our) faith in God as sovereign Lord of all creation who has done a new & gracious work in Jesus Christ & who continues to be active in the world through the power of the Spirit.”¹²

We declare “God to be the source, the mediator, & the power of new life. God is the majestic creator of the heavens & the earth (as our lesson in Genesis says), the servant redeemer of a world gone astray, & the transforming Spirit who empowers new beginnings of human life & (an expected)...new heaven &...a new earth.”¹³

You & I proclaim faith in One God,

“...the one, eternally rich God

who is love...”¹⁴

As we ponder this Mystery, we can take heart that some 
on that mountain with Jesus doubted.
 It is OK to question, to wonder. As Albert Einstein says:

"The important thing is not to stop 

questioning. Curiosity has its own 

reason for existing.

One cannot help but be in awe when 

(one) contemplates the mysteries of 

eternity, of life, of the marvelous 

structure of reality.

It is enough if one tries merely to 

comprehend a little of this mystery 

every day.

Never lose a holy curiosity."¹⁵

Bibliography

Cunningham, David S. “What Do We Mean By God?” Essentials of Christian Theology. ED: William Placher. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. 2003.

Dios Habla Hoy: La Biblia. New York: American Bible Society. 1983.

Harper’s Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers. 1988.

Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989.

Hughes, Robert Davis III. Beloved Dust: Tides of the Spirit in the Christian Life. New York: Continuum. 2008.

Jewish Study Bible: Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation. New York: Oxford University Press. 2004.

Lectionary Page. http://www.lectionarypage.net/. Accessed: 6 June 2014.

Markham, Ian S. Understanding Christian Doctrine. Malden, ME: Blackwell Publishing. 2008.

Migliore, Daniel L. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology. 2nd Ed. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2004.

New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha. Eds.: Herbert G. May, Bruce M. Metzger. New York: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 1977.

Placher, William. Editor. Essentials of Christian Theology. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. 2003.

Van de Weyer, Robert. Celtic Praise: A Book of Celtic Devotion, Daily Prayers and Blessings. Nashville: Abingdon Press. 1998.

Voyles, Robert J. Restoring Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment. Hillsboro, OR: The Appreciative Way. 2010. www.appreciativeway.com.

1 Migliore, Daniel L. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology. 2nd Ed. P. 69.

2 Note: Water imagery suggested by my husband, who remembers from his youth a priest using that analogy.

3 Harper’s Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. P. 1070.

4 Ibid.

5 Hughes, Robert Davis III. Beloved Dust: Tides of the Spirit in the Christian Life. P. 59.

6 Markham, Ian. Understanding Christian Doctrine. P. 84.

7 Cunningham, David S. “What Do We Mean By God?” Essentials of Christian Theology. ED: William Placher. P. 83-84.

8 Ibid. Cunningham. P. 84.

9 Note: This point Ian Markham emphasizes in Understanding Christian Doctrine. P. 83.

10 Ibid. Markham. P. 84.

11 Migliore, Daniel L. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology. 2nd Ed. P. 66.

12 Ibid. P. 66.

13 Ibid. P. 67.

14 Ibid. P. 69.

15 Quoted P. 59 of “The Three Faces of Compassion.” based on Voyles, Robert J. Restoring Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment.

Inner Light Reveals Love

Like Stained-Glass, Love is Revealed by

 Light from Within

Homily By The Rev. Marcia McRae

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA, Pentecost, 8 June 2014

Whitsunday; Year A RCL: Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:25-35, 37; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13; John 20:19-23

On this special day when we celebrate the birthday of the Church, please join hands with each other & sing with me. (You know the lyrics: “Happy birthday to us, happy birthday to us, happy birthday, Dear Church, happy birthday to us!”

 Thank You! Now for a Birthday Question & Answer exercise.

Q. What images come to mind when you sing Happy Birthday?

A. (candles, cake, gifts, smiles, fun)

Q. What images come to you about the coming of the Holy Spirit?

A. (fire, dove, smoke, joy)

Q. What images come to mind about God?

A. (holy, creative, lamb)

How about laughter?

Anyone thing of laughter when you think of God?

 

Our Psalm today tells of God's playfulness – having fun with creation:

“Yonder is the great & wide sea...& there is that Leviathan, which you have made for the sport of it.”

God makes something just for fun!

I don't know if I have seen a Leviathan. I have seen the humorous-looking duck-billed platypus & the silly blue footed booby.

God makes things to enjoy.

God who creates with such delight & gives in such abundance yearns for us to celebrate life, to live in harmony with God, God's creation, & each other.

How?

  God gives us the Holy Spirit so that our love may overflow more & more with knowledge & full insight to help us know how.

God, in whose image of Holy Community we are made, breathes the Holy Spirit into us & gives us new life because Jesus dies for us, forgives us & erases our sins.

On that cross Jesus says: “Father, forgive them.” The disciples hear this.

In today's Gospel, after Jesus says “Receive the Holy Spirit,” the disciples hear him say: you have a choice – we as Jesus' disciples have a choice – to forgive or not.

How can we not forgive when we hear our loving Jesus in his dying breaths ask God to forgive us?

 

What abundant love! We worship the God of love & wholeness who generously pours God's Spirit on all kinds of people & gives us gifts for the common good, gifts to share.

  

God entrusts us with the work of spreading God's love.

Notice: in today's Gospel Thomas is not with the disciples. There are other disciples/followers absent in that room when Jesus breathes on them & says “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Thomas & others ARE there on Pentecost when the Holy Spirit comes in such a powerful way that some observers think they are drunk.

 

When we encounter something new & powerful, we struggle to make it fit what we know. Something new & powerful can be like looking from outside the Church at the images in our beautiful stained glass windows. We don't see clearly.

Here's another Q & A....

Q. What makes stained glass images sparkle & shine?¹

A. (light)

Q. How does stained glass look in here at night?

A. (dark, unclear)

 

To make them shine when it's dark, rig up floodlights outside like two parishioners did for our Easter Vigil! They are an example of people working together in the Body of Christ to let light shine - literally.

 

We are like stained glass windows. We are made in the image of God. We are crafted to live & to love in Holy Community, to shine the Light of Jesus Christ so that our Brothers & Sisters in the human family can see Jesus more clearly.

 

When darkness sets in, our beauty is revealed by the Light within us.² When we shine the Light of God's Love on our Sisters & Brothers, we work with God, bringing light into their darkness.

That darkness may be something hard to forgive.

My Brothers & Sisters, the Holy Spirit has given this Body of Christ the gift of healing. One way you express it is through your Habit of Forgiveness³ that I have witnessed.

 

On Pentecost, God sends the disciples what is needed to share God's Good News. God gives us the Holy Spirit to guide us in our Habit of Forgiveness, in our work sharing it so that our Sisters & Brothers can develop this gift.

God speaks through authors, who tell amazing experiences of the grace of forgiveness. This grace brings the Light of God's Love that people need, like stained glass needs light.

For inspiring looks into this inner light, I commend to your reading The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas, which I quoted recently; Ed Bacon's 8 Habits of Love, & Eric Lomax's book (now also a movie) The Railway Man “A POW's Searing Account of War, Brutality & Forgiveness”⁴. 

You will read real experiences such as this one Ed Bacon shares from South Africa's Truth & Reconciliation Commission in the post-Apartheid era with President Nelson Mandella & Archbishop Desmond Tutu.⁵ 

he author tells of an elderly black woman & the white policeman who forced her to watch as he tortured, murdered & cremated her son & her husband.

“The last words she (hears) her husband (speak) before he finally (dies are) 'Father, forgive them.'”⁶  

When the commission asks her: What would justice look like to you? She lists these 3 things⁷:

• She wants the policeman (Mr. Van de Broek) to go where 
   he cremated her husband & gather the dust so she can give him a decent burial.
  
  
• She says: Mr. Van de Broek has taken away all my family 
  
  
  from me & “...I still have a lot of love to give. Twice a 
  
  
  month, I would like for him to come to the ghetto & spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him.”⁸

She wants this murderer “to become her son

so she (can generously) pour

her remaining love into him.”⁹ 

• Then she says: “I would like Mr. Van de Broek to know
  
  
  that he is forgiven by God, & that I forgive him too.”
  
  
  Then she asks someone to lead her across the courtroom because, she says:

  “I would like to embrace him so he can know that he is truly forgiven.”¹⁰ 

This widow is 

a stained-glass window,

the image of God's Love,

 shining with God's Light from within.¹¹

Bibliography

Bacon, Ed. 8 Habits of Love: Open Your Heart, Open Your Mind. Boston: Grand Central Life & Style. Grand Central Publishing. 2011.

Giridharadas, Anand. The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 2014.

Harper’s Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers. 1988.

Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989.

Lectionary Page. http://www.lectionarypage.net/. Accessed: 31 May 2014.

Lomax, Eric. The Railway Man. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 1995.

Voyles, Robert J. Restoring Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment. Hillsboro, OR: The Appreciative Way. 2010. www.appreciativeway.com.

1 Note: Influenced from Elizabeth Kubler-Ross quoted by Robert J. Voyles, p. 44, “Teaching Forgiveness” based on his Restoring Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment.

2 Ibid.

3 Note: Term from Bacon, Ed. 8 Habits of Love: Open Your Heart, Open Your Mind. Pp. 119-144.

4 Note: Quoted from book jacket cover & inside title page.

5 Bacon. Ibid. Pp. 119-121.

6 Ibid. P. 120.

7 Bacon. Ibid. P. 120.

8 Ibid. Emphasis mine.

9 Ibid. P. 121.

10 Ibid. P. 120. Emphasis mine.

11 Ibid. Paraphrase of Kubler-Ross. P. 44.

Ascencion Homily...

A Quagmire or a River?

Homily By The Rev. Marcia McRae

St. John’s Episcopal Church, Bainbridge, GA, 7^th Sunday of Easter, 1 June 2014

Year A RCL Acts 16:1-14; Psalm 68:1-18, 33-36; 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11; John 17:5-11

I wonder what the disciples are thinking as Jesus is lifted up & that cloud takes him out of sight.

 They are staring up & suddenly 2 men in white robes bring their minds back down to earth. They have work to do here....as Jesus has just told them!

Jesus says in Acts: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; & you will be my witnesses here & to the ends of the earth. Then Jesus ascends.

The disciples are staring, trying to figure out

what just happened!?

We do this, too. We yearn to make sense out of life.¹ Certainly seeing the Lord Jesus, so recently risen from the dead, ascend into heaven is a life issue they – perhaps we – would like explained, so that life can make sense.

The 2 men in white who suddenly appear might have been unnecessary if the disciples had our advantage: either of these 2 books! (Or other similar books.)
Then they could have understood this event that leaves them staring upward.

Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms & Faith Seeking Understanding ² tell the essentials of the ascension:
Jesus’ earthly ministry is accomplished; he returns to God the Father so the Holy Spirit can come & minister through the Church – that’s you & me; Jesus reigns & will come again (which we declare in the creeds).

After the encounter with the men in white, the disciples go to Jerusalem & wait in prayer for the Holy Spirit. They start living into their new Christian freedom: “freedom from the bondage of sin (AND freedom) for partnership with God & others.”³

We have work to do in partnership with God & in this Body of Christ. We share in this work to bring our brothers & sisters in the human family into the joy of knowing Jesus. Our faith & love strengthen us & empower us to work with & for the powerless, to live in confidence & joy, to overcome self-hatred & debilitating doubt.⁴ . . . . How?

How do we satisfy this yearning to have life make sense, especially in life’s hard times? We see this struggle regularly on the news when tragedy, disasters, human-inflicted cruelties grab our attention 24/7. We hear all kinds of details & expert opinions about the situation, its ramifications & damage to psyches….until the next big event starts a new cycle of reporting.

 So much of our reporting focuses on damage & victimization.

I remember my first Associated Press newspaper editor's critique of an article I had written. I had focused on the good news of the 100 survivors. He said I missed the point:

the one who died would grab the headline.

Rewrite it: people pay attention to tragedy.⁵

Our news tends to make survivors into victims, focusing with credentialed experts on possible long-lasting emotional damage. We keep people stuck in the bad situation. We keep people stuck in a quagmire of the past. We forget what Peter says in today's Epistle:

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you...rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ's sufferings, so that you may also be glad & shout for joy when his glory is revealed... the Spirit of God, is resting on you. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.”

 So that God may exalt you....

What does that mean?

Exalt means more than glorify & magnify. It also means “to enhance the activity of, to raise in rank, power, or character, to raise someone...to a higher level.”⁶ 

Exalt is a gift. Exalt is grace.

Jesus calls us to be a river of grace, restoration & freedom for ourselves & for our hurting sisters & brothers who do not yet know Jesus.
As a river of grace, we can buoy our brothers & sisters – exalt them – up from the quagmire of being stuck, of being victims.

In the river of grace, victims become survivors

& thrivers.

Survivors are what the news media interview & ask questions about their being victims. Survivor Tori Amos says: 

“The last thing I want to be known as is

'The Girl Who got Raped'. 

The big turn around you make in your head is

from victim to survivor.”⁷

She says:

“The idea is to rescue myself from the role of a victim.

That I have a choice left.

Though I can't change what has happened,

I can choose how to react.

And I don't want to spend the rest of my life

being bitter and locked up.”⁸

This survivor is a thriver: out of the quagmire of resentment & in the river of grace.

She is exalted. God has raised her character, raised her to a higher level of living.

May we, by God's grace, be exalted!

May we work with God to exalt

our Brothers & Sisters who are hurting.

 

Bibliography

Bacon, Ed.8 Habits of Love: Open Your Heart, Open Your Mind. Boston: Grand Central Life & Style. Grand Central Publishing. 2011.

Grenz, Stanley J. David Guretzki. Cherith Fee Nordling. Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. 1999.

Harper’s Bible Commentary. General Ed.: James. L. Mays. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers. 1988.

Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press. 1989.

Lectionary Page. http://www.lectionarypage.net/. Accessed: 8 May 2014.

Markham, Ian S. Understanding Christian Doctrine. Malden, ME: Blackwell Publishing. 2008.

Merriam-Webster. Smartphone Dictionary app. Merriam-Webster Inc. 2012. Accessed: 30 May 2014.

Migliore, Daniel L. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology. 2nd Ed. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 2004.

The New Complete Works of Josephus. Revised, Expanded Edition. Translator: William Whiston. Commentator: Paul L. Maier. Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications. 1999.

Voyles, Robert J. Restoring Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment. Hillsboro, OR: The Appreciative Way. 2010. www.appreciativeway.com.

Wright, N.T. For All The Saints? Remembering the Christian Departed. Harrisburg: Morehouse Publishing. 2003.

1 Bacon, Ed. 8 Habits of Love: Open Your Heart, Open Your Mind. P. 126.

2 Grenz, Stanley J. David Guretzki. Cherith Fee Nordling. Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms. Pp. 15-16.

Migliore, Daniel L. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology. P. 404.

3 Ibid. Migliore. Faith Seeking Understanding. P. 160.

4 Ibid. Pp. 160-161.

5 Note: It was a writing practice exercise that I wrote, not local news that was published.

6 Merriam-Webster. Smartphone Dictionary app. Merriam-Webster Inc. 2012. Accessed: 30 May 2014.

7 Quoted P. 39 of “Teaching Forgiveness” based on Voyles, Robert J. Restoring Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment.

8 Ibid. P. 40. “Teaching Forgiveness” based on Voyles, Robert J. Restoring Hope: Appreciative Strategies to Resolve Grief and Resentment.