Holy Trinity Sunday/Pastor Carrie's Farewell Sermon

Holy Trinity Sunday

June 15, 2014

Preacher: Pastor Carrie Smith

Matthew 28:16-20 

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The other day, I packed two of the most important boxes for our upcoming move to Jerusalem—not the books, or the photos, or the artwork, but the Christmas decorations.

I’m pretty sure that when Robert and I got married, our Christmas decorations could have fit into a shoebox! Actually, our entire worldly belongings might have fit into two or three shoeboxes. But in 19 years, we’ve managed to accumulate enough glass ornaments, silvery garlands, twinkling lights, and festive knick-knacks to fill FOUR Rubbermaid tubs.

And that’s not to mention those three Christmas tree stands I found in the crawlspace.

So it was quite an accomplishment to pare all that glittery mess down to two small boxes, tape them up, and then mark them “Christmas” and “Jerusalem, box 10 and box 11.”

It felt good to do it. I relaxed a little bit when it was done.

It felt good to wrap up a little Christmas for our journey, because as I say farewell to this community I love and am sent to do ministry halfway around the globe, it’s good to be reminded that the God who calls and equips us for such exciting and difficult things is the same God whose angel announced to Mary she would conceive and bear a son. It’s good to be reminded that the Jesus who gives us the Great Commission is the same child who was born on that silent and holy night. It’s good to remember that the crucified and risen Christ on the mountaintop, who sends us out to all nations, is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace. When Jesus says “Go”, and the going gets tough, it is a great comfort to remember that he is Emmanuel, God-With-Us, yesterday, today, and forever!

Sometimes, we all need a little Christmas joy! It seems the disciples needed a little Christmas on the mountaintop that day, too. They had obediently schlepped up there to wait for further instructions from Jesus, but they were understandably confused and afraid. They were still trying to comprehend this resurrection business, after all! So Matthew tells us that even when Jesus appeared before them on the mountain, as he said he would, some of the disciples doubted.   

The disciples worshiped Jesus, but some of them doubted. So before he launched into what we know as the Great Commission, Jesus took the opportunity to remind the eleven of his credentials. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” he said. In other words: Remember who you’re talking to here! Remember who sent me!

Having established that he was speaking with divine authority, Jesus then gave them these instructions:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”

Then, with the weight of those words and the importance of that mission hanging in the air, Jesus gave the doubting disciples a little Christmas joy! He said, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Remember, I am with you always! In that moment, the disciples were reminded that this Jesus, crucified and risen, is Emmanuel, the babe born in Bethlehem, God incarnate, God-With-Us. Therefore, wherever his disciples go, they never go it alone. Thanks be to God! 

With those few comforting words, Jesus brought a little Christmas joy into that mountaintop conversation.  Then again, he also brought a little Pentecost. And a little Genesis! And this is perhaps why Matthew 28 is the text we hear on Holy Trinity Sunday. It’s not just that we get the Trinitarian formula in the Great Commission (“go and baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”)—it’s also that in these final words of the Gospel according to Matthew, we encounter the Trinity not as doctrine, but as Good News.

On Holy Trinity Sunday, we confess that God is three-in-one and one-in-three. We affirm that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We proclaim that the Divine One is Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.

But all of these Trinitarian formulas are nothing compared to the Good News of God’s presence with us and among us.

The Good News of the Trinity is that wherever we go, we never go it alone, because God the Creator of all things is the ground of our being and the foundation of our very lives.

The Good News of the Trinity is that wherever we go, we never go it alone, because Jesus is Emmanuel, God-made-flesh, our brother who has walked in our shoes and has felt our pain.

The Good News of the Trinity is that wherever we go, we never go it alone, because the Holy Spirit is the breath of God, both blowing where she will and bearing us up as on eagles’ wings.

On days like today, poised as we all are on the mountain, about to embark on a new adventure—me in a new place, and you with a new pastor—it is the Good News of God’s never-failing, three-fold, divine presence with us that gives us the strength to get up and go.  

And yes, we do need to get up and go! The Great Commission is for each of us, not just for the eleven on the mountaintop, and not just for those who are called to Global Mission.

We are all sent, each according to our own ability, to continue Jesus’ mission. We are sent, not just to our neighbors and our friends, but to all nations. We are sent, not just to bring in new members for this congregation, but to create disciples—people who will walk in the Way of Jesus Christ and trust in him as Lord and Savior.

It’s a big mission, and one which Bethany Lutheran Church does very well. Jesus sends us out to baptize all nations—and it seems we’re doing our part around here, baptizing eight children in the last two weeks! Amen! Today we welcome Evan R. and Evan S. and Avery G. as new brothers and sister in Christ, and we rejoice that they will be joining us on the journey of faith. I was humbled to hear at my farewell reception last week that I baptized 69 people into the faith in this place.  I give thanks to God and to you for calling me to have that great honor!

With the Great Commission, Jesus sends us to baptize, and he also sends us to teach. Here at Bethany, Christian Education for the young has long been a priority. Deaconess Cheryl helped to nurture a wonderful Christian Ed program here for many years. Two years ago, you made a bold step when you called Pastor Paul to be a full-time pastor devoted to the faith formation of youth and families. You’ve shown a commitment to young people that extends beyond the font and the nursery, and acknowledges that youth are not the future of the church, they ARE the church. Amen!

In the last few years, we’ve seen a renewed interest in faith education for adults, too! I’m so proud to see how groups like Theology on Tap, the Monday Night Bible Study, Sunday afternoon Lenten education, and now Sunday morning adult ed opportunities have flourished. I pray that your appetite for learning and your passion for teaching the faith to all ages will continue in the years to come.

Bethany Lutheran takes the Great Commission to baptize and teach very seriously, and I have been blessed to be a part of these ministries here. It’s been a privilege to serve with you and among you as pastor. For me, this has been a mountaintop experience.

So it’s very hard to get up and go off this mountain.

And yet, go we must—for all of us are sent! Some of us are sent to welcome the new neighbors down the street; to make friends with the new kid at school; to teach and inspire young people; to care for the homeless; or to share the Good News through music.

And some of us are sent halfway around the world.

So yes, we must get up and go off the mountain. But we never go it alone!

We never go it alone, because Jesus promises his divine presence will be with us as we carry out the Great Commission.

God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is with us in the beginning, and in the manger, and in the breath that gives us life.

God, our rock and our redeemer, is with us to the ends of the earth—in Crystal Lake, and in Jerusalem, and wherever life takes Evan, Evan, and Avery.  

God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, is with us at every hello and every goodbye.  

And so we go, trusting in the One who watches over our going out and our coming in, from this time forth and forevermore. Amen. 

Holy Trinity Sermon - 2013

Sermon – May 26th, 2013 Holy Trinity Sunday @ Bethany Lutheran Church

What You Believe Matters

Preacher: Pastor Paul Cannon

Good morning Bethany Lutheran Church! Today is Holy Trinity Sunday! Yes! I’m excited! Or in the minds of people going to churches all across the country, today might be more appropriately called – What-the-heck-is-the-pastor-talking-about? Sunday!

Because even as a seminary graduate, a pastor at this church, and somebody who spends a fair amount of time thinking about these things, I have to tell you that I’m really no closer to understanding the Trinity than anybody here. I even had to go to YouTube this week to figure out more about the Trinity – which makes me wonder why I racked up so much student debt…but I digress. And I’d love to play the clip for you, but it turns out that our video system is as hard to figure out as the Trinity itself. **Note to any readers - This video contains content that isn't suitable for young children.

So here’s the truth of the matter – nobody understands what it means to have a Trinitarian God. There are three persons of the Trinity, but there’s really only one God. All three persons of the trinity are distinct, yet you can’t really separate them. In seminary they had to make up words just to describe what the Trinity is supposedly like. Have you ever heard the word “Perichoresis” before? No? Be glad.

In order to think about the Trinity, you have to walk this proverbial tight rope where one wrong word here or there makes you a Lutheran heretic! To prove my point, I’m going to put you all on the spot here a little bit. I am going to give you three analogies for the trinity – and I’m going to make you pick the analogy that you think is not heretical. Okay?

#1: The Trinity is like the Sun (S-U-N) because you have the actually star (the sun), which gives off heat and light that come from the star.
 #2: The Trinity is like ice, water and vapor because it has three different forms even though it is all made up of the same substance.
#3: The Trinity is like a three leaf clover because there are three different aspects that make up one God.

 So let’s vote. If you think the Trinity is like the Sun (S-U-N) raise your hand. If you think the Trinity is like ice, water and vapor, raise your hand. If you think the Trinity is like a three leaf clover, raise your hand.

Are you ready for the answer? You are all heretics. Congratulations! And before you get offended, please remember that Martin Luther himself was a heretic so us Lutherans come from a long, proud line of religious rebels.

If you are anything like me though, you’re probably wondering if any of this matters. Just think of everything that’s gone on in the last week – we had the tornadoes in Oklahoma; there was the terrorist attack in London. There is a war going on in Syria. People are dying of preventable diseases like malaria in Africa. And what difference could a Trinitarian theology possibly make to you all in your daily lives? What difference could it make in the lives of these baptizees here today? Does it make any difference at all?

I’m here today to say “Yes,” I think it does matter. And I'll tell you why I think it's important, but first I want to share a story with you all.

I went down to Nashville two weeks ago to go to a nerdy pastor convention called the “Festival of Homiletics.” For those of you who don’t know, the festival is a preaching convention where pastors like myself go to listen to some of the best preachers and thinkers in the country. And one of the speakers was this little unassuming 80 year old southern woman named Phyllis Tickle.

 During this talk, shee told a story that really stuck with me about a lecture that she gave a number of years ago about whether or not Mary, the mother of Jesus, was really a virgin. After the lecture she somehow wound up in the kitchen of that church and she noticed a young boy staring at her. And so she went up to this youth and said, “Excuse me young man, can I help you?” And the boy kind of sheepishly looked at her and said, “I think that the story about the virgin Mary is so absolutely beautiful that it has to be true – whether it happened or not.”

Those words were ringing in my head this week. The story is so absolutely beautiful – that it has to be True. And that’s a capital “T” truth. It’s a truth that’s bigger than cold, hard facts and figures. It’s truth bigger than doctrine. It’s truth that goes down to the roots of who we are and who God is.

It’s the truth that Jesus says to his followers in our gospel today when he says, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” Jesus doesn’t mean that the Holy Spirit is going to come and answer every question we have, but that through the Spirit we will know the capital “T” truth about our God.

And that’s exactly how I’ve come to think of the Trinity, because brothers and sisters in Christ, I cannot – for the life of me – explain to you exactly what the Trinity is or how it operates, or how it makes sense without somehow committing a heresy by mistake. But there is something so beautiful about our Trinitarian God – there is something so awe inspiring about a god that loves so deeply that oneness wasn’t enough – that I think somehow it has to be capital “T” true.

Can I get an Amen?

Well this all sounds really nice, but again I ask,  "How does it matter in the face of tornados and terrorism and war?" and "What does this mean for the families that are about to baptize their little babies?"

I always tell my confirmation kids this: what you believe matters. More specifically, what you believe about God matters.

So if the god you believe in is a judgmental, wrathful God, - why you might become a little judgmental and wrathful yourself. And if the god you believe in is a clock maker that wound up time at the beginning of everything and watches indifferently as events unfold, then you might become a little bit indifferent yourself.

What you believe matters.

And I believe that the Trinity matters because I think that if you knew the depth and beauty of God’s love, in the way that we see each person of the Trinity loving, that you couldn’t help but rush to the side of the tornado victims in Oklahoma.

 If you started to dig into the Bible and realized how passionate each person of the Trinity cares for the entirety of creation – you might be able to pray not just for the victim in London’s recent terror attack, but for the perpetrators as well.

I believe that it matters today for the families who are going to baptize their little ones – not in the sense that they need to memorize Trinitarian doctrines and raise their kids to conform to doctrine. It matters because if they only knew the truth – if they only knew the capital “T” truth – that knowing and being in a relationship with this Trinitarian God brings overflowing life, I believe these families couldn’t help but usher their children into a life of faith.

And to the congregation of Bethany Lutheran, I believe that it matters for you too, because if you could encounter the beautiful, self-giving, agape love of the Trinity, that you too would be willing to give more and more of your time and energy to make sure that Mason, Deangelo, Emily and Jake (our baptizees) were raised in the faith.

 Brothers and sisters in Christ, what you believe matters – not in the sense that you need to be in line with church teaching – but in the sense that your conception of God will form who you are and what you do in this life.

And fortunately, our Trinitarian God, is a God of love. Our Trinitarian God is a God of passion and conviction. Our Trinitarian God is a God that gives everything for us.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

HOLY TRINITY/BAPTISM SUNDAY

HOLY TRINITY/BAPTISM SUNDAY: June 3, 2012

John 3:1-16

PREACHER: Pastor Carrie B. Smith

Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

  This morning we began worship with some sprinkling and the invitation to “Come to the water and remember your baptism.” For those of you who were baptized as infants—which is the norm among Lutherans—this may seem a strange invitation. How can I remember my baptism, when I was only six weeks old at the time? For that matter, how can I remember my baptism, when most days I can’t remember what I had for breakfast?

Gene Bengston does remember his baptism. He was about 12 years old, and he was baptized at Zion Lutheran in Kewanee, Illinois along with his older brother. These were the years of the Great Depression, and in the view of Gene’s father, if you didn’t have money to put in the offering plate, you didn’t go to church. There was no money, so no church for a long while for Gene and his 13 siblings.

But then it came time for one of the older brothers to get confirmed, and when the pastor learned he wasn’t yet baptized, arrangements were made.  It was done in private—just Gene and his parents and brother, and definitely not on a Sunday morning. Some of you (especially Mr. Bengston’s former 8th grade Confirmation students) may enjoy knowing that his primary concern—in fact, his main thought after this blessed event—was, “Hey…maybe I won’t have to go to Confirmation!” After all, at twelve he must already be old enough to fulfill his baptismal promises on his own. Feel free, confirmands, to ask Mr. Bengston how that conversation went with his pastor.

Mary Ellen Thoreson does not remember her baptism, but she knows the story well. She’s been told many times how she was baptized on Palm Sunday—the only day of the year her family’s Methodist church celebrated baptisms—and there were eleven other babies being dunked that day. Twelve babies sort of makes our “Baptismapalooza” look like small potatoes!

Now I have experienced Mary Ellen to be a thoughtful, kind, and somewhat quiet woman. But on that day, 3 month old Mary Ellen was screaming at the top of her lungs. In fact, she screamed so loud and so long that the pastor had to shout to be heard over her! And then, without warning, Mary Ellen was suddenly quiet—and this left the poor pastor screaming at his parishioners: “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!”

We can all remember the baptismal birthday of Marianne and Dick Anderson’s daughter Suzanne, because she was baptized on July 20, 1969, which also happens to be the day Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. I couldn’t help but wonder if the pastor mentioned the upcoming moonwalk in his sermon that day, but Marianne says no. What a missed opportunity! I realize the moonwalk didn’t happen until later that day, and those famous words had not yet been spoken, but oh, how I would have loved the chance to mention that baptism is “One small splash for humans, but one giant bath of grace for humankind.” Amen?

Here at Bethany we are preparing to meet next week the young man who is our candidate to be Associate Pastor for Youth and Family Ministries. His name is Paul, and as we began the interviewing process I spoke with him on the phone. I had read in his paperwork that Paul was raised in Utah, so one of the first things I asked was, “Do you know anything about Crystal Lake and the Chicagoland area?” I certainly never expected the answer he gave. “Actually, Pastor Carrie…I think I might have been baptized at Bethany!”

And this is most certainly true: Paul Cannon (and his identical twin brother, Neal, as well as two sisters) were all baptized here in this font, in the midst of this community, a few decades ago. Nothing in his profile would have indicated this to the bishop or his staff, and until he asked his parents for sure, even Paul wasn’t certain of it, for he moved away when he was quite young.

And yet, here we are, preparing to meet a young man for whom this community made promises so many years ago. On the day when Paul and his twin brother were brought to the water, this community promised to support Paul and pray for him in his new life in Christ. As a community, you promised to be there for him—praying, providing a Christian education, supporting his family, forgiving, loving, and most of all, showing him how to be the body of Christ in the world. And now it seems he may have the opportunity to fulfill those baptismal promises himself: praying for us, forgiving us, loving us, and helping to provide a quality Christian education for the next generation in this community.

Community is the most common thread in nearly all the baptism stories I heard this week.  Above all else, we most often remember (or have been told) who was there with us on that important day: pastors, parents, godparents, siblings, friends, a church community. And that’s why, sisters and brothers, it is so very appropriate for us to celebrate baptisms on Holy Trinity Sunday. The Holy Trinity, in all its mystery, is perhaps best understood as God in community.

Camillus Lyimo, in the book “African Christian Spirituality”, writes:

“Though for us knowledge of the life of the Trinity is indeed little, yet we can say that the most perfect community or ujamaa is the Trinity. The Trinity establishes God as community. Jesus Christ revealed the Trinity to us. God wished to share with humanity and with the entire creation his own community life in the person of Jesus Christ…Our life is a shared life in the Trinity.”
In our individualistic culture, baptism is often treated as a personal, individual, “Get out of sin free” card. But on Holy Trinity Sunday, we are reminded that the God who is present with us in the water and the Word is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—one in three and three in one, a community in God’s self—making baptism anything but an individual experience. Through baptism, we are united with all the baptized in the one body of Christ, anointed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and joined in God's mission for the life of the world.

Lutherans baptize infants chiefly because we trust in God’s free gift of grace, seen in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and poured out on all the baptized. But because we baptize infants, we also we put our trust in community. We know that Johnathan, Ivana, Reese, Prestyn, Grant, Jackson and Liam do not come to the water of their own accord or with faith in God today. We trust in community—this community—to fulfill the promises of baptism.

In the years to come we will love them, pray for them, place in their hands the Holy Scriptures, and tell them about Abraham and Sarah, David and Goliath, Jonah and Noah, and Mary and Joseph. We will forgive them as Christ forgave us; we will gather with them at the table to share the bread and the wine; and we will watch eagerly to see how God uses them in God’s mission to the world.
And we will help them remember their baptisms.

When bullies try to tell our children who they are, we help them remember they belong to Christ, in whom they were baptized.

When cancer or addiction or depression try to claim our sons and daughters, we help them remember they have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and claimed as sons and daughters of God.

When society labels children as learning disabled, troublemakers, underachievers, or simply “different”, we help them remember they have been marked with the cross of Christ forever.

When any child of God doubts her worth or becomes weighed down by sin and judgment, we help her remember she has been washed clean, once and for all, through water and the Word.

And when, like Nicodemus, our children ask us, “How can these things be?” we will speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen: God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 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.

And all God’s people said: Amen.