Sermon for Father's Day: from guest preacher Pr. Cordell Strug

Sermon for June 16, 2013 (Father’s Day)

Pentecost 4

2 Sam 11, 12; Luke 7, 8

PREACHER: Rev. Cordell Strug

When I realized that today was Father’s Day, I thought: “Well—I’m a father, and a picture is worth a thousand words, so maybe I could just stand up here and let you admire me for ten minutes or so.” But since the mother of those children I fathered was going to be here as well, I thought if I did that, I was unlikely to live to see another Father’s Day!

But I hoped at least I might find, in the day’s lessons, a fatherly story—something about Jesus in a bossy mood, telling the disciples to clean their rooms, get a haircut, or better yet—a tale of King David or King Solomon, fathers of families, fathers of their nation. Something noble, patriarchal: I saw in my imagination a tall man, strong, pure of heart, striding home across his own land, with lavish provisions in tow, greeted with joy by his dependents who had worked hard all day for his comfort; he would sit in an easy chair before the fire with his favorite dog at his side, settle accounts, adjudicate quarrels, and philosophize on the affairs of the state and the destiny of humankind. I thought I might find a story like that…

But when I looked up the lessons, what did I find?

Oh, there’s a story about King David, small comfort, and he is going to be a father—but he hasn’t exactly been devoting a lot of thought to children, not to mention nobility, his favorite dog, or the affairs of the state.

David had been coveting his neighbor’s wife—and that’s putting it mildly. David was coveting her so badly that he arranged a fatal accident for her husband and took her. We see him accused by an upright man, called to account. The story ends with the illness of their child, who will die—not the first, and not the last child to pay or to perish for a father’s behavior.

Well, that was sobering!

But who can deny that this is a word for today? Nathan’s cry “You are the man!” has probably been shouted in a lot of living rooms and kitchens: and a lot of the ears it’s fallen upon have been deaf to it.

I was watching a football game once, and you know how the players on the sidelines always wave at the camera and say: “Hi, Mom”, and I remembered my mother’s absolute inability to comprehend football. She’d say “Ooh! They all fell down!” –she couldn’t tell the difference between a football and a hockey puck, while my father was quite an athlete. And I thought to myself: “Don’t any of these clowns have fathers? Wouldn’t old dad like to get a little wave once in a while?” But then I thought, with a little shame: maybe they don’t. Maybe they don’t have fathers, or at least fathers that were there—maybe mother had to do it all.

Right now, the number of children growing up in families headed by single mothers is at an all-time high. And one of the saddest and bleakest stories of our time must be the story of lost and drifting boys: men who grow up without responsible men watching over them. They pay for it, and they’re not the only ones who pay for it.

Really, both mother and father are as much terms of honor and achievement, of places to be earned, as they are of biological fact. So we hear people say: “She was my real mother/he was my real father” – some of them might even get a card today! But we all have to step up and earn that place. This may be even more true of fathers than mothers, because of that uncrossable biological barrier. No one talks about being able to recognize a father’s heartbeat. Fathers either show up for duty or end of not counting for much.

I remember, when I was little, being a bit surprised to learn there was a Father’s Day. At least in my memory, it doesn’t seem to have been nearly as big a deal as Mother’s Day, a cultural after-thought, a consolation prize for coming in second in the sentimental sweepstakes. I though Mother’s Day was like the summer solstice: that it was part of nature and started on the sixth day of creation, while Father’s Day was a kind of made-up modern observance, like National Poetry Month of “Save the Whales Sunday”.

Maybe that says something about the fathers of my youth: as I picture them, they would have held themselves above such frippery and fuss: I can hear them sounding like Vito Corleone in “The Godfather” – “women and children can afford to care about such things. Men? No! Not men!” A lot of them were WWII vets, arms like sewer pipes. They seemed to think awards were for slackers: it’s the job that’s important, not the award! What mattered was standing up and getting it done, and not waiting around for the applause.

They all worked in heavy industry—steel mills, oil refineries, automobile plants—and, because of that, they had their own sort of absence. They were providers, of course, in those days, in that place, and they also provided mothers a kind of nuclear deterrent, a weapon of last resort: “Wait until your father hears about this!”

It’s been tempting, in our time, for our cultural complainers, the family values crusaders, to look back on that time with nostalgia for its male economic dominance, command and power. But that’s kind of a distorted picture, as nostalgia always is, and there are some hidden agendas in those yearnings. And it’s awfully hard to make dominance into a Christian virtue!

I sense in this nostalgia a resentment of the opportunities gained by women, a resentment I don’t see as part of the men of that time that I looked up to. There are reasons we got from here to there, and one of those reasons is that real families embraced opportunities for both daughters and sons. Real families are richer and more flexible than the ideologues would have us think.

Even in an industrial community like the one I grew up in, with its rigidly separated roles, the good families were partnerships because they wanted to make a go of it together. We weren’t that well off, and when my mother got a night job at a bank in downtown Chicago, life became even more of a partnership. When I was serving as a pastor in rural Minnesota, which had a completely different work cycle and role models, I still can’t think of a single farm family that wasn’t also a partnership.

It’s no accident that the 4^th commandment calls us to honor our father and mother as a pair, that new creature of one flesh that we proclaim in the marriage service. And when Luther explains the Lord’s Prayer in the Small Catechism, he says that to pray “Our Father” (to use, as Jesus did, “Father” as an address to God) is to believe “that we may approach God boldly and confidently in prayer, even as beloved children approach their dear father.” In other words, Luther (who drove his own father crazy, by the way!) sees the title “Father” not in terms of power and rule, let alone gender superiority, but in terms of loving accessibility. This is the name that should cast out fear and offer the welcome home.

Now let’s take these thoughts of fathers, families and values and look at this little episode from the life of Jesus.

Jesus didn’t have children of this own, and the only story we have of his growing up is one of him NOT obeying his parents, but leaving to do what he wanted and teaching in the temple! It might have been fun to see how Jesus would have reacted to his own son going missing for a couple of days to study in the temple—or to rebuild an engine in somebody’s garage. It would have been instructive to see how Jesus handled his daughter’s first date. But what we learn from him about family life we have to learn from his life as such.

And, really, it isn’t that much of a stretch to see this dinner at Simon the Pharisee’s house as a family scene, in a larger sense of family. It’s about who belongs and who doesn’t, how we treat on another, and how we go on together.

In fact, it has an eerie echo of the messy family scene from David’s life. There are two men facing off, one of whom speaks as a moral guardian, one of whom seems to be compromised, neglectful and careless of his authority and position. There is a woman involved, and what’s going on seems to demand the naming of a sin.

Superficially, it we have learned the lesson of Nathan and David, it might seem that Simon the Pharisee, the man who names the sinner here, the man with the hard word, is the name with a true and godly word. I bet if you left out the names and disguised the details a little, then showed this story to a random group of religion leaders, most of them would say Simon is the real Christian.

But the hard word of Simon is not the word of the Gospel, and don’t you ever forget that!

Simon thinks: “If this man were really a prophet, he’d know who and what this sinful woman is.” And it’s not irrelevant that Simon adds “This woman who is touching him.” He doesn’t exactly accuse Jesus of being like David with Bathsheba, but was thinking along that line!

But the point of the story is this: Jesus does know who and what she is—better than Simon does, and at a deeper level than Simon does. Jesus never let himself be blinded by his own goodness. Yes, he knows what she is; he also knows there’ more to her; he can see her and he knows what she needs. She can come to him without fear and he welcomes her home. The sin named in this scene is Simon’s sin; his treatment of Jesus, his scorn of the woman, his distance from which he looks down on them both. The way that’s shown in the scene is the way of God with the sinner.

We might say David’s story showed a failure of responsibility; Simon’s story is a failure of forgiveness, a failure of love. And, provocatively, they’re both blinded: David by lust, Simon by moral judgment—but neither one can see what he is doing.

It’s to David’s credit that he can respond “I have sinned against the Lord!” because these failures are more than personal. They’re failures in what and how God would have us be together.

Since I was looking at these scenes through the lens of Father’s Day, I thought there was one more light, or one more challenge, thrown here on the family.

Children are like guests in our lives, as Jesus was in Simon’s house: poor Simon probably thought he had a tidy little domestic arrangement completely under his control (like the Martha Stewart of the moral world): then all of a sudden this woman is at Jesus’ feet, like a little too weird-looking date your son or daughter might bring home. It’s a question children raise in lots of ways, as long as they are with us: “How flexible can our family be?” Can we see our children for who they are, not for who we want them to be; how far can the family be open to others and to the world the kids bring home with them?

So it seems very appropriate to me that today’s Gospel ends with a picture of Jesus walking around with an extended family of people who just sort of got attached to him: the 12 picked up here and there, Mary who had seven demons, the wife of Herod’s steward (How did SHE get there??)—and I think it’s very deliberately meant to show the rough-edged, ragged, uncontrollable hodge-podge of everybody, the sloppy bigness of the family of God, as big as God’s mercy, a mess from the human point of view, but all wrapped up in the real goodness of God’s kingdom.

Amen.

Sermon for June 9, 2013: Professional Compassion?

June 9, 2013

Luke 7:11-17 The Widow of Nain

PREACHER: Pastor Carrie Smith

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

Sisters and brothers, here we are, another Sunday into the season the church calls “ordinary time”, and this morning we hear an account from the life of Jesus which is anything but ordinary. In this scene from the 7^th chapter of Luke, Jesus encounters an ordinary funeral procession and does something extraordinary—he steps forward, places his hand on the funeral cart, and with a word raises a dead man to life. This miraculous event is all the more powerful because we are told the dead man was the only son of a widow. Her situation, which was tenuous before, was about to become even worse following the loss of her son, her only source of income and security.  This wasn’t just bad news—it was extraordinarily bad. The crowd following the procession outside the town gate had gathered to witness not just a son’s burial, but also the end of a mother’s life as she knew it. 

So while this isn’t the only account of Jesus raising someone from the dead—in fact, in the very next chapter of Luke Jesus raises a 12 year old girl with nearly the same words: “Little girl, get up!”—this healing story grabs our attention because Jesus doesn’t just raise a man to life; he restores life to the mother, too. He rescues this woman, a stranger, from a future of poverty and desperation. Verse 15 says “The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.” Jesus gives the widow of Nain her son, but he also gives her hope and a life worth living.

It’s probably safe to say that any story of a dead man sitting up and talking is extraordinary! But this one stands out among the other miracles of Jesus because there’s no mention of faith having any part of the healing process. Unlike last week’s story, when we learned of the tremendous faith of the Roman centurion, this week we don’t know anything about the faith of the widow of Nain. She says nothing, she asks for nothing—and yet Jesus restores her life anyway.

Why does he do this? Because, we read in verse 13, when the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” 

Jesus had compassion for the widow of Nain. Jesus changed his itinerary, took a detour, interrupted a funeral procession, raised a dead man and restored a woman’s life—not because of her faith, or because her friends asked on her behalf, or to make a point to the crowds who were gathered—but because he had compassion for her. 

Now, “compassion” is not such an unusual word, so when you hear it, it probably conjures up some images in your mind. Think for a moment: What does it mean for you to “have compassion” for someone? And how do you communicate that compassion? What does compassion look like? Perhaps, when someone shares a medical diagnosis with you, you might say, “I’m so sorry—let me know what I can do.” Maybe, if you are an employer or a teacher or have some other authority, you may “have compassion” for someone’s situation by treating them a little more kindly than usual. If you’re a Lutheran, you may show compassion through a casserole or a cake (time-tested remedies, for sure!) Often, however, in our ultra-connected world where bad news is shared across social media 24 hours a day, “having compassion” for another human being means little more than a quick thought of “Man, that’s terrible”; the sharing of a status update; and the perfunctory “You will be in my prayers”.

But when we read in Luke chapter 7 that “Jesus had compassion for her and said to her ‘Do not weep’”, there’s nothing perfunctory about it. The Greek word for “had compassion” in this text is one I couldn’t begin to pronounce: "splagchnizomai”. Now this is just the verb form of the noun "splagchnon," meaning your bowels, heart, lungs, liver or kidneys, which in that day were thought to be the center of human emotions. Throughout the Gospels, this is the word used when we read that Jesus was a man of compassion. Jesus was one who felt the pain and sorrow and grief of the world in his “splagchnon”, or, in other words, his very innards. He was affected deep within wherever he encountered poverty, or hunger, or pain, or grief. In the case of the widow of Nain, he felt her grief, her hopelessness, her desperation and lack of options so deeply that he was moved to raise her son from the dead and restore her to life.

And this is very Good News, don’t you think? We have a God who, through Jesus our brother, feels our pain and our grief more deeply than we can imagine. We have a God who, through Jesus our healer, restores us to life. We have a God who, through Jesus our redeemer, assures us that though we walk through the valley of shadow of death, we shall fear no evil, for the Lord is with us. Amen?

Jesus felt compassion on the widow of Nain and restored her life. But first, he stepped forward. Because he felt her pain and grief deep within, he took a moment out of his packed preaching itinerary and came forward to speak to a grieving woman. He stepped right into the middle of that funeral procession and reached out to touch the cart on which her dead son lay. And then he said, “Do not weep.”

Now this is the part where many of us say “And that’s why he’s Jesus, and I’m not!” Most of us find ourselves tongue-tied just thinking about what to say to someone who is grieving. We’re afraid to say the wrong thing, afraid of offending, afraid of making things worse. Often, we’re just afraid to come forward and place ourselves in the middle of those sacred moments that exist where life and death meet.

Many of you know that for several years I worked as a certified “doula”, or labor and birth assistant. It was a job that paid not even as well as being a pastor, and the hours were much worse. There were middle of the night calls and false alarms. There were hours of sitting with women in pain, knowing you couldn’t take it away. Being a doula meant touching someone who just weeks before had been a stranger—rubbing feet, massaging shoulders, holding hands, pushing pressure points. It meant seeing women at their best and at their worst, walking with families through difficult decisions, and being a witness to joyous and sometimes heartbreaking moments. 

When I went to seminary and was required to write about my call to ministry, I talked often about how the experience of being a doula was such good preparation for being a pastor. Being a doula had placed me right smack in the middle of that sacred, in-between space between life and death, over and over again. It opened my heart and taught me how to feel the pain, and grief, and struggle of others. In other words, it gave me a small taste of the kind of compassion Jesus has for our suffering—a compassion which he not only felt deep within, but took upon his own body when he suffered with us and for us on the cross. 

Now that I have a few years of ministry under my belt, I still think being a doula was good preparation for being a pastor. But these experiences have also brought to light what seems to me a significant challenge for Christian communities today, which is the professionalization of compassion. 

No one even knew what a “doula” was 100 years ago. It is a profession today only because birth was moved out of the home and into the hospital, thereby removing women from their systems of support. A doula is only doing what aunts and sisters and grandmothers once did.

In the same way, we now have hospice nurses to care for us when we are dying, and we send out pastors and chaplains to visit the sick and the grieving.

When I say that compassion has been professionalized, what I mean is that we now assume one needs special training to sit with the sick and suffering. We prefer to send the certified and accredited and properly prepared to be with those who are about to be born or who are about to die. Somehow, we’ve gotten the idea that these sacred moments are out of bounds for “regular” Christians. 

But the truth is, compassion is the call of every Christian. Throughout Jesus’ ministry, he did extraordinary things—feeding, healing, and raising the dead. And every time, he called ordinary people to continue his extraordinary ministry. Today, he sends us out to the sick, and the suffering, and the grieving. He invites us to join him at the edge of the city, with the marginalized and those with no future, and to feel their suffering deep within our own bodies. We are the ordinary crowds gathered there at the gates of Nain. We have witnessed the great compassion of Jesus Christ, and we will never be the same.

Today, I see ordinary Christians continuing Jesus’ extraordinary ministry of compassion every time one of you dares to enter into that sacred space where life and death meet.

Every day, right here in our community, prayer shawls are delivered to those who are grieving. Communion is delivered to the homebound. Cancer patients receive rides to chemo and radiation.  Casseroles are baked and delivered to those who have had surgery. Meals are served to PADS guests. Donations are sent to end the suffering of malaria in faraway places. Hands are held, tears are shared…and people are restored to life, in the name of Jesus. 

Sisters and brothers, today I want you to hear that Christian compassion doesn’t require special training. You don’t need to be a professional to restore life and hope to someone walking in the valley of the shadow of death! You have everything you need to continue the feeding, healing, and raising the dead—for in Christ you have been restored to new life. In the Christ, you are healed. In Christ, you are called. In Christ, you are sent out. In Christ, you are equipped. And in Christ, your ordinary becomes extraordinary! 

Amen. 

Sermon for June 5, 2013: Worth It

Sermon for June 2, 2013

Second Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 7:1-10

Preacher: Pastor Carrie Smith

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

Ask any of our neighbors, and they’re likely to tell you they’re just waiting for us to put up a yard sign that says “Smith Family Bed and Breakfast”. Our kids don’t bat an eye when I tell them “Better clean up the basement today” but instead come right back with “Who’s staying with us this time, and what country are they from?” Just in the last year we’ve hosted a group of Palestinian teenagers, three girls from a Ugandan children’s choir, a priest from Bethlehem, a professional singer, a random British stranger on a bicycle tour across the U.S. (I preached about that experience last year!), an old seminary friend and her entire family, and of course a constant stream of Chicago friends seeking a respite from the city. 

We love hosting guests in our home, and consider it our Christian responsibility to show hospitality. Most of the time, we clean up a bit first. Last week we even bought a new mattress before Chicago friends came to stay. We noticed they hadn’t been out to visit for awhile, and then we remembered how much they hated our blow-up air bed. We put two and two together…and headed to the mattress store.

We’ve received many guests at our home, but there was one scheduled visitor who made me question if we were even worthy of his presence.

His name was Calvin Morris, and he was to be the speaker at the FaithBridge Interfaith MLK breakfast. As an eager new member of the MLK breakfast committee, I of course raised my hand and said, “Sure! I have room to host him at my house!” 

It wasn’t until I Googled the invited speaker that I started to question my eagerness to volunteer. I learned that the Rev. Dr. Calvin Morris was the national coordinator of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Operation Breadbasket from 1967 to 1971. After leaving there, he was the executive director of Atlanta's Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change, working directly with Coretta Scott King. As I read more of his impressive resume, I realized Dr. Morris was truly a history-maker—someone we might read about in a textbook on the Civil Rights movement. 

Suddenly, I wondered if it had been wise to offer to put this man in my basement. What would he think of that patch of carpet the dog chewed up? Did he even like dogs—or teenagers? Will our house meet his standards? Then, another panicked thought: This man is a community activist and an urban dweller—maybe he’ll be offended by my suburban existence! Maybe my house is too big!

In other words: I suddenly saw my home and my life with new eyes, and I judged myself completely unworthy. I wanted to forget the whole thing, and book the Rev. Dr. Morris a room at the Country Inn & Suites.  

Have you felt unworthy lately?

Feeling unworthy was apparently a new emotion for the Roman centurion in today’s Gospel reading. Here was a man who was accustomed to getting what he needed, when he needed it. He had a fair amount of power and privilege: servants working for him, soldiers under his authority, and an esteemed reputation within the community, cultivated after building a synagogue for his Jewish neighbors.

So when his beloved servant was ill, the centurion’s instinct was to use that power, privilege and accumulated respect to bring Jesus, a healer, to his home. He of course called upon the Jewish elders who had benefitted from his good deeds to visit Jesus, a Jewish man. 

Sure enough, when the elders reached Jesus they had only good things to say about the centurion. “He is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.” Having received this good recommendation, Jesus set out to see the centurion and, apparently, to heal the slave, when something surprising happened.

It’s not clear from the text what exactly occurred, but it seems that sometime after sending the messengers out, the centurion had second thoughts. Maybe, like me, he looked around his house and saw the chewed-up carpet. Maybe, as some scholars suggest, he was making a political move, expressing false humility to gain an even better reputation.

Or—maybe this Roman leader recognized that this Jesus, who was about to arrive at his house, possessed a different kind of authority; was working under a different system of values; would perhaps be unimpressed by a centurion’s status, privilege, or military might. This Jesus, after all, was said to be a miracle-worker, a healer, a prophet, and even more: the Son of God.

So the centurion sent out some friends with a different message: “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; therefore I did not presume to come to you. But only speak the word, and let my servant be healed.” 

These words stopped Jesus in his tracks—literally. He stopped in the road and turned, telling the crowd that was always following him, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” Jesus never made it to the centurion’s home, but when the centurion’s friends returned, they found the slave had been healed.

This centurion, because of his humility and surprising recognition of Jesus’ authority, has been lifted up as an example of great faith. But I must say that I struggle with this text, because what I don’t want you to hear today is one more reason to say to yourself “I’m not worthy.” I think we do enough of that already:

I’m not worthy of God’s love.

I’m not worthy of having a healthy relationship—this is the best I deserve.

I’m not worth being treated right at school or having friends.

I don’t have anything to contribute to the discussion.

Why would God listen to my prayers, after all the mistakes I’ve made?

I cringe when I think of teenagers, or a spouse in an abusive relationship, or someone who has never known God’s forgiving and redeeming love, hearing this story and thinking: “See? I’m right in thinking of myself as unworthy. Jesus even blessed this way of thinking.” 

But I don’t believe this is a story about Jesus blessing the kind of self-hate we are so good at cultivating. This is not a case study on how to beat yourself down so you are worthy of God’s attention. Humility is a virtue, but self-loathing is not. 

Instead, I believe the story of the faithful centurion is about authority. It’s about recognizing who has authority in our lives, and therefore who judges your worthiness.

When the centurion first called for Jesus, it was not “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear”, but more like “What a solution I have in Jesus, all my problems to solve.” He sought an answer to his problem—a sick slave—using the authority he had at hand: power, privilege, money, position, reputation. According to this system, he judged himself worthy of having his request honored, his needs met, and his slave healed.  

The centurion was therefore not a person of faith at the moment he called upon Jesus—but it didn’t matter, because the religious leaders also seemed to agree with his judgment. “He’s a good guy!” they said. “You should totally do this for him, Jesus.”  

And you know what? The faith of the centurion didn’t seem to matter to Jesus, either. In the telling of this story, we often forget that Jesus was already on his way to visit the centurion when he received that message: “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof.” Jesus was already on the road to the centurion, well before the centurion was on the road to faith. 

But the faith of the centurion is amazing, and surprising, and worthy of note, because it was he, an outsider, who was able to proclaim the truth. When even the religious leaders believed the lie that “If I am a good person and work hard, God will hear my prayers”, the centurion was the one who proclaimed: “Lord, nothing that I have and nothing that I have done has made me worthy of your visit. No matter what I bring to the table, Lord—you alone say who is worthy and not worthy. Your judgment matters, and no one else’s.” 

Sisters and brothers, I hope you are hearing today that the story of the faithful centurion is about just how worthy you are in the eyes of God. Here we encounter a Jesus who places no value on power or privilege, who doesn’t care how many soldiers we command or how big our house is, who never sees the chewed up carpet or the size of our credit card debt or the number on the scale. This is about a God who, through Jesus Christ, sees instead our faith alone and deems us worthy. And in fact, in this story we meet the Jesus who starts the journey toward you before you have any faith at all—because you are worth it.

In the book “Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion”, Father Gregory Boyle tells of ministering to a 15 year old gang member in a county detention facility. Father Greg asked about his family. 

“That’s my mom over there.” the boy said. “There’s no one like her. I’ve been locked up for more than a year and half. She comes to see me every Sunday. You know how many buses she takes every Sunday—to see my sorry self?”

He paused for moment, and then gasping through tears, he said, “Seven buses. She takes…seven…buses. Imagine.” 

What better way is there to explain the expansive love of God? How better to describe how God sees us, through the eyes of Jesus: You, Child of God, are worth a seven bus journey for a 15 minute visit. You are worthy of love, worthy of respect, worthy of hope and a future—not because of anything you have, or anything you have done—but because of Jesus and the cross. And Jesus says: you are worth even that. 

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.