by Fr. Bill Garrison
Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.
The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
—Matthew 28:16-20
The Great Commission, at the Cathedral Parish of Saint Patrick in El Paso
Photo by Lyricmac at English Wikipedia / CC BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)
I want to talk about our own self-understanding this morning. After all it is Trinity Sunday and what day could be better to attempt to figure it out? Who are we? What does it mean to be who we are?
But first before we get too serious, I want to relate to you a funny regarding the Trinity I haven’t told in a few years. You remember, I am sure, when Jesus asked the apostles who the crowds were saying he was and then asked them who the apostles themselves said he was. Well here is another version of that same conversation with the Trinity in mind. We begin.
Jesus said, “Who do men say that I am?”
And his disciples answered and said, “Some say you are John the Baptist returned from the dead; others say Elijah, and others say one of the prophets within the Hebrew Scriptures.
And Jesus answered and said, “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Logos, existing in the Father as His rationality and then, by an act of His will, being generated, in consideration of the various functions by which God is related to his creation, but only on the fact that Scripture speaks of a Father, and a Son, and a Holy Spirit, each member of the Trinity being coequal with every other member, with each acting inseparably, interpenetrating every other member, with an economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would make the substance no longer simple.”
And Jesus answering, said, “What?”
Ok, let’s take a about a twenty-five-hundred-year trip through time to the sixth century BCE. We find ourselves in Judea, the southern portion of what had been Israel before the Northern Kingdom was carried into captivity, never to be heard from again.
The leaders in Judah were getting nervous because some of their neighboring countries were becoming more and more powerful and aggressive. They were afraid that the fate of Judah was going to match that of the Northern Kingdom. They became convinced that their problems related to their loss of relationship with God, and if they fixed that relationship, they might protect themselves from danger.
Unfortunately they were wrong. They were conquered by the Babylonians and carried into captivity over a ten-year time span around 590 BCE. They were taken hostage to Babylon. Let’s listen to a portion of Psalm 137 which expresses their pain.
By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
For there our captors
asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’
How could we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy.
Their priests were beset with a problem. What could they do in this strange land, among these strange people, to ensure that the people of Judah remember who and whose they were? So, they came up with a plan to help them. Celebrating the Sabbath had fallen into disuse and the priests encouraged that it be reinstituted in every home. Kosher eating had also fallen to the wayside and the priests insisted that the people reemphasize it in their daily lives. Interestingly our Hebrew Scriptures lesson, the story about the creation of the world which was read a little bit ago, was reimagined during this time to emphasize the six-day pattern of creation and the seventh day of rest, the Sabbath. The priests stressed to every Judean the importance of ritual behavior in life, remaining together as a chosen people to help them remember who and whose they were.
And it has worked incredibly well. Over the next 2500 years as others sought to destroy them those ritual habits became the reason for their continued survival as the chosen people of God. One of my favorite theologians, Karl Barth, said in the nineteen forties that the Jewish people’s continued existence might be God’s greatest miracle. I personally have had two Jewish people close to me in my life. They brought into our friendship their history and their people’s history. I give thanks for them every day as I celebrate the joy and insights, they have given me, and how they have impacted my understanding of the world.
And so here we are, 2500 years later. I would submit to you we are faced daily with the same issue. Who am I and who are we as a people of God? How do we remember who we are in these turbulent times?
For me, and I hope for the Christian people, I turn to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. I don’t do so in order to be like him. I know that is not possible and God created me to Bill not Jesus. How does the life of Jesus inform my own life? I recognize my own is a work in process.
Jesus was a man of compassion. He felt deeply for those around him. He even forgave those that took his life. He went where he was invited, even to the homes of those generally rejected by society. He healed the sick. He fed the hungry. He told us that when we aid someone in need, we are helping him.
He was a man of common sense. Famously he asked the question, and I paraphrase it now. Is the Sabbath created for humankind or was humankind created for the Sabbath? Which is more important, the rules or the people? He asked those in power in that day to think about that.
He prayed and took time to be alone with God. He knew he needed refreshment and companionship with God. He encouraged those around him to do the same.
He knew who he was and what he stood for. In the words of another Jewish thinker and therapist, Dr. Edwin Friedman, he was a non-anxious presence. The winds of fear, stress, and the need to conform to other’s wishes were not factors in his life. He was immune to the gasoline of anxiety that so often surrounds us.
These are some of the attributes of the historical Jesus. I am grateful for the gift of eternal life, but I am equally grateful for the roadmap he laid out for us to follow. No, we can’t be him, but we can learn from him as individuals and adopt his truths as best we are able.
For the church Jesus was completely clear in his hopes for us. Ours is to tell his story to everyone that will listen. Ours is to reach out and help when we are called on to do so. Ours is to teach and to baptize all people, not just a special few who may or may not be like us. Ours is to worship and in our worship recount and memorize the things that make us who we are. We are to teach our children about God and the nature of God. Ours is to be in community. We, like our Jewish brothers and sisters, are people of the book. We open it. We read it.
So, our invitation this morning is to remember who we are as individuals and whose we are as a church. St. Matthias is an address for the Kingdom of God. Jesus Christ is our savior and our guide. We are not perfect and we are not going to be perfect. But we know who each of us are and we know whose we are as a people. We will do the will of God as we best we understand it as witnessed in the life of Jesus Christ.