Trinity Sunday 2011

06/19/11                          Trinity Sunday 2011                  Hudson UMC
What is the church?  It might seem that such a question is an odd one to begin a sermon for Trinity Sunday, but actually, since we are United Methodists, it makes perfect sense.  When we look at Christian history, or even when we ask Christians we know, we find that most people, when trying to find a place in the Bible that serves as a kind of definition of what the church is, turn to Matthew 18:19-20 which reads, "Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.  For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them."

I would imagine that this statement is somewhat familiar to most people in the room, as would be expected.  After all, it is the single most popular passage appealed to in the Bible to speak of the church.  However, when we take just a step backwards and examine the context in which it is found, we are puzzled.  The entire chapter of Matthew 18 is about conflict within the community and how to deal with it; that is to say, it is about church discipline.  The two or three people who are
agreeing on something in this passage are agreeing about whether or not a person who has sinned has been willing to be reconciled or not and whether or not the church should change their relationship with them from one of intimate Christian fellowship to one of discipline and
correction.

There is another interesting tendency within the history of the church, particularly Protestant history, that is interesting to consider before we continue on.  The classical Protestant definition of the church is a gathering where the pure word of God is proclaimed and the sacraments are rightly administered.  This is, of course, an extremely political definition, and we must ask who gets to decide whether what is preached is the pure word of God and whether the sacraments are rightly administered.  Consequently, there have been times when more than one denomination has held the same definition of the church on paper but have absolutely rejected the legitimacy of the other body in practice.

This raises the question for us United Methodists, "How did John Wesley think of the church?"  Wesley thought of the church in a very different way than these other two views and the difference is telling.  Wesley used our passage for this morning, out of Paul's letter to the Ephesians.  He has this to say.  "Here, then, is a clear unexceptionable answer to that question, 'What is the Church? The catholic or universal Church is, all the persons in the universe whom God hath so called out of the world as to entitle them to the preceding character; as to be 'one body,' united by 'one spirit;' having 'one faith, one hope, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in them
all.'"

When Wesley defines the church, he does so in Trinitarian and participatory terms.  We are not constituted a church because we have good preachers or because we do Communion and Baptism the right way.  We must not think that we are God's people because of anything we do, even if it is doing preaching and the sacraments.  Instead, we are constituted the church of God because of who we are, or, more precisely, because of the one with whom we are in relationship.  We are a church because we are one body who is bound together by one Spirit, the Holy Spirit.  We are people who share in one hope of our calling; we have one Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ.  We have all participated in one baptism, the baptism with which Christ was baptized on our behalf and in our place.  And we all share one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in us all.

This is a much better way, and more Biblical way of understanding the church.  If the church is defined and constituted by pure preaching, it is a frightening thing, for how can you be sure that you have always had preachers who preached nothing but the pure word of God?   As much as I try to root every sermon in the word of God, to say that there has never been a time when the sermon could be described as less than pure would be the height of presumption and arrogance.  According to the traditional Protestant definition, if there were ever a Sunday when myself or any other preacher in this congregation's history had a sermon preached that was anything less than the pure word of God, on that Sunday, this congregation was not a church.  If we see things the way Wesley did, we realize that our status as a church is not dependent on what we do, but on what God has done; not on who we are, but on who God is.

And who is this God in whom we have faith?  For some, such a question would seem silly, but it is very serious indeed.  Drawing from the same Wesley sermon on the church, we read these reflections on the nature of our faith.  "This is not barely the faith of a Heathen; Namely, a belief that 'there is a God,' and that he is gracious and just, and, consequently, 'a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.' Neither is it barely the faith of a devil; though this goes much farther than the former.  For the devil believes, and cannot but believe, all that is written both in the Old and New Testament to be true. But it is the faith of St. Thomas, teaching him to say with holy boldness, 'My Lord, and my God!' It is the faith which enables every true Christian believer to testify with St. Paul, 'The life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.'"

Indeed, we believe in and are bound to, a God who is not the ultimate individual, utterly detached from others, but one who is Triune in God's very being.  We see that, for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, there is both "me" and "you" in God and yet, though  this one is three in one sense, these three are also one in another, very real, sense.  We see in God that we cannot ask, "which is more basic, the individual or the community?"  In God, the individual and the community are equally basic.  There is not one without the other.  I am not a Christian unless I am with you and you are not a Christian unless you are with me.  The Bible seldom speaks of salvation and the Christian life in individualist terms. We are in this together, or else we are not in it at all.

We are the people of God the Father only to the degree that we are, all together, the body of Christ, and we are only that to the degree that we are indwelled, both as individuals and as a community, by the Holy Spirit.  This might seem like three separate things that have been jammed together, but it is not the case.  Rather, they are three facets of the same reality.  Let me illustrate this with a passage from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.  "Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons."

Paul goes on to list nine gifts of the Spirit, wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, speaking in tongues, and interpreting tongues.  However, because of how he introduced them, we cannot think of them as only gifts of the Spirit, but also as the various ministries of our Lord Jesus Christ and the effects of God in our lives.  It is striking to consider, that if we take the life of Christ as born witness in the Gospels and hold it up next to Paul's list of the gifts of the Spirit, we see all of them except the speaking in tongues and the interpreting of tongues, which we would not expect to see, being gifts used in private.  We see that to be people who are marked by the gifts of the Spirit is to be united to the high priestly ministry of Christ, that is, if we are people led by the Spirit, we are simultaneously the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood, and this manifests itself in our daily lives by conforming us to the image of Christ, in his obedience to God his Father.

We are the church, not because we are better than other people, nor because we are worse than other people, nor because of anything we do, but because we have been bound to God through Christ and in the Holy Spirit.  What this means is that, if you are bound to God through Christ and in the Holy Spirit and I am bound to God through Christ and in the Holy Spirit, then we are equally bound to each other and we are each bound to everyone else who is bound to God through Christ and in the Holy Spirit.  What is more, since our relationship with one another is primarily defined by our relationship with the Triune God and the inter-Trinitarian relationships, then we are stuck together, regardless of whether we want to be or not.  Tomorrow, movers will be coming to the parsonage and piling all of our belongings into a truck to move it across the state.  We will no longer be neighbors in the sense that we live near each other, but we will always be bound together in Christ.  It does not matter if someone moves, it does not matter if someone is from a radically different culture or country, in Christ, we are bound to one another just as closely, if not even closer, than we are to ourselves.

Something that deserves special notice is that we are bound to one another because we belong to Christ and through Christ to the Father.  God did not give us a theology exam before we could belong to him, we did not have to prove ourselves to him before he died for us.  This means that we are utterly bound to every other Christian, even if we radically disagree with them.  Even if someone disagrees with you on the temperature of hell or the furniture of heaven, with what exactly it means to live as a Christian, with your position on predestination versus free will, or with a multitude of other things, we must never forget that they are also a person for whom Christ died, that Christ died for them, like he did for us, while they were yet a sinner.  We are bound together by the blood of Christ, against which not even the gates of hell will prevail.  So, whether this is something that excites you or fills you with concern, for it challenges all of us, we had better get used to the idea.

In spite of the fact that this reality continually challenges me and makes me stretch my understanding of God and my neighbors, it fills me with joy, especially at this time in my life.  In about twenty-four hours, my family and I will be moving several hours away, away from those who have supported us through these last five years, away from family, away from friends.  We are going to a region where we know only a handful of people, and we don't even know them all that well.  It is something of a scary proposition.  But this is what I know.  I know that the same God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is just as active there as here and just as active here as there.  I know that there is a sense in which we are not really leaving, as we will ever be bound to one another.  I know that those we are going to meet are not really strangers, but long lost brothers and sisters, not only of us, but of you.   I know that we are the church, not because we always agree (though we share a common faith), nor because we do certain things, but because we are people who have been claimed by God and will never be separated from him and, thus, from each other.

This observation that, in Christ, we are fundamentally who we are, not only because of who we are in ourselves, but because of those with whom we are in relationship, has something to say about today being Father's Day, but I want to start with the Fatherhood of God first, and only afterward speak of human fathers.  When we call God "Father," we are naming God according to a relationship that is inherent in the being of God.  When we use the term "Father" to refer to God, we are silently also speaking of Christ, for when we say that God is Father, we are already speaking of the one to whom God is Father.  To speak of Christ is already to speak of the Father, for Christ is the Son of God.  To say "Spirit" is to speak of the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son.  We cannot name one of the Persons of the Trinity without referring, at least in a way, to the others.

There are many terms that we use to describe people.  Speaking for myself, you could call me a husband; but the moment you do so, you are already talking about Alli.  You could call me a father; but the moment you do so, you are already talking about Peter.  You could call me a son; but the moment you do so, you are already talking about my parents.  Even if you call me "Travis," you can't get around the fact that I cannot be considered in complete isolation from the relationships that make up, in a very real sense, who I am.  The same is true for you, for you are all engaged in relationships, without which, you would not be who you are.

So, Fathers, we who are children are bound to you, regardless of whether we disagree with you or whether we are always as appreciative as we ought to be.  We are bound to you because of a relationship that was established without our consent, before we could make any decisions at all.  We understand that, regardless of what may come, we are bound to you and you are bound to us.  We would not be who we are today if it were not for you and to relate to us is to relate to someone who has been shaped by your time, by your love, and by your personality.  If it were not for you, we would truly be different people.  Our relationship with you is one that goes to the roots of who we are, and we are grateful.

As this is the last opportunity I will have to speak to you as your pastor, it is fitting that it should take place on a Sunday that stresses so strongly on the interrelatedness that is inherent in all of Christian faith and indeed of all things, as even the very being of God includes a profound interrelatedness between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  This church has played a tremendous role in my personal and professional life and, wherever I go, I will bear the imprint of this congregation and all that you have taught me.  Speaking for my family, you have truly become part of who we are and nothing can ever change that.

The scripture calls the length of a human life "a hand's breadth."  Surely the time that we have spent together has been shorter yet, but you have had plenty of time to shape the life and ministry of this pastor and his family.  I can only hope and pray that, in whatever small way, we have had a chance to play a role in the shaping of your lives and ministry.  And now that we have reached the end of the last sermon I will ever preach in this pulpit, there is nothing better to do than to pray. 
Let us pray.
            AMEN