St. George's Church Maplewood

The Sunday after Pentecost is called Trinity Sunday and that's what this Sunday is, it's not dedicated to a person, it's not dedicated to an event in the life of Jesus; it's dedicated to a concept, to a doctrine, the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier. How do we term it, how do we describe it?

Pentecost is the feast of the Spirit. We’re so limited in our language that we use other things around us to symbolize Spirit. Besides streamers, we change the color of our liturgical vestments, and some people wear red to celebrate the day.

It's a wonderful day to celebrate! We even actually kind of have backed into Father's Day with the reading from Genesis. Abraham and Sarah, the patriarch and matriarch of our faith. Today's lesson begins with a series of lessons over the next few weeks about Genesis and about Abraham and Sarah and their adventures.

In the early church, it was a time of emerging faith, of new energy, the belief, and experience of the spirit. A time of preaching, a time of conversion, a time of wonder and newness. It was also a time of persecution. A time of repression and oppression, a time of pushback from Jewish authorities in the synagogue who were threatened by this new form of worship, and a pushback from the empire of Rome who started to see it as a threat to loyalty to the empire.

Psalm 19, the verse that says 'open for me the gates of righteousness, I will enter them'. Open the gates, open for me the gates of righteousness, I will enter them, it's invitation! God is saying - you have this available to you, come in and get it!

The story of Ezekial. Imagine Ezekial walking through the countryside and just happening across the old bleached bones, perhaps from a battle; and whether through inspiration from God or what we might call now 'active imagination', he begins to have a conversation with these bones, and begins to have a conversation with God about these bones.

The first lesson about King David. King David in terms of the Old Testament, is second only to Moses, in terms of significance in the entire Old Testament. And, as a result, a lot of the scriptures were written or edited, around the time of King David. And after so he looms large in their consciousness, far more elaborate than the others, and full and rich, they come from different traditions and the editors wove them together.

Low Sunday is the choice of the Gospel lesson. Thomas, known as 'doubting Thomas', usually people are very judgemental about doubting Thomas, saying you shouldn't doubt, people with faith don't doubt! If you have ever been told that, it's wrong! Faith requires doubt! Faith requires thinking, feeling, exploring, pursuing, seeking! No, faith is not a comfortable place. You can rest from time to time, but faith draws us deeper and deeper into the mystery of God. Things we don't know for sure but feel compelled to pursue and ask questions. Ask questions, and don't settle for answers. We do not deal in platitudes; we cast a strange eye at doctrine; we use creeds as starting points, not endpoints; and we believe the Spirit of God is continually revealing itself to us.

Sermon@StG_Mplwd on 07/31/2016 @ 10:30am