You may or may not have noticed, but today is the day set apart in our calendar to celebrate the divine mystery of the Trinity! Now, I realize that I have to be careful about a statement like that because half of y’all are already thinking about cooking something nice with that trinity of flavors that makes Cajun cooking so good. If you aren’t from around here, I’m talking about onion, bell pepper, and celery.
Of course, it’s a little hot for gumbo, but there are plenty of other things that start out that way. While it’s a little tongue in cheek to call them the “Holy Trinity of Cajun Cooking,” its actually not a bad way to talk about the divine mystery that is the Godhead – which is a fancy church word to talk about the One who is the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of all that is, was and shall be. We can also say, “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” as Jesus did in Matthew 28, but I also like to recognize who God is by what God does.
However you describe God, the Trinitarian formula stands as a means of describing completeness. It is a way to describe something that can only be understood as the sum of its parts. That said, the concept of a triune God – who is both Father and Son for example – has offered as much confusion as it has clarity for centuries. Yet here in south Louisiana, the Trinity is simply a part of who we are and what we do. Everywhere you look you will see the Fleur de Lis.
Interpretations of this symbol vary widely, and I think it is fair to say that it is more of a cultural symbol than a religious symbol. But there it is – three leaves of a lily gathered as one. You can scarcely know the whole without the parts being joined together. Some say that’s also true of the Holy Trinity of Cajun Cooking, and that it’s the reason food just doesn’t taste the same when you go up North...of Interstate 10.
And so it is with the church. Throughout the centuries we have disagreed about the person and work of Jesus as our redeemer and how that fits in with the idea of God as creator, dispenser of wisdom, and sustainer of all that is. As a congregation of believers who follow the way of Jesus in the Reformed tradition, we turn to scripture as though it were the great banquet of insight and understanding (or perhaps a crawfish boil of wisdom if we are sticking with food analogies).
We also look to our traditions and history and we think about the way God has been revealed in the past and how we might anticipate God’s activity now, based on the character of God as we’ve seen and heard. Earlier I asked you to think about the way the Psalm describes God and what Paul’s letter to the church in Rome might say about us and the way our passage from John talks about our relationship with God through Jesus.
I think those are pretty good questions to ask anytime you approach scripture, and in our readings today we see a clear description of the activity of God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Truly, the only time a Trinitarian formula is used in scripture is in Matthew 28 when we are told to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Truly, the scriptures are full of indicators that God is active in all three of these pursuits all the time, and God wants you and me to be a part of it as well.
The Psalmist reminds us that we are to be stewards of the earth and all of its complexity and that our work and care of God’s good creation is an act of worship and praise, giving glory to God as our Creator, Provider, and Sustainer!
Paul’s letter to the church in Rome reminds us of the role of Jesus as the one who makes it possible for us to be at peace with God, for we have been justified through our faith! That’s not to say that God was not capable of loving us before Jesus. It is to say that Jesus leveled the playing field so that we may not fear the wrath of God but live into the hope of those who know of God’s love. Then Paul reminds us that we can live into this hope whether we are sharing the gospel out of love or even through hardship because suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character. Character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint because of the love of God poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit!
We’ll get into the Holy Spirit in a minute, but first I want to tell you how full my heart is because of you. I put together an abbreviated service to post online next Sunday, since we cannot live stream the Broadway service, and Jake gave me some recordings from the choir from our previous online sessions. The amazing thing about these pieces of music is that Jake sent the choir a music track with vocals and had them listen to it with headphones and attempt to harmonize. They did an amazing job! Even though each could only do their part without hearing each other, they had the conviction of knowing that they were a part of something greater than themselves.
As if that weren’t enough, I needed some images to make a slide show during the music. I went to our Facebook page and our website, and I also went to the photos we took on our recent trip to Cuba. While I had started out grumbling over recording something in the way of the Lockdown Protocol, I ended with a deep appreciation for the faith of this congregation. Then, on Saturday, a crew of 8 staffed a welcome table at the Acadiana Pride Family event right alongside St Barnabas, Asbury UMC, and First UMC! There were three things that I found significant about that.
First was the gratitude people expressed for our presence. For some it was casual, for others it was the kind of gratitude that comes from surviving something painful. The second was the stories of some who had been rejected by the church followed by a clear recognition that there are safe spaces in the world for and with people of faith. We gave out clay hearts to demonstrate that we might help create such a space, and one person said, “It’s like a worry stone – except for love!”
The last thing that I was amazed by was the way in which our members and those from the other congregations shared our faith through actively listening and caring for people who have been, and still is, rejected by others who believe they are doing so as an act of worship. In fact, right now, there are Christian pastors with larger congregations than ours who are telling these congregations to literally hunt down LGBTQ+ persons. No matter where you are on the topic of nature/nurture/choice / social constructs of gender and sexual orientation, I hope we can all agree that violence toward others is not in keeping with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
What we do find in the Gospel, particularly in John’s Gospel, is the promise of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, and the active presence of God! First, we are told that the whole point of Jesus being there is to make a way for the Holy Spirit to enter the world and that Jesus must go so that the disciples (and we who follow) may receive the Holy Spirit. The next part gets a little Dr. Seusish, but Jesus wants us to know that everything we think we know about sin and righteousness and judgment is about to be turned upside down.
Truly, the work of the Holy Spirit has more to do with restoring the created order of things and inviting others into it than it has to do with replacing what has gone before. In verse 14, we’re told that the Spirit will glorify Jesus. As we’ve seen in John’s gospel with the raising of Lazarus in John 11, Jesus is glorified when it becomes clear to everyone that he is “of God.” The same is true here when Jesus recognizes that he does not just have a share in the work and praise and worthiness of God. Everything that God has, Jesus also has.
There have been ample descriptions of what it means for Jesus to have been born of the womb as everyone has and born of the Spirit as no one has, but the point here is simply that Jesus is with God. Jesus was “of God”, and so he returned to be reunited with God. My advice is to try not to overthink it. Think about it, just don’t let it get in the way of knowing and loving the God who knows and loves you.
In the end, if God is God, then there should be more to the person and work of God than we can understand. Even so, we still have this persistent hope, that does not disappoint us, because the very love by which God created and still creates; by which God has redeemed and is redeeming us; by which God moves us toward justice and freedom has been poured out lavishly all over you and me and everyone in between.
May God the Creator, God the Redeemer, and God the Sustaining, life-giving presence continue to move us into one another’s spaces and more so into those held by someone who needs to know what we know. God loves you, and God loves them too. Amen.
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