Trinity Sunday - Year B (BCP)
Exodus 3:1-6, Psalm 93, Romans 8:12-17, John 3:1-16
Angel L. Scott
St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, Eugene, OR
Sunday June 11, 2006
By
Water and Spirit
To
God the Father, God the Son, And God the Spirit Three in One.
Alleluia! Alleluia! (Hymnal 1982 618)
In the cycle of our religious tradition we recently celebrated the fullness of the joy of Easter and experienced the awesome power of the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. These are but a few of the stories that carry our tradition and transform us as Christians. Before we truly begin our Ordinary Time we have a celebration today combining the three persons of the Holy Trinity. Trinitarian belief is a foundation of the doctrine of our church and it is a story that began at our Baptism when we were baptized in the names of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is therefore appropriate that the New Testament readings for Trinity Sunday are also the readings used in the Rite of Baptism.
Father
At Baptism we are formally admitted into the Church. The baptizer asks point blank, “do you desire to be baptized?” And the person says, “I do.” We are bathed in water, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The Book of Common Prayer says that the bond established at baptism is everlasting (BCP p 298). We become recipients of the Holy Spirit, we are adopted by God, and into his family the Church. Baptism acknowledges God’s call to us to be in personal relationship with him. In the reading from Exodus our spiritual ancestor Moses is called directly by God. “Moses, Moses! Here I am.” As St. Paul says:
When
we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with
our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of
God and joint heirs with Christ.”
In our response at baptism we also become heirs with Christ in Mission, seeking to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Duncan M. Gray III, the present Bishop of Mississippi, in his address to Mississippi’s Diocesan Council said:
“Last night, (we) tried to remember the words of the Tent Meeting on August 20. We heard those words I had been preaching for over a year: One Church in Mission –Inviting, Transforming, Reconciling. I talked a lot about baptism as the means by which we die to self so that we might live with Christ and in Christ. I said that we, as individuals and certainly as the Episcopal Church, are much more comfortable living out of our social, political and economic power and influence. But maybe God, in our day, was inviting us to learn in a profoundly different way what it means to be a church in mission – not through our own strength, but precisely through our conflict, our weakness and our vulnerability. I invited you to wade in the waters of our baptisms, unafraid of what might have to die, for the new life in Christ would be sufficient.
Those words were spoken to this church on August 20. On August 29, 150 mile per hour winds and a 30 foot high wall of water came ashore on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and forever shaped how I, at least, will ever understand those words. The experience of Hurricane Katrina has not washed out the vision of the Tent Meeting. The storm has profoundly reinterpreted it, and infused our vision with meaning and a poignancy I could never have imagined. ….
Before the great storm, some had reservations about a vision that dared to claim, in the midst of our serious internal conflicts, that we were “one church.” As the support of a legion of volunteers and financial contributions from Mississippi and throughout this country and the Anglican Communion were shared with us, the folks on the Gulf Coast learned what it meant to be “one church” in ways they had never experienced before….”
Son
About 8 months ago this community sent me on a mission to some of the most devastated areas of Mississippi. I spent six months doing relief and recovery work on the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina. It was an experience of a lifetime. I had no idea what hurricane damage looked like. The pictures and news segments shown on television did not prepare me for the extent, degree and sheer amount of devastation that had occurred on the coast. When I arrived in Mississippi on October 17th 2005 reality set in; my heart grew heavy and I all I could do was pray for God to have mercy.
By the time of my arrival, One and a half months after the storm, all of the organizations were all still providing relief to the survivors. The damage was so extensive that no existing disaster relief and recovery plan could have anticipated the needs involved. The storm destroyed the normal support structures of all the coastal communities. The most basic routines of life were acutely disrupted. The families were scattered, Six Episcopal churches were destroyed, and the clergy were in the same condition as their flocks. The only thing that was clear was that these people needed food, fresh water, clothing, emergency medical attention, reconstruction assistance and someone to talk to.
Camp Coast Care was one of the first relief centers to open on the coast. Within two days of the storm, a handful of volunteers arrived at Coast Episcopal School in Long Beach and three days later a truckload of supplies arrived from Canada. By the time I got there things were well organized. The Diocese of Mississippi had rented three large circus tents to house the Camp’s distribution centers and medical facilities. Volunteers were housed on cots in the school’s gymnasium, and a portable kitchen had been donated to prepare meals for volunteers. The need to pool resources was obvious. Assistance in the time of need was what allowed the folks of the Mississippi Gulf Coast to have hope in what, at the time must have seemed an insurmountable journey ahead. God never promised that things would be rosy all of the time. But we are in this together. One church.
Holy
Spirit
Today’s
Gospel lesson portrays an interesting character Nicodemus, he doesn’t
understand the Spirit, most Episcopalians are like Nicodemus sometimes,
especially when Critical Reasoning is a part of their ethos. In the Holy
Spirit we are invited to see things in a new way. A life of the Spirit is a life
of faith. We don’t know where it comes from or where it goes but we know it,
deeply, to be there. Living through the Spirit gives us a perspective of
God’s grace working in ways we don’t imagine. I don’t believe in
coincidences. "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God
without being born from above” says the author of John’s Gospel. At
Camp Coast Care the pastor Fr. Joe Robinson always told us to keep our eyes open
to see all of the miracles that were happening. It was miraculous when our
distribution center would run out of food, with no shipments due till the next
week, and a semi truck full of food items would show up unexpectedly. In
an interview with a correspondent from the Episcopal News Service I am quoted as
saying:
"Up
till now, I've never been open to seeing God's grace working in the world.
Minute by minute, I see God's grace. Someone shows up with the skills we need. A
truck arrives at the moment we need it. It is a profound experience of
community. People show up from all over the country with the sense of
purpose to serve the people of Mississippi."
It is to God that all the Glory belongs. It is God the Creating Father that calls us into relationship from the burning bush-that deep and boundless mystery. It is Jesus, the incarnate love of God, that calls us to take care of each other, to show each other in tangible ways that our creator loves us. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” that we might live life abundantly. It is the life giving presence of God, the Holy Spirit, who guides, comforts and sustains us in everything we do. It is in the blessing of the Trinity that the story of One Church can transform us all to share ourselves with each other for the common good.
Let us pray
Heavenly Father, we thank you that by water and the Holy Spirit you have bestowed upon us your servants the forgiveness of sin, and have raised us to the new life of grace. Sustain us, O Lord, in your Holy Spirit. Give us an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. Amen (BCP 308).