Trinity Sunday

Sunday, June 7, 2009

St. David’s Episcopal Church, DeWitt NY

The Rev. James C. Bresnahan, Interim Rector

“On Your Lips and in Your Heart”

 

 

I have never been much interested in philosophical questions and arguments about the existence of God, or proofs or disproofs.  The God philosophy argues for and against is the not the God I believe in.

 

I have never been much interested in religious questions about who or what was there before the big bang.  Scientifically, yes, quite interesting, but religiously, no!

 

I have never been much interested in miracle stories either and whether they prove the existence of God. For, if God shows up only in rare and inexplicable events, then God does not have much to do with my everyday life and experiences.

 

But I am interested in thinking about and speaking the name ‘God’ in relation to my life and your life and to our life together as community and world.

 

And I think I’m very much in accord with the Scriptures in that regard.

 

As I read the Bible, this is what I find:  People have experiences, certain kinds of experiences, experiences that are transformative, experiences of prodoundest meaning, and in relation to those the word or name ‘God’ come to their lips.

 

Experiences, for example, of awe and wonder, experiences of forgiveness, experiences of deliverance from bondage, experiences of peace and wholeness inside and out.

 

Even for people not altogether religious the name ‘God’ comes to their lips at times.

 

Who, looking up at the majesty of the starry heavens on a dark night and reflecting on how one is a part of this grand universe, has not said, ‘Oh, my God’?  Who, hearing that a loved one has died, has not cried out, No, God, no, no? 

 

I want to suggest that those are not just idle utterances, but that the locus for our Christian speaking about God is in these and other experiences, and not in speculation or argument.

 

Take the Exodus story in the Old Testament.  Moses neither speculates about God nor philosophizes about God.  In the midst of reflecting on experiences of suffering – the suffering of Hebrew slaves – he hears a voice.  Not from the heavens, but from within.  A voice that says, “Tell Pharaoh, to let me people go.” He shakes with fear.  How can I do that?  How can I stand up the powerful Pharaoh? But the voice persists and leads him to acts of courage. 

 

How did Moses experience God? In the movement from disinterest to passion, from avoidance to compassion, from fear to courage, from acceptance of injustice to working for justice.

 

Or take today’s O.T. reading of Isaiah standing in the temple, where he is overwhelmed by a majesty greater than himself.  And he sees himself as just an insignificant and woeful speck in this huge place.  And he feels guilt and his shame for a poorly lived life, and accountable for his failures. He says “Woe is me.  I am a man of unclean lips.” He is led to despair.

 

But then, metaphorically, he experiences a burning coal touching his lips, much like a hot iron cortorizing a wound, and in that moment experiences mercy, forgiveness, and a call to a new life lived with great purpose and confidence.  It’s in that experience that the word ‘God’ is spoken - the experience of moving from self-avoidance to shame, from shame to self-acceptance, from self-acceptance to compassion for others and a will to live now with deep and bold purpose.

 

In the first century a band of people gathered around an itinerant Jewish preacher named, Yeshua, Jesus. They followed him, they heard what he said, they saw what he did, and they learned from his words and deeds, and they struggled with it – wrestled with his challenge, his promise, his death.  And it was within and from those experiences that they came to say “God was in Christ.’

 

They went out not preaching about a god off in the heavens but telling the story of their experiences with Jesus. They told of his love and mercy, how he called people to repentance and trust, and to live lives of compassion and peace. And when years later some wrote about how they had encountered God or God had encountered them, they wrote about in storybook form, as stories of journeys and experiences with Jesus.

 

In his letter to the Romans Paul writes, Who shall ascend to heaven to bring Christ down to us, or who shall descend in to the bowels of the earth to bring Christ up to us?  No, he is on your lips and in your heart.  As near to you as you are to yourself, yet unknown until revealed in experiences deep and transforming, as you move from thanklessness to gratitude, from despair to hope, from shame to forgiveness, from fear to trust, from greed to compassion.

 

All other talk about God we leave to speculators. All talk of God as first cause, unmoved mover, and the like we leave to others. But we embrace as our God what was revealed to the first disciples in the self-giving love of Jesus, and which we experience in a Holy Eucharist in which food is given to all and mercy extended to all, and which we also experience in promises and other words and actions that lead us to live in faith, hope, and love.

 

Here in the church’s experience is where God as Holy Trinity is revealed, who through the work and power of the Spirit brings us into life in Christ and leads us to serve all creation.

 

Here we are born anew to see and experience what eyes cannot see – that we are sisters and brothers and not strangers and competitors.  Here we are born anew to discover how we lose out when we hold on, but when we let go, we gain a life we didn’t have.  Letting go by letting God heal us, illumine us, shake us, renew us, and lead us to gratitude.

 

In those experiences God shows up as our God - in our minds, in our hearts, and on our lips.