Trinity Sunday 2015

Trinity Sunday 2015 (John 3:1-17) “God so loved…”

God is love.

In a world that obsesses with the attributes of God - power (omnipotence), knowledge (omniscience), location (omnipresence) God himself reminds us that he is love.

On Trinity Sunday, the Church reminds us that the doctrine (teaching) of the Trinity is an experience we can participate in. The One God who is love is an eternal community of the three interpersonal relationships of love.

God the Father is the one who loves. God the Son is the one who is loved (the Beloved). God the Holy Spirit is the active dynamic presence of love.

The doctrine of the Trinity is the Great Mystery of the Infinite and Eternal. As a Great Mystery, the Trinity offers us a participatory experience in the very nature of God and the very essence of divinity. We can never reduce the meaning of the Trinity in thoughts or words. We can never exhaust our appreciation of or our participation in the reality of the Trinity.

Our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Creation is to form life, the universe and each of us according to the pattern of the Son by the continuing real and personal presence of the Holy Spirit. We have been created by an eternal community of love to live in an active dynamic and transforming set of relationships that are defined by love.

Our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation is to restore to us what we walked away from. We walked away from that active dynamic and transforming set of personal relationships. We separated from God in order to seize the attributes of God. In that separation we are lost.

God the Father sent God the Son into the world to reunite what we chose (and continue to choose) to separate. Salvation is an organic reunification of humanity with divinity in Jesus Christ.

In reunification we surrender the defining qualities of separation. Those defining qualities are pain, sin and death. We express those qualities in the attitude of pride (that says I know what is best), self- will (the will to power that demands instant gratification) and fear (the reaction of the soul to a perceived universe devoid of meaning and purpose).

When we receive the gift of reunification with the Father, through the Son by the indwelling personal presence of the Holy Spirit we begin to rediscover our true selves. We become more of the unique individual and personal identity God created us to be. We become more not less.

Our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Transformation is a lifelong process of growing in grace. The Holy Spirit is the Helper who offers us knowledge, understanding, wisdom and good counsel to facilitate the Plan of Transformation. In this world that plan is called Sanctification. In the next world it is called Glorification.

Because the One God is an infinite and eternal personal community of love we will never exhaust the potential to grow and transform in that love. The vastness of the universe testifies to the inexhaustible creativity of the One God in Three Persons.

The world of the first century was desperate to hear Good News. It was a world of division, conflict and sorrow. The world of the 21^st Century is still desperate to hear Good News. The Good News of God in Christ is that God is real, God is personal, God is love, God is Jesus Christ.

The Great Mystery of God is that God just doesn’t have love God is love. God the Father sent the Son into the world to reunite what humanity broke apart. God the Son sends the Holy Spirit to Help us heal and restore the three prime relationships that define our species. Those three prime relationships are our relationship with God, with other people and with our true self.

We experience our relationship with God through worship, the highest form of love that defines the very essence of Deity.

We express our relationship with other people by sharing our abundance with them. We are our brother’s keeper. God designed us to help each other. We share our spiritual abundance by telling people about Jesus. We share our material abundance by feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, healing the sick, befriending the lonely and by welcoming the stranger.

We discover our true selves as we allow the Holy Spirit to transform the way we think, feel and make choices. The Holy Spirit is the creative artist who weaves the mistakes we have made and continue to make back into the original pattern of the Son.

As Jesus is the Good News of divine love so the Trinity is the Good News that the One God invites us into an active dynamic and transforming personal relationship with the Father, through the Son, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Pentecost 2015

Pentecost (John 15:26-27;16:4b-15)

“When the Advocate comes…”

Pentecost is the celebration of the birthday of the Church. On Pentecost we reflect on how the Holy Spirit gave birth to the church. We use organic language because the church is the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ.

The language of Pentecost is organic because our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation is organic. The language of Pentecost is also sacramental because our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation is sacramental.

And, the language of Pentecost is the language of personal relationships. There are three primary personal relationships God created us to experience. The first and primary personal relationship is our relationship with God.

The Father sent the Son into the world to seek and save the lost who do not want to be found and who do not believe we need to be saved. The Son sent the Holy Spirit  into the world to continue the Plan of Salvation. The Church, the one holy catholic and apostolic church, is the continuation of the Plan of Salvation.  The Church is the instrumentality of the Plan of Salvation.

The Son, Jesus Christ, sent and continues to send the Holy Spirit to seek the lost who do not want to be found. The means by which the Holy Spirit accomplishes this is the Church, you and I.

We are now the living sacramental instruments of the Plan of Salvation.

Make no mistake. Moses, the prophets and the apostles are very clear. The state of humanity as a species and each of us as individuals is that we are lost. We are lost in separation from God. That separation manifests as a deeply rooted existential spiritual pain we all bear within our souls. That pain distorts the way we think, feel and make choices. Those distortions are what the Bible calls sin. Sin always impels people to live from the place of pride, self-will and fear. That place brings conflict and poverty into our societies and within our own psyche.

The Holy Spirit gave birth to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church to advocate for Jesus in the world. As the advocate for Jesus the Holy Spirit always points to Jesus. He never calls attention to Himself. He always points us to Jesus and He always brings awareness to us and to all people that Jesus is the Way of a new life and a new way of living.

The Holy Spirit always seeks to encourage and to equip the Church to be who God the Father created us to be and God the Son redeemed us to be. We are the Body of Christ on Earth,

As the Body of Christ we are called to be witnesses for Jesus in the world. As the Body of Christ we are called to do the works Jesus did when he was on the Earth. The Bible calls witnessing evangelism. Evangelism is sharing the Good News of Divine Love in Jesus Christ by telling people about your own personal experience with Jesus.

The Holy Spirit does not want us to argue religion. He wants us and inspires us to share our experience of Jesus with other people.

We witness to Divine Love by doing the good works of Divine Love that Jesus did. These works are very simple but not easy. Jesus said: if someone is hungry that is your invitation from the Holy Spirit to feed them.  The Holy Spirit seeks to set us free from the fear of scarcity so we can be a solution to the problem of poverty, isolation and conflict.

The Holy Spirit convicts us and other people of existential pain and the distortions of sin that pain causes. Our job is not to condemn people for their actual sins of omission or commission. The Holy Spirit does that by holding up the mirror of truth to each person. Our job is to offer the one and the only solution to sin. That solution is Jesus Christ.

When Jesus speaks about righteousness he speaks about right relationships. He speaks about our relationship with God, other people and our own souls.

When Jesus speaks about judgment he is speaking about the pride that morphs into despair.

When Jesus speaks about condemnation he speaks about lost souls perpetuating separation from God. He speaks about the law of cause and effect.

When Jesus speaks about truth he speaks about himself. Jesus, the co-eternal Word of God, is the pattern of truth. The Holy Spirit helps people understand that truth derives from a source and manifests in this world according to a pattern. That pattern is Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus in two basic ways. First, He helps people understand they are lost and need to be found. Second, he equips us, the Body of Christ on Earth, to help the lost receive the gift of reunification with the Father, through the Son, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Pentecost reminds us we, the church, have a divinely appointed job. Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to advocate to the Father for us in order to form us and equip us to be the instrumentality of our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation.

Easter VII

Easter VII (John 17:6-19) “Sanctify them….”

Just before his arrest, Jesus prayed his high priestly prayer. He prayed for the safety of his disciples, he prayed for their salvation and he prayed for them (and us) to be sanctified.

Sanctification is probably not high on the list of things most people pray for. In our modern secular society it is not even a word most of us hear or use.

Certainly, one of the basic reasons people abandoned Jesus, rejected him and finally tortured and killed him was because Jesus failed to give people what they wanted most.

What they wanted most was power and wealth. Jesus only brought healing and compassion. There was no place in the world for a person who refused to work within the power structures of the world. The fact that Jesus did not challenge power from the place of power frightened people who held power or aspired to power. By refusing to use the methods and means of power the very presence of Jesus threatened the basic assumptions and institutions that all people lived by.

Jesus was not a revolutionary in political or economic terms. He was, nevertheless, a more serious threat to the religious, political and economic institutions of his day. He still is. That is why some governments actively repress the Christian Faith. That is why some political and economic institutions attempt to subvert the Christian Faith.

In His High Priestly Prayer Jesus stands in the gulf between humanity and God. Jesus accepts the call to be the Great Bridge that spans that gulf. Jesus announces his plan and purpose for the Church as he asks the Eternal Father to Sanctify us.

Sanctification is transformation.

It wasn’t enough and isn’t enough to state the law. It wasn’t enough and isn’t enough to form an institution. The problem Jesus came to save us from is deeply embedded in our souls. The law and the institutions have their place to support the Plan of Salvation. The law and the institutions are not the place of salvation.

The Plan of Salvation is three fold. To use the traditional theological language that threefold plan is justification, sanctification and glorification.

Justification is reunification. Moses and the prophets observed that people are lost in separation from God. The minute Moses gives the Law there are some people who reject the law out of hand. There are others who immediately attempt to redefine the law in terms they prefer. They look for the loop holes. And, there are those who say “yes” to the Law then ignore it when it is inconvenient to follow the Law.

That is why our Heavenly Father designed a Plan of Salvation that is organic. We first need to reunify with God before we can begin the long process of healing the pain of original separation from God. In his incarnation Jesus reunifies humanity with divinity in his own person. The Plan of Salvation is not only organic it is also personal.

Through his suffering and death on the cross Jesus stands in the place of separation and absorbs all of the original pain of separation, the distortions of sin and the final result of separation which is death. In his resurrection Jesus just doesn’t destroy sin and death, he transforms it back into virtue and life.

Sanctification is the process of transforming sin back into virtue and death back into life. The active and personal agent of this process is the Holy Spirit. Jesus made the process possible. The Holy Spirit helps us to participate in the process. The process is grounded in truth.

That is why Jesus not only prays “sanctify them” he adds Sanctify them by your truth. And, lest we miss it he adds: Your word is truth.

As the co-eternal Word of the Father, Jesus is the pattern of truth. Jesus just doesn’t teach about truth. Jesus is truth. When the Holy Spirit applies sanctifying grace to our minds, hearts and wills He does so in the context of Jesus. He does so in the context of what Jesus said, what he did and who he is.

The Holy Spirit will never contradict the principles He already revealed in scripture through Moses and the Prophets. The Holy Spirit will always lead us to Jesus to experience the very source of truth and the pattern of truth.

There are two challenges to the process of sanctification. The first challenge is pride. Pride rejects truth. Pride asserts that “I” am the basis for “my” truth. Pride will see the healing miracles of Jesus and redefine them as having their source in Satan.  Pride will assert that Jesus is too restrictive and exclusive so we should drop any references to him and just speak about the Spirit.

Once we remove Jesus as the solid rock foundation of truth we place ourselves in the seat of Pontus Pilate who asked: “what is truth?”

Truth is personal because Jesus is personal. But, truth is not individual.

The second challenge to sanctification is self-will, the will to power. This is that voice within us that issues a demand. Sometimes the demand is harsh and unyielding. It says: I want what I want and I want it now. Sometimes the demand is soft and seductive. That aspect of the voice says: “how can it be so bad when it feels so good.”

Jesus warns us. Be wary of people who invoke the Holy Spirit apart from His role in our Heavenly Father’s Plan of Salvation. The beloved apostle John in his last letters to the universal church very clearly teaches: any spirit which does not acknowledge Jesus is the Son of God is not from God,

Jesus prays as our High Priest that the Father will send the Holy Spirit to change the way we think, feel and make choices. The basis for that change and the pattern for that change is Jesus himself. The purpose for that change is life.

There is no life apart from Jesus. There may be a desiccated form of existence, but there is no life.

Jesus came to restore to us the reality of eternal life present to us in the here and now.

The process of sanctification helps us to transform the deceits of our culture, the distortions of our desires and the seductions of Satan by the real presence of God in the person of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit uses the tools of sanctification. Those tools are the Bible, the sacraments, and the Church. Absent from that list is sentimentality. Good feelings may result from the process. Feelings alone are not evidence we are following the process. The evidence is the objective universal pattern of truth who is Jesus.

The result of sanctification for the individual is what the apostles called the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness and self-control.

The fruit of the Spirit for the Church is the salvation of souls.

It is important we don’t confuse the results of personal individual transformation with the results of corporate parish and diocesan transformation. The individual grows in love and joy. That level of transformation facilitates the growth of the church through the salvation of souls. St. Luke observed that the Holy Spirt added daily to the number of people who were being saved and coming into the Church.

Jesus was, is and always will be the key. Jesus is the great high priest who reunifies us to the Father in a single moment of time and then continually transforms us throughout all time and eternity.

Easter VI

Easter VI (John 15:9-17) “You are my friends.”

God the Father created all of us and each of us to be the forever friends of God the Son.

You are not an accident. You are not a result of the random interaction of matter, energy, time and space. You are very specifically designed for a very specific meaning and purpose.

However you got here, the very fact that you are here demonstrates the great universal unconditional and creative love of the Father.

Jesus came into a world governed by fear and defined by power. The religions of the time reacted to fear with structures of rigid uncompromising inflexible law. Or, they encouraged a self-indulgent superstition. The philosophies of the time taught cynicism, arrogance and disdain for the unenlightened masses.

Jesus rescues us, saves us, from the extremes of law and license, pride and despair.

In a world defined by what the state and the temples taught people to fear, Jesus reveals that the very basis for our existence is universal unconditional love.

Jesus’s solution to fear is friendship. He offers all of us and each of us a forever friendship within the triune community of love which forms the One God.

That is why Jesus never taught that people should over throw the political structures of the state or the religious structures of the temple. Jesus came to transform minds and hearts and wills. He came to form our very souls as the living temples of God the Holy Spirit on earth. He came to give new meaning and purpose to the political and religious structures we create.

The key words in this new way of living are: abide, joy, choice and love.

Jesus invites us into a personal relationship with the personal God. Jesus offers to fill us with divine life in the here and now as we choose to live and move and have our being in him. This is the meaning of the word “abide.” The friendship Jesus offers is not temporary or casual. It is foundational to our design.

As we choose to enter into the personal relationship Jesus offers Jesus helps us to understand that he is the very pattern of our souls. Our lives work so much better as we enter into the relationship and then follow the pattern of the relationship. This is why Jesus comments that we cultivate the friendship by following the pattern of the friendship.

That pattern is expressed in the summary of the commandments. Jesus quotes Moses when he summarizes the commandments in the three fold law of love: worship, compassion, personal transformation.

It is as we choose to walk in the way of divine love in the three fold path of love that we experience the fruit of love. That fruit is Joy.

We are blessed in our English language that Joy can be used as an acronym for the three fold path of love. JOY means; Jesus, others, you.

We place Jesus first in our lives when we hear and receive the pattern of worship. The pattern of worship is to meet Jesus at the altar of sacrifice on the seventh day.

We honor others as we seek to meet their real and present needs as God reveals them to us. Jesus teaches very clearly and unambiguously that poverty is an abomination. There are two forms of poverty in the world: spiritual and material.

We meet the spiritual poverty of the world through evangelism. We meet the material poverty of the world by direct action.

Direct action has two aspects. The first is providing what is lacking to those in need. Here at St. Luke’s we have a food pantry and a clothing collection bin to meet the need for food and clothing. The second aspect of direct action is our influence on the institutions of our society to follow divine principles in our laws and in our programs. Whatever political party you belong to, whatever social organization you participate in, Jesus wants you to embody the values of divine compassion in your words and deeds.

Finally, there is you. You are part of the three fold equation of love. Our Heavenly Father created us to grow and transform in our friendship with the Son. We transform by reading the Bible, studying the Bible and memorizing the Bible. We transform through prayer- an ongoing conversation with God. We transform by pondering (meditating on) the life of Jesus, Mary and the saints. We transform most effectively and thoroughly through worship. For, worship is the highest form of love a human being can experience.

Perfect love casts our fear, transforms fear and sets us free to enjoy the abundant life God designed for us. The friendship Jesus offers so fills us with the joy of salvation that we meet the duality of life courageously, creatively and patiently.

The requisite condition for any friendship is time, attention and communication.

Our Heavenly Father sent the Son into the world to be fully present to us. Our Heavenly Father sends the Holy Spirit into the world to help us be fully present to the Son. This is the new way of divine love that manifests in our lives as the joy of salvation.