The Word in Three Easy Lessons

(Sermon prepared for St Paul's Lutheran Church, Rye Brook, N.Y., May 26, 2024.)

This Memorial Day Sunday I find myself – probably like you – thinking of loved ones who wore the uniform of our country and are no longer with us.

I think of my father and two uncles and a beloved pastor who served in the Second World War. And, because his 107th birthday is this week, I think of President John F. Kennedy. Dad and JFK served at the same time in the same theater of operations, though if they happened to run into each other, neither thought to mention it.

Today is also Trinity Sunday, and JFK’s words come to mind. Maybe he said it and maybe he didn‘t, but he gets credit for it on coffee cups sold at the JFK library:

“There are three things that are real, God, human folly, and laughter; the first two things are beyond our comprehension, so we must do what we can with the third.”

It’s an above average thought for your morning coffee. It also works for Memorial Day and Trinity Sunday.

God the incomprehensible. 

Folly the impenetrable.

Laughter the consoler.

Trinity Sunday was devised by the church fathers (I use the patriarchal term advisedly) as a counterpoint to Pentecost Sunday, when the Holy Spirit gets top billing. It’s our liturgical opportunity to think of God in Three Persons:

God the Creator.

Jesus the Redeemer.

Holy Spirit the Advocate.

The doctrine of the Trinity is a basic component of Christianity. A church has to be “Trinitarian” to qualify for membership in the National and World Councils of Churches, and the notion goes back to the fourth century.

The Nicene Creed, which sprung up in the east around 325 C.E., put it like this:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, of things visible and invisible.And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the begotten of God the Father, the Only-begotten, that is of the essence of the Father. God of God, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten and not made; of the very same nature of the Father, by Whom all things came into being, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Who for us humanity and for our salvation came down from heaven, was incarnate, was made human, was born perfectly of the holy virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit …. We believe in the Holy Spirit, in the uncreated and the perfect; Who spoke through the Law, prophets, and Gospels; Who came down upon the Jordan, preached through the apostles, and lived in the saints.

The Trinitarian notion recurs in the Apostle’s Creed around 390 C.E.:

I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit … I believe in the Holy Spirit.

The creedal language is metrical and beautiful. It makes you feel good to repeat it.

But understand it? Please. When was the last time you had to explain the Trinity to someone?

We’ve heard the sermons. The Trinity is the way we describe the three basic components of our relationship to God: creator, redeemer, advocate.

For 17 centuries, preachers have been devising ways to explain the Trinity to simple-minded heathens. St. Patrick, with no snakes to drive out of Ireland in the fifth century, is said to have used the three-leafed shamrock to explain the Trinity to locals. If so, he didn’t write about it, nor did anyone else until about 1726, so the legend appears to be as dubious as the analogy is weak.

If shamrocks don’t work, there is the classic cliché about the various roles we play in life. For example, I am a father, I am a son, I am a spouse – three different roles that call for three distinct presentations. Yet these roles do not require a trifurcation into three distinct Persons. The analogy doesn’t really help us understand the nature of the Holy Trinity.  God in three persons? Why not one God with three personalities? That might work if all three personalities were spirit, but one is flesh. That factor tempts one to haiku (which tend to be more fun too write than to read):

Can corporeal

blend incorporeally

as one in the same?

That’s where the concept becomes a conundrum, and because there are no instruments with which to take God’s true measure, the enigma deepens.

I was blessed, growing up, with three excellent pastors who succeeded one another in the United Church of Morrisville, N.Y. None of them held me accountable for comprehending the Trinity.

That was fortunate because I’ve never been able to fully figure out God or even ask an intelligent question that might bring me closer to an understanding.

I must have been 10 or 11 when I first wrestled with the concept of infinity. I put the question to my mother: “When did God begin?”

I’m sure Mom narrowed her eyes and squinted at me. She always squinted, in part because she loved questions like that and because by, 1957, she was legally blind.

“Why don‘t we ask Mr. Irwin?” she suggested, referring to our pastor, Jack Irwin, whose intellect Mom admired.

Jack was an extraordinary pastor in what I once regarded as an ordinary hamlet in Central New York. During his pastorate in Morrisville he was preparing for his doctorate in philosophy at Syracuse University, so he probably thought of God in Kantian or Kierkegaardian terms, seasoned with occasional Nietzschean aphorisms.

But all he said to me, when I was 11, was, “God always is. There has never been a time when God wasn’t, and there never will be.”

That is one of two full sentences I can remember from 1957 (the other being a headline from My Weekly Reader that was almost as un-packable as the concept of the Trinity: “Welcome to the International Geophysical Year!”) so it clearly had an impact on my youthful brain.

As I said, Mother thought Jack was an intellectual marvel, which he was, but Dad often said Jack’s sermons went over his head. From my point of view in junior high and early high school, Jack was a matchless communicator. The Youth Fellowship highlight of every year was Halloween when we’d prop desiccated corn shocks in the corners of the Grange Hall, turn out the lights, and sit on the floor in the dark to listen to Jack’s scary tales. In a quiet Philadelphia-accented voice, Jack would combine menacing elements of urban legends with his own chilling adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe themes and scare the begonias out of us. His stories, which I am sure he made up as he went along, were amplified with spine-tingling details that placed horrific images in our heads for the rest of our lives.  The three-dimensional zombies of modern cinema do not compare with Jack’s terrifying stories – which, incidentally, were an effective though atypical evangelical tool. Youth Fellowship became an essential place to be for the cooler teens in Morrisville.

I’m dwelling a bit on Jack because he is one of the war heroes I remember on Memorial Day. It didn’t occur to me to wonder where Jack got all those frightening Halloween images. Then in 2002, he published a memoir about his World War II experiences (Another River, Another Town, a Teen Age Tank Gunner Comes of Age in Combat – 1945) that included sobering tales of combat and his eyewitness accounts of the liberation of the Nordhausen Concentration Camp. No doubt his accounts of horror in the old Grange hall paled in comparison to the horror in his head.

One of Jack Irwin’s hobbies was astronomy and Morrisville, with its northern exposure and dark winter nights, was ideal for telescopic stargazing.

One Sunday night, Jack showed the Youth Fellowship slides of planets, galaxies and nebulae he watched through his lenses. We watched transfixed as he showed us Saturn, 794 million miles from earth … the sun, 93 million miles from earth … Alpha Centauri, the closest star, 4.365 light years from earth … and galaxies so far away it would take a beam of earth light millions of years to reach it.

When the show was over and the lights were turned on, Jack leaned back in his chair and looked into our blinking eyes, one by one.

“How many of you,” he asked without drama, “have a concept of God that is as big as outer space?”

We answered with silence. Thanks to Jack, God the Creator suddenly seemed bigger to us than the white-bearded patriarch in the Michelangelo painting. In fact, God the Creator was suddenly beyond our intellectual grasp.

And that’s only one Person of the Trinity. What about the Second Person?

“He was in the beginning with God,” writes John. “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. (John 1:2-3).

Here we are talking about Jesus. And the fact that Jesus was human just like us makes John’s observation as inexplicable as the God of unfathomable light years.

How difficult it is to ponder the humanity of Jesus? Take the Ignatian approach of imaging yourself walking with Jesus. Imagine one sweltering Palestinian day you walk from Jericho to Jerusalem with Jesus. The sweat trickles down your cheeks. You and Jesus drink deeply at each waterhole on the journey, belching loudly as the cooling liquid soothes your gullets. And soon you and Jesus are stepping behind cedar trees to hoist your skirts and relieve yourselves. When you sit in the shade of an olive tree to rest, your robe sticks wetly to your back. Pungent underarm odor is rife, and it’s not only you; it’s radiating from Jesus, too.

If this seems a little sacrilegious, keep in mind that these are inescapable essentials of the human condition – and human is the modus operandi of the Incarnation.

Even so it’s not easy to sit next to sweaty Jesus and think of him as the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.

John F. Kennedy was correct when he said God – like human folly – is beyond our comprehension. When you try to figure it all out, perhaps the best analgesic is to simply laugh. It is simply beyond the capacity of our human brains to grasp the nature of the creator of universes, or to comprehend the infinite love with which God assumed mere human flesh as a device for human atonement. Thinking God’s thoughts is simply beyond us.

Thank God, then (so to speak), for the Third Person of the Trinity – the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that relieves us of the burden of trying to figure it all out.

“The Spirit of God is like our breath,” said Henri Nouwen. “God’s spirit is more intimate to us than we are to ourselves. We might not often be aware of it, but without it we cannot live a ‘spiritual life.’”

The Holy Spirit does not vest us with answers or give us special insights into the mind of God. Yet it is the Person of the Trinity that dwells within us so intimately that it connects us intimately with God the Creator and God the Redeemer.

“It is the Holy Spirit of God who prays in us,” Nouwen writes, “who offers us the gifts of love, forgiveness, kindness, goodness, gentleness, peace and joy. It is the Holy Spirit who offers us the life that death cannot destroy.”

Just how the Creator God did it is not for us to know. And just how our brother Jesus, who shares all our glands and bunions, was present at Creation is not for us to understand.

But the Holy Spirit who dwells within each of us is the perfect connector that binds our hearts and souls (and occasionally our minds) with the Triune God.

And perceiving that, as Brother Thomas Merton said, does not require intensive brain power.

It simply requires us to be silent until, in the intimacy of our solitude, the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit will write its wonders on our hearts.

Sweet Tongues of Fire

Acts 2:1-21

I Corinthians 12:4-11

There’s a sweet, sweet spirit in this place, and I know that it’s the spirit of the Lord.

There’s a sweet expression on each face, and I know they feel the presence of the Lord.

Sweet Holy Spirit, Sweet Heavenly Dove, stay right here with us, filling us with your love,

And for these blessings we lift our hearts in praise; 

without a doubt we’ll know that we have been revived when we shall leave this place.

This hymn is so familiar it seems like it has been around forever. In fact, Doris Akers, an American Gospel music composer, wrote the words and music in 1962.

This lovely melody stimulates our spiritual antennae to feel the presence of God’s Spirit in this place, and in every place. 

Granted, there are times when the Spirit seems far away, and there are times when the Spirit doesn’t feel sweet or placid.

I am indebted to my former World Council of Churches colleague Olivier Schopfer for posting, in French, a prayer that captures other dimensions of the Spirit. A rough translation:

You are in us, breath of life, so close that they almost forget you: come Holy Spirit, our breathing!

It is you who give meaning to the words, which do live the ancient words: come Holy Spirit, our inspiration!

Sometimes you're storm, you scream injustice and absurd suffering: come Holy Spirit, our protest!

Sometimes you have the sweetness, in a voice that sings the love and peace: come Holy Spirit, our consolation!

The Holy Spirit: our inspiration, sometimes stormy and screaming out against injustice and suffering, sometimes sweet, loving, peaceful, consoling. And always as close to us as the air in our lungs.

Today is Pentecost Sunday, the dramatic occasion when the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus’ disciples as tongues of flame. 

The tongues of flame weren’t the only concrete evidence that God’s Spirit was in the air. The disciples also began speaking in foreign languages, and – even more astonishing – the apostle Peter’s bumbling syntax was transformed to evangelical eloquence.

All this was the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise that the Holy Spirit would come to his followers after he ascended to heaven and disappeared from their view.

The Spirit remains among us, of course, but for most of us it dwells in silence. There are no tongues of flame and, in most mainline churches, no linguistic wonders to remind us God is all around us.

Yet there are many reminders of the Spirit’s presence. 

According to the Apostle Paul, we know the Spirit is in us because of the Spirit’s abundant fruit.

“The fruit of the Spirit,” Paul writes in Galatians 5, “is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

I’d like to think the indwelling spirit enables me to exhibit these traits all the time, but I must confess they often elude me. 

Alas, I’m much more successful in flaunting the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. I often engage all seven of them every day, sometimes before lunch.

That’s the thing about sin: it blocks access to God’s loving spirit. Love is cancelled out by greed and envy. Joy is rendered miserable by wrath and pride. Self-control is derailed by lust and gluttony and envy.

The distractions of our sins are no small matter because it prevents us from noticing that God is incredibly close to us. 

Henry J.M. Nouwen wrote, “When we speak about the Holy Spirit, we speak about the breath of God, breathing in us.  The Greek word for ‘spirit’ is pneuma, which means ‘breath.’  We are seldom aware of our breathing.  It is so essential for life that we only think about it when something is wrong with it.

“The Spirit of God is like our breath,” Nouwen said. “God's spirit is more intimate to us than we are to ourselves.  We might not often be aware of it, but without it we cannot live a ‘spiritual life.’   It is the Holy Spirit of God who prays in us, who offers us the gifts of love, forgiveness, kindness, goodness, gentleness, peace, and joy.  It is the Holy Spirit who offers us the life that death cannot destroy.  Let us always pray: ‘Come, Holy Spirit, come.’”

We can pray, but will we know when the Spirit comes? 

Brother Thomas Merton warned us that we usually don’t allow the Spirit to penetrate the arbitrary obstacles we place in its way. It’s not only the seven deadly sins that block the spirit, although there’s no question that lust, envy, greed, and pride render it impossible to dwell in love with God and our sisters and brothers. But there are other distractions.

Our days and nights are crowded with harsh sounds that shatter our inner peace: traffic noises, trash pick-ups, shouting neighbors, barking dogs, screeching cats, pounding woodpeckers, chirping crickets, and twittering squirrels. In self-defense, we surround ourselves with droning radios and blaring televisions. We plug our ears with electronic nodes that shout harsh musical dissonance of music, and we hypnotize ourselves with computer games and social media. 

No wonder we can’t hear God’s voice. Merton said we will never hear God’s voice until we are able to shut ourselves away from the cacophony of daily life.  

It is only behind closed doors, in the silence, in the eerie stillness, we begin to hear the still, small voice that dwells inside. That voice, Merton cautioned us, might terrify us. It is the voice of God who dwells within us like the air in our lungs.

Silent prayer and mute meditation – if we have the time and patience to stick with it – will open our harried souls to the indwelling Spirit of God.

And that voice that dwells within us has remarkable and often mysterious faculties.

Years ago, during my erstwhile Baptist days, I sat on a picnic bench at a conference center in Wisconsin and sipped coffee with a learned seminary professor.

The professor, a  native of Norway and an expert in Old Testament, was the main speaker at a bible study conference. I was there to supplement his lectures with a lay commentary on how the Hebrew Scriptures might pertain to modern life. I had no seminary training and little background in the Old Testament, but Baptists tend to wink and look the other way when laypersons unveil their implausible theology. Many Baptists believe that seminary education weakens your faith and erects barriers to the Holy Spirit, while ignorance opens the doors to divine inspiration.

Naturally the professor and I were initially suspicious of one another, but we soon found we had enough in common to compensate for the vast educational gulf between us. One of those commonalities was the abundance of mystery in our faith. 

“I left Norway when I was young to complete my theological education in the United States,” the professor said. “My family remained in the old country. I returned home for brief visits every two or three years, but ongoing communication (in the days before satellite technology) was difficult.

“I was in the midst of a lecture one morning when I felt a strong urge to step out of the classroom,” the professor continued. “It was such a compelling urge I felt I should respond to it immediately. I smiled at the students who were sitting sleepily in front of me and said, ‘Excuse me, I have a message.’ I dismissed the class and stepped out of the room. 

“In the hallway, a silent message formed inside my head – there was no sound, no voice, but the message was clear. ‘Your brother Lars has died in Oslo,’ the unspoken message said. ‘You must return home.’

“I went to my office where my secretary had just picked up the phone. My sister-in-law was calling with the message that my brother had died in his sleep. I said, ‘I know.’ And I began to prepare for the trip home.

“I often think about this incident when one of my students asks me to solve a theological controversy or interpret an ambiguous passage of Hebrew scripture. There are so few certainties in life. Only mysteries.”

Yet the professor had no doubt that the mysterious message came directly from God, a manifestation of the Holy Spirit that dwelt within him as close as the air in his lungs.

If we only took time to shut ourselves away from the raucous commotions of life, if we only found the time to sit in silence and listen for God’s still small voice within us, we would become aware that the Holy Spirit walks with us every step of our lives: as a comforter, as an informer, as an advocate, as a window into the mysteries of God’s eternal realm, as a giver of the fruits of God’s love.

It is the Holy Spirit that equips each of us with unique and special gifts to serve God and one another. 

Paul describes these gifts in I Corinthians 12:4-11.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

On Pentecost Sunday we hear the roaring winds of the Spirit, the hissing tongues of flame; we see the disciples dancing like drunkards in the street, we hear inexplicable sermons shouted in many languages.

But Pentecost Sunday also bids us to sit in silence, in quiet places where no roaring, hissing, or shouting will clog our ears. And God asks us to sit in the silence until our hearts are at ease and our minds are still. 

And if it is God’s will, the still small voice will speak to us, reminding us of our own special gifts from the Spirit, and urging us to use those gifts for the “common good.”

And that still small voice is the greatest gift we will ever receive.

Come, Sweet Spirit. Come.

We Are Made For Joy