May 22, 2005

(Genesis 1:1-2:3; Psalm 150; 2 Corinthians 13:5-14; Matthew 28:16-20)

We have in our lessons today a satisfying similarity of theme that often does not happen within the lectionary of the Church. This theme is one of beginnings and endings.

Today, Trinity Sunday, we mark the end - the conclusion - of the annual liturgical commemorations of the life of Jesus Christ. Beginning with the first Sunday of Advent and proceeding through Pentecost, the church liturgy is focused on the major events of Jesus’ life here on earth: the Annunciation to the Virgin, the Birth, the Baptism, , the appointment of the Apostles, the pilgrimage to Jerusalem with the resulting prosecution, crucifixion and death and resurrection.

After Trinity Sunday, the church focuses more on the developing theology and teachings of the Christian church, seen through the interpretation of scripture and the tradition, although still grounded in the Gospel stories of the living Jesus Christ.

And we also heard this morning a beginning – actually the beginning -- the opening sentences of the greatest of all ancient scripture, the Torah, the Old Testament, we hear the story of the creation. "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…" That is how it all begins.

There is no introduction of God, as either a character or actor – God, the pre-existent, proceeds to create from a "formless void and darkness" everything that is, that will exist, or that ever did exist. This is the beginning of God’s story and of mankind’s story and of interaction between God and mankind down through the ages.

And then to continue the beginnings and endings, the 150^th Psalm, that is an alternate reading to the Canticle is the last Psalm in our Book of Psalms.

Also, the New Testament reading from the Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians is the conclusion of that letter, and ends with that great benediction: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all." To which we can only add Amen.

Finally, the Gospel reading is comprised of the ending, the last four verses, of the Gospel of Matthew. These verses are commonly referred to as the Great Commission because the risen Jesus Christ says to the apostles, now become disciples

• remember what Father Jeff told us two weeks ago, the Apostles who were called became Disciples who were sent --

Jesus says to the Apostles now become disciples, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…" They were being sent out not only to the people of Israel but to the whole world. This is referred to as the Great Commission.

Further, Matthew reports Jesus Christ as sending the disciples "to baptize(ing) them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." This invocation at the end of Matthew repeats the Great Benediction of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians and together they are among the very first references to what has become known as the Holy Trinity.

So as is only fitting that we hear today the first, the foundational, references to the Holy Trinity, one of the primary Christian theological principles.

We travel today in our scriptural readings from the beginning of all creation through the culmination of the human ministry of Jesus Christ to the beginning of the use of one of the essential elements of belief of the Christian Church -- the principle of the Holy Trinity, the Three in One-ness of God, the One God in Three Persons.

The Father, the Son and The Holy Spirit. The principle that will cause theologians to sweat and squirm for over two millennia. The principle that often brings experienced preachers to do almost anything to avoid preaching on this day. As an example, the year that I was ordained, the first Trinity Sunday I was a deacon, I was put on the rota to preach, even though there were upwards of four other clergy available. This was not just the luck of the draw. This was avoidance! Or maybe hazing…

To be perfectly frank with you, the concept of the Trinity was one of the stumbling blocks I used as the reason when I was twenty, to no longer considered myself a Christian. Get real, I used to say, either God is one or God is three. It seemed nonsense to me to claim that God is one and that God is three. It seemed at the time a valid reason to stay away from church, although there were other reasons as well.

Since I have returned to Christianity, however, I can truly say that I have no problem accepting the doctrine of the Triune God. Perhaps it was the opening of my mind to the non-logical, the non-linear to be found in many Eastern Religions that I studied and in which I Perhaps it was simply life experience that allowed me to see the essential simplicity and truth in a God of differing aspects, of differing attributes.

For after all, when I considered it, my own father was, along with my mother, my creator. He supplied the substance without which I would not exist. My father was, too, my model, my teacher of everything from playing poker to swimming to living well to telling the truth.

My father died twenty three years ago, but he is still one of my most constant advisers and counselors. I picture him and listen to him for guidance and solace. And if this is true of my earthly father, how much more true is it of my heavenly father? Creator, teacher, counselor, guide.

Do any of us have just one aspect? Are any of us so specialized that we have only one focus. Aren’t we all connected to others in many of ways, don’t we all live out a myriad of roles: child, sister/brother, friend, spouse, colleague, supervisor, mentor, student, and on and on.

And, of course, we all are aware on some level that no name, no adjective, no word or group of words are adequate to describe the indescribable, the ineffable, the unknowable Almighty God. In an image often used in Zen Buddhism, all effort at knowing or describing the Absolute is simply a finger pointing towards something unknowable and indescribable. Or, stated in the negative, all effort at describing God is, in fact, describing what God is not! God is not, in the final analysis, a father, a lover, a son or a friend, although perhaps they all could be aspects, attributes of God.

We speak in metaphor because that is the only way we can speak of God. Speaking of what God is "like", what God is analogous to, and what God is not like, describing God by using terms that we know perfectly well are inadequate to the task.

Sally McFague, a well-known protestant theologian, has written for years about metaphor, and about the use of metaphor in speaking of God. She makes the point very persuasively that words create reality, words create the world we live in, and therefore it is crucially important what language, what words, we use.

McFague suggests the words/metaphors of "friend", "lover" and "mother" as perfectly valid for describing God, just as valid as "father", "son" , which, along with the Holy Spirit, have been used for centuries as metaphors for the Triune God.

But using only masculine metaphoric terms for God and God "with us"– Father and Son - has inevitably lead to an reality in which only the masculine is truly valued, no matter how often we explain that we mean to include the feminine when we say man, humankind, mankind, Father, Son.

So if we enforce, and reinforce, over and over, the reality that anything of great value must be masculine, it follows, as the day the night, that we devalue, that which is not masculine – the feminine. The way to overcome this natural effect of language and metaphor is to begin to be very self –conscious and intentional in our use of language.

It is easy to ridicule the obvious effort to refer to God as "she", or the effort to avoid the use of pronouns for God altogether, and simply refer to God as God. But unless we make these beginning efforts, awkward though they may be, nothing will change. The tremendous inclusiveness of the life of Jesus, the lover of the oppressed and the outcast, the lover of women and children, makes imperative that we make every effort to break down the dominion of the masculine in the Church and the world.

And we are beginning to finding other metaphors used instead of Father and Son. We now hear from pulpits the invocation of God the creator, sustainer, and sanctifier. We sometimes hear in prayers the invocation of the Mother/Father God. Much more needs to be done, but at least it is a beginning.

I urge you to dip into some of the work of Sallie McFague or any of the other modern feminist theologians. The names we use to invoke God are crucial in either maintaining or breaking down stereotypes on the basis of gender or culture, and so deserve the closest possible study and attention.

For it is a Christian imperative that we do anything that is in our power to change, to reduce, to eradicate the exclusion, the separation, the judgmental differentiation among people and within all creation. The Kingdom of God, invoked so often by Jesus in the Gospels, is a kingdom without isms, without hierarchies, without inferiorities based on immutable characteristics.

Neither gender, skin color, nor sexual or ethnic identity is of any importance within God’s Kingdom.

If you don’t believe me, read the New Testament.

In the name of the God, the Creator, the Redeemer and the Sanctifier. Amen.

Deacon Martha Buck