Dude is Straight Up Trollin' Jesus

Luke 10:25-37

An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came upon him, and when he saw him he was moved with compassion. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, treating them with oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him, and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

This man stood up to “own” Jesus.  He wasn’t interested in gaining knowledge, having a conversation, or deepening a relationship.  This man was straight up trollin’.  He ONLY wanted to dominate, defeat, and publicly humiliate Jesus.  He wanted to “own” that hippy, lib, preacher named Jesus.  So he asked the most politically charged question he could think of for his time, in the most incendiary way possible, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

If this encounter happened today the question might well  have been, “what should we do about all these illegal Mexican murderers and rapists?”  People who ask questions this way don’t ACTUALLY want to know what ANYONE else thinks, they aren’t looking for a conversation, common ground, or a solution.  They’re just looking to set up their target to shock them with their cruelty.  For people who ask questions like this, cruelty is the point.  People who act this way and ask questions like this are the smallest, most insecure, most incredibly fearful, tiny little men who inhabit this planet and Jesus was simply not having it!   

THIS is the first lesson for us from the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  When trolls invite you to a fight, YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO!  Really!  You don’t HAVE TO GO to every fight you are invited to!  You are allowed to RSVP and say… Um… NO!  NOT COMING!  THANK YOU… but NO!  When someone trolls you, whether its in person, on the TV, or on a screen and they say, “Come over here and let me clog your Spirit.”  Hear the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and heed the first lesson of this Parable… DON’T GO!  JUST DON’T!  DON’T GO GETTIN’ YOUR SPIRIT CLOGGED!  You don’t have time for your Spirit to be clogged!  The world doesn’t have time for your Spirit to be clogged!  Ain’t nobody got time for that!

Because Jesus chooses NOT to go to the fight he’s being invited to, he instead answers this troll’s question with another question, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”  Well, says the troll, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself.”  Jesus says, “You have given the right answer.  Do that.”

But here again we see trolls aren't interested in solutions or answers.  They aren’t even interested in the right answers they themselves give!  The only thing this troll wanted was to “own this hippy lib preacher” so he asks another trolling question, “And who is it that deserves my help?  Who is it that matters… who counts as a person in this country?  Who is my neighbor?”  Again, all questions asked for the sole purpose of setting up this hippy, lib, preacher to be “OWNED”.

But again, Jesus isn’t having it!  Jesus refuses to fight this troll but instead flips the question from “who is my neighbor” to, “who, in this story, is BEING a neighbor?”  The troll was obsessed with pointing his finger and blaming the “OTHER” insisting we talk about “THOSE” people… but Jesus said, “Nah, let’s talk about the guy your other three fingers are pointing back at instead.”  

This is the second lesson of the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  Jesus knows the troll is obsessed and outraged with how he believes the OTHER is affecting his life.  But Jesus knows the ONLY person this troll has any chance of changing is the one he sees in the mirror each morning.  The person this troll sees in the mirror simply isn’t qualified to answer the question, “Do THEY deserve help?”  The ONLY question the person in the mirror can answer is, “Have I been a helper?”  That person in the mirror can never answer the question, “Is that OTHER person worthy of my help?”  The ONLY question that person in the mirror can answer is, “Have I been a worthy helper?”  That person he sees in his mirror can never answer the question, “Does THAT person’s status qualify?”  The ONLY question the person in the mirror can answer is, “How is my status at being a good neighbor?”  The person he sees in his mirror can never answer the question, “Is THAT person by the side of the road my neighbor?”  The ONLY question the person in the mirror can answer is, “How am I doing at being a neighbor to that person by the side of the road?”

“Who is my neighbor?” is a troll’s question.  It is asked by small, insecure, frail men whose demons demand targets, not truth.  Jesus invites the troll… and along with that troll… Jesus invites you… and me… into different questions… NOT questions focused on the OTHER, but reflective questions for the person in who lives our mirror.  “Has the person in my mirror this evening been a good neighbor today?  Will the person in my mirror this morning be a good neighbor in the day ahead?”  THOSE are questions the faithful ask.  THOSE are questions that help us become the people God created us to be.  THOSE are the questions that help us check to see if we are actually LIVING this life we’ve been given or if our demons have us just trolling our way through it.  Amen.

Shake that Sh!^ Off Your Shoes!

Luke 10:1-11,16-20

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way; I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if a person of peace is there, your peace will rest on that person, but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’

“Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”  The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. Indeed, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

These days we all feel trampled by a herd of stampeding wolves.  I know real wolves don’t stampede, but bad-budget-bill wolves, war wolves, racist wolves, concentration camp creating wolves, science denying wolves and the rest of the whole horrible pack are stampeding these days like crazy!  But even though our country today has more wolves than the New York subway has rats, Jesus IS NOT calling us in this story to fight the wolves.  Jesus is calling us to go out like lambs into a world filled with wolves… and do something else… look for, find, and be with fellow People of Peace.  

 

A friend was invited to a party.  He asked, “Can I bring anything?”  “Sure!  How about dessert?”  Arnie made fudge brownies… from scratch.  Fancy ones with Flakey Sea Salt!  He baked them, topped them with the fancy flakey sea salt, and on Saturday at the appointed hour he rang his friend’s doorbell.  One problem.  The party was on Sunday.  He was exactly 24 hours early.  What do you think happened?  Some laughs?  Yes.  A little poking fun?  Yes.  Then what?  You guessed it, they all sat down together and had a brownie!  Why?  Because SCRATCH MADE FUDGE BROWNIES WITH FLAKY SEA SALT!  That’s WHY!  AND… and… because Arnie had found some fellow people of Shalom… people of hospitality… people of generosity… people of wholeness… People of Peace.

An Appalachian Trail hiker named Jackrabbit wrote in his blog that the last big Trail Magic he had encountered had been a month ago in Virginia.  Because of that, his expectation for Trail Magic in Massachusetts was “low”.  But then he wrote, “After… hiking not even an hour, the Trail Magic drought was over. A sign off a road crossing advertised trail magic a short ways down a field.  I followed the many signs denoting the path, each advertising “burgers and hot dogs”, “smiles” “shade”, and “kindness”.  I was giddy at finally getting to be a pampered hiker again, and was lead to a huge tent with burgers, hot dogs, chips and cookies.  I sat down for a bit, chatted with trail angels and hikers, enjoyed my food and got hiking again.”  And WHY did his Trail Magic drought end?  Because BURGERS AND HOT DOGS, COOKIES AND SNACKS, ALL UNDER A GIANT TENT!  That’s WHY!  AND… and… because Jackrabbit had found, sitting under that tent, people of Shalom… people of hospitality… people of generosity… people of wholeness… People of Peace.

Jesus sends us out into a world he acknowledges is overrun with wolves but NOT primarily to battle the wolves.  Jesus sends us out primarily to make connections like Arnie and Jackrabbit did!  Jesus knows most of us are not equipped to directly control the wolf population.  If you ARE equipped to do that, then by all means DO THAT, but Jesus knows most of us are not.  Most of us ARE, however, in a position to seek out fellow People of Peace in a wolf-ravaged world.  Jesus knows that once we find other People of Peace, if we would just sit down for a bit, not work each other up into a panic, not get into an all-fire hurry, eat a brownie with flaky sea salt, throw a burger on the grill, or crack open a drink, we would find that in that time together we will have given one another something the wolves know nothing about… PEACE.  We’ll have sat together experiencing SHALOM.  We’ll have spent time in each other’s company and when we spend time in the company of other People of Peace we will discover that WHOLENESS is given, received, and even flows out into the world.  In those moments, in the company of other People of Peace, THAT is where we will be able to FEEL and SEE and KNOW that the Kingdom of God, really has come near.  It is in those moments, in the company of other People of Peace, that we become aware that we do NOT actually live in a world overrun with wolves, but it is actually within the Divine, that we mystically live, and move, and have our being.  

Will our search for other People of Peace always turn out as well as it did for Arnie or Jackrabbit?  Jesus says… IT WILL NOT.  In spite of Burgers, Big Shade, and Brownies (even brownies with Flaky Sea Salt), Jesus tells us we will inevitably run into the wolves who are NOT predisposed to Peace… NOT sympathetic to Shalom… NOT aware of their hunger for Wholeness.  Jesus’ advise for those times is for us to NOT let those wolves poop on our Peace or (pardon my French) shit on our Shalom!  AND Jesus says, we are absolutely, positively, NOT, under any circumstance, to carry their crap with us down the road, stuck to the bottom of our shoes!  We are to shake that shit off our sandals immediately!  Hose that crap off our shoes!  Rinse all of that wolf dirt and dust and dung off of our souls… and THEN… move on… having let ALL of it fully and completely GO… we are to return to the work we HAVE been called to… searching for and being with fellow People of Peace. 

Our wolf problem is Legion and what do we do?  We worry.  We scroll.  We rant.  We drag wolf poo around on our shoes everywhere we go!  Jesus calls us away from all of that and back to the work that Jesus knows WILL make a difference… finding other People of Peace… gathering with them in community… spending real time together… sitting with others in Shalom… checking each other’s shoes… cooking a burger… sharing a brownie… creating an environment into which hope might fly in and brush against our cheeks.  

Jesus is calling you and me out of our self-destructive wolf-worry and back to the work of finding and being with fellow people of peace, because THAT is where the WHOLENESS WE ALL NEED is waiting for us!  THAT is where we will begin to FEEL and SEE and KNOW that the Kingdom of God, really has come near, and THAT is where we can remind one another that it is the Kingdom of God come near… that is, even now, changing the world from being overrun with wolves, back into the world God created it to be.  Amen.

Keep Jesus, or Keep Looking?

Luke 9: 51-62

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

“Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”  NO?  Oh, wait, I’m not talking about the Samaritans this time, Lord.  There are actually only about 800 Samaritans left in the whole world these days because even after you said “NO!” to the fire from heaven, all sorts of people still went after them… Jewish people, Crusading Christian people, the Byzantine people, Arab people… basically everyone went after them.   

So Lord, just to be clear, I’m NOT asking to rain fire from heaven down on the SAMARITANS.  No, no, no… I’ve got a NEW list!  So?  How about it, Lord?  Some fire from heaven for the folks on the NEW list?  Just so you know, THESE people are PARTICULARLY awful.  They start wars, they terrorize people, they do the opposite of welcoming the foreigner, they want to take food and healing away from the elderly, the poor, and the vulnerable.  They lie all the time.  I mean ALL THE TIME!  Like I said, Lord, the people on this new list are really, really PARTICULARLY awful.  So, how about it?  Can I command some fire to rain down from heaven on them?  No?  Really?  Is the list too long?  How about just the top dozen?  No?  Still too many?  Just five then?  One?  I mean this one… is… OUCH!  Is it the timing?  Now just isn’t a good time? (pause) Okay, how about now then?

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting the distinct impression that Jesus doesn’t want us to rain fire down from heaven on ANY BODY at ANY TIME for ANY REASON!?  But I’ve got a list of people who really NEED to be consumed by fire from heaven and the sooner the better!  Don’t look at me like that.  You’ve got a list too and if our lists were a Venn Diagram it would pretty much be one, single, circle!  A single circle Venn Diagram of horribleness!  

Well then, if Jesus isn’t into fire from heaven, is Jesus really the Messiah we want to keep?  What do you think?  Should we keep looking?  Try to find a Messiah that will let us rain fire down on the people we want consumed?  Look for a Messiah that works on our timeline toward OUR agenda?  Should we keep looking for a Messiah that isn’t so particular about wanting a full time commitment… seems pretty clingy, really… maybe one that allows us to take a break from following from time to time?  So, keep looking for a Messiah like THAT… or are we going to stay with Jesus as our Messiah?   

Because if Jesus is going to be our Messiah, there is apparently NOT going to be any raining of fire from heaven on anybody… ever, even when the people on our list really are PARTICULARLY horrible.  If Jesus is going to be our Messiah, then it looks like Jesus is ALWAYS going to drive the agenda and we’ll always just go wherever he goes.  If Jesus is going to be our Messiah… 100% full time seems to be the only option and if Jesus is going to be our Messiah, it looks like there are to be no days off and no breaks even when we’re super tired!  

If all of that sounds like having Jesus as our Messiah would be REALLY hard, there’s a reason for that.  It's because having Jesus as our Messiah IS…  REALLY HARD!  You heard St. Paul, “it’s no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me.”  I NO LONGER LIVE!  That’s really hard!  Most people honestly prefer “Living”… over “No Longer Living” after all.  So, keep Jesus… or keep looking?

Everybody in this Gospel story wanted to keep looking.  The Samaritans wanted a Messiah that was headed to THEIR holy mountain.  The disciples wanted a “fire from heaven” Messiah.  The guys along the road wanted a Messiah of their own creation.  Folks still, to this day, all too often seem to keep looking for a Messiah of their own creation… one that loves who they love and hates who they hate… one who doesn’t ask too much and doesn’t call us out of our comfort zone.  

But the Messiah we’ve been given IS Jesus.  Jesus, who demands we “Love our Enemies”.  Jesus, who calls us to COME AND DIE to ourselves and live in love fully for the other.  Jesus, who calls us to care for the least, the lost, and the last, risking everything in the process.  The Messiah we’ve been given is the Jesus who showed us with his life… that the Jesus Way of living… this sacrificial way of love, kindness, generosity and radical inclusion... is THE way to an Abundant and Eternal Life.  

So that’s the long way round to the one question this Gospel lesson is asking us, isn’t it?  Will we embrace the Messiah we’ve been given, who does not do vengeance and has a very difficult and demanding WAY… OR will we, like the Gerasenes did last week… like the Samaritans did this week… like so, so many throughout the ages who embrace lies, violence, greed, and the demonization of the other have done and continue to do… will we like them, send Jesus away and continue to look for a Messiah of our own creation?  That’s the question.  Not just the question we get in this lesson once every three years either, but the question we must wrestle with each and every day of our lives.  Will we keep Jesus as our Messiah… or will we too send Jesus away and keep looking?  Amen.    

A Fully Armed Battalion to Remind You of My Love

Luke 8:26-39

Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. As Jesus stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”— for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss. Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

This story, at first glance, looks like a simple healing.  The story of Jesus doing a wonderful kindness for one particularly tormented individual.  “Bring what kindness you can to anyone who is tormented.”  As they say, “that’ll preach”!  Boom!  We’re done.  However, underneath that simple kindness, Jesus is actually doing a whole lot more.  Luke, in his telling of this story, has very carefully chosen to use a few, very particular words, that to his audience would have immediately revealed the “more” beneath the simple healing.  The trouble for us is that out of that time and context, Luke’s very particular words tend to go right over our heads without some insider information.   

It’s actually just a few word or phrase choices that seem to make all the difference.  When WE hear “The land of the Gerasenes” it's just some random Gentile city on the lake.  But to Luke’s audience, “The land of the Gerasenes” was a city in the news for the violent invasion and occupation by an unwanted, powerful, military force deployed by an authoritarian ruler.  They might, therefore, have heard “Land of the Gerasenes” in their time like we hear “Los Angeles” today.  When WE hear the demon’s name is “Legion” in our minds we think, “Oh, that just means he had a LOT of demons.”  But what if Luke told you today, that the demon’s name was “Battalion"?  With the 7th Marine Battalion deployed against Americans in the headlines, it hits differently doesn’t it?  When Luke’s audience heard the particular Greek words we get translated as “hand and foot chains” they would have heard those particular words the same way we hear the word “zipties” today.  Both turn out to be very particular types of restraints each used in their own times for the same purposes.  When we read Luke’s word “seized” it doesn’t invoke in us anything deeper than just the straightforward meaning of the word.  But what happens in your gut when you hear the word “detained” in our current world’s situation?  Different, right?  And finally when we read in Luke that Jesus chose to send the demon hoard into a herd of pigs, WE tend to attach no additional meaning to that beyond it reminding us this was a non-kosher, Gentile city.  But everyone in Luke’s audience would have caught the bright, flashing, neon, completely unsubtle double entendre that the demons were sent into a herd of PIGS and the mascot of the Tenth Roman Legion, the 6000 elite combat troops occupying the city, just happened to be the WILD BOAR. 

For Luke’s audience, Luke’s particular word choices in just those few places took a simple, sweet, healing story and transformed it into a Divine proclamation:  Might Makes Right and the oppression of our neighbors is NOT the way God calls us humans to order our lives… not for Jews and not for Gentiles!  Weapons of war and an overwhelming force using intimidation, bullying, and violence to get and hold onto power, is NOT God’s way.  AND… the implication from Luke’s particular telling of this story goes even further than that.  It declares that these ways of bullying, intimidation and violence are nothing short of demonic!

But Jesus wasn’t JUST healing this one man and Jesus wasn’t JUST condemning authoritarianism and might makes right.  In Luke’s telling of this story, Luke was also trying to help his audience see that Jesus was ALSO trying to teach ALL people how to work through their problems in better ways.  The town, you see, had tried to solve their demoniac problem by snatching it off the street, locking it up, and sending it away.  Not quite literally burying it alive, but chaining it up in the tombs wasn’t too far off!  They had tried to detain, restrain, and warehouse their problem... out of town, out of sight, and out of mind and Jesus told them that when you do that, your problems will ALWAYS break loose, always come back, and always end up causing even more problems than they had before!  

Jesus then goes on to SHOW them a better way.  He walked right up to the problem… face to face… and addressed it head on.  It wasn’t an easier way but it was a kinder, more compassionate, and frankly more effective way of dealing with their community problems.  Shunning, deporting, ghettoizing, warehousing in prisons, chaining up, and de-humanizing others is NOT God’s way AND on top of all that it also doesn’t solve your problems!  It only makes them worse!  Luke’s particular telling of this story again, goes even further.  It says that snatching people off the street, chaining them up, and throwing people away, for any reason, is frankly, demonic!  The Jesus way… God’s Way… is to meet people right where they are.  See them honestly in all the bare, naked complexity of their human condition AND still  as Children of God, and then do everything in our power to give our neighbors what they need to live with dignity.

You all know me.  I’m not one to throw around woo-woo words like “demonic” easily or casually, but I have to say that these days there is no better word for what is going on around us.  This story reminds us that THOSE ways are NOT God’s ways and that the best way to deal with both challenging people and our shared community challenges… is the Jesus Way… directly, head on, with honesty, selflessness, kindness, compassion, grace, generosity, and love.  

The world’s problems back in Luke’s day were not solved with either the “Might makes Right” ways of authoritarian rule, nor by sending away challenging people or community challenges.  Those problems would only be solved, Jesus showed them, by embracing the Jesus Way of living and that way… the Jesus Way, is STILL the best Way to address the challenges of the world.  My prayer is that the world might one day soon embrace the Jesus Way to solve its problems… rather than choosing again and again to tell Jesus and his Way to get back in his boat and go away.  Amen. 

The Trinity: God Wrapped Nice, Neat, and Nifty

Romans 5:1-5

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Today is Holy Trinity Sunday.  You know how a gift in a nice, neat, nifty box wraps up with folds perfectly creased?  Everything straight, uniform, and square so you can even match up the pattern on the paper?  The Trinity ISN’T like that.  The Trinity is like the wrapping on a bicycle, or a rake, or one of those carpet covered cat condos.  Can you gift wrap those things?  Sure!  And from far enough away… without your glasses on… it looks… okay?  Ish?  I mean, is it covered?  Absolutely!  Well, mostly.  Sort of.  It’s good.  

The reason the Trinity only wraps things up “mostly” and “sort of” is because this is GOD we’re talking about!  And because it’s God we’re talking about, God’s going to stick out of anything we try to wrap God in, Trinitarian or otherwise!  Even today, on Holy Trinity Sunday, this Wisdom lady shows up to show us that.  Where does she fit into the nice, neat, nifty Trinitarian packaging?  She doesn’t… and yet… here she is causing trouble… as Women and Wisdom are want to do! 

So… what do we do?  Well, some folks VERY firmly, VERY adamantly, and sometimes VERY violently INSIST… through screwed up faces and clinched teeth that the Trinitarian wrapping of the Divine IS perfect!  IT… IS… PERFECT!  “But what about… ?”  NO!  You do NOT see that!  THAT is NOT a thing, a problem, a contradiction or a piece of the infinite, unknowable nature of God sticking out of the Trinitarian packaging at a strange and completely unexplainable angle!  NO!  NO!  NO!  IT… IS… PERFECT!  

The OTHER way is to move in close, glasses on, take an honest look at how well the Doctrine of the Trinity wraps God up and say, “Yup.  Well.  Folks have put A LOT of work into this.  Centuries of work, by the very best theological minds out there and the Doctrine of the Trinity is VERY good.  It’s super helpful in many, many ways.  It’s not perfect.  But… to be fair, they were trying to wrap up THE DIVINE.  Which, honestly is like asking a barnacle to do differential calculus equations!  So, as good as the Doctrine of the Trinity is… and it is incredible… God’s still gonna stick out of that Trinitarian wrapping all over the place, because this is God we’re talking about! 

I’m actually super thankful that God doesn’t wrap up all neat and tidy because, on my mind just this last week was… let’s see… A president who admires dictators, a Gestapo style police force spiriting away random people… undocumented, documented, citizens, even fellow law enforcement officers. The National Guard and a battalion of Marine combat troops in Los Angeles deployed against fellow American citizens.  The government of Israel bombing an Anglican Hospital in Gaza and then Iran because, I don’t know… World War III is what we need right now?  Which inevitably leads to horrible antisemitic people who have no interest in seeing the difference between the Government of Israel and people of the Jewish faith, killing and burning Jewish people in our country.  Then there is the democratic lawmaker and her husband in Minnesota gunned down and killed, and another shot but not killed in their homes by someone pretending to be law enforcement.  There are my Latino friends who are all on edge, including the ones who are citizens, for good reason. There is half the US congress looking to strip food assistance and healthcare from millions of poor and elderly people, AND on top of it all there are too many damn mosquitoes for me to sit outside!

It is a lot.  It is too much.  I need… you need… we need… this world needs… a GOD who doesn’t wrap up so neatly!  I need… you need… we need… this world needs a GOD who is big enough and wild enough to get us through THIS life!  I need… you need… we need… this world needs… a GOD who, as Paul describes, will pull us out of Suffering into Endurance on to Character and finally into some Hope!  A nice, neat, nifty wrapped up god just ain’t gonna cut it!  We need an unwrapped, out of the box, out of the closet, out in the streets God, slogging it out with us and carrying us from Suffering into Hope. 

The GOOD NEWS is… THAT… is the God we have!  Our God can’t be wrapped up by human conventions, ideas, or doctrines… Our God can’t even be wrapped up by DEATH!  Our God is anything but nice, neat, and nifty… Our God burns down hate filled fences, blows pepper spray back in the faces of the oppressor, and carries us into HOPE where the merchants of hatred, fascism, racism, nationalism, authoritarianism, lies, and propaganda will not stand.  Our God is at work, wild in the world tearing down every abomination wielded by small, fearful, men used to demonize and victimize “the other.”

THAT is the God we have… not a god that fits neatly in a box, but a God, who in a fierce love, takes each of us by the hand in the depths of our suffering when the paranoia has struck deep, when fear has crept in, when we find ourselves always afraid and actively pulls us out of the loneliness of Suffering and carries us into HOPE.  And HERE is where the Doctrine of the Trinity shines, because the Trinity reminds us that GOD IS COMMUNITY… Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… GOD IS RELATIONSHIP… Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier… and it is IN God, IN community, IN relationship that we find HOPE!  We experience HOPE only when we are in relationship with others.  We find HOPE only when we gather in community.  We see HOPE only when three gather together as one.  We are carried into HOPE only when one of us comes together with three.  

I am… you are… we are… the world is… Suffering.  The GOOD NEWS today is that the Holy Trinity, in spite of falling well short of perfectly wrapping up the Divine, DOES show us the antidote for all of our Suffering.  

THE ANTIDOTE IS FOR US TO DO WHAT GOD IS… 

DO relationship relentlessly… DO community obsessively… DO time with one another continuously.  Because it is only when we are together, in community, in relationship that we have the opportunity to see the TRUTH… that God is relentlessly, obsessively, continuously carrying us all into HOPE.  Amen.