June 11, 2017 "The Trinity of the Church"

Genesis 1:1-19 Matthew 28: 16-20 This morning is not about a Parable, or Historic Event, Healing, or Miracle. The great Coach of the Green Bay Packers Vince Lombardi is remembered for having begun every training season, by teaching the basics, going back to the fundamentals: “Gentlemen, This is a football. Your purpose in life, all our training, your way of life, your reputation, your family and happiness, your future, all depend upon your taking this from the line of Scrimmage and getting it over the Goal-line.” According to Matthew, that is what Jesus is doing here, going back to teach the basics. Mark describes Jesus was gone. Luke Acts describes he was carried up into heaven on a cloud. John describes he appeared to the disciples over and over. Matthew this morning is not describing The Great Parable, or our Commander’s Hope, or The Great Suggestion… Jesus’ instruction is not For us to find a comfortable church with potluck suppers and great music… Jesus never said “Try to do one nice thing every day.” NO, this is the Great Commission, the final words of the Messiah, giving direction to the Church as to what we are to be and do. Creation in Genesis, was not intended to be scientific evidence compared with Charles Darwin 8000 years in the future, for the origins of the universe. NO, In contrast to all the Cultures of History, and peoples of the Earth, who believed in worshipping Idols, gods they had formed with their own hands, or conception of different gods for different purposes: a god of love, a god of war, a god of fertility,etc. Abraham, and following from Abraham: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all hold to belief in there being only, One, true God. Our first problem, with this is that the same God responsible for beauty, love, joy, is the same God responsible for plague, suffering, poverty and death. If God is all knowing and powerful: “Why did the Holocaust occur?” Did God not know? Is God not all Powerful? Why have we been given ability to destroy Creation? Did God make this happen? Does God cause suffering and death? Second and related to this, is the Christian dilemma… Judaism received the Law and has waited for thousands of years for a Messiah to call all the world to come to God. Islam believes their holiest ancestor is the prophet Mohammed, but he was a man, not God. Mohammed went to Heaven to receive the Koran and returned, as a man. Christianity affirms that we believe in The Trinity, One God known through three personages, or three ways of knowing about and understanding the One God. A few moments ago we stood forth and affirmed what we believe with the Nicene Creed. Almost 300 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus and The Day of Pentecost, The Emperor of the Roman Empire: Constantine became Christian, and in good Christian fashion he called for a meeting to debate and come to resolution on what we believe. That 2nd Council (The first was at Jerusalem regarding whether Christianity should remain within Judaism) was held at Nicaea, a location in Turkey which today is under water. Like any Theological Statement of Church Doctrine drafted by 318 Bishops, along with 2 priests and 3 deacons each, so 1800 believers, it is complicated and nuanced. So much so, that the Creed was revised again and again over the next 56 years until the form we have adopted in 381, and today even the most learned, and the most devout among us cannot explain God. Instead, what I hope we can claim is that we believe in the TRINITY of THE CHURCH. While we have a diversity of politics, and polarization of ideals, I am suggesting that instead of describing God, and the three ways God has come to us; THAT we begin with WE ARE CALLED, BAPTIZED, CONFIRMED and SENT BY THE HOLY SPIRIT; WE ARE TO WITNESS TO THE GOOD NEWS OF JESUS CHRIST FOR SALVATION; FOR THE SAKE OF GOD, AND THE CREATION GOD CREATED & LOVES SO MUCH. This passage begins with identification of the 11, identification that these leaders already failed him, and doubted and denied, and one betrayed him. Matthew’s Gospel harkens back to Creation that God put God’s self, God’s Divinity into everything created; however according to what follows, the only way for us to truly love God was to have a freedom of Will to choose to love, and SIN is that we did not choose God, we turned our back on God believing only in ourselves and our control. Matthew remember was the Gospel describing the coming Incarnation of the Christ as IMMANUEL, God with us. Here, the resurrected Jesus describes to the 11 that NOW he has all Authority. It is one thing to have Knowledge, to have power, and another to have ALL AUTHORITY in Heaven and Earth. What Jesus did by death on the cross and resurrection and gifting us with the Holy Spirit, is not only to heal the brokenness of Creation, but for God to develop All Authority because although separate from us God entered in, although we doubted and denied God suffered by our hands for our sins, and not even that could keep God from loving us. Our Goal as the Church in this time and place, is not to do great things, not to attract more members, not to build up the financial reserves or Budget and Program, not even to do great acts of charity and mission locally and around the world. We do not score points or make touchdowns! People come to Church because the goals and priorities and values of the world have not satisfied. The World has diminished our humanity. We have wasted the Gift that is God’s Creation. Instead of attempting to imitate the world, demanding the success of the world as the world measures success, the Church, this Body of Christ needs to be Counter-Cultural! We need to be weird! We need to do whatever it takes to love. Over and over again, I am stopped on the street, and have people walk up to me saying: “When my daughter wanted to get married, you not only opened the doors of the church to her, you went out to where she wanted to celebrate her marriage!” “When my husband was suffering depression, was abusive, out of his mind, you went to our home, you went to the hospital to see him, NOT to pray for him, or to give him last rights, BUT to demonstrate LOVE to us, and in that way redeemed us.” On Mother’s Day, someone from another church came up to me at the flower sale saying, “This community is full of scandals. Every time a new scandal hits, I see you, or this church walking along beside the guilty.” Guilt and Doubt and Faith are inseparable. Years ago, there was a cartoon, of the Church Business Administrator/Treasurer shouting to the pastor: “Someone is on the phone from Ripley’s Believe It or Not, wanting a Picture of someone on fire with Love for the LORD. Do we have one?” New Testament Scholar AW Tozer used to say the difference between the Modern Church and the Early Church of the New Testament is that “If God, Christ and the Holy Spirit were taken out of the Modern Church 95% of what we do, would go on, nobody would ever know the difference. In the Early Church, if the Holy Spirit were removed 95% of what they did, of who they were, would stop, and everyone would know. Years ago, we had a vision, of being open to others, locally and around the world, to demonstrate love. We rebuilt our resources, here in the building and in the community for use by others. We were the only Church in the area, where anyone could get married in the Church, if they believed in God, wanted to be married to one another all their lives, met with the pastor for marriage planning and counseling, had a NYS License and paid $100 to the Church. We rebuilt Presbyterian Manor with our own sweat and money, because we listened to the vision of the one who had gifted us with this, and we listened to the needs of the people who lived there. We recognized we could not prevent teenagers from having sex or drinking, we educated, we shared concerns, but no matter what we stood beside one another. In 2007 we opened a Health Care Facility in South Sudan. In 2014 when war broke out and the resources were destroyed by war, it broke our hearts. So much so, that the one who had created scale models of the clinic created this one with a Dark Cloud over it. But the believers involved persevered, without buildings, without equipment, in refugee camps, in Cholera and Famine. Finally it hit us, that the world was not a neutral place, this was a war-zone, which is why we were needed to act in faith. My challenge to you is dream dreams, to share ideas, to bring to the Council of our Church counter-cultural ways of our responding to the Call of the Holy Spirit, to demonstrate (Witness to) the love of Jesus Christ, which brings people into relationship to love God.