Trinity Sunday
May 31, 2015
Isaiah 6:1-8; Romans 8:12-17; John
3:1-17
This past week our lay delegate and
I were at Annual Conference, held here in Baltimore this year. The theme of this year’s Conference was “Dare
to Believe,” based off the story in Matthew 14. Jesus walks on water during a storm and at
first the disciples are afraid, because they think he’s a ghost. Then Peter says, “Lord, if it’s really you, order
me to come to you on the water,” and so Jesus calls, “Come.” Peter’s fine as
long as he keeps his eyes on Jesus, but then he notices the storm and his eyes
go to the strong wind and the high waves.
He starts to sink and cries out for Jesus to save him. Jesus catches him, and says, “Ye of little
faith, why did you doubt?” Jesus
challenges Peter to dare to believe and this past week our bishop, Bishop
Matthews, challenged us to dare to believe as well. Dare to believe that all things are possible
with God. Dare to believe in Jesus’
power to save. Dare to believe that the
Holy Spirit is here, active among us, and leading us. Bishop Matthews said that our daring to
believe “must be a dare based on our full, unconditional belief in Jesus’ power
to deliver and save.” Keeping that in
mind, that we do dare to believe, let’s look at our scripture readings for this
morning.
First, our Gospel reading directly
talks about Jesus’ power to save. Recently,
I heard someone comment that we hear lots about John 3:16, but what about John
3:17? “God did not send his Son into the
world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” Do we
dare to believe that God did not send Jesus to judge the world but to save
it? And do our actions reflect that
belief? It feels like many Christians
talk a great deal about judgment and how God will judge people, but look at
this last verse from our Gospel reading.
We’ve talked other times about the context of this passage, how
Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a leader of his people, came to talk with Jesus at
night. He knew something was up with
Jesus, that Jesus could only do the miracles he did because God was with him,
and yet Nicodemus was afraid of being judged.
He went to talk with Jesus at night, when no one would see him, under
the cover of darkness. And Jesus kinda
calls him out on it, reminding him that he didn’t come to judge, but to
save. We call Jesus our Savior, not our
Judge. And I hope and pray that’s how we
know Jesus, that we know him as the One who saves, and are not afraid of him as
one who judges. And related to that is
we show Jesus to others. There are some outside
the church who view Christians as a very judgmental bunch, because that has
been their experience with the church.
Yet Jesus did not come to judge, but to save. May we be known as those who point the way to
the One who saves, the One who rescues, the One who redeems and restores. May we not be afraid of being judged, and
instead share the love of Christ with everyone we meet. We don’t serve an angry God whose judgment we
fear. We serve and worship the one,
triune God who loves the world so much that he came to save it. Dare to believe that.
Next, looking at our Romans passage,
do we, in fact, dare to believe that we
have received God’s Spirit? This is
what we celebrated last week on Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, and
it’s available for us, too. Paul reminds
us that we have not received a spirit of slavery or of fear, at least not from
God. If we have a spirit of fear, it did
not come from God. God does not want us to be be afraid. We do not
need to live in fear. Dare to believe
that. Dare to act not out of fear. The word
has been peppering our conversations lately.
We’re afraid of scarcity, that there isn’t enough. We’re afraid for our safety, that something
will happen to us or our loved ones.
We’re afraid for our church, that we’ll continue struggling. Beloved,
God did not give us a spirit of fear!
These fears do not come from
God! And we should not act on them nor
act from them. Instead, we dare to believe that we received
a spirit of adoption as God’s sons and daughters. We dare to believe that we are God’s
children, God’s beloved children, and that God provides enough, maybe not to
meet all our wants, but certainly all our needs. God ensures our safety. We talked a few weeks ago about how only
because of God can we lie down in safety.
And God has the final say on his church. To quote a professor of mine from Duke
Divinity School, “God is gonna get what God wants.”[1] It means that the resurrected Christ cannot
be stopped, not by anything, even death.
And if we spend so much time and energy worrying about and being fearful
for the future of this church, then we are not fulfilling the great commission
to make disciples of Jesus Christ. To
quote an article I read this week from a United Methodist college student and
aspiring pastor, “As United Methodist Christians, the fear of death shouldn’t
be what motivates us to do ministry because it distracts us from really
matters: being faithful to who God is and the life that he promises us. When we
allow fear and death to define us, we begin to forget who we are, allowing the
world to take away the reality we see through Christ and replacing it with its
own reality.” When we allow fear and
death to define us, we forget who we are and whose we are. God will provide enough for his church,
somehow, some way. The future of the
church may not look like the past. The Church
today is quite different than it was a hundred years ago, and that’s just
one-twentieth of the Church’s history. And
that’s ok. The ministry we do here does
not stem from fear. It stems from
responding to God’s call, which brings us to our Old Testament reading this
morning.
Our Old Testament lesson was the
story of God calling the prophet Isaiah.
Today, we dare to believe that
God still calls. On my drive to the
previous church I served, in North Carolina, I would drive past another church
who had a banner at their entrance that said just that, “God is still
speaking.” I saw that every time I drove
to church, God is still speaking. God is
still calling. This passage from Isaiah
is about Isaiah’s own call, which comes in the form of a vision. Isaiah’s initial response is basically to say
that he is not worthy. The creature in
his vision touches his mouth as a means of forgiving his sins (remember, this
is before Jesus Christ). And then Isaiah
hears the Lord call, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”, and Isaiah
answers, “Here I am. I’ll go. Send me.”
Many
of us here know and can give testimony that God still calls. In different ways, at different times, to do
different things, God invites us to join in his work in his world. And I believe that God is still calling this church, that’s why
we’re still here. God isn’t done with us
yet. And so our work is to listen to
what God is calling us to do, a process called discernment, and then to do
it. We don’t just listen to God’s call,
if we really hear it, then it also compels us to act and answer the call. The prophet Jeremiah described God’s Word as
a fire in his bones that he could not contain, he could not hold it in.[2] Listening to God’s Word compelled him to act
on it. Jeremiah literally could not keep
quiet about, no matter how much he wanted to or how hard he tried. And he really wanted to, because much of what
God told him to prophecy was not pleasant to listen to and people made fun of
him and mocked him all the time.
When
we receive God’s Spirit, then “the Holy Spirit works within us, that being born
through water and the Spirit, we may be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.”[3] If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s
the prayer we pray at the end of a baptism.
It also echoes our Gospel reading, Jesus’ explanation to Nicodemus about
being born again, through water and the Spirit.
It echoes the passage from Romans, in the Spirit working within us,
guiding us and leading us into all truth, affirming that we are, in fact,
beloved children of God, and the work of a disciples being faithfulness, not
fear. And it’s a response to God
calling. There are many ways to respond
to God’s call, baptism among them. And
so this is my prayer for you today, “May the Holy Spirit work within you, that
being born through water and the Spirit, you may be a faithful disciple of
Jesus Christ.” Amen.
[1] This
quote and much of what follows comes from http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/6072/saving-the-umc
[2]
Jeremiah 20:9
[3]
UMH 37
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