What it's All About
RCL Year C • Sermon • Submitted
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I think we can all agree that relationships are important. If nothing else, I believe the last two years have taught us the importance of keeping in touch with and engaging with those relationships in our lives that we feel are important. A good friend of mine from college called me on my birthday to wish me a happy one, and as we were talking he told me that one of his goals for the year was to not just text someone on their birthday but to actually call them and break some of those long silences that happen as we get busy with our lives. So we talked about both of our recent moves and our families and how everything is going with all of that. We used to see each other once a year as Bekkah and I would make our annual to to California then COVID hit and they moved to another state so it was great to hear his voice and catch up with him.
As important as relationships are they can be hard to maintain. It takes time and intentional effort which is why my friend and I hadn’t spoken for quite some time. I was just talking to someone this week who was talking about keeping in touch with all of their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and just how much time and effort it took to make sure they were in touch with all of them and didn’t miss anyone. I don’t have grown children outside of my house let alone grandchildren and I can’t imagine the time and effort it would take to keep in touch with them along with all the friends I may want to stay up with as well. Which is why I think it is hard to keep up with all of the relationships that we have all the time. I don’t like it but it has been a very long time since I have talked to anyone from high school. Also having moved around the country since college probably has not helped that for me personally. Since graduating college I have moved to 4 different states and have had multiple moves within those states as well which I think has contributed to the hardship of keeping in touch or even making new friends in the areas I have lived. Relationships are and can be hard.
Something that I have always talked about when discussing relationships is our relationship of our faith. I truly believe that our connection to God and faith in God is in fact a relationship. Just like relationships it can be hard to maintain. It can be hard when we face difficult times and it can be hard when we feel we lose touch or contact with God. In fact I would say that the loss of relationship for various reasons is the main reason as to why people stop going to church. What I also try to emphasize with people when they talk like that is that even if they haven’t been around church and haven’t connected with God, is that God is still with them. Just becuase that person, or any person, doesn’t feel that relationship doesn’t mean that God ever left, because God doesn’t leave us.
Just last week we celebrated the day of Pentecost in which we get the promise of the continued relationship of God with us through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Today as we celebrate Trinity Sunday we lift up and acknowledge the beautiful and mysterious understanding of God as three in one. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What is so powerful about God as Trinity is the very fact that God’s own self is relational. God in heaven, Jesus who was sent to earth, and the Spirit who dwells in us all interacting and engaging with each other on a level that I don’t even know how to really explain. I have heard it explained as a dance in which they are in perfect sync with each other and are always anticipating what part will come next. It’s that relational exchange that allows God to work so well in our world even and especially in times when we need God the most and when we don’t even realize that God is at work.
This text from John today shows that very interrelationship which doesn’t just include the Trinity but also includes us in that very relationship. As if saying to us that we are a very important part of the very work of making God’s love known to us. Which I feel like we know but it’s always important to hear it and see it in action especially in scripture. I can’t take credit for this, because this was pointed out in a commentary by a minister in the Presbyterian church by the name of Meda Stamper, but it was so powerful that I felt compelled to use it and share it with all of you. As we read this passage from John we can see the very essence of the Trinity at work and how, as I said, we are a part of that work. Here is what she shared in her commentary: that if we look at this text we can see that as this passage moves from beginning to end we can see all of us involved in it: Jesus—us—Spirit—us—Spirit—Jesus—Spirit—us—Father—Jesus—Spirit—us. There is this back and forth movement between Jesus and us and the Spirit, and then the Father which then goes to Jesus, the Spirit and then to us.
What that all says is that the very work of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit involves us and is inspired by the relational work in the Trinity and that we too are made to be a part of that relationship and that dance that is meant to share the good news with the world. The good news is not our own but it is the very work of God and God’s great desire to have a loving and caring relationship with all of us. That we are a part of it and that we are messengers of it. We are the ones as we also heard about last week at Pentecost that are the bearers of the very word of God. We are the ones who are to share the message of love and grace and forgiveness for this world. That’s what it’s about.
The other part of that message is that no matter what anyone other relationship in our lives looks like, no matter how difficult or hurtful they may become. No matter how many relationships may come and go due to physical or emotional distance that has happened. that the relationship that we have been given by our loving God will never go away. We are forever a part of the family of God, we are forever God’s children. We are forever a part of the dance that is happening and there is nothing in all this world that can take that away. That no matter how far or distant we may feel. No matter how hurtful our lives may become, God has never and will never leave or abandon us. That is the message of God, that is what we are to declare to this world as Jesus tells us today. That God is love and God is relationship and no matter what happens in other relationships in our lives, the one we have with God never fades, there is no distance too great, or lack of communication that will ever cause a rift in that relationship. That is the immense love of God for you and me, and for this whole world. Amen.