The story of the Good Samaritan articulates God’s vision for the compassionate care of all people. When we fail to embody that vision, we are forgiven, held in God’s love, and called back to the task of loving our neighbors.

Vicar Bristol Reading
The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 15 C
Text: Luke 10:25-37

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This familiar parable from Luke is often called the “Good Samaritan.” It’s a Bible story so widely known that there are hospitals, nonprofits, and even romantic comedies named after it. It’s popular because it’s relatable. We can so easily see ourselves in its characters. The fear and pain of being attacked and abandoned or  the relief and gratitude of receiving unexpected kindness from a stranger – these are such human experiences.  Perhaps the most relatable of all are the priest and the Levite who walk by on the other side of the road without stopping to help someone in need. Hearing this story can evoke guilt, discomfort, and despair when we are reminded we are not always as “good” as the Samaritan was. It’s an effective parable.

And its central question continues to be powerful and relevant: who is my neighbor?

For whom am I responsible and to what extent? One need look no further than our country’s current conversation about borders and immigration to see how perpetually challenging that question still is. In the context of Luke, the question “Who is my neighbor?” is presented by a lawyer who sounds like he’s looking for a moral loophole. An expert in religious law, he already knows that anyone who claims to love God should love their neighbors. The imperatives to welcome the stranger, care for the poor, and protect the vulnerable were not new ideas in Jesus’ day and they’re not new in ours. But, wanting to test Jesus and justify himself, the lawyer pushes the issue, asking, “Who, specifically, is the neighbor I’m obligated to love?”

Jesus doesn’t answer him by quoting scripture or reciting rules; he tells a story about the messy realities of human interdependence.

The priest and the Levite in the story were religious authorities. They, like the lawyer, would have been familiar with the scriptural requirement to care for those in need. When they encountered the man by the side of the road, they may have known the right thing to do, but it’s the Samaritan who actually does it. He’s not reacting out of guilt or obligation. He’s not fulfilling a quota for number-of-neighbors-helped. He’s not calculating whether he can be compensated for his assistance. He feels for the guy. That’s the impetus for his response of care. He’s moved by this person’s needs. The Samaritan acts out of compassion.

We don’t learn much about the man in the ditch, whether he’s wealthy or poor, whether he’s a Gentile or Jew – we only learn about the way a stranger shows him mercy. In telling this story, Jesus turns the lawyer’s question around: It doesn’t matter who your neighbor is; it matters how you are neighbor to others. It doesn’t matter what kind of person is in need; it matters how you respond.

This story articulates God’s vision for how humanity should live together.

Everyone deserves care. There are no qualifications. No one is left alone in the ditch. Everyone’s wounds are tended to because we respond to one another’s needs with generosity and compassion.

There are no moral loopholes. This is what it means to be a neighbor. “Go and do likewise,” Jesus concludes. Go and embody God’s vision for a compassionate world. That’s it. That’s the directive. That’s how Jesus leaves the lawyer – and us.

That “go and do likewise” ending is a hard thing to sit with, especially for those of us who see ourselves in the Priest and the Levite.

It’s uncomfortable to come to the end of this story and ask whether we have actually “done likewise” to the Samaritan. We are reminded of all the times we have walked by someone we might have helped. We wonder if we have missed the eternal life the lawyer was seeking…

But the final word in this parable is not the final word of God. Even when we fail to realize God’s vision of compassion, there is no condemnation in Christ (Romans 8:1). We trust the promise that nothing can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39) – not even whatever might cause us to walk by on the other side.

God’s promise of love is for all people, no exceptions.

It is for those who have been harmed, rejected, and left behind. It is for those who serve others out of generous compassion. And it is for those who don’t. That’s the astounding truth of grace. None of us is ever beyond God’s love.

Jesus leaves this conversation with the lawyer and continues on his journey to Jerusalem, his journey to the cross, and even in the face of death, he speaks words of mercy not judgment. Jesus speaks forgiveness to the ones who torture him (Luke 23:34) and acceptance to the criminals dying next to him (Luke 23:39-42). And, after he confronts the very powers of hell with love, the risen Jesus returns from the grave to speak peace to the disciples who denied and betrayed him (Luke 24:36). They failed to live up to God’s vision of compassion, but their inadequacies did not stop Christ from reconciling with them, empowering them with the divine spirit, and sending them out to proclaim the Gospel. Imperfect, cowardly, and flawed, they are forgiven. And they are still tasked to go out into the world and act with love.

It is the same with us.

No matter how many times we walk by on the other side, we, too, are forgiven and we, too, are called back to the task of being love in the world.

Standing firm in the faith that we are saved by grace and unconditionally loved by God does not mean we abandon the millennia-old commandment to care for our neighbors. On the contrary, it means that we are invited again and again to come back to God’s way of compassion. We are convinced that radical care for one another is the path that truly brings life.

We aspire to be the neighbors God has called us to be, the neighbors our world desperately needs. Yet even when we falter, we are still held in that love from which nothing – not even death – can separate us.

Amen.

 

You are sent with specific tasks of evangelism to prepare people for the Spirit’s coming: God does all the rest of the work.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 14 C
Texts: 2 Kings 5:1-14; Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

The most important person in Naaman’s story is also the most insignificant person to everyone else in it.

This little Israelite girl, torn from her family by war, like so many children today. Not a refugee, she’s a captive, living apart from her loving family, in a foreign land, with foreign customs, and foreign gods, and a foreign language. But she sets in motion the movement of kings and prophets and even the God of the universe.

All she does is see her master’s suffering from a horrible skin disease, and quietly say to her mistress, “The God of Israel could heal my master.”

That’s it. And the ripples of her witness changed the course of her master’s life, and very nearly the affairs of nations.

Maybe she opens a door for us into this sending Jesus does.

Jesus sending out seventy women and men to proclaim God’s reign causes us a lot of anxiety. In our pluralistic society we just don’t know what to think about our call to be evangelists anymore.

It’s good many Christians are no longer comfortable with the centuries-long arrogance of the Christian Church claiming that those who do not know Christ are condemned forever. For more than a millennia and a half the call to share Christ’s Good News with the world has been warped by our need to control others and dominate them. The Church endorsed war, colonization, appropriation of indigenous lands, and destruction of rich, beautiful cultures all over the world in the name of “making disciples.” It is good, wonderful, that some of us at least have moved past that.

But if we aren’t doing evangelism to save others (because only God saves), or to control them (because Christ says we must not), how do we know what to do? With neighbors who are Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, atheist, and any number of other positions of faith or spiritual paths, we know our job as the love of Christ is to be gracious and kind neighbors. To respect differences, honor other peoples’ faith, seek dialogue between faiths.

But is that enough? Do we run from this Gospel story just to be good neighbors? A better question is, can this little slave girl help us hear Jesus’ call better? She knew the God of Israel could heal her master, so she told her mistress. She had no other goal than sharing the grace of God.

And if you look at the four things Jesus actually asks the 70 to do, it’s pretty much the same.

The first thing they are to do, every time, is speak a word of peace.

To greet the people in whatever house they enter with “Peace to this house!”

Isn’t that beautiful? Our Muslim friends do this. They greet others with this instinctively: “Salaam-alaikum,” “Peace be upon you.” And they respond: “Wa-alaikum-salaam,” “and peace be upon you, too.”

Why have Christians abandoned this key part of Jesus’ instructions? How might Christian witness in the world have been different if our first words wherever we went were “Peace be with you”? At the very least, maybe it would have prevented the Church from killing millions of people over the centuries.

What would it mean for you? Begin there with your neighbors. Offer the gift of peace to whomever you meet. Jesus says sometimes it will be returned, and that’s a blessing. Sometimes it won’t, but Jesus says the peace of God will still be with you, even then.

How do you be an evangelist? First offer peace.

The second instruction sounds a little strange as an evangelism tactic.

When you go anywhere, Jesus says to eat what is set before you. Receive your neighbor’s hospitality. Don’t bring anything, he says. Don’t have money, or you’ll be tempted to offer to pay, and act as if you’re the benevolent one. You’re not in control. Receive whatever you get. Receive their customs, their blessings, even if it’s strange for you.

That alone would be a new thing, for us to literally let our neighbors feed us, love us.

But it also is true figuratively. Take what is given you, and don’t bring anything, Jesus says. So, set aside your prejudices and pre-conceived notions and just let your neighbor be who they are. Set aside for now the theology that feeds you, and just receive what you’re given.

We’re so used believing evangelism is having something to give others. What if the Church had done what Jesus says here instead of triumphantly bringing in our culture and ideas and teachings as if we were the benefactors of all? It would change the world today if we could set aside our own stuff and simply let our neighbor offer us kindness and hospitality. Sometimes you won’t be welcomed or given anything, and Jesus says that’s OK. Keep going until you’re offered sustenance, and then stay there. Live in relationship. Let the love of your neighbor be a blessing to you. That’s evangelism, according to Jesus.

So, speak peace. And receive love. Next, Jesus says, heal and drive out evil, where you can.

This must have been frightening to these women and men. They’d seen Jesus heal and drive out evil. Now he expected they would be able to do such things.

But imagine if this had been the goal of evangelism for the whole Church throughout the years: to be the ones who offer healing. To be the ones who stand against evil. Now, many Christians in history did exactly that, and changed their world. Far too often, though, the official approach was domination and control. What kind of a witness to God’s love in Christ could we have made if everyone had done what Jesus says here, not just some?

This is such a clear place for us to work. Whether it’s working with all our neighbors of all faiths to dismantle systems of oppression and violence, or standing individually against evil or embracing our neighbor with healing kindness, there is no end to work we can do. Evangelism is being out in the world as God’s love, both as communities and individuals in Christ, bringing hope and courage to face evil, bringing love and grace to heal the hearts of those who suffer.

Finally Jesus says, say, “God’s reign is near to you.”

This is the last piece of the disciples’ evangelism task. Say what the little girl said: “God is near and can heal. God’s reign is real and will make a difference.” Say, God has come to this world of evil and war and hatred and grief in person and is offering life and hope and grace.

The first three things are how you do this. Offer peace, receive hospitality, work against evil and bring healing: these are visible, real signs of God’s reign being near. In your body and life you witness in this way. Just as Jesus witnessed in his body and life – teaching, loving, even dying and rising.

And it doesn’t matter if you’re rejected, Jesus says. He will be. Even in rejection, you still do all these things and always declare this good news: God’s reign is near. God’s love is near. God’s peace is near.

That’s it. these are your instructions as an evangelist. The Triune God will do the hard work.

You see, Jesus sent these 70 to places he himself intended to go, to prepare people for his coming. Now it’s the Holy Spirit who’s going. But you’re still sent ahead to do those things to prepare people for the Spirit.

Naaman actually ends up converted from his former faith, and worshipping the God of Israel exclusively. It’s lovely. But the slave girl never intended that. She just said God could heal him.

Likewise, your job is not converting. It’s not making any theological assumptions about anyone’s eternal status. Your job is to be part of Christ’s advance team with all of us, someone who by your grace and love opens a door for the Spirit to enter and bring people into the resurrection life of God.

Now that’s evangelism that’s not only faithful to Jesus’ calling and to the hope of God’s love we know in Christ, but one that’s respectful and gracious to our neighbors of all kinds as well.

Funny, isn’t it, how Jesus always knows how best to do things, if only we’d listen?

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

Discipleship is not about our perfectionism or accomplishments; it is about God’s work in us as the spirit transforms us and equips us to proclaim the Gospel with our words and our lives.

Vicar Bristol Reading
The Third Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 13 C
Texts: Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Gospel text this morning, the “word of God, word of life,” sure contains a lot of words that are rather harsh.

On the road to Jerusalem, Jesus and his disciples enter a village of Samaritans who are not particularly receptive to Jesus. James and John, in a response that might be considered a bit of an overreaction, suggest calling down deadly fire from heaven in retribution. It is certainly a relief that Jesus refuses to smite those who don’t want to follow him. But Jesus himself has some severe words for others who do want to follow him.

Along their journey, the group encounters some individuals who express a willingness to follow Jesus, but have some concerns they want to attend to first. Now, if these people are making excuses, they’ve found pretty good ones. One wants to say goodbye to loved ones. Another wants to bury a parent. Who could object to caring for one’s home and family? Surely it’s possible to do these things, and then commit wholeheartedly to the mission? But Jesus is unwilling to wait and disinclined to sugarcoat this news. “Let the dead bury their own dead,” he says, “no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

These comments are not because Jesus is against funerals or farewells. Elsewhere in the Gospels we see Jesus attend family celebrations and grieve at the tombs of friends; he does not consider these things wrong or unimportant.

Rather, these sobering responses toward those who want to follow him are because Jesus is focused on the destination ahead.

He has “set his face” toward Jerusalem, where betrayal, arrest, trial, and execution await him. Those who say they are willing to follow him anywhere need to be willing to follow him there. To the cross. They must be prepared to lose their homes, their safety, even their lives.

Faithfulness to the Gospel is comprehensive: it cannot be relegated to one part of life and kept out of others. It is not something to be done only after all the ducks of one’s personal life have been put in a row. When commitment to other things– even important things– hinders commitment to proclaiming the Gospel, it is like someone putting their hand to the plow but their attention elsewhere. You can’t do both. Jesus words to those who want to follow him serve as a potent reminder that the Gospel is matter of life and death. His statements express the urgency and priority that Jesus understood.

James and John must have understood, too. They themselves once faced the same choice now facing these people along the road: whether or not to follow Jesus. One day they’d been hard at work, fishing as usual, when Jesus, a man they’d never met before, arrived and said, “Follow me.”

In that moment, something about Jesus’ presence so compelled them that the two dropped everything, and followed him then and there (Luke 5:1-11). They didn’t go home to attend to family or say goodbye. Actually, according to Matthew’s Gospel, they just left their father standing there in the boat, with all those nets to mend and all those fish to clean (Matthew 4:21-22).

James and John couldn’t possibly have understood what they were getting themselves into when they said yes to Jesus and got out of that boat. They couldn’t have known where this journey would take them. Their decisive choice to follow Jesus irrevocably changed the course of their lives. Commitment to the Gospel will do that… it will change things. There is risk involved in saying ‘yes’ to God’s call.

Discipleship redirects lives, reorders priorities, and restructures relationships.

This is what Paul is describing to the Galatians in the passage we heard this morning. He tells them that the way they behaved before is no longer the way they can behave now that they’ve committed to Christ. Things will change. People will change. The Spirit will transform them.

Although Paul describes this process as a liberation, a being set free, he also acknowledges that it involves the loss of some familiar habits that have no place in the Christian life. He enumerates examples, but he knows the Galatians know what kind of behaviors he means: jealousy, anger, pettiness, corruption, bickering… these things have to be left behind. They have to be put to death. So, there’s no going back to them. You can choose that way of being or you can choose the Spirit’s way of being. You can’t do both.

But when the Spirit starts to take root in the community, it’s clear. You can see the change. Joyfulness, kindness, generosity, faithfulness – these things become habitual in the lives of disciples. Those who are living in this life of the Spirit have a different pattern of relationship. They weave together as a family, siblings in Christ. They serve each other out of freedom. They love their neighbors as they love their own selves. Paul articulates such a remarkable vision of Christian life.

Of course, we know from our own lives that those old habits that we meant to leave behind sometimes turn out to be not quite dead yet.

Sometimes, for instance, the most dedicated disciples, the ones willing to leave everything behind for the sake of the Gospel, threaten to burn an entire village in vengeance. Doesn’t really show a lot of patience, gentleness, or self-control. Yet, those were the kind of people that Jesus recruited to his ministry. Those committed-but-imperfect followers of Christ were the kind of people tasked with proclaiming the Gospel in all its life-or-death importance.

It turns out that committed-but-imperfect followers of Christ are still the kind of people being tasked with proclaiming the Gospel. Discipleship is not about the work we can accomplish in the world. It is about the work God can accomplish through us.

This frees us, on the one hand, from any sense of perfectionism. No one does it all, and no one does it alone. On the other hand, it undermines any protests we might make that we’re not the right people to bear the Gospel. We are, each of us, called and equipped to do so – through what we say and how we live.

Sometimes we fail to keep our faces set always toward the cross. Sometimes we make excuses and choose priorities other than Christ. Sometimes we want to call down the fires of heaven on people who frustrate us. Sometimes we look back and see that the furrows in our fields have come out crooked, and we ask, “How can God grow anything here?”

But we trust that God’s Spirit can bring about change in us and around us in ways we would never think possible.

The process of being transformed by the Spirit is lifelong. We go through fruitful seasons and fallow seasons, but we are always being made new.

Indeed, we heard some harsh words from scripture this morning, but we also heard one particularly important word from the mouth of Christ to anyone who would desire to be a disciple. Jesus said, “As for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

Amen.

Paul’s miraculous claims are too often not our reality, but God in the Spirit is making it happen; pray that it happen for you, for us, and then go, tell others about it.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Second Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 12 C
Texts: Galatians 3:23-29; 1 Kings 19:1-15a; Luke 8:26-39

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Here’s what’s not startling today: how people reacted to demonic or evil powers.

The king and queen of the northern kingdom, Israel, want Elijah dead. They’ve been systematically killing God’s prophets, and Elijah’s target number one. So he runs away. The Gerasenes have this strong man who is possessed and violently lashes out. So they chain him up, guard him. Running away from evil or locking it up, that makes sense to us.

What is startling is how people react to God’s evident power over demonic and evil forces. Ahab and Jezebel have just seen the God of Israel’s power on Mount Carmel. Fire from heaven consumed Elijah’s waterlogged sacrifice, even the wet wood and stones. All the people there acclaim the God of Israel is the true God, not Baal. But the king and queen would rather kill Elijah than acknowledge the true God. The Gerasenes witness their neighbor freed from his possession, fully clothed, in his right mind, and they beg Jesus to leave. How do these responses make sense?

But given the history of the Church, what the Church looks like today, we shouldn’t be startled by this. They’re not much different from us.

Paul’s proclamation today of God’s miraculous action makes this clear.

These words from Galatians are breath-taking words of inspiration to believers for two millennia. Paul claims that God in Christ has broken through all human barriers and divisions and created one Body from these diverse parts.

Paul’s communities include people of different cultures, people who are both enslaved and free, people of all genders. These communities thrive with the conviction that they have a deeper unity in Christ that transcends all divisions. There are still slaves and free people. But it’s not their core identity in Christ, Christ is. Men and women are still men and women. But their deeper truth is their oneness in Christ. Greeks don’t need to be circumcised or eat special foods, and Jews are free to practice their Jewish rituals and traditions, because the thing that joins them is not their cultures but the love of God in Christ.

And unlike Elijah’s miraculous heavenly fire, or the healing of the demoniac, Paul’s miracle is not only repeatable, it’s expected. This is God’s new reality. We’re supposed to expect this among us in the Body of Christ.

But look at our response to this marvel God has done: Two thousand years later these are still pretty words. But meaningless, too, judging from our reality.

Paul didn’t advocate the end of the institution of slavery. But his claim that within the community of Christ, the slave and the free person were equal and one together planted seeds that even bore fruit in Paul’s life. He called his friend Philemon to recognize his runaway slave Onesimus as a freed brother in Christ and welcome him as such. Yet it took over 1,800 years for the Church to take that insight and begin serious opposition to slavery.

Paul shared Jesus’ radical view of women as equals. He had female co-workers, leaders of communities, missionaries. But by the end of the first century the Church embraced the old standard of patriarchy, and pretty much eliminated women in leadership. It took 1,920 years for even a fraction of the Church to restore what Paul and Jesus did at the beginning. And we’re still a significant minority: maybe a couple hundred million among the world’s 2.2 billion Christians have women in leadership. It was easier for the Church to agree on ending slavery than equality among genders.

Paul’s cross-cultural unity is astonishing. Paul assumed multiple cultures could co-exist and thrive in congregations, find their oneness in Christ while still living with their diversity. But the vast majority of Christian history has been Christians siloing into their own cultural reality and claiming that’s the true Christianity. Ethnic and cultural groups promoting their way of being, speaking, dressing, doing worship as the only true way, that’s been the norm for most of the Church’s life.

In truth, Paul’s proclamation never became the norm and still barely exists 2,000 years later. We’ve rejected God’s healing oneness.

Paul says today that before we learned to trust God in Christ, we were imprisoned, locked up in fear of the law, in fear of the other, in fear of everything. The tragic thing is, Paul thought this was a past problem.

But we still live in the same fear. It took 1,900 years to agree that Christians were opposed to slavery because we were too afraid of the economic and social impact of freedom. We’re still rooted in patriarchy in the Church because we’re locked in our assumptions and thoughts and won’t envision a new way of being Christ together.

And the cultural divide, whether it’s black-white, rich-poor, north-south, Lutheran-Pentecostal, Christian-Muslim, will never be crossed if we’re the ones to cross it. It’s just too frightening to let go of the way we think things should be and admit others have equally legitimate ways of thinking, being, doing.

We may not be possessed by demons, but the chains that bind us, the prison we’re stuck in, can only be opened by God.

And good news: that’s what God offers.

God says today you need not be captive to your fear. God can break any chains that bind you or others, knock down any dividing walls, even the ones you secretly want to reinforce. The Triune God has come to the world in Christ Jesus, and shown the power of the Spirit to break through all these barriers and create a new reality. A body of Christ, a community of God, that transcends all our divisions.

Yes, it’s frightening to think of losing some of your security blankets. But with security in God’s love, and in the embrace of billions of siblings in Christ, who needs blankets? Yes, it’s frightening to feel the ground shaking as the wall protecting you from others starts to crumble. But if you let God break through that wall, you’ll find a loving family across this planet.

Paul’s words are the only reality worth living. A reality where there’s neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but all are one in Christ Jesus. A reality that reveals a path to the healing of all nations. God is already doing this. But as Luther reminds you, you want to ask that God do this in you.

Because then you find your true place in these stories.

Once you are freed from these chains of fear, you’re sent back out into the darkness, into the brokenness, into the pain, to witness to what God has done. God told Elijah he couldn’t stay hiding in his cave, he needed to go back, face the evil, keep telling what God was about. The healed man wanted to stay with Jesus, the one who gave him life. But Jesus sent him back to his frightened neighbors, who wanted to be rid of him, to tell them what God had done.

That’s where you come in. As Paul’s new reality becomes your truth above all others, you’re sent out. To go into the world of fear and chains and walls and declare in your body and life what God has done.

But first, like Elijah, have a bite to eat. Let God refresh you in this meal that is prepared for you. Be graced by God’s forgiveness in Christ, be fed by God’s meal of life. As the angel said to Elijah, it’s going to be a tough journey. Eat up, so it’s not too much for you.

Then go, and tell others what God has done. For you. For the world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

 

We know God because God has come to us, invited us into the life of the Trinity, to be changed into the radiant love that we find there.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Holy Trinity, year C
Text: Romans 5:1-5

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Look closely at the picture. There’s a place for you.

Nearly 600 years ago the Russian iconographer Andrei Rublev wrote an icon depicting the visit of three heavenly strangers to Abraham and Sarah. The Bible claims this was a visit of God, that they actually spoke to God in these beings.

In time, the Church wondered if this was somehow a vision of the Trinity. So this icon, printed on our service folder, is often called “The Holy Trinity,” as well as “The Hospitality of Abraham.”

But look closely. The figure on the right, representing the Holy Spirit, holds her hand out toward the open space, inviting a guest to the meal. You. The one looking at the picture. Some believe a mirror was originally attached where that square is on the front of the table.

Isn’t that lovely? Looking at this visitation of God, you see yourself invited to join God’s presence.

This is the only way you can know God.

We now have 1,600 years of theological reflection since the Nicene Creed on how God is One God, yet Three Persons. None of that reflection actually lets you know God.

It’s God’s invitation to come, enter God’s life, that lets you know God’s truth, God’s reality, God’s essence. You can only really know another person by having a relationship with them, talking with them, loving them, and you can only know God that way.

In fact, our whole idea of the Trinity began with the invitation of the Incarnate One, Jesus, not with theological constructs. Jesus showed us in person the face of God, the heart of God. In Jesus, God came to you, to the world, and said, “Come, let’s know each other better.”

This is where the Church first met God’s deepest truth. It’s where you will.

Today Paul says we have access to God through Christ Jesus. Jesus welcomes you into the life of God.

Look first to Jesus, then. Hear his teachings, listen to his voice proclaiming God’s unlimited forgiveness and love for you and for all creatures, for the whole creation. Eat his meal of grace and life for you and for all. Wonder at the signs of utter welcome, the crossing of human boundaries of law and exclusion, the breaking of taboos of culture and religion, that you see in God’s Son.

And stand in awe at the inexpressible mystery of God’s love on the cross, dying to bring you and the cosmos back into God’s life. Rejoice, as we have this past Easter season, in God’s destruction of death and hatred and evil.

Jesus is the face of the Triune God for you, so you know God is good, God is loving, God is for you. Paul says today you have been declared righteous by God in Christ. God looks at you in person in Jesus and sees good, and holy, and blessed. And always says, “Welcome, beloved one. Come, know me.”

Meeting the Trinity first in Jesus then leads to a deeper joy.

You’ve heard for weeks Jesus’ promise that the Spirit of God would come to you, fill you. So, you are not alone, Jesus says, God is in you. You need not be confused or lost, God’s Spirit will guide you. And Paul says today, God’s love is poured out into you through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus, the Incarnate One, sends you God’s Spirit to make you filled with God, too. To make you an Incarnate One. To intertwine your life into the life of God forever.

How many times has Jesus said in these weeks that he and the One he called Father were one, united, and that in the Spirit of God you would be united with God yourself? Coming to this world in human flesh was the first step in God’s plan to bring you, and me, and all creation into the heart of God’s life.

So listen for the voice of the Spirit in you. As Jesus promises today, the Spirit will teach you what you need to know when you’re ready to know it, just as the Spirit teaches the Church in the same way.

This is the grace of the Holy Trinity: you are welcomed to join the Triune God’s life forever, to take your place in the circle, and the Spirit makes that happen.

That means a couple wonders, Paul says today.

First, you now have peace with God.

When humans try to imagine God it’s usually a distant, powerful, often judging god. At least in the patriarchal cultures in which we’ve spent the past 3,000 years. So when suffering and pain and evil happen, it’s easy to blame this imaginary god we’ve created, or fear this god is our enemy.

But you know God intimately now, you are filled with God’s Spirit. So you can be at peace with God. When you face suffering, you know God has suffered, too, and knows your pain. Because God’s Spirit is in you, you know that God is with you always, no matter what. And as Paul says, that’s where your hope comes from. Not that all suffering ends, but that when you grow closer and closer to God, filled with God’s Spirit, you have God’s love and strength to face it and thrive.

And as the Spirit fills us all, we together can even face the great suffering and pain of others, bringing God’s hope and love ourselves, trusting that God is working in us to bring life, even if we can only seemingly take tiny steps at a time. We are one body in Christ, across this planet. So we trust that God, working in all the body of Christ, is moving this world toward justice and mercy and peace.

And, Paul says, you also share in the glory of God.

Freed from following a god made in your own image, now that you see you have a place in the Triune God’s life, Paul says you also will share in God’s glory. In the radiance, the brightness of the life of God. In the beginning, God said, “Let us make humanity in our own image.” And now, in Christ, as you take your place in God’s life and heart, that promise begins to be fulfilled in you.

You start to look like God in your love and grace. Your heart begins to beat as God’s, in compassion and love for all who struggle. Your hands become creative like God’s, embracing like God’s. And together, as Christ’s body, we bring God’s life to this whole world.

“Come in,” the Trinity says to you, “come join us in our life. There is room for you in our dance.” So come. Enter into the life of God and be changed, be healed, be made new.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen