Called by God, Born Of Love
“Called by God, Born of Love”
Reflection on Trinity Sunday, May 26, 2024
Churchill and Gilford United Churches
Krista M. Moore
SERMON 2
Scriptures:
Isaiah 6:1-8 God calls the prophet, Isaiah
John 3:1-17 Jesus reveals Himself to Nicodemus
Sermon Focus Statement: God comes to us as three in one. God sent Jesus; the One that points the Way through the Spirit Sermon Function Statement: Listen and look! God comes to us in three persons to give us life and renew our faith.
Introduction to the Scriptures:
Over 700 years before Christ, a devout Jewish man named Isaiah is worshipping in the temple at Jerusalem. When suddenly, he sees a vision of God on a throne. God warns him, as if in a dream, that his people had forgotten about God. Soon they will be destroyed in a battle with the North.
Then in 701 BC Jerusalem and Judah (the southern province of what is now Israel and Palestine) are destroyed and taken captive by the Assyrians from the North.
The people were devasted; then they cried out to God. God answered their prayers and promised to come to them.
Later Isaiah prophesies about the coming Messiah, who would become the salvation of the people and a light to all nations.
Then 700 years later, Jesus came. The Word made flesh. But would they recognize him when they saw him? Would they understand and follow him?
Nicodemus, a Jewish elder, a Pharisee, desperately wanted to know who Jesus was; but he couldn’t fathom the depths of
God, or this Messiah, and his strange talk of the Spirit. It was too wonderful for him to take in. He went away disappointed. Then the people crucify Jesus, just as Isaiah and Jesus predicted.
But God is not done with them yet. God will raise him from the dead. And God and Jesus will send the Holy Spirit to awaken them.
But will they listen? Will they understand?
And will we come to know and accept God who comes to us in unexpected ways?
Let us listen for the truth in the Scriptures and see what the Spirit offers us today.
SCRIPTURES ARE READ.
REFLECTION
God, I tried everything. I searched the scriptures for the Trinity. I read the commentaries. I listened to fools talking, and I wrote reams of material.
What is the trinity? Why is it?
The holy Trinity is God in three persons or beings,
but what does that mean???
God comes to us as father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Creator, Redeemer, Life giver?
Why do we need a Trinity?
Let me try again.
Trinity.
God revealed himself first to the prophets like Isaiah,
to warn the people, to turn back to God.
Isaiah was a good prophet, but they didn’t listen.
And they ended up destroying themselves and each other They didn’t understand the prophets, and they killed them. So.
God sent Jesus, the Word made flesh,
the Son of God, The Saviour of the world, Love Incarnate.
YES!
Certainly if God sent himself in the flesh face-to-face, and taught us how to love and forgive one another,
surely that would be enough.
But they still didn’t understand him.
And they killed Jesus, too.
But Jesus forgave them on the cross,
and then he rose again in three days
just like the prophets said, just like he promised.
Then Jesus promised the Spirit would come after him,
would teach them all things.
Would be available to all people everywhere.
That we would be born in water and in Spirit
That we would worship in Spirit and in truth.
Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about the Spirit, but Nicodemus couldn’t understand him.
What does it mean to be born of the spirit?
How do I get reborn do I go back into my mother‘s womb? No, Jesus says, the spirit can come to us at any time like the wind it blows wherever it wants to he says.
But unlike the wind, we can call on the Spirit.
We can pray in our hearts for the spirit to come
for God to come to us, in whatever form makes sense to us.
When all else fails, I turn to you God, to reveal yourself to me in desperation – in whatever way makes sense to you and to me. I pray, and in my prayer, I pray to know you better.
To let go of all my thoughts, my history, my religious training, my schooling, other people’s opinions, my biases, prejudices, useless words, frameworks, systematic theology, academics, and God help us, the Trinity.
I WROTE A WHOLE OTHER SERMON WITH ALL THAT DEEP THEOLOGY AND TECHNICALITIES IN IT. THE RUACHS and ELOHIM ADONAIs and YESHUA MESHIAC. IF YOU’RE INTERESTED, I’ll send it to you! It was academic, and Steve gave me the deer in the headlights (overwhelming, boring). So I ditched it and wrote all of this from the heart!
So I will continue…
REFLECTION
I’ve known God from the day I was born. They named me Krista after Jesus Christ Christos the anointed one. It gave me a purpose. Even if I didn’t even realize at the time.
I came to know God by making a lot of mistakes, (I told some stories), by exploring the world, by learning through trial and error. By failing. By falling. By crying out to God.
When we are searching for God, we become like infants. Until that point, we try to control everything down to the last detail, until it all falls apart. But God breaks through somehow, and sometimes destroys our egos in the process, to wake us up, and help us see the truth.
HOW DOES GOD COME TO US?
Sometimes the truth comes in tears,
sometimes in rage and unbearable pain.
Sometimes in joy and singing and psalms.
And sometimes in sobs or silence.
These are just words that we use to describe our experiences of God.
TRINITY
Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
Creator Redeemer, sustainer.
Source of Life , Love Incarnate Love’s power.
But they are just words!
STORY: FINDING GOD IN THE BIRD APP
Have you ever just sat outside and listened to the birds singing, revealing God’s presence to you. That’s God the Creator.
Last week I was sitting outside thinking of the Trinity no doubt not knowing what to write. When I heard all these different sounds and calls in the wilderness. And I have to confess I know none of them. Unless I see a robin on the ground and see that it’s singing I don’t know what it is.
That’s kind of like what it feels like to come to know God for the first time. This world is a noisy distracting place. It’s not easy.
It’s kind of like that when we’re too busy in the world to notice anything. Cars go by so fast on Yonge Street. They hardly even notice me sitting out there on my deck or the bird singing above. We often miss the signs of God. We often don’t know how to name them. We don’t take the time to consider them.
But I discovered this app on my phone. Yes, I hadn’t set my phone down yet. But this app helped me hear these birds singing and named them: SONG SPARROWS, KILLDEERS, CHICKADEES, STARLINGS, GOLDFINCHES, EASTERN PHEOBES, BLUE JAYS, CARDINALS and of course beloved ROBINS.
Suddenly the birds came to life for me. I knew what they were called even if I couldn’t see them because they were way up in the trees.
The Trinity is kind of like bringing God down in tangible ways, making God knowable, giving God a name that could be glimpsed and felt.
Like when Jesus called God Abba! Father! He wasn’t talking to some invisible force. He was talking to his father in heaven. A real knowable being. He stopped and prayed on the mountain because the world was going crazy around him. the Jewish elders and Romans were out to arrest him and kill him.
Yes, Jesus, the Son of God, was also a man who came to save us and wouldn’t save himself from being killed on a cross.
God was knowable and became fully human with a face and a name, Jesus, to show us love and mercy, forgiveness.
He died and rose again.
He came to save us from our sin and suffering,
To redeem us and give us hope of life eternal.
You can’t understand it with your mind.
You can’t try to understand all the trappings of religion and get anywhere with God.
You can only cry out ABBA or Jesus,
Lord, save me! And it will be done.
FINDING GOD AS A CHILD
You have to be on your hands and knees to know God
you have to stop trying and start listening and being.
Like a little child, who comes without fear towards Jesus and sits on his knee and laughs.
Jesus loves all the little children.
Jesus was love Incarnate, God’s Son
But also our brother, and bestest friend in the world.
WHEN LIFE IS HARD
When we’re struggling, when life gets busy, when we can’t even make it to church anymore. God is still there, calling us home.
Come in, come in and sit down.
Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
search the skies, watch the stars!
Seek God your Creator,
Feel God the Spirit breathing through your lungs and your beating heart.
Call on Jesus, your personal savior, the one who knows you loves you fights for you, dies for you, forgives you and lifts you and gives you everything that you need.
God shares himself with us through the gift of creation, and the gift of Jesus revealed to us in Scripture, Who abides in us by the Spirit.
It’s a mystery.
It doesn’t matter if we understand everything,
just as Nicodemus couldn’t understand everything.
COME COME TO US GREAT AND SMALL
Isaiah was so afraid of the presence of God he fell down and covered his mouth in shame until the Seraphim, the angel put a flaming coal on his mouth to purify and forgive him. (Fire is another sign of the Spirit.) And then he became the greatest prophet of Israel.
God comes to us in mysterious ways.
Whether we are 4 or 54 or 84.
we can all come to know God.
Like a little child, holding the hand of Jesus,
Or Isaiah, seeing a vision of God on a throne,
or Nicodemus, speaking to Jesus face-to-face in the cover of night.. Or the waters of baptism bringing us into God Spirit and making us One.
It’s all a gift.
Our purpose is to come to know God in whatever ways God comes to us,
– whether we are lucky enough to be brought up in the church
– or hear about God or Jesus in some other way;
– or we suddenly feel the Spirit in song or silence or in the stirrings of our heart.
THERE’S HOPE.
Its NEVER TOO LATE to come to know God.
God is there.
God is with us, waiting for us to recognize and accept God’s call
CLOSING
I realized that in all my painful thinking about God and the Trinity, I needed to connect to God and pray.
To feel God’s presence
And let the Spirit offer words to say.
CLOSING PRAYER AND MEDITATION
Let us take a moment to centre ourselves and invite God in, ask God, Jesus, and the Spirit to be with us. To speak to us.
Let us pray.
Holy Spirit Jesus, holy God.
Come to us now in your various ways,
awaken us, and remind us of who you are.
Help us to understand you to hear you to feel you to be with you to love you honour and follow you.
God awaken the world, which is crying right now. For the love of God stop these crazy wars and teach people how to love each other and to want peace.
Our spirits are restless for your love.
Hungry for your truth. Desperate for answers.
For your company.
Help us and heal us
Reveal to us our purpose and awaken in us our call.
Send us out God as you sent out Isaiah and the disciples… send us out to this broken world.
Here we are. Your people ,
bless our children, bless them all.
That they may come to know you and lead us forward. And then God Jesus the Spirit responds…
In your pain and suffering I am there.
In the depths of misunderstanding, I am there.
In the shame and pain of the cross, I am there.
In the death and resurrection, I am there.
In the soft sounds of Spring birdsong, I am there.
In a child’s laughter and father‘s loving words, I am there. Wherever you are, I am.
I AM THAT I AM.
God, the father
the son
and the Holy Spirit
In Sun, winter, cloud and rain.
I am with you til the end.
Let go your troubles, your worries,
your fears, your doubts, your drama,
let go of everything that is not love.
And there I will be.
Holy, Holy, Holy,
LORD GOD Almighty,
God in three persons,
Blessed Trinity.
Amen.
Song for Ordination/Call:
VU 509: I, The Lord of Sea and Sky