The following is a sermon that was given for Trinity Sunday at Grace Episcopal Church in San Antonio, and online during the COVID Pandemic. Another version of this sermon was preached for Black History Month at TMI - The Episcopal School of Texas (as is linked below). It was an attempt to help our diverse and divided community steer a path beyond the destructive conflict that has occurred in the wake of the George Floyd Murder, toward a more constructive dialogue in light of the fact that we are all made in the image of a God of Love, and beloved as God's children.
Welcome to Trinity Sunday, where we get to talk about one of the most abstract ideas that Christian History has ever developed, in the midst of one of the most concrete social crises many of us have faced in our lifetime. On one hand, we need to talk about the transcendent, ineffable, infinite nature of the Source of the Universe, who we know as one God in the three Persons of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. You don't get much more abstract than that.
On the other hand, we need to connect this concept of God to the real life, concrete struggles people are facing right here, right now. And we are not just undergoing one major crisis. Or even two. We are hemorrhaging crises! We have a pandemic which lurks around every corner, which can easily make some people sick enough to be hospitalized or even die, while it has absolutely no effect on other people.
On top of this we have a looming economic crisis which has affected about one in four Americans in a major way, from lost jobs to lost businesses. People are struggling from paycheck to paycheck, and worried about keeping a roof over their family's head. And to top all of it off, to use a Biblical phrase, it seems that in matters of racism and violence, the "sins of the fathers" are being visited on the next generations.
Every culture has its original sins: Sins that keep on polluting and destroying that society for generation after generation. Our original sins include racism: The enslavement and oppression of People of Color to benefit people of European heritage. In particular, our society has been rocked again by protests about how black people are systematically targeted and excluded and oppressed and even murdered because of the color of their skin. And this is not new.
For nearly 3 centuries black Americans were held as slaves. For nearly a century afterward black Americans faced legalized racism that barred them from economic and educational and cultural opportunities. And for the last 60 years, even after racism was excised from our legal system, we have still had the cold, cruel logic of racism embedded in our criminal justice system and educational system and housing system and economic system. And this is not abstract. It is concrete. As concrete as a knee in the neck of a man, choking him for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, until he was dead.
And as a result, we have people across the nation taking up their first Amendment rights to "peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances". The vast majority of these protests have been peaceful. Some have turned violent.
And some of that fault seems to lie with agitators in the protests, and some of that fault seems to lie with those charged to protect and serve. And it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart to see my country so divided. It breaks my heart to see so many of us on all sides unable to heed Christ's commands to "love our neighbors as ourselves" and "treat others as we would want to be treated".
It breaks my heart for us to not fully grasp that because every single life matters at all times, then we must realize that black lives matter right here, right now. Some people get upset with this phrase, and respond back "All lives matter!" Which is true, but also misses the point. To use a metaphor that has helped me understand this better:
It is like fire fighters showing up to a house fire and shouting "all houses matter" and then equally distributing water on all houses, so that the house on fire doesn't get the water it needs. Because all houses matter, it is important to focus water on one house right here, right now. And to put it in Christian terms: Because God loves all people, it is important to bring justice for the black community at this point in time.
And for a lot of folks, especially folks who look like me and my family, all of this talk can be really frustrating. I know that frustration. So let me speak for myself, and perhaps you will find some points of commonality.
I grew up in North Little Rock Arkansas and in the North Dallas suburbs in places that were white dominant, but there were also significant populations of African American and Latinx folks, as well as a smattering of South and East Asian families. It was not utopia by any stretch of the imagination, but we all played together on the playground, and went to each other’s houses after school, and competed together in sports.
And at school we watched “Free to be You and Me” together, and learned that the racial divide had been largely “solved” by Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, so that we now lived in a diverse multi-racial culture. When we got into high school, race became a little more of an issue, but I don’t ever remember it stopping us from partying together, or even from dating across racial lines. Then Rodney King happened my junior year and the L.A. riots followed. But that was still far away from me, and different from my experience of race where I lived in the North Dallas suburbs.
But in the last decade it seems like Rodney King happens every month. Sometimes more. And it happens to young black men and old black men and black men walking and black men jogging and black men standing and even black men sleeping in their own homes.
And it happens even in places where I have lived and worked. And it is heart breaking and maddening and disorienting. And I wonder how I could have been so blind to the systemic exclusion and oppression of black people for so much of my life.
I know the short answer is my privilege: Since it wasn’t me or my class that was experiencing the effects of racism, I was not attuned to see it unless there was a blatant display right in front of me. Which is rarely the case, because most racists will not admit to being racist. Even to themselves. And, if I am really honest, even to myself. Because as I grow older I find these remnants of racism and sexism and prejudice that emerge like festering splinters needing to be taken out.
It seems like my white parent's generation were in a kind of culture shock. All of the tables had been overturned and it was no longer culturally acceptable to be a vociferous racist, nor to really investigate what racism really lurked within them. And they were emotionally exhausted from an issue that had dominated over a decade of their childhood and early adulthood. So they didn't talk about it. And they didn't really let us talk about it.
And they allowed all these education programs and media sources to wallpaper over it with the rhetoric of being "colorblind". And we congratulated ourselves that we had black friends, and didn't tolerate the "N word" anymore.
All the while the wound was festering, and at home a lot of us were getting an education in racism through jokes and sayings and attitudes, and the way mom clutched her purse when black people were around, and how dad rolled up the windows when we went through the "wrong" part of town. To use a pandemic metaphor, as a culture we had socially distanced from racism, and our media put on "masks" to avoid appearing racist, but none of us were washing our hands. And the disease continued to spread unabated.
And now the symptoms of the disease are on full display for the world to see. And as a culture, we have a decision to make. Will we pretend not to be sick once again, and let the infection seep ever-deeper into our collective soul? Or will we let the Great Physician heal us, and give us the antidote to our sickness?
And this is precisely where the old abstract idea of the Trinity comes in to play. Because what we really need is some kind of pattern or blueprint for how to deal with being the most diverse nation on the planet, with people from every tribe and tongue and color and culture and gender and religion living with us. Maybe, just maybe, if we look once again at this supposedly arcane abstract idea of one God in three Persons, we might get some inspiration about how to build a more just and compassionate society.
Because, at its core, the Trinity is a way of explaining how God is Love. And if any culture ever needed Divine Love to heal it, it is our culture right here, right now. In God's Life, there are three Relations that pour Love into each other for all of eternity. From this Divine Dance of inter-sharing Love, God's Love overflows to create all worlds, including this world, sinful and broken as it is. And Love does not stop at creating. Love then becomes embodied in an historic person named Jesus, to show us what Love looks like lived out, and to prove to us that Love is stronger than death, by rising from the dead.
But Love does not stop at creating us and redeeming us. Love also comes to live IN us. The Spirit of Love fills us with the power to live a life of Love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice of Love. The Trinity is then this Divine Dance of Love, which creates us, and redeems us, and unifies us with God's Life. And because God is Love, God is the Lover from whom all Love flows as the Father; God is the Beloved Son, who the Father loves from all eternity; And God is the energy of Love, the Spirit of Love, that binds them together. And that Spirit overflows from the Father, through the Son, to draw us into God's Life forever.
So, what does this mean for American Society in 2020?
It means that we can reflect the Trinitarian life of God if we want to. On one hand, we are free to choose fear and hate and ignorance. But we are also free to choose Love and justice and compassion. The God of Love gives us that choice, and gives us power to be healed of our prejudice and pride and apathy, if we so choose. And if we do choose to walk the Path of Love with the God of Love, we will begin to notice something else.
We will notice that Diversity of races and cultures and genders is not something to be merely tolerated. It is something to be embraced and celebrated. Because God is a diverse community of three distinct persons in unity, God has made humans to be a diverse community of distinct persons in unity. God has made us to embrace and celebrate each other's diversity and uniqueness and beauty and color and language and style, just as the Father, Son, and Spirit celebrate each other's distinctness.
God has not made us to be the same. But God has also not made us to be separate. Just as the Father, Son, and Spirit are not the same, but they are also not separate. Instead, they constantly embrace each other, constantly pour themselves into each other, constantly share the Divine Life within each other, and constantly Dance in each other's glory.
As our Creed says: The Father, Son, and Spirit are "worshipped and glorified together", because they are the Goal that all human society aims for.
And just as the Persons of the Trinity embrace each other and pour themselves into one another, God has made us to embrace each other and pour ourselves into each other. And when one part of society is having a difficult time, the rest of us need to gather around them, advocate for them, and help them find the justice and compassion that will make them whole.
Because in helping them become whole, we also become whole. In helping black lives matter, we help all lives matter. And when we truly come to realize that each and every life matters, then we will finally begin to reflect the image of the God of Love, who is our Source, our Center, and our Goal.
Then we will finally live into the commandment of Jesus to baptize all people into the Name of the God who is Love, shared forever as Father and Son and Spirit. We will find ourselves and our culture immersed in that Love, and cleansed from the filth of racism and apathy and oppression and hate and fear.
We will finally live into Paul's admonition in our reading today: To order all things in God's Love, so that we agree with one another, and live in peace. When we do this, we will find the God of Love will sustain us. And the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit will be with us all.
And with that, let us pray:
God of Infinite Love, who shares eternal life within yourself as Father and Son and Spirit: Help us to embrace the diversity of cultures and genders and beliefs we share within our society, just as you embrace the diversity you share within yourself as three Persons united in care and concern and compassion.
You are a diverse God of Community who has made us in your image as a diverse people in Community. Help us to see your Life in one another, and to love each other as Christ has loved us, by giving himself as an offering and sacrifice, that we all may find healing and hope.
May we ceaselessly stand against attitudes of prejudice, systems of oppression, and actions that bring death and destruction to your children. And may you bring justice for victims and their families, even as you bring reconciliation and healing in our society.
And grant that those responsible for enforcing justice may always be keenly aware of the responsibility they bear before you, O Judge of All, and always careful to ensure consequences are proportionate to the danger involved, and never heavy handed nor prejudicially implemented.
And finally, may we always remember that when we embrace the other, we embrace you; When we serve the last and the least, we serve you; And when we say NO to death and destruction and hatred and fear and ignorance, we are saying YES to life and love and healing and hope and wisdom in Christ. For it is in his Name that we ask all of these things.
Amen.
A version of this sermon was also preached at TMI The Episcopal School of Texas during Black History Month, 2021:
No comments:
Post a Comment