Sermon Archive
The First Sunday after Pentecost:
Trinity Sunday
Genesis 1:1-2:1-4a
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
And God said, "Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
And God said, "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it." And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
And God said, "Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth." And it was so. God made the two great lights-- the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night-- and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
And God said, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky." So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind." And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."
So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." God said, "See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created.
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
Matthew 28:16-20
Sermon
The Rev Jack Zamboni
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
Over the last several months, Susy and I have found ourselves preaching about your life as a congregation in the coming time of transition. We've told you to be open to new and unfamiliar voices and to stay connected to one another in the time ahead; to walk with Jesus who is your companion on this road and to love one another as he loves you. We've said that you are to be a community of living stones, at once solid and flexible, strong and malleable, able to stand firm and to move forward. You are to hold onto what has been good in your life over the years - mutual care, shared labor, diversity of membership, common worship - while embracing new possibilities.
You are to trust your life to the prayer, love and co-creative partnership of the risen and ascended Jesus.
Our focus has been largely, though by no means solely, on your life as a community -- the ways you would do well to live each other and with the God who is at the heart of your communal life. Much of what we've said has been about how you as a congregation are to live, love and work together. We have echoed, to a degree, our patron St. Paul in today's second lesson, as he concludes his last known Letter to the Church in Corinth:
Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell.
Put things in order,
listen to my appeal,
agree with one another,
live in peace;
and the God of love and peace will be with you.
This is, of course, excellent advice - especially for the conflicted congregation at Corinth. My guess is that you, being much less fractious, will find it easier to follow than they probably did. But whether in Mercerville near the beginning of the 21st century or Corinth in the middle of the first century, living, loving and working with each other in the ways Paul names has much to commend it to Christian congregations.
This communal life is, in fact, rooted in the life of God to the Holy Trinity, which we celebrate today and which Paul calls on in the famous words of blessing with which he closes:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. The life of the Triune God, Paul says, is a life of grace, of love and of communion. The One God is a community of love, a fellowship of graciousness, in which the distinctness of the Three Persons is united in a generous, open, co-creative outpouring of love. The Divine life of communal love is both the model for and the source of the communal love that is to mark the Church's life. This is the way of being together Paul urges for the Corinthians; It is what Susy and I have urged also for you at GraSP. It matters, going forward, that you live and work together in a communal life tooted in the Trinity that both honors differences and is united in love.
But... (you heard that coming, didn’t you?) -- but how you live together within this community is not the only thing that matters, not by a long shot. What matters equally, maybe even more, is what you do when you go out from this community -as individuals in your daily lives and as a community. Jesus' closing words in St. Matthew's Gospel make this clear. This is a farewell different in tone and content from Paul's last words to the Corinthians. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, says Jesus; Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. GO. Jesus' farewell command is not about how the Church lives together. It is about what Christians do in the world. This command is for you at GraSP in the time to come. GO. Get out of this place and go where Jesus sends you. Preach, teach, love, serve out there. Be in the world with people you don't know, not just in here with people you do know. GO. Do God's work in the world.
Last week, we renewed our Baptismal Covenant. This afternoon at St. Michael's, we will do so again as Kelsey, Jon, Matt, Melanie, Nick, Scott and Ian are Confirmed, and Dave and Steve are Received. Have you ever noticed that the 5 questions of that Baptismal Covenant include just one question about the life of the Church, while it has three questions about Christian life and ministry in the world? To be sure, the foundational first question is about the communal life of the Church:
Will continue you in the apostles teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread and the prayers?
But the last three are about how we live in the world each day:
Will you proclaim by word and example the Goodness of God in Christ?
Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
That structure of the Covenant is not an accident. It teaches us that important as the communal life of the Church is, it exists not for its won sake, but for something beyond itself - the witness, ministry and life of Christians as individuals and the Church as a community in the world. This reminder is needed because the church is always at risk of being too inward looking, too focused on its own well-being, its own needs, its own issues, its own life. Our communal life matters to us -as it should - but it is all too easy to get caught up in that and to neglect the call to ministry in the world which is the purpose for which God called the Church into being in the first place.
If that risk is always there, it is especially great in times of transition when there is a particular need to attend to the communal life of a congregation as it prepares to move forward into a new phase of its life. So, my friends, as you enter this time, do not become so focused on the communal life of GraSP that you neglect the broader call which Jesus gives today:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
This command is a Trinitarian command - and not just because of the invocation the Triune baptismal formula we still use. It is Trinitarian because Trinitarian love spills over from within the community in which it emerges beyond that community. The overflowing the love of the Triune God created the world, as we heard in Genesis today. The overflowing of God's love in the Incarnation of the Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit called the Church into being. So, too, the Triune love that lives in the community of Grace-St. Paul's is to overflow from you into the world to which Jesus sends you. My friends, don't get too wrapped in yourselves and your life together - not now, not ever. GO. Go, says Jesus, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And know that as you do so, you will never be alone. For remember, Jesus says, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
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