The Rev. Jay Lawlor visited Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church in Evansville, IN for Trinity Sunday 2017.

INDIANAPOLIS, IN, US, February 22, 2018 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Rev. Jay Lawlor preached and presided for Trinity Sunday at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Evansville, Indiana.

Good morning. I am delighted to be with you this morning while Fr. Larry is away.

As the Church we have celebrated several major feasts the past few months: Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, and now Trinity Sunday. And, after a long stint with John’s Gospel, we are back in Matthew’s Gospel. Right at the end of Matthew with The Great Commission. The disciples are back where it began for them in Galilee. To be more specific, they go to a mountain top – a traditional place for meeting God – and Jesus is there. They are returning to Galilee for a new beginning, to receive their marching orders from Jesus – to be commissioned.

Jesus commissions them to do three things: GO, BAPTIZE, and TEACH. The commission to Go is a reminder that the Jesus Movement is oriented outward. The commission to Baptize is to build a beloved community that lives resurrection life. The commission to Teach is to instruct and learn the ways of Christ, living as Jesus lived, and living in a new and transformed way.

But Jesus doesn’t just commission the disciples. He offers them a promise which makes it all possible when he tells them: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20b)

So the disciples know their mission – they have been given it by Jesus himself. Yet some of the disciples doubt. Astonishing! Not that some of the disciples had doubt, but that Matthew included it. It would have been much easier, certainly more convincing, to say that “they all believed.” But that would not have been the truth of the matter. And I find it comforting.

It is comforting because we know Christian communities are a mixture of faith and doubt. Most members taking on different roles at different times because our faith can ebb and flow. Sometimes, to borrow a phrase from Pentecost last week, we are kindled with the fire of God’s love; and, sometimes, … not so much.

But absolute belief and trust are not required by God. Because God does not place the measure of our belief nor our trust as a litmus test to be part of the beloved community as disciples of Jesus. All that is asked and expected is that we are open to receive the love of God that is already freely offered to us.

The Great Commission is all about love. We Go out in love. We Baptize in love. We Teach in love.

Remember that Jesus gave the New Commandment to love. Jesus showed the disciples how to love. Jesus lived in that love. He died for that love. And was resurrected in the power of that love. And that love lives on in and through us as followers of Jesus . . . it lives on in and through us because Jesus is with us, even to the end of the age. Jesus said so. It was his promise to the first disciples and it is a promise Jesus keeps with us.

And this love is much more than romantic or sentimental love. The Greek word for love in the New Testament is agape. And agape is love that is and from God. Godself is love because God’s nature is to love. God loves the unlovable and unlovely. God loves because God very nature is love.

It is this love that is Jesus’ commandment. It is this love which is our commission. The Great Commission is not necessarily about winning the world for Jesus. Jesus is already among us in the world. The Great Commission is about being sent to be alive in Jesus, to live like Jesus, to love like Jesus. The Church’s role – our role – is to join together and live the life God dreams for us – to be filled with God’s love and show that love to others.

Saint Theresa of Calcutta once said to: “Spread love everywhere you go.” and Archbishop Desmond Tutu says: “Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” The Church is meant to be the beloved community of God. Spreading love everywhere and overwhelming the world with good.

God made the world – all of creation – worthy and good in the beginning. And that goodness is what we are to proclaim and live. It is inherent in the very nature of God and creation. Exemplified in the Holy Trinity: Creator, Christ, and Spirit.

Father Richard Rohr writes that:
"Bonaventure – the supreme mystic philosopher, gives several metaphors for the Trinity – one is the fountain fullness of love pictured as a water wheel – three buckets on a moving water wheel. Each bucket empties out and then swings back. The reason it can empty out is that it knows it will be filled. […] God is relationship itself. God is communion, God’s very nature is love itself."*

The Holy Trinity is a continual outpouring and filling of God’s love. It is in and through this love which Jesus calls disciples and we are to form the beloved community.

Whenever we renew our Baptismal Promises we affirm our belief in God as the one who is the Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. It is less doctrine and more our putting trust in God, knowing that from the beginning Jesus’ community has been a mixture of faith and doubt. But a community where God’s unfailing presence and love are assured.

The Great Commission is responding to that love. We are to meet God and go out into the world with a deep and abiding love – in the image of Jesus – knowing God first loves us, and is with us always. Amen.

This is a copy of The Rev. Jay Lawlor's sermon which can be found on his website at https://www.therevjaylawlor.com/rev-jay-lawlor-sermon-trinity-sunday-year-june-11-2017/


*Richard Rohr quote from https://inaspaciousplace.wordpress.com/2017/04/22/richard-rohr-trinity-the-soul-of-creation-9b/

The Rev. Jay Lawlor
The Rev. Jay Lawlor
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