June 7, 2023

I was watching the kids back here last week, the two congregations together and the kids all playing.  I talked with the family of a 3 year old from Santa Cruz they were marveling at how quickly and easily kids make friends.  Today is all about making friends—about relationships.

Holy Trinity Weekend is all about relationships—the relationship of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—one God in three persons.  God is whole and complete and yet God yearned to be in relationship.  The trinity is a mystery and yet it points to relationship as being central to our faith.

We all want to belong, to connect.  That is apparent from childhood where our natural way is to make friends.  It isn’t until we’re older that we begin to fret about relationships and fear each other and become divided.

The story of Joseph and his coat of many colors is all about relationship.  Joseph was born into this big family, second youngest, but first child of Rachel.  He is surrounded by all these brothers with their important lives and different gifts.  For a while, he is the youngest.  And he’s the favorite.  His mother has been unable to have children.  She and Jacob are soul mates.  They finally, finally have this child and all the other children sense how cherished Joseph is.  Joseph has no clue, except that all these brothers are bigger and more powerful than him.  And he wants to belong.  He belongs with his mother who loves him so deeply.  But he wants to belong with his brothers.  He is given this coat and he hopes that by wearing it, he can belong.  But his brothers are already past the point of innocence.  They don’t want to share their father’s affections.  They don’t want to share scarce resources like coats and colors and love.  They don’t realize that love is a renewable resource and there is enough to go around.  They never learn that truth until they meet Joseph years later and he extends to them the love and relationship they never extended to him.

(The story of the Creation, is all about relationships.  The night and the day are in relationship and it isn’t all or nothing.  The seas must part to reveal the soil before plants can exist.  The plants must be plentiful before the animals come on the scene.  Everything depends on everything else and all depend on God.  Even humans depend upon each other and upon all the creation that God makes, and notice that everyone starts out as a vegetarian, in right relationship with the plants and animals around them.)

In the second reading today we learn the recipe for siblingship: Put things in order, listen to Paul’s appeal, agree with one another, live in peace, greet one another.  Sort yourselves out and remember what is most important—listening, having compassion, heed Paul’s encouragement, find common ground in agreement and let the little things go, live in shalom, wholeness, peace, putting aside hierarchies and fears of not having or being enough.  Be in relationship as equals, as co-learners.  God is making a new creation in this reading—the church.  The people of God are discovering who they are, how to be in relationship, how to make decisions, how to follow Jesus, how to be a new creation living a loving, equitable way.

The Gospel reading for today, is Jesus’ very last words to his disciples before he ascends.  He is saying to them, it is their responsibility to take these stories and experiences and the love and relationship out to the whole world.  This is not a secret to be kept for the few.  Love is to be shared.  Relationship is to be shared—with everyone.

In this Gospel, some doubted.  I love the connection, the relationship with worship and the doubt.  The word here is more “hesitated.”  They worshipped him but some hesitated.  This is the same hesitation that comes when Peter walks on water.  He starts sinking and Jesus says, “Peter, why do you hesitate?”  We all learned it was “Why do you doubt?”  Peter hesitates and he is lifted up and back into the boat.  And there they all worshipped Jesus.  Both times where there is worship there is doubt or hesitation and where there is hesitation in the scriptures, there is worship.  It’s a lovely combination.  Whether in worship or in relationship we are sometimes all-in, maybe more when we’re children because we don’t carry the fears and the hurts with us.  We don’t have any awareness of what other people think of us.  As we get older we hesitate.  But hesitation is not rejection.  Doubt is not rejection.  Doubt and hesitation are part of relationship and we find our way to trust by taking risks and being vulnerable, reaching out to others in relationship and love, risking rejection.  But isn’t there more risk in not extending that invitation or not accepting that invitation.  Jesus has taken the risk to invite us.  We crucified him.  But still he continues to invite.  So we follow him and invite and accept invitations.

I have been enjoying the new members in our midst, because they are bold and vulnerable, jumping right in and finding their placed in the community at Trinity.  They are doing ministry along with the longer-term members.  They are inviting all of us to new ways of being Trinity.  We continue to form bonds of friendship and support.  The Holy Spirit has been working in their lives a long time.  Ask them their story—it is all very fun to discover how God has been working all this time.  Now our paths cross and we all are growing in faith, hope, and love, hesitating now and then, and then moving forward as we encourage one another.

Jesus sends the disciples out into the world to make disciples, to be in relationship, to doubt, to worship, to hesitate.  So often this command of Jesus has been misused to hurt people—to force people to be baptized, to look down on people.  This scripture has been used to justify slavery, the great inquisition, and some of the worst of Christianity.  It has made us arrogant that we know better for someone else’s life.  Instead, we learn in these ancient stories that it is ok to hesitate, that we go out to be co-disciples, co-learners, co-students with others in the faith.  We go, with humility, to follow Jesus, to falter in that endeavor, to doubt and hesitate with others, to ask the questions with each other, to be honest about our shortcomings and doubts with others.  We go out to share the story and to hear other people’s stories so that God can give us the whole story we don’t have yet without our siblings around the world, in all kinds of different circumstances. 

Jesus is the author of creation, the word over the waters that is bringing everything into being—and he’s not done yet.   He is still creating disciples, creating relationships, creating love,  creating friends.  When we doubt and hesitate, Jesus is there with us and there in the community of faith, where we support, care, and love one another and approach each other with humility, where we share stories and get the bigger picture of who God is creating us to be.