First United Methodist Church
June 16th, 2024
Rev. Lauren Hall
Living the Trinity: A Life of Love
Rowynn and I went to see the movie, Inside Out 2, this weekend. It’s cute – like the first movie it’s about the emotions that work inside of us as we experience life, but this time Riley is thirteen and her childhood emotions – joy, sadness, fear, anger and disgust – have to intersect with the adolescent ones – boredom, envy, embarrassment and anxiety – and as a result there is this great tension that builds as these new emotions take over the control center and the childhood ones fight to take it back. Ultimately, however, the movie recognizes that it takes all of the emotions to form a well-rounded human being.
This movie is, of course, fiction, and it uses some pretty humorous and creative metaphors to stretch our imagination in order to make its theological point, (all movies have a theological point) which I believe is:
No one [emotion] gets to decide what kind of person Riley is going to be – each emotion is necessary and will discover its place and importance as she experiences life.
This week’s gospel begins with a parable, which is Jesus’ way of using humor and creativity to stretch us beyond our familiar academic-learning style. Academic learning means that we take what’s in here [point to Bible] and try to put it in here [point to brain]. Parables push us beyond the basic academics because they place us a vision of God’s kingdom beside the world as it is and invite us to see what happens. They are meant to undermine our assumptions of the various “givens” and “realities” that we accept unquestioningly and offer us a vision of something different. We sometimes experience discomfort when we hear them because they challenge us to consider other possibilities in light of God’s promises.
Today’s parable offers us a basic introduction to the Kingdom of God. In this one we see that Jesus is using everyday agricultural language to talk about God. As seeds grow without our effort, God will bring about God’s reign in the same way. It is not up to us. We can’t make it happen. Nor can we prevent it. God is ultimately responsible for bringing God’s rule and reign into being. This is amazingly comforting, but it can also be a little discomforting, especially when we realize – as we’ve seen in recent weeks – that God’s rule and reign and concern and activity is on behalf of everyone, even those who look or believe or think differently than we do.
At the same time, however, we have to be wary of the fact that if we can plant a seed that will grow without our effort, then so can everyone else. If you ever drive by the parsonage, you may notice that I have several plants growing among my bushes that don’t seem to belong there. I don’t know who planted them, but I do know that they are a pain to keep under control. Just like the parable says, they sprout and grow, and I do not know how. The earth produces of itself…”
When we allow others to plant seeds of hatred, or racism, or sexism, or anger, or jealousy, or anything else that separates us from the love of Christ, we have to realize that these seeds grow too. And when they take up space in the Kingdom of God, they slow down God’s redemptive work. Even though God defeated Satan in Christ’s death and resurrection, Satan is still out there. God will always be stronger, but Satan will constantly seek to enter God’s house by tying us up with distorted perspectives.
God, of course, has an answer for Satan’s medaling. In the parable of the mustard seed, Jesus reminds us that God’s reign of redemptive and surprising love and grace, once sown, cannot be controlled, moderated, or domesticated. And we definitely can’t stop it. In this sense, it is more like the mustard plant that begins as the smallest of all seeds, and then grows and spreads and can hardly be contained, even if you’re not sure you want it.
When Jesus listeners first heard this, they must have thought Jesus was being ridiculous. Intentionally planting a mustard seed anywhere near your field would be downright stupid. Not only does the seed start out small and grow really big, but the seed also spreads rapidly – much like a weed. In only one season mustard plants would have spread so prolifically that all the other crops would be choked out. It would compare to sowing dandelions or bamboo in the middle of our garden or wheat field.
But this is the image that Jesus gives us for the kingdom of God: not a fragile, delicate plant that needs special care and cultivation, but a powerful, adaptive, encroaching plant that spreads all over the earth. We might find this idea a bit alarming at first, but that is probably a response to our own desire to control things. We like the idea that we can "regulate" God and limit our spiritual journey to only those places where we already feel comfortable. This parable assures us that we can’t do that.
I know that I can identify times in my life where I meant to only let in "a little bit" of the gospel, only to discover that, through my single invitation, God made new inroads in my heart and mind that changed me forever. How about you? Have you ever given God an inch, to discover that God had taken a mile? It's a little disconcerting, but it's also comforting in a way, to know that once God takes hold in our lives, God doesn't finish until the work is complete.
When you think about it, every time we pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done”, we are petitioning for God’s rule and will to be enacted among us. This is a huge request and should not be taken lightly. Jesus’ primary mission was to establish the reign of God on earth and everything that he did in his ministry worked toward fulfilling this goal.
In this light, this parable should shake us up a little, awakening us to the promise that God is on the move – in our life, in our community, in the world – and that God will in time complete the work that God has started.
In the meantime, we’re invited to enact God’s reign wherever we are, acting in the confidence that God’s promises are true. This means that when things are going well, we can take delight in being more aligned with God’s will and ways. It also means that when life is hard, when we meet resistance, or when we fail or fall far short of our hopes, that we can take refuge in the promise that God is still at work and has not given up on us or the world.
What we can’t do, however, is measure the strength or validity of God’s promises based on our own efforts, but rather allow the promises of the God who created light out of darkness and raised Jesus from the dead to give us a quiet and resilient confidence to take joy when we see God’s reign lived out and to be encouraged and empowered to keep faith when we don’t.
So, as we consider what it means to live our lives in the Trinity, becoming vessels of love charged with carrying out Christ’s mission of making disciples of all nations, what are we supposed to do?
First and foremost, Christ did not call us to be silent. Our profession of faith is not just insider information – something to be hidden within these four walls. The fact is that what we do in here is exactly what we must take out into the world. The actions of our worship affect everything we do when we leave the church. And that means that nothing about our faith can be insider information. Living the Trinity results in an outpouring of our love and our faith.
In a much longer sermon, Mother Erika Takacs shared these thoughts regarding the Trinity:
“Every time we offer a blessing, the world sees the Trinity. Every time we speak of our baptisms, the world sees the Trinity. Every time we confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share in his eternal priesthood, the world sees the Trinity.
Every time we offer our forgiveness, the world sees the Trinity. And every time we stop in our tracks to acknowledge the presence of the holy – in the profound gift that is the created world around us, in the beauty of a cantata or a collage or a carefully crafted word, in the pain and the joy we hear in another’s story, in the generosity we see in those who offer their lives to the service of others, in the bravery we see in those who speak TRUTH in a world that seems to reward only materialism and posturing, in the seemingly foolishness of those who proclaim hope in the face of death and despair, in the obedience we see in those who continue to proclaim the Gospel, come whence it may, cost what it will – every time we stop and acknowledge that holiness by bowing down in the face of its wonder and mystery, the world sees the Trinity.”
The world always sees the Trinity when you and I act like the disciples we’re called to be. The first thing that the world sees when you and I walk out from these doors today should be an outpouring of God’s compassionate love.
We cannot hide it, and why would we ever want to? Let us pray…
Invitation to Discipleship:
As you leave here today, go and live out the Trinity, show the world what it means to be shaped the power of God’s love. And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all, and all the world, now and forever. Go in peace.
