The Holy Trinity
June (10 &) 11, 2006
Sermon by Rev Timothy A Leitzke
I believe in the centrality and
importance of worship, in doing liturgy in a certain way. We heard just last
week in the Faith Statements of our Confirmands their unbidden gratitude for
their parents’ simple act of bringing them to worship every week, so I know
it’s powerful. The service of Holy Communion is an icon, an image of God in
which we all take part. It is beautiful and glorious. Liturgy teaches us about
who we are and reveals the invisible, unknowable God to us. For example, when
we open on our knees with Confession we physically acknowledge that we have
failed, and that we cannot come to God but need God to come to us; and when we
are forgiven we are able to stand before God and sing praises that God indeed
comes to us. This being the festival of The Holy Trinity it’s a good time to
mention when we say the name of the triune God in liturgy. We speak it before
the Confession, to remind us of why we are here, and we speak it in the
Benediction, the final blessing before we are sent out in mission.
I have to confess, I’ve always wanted
to play with the sending. I’ve always wanted to rewrite the dismissal from, “Go
in peace…” to “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.” It really
would fit in the Sending. The sending hymn is essentially ornamental. The
desired effect is, “The Lord’s Supper is eaten, Almighty God, the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit bless you. Now get out. You don’t have to go home but
you can’t stay here.” The name of God is spoken in the Benediction and we are
immediately sent. The revelation is complete and now we must go.
We do that because it reflects how
God works with us. Consider the First Reading (Isaiah 6:1-8). Some consider this
episode the “call of Isaiah” but he was already a prophet at this point. He
doesn’t set the scene; he starts talking and is immediately in God’s throne
room, privy to the divine wardrobe and the lyrics of the song of the fiery,
snakelike seraphim. His description of what he sees is confounding. It’s hard
to tell what he means. It’s probably because it was beyond what words could
describe. Barely has the vision begun but a seraph purifies Isaiah’s lips and
God commissions him to a specific job. The angels sing, God reveals a few
secrets and then tells Isaiah, “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay
here.”
The revelation to Isaiah is his
mission. God sends Isaiah to tell what he has seen and heard. It is easy to say
that, and say that we should do likewise, but to grasp what it means for Isaiah
we have to understand his world. Isaiah lived in the 8th Century BCE
in the small Kingdom of Judah, the southern quarter of David’s
kingdom. The King, Uzziah, had died, and his grandson would soon reign as King
Ahaz. Everyone in Palestine was on edge, because Assyria—a mighty empire to the northeast—had
defeated Egypt and was expanding into Palestine. Two of Israel’s closest neighbors, Israel and Aram, wanted Judah to join them in an anti-Assyrian
alliance. When King Ahaz of Judah wisely refused Israel and Aram attacked Judah, hoping to put a new king in Ahaz’
place. God commissions Isaiah to walk right into this mess as it is unfolding.
God’s message was, “Trust me. Aram and Israel are weak—you can outlast them. Their
time is up. Don’t be scared. Don’t ally yourselves with Egypt or Assyria. Just play it cool. Trust me.”
Friends of Christ, imagine being King
Ahaz of Judah, knowing you’re outnumbered, facing
terrible destruction, your world about to be chewed up by war and your own
people demanding you do something. Now imagine being Isaiah. You have to go up
to this guy and tell him to play it cool and trust God. That’s the gospel
Isaiah carries. He’s seen the Lord. He has heard the angels sing, and their
song is assurance to Judah: “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of
the Heavenly Hosts.” A host in this case is not someone holding a dinner party,
or the piece of bread you receive at Communion, but an army. Isaiah’s
revelation is that God’s got a few trillion warrior angels just hanging around
the palace. Israel and Aram have nothing on him. God has
promised to be faithful and will be faithful. God loves Judah and the people of
Judah. Yes, the situation is hopeless, so trust God. Alas,
Ahaz trusts himself, and asks Assyria to help.
The story is our own, though in our
version we’re both Isaiah and Ahaz. Like Ahaz we face our own array of fears.
Instead of Israel, Aram, and Assyria we have our bills and debts, or our
addictions, or the pressure to buy more, or the desire to hoard what we have.
Instead of Judah demanding action we have our own
family and friends. Our troubles, no matter how great or small, drive us to
despair. The gospel tells us to play it cool. We have those glimpses of God
like Isaiah does; we have a revelation. We know from worship that we depend
entirely upon God and that God is good for it. We have knelt before God with
our Brothers and Sisters in Christ and asked for forgiveness…and we have
received it! We have stood forgiven and praised God in song and prayer. We have
eaten God’s meal. We have experienced the Gospel. God knows you. God knows
every inch of you. God knows your dirty little secrets. God knows what makes
you cry. God knows what gives you joy. God knows that you’re angry with someone
you love. God knows that you have a weakness for ice cream. God knows just how
much stress you can handle…and God’s seen you overloaded with it more than a
few times. God knows everything about you and God loves you. God has a grand
palace, at least according to Isaiah, but God gives it up. God gives up that
dress with the long train. God gives up the singing angels and the heavenly
armies and becomes a guy nailed to a tree so that nothing stands between us.
God is madly in love with you, and when our fears mount God tells us, “Play it cool. You can
trust me. Now, you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”
Our revelation becomes our mission.
As God sent Isaiah into his scary world God sends us into a scary world to bear
the good news. And the world needs it. Just this Tuesday I awoke to the
headline that so-called Evangelicals the world over were praying ardently
because it was Devil Day, the Day of the Antichrist, June 6,
2006 or 6-6-6. There were bomb threats, sightings
of the antichrist, even specials on the History Channel. Friends of Christ, the
World needs to know: What have you seen? Have you knelt with your Brothers and
Sisters in Christ before God, asked for forgiveness, and been forgiven? Have
you been able to sing praises to God? Have you heard the good news of God’s
endless love and promise of salvation? Have you eaten and drunk the flesh and
blood of the God who died for you? Friends of Christ we have done these things,
and the God who comes to us in these things is beyond our understanding. God is
not confined to a date on a calendar, to the words on the page, to the
preacher’s voice or the bread and wine. God is more than we’ll ever understand,
yet through Christ we know that we can trust God, and we know what God asks of
us. God’s message is clear: tell them what you have seen. Feed the hungry, care
for the sick, heal the ills and divisions of this world, forgive, love, love
your neighbors, love your enemies. This is the work of the God revealed to us
as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit right here, right now, and when the
revelation ends you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here. Amen