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What
is the disciple? The disciple is someone who believes, receives, incorporates
and shares. This was a wonderful little
learning nugget I received from studying under Pastor Dawson; whom I had the
great pleasure of serving with for over 8 years! Believing as we have come to
learn is hard stuff. Faith, for the
disciple of Jesus, is a challenge and I would further add,
“high-maintenance.” Receiving Faith goes
hand in hand with the Holy Spirit and His work within us for the better. Incorporating it all into our person or
better said, cracking open that New Nature Seed planted by Grace in the heart,
and reaping it as our faith, is our greatest walk, Amen!
Sharing
faith or living into it, is trusting in the mystery of God and the mystery of
purposes for the whole of creation. The
mile-long reading we heard this morning from the Old Testament Book of Genesis
is considered the first creation story.
God ordering chaos, creating the world that we currently walk in. Our “saint/sinner” selves don’t like trusting
in the whole notion of mystery, if anything, we’re always trying to define it,
not necessarily for the better, either.
The seemingly endless season of Pentecost that this Sunday inaugurates,
we should think of as our time in “discipleship school” with Jesus and His
disciples as our formative teachers.
Speaking
of teaching, you see in today’s bulletin, a “sermon nugget” flyer for you to
take home as an item of learning or if you’re trying out for jeopardy, some
juicy church history trivia! Athanasius was an early church figure who, like
many, needed to try to clarify what the mystery of God really is. Some faith traditions as well, torture their
congregants to read it as a mind-numbing statement within their worship
liturgies. I invite you to pick his
sentences apart to hear his reasoning and our human struggle with defining just
what is the Holy Trinity. Truth be told,
but this particular Sunday is often very difficult for the preacher to preach
yet alone for the congregants to not be weighed down by a “doctrinal manifesto
of words…” Don’t fall prey to
Pidgeon-holing or dismissing this example of writing as mere “church” stuff or
dogma. This was someone’s significant
and prayerful efforts toward understand the nature of the Holy Trinity.
So
how then are we to truly appreciate and observe Holy Trinity Sunday? The
snippets we heard at the beginning of my message are a “day in the life” of two
amazing disciples of Jesus, Peter and Paul.
We hear an awful lot about them in what has been dubbed the Gospel of
the Resurrection—the Book of Acts. St.
Paul’s pastoral letters to the various churches he planted are an amazing
witness to the power of the Resurrection active in Paul’s many ministries. This all began with the wonderful Gospel
reading of Jesus’ great commission to the disciples to Go, therefore and make
disciples of all nations! Alleluia, I
say and Amen! How have we done so far,
some 2,000 something years later? Looking around at this wonderful fellowship
of believers, I would say keep on fighting the Good fight of faith—BE
encouraged as I am definitely encouraged and blessed by you!
We
are all here this morning and beyond, united by an amazing and gracious faith
that keeps our spiritual hearts attuned for the Gospel—preach it, teach it and
live it! Believe it or not, but each and every one of you have been granted the
capacity to take on Jesus’ words spoken in today’s Gospel. Remember the universe is a lot greater than
the east side of Vegas or your own individual “world.” This afternoon I am blessed
to be attending a time of fellowship for those who have made a Cursillo. Cursillo is a Spanish word that literally
means “short course” in Christianity.
What it really is though, is a recharging spiritual battery pack of
Christian leadership and remembering, feeling those words of commission from
Jesus as though they were written upon the walls of our hearts like those early
statement efforts seeking to define our relationship with God. Truth be told, at some point, we will hear
what is considered the very first statement of faith coming from Paul—Jesus is
Lord. Three words just like the three
aspects of what we call the Triune God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
There
is a beautiful prayer that is said when in fellowship with others who have made
this short-course in Christianity. It
goes like this: “Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle
in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be
created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. O, God, who by the light of
the Holy Spirit, did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the
same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, Through
Christ Our Lord, Amen.”
Can
you hear the great commission being realized in this prayer? Can you relate
this to Peter’s efforts in the Book of Acts when he acknowledges God in
declaring: “You have made known to me the ways of life, You have filled me with
the gladness of Your presence?” Can you
feel Paul’s instruction to the wayward Corinthian congregation of live in
peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you? I sure can and I do
believe that the Grace and love of God in communion with the Holy Spirit is
with us all, at this very moment!
In
the beginning of time, what even science can’t fathom as the magnificent
mystery of God’s creating of a vast universe purpose, took shape. This purpose took shape as being and became a
reality from the truly unknowable mind of God! This is nothing to feel negative
about for ours is a journey in relationship to God as His children of Grace and
Promise. Our heavenly parent is the Triune God, our earthly parents are living
into that natural command of being fruitful and multiply. Our lives are God’s
magnificent creation of actual being, being that is active in fulfilling
purpose!
That’s
not good enough for us though, to simply be, and graciously give, share of
ourselves. We needed Christ’s
intervention to help us realize what purpose and being are to truly mean in the
wilderness of the world we have brought upon ourselves currently. As Peter says
and reminds the Israelites of in the Book of Acts, Christ died, rose and
ascended, giving us the Holy Spirit as a part of God’s plans to live into the
genuine purpose of creation—the Kingdom of God. One of the thoughts that was
mentioned at the Annual Conference that I had some spiritual trouble with, is
that as the active group of disciples we are, in being “church” we need to work
on being “relevant.” The Gospel is
always relevant, period. We ARE the ones
to make it irrelevant when we can’t or won’t incorporate the great calling from
God to love Him and neighbor truly in our hearts and throughout our lives!
That
first relationship to God is what is needed to be led and fed—one of the
purposes of “discipleship school” or church. Our relationship to the world is
basically this: what are we going to DO with the Gospel? How has the Gospel
shaped us to now witness it, on our lives’ journey? Remember here that we must break away from
that “Sunday only” frame of mind and see every day as Sunday~ meaning that we
live for the Gospel, share the Gospel, BE the Gospel every day of our lives. The cost of discipleship was already paid for
by Christ Jesus, His Resurrection is what poured forth the calling to live in
Grace, our faith-filled promise, response, as children of God.
Let’s
go back to that first nugget I learned from my mentoring pastor, Pastor Dawson—believe,
receive, incorporate and share. Where
are you in your relationship to God?
What do you faithfully, not doctrinally, but faithfully believe in God?
What has the Trinity taught you personally about why you follow Jesus? You have received a lot, how much of it are
you aware of, however? Have you thought
or prayed upon the spiritual gifts God has given, blessed you with? Have you taken His Words, the Gospel
seriously into your whole person and begun reaping that New Nature seed as
incorporation? And lastly, when’s the last time you shared, witnessed your
faith within a spiritually deprived and hungering world that is all around you?
The Christian journey isn’t an easy one, but neither is life itself, “easy.”
The Love and Grace of God is what orders the chaos of our souls to create a
kinder and gentler world—the world God hopes for us to realize…
Let
us Pray,
Gracious
and Loving Trinity
We
need to struggle with our “being”
In
order to truly understand Your purposes
And
Commission to us all as Your children
May
our time in fellowship and service as the Body in the world
Sing
a New song shouting from the mountain tops
That
we have been called to righteousness as a covenantal people
To
live in peace, know Your love and Grace
And
truly reflect that Your Holy Spirit has inspired and shaped us all
AMEN
June 11th, Holy
Trinity Sunday; Year A
Sermon by: Reverend Nicole A.M.
Collins
Psalm 8; Genesis 1:1—2:4a; Acts
2:14a, 22-36; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; & Matthew 28:16-20
The link below is to this sermon's delivery at First Congregational Church of Las Vegas:
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