A Sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on June 28, 2009 at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center in Huntington, WV, and based on 2 Corinthians 8:1-15, Deuteronomy 15: 7-11 and Psalm 112.
8:1 We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, 2 for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. 3 For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, 4 begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints— 5 and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. 6 Accordingly, we urged Titus that as he had started, so he should complete among you this act of grace. 7 But as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you —see that you excel in this act of grace also.
8 I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. 9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. 10 And in this matter I give my judgment: this benefits you, who a year ago started not only to do this work but also to desire to do it. 11 So now finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have. 12 For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have. 13 For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness 14 your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness. 15 As it is written, “Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.” (ESV)
Today, I’d like for us to consider something I think would please the Lord greatly: becoming a “Generosity – Driven” Church. Here are three B’s around which we may organize our thoughts:
The Basis for Generosity
The Barriers to Generosity
The Benefits of Generosity
But first a story:
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove tells about a church he knew that “decided to launch a building campaign. They were a healthy church with a good pastor, and new members kept coming every month. It was a rural congregation whose size was somewhat limited by the community that surrounded it. If every living soul for five miles around found Jesus, they could probably have still fit in their building. But some folks in the congregation had heard about church growth and started thinking that they needed to build a larger sanctuary along with new classrooms and ‘multi-purpose’ space. So they launched a building campaign.
Through the denomination they hired a fundraising expert who organized an ambitious effort, seeking to raise millions of dollars. But after the church had been at it a number of years and reached only about half of the goal, they decided to end the campaign. Some people felt like it was a failure. They didn’t have enough money to build their big new building. But since they could still fit in the old one, they looked around and asked what else they might use the money for.
It turned out that one family that had come to the church during this time of growth didn’t have much money. The father was disabled, and they struggled to make ends meet. But the church was genuinely glad to have them and really enjoyed the gifts they brought to the community. So the church decided to use some of the money from the campaign fund to build that family a house.”
I think the pastor’s name was Ty Pennington…
But seriously folks…Hartgrove goes on to allow as how there is nothing wrong with building meeting spaces when a church needs it, but he concludes that “a generosity-driven church that builds houses for the poor will never have to worry about church growth. A church that pours itself out as Christ gave himself for the church will always be budding with new life. (“New Monasticism”: pgs. 104-105)
With that example in mind, let’ look at our first ‘B”: The Basis for Generosity
Verse 9 of 2 Cor. 8: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”
Phillipians 2:3-8 expands upon this idea in this way: “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
The Basis for Generosity is first and foremost God’s generosity in sending Jesus Christ to empty himself out of all his divine prerogatives, take on human flesh and live and die for sinners such as us – while we were still sinners! (Romans 5:6). Now that’s Generosity!
By way of contrast, let’s go on to consider what Generosity is NOT based upon:
1) Generosity is not based on what you have – on wealth or riches.
In our passage from Second Corinthians 8: 1-3, Paul tells of the
…”grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. 3 For they gave according to their means, as I can testify - and beyond their means…”
The context for this remark was that in the years 45-47 AD, there was a general famine in the Mediterranean world, but especially in Syria. Crops failed and as a result it was almost impossible to find bread in Jerusalem. The people were starving – and money didn’t help because coins couldn’t scare up grain. So Paul spent a considerable amount of time – maybe up to a couple of years – trying to collect food for those in Jerusalem. This was a formidable task because he had to actually collect the food itself and transport it over hundreds of miles.
Now the Macedonian church was going through a ‘severe test of affliction’ itself. The people were extremely poor. Not just poor, extremely poor. Their giving went beyond their means and became an overflowing wealth of generosity. 2 Cor. 8:12: “For if the readiness [to give] is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.”
Generosity is NOT based on our means.
2) It follows logically that Generosity is not based on having a great financial plan for the future. The Macedonians didn’t evaluate their portfolios and then decided how much they could give based on their projected rate of return, market conditions, etc. Their giving was based on a heart of compassion that sought to help others even more pressed than them. This was an ‘act of grace” (v.7). They were determined to give even though they could not see provision up ahead. Therefore, their basis of giving must have been confidence in God and His ability to provide rather than what they could see or plan. This doesn’t preclude planning, but –
Generosity is NOT based on having a great financial plan.
3) Finally, true Generosity is not based on compulsion. The Macedonians begged earnestly for the favor of contributing to the needs of the saints in Jerusalem of their own accord (v. 3). This was not by way of command (v.8), but voluntary giving - the same as that shown by the saints in Jerusalem in the very early days of the church, when the saints were “selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. (Acts 2:45).
Contrast this with State taxation. Government programs to help the poor cannot truly be said to be Generous because they are based on the coercive power of the State to extract your money whether you want to give or not. Rather, Paul sees this as a matter of fairness:
13 For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of fairness 14 your abundance at the present time should supply their need, so that their abundance may supply your need, that there may be fairness. 15 As it is written, “Whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack.”
True Generosity is Not compulsory.
To summarize our first 'B' then: the Basis for Generosity is Christ’s example of self-giving, thankfulness for what God has done, Confidence in God as Provider, Compassion for others, and a desire to participate in what God is doing.
Now let’s look at some Barriers to Generosity
Our reading from Deut. 15:7-11 says : “If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, 8 but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. 9 Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, ‘The seventh year, [Jubilee] the year of release is near,’ and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and you be guilty of sin. 10 You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. 11 For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’
Need is say more? The first barrier to Generosity is Hardness of Heart.
Closely akin to this is Greed. I can’t give because I want stuff, status, or prestige.
This past week I talked to a woman whose heart desire was to stay at home with her kids. Her husband, however, insisted that she go to work full time, even though he himself was making hundreds of thousands of dollars. Worse – when she protested and asked what it was they needed her income for – he couldn’t even say. He wanted money for the sake of prestige and status – not even to buy toys. Greed like this is excessively wicked and God will judge it severely.
Next on our list of barriers is Fear
“What if the economy goes bad?” “What if …Wait a minute! The economy IS bad! What if it gets worse? What if we can’t pay our bills?! What if, What if, What if the sky falls in?! Somehow, I just don’t think this argument would hold much weight with the Macedonians. You see, generosity is based in confidence in God as Provider, no matter what the circumstances. Fear is never a legitimate reason not to give in God’s economy.
Then there is perhaps a more subtle barrier: the challenge to give wisely. It’s possible to give badly – with strings or expectations attached. In Spencer, where my mother and my sister live, there are two Methodist churches within a block of one another. One church has a large endowment which is earmarked for the maintenance and upkeep of the building. The problem is that the money can’t be used for anything else. So the membership keeps dwindling and they can’t pay their monthly bills or fund Outreach ministry– but they have a well-kept building!
Gifts of money can create unhealthy relationships or circumstances. Throwing money at problems can create other problems in its wake. It takes true discernment to give wisely.
So the need to give wisely is a potential barrier to true Generosity – but it’s no excuse. We are still expected to be Generous.
But enough with barriers and problems; on to the Benefits of Generosity
Psalm 112, beginning in verse 5:
5 It is well with the man who deals generously and lends;who conducts his affairs with justice.6 For the righteous will never be moved;he will be remembered forever.7 He is not afraid of bad news;his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.8 His heart is steady; he will not be afraid,until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.
9 He has distributed freely; he has given to the poor;his righteousness endures forever;his horn is exalted in honor.
The Generous person will be blessed with
Stability
A Righteous Legacy
Confidence
Triumph over enemies
Power
Verses 1-3 of Psalm 112 also add the following benefits:
Great Offspring
Wealth
Riches
Righteousness
Let’s look at these verses now:
“1 Praise the Lord!Blessed is the man who fears the Lord,who greatly delights in his commandments!2 His offspring will be mighty in the land;the generation of the upright will be blessed.3 Wealth and riches are in his house,and his righteousness endures forever.”
Note the exuberance of the Psalmist’s praise. In 2 Cor 8: 2, we find a wonderful phrase to describe this: “Abundance of Joy”.
An excellent benefit of Generosity is Abundance of Joy.
This week, I have watched this Generosity in action as we have had a crew from the World Changers working at Hope House. In talking to the crew members, we learned from one joyful woman, Pam, that this was her 10th World Changers trip in as many years!
Another lady on the crew, Ginger, told us how her church of some 300 people sent 60 of its members to work in Huntington this week! And 11 of them were from her own immediate and extended family! This is extravagant Generosity. And its reward is Joy.
Friday night we went to the World Changers wrap-up dinner and Worship Service at Huntington High School. Believe me, there was lots of enthusiasm and joy in the crowd as they worshipped the Lord and told of experiences they had had during the week.
This kind of giving also leads to Growth in Faith. Generosity opens up opportunities to see God work in ways that we could never imagine. Generosity increases Faith.
It also produces a Good Testimony in the world.
On Monday, I met a young man named Marcel, who lives with his girlfriend, Letitia, three doors down from Hope House. Marcel starts his days by sitting out on the front stoop and drinking beer from a bottle in a paper bag. Over the course of five days, I talked with Marcel numerous times and even had the opportunity to invite him into Hope House at one point. He looked around and after the tour, he told me in slurred speech, “You guys sure are doin’ a great thing here. After you get this done, we should have a party – a good one, not a bad one, you know. We’ll get together and celebrate. …”
Because we as a congregation have been generous in the Fairfield community, we have a good reputation with nonbelievers. Over the course of time, I fully expect that some, if not many, will come to know Christ – largely because we have sown into the life of the community generously thus creating a Good Testimony.
So to return to our challenge or call – It pleases God for us to become a Generosity – Driven Church.
I do believe that we are generous already. When you look at the numbers on our financial report every month, I think you would have to agree that we are generous. But I think we have room to grow in this.
Robert Shnase, in his book, “Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations” says that ‘Extravagantly Generous congregations emphasize mission, purpose, and life-changing results rather than shortages, budgets and institutional loyalty”. …”They emphasize the Christian’s need to give more than the church’s need for money. They teach, preach, and practice proportional giving with the goal of tithing. …They speak of joy, devotion, honoring God, and the steady growth of spirit that leads to greater [and greater] generosity.” (pg 119).
I think that sounds like an exciting way to approach giving – and I hope you do too.
So how shall we proceed? How do we become “Generosity-Driven”?
Start with the Tithe. If you’re not tithing already, make a plan to become a tither. This is the one area where God specifically invites us to test him: Malachi 3:10-12: “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. 11 I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts. 12 Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of hosts.”
Put God to the test and see if He will not provide for you as you give generously. Plan to increase your giving one per cent per year until you have reached the Tithe – and see if the Lord does not provide for your every need.
Our commitment to AMIA is that we participate in the 10-10-10 plan. We all tithe to the church. The Church tithes to AMIA, and AMIA sends a tithe to Rwanda, granting 50% of its monies back to local ministries. This is where our $9500 grant for the HVAC system at Hope House came from. We benefited from others’ generosity and we in turn we must be a blessing to others.
But even beyond ‘paying our dues’ to AMIA, as a congregation, let’s begin to think about this notion of Extravagant Giving. What would the Lord have us to do that we would become more and more known as a Generosity-Driven Church? Let’s commit to praying about it and ‘put God to the Test” and see if He does not open the windows of heaven – even to the point where we have to say “Enough, Lord, stay your hand.”
Let’s become Macedonians, characterized by Abundance of Joy who give ‘beyond our means because we know that God’s means can never be exhausted. Amen? Amen.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Death is Swallowed up in Life
A sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on June 14, 2009 at the Convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center, Huntington, WV and based on II Corinthians 5:1-10.
Recently I spoke with a woman who had lost her daughter in a sudden, tragic accident. She was beside herself with grief, totally preoccupied with thoughts about what she might have or could have done to prevent the death - even though she was no where near her daughter when the accident occurred. She was in shock, unable to grasp the reality that her daughter was gone. And she was also afraid because while she was basically sure of her daughter’s character and knew that she had made a personal confession of faith, the young woman hadn’t gone to church very regularly. In addition, there were a couple of other things that caused the mother worry that her daughter might not make it to heaven because of gaps in her Christian ‘resume’. She was distraught over the destruction over her daughter’s ‘earthly house’ and fearful over the status of her ‘heavenly dwelling” as Paul might have phrased it.
In the midst of her confused feelings, she was actually right to be concerned. As we read in our passage from 2 Corinthians, we are creatures of two dwellings: 1) the earthly tent, our physical body, and 2) our heavenly dwelling, a building made by God, our resurrection body( I Thess. 4:13-18; Rev. 21:1-22:5) The first is flimsy, subject to corruption and death. The second is eternal, solid, a “building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
In the earthly tent we are conscious that there is more to be had, and so we groan and long for the day when we are ‘further clothed’ with the heavenly existence so that we may not be found naked – a likely reference to the so-called intermediate state between death and the believer’s resurrection in which we live as disembodied spirits while we await resurrection. We groan for the mortal to be “swallowed up by life”. Yet we are also very much this-world centered and it’s really difficult at times to imagine what it would be like to be ‘absent from the body and present with the Lord’. Nevertheless, for thousands of years, Christians have thought of themselves as ‘Pilgrims’(Hebrews 11:13), strangers or exiles on a journey through this life, whose citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20).
Joan Chittister has a wonderful description of this kind of pilgrim mentality. She describes pilgrim people as those who have a ‘Barefooted Soul’, who walk through this life awake, alert, Grateful, and only partially at home.
The folk song “Poor Wayfaring Stranger” also comes to mind. The plaintive lyrics speak of passing through a world of trouble on the way to see one’s parents and find a place of release from suffering.
I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger
Traveling through this world below
But there's no sickness, toil or danger
In that brith world to which I go.
I'm going threre to see my father
I'm going there no more to roam
I"m just a goin' over Jordan
I'm just a goin' over home.
Now, I grant you that the thinking expressed in this song is almost entirely negative. Life is hard, full of trials, deprecations and self-denial. There is a palpable sense of longing to be released from the struggle. I’m guessing that most of us don’t see life that way. Our culture has created such material comforts for us that our basic outlook about life is that it is Good. If we have trouble along the way, this is an aberration. In our culture, people write books about ‘why bad things happen to good people’, and spend hours debating why God allows evil things to happen in the world. If we fail, we expect someone to bail us out. We just can’t allow life to be Hard.
But as we can see – and feel – through the Wayfaring Stranger song, there is another more somber way of approaching life – one that understands that life is basically difficult and hard – and that suffering in this life is no surprise. This approach does not shake the fist at God, wondering why He allows hardship. Rather it looks forward to going ‘over Jordan’ and being released from suffering and death.
Now you might say, “That seems like an awfully negative way to view life – especially in view of all the good things there are to enjoy in life.” And you’re right. You and I live lives that the kings and nobility of the past couldn’t even imagine. We have so much material comfort that we often can’t relate to an outlook that sees life as hard or full of toil – something to be released from – a world we are traveling through on the way to somewhere else.
As Christians, I think we have a basic conflict within ourselves. How do we live here in this world, while we are traveling to another world? How do we take care of, and work for real change in this world, when ‘it’s all going to burn’ someday? Isn’t it all just futile?
And the answer is, “No, it’s not futile.” And that’s because there is a connection between this life and the next. What we do here really matters. The Kingdom of God is in our midst and God really does care for this world. Our eventual destination is not just “Heaven”, but Heaven on Earth – a New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven in which we live in resurrection bodies just the same as Jesus has (Rev. 212:2). This current world will eventually be recreated, but it has also been ‘invaded’ by God, and His Kingdom exists here and now.
Author Gustave Aulen refers to this as the “eschatological present” – life that happens between the first coming of Christ and his eventual return, life that sees the future in the now, and calls things that are not as if they already are (Romans 4:17) - life lived as a ‘caretaking Pilgrim’ if you will – someone who’s just passing through, but makes the world better as he goes.
So, that’s all pretty abstract. How does it relate to my daily life?
I’d like to suggest four directions for us out of this passage:
1) Have Faith
2) Please God
3) Remember Judgment
4) Expect a Crown
Let’s take them one by one and consider some ways we might apply these points.
Have Faith.
Paul tells us that we ‘walk by faith, not sight’ (v.7). Hebrews 11:1 says that … “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”. Faith is Certainty in another reality that causes us to do things that don’t make sense to the world – such as spending your whole life building an ark when there’s not a rain cloud in sight, or refusing to bow down to an Emperor and dying because of it.
The important thing to remember about faith is that we don’t just endorse a set of ideas, or place our confidence in our faith itself, but that we Know Someone personally. As a result of this personal knowledge of Jesus Christ, we do certain things.
We don’t just passively possess faith, we actively exercise it. We are told to be courageous in the face of difficulties, to act and to be comforted and built up by the deposit of the Holy Spirit within us. We must believe God when he tells us that this world is not our ultimate home and that if we leave this body, we will be with Him. We are to have or exercise Faith.
Please God
Next, we are to Please God. What is it that pleases Him?
James 1:27 says, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” In other words, care for those who cannot care for themselves and live a pure lifestyle. Micah 6:8 says it this way: “He has shown thee O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of thee, but to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God.”
We are to be just and merciful in our dealings with others – to treat everyone as if they were Jesus – and to be humble in our relationship with God. That means that we seek him through an attitude of listening prayer and ‘do whatever he tells us’ (John 2:5) – even if it seems contrary to what we think we want. After all, just think about the number of times your own parents wanted you to do something that you didn’t like, but which later turned out to be good for you. Those who serve the Lord in humility please him. Those who pursue their own way do not.
Remember Judgment
We must all appear before the judgment seat, or ‘bēma’ (Grk) of Christ. The bema was the tribunal bench in the Roman courtroom, where the governor sat while delivering his judgments. If you were to go to the Corinthian forum today, you could actually see the remains of such a bēma, which still exist. Like a Roman judge, Christ sits on the seat of Judgement,and when we die we stand before Him “so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (v. 10). Everything we do matters. Every act has consequences for good or ill – and we are responsible to Christ for all of it.
It is important to remember however, that believers face a different sort of judgement than non-believers. When the Christian is judged, he pleads the blood of Christ as His righteousness; he comes before Christ as a brother, already accepted by virtue of the finished work of Christ on the cross. The Christian’s works may be found to be ‘wood, hay, stubble, or precious jewels, gold and silver (1 Cor. 3:12-15). Our reward depends upon how faithfully we have built upon the foundation of Christ. Works that glorify our Lord receive a reward; works built on self are burned up as if going through a fire (v. 15). The believer is saved, but his works may perish.
Expect a Crown
Revelation 4:10 describes how the saints cast their crowns before the Lord. Here are five different types of crowns that that we might receive based on our works:
(1) The Crown of Righteousness
2 Tim. 4:8: 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. This crown is for those who are living "soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world" (Tit. 2:12).
(2) The Incorruptible Crown or "Victor's Crown"
1 Cor. 9:25: And every man that strives for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.”
(3) The Crown of Rejoicing or "Soul Winner's Crown"
1 Thess. 2:19, 20: For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy.
Phil. 4:1: Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.
(4) The Crown of Life or "Martyr's Crown" (Js. 1:12; Rev. 2:10).
For those who suffer and give their lives for the gospel:
James 1:12: 12: Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
Revelation 2:10: 10 Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.
(5) The Crown of Glory or "Pastor's Crown" (1 Pet. 5:2-4).
There’s even a crown for pastors, or ‘under-shpeherds’:
1 Peter 5:2-4: 2 shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. …So – expect a crown.
Again, the four directives are:
Have Faith
Please God
Remember Judgment
Expect a Crown
In wrapping up, I’d like to go back to the grieving mother I mentioned at the beginning. During a time of healing prayer the Lord showed her a picture of her daughter walking off with Jesus, and then turning back towards her mother and smiling. In this very brief visual image, she apprehended the essential truth that her daughter had left her earthly tent and was headed off with Jesus towards her heavenly dwelling. At that point, the mother was able to let go of her confused struggle and find peace by letting go and allowing her daughter to be cared for by Jesus.
Each one of us is headed for our heavenly dwelling as well. May God grant us the grace and comfort of the Holy Spirit as we live with one foot in each world, awaiting his Glorious coming, and groaning to be clothed with Resurrection Life. AMEN.
Recently I spoke with a woman who had lost her daughter in a sudden, tragic accident. She was beside herself with grief, totally preoccupied with thoughts about what she might have or could have done to prevent the death - even though she was no where near her daughter when the accident occurred. She was in shock, unable to grasp the reality that her daughter was gone. And she was also afraid because while she was basically sure of her daughter’s character and knew that she had made a personal confession of faith, the young woman hadn’t gone to church very regularly. In addition, there were a couple of other things that caused the mother worry that her daughter might not make it to heaven because of gaps in her Christian ‘resume’. She was distraught over the destruction over her daughter’s ‘earthly house’ and fearful over the status of her ‘heavenly dwelling” as Paul might have phrased it.
In the midst of her confused feelings, she was actually right to be concerned. As we read in our passage from 2 Corinthians, we are creatures of two dwellings: 1) the earthly tent, our physical body, and 2) our heavenly dwelling, a building made by God, our resurrection body( I Thess. 4:13-18; Rev. 21:1-22:5) The first is flimsy, subject to corruption and death. The second is eternal, solid, a “building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
In the earthly tent we are conscious that there is more to be had, and so we groan and long for the day when we are ‘further clothed’ with the heavenly existence so that we may not be found naked – a likely reference to the so-called intermediate state between death and the believer’s resurrection in which we live as disembodied spirits while we await resurrection. We groan for the mortal to be “swallowed up by life”. Yet we are also very much this-world centered and it’s really difficult at times to imagine what it would be like to be ‘absent from the body and present with the Lord’. Nevertheless, for thousands of years, Christians have thought of themselves as ‘Pilgrims’(Hebrews 11:13), strangers or exiles on a journey through this life, whose citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20).
Joan Chittister has a wonderful description of this kind of pilgrim mentality. She describes pilgrim people as those who have a ‘Barefooted Soul’, who walk through this life awake, alert, Grateful, and only partially at home.
The folk song “Poor Wayfaring Stranger” also comes to mind. The plaintive lyrics speak of passing through a world of trouble on the way to see one’s parents and find a place of release from suffering.
I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger
Traveling through this world below
But there's no sickness, toil or danger
In that brith world to which I go.
I'm going threre to see my father
I'm going there no more to roam
I"m just a goin' over Jordan
I'm just a goin' over home.
Now, I grant you that the thinking expressed in this song is almost entirely negative. Life is hard, full of trials, deprecations and self-denial. There is a palpable sense of longing to be released from the struggle. I’m guessing that most of us don’t see life that way. Our culture has created such material comforts for us that our basic outlook about life is that it is Good. If we have trouble along the way, this is an aberration. In our culture, people write books about ‘why bad things happen to good people’, and spend hours debating why God allows evil things to happen in the world. If we fail, we expect someone to bail us out. We just can’t allow life to be Hard.
But as we can see – and feel – through the Wayfaring Stranger song, there is another more somber way of approaching life – one that understands that life is basically difficult and hard – and that suffering in this life is no surprise. This approach does not shake the fist at God, wondering why He allows hardship. Rather it looks forward to going ‘over Jordan’ and being released from suffering and death.
Now you might say, “That seems like an awfully negative way to view life – especially in view of all the good things there are to enjoy in life.” And you’re right. You and I live lives that the kings and nobility of the past couldn’t even imagine. We have so much material comfort that we often can’t relate to an outlook that sees life as hard or full of toil – something to be released from – a world we are traveling through on the way to somewhere else.
As Christians, I think we have a basic conflict within ourselves. How do we live here in this world, while we are traveling to another world? How do we take care of, and work for real change in this world, when ‘it’s all going to burn’ someday? Isn’t it all just futile?
And the answer is, “No, it’s not futile.” And that’s because there is a connection between this life and the next. What we do here really matters. The Kingdom of God is in our midst and God really does care for this world. Our eventual destination is not just “Heaven”, but Heaven on Earth – a New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven in which we live in resurrection bodies just the same as Jesus has (Rev. 212:2). This current world will eventually be recreated, but it has also been ‘invaded’ by God, and His Kingdom exists here and now.
Author Gustave Aulen refers to this as the “eschatological present” – life that happens between the first coming of Christ and his eventual return, life that sees the future in the now, and calls things that are not as if they already are (Romans 4:17) - life lived as a ‘caretaking Pilgrim’ if you will – someone who’s just passing through, but makes the world better as he goes.
So, that’s all pretty abstract. How does it relate to my daily life?
I’d like to suggest four directions for us out of this passage:
1) Have Faith
2) Please God
3) Remember Judgment
4) Expect a Crown
Let’s take them one by one and consider some ways we might apply these points.
Have Faith.
Paul tells us that we ‘walk by faith, not sight’ (v.7). Hebrews 11:1 says that … “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”. Faith is Certainty in another reality that causes us to do things that don’t make sense to the world – such as spending your whole life building an ark when there’s not a rain cloud in sight, or refusing to bow down to an Emperor and dying because of it.
The important thing to remember about faith is that we don’t just endorse a set of ideas, or place our confidence in our faith itself, but that we Know Someone personally. As a result of this personal knowledge of Jesus Christ, we do certain things.
We don’t just passively possess faith, we actively exercise it. We are told to be courageous in the face of difficulties, to act and to be comforted and built up by the deposit of the Holy Spirit within us. We must believe God when he tells us that this world is not our ultimate home and that if we leave this body, we will be with Him. We are to have or exercise Faith.
Please God
Next, we are to Please God. What is it that pleases Him?
James 1:27 says, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” In other words, care for those who cannot care for themselves and live a pure lifestyle. Micah 6:8 says it this way: “He has shown thee O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of thee, but to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God.”
We are to be just and merciful in our dealings with others – to treat everyone as if they were Jesus – and to be humble in our relationship with God. That means that we seek him through an attitude of listening prayer and ‘do whatever he tells us’ (John 2:5) – even if it seems contrary to what we think we want. After all, just think about the number of times your own parents wanted you to do something that you didn’t like, but which later turned out to be good for you. Those who serve the Lord in humility please him. Those who pursue their own way do not.
Remember Judgment
We must all appear before the judgment seat, or ‘bēma’ (Grk) of Christ. The bema was the tribunal bench in the Roman courtroom, where the governor sat while delivering his judgments. If you were to go to the Corinthian forum today, you could actually see the remains of such a bēma, which still exist. Like a Roman judge, Christ sits on the seat of Judgement,and when we die we stand before Him “so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (v. 10). Everything we do matters. Every act has consequences for good or ill – and we are responsible to Christ for all of it.
It is important to remember however, that believers face a different sort of judgement than non-believers. When the Christian is judged, he pleads the blood of Christ as His righteousness; he comes before Christ as a brother, already accepted by virtue of the finished work of Christ on the cross. The Christian’s works may be found to be ‘wood, hay, stubble, or precious jewels, gold and silver (1 Cor. 3:12-15). Our reward depends upon how faithfully we have built upon the foundation of Christ. Works that glorify our Lord receive a reward; works built on self are burned up as if going through a fire (v. 15). The believer is saved, but his works may perish.
Expect a Crown
Revelation 4:10 describes how the saints cast their crowns before the Lord. Here are five different types of crowns that that we might receive based on our works:
(1) The Crown of Righteousness
2 Tim. 4:8: 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. This crown is for those who are living "soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world" (Tit. 2:12).
(2) The Incorruptible Crown or "Victor's Crown"
1 Cor. 9:25: And every man that strives for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.”
(3) The Crown of Rejoicing or "Soul Winner's Crown"
1 Thess. 2:19, 20: For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy.
Phil. 4:1: Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.
(4) The Crown of Life or "Martyr's Crown" (Js. 1:12; Rev. 2:10).
For those who suffer and give their lives for the gospel:
James 1:12: 12: Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
Revelation 2:10: 10 Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.
(5) The Crown of Glory or "Pastor's Crown" (1 Pet. 5:2-4).
There’s even a crown for pastors, or ‘under-shpeherds’:
1 Peter 5:2-4: 2 shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. …So – expect a crown.
Again, the four directives are:
Have Faith
Please God
Remember Judgment
Expect a Crown
In wrapping up, I’d like to go back to the grieving mother I mentioned at the beginning. During a time of healing prayer the Lord showed her a picture of her daughter walking off with Jesus, and then turning back towards her mother and smiling. In this very brief visual image, she apprehended the essential truth that her daughter had left her earthly tent and was headed off with Jesus towards her heavenly dwelling. At that point, the mother was able to let go of her confused struggle and find peace by letting go and allowing her daughter to be cared for by Jesus.
Each one of us is headed for our heavenly dwelling as well. May God grant us the grace and comfort of the Holy Spirit as we live with one foot in each world, awaiting his Glorious coming, and groaning to be clothed with Resurrection Life. AMEN.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Trinity Sunday 2009
A sermon delivered to All Saints Anglican Church on Trinity Sunday, June 7, 2009, at the convent Chapel of St. Mary's Medical Center, Huntington, WV.
Almighty Creator, who hast made all things,
The World cannot express all thy glories,
Even though the grass and the trees should sing.
The Father has wrought so great a multitude of wonders
That they cannot be equaled.
No letters can contain them, no letters can express them.
He who made the wonder of the world
Will save us, has saved us.
It is not too great a toil to praise the Trinity
Purely, humbly, in skillful verse
I should delight to give praise to the Trinity
In the Name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The little poem I just quoted comes from Wales and probably originated some time in the ninth century. I found it in a book called ‘A Celtic Psaltery’, compiled by David Adam, who is the vicar of the Holy Island in Northumbria and who has written or compiled 15 books about Celtic spirituality.
In preparing for this day of marking Trinity Sunday, my thoughts immediately gravitated to the Celts because as a culture, they seem to have had an intuitive understanding of ‘threeness’, even before the Gospel reached their shores.
Author Timothy Joyce notes that an awareness of ‘threeness’ was explicit in the pagan worship of the goddess Bridget, ‘who appeared in three forms: the goddesses of fire, of poetry, and of fertility, all three named Bridget!” Later, when the Celts became Christians, “this Trinitarian consciousness permeated Celtic spirituality An awareness of the threefold God shaped prayer after prayer, and a triad way of expressing prayer became common as well.” Joyce goes on to illustrate how “One such ritual prayer was a practice immediately following the birth of a child. The baby was carried in a circle around the room three times in the direction of the sun. Then it was handed over a fire three times in purification, and finally three drops of water were placed on its head. Thus was the child marked with the Trinity prior to its formal baptism.” (Celtic Christianity, A sacred tradition, a vision of hope, pgs. 19, 20).
Now I don’t know about you, but my understanding of the Trinity is considerably less ‘organic’ than this – although come to think of it, my wife comes from a family of three girls, Cindy and I had three girls – and my oldest daughter has three children – so maybe there is an organic connection to the Trinity in our family after all… and perhaps that family metaphor is apt.
“The God whom the Celtic peoples know is above all the Godhead who is Trinity, the God whose very essence is that of a threefold unity of person, three persons bound in a unity of love… [this] speaks …of harmony, unity, interrelationship, [and] interdependence…’ says Esther de Waal in her book, The Celtic Way of Prayer (‘CWP’pg. 38).
Our Western intellectual tradition leads us to view the Trinity in a rational, ‘scientific’ mode, as a sort of problem to be solved rather than as a mystery to be celebrated. Our minds tend to trip on this mystery, and instead of increasing our faith in God, this doctrine may actually become a stumbling block to us.
What Celtic spirituality offers us is an understanding of the Trinity that is natural, immediately accessible, and which can be understood in metaphors from common life, as in these lines from the Poem Book of Gael, complied by Eleanor Gull(quoted in de Waal, pgs. 39, 40)
“Three folds of the cloth, yet only one napkin is there,
Three Joints in the finger, but still only one finger fair.
Three leaves of the shamrock, yet no more than one shamrock to wear,
Frost, snow-flakes and ice, all in water their origin share
Three Persons in God; to one God alone we make prayer.”
This homey understanding of the Trinity resorts naturally to song and poetry in order to express deep mysteries that cannot really be understood or parsed intellectually, but which can actually be lived out intimately.
Esther de Waal says it well for us: “I want to be able to take my Trinitarian understanding into my daily life, into my praying and living, and words such as this help me to do that.” (CWP, pg. 45).
She’s talking about things like starting your day by splashing your face with water three times in honor of the Trinity – or crossing yourself “in the name of the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit” before you turn on your computer or begin a new work. She’s talking about contemplating the Trinity and then having words available to us such as the traditional prayer that an Irish woman might have used to bank the household fire at night:
The sacred Three
To save,
To shield,
To surround
The hearth,
The house,
The household
This eve,
This night,
Oh! This eve,
This night,
And every night,
Each single night.
Amen. (CWP pg. 48).
Do you have a relationship with the Trinity like this? …Me neither. It’s just not a part of my cultural equipment to think this way – even though I am trying to apply some of these ideas in my daily life. This is why we need words to help shape our thought process. Words such as the Nicene Creed, which we recite every Sunday – or the Athanasian Creed, which we will use today at the end of this sermon. Words such as this opening verse from a hymn by St. Columba:
The High Creator, the Unbegotten Ancient of Days,
Was without origin of beginning, limitless,
He is and He will be for endless ages of ages,
With whom is the only-begotten Christ, and the
Holy Spirit,
Co-eternal in the everlasting glory of divinity.
We do not confess three gods, but say one God,
Saving our faith in three most glorious Persons.
(Quoted in CWP, pg. 45).
Words such as these concerning the Trinity from St. Patrick:
“[Our God] has a Son co-eternal with himself and similar in all respects to himself; and neither is the Son younger than the Father, nor is the Father older than the Son; And the Holy Spirit breathes in them; Not separate are the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit.”
Who among us thinks this way naturally? Nobody – which is why we need these exalted and poetic words to help shape our thinking and our praying.
And here let me make a short defense for our liturgical style of worship. Our culture has come to denigrate Words and despise repetition. Words have been so devalued that important concepts in Religion, Politics and Morality commonly get swept under the carpet during debates with moronic phrases like “Whatever…”
Folks, Words matter. They matter because they convey meanings that are really important. But they also matter because they are beautiful and because the beauty of words feeds our soul. Our Bible contains books of Poetry and Wisdom. There are quotations from ancient hymns, and Songs, or Canticles, sung at important times by people like Moses, Mary, Simeon and Isaiah.
Compared to these wonderful Canticles, our normal daily vocabulary is pathetically limited when it comes to expressing depth and beauty in prayer.
We also think that ‘spontaneous’ prayer is superior to written prayer because it “comes from heart” and is more immediate. I’m not denying this and I do think spontaneous prayer is important, but we are also creatures who need input from outside ourselves to shape our spirituality and to help us to have vocabulary to express grander concepts than, “Just help us to have a good day today Lord,” or “God please heal us” or “Give us the money we need.”
Our liturgical prayers are carefully crafted to express deep truths in beautiful ways so that we can have something interesting to say to God – and so that our spirits may be nourished by the music of Words. We memorize and pray Songs and poetry from Scripture, as well as Collects and other prayers, because we believe in the Word, the Logos, but also because we believe in words as meaningful and spiritually helpful to us.
Liturgical worship is word based in both of these senses of ‘Word”. And on a day like Trinity Sunday, we need beautiful and precise words to help us grasp mysteries such as the Trinity.
Returning to our subject, I think the real importance of the Trinity in our daily lives is to help us understand the interrelatedness of all things and to help us grasp that God is not a distant and far-off impersonal Concept, but a deeply personal relational being who is with us in our everyday activities and who wants to be part of our daily lives. This is what the Celts seem to have grasped intuitively – that God is indeed Emmanuel – ‘With us”. He is indeed a ‘very present help in time of trouble (Ps. 46), a comfort to our souls, an Illuminator of words and the Word, as well the One who convicts us of our sins and graciously forgives us. He is the Creator God who pours out his gifts upon us abundantly each day and the One to who all praise and honor is due. He is the One we respond to in love –just as our Celtic Prayer of Dedication so beautifully expresses it:
“I am giving Thee offering with my whole thought,
I am giving Thee Love with my whole heart,
I am giving Thee affection with my whole devotion.
And I am giving Thee my soul, O God of all Gods.”
I pray for us that we may all enjoy this deeply personal affection for, and devotion to our God. May we also enjoy the Celtic appreciation for ‘threeness’ and for the poetry and music of our liturgical worship. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.
Almighty Creator, who hast made all things,
The World cannot express all thy glories,
Even though the grass and the trees should sing.
The Father has wrought so great a multitude of wonders
That they cannot be equaled.
No letters can contain them, no letters can express them.
He who made the wonder of the world
Will save us, has saved us.
It is not too great a toil to praise the Trinity
Purely, humbly, in skillful verse
I should delight to give praise to the Trinity
In the Name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The little poem I just quoted comes from Wales and probably originated some time in the ninth century. I found it in a book called ‘A Celtic Psaltery’, compiled by David Adam, who is the vicar of the Holy Island in Northumbria and who has written or compiled 15 books about Celtic spirituality.
In preparing for this day of marking Trinity Sunday, my thoughts immediately gravitated to the Celts because as a culture, they seem to have had an intuitive understanding of ‘threeness’, even before the Gospel reached their shores.
Author Timothy Joyce notes that an awareness of ‘threeness’ was explicit in the pagan worship of the goddess Bridget, ‘who appeared in three forms: the goddesses of fire, of poetry, and of fertility, all three named Bridget!” Later, when the Celts became Christians, “this Trinitarian consciousness permeated Celtic spirituality An awareness of the threefold God shaped prayer after prayer, and a triad way of expressing prayer became common as well.” Joyce goes on to illustrate how “One such ritual prayer was a practice immediately following the birth of a child. The baby was carried in a circle around the room three times in the direction of the sun. Then it was handed over a fire three times in purification, and finally three drops of water were placed on its head. Thus was the child marked with the Trinity prior to its formal baptism.” (Celtic Christianity, A sacred tradition, a vision of hope, pgs. 19, 20).
Now I don’t know about you, but my understanding of the Trinity is considerably less ‘organic’ than this – although come to think of it, my wife comes from a family of three girls, Cindy and I had three girls – and my oldest daughter has three children – so maybe there is an organic connection to the Trinity in our family after all… and perhaps that family metaphor is apt.
“The God whom the Celtic peoples know is above all the Godhead who is Trinity, the God whose very essence is that of a threefold unity of person, three persons bound in a unity of love… [this] speaks …of harmony, unity, interrelationship, [and] interdependence…’ says Esther de Waal in her book, The Celtic Way of Prayer (‘CWP’pg. 38).
Our Western intellectual tradition leads us to view the Trinity in a rational, ‘scientific’ mode, as a sort of problem to be solved rather than as a mystery to be celebrated. Our minds tend to trip on this mystery, and instead of increasing our faith in God, this doctrine may actually become a stumbling block to us.
What Celtic spirituality offers us is an understanding of the Trinity that is natural, immediately accessible, and which can be understood in metaphors from common life, as in these lines from the Poem Book of Gael, complied by Eleanor Gull(quoted in de Waal, pgs. 39, 40)
“Three folds of the cloth, yet only one napkin is there,
Three Joints in the finger, but still only one finger fair.
Three leaves of the shamrock, yet no more than one shamrock to wear,
Frost, snow-flakes and ice, all in water their origin share
Three Persons in God; to one God alone we make prayer.”
This homey understanding of the Trinity resorts naturally to song and poetry in order to express deep mysteries that cannot really be understood or parsed intellectually, but which can actually be lived out intimately.
Esther de Waal says it well for us: “I want to be able to take my Trinitarian understanding into my daily life, into my praying and living, and words such as this help me to do that.” (CWP, pg. 45).
She’s talking about things like starting your day by splashing your face with water three times in honor of the Trinity – or crossing yourself “in the name of the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit” before you turn on your computer or begin a new work. She’s talking about contemplating the Trinity and then having words available to us such as the traditional prayer that an Irish woman might have used to bank the household fire at night:
The sacred Three
To save,
To shield,
To surround
The hearth,
The house,
The household
This eve,
This night,
Oh! This eve,
This night,
And every night,
Each single night.
Amen. (CWP pg. 48).
Do you have a relationship with the Trinity like this? …Me neither. It’s just not a part of my cultural equipment to think this way – even though I am trying to apply some of these ideas in my daily life. This is why we need words to help shape our thought process. Words such as the Nicene Creed, which we recite every Sunday – or the Athanasian Creed, which we will use today at the end of this sermon. Words such as this opening verse from a hymn by St. Columba:
The High Creator, the Unbegotten Ancient of Days,
Was without origin of beginning, limitless,
He is and He will be for endless ages of ages,
With whom is the only-begotten Christ, and the
Holy Spirit,
Co-eternal in the everlasting glory of divinity.
We do not confess three gods, but say one God,
Saving our faith in three most glorious Persons.
(Quoted in CWP, pg. 45).
Words such as these concerning the Trinity from St. Patrick:
“[Our God] has a Son co-eternal with himself and similar in all respects to himself; and neither is the Son younger than the Father, nor is the Father older than the Son; And the Holy Spirit breathes in them; Not separate are the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit.”
Who among us thinks this way naturally? Nobody – which is why we need these exalted and poetic words to help shape our thinking and our praying.
And here let me make a short defense for our liturgical style of worship. Our culture has come to denigrate Words and despise repetition. Words have been so devalued that important concepts in Religion, Politics and Morality commonly get swept under the carpet during debates with moronic phrases like “Whatever…”
Folks, Words matter. They matter because they convey meanings that are really important. But they also matter because they are beautiful and because the beauty of words feeds our soul. Our Bible contains books of Poetry and Wisdom. There are quotations from ancient hymns, and Songs, or Canticles, sung at important times by people like Moses, Mary, Simeon and Isaiah.
Compared to these wonderful Canticles, our normal daily vocabulary is pathetically limited when it comes to expressing depth and beauty in prayer.
We also think that ‘spontaneous’ prayer is superior to written prayer because it “comes from heart” and is more immediate. I’m not denying this and I do think spontaneous prayer is important, but we are also creatures who need input from outside ourselves to shape our spirituality and to help us to have vocabulary to express grander concepts than, “Just help us to have a good day today Lord,” or “God please heal us” or “Give us the money we need.”
Our liturgical prayers are carefully crafted to express deep truths in beautiful ways so that we can have something interesting to say to God – and so that our spirits may be nourished by the music of Words. We memorize and pray Songs and poetry from Scripture, as well as Collects and other prayers, because we believe in the Word, the Logos, but also because we believe in words as meaningful and spiritually helpful to us.
Liturgical worship is word based in both of these senses of ‘Word”. And on a day like Trinity Sunday, we need beautiful and precise words to help us grasp mysteries such as the Trinity.
Returning to our subject, I think the real importance of the Trinity in our daily lives is to help us understand the interrelatedness of all things and to help us grasp that God is not a distant and far-off impersonal Concept, but a deeply personal relational being who is with us in our everyday activities and who wants to be part of our daily lives. This is what the Celts seem to have grasped intuitively – that God is indeed Emmanuel – ‘With us”. He is indeed a ‘very present help in time of trouble (Ps. 46), a comfort to our souls, an Illuminator of words and the Word, as well the One who convicts us of our sins and graciously forgives us. He is the Creator God who pours out his gifts upon us abundantly each day and the One to who all praise and honor is due. He is the One we respond to in love –just as our Celtic Prayer of Dedication so beautifully expresses it:
“I am giving Thee offering with my whole thought,
I am giving Thee Love with my whole heart,
I am giving Thee affection with my whole devotion.
And I am giving Thee my soul, O God of all Gods.”
I pray for us that we may all enjoy this deeply personal affection for, and devotion to our God. May we also enjoy the Celtic appreciation for ‘threeness’ and for the poetry and music of our liturgical worship. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.
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