"Trinity Sunday" - Palms Westminster Presbyterian Church

Proverbs 8.1-8; John 16.12-15

For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Grace, mercy and peace.

Faith, hope and love.

Guilt, grace, and gratitude.

The widow, the orphan, the alien.

Morning, noon and night.

Past, present and future.

Height, width and depth.

On your mark, get set, go.

Three coins in the fountain.

The Three Stooges and the Three Musketeers.

And a three-point sermon.

Huey, Dewey and Louie.

The three little pigs.

Goldie Locks and the Three Bears.

Porridge, too hot, too cold, and just right.

Month, day, year.

Three temptations in the wilderness.

Three crosses on a hill …

Jesus with Elijah and Moses.

Peter, James and John.

The lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost boy.

Noah had three sons.

And then there were Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego

And we three kings of orient are.

A priest, a rabbi and a minister, too.

Lots of things come in threes, it seems.

Today is Trinity Sunday … a celebration of the majesty and goodness of God … 

The Three-in-One God, God in Three Persons.

The God and Father of our LORD Jesus Christ, who both send to us the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter, the Advocate, the Teacher, the Holy Spirit, 

It’s Trinity Sunday, dear People of God.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Creator, Redeemer and Giver of Life.

What does the Trinity give to us?

I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

We live in a God-hallowed world, a world created by the loving word of God, declared good by the word of God … all the creatures of this earth … great and small … the very life of every human being … all of it, good, all of it, sacred, all of it, from the hand and heart of God.

The God of Creation … who gives to us this world as our world, and commands us to care for it, to tend the garden, to oversee and guard its life.

The whole of the Creation Story is our mandate to pay attention to the earth … to love it as a precious gift from God, something to be cherished and preserved, guarded and maintained, honored and loved … God created us to be stewards, caretakers, of sea and sky, earth and air, and all the creatures, great and small.

Let there be no doubt that the God of Creation calls us to pay attention to what’s going on these days … human pride and greed fill the air with carbon dioxide … the oceans with plastics and pesticides … threatening the wellbeing of animals and humans all across the globe … even as Wall Street cheers its obscene profits and wallows in its wealth … at the price of destroying God’s good earth.

Some would say: “We can’t destroy God’s earth.”

Oh, yes, we can … we have that kind of power, because it’s the power God gives to us, to use, for good, or for ill. 

Don’t be fooled by the false prophets who proclaim peace when there is no peace.

Some would say: “God will never allow that.”

Well, that’s what the folks of Jerusalem said even as Nebuchadnezzar pounded down the city gates and hauled the people off to captivity. 

Again, false prophets … false prophets proclaim false security, lulling the people into irresponsibility, believing in their own privilege rather than taking up their responsibilities.

Whatever God’s ways are, we are fools to think that God will never allow the consequences of our foolish behavior to come to pass … 

Whatever God’s purposes may be, they include this earth … and woe to those who would so casually use the earth for their own advantage, their own momentary gain, at the expense of the polar bear and the elephant.

I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our LORD, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.

The God of Creation is also the God of Covenant … the God who comes close to us, who takes up our cause, walks with us, talks with us … and bears our burdens.

The whole of the Judeo-Christian Story is centered in a God who addresses us with compassion and mercy … who pays a visit to Abram and Sarai, to create a new family upon the face of the earth … and when things go awry, and the family ends up in Egypt, enslaved by the proud and the powerful, God hears their cry and set’s the captive free.

We celebrate the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ our LORD, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary … the God who becomes a human being; the human being who is God …

To seal the bond of love … to show us the way of life.

He is our Savior … doing what we couldn’t do, and doing it for all of humanity, because God’s love is for all the world.

He is our Teacher … revealing to us the ways of life … three years of eloquent teaching and three years of courage … challenging the proud and the powerful, overturning their tables and confounding their expectations … those rich and powerful people expected Jesus to be on their side, and when Jesus choose the side of the poor and the oppressed, the powerful people of Jerusalem got angry, roused a mob, arrested Jesus, took him to Pilate, forced Pilate’s hand for the death sentence … that’s how the rich and the powerful dealt with Jesus.

But in all of that, the work of God … what it means to live life, the life of God … sometimes full of danger … not always easy, choosing the right and resisting lies and deceptions.

Throughout the ages, women and men have heeded the call of Christ, the call to courage, to withstand the onslaught of lies and bigotry … many Christians have suffered and died as their LORD did … it doesn’t always end easily, but it always ends well … for no matter what, in life and in death, ’tis better to have served Christ and lost the world, than to gain one’s life and lose one’s soul

To believe in Jesus Christ is to follow in his footsteps … and no time has ever been more important than now for the church of Jesus Christ to give ear to his teaching, and to embrace his way of life … to set before the world an example of grace, mercy and peace; faith, hope and love; kindness, care and compassion.

In Christ, we belong to God, and in Christ, God gives to us life … life enduring, life always … life incorruptible … life everlasting …

I believe in Jesus Christ …

And I believe in the Holy Spirit … the deep and powerful presence of the Father and the Son … in the life of the church, in your life and in mine, here and now, in this place, and forever … the life of God - in a flower blooming, a bird singing, a whale breaching … the life of God in a child crying, a mother weeping, a father in despair … the life of God in a politician who tells the truth, a minister who preaches the whole counsel of God, a teacher who inspires a child to reach for the stars … the life of God in a kindly hand upon your shoulder, a gentle word to bring comfort, a smile to brighten someone’s day … all of it, and more, the life of God, the Holy Spirit.

The same Spirit that hovered over the dark waters of a formless void … the Spirit of wisdom … the Spirit of Mary’s Womb, the Spirit of Pentecost, tongues of flame, and the miracle of language … oh, how I love that story … everyone’s tongue, everyone’s language, honored by God … they didn’t have to learn another language to hear the Gospel, because God speaks their tongue, and the Spirit enabled those disciples of the Upper Room to speak the languages of the world.

We live in a city of many languages, and here in Palms Westminster, many tongues … and sometimes, for White People, it’s frustrating, and some folks demand that everyone should speak English … “if ya wanna be an American, speak American, and if you don’t, go back to where ya’ came from.”

Maybe some of you have heard that.

Well, thank God for Pentecost and the Holy Spirit … the Spirit of many languages, the Spirit of every tongue, because God is the God of every tongue, and God honors all the languages of the earth.

Our schools need to be multilingual.

We need to honor every language.

We need to be patient with one another.

And we need to learn some other languages, too.

Whatever the language, God be praised.

Whatever the tongue, Glory to God.

My little granddaughter now lives in Amsterdam, and she’s learning Dutch … and who knows how many other languages to follow … she’ll be multicultural, multilingual, and she’s multiracial, too.

I love how that represents the magnificence of God’s world … a large and glorious world full of diversity and color, tongues and ways of life, a world full of food and music, dress and design … all of it celebrated by God.

Because God is a family, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God is neighborhood, a community, a town.

God is diversity.

God is female and God is male; God is young and God is old.

God is every color and every shape.

And everything in between.

God is light, God is love, God is hope.

I believe in God the Father.

I believe in Jesus Christ the Son.

I believe in the Holy Spirit.

Hallelujah and Amen

June 2, 2019 "All Shall be Glad" - El Monte Presbyterian Church

Isaiah 35; John 14.15-24

Good Morning, and God’s peace to you.

It’s good to be here with you again.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to share with you in the gospel of our LORD Jesus Christ, to think a little bit more about the world in which we live, the challenges and the gifts, the sorrows and the joy, the hurt and the opportunity.

It’s a big world out there … and we’re not so big ourselves … but size doesn’t matter when it comes to the church of Jesus Christ … it’s not the building, it’s the heart … it’s not the money, it’s the faith, it’s not the numbers, but the love.

With you this day, I celebrate your life, just as it is.

You have everything you need, right here, right now.

You have the people to do the work of God.

You have the Holy Spirit to guide.

You have good music, music of the soul, music to bless.

You have a building, a kitchen … you have children eager to hear of God’s love.

You have all that’s needed to be faithful to Christ.

To make a difference.

To be the light of the world and the salt of the earth.

I celebrate you this day.

I give thanks to God for the blessings of God’s peace.

The goodness of God’s love.

The hope that we have.

And the love that binds us together into the fellowship of faith, the company of the saints.

And that’s big.

That’s really big.

When this sermon was coming together, I wanted to think with you a little bit about “bigness” … how God takes the measure of someone’s soul, how God measures the work we do, and how we often use the wrong measuring stick to measure what we think is big.

We live in a world where bigness is worshipped.

Human beings are so easily misled … misled by their eyes.

Remember Adam and Eve?

They looked at the forbidden tree and thought, “That looks good.”

The eye can be misled by glitz and glamour, by power and glory measured by human standards … the fast car, the big house, the expensive yacht … from the Tower of Babel to the Towers of Trump … glitz, glamour, power and wealth.

That was one of the temptations put to Jesus … all the power and glory of the world … and then Devil’s tag line, “To get it, all you have to do is bow down and worship me!” 

And to that, Jesus said a resounding, “No!”

How big is big????

In the kingdom of God.

Size matters only for vanity … vanity, vanity, all is vanity, says the writer of Ecclesiastes … we do well to heed those words, lest we be misled and deceived by our eyes.

Remember when Jesus and the disciples were in Jerusalem … the disciples oohed and awed over the Temple; they said to Jesus, Look at these big stones and all these large buildings.

Jesus said to them, “Who cares? Who cares how it looks, how big it is, and how rich it is. It isn’t going to endure; it won’t be here for long; it’s all going to be thrown down and destroyed.”

Vanity … is a problem … for the church of Jesus Christ in America.

American christians want to be big.

And when we’re not big, we’re envious.

We talk about that megachurch down the street … how big are its buildings, how many people are in attendance … envy sets in, envy wrecks us … no wonder The Ten Commandments end with envy:

You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

What happens when we envy?

We no longer count our blessings.

We doubt the goodness of God.

We try to copy what others are doing.

We want what they have.

We want a big church, too.

I know … I’ve been there!

I know what envy does to the soul.

A soul impressed with size.

A soul dazzled by success … 

These days, much of the church in America has been led astray by the temptations of wealth and happiness, success and power, big buildings, big crowds … and expensive shoes.

“Expensive shoes?” you say?

Yes, expensive shoes … 

I recently came across an Instagram page called @preachersneakers … featuring celebrity preachers and their expensive sneakers … $2000 … $3000 … and all the accouterments of wealth - expensive clothing, fast cars, private jets, big homes …

Preachers wallowing in their wealth, and they have the gall to tell us:

Wealth proves that we’re right.

Private jets are needed for security reasons.

We’re children of the king and we outta live like kings.

God is big, and we gotta be big, too.

Have you heard that corrupted message???

And, then, they tell us to keep on giving … not to our local church, but to their “ministry” … not to local charities, but to their “mission” work … with silly promises of a “check in the mail,” or “winning the lottery” … or some other divine moment that’ll put money into our pockets.

I remember my first parish, in West Virginia, early 70s … a little tiny town on a muddy creek, beside some rusty railroad tracks, abandoned coal mines all around, poverty neck deep … a little post office in a small general store, where the men gathered to swap tall tales and and tips on coon hunting …

We could watch the postman sorting the mail, slotting it …there were no little doors on the slots - it was open, most everyone could see, and as folks gathered their mail, I saw the religious material … tons of it, flooding this impoverish town with appeals for giving and promises for wealth, health and happiness.

Religious shysters know their business … they know that poor people are vulnerable … they know how to manipulate and use poor people … with wild promises of wealth … these fraudulent preachers, these hucksters of lies, know how to fleece the flock, pick the pocket, take the widow’s two mites.

It’s fraudulent … it has nothing to do with the kingdom of God … nothing to do with Christ …

It was Christ who said to the disciples: travel light … carry no purse, no bag, no sandals … don’t even stop along the way to talk with folks.

As for the religious elite and their expensive clothing, Jesus said: 

They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi.

How big is the kingdom of God?

It is big … bigger than we could ever imagine … world without end, without borders and boundaries … limitless and full of love … overflowing with gladness and goodness … compassion and mercy … decency and dedication …

The kingdom of God: 

a home for the homeless, 

a welcome to the despised, 

a gathering place for the lonely, 

a voice for those have been beaten into silence … 

These days, there’s a movement in the Presbyterian Church called Matthew 25 … to become a Matthew 25 Church … 

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.

Right here, right now … El Monte, a Matthew 25 church … we have all that’s needed to be the church of Jesus Christ. 

Maybe we only have five loaves of bread and a few fish to share … but Jesus says, “It’s enough, more than enough,” because I will make the difference … 

The creator of the heavens and the earth, to whom all peoples belong, from whom comes all life, the creator takes the five loaves and the few small fish we have, and in the hands of the creator, there is enough, more than enough … the multitude is fed … and when the meal is done, and all are glad, there are even leftovers … plenty to go around, and then some.

That’s how big the kingdom of God is.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Hallelujah and Amen!

May 19, 2019 "Presbyterian Heritage Sunday"

El Monte Presbyterian Church

Psalm 23; Luke 18.31-34

Good morning and God’s peace to all of you.

It’s good to be here … 

Today is Presbyterian Heritage Sunday … 

We celebrate our corporate story, and quite a story it is … it’s a good story, and sometimes a sad story … we’ve done it all … 

From the best of it, to the worst of it … but this much I can say, and say to you with confidence: our Presbyterian story is mostly a good story … a story of faithful people doing their best, relying upon Christ, seeking to make the world better …

We’ve opposed war and sought peace … we’ve struggled for civil rights and these days, we work for environmental justice. 

We’ve built hospitals and schools around the world … we’ve blessed the world with our medical missionaries, educators, preachers and teachers … we’ve done much to touch the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We’ve done good.

But to every story, a story with many chapters … we’ve had our struggles.

The Presbyterian Church split over the issue of slavery … some of our Presbyterian brothers and sisters thought slavery was a good thing, something to defend … even as the  whole nation was torn apart by Civil War.

And it took us a long time to figure out that gays and lesbians are Christians, too … and have a place at the Table … one of the great joys of my life is that I can now officiate for all weddings, gay or straight.

I remember my first gay wedding … during the ceremony, there was a moment of revelation … “this is just another wedding” …  two people who love one another … who will face all the challenges of marriage and enjoy all of its blessings.

I’m grateful that we Presbyterians finally figured this out … it took us a long time, virtually of all of my career, too long I think, but we did it … we’ve done good on this one.

We’re doing good on immigration issues, too …

Because we Presbyterians recognize the great truth of God’s love for the world.

We are first of all Christians, and then we’re citizens of a nation.

Because we’re Christians first, we see people first, people, real people, mothers and fathers and their children, young people, old people … people, people hoping to find a better life for their children.

Is there anyone here who wouldn’t sacrifice everything for the sake of their children?

When we’re Christians first, before we’re anything else, then our eyes clear, we see people!

We see their hearts, their needs … we don’t worry about borders and boundaries … and for heaven’s sake, we don’t fret and fuss about legal and illegal … those are categories that have no place in the kingdom of God!

When we’re Presbyterians at our best, we rise above the usual ways that people and nations think … we think as Christ thought, as the great prophets thought … we think on a higher plane … we think and live the Kingdom of God.

And that means constant learning … throughout the centuries, we’ve learned a lot about the ways of God, and we are still learning, still growing … still discovering how deep and wide and broad is the love of God in Christ Jesus our LORD.

One of the sayings that come out of our story is this: The church reformed, the church always reforming.

Because God is infinite, Jesus is always out there, ahead of us.

Jesus never said: Come and sit down here - no way … Jesus said, Come and follow me.

Always the road ahead, more to the story.

Our challenge in Christ: to keep on following, following Jesus, toward the Kingdom of God … thy kingdom come, we pray … seeking that which is yet to be … never satisfied with what is, but long for, working for, praying for, the better world.

The Presbyterian Story.

We begin in Geneva, Switzerland, with John Calvin … in the 1530s … and then with John Knox from Scotland … and throughout the British Isles … by the boatload, Presbyterians came to America, with bag pipes and energy … Presbyterians moved around the globe, from Asia to Africa, and throughout the Americas … we are a strong and resilient tradition … we’ve made our mistakes, and we’ve done right and good.

One of the key pieces of our story is a theological idea: the sovereignty of God … 

Whatever the task might be, God does the work, the heavy lifting … all along the way, God saves, God forgives, God paves the way, God opens doors, God gives new life … God at work in all things for good.

When the women came to the tomb on Easter Morn, they wondered who would roll away the stone … but fear not dear ladies, fear not dear people, God rolls away the stone.

I was privileged to attend a Christian High School in Grand Rapids, Michigan … a school of the Reformed/Presbyterian tradition, and one day, in a Bible class, a student from an evangelical church was arguing with the teacher about how salvation comes about … as most evangelicals believe, the student made it clear that he believed salvation is up to the believer … you hear the gospel, it’s up to you receive it, it’s up to you make Christ your savior.

The teacher then added something I’ve never forgotten, something that became a part of my life … the teacher said, Salvation is too important a thing to be left in our hands.

To even think for a moment that we had a hand in our salvation is an insult to the glory of God … never in my life have I ever said to anyone: Let me tell you how I accepted Christ. Because I never have accepted Christ. It was Christ who accepted me, embraced me, loved me, forgave me, and made me a part of God’s work … it was Christ who saved me, then and now, and forever, and it’s Christ still saving me unto to the finishing of God’s work of creation.

Because Christ alone brings about the great work of salvation … though it’s a mystery, it’s a mystery made clear in the love of God … God is trustworthy unto salvation … not only my salvation, but the salvation of the whole world, and our children, and our children’s children … we must never fear for their souls … because God is faithful to us, to them … faithful to creation, every bit of it.

Our hands are not strong enough, good enough, clean enough, to craft the wonder and the glory of our salvation. None of us could ever hang on a cross for the sake of the world … we could only hang on a cross, as did the thieves, as those deserving death; Christ alone hangs on a cross as the redeemer of the world, not deserving death, but giving life.

To God be the glory.

That’s why we practice infant baptism … when we bring a baby or a child to the water of baptism, we offer to the world the clearest picture of grace, a priori grace … the prior grace, the grace that comes before … before anything of our own being or doing … before we know anything about God, before we can do anything for God, before we believe in Jesus, God is already at work … faithfully at work, believing in us with a sovereign mercy … throughout the ages … forever and ever … 

And it’s true for a believer’s baptism … they didn’t decide to become a follower of Christ … that work was done in them already, a priori grace, the prior grace, before they even gave a thought. They didn’t decide to go forward; it was the Spirit that brought to Christ, and it’s Christ who’s brings us to the Father … and in the name the Father, the Son and the Holy, we baptize of any age, but particularly, infants and children, as a perpetual reminder that it is by grace, and grace alone, that we are saved, lest anyone should boast.

The Heidelberg Catechism says it best of all

That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful savior Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil.

He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation.

Therefore, by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for him.

Dear friends in Christ.

Dear Presbyterian sisters and brothers.

With you this day, I give thanks to God for the Presbyterian Story … 

The sovereignty of God … the power of Infant Baptism.

To God be the glory. Amen and Amen!