Sermons

Sermon, The Rev. Brian C. Taylor, May 30

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Trinity Sunday
May 30, 2010
The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

When I was in science class as a youngster, I distinctly remember being taught that matter was not solid. What? Trees, rocks, this podium, even my body are all made up of swirling, buzzing subatomic particles, with huge spaces between them. What? I still can’t quite believe it. Everything we see is made of energy; nothing is fixed; it is all dancing with motion, always in a process of reaction, change, growth, and decay.

Not only that – it is all in relationship. Even when physicists separate two particles by a large distance, they can have immediate effects on each other. Einstein called the phenomena “spooky interaction at a distance.”

This is true, of course, about all of life. It is relationship, motion, conflict, and interaction that keeps life alive. The earth is alive because of the relationships between weather patterns and ecosystems, between creatures and the changing world around them.

Humans are alive because of relationships with people who love us or hurt us, with changing circumstances beyond our control, and our adaptation to them. At creation, God said to Adam “it is not good for him to be alone,” and it is not good for us to be isolated. No matter what age we are, we need interaction with others to keep us lively.

You and I also have a number of relationships even within ourselves. We all have multiple identities, each of them with potentially conflicting needs or desires. My priesthood is in a dynamic relationship with my identity as a husband and a friend to people who never come to church. My disciplined self is in relationship with my hedonist. My inner saint is in relationship with my inner jerk.

I’m not just one thing, and neither are you. And in the struggle between parts of ourselves, we evolve, emotionally and spiritually. If, on the other hand, we have decided to lock ourselves into one fixed identity, we cease to be fully alive.

Observing all this about creation helps us understand our Creator, because creation is made in God’s image. Creation is a manifestation of the mind and heart of God. Or to put it more bluntly, Creation is God’s body. And so if we see that creation is all about relationship, so God must be. God, too, is multiple, yet one, in a dynamic inner dance, just like subatomic particles, just like an ecosystem, just like you and me.

The early church theologians seemed to have understood this, even without any knowledge of subatomic physics. Why else would they have been led to this brilliant idea of God as Trinity? Today, as we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Trinity, we say that God is one being, in three persons.

In fact, some go into the inner relationships of the three persons of the Trinity. They say that within the Godhead, the Father begets the Son, and the Spirit consists of the love between them. What? This is about as easy for me to grasp as the idea that my arm is not solid.

Well, I’m not going to try to explain this, because I don’t understand it, and it’s not really the point, anyway. What matters, I think, is that all of reality, including God, who is the source of all that is, seen and unseen, only exists because each part of it is in a dance with other parts. That’s what makes life alive. Now why does this matter?

I grew up with a fairly static view of myself. My family was loving and good, but we were like separate planets orbiting around in space. I came to believe that I was a self-contained unit. If a problem needed to be figured out, I would take it inside, stew on it, and come up with a solution. If I wanted to grow spiritually, I needed to go within and find God there. Contemplative prayer was a perfect fit for this tendency, at least for many years.

But over time, I’ve been drawn out of self-sufficiency. My marriage, friendships, and this community have taught me that much more can happen between us than I can ever do on my own. I have come to rely less upon myself, and more upon my relationships.

I’ve come to trust in conflict more, to see it less as a problem that needs to be solved and more as healthy and necessary friction between two energies that will inevitably create a new thing that is not yet evident. I trust the process of decision-making in community, because I know that everyone has a piece of the picture, and I can see the Spirit at work when we put all the pieces together. And so I am much more interested in the process of whatever we’re doing than the end product. I trust my relationship with the mystery of life more than I used to, because I know that when I relax and become expectant, life will rise up and provide whatever I need. I know that God will provide.

I am so much bigger than I used to be, because I’m not so limited to myself. My boundaries extend outwards, including the influence and wisdom of everything and everyone around me. I am a particle in relationship.

This is what fascinates me about what we’re doing with the effort we’re calling ReImagine St. Michael’s. We’re re-imagining who we are, who God is calling us to become, and how we’re going to get there. But we’re not going about this in a top-down decision-making way, where the Vestry and the clergy go off on retreat, make a plan, and then try to get you to implement and pay for it.

Instead, we’re starting from the ground level, and we’re building relationships. The ReImagine process is now entering what we’re calling a Season of Listening. At the Offertories today of each of our liturgies, we’re commissioning 30 members, who will, over the next two months, invite 10 or so of you to have individual conversations with them, just to get to know one another. You’ll also share your sense of who we are as a community, and your sense of God’s call forward. After this Season of Listening, there will be larger gatherings, other times to share and dream.

We’re doing this so that we will have a stronger, more interconnected network binding us together. Think of it - if you get to know – even a little bit – 10 people in this community you don’t know yet, and they do the same, then before too long we’ll walk on this campus and see people all around us whose name we know, whose stories we’ve heard, whose struggles we share, whose dreams we glimpse, whose funny bone we know how to poke. That densely-woven network will make this community feel much more alive, don’t you think? Because it is relationship that makes life alive.

And what will we do with this network of relationships? We’ll become more attuned to what the Spirit may be trying to tell us. Knowing each other better, we’ll gather and share, listen and wait, and then, who knows what will emerge out of the dynamic of community relationship?

Perhaps we’ll hear the Spirit among us saying that in our new Ministry Complex we want to start a community health clinic with a spiritual dimension. Maybe we’ll create a school for spiritual formation, educating people for lay or ordained ministry. Or we’ll form partnerships with neighborhood groups and we become a center for community activism. Or a place where visual arts and music are shared every week, in exhibits and performances. Or a community garden on the land we’ve just cleared between our east parking lots. I don’t know! But God does.

Anything is possible when we come together in dynamic relationship. Ideas, energy, and money flow when we let the movement between us take on a life of its own. Life becomes much larger for us when we move from the misperception that we are separate entities orbiting around one another, and enter into the dynamic dance of life around us.

This is the nature of all life, and it is the nature of our Trinitarian God - to be in dynamic relationship, and become more than we can ever be alone. This is the divine reality we celebrate on this feast day, and it is what keeps us and our community alive. I invite you to join in the dance.