​ Whole sections of libraries are filled with books about the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Another section in church history covers the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon. If you don’t mind, I won’t read those to you right now. 

Here’s what you might find helpful: we best understand the doctrine of the Trinity when we think of it as a relationship more than as an identity. I say that because it’s better to think of the Holy Trinity as a reciprocal living being than as three separate persons somehow also being one, even though that is also true. 

God the Father and Creator is One with Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ, the Redeemer, who is also one in and with God. The Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier, is one with and in each and both of those who are also one in and with the Spirit. That same Spirit is the presence of God and Christ in and with us as we worship, pray, and continue the work of creation, reconciliation, and redemption in our own time. 

Got that? It will be on the final. 

It’s a dance between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit with all three leading as one, and in step with each other. It’s a dance that we all join as we gather to worship, pray, and work together. We’re still working on getting the steps just right, and occasionally step on our own toes as well as someone else’s. 

When we get that, we understand that the dance party isn’t just for or about us. Our life in Christ is to stop trying to be the belle of the ball, but instead to be a living invitation to those who have a desire to attend, but think they lack the correct shoes. And in case someone comes to the door with no shoes at all, be ready with a basin and towel and make sure they have clean feet. 
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And when we get that, it’s time to get down and boogie. 

​ Today marks the end of what used to be called Eastertide. The name of the day, Pentecost, means “fiftieth day.” That name doesn’t come from our use of it being fifty days after Easter Sunday. It’s older than that, which we can gather from Luke’s opening words in today’s first lesson. 

When the day of Pentecost came, he tells us. It’s an ancient Jewish agricultural festival, marking the beginnings of the Spring harvest. Life returns after the long winter, and signs of ongoing nourishment make themselves known. Hold onto that thought. 

Today’s Gospel lesson gives us a very different story. It’s the evening of the day of Jesus’ resurrection, not the fiftieth day after. The disciples gather in fear, trying to make sense of what they’ve heard that day in light of what they saw with their own eyes just a few days before. Again, life comes back, even after a grueling, horrifying week. But unlike seeds planted in early Spring for radishes, peas, and lettuce, this life emerging from the ground is not what they expected. 

Jesus says, “hey y’all” and then breathes on them. “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Then he gives them the quick start instructions to go along with the user’s manual he’s been trying to show them for a few years. 

So, who gets it right, Luke or John? 
It doesn’t really matter, does it? 

I say that because the Spirit makes an entrance a bit before day one. A wind from God hovered over the face of the deep. Wind. Breath. Spirit. Ruach, the ancient ones called it. A bit later, God breathes into the human’s nostrils the breath of life. Jesus breathes on the disciples. Luke describes a rushing wind, maybe like Elijah heard while hiding in the cave. 

Air gives life. The heart depends on getting enough oxygen to nourish its muscle and keep pumping. Let the oxygen levels get too low, and bad things start to happen. Air is necessary for speech, including those first words “Let there be light.” Yet, when the wind roars loudly, speech becomes difficult, hearing nearly impossible. 

We know that sometimes the air, the spirit we breathe is not healthy. We learned that lesson, again, the hard way during the Covid pandemic a few years ago. We also know that the spirit filling the air around us is often working to steal us away from the Holy Spirit that reveals God’s presence among us. The air, the spirit, seems heavy with the pollutants of greed, hatred, division, even self-worship and fleeting desire. We might call those “advertising” or, sadly, politics as usual. 

Okay, enough, um, “air.” 

​The point is not about deciding exactly when the Holy Spirit arrived. The point is that the Holy Spirit has been there all the time. You ask where? Reach out, and touch air. Inhale, then exhale. At uncertain and difficult times, gasp. Or, pause in the middle of turmoil and take a deep breath.

Paul tells us that the Spirit is the enabler of everything from our proclamation of faith to the good work that we do. It’s a reciprocal relationship. The Spirit enters, words and works of faith exit to reveal the Spirit’s presence. That is our sign, the revelation of the truth of our hope in the risen Christ. The Spirit is the source of our life, the work we do a celebration of a profound truth in its harvest. And it is the type of spirit we nurture within us that helps us determine whether the spirit we take into ourselves is from God. It’s why we need to continue to come together and hear again the words that lead us into truth—which is again, the work of the Holy Spirit.

God continues to come to us, continues to give the breath of life to us. And each breath is renewing, each inhalation and exhalation of the Spirit different from the last. And then, one day, the final exhalation will return the Spirit of life, mixed with our own spirit, back to the Creator and Giver of all life.
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It’s why we can begin and end this day with a full, Spirit-filled voice. Alleluia. Alleluia.

​ Last Fall, I began asking around about commemorations for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It’s a period of eight days that begins with the Confession of Peter on January 18, and ends with the Conversion of Paul marked on January 25. As you might imagine, some intervening celebrations and events meant those who had interest in that week couldn’t meet to make plans until it was too late to implement them. 

A couple of us then met and did what we could. You saw that happen on Ash Wednesday. We haven’t been able to progress beyond that. Yet. 

The idea of Christian unity is a good one if you simply ask about its favorability. When you start talking about what it means and how it might be accomplished, however, that’s a different matter. My first experience with that week came while I was music director for a large Roman Catholic parish. The pastor often joked with me that the prayer life of 1,500 Catholics was in the hands of a filthy Protestant. Then, one summer Sunday after the last of four masses, an older member of the parish asked when I was going to become a Catholic. Before I could answer, the pastor said, “He’s more Catholic than you are. Leave him alone.” But, on the day I was asked to speak at a weekday Mass about unity, I was told, "Be careful what you say.” 

The institutional church’s attitudes have challenged ideas of unity since the early years. The early church was divided into four regions—Antioch, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Rome—each with bishops teaching and providing oversight from those cities. Jerusalem, having been destroyed by the Roman army in 70 CE, fit in as it could. Several councils of bishops met to address faith issues and to define accepted teachings. But ecclesiastical identity politics kept true unity well beyond arm’s reach. That is, if you’re only talking about actual human arms. Spears, swords, and flaming torches were longer. 

At least one writer has concluded that when Mohammed saw the battles, both verbal and real, between warring factions of church leaders, he formed Islam as a religion that would show the world how to live together in peace. But like at creation when God formed humanity, it started to fall apart when a bunch of people were allowed as part of it. 

And so it seems today we have before us what I call Jesus’ one unanswered prayer. At least we haven’t become able to answer it the way he intended, nor in the way we would like to be able to admit. 

We began dividing over things like the presence of one letter in one word, but that one letter had great implications for our statements of faith. Simply put, it changed the Holy Spirit as “proceeding from the Father” to “proceeds from the Father and the Son” as we will say in a few minutes. 

Then it became over issues that affect everyday life. The church in Rome needed to raise funds to finish building St. Peter’s. You can find information on “indulgences” on your own, even as they played a large part in Martin Luther’s note he placed on the castle church door in Wittenburg in 1517. Johns Calvin and Knox, along with Ulrich Zwingli, figure into the mix of Reformed thinking. Then there’s that guy Henry. It can get complicated. 

While I appreciate different opinions and understandings of our shared faith traditions, our many positions have grown from a family debate into very real and often threatening positions regarding what is taught about salvation. I think the main result of all of these is to satisfy the tempter from the garden and the wilderness by helping us avoid Jesus’ true purpose as he prays. It’s too easy to fall into the self-created trap of making salvation dependent on what we do and what we say we believe rather than on what God has accomplished through Christ Jesus.

After all, who can tell me, or even better yet, show me, what it means to be one in Christ, even as God is one in Jesus and Jesus is one in God? That is the true meaning of Christian unity, an end that cannot be found in attempts such as the Elizabethan Settlement’s demand that all British citizens attend worship every Sunday using the approved Book of Common Prayer. Also, they had to enjoy the oversight of bishops appointed by the crown. By the way, not having to do those things is what the founders of this country meant by “religious freedom.” It isn’t about making it acceptable to hate those not just like us, as some recent efforts seem to be trying to do. But the foundation of this country could be said to depend in part on Christian disunity. Then there’s the thought that if it were to be a Christian country, prosperity in this young country would suffer because capitalism and Christianity can’t really share the same playground.

“May they be one, even as you and I are one" is what Jesus prays for. Discerning what that means and how it becomes real in all our lives is how we do what Jesus asks us to do at his ascension. Be witnesses. Not to his departure, but to his eternal, loving presence in the world he came, and continues to come to, to save.
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After all, we are some of the people God has made into Christ’s Church to be just that—witnesses to unity in and with Christ in God. Oh, in case you’re wondering, it’s not just for a week anymore. It’s forever.

 ​ A friend said recently that if the Apostle Paul heard what was going on in our country and in our world, we’d be getting a letter. She said this because many of Paul’s writings are in response to current events and the early church’s straying away from Paul’s teachings. 

Today we’re on a journey with the apostle as he travels through Greece. He has moved away from Thessalonica and Philippi, where he faced challenges from religious authorities and even beatings and imprisonment. He finds himself in Athens, a city with no lack of places of worship. And, just to make sure all the bases are covered and no deity is left behind, there’s an altar dedicated to “an unknown god.” 

There’s nothing more troubling to a pantheon of deities than a god left standing in an ignored corner of Mt. Olympus. Not troubling to the other gods, mind you, since their only concern is being worshipped as much as possible. Just imagine not having paid tribute to the one deity that’s in charge of keeping all the milk from spoiling. Bummer. 

You might have noticed that Paul is well-versed in the Greek form of rhetoric. He takes a stand, speaks of it, then argues every point against it, revealing the inaccuracy of each one. Then, after using all our words in support of the alternative to prove that it’s false, he returns to his point to reinforce its veracity. Preachers have been parsing his words for nearly 2,000 years, and we still haven’t covered all the bases. 

Getting back to my friend’s statement, I wonder what Paul would say after taking a long walk through Wilmington, Delaware. 

He wouldn’t have to go very far to see the many places of worship, the altars where the faithful present their own sacrifices to please the gods. If he came by sea, he could not miss the shrines rising into the sky, their names writ large to identify themselves. Chase. Barclays. WSFS. Highmark. Nearby he would find arenas where worship is encouraged. Although Paul might enjoy a good game of baseball or football and the like, he might question the huge tributes paid to the gods of celebrity and athletic prowess. 

If Paul found himself strangely transported by air, he would find a demi-pantheon just across the highway and along his journey into town. He might wonder what a burger is and why it needs a king, then explain who the real King of life is. Paul might see billboards advertising other arenas of worship and even a few places with his name on the front with the added word “saint.” 

In his own words, he might ask, "Was I crucified for you? Is Christ divided, as you divide yourselves invoking his name?” That’s just for starters. He would then wonder, out loud, mind you, why we’re devoting so much of ourselves to maintaining idled spaces while so many of our brothers and sisters are forced to sleep in tents in a park. Then, just to make his point, he would join those in the park to help them mend and support their tents all while telling them about his own encounter with the risen Christ.

He would probably tell them, while showing us, that the really big tent, the only one that truly matters, is the tent supported at its center by a cross. It’s a tent of love intended to gather all the world into its sheltering embrace, where Love itself makes us God’s children together as one as the body of our risen Lord continues to become manifest in our own time.
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I wonder if those who hear Paul and trust his words to be true will find that truth all around them as they journey through their lives in this place we all call home. If not, he would remind us that salvation is likely not to be found on social media. Heaven help us if he starts addressing that place of worship.

​ The lectionary for the Easter season always seems to be a bit confusing. The first three Sundays all have events that take place on the first day, the day of resurrection. The Fourth Sunday is always Good Shepherd Sunday. Then Sundays five, six, and seven feature lessons from what’s known as the Farewell Discourse in John’s Gospel.
 
Today’s lessons begin with the martyrdom of Stephen, a deacon who is known as the first martyr of the church. His example is supposed to give us strength; his faith is about trusting the God who raised Christ from the dead even as Stephen is pummeled with rocks as religious authorities stone him to death. 

You might have noticed the identity of the man watching the coat closet at this event. Luke, the writer of the Acts of the Apostles, tells us that those wielding the stones laid their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul. This is the entry of the man who will become known as Paul the Apostle into the story of the first-century church. 

The gospels for today and for the coming weeks help us understand Jesus’ words preparing his closest followers for his imminent departure. Today’s lesson takes place immediately after the scene in the upper room. Jesus has shared supper with his friends. He has washed their feet and given them an all-encompassing new commandment—the mandatum novum, as it is known, from whence we get the name for the day we hear it. Maundy Thursday. 

For us, it seems strange. While there are seven Sundays in the Easter season, there simply aren’t enough gospel lessons telling us of post-resurrection appearances of the risen Christ so that we have different lessons for all the Sundays in the three-year cycle. And so, the lectionary prepares us for a coming event. Forty days after the resurrection, Luke tells us, Jesus met with his disciples on a hilltop. He raises his hands in blessing and is raised into the heavens, a day we call the Feast of the Ascension. 

But there’s something else at work in today’s readings. Today’s Psalm is part of the same one chosen for the Feast of Saint Stephen. You probably aren’t aware of that because the Feast of Saint Stephen falls on December 26, when most of us have other things on our minds. Today’s Psalm is also identical to the Psalm the lectionary chooses for Holy Saturday, also a day when we are usually too busy to stop and take notice. Yet this Psalm contains a sentence that Luke quotes from Jesus as he hangs on the cross. I'll let you look for that on your own. 

All this raises a question in my mind. What do we do when it seems that God has gone silent or has even gone away? 

​For a long time now I've been thinking that we seem to be stuck in this Holy Saturday moment. Jesus is gone, and even though we know what is to come in just another day, we don’t seem to be able to move beyond this moment.

While we wait, while we wonder what’s next, there are many opportunities made available for someone or something to come and enter the void in our hearts, in our minds, in our faith. At least one of the temptation stories heard on the First Sunday in Lent tells us that the tempter went away to wait for a more opportune time.

We are living in that more opportune time.

Luke, Paul, Peter, John—all the writers of the books and letters we now call the New Testament—expected the risen Christ to return to earth in their own lifetime. Even now, some 2,000 years later, there are those still expecting the risen Christ to return in a triumphant, military-style victory in our own lifetime. Some are so eager for this moment that they decided to try to bring it about by creating the chaos, the conflict that they expect to happen at that time. Yet faith stands silently while we wait in this moment between Jesus’ departure and his expected return. What do we do?

We remember. We remember ourselves—join ourselves together with Christ in as many ways as we might find possible. That is what the word "religion" means. We join as ligaments join muscles to bone and to flesh for movement, for signs of life, so that even though we stand on this day and time in between, we find life.

The church, that life that Paul calls the body of Christ, is to live into the uncertainty of the moment, just as the risen Christ moved into the uncertainty of death and transformed it into life in ways no one else could do. We are called to live into Jesus’ admonition to Philip, who asked Jesus to show us the Father. I can just imagine the incredulity in Jesus’ voice as he wonders out loud, "Have I been with you all this time, and you still don't get it?”

Then comes the statement that we all fail to live into. Jesus says if you don’t believe because I tell you who I am, then believe because of what you have witnessed. Indeed, you will do what I have done and even more, even greater things than I have done.

I can’t tell you how many times I've stood beside a hospital bed, a grave, or a crying parishioner with the full understanding that I have yet to live fully into that moment. It doesn’t mean I’ve given up. But it does mean I still have a lifetime of work to do. Most of that work is to open myself to be in the time and place where Jesus can fill me with his promised Spirit.
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It’s good to know that I’m not alone.

​One winter’s evening, I went to visit a friend. As I walked to the gate to his yard, I heard a sound. It was one of his dogs barking at me as I approached in the darkness. I knew which dog it was, so I called her name. Sophie. The barking turned to whining, and as I got closer I could see her in the light from the street. The back half of the dog was wiggling around enough to make Elvis Presley green with envy. I knew her voice, and she knew mine. 

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. On the Fourth Sunday of Easter, we hear lessons from John 10 telling us about Jesus being the Good Shepherd. The emphasis is on the word "good." Jesus contrasts himself with others who want to or pretend to shepherd the people around them. They may be community or political leaders. They may be leaders in the synagogue. But with the emphasis on the word "good," what is Jesus really trying to tell us? 

We are bombarded by voices claiming to be acting in our best interests. Turn on the news, especially during an election season, and you will hear promises made that we know are never intended to be kept. Listen to commercials where a manufacturer is promising grand results if we will only purchase their product. They may fit a somewhat loose definition of "shepherd," yet are they good shepherds? 
With all the words, all the noise, the constant chatter, the blathering, if you will, how do we discern what is good? 

Last fall I attended a conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, sponsored by the Center for Action and Contemplation founded by Fr. Richard Rohr. During that conference several speakers pointed us in the direction of an answer to my question. There were three criteria presented—is it true, is it good, and is it beautiful? 

As I consider these three criteria, I'm led to add a little bit more to them. For the question "Is it good?" I want to ask, "For whom is it good?" Is it good for a majority of those to whom it is presented, whatever “it” is, or is it good only for one or two people or for a corporation’s bottom line? Growing up I heard a lot about so-called snake oil salesmen; they may not be driving a team of horses pulling a carriage with bottles of elixir, nor may they be Lucille Ball selling Vitameatavegamin or even Professor Harold Hill. Is it truly—and there's that word—good? Will it give life in the abundance that the Good Shepherd promises to us? 

It was only a few weeks ago that we heard the story of Jesus’ trial, where he stood before Pilate, the governor who asked, "What is truth?” In our own time we continue to hear those who defend themselves by saying they have alternative facts. Or they may claim that something is not true even though there is recorded sound and video evidence of their having said the very words they now deny. It’s difficult to tell just what is true these days. Yet as those who follow the Good Shepherd, we are often called to not only live in truth but also point out where truth is absent. And in order to determine what is true, we often have to set it alongside those alternative facts and see which one of them holds up. Sometimes, we need to engage the help of others in order to determine just what is true. 

Sometimes we need to set the words against history. That means we have to know and understand history in order for it to assist us in our judgment. We may need to engage others to help us gain a vision of what is to be in order to determine whether the actions we take and the words we say are leading us into truth. And we also must admit that sometimes it’s only in hindsight that we know whether something is really true. 

Some say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some may claim that beauty is a mathematical formula, a series of equations and algorithms that determine in a purely objective way whether something is beautiful. It’s difficult to define any one of these terms without the assistance of the other, and we must admit the truth that beauty is a matter of opinion in many cases. And what might not be objectively beautiful by some definition may be beautiful in a way that only discerning eyes and hearts can determine. 

So let me return to today’s gospel lesson, because whether something is good or true or beautiful may be determined by answering whether these things give abundant life in the same ways that Jesus of Nazareth taught and promised. He describes himself as the Good Shepherd. He also describes himself as the way, the truth, and the life. All the sheep care about is that there be abundant grass and plenty of water to drink. They're really not concerned whether the shepherd’s family might have mutton for dinner later on that day or tomorrow. Or how their wool might be sheared from them in order to provide warm clothing for their shepherd come next winter. What they know to do is follow. What they instinctively know to do is trust the voice that calls them into the direction they must go in order to have the promised things that the Good Shepherd will provide. 

And so perhaps the lesson isn’t a cute picture of a handsome Jesus holding a newborn lamb. Perhaps the lesson isn't even about our discernment of what is good or true or beautiful. Perhaps the lesson is to learn whose voice we can really trust. 

When we trust the voice calling us to abundant life for all, and not just for ourselves, then it becomes clear just whom we should follow. 

​ The story of the disciples’ trip home to Emmaus after their terrible weekend in Jerusalem is one of the most beloved stories in Luke’s gospel. They've witnessed their leader being tortured, crucified, and buried. Yet their journey home was long enough that they had to wait until after the Sabbath and the Passover in order to make what was a forbidden journey on those days. 

They’re walking along, possibly in despair, wondering what hope there may be for them, when suddenly they’re joined by a stranger. The stranger begins asking what’s happened. They're incredulous! How can this man, this stranger not know what has happened? How can he be so completely clueless as to what they have witnessed? Has he just been hiding under a rock? 

But it’s late; they’re near home and their own sense of who they are in their faith means asking a stranger to share in their hospitality, to join them in their home, to have a safe place to be overnight. They sit down to supper and continued conversation. Then, the guest becomes the host. He takes bread. He blesses it. He breaks it as is their custom for supper. At the beginning of the meal the host breaks the bread and then offers it to those sitting around the table. 

Suddenly everything changes. It’s not just hospitality norms that get rewritten. Life itself has suddenly transformed, is changed forever. The guest disappears, and the disciples leap up, run back to Jerusalem and tell the other disciples what they have just seen, how the risen Christ appeared to them and was made known to them by breaking bread with them. 

At some point during the Easter season I ask a question. Have you seen the risen Christ lately? 

There are a lot of ways that we expect to see Christ. There are a lot of places where we expect to encounter the risen Christ. Most of those we’ve been taught occur in church, in the liturgy. Perhaps it’s during a reading when we hear something we haven’t heard before. In liturgical churches like our own, we’re taught to look for Christ in the Eucharist. 

I wonder if it’s time to reconsider all those things we’ve been taught. I wonder if we’re looking for Christ in all the wrong places, or only in certain places so that we miss the presence of the risen Christ where Christ most often can be made known. 

Look again at today’s gospel. The disciples on their way to Emmaus are about as low as they have ever been. The sun is setting; the world is literally becoming darker all around them. All they know now is how to make their way home, and for now, that’s enough. They don’t have to do anything miraculous. They don’t have to have a life plan, a life coach or any other accepted method available to them. All they have to do is find their way home. 

I can imagine that with each step the disciples feel their sandals growing heavier. It must feel like the weight of the world, like gravity itself is increasing as their heavy steps move in a familiar direction. Yet even that seems uncertain even after all the trips they must have made before this day. 

Yet, as they look back they sensed things were changing. This sad, familiar journey was somehow becoming different. Looking back, they asked themselves, “were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the road?” 

For about 2 1/2 years now I’ve been asking questions about ministry. With all the numbered reports, the budgets, the attendance, all of those things that give data to those who live on data, I’ve been asking questions about ministry. Ministry is defined as that action undertaken to help others, not to enrich ourselves, even though that happens in the activity of ministry. 

I ask about ministry because it is in ministry, in the doing of ministry, that we find ourselves sitting at familiar tables, and suddenly joined in the presence of the risen Christ. It is in the activity of ministry that we discover the risen Christ has been with us all along, especially in those dark times where it seemed that we could not go one step further. 

It is in ministry where the light of the world, the light of Christ we proclaim at the beginning of the Easter vigil, shines most brightly. The places, the budgets, the how-to manuals, the coaches, those are all secondary to the activity of ministry. They are a means, not an end. 
Yet, for far too long we’ve gotten that backwards. We have, as they say, put the cart before the horse. We stress over numbers. We look at empty pews and see only the emptiness and not the fullness of those who are actually here. We make a big deal about the high holy days and the greater numbers, then sit in despair until the next one while doing very little in between to help folks know that this is a way of life and not just a dress-up party a couple of times during the year. 

So maybe all these years I've been asking the wrong question. To ask, “Have you seen the risen Christ lately?” is the wrong way of looking at things. I say that because we only look for what is outside ourselves. We are always looking for help, for safety, for hope, in the other. And so let me change my question. Have you been the risen Christ lately? Have you been the evidence of resurrection to those wandering in the valley of so many shadows? Have you carried the light of Christ into our increasingly darkened world so that others might rediscover the hope that's been with us all along? 
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Maybe, when we begin to answer those questions we'll find our own hearts burning within us as we walk this road before us. Because just like it was that day in Emmaus, it is the road home.