And if you do speak of the Trinity (I will, but hopefully with not too much explaining going on), here's an approach: when I was in seminary we had a talent show each year. A favorite moment came when students would do impersonations of professors, and we'd guess who was being impersonated. My friend Pat walked on stage, spoke a complete sentence or two about the Trinity, then he began incomplete sentences, then took off his glasses and grimaced as he pressed his hand to his brow. We all rightly guessed Tom Langford, theology professor who did what preachers should do more of: embody the fact that we are speaking of something too vast, too complex - knowable, adorable, but mind-boggling.
The Gospel, John 3:1-17, works any Sunday of the year, as we see the fleshing
out of the heart of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I’ve commented on John 3:1-17 recently in
this blog series (March 11, Lent 4).
And then, to complicate everything, it’s
Memorial Day weekend! – which creates a kind of pressure you may or may not
enjoy. Six years ago, after dodging, coping with and responding to
criticism for being… insufficiently patriotic? I preached a whole sermon I’d commend to you explaining a
Christian viewpoint on Memorial Day, which was semi-well-received. If it
helped no one else, it helped me to work through what I will do and won’t do on
Sunday morning regarding patriotic holidays. How do we own it, honor our people, but not enfranchise an excess of patriotism and a hawkish spirit?
Isaiah
6
is tabbed for the lectionary surely because the seraph called to the other
seraph, not crying “Holy!” but “Holy, Holy, Holy!” I once heard a sermon where the preacher bore
in on this for a 3-point sermon on the three aspects of holiness: being set
apart, being pure, and then social holiness (a profoundly Wesleyan emphasis! –
works of mercy, advocating for peace and justice, visiting the prisons, etc.). Tempting and a helpful trellis on which to
grow a sermon! – but not what the seraph was thinking. The preacher could paint some personal images
of what holiness looks like – and I’d look for the non-traditional,
not-so-pious examples from people I’ve known.
My favorite hymn, which people had better
sing at my funeral, is “Holy, Holy, Holy” – which I fell in love with as a
child because of its repetitive simplicity.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s line (not Shakespeare's!!!) – How
do I love thee? Let me count the ways – might work with God’s
holiness. What about a sermon that
simply meditates on the holiness of God?
I love the sermons that don’t have obvious “points” or “takeaways,” but
that fixate with devoted clarity on the wonder of God. There are implied takeaways (like You be holy too – very biblical!) – but
leave them as implied.
A marvelous guide to the holiness of God is
A.W. Tozer’s less well-known little book, The
Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God, Their Meaning in the Christian
Life. Chapter by chapter (23 of them
in just 117 pages) he explores some holy attribute of God, from God’s mercy to
God’s incomprehensibility, from wisdom to justice, from self-existence to omniscience. Like turning a precious diamond in your hand,
holding it up to the light, awestruck: we ponder God’s holiness. That alone
would make a terrific sermon.
Isaiah resonates in so many ways. The text seems ethereal, metaphysical, this
report of being transfixed and transported into the utterly unspeakable
presence of God – and yet it is entirely nailed to a moment in history: “In the
year that King Uzziah died” – a time of political uncertainty, confusion,
threats within and without. At such
time, God still speaks; God is still God.
Do we not suffer from political chaos and instability? What does the Holy God speak to us during
such a time?
The hotness, the unfathomable mind-blowing
that is God’s presence in the holy place elicits awe – which we don’t know much
about. I admire what Amos Wilder tried
to help us see about worship:
“Going to church is like approaching an open volcano where the world is molten and hearts are
sifted. The altar is like a third rail that spatters sparks. The sanctuary is
like the chamber next to the atomic oven: there are invisible rays and you
leave your watch outside.”
And then we have Annie Dillard’s suggestion
(in Teaching a Stone to Talk): “The churches are children playing on the floor
with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning.
It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should
all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For
the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw
us out to where we can never return.” Mind you, no one will walk in the door
looking for the sparks or wearing crash helmets… But somehow, naming it may foster
some dim realization in at least a few who’ve shown up.
Isaiah 6 is yet one more of the Bible’s call narratives that all fit the
same pattern: God unexpected calls, the one called explains why he or she is
insufficient, then God reassures – not that he or she is sufficient, but that
God will use whom God will use. In
Isaiah’s case, he senses his unholiness, rendering him unfit for holy use. When we interview candidates for ordination,
they generally speak of their abilities, education and cool experience; not
many speak of their unworthiness, their unholiness – which seems to be what
this God is looking for, not ability but availability, and maybe even
disability. These thoughts and others
led me to write Weak Enough to Lead – which explores the Bible’s thoughts on leadership,
which are vastly different from, and almost antithetical to ours.
And for anyone preaching, the bizarre interaction at the very outset of
Isaiah’s ministry should humble us, discourage us, and bequeath to us great
company. They won’t understand, their
hearts are fat, their ears heavy, their eyes are shut. It will turn out that they won’t get your
message – at least not for a very, very long time. And so it is with preaching. We preach, not to get results, not to grow
the church, not to gauge my worth or their worth, and certainly not to roll up
big numbers. We preach because God says
preach. We preach, not to see if they
like to respond to our preaching, but to please God.
Parenthetically, there is a powerful word at
the heart of the Trinity. In our culture, we are wise to lean into Jürgen
Moltmann's perspective in The Trinity & the Kingdom. Some excerpts:
"The triune God reveals himself as love in the fellowship of Father, Son
and Holy Spirit. His freedom lies in the friendship which he offers; his
freedom is his vulnerable love, his openness, the encountering kindness through
which he suffers with those he loves." If we reduce God to a single,
absolute personality, we wind up with "justification for the world's
cultivation of the individual" - an individualism God grieves and
counters. And there are political/social implications as well: "It
is only when the doctrine of the Trinity vanquishes the monotheistic notion of
the great universal monarch in heaven that earthly rulers, dictators and
tyrants cease to find any justifying religious archetypes any more."
Wow.
Clergy are fond of showing and talking about
the lovely Rublev icon. Once I spoke of
it and imagined three bridge players very much wanting to play, waiting for a
fourth – you, me, the church, maybe the stranger. Makes me a tad uncomfortable, but hey – it’s
better than a three-leaf clover! I
wonder about inviting people to imagine a family of four, but one is missing.
They aren’t content, like Hey, we got
75%! That’s pretty good. No, you
crave the whole family being together – especially is one of the four is never
coming… God’s Threeness yearns for the one who’s not yet there, maybe like that
shepherd leaving 99 sheep to seek out the one.
************
My new book, Worshipful, now has an online study guide with video clips.
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