"What Should We Do?" A Sermon on Luke 3:7-18 from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the Third Sunday of Advent.

John the Baptist (an icon from the Orthodox tradition)

"What Should We Do?"

Luke 3:7-18

The third Sunday of Advent has traditionally been known as Joy Sunday.   That’s why we lit the rose candle today and heard the apostle Paul urging the church to “Rejoice always and in everything.”

            Yet, as I meditated on the scripture passages for this Sunday, I kept remembering how painful a season this can be for many people-- people who are lonely, people who are grieving the loss of a loved one, people who are struggling with illness and wondering where God is in the midst of it all…  people who are depressed, people who are trying to maintain their sobriety during a season of parties… people who are too poor to be a part of the festival of extravagance the merchants would have us believe is what Christmas is all about. 

            There are people who are hungry or food insecure...or who are worrying about how they’ll pay their bills.  Then there are terrible events that have filled the headlines in recent weeks. The list could go on and on. 

            We grieve that there’s so much wrong in the world.  We’re still waiting for the kingdom of God, and we yearn for it.  We wait and hope for what we can’t yet see.

            During the weeks of Advent, we’re in a conversation with the Old Testament prophets and John the Baptizer.  In the scriptures, we hear words of consolation and of challenge.   Today, we hear John the Baptist saying to the people who came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruits worthy of repentance.”               

            What do we make of this blunt talk?  Where’s the good news in it?     

            Apparently, a lot of the people who came out to hear John the Baptizer’s message did hear his message as good news.  Gospel from God.   Some of them even started to wonder whether John was the messiah they’d been waiting for. 

            Things were terribly wrong.  The people were living under the occupation of the Roman empire, and at the mercy of tyrants like Herod… or dishonest tax collectors.  Things were wrong, but they were hoping God was going to do something about it.  

            One of my colleagues suggests that when John compared people to a brood of vipers, he was saying they are like snakes curled up in hiding inside a pile of logs.  When the fire of God’s judgment comes near,  when the light of truth exposes us, we try to slink out from under God’s gaze.[1] 

            “Hey, don’t look at me!  I didn’t mess the world up!” we protest.  “I’m okay.  After all, I’m a child of Abraham.  It’s those tax collectors and Pilate and Herod that are to blame.  It’s those criminals and greedy corporate honchos and crooked politicians… or immigrants…  or [fill in the blank].  It’s those other people who are to blame for this mess-- not me!” 

            We make excuses and look for others to blame precisely because, in our heart of hearts, we know that we are not clean.  We, too, have contributed to the mess.

            I think John the Baptist is right.  “This means you,” he declares.  “Don’t even think about relying on the fact that you’re a child of Abraham…or a good Christian…or whatever, to exempt you.”

            So…how can a message like this be good news?

            I’m grateful to Richard Rohr for some new insights on John the Baptist I found in his book,  Jesus’ Plan for a New World.[2]   Father Rohr, who is a Franciscan priest, suggests that John the Baptist is probably far more important than we have realized.   The beginning of the gospels tells us that John appeared and preached in the wilderness, “proclaiming a gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” 

            John “cries out in the wilderness,” radically questioning the very legitimacy of the existing religious order, and showing how religion needs to constantly reform.  The keepers of the religious status quo kept sending people out to question John.  

            When John preached a baptism of repentance and forgiveness of sins, it was revolutionary.  Jews were supposed to follow the Law—the Holiness Codes of Torah. This upstart was making it too easy to get God to love you and forgive you. 

            The people were filled with expectation.  They were questioning in their hearts, whether John might be the Messiah they were looking for.  But John was pointing to the One who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and Fire. 

            Luke's gospel tells us that, when Mary found out that she was pregnant with the Son of the Most High God, she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth.  When Mary spoke, Elizabeth's child leaped for joy in her womb.

            That child grew up to be John the Baptizer.  God called him to be a witness to the light of God, revealed in Christ.  John knew that a lot of things get in the way of receiving God's love and joy.   That's why John was preaching about getting ready for the more powerful one who was coming.   Prepare the way!  Repent! 

           

            In Charles Dickens' play, "A Christmas Carol,"  Ebenezer Scrooge is London's most notorious miser.  He's a mere shadow of the joyful person he was created to be, hunched up against the world...  stingy and suspicious.  When the Ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrooge his own grave, the reminder that he will die breaks through all the defenses and helps to put things into perspective.  He's overwhelmed with a piercing sense of remorse for how he has been living.  He repents!

            Seeing the light of truth after living in the darkness for so long can be scary.   But what follows his rebirth into new life-- is joy!

           

            This Advent, John the Baptizer comes to us, telling us that we need to change our ways.

            The message of Advent is that God in Christ is coming into the world.  In Jesus, God's Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth.   What came into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.

            Edward Hicks was an American sign and stagecoach painter in the early nineteenth century.  He’s known almost exclusively for his many paintings of the Peaceable Kingdom. 

            One of these, entitled “The Peaceable Kingdom with Quakers Bearing Banners,” was painted during a time when tension and separation had split American Quakers into two groups.  In the background is a cluster of very somber-looking people.  But in the foreground is a depiction of the peaceable kingdom:  a leopard is lying down with a lamb.  A little child is embracing a lion. 

            Those somber-looking people in the background are connected to the peaceable kingdom by a banner that declares, “Behold, I bring you glad tidings of great joy.”  The sinuous ribbon with its beginning in the mists of eternity weaves its way through and among them, braiding them together.

            Our Christian joy and faith aren’t based solely on the evidence we see in the present-- but on the hope of the future.  Our Christian joy comes to us in our experience of God’s presence.   So, how are we called to live?

            Three times in today’s gospel lesson…  “What should we do?”   That’s a question for us today.

            What should we do, as we yearn for God’s peaceable kingdom?  What should we do, to live more fully into the reign of God? 

            I don’t have any simple answers for you today.  But I think our faith is calling us to move beyond the simple answers on either side of important issues, to listen to one another’s perspectives, and to pray together and work together, and open ourselves to the Spirit’s leading.

            One of the challenges we face today is our desire to live in safety, while responding faithfully to the needs of our neighbors near and far.  It isn’t uncommon during an electiAon season for us to hear political rhetoric that plays on our fears.  But we need to learn from history... and be guided by our faith.

            During Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, too many religious leaders and others were silent.  When fear and xenophobia prevail, there can be terrible consequences.

            Over the past few years, some of us have been thinking about historical parallels between the current debate over refugees—from Syria and now from Central America—desperate people seeking safety and refuge in the United States   and the plight of European Jews fleeing German-occupied territories on the eve of World War II. 

            Among the many who tried-- and failed—to escape Nazi persecution were Otto Frank and his family, which included his wife, Edith, and his daughters, Margot and Anne.  The Frank family visa application documents were discovered in a New Jersey warehouse in 2007. 

            As historian Richard Brietman wrote, “Otto Frank’s efforts to get his family to the United States ran afoul of restrictive American immigration policies designed to protect national security   and guard against an influx of foreigners during time of war.”[3]  And so Anne Frank and her family perished in concentration camps. 

            In contrast to those who were silent and passive during the horrors of the Holocaust, an entire town in occupied France sheltered 5,000 Jews at great risk, in a “conspiracy of goodness.” 

             In occupied France, collaborators delivered 83,000 Jews, including 10,000 children, to the Nazi death camps, and only 3,000 returned.  But the residents of Le Chambon and the surrounding area quietly took in and saved as many Jews as their entire population, who came to them for shelter and refuge. 

            The people of Le Chambon were Reformed Christians, descendants of the French Huguenots.   Motivated by their faith and remembering their own history of persecution, they welcomed the refugees and housed them in private homes, on farms, as well as in local schools.   You can read about this in the book, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed.[4]

           

            What should we do?   What do the “fruits of repentance” look like?

            Our scriptures say in various ways that we are to orient our lives to do justice, and to love kindness, and walk humbly with God.

            This Advent, God is ready to be born in the cradle of our hearts and lives, either for the first time or as a renewed birth, as God-with-us reaches new depths within our very souls.  And this, my friends, is reason for JOY! 

            Do you remember what Ebenezer Scrooge was like when he was re-born that Christmas?  He couldn't keep his joy to himself!  He was filled with the joy of new life...   and he just had to share his joy with others!

            When we receive the JOY of Jesus Christ, we're called to proclaim the light that outshines all darkness.  We're called to carry the light out into the world    and be witnesses of the light. 

            God calls us out of darkness-- into the Light that overcomes the darkness.  Our job as we wait for Christ to come again in power and glory is to proclaim the good news of Jesus, who is the light of the world… the Christ who calls us to live lives that reflect his light!  

How shall we live?  We are called to feed the hungry…and minister to the sick… to show God’s mercy and justice in our lives.   In Matthew 25, we hear Jesus saying we will be judged by how we feed those who are hungry, how we give those who are thirsty something to drink, how we visit those whose who are imprisoned, how we welcome the stranger.”[5]   

In the words of one of my favorite hymns, we are called to “live into hope-- of captives freed...  of sight regained...  the end of greed.”[6]  We are called to live as God’s blessed peacemakers.[7]

            On this Third Sunday of Advent, there is good news—joyful news.  No matter how dark things look, we know that darkness does not have the last word.  Jesus, the Light of the world, has come and shines in the darkness.  The darkness does not and will not overcome it.

            So--  let us rejoice always.[8]  Let us live prayerful lives-- lives that show gentleness to all we meet... and embody God’s love for those who are lonely and hurting.   Let us pray without ceasing, and give thanks in everything…  for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for us.

            The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

            Come, Lord Jesus!

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

December 16, 2018

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[1] Mary Harris Todd, in a sermon at www.goodpreacher.com.

[2] Richard Rohr, Jesus’ Plan for a New World: The Sermon on the Mount.  (Kindle Loc 1668)

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/24/anne-frank-and-her-family-were-also-denied-entry-as-refugees-to-the-u-s/ 

[4] Philip Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed:  The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There.  Harper, 1979. 

[5] Let it be noted:  there were responses to the “fill in the blanks.”  The people at Littlefield Presbyterian Church are well acquainted with Matthew 25.

[6] “Live into Hope.”  Lyrics by Jane Parker Huber.

[7] Matthew 5, in what we know as “The Beatitudes.”

[8] Philippians 4:4-7

"The Dance of Love," a sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Trinity Sunday

"Hospitality of Abraham" ("Holy Trinity"). Hand-painted icon by Andrei Rublev.

"The Dance of Love"

Isaiah 6:1-8; John 3:1-17

Over the years, I’ve had a number of front porch theological conversations with Muslim neighbors, in which they’ve asked about the Trinity.  I’ve been asked, “So, about the Trinity: One God or three? These kinds of questions have led to some interesting theological conversations about the nature of God over the years

            In the Christian calendar, this is Trinity Sunday—the only Sunday in the church year dedicated to a doctrine of the church.  

            For centuries Christians have sung, confessed our faith, prayed, baptized, received new members into our community in the name of a Trinitarian God who is traditionally Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  But for many Christians in our time (and for some in earlier times) the doctrine of the Trinity has been a problem.

            How many of us have heard a conversation in a church school class or study group that goes something like this: “Do we have to believe in the Trinity-- that God is three-in-one and one-in three--to be a Christian?” “What does it mean? How can you put three persons together and get one, or divide one into three and still have one?”

            If you think about it, you can understand why our Muslim and Jewish friends have a problem with the Trinity and wonder if we really do worship one God.

            The defenders of the faith--the traditional faith--might blunder through a fuzzy explanation and then conclude: “There’s a reason we call it a mystery that no one can fully understand.” Maybe they say, “We just have to accept it by faith.”

            I agree that the Trinity is a mystery no one can fully understand.  The doctrine of the Trinity reminds us that there is always more to God than we can conceive… always more of God than we can explain… always more than we can sing or preach or prove.   

            So—what do we do with the Trinity? 

            I think theology is important.  I think bad theology can hurt people…and hurts the church.  The language we use when we speak and sing of God is important.

            Apparently, some ordinary Christians in ancient times knew this.  Theologian Elizabeth Johnson observes how fascinated people of the late fourth century were with speaking rightly about God.

            She quotes a famous remark by Gregory of Nyssa that describes the situation: “Even the baker,” he said, “does not cease from discussing this.  If you ask the price of bread, he will tell you that the Father is greater and the Son is subject to him.”[1]

            It’s difficult for many people today to grasp how bitterly this conflict divided the Christian world for several centuries.  The Nicene Creed was hammered out to defend the faith tradition against the Arian claim that Christ was not eternal, but created. 

            The burning big QUESTION in the ancient church was “Who is Jesus Christ, in relation to God the Father and Creator?”

            The Nicene Creed was the ancient church’s answer to the questions of its time, using the best philosophical constructs and language available to it at that time. 

            As (the late) theology professor Shirley Guthrie wrote, the doctrine of the Trinity is “the church’s admittedly inadequate way of trying to understand the biblical and Christian understanding of who God is, what God is like, how and where God is at work in the world, what God thinks about us human beings, does for us, requires of us, promises us.”[2]

            We need to be clear with ourselves and in talking with others that we don’t “believe in” the Trinity. We believe in and trust in God, and the Trinity is a way Christians think about and speak of God.

            During times of controversy, the church has found it necessary to re-interpret the gospel for new times, in response to new situations and questions.  If you look through our Book of Confessions,[3] you’ll see that the “Scots Confession,” “the Heidelberg Catechism,” the “2^nd Helvetic Confession,” and the “Westminster Confession” were worked out during the Reformation period, in response to concerns particular to that time.

            In 1934, the Confessional Synod of the German Evangelical Church met in Barmen, Germany.  They “sought a common message for the need and temptation of the Church” in their day. The threat was the way the Christian church was cooperating with the Nazi regime.  The resulting confession of faith was what we know as the “Declaration of Barmen.”

            The 1960’s were turbulent times, and the “Confession of 1967” was adopted by the Presbyterian Church “to call the church to that unity in confession and mission which is required of disciples…”[4] The theme of the Confession of 1967 was the church’s ministry of reconciliation, which has been a strong theme in the mission of this congregation for several decades.

            The Presbyterian Church had split at the time of the Civil War, over the issue of slavery, and it took over a hundred years for the northern and southern Presbyterian churches to be reunited.  At the time of the reunion, the General Assembly voted to re-state the faith as a way of affirming what we believe together.  The result was “A Brief Statement of Faith of 1991,”[5]  which we often say together in worship.  The “Brief Statement of Faith” is a Trinitarian statement, which begins by stating that we trust in the one triune God, whom alone we worship and serve.

            The 2016 General Assembly made history by voting to add the “Belhar Confession” to our Book of Confessions.[6]  Belhar is a moving call for reconciliation and a condemnation of racial injustice written in South Africa during the struggle against Apartheid, to be a resource to the church during a time when racial tension, injustice and violence in the United States make headlines nearly every day.

            We are part of a living, growing tradition, and we continue to address new situations and questions by re-stating our faith.  One of the great themes of our Reformed Tradition affirms the church reformed, always being reformed, according the Word of God, as led by the Holy Spirit. 

            I believe that the controversies of our time over sexuality issues are finally being worked out after decades of conflict.  I hope this frees us to work through other important questions for living faithfully in our time. For instance, how do we confess and live our faith in Jesus Christ in a pluralistic world?  How do we speak of God in conversations with our neighbors who are Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, atheist, or “spiritual but not religious” or the “none’s” or “done's”?  If we trust in a God who creates every person in the image of God, a God who calls us to love our neighbor and to live together in Beloved Community, what does our faith require of us in our relationships with those who are different and those who are marginalized? 

            When we struggle over theology, important things often get worked out.  We often learn something—sometimes in spite of ourselves.  Even though we might want to dig in and defend what we have always believed to be true, we have the Holy Spirit nudging us, reminding us of what Jesus did and what he taught.  We learn and grow, as the Holy Spirit leads us further into the truth—just as Jesus promised

            Jesus told his disciples that he still had many things to say to them, but that they weren’t ready to hear them yet.  He promised that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, would guide his followers into all the truth.[7]

            But from the earliest centuries of the church, discerning theologians have stressed that all our language about God, including the Trinitarian symbols, are inadequate and relative. The Bible uses many images or metaphors for God, and other theologians have offered a number of possibilities for speaking of God.[8]

            I believe God continues to speak a new word to us in new times--things we weren’t ready to hear before.  We still have many things to learn, so we need to be learners--theologians. We need to listen for what God’s teaching Spirit has to say to us.

            In my study this week, I was reminded that the Western Church’s model of the Trinity has typically looked like a triangle, while the typical model in Eastern Orthodoxy is a circle.

            John of Damascus, a Greek theologian who lived in the seventh century, developed the understanding of the Trinity with a concept called perichoresis.  I don’t bring a lot of Greek words into sermons, but this one gives us such a beautiful picture of God. “Peri”-- as in perimeter--means “around.”  “Choresis literally means “dancing” -- as in choreography.

            This isn’t an approach to the Trinity that most of us in the Western part of the church are as familiar with, but some contemporary theologians, like Jürgen Moltmann and Mirosalav Volf, have written about it.

            Father Richard Rohr has written a very accessible book: “The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation,” that invites us to take a closer look at the mystery of the Trinity.  He says we need a larger God than the understanding that seems to dominate our culture.  God is not what most people think.  God is not an angry, distant moral scorekeeper or a supernatural Santa Claus handing out cosmic lottery tickets to those who attend the right church or say the right prayer.  God isn’t a stern old man with a white-beard, ready and eager to assign condemnation and punishment.[9]

            I find the metaphor of a dancing God beautiful and life-giving, and I think it is more faithful to the story of God’s self-giving love we hear in the scriptures. Imagine it: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-- or Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer-- the three persons of the Trinity are like three dancers holding hands, dancing around together in harmonious, joyful freedom.

            In today’s Gospel lesson, we heard, “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” God is not vengeful, not demanding of judgment or appeasement, not angry--but loving. The cross is a sign of just how far God will go to show us that God already loves us.  

            How do we proclaim the good news of God’s love in our time? To those who have been baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we need to proclaim the new, open, love-filled space of our Triune God, the space where we are to love God with all we’ve got and to love our neighbors--all our neighbors-- like ourselves.  

            Our God is a relational God, and the Trinity is all about relationship. I think the Trinity matters, because--without the Trinity, some people can make claims that justify the hatred of entire groups of people and call them animals. Without the Trinity, some churches will claim to be church but carry on with self-centered, individualistic, fear full messages, rather than a gospel of love and community.

            On this Trinity Sunday, what really matters is being led further into God’s truth and God’s way of love.

            Maybe, as Father Richard Rohr suggests, we need to push back the furniture a bit and make room to dance with the divine. Maybe that’s a better way to teach us all about God’s self-giving love and how we can be part of the dance-- God’s dance of love and life.

            The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you!

            Amen.

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

May 27, 2018

           

           

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[1] Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. 

[2] Shirley C. Guthrie, Christian Doctrine, Revised Edition (Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), p. 71.

[3] https://www.pcusa.org/site_media/media/uploads/oga/pdf/boc2014.pdf

[4] The Confession of 1967, article 9.05 in Book of Confessions of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

[5] https://www.presbyterianmission.org/what-we-believe/brief-statement-of-faith/

[6] https://www.pcusa.org/site_media/media/uploads/theologyandworship/pdfs/belhar.pdf

[7]John 16:12

[8] See William C. Placher, Narratives of a Vulnerable God: Christ, Theology, and Scripture (Westminster John Knox Press, 1994).

[9] Richard Rohr, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation.  (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge / Whitaker House), 2016.

"Is Anything Too Wonderful for God?" A sermon on Genesis 18 and 21 from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

Andrei Rublev, ""The Hospitality of Abraham" / "The Trinity"

"Is Anything Too Wonderful for God?"

Genesis 18:1-15 and 21:1-7; Matthew 9:35-10:23

Easter was late this year.  So--because of how the lectionary works-- we entered the story of Abraham and Sarah in the middle today, and we missed hearing the beginning. We don’t have enough time to catch you up on all the details now. If you haven’t read the story of Abraham in the book of Genesis for a while, I invite you to spend a few minutes and read through it, beginning in chapter 12.   I don’t think you’d be bored.  I really think the story of the Patriarchs in Genesis would make quite a TV mini-series.

         Had Easter been earlier this year, we would have heard the story of the call of Abraham in Genesis 12, how God calls Abram and Sarai to leave homeland and kin and go to a land they have never seen.  God makes a three-fold promise to them.  Abram will have many descendants and will be a “great nation.”   Several times in the chapters leading up to today’s lesson, God promises that Abram and his descendants will inherit the land of Canaan, and that they will be a blessing to the whole world.

         Now, there’s a major problem with this scenario: Abram and Sarai have no children. We don’t know a lot about the couple before this, but we do know that his wife Sarai has been barren, and that she’s getting up in years. It’s hard to have many descendants and be a “great nation” if you don’t have even one child.

         So, by the time we get to Genesis 18, Abraham and Sarah have decided to solve the problem on their own. They have “given” Hagar,” Sarah’s handmaid, to Abraham as a concubine. She has borne a son to Abraham, and they have named him Ishmael. So, problem solved.

         Or maybe not. God was more specific in making promises in Genesis 17. “As for Sarai, your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations, kings of peoples shall come from her.

         Well, that’s an amazing promise. Especially when you consider that by this time, Sarah is 90 years old. Talk about having a new chapter in your golden years!

         Apparently, Abraham thought this promise was too wonderful, too amazing, even for God. When we heard it, Abraham fell on his face laughing and reminded God that they’ve already worked out things on their own: “O that Ishmael might live in your sight!”

         God has a different vision of how things are supposed to be and tells Abraham, “No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac,” which means, “he laughs.” God promises that Ishmael will become the father of a great nation, too. But God’s covenant will be with Isaac.

         Which brings us to Genesis 18.  Abraham is sitting at the entrance of his tent near the oaks-- more accurately “terebinths” of Mamre, resting in the heat of the day. He sees three men standing near him and runs out as fast as his 99-year-old legs allow to meet them, and bowed down. He says, “My lord, allow me to have a little water brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on.”

        

         Abraham hurries into the tent to Sarah, and asks her to whip up a good meal, and he runs out to the herd to pick out a good calf for a servant to prepare. He serves the guests curds and milk and meat, and then he stands under the tree while they eat.

        

         The guests ask Abraham, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he says, “There, in the tent.” Then one of the guests said, “I will surely return to you I due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.”

         Sarah is listening, and now, it’s her turn to laugh.  Abraham and Sarah are both old. We hear that “it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women.” So, Sarah laughed to herself.

         The LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, and say, “Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?  Is anything too wonderful for the LORD?”

         Sarah’s afraid, and she says, “I didn’t laugh.”

         The LORD says, “O yes, you did laugh.” I imagine a twinkle in the LORD’S eye.

         There’s a lot to chew on in this passage. If we were in a Bible study, we could look more closely at how Abraham is visited by the one LORD, as three separate people, and how the text alternates between referring to them in the singular and plural.

         As I meditated on this text during the week, I also spent some time learning about the Christian icons that have been inspired by it, commonly known as “The Hospitality of Abraham.”

         Those of us who don’t come from an Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or Anglican tradition probably haven’t been very familiar with icons as a form of devotional religious art that is meant to invite us deeper into the truth and to help us pray.  

         Probably the best known religious icon in the world is an icon painted by Russian monk and iconographer Andrei Rublev in the fifteenth century known as “The Hospitality of Abraham” and also known as “The Trinity.”

         The more you gaze at this icon and meditate on it, the more you see.  In the icon, we see three angels, but also the Trinity. In her little book, The Circle of Love: Praying with Rublev’s Icon of the Trinity, Ann Persson points us to some of details.[1]

         Rublev has intentionally given the three “angels” similar faces, figures, and hairstyles, and differentiates them only by their clothing, to show that each of the three has equal importance. The faces are youthful, yet there is a quiet maturity. They are neither male nor female. Their haloes show their holiness. Other details in the colors in their clothing and in the background point to who they are. Each one holds a staff, which shows that each has authority. They are similar, yet different. They are in eternal communion.

         As Ann Persson points out, very often in other, earlier icons the three figures sit in a line, facing the viewer. Rublev was the first iconographer to use a circle in his design--the symbol of perfection, unity and eternity.

         Some of those who study and meditate on this icon point to what appears to be a little rectangular hole painted on the front of the table. According to Fr. Richard Rohr, some art historians say that the remaining glue on the original icon indicates that there may have once been a mirror glued to the front of the table, though that would have been highly unusual.[2]

         In any case, Rublev designed this icon with a space in the circle, as if you or I could step into the space that is offered and enter the circle of love.  He showed that there’s a place at the table for us.

         I love the way Fr. Rohr puts it: “At the heart of Christian revelation, God is not seen as a distant, static monarch but…a divine circle dance, as the early Fathers of the church dared to call it (in Greek perichoresis…. God is the Holy One presenced in the dynamic and loving action of Three.  But even this Three-Fullness does not like to eat alone. This invitation to share at the divine table is probably the first biblical hint of what we would eventually call ‘salvation.’”[3]

         “Jesus comes forth from this Eternal Fullness, allowing us to see ourselves mirrored, as a part of this table fellowship--as a participant at this banquet and as a partner in God’s eternal dance of love and communion.”

        

         So, how are we called to live, as partners in God’s dance of love? How do we proclaim the good news of God’s love in our time?

         In today’s gospel lesson, we heard how Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

         Then Jesus summoned his twelves disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness….to go out, proclaiming the good news. The kingdom of heaven has come near. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.  And travel light.

        

         To a lot of us, this may sound overwhelming…impossible. But we worship a God who became incarnate to reveal the image of the invisible God, which is the logical conclusion of God’s love affair with creation.

         What might our dance with God look like, as we live more fully into God’s kingdom? 

         I love the way Shirley Erena Murray words it in a song we’ll sing later:[4]

         For everyone born, a place at the table,

         For everyone born, clean water and bread,

         A shelter, a space, a safe place for growing,

         For everyone born, a star overhead.

           

         Can we trust God to keep God’s promises? Can we trust God, through the Spirit, to guide and empower us? Can we trust God, in Christ, to be with us always?

         Is anything too wonderful for God? 

         Can we imagine dancing with God, working in partnership with God, and being a blessing to others?

         And God will delight when we are creators of justice,

         And joy… compassion and peace.

         Yes, God will delight when we are creators of justice…

         Justice and joy!

         May it be so!

 Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

June 18, 2017

 

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[1] Ann Persson, The Circle of Love: Praying with Rublev’s Icon of the Trinity (The Bible Reading Fellowship, 2010), Kindle version, location 530-545.

[2] Richard Rohr with Mike Morrell, The Divine Dance (Whittaker House, 2016), page 31.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Shirley Erena Murray, “For Everyone Born”, in Glory to God hymnal (2013).