\u201cGive me a simple religion,\u201d we sometimes yearn. It\u2019s an odd prayer. If someone calls us \u201csimple\u201d we are very offended. Certainly there can be nothing simple about God. It would be very odd indeed if complicated humans and a complicated God met together in a \u201csimple faith.\u201d In a few minutes we will say the Creed together. The Creed is a table of contents to the important teachings found in the Bible. The Creed is full of rather complicated notions. God is \u201cAlmighty,\u201d the \u201cmaker of heaven and earth,\u201d the maker of \u201call that is,\u201d whether seen or unseen. Our first reading today drew us into the mystery of a God who creates and sustains and who made us in his own image. The truths we learn here are beyond simplicity, beyond the world of facts. They pierce into the mystery of a truth beyond our understanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe believe in one God.\u201d \u201cWe believe in one Lord Jesus Christ.\u201d \u201cWe believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord.\u201d Sunday-by-Sunday we gather together and profess the faith of the church. Together, as one family, we embrace for ourselves as individuals, a list of concepts that point to truths which no words may encompass. We read the signposts pointing us in the right direction to God and away from concepts that might harm us and make us less than we were intended to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Something deep within us affirms the words we recite. Each of us is an individual with our own unique features, fingerprints, mannerisms, talents, and \u201cpersonality.\u201d We\u2019ve been gazing at this person in the mirror since we were tiny children. Our Western culture influences us to assert and demand our individuality. \u201cIt\u2019s my life and I\u2019ll do as I please with it,\u201d we shout when we lose our tempers. We\u2019ve been doing that ever since we threw our baby food at the wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet we also yearn to be loved and to be part of someone or a collection of \u201csomeones.\u201d At school we wanted to be popular, to have friends, to be admired. Then comes love! How appropriate it seems to tell someone that we live for them; that they are the most important \u201cother\u201d in our lives. How tragic it is when we are judged to have used someone else to satisfy our own selfish desires; when we have dominated, abused, and rejected a love given to us in trust. In the Marriage Service, we are told:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe union of husband and wife in heart, body, and mind is intended by God for their mutual joy.\u201d Notice the words \u201cunion\u201d and \u201cmutual.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps our need to say we are unique, special, autonomous beings and our need to be united with others is practical evidence that we are made in the image and likeness of God? If this is true, it is true because God made us this way and what God makes is good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
God the Father Almighty, our King Jesus, the Life-Giving Spirit\u2014to use the language of the Creeds\u2014are certainly individuals to an extraordinary degree. Each has a distinct role, by nature or personality, and as lovers of all that has been made, seen or unseen, including us all. Strangely, their personalities, their perfect personalities, create unity as they share together love. Love belongs to God, is created in God and is shared by God. We should be grateful for love, and greet it wherever it is found, as God\u2019s gift and not as something we manufacture. Love humbles us. For God\u2019s love may be found well beyond the \u201cindividualism\u201d of our personality, family, race, religion, language, politics, causes, or culture. Truth and justice, as God\u2019s features, always draw us together and never divide us into individualism: \u201cIt\u2019s my life and I\u2019ll do as I please.\u201d While love impels us to strive for truth and justice it does so in a manner that reflects the long-suffering, loving, forgiving kindness of the God whose loving diversity creates oneness and wholeness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPut things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So St. Paul speaks to each of us on this Trinity Sunday. Finding order and agreement is not a political process after all, but what happens when we open ourselves collectively and individually to the God of love and peace. This we symbolize when we share the \u201cPeace\u201d with one another. In the Gospel reading, Jesus commissions us to go into the world telling everyone what it means to discover oneself as a person, an individual, and how our personality and individualism is celebrated most forcefully when we live in unity with each other as people possessed by the God who is unity in community and community in unity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This sermon was written by Anthony F.M. Clavier<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cGive me a simple religion,\u201d we sometimes yearn. It\u2019s an odd prayer. If someone calls us \u201csimple\u201d we are very offended. Certainly there can be nothing simple about God. It would be very odd indeed if complicated humans and a complicated God met together in a \u201csimple faith.\u201d In a few minutes we will say…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":201212,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43,52,33,3],"tags":[97],"class_list":["post-511244","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sermons","category-sermons-that-work","category-the-season-after-pentecost","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-trinity-sunday-a"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":43,"label":"Sermons"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":33,"label":"The Season After Pentecost"},{"value":3,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":97,"label":"Trinity Sunday A"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sermon"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3473496,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/511244\/revisions\/3473496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}