Sermon Synopses - 2009

Sermons at Trinity are usually ex tempore, that is done without notes...Please enjoy our "Sermon Synopses" or short summaries of sermons preached at Trinity

Link to Sermons Synopses for additional summaries available from this year.

Sermon for Sunday, August 30, 2009
13th Sunday after Pentecost
Song of Solomon 2:8-13

Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.  The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land…  Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.” – Song of Solomon 2:10-13

Most people’s acquaintance with the Song of Solomon comes from boredom in the back of the Confirmation class.  When things get slow, one can liven things up by flipping to the Song of Solomon and reading passages such as

How beautiful you are, my love, how very beautiful!  Your eyes are like doves behind your veil.  Your hair is like a flock of goats, moving down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth…  Your lips… your mouth… you cheeks… your neck… (4:1ff)

etc. etc. and on down her figure.  (And her lover is just as desirable!  See 5:10ff.)  Depending on how much innuendo one reads into the Song of Solomon, it can actually be a very racy book.  What is this book doing in the scriptures?

The Song of Solomon is an important part of the canon because it is seen to represent the relationship between Christ and the soul.  Christ loves us as a lover for his beloved; our souls in return – whether we are aware of it or not – yearn for Christ as the beloved for her lover.

We have a choice:  Will we open up for him?  Jesus

stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice.

He says to us

Arise, my love, my fair one and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.  The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come.

It is difficult to open up our hearts for Christ, the lover.  We are afraid of great love and intimacy because we don’t think we’re worth it.  Recall Peter in Luke 5 – “Lord, go away from me, for I am a sinful man.”  Recall, too, Herbert’s poem, “Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back, guilty of dust and sin.” 

We Christians have help in opening our heart to Christ.  We can never make ourselves worthy of the great love of Christ for us.  But Jesus can.  Because of what God has done for us through Jesus Christ – his suffering, death and resurrection – we can dare to approach the throne of grace with boldness.  “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (I John 4)

I recently turned 40, and I realize that I am looking at the downhill slope of my life.  I am determined to spend the remainder of the days given to me on this earth being an agent for love.  (What other way is there?)  The best way to increase love is to first accept Christ’s forgiveness and let Christ close to us.  He is the source of all love, and we cannot pass on that love without first letting him love us.  I have a choice:  either 1) keep Christ at a distance, or 2) accept forgiveness and let Christ love me, not leaving him standing outside our wall, gazing in at the window, but arising “to open to my beloved… my hands dripping with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, upon the handles of the bolt” (5:5).

Will you accept forgiveness and let Christ near you?  He is standing outside your wall, gazing in at your window, looking in through your lattice.  He calls out to us, ‘Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one…” (5:2).  “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”  Will you accept his invitation?

Sermon for Wednesday, August 26, 2009
I Thessalonians 2:9-13

“And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but what it really is, the word of God.” – I Thess 2:13

In 2008 in Georgia, volunteers from a church felt called to serve water and refreshments to those participating in celebration marking the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King.  They knew there would be opposition.  And there was, in the form of white supremacists who heckled not only the crowd but also the volunteers who served drinks.  They served refreshments nonetheless, feeling that God had called them to do so.

In today’s text I am noticing that, for the Thessalonians who “accepted… the word of God” that they heard from Paul, there was no outside source to corroborate that the words Paul was speaking were God’s words.  The canon of the New Testament had not yet been developed.  How did they know that Paul’s words were not human words but the word of God?

I am grateful for today’s text, for it reminds us that God’s revelation is ongoing, that God still speaks to us.  God continues to speak to us through those around us: our spouse, our neighbor, a chance encounter at the grocery store.  God may speak to us in our bishops or perhaps the Pope.  But how do we know, as Paul so confidently states in I Thessalonians, that the words spoken to us are not human words but the word of God?

Several ways to tell:

1. God’s word comforts:  “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest…”  (Matthew 11:28-30.)
2. God’s word consoles:  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ… who consoles us in all our affliction…” (2 Cor 1:3-5)
3. God’s word challenges:  “Follow me” of Jesus, calling the disciples from their nets.  Also, “Come” to Peter, calling him out of the boat and into the stormy sea.

Today’s passage suggests than a sign of an authentic word of God also puts us at odds with those around us.  In today’s passage, Paul gives thanks that the Thessalonians accepted the word as God’s word, then continues in vs 14:  “For you… became imitators of the church of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things” of persecution.  Paul knows that the Thessalonians received, not a human word but the word of God, because of the persecution the Thessalonians underwent when they received it.  An authentic sign of God’s word is that it often puts us at odds with the world around us.

That a sign of an authentic word of God will put us at odds with those around us is consistent with what Jesus tells his disciples in John 15:  “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.”  And, “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you.”

I invite you in the coming days and week to consider how God’s word might be coming to you in those around you: your spouse, your child, your co-worker, a neighbor.  God’s word may come to us as a word of comfort, consolation or challenge or – as it did for the north-Georgia church group – as a word that puts us at odds with the world around us.  It is difficult to hear a word that challenges us or that puts us at odds with the world around us.  I encourage you to remember that, in the end God’s word always – always – leads to greater life.  What choice do we have but to follow?  “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.” (John 6:68)

Sermon for Sunday, August 23, 2009
12th Sunday after Pentecost
Ephesians 6:10-20

“Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” – Ephesians 6:11

Armor?  Swords?  The Devil?  Today’s text is a challenging one.  But is has important reminders to us about our spiritual life.

Let me tell you a story helps me make sense of how we might understand today’s text:  When I entered the monastery at age 22, I had stars in my eyes about serving the Prince of Peace in peace…  But I severely underestimated how challenging it is to live in community!  Living in community is hard, and it was anything but peaceful.  How many times was I called upon to forgive my brothers!  How many more times were my brothers called upon to forgive me!!  In this challenging life of community, I came to realize that I had some choices in regards to the substance of today’s text:

1. Who is the enemy?  When life in community became challenging, it was tempting to regard my brothers as the enemy, which was not at all helpful. Alternately, it was tempting to regard myself as the enemy, which was equally unhelpful.   Or, I could choose to appropriate our faith’s teaching about our common enemy, who in this morning’s lessons from Ephesians is called “the devil,” the “evil one” or “the cosmic powers of this present darkness.”  Choosing to understand ourselves as having a common enemy of whom we are all victims – rather than blaming myself or my brothers -- helped me respond to the challenges of community with compassion.
2. Armor?  I have come to appreciate about Paul’s use of soldier imagery in Ephesians 6 because in it Paul grasps that our faith is a matter of life and death.  Rather than regarding the challenges of community life – and we all live in community, be it our family, our workplace, our neighborhood – as an inconvenience or an obstacle, I discovered that it was more helpful to choose to regard these challenges as an opportunity.  “We live by our brother and we die by our brother,” said Abba Anthony, the 4th-century founder of monasticism.  The challenges of community life are an opportunity to work out our salvation.  If we choose, these challenges can be, not an obstacle or an inconvenience, but a matter of gaining life.

I invite you this week to spend some time with this text from Ephesians 6.  1)  Consider the enemies in your life; we all have them.  Can you choose to blame, not the other or yourself, but our common enemy, and respond to your enemy – and to yourself – with compassion?  2)  Consider the challenges in your relationships.  Can you choose to see these challenges, not as inconveniences, but as opportunities for working out your salvation?

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