Monthly Archives: June 2025

The Joyful and Terrifying Approach of God’s Reign

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FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Isaiah 66:10-14

Psalm 66:1-9

Galatians 6:1-16

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

Prayer of the Day: O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, you are the city that shelters us, the mother who comforts us. With your Spirit accompany us on our life’s journey, that we may spread your peace in all the world, through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

“Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’” Luke 10:8-11.

In Sunday’s gospel lesson Jesus sends his disciples out for just two tasks: heal the sick and announce that “the kingdom of God has come near.” Understand that the reign of God is not some Nirvana like state of mind. It is not an otherworldly realm accessed only in the “sweet by and by.” The reign of God is bound up in our human physicality. Healing of body and mind are integral to its advent and signs of its presence.

Jesus’ singular focus on healing the sick in Luke’s gospel comes a time when the United States Congress is considering the president’s “big, beautiful bill” that will likely eliminate $700 billion from Medicaid. That, in turn, will result in 10.9 million people losing their health insurance coverage over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.[1] Meanwhile, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has gutted the existing U.S. CDC Vaccine Advisory panel, replacing existing experts with what can fairly be called anti-vaxxers and conspiracists who are already at work limiting the availability of certain vaccines based on junk science and long debunked theories. These measures, the toxic consequences of which are sure to fall upon the poorest, sickest, youngest and most vulnerable among us, amount to a hostile rejection of God’s just and gentle reign.

None of this should be surprising. Jesus warned his disciples that there would be opposition to their mission. Some towns would refuse to offer the disciples hospitality, reject their message and perhaps even run them out of town. Still, the message for these hostile villages is the same as for those who welcome, show hospitality and listen to the disciples: the reign of God has drawn near. That is the gospel, the good news that sustains us in times like these. God hears our prayers that God’s kingdom come. The reign of God is everywhere at the margins of our worst nightmares, pressing against our resistance, prying at the cracks in our unbelief, cynicism and despair. Jesus and his disciples might be driven out of town, but the reign of God they announce has drawn near and will remain.[2]

I have witnessed God’s reign breaking through. It happened for me at the Byzantine monastery Hosios Loukos in Greece where I had the opportunity to view some incredible iconic wall murals depicting scenes from the gospels. It is one thing to see these marvelous depictions in books or museum walls. It is quite another to see these century old paintings in the sanctuaries where they reside and where they still inspire and sustain worshiping communities. Particularly striking for me was a depiction of the Resurrection in which the resurrected Christ can be seen taking the hands of Adam and Eve and, by extension, the whole human race, raising them from death into life. It was as though I were looking through a portal into that awesome mystery surpassing all understanding. There were other depictions from the gospels, including Jesus’ baptism, the Transfiguration, Jesus’ washing the feet of his disciples and, of course, the cross. Each of these icons afforded a different view into that marvelous gospel narrative. The reign of God was all around me.

I have heard testimony to the reign of God from the many people I have sat beside as death approached. One fellow told me through tears that he had just been holding his wife who passed three decades before. A woman I visited in a nursing home during the last years of her life told me on each visit of the persons, now dead, with whom she had been having the most delightful conversation. My mother told us days before she died about how her mother stopped by to say that they would be together again soon. At the door of death, time is bent into eternity. Past, present and future are one in God’s eternal now. Let me be clear. I am sure there are probably scientific, medical, neurological explanations for these episodes. But that does not preclude their also being signs of God’s reign appearing at what is for all of us the final frontier. What do we mean when we confess in our creeds that Jesus “descended to the dead” other than that he meets us even there with the promise of abundant life?

Rev. John Fanestil serves communion at the US / Mexico border fence at Friendship Park in San Diego, California. Fanestils colleague Rev. Guillermo Navarrete provides communion on the Mexico side of the wall in Tijuana. Participants share fellowship through the metal mesh. (Photo by Zoeann Murphy/ The Washington Post via Getty Images)

I have heard testimony about the reign of God and the power of God’s reconciling love breaking through the walls of hatred and division we build and so stubbornly try to maintain. Nowhere are those walls more evident than at the ugly, barbed wired and highly militarized border between our country and Mexico. Yet it is precisely here that the most potent witness to God’s reign is made between believers on both sides of the border offering hospitality, life sustaining aid and advocacy. The most powerful sign of God’s reign is manifest in celebration of the Eucharist across the border. There the reconciling power of God’s love literally stretches across one of our most shameful monuments to hatred, bigotry and fear to unite people who are one in Christ. The cross of Jesus takes shape as Christ is skewered on the walls of division even as the Body and Blood of Christ transcend those walls, building up the human tidal wave that will finally bring them down. The future does not belong to cowardly little men hiding behind big money, big guns and big walls. The future belongs to the God who unites the human family. In spite of the present darkness, know this: the Kingdom of God is near.  

Here is a poem by Nikita Gill about the power of redemption in the midst of brokenness. One might see in this the way in which God’s reign breaks into the wreckage of our corporate and personal lives.

From Everything Broken

There is nothing beautiful

about the wreckage

of a human being.

There is nothing pretty

about damage, about pain,

about heartache.

Yet still, despite the ruin,

they show an ocean of courage

when they pick through the debris of their life

to build something beautiful, brand new,

against every odd

that is stacked against them.

And there is no denying

that this,

this is exquisite.

Source: Where Hope Comes From, Gill, Nikita (c. 2021 by Nikita Gill, pub. by Hatchette Books, New York, NY). Nikita Gill is an Irish-Indian poet, playwright, writer and illustrator based in southern England. She has written and curated eight volumes of poetry. Born in Belfast to Indian parents, Gill has Irish citizenship and Overseas Citizenship in India. Gill’s work was first published when she was only twelve years old. Her poems offer reflections on love and feminist re-tellings of fairy tales and Greek myths. She has been inspired and influenced by the work of Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou and Robert Frost. You can read more about Nikita Gill and sample more of her poetry at her Instagram site.

[1] It should be noted, however, that the legislation has not been finalized and that this and other provisions of the bill might yet be amended or dropped altogether from the bill.

[2] Once again, in the interest of not offending our progressive protestant white and ever-polite enlightened sensibilities, the lectionary folks have sought to domesticate Jesus by omitting his more ill-liberal pronouncements. In verses 12-16, Jesus lets us know in no uncertain terms that there will be unpleasant consequences for resisting the reign of God. Sometimes the reign of God must be experienced as bad news before it can be understood as good. For all who are bent on preserving the status quo, the encroachment of God’s reign will be seen as a threat that must be resisted at all costs-and the costs might be substantial. That revolutionary reality is hard to hear for those of us so-called progressives who insist that change comes through slow, but steady and irreversible evolutionary steps that modify the status quo without abolishing it. But the reign of God is not about building a kinder, gentler empire. It is all about a new creation. 

Preaching Peace in Time of War

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THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21

Psalm 16

Galatians 5:1, 13-25

Luke 9:51-62

Prayer of the Day: Sovereign God, ruler of all hearts, you call us to obey you, and you favor us with true freedom. Keep us faithful to the ways of your Son, that, leaving behind all that hinders us, we may steadfastly follow your paths, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

 “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”Luke 9:54.

As I write these lines, talking heads on the airwaves are reporting on and discussing the United States’ bombing of several sites in Iran thought to be connected with uranium enrichment for use in developing nuclear weapons. Once again, our nation has acted on its sacred creed of violence. The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. When push comes to shove, military force or the threat of military force is the only way to peace and security. No matter how many times this sacred creed has failed us, no matter how much blood has been spilt on wars that have not made the world one whit safer or more secure, we keep coming back to this core belief. When enemies will not be convinced, the command is given to call fire down from heaven to consume them.    

This coming Sunday every preacher in the United States will be faced with this gospel over against our government’s decision to take us into war. How do we handle it? While I think Jesus’ words here are as clear as crystal, the church’s witness to them in word and deed has been mixed to nonexistent. It is telling that the cry for divine retribution against the Samaritans comes from the lips of Jesus’ disciples-who ought to know better. Sadly, generations of Christians for centuries to follow continued in this tradition, executing heretics, persecuting the Jews and sanctifying wars of the nations in which they resided. Nowhere is the confusion between faithfulness to Jesus and loyalty to country greater than in the United States, where in most sanctuaries the American flag stands in the sacristy along with its evil twin, the red, white and blue so called “Christian Flag.”

Witnessing to peace is never easy, but it is particularly challenging during times of war. I was serving my first parish when, in 1986 under orders from President Ronald Reagan, the United States carried out air strikes against Libya. Forty Libyans were killed. I prayed for peace, reconciliation and for the families of the Libyans who died in the attack. Following the service I was accosted by an angry parishioner who fairly shouted, “How dare you! How dare you pray for our national enemies who are shooting at our service people! How dare you disrespect these heroes.” Though I pointed out that the families of those killed were not our enemies and that, in any case, Jesus commands us to pray for our enemies, she was insistent that “those verses don’t apply when we are at war!”

Fast forward to the Sunday after September 11, 2001. On the way to church I noticed a van parked next to my favorite bagel shop. On one side was spray painted, “God bless America.” But as I drove by I could see in my rear view mirror another message on the opposite side of the van: “God damn Afghanistan! You are all going to die.” In my sermon that Sunday I related what I had seen and pointed out that the biggest threat to our country was not terrorism. The greatest threat we faced was being drawn into the vortex of retribution and becoming the mirror image of all we claim to hate. As I had done fifteen years before, I prayed for peace and reconciliation.  I was taken aside by two of the elders and charged with being soft on terrorism and denigrating our service people. “For God’s sake pastor! Over a thousand innocent people killed and hundreds of our young soldiers soon to face combat, but you are worried about the terrorists that killed them? I wonder if you would feel that way if members of your own family had been in the twin towers.” I got similar feedback preaching peace during both Gulf wars. Preaching peace in time of war puts us at odds with our country’s belief that our wars are holy, that those who fight them are always only on the side of justice and that the blood shed in these conflicts somehow brings about our national salvation. When you preach peace, you are attacking deeply held beliefs that are part of our national DNA.

I want to be clear that, as the son of a World War II veteran and a colleague of people who have served in conflicts from Korea to Afghanistan, I understand the sacrifices soldiers make and the trauma they suffer. I know only too well the pain of family members who have lost sons and daughters fighting America’s wars. I understand how hurtful it can be to hear that the war in which your loved one perished was not holy. I fully understand how painful it can be to hear that the war in which you lost your mobility or mental health was not the noble and glorious conflict you thought it was. While I am unequivocally opposed to war, I love and respect the soldiers who fought in them seeking the same justice and peace for which I long. It concerns me that preaching peace might offend and alienate them. But I am far more concerned about the people in my grandchildren’s generation who will be called upon to fight the next war, which is sure to come unless we finally begin to understand war as the ugly, murderous abomination it truly is and not as the glorious struggle our national mythology tries to make it.

In Sunday’s gospel, Jesus rebukes his disciples for wanting to nuke the Samaritan villagers who would not receive him. That should serve as a warning to all subsequent disciples of Jesus against violent retaliation. All four gospels testify to Jesus’ refusal to allow his disciples to employ the sword to prevent his arrest and execution. That leads invariably to the question: if we are not permitted to take up the sword in defense of the Incarnate Son of God against death by torture, when is taking up the sword ever justified? When are we human beings ever justified in determining which lives are worth preserving and which are expendable? What political, religious or military objective outweighs the infinite value of a person created in God’s image? As I cannot answer any of these questions, I am left with the conviction that, as a disciple of Jesus, violent and coercive force cannot be an arrow in my quiver.

“But what about…”  Yes, I know that preaching peace triggers a whole slew of objections to the effect that “doing nothing” is as blameworthy as taking less than ethically pure action. That is why I emphasize that pacifism is not passivism. Non-violence is not inaction. Jesus was hardly passive when confronting injustice and oppression. Like those who have perished in combat, Jesus gave up his own life for those of his people. His weapons, however, consisted in his proclamation of good news to the poor, his examples of empathy and compassion and his acts of justice and mercy. Jesus’ strength consists in his power to resist evil without being seduced by it. He confronted violent oppression without being drawn into the vortex of retributive violence. Jesus would not allow his enemies’ hatred and cruelty to replicate themselves in his own soul. That is the very same struggle to which he calls us in these days of increasing violence. It is very literally a struggle between life and death.

These days, I am not doing much preaching, so I write to encourage those of you who are. Across the street and across the world violent rhetoric, violent threats and violent acts are spiraling and drawing the world into the dark night of endless retribution. Bunker busting bombs might destroy weapons of mass destruction, but they cannot extinguish the hatred inspiring people to build them. Only mercy, empathy and compassion can do that. Peace, it must be understood, is not a distant or abstract ideal. It is the only alternative to our mutual destruction. If now is not the time to preach peace, when? If not us, then who?

Here is a poem by Siegfried Sassoon whose verse ruthlessly strips away all of the patriotic jingoism glorifying war and reveals the cruel, dehumanizing and brutal nature of combat.

Counter Attack

We’d gained our first objective hours before

While dawn broke like a face with blinking eyes,

Pallid, unshaven and thirsty, blind with smoke.

Things seemed all right at first. We held their line,

With bombers posted, Lewis guns well placed,

And clink of shovels deepening the shallow trench.

The place was rotten with dead; green clumsy legs

High-booted, sprawled and grovelled along the saps

And trunks, face downward, in the sucking mud,

Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely filled;

And naked sodden buttocks, mats of hair,

Bulged, clotted heads slept in the plastering slime.

And then the rain began,—the jolly old rain!

A yawning soldier knelt against the bank,

Staring across the morning blear with fog;

He wondered when the Allemands would get busy;

And then, of course, they started with five-nines

Traversing, sure as fate, and never a dud.

Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst

Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell,

While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke.

He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear,

Sick for escape,—loathing the strangled horror

And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead.

An officer came blundering down the trench:

“Stand-to and man the fire step!” On he went …

Gasping and bawling, “Fire-step … counter-attack!”

Then the haze lifted. Bombing on the right

Down the old sap: machine-guns on the left;

And stumbling figures looming out in front.

“O Christ, they’re coming at us!” Bullets spat,

And he remembered his rifle … rapid fire …

And started blazing wildly … then a bang

Crumpled and spun him sideways, knocked him out

To grunt and wriggle: none heeded him; he choked

And fought the flapping veils of smothering gloom,

Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans …

Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned,

Bleeding to death. The counter-attack had failed.

Source: This poem is in the public domain. Siegfried Sassoon (1886 –1967) was an English poet and novelist. He became widely known as a result of a protest made against the First World War in 1917. As a young man, Sassoon’s greatest ambition was to be a millionaire and a poet. He joined the army at the outbreak of the First World War, rose to the rank of lieutenant and fought with the infantry in France. Sassoon was shocked by his experiences fighting on the western front where he developed a deep hatred for war in general and the world war in particular. Though awarded the Military Cross for outstanding bravery, he did not see this as a great honor. When he was sent home for treatment of a wound and recovery, he decided not to return to his regiment. He wrote a letter to his commanding officer, explaining that he was not coming back because he wanted to protest about the war. He explained that he believed politicians were prolonging the war instead of using chances to make peace with Germany.

Though a soldier would ordinarily earn a court martial under these circumstances, given Sassoon’s impressive combat record, he was given the opportunity to renounce his views and rejoin his regiment. Sassoon refused, but his friend, fellow poet Robert Graves, was able to convince his senior officers that Sassoon was depressed and too ill to fight. He was thereafter sent to a hospital in Edinburgh, that specialized in treating soldiers suffering from what was then called “shell shock.” Sassoon eventually returned to active service, but was again wounded, this time so seriously that he could not be returned to duty. During the war, Sassoon’s poetry had become very successful. He went on to write several very successful novels as well. You can read more about Siegfried Sassoon and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation website.

MAGA-It’s not Complicated-They’re Bullies Plain and Simple

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There is a cottage industry dedicated to discerning the just grievances that gave rise to the MAGA  movement, the justified anger its proponents feel toward a government that failed them and why we “liberal elitist” snobs are to blame for their outrage because we are “out of touch” with their suffering. We need to stop our judging, criticizing and ridiculing. MAGA folk are just simple, sincere and patriotic Americans for whom the elusive American Dream has evaporated.

At the risk of being crude, I say bovine excrement. The MAGA folk are not simply misunderstood, and they are not all that hard to read. Everything you need to know about them was on display a decade ago when Donald Trump mocked and mimicked a disabled New York Times reporter at a rally in South Carolina-and the crowd howled with laughter. MAGA folk are bullies. They are stimulated, entertained and gratified by cruelty toward those weaker, smaller and more vulnerable than them. That’s it. There is nothing else to understand.

I have known these folks all my life. I met them when I was in school. They are the guys who got their jollies by dunking the head of a mentally impaired boy in the toilet. They are the mean girls who stuck the “wide load” sticker on the back of their plump school mate and giggled as she walked down the hall with no clue as to why everyone was laughing and pointing at her. I have always known there were people like these who are altogether lacking in empathy and gain their self esteem and sense of power by hurting and humiliating others weaker than themselves. The only thing that surprised me in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2016 victory was the sheer number of them. I honestly believed that sociopathic bullies were an abhorrent, but small “basket of deplorables.”[1] I was wrong.

Donald Trump’s antics in South Carolina, which many of us thought would surely tank his campaign, proved to be its principal draw and a harbinger of all that has transpired over the last decade. Most recently Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the Navy to rename the ship that honors Harvey Milk, a former sailor who later became the first openly gay man elected to office in California. Such a move cannot be explained in terms of national security or any other military objective. The only explanation is Hegseth’s hatred for LGBTQ+ people and his desire to outrage and humiliate gay men. To let them know that their sacrifices for their country are not worth recognizing and that they have no place in our country’s history. The guys I remember from high school, whose biggest entertainment was beating up boys merely suspected of being gay, must be getting a hoot out of that. Then there is Senator Joni Ernst who, when her constituents voiced their fears about losing life sustaining treatment for themselves and their loved ones, replied with typical mean girl snark, “well, everybody dies.” She subsequently doubled down on her remarks blithely suggesting that if sick people are worried about dying, just accept Jesus as savior. Problem solved.

These two recent examples, like many more I could cite, sufficiently illustrate my point. MAGA is not about patriotism, reducing government spending, stopping the flow of fentanyl into our communities, bringing jobs back to the United States or any coherent political policy agenda. It is about the need of insecure men to put assertive and intelligent women who threaten their illusion of dominance back in their place so they can feel like real men again. It is about cutting down to size all those PhD’s, highbrow Ivy League professors and medical experts who think they are so damn smart. It’s about beating the crap out of fags, dykes and guys who wear dresses to show what real manhood looks like. It’s about changing Mt. Denali back to Mt. McKinley to remind those redskins that this is a white man’s country and that is how it is going to stay. It’s about reminding Black men and women of their second class status in this country by restoring the names of confederate leaders to American military installations and restoring confederate monuments. MAGA is all about sick and twisted souls who desperately need to bring people down to build themselves up. Don’t waste your time looking for more. There are no pearls at the bottom of this cesspool.

Bullies are dangerous. Yesterday morning Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed and Minnesota Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were wounded by a politically motivated shooter. Both lawmakers are members of the Democratic Party. Dozens of Minnesota Democrats were on a target list recovered by police. The list included Governor Tim Walz, United States Representative Ilhan Omar, United States Senator Tina Smith and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. As horrifying as this crime surely is, it is hardly surprising. As soon as he took office, President Trump issued a blanket pardon for thousands of insurrectionists who stormed the United States Capital injuring several police officers and threatening violence against then vice president Pence and members of the United States Congress. Pardons are evidently being considered for a group of men who planned the failed kidnapping and murder of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The message is clear. There will be no accountability for violent MAGA rage. The Minnesota assassin got that message and acted on it. It is now open season on anyone the MAGA lynch mob deems an enemy, starting with the most vulnerable among us.

“But you can’t paint all Trump supporters with such a broad brush…” Yes, I can. Because I am feeling particularly generous today, I will grant a mulligan to folks who voted for Trump in 2016 thinking that, however flawed he might be, he will at least shake up an ineffective and unresponsive government in a good way. But for 2024 Trump voters, nothing doing. They saw how he instigated a riot in which our Capital was vandalized, our police officers were injured and the lives of our legislators were threatened. They saw Donald Trump turn federal forces on peaceful protesters in our capital with tear gas and batons. They heard him regularly use racist and vulgar insults against his political opponents throughout his 2020 campaign. They saw that he was criminally convicted for falsifying business records to save his campaign from scandal. They knew that a jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation. They knew that he promised to (and did) pardon the insurrectionists he incited to attack our Capital. They heard him characterize his opponents as “vermin” and “scum.” They heard him threaten violent retribution against everyone he regards his enemy. Their vote for him tells me that, at the very least, they were OK with all of that. I strongly suspect they were more than just OK with it. Is there anybody out there who can show me another way to look at this? Please, bring it on! I’ve been waiting to hear from you for over a decade.

Trump, his administration and the people who put him in power and continue to support him are bullies. But here is the thing you need to keep in mind when dealing with bullies. Bullies are cowards. All of those January 6th insurrectionists who were so loud, so proud and so brave as part of the mob were, with very few exceptions, quite different people when brought before a court of law. There, without the support of their herd, they sobbed, made excuses and pleaded for mercy. Bullies always back down when they find themselves alone and among people unafraid to stand up to them.

Yesterday, millions of people all over the country took to the streets to stand up to Trump and his gang of thugs. That is a good start, but only a start. We need to keep the pressure on. We need to keep speaking out in whatever forum we have. We need to keep confronting the bullies wherever they appear, in our family gatherings, churches, barbershops, nail salons, locker rooms, book clubs and wherever else people come together. Our communities need to be relentless in exposing, opposing and publicly denouncing the brutal and lawless deportation of our neighbors. We need to condemn in the strongest terms the ruthless persecution of the LGBTQ+ community and especially its war against trans children. Neutrality is no longer an option. We either stand together with the most vulnerable members of our society resisting the MAGA bullies, or we keep our heads low, cower in fear and wait for our turn to experience their aggression. And make no mistake, if we wait for it, our turn will come.   

[1] Some commentators believe that this remark by Hillary Clinton cost her the election. I don’t know whether that is true or not. But politics aside, I think Ms. Clinton was being far too kind.

The Creeds As Poetry

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HOLY TRINITY SUNDAY

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Psalm 8

Romans 5:1-5

John 16:12-15

Prayer of the Day: Almighty Creator and ever-living God: we worship your glory, eternal Three-in-One, and we praise your power, majestic One-in-Three. Keep us steadfast in this faith, defend us in all adversity, and bring us at last into your presence, where you live in endless joy and love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” John 16:12-15

The scriptures do not contain the terms “trinity” or “triune.” The ecumenical creeds are the church’s best effort to articulate what, in the final analysis, is beyond the capability of human language to express. No better illustration of this point can be found than in the creeds themselves. For example, the assertion that the Son is “eternally begotten of the Father” defies everything we know about conception and parenthood. To beget is a temporal act that results in the birth of a person, another temporal event. Moreover, begetting is an act involving sexual intercourse between two persons. The idea of the Father timelessly begetting the Son without a consort shatters our notions of time, sexuality and gender. That is because time, sexuality, gender are all aspects of human existence. They have no place within the Godhead. Nevertheless, human language, as inadequate as it may be, is the only tool we have with which to speak about God and our only frame of reference for doing so is our human experience. Thus, we end up speaking the unspeakable in words too small for such an undertaking. Bottom line, God is God and we humans are not God.

But then comes the second article of the creeds-Jesus. Jesus is a human person born in a certain time and place. Though he is God’s “eternally begotten” Son, he is also the son of Mary. His conception by operation of the Holy Spirit is, though shrouded in mystery and related to us by the evangelists through the mediation of angelic visits and dreams, nonetheless a fully human occurrence anchored in time. According to the second article, God is “incarnate.” God, at a certain point in human history, became human and remains so. The Miracle of the Incarnation was not a clever disguise. Neither was it a temporary state of affairs. God became flesh. God remains flesh. God will forever abide in human flesh, so much so that when Philip pleads with Jesus to “show us the Father,” Jesus replies that, in seeing him, Philip has seen the Father. To say, as we do, that Jesus is at the right hand of the Father is to say that Jesus is how God remains fully present to creation. Jesus is all the God there is.

And then there is the Holy Spirit, the one who takes the fullness of God revealed in Jesus and declares it to Jesus’ disciples. Jesus has much to teach us-too much for any one human lifetime. That is why Jesus continues to guide, teach and inspire his church through the presence of the Spirit in its midst. That is why Saint Paul can declare to the church in Corinth that it is the Body of Christ. This is no mere metaphor for Paul. The church is Christ Jesus inviting the world to be reconciled to its Creator and to the divided factions within itself.

God is not through speaking. We dare not place periods where God intends only a comma. The creeds do not represent the last word on everything to be said about God. They represent rather the limit of the church’s efforts to gaze into a mystery that is finally beyond human ability to comprehend in full. Better, it is the precipice on which one stands to get the best view possible of what exceeds every human field of vision. The creeds take us as far as human language can go into the mystery of God’s self. Indeed, as we have seen, they take us to the point where human language begins to falter. Nevertheless, paradoxically, the Spirit calls us to go further, to keep gazing into the mystery, to seek Jesus in the here and now, to push against the boundaries of our understanding.

As much as I appreciate my theological education, I must say that too much of what I learned was mediated through prose and framed in logical argument with little in the way of the lyrical playfulness expressed in the words of the prophets, in the psalms and in Jesus’ parables. As those who follow me regularly know, I am an Augustinian Christian. That is not to say that I agree with everything the Bishop of Hippo ever wrote or concur in all the conclusions he reached in his many writings. What I do mean is that Augustine has given me many powerful conceptual tools for reflecting on the scriptures and the creeds. His writings have informed my thinking and shaped my preaching, teaching and pastoral ministry. More than anything else for which I appreciate this great teacher is his approach to theology. Augustine’s writing is interspersed with prayer and a profound sense of God’s presence. Theology, teaching and preaching are all for Augustine a form of prayer. It is as though he is questioning, probing and praising God as much as he is speaking to his hearers. His sermons, commentaries and treatises represent a process of thought rather than an orderly summarization of completed ideas.

Our gospel lesson for this Trinity Sunday was pivotal for Augustine’s reflections on the Trinity, wherein he speaks of God’s Triune self as love. Of course, love always seeks an object beyond itself. If it did not, it would not be love. Thus, God’s essence is the mutual love between the Father and the Son mediated by the Holy Spirit. Following directly from this understanding is the doctrine of Creatio ex nihilo, namely, that God created the universe out of nothing. The assertion is not a metaphysical claim about the universe’s origin, more properly the inquiry of astronomy and astrophysics. It is really a statement about the perfection of God’s being and God’s total freedom. God has no need to create and did not create the universe out of boredom or loneliness. God has eternally known love and the joys of communion within the Godhead. Creation adds nothing to God.

Yet, in another sense, creation was necessary. Love is always expanding, always seeking new objects, always transcending every limit. Thus, as one of our finest hymns asserts, “The universe of space and time did not arise by chance, but as the Three, in love and hope, made room within their dance.”[1] When God said “Let there be,” God was making space for another, for something or someone not God. That is what love always does. It makes room in the heart for another. It generously gives another space to be who and what they are without compulsion, coercion or threats. So perhaps, rather than asserting that God made the universe out of nothing, we should say that God made the universe out of love.

These days, I tend to recite the creeds more lyrically and poetically than assertively. To be sure, the creeds make some definite assertions about who God is-and thereby negate some other assertions that might be made about God. Nevertheless, the creeds do not give us the kind of airtight metaphysical definition that a lot of believers crave. God will not be boxed, not within the scriptures, the creeds or any system of doctrine. Yet these testimonies, assertions and explanations of belief can stimulate our hearts and minds to seek deeper understandings of what is finally beyond human understanding, at least on this side of the grave. The creeds are better read, I believe, as the lyrical narration of God’s story. The story of the One who created us out of love, redeemed us out of love and out of love forms us into the kind of people capable of living joyfully, thankfully and obediently under God’s just and gentle reign.        

Here is a rendering of the well known Prayer of St. Patrick that I have previously shared in connection with Trinity Sunday. I do so again without apologies because I believe it reflects the kind of poetic, lyrical and worshipful expression of Trinitarian Faith expressed in our gospel lesson and in the creeds.

The Prayer of St. Patrick

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the Threeness,

Through confession of the Oneness

of the Creator of creation.

I arise today

Through the strength of Christ’s birth with His baptism,

Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial,

Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension,

Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today

Through the strength of the love of cherubim,

In the obedience of angels,

In the service of archangels,

In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,

In the prayers of patriarchs,

In the predictions of prophets,

In the preaching of apostles,

In the faith of confessors,

In the innocence of holy virgins,

In the deeds of righteous men.

I arise today, through

The strength of heaven,

The light of the sun,

The radiance of the moon,

The splendor of fire,

The speed of lightning,

The swiftness of wind,

The depth of the sea,

The stability of the earth,

The firmness of rock.

I arise today, through

God’s strength to pilot me,

God’s might to uphold me,

God’s wisdom to guide me,

God’s eye to look before me,

God’s ear to hear me,

God’s word to speak for me,

God’s hand to guard me,

God’s shield to protect me,

God’s host to save me

From snares of devils,

From the temptation of vices,

From everyone who shall wish me ill,

afar and near.

I summon today

All these powers between me and those evils,

Against every cruel and merciless power

that may oppose my body and soul,

Against incantations of false prophets,

Against black laws of pagandom,

Against false laws of heretics,

Against craft of idolatry,

Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,

Against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul;

Christ to shield me today

Against poison, against burning,

Against drowning, against wounding,

So that there may come to me an abundance of reward.

Christ with me,

Christ before me,

Christ behind me,

Christ in me,

Christ beneath me,

Christ above me,

Christ on my right,

Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down,

Christ when I sit down,

Christ when I arise,

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through belief in the Threeness,

Through confession of the Oneness

of the Creator of creation.

Source: Though attributed to the legendary Irish Saint Patrick, no one knows the precise origin of this beautiful expression of faith which appears in many abbreviated forms and has inspired numerous hymns, including “I Bind unto Myself Today,” by Cecil Frances Alexander in Evangelical Lutheran Worship, (c. 2006 by Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; pub. by Augsburg Fortress Press) Hymn # 450.  

[1] “Come Join the Dance of Trinity,” by Richard Leach, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, # 412.

Fable of the Pigsty

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Once upon a time there was a pigsty on a large and prosperous farm. The pigs lived well, finding more than enough slops in their trough to satisfy their hunger. There were rumors, however, that ownership of the farm had changed hands. Changes were in the works. It was whispered among the animals that the farm was to be liquidated and the animals sold or slaughtered. The pigs shrugged. Rumors are only rumors. Surly the owners had their best interests at heart. Why else would the pigs be so well fed and cared for? The sun was shining and there were plenty of slops in their trough.

Then one day another rumor reached the pigsty. It was reported that the farm horses that had worked faithfully on the farm for decades were being sent to the glue factory. The pigs shrugged. This was no concern of theirs. Horses are not pigs after all. The sun was still shining and there were still plenty of slops in their trough.

A week later it was said that the hen house was empty. According to a rat that made its nest in a hole beneath the nesting platforms, the farm hands had come in just before sunrise, slaughtered, plucked and boiled each hen. Then they took the remaining eggs to market. The pigs shrugged. This was no concern of theirs. A hen is not a pig after all. The sun was still shining and there were still plenty of slops in their trough.

Next it was the milk cows. After that the sheep. Then news reached the pigsty that the faithful farmhouse dog had been taken out to the quarry and shot. The pigs shrugged. This was no concern of theirs. Cows, sheep and dogs are not pigs after all. The sun was still shining and there were still plenty of slops in their trough.

Then one sunny morning the farm hands came out to the pigsty as usual. This time, however, they were not carrying buckets of slop. They were carrying long knives. They came into the pigsty and began summarily slitting the throats of each pig. The pigs all squealed in terror, but of course by this time there was no one left to hear them. The last to die heard his executioner remark, “Nothing personal little fella. It’s just a kitchen table issue. What’s breakfast at the kitchen table without a little bacon?”

Moral? Those whose politics, ethics and religion go no further than their own kitchen tables are bound to wind up on someone else’s.

Pentecost and the Snail Darter

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SUNDAY OF PENTECOST

Acts 2:1-21

Genesis 11:1-9 {alternate}

Psalm 104:24-35

Romans 8:14-17

Acts 2:1-21 {alternate}

John 14:8-27

Prayer of the Day: God our creator, the resurrection of your Son offers life to all the peoples of earth. By your Holy Spirit, kindle in us the fire of your love, empowering our lives for service and our tongues for praise, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

“O Lord, how manifold are your works!
    In wisdom you have made them all;
    the earth is full of your creatures.” Psalm 104:24

The snail darter, pictured above, is a small freshwater ray-finned fish, found in East Tennessee freshwater in the United States and in small portions of northern Alabama and Georgia. The snail darter was listed as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973 in 1975. Construction of the Tellico Dam in Tennessee was held up for more than two years as biologists and activists fought to protect its only known habitat, the free-flowing Little Tennessee River. Those of us old enough to remember that controversy know that for many people the effort to save the snail darter was a silly and wasteful impediment to progress. The dam promised a much needed source of energy at a time when, due to the middle eastern oil embargo, the price of fossil fuel was going through the roof. The vast majority of Americans had never even heard of the snail darter. Between two and three inches long, it was not a particularly interesting or exquisite specimen. It had no commercial value and did not occupy a non-replaceable link in the food chain. Thus, for many of us, it seemed as though the world would be no worse off for the snail darter’s extinction.

The psalmist takes a different view. Though the author of our psalm for Pentecost was obviously unfamiliar with the snail darter, the psalmist would doubtlessly have recognized it as one of God’s “manifold” creatures made in God’s wisdom and in which God delights. As such, it has value, dignity and a place in the earth’s biosphere deserving protection and respect. As the caretakers of God’s good earth, it is our duty to ensure the wellbeing of all creatures, regardless their commercial value. We are not entitled to erase a unique species for no better reason than profit. Whether or not it affects the stock market, corporate profitability or industrial development, the extinction of a species impoverishes the earth by forever reducing its wonderful variety of divinely created life forms. To cause or allow extinction is therefore an afront to our Creator and shows profound disrespect for God’s creative genius.

Since the snail darter controversy, we have come to appreciate even more the importance of biodiversity, preservation of habitats and the complex threads of interrelatedness between living creatures, including humans. Biologists are now warning us that by driving our fellow creatures to the edge of extinction, we might well be engineering our own.  A number of researchers today are convinced that it is actually humanity’s destruction of biodiversity that creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases such as Covid-19. See “‘Tip of the iceberg’: is our destruction of nature responsible for Covid-19?” The Guardian, March 18, 2020. “We invade tropical forests and other wild landscapes, which harbor so many species of animals and plants – and within those creatures, so many unknown viruses,” David Quammen, author of Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Pandemic, recently wrote in the New York Times. “We cut the trees; we kill the animals or cage them and send them to markets. We disrupt ecosystems, and we shake viruses loose from their natural hosts. When that happens, they need a new host. Often, we are it.” Ibid.  

As the psalmist points out, the biosphere is balanced in such a way as to ensure wholeness for all species.

You make springs gush forth in the valleys;
    they flow between the hills,
giving drink to every wild animal;
    the wild asses quench their thirst.
By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation;
    they sing among the branches.
From your lofty abode you water the mountains;
    the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.

You cause the grass to grow for the cattle
    and plants for people to cultivate,
to bring forth food from the earth
and wine to gladden the human heart,
oil to make the face shine
    and bread to strengthen the human heart.
The trees of the field are watered abundantly,
    the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
In them the birds build their nests;
    the stork has its home in the fir trees.
The high mountains are for the wild goats;
    the rocks are a refuge for the coneys.
You have made the moon to mark the seasons;
    the sun knows its time for setting.
You make darkness, and it is night,
    when all the animals of the forest come creeping out.
The young lions roar for their prey,
    seeking their food from God.
When the sun rises, they withdraw
    and lie down in their dens.
People go out to their work
    and to their labor until the evening. Psalm 104:10-23.

The psalmist puts the lie to capitalism’s religion of ecological rape that views the earth as a lifeless ball of resources to be exploited for profit by whomever gets their hands on them first. The worth of a living thing is not measured by its marketability or usefulness to human society. God’s command to rule over the earth is not a license to “take her and rape her” as conservative commentator Ann Coulter famously asserted.[1] Human life is to be lived within the matrix of the biosphere, not above it. God charged Adam and Eve to tend the garden, not exploit it. The earth itself is a living creature, not a dead, soulless rock to be mined.

As I did last year at Pentecost, so this year I would encourage all preachers to consider focusing on this psalm and all that it has to say about the earth, its creatures, the wounds inflicted upon it by its human creatures and the lifegiving Spirit of God that continues to renew, refresh and revive it. I would encourage prayer for the healing of this wounded earth, the protection of its most vulnerable species and the work of biologists, climatologists, engineers and medical experts working to lead us to a more sustainable way of life on this planet.

Here is a poem by Dave Smith about the destructiveness humans inflict upon the earth with a flicker of resilience and hope in the form of a fish.

The Purpose of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal

Thick now with sludge from the years of suburbs, with toys

fenders, wine bottles, tampons, skeletons of possums, and

edged by blankets of leaves, jellied wrappers unshakably

stuck to the scrub pines that somehow lift themselves

from the mossed wall of blockstone headlined a hundred

years back, this water is bruised as a shoe at Goodwill.

Its brown goes nowhere, neither does it remain, and elms

bend over its heavy back like the patient fans, dreamlessly.

This is the death of hope’s commerce, the death of cities

blank as winter light, the death of people who are gone

erratic and hopeless as summer’s glittering water-skimmers.

Yet the two climbing that path like a single draft horse

saw the heart of the water break open only minutes ago,

and the rainbow trout walked its tail as if the evening

arranged an offering in an unimaginable room where plans

inched ahead for the people, as if the trout always meant

to hang from that chain, to be borne through the last shades

like a lure sent carefully, deviously in the blue ache of

air thickening in still streets and between brown walls.

Source: Poetry, September 1983. Dave Smith (b. 1942) is an American poet. He holds BA, MA, and PhD degrees in English from the University of Virginia, Southern Illinois University, and Ohio University, respectively. He has authored more than a dozen volumes of poetry and has also published works of prose and edited literary collections. Smith has taught literature and creative writing at the University of Utah, the University of Florida, Virginia Commonwealth University, Louisiana State University and Johns Hopkins University. Formerly editor of The Southern Review, Smith now serves as editor of the Southern Messenger Poets series from Louisiana State University Press. He is an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and a frequent Sewanee Writers’ Conference faculty member. You can read more about Dave Smith and sample more of his poetry at the Poetry Foundation Website.  

[1] “Ann Coulter has fallen from grace — and the reason why is terrifying,” Salon, June 29, 1915. A great deal of mischief has been unleashed by the misinterpretation of a single verse in the first chapter of Genesis in which human beings are commanded to “fill the earth and subdue it.” That one passage has been lifted out of context to justify wholesale rape of the environment by commercial entities for profit and a tragic indifference to the natural world by Christians convinced that God will rapture the righteous out of this world and leave it for the devil to wreak a ruinous “tribulation” upon it. We need to understand that the Hebrew word “CABASH” translated in Genesis 1:28 as “subdue” is the same word employed in God’s command for Israel to subdue the land of Canaan. Numbers 32:22; Numbers 32:29; Joshua 18:1. The subjugation of the land meant more than merely driving out Israel’s enemies. Very specific commands were given to Israel directing the people to care for the land and its non-human inhabitants. For example, trees were to be spared from the ravages of war. Deuteronomy 20:19-20. Egg producing birds were to be spared from slaughter. Deuteronomy 22:6-7. The sabbath rest mandated for all human beings, from king to servant, extended also to animals. Exodus 23:12. Moreover, the land itself was to be given a year’s sabbath rest from cultivation every seven years. Exodus 23:10-11. God was worshiped not only as the provider for human beings, but for all living creatures. Psalm 104:10-23. The Bible is big on ecology. In fact, insofar as the New Testament declares that God’s goal for the universe is the reconciliation of the world in Christ (II Corinthians 5:19), you could say that the Bible is all about ecology.