Author: Kerry

Paul certainly is angry. The letter to the church in Galatia is an angry letter. Its fiery words of introduction declare Paul’s authority as an apostle commissioned directly by God. The machine gun pace is then kept up without a break until the beginning of chapter 6, where Paul finally begins to slow. By the time of the letter’s exasperated conclusion Paul is spent. But he is still ticked: “from now on let no one trouble me; for I carry the marks of Jesus on my body,” Paul is fuming. He’s not a little upset. He is furious. Why?

We caught a glimpse of Paul’s anger two weeks ago when we read these words: “if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed!” Now, “Go to hell,” might not mean much anymore, it’s said with such flippancy, but to Paul, that kind of imperative meant a great deal. And that’s what he says about the false teachers who have followed him into his church plant in the region of Galatia. They are preaching another gospel. A false gospel. A gospel that is, in effect, undoing not only Paul’s own preaching but threatening to nullify the cross of Christ for the Galatian Christians. If anyone comes proclaiming a Gospel other than the one you received, says Paul, that person can go to hell. And he means it.

He is, indeed, far more graphic just a few paragraphs when, in perhaps a less-than-sanctified loss of temper, he says to his flock, “I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!” Oh my. Some of you are thinking, “Is that really in the Bible?” It is! Paul says lots of things we wouldn’t normally attribute to a saint. And with these words, we’ve gone from grim to gruesome. What on earth is going on?

It seems that enemies of Paul have followed him to this fledgling church and begun to “correct” the Gospel he proclaimed. Yes, they seem to have said, to the Gentile converts. Yes, Paul was quite right to tell you that you do need to trust in Christ! That’s the first step. AND now, you need to become observant Jews, too. That means you need to be circumcised and you need to start keeping kosher. You need to trust in Christ AND observe the law.

It is that little word, “and,” that has Paul fuming. It is not that observing the law is wrong in itself—as though to trust in Christ one had to spurn one’s Jewish heritage. Paul certainly doesn’t do that. Rather, Paul uses the invectives of damnation and castration when he hears that his enemies have tacked on Jewish ceremonial observances to trust in Christ as a second set of “essentials.” How can you be set free from sin and death? You are set free from sin and death by trusting Christ AND becoming Jewish. Paul, full of apostolic anger, tackles this “AND” in the letter to the Galatians. And he is particularly clear here in our Epistle for the morning.

Let’s look again at v. 16. “We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners.” This is the neuralgic point. The point of pain in the new community. How do Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus become one Church? In this new community that Paul has founded by preaching the Gospel of Jesus, there are two kinds of people—Jews and Gentiles. How do Gentiles come into covenant with God of Israel? And Paul’s answer is, simply, the same way Jews do. Not by keeping the law, but through the faithfulness of Christ.

Ah, now that’s an important phrase: through the faithfulness of Christ. It is usually translated “through faith in Christ” and this, most scholars of Paul believe, is a mistake. For the phrase, “faith in Christ,” suggests still that we are saved by something that we do. We are rescued, restored, reconciled to God as we exercise our faith, our trust. However ture that may be, that’s not Paul’s point in this letter, his bone of contention with his opponents. The argument with Paul’s enemies is not whether the Gentiles in Galatia were saved by their faith or by their works. Rather, the key question on which Paul and his enemies part is, are the Gentiles saved by something that Christ has done or by some combination of what Christ has done and their own keeping of the law?

And Paul’s answer to this question is unequivocal. Christ’s own covenant faithfulness, his obedience, has done this for me; it is through his faithfulness that I am justified, that I am placed in a right relationship with God. He has done this for Jews; he has done this for Gentiles. Christ only is God’s one faithful covenant partner. Christ only has kept the law. And he has done it for us. “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God.” Christ in his saving life, death, and resurrection has done it all. There is no more that needs doing.

Which is to say, there is no Christ AND! Gentiles are not to be welcomed only if and as they become Jews. Gentiles don’t need to become observant Jews. Indeed to require them to do so would be to say Christ’s faithfulness even to death on the cross was for nothing.

For Paul, neither Jew nor Gentile could not make themselves right with God. Neither Jews, who could not obey the law they had, nor Gentiles who did not obey the law they lacked. Both sets of people, left to their own efforts, were lost. Neither Jew nor Gentile could by their behavior keep covenant. They were totally unable. Sin had so incapacitated them, it was as though they were dead. The good news was, Jew and Gentile together could only thank God who, as Paul will later write, “in the fullness of time, sent forth his Son, born of a woman, both under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.”

Now, the controversy between some Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus in the first century is well past us. But the problem of “Jesus AND” is with us every day. To live in covenant with God, you must trust in Christ. AND dress just the way I do. To live in covenant with God, you must trust in Christ AND vote the same way I vote. To live in covenant with God, you must trust in Christ AND support my causes. To live in covenant with God, you must trust in Christ AND agree with my theology. We act as though those statements and others like them are true, don’t we? Sometimes?

Do you hear the first person pronoun there? We. It will not do to so relegate the text to the first century that this becomes the historical problem some Jewish Christians of the first century. (Aren’t you glad we’re not like that anymore?) Nor will it do to point the finger the Christian Right (that is, Christians who shop at Walmart and boycott Starbucks) or the Christian Left (that is, Christians who boycott Walmart and shop at Starbucks). It will not do to point our finger that church over here or over there. Adding our own AND to Jesus is something we all are tempted to do. It is something to which we all, from time to time, yield.

Which brings us to our Gospel lesson for the day. The Gospel presents us with two people. A Pharisee and a sinner. A good religious person who invited Jesus over for dinner and a woman who knew she was in a mess and couldn’t get out of it. A good religious person who couldn’t offer even the simplest and obligatory forms of hospitality to Jesus. A sinner who couldn’t withhold her affection and gratitude. A good religious person who believed his conduct impressed God. A sinner who knew she never could. A good religious person who sniffed at Jesus’ conduct. A sinner who wept tears of joy at what Jesus had done. A good religious person who was forgiven little. A sinner who was forgiven much. Which one does Luke present to us as an example?

When we think, speak, or live as though “Jesus And” is true, we have cast ourselves as the Pharisee in this story. For we take what can only be received as a gift and presume to supplement it with our own impressive list of accomplishments. We cast ourselves as someone who can have God’s gift of reconciliation, rescue, restoration, on our own terms, based on our own behavior. We can look our neighbors and even God in the eye and say, “I did this.” And Jesus, I can only imagine, looks at us in the same way as he did that Pharisee—with profound disappointment, with a weary look that says, “you just don’t get it. You cannot welcome me.”

The example in the story, the one whom Luke and Jesus agree we readers are to emulate, is the woman. She has grasped the truth that the Pharisee is unable or unwilling to hear: that we are in such a mess that we cannot fix it even if we want to. We are far better off when in our helplessness, we cast ourselves without reservation, without hesitation, without any qualification at all, on Christ. We are far better off when we leave our conjunctions—all our “ands”—to one side and cling only to Christ, who is the life God intends for every human being. We are far better off when the only words we can manage are “thank you.”

Thank you—that is our only contribution, and it is, of course, no contribution at all. What does “thank you” do? Thank you recognizes the truth about ourselves—we are all sinners in need of rescue. Thank you recognizes the truth about Jesus—there is no “and,” no supplement to what he has done. He is God’s rescue. He is God’s reconciliation. He is God’s restoration. He is all of that alone and of himself. And now it is time for all of us to utter our collective thank you to Christ, in whom we have been hidden in baptism, who died and lives for us that we might die to our sin and live in covenant fellowship with God.

We say our collective thank you here, at this table. That is what Eucharist means—thanksgiving. For it is at this table where the life of Christ is given again. Freely. Here is the place where all of our ands, all of our if onlys, all of our but thens are set aside. Here is a place where no condition can be made. For here we meet Christ in the power of the Spirit. Here we receive the life that is absolutely and utterly beyond us. The life that raises us from the dead and hides us in the heavenly realms. Here is the place where we all are forgiven much, and where the only response is thank you.

Audio for today’s sermon is here: Journey To the Grave

I have been thinking a lot about death lately. You all know why. It’s a funny thing, you know. We all know death is coming, for those people over there, for those we love, for us—the mortality rate is still 100%. We all hope that the “grand order of things” will hold true for us, namely, that we should bury our parents and our children should bury us. (Only twice in my ministry here have I stood with parents at the funerals of their children. Even when the child is an adult, this is a horrifying event and I cannot imagine coming through it myself).

So, at one level at least, I can’t rationally explain to myself (let alone to you or anyone else) why my dad’s cancer bothers me as much as it does. I know as certainly now as much as I knew before his diagnosis that he is going to die. I know as certainly now as I knew before that he has more days behind him than in front. I know as certainly now as I knew before that, barring something catastrophic, my brothers and I will bury him.

At another level, however, the words “terminal cancer” have a way of sharpening the focus. Now it is no longer theoretical. Now it is no longer mere knowledge. Now it is an existential reality. I am leaving this parish to walk with my dad to his grave. And I don’t want to.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus walks with people to graves on three occasions, the first of which is our Gospel today. It is a scene narrated by Luke to evoke memories of our Old Testament lesson. There, Elijah is sent to a widow. Through his ministrations, God raises her son from the grave. Now, a new Elijah has come. He passes by a funeral procession. A widow is about to bury her son. And Jesus is moved with pity. I approaches the bier, he takes the young man by the hand, he says to him, “young man, I say to you arise,” and the young man obeys.

Jesus here confronts the power of death in two ways—the most obvious one is the restoration of the young man. But he also confronts the power of death as its tentacles reach from the young man’s corpse to begin to entangle his mother, the widow. A widow without a family was in the ancient world condemned to a half-life, without any visible means of support. She would be reduced to begging or worse to keep herself fed. Lacking an extended family to ensure for her provision in her old age, she would be at risk in every conceivable way. She would soon follow her son’s procession. Until. . . .

Until the Lord of Life crosses her path. Until the Lord of Life interrupts the inevitable journey. When Jesus restores the man to life, he prevents death from claiming two and out of order. He sets things the way they should be. He gives the young man his life in order that he might continue to give life to his mother. The Lord of Life is the Lord of the future—even the future that does lead to death for not only will the widow die, but her son will, too. This time, however, in the right order.

On the next occasion, Jesus is met by a group of people led by a man named Jairus. His daughter, who is 12, is sick. And Jesus goes with them to heal her. On the way, however, as the crowds are pressing in on him, an older woman “with an issue of blood” that has lasted 12 years touches Jesus’s robe and is healed. The delay caused by this miracle prevents Jesus from reaching the young girl in time. She dies. Another group comes with the sad announcement: “Your daughter is dead. Do not bother the teacher any longer.” But Jesus says, “Do not be afraid. Only believe,” and the journey to Jairus’s house continues. Jesus takes his favored three, Peter James and John, into her room; he takes the girl’s hand. And he speaks: “Little girl, get up!” And she does.

Here again, the Lord of life robs death of his quarry, and perhaps not in the way you think. Of course the girl is raised to life. But the key to her story (and its interruption with the older woman) is the repetition of 12 years. The young woman is 12 years old. She is on the threshold of her own fertility. She is on the verge of being able to carry life within her. The older woman has, for 12 years, been infertile. She has been unable to bear life.

And they are met by the Lord of Life. And death is once again denied. Not simply in the fact that a corpse is raised. Not simply in the fact that a decade of suffering is ended. Death is defeated in the restoration to these two daughters of Israel the power to bear life. The Lord of Life is Lord of the future. The Lord of Life has ensured that even though both these women will surely die, the line of Israel will continue through them.

So, there have been two skirmishes with King Death—if you want to personify him. And he’s been bested twice. But we know that the widow’s son will die again. We know that the woman whose fertility has been restored, and the girl who was raised to life will both die, as will their children and all their descendants after. Is Jesus really the Lord of Life? If so, he is a feeble Lord. King Death has been inconvenienced, not overthrown. He is still in charge.

And now, now it looks like King Death will eliminate this pretender altogether as he hangs him on the cross to die. He hangs between to thieves, adding to the mockery. And one thief—perhaps because he’s heard the stories that we have just told—begins to shout at the wonderworker hanging between himself and his partner. “Are you not the King? Save yourself and us!” There’s a kind of confession here of Jesus’s identity. IF Jesus is indeed the Lord of Life, as the stories suggest, he should take himself off the cross, and while he’s at it, the thief and his partner too for good measure. But Jesus is silent. It looks like he is not Lord at all. He is no King. He is a fool. And like all fools and wise men, he will die. It’s only a matter of time.

But the thief’s partner in crime senses that something deeper is going on. This is indeed a battle. This is indeed THE battle. But somewhere deep in his heart he grasps that were Jesus to come off the cross now, King Death would be denied only for a moment. For King Death to be undone, something deeper must take place. And so, after rebuking his comrade, he says simply, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” No dares. No implied “if’s.” An assumption. Jesus is the true King. Jesus really is the Lord of Life. And his kingdom is coming. A plea. Remember me. Now, Jesus speaks. “I tell you the truth, today, you will be with me in Paradise.”

The decisive defeat of King Death—a defeat accomplished on Good Friday, announced on Easter day, and indwelt by all who have received the Pentecostal Spirit—that is what the penitent thief longed for. And his longing was rewarded by the Lord of Life. For the Lord of Life knew himself that mere skirmishes with death, mere temporary rescues from the grave, however joyous they might be, would not be enough. He would have to meet Death himself, take upon himself Death’s very worst, absorb it into himself, and task us with announcing Death’s defeat until the day when every knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus is King to the Glory of God the Father.

Which brings me back to my dad. To the weight of reality that he struggles with now as he never has before. To the weight which, when we can no longer distract ourselves from it, presses in upon us. I want my dad to be healed—whether through medicine or direct divine intervention. I do. I want to see him whole and hale and playing with his grandchildren for many years to come. But even if that comes true, my dad will still die. And someday, so will I. And so will his grandchildren. Death comes for us all. But he comes no longer as King. He comes as one who has been robbed of his final victory. He comes as one whose sting has been removed. Why? Because the Lord of Life is my Shepherd, who leads me through the darkest valley, safe to the other side. Because those whose lives are hid with Christ greet Death not alone, but hid behind the champion who has already bested him. A champion who says to us, “Do not be afraid. Today, you will be with me.”

 

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Soldiers show up on four occasions in Luke’s Gospel, and in its sequel, the book of Acts. A group of soldiers questions John the Baptist about how to live righteously in Luke 3. A centurion asks Jesus to heal his servant—our Gospel lesson for today. Another centurion passes judgment on Jesus at his death in Luke 23 with the words, “Surely, this man was innocent.” And in Acts 10we read about Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, who is the first Gentile to be converted and baptized.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that soldiers should be found in these documents. Operating as Police force, expeditionary force, and occupying army, they were the iron fist that kept the Pax Romana. And yet, Luke presents them not as unthinking arms of Roman military might. We don’t expect to hear words like these: “You’ve spoken to these people, John, but not to us. How, John, should we soldiers live before God?” “Surely this man was innocent.” “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. . . . Only speak the word and my servant will be healed . . .” Here’s Luke’s description of Cornelius: “He was a devout man who gave generously and prayed constantly.” Luke presents soldiers always positively.

Listen: “This soldier is worthy of you! He loves us! He built our synagogue!” A group of Jewish elders bring this description to Jesus, requesting that Jesus heal this man’s servant. Imagine Palestinians in Gaza saying this of an Israeli Colonel on CNN. Imagine Northern Irish Republicans saying this of a British Lieutenant at the height of the Troubles in the 1970s and 80s. That’s the kind of dynamic here.

Not only is the centurion well loved by people who are supposed to be his enemies, he is a man of deep humility. He refuses to meet with Jesus, sending second group of friends to tell Jesus, “Lord I am not worthy of your company.” Furthermore, he understands who Jesus and his mission. “I am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I speak and people obey. All you have to do is speak, and my servant will be healed.” He is a man of deep faith—trust—in this healer whom he knows but has not met. He does not seek Jesus out for entertainment. He does not follow Jesus just to see a miracle. And yet he knows in whose authority Jesus stands, with whose authority Jesus speaks, and what will happen if and as that healing word, God’s healing word is spoken. Jesus acts with the full authority of God and the Centurion gets it. “Only speak the word!” he says.

And Jesus’s response? “I tell you not even in Israel have I found such faith!” Jesus validates the description of this man, ostensibly an enemy of God and God’s people. Not only does the Centurion understand at a profound level Jesus identity and the nature of Jesus’ mission, but Jesus knows him. And in an ironic twist, Jesus does not go to this man’s house; he does not meet him at all; he never even speaks the word of healing, but the servant is healed anyway. Jesus never meets this Centurion. But he knows him. He commends him. He acknowledges his faith and he heals his servant.

In the same words, Jesus judges the people of God. “Not even in Israel have I seen such faith.” Israel’s faith is lacking. And we’ve run into this judgment before. When Jesus came to the Nazareth synagogue in Luke chapter 4, he is met by fawning and compliments but as far as Jesus is concerned, these conceal an audacious request: “Do the miracles for us that you did at Capernaum.” And Jesus reply, in part? “There were many lepers in Israel in Elisha’s day, but only Namaan the Syrian was healed.” Namaan, you will recall, was, like the centurion, an officer in the Syrian army, an enemy of God’s people. But he submitted to the word of the prophet Elisha and was healed of his leprosy and sent on his way. And how did the fawners and fans respond? They tried to throw Jesus off a cliff, thereby verifying his judgment.

The story of the centurion comes too close to the story of Namaan, for us to ignore it. Here, in the faith-filled Centurion, we a modern day Namaan. Here is a Gentile, an enemy of the people of God, with faith. A Gentile, an enemy, who is commended to those very people as an example worthy of emulation. Luke, it seems to me, invites us into to live in this story. He invites us to see our world through eyes enlightened by the Holy Spirit through the telling of the Gospel. As we do, here, it seems to me, is what we begin to see.

First, faith can found in marginal places. This is a theme that runs through Luke. Shepherds receive the angelic announcement of the birth of God’s Son. Think also of Mary—a nondescript Jewish teenager, in every way ignorable—she is the one who has found favour with God. Now, this centurion, this enemy of God’s people, is presented to us as an example of faith. An example of righteous living. An example of a life enlightened by the grace of God.

No doubt all of these examples were of great encouragement to Theophilus, the person to whom Luke writes both his Gospel and his sequel, the book of Acts. We don’t know much about Theophilus. We don’t even know if Theophilus was a real person. He may have been; he may have been a literary creation, a kind of everyman, Luke’s ideal audience. Either way, Theophilus is a marginal figure. He is a Gentile, he is attracted to Christian faith. He is either inquiring or had just been baptized. And one of the many, many things Luke tells him is that the God of the Gospel, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, has come for the marginal people. The people on the edges. The people whom this world passes over. These are the ones on whom God has shed his glory. These are the ones whom Christ has come to save. These are the ones to whom the Holy Spirit is given.

What a great encouragement to us! To know that as we move out into the margins for the sake of mission, that God is already there. Already preparing, already creating faith, already preparing people to respond to the Good News of the Gospel. It may be, that as we go, we will be surprised—as apparently Jesus himself was surprised—by the kind and depth of faith that we will find.

Not only can faith be found on the margins. For those who live out of this story, it is also the case that faithlessness can found in the community of God’s people. This is no doubt a hard part of the Gospel for us to hear—certainly it was hard for Jesus’ hearers to take it in when he first told them in Luke chapter 4. They responded to his rebuke with a murderous rage. “Do for us the miracles!” We’ll follow you, Jesus, if you give us a little bit of the flash we heard about when you were in Capernaum. But Jesus is not some sort of Aladdin’s genie. He will go in the freedom of the Gospel just as Elijah and Elisha had done before. Elijah was sent not to any of the many widows of Israel, but to a widow in Sidon. Namaan the Syrian, and not a leper of Israel, was sent to Elisha. Jesus did not go not to the center of political power—to Pilate’s seat or Herod’s throne. Jesus did not go to the centre of religious devotion, to the Temple and its leaders. In Luke’s Gospel, he appears in all these places only as he prepares to die. Instead, Jesus goes to the margins, to insignificant women, to shepherds, to centurions.

The point? Being a visible part of the people in power, the people of God is not a permission slip to approach Jesus with a list, as though he is some sort of Santa Claus who is at our beck and call . And that, it seems to me, is a temptation always for all of us—that we will become too familiar with Holy Things. That we become too “friendly” or perhaps presumptuous with God. That we will become like the miracle seekers rather than the synagogue elders who commended this centurion to Jesus.

And that is the third stop we need to make today. It is striking to me that this Centurion—as devout and generous as he was—still had need of intercessors. He still had need of people to go to Jesus for him. And that is precisely what the synagogue elders did on his behalf. They brought his request to Jesus and they endorsed it. This man is worth your time, they said to Jesus. And in this, they had a better estimation of this man’s value to the Lord than he himself did. Recall his words, Lord, I am not worthy to have you come into my house.

Jesus responds to the friends’ request. There is no need to get into speculation about what Jesus knew and when. What we ought to see instead is that throughout, here Jesus is responsive. In this story, he does not take the initiative. He responds first to the synagogue elders. He responds second to the group of friends. In both responses, he turns in grace toward this centurion, this man who should have been an enemy, but who was rather a man of deep faith.

My friends, not only are there times when we are too convinced of our own worthiness, to the degree that we become sinfully presumptuous upon the goodness of God, but there are also times when we cross paths with people who are too convinced of their own unworthiness to approach that God, who in Christ is already seeking for them. Such people need friends. Friends like the synagogue elders who act as mediators, as intercessors, to bring those friends to Jesus, so that Jesus might respond to them. Friends very aware of their own dispensability, and of the indispensability of Christ.

In our Gospel today, Jesus goes to the margins and finds faith, he judges a community too familiar with holy things, and he responds to friends who are willing to stand with those who feel unworthy. And now he invites us to his table that we may, by his Spirit, be drawn into that very life. May we, as we are sent from this place to take that life into the world, find ourselves willing to go the margins with eyes to see the faith that is there, eyes still open to the surprising moves of God in our midst and out of it, and hearts that are willing to embrace even those who may feel the furthest away from the love of God.

Today is Trinity Sunday. Today, I get to talk about God.

Some of you are likely thinking, don’t you do that every Sunday? Well, if you stop and think about it, the answer is actually no. I rarely talk about God in my sermons. Rather I talk about what God’s acts—what God has done (the Scriptures), what God is doing (our mission), and what God will do (our hope). And I talk about what we ought to be doing (also, our mission—our cooperation with God in God’s mighty acts). And this is, of course, exactly as it should be. It is the task of the preacher to help the community read their lives in the light of the Great Story of God’s redemption of the world through the sending of the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Well, fair enough. But don’t we talk about God in the liturgy? Again, however, the answer is no. We don’t talk about God in the liturgy we talk to him. We sing praises to God as we gather. We pray to God in the Collects and Prayers. We pray God’s own words back to him when we sing the Psalms. We give thanks to God in the Eucharist. In the liturgy, God is a present subject. God is here. And we speak to him. “Well, surely the Creed! A Creed is a statement of Christian belief after all!” some of you might be thinking. And you will be forgiven if you continue to think that after we confess the Creed of St. Athanasius in a few minutes. Again, though, the answer is still no. The Creed, like all the other acts of worship, is far more a speaking to God than a speaking about God. “Believe” here has the meaning “trust in” or even “pledge myself to.” It is not a simple “I believe x to be true.”

Today is the one day in the church year where I must (at least if I take my vows seriously) as the question that lies beneath all this speech about and speech to. Who is this God? There are two related reasons why we should reflect on this question, and more regularly than annually.

But, first a story. My brother Aaron is a minister in Brockville Ontario. One Sunday, as he was greeting people at the door of his church, a woman shook his ands and said words very much like this. “I don’t believe in a magic man in the sky.” To which Aaron said, “That’s great. I don’t either!” Undaunted, she continued: “I don’t need a Cosmic Santa Claus to make me happy!” which prompted Aaron to say, “Neither do I!” In the ensuing conversation, Aaron discovered that the woman was an atheist taking a “church-tour” and apparently, taking her responsibility to be an evangelist for Richard Dawkins very seriously indeed. Aaron’s purpose in replying as he did was to suggest that the god the woman didn’t believe in was not the God of the Christian Scriptures. And so both of them could not believe in this obviously false god.

Here’s my point: we can no longer assume that people, whether inside or outside the church know what Christians mean when we say the word God. We can assume this confidently because “fairy tale magic man” and “Cosmic Santa Claus” are treated as acceptable (if scornful) definitions.

There’s another, related, reason why we should ask Who is this God?

We need to undo the years of bad analogies (some of them promulgated in the name of some very great Saints) to “explain” God. Here’s one from the Fathers: God is like the Sun, heat from the Sun, and light from the Sun. Have you heard that one? Here’s another with a noble pedigree: I am a man. I am also a father, a son, and a brother. A third: Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy are three human beings who share one human nature. And a classic, which Calvin picked up by osmosis when, as a young lad, he shared with Rachel and me his first dramatic monologue. Do you want to hear it? “I am St. Patrick. God is like a shamrock.”

Oh friends, what a terrible situation we have when our best response to “Your God makes as much sense as a flying spaghetti monster,” is “God is like a shamrock.”

So what is a better response? What is the Christian answer to the question, “Who is this God?”

Ready? Here it is: God is love (1 Jn 4:8). That is the shortest, most intense description of the divine identity Christian faith can offer: Love. Ah, but that begs the question, doesn’t it? What is love, after all?

Well, the entire Christian Bible—that great story we re-read and rehearse every Sunday—is the filling out of that one little word. Here I quote the NT scholar, Richard Bauckham: “The Bible tells us what sort of love God is by telling the story of God’s love for us. It tells how God created the world out of love, and the story of how God continued to love the world he had created and got involved with it in his love for us. It tells how even when we rejected God’s love and spoiled God’s world with evil, still God went on loving us and did all he could to rescue us from evil and to win our love for him. That’s the Old Testament story of God’s involvement with the people of Israel. It’s the story that comes to a climax with Jesus, when God in his love for us sent his Son to be actually one of us, to live a human life with us and to die for us. It’s the story that continues with God’s loving presence in the Holy Spirit, in the church, in our lives. The story of God’s love for the world goes on: we’re part of it.

The story tells us who God is because we see what kind of love God is. God is self-giving love. He doesn’t just sit up in heaven and wish us well. He gets involved with us in his love for us. He gives himself for us in costly self-sacrifice in Jesus’ suffering and death for us. He gives himself to us when he gives us his Holy Spirit as the gift of himself present with us in our lives. ‘God is love’ means that God gives himself – for us and to us. That is God’s nature.”

And that, my friends, is the doctrine of the trinity. Did you notice that shift? In telling the biblical story of God’s acts, we told the truth about God’s nature. God’s identity. Who is this God? He is the God gives himself for us and to us. Who is this God, He is the Father sends the Son and breathes the Holy Spirit.

When we say “Trinity,” we are naming a God who is active love. We name God the Father who watches over us; God the Son who comes alongside us and justifies us and reconciles us and suffers for and with and instead of us; God the Holy Spirit who is the love of God poured out in us.

Bauckham again: The doctrine of the Trinity is not rarefied theological speculation, having nothing to do with the Christian life. On the contrary, the doctrine of the Trinity is what we must believe if we really grasp that amazing truth of the Gospel: that God himself in his love has really come into our world as Jesus Christ and that God himself in his love has really come into our own experience as the Holy Spirit.

Neither is the doctrine of the Trinity a mere mental formula that brings God within the grasp of our minds, as though now we actually understand God. Not at all. The doctrine of the Trinity takes us into the mystery of who God is, but it does not explain or dispel the mystery. When we know God as Trinity we truly know God, but we by no means understand God.

God the Trinity is the love we find in Jesus Christ and experience in the Holy Spirit.