Sermon - 2016-05-22

A few days ago, I was sitting with a young man.  We got to talking about what he did for a living and where he was before coming here.  When he came to the area, he had come to the bar because he was worried about fitting in.  He came there because it seemed that most people were welcoming and actually wanted to get to know him.  I began to ask him if he had a church home.  He replied to me, “No.” He explained to me how he felt like he had a relationship with God, but had a lot of questions and especially some hard times in his life. He was still wondering where God was in the world and in his own life.  

I think that we all have times in our life that we come to this crossroads.  A time in which our faith is put the test; a time in which questions seems to outnumber the answers that we have; a time in which we feel like we are left to wander and wonder.  Yet, it is precisely at these times that we turn to our faith and our relationship with the community of believers to offer help and encourage people through that time of wandering and wondering.  We lift them up in the faith that has united us all.  God is a mystery! God is so much more than what we can understand in the midst of our lives.  So perhaps instead of striving to know everything about God, we should first start with what we do know about God through the ways that God has revealed himself to us.  

For this young man, he knew God the Creator.  He was able to see the life that was growing around him in the four seasons.  He was a farm hand, every year he put a seed in the ground, hoping and praying that God would do the same that God did last year.  God would bring forth life from that seed to be able to have food to share with others, and he would be able to make a living.  Some years, everything seemed to fall into place.  Other years, he wondered if he had done something wrong to upset God.  He saw and experienced God take care of him in his life, even in times of struggle and fear of what was going to happen next.  

Yet, in the midst of his life,  when his dad died unexpectedly of a heart attack, he really wondered where God was and why God would allow this to happen.  While this young man knew of heartache and even had gone to Sunday School to learn about Jesus, he did not make the connect that the same heartache he was experiencing was the same that God faced upon the cross.  He did not see or understand that the death of his own father was so similar to the death of Jesus upon the cross, or the times in which we turn away from God and God’s calling for us in the world.  He did not see that the same disciples that Jesus called were just like him.  They were not perfect, they were not the brightest of people, and even they faced challenges and disappointment by their family.  This young man knew that the Bible was important, but he never opened it.  He never felt like he could.  It is such a big book filled with so much and in such a way that he could never fully understand it.  He knew it was important, but never took the time to open it, to understand it.  

Which I think brings us to where this young man is today.  Here in our own town, yet he does not have a community to be apart of, to support him, and share with him the love of God.  To support him during those hard and difficult times because he does not feel welcome; he does not feel worthy; or he does not feel that he can enter into the presence of God.  Yet through the Holy Spirit, God is always with us.  We are part of this creation and part of this world, and so we are in relationship with God.  Do we take the time to be aware of that, or realize that God is moving and loving us through this journey of life and faith?  

Today is Holy Trinity Sunday.  We strive to celebrate today the whole relationship that we have with God and attempt to understand it within the limits of our language, our minds, and our own experience. However, we as Christians are called not to do this on our own, but in relationship and in the community of people that are gathered in God’s name.  We do not start out on our own because those who have gone before us have given us tools and invite us into that understanding.  So we can relate and connect to God in stronger ways.  The first tool that we are given is the Apostle’s Creed.  It opens our eyes to see and bear witness how God is moving in our lives, just as this young man was experiencing.  The second is that community of people who still gather with us in God’s name to share God’s love and support to us in the midst of the trials of this life.  

May you continue to enjoy being in a community of people who gather in the name of God, but also may you reach out to those who are in need of God’s love and support.  Amen.