May 26, 2024
St. Andrew Church
Rev. Anne McAnelly
Trinity Sunday ~ New Member Reception
First Lesson: John 3: 1-17
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things? 11 “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. 17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Second Lesson: Acts 17:16-31
16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.” (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) 19 So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new. 22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. 26 From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ 29 Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
Today is Trinity Sunday and we just heard the story of Nicodemus which has all three elements of the Trinity, Jesus has come from God, Nicodemus must be born of the Spirit, and God so loved the world. The word “Trinity” is not in the Bible, but the idea of the Trinity is woven through. It expresses the idea of one God in three persons. Yet God remains a mystery we will never fully comprehend. But we can learn about how we experience God through these three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In Acts, Paul is talking to the educated in Athens as he shares about Jesus and the resurrection. READ Acts I 7:16-31.
Paul is witnessing to Christ, calling the people of Athens to repent and believe. Jesus commanded the disciples to baptize “in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit” (Mt. 28:19). The trinity is invoked to bring new people to faith. It is also a blessing, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you” (2 Cor. 13:13). These last two are the clearest expressions of the Trinity in Scripture. Yet our two passages have their own take aways: Nicodemus and the debate about being born from above ends with “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” Paul in Acts quotes a poet, “In (God) we live and move and have our being.” With these truths in mind, let us look at the Trinity in action.
For Nicodemus, a religious leader, the Trinity in action means he is born from above, born of the Spirit. In order to enter the kingdom of God, Nicodemus must change, be made new, be born of the Spirit. This is the new life we have in Christ, because we have come to faith, and nothing remains the same. Of course, Nicodemus thinks he has it all figured out: Jesus is from God, and he knows God, so he is good, and nothing needs to change. But Jesus corrects him. Unless Nicodemus allows God to change his whole way of being, to be born of the Spirit, he will not be able to perceive God at work. But you might ask where is the action of the Trinity? We don’t see it here, but it comes later. “Only after the crucifixion does (Nicodemus) take a step toward commitment, bringing myrrh and aloes for Jesus’ burial (John 19:39-40). This risky act signals a change of heart, the beginning of a transformation,” the work of the Trinity (Working Preacher, Judith Jones). Sometimes it takes time, or struggles, or loss, for us to be ready to be born again, to allow God to come into our hearts and make us new. One commentator writes, “Those who trust Jesus, staking their lives on divine love, will be reborn from above through the Spirit. By God’s mercy they will be not merely forgiven, but made whole, remade in God’s image as participants in God’s new creation” (Working Preacher, Judith Jones). Trinity in Action.
In Acts, Paul wants to bring the full action of the Trinity to bear for the people of Athens. The same ones who call him a babbler. But that does not keep him from sharing the good news of Jesus and the resurrection. He starts by truly seeing who they are and how they worship. He is “distressed” by their idols, and their “worship of an unknown god.” Yet he acknowledges their religious nature, before inviting them to know the God of Creation, the “Lord of heaven and earth,” “who gives to all mortals life and breath.” He then states a truth about the Spirit of God. God’s Spirit is at work when we “search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him-though indeed (God) is not far from each one of us” (27). The Spirit inspired the people to ask Paul about his new teaching. The Spirit provokes a yearning to search for God, even when God is not far away. When we are seeking God, long for God’s presence in our lives, remember Paul’s assurance: God is never far from us. Then Paul quotes another poet, saying, “We too are his offspring.” From this he claims us as God’s offspring to help us understand God is not something static or hard, like gold or stone from which they carve their idols, but God is the living and loving presence we know through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus his Son. Trinity in Action.
The Action of the Trinity embraces the bringing together of new followers of Christ, here in Acts and in Jesus’ Great Commission. The Spirit moves and transforms lives, we just get the ball rolling. We sometimes forget that when we share our faith, we should start with where they are, who they are. We should trust that God through the Spirit will make connections, like Paul did with poetry. The Spirit invites us to share-our faith, our love, our newness with others.
“One rainy Sunday afternoon, a little boy was bored and his father was sleepy. The father decided to create an activity to keep the kid busy. So, he found in the morning newspaper a large map of the world. He took scissors and cut it into a good many irregular shapes like a jigsaw puzzle. Then he said to his son, “See if you can put this puzzle together. And don’t disturb me until you’re finished.” He turned over on the couch, thinking this would occupy the boy for at least an hour. To his amazement, the boy was tapping his shoulder ten minutes later telling him that the job was done. The father saw that every piece of the map had been fitted together perfectly. “How did you do that?” he asked. “It was easy, Dad. There was a picture of a man on the other side. When I got him together right, the world was right” (Sermons.com, Bill Bouknight). A person’s world can never be right until the person is right and that comes from the new birth we have in Christ, being born of the Spirit, being born again.
Rev. Dr. Peter Gomes spoke at our graduation from Princeton, he wrote, “What” born again means is literally to begin all over again, to be given a second birth, a second chance. To be born again is to enter afresh into the process of spiritual growth. It is to wipe the slate clean. It is to cancel your old mortgage and start again. In other words, you don’t have to be always what you have now become. Such an offer is too good to be true for many, confusing for most, but for those who seek to be other than what they are now, who want to be more than the mere accumulation and sum total of their experiences, the invitation, “You must be born again,” is an offer you cannot afford to refuse” (Sermons.com, The Good Book: Reading the Bible With Mind and Heart, p. 188). Today we received new members into the life of this congregation. This is Trinity in action. The Spirit moving people to seek, to grope for God and in the end finding support and a witness of God and Jesus in this community. We become partners in faith and share in the work of the Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. We worship God, we are loved by Jesus, and we are united by the Spirit. Just like the story of Nicodemus taught us, Jesus challenges us “to move from theory to practice, from knowledge to faith, from curiosity to commitment” (Working Preacher, Judith Jones). Together we will live out the blessing of the Trinity- The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all.
Prayer of Nicodemus
God of second chances, who is patient with our confusion and who leads us into greater understanding if only we have ears to hear and souls willing to search, grant that we may be born anew each day into hope, born anew each day into joy, born anew into your realm. When we become legalistic in our living, teach us the language of forgiveness. When we become concrete in our thinking, lift us into the ways of your Spirit. When we become stuck in religious patterns that lead us away from you, bring us back to living faith. May your grace become the context of our days. Amen. (Sermons.com, Sarah M. Foulger)
