Trinity Connections

May 2

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 

…in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving 

let your requests be made known to God. 

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, 

will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:4, 6-7

I shared this some time ago, and I thought it fit well for today…

I read a note that concluded with a prayer by Thomas Merton. The note told of a ministry changing its location, and so, reflected a great deal on moving from one place to another.

Merton included this prayer in his book, “Thoughts in Solitude,” which was published in 1956. It is interesting to see that sources name the prayer quite differently. While one refers to it as “Prayer of Trust” and another “Road Ahead”; the most compelling title to me was: “Prayer of Unknowing.”

I wonder if we might be wise to consider why it is that we are often quite uncomfortable with not knowing.

'Knowledge is power', as the saying goes, and mystics like Thomas Merton often unmask our know-it-all approach as unbelief. I trust this may well speak to your own experience, and give voice to your own heart as you seek to walk with God.

Blessings, Pastor Phil

A prayer by Thomas Merton:

My Lord God,

I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

nor do I really know myself,

and the fact that I think I am following your will

does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you

does in fact please you.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,

though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though

I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,

and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Amen.

– Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, page 79.

May 1

And the one who was seated on the throne said, 

“See, I am making all things new.” 

Also he said, 

“Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 

Then he said to me, 

“It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. 

To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

Revelation 21:5-6

We looked at some quotes that reflect on Easter and the resurrection of Christ in our noon class yesterday. Among the quotes I shared was this from St Gregory of Nyssa, who lived in the 4th century, and is known as one of the ‘ Cappadocian Fathers.’

Concepts create idols. Only wonder comprehends anything. 

People kill one another over idols. Wonder makes us fall to our knees. 

St Gregory of Nyssa (Life of Moses)

One more thing… I like these concluding lines from a prayer by Walter Brueggemann. They are challenging and inviting as well. 

The prayer is titled: “On Generosity”

It is published in a book of sermons and prayers “Inscribing the Text”:

Sink your generosity deep into our lives

that your muchness may expose our false lack

that endlessly receiving, we may endlessly give,

so that the world may be made Easter new,

without greedy lack, but only wonder

without coercive need, but only love

without destructive greed, but only praise 

without aggression and invasiveness. . . 

all things Easter new. . . 

all around us toward us and

by us

all things Easter new.

Finish your creation. . . in wonder, love and praise. Amen.

Walter Brueggemann, Inscribing the Text Fortress Press, 2004. Page 4

April 30

…they dragged Jason… before the city authorities, shouting, 

“These people who have been turning the world upside down 

have come here also… 

They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, 

saying that there is another king named Jesus.”

Acts 17

Rachel Held Evans (1981-2019) was really a wonderful writer. I have encountered so many thoughtful insights from her, I should really read one of her books.

Here is a line I found in a list of ‘resurrection quotes’:

Jesus takes the Resistance beyond prophecy, beyond songs of hope and lamentation, beyond satire and mockery, and beyond apocalyptic visions to declare the inauguration of a new kingdom. With his birth, teachings, death, and resurrection, Jesus has started a revolution. It just doesn’t look the way anyone expects. 

Rachel Held Evans

I wonder what it would mean for us if we understood the resurrection of Jesus to be a revolution. I wonder how it would shape our discipleship if we were to see Jesus' work in the world as the Resistance. How might that give life and vitality to our faith and to our Church?

Blessings to you, Pastor Phil

April 29

But there are also many other things that Jesus did; 

if every one of them were written down, 

I suppose that the world itself could not contain 

the books that would be written.

John 21:25

I like this reflection on the resurrection by Dr. Newbigin. 

Wikipedia will tell you: “James Edward Lesslie Newbigin (8 Dec 1909 – 30 Jan 1998) was a British theologian, missiologist, missionary and author. Though originally ordained within the Church of Scotland, Newbigin spent much of his career serving as a missionary in India and became affiliated with the Church of South India… becoming one of the Church of South India's first bishops.” It goes on to say: “it is said his stature and range is comparable to the "Fathers of the Church”."

The resurrection truly is the starting point for all of life…

The resurrection cannot be fitted into any view of the world 

except one of which it is itself a total starting point, 

because the resurrection is the validation of a protest 

against everything that there is… 

The cross is the ultimate protest against things as they are, 

in the name of what ought to be 

...the world as it is is not God's last word. 

Lesslie Newbigin

Blessings to you today, Pastor Phil

April 28

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, 

and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked…, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 

After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. 

Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

John 20:19-20

One of the interesting things about the resurrection stories, is that so many of them let us know that the disciples did not immediately recognize the risen Jesus. There is doubt, uncertainty, questioning, joy and fear. That seems a lot like life itself. God is always with you, but it is so very often difficult to see, and one is never entirely certain. Luther used the interesting phrase: “the certainty of faith.” 

May you know the risen Christ is with you today. 

Peace, Pastor Phil

Here is an Easter insight:

Seeing things as they actually are usually takes time. 

How else are we to explain the fact that no one—no one!—

noticed the resurrected Jesus at first sight? 

Seeing the resurrection requires a second look, another glance. 

It takes a while for our eyes to adjust to the light of the resurrection, 

and then all of life looks radically different…

Seeing God’s “new thing” is about seeing an old thing 

in a new way through a new lens. 

Such is the miracle of Gospel sight—

to see what has always been there in such a radically new way 

that it becomes a new thing. 

This is always a work of grace, 

and we can only handle so much of it at once.

Kris Rocke and Joel Van Dyke, Geography of Grace, Doing Theology from Below

Second Sunday of Easter

April 27

I hope you can join us for worship at 9:00 this morning.

The service is posted on our website.

The service will be live-streamed.

The Prayer of the Day:

O God of life, 

you reach out to us amid our fears 

with the wounded hands of your risen Son. 

By your Spirit’s breath revive our faith in your mercy, 

and strengthen us to be the body of your Son, 

Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, 

who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, 

one God, now and forever.

Amen

April 26

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”

John 20:26 & 29

Tomorrow is the 2nd Sunday of Easter. Each year, on this Sunday, we hear the story of Thomas. He had - for some reason - not been with the Disciples when the risen Jesus appeared to them on the night of Easter.

(As an aside: Some have suggested the lesson at hand is that Thomas’ error was that he was not gathered with the faithful. That is to say, believing that we know Christ in the Word spoken, and the bread broken and the wine outpoured, being at Church might well be a good idea!) 

I hope you can join us for worship tomorrow, where we will receive the gifts of bread and wine, listen for the Gospel, and share Christ’s peace. 

I like N.T. Wright’s words on the challenge of Easter:

The challenge of Easter is in fact the challenge of a new creation. 

It offers itself not as an odd event within the world as it is, 

but as the utterly prototypical, foundational event 

within the world as it has begun to be. 

It is not an absurd event within the old world, 

but the symbol and starting point of the new world. 

Jesus ushers in 

not a new religious possibility or new ethic, 

but a new creation. 

…And HOPE is what you get 

when you suddenly realize that a different worldview is possible, 

a world in which the rich, powerful and unscrupulous do not, 

after all,

have the last word.”

N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope

April 25

Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: 

“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to…”

Matthew 22:1-2b

I set aside this quote from author, Sue Monk Kidd because I thought it a wonderful Easter reflection. The other two follow from her insight that God’s way in the world is so very unexpected.

Blessings to you this coming weekend, Pastor Phil 

God tends to confound, astonish and flabbergast. 

A Bethlehem stable, a Roman cross, an empty garden tomb. 

We might as well reconcile ourselves to the fact 

that God's truth often turns up 

in ways we don't expect. 

Sue Monk Kidd

"The toughest task 

is to live with unexpected, 

unwanted answers.”

William Willimon

It is not the task of Christianity 

to provide easy answers to every question, 

but to make us progressively aware of a mystery.

God is not so much the object of our knowledge 

as the cause of our wonder. 

Kallistos Ware

April 24

Do not be conformed to this world, 

but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, 

so that you may discern what is the will of God —

what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Romans 12:2

These words from Anglican bishop Richard Holloway invite us to be transformed by the Good News of the resurrection. 

Resurrection is the refusal to be imprisoned any longer 

by history and its long hatreds; 

it is the determination to take the first step out of the tomb….

If we say we believe in the resurrection 

it only has meaning if we are people who believe 

in the possibility of transformed lives, transformed attitudes, 

and transformed societies.

Belief in resurrection means 

that I must commit myself to the 

possibility of transformation. 

Richard Holloway Bishop of Edinburgh 1986-2000, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church 1992-2000

April 23

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, 

“I have seen the Lord”; 

and she told them that he had said these things to her.

John 20:18

I like this Easter reflection by Sarah Condon. It is from a devotional that the Mockingbird web site has published called Daily Grace.

Peace to you today, Pastor Phil

THE LIGHT HAS COME TO STAY

The resurrection rips through all of my intellectual questions.

Sarah Condon / 4.12.23 

“But go to my brothers and say to them, 

‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, 

to my God and your God.’”

Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, 

“I have seen the Lord”; 

and she told them that he had said these things to her. 

(John 20:17-18)

There is a local legend of a preacher in Jackson, Mississippi. He stood up to offer a word on Easter Sunday, simply leaned into the mic and said, “It’s all true,” then sat down. 

I have heard people tell this story two ways. 

Some people talk about that minister like he was a lazy so-and-so with little regard for the pageantry of Easter. Such a day demands a well thought-out sermon befitting the hats, lilies, and plastic eggs! 

And then there are the people in the other camp. Those of us who are mystified that someone would so boldly say such a simple thing and let the gospel speak for itself.

This is exactly what I need to hear on Easter morning. I need to hear that it is actually all true. That Jesus came to rescue me. That he came to die in my place. That my sins are forgiven. Such news hits an almost unreachable spot in my heart. But Jesus manages to find it.

Resurrection rips through all of those intellectual questions that I want to throw at it: 

Do I have to be forgiven? Can’t I just forgive myself? Why do I have to forgive others? 

All of those questions are just my heart’s feeble barrier to keep me feeling like I have some say in the matter. Jesus rising from the dead burns that old fence right down.

I love Mary Magdalene in this moment. She is like an Olympian with a torch, running to light the next fire, racing to tell everyone this one simple thing: the light has come to stay. To love us, to die for us, and to save us from ourselves. Friends, it is all true.

Sarah Condon

April 22

God saw everything that he had made, 

and indeed, 

it was very good. 

And there was evening and there was morning, 

the sixth day.

Genesis 1:31

Today is Earth Day, and so I invite us to turn to Genesis chapter one, which concludes with the evaluation that creation was very good.

Indeed!

Earlier, in Genesis 1:28, we are told that God God blessed the humans whom God had created, saying to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

While these words have been used to by some to excuse exploitation of the earth, the words translated “subdue” and “dominion” are more about care-giving and nurturing. Tending, not using and abusing.

A blessed Earth Day to you! 

What a beautiful gift creation is! 

What a wonder that God has called us to work with God in care for and nurturing of creation! Pastor Phil

Here is a challenging and wonderful quote by Kathleen Norris that implies that our understanding of ourselves as created beings might be quite important: 

Worship grounds me again in the real world of God’s creation, dislodging me from whatever world I have imagined for myself. I have come to believe that when we despair of praise, when the wonder of creation and our place in it are lost to us, it’s often because we’ve lost sight of our true role as creatures – we have tried to do too much, pretending to be in such control of things that we are indispensable. It’s a hedge against mortality and, if you’re like me, you take a kind of comfort in being busy. The danger is that we will come to feel too useful, so full of purpose and the necessity of fulfilling obligations that we lose sight of God’s play with creation, and with ourselves. Kathleen Norris - Quotidian Mysteries

I have added two interesting quotes from the novelist Barbara Kingsolver below…

There once was a time when Thoreau wrote, “I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.” By the power vested in everything living, let us keep to that faith. I’m a scientist who thinks it wise to enter the doors of creation not with a lion tamer’s whip and chair, but with the reverence humankind has traditionally summoned for entering places of worship: a temple, a mosque, or a cathedral. A sacred grove, as ancient as time. 

Barbara Kingsolver - Small Wonder

“People need wild places. Whether or not we think we do, we do. We need to be able to taste grace and know once again that we desire it. We need to experience a landscape that is timeless, whose agenda moves at the pace of speciation and glaciers. To be surrounded by a singing, mating, howling commotion of other species, all of which love their lives as much as we do, and none of which could possibly care less about our economic status or our running daily calendar. Wilderness puts us in our place. It reminds us that our plans are small and somewhat absurd. It reminds us why, in those cases in which our plans might influence future generations we ought to choose carefully. Looking out on a clean plank of planet earth, we can get shaken right down to the bone by the bronze-eyed possibility of lives that are not our own.” 

Barbara Kingsolver cited in Brady and Neuzil, A Spiritual Field Guide: Meditations for the Outdoors, 143

Easter Monday

April 21

It is Easter Monday. There is an early Orthodox tradition; the priests would gather together on this day to tell jokes and stories. I’ve shared this before from the world wide web:

“This was a time of celebrating the big joke that God pulled on Satan. Wherever it is celebrated it is characterized by joking around, singing, dancing, and merry-making.”

This sounds a little like what we do on April Fools Day if we connected that day’s frivolity to the joy of the resurrection…

Well, we are called to be fools for Christ, aren’t we? (I Corinthians 4:10)

He is risen! He is risen indeed! 

This is the greatest reason there is for “merry-making.”

Over the years I have shared a number of very dumb jokes on this day, and for a moment I thought I should spare you such nonsense, but looking through the past several years I find I can’t help myself. Here is a terrible one for you, I will put it at the bottom of this email. If I were a better person, I’d apologize for including it…

All across the kingdom, the news traveled quickly that the Queen’s bell-ringer, who faithfully served the royal family for decades, had passed. The Queen made the royal decree that she was looking for someone to come and take his place.

The next day, a humble peasant was first in the long line of applicants for the job. "My Queen," he entreated her, "since I was a youth, I have always wanted to serve our kingdom and the royal family in this way. Let me be your bell-ringer, and I will serve in earnest all the days of my life."

The Queen appreciated the peasant’s words, but was puzzled. "My humble servant, I have but one question: how can you serve the kingdom as the royal bell-ringer? You don’t have any arms!"

The peasant smiled and said simply, "Take me to the tower and I will show you."

The Queen, her entourage, and the peasant climbed the steps of the bell tower until they reached the top. The peasant looked over his shoulder at the queen, "Behold!" And with that, the peasant ran to the far side of the room, spun around and ran directly at the bell. Faster and faster he ran then leapt, flew through the air, and – WHAM! – hit the bell full-force with his head.

Stunned, the Queen hesitated. But, when she heard the bell peal as never before, she told the peasant, "the position is yours."

Weeks went by as the peasant served faithfully and punctually, and always in the same way: he would run across the room, spin around, charge directly at the bell, leap, and – WHAM! – hit the bell full-force with his head.

Until, that is, one fateful morning when the peasant woke up late. Certain he could still make it in time, he ran from his common home, tore across the kingdom, scrambled up the tower, across the room, spun, leapt and…missed the bell entirely! He instead flew across the room, out the nearby window and plummeted a thousand feet to his death.

Having heard the commotion, the castle guards ran upstairs to find the empty room. They looked out the window to find a crowd gathering around the peasant’s body. The one guard looks at each other and says, "My goodness – that poor man! Have you any idea who he is?"  

The other said: "I don’t know, but his face sure rings a bell."

The poor, dead peasant's brother begged the Queen the honor of replacing his brother at the castle. As fate would have it, one day, late to ring the bell, while rushing to fulfill his duty, he slipped and fell from the tower, as well.  Standing over the body, a castle guard asks a passer-by if he knows the deceased's name, to which the witness to the horrible accident replies, "I dunno, but he's a dead ringer for his brother."

May the next weeks of Easter be a time for you to note the ways the risen Jesus is with you wherever you may be, and may you find plenty of opportunities for laughter in the knowledge of God's great love for you and for all the world.

Blessings to you today, and remember the Easter Good News that gives life to all we do, and all we are!

A blessed Easter to you!

Pastor Phil

Remember that Easter lasts until Pentecost Sunday, June 8th this year. 

Happy Easter! 

Easter Sunday

April 20

HAPPY EASTER!!

Easter Festival Worship will be at 9 and 11 a.m. this morning, I hope you can join us. Thank you to the Youth who are serving Easter Breakfast between services!

The service is posted on the Trinity website. https://www.trinitylutheransheridan.org/easter-25

The link for the livestream is here. https://youtube.com/live/jiu88QPU0Dg?feature=share

The Prayer of the Day:

O God, 

you gave your only Son 

to suffer death on the cross for our redemption, 

and by his glorious resurrection 

you delivered us from the power of death. 

Make us die every day to sin, 

that we may live with him forever 

in the joy of the resurrection, 

through your Son, 

Jesus Christ our Lord, 

who lives and reigns with you 

and the Holy Spirit, 

one God, 

now and forever. 

Amen.

One more insight from Barbara Brown Taylor (whom I at times refer to as “BBT.”) 

She begins an Easter sermon with these wonderful lines:

“Happy Resurrection Day! 

May the news of Christ's risenness touch the dead spots in your heart and bring them back to life, so that you become part of the good news that flows forth from this place today. May you be springs of living water in all the dry places on this sweet, parched earth. May the fresh life that God has given you spill over to freshen all the lives that touch yours - in your homes, in your work, in your schools and neighborhoods. May you be Easter people, this day and forever."

Let me simply add: A blessed Easter to you, and may we always be an Easter people! Pastor Phil

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