Eggs, Roses and Dandelions

 

Matthew 28:16-20

 

May 31, 2015

Mark S. Bollwinkel

 

            This sermon is about eggs, roses and dandelions. [Not really, but since it has a lot to do with theology, preachers have to use exciting props to keep people’s attention!]

 

            Traditionally, the Sunday following Pentecost is known as “Trinity” Sunday, an annual attempt to teach the doctrine of the Trinity to the Church.  We all remember the Trinity, right, the notion of “God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit”?

            We sing about it in one of our favorite hymns, No. 64, “Holy, Holy, Holy”; (verse 4) “Holy, holy, holy!  Merciful and mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity”.  We sing it in our Doxology following the Offertory.  That’s the song we sing in praise of God after we collect our financial gifts to the church, No. 95,  “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; praise God all creatures here below; praise God above the heavenly hosts; praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost”.

If you grew up in a traditional Protestant church as a kid you probably recited the Apostle’s Creed each Sunday, (No. 881):

            I believe in God the Father Almighty,

            Maker of heaven and earth;

            And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord:

            Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

            Born of the Virgin Mary,

            Suffered under Pontius Pilate,

            Was crucified, dead and buried,

            On the third day he rose from the dead;

            He ascended into heaven,

            And sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty;

            From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

            I believe in the Holy Spirit,

            The holy catholic church,

            The communion of saint,

            The forgiveness of sins,

            The resurrection of the body,

            And the life everlasting.  Amen.

 

The Trinity is one of the central doctrines of the Church, but we don’t find the word “trinity” anywhere in the Bible.  We find the combination of the words “God”, “Jesus” and “Holy Spirit” only 7 times in the entire New Testament (Acts 2:33, I Cor 12:4-6, II Cor 13:13, Eph 4:4-6, I Pet 1:2, Rev 1:4-5a) and only once as the phrase, “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”.  Which is in our text from Matthew this Sunday.

The Trinity as a notion of God having “one substance and three persons”…Father, Son and Holy Spirit…came from an early church leader by the name of Tertullian (160-220AD).  He was a lawyer from Carthage and a convert to Christianity.  He was the first theologian to write in Latin.  He was the first to come up with the idea of three separate and distinct natures of the one God.

The idea goes like this:

God is the Creator, Source, and the Eternal Transcendent One.  God is above and beyond human comprehension.  This God is universal to all human cultures and time, especially known to Israel as the God who acts to save, love and forgive.  In the awe of nature, the silence of prayer and the presence of another we encounter the God that is “over us”.

God is Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the ultimate revelation of this loving God of Creation.   Jesus was fully human and fully divine, the culmination of God’s saving acts.  Jesus’ resurrection from the dead not only offered his disciples the same promise of eternal life, but ushered in the Reign of God on earth.  Jesus is the incarnation of God in human form, one born like us, who would laugh and eat and cry like us, and who would die like us.  Jesus is God “with us”.

God is the Holy Spirit, unleashed because of Jesus.  The Holy Spirit is the divine spark in us all that makes us alive, makes us human.  The Holy Spirit binds each individual into the fellowship of the church empowering the individual and the church to service and loving kindness in this world.  The Holy Spirit is that “friend” and “comforter” (John 14:15-31) that shapes us, moves us and carries us through the hard times.  The Holy Spirit is God “in us”.

God over us.  God with us.  God in us.  That is the Trinity.

Just like an egg.  One egg, three substances.  Shell.  White.  Yoke.  One egg in three persons, blessed trinity!

This understanding of God was new to the Western world, which up until that time had worshipped many and different gods.

Personal monotheism was a radical notion.  It suggested that an individual could actually have a relationship with the One God, Creator of the universe and that the relationship was based on love.  It was an idea that turned the world upside down.  We may have lost just how important an idea it was.

For the writer of the gospel of Matthew it was much more than an idea.  It was the power and commission for the disciples of Jesus to change the world.  For the apostle Paul it was much more than a doctrine.  It was a lifestyle.  To the difficult and struggling church in Corinth he reminds them, in effect, “You’re not just anybody, you are the people of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!  Now live like it!” (II Cor 13:13).

What do we do with the reality of the love of God, the grace of Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit?  How does our church live out its commission to “go out into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit”?

A rose.  A beautiful thing, fragrant, colorful.  It reminds us of love, romance and perfection.

Yet a rose can be a difficult flower to grow.  It takes constant attention, maintenance and feeding.  It demands hours of time to nurture it just right.  For all that effort it only blooms two, or at most, three times a year.  The bloom itself must be protected and refrigerated before it goes bad and then its peak of beauty is only momentary, lasting but a few days.

When Rev. Bob Olmstead was pastor of First United Methodist Church in Palo Alto, he suggested that many of us see the church just like a rose.  A church is a sentimental place of memories and beauty.  It needs constant care and maintenance.  For many of us to be a Christian means to keep the church going, fixing up the buildings, keeping the programs as they have always been, making sure no changes threaten the warmth of our togetherness as a church family.

Those who see the church like a rose work very hard for it to shine two or three times a year; Christmas, Easter, maybe a family wedding or baptism.

Consider the lowly dandelion. 

This bloom is beautiful, too, in its own way.  Intricate and lacy.  It is nature’s favorite toy for children.  Poor folk have used it as a vegetable for centuries, with leaves high in vitamin C.  It is seemingly indestructible.   In spite of the best efforts devised by humanity, these things just keep popping up.  Everywhere.  At the slightest breeze, its seeds are carried to propagate more and more of these blooms.  It takes little care and maintenance to grow.  In fact, it grows on its own.  In some climates it grows all year.  It blooms all the time!

Pastor Olmstead suggested that not many of us see the church as a dandelion, but what if we did?

The church’s beauty would be seen in the way it makes children happy.  The way it can feed the poor.  The way it can survive even the most determined efforts to destroy it.

The church as the dandelion doesn’t exist to be cared for and maintained but to propagate itself everywhere and in every way.  Its beauty isn’t threaten by change but just the opposite, change unleashes the dandelion’s ability to spread itself throughout the world.

How do we see the church?  Like a rose or a dandelion?  Is our beauty to be shared mainly for our own enjoyment or to be spread on the winds, carried to very corner of our worlds?   Is our church threatened by change or does it find change an opportunity?

Matthew reports Jesus’ instructions to his followers shortly before he returns to heaven.  Our mission is to go and make disciples in all nations, baptizing them in the name of the triune God…Parent, Child and Spirit.

The mission of the church has never been to keep quiet.  Yet how many of us will share our faith with another at work or at school or within our own family?

We come here each week.  Something must compel us to be here, the music or the message or the fellowship of like-minded people.  Yet how many of us will invite a friend to come and experience what we find valuable enough to spend our Sunday mornings doing?

We have not come here to merely cope with the world and the difficulties of life, as important as that is.

We have not come here to maintain an institution.

We are here to change the world and ourselves.

Each week we sing and pray about “the Father, Son and Holy Spirit”.  We don’t recite these words merely because they are tradition.  We do so because our job upon leaving this beautiful room is to spread the word about the love of God, the grace of Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, much more like dandelions than roses.

We make disciples by being ones.

That means we can’t keep it to ourselves.

 

                                    Amen.