On this holy day, when we are encouraged to be in awe of God- the 3-in-one and 1-in-3, I am going to engage in a double prerogative- the prerogative of the preacher to stray from the texts and the prerogative of the birthday celebrant to do what she wants. Explaining the scriptures is very important to me, and I also believe our testimonies are significant as well. I cannot explain the how of the Trinity to you. The only answer to how is, “I don’t know.” As for why, I can either say- God’s business is God’s business or I can tell you that God is bigger than our understanding, our comprehension, our imagination and can only be glimpsed- ever so fleetingly- through awe. Yet, I believe in God and how God chooses to show God’s self. Theology, studying God, is only useful if it actually helps us in our daily lives. I want to share aspects of my testimony, my theology, and what I believe with you today. Here is my statement of faith for this Holy Trinity Sunday on the occasion of my 41st
Lent 4, Year B Joshua 5:9-12** This week I spent a few hours on the phone with two different companies, trying to use a credit I received from a flight that was cancelled in March 2020. These were frustrating hours, made more complicated by the grief they brought up in me. In early March 2020, I was supposed to go to Texas to see some friends. We were going to laugh, run a 5K, go to the spa, and visit a pickle festival. Several of the friends are Episcopalian clergy. We began to wonder if we needed to cancel the trip when word of a new coronavirus, COVID-19, began to spread. And then a co-worker of one of the priests was found to have this illness, brought back from a clergy conference in another state. The trip was cancelled. At the time, the airlines said too bad. Much later, they decided to issue credits for scheduled flights and, thus, I found myself trying to apply that credit this week to a future trip, only to get a run-around and to experience grief all over again. Grief