Reading, Sermon and Prayers for Trinity Sunday

READING – John Ch16 v 12 – 15

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

SERMON for Trinity Sunday 2022

Open our ears O Lord to hear your word and know your voice, speak to our hearts and strengthen our wills that we may serve you today and always. Amen

In 1492 people told Christopher Columbus that he was a fool to think that the earth was round and that there were lands past the western horizon. We know that Columbus was right and that America was there all along, but there are people today who still dispute that the earth is round. The Flat Earth Society has a confidence that the spherical shape of the earth is an optical illusion and that the majority of people on this planet have been fooled onto thinking otherwise. In fact Simon’s late father subscribed to the theory right up until his death.

Now I don’t know about you, but I have a strong idea that the earth is round and that God made it that way for a purpose, how can this world of ours spin if it is flat? Wouldn’t it be like a discus skimming across the universe in a strange way until it came to rest on the outer reaches of the Milky Way? And if all the other planets are spherical then I believe that ours is too.

Columbus in his conviction that the world was round changed it forever. The powers that ruled the earth took no persuading as the gifts that came from the far off lands were plentiful and bountiful. Vegetables that we now take for granted like potatoes, maze, coffee, tomatoes and of course tobacco. The riches of the new world were gold and jewels beyond our imagining and this country became rich from pirating the Spanish plunder of the indigenous people of South America. Europe became rich and powerful, and the words of Jesus fell upon the people of other lands, and very often it was at the point of a sword.

If Columbus had defied all logic and reason then a few centuries before a carpenter from an obscure Palestinian province had shattered the minds of his day and even the Roman Empire to a billion pieces. In 1492 the world changed, there was no going back to how it was before.

1500 years previously the world changed and there was no going back then either. There is a saying that ‘All change comes from God, therefore all change is good’. This to some of us may be quite challenging, but we only need to look at todays Gospel reading to see that Jesus, himself was a big catalyst for change in the way he encounters people and utilises his parables to change hearts and minds.

During Jesus’ life Jerusalem was the religious centre of the Jewish world, we British worshiped numerous Earth Gods, God’s of rivers and valleys, of rocks and hills. Druids painted themselves blue as they worshipped Coventina the Goddess of wells and springs and Sucellos the God of love and time. The Roman Empire encouraged the worship of Caesar as a living God along with deities such as Diana, Goddess of the Moon and Plutus the God of wealth. Yet Jerusalem stood firm in the Jewish belief of the one God, the God of Abraham.

However everything wasn’t as it should be with them and their faith and doctrine. The scriptures from the prophets of old had proclaimed that a saviour would come and deliver them from the hands of their oppressors. Yet when the Messiah faces them head on they still do not recognise him, but this was also written in scripture. They also believed the Old Testament teachings regarding the gentiles and expected that the nations would come from ‘outside’ to Jerusalem as the centre of the world, but Jesus tells his disciples the opposite, that it will begin in Jerusalem.

Jesus in the gospel is uncompromising, yet there is also an essence of ambiguity in what he is saying. As he speaks to his select band of followers, he is trying to illuminate their lives with the vision of the Holy Spirit, hence the ambiguity. We find it difficult to pin an accurate description on something that is an essence and esoteric and here we find Jesus drifting from the storytelling into the world of philosophy. He changed tac. We can only assume that this is perhaps a desire or calling by Jesus to speak and engage with the wider world rather than just the Jews. A change is coming and Jesus knew as he spoke that the empowerment the Holy Spirit would give the nations would be seismic, an unstoppable force of God in nature.

It’s easy to say all change is good and it’s easy to say that we should accept it as a matter of faith, but we all know that change can be very painful, even the disciples must have been apprehensive with the change that Jesus caused in their lives when he rose from the dead. They knew they would be persecuted for their beliefs and we know that most of them were killed for proclaiming Christ’s message. And I think that when they first heard Jesus call them on the banks of Lake Galilee, they never imagined that their world would change in that way.

There must be aspects of our faith, our lives and even worship that we feel uncomfortable with and would change if we could. I love singing and I became a church chorister at the age of eight. I disliked the robes and the wheezing, coughing organ. My life and faith has taken me on a road where I now wear robes of a different kind, but I still don’t like the organ.

As human beings, when we are faced with change we very often react in a negative, thoughtless and defensive way, but as Christians we should pray and ask for God’s guidance. We are wise to take time to reflect and listen to what God is saying to us. We can then change and adjust to where God wants us to be. There is no disgrace in changing ideas as long as we do it for the common good and through the grace of God and we are wise to try and embrace it as an opportunity to grow as the disciples did when the Holy Spirit fell upon them.

The origins of our faith come from the Jewish tradition. There were 100’s of Jews who believed in Jesus and the cult of Christianity grew out of their change of heart for Jesus. We only need to think of St Paul on the road to Damascus to understand that change does come from God, sometimes with a blinding light and resonance, sometimes with a kind word and a prayer.

I am always reminded of the Israelites in a kind of despair as they wander aimlessly in the wilderness. A change has happened in their life, they have been taken from their homes, albeit in Egypt under an oppressive regime, but they have been brought out of what they would have considered home and normality and are now stranded in the desert and Moses, the man they trusted and who they hoped would liberate them goes up a mountain and returns with what seems, to them an impossible set of ‘the rules’.

The Israelites begin to doubt and the only way that they can counteract their despair and anxiety in these doubts is to revert to type… singing, partying and dancing and defying change. They try to banish, challenge and stay safe in what they know; believing it will make them happy and that the false god they build and worship will rescue them, because the God of Abraham and Moses hasn’t…yet!

In life we too can lose sight of goals and objectives, as the Israelites did until Moses aided by God brought their focus back to reality and the mission in hand. However as Christians we have Jesus to help us focus on our mission and bring us back when we are fearful of change and stray from the path God has set for us. We are luckier than the Israelites because we have Jesus by our side constantly and recognise the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Israelites were fearful because their relationship with God only existed through Moses. Ours exists through the very human and tangible presence of Jesus Christ.

In 1492 as I have mentioned before, the world was about to change, not just with Columbus’ voyage, but with Christendoms greatest offering to the world. The Renaissance. The philosophical language of Christ as he spoke of the Holy Spirit was about to ignite the greatest positive Christian movement in Europe. We move from the fear of God in the medieval period, doom laden Black Death ridden crusader wars to an enlightened stage, not witnessed since classical Greece. God walking amongst mankind with the Holy Spirit inspiring initiative, invention and creative beauty.

Christopher Columbus when he travelled towards the edge of the world was looking for a new trade route to India, the place where, the doubting disciple,Thomas had been centuries before. The voyage was called the voyage into Paradise. The vision the medieval world had of this trade route was of a land of milk and honey at the end of it, not dissimilar to the vision the children of Israel had of Canaan.

When Columbus finally reached the ‘New World’ it wasn’t paradise and when the Israelites crossed over the Jordan into Canaan that wasn’t paradise either.

Through Jesus Christ’s teachings and inspiration in our lives we are offered the only real paradise in the form of salvation, forgiveness and everlasting life in the Kingdom of heaven. His love and compassion is steadfast through all the changes we can endure, there is no need for a false god or false paradise. Amen

Ann Hilton
Licensed Lay Reader St Wilfrid’s & St Thomas

PRAYERS FOR TRINITY SUNDAY

Trinity Sunday teaches us about the oneness of God in his three forms of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Let us then Pray to our God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for the Church and for the world.

One God, three Persons, be near to the people of the world formed in your image, close to the world your love brings to life. We remember all who bear the responsibility of leadership, for heads of state, ambassadors and political advisers; let your will for our world be accomplished through the decisions they make and give them a vision of peace and reconciliation for you Lord.