“And remember, I am with
you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew
28:20)
Greetings in the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit. Since it’s Holy Trinity Sunday I thought I’d begin
with a Trinitarian salutation. To be honest, however, I don’t really feel much
like discussing the doctrine of the Trinity today, however vital it is to our
understanding of the Christian faith. A great Lutheran theologian, John
Tietjen, once said that theology is at the service of ministry. One way of
understanding this is to say what we understand about God serves to teach us
how to live righteously with one another.
I don’t have to tell you we’ve seen some
very unpleasant things this past week in America. For me, it’s a case of deja vu. I lived and worked in Los
Angeles during the riots of ’92—yet another case of racial injustice which
convulsed a city and a nation with the force of a Howitzer shell. I can still
smell the stench from the burning buildings. I vividly recall the sight of
smoke, smashed store windows, and—something I’d never thought I’d see in the US—National
Guard troops with M16s patrolling the streets near the school wear I taught. The
tragedy is that after almost three decades
nothing seems to have changed.
I think, too, about Martin Luther and the
Peasants’ War of 1524. Luther sympathized with the circumstances of the peasantry
and argued for their rights against their oppressors. Nevertheless, he decried
their use of violence in their attempts to gain their freedoms. He encouraged
the brutality with which the German princes suppressed the revolt—a military
action which resulted in the massacre of nearly 100,000 human beings. This episode
is an ugly stain on the history of our denomination and its founder. Mass violence
is not an option for a Christian.
But neither is despair.
It is certainly natural that we should all
feel somewhat violated by the recent events in Philadelphia and across the
nation. Seeing massive destruction on the streets of a city we love is like
seeing our child, parent, or sibling viciously attacked and maimed by a mugger.
It wounds us. It’s possible we may
question God at times like these when the suffocation of a pandemic is
compounded with injustice, thuggery, and mayhem. In the assigned Gospel lesson
for Holy Trinity (Matt. 28: 16-20) we see that even Jesus’ disciples had their doubts in the very midst of worshiping him
(v.17). Why should any of us be any different?
All the same, the promise of Jesus, “I am
with you always,” stands sure. Evil can make us fear, but it cannot make us hate. It can begin a cycle of violence,
but it cannot sustain that cycle. It can steal or destroy our precious
possessions and damage our memories, but it cannot rob us of hope. It can shut
us up in our homes for a time, but it cannot invalidate our baptism or snatch
away our identity as the redeemed children of the Creator God. There are things
evil just doesn’t have the power to do unless we are willing to give it that power.
Sometimes it’s hard to see God at work.
Sometimes we see no progress, but then we forget that it took almost 300 years
for an oppressed, vilified Christianity to become a recognized and accepted
religion. God’s time is not our time, and God’s vantage point is not ours
either. We may be stuck on the ground unable to see past the present chaos, but
from God’s viewpoint, the boundaries of our tribulations have already been set.
We are here to strengthen our souls by choosing faith over fear, hope over
despair, and love over anger.
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