Pr. Joseph Crippen

God’s essence is a relationship of grace, love, and communion, which then is the essence of the whole universe, and our promise and joy is that we also live in this relationship.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Holy Trinity, year A
Texts: 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Genesis 1:1 – 2:4

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Grace. Love. Communion. That’s it.

That’s all you need to know about the Triune God. Not Greek philosophical terms or centuries of systematic theology attempting to define the boundaries of who and what God is, no driving out those people whose definitions don’t fit.

Just grace. Love. And communion.

Only twenty years after the resurrection, Paul blessed his friends in the Corinthian church with these words that say everything: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”

Are with all of you.

And that’s enough. It’s all you and I and the world need to know about God.

Grace starts it all.

In Jesus we meet the grace of God in person, in our own humanity. And, as Jesus himself taught us, if we know Jesus, we know God.

In Jesus, God-with-us, is endless grace, constant forgiveness, welcome for all who stray. Jesus, God-with-us, entered our life, our suffering and death, loving us even when we rejected God’s love. Everything Jesus taught, commanded, called us into, is wrapped in this grace.

We couldn’t have imagined such grace. Only the Triune God could show it in person, embodied in the Son of God.

And this grace brings you to the love of God.

The cross of Christ as the Scriptures actually show it leads to the certainty that the center of the heart of the Triune God is love.

The idea that God needed a substitute for punishment, needed appeasement, had a wrath that couldn’t be quenched except by death, just doesn’t hold up in Scripture. It’s not the grace Jesus revealed, nor the truth Paul proclaimed so powerfully.

The grace of Christ Jesus fully reveals the undying, self-sacrificing love of the Triune God for you, for me, for the creation. This is how much I love you, God says at the cross. I will die to show the universe my love. To draw all things back into my heart.

The grace of Christ Jesus leads you to the love of the Creator for you. You are beloved of God. All creation is.

And in God’s Spirit we share this grace and love in a communion with God.

The grace of the Son, which led you to the heart of the one Jesus called Father, now joins you into God’s life with the communion of the Holy Spirit.

In the Holy Spirit, God’s new life that gives birth in you and in the world is a life of relationship, communion with and in God, shaped by this grace and this love the Triune God has poured out on the world.

Because grace, love, and communion can only exist in relationship.

You can’t have grace by yourself. Grace can only be received and given in relationship. You can’t know love by yourself. Love can only be received and given in relationship. And communion, by definition, is relationship. You don’t have communion by yourself.

So God exists as relationship: the Creator, the Word, the Spirit, all present before the dawn of time, as we prayed today, all at creation, all still living and moving in the world. Grace. Love. Communion. In an ancient dance between the Three, a relationship that makes God one.

And into that relationship, Paul blesses you and me. “The God of grace and love and communion is with you,” Paul says. Paul claims you and I are blessed to be in God’s divine dance, in the relationship that is grace, love, and communion.

But relationships are challenging, even though they give life.

Relationship means risk and vulnerability. At the cross, the heart of God’s self-revelation, the Triune God is chiefly known to us not as Almighty but as All-vulnerable. To be in relationship with God and each other is to be open to being wounded, to risk for the other. The cross is not only where we find life, it is, as always, the path we walk to live the joy of abundant life in relationship with God and each other and the creation.

Relationship also always involves responsibility for the other. The Scriptures tell us that God’s love for us and the creation is so great God cannot walk away. Will not walk away. No matter how angry, frustrated, disappointed God might be, God’s love means God stays with us. God is responsible for us.

If God, or the other person, or part of creation isn’t related to me, I don’t have to be responsible for it. But once you matter to me, and I to you, once we belong to God and each other and the creation, all things matter. All creation matters and belongs. All our suffering neighbors matter and belong. That’s why we’re responsible for each other, for our neighbors, for this creation.

Grace. Love. Communion. That’s all you need to know.

The deeper mysteries of God’s nature, how the Trinity exists within Godself, we can never know.

But that this Triune God is with you and me and all creation in astonishing grace and infinite love, calling you and me to communion with God, with each other, with the creation, that’s everything this world needs to come to God’s healing and life.

And it’s enough. It’s more than enough.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen

This is a day we remember that the Holy Spirit is alive and active in all the world, in all God’s creatures, and bringing life to all, outside our control (thank goodness) and renewing the creation.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Day of Pentecost, year A
Texts: Numbers 11:24-30; Psalm 104:24-34, 35b; Acts 2:1-21; John 7:37-39

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

There’s a worrying glitch in today’s Pentecost-like moment from the book of Numbers.

Moses is exhausted from leading the people and God, who called Moses to this leadership, offers a solution. Moses will choose seventy trusted elders and gather them, and then, God says, “I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them.” (11:17).

Great, but a problem emerges. Two of the seventy either missed the memo about gathering at the tent of meeting, or were having a leisurely breakfast, and stayed in the camp. But the Holy Spirit followed the list, and breathed into Eldad and Medad just as into the other sixty-eight, and they also prophesied. But . . . in the camp. A breathless runner told Moses, and Joshua indignantly said Moses should shut them down.

Moses wisely knows two things. First, God’s Spirit is above his pay grade. If the Holy Spirit has breathed on these two, Moses can’t control that. And Moses also realizes he’s not threatened by this. This sending of the Spirit was meant to help Moses, and he expansively says, “would that all God’s people were prophets, and that God’s spirit would be put on them!”

But there is something strange in this episode.

It almost sounds like the Holy Spirit is a limited commodity. Moses has a full share of the Spirit. Now some of that Spirit will be taken from him and given to others. So there’s only so much Spirit of God to go around?

There’s other evidence of this in Scripture. Elisha, the successor of Elijah, strangely asks for a “double portion” of the Spirit of God Elijah had, so he can inherit Elijah’s role. (2 Kings 2) And the Hebrews did see some people as clearly having God’s Spirit, but not everyone. Kings, prophets, are regularly described as having the Spirit of God, or, as in Saul’s case, even having the Spirit taken from them.

And then our Gospel seems to imply a limited presence of the Spirit, too: Jesus has the Spirit, but here John says the others don’t yet. Luke is similar. In his Gospel, Jesus is filled with the Spirit to do all he does. In Acts the parallel is now it’s the believers who’ve received the Spirit and do amazing things.

So, on this Day of Pentecost, are we to believe that either the Spirit is in limited supply, or that until somehow a person is given the Spirit, they are Spirit-free?

Not in the least. Since we read the whole of Scripture, we know better.

We know that in Genesis 1 God’s Spirit is already there, filling the creation, blowing over the face of the water. In the Pentecost story, Peter quotes the prophet Joel that God will pour out the Spirit on all people of all kinds. Other prophets say similar things.

Jesus himself, in John 3, speaks to Nicodemus of the Holy Spirit as a present reality. Like the wind, Jesus says, you can’t see the Spirit directly but you can see where she’s been. And Jesus invites Nicodemus to be born of water and the Spirit. There’s no limited commodity here for Jesus. Air and wind are everywhere, and so is the Holy Spirit. And if the Spirit is everywhere, you’re never not in the Spirit’s presence.

So today we celebrate the “coming” of the Spirit.

But, given the witness of Scripture, Pentecost is not the first arrival of the Holy Spirit among the believers. It is a critical moment when they saw evidence of her (and Luke says they literally heard wind!) In this moment they had undeniable evidence of the Spirit in their lives, through language, fire, sound of wind. But the Spirit was always with them, even before.

So, when I lay hands on someone’s head at their baptism and pray that they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, I’m not arrogantly claiming that until this moment this child of God wasn’t filled with the Spirit. I’m simply naming the promise, calling on the Triune God to keep that promise, and asking directly that the Holy Spirit fill and sustain this beloved one. Even though the Spirit already and always has been filling and sustaining them. Even though there was never a time they weren’t God’s child.

But there’s one more thing about the Spirit the Scriptures are clear about.

Not only is God’s Spirit moving in all everywhere, we have no control over the Spirit in any way.

Moses taught us this. The Holy Spirit is way above our pay grade. And sorry, Joshua, but no amount of indignation is going to help. The Spirit will and does move among all God’s children wherever and whenever she wants. Jesus has invited us to look for the evidence, and says we’ll be able to see it. And Pentecost reminds us that we can ask for the Spirit to come as a way of claiming the same promise and filling that happened in those first believers on this amazing day.

What we do today, and all days, is name the Spirit when we see her working, and rejoice.

We rejoice in this spectacular moment in the early Church.

We rejoice for this day when we do see the Spirit at work among us, in Elena and Lucy, and in our midst, reminding us that the world is not abandoned. That even as we see the Spirit here today, feel her breath, the joy of God in this service, we know she is moving throughout the world for healing and hope.

We rejoice in the psalmist’s promise, joining Joel, Moses, and Jesus, that, as we sang, all creatures look to God for life and sustenance and God sends forth the Spirit, and all are created anew, and the face of the earth is renewed.

And we rejoice, you rejoice, that you are never alone in this world. No one is. God’s Spirit is as near to you as your heart, as near to the world as the hearts of all God’s beloved children.

So let us pray.

Come, Holy Spirit. Even though we know you are always here, still we say, Come, Holy Spirit. Fill our hearts and lives with your strength, your courage, your joy, and give us faith, that we might be your flame of hope in the shadows of this world, until all is made new. In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

We don’t need to look to heaven to find God’s clarity, God’s presence, God’s guidance: the reign of God is in you and me and here it is on earth as it is in heaven.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Seventh Sunday of Easter, year A
Texts: John 17:1-11; Acts 1:6-14

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

There’s a lot of looking up to heaven in our readings today.

The women and men who climbed the Mount of Olives with Jesus only to see him ascend just stand in place, looking “up to heaven.” Until a couple angelic-looking folks in white robes chide them.

And Jesus, the night of his betrayal, after three chapters of teaching, encouragement, commandment, exhortation following the footwashing and meal, “looked up to heaven,” John says, and began to pray.

They’re two very different ways of looking. The disciples are looking up to heaven because that’s the last place they saw Jesus. They look up because with Jesus they had answers to their life. They knew God’s presence. They had direction and guidance and a purpose. And now, just as they’ve gotten used to having him back, he’s left them.

But Jesus is looking to heaven in prayer to complete his work of bringing heaven to earth.

This prayer in John 17 is all about the unity of God with us. Jesus prays of his oneness, as God’s Son, with the Father, the First Person. He’s already promised to send the Holy Spirit. But now Jesus specifically prays that the unity of the Triune God’s life be extended to us, that we’ll be brought into the intimate heart of the Triune God. Will be one with God, as God is one. Right here and now, on earth. As in heaven.

So we don’t need to look to heaven for answers.

These first believers shared our anxiety and confusion about life, about the world, our worry about injustice and oppression that was beyond their ability to fix. About things that felt beyond their comprehension or coping. And Jesus helped them find answers, was God’s wisdom and clarity in anxiety or confusion.

But Jesus promised that we would not be orphaned. That the Advocate, the Spirit, would come and teach us what we need to know when we need to know it. He said there were things we might not be able to handle right now but as we live in Christ, the Spirit would keep showing us new things.

We have the same gift the first believers did – the Spirit of Christ with us, helping our understanding and clearing our confusion. We don’t need to look to heaven for answers when the Triune God is with us here.

And we don’t need to look to heaven for God’s presence.

That Jesus ascended away from them must have been a shock and a sadness to that little group. He was God’s presence for them. Being with him made them know God, feel God in their lives. Jesus said, if you know me, you know my Father already.

But Jesus promised that we would not be orphaned. He said “I am with you always, to the end of all time.” He said, “don’t let your hearts be troubled or afraid. The Holy Spirit is coming to you and will be in you.” That’s Christ’s gift: God is as near to you as your heart. Even when you can’t always feel God, as we learned last week. The Spirit lives and moves and breathes in you, and in God you live and move and have your being.

We have the same gift the first believers did – the Spirit of Christ with us, God in our hearts and lives. We don’t need to look to heaven for God when the Triune God is with us here.

And we don’t need to look to heaven for guidance, for purpose.

As hard as it was for them to follow, to get it right, and not make mistakes – and they made plenty – those women and men who first followed Jesus at least had him there to guide them. To invite them to a path of love of God and love of neighbor. To call them to their purpose in life. They knew why they were created and what they were created for, and if they struggled with that, Jesus would help them see again.

But Jesus promised that we would not be orphaned. He said that the same Spirit who fills us with God’s presence and clears our confusion will also guide and direct us. And he left all his teachings to shape that guidance and direction. Love God and love your neighbor. Love your enemies. Feed Christ’s sheep. Tend the flock. Be Christ’s presence in your life. And what that means for you, how that looks, the Spirit will give you. Always.

We have the same gift the first believers did – the Spirit of Christ with us, showing us the way to walk, our purpose as Christ in the world. We don’t need to look to heaven for guidance and direction when the Triune God is with us here.

“Why do you stand there, looking up at heaven?” we’re asked. “God is here with you.”

You pray this prayer as often as you pray anything, that God’s reign include you and that God’s reign will come “on earth as in heaven.” That God’s will will be done “on earth as in heaven.”

Every moment, every day, every breath. Every thought, every action. All are lived in God, who lives in you. Who clears up confusion. Who is present in every thing you are and know. Who guides and leads you.

So when you do finally get to heaven, living in Christ’s great promise of life with God after you die, it will be familiar ground, beloved territory, because you’ve been living in heaven with God here on earth, and have been God’s blessing to bring heaven to earth for the people you’ve loved and served and cared for.

You are not alone in this world. No one is. And in that heavenly truth, you will find abundant life here, on earth.

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen