Reflections on "A Mystery" John1: 1-18; Romans 8: 12-17

Sunday began with a pastoral care that kept me from spending much fine tuning time on the sermon.  Fortunately, it had come together in my head pretty well, so it flowed together easily in the limited time I had Sunday.

I enjoyed this sermon.  The illustration about creation really added a lot to the sermon (thanks to one of you for that reference).  It was not new info to me, but I had not connected it with the sermon until I received the story reference.  

I probably could have done more with the image of mystery for our journeys.  The MASH illustration did not come to mind until Sunday morning, or I could have built more of the sermon around it.  Of course, I know I have used that illustration previously in a sermon, which makes me a bit uncomfortable (probably no one else remembers my using that story at an earlier time).

A final thought:  why did I preach a series on telling our stories in a Presbyterian Church (not FPC, Troy specifically, but Presbyterian churches in general), which is known for not telling its story!

“A Mystery” June 6, 2012; FPC, Troy, John 1: 1-18; Romans 8: 12-17

Introduction: We finish our sermon series on telling our story – that is, God's story and our story and how they intersect – we finish by being reminded of the the mystery of it all.

Appropriately, today is Trinity Sunday, the Sunday we are reminded that we follow a God who is both three persons and one. A mystery in and of itself!

Move 1: Mysterious God.

a. The God we meet in the Old Testament stories is mysterious in an awesome sort of way.

1. The Israelites dared not utter God's name, so awesome was God.
2. To see God's face would mean death.
3. Only select people could be in conversation with God.

b. In the New Testament, we come to know God in the flesh, in the person of Jesus Christ.

1. But even that personal nature of God is a mystery.
2. How do we explain that Christ is fully human and fully God.
3. Or better yet, how do we understand the Holy Spirit.
4. The passage from the Gospel of John strongly reminds us that Christ was there with God at the beginning; that Christ came to live among us; but, John does not solve the mystery.
5. Paul tries to explain to the Romans about God and the Holy Spirit. We read about how we become children of God by the power of the Spirit, but I”m not sure that really solves the mystery.

100. How do you imagine God in three persons?

1. Perhaps you read the book the Shack (written by William Young). If so, you may remember the way the author depicts the Triune (as an aside, my spell check does not acknowledge the existence of the word Triune) God. Young depicts the Father as an African-American woman called Papa; Jesus as a Middle Eastern man who wears a tool belt; and the Holy Spirit as an Asian woman named Sarayu, who gardens and collects tears.
2. When Mackenzie, the main character, first meets these unlikely members of the Trinity, he asks, “Which one of you is God.” “I am,” said all three in unison. Mack looked from one to the next, and even though he couldn’t being to grasp what he was seeing and hearing, he somehow believed them” (87).

3. My guess is we may have strong image of Jesus (probably driven by the pictures of him we have seen); maybe some sense of God, the Father (again driven by our image of Father); maybe not much of an image of the holy Spirit (hard to visualize God as tongues of fire or blowing winds).

God as mystery.

Move 2: Our story is a mystery

a. We never fully understand our story.

1. Surprises along the way.
2. Decisions we make that lead to new chapters.
3. Even when we look back over what has happened, we often have changing understandings of what took place.
4. Our stories are mysteries.

b. art of the challenge is we do not know what tomorrow will bring.

1. MASH story: reading a mystery novel, but the last page is torn out of the novel.
2. Everyone tries to figure out how the book might end.
3. Even call the author, who gives them an answer, but one they can disprove.
4. They never figure out who did what to whom.
5. Our story unfolds as mystery.

Move 2: We do know that we are in it together.

a. one of you sent me an article this week that reminded me of a truth we encounter every time we read Genesis, but one we typically gloss over.

1. “The Genesis account does not say “Let me make humankind in my own image, but let us make human ind in our own image according to our likeness.” This is not a “me” God, but a “we” God. God from the beginning is, not God as bad math, but God as community.
2. The Triune nature of God assures that God is in fellowship with God’s self. In the Beginning is Creator, Word and Spirit all co-mingling to bring forth creation. Here God creates communally. “Some Thoughts on the Holy Trinity”

by Nadia Bolz-Weber 06-01-2012 | 12:58pm, http://sojo.net/blogs/2012/06/01/some-thoughts-holy-trinity/ Sojourners blog: God's Politics

b. By definition, the God we follow is relational, is about community.

1. Our story is not only our story, but it is connected to God's story.

2. It is connected to the stories of those people who are around us.

3. We do not live out our stories in isolation.

4. To be made in the image of God in three persons means to be made to be in relationship.

Our story is a shared story.

Move 4: Possibilities

a. Lillian Daniel (UCC minister and writer about the plight of the church in the United States,)

1. “spiritual but not religious is really boring; anyone can find God in the sunset; the challenge is to find God in a community that sees God differently than I do.”
   b. Father, Son and Holy Spirit

1. God who creates.
2. God who Redeems us in Jesus Christ.
3. God who is continually working on us and for us as we are swept away to new places by the power of the Holy Spirit.
4. 4. that ought to be pretty exciting.

100. I was reading an author recently who wrote about trying to write novel. About how he created a character whose life ended up getting so completely boxed in that the there was no place to go in the story, so the author had to throw out the novel.
     1. Our Trinitarian God ensures that our story never has to be thrown out – there is always another possibility.
     2. Perhaps the reason we see the mystery in God is that we do not have the words or the life experience to capture God fully. God is always beyond our limitations.

Conclusion: when will your story end? How will the last sentence be written? No one knows. But, we know that God the creator, God the redeemer and God the will be with us whenever it is written.