John 16:12-15

[Jesus said] "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you."

There has been a daily countdown in the Stamper household for the past few weeks. As of Friday afternoon, the countdown reached “4.” As in, only four days left of school for my oldest son, Nolan. Four days until summer break.

With the school year almost over, I asked Nolan to reflect on what he appreciates, remembers, and learned in the course of the year. He talked about friendships with classmates, how excited he is that he can read almost everything we put in front of him, how he really likes math, and how disappointed he is when he can’t play basketball during recess because another class is always out there already and doesn’t share.

I’m grateful to have a child who is capable of reflection. This has been a point of emphasis in our parenting style. We started early by seeking to identify his emotions and teach him their names, which would often result in humorous experiences like when he would scream at us as a toddler and we would look at him and say, “Oh, you’re so mad!” Exchanges like this taught him a vocabulary that allows him to express himself. Also, he knows that every day when I take him home I ask him to describe his day and that every night we gather as a family and take turns sharing our highs and lows from the day.

He doesn’t always wax poetic about his experience of life. He's as likely to mumble a response as any other kid. And when we ask him “How was school today?” Nine times out of ten he’ll reply “good.” But we persist, because we know that reflection yields wisdom and empathy. And relationships are enriched by our ability to put our reflections into words and actions.

But not all words are equal. By themselves, nouns are pretty much useless for reflection. Imagine this conversation:
Q: “How was school today?”
A: Pencil, friends, recess, teacher, book, math.

Adjectives, by themselves are a little better.
Q: “How was school today?”
A: Good, fine, exciting, stressful,
Unfortunately, this is where most of our reflection and expression stops.

Where things get really exciting, though – where the truth really comes out – are our action words – verbs.
Q: “How was school today?”
A: We laughed, I studied, we played, I learned

Paying attention to the ways we use words to describe our experiences is helpful on days like today when our focus is on the Holy Trinity – the foundation of Christian faith.

The Holy Trinity, as described by nouns, is pretty much useless for reflection:
The Holy Trinity is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three in One and One in Three.

The Holy Trinity, as described by adjectives, is only a little better:
The Holy Trinity is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; they are related and connected; distinct from one another yet equal to one another.

The Holy Trinity, as described by verbs, gets to the heart of the matter. In fact, one of the earliest ways of speaking about and understanding the Trinity was the word perichoresis , meaning, the divine dance (from the Latin roots peri- around and choreo - where we get the word choreography). Using the action words we begin to see that…
The Holy Trinity is what flows under, around, and through all things – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit divinely dancing. The Holy Trinity is what we enter into as God’s beloved creation; our participation in the flow and divine dance enables us to be generous, serve others, and experience connection, harmony, and love.

Relationship, connection, energy, generosity, and love are at the core of Holy Trinity. Because the Trinity is the foundation of our faith, that means relationship, connection, energy, generosity, and love are available to us and can shape our entire faith and involvement in the world. The Holy Trinity invites our participation. It forces us to be active. It makes our faith a verb.

The Holy Trinity is the foundation of our faith; but unfortunately, not much has changed since 1970 when Jesuit priest Karl Rahner indicated (in his book, Trinity) that Christians could drop the doctrine of the trinity tomorrow and most Christian literature, practice, and devotion would remain virtually unchanged.

One could argue, as many theologians are, that the normal Christian image of God is still pagan; that is, Zeus – a man with a white beard sitting in a throne, getting involved in worldly affairs only once in a while (either when he is asked enough times or when he feels like it), sometimes with lightning bolts at the ready.

It is a false and destructive path for Christians to profess the divinity of Jesus Christ yet continue to think of God as an individual who passes judgment and destruction, promising good things to only those who tow the line. If we believe that God sits on a throne and passes judgment, we will model our life around this belief.

If, on the other hand, we believe God is in relationship, dancing, flowing, energizing the everything from the grass of the field to the cells of our bodies, then how amazing it would be for us to model our life around this belief. Perhaps we would choose grace over judgment, peace over pain, relationship over isolation, forgiveness over self-righteousness, and action over ignorance.

For a Christian Church that professes and worships the Holy Trinity, nouns are pretty much useless:
building, committee, pastor, bulletin, hymn, band, wine.

For a Christian Church that professes and worships the Holy Trinity adjectives are only a little better:
good, nice, welcoming, inclusive, entertaining, nurturing

For a Christian Church that professes and worships the Holy Trinity, verbs get to the heart of the matter:
We who are caught up in the divine flow of the Holy Trinity worship, learn, serve, pray, proclaim, love, hold, and forgive.

Our challenge today is to reflect on the true nature of the Holy Trinity in which we place our trust and gain our strength – a creating God the Father, a redemptive Christ, and a life-giving Holy Spirit, each one united in a divine dance of relationship, connection, energy, generosity, and love. The Trinity calls us out of isolation and apathy and invites us to participate in the verbs of our faith so that all may join in the divine dance.

Amen.

John 14:8-17

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

A friend of mine from college – a recently widowed mother of three – ranted on Facebook a month or so ago about being scolded by another parent for letting her 10 year-old daughter walk 6 blocks home by herself. They live in a small city, just outside of Columbus, Ohio, called Grandview Heights. It is a far cry from a hotbed of crime, and her daughter was used to navigating the streets of London (the UK London) since that’s where they lived until just last year. So her rant was about the culture of fear in which we live, and a reaction against the readiness with which too many of us jump to criticize the parenting styles and choices of others.

Last week, I read an interesting blog about the modern-day phenomenon known as “helicopter parenting.” “Helicopter parenting,” I suspect you’ve heard, is the tendency for parents to hover – some would say in unhealthy, unhelpful ways – over the lives of their children, in order to protect them from getting hurt; to keep them from making bad choices; to shield them from everything from existential failure to hurt feelings and skinned knees.

I’ve heard about dads willing to pull strings so their kid will be sure to make the team. I’ve heard of moms who do their child’s homework. I’ve even heard of parents who call directors of Human Resources in Fortune 100 companies to go over the performance evaluations of their grown, adult, professional children. Again, it’s all about unnatural, unhealthy, impossible attempts, really, to shield kids from getting hurt or experiencing adversity or having to struggle in any way. And, to be fair, it’s much easier to see in the actions and attitudes of someone else, than it is to see when we look in the mirror.

Anyway, it may seem strange, but all of it made me think about our confirmation kids and about today’s Gospel about Philip, “the Advocate” Jesus promises, and the business of Pentecost Sunday.

One way to talk about Pentecost is to call it the birthday of the church. We celebrate it 50 days after Easter’s resurrection, to coincide with why the disciples gathered in Jerusalem at that time back in the day – the Jewish Festival of Weeks, which marked the end of the Passover. While they were gathered, as we just heard, some crazy stuff happened – there was a sound like the rush of wind; there were tongues of fire; they started speaking in languages they didn’t know they knew; things were so strange and crazy, people out on the streets thought they were drunk.

Not long before, of course, Jesus had left them to their own devices, you might say. He was gone again, and they were wondering what to do next…how to carry on, how to tell the story, answer the call, how to share the Good News, how to continue on the Way of faith, and so on, without their leader at the helm. It may have felt like Jesus had left them to walk The Way, without any guidance, or support, or encouragement, or care. Like the opposite of a helicopter parent, Jesus left whatever was to be next, up to the disciples; his followers; his friends and family; the ones he referred to as “little children.”

But how dare he, really?! These who had proven to be so flawed and faithless so much of the time, were all of a sudden left to carry on with the ministry of bringing God’s kingdom of love and mercy and justice and peace to bear upon the world as they knew it? How could he, really, have expected that to fly? How could they, really, have expected to be up to the challenge of all of that?

And doesn’t it feel that way, still, so much of the time?

There is so much wrong with the Church in the world today – so much evil “done and left undone” in the name of Jesus and God and faith and religion – it’s tempting to just want God to hover, to hold our hand, to shield, protect, guide, and choose for us at every turn, so that we’ll stop screwing things up the way we’re so inclined to do. And so that this kingdom we long for – full of grace and mercy and peace, and more – will just come to pass, already. But it’s clear, our God is no “helicopter Father,” as it were.

And while God doesn’t hover, or helicopter, or whatever, God does not leave us abandoned altogether, either.

We aren’t alone. We aren’t left, entirely, to our own devices. We are flawed and faithless, too much of the time, just like those first disciples. God knows we will suffer and struggle. There will be trials and hardships that cut as deeply as anything we fear for our kids: We will not make the team and we will not get the job. We will fail the test and we will fail in our relationships. We will hurt others and we will be hurt, ourselves. We will get sick and lose loved ones, and lose hope, and lose faith, and lose our way, from time to time.

And, like Philip, we will long for proof of something more. “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied. Give us a sign. Show us some evidence. Let’s have some clear instruction about what to do, where to go, how to be.”

And we are promised this Advocate, as nebulous and vague and mysterious as that can be. We are given this Holy Spirit, this power of God, alive and well, in our midst, encouraging us, nourishing us, forgiving us when we fail, filling us when we’re empty, finding us when we’re lost, and comforting us when we’ll let it.

And I can’t help but wonder if we’re meant to find this Holy Spirit most precisely in those moments when we’re most lost, most lonely, most desperate, and most in need of an Advocate in the face of whatever suffering and struggle comes our way.

That blog I mentioned…the one that advocated an alternative to “helicopter parenting”… that suggested there is some value in keeping our distance as parents; in letting our children learn the hard way… that blog suggested that a sort of antidote to “helicopter parenting” might be called the “let them bleed” style of parenting. The presumption, of course, is that children are going to suffer and struggle no matter how hard we try to keep them from it. So, “letting them bleed” every once in a while is an exercise in learning from mistakes, healing from injuries, enduring in the face of trials, and so on, all of which is more than a little Biblical…and holy…and real… and faithful, it seems to me. And it isn’t easy, either.

But it seems like a faithful way to see what God accomplishes through Jesus, this “let them bleed” style of parenting. There was a cross, after all…and a crucifixion… and a tomb, to be sure. And there was resurrection… and new life… and second chances, just the same.

All of which is our calling and our hope, on this Pentecost Sunday.

We have this Holy Spirit – this Advocate – which is ours to share as much as it is ours to receive. And Jesus promises we will do great things under the influence of God’s Spirit – that because of its work among us, people may not be able to see the face of Jesus in the same way those first disciples like Philip did, but that through even the likes of you and me – when we get it right – the world will know about the love of God and the forgiveness of sins; people will experience generosity, mercy, peace, joy, grace, and hope.

And all of that because the Spirit of God is alive and well among us, because it’s a Spirit that lives and moves and breathes, in and among God’s people, so that the world will see and recognize God in its midst – not controlling, not manipulating, not avoiding hardship at every turn, or pretending that suffering doesn’t exist – but God in us, and God for us, and God through us, comforting, healing, forgiving, hoping – in spite of hardship, because of suffering – the way we have already been loved, by Jesus Christ, in the first place.

Amen

"The Divine Dance" – John 16:12-15

"Pentecost Parenting" – John 14:8-17