Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Matthew 28:16-20

Last week, I spent three days in Greek Orthodox monasteries at Mt. Athos, Greece.  The peninsula, which juts out into the Aegean Sea, has been the greatest center for Orthodox monasticism for more than a thousand years, or from when the Virgin Mary, blown off course in her ship, landed there and claimed the island for herself as a place of prayer and solitude.Only ten non-Orthodox are permitted to enter each day. We were labeled as “heathens” on our permission documents. I love having proof in writing.

The monks begin chanting the prayers at 4 a.m. There is no electricity in the church. It’s all lit by candles, which were mysteriously lit and then extinguished many times in various parts of the church.  The language goes back to the time of John Chrysostom in the fifth century.  Every now and then, I heard. “Kyrie Eleison” That was the only thing I understood.

There are no bulletins. There really isn’t even an attempt to include anyone.  You can come and go, stay the whole time, or for a few minutes. It doesn’t matter.  Even the monks seemed to come and go as needed. All the while the prayers go on.

I’ll admit that it was all confounding.  I had to set aside my preconceived ideas about what church is supposed to be and let myself simply be present.  The experience felt like an ocean, waves to sound and light, incense and movement, coming and going, in and out.  The monks venerating the icons was like some dance.

Like everyone else, I wandered around the church trying out different vantage points. At one point, I nodded off.  At another point, I was wide awake and felt like I was experiencing something that has been going on since the beginning of time, a pattern of the eternal divine and the created coming together and filling each other.  Light bursting forth.  And it was good.  It’s all good.

It struck me that maybe that’s the best way to observe a Sunday like The Holy Trinity.  Too many times, we try to explain it.  Maybe it’s better to simply let this one God, who we name as three persons, flow into us, into the lives we live, into the world we want to make. The cosmic dance of love that gave birth to the universe. The breath of life.  Love in the face of Jesus.  Love deep within us that yearns to love and be loved, to connect and be at peace and at home.

Lo, I am with you.  The reign of heaven is within you.  The Holy Trinity sweeps us into an embrace, even when we’re not aware of it. And our best response is simply to say, as Anne Lamott suggests, “Wow.”

I have a feeling if we set aside our preconceived notions, and our categories that so often end up in critique or judgment, or worry or fear, and just lived from the wonder of it all–Wow.  Yes.  Amen–the world would change.

To know the Holy Trinity, we have to get out of our heads. Your Holy Trinity homework is go home and contemplate the leaf of a dandelion, and you will see God.  Gaze into the eyes or your beloved, or even your enemy, and you will see God.  Listen to the chatter of the chickadee or an orchestra on Sunday morning.  And you will hear God.  Taste a cherry or piece of cheese or a ramen noodle.  And you will taste God.  Smell some cardamom or the skin of a baby.  And you will smell God. Those orthodox monks on Mt. Athos see heaven incarnated in icons and relics, in incense and oil, in a little handful of sweet treats spooned out to every person on Ascension Day.

The Holy Trinity is a sensory experience. It’s probably why bread and wine seem more trustworthy than the pastor’s sermons.  Pouring water over a baby says more than all the books on baptism.   Making the sign of the cross on our bodies or on the head of a dying saint holds more promise than our lists of moral accomplishments.

Obeying all that he has commanded just means saying “yes” to love.  As Cornell West says, “Yes to justice, which is simply what love looks like in public.  Yes, to tenderness that is what love looks like in private.”[1] Yes to beauty.  Yes to a world that percolates with Holy Spirit.  Yes to the earth.  Yes to our bodies.  Yes to religious practices that look a lot different than our own.  Yes to all the words we use to describe our experience of God.  Yes to our Mother, our Father in heaven.  Yes to the yearnings within us.  A tender yes to our brokenness.  A compassionate yes to the most annoying. Yes to this day.  Yes to tomorrow. Yes to one another.

One time, three times. Wow.  Yes.  Amen.

[1] Cornell West, Speech at Howard University, April 2011.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGqP7S_WO6o&t=21s