Trinity Sunday
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Romans 5:1-5
1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Forty-nine years ago yesterday, my parents were married in Paducah, Kentucky. They were both 24 at the time, soon to be 25. Having gotten married at the age of 30, 24 seems like an awfully young age to enter into a marriage covenant.
I could stop here and talk about what different times those were from now, or I could mention that my father was the oldest of 7, and my mother was the oldest daughter, the middle child, of 5, so there was probably a degree of maturity in both of them that would have come naturally, and both those statements would be true, but the point to be made in telling the story of their anniversary is that, regardless of what their age was, they did not know what was in store for them, and yet they made this commitment.
At the time, my mother was teaching high school English, and my father was working as a mailman. Both had already felt the call to ministry and missions, but they were just getting started down that road. Both those jobs had a relative amount of security built into them. Working for the government generally means that you have a pretty good chance of maintaining a steady paycheck and retiring with a good pension.
God had other plans for my parents. Within two years, they had my sister Karen, and my father had gone back and completed his college degree on the GI bill at Murray State University, just less than 50 miles south of Paducah. The same year he graduated, 1957, they packed up and moved to Fort Worth, TX, to enter Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, in preparation for appointment as Missionaries through the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.
They spent the next 4 years in Texas. My dad completed seminary, and the family grew by one more daughter, my sister Becky, born in 1960. Within a year after that, they had moved back to Paducah in response to a call from West End Baptist Church, where daddy served as Minister of Education, and Momma served as pianist at East End Baptist Church. In 1962, my sister Lolly was born.
Within the year, they had moved to Louisville, where daddy did some graduate specialist work while serving as Minister of Education at Tabernacle Baptist Church, and I was born in 1963. A year later, they were appointed missionaries to Chile, and moved to Costa Rica, for a year of language study. When that year was up, we came back to the States for a few weeks before traveling to New York and boarding a ship that took us to Valparaiso, Chile, where we arrived on November 18th, 1965. The stories multiply from there, both in relationship to our extended family back here in the States, and our found family there in Chile. Those stories continue to evolve as time goes on, but let’s go back for a moment to that day, June 5th, 1955.
“I do.”
With those two words in the middle of a pretty standardized litany, we initiate, we invite, and we welcome the prospect of a shared lifetime. Nothing we say to another person will carry more disproportionate weight than those two, tiny words. I’ve had the honor of presiding at two such events, and am thrilled at the prospect of other opportunities to bless and affirm the vows of couples who are ready to commit their lives to each other.
One of the terms used in the book of Revelation for the church is ‘the bride of Christ.’(crf 19:7, 21:2, 21:9, 22:17) There is appropriateness to the image; this committing of our lives, as the body of Christ, to Christ, who committed himself – who literally sacrificed himself for our life as a congregation, as well as our lives individually, is reflected on so many levels with the commitment made by two people when they get married that we can easily draw from our daily lives as married couples, or even couples in relationship but not yet married, parallels with our relationship with God through Jesus. Think of one of you as God, the other as the Church, the love that brought you together is Jesus, and the love that keeps you going, day in and day out, is the Holy Spirit. Take it from there, but like any metaphor, don’t take it too far or too literally, or it breaks down.
A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from Pat, with a riddle in it: it went something like this: What is Greater than God, and more evil than the Devil? Poor people have it, Rich people need it, and if you eat it you’ll die. There was a postscript to the riddle: it said something like: a whole class of kindergarteners got the answer right away, but out of a class of college students or seminary students, only 5 got it right. I couldn’t get past that first statement. I KNEW, from reading it, that it was in some ways a play on words … a verbal trick … but then, most riddles are that anyway.
The answer: Nothing.
Metaphors are rarely intended to be taken to the extreme, so don’t think I’m saying that one of you will be God in the relationship and the other will be the church forever. The point is in the relationship – and most importantly, what has formed that relationship.
Let’s look at today’s passage through the lens of a marriage relationship. Justified by faith - Justification means putting our trust in the power and goodness of God whose grace gives us peace instead of the sinful conflict between God's will and our will. The parallel might be, when we enter into relationship with another, in a huge step of faith, we put trust in the other person – to the point of being of one mind with them … there will, of course, be disagreements and maybe arguments, but if the marriage is founded on love, those differences will be a place of growth for both of us. It is the same way when we enter into relationship with God. The love of Jesus bonds us to God in such a way that, as we uncover those areas in our lives where we “disagree” with God, where our will and God’s will come in conflict, and we realize that in spite of that conflict, God loves US anyway, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ - we are drawn closer to God through Christ, just as we are drawn closer to each other in relationship through our love for each other, in spite of those differences, and the differences begin to melt away.
Grace in which we stand – I love that phrase. To stand in grace is to be upheld, surrounded, and strengthened by that relationship – it SO describes the marriage relationship, and SO describes the relationship we enter into with God when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord, and allow the Holy Spirit to come into our lives and transform us.
Boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God … Boasting was generally frowned on by Jesus. This past Wednesday night, in our study of the discipline of fasting, we learned that when Jesus speaks about fasting in the 6th chapter of Matthew, he is targeting the Pharisees, who fasted on Tuesdays and Thursdays. How do we know that? Tuesdays and Thursdays were the days when all the farmers and merchants came to Jerusalem to set up the market, and the population swelled by several factors. The Pharisees chose those days to fast, and wore their dour expressions in order to let everyone KNOW that they were fasting, in order to allow everyone the privilege of seeing how spiritual they were. Jesus’ point was that you don’t boast in what brings you favor in the sight of humans, you boast in what will bring you favor in the sight of God. Just as in the marriage relationship, ultimately, if you are truly committed to each other, you will do what pleases your spouse. The determining factor in any major decision will be “what does my wife think about this?” Or, “what does my husband think of this?”
But we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, I have been humbled in my visits with William and Margaret Franklin to watch the faithfulness to the relationship in that house. No, they’re not perfect, but the way in which William stays by Margaret’s side speaks to the depth of the commitment they made to each other so many years ago. Margaret is suffering through her illness, but William is as well. The endurance they are both displaying puts my minor aches and pains in stark relief – and perspective.
And endurance produces character… There have been a few events in mine and Leslie’s life as a couple that we would qualify as suffering – the death of her Grandfathers, dealing with the news of Caleb’s heart murmur, my losing my job. A few events that confronted us with our own mortality and fallibility, but going through them – together – made all the difference in the world. Something that Leslie and I tell each other, have told each other through the years, is this: I can go through anything as long as I’m holding your hand. It is our own version of ‘nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.’
And character produces hope, There’s that word on which so much is built – HOPE.
What does Paul say?
And hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?
It means that we are in a relationship with God that is every bit as immediate and dynamic as our relationship with each other. That is why it is in our working out our relationships with each other that we learn how to BE in relationship with God. There is reciprocity, a give and take that God wants to make us aware of in our life as a congregation in order for us to understand that GOD longs for that same intimacy, that same daily-ness, that same engagement with and from us with him!
This morning we recognized those of our youth who have already graduated or will soon be graduating from high school. Inside each of the Bibles that we gave them, we put a copy of our congregational benediction. Below the benediction, they each have a personal note, and though they each say something slightly different, they do each have at least one thing in common: they each say that there will always be a home here for these young men and this woman with this family of faith. There will always be people here who love them and are praying for them. It’s a lot like a marriage commitment, to say that. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, much less 5 or 10 years from now. I don’t know who will be here and who won’t be here. But I do know one thing: as long as Christ is present in the person of the Holy Spirit, that love that fuels and sustains our ongoing relationship with God will mean that there WILL always be people here who WILL make a home for these graduates and the rest of us.
Let’s pray.
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