The posting of sermons will be on hiatus for the summer of 2022. Please come back in September when we resume the posting of the sermons. Have a great summer.
Archives for June 2022
Booklets no longer required
All material, readings, songs, etc. will be presented to you on screen. Just join us and follow along. See you there.
June 12, 2022 – Trinity Sunday
God is Community – Three-in-One and One-in Three
a last sermon at Church of the Ascension
The Rev’d Rhonda Waters
Today is Trinity Sunday, set aside to consider the mystery of the Trinity – three-in-one and one-in-three. The Trinity – that great theological formulation that just gets more and more confusing the more you try to pull it apart.
Which is the point, really. You can’t pull apart the Trinity. It’s not an engine, or even an organic body – you can’t disassemble it in order to see how it works: separating the Source from the Word from the Holy Spirit and tracing the tubing that connects them. It’s not an organization that you can diagram, drawing the org chart and mapping the flow of authority and accountability and responsibility through the parts.
The Trinity is a whole, indivisible and complete in itself. How it works or what it is – these are the wrong questions. The right question is why. Why does God reveal themselves to us as Trinity, in addition to revealing themselves as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? What truth is given to us about God’s nature through this particular mystery?
And in a rather breathtaking act of hubris, I will tell you:
God is community. It’s not just that God likes company or that they enjoy collaboration.
It is not just that God is in community.
God is community.
God is not unitary because their very nature is community – but not just any community. They are a community of mutual love and delight and faithfulness; a community of equals that cannot be separated or ranked; a community of difference that cannot be reduced or assimilated.
When God was all that existed, before the beginning of time, before the beginning of creation, this is what existed: this community of perfect love. St. Augustine’s image of the Trinity remains the best: the Lover and the Beloved and the Love, each distinct and necessary to the full expression of each even while the distinctions blur in the living: the lover loves the beloved loves the lover loves the love loves the lover – and on and on in perfection.
And so it was that love poured out at creation and brought all things into being, God delighting themselves in the joyful act of bringing the world into existence and inviting all creation into community with them; into the community of God.
And it was that love that poured out into us; breathed us to life and created us in their own image.
Which means we are created to be community. In a very real way, there can be no such thing as a solitary person. This is why solitary confinement is such a cruel punishment; why neglect takes such a toll on children – and not only children; why loneliness can drive people to despair. It is not good for us to be alone – because we are made in the image of God who is community.
And yet, over and over again, we turn away from our true selves and from God –in fear, in shame, in pride. We create communities in our image instead of in God’s image and end up lost in idolatry; drawing borders and making false distinctions that reassure us of our own belonging at the expense of someone else’s. We see difference and we think it needs to be managed – or erased – rather than embraced. We see plurality and we want to make sure we are the one at the front of the line…but there is no line for the many is perfectly united in the One.
And so love poured out yet again and God came to us, sending their Son (who is still entirely God, don’t forget) to not only invite us into community but to demonstrate what that means; becoming not simply one with us but one of us even while still being one with the Father and with the Spirit. We, by our very human nature and not in spite of it, belong to the community that is the Triune God.
And, when we dwell in that community, in that perfect love – the love pours out in acts of creation, bringing forth art, friendship, science, technology, literature, family, gardens, music, feasts – and community. Community that seeks to reflect the image of God and so to grow, pouring love out in welcome as ever more people are gathered up into God’s perfect love, one with creation and one with God who is One with themselves.
The above sermon and the hymn text below serve as a sort of “Rhonda’s theological key points”, offered with thanksgiving for all I have learned and all I hope I have shared with Church of the Ascension. May we always live in the Community of God.
The Kingdom of Heaven (It is Near)
Words: Rhonda Waters (1978- )
Music: William Howard Doane (1832-1915) (To God be the Glory)
The kingdom of heaven is like a small seed,
which planted in darkness becomes a great tree.
It grows even taller its branches reach wide;
the birds of the air find their shelter inside.
It is near! It is near! Christ bids us to see.
It is near! It is near! Turn around and believe.
By love we are welcomed, by love we are called.
The kingdom of heaven is good news for all.
The kingdom of heaven’s like yeast for the bread;
the smallest amount and then all shall be fed.
Mere flour and water take on a new form
and call us to table where we are transformed.
It is near! It is near! Christ bids us to see.
It is near! It is near! Turn around and believe.
By love we are welcomed, by love we are called.
The kingdom of heaven is good news for all.
The kingdom of heaven, God’s glorious dream;
within us, around us, it’s here to be seen.
In small acts of kindness, in great feats of faith,
the kingdom of heaven breaks forth in this place.
It is near! It is near! Christ bids us to see.
It is near! It is near! Turn around and believe.
By love we are welcomed, by love we are called.
The kingdom of heaven is good news for all.
June 5, 2022 – Pentecost Sunday
Come, Holy Spirit, Come
a sermon for Pentecost
The Rev’d Rhonda Waters
Holy Wisdom – and good-bye (for now)
Trinity Sunday
June 12, 2022
This week’s Story at Home marks my last for an unknown length of time. Writing these weekly reflections has been a joy and a help to me and, I hope that, at least on occasion, they have been a joy and a help to you as well.
The Story at Home may well return in the future but I’m not making any promises at this stage! I will definitely be taking break over the summer, as I attend to my doctoral coursework and begin a new appointment at St. Helen’s Anglican Church in Orleans. If it does return, it will be on a new (as yet unknown) platform and the current mailing list will be destroyed next week. In order to receive notification of its return (if it returns…), you can sign up here.
I pray you will continue to bring the Story into your homes each week. Thank you for allowing me to be part of that over these past years.
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries out: “To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live. The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth – when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first bits of soil. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”
Something to Do
…rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.
What a glorious image: God’s beloved Wisdom delighting not simply in creation but in creation as inhabited by humanity. Find a way to celebrate humanity’s work in creation this week – admire the architectural beauty of buildings and bridges; the blooming beauty of gardens; the delicious beauty of a good meal; the heartwarming beauty of friendship; the inspiring beauty of art. Take it a step farther and add to Wisdom’s delight with your own beautiful contribution.
Something to Wonder
Wisdom calls from all around us
On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals…
Wisdom can be found everywhere – but where do you most reliably find wisdom? When you are in need of sound insight or guidance, where do you go looking? Is it a place? A person? A community?
What is wisdom?
What do you think of when you think of wisdom? Who do you think of as wise? What make them wise? Do you think you are wise? Why or why not?
Can wisdom be acquired? How? or Why not?
Something to Learn
Holy Wisdom
This week’s Working Preacher commentary puts this Proverb’s reading into the context of the Trinity, addressing some of the historical perspectives and tensions. Read the short essay, by Sara M Koenig, Professor of Biblical Studies at Seattle Pacific University.
The always interesting Bible Project offers a video commentary on the figure of Wisdom in Proverbs 8.
And take a look at a popular psychology perspective on wisdom with this article from Psychology Today.
Something to Pray
Holy God, we do not always understand your word or your ways.
Give us wisdom and imagination and courage as we learn and grow.
The story this week has made me wonder about…
(what questions are still on your heart?)
Receive my questions and help me hear your answers.
The story this week has filled me with…
(how are you feeling?)
Accept my praise, heal my hurt, ease my worry.
The story this week has reminded me of…
(are there situations or people you are thinking of?)
Be with all who are in need of you.
In Jesus’ name, we pray.
Amen.