Holy Trinity 2017

"Yes, God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son"

John 3:16

The story is told of a chance meeting between two men who had been college classmates. They went to a nearby sidewalk cafe where they drank tea together and talked about old times and about their present life situations. "How is it that you haven't yet married?" one asked the other. To which his friend replied, "To be perfectly honest, I must tell you that I spent years of my life looking for the perfect woman. In Barcelona, I met a very beautiful and extremely intelligent woman and, for a brief time, I though I had found the ideal person to be my wife. But soon I discovered that she was terribly vain. Then, in Boston, I met a woman who was outgoing and generous. "Here is the perfect woman," I thought at first. But soon I discovered that she was flighty and irresponsible. I continued my search, but always I found something missing in the women I was attracted to. Then, incredibly, one day I met her! I actually met her. She was beautiful, intelligent, kind, generous, and had a great sense of humor. In short, she was perfect. "Well then," said the friend, "what happened? Why didn't you marry her?" To which the other replied, "I soon discovered that she was looking for the perfect man."

"You must therefore be perfect, just as your Heavenly Father is perfect," Jesus commands us in the "Sermon on The Mount" (Mt. 6:48). Jesus is telling us to search inwardly for the perfect man or the perfect woman. He doesn't tell us to go around judging other people's perfection or lack of it. "You must be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect," He says.

The closing lines of the Apostle Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthian Church contains the richest blessing found in all of his correspondence. And, in a few well-chosen words, Paul speaks volumes on the subject of the search for human perfection. "We wish you happiness," Paul writes. "Try to grow perfect." How? "Help one another," he says. "Be united," he says. "Live in peace," he says. Why? "The God of Love and Peace will be with you," he says (II Cor. 13:11).

Paul is saying, in effect, "If you want to grow into the beautiful human being God made you to be, if you want to experience the Presence of the God of Love and Peace in your life, if you want to grow ever more perfect as a human person, you must love one another."

In Jesus' familiar parable of the "Pharisee and the Publican," two men go into the Temple to pray -- one a Pharisee, the other a Publican (a greedy and unjust Tax Collector). The Pharisee stands there and says this prayer to himself:

I thank you God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind, and particularly that I am not like this Tax Collector here. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get (Lk. 18:11-12).

The Tax Collector stands some distance away, his head bowed. He beats his breast and says,

God, be merciful to me, a sinner (Lk. 18:14).

End of story. Then Jesus says, "This man, I tell you, went home again at rights with God, the other did not. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted."

This brings to mind another story of two men going to Church to pray. One was a man named Hornblower, the other a teacher. The man named Hornblower stood and looked heavenward, saying, "God, I thank you that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind, and particularly that poor teacher here who feeds off the public payroll. My money pays part of that teacher's salary; it is my money that helped build this Church; I contribute money to the foreign missions." Hearing this, the school teacher bowed his head and said, "God be very merciful to me, a sinner. I was that man's teacher."

"Be perfect...try to grow perfect." Both Jesus and Paul are talking about spiritual growth. But we mustn't misunderstand. Spirituality is not trying to be "godly" but trying to be deeply human. People who strive to be "godly" (on a higher level than everybody else), tend toward conceit and arrogance. They tend toward the superior attitude of the Pharisee in Jesus' parable: "I thank God I am not like other people." Think of it this way: if you try to rise up to Heaven in a godly fashion, you may just pass God's Son headed in the opposite direction.

Spirituality is not otherworldly. The Holy Spirit isn't trying to convert us from this life to something more than life, but rather from something less than life to the possibility of full life ("abundant life," Jesus called it). Our mission is not to conform to this world but to transform this world by helping God make humanity more deeply human, more deeply loving, more deeply involved in striving for perfection. We are not of this world, but we are in this world.1

In our struggle to respond to Jesus' call for spiritual growth (the command to "be perfect"), we have no better role model than the Apostle Peter. When it came to making mistakes, he was like a first-century Charlie Brown. Again and again he fell down but, incredibly, he kept bouncing up, he never stopped striving to become the person Jesus wanted him to be.

There are people in this congregation who have been knocked down again and again, more than they deserve, more than the rest of us, and they ask me "Why?" And I don't know why and I don't know anybody who does know why. But I do know that, by the Grace of God, you can pick yourself up every time you get knocked down, and you can move on.

God is shaping you and molding you and making you into the beautiful person He wants you to become. The process itself is beautiful and good. Whatever your current situation, whatever the uncertainties and the risks, God is present in it and the growth is taking place. That is why we should love life now, as we're living it now, and not be deceived by some ideal of total security "out there" somewhere. It will never come.

In the early chapters of Acts, we read the great sermons of Peter which show his strength and his power to heal in Jesus' name. And in his old age, in Rome, when the Christians were in the catacombs and living in fear and being persecuted and slaughtered, it was Peter who was the solid Rock. I am positively convinced that if the Lord God Almighty, in His great love, could transform that impetuous, impulsive, stubborn, stumbling fisherman into an inspiring, healing man of God, He can do the same for me and for you.

Two shipwrecked sailors had been adrift on a raft for days. Desperate, one knelt and began to pray: "Oh Lord, I know I haven't lived a good life. I've been drunk too much. I've lied. I've cheated. I've done so many things I'm ashamed of, but Lord, if you'll just save me I promise"...

"Hold it," interrupted his shipmate, "Don't say another word! I think I can see land!"

In today's Gospel Lesson, Jesus is instructing a Pharisee (a leading Jew Named Nicodemus) on what His ministry is all about. In the course of this instruction, Jesus says,

Yes, God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son...God sent His Son into the world not to condemn the world, but so that through Him the world might be saved (Jn. 3:16,17).

Hold it! I can see the Savior, here in our midst! No need to say another word!