A Reserved Seat

Janice Brim was reading A Bridge to Terebithia to her sixth grade class at Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Oklahoma. Her husband, Mark, sent her a text that a twister was forming nearby. Janice had a plan. She had thought of a place to go months before.  As soon as she received the text from her husband, she led her students to a cinder block closet off the hall. The children were crying and looking at her. She told them that it was a privilege to be alive, that they had to be grateful for having been given a place on this earth. As she gripped the doorknob of the closet, all of a sudden there was a terrible noise and the roof of the building was ripped off. They stood there, dazed in light. She began to check to see if all her sixth graders were OK. All of them had survived. They had survived because she had found a place for them, a safe place.

But some children did not survive. Some were crushed, injured, killed. In waves of grief that sweep the nation, we all ask God, "How could you let this happen?"

The inevitable theological questions emerge. How could God let this happen? If God is omnipotent, why not just reroute the tornado? If God could part the Red Sea and Jesus could calm the storm, they why would God not just make the storm go another way? There is a lot of empty plain out there... Why did the twister have to hit the town? Why the elementary school? Was it God's will for children to die?

Is it God's will for people to die?

There is no way to adequately answer this question as human beings. Believe me when I say that the greatest mind and hearts have been grappling with this question for thousands of years. It is called the question of theodicy: why do people suffer? And the only answer that I have ever found is completely inadequate and it is this...

Yes, there is a God.

Yes, God is Almighty

I do not understand why God would allow this horror to happen.

I don't know.

It is a terrible answer: I don't know. It is inadequate. It leaves us dissatisfied. But it is the best that we have.

This is Trinity Sunday. The concept of the Trinity is all wrapped up in I don't know. You see, in today's gospel, we hear Jesus telling the disciples clearly that they cannot bear to know all about God. It is not that God doesn't want us to know, but somehow our brains and hearts cannot tolerate the answer. We don't know not because God does not want to tell us but because we are incapable of understanding. We simply can't bear the answer.

So Jesus gave us this concept of Trinity, of Father Son and Holy Spirit. The Trinity is a theologically mind-bending concept. It tells us that Almighty God has three persons, and yet God is one. And that makes no sense at all, which is precisely the point. The Trinity is our reminder that there are things about God that we will never understand in this life, things that cannot be grasped by the human mind.

Trinity also tells us a few important things that we can understand.

First, God has love and motion within the divine self.  God does not get lonely and doesn't need us as we need each other. When it says that we were made in the image of God, it means we, us together, not a single person. God is one but God is a we, God is community and when we live in community, caring for one another, we reflect the image of God.

Three is also an unstable number. If you see three people, sitting at a table, you are more likely to go and pull up a chair. If there are four, well, things seem compete. But with three, there is a place for you.

In the concept of Trinity, God is saying that there is a place for you, a place at the table with God. When you come to God, the Three will look at you with love and say, "We have been waiting for you. We have a place for you."

In that moment, when the tornado hit, Janice Brim found a place for herself and her kids. She took them somewhere safe. She had identified it earlier as a safe place to go. She took them all in that closet and told them they would be OK. But there was also a safe place for those children who did not survive. Jesus identified that safe place.

Boalsberg, Pennsylvania,1864. Two women met at a cemetery. Emma Hunter's father had died of yellow fever while treating wounded soldiers in the civil war. Elizabeth Meyers had buried her son, who died in the same war. The women decided that they would hold one day a year as belonging not only to their loved ones, but to all the soldiers who had died. The next year, they returned to the Cemetary with the entire town of Boalsberg. Flowers and flags were laid at the grave of every single soldier. The remembrance continues to this day and is now knows as Memorial day. For fallen soldier deserves a place in our lives, a place in our hearts, even if we never met them, even if we do not know their names.  We do not understand how God could allow the horrors of war, but we do know that those who lost their lives deserve a place forever reserved in our hearts. Forever. They died fighting for our country and we must make a place for them, forever.  Thus Memorial day was born.

The Trinity tells us that, although we will not understand God in this life, that God has a place for you within Gods very self. God waits for you, holds space for you, reserves a seat for you. You are the fourth, the completion, the person to fill the empty seat. The children who died have a seat. The soldiers who have given their lives for this country have a seat.

And when you get there, to your seat with the Trinity, to the place where you can see God face to face, then, and only then, will you understand.

The Blessed Ascension

On Ascension Sunday, we celebrate a holy day in the church that is largely forgotten. It takes place towards the end of the Easter season. It is called the Feast of the Ascension. It marks the fortieth day in the Easter season, when Jesus left us.

The event is recorded in the Book of Acts and in the Gospel of Luke. Jesus gathers his disciples together. He tells them power is going to come to them from on high. He blesses them. And then he is lifted bodily up into the sky. He never appears physically on earth again.

In the forty days previous to this, Jesus had popped in and out so often that the disciples got to thinking he might appear again. Wouldn't that be cool, if Jesus appeared to us in bodily form every now and again? It would be startling, but I would love to see him. I would probably be a bit more careful about how I lived my life too, if I thought he might appear at any moment.

Why did he have to leave? And why do we celebrate his departure? I find it so appropriate that the Feast of the Ascension comes right around the time of Mothers’ Day, because Jesus had to let the disciples grow up. They were dependent on him and he knew that if they were to become all that God called them to be, he must go. And he must leave physically, obviously, once and for all. His departure must be witnessed by many. It had to be made clear that he was not coming back.

When we think of a mother, mostly we think about nurture. We think of a woman holding a baby, or cooking or cleaning.  We think of a mother as holding on to her children. But one of the most important things that we can do as parents is let our children grow up and, very importantly, let them leave. I am not saying that you must never see your children again, but all parents put their children in bondage if they do not let them go.

I once knew a young man whose parents had not let him go. They loved him dearly and wanted to protect him from the evils of the world. The young man was very intelligent and so his parents had home-schooled him. They did not take him to play groups or let him participate in the usual social activities of most home-schooled children. They claimed he found it hard to socialize. He went to a local college while living at home and still lived at home at age 30. His parents related to him as if he were 10 or so, and his development was stunted. Because they never were able to let him go, he remained childlike and he had a sadness about him, as if he did not know who he is.

Not only did Jesus leave visibly and purposefully, but he showed us how to do it. If you need to leave someone you love, follow Jesus' example. Before Jesus leaves, he turns to the disciples and he blesses them.

You have the power to bless your loved ones. The word in the Hebrew is barak. It literally means "to kneel before someone." It means to spiritually empower someone else, to say, “I want you to prosper in every area of your life.” To bless is the opposite of cursing or crippling someone. Just as to curse means to disable, hurt or disempower, to bless is to empower a person to thrive spiritually, socially, physically, emotionally and in every other way.

When Jesus told Peter "whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven," he meant what he was saying. Peter and all of the disciples were not created to be just followers. They were created to be leaders. And Jesus needed to leave for them to realize their potential.

There is immense confusion between the words disciple and apostle.  Disciple means follower. Technically, it refers to the twelve who followed Jesus during his earthy ministry. We also want to be disciples, we want to follow Jesus. But the twelve disciples, with the exception of Judas Iscariot, became apostles when they were sent out into the world to do the work of the gospel. And there were many more apostles sent out, like Paul, Timothy and Titus. To be an apostle means to be sent and anyone who experiences the risen Christ and is sent into the world by Christ can be called an apostle.

Because of the the Ascension, you and I are being sent out. "Time's up!" Jesus says. "It's your turn to do my work. You are all grown-up. Here is my blessing. I know that you are not perfect. I know that my work in you is not complete. But you have everything you need. Go out and bless others. Use your power to make this world better. Usher in the kingdom of heaven."

Have you blessed your children, physically placed your hands on their heads and blessed them? Do you realize that you have the power to do so? Have you blessed your spouse? What about your parents? You don't have to wait for a departure to bless someone. Have you named the ailments of this world and prayed with force that we all be healed? Jesus asks this of you. He has blessed you and he sends you out. You are powerful. You are apostles. Own it.

Let me give you interesting information about two American families dating back 200 years.

Max Jukes was an atheist who married a non-believer. From him, 560 descendants were traced; 310 died paupers, 150 became criminals, seven murderers, 100 were known as drunkards and half the women were prostitutes. The descendants of Max Jukes cost the U.S. government more than 1.25 million 19^th-century dollars.

Jonathan Edwards was a contemporary of Max Jukes. He was a Christian who practiced his faith with strength. He was known to have blessed his children. From him and his wife 1,394 descendants can be traced: 295 graduated from college, of whom 13 became college presidents and 65 college professors, three were elected U.S. Senators, three state governors and others were sent as ministers to foreign countries, 30 were judges, 100 were lawyers, one dean of a law school, 56 physicians, one dean of a medical school, 75 officers in the military, 100 missionaries, preachers and prominent authors, 80 held public office of whom three were mayors of large cities, one was comptroller of the U.S. Treasury and another was Vice President of the United States.

I know, there is a lot to consider here, genetics, behavior, etc. but Jonathan Edwards blessed his children. He blessed them when they were born, when they reached puberty, when they married. Over and over again, he blessed them and he let them go.

And you are called to bless, to teach, to heal, just like Jesus. That's why he had to leave, so that you would take up the mantle of his leadership, his ministry. It is time for you to accept your God-given gifts and work to usher in the kingdom of God.