Holy Trinity Sunday C
June 12, 2022
Good Shepherd, Wells, MN
Romans 5.1-5; John 16.12-15
Today, I’m going to speak directly to our high school graduates.
Graduates, congratulations on completing this part of your faith journey. I’m glad we could honor you today. I have to be honest, though, that this time of year, with all the graduations and speeches that follow, brings out the cynic in me. I hope you’ve heard some good, helpful, and uplifting words lately, but chances are you heard more “empty phrases” than helpful ones. And the reality is that most of those phrases are empty platitudes bearing no relation to reality. As theologian Kate Bowler notes,
“Our culture loves to tell us to look on the bright side. ‘Think positively! Good vibes only! Mindset is everything!’ But in my research, I have found that there are significant limitations of this ‘positive thinking’ approach. We often bulldoze over real feelings and real problems. We end up with less compassion for one another and fewer opportunities to be honest.”
The Apostle Paul is the epitome of honesty in our reading from Romans as he addresses a difficult situation in the church in Rome. It was a church that he didn’t start, but longed to visit some day (and does). The church was started with Jewish converts to the way of Jesus as it had been in other places. But all Jews were expelled from Rome because of unrest and the church became largely Gentile. When the Jews were allowed to return, there was conflict between the Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians on who was in charge and how things were to be run. (I know that this is surprising to find out that people in churches fight with each other.) Paul writes to them and has just explained how all of us need God’s unmerited saving grace.
And in verses 1-2, Paul drives home the point that we all are made right with God and each other through our trust in Jesus Christ and are now able to boast in our hope of sharing God’s glory. Then, like cold water thrown in our faces, Paul says we can now also boast in our sufferings. Is this a graduation type motivational speech gone off the rails? Shouldn’t he be encouraging them? Doesn’t Paul know how this is supposed to work? In fact, Paul knows all too well, for Paul isn’t sitting in some ivory tower tossing words he thinks people want to hear. Paul is someone who speaks from experience, of one who has endured great suffering but who has also experienced the overwhelming grace of God.
Graduates, if you were to ask anyone here who has lived more than a few years if their lives went exactly as they planned after high school and if it was all rainbows and unicorns, I’m betting all of them would say, “No.” The reality is that life doesn’t go as we planned and there are sufferings for most of us. Now, I need to be clear that God doesn’t give us suffering. Rather, God works in, with, and through suffering. Though it sounds harsh, we aren’t promised that we’d be happy, rather we are told to be hopeful. Happiness is fleeting and notoriously hard to pin down. Hopefulness, on the other hand, is enduring and much better.
Graduates, I hope your lives go like you want them to go and that all will be well. But if they don’t, I’m not going to give you platitudes today; rather I’m going to give you promises. I’m going to promise you that God is with you through all things. No matter where you go, no matter what happens to you, there will always be a community of faith like Good Shepherd that not only has to take you in, but will welcome you and love you. They will rejoice with you in the good times, lament with you in the bad times, and walk with you through everything in between.
Today is Holy Trinity Sunday, the mystery of one-in-three and three-in-one. All you need to know about that today is that it simply means that as God is interdependent within God’s self and that God is interdependent with us as well. So, as you move on from here, may you be strengthened by the God whose love is shown in Jesus Christ and has been poured into your hearts through the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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