Readings for Sunday, May 31, 2015 aka Trinity Sunday

Hello Everyone,

First, please note that I will be out of the office for the rest of the week as I attend the Minnesota Annual Conference in St. Cloud. Kali will be in the office from 10:30 AM to 1:30 PM on those days if you need to contact the office. I will also be monitoring email during that time.

This coming Sunday is a bit of an odd Sunday in the life of the Church. We celebrate and learn about the Trinity of God. Of course, as I have said in past years, you won’t find the word “trinity” in the Bible. What you will find in the pages of the Bible is God who created all that is seen and unseen; God who became a human like us and is both fully human and fully God (“God Incarnate” is the churchy phrase); and God who comes to us and is present with us as Spirit (breath-wind). This is God: One and yet Three; Three and yet always One. Think of Trinity as Three (tri) in Unity (-nity). This is always confusing and is a mystery. Not everything in faith can be reduced to logical explanations As I said to a friend today, paraphrasing Spock from Star Trek, “It has been and always shall be a mystery”. (Spock to Kirk, “I have been and always shall be your friend” at 1:54 minute mark:)



Without a whole lot of discussion, our readings are:

Isaiah 6:1-8 – Isaiah’s vision of the Lord sitting on a throne and then being commissioned (or is it “ordained”) to be a prophet.

Psalm 29 – The voice of God, the LORD, is mighty, powerful, and “flashes forth flames of fire”. The voice is over the waters, thundering over the waves. The voice breaks the cedars and shakes the wilderness. We are called to say “Glory” and pray for God’s blessing of peace.

Romans 8:12-17 – The Spirit leads us as the children of God and the Spirit bears witness (along with our own spirits) to the fact that we are indeed the children of God. The fact that we are now the children of God makes us heirs (with our brother Jesus) to God’s Life.

John 3:1-17 – Jesus has a discussion with Nicodemus about being “born again” or “born from above”. Of course this passage has the famous John 3:16 but please pay close attention to 3:17 in which the Son of Man came not to condemn but to save. If you keep reading through verse 21, the judgment and condemnation comes from ourselves.

It seem that none of these passages deals with the Trinity but only one of the three. Isaiah is about God, Romans is about the Spirit, and John is about the Son. So check out these verses: John 14:15-17; John 14:26; John 15:26, and John 16:12-15.

Have a great week! Remember you assignment from Sunday worship: “Where is the Holy Spirit at work in your life this week?”

Peace in Christ,
Pastor Gary