The Church St. Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
May 30, 2021
Year B: The First Sunday after Pentecost – Trinity Sunday
Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 29
Romans 8:12-17
John 3:1-17
A Simple Song
“Sing God a simple song.
Make it up as you go along.
Sing like you like to sing.
God loves all simple things.
For God is the simplest of all.”
“A Simple Song” from Leonard Bernstein’s Mass is one of my favorite pieces of music. Some of you who have been around here for a while and pay close attention to such things may remember that Dennis Doran sang it for us at my service of institution as your rector nearly eight years ago.
The other day I was taking one of my famous morning walks in Lincoln Park when it occurred to me that I would like to include “A Simple Song” at this morning’s service, on my last Sunday as your rector.
Later that morning, I texted Gail that I was thinking of somehow working “A Simple Song” into my sermon and she immediately texted back, “I thought so.”
Which really tells you all you need to know about how we have worked together all these years.
“Sing God a simple song.
Make it up as you go along.
Sing like you like to sing.
God loves all simple things.
For God is the simplest of all.”
Now, saying that “God is the simplest of all” may seem to be an especially strange choice today, on the First Sunday after Pentecost – Trinity Sunday – the one day of the year when the church specifically invites us to reflect on the inner life of God.
We Christians hold the mind-blowing belief that God is one, but God is also three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier.
The Trinity is a great mystery – and, as you may have noticed, we humans really like to solve mysteries, and so over the centuries lots of ink has been spilled, lots of hot air has been spread, all in an effort to somehow “explain” this great mystery.
But, explaining the mystery of the Trinity is a fool’s errand, because the Trinity is not a mystery to be solved.
No, the Trinity is a mystery to be celebrated.
So, that’s what we’re going to do today.
We’re celebrating the mind-blowing reality the Trinity – the great and wonderful truth that the very essence of God – God’s very Being – is a perfect community of love.
God – the heart of all creation – the ground of all that is – God is a perfect community of love.
God is the simplest of all.
And, presumably, the Trinity, the perfect community of love, could have spent all of eternity alone - fulfilled, and content, forever and ever. Amen.
But, that’s not what happened.
That’s not what happens.
In a twist maybe even more mind-blowing than the Trinity itself, God not only chooses to create all of this, God not only chooses to create all of us, but God actually invites us you and me –God invites all of us to be part of the community of love.
We’re all invited to be part of God’s community of love – all of us, including Isaiah who felt unworthy because he had unclean lips, just like everybody else, just like all of us.
We’re all invited to be part of God’s community of love – all of us, including Nicodemus who knew enough to recognize that Jesus was a teacher sent by God but, just like us, he just couldn’t quite grasp all of Jesus’ teaching, at least not yet.
Down through the ages, God has invited us to be part of God’s community of love – inviting us in all sorts of ways – by giving us the beauty of creation – by giving us consciences to know right from wrong – by giving us commandments that spell out how we are to live – by giving us the prophets who call us back to faithfulness – and, most of all, by giving us Jesus who commands us to love one another as he has loved us.
Simple, yes, but not so easy – and impossible if we try to do it alone, impossible without God’s help.
Sing God a simple song – a simple song of love.
It’s a song we sing together.
Now, as a glass half-empty kind of person, coming to the end of my time as your rector has meant, among other things, thinking of what I’m leaving undone.
One piece of unfinished business is the mission statement of our unified congregation.
A while back, the wardens, vestry, and I began to work on that, but lots of other tasks - including the stress of trying to keep the church going during a global pandemic - pushed our mission statement – and a lot of other items – to the back burner.
Some of you have heard me say before that I like to think of the church’s mission as one big feeding ministry. We are called to feed people in all sorts of ways. We feed people through what we do here – feeding people with the Word of God and our fellowship and, most of all through the Body and Blood of Christ.
We feed people by literally feeding them – by giving them good food to fill their bellies – and we feed people spiritually through music and art.
And we feed people by taking a stand for what is right, by speaking up for people who are being crushed by our often rotten system, by caring for everyone, especially the people who can never repay us, or even thank us.
Yes, we are a church that feeds people – and I know that this feeding, and more, will continue long after I’m gone.
So, I definitely like the image of a feeding church, but – and I know this is really last minute - I’m going to throw another idea into the mix – maybe our mission is to sing God a simple song.
When I think back over our eight years together, at our best, that’s what we’ve been doing.
We have been singing God a simple song, and, yes, very often making it up as we go along.
We sang God a simple song when we opened our doors during the week, welcoming just a few faithful people to do the church’s work of prayer, and for many months we’ve been singing a simple song when many more of us call in to Church By Phone, praying for all those people on our prayer list, listening out for each other, noticing when someone’s been missing.
We sing God a simple song when we reach out to the people we know are suffering – the sick and the lonely and the mournful - calling them, or sending cards and notes.
We sing God a simple song when we give our best - to singing in the choir, reading the lessons and prayers, serving as an acolyte, polishing the silver and ironing the linens, attending seemingly endless meetings, by really sacrificing some of our time, talent, and treasure for the good of the community.
Speaking of time – maybe our most precious commodity – we sing God a simple song just by showing up – by showing up at church even when we don’t feel like it, by showing up at parish events that maybe don’t interest us very much but we know that our presence and support will mean a lot to others.
And, most of all, we sing God a simple song when, like Isaiah, we say, “Here am I; Send me!” - when we go into the world and extend the invitation to God’s community of love – when we welcome people into God’s community of love, making room for anybody who shows up, the people we like the looks of and, yes, the people we’re really not so sure about.
Sing God a simple song – a simple song of love.
It’s a song we sing together.
Today, as my time of singing with you comes to an end, I’m reminded of an image that my friend and mentor Lauren Ackland gave me, an image I’ve thought about and talked about many times over the years.
The old walls of this building have been bathed in prayer and song, and, in some mysterious but very real way, those prayers and songs remain here – and the people who’ve prayed and sang them remain forever part of this place.
So, I trust that my prayers – my simple song – will remain, too.
And, I know that the people of St. Paul and Incarnation, with a new leader, will go on bathing these walls in prayer and song.
You’ll go on singing God a simple song, accepting and sharing God’s mind-blowing invitation to the community of love.
Amen.
Posts
