The Pure Simplicity of God

The Pure Simplicity of God

It it’s all so simple; this whole business about God. Here is how I found out. 

I ran home as fast as I could to confirm what Something had spoken in my heart of hearts. I ran into the kitchen where my grandmother was presiding over her stove as a priest might preside over an altar. 

I asked; “Ma, is there a God?”

I needed to know. Everything depended on the answer. 

“Of course there is!” That was simple.

“Ma, is there a heaven?” She glanced sidewards at me with just a hint of irritation. After all, she was cooking and this was not a good time for theology.

“Yes, of course there is!” Still, pretty straight forward.

“Ma, is my daddy there?” Ah, now we come to a complication. There had been a messy divorce. He was at fault apparently. When he died, there were hasty words about his “deserving” what he got. Someone even said he couldn’t go to heaven because he didn’t go to church. All these things got said so I could hear them. I was eight years old at the time. 

Mind you my mom was a feisty lady and I wondered more than once if she had a part to play in the divorce when I heard them arguing with each other. And even my grandmother said more than once that the Irish ruined Boston. It all left me bewildered. My question hung there for what seemed an eternity. 

“Is my daddy there?”

That’s when she knelt down right there in the kitchen. She held me close and folded my head into the nape of her neck and she said;

“Of course he is!” 

And that’s why I’m a priest today. 

It is pure simplicity.

Yes there is a God.

Yes there is a Heaven.

And Yes my daddy’s there as are all our loved ones. All have been gathered up one by one into God’s nearer Presence.

It is all so simple.

First, God is “Our Father who art in Heaven”. God is the Creator of Heaven and Earth and everyone in it. When we said our prayers at night we blessed everybody by name in the family, all my friends, those at school and finally everybody in the “whole wide word”. God made every single one of us. See. Simple!

Secondly, God is Jesus Christ our Savior. It took a while to figure out how he saved us. The world didn’t look particularly saved to me. At the time we had air raid drills in an old school built before the Civil War. I’m not at all sure the building could have survived a nuclear attack. Nowadays kids do mass shooter drills, and there have been well over 230 school shootings just this year alone. I wondered; “How can you call this world ‘saved’”.

But then I figured it out. Jesus brought the world Forgiveness and Eternal Life. The one is related to the other. When we Forgive, we are in Eternal Life. And when we do come to our life’s end there is forgiveness. There is room in God’s heart for each and every one of us, even if we miss church once in a while or even if the only time you mention our Lord’s Name is when you loose a bet at the race track as my daddy often did way back in those days. 

How do I know? The Bible tells me so; “Yes, Jesus loves me.” And my daddy too. And each and every one of you too.

And third God is the Holy Spirit. She is everywhere present. She permeates all of existence. “Does not wisdom call,” the Scripture says; “and does not understanding raise her voice?”
We know her first by prayer. 

We also know her through the the Holy Wisdom from on High. My grandmother knew her well. As did all my elders. How I looked up to them. Not to mention my priest and teachers. How I loved them all. Such Wisdom!

The Spirit imparts gifts for ministry. As a child I wanted to be Ted Williams or a parish priest. This also was pure simplicity. I loved baseball and I loved God. Who wouldn’t, growing up a short subway ride to Fenway Park. We spent our summers in the bleachers chasing home run balls hit by Teddy Ballgame and all the others. Or going to St. James’s Church, North Cambridge. That priest, that choir, that pipe organ, those stained glass windows; that breathtaking building.

As it turned out my batting average was not so hot, so that left the priesthood. I learned so much in school, in college, at seminary and of course in life itself. Life, Wisdom’s own teacher. 

God is the gift giver of every good gift from above. As Jesus says; “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth”.

All of which tells me that there is nothing complicated or difficult about faith. 

We are born into it. 

Today we at Trinity Church come to our Name Day. 

We know Who the Holy Trinity is:

God is Creator.

God is Savior.

God is Holy Spirit.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

Pure simplicity.

As is our duty to God and our neighbor. 

Love God.

Love your neighbor.

It just can’t get much simpler than that. 

So straighten up your act. I’ve already spoken to Jesus about each and every one of you throughout these very nearly fifty years.

I will not go to heaven until each and every one of you gets in there first. There, I said it. Black and White. Did you hear that Jesus? So don’t go holding things up. Get things right between you and God and each other. Love God. Love one another.

Yes there is a God.

Yes there is a Heaven 

And yes, not only is my daddy there, each and every one of us is Heaven bound.

In the Name of God. The simple Name of God; 

The Most Holy, Undivided and Everlasting Trinity. Amen.

Fr Paul

Below, the readings for Trinity Sunday with highlights indicating thoughts and phrases that stand out to me and resonate in my soul. 

Trinity Sunday

The Collect:

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Lesson: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Does not wisdom call,
and does not understanding raise her voice?
On the heights, beside the way,
at the crossroads she takes her stand;
beside the gates in front of the town,
at the entrance of the portals she cries out:
“To you, O people, I call,
and my cry is to all that live.

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of long ago.
Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.
Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth—
when he had not yet made earth and fields,
or the world’s first bits of soil.
When he established the heavens, I was there,
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth, 

then I was beside him, like a master worker;
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.

Psalm: Psalm 8

1 O Lord our Governor, *
        how exalted is your Name in all the world!
2 Out of the mouths of infants and children *
        your majesty is praised above the heavens.
3 You have set up a stronghold against your adversaries, *
        to quell the enemy and the avenger.
4 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, *
        the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,
5 What is man that you should be mindful of him? *
        the son of man that you should seek him out?
6 You have made him but little lower than the angels; *
        you adorn him with glory and honor;
7 You give him mastery over the works of your hands; *
        you put all things under his feet:
8 All sheep and oxen, *
        even the wild beasts of the field,
9 The birds of the air, the fish of the sea, *
        and whatsoever walks in the paths of the sea.
10 O Lord our Governor, *
        how exalted is your Name in all the world!

Epistle: Romans 5:1-5

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Gospel: John 16:12-15

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.