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.

The Voices we Hear

The following is a transcript of Trinity Sunday's episode of "Godspell"~June 7,2020

Trinity Sunday

“The Voices We Hear”

Live from Lynn, it’s “Godspell”.

Hello, this is Fr Paul Bresnahan, priest of the Episcopal Church.

Welcome back to “Godspell”: a time to spell it out.

Who is God, and how is God involved in our lives?

“Godspell” is a nice old English word for the Gospel or, what I call, the language of God, the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Silence

Blessed be God; The Most Holy, Undivided and Everlasting Trinity. 

And blessed be God’s Kingdom for ever and ever. Amen

A Collect For Trinity Sunday: 

Glory be to God,

Whose love created us,

Glory be to Jesus,

Who who gave his life for us,

and opened the gates of heaven for everyone.

Glory be to the Holy Spirit,

Who makes us holy,

And gives us gifts for ministry; wisdom and courage for the living of these days,

Glory be to the Holy Trinity,

One God now and forever. Amen.

Patrick’s Breastplate 

Gospel: Matthew 28:16-20

Now the…disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’

The Voices we Hear

The voice I hear most clearly is the voice of Jesus. The reason I hear that voice so clearly is that it is written down here in this book. In today’s Gospel Jesus tells us to go forth to all nations and Baptize them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of The Holy Spirit. That Name is the one we refer to as The Holy Trinity. We come today to that Blessed Feast Day in the Church Year.

Here are two historic symbols that represent the Holy Trinity.

The Triquetra represents the unbroken and eternal sign of unending threeness. 

The Rublev Icon shows three distinct persons in unbroken and eternal relationship such as we are called to live with God and each other. 

We hear the voice of Jesus with such transforming clarity that God changes us. We die to the sins of self and and come to life again in the the personhood of Jesus. 

Meanwhile sin is all around us. In fact, I have often said “Sin is the only doctrine of the Church we can prove. All others we have to take on faith.” There is ample evidence of sin before our very eyes. We see it in the violence of the Powers and Principalities who exercise Dominion over us with ruthless force. Just like The Roman Empire and all the Empires that have all come and gone throughout history.

Perhaps this nation could use a good dousing in the waters of Baptism.

Jesus leaves us with clear instructions; “obey everything that I have commanded you.” You may remember that on the night before he died for us he told us; “A new commandment I give you; Love one another.” 

Notice how pure and simple that is. Jesus knew the Law and the Prophets. As a practicing Jew he observed the Law and heeded its precepts. 

There are 613 specific instructions in the Torah to obey, to bring order into a civil society. Moses gave us the Ten Commandments to instruct us in our duty to God and our duty toward our neighbor. 

When Jesus was asked his reading of the Law, he said; “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” ~Mark 12:29-30

And then finally, when facing the last moments of his life Jesus boiled it all down to this; “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” ~John 13:34.

You can see how well we are doing. Four hundred years of slavery and racism in America has led to one especially excruciating moment that has ignited a firestorm of protest in America. That knee on a black man’s neck squeezing the very last breath our of his lungs. Or as another autopsy said, his heart stopped. Either way George Floyd was murdered. 

One week later, at the very symbol of white privilege St. John’s Episcopal Church, Lafayette Square, The Church of the Presidents, where all the Presidents have worshipped from George Washington to Barak Obama there was the scene of a very strange irony. The Clergy of our church were handing out bottles of water and granola bars to protesters, listening peacefully to their stories, when they and the crowd were forcibly pushed back by rubber bullets, tear gas and flash bangs. 

“Make way for the President!” 

He wielded the Bible as someone might a weapon to make clear he was the “Law and Order President” ready to Dominate using the Armed Forces of these United States of America.

Mr President. Allow me to introduce you to this Sacred Text. And listen to Jesus who commands you to obey. 

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. ~Matthew 5:1-12

Did you hear The Voice of Jesus?

On Thursday evening, June 4, the Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, our Bishop Marianne Budde met with the protesters. She was met with understandably with anger and frustration, but then she sat patiently with the protesters. There was conversation, understanding and mutual support. Then the Bishop and her clergy were forcibly removed from in front of her Church.

Oh there are strange voices we hear in our land these days. 

The President said “This is a great day for George Floyd. It’s a great day for everybody. This is a great day for everybody. This is a great, great day in terms of equality.’’

What! This is not the voice I hear from the streets of America. Rather, I hear George Floyd cry out to breathe. I hear George cry out for his mama and his children. I hear America cry out to breathe free. 

I heard the voice of my wife say; “How can this be a great day for George Floyd and his family? The man was murdered.!”

I hear George voice cry out for the young people all across America. There is no equality Mr. President. There is no equality in employment, housing, education and opportunity. Black folks are still the last hired and the first fired, Mr President.

They are still the most likely to face harassment from the police, most likely to face violence at the hands of the police. Most likely to be killed in the streets by the police.

What kind of equality is that?

Oh and while we are at it, let me add this from my own voice. I am a white man 75 years old. I saw a brother white man the same age, in Buffalo, New York,. He faced a phalanx of police advance like a Roman Imperial Garrison. When he stood in the way, he was shoved to the pavement. His head cracked open on the concrete and he began to bleed. Several police officers out of their humanity stopped to minister to him. But then they were ordered, forward march! This is my blood too. You left me there to bleed.

Oh no Mr President. This is not the voice of George Floyd I hear. His voice cries out from the same concrete pavement that the blood of all our brothers and sisters have died in, where our breath has been squeezed out of our lungs. These are the voices I hear. I can’t breathe!

Allow me to remind you of the symbols we hold dear for the Trinity. Notice the Triquetra. It is an unbroken symbol of the Threeness of God. Unbroken and unified, eternal and One. When I love God I must also love God’s people. All people. Why do you always seek to divide us? 

We are one people. 

Question; when you call on Colin Kapernik to respect the flag why do you not respect the Republic for which that flag stands; one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all?

That’s all we seek when we say “Black lives matter.” After all, if we are going to say “All lives matter”, we need to begin making sure “All Black Lives Matter” first. After all, 400 years of slavery, oppression, racism and domination call on us to make good on our pledge to the Republic for which that flag stands high and true.

Do not divide us!

Which brings me to the the final Voice of Judgement from Jesus. Remember this Book which you brandished before us! Listen his voice. This is especially for your ears. If there is to be a division it will be in accordance to Christ’s Command. 

The Final Judgment

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these..., you did it to me.’

“Then he will say to those on his left, Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Mr. President we saw you brandish the Bible as a weapon of Domination. I do not expect you to read it. But I must read it every day of my life.. All of it. It takes about a year to read it. In it I hear the voice of God. I hear the voice of Jesus and I hear the Voice of the Holy Spirit. This Sacred, Holy Trinity is the Name we Celts bind unto our hearts.

The Voice we hear is the Voice of God. Excuse me if I listen not to your voice but to the Voice of God.

In the Name of God; the Most Holy, Undivided and Everlasting Trinity.

Amen.

Prayers for the Church and the World.

Lord’s Prayer

A Blessing

See that ye be at peace among yourselves, 

and love one another.

Follow the example of the wise and good

and God will comfort you and help you,

both in this world

and in the world which is to come.

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,

wherever He may send you.

May He guide you through the wilderness,

protect you through the storm.

May He bring you home rejoicing

at the wonders He has shown you.

May He bring you home rejoicing

once again into our doors.

And may the Blessing of God the Most holy undivided and everlasting Trinity be upon you this day and always. Amen.

God  Bless us everyone!

Fr Paul