Sunday, June 2, 2024

 Trinity Sunday

2 Corinthians 4:5-12

The Rev. Canon Joann Saylors

The psalm appointed for Trinity Sunday last week, Psalm 29, included the words, “The voice of the Lord makes the oak trees writhe.” I couldn’t help but think about the May 26 storms only ten days before. I don’t know that a derecho is the voice of God, but the imagery of the oak trees writhing and giving up their branches, or even their lives, was a poetic and striking one.

It was a pine tree that landed on our house, pine branches and cones that mostly filled our yard, but there were smaller oaks that writhed as well. We’ve had all the same adventures as the rest of you in the days since – insurance, traffic, power outages, lots more storms.

I tell you this not because I want you to feel sorry for me – after all, we are very fortunate to have resources to deal with all of this – but because of a conversation I had a few days after the storm that I’ve been sitting with. One of my colleagues is especially good at reminding our team to pray at the beginning of meetings, a gift I seem to lack. As we named our prayer requests prior to our one-on-one meeting, I offered up what was on my heart in that moment. I have been praying for everyone affected by the storms all around the country, but that day I was especially thinking of all the transportation workers out there directing traffic and trying to get the traffic lights back on, as well as all the small businesses, especially family-owned restaurants, who were hit hard by the long days without power. The loss of revenue and inventory in a restaurant with very narrow margins is potentially devastating. So we prayed for that and our other concerns, and we went on with our meeting.

I didn’t think much about that particular prayer until later, when I got a very surprising text from that same colleague. “I’m impressed by how you’re handling the damage to your home. It’s inspiring to be praying for businesses and traffic lights when you’ve been affected personally. Thank you for sharing that witness.”

I tell you that not because I want to imply I did something amazing or was an extra-good Christian that day. Neither of those are true. I tell you because I was surprised that praying for others, even in the midst of whatever might be happening in my own life, something this colleague undoubtedly does more often and more faithfully than I do, was worthy of mention, much less affirmation.

And then came the readings for today, including Paul’s words to the church at Corinth. “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”

Most of us, I’d wager, have at some point felt ourselves one of those things: afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, or struck down. Maybe not because a tree fell on our house, but we were afflicted when we lost a job, persecuted when we got dumped, struck down when we failed a test. Afflicted by disease, our own or a loved one’s, persecuted by the church or another institution, struck down when our car was totaled through someone else’s bad driving.  Maybe we were just perplexed by the human condition when we read the news.

 And yet, here we are, even making sacrifices to come. We bring resilience, hope, compassion, even joy. We come here to worship God, to give thanks, to offer our gifts to others. We share stories of God showing up – in the help from and for our neighbors, in the kind words of friends and strangers, in those coincidences and miracles we can’t really explain.

We come here to pray. Whatever our circumstances, we pray for others as well as ourselves. Whether we speak fervently, whether we’re saying the words by rote, whether we feel them or not, together we are praying and God is listening. And how is it that we are able to do that?

It’s not because we are amazing or extra-good Christians, although some of you undoubtedly are. Praying outward while struggling inward is a gift from God. “We do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord.”

Paul talks about carrying the death of Jesus within us.  Being willing to face our challenges and make sacrifices for what we believe in, just like Jesus did. 

I’d imagine we all have days when it feels like cracks keep spreading across our lives, cheap clay jars about to shatter. Maybe in today’s world it’s the cracks across the face of our phones. But even or maybe especially when we feel that broken, God can transform our struggles into something beautiful.  Our cracks can become openings for God's light to shine through, a beacon of hope for ourselves and others.

It’s our own cracks that create empathy for the people struggling around us, the ability to imagine the cracks in the lives of others. But it's the light of Christ shining through those cracks that gives us the will and the words to pray for them.

Friday was the Feast of the Visitation. After the angel Gabriel had announced to Mary that she was to become the mother of God, Mary went from Galilee to Judea to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist. During that visit Mary proclaimed the Magnificat, a song proclaiming God’s glory in transforming the world through the Messiah. The proud will be brought low, the humble will be lifted up, the hungry will be fed, and the rich will go without.

So often we see images of Mary as radiant with the joy of becoming the God-bearer. I can’t imagine that was all she felt during her pregnancy. In addition to the joy of being chosen, I expect there was shock, followed by fear, confusion, and anxiety. She faced the same challenges of all pregnancies, adjusting to a body changing over the months, the physical tiredness and awkwardness, accompanied by psychological and emotional ups and downs. So I imagine the relief of finally being able to share those feelings with Elizabeth, facing challenges of her own.

Perhaps it was confusion of feelings around what could have felt a mixed blessing that gave her the words to pray. She wasn’t carrying the death of Jesus, not yet, but she was carrying Jesus himself. And maybe that gave her a deep connection to the lowly, the hungry, and the poor which burst out in a hymn of justice for them.

Looking back, my colleague’s identification of my prayers for others as a witness wasn’t really about me. It was more about Jesus at the heart of our prayers as the witness to God’s love, carried by all of us in our love of God and love for our neighbors. We are not so cracked that we can’t carry Jesus. Never so broken we can’t show his light to the world. AMEN.