I’ve Got You Covered

Holy Trinity Sunday

Genesis 1:1-2, 4a; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28:16-20

            I have a couple of riddles for you:

What did the rug say to the floor? “I’ve got you covered!”

What did George say to his friend Joe when the check for their meal arrived and Joe realized he didn’t have his wallet? “Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered!”

What did the police detective say to her partner before she advanced toward the suspect’s door? “I’ve got you covered.”

God’s message to us this day and always is, I’ve got you covered.  And on Trinity Sunday, we marvel in all the ways that our creating, redeeming, sanctifying God says to us, I’ve got you covered.

God has us covered through God’s creative activity where God creates the world around us in an ongoing dynamic and dramatic creation story. God’s creation includes every bird, bee, cloud, person, drop of water, mountain, sea, and so on.

God has us covered through the grace we receive, a free gift through the redeeming work of Jesus, our Lord and savior who continues to teach us through God’s Word, strengthen us through his body and blood as he comes to us in Holy Communion, and forgives our sins daily through the ongoing work of the cross.

And God has us covered through the Holy Spirit, the one who gathers us here together, who grants us faith and vision, and inspires and enlightens our path.

The concept of one God in three persons is a stumbling block for some, and a mystery for us all. We are human. We are finite beings, with limited understanding and imagination. Through all our coming and going, through all our activity, through our joy and our sorrow, God promises never to leave us alone. Instead, God’s loving refrain to us is, was, and always will be, “I’ve got you covered.”

Of course, as human beings, we struggle to understand or articulate who God is or how God functions. So, very early in the life of the church, our forefathers struggled to develop a common expression of what, based on the Scriptures and our own experience, we believe about the nature and function of God. The result of this work? Creeds that are still in use today. Through the creeds, these statements of faith, we confess what it is that we believe about the nature of God.

One of those is the Athanasian Creed, which some of you may remember. It was printed in our previous hymnal, the green one; it took up an entire page and a half. You won’t find it in the hymnal we currently use, since the Athanasian Creed has gone largely out of use in our churches. However, in some congregations it is still pulled out once every year - on this particular Sunday - and recited by the entire congregation, as an articulation of trinitarian belief.

Because I love you and see no need to punish you in that way, we’ll skip the Athanasian Creed today, except for this which comes directly from it: “Now this is the catholic faith: We worship one God in trinity and the Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the divine being.”  

God in trinity…..Trinity in unity. As confusing as it is, those simple phrases contain the core of our faith – that our God comes to us as the glorious, mysterious three-in-one, and that through the Trinity, God says to us, “I’ve got you covered.”

So what is it that we believe about the three persons of the godhead? Each week when we come together we state our belief. On festival Sundays we use the more formal language and form of the Nicene Creed. But the more commonly known and recited Apostles’ creed is the one that we, together with Christians around the world, pray together week after week.

As the most common expression of faith, Martin Luther broke down the Apostles’ Creed for us in the Small Catechism, as a way to help families teach and learn what it is that we believe about God.

Recently, each family received a pocket-sized copy of Luther’s Small Catechism, which I’m sure you have with you, since you faithfully study it at every opportunity, right? Would please pull it out now, and we’ll take a look at the Apostle’s Creed together. What? You don’t have it? Ah!

Well, I’ve got you covered! In the back of each hymnal you will find the Small Catechism. If you’ll take out your hymnal and turn to page 1162 you will find the Apostles’ Creed. 

Luther breaks the creed down into three manageable articles, one devoted to each person of the Trinity. The first article is, “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.”

Seems simple enough. Together, let’s read what Luther has to say about what that means:

I believe that God created me with all that exists. God has given me and still preserves my body and soul: eyes, ears, and all limbs and senses; reason and all mental faculties.

In addition, God daily and abundantly provides shoes and clothing, food and drink, house and farm, spouse and children, fields, livestock, and all property – along with all the necessities and nourishment for this body and life. God protects me against all danger and shields and preserves me from all evil. And all this is done out of pure, fatherly, and divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness of mine at all! For all of this I owe it to God to thank and praise, serve and obey him. This is most certainly true.

Wow – one simple sentence, but what it says about God is both more broad and complex than we might suspect at first.

The second article of the Apostles’ Creed reads: “I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead.”

Again, let’s read together how Martin Luther unpacked this statement: I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father in eternity, and also a true human being, born of the virgin Mary, is my Lord. He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned human being. He has purchased and freed me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death. He has done all this in order that I may belong to him, live under him n his kingdom, and serve him in eternal righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as he is risen from the dead and lives and rules eternally. This is most certainly true.

And finally, we have the third article, which describes the work of the Holy Spirit who, among other things, makes us holy: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”

My friends, in the words of Martin Luther, “What does this mean?”

I believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy and kept me in the true faith, just as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes holy the whole Christian church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one common, true faith. Daily in this Christian church the Holy Spirit abundantly forgives all sins—mine and those of all believers. On the last day, the Holy Spirit will raise me and all the dead and will give to me and all believers in Christ eternal life. This is most certainly true.

These are the things we believe about who God is and how God works. Yet it is not even our belief here that matters, or the words we put together, but what God is doing that creates meaning and difference. All evidence points to the truth and makes it clear that through divine activity and care, God has us covered.

From the beginning of creation, through the exodus and the wilderness years, all through the history of our salvation to the sending of God’s own Son, Jesus, God has had us covered. As Jesus was preparing his disciples for life, mission and ministry following his resurrection, Jesus sends his disciples out, giving them authority to speak and work in his name, knowing that no matter what might befall them, “I’ve got you covered – always – to the end of the age.” And finally, through the Holy Spirit’s power and presence, God has us covered.

In our gospel text, Jesus gathers the disciples together and sends them out, blessing them and commanding that they bless and baptize others in the name of God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In our Epistle reading, Paul aims to bring the Corinthians, those disagreeing, bickering, recalcitrant brothers and sisters of the early church into order, agreement, and peace – and invites them into knowing peace and unity by the sharing of a holy kiss. He reminds them that they, too, are church whose purpose it is to go out, in the name of Christ and with the blessing of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – God’s own “I’ve got you covered.”

Our texts today emphasize how, from the beginning of our existence and beyond, God has had it all covered, creating in great detail all that would be needed to sustain life and make it beautiful. Redeeming it through the love of Christ, who passes on the mission to share and spread the word of God’s glory, majesty and care – God’s own “I’ve got you covered.”

As we read these texts all together on this Trinity Sunday, we are reminded that God’s love is evident in all the comings and goings of our lives, and that the blessing within each of these texts is ours.

In love, God has provided for our every need through the creation of the world, the salvation of our sins, and God’s ongoing presence in our lives through the abiding presence and work of the Holy Spirit.

It is hard as human beings to fully grasp the concept of Trinity – one God, three persons, equal in majesty, co-equal in eternity – as the Athanasian Creed would remind us. The important thing to remember is that despite our struggles to believe, to understand or even, sometimes to confess, through the means of grace, God truly does have us covered, empowers us to gather and then to go, never alone, to share God’s story of love with those we encounter. Thanks be to God!

Amen.

The Black Dot

John 4:5-42, Lent 3A

            There is a story about a professor who one day entered his classroom and announced to the class that there would be a surprise quiz. The students put their things away, and sat at their desks, anxiously waiting for the test to begin.

            The professor walked through the classroom, placing a paper face down on each student’s desk. When he was finished, he told the class they could turn their paper over and begin. So, they did.

            The students turned their papers over, but then they sat there, stupefied. There was nothing on the paper except a dot. A big, black dot sat squarely in the center of the paper, and that was all; there were no words, no questions.

            Seeing the students’ expressions of confusion, the professor told them, “I want you to write down what you see.” Still confused, the students nonetheless got to work.

            At the end of class, the professor began going through the papers, one by one, reading the answers aloud. Without exception, the students had written about the dot. They wrote about how big it was, how black it was, how round it was, how it was positioned in the middle of the paper.

            The professor looked up after he had read the last response.

            “I’m not going to grade you on this,” he began, “I just wanted to give you something to think about. You all wrote about the same thing – the dot. No one wrote anything about the white part of the paper.

            Everyone focused on the black dot – and the same thing happens in our lives. We have the white paper to observe and enjoy, but we always focus on the dark spots. Our life is a gift given to us by God, with love and care, and we always have reasons to celebrate – nature renewing itself each day, our friends around us, the job that provides our livelihood, the miracles we see each day…”

            However we insist on focusing only on the darks spots – and he listed some of those and then concluded by urging them to look around, to look more deeply, to see the white paper, the life we have, the good in other people, the gift of life we have received from God.

            This story reminds me of how we often view the Gospel story we heard this morning.

            The Gospel of John is known for its deep layers of theology, imagery and symbolism, and today in this very long text John that tells the story of Jesus, a Samaritan woman, water, and Word.

            It’s a story we’ve heard before, and I’ll bet that in most of those hearings, the story about Jesus and what Jesus is doing might have been all but lost because of the focus on the black dot. We get lost in the part of the story where Jesus tells the woman that he knows who she is. He knows she has had five husbands and is now living with a man who is not her husband. Immediately we see the black dot.

            Yet it is very likely that we have misinterpreted the woman’s situation all these years. For while we are all too often ready to point out her sin, to describe the black dot we see, a close look at this text reveals that Jesus never calls her a sinner or tells her to repent or calls her out on her way of life. Jesus simply sees her. He sees her as a person, marvelously made by God. He sees her as a person with all her gifts and challenges. He lets her know he sees her. Her. A Samaritan. A woman who is oppressed, invisible to others. But Jesus see her, and knows her, and opens the kingdom door for her. And she walks right through the door.

            His disciples simply cannot believe what they’ve seen. Jesus is talking a woman, and not just any woman, a Samaritan (not that unusual since they are in Sychar, in Samaria!) He has allowed himself to be served water by her! (Jesus has broken several Jewish purity laws here).

            Furthermore, the fact that she is at the well in the heat of midday suggests that she is some sort of outcast. After all, the women in the community would normally come to the well when it is cooler and when they can take that opportunity to connect with one another, talk, perhaps gossip together.  But here she is, alone.

            It would be interesting to read this story with the one we read last week. It would be interesting to observe Nicodemus and this woman side by side. Nicodemus came to see Jesus in the night. This woman at the well encounters Jesus in light of the noonday sun.

Nicodemus was a man of good reputation and standing; a Pharisee – a leader in the Temple. This woman has no status, is an outsider both in her context and in the realm of Judaism.

Jesus talking to such a man would not have been a big deal. It might even have been encouraged. (Maybe it would raise his status and credibility). Jesus talking to this woman shocked his own disciples.

            During that nighttime visit, Nicodemus had a lot of questions, and Jesus answers him, but when he goes away, we really aren’t sure what believed about Jesus. Though he pops up a couple more times in the gospel, and seems sympathetic to Jesus, we never really get a handle on what Nicodemus thinks or believes about Jesus.

            On the other hand, this woman first says to Jesus, “I know you are a prophet.” And after speaking with Jesus just a little while longer, she is amazed and rushes off to tell everyone she knows about this amazing man and what he can do! She sees in Jesus the promised Messiah.

            Who would you rather talk to? Who would you rather be like? Nicodemus, or this woman who never receives a name, who rejoices simply because Jesus has seen her, and has told her about the living water – the water that he offers, that will lead to eternal life! Amazing grace!

Amazing water! Jesus offers this woman the water that she has been thirsting for without ever knowing it. And then she believes! And she shares her experience with everyone she knows.

Contrast this Samaritan woman’s reaction to Nicodemus’ – he who argues with Jesus over the literal interpretation of what it means to be born again, who comes to Jesus in secret and leaves in secret.

            This woman rejoices because Jesus has seen her and told her about living water…amazing water. My friends, Jesus gives us the same water in our baptism. Through the gift at the font or in the river, or in a baptistry, we each have received the gift of eternal life for the living of today and for the work of tomorrow.

            The woman in today’s story is vulnerable. She is thirsty for life. We know that her life has been a struggle. Women of that time were totally dependent on the men in their lives. If they were widowed or divorced – and we remember that men were allowed to write a certificate of divorce with very little reason, their best chance of survival for themselves and for any children they had was to be married again.

            Yet Jesus simply sees her as one in need. Jesus sees more than the black dot. Jesus sees her as a person, and so he spoke with her. He offered her something of incomparable worth. She exists for him, has value and worth, and significance – Jesus treats her with respect.  He shows her compassion she barely know how to accept. And her grateful response is to share her story about her encounter with Jesus with other people she knows and who know her! Come! See! She tells them.

            Numbers have significance in the Gospel of John, and so here is this story by the numbers:

·         Jesus speak seven times to the woman.

o   Seven is a number signifying completion in ancient Judaism.

o   The seventh time he speaks to her, Jesus declares his divinity, thus assuring her that he can truly accomplish what he offers her – living water, eternal life, compassion and identity – “I am he,” Jesus states, referring to the Messiah. “The one who is speaking to you.”

·         The woman speaks six times to Jesus. Six is still incomplete.

·         The seventh time she speaks is to her people.

·         What makes her story complete is that she shares it; she tells others of the marvelous experience and promise she received from Jesus.

            What does this story have to do with us today?

            Jesus presents a full picture and experience for life for us, offers us living water, transforms our lives by his seeing us and knowing us, loving us, and granting us grace. Knowing this, believing in Jesus, coming together to worship him and praise him and form community in his name, as important and wonderful as that is, doesn’t complete God’s intention for us; our discipleship is incomplete if that is as far as our story with Jesus goes.  

            Like the woman at the well,  what brings our story full circle, and moves it toward its fullness is our sharing it. Our faith moves toward completeness only when we carry it out of this place and in our excitement and joy tell others about Jesus, and the wonderful gift of faith he has given us.

            “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He has told me everything I have ever done.” They came to Jesus because of the woman. They heard Jesus’ words because of her testimony. They believed in Jesus because following her testimony and her invitation, they came and heard for themselves the word of God, and they came to believe that Jesus is truly the Savior of the world.

            It is not a stretch to go from the story of the woman at the well to the baptismal font. We all share in the living water through our baptism. As you come forward today, remember your baptism and know that God sees you in all your vulnerability and all your beauty, black dot and white or colored paper together, and loves you: Loves you so much that God gave Jesus for you. For me. For all of us, to go out into the world fed and restored so that we can tell the story, might join in the harvest, might gather fruit for eternal life, inviting others to come to know Jesus too.

May it be so.

Amen.