![]() ![]() ![]() We Simply do not have the equipment necessary to understand something so utterly beyond us… but that has never stopped us from trying.” Yet we still grasp for understanding. In Barbara Brown Taylor’s sermon entitled “Three Hands Clapping” (a play on the Buddhist koan “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”) Barbara quotes one of her colleagues who said: “When human beings try to describe God, we are like a bunch of oysters trying to describe a ballerina. It is a story that is difficult to nail down. ![]() The story of the Trinity is about love and relationship. On this Trinity Sunday we remember the tradition of our faith that has been passed down for these two millennia. Both stories giving us information about who we are today and about the big story that continues to be written, the grand story into which our own life stories are interwoven. It lights up our imagination… even as we have new stories of creation that continue to be developed by scientists who look up to the heavens to assemble a story of creation that sits side-by-side with the ancient stories of God’s people… both stories igniting our imaginations and filling us with wonder. God spoke life into being… all the life that fills the earth, and God pronounced the whole of creation “Good.” We know this story well and we tell it over and over again. God spoke the cycles of day and night into being. Out of empty darkness, out of the void, a great wind swept over the primordial waters and God spoke light into being. Our biblical story begins at the very beginning when God created the heavens and the earth. Central to all of the great stories dwells the God given gift of curiosity and longing to reach for the bigger picture and to locate our own place in the big, big story. There is “MY story,” and “OUR story.” The third level is “THE STORY” in which all other stories are contained… the stories of humanity’s relationship with God told from different faith perspectives, through different lineages of tradition, in a wide variety of tongues, in the diversity of human culture, including the stories of science that continue to be written using God given tools of intellect, imagination, skill and ingenuity. There is a third level of story that contains the other two. Jesus’ final instructions were to continue living the story, carrying on in discipleship as he had taught in story… in parables… and by example. We share a story of faith that is “Our Story” the story recorded in our scriptures, the Good News that Jesus was and is for us, reminding us of how we are called to be in right relationship with one another, to care for the stranger and the outcast, to feed the poor, to receive the abundance of life that God desires for us, and to remember that even though he is no longer walks among us, Christ is still here with us as living presence. We each have a story about our lives, the story of our birth, the story of our families, the record of our heartbreaks, our dreams, our landmarks and our achievements. Stories are the containers for meaning… When talking about faith stories there are three levels of meaning. The rabbis knew about the power of stories, and that God loved stories. So they would light a fire and tell the story that there once was a story that was important to their ancestors. They did remember, however, that THERE WAS A STORY, and they remembered that the story had been told around a fire. As time went on, however, the people forgot the story… and they could no longer find the place in the forest where they used to gather around the fire to tell the great story. Rabbis, in the Hasidic tradition of Judaism, have a story that tells about God’s people who would go together into the forest where they would gather around a crackling fire to tell the ancient story of redemption. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Port Townsend, WA. Matthew 28:16-20 Trinity Sunday: The Stories We TellĪ sermon preached by The Rev. ![]()
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