Back to Lynchburg

I was at Chestnut Hill UMC in Lynchburg today (Year C - Trinity Sunday). It's Memorial Sunday so part of the service as an ode to the United States and veterans; which, as someone who has military in the family as well as countless ancestors, can appreciate. My grandmother came. She has a habit of counting things I learned: 22 veterans came up front for recognition, there were 12 in the choir and 9 children for time with children. The attendance was much bigger than what I am accustomed to. I was told ahead of time that some introductions would be made: one of which was for a Vietnamese family that the church had sponsored and invited into its life. The husband talked about how glad he was to be at church today. He said that he and his wife/family were able to escape Saigon 2 hours before it was ceased. My sermon today went longer than I realized but no one minded and many people want me to come back. I was able to define the Trinity as "the Fullness of God," wisdom that the Holy Spirit I am assuming gave me because I had to explain the Trinity somehow. It's not the easiest Doctrine.


I was thinking a bit later though about the purpose of the Holy Spirit. As for the couple who missed the Fall of Saigon in 1975 by two hours - just in the nick of time. I think that's the Holy Spirit works. In the toughest times, as John says in his Gospel, the Holy Spirit leads to truth. He guides and comforts and advocates. I'm not saying that for the people who didn't escape Saigon that for some reason the Holy Spirit didn't "guide them too." In the case of the couple, there is a mystery as to why they got out and others didn't. I'll never know why. But what I will say, as someone who wants and hopes to witness more to others, that even in the midst of hell and chaos, there's a guide that always wants to be step ahead in the process. And, for the record, I'm speaking more generically than John Wesley's "prevenient grace."

My sermon topic was the fullness of God via the Trinity. How Proverbs uses "she" for the antecedent Wisdom. God speaks through the voice of a woman. Images are used of birth pangs and the use of words like womb and virgin. These are all feminine terms that describe elements of God. We experience the fullness of God when we remember all of those attributes and the terms that are used in the Old and New Testaments: Elohim, Abba, Almighty God for the fatherhood role. We should think of Father, Son and Holy Ghost as being umbrella terms that encompass so many other things. All of these things fit under the Doctrine of the Trinity; the completion of which makes for the fullness of God.