The Community of God

Matthew 28:16-20

Trinity Sunday

June 15, 2014

What do you think of

when you hear the word community?

The word community is one of those words that can

have a couple of meanings

The differences are subtle, but they’re different.

When we hear community,

we might think of neighborhoods or cities,

people in schools, or even churches.

They use the word a lot in the news I’ve noticed.

The dictionary says that community is

a group of people living in the same area,

or having the same interests or identity.

But it’s more than that, it’s it?

Just because something is called a community

doesn’t mean that it’s a Community. With a capital C.

Community with a capital C brings along

images of more than just people who live

on the same street or share an interest.

It brings images of people who support,

and of love one another.

It talks of shared respect,

being mutually accountable to one another

helping each other.

Having love for each other that then spills out and

includes others.

There is a lot of talk about community these days.

Mostly , I think, because we feel that it’s slipping away

It’s something that some of us remember from the past,

or seen it in the movies, or read about it

or heard about it from others,

but over time, Community with a capital C has become scarce.

We don’t easily form Communities here in the US

we don’t rely on it, we don’t seem to need it.

So for most people, it doesn’t exist.

Lots of things have taken away our Communities

There’s technology which is giving us wider spread communities

but without human contact or responsibility.

We’re more self sufficient and so we don’t need it–

when we’re richer, we don’t have to rely on others,

And I think we’re more afraid of people

so we don’t want to let people into our lives.

In some ways it’s easier not to be part of a Community

of any kind. To just be responsible for yourself and your business.

It’s just simpler to be alone with family, a few friends.

Some say that religious institutions like ours

are the last reliable place

to potentially find Community in our culture.

Not that all churches form a Community with a capital C.

But churches and other religious institutions are the last

group who even have the potential for real Community.

As a culture, Americans have been shying away

from being part of a Community with a capital C.

But at the same time, we long for it.

People talk about it, we dream about it.

There are countless articles written about it.

“Community” is the marketing buzzword

when talking about those who are thirty five and younger.

We might not have it, we might not know how to make it,

but we want it, we are drawn to it.

I think that is, because we are created –

the earth, the sea and stars, plants, animals

and humans -- we are all created by a God

who in God’s self is a community.

Today, we are celebrating Trinity Sunday.

A Sunday when some pastors and Sunday School teachers

have tried to explain a doctrine that is basically unexplainable.

Where we talk about how we worship one God

but three different beings.

I will not be doing that for you today.

The Holy Trinity
Sankt Lambrecht, 1430

But I will tell you the significance of the Trinity.

It tells us that the nature of God is Community – with a capital C.

Three separate individuals -- not just one, not just a couple,

but three - that together make up one.

Individual parts, but one body.

To be part of a Community -

to be in relationships that stretch beyond family and

selected friends - is in our DNA, it’s part of us.

The world would love us to be separate,

to not trust or rely on anyone else.

And sometimes it seems like the world is winning.

But Community is part of God,

and therefore Community is part of us.

In the Gospel reading for today,

we hear Jesus’ last words in Matthew.

It’s Easter morning and Jesus has told the women

to tell the disciples to meet him in Galilee.

The disciples find him on a mountain and he gives them

these instructions, “make disciples of all nations.”

Simply put, make a community for yourselves

out of the whole world, make a Community.

Now some have taken this command

that to mean that we should convert every person

to our culture and our religion by force if necessary.

And sometimes its hard to look at it any other way.

But that’s how humanity has taken it in the wrong direction.

What I hear Jesus saying to us is

Gather people that are different than you,

the same as you, people that you don’t know.

Meet them and talk to them gather around

the worship of Jesus. Learn to love one another

and care for one another. Form a Community.

Individual parts, but one body. 

Father Son and Holy Spirit

Creator, redeemer and sustainer

God eternal, God in flesh, God in inspiration.

God in us, God for us, God through us.

However you want to say it,

We love and worship a God that works in relationship.

An equal relationship, sharing the pain, the glory

the sorrow and the joy equally.

The work of any one rests on the other two.

Any one would be less without the other.

God in the Trinity.

And the Community in the Trinity,

that is the Community we imitate.

That is what churches are:

Not hothouses to grow theologians in,

not a place to send your kids and grand kids to

so that they can learn morals.

But a place where we all go to learn how to live together.

A place of Community, imitating the God that we worship.

And Jesus said where two or three are gathered in my name --

Where there is an effort to form this love,

this Community with a capital C –

we know that God will be there among us.