Sermon Preached by the Rev. Leslie G. Reimer
Calvary Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh
Trinity Sunday, 30 May 1999
Be ye sure that the Lord he is God;
it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves;
we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Amen.
James Weldon Johnson's poem The Creation begins this way:
"And God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
'I'm lonely
I'll make me a world.'"
In those four straightforward lines, this poet says what centuries of theologians and generations of beleaguered Trinity Sunday preachers have tried to say. God cannot resist creating. At the center of the mystery of God is conversation and community. As one commentator observes, we come to appreciate that "the world's foundation is a free act of God's own brimming existence." Within God there is that on-going yearning to communicate, to be in conversation and community. From that brimming existence -- out of chaos and darkness -- God calls into being light and order and a wondrous variety of creatures all intricately interdependent on one another. God cannot resist making a world.
That is not the end of the story. After describing delightfully the ways in which God makes sky and earth and moon and sun and water, James Weldon Johnson goes on to tell this part of the story:
"Then God walked around
And God looked around
On all that He had made.
He looked at His sun,
And He looked at His moon,
And He looked at His little stars;
He looked on His world
With all its living things,
And God said, 'I'm lonely still.'
Then God sat down
On the side of a hill where He could think;
By a deep, wide river He sat down;
With His head in His hands,
God thought and thought,
Till He thought, 'I'll make me a man!'"
God calls into being humankind to share the conversation and community that is at the heart of the mystery of God to be at the center of the created order, to give names to the creatures and to give companionship to God and to one another.
And we follow. That continuous calling into being is what breathes life into us, because the conversation and community at the heart of God is still at work, because we know the creative and redeeming and life sustaining word of God. We are baptized into the people of God. In the Name of that Trinity -- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, we are given our identity.
So it is not a big leap from the story of creation to the Gospel for this morning. In the beginning, God created, called into being, made community. We hear the call that says "Go and make disciples in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Out of nothingness, out of darkness, out of chaos, we are also called to bring to life interdependence and community -- to care for one another and to care for all of God's creation -- to appreciate and celebrate the marvelous diversity of all God's works - to live in a way that calls into being a community of faith and of love and of service in the Name of God.
In the beginning God created. We are called to go and to continue to work with God in creation. God's promise is to be with us always, even to the end of the age. From the beginning, even to the end of the age. God can't resist creating. God can't resist calling us to create. God can't resist giving from a brimming existence. God can't resist inviting us into the conversation and community at the heart of the mystery of God.
"God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
'I'm lonely--
I'll make me a world.'"
Amen.
Please feel free to contact Leslie
if you have questions or comments about this or any sermon.