365 Bunker Busters

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Bunker Busters”, originally shared on June 26, 2025. It was the 365^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   God worked in distressing times through St. Peter and St. Paul, Apostles, to open the hardened hearts of sinful human beings. God could do the same through you. Today, we’re going to find out how.

   Mom and Dad, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Simon and Garfield, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcom X, Donald Trump and Elon Musk (oh wait, they may not be together anymore), are some of the many duos who have had a significant influence on our lives.

   But, for Christians, no two human beings have had a greater influence on us than St. Peter and St. Paul, Apostles, who many churches throughout the world, will be celebrating this coming Sunday.

   It’s not a major holiday, in fact you may never have heard of it 😊, but it’s a fixed one. It happens every year on June 29^th.

   So, every once in awhile it falls on a Sunday and we celebrate it. Or we don’t. Our structure of readings offers an alternative for the third Sunday after Pentecost, also scheduled for this coming Sunday.

   But today, we’re going to take a look at the dynamic duo. The first one. 😊

   Paul was not a disciple of Jesus. He was a Pharisee, a careful student and keeper of the Jewish law. He became a convert after The Day of Pentecost, the beginning  of the Christian Church. Paul was a persecutor of the first Christians. He had a license to kill. He became a leader of the earliest Church.

   Peter was one of Jesus closest disciples. He was a fisherman. He was impulsive. As Jesus was being tortured, the night before he was crucified, Peter denied that he even knew who Jesus was three times. He was later forgiven by Jesus three times, as we will hear in this coming Sunday’s Gospel, John 21:15-19. He also became a leader of the earliest Church.

   Both were apostles and, no, an apostle is not someone married to an epistle. 😊  An apostle is someone who was a “sent one”, specifically called and sent by Jesus to proclaim the good news.

   Our readings from the Bible this coming Sunday will focus on the story of Peter and the writings of Paul, but I’d like to color a little bit outside of their lines today.

   I want us to focus on something that God did through Peter and Paul together. And I want to look at how their cooperation can show us a way to bring reconciliation today.

   Peter had become a leader of the Church that was composed of people who had been Jews. Paul had been a leader of the Church that that was composed of people who had been Gentiles (everybody else). Were both groups the same one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church? That was controversial.

   Peter and Paul were at the center of the first big church controversy, which was about whether new Christians who weren’t already Jews had to first be circumcised and keep the law of Moses, that is become Jews, and then accept Jesus as the Messiah in order to be saved, or whether they could come directly to faith through the work of the Holy Spirit.

   I think you know how that turned out, based on what the Church is today.

   But, what was the process that led through Christian division to Christian unity?

   Peter had been led to share the good news about Jesus and led Cornelius, a Roman Centurian, and his relatives and close friends to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit in Acts 10 and 11, and they were baptized. Peter returned to Jerusalem and the obvious presence of the Holy Spirit in the gentiles who came with him convinced many who met them along the way that they were Christians, but not everyone was convinced.

   There needed to be a gathering of the larger church to settle the issue.

   We see it in Acts 15, at the “The Council at Jerusalem”.

   Representatives of both groups were present.

   Paul and Barnabas had come and had reported about the conversion of the Gentiles and their reception of the Holy Spirit.

   Peter reminded the disciples and elders of the church who had gathered there how he had been appointed by Jesus to bring the Gospel to Gentiles also, and that they, too, had received the Holy Spirit without first becoming Jews.

   All listened in silence. James quoted from the only scripture available at the time, what we call the Old Testament, from the prophet Amos, and announced his decision that Gentile converts should not be troubled by the external religious Law, but should live in the Holy Spirit from the inside, out.

   The first church controversy was resolved by observing the work of God in the transformed lives of the people who had received the Holy Spirit, Jew and Gentile alike. This observation was confirmed from the Bible and by hearing from all in a gathered assembly, seeing the obvious new life of the Gentiles without reference to the requirements of the Law, and then declared by one in authority commissioned by Jesus.

   What can we learn from this?

   First, that differences within the Church are not new.

   We need not experience them as threats but as opportunities to validate those with whom we disagree as brothers and sisters in Christ and listen to all points of view, determine motivations and sincerity, and listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit to recognize where our living, common relationship with God takes us.

   Second, that it takes a lot to change the human heart, but when it truly happens, it can be seen.

   The lives of Jews and Gentiles alike were demonstrably changed when they received the Holy Spirit. They didn’t just receive religious language or popular social values; they received new life.

   The Christian life looks like something. The fruits of the Spirit that Paul writes about are not more laws to keep but are like the natural produce of a healthy fruit tree. They are the natural outcome of a changed life. He lists them in Galatians 5:22-23,

²² By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

   That’s what the Christian life looks like, and who would say that they don’t want that life?

   Yet, it’s clear that the majority of our churches are aging and dying. What can we do about it? Become bunker busters.

   Third, we learn from The Council at Jerusalem in the book of Acts that we, too, can become bunker busters.

   The First Lesson for this coming Sunday is Acts 12:1-11. That name, however, is short for “The Acts of the Apostles”.

   It’s the first book after Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the four Gospels. It’s not “The Prayers of the Apostles”, or “The Good Intentions of the Apostles”, or “The Potlucks of the Apostles”. It’s “The Acts of the Apostles,” and it reads like an action-adventure movie. It’s full of inhospitable crowds, torture, shipwrecks, hostile authorities, persecution, imprisonment, and close escapes. It’s also full of acts of God’s power, fearless declarations of faith, calls for accountability, calls for personal sacrifice, death, and the optimism of those who know that God will always have the last word.

   Do you want to read a church growth manual for today. I suggest that you start with The Acts of the Apostles.

   The apostles were bunker busters, they were the means by which God opened the hardened hearts of people both near to God and far, and then entered those hearts with power, and transformed them, and made them places fit for God to dwell.

   We too are living in distressing times. We’ve seen the use of Bunker Buster bombs this past week. They are bombs used to destroy mountains, to achieve peace or to lead to a wider war. Only God knows what will happen.

   What I do know is that there is a bunker that is exponentially harder to bust than any mountain, and that is the human heart.

   But there is also a power that is infinitely greater than ourselves. It’s a power that can work through us, but is one that we do not possess. It is a power that can bust the through the bunker of the human heart, as it did for yours and for mine. It is the power of God. And that power is almost always made manifest through some natural means: us, you and me. We cannot truly live without it.

   All of us are born separated from God, but we were reborn as children of God in our baptism because we were baptized through water and the Word in the Holy Spirit. We are brought to live in faith.

   This is the good news. It’s the best news in the history of the world and it has been entrusted to us, the Church, yet many of our churches are aging and dying. Why?

   Paul wrote to a young pastor about how to live as a Christian in distressing times, just before this coming Sunday’s Second Lesson, in 2 Timothy 4:1-5,

4 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: ² proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. ³ For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, ⁴ and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. ⁵ As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.

   That’s why the most important thing about evangelism is not to work on programs, but to work on ourselves: you can’t give away what you don’t have. How would we do that?

   What if we affirmed the power God to the world. What if we were a community where new life, a better life, a transformed life was not just talked about as a thing of the past, but was expected and lived today?

   What if we pointed the way to forgiveness, faith, and Christian formation, to prayer and worship, and retreats, and not to an apologetic blandness that offered only friendliness, fun and food.

   What if we were living a new life, something that invited people to be born again and not simply to be affirmed that they are fine just the way we are?

   Fourth, we learn that the work of God can be hijacked by those who would take it away from us if we let them.

   The Judaizers told Christians to step back to living under the law. Peter and Paul busted through the bunkers of fear and guilt, spiritual slavery and self-righteousness, to point to the power of God to change human lives. How?

   For many years, churches have been content to do passive evangelism. That is to offer things that we think have worked in the past or which would attract people today. We think of our churches as hospitals, and we act as if people know where to find us, if it becomes necessary, and that’s it. So why aren’t they coming?

   Because Jesus called us to “Go…”, to be more like the paramedics. Not to be attractional, but to be missional.

   Fifth, we learn to raise our expectations regarding the new life in Jesus Christ.

   Peter referenced Cornelius, a gentile, who had received the Holy Spirit. But Cornelius was not only a gentile, he was a Roman military leader, one whose loyalties had to be unquestionable. He put his life and livelihood on the line by becoming a Christian. The Empire wanted loyalty and calm within its borders above all else, and Christians and Jews were already gaining unwanted attention for refusing to yield their intolerant view that there was only one God. And they were beginning to pay a steep price.

   Both Peter and Paul died for their faith. Peter was sentenced to be crucified but he objected that he was not worthy to die as Jesus had died, so he was crucified upside down. Paul, who was a Roman citizen, was therefore given a speedier death, he was decapitated with a sword.

   What do we expect to be the outcomes of our lives today?

   We don’t expect much in order for people to be recognized as Christians in many of our churches. We’re mostly just glad that they show up.

   One of my colleagues once confided that when people visited his church and told him they were “church shopping”, he inwardly responded, “Well then, I hope you find a bargain!” 😊 Because choosing a church today is often just another consumer decision, and we want to remove any barriers and meet their needs. We certainly don’t want them to think that there will be consequences.

   We will not likely be called to martyrdom, as continues to happen in other places around the world even today, but we do face our own challenges. How long has it been since you’ve read something, or seen something on TV or in the movies, or heard something on talk-radio or in a podcast about Christians that was positive, or at least was something that you would recognize as actual Christianity.

   The early Christians were required to be trained for three years before they could receive Holy Communion. Many churches today consider themselves “welcoming” when they announce that Holy Communion is open to anybody, including the nonbelieving and the unbaptized. We don’t want to seem exclusive.

   We are like the parents who say they don’t force their children to go to church or even to be faithful believers. They say that they have to pick their battles.

   But they do force their children to go to school, to eat healthy meals, to get enough sleep, pick their friends carefully, take care of their personal hygiene, limit their screen time, do their homework, etc.

   And what happens? Children aren’t stupid. The message they get is that Christianity isn’t really all that important to their parents.

   We need to present a different message. The Christian faith may be costly for us, even today as the world becomes more and more secular, but in return we receive something much better: a sense of peace, an irreducible joy, humility, and meaning in this life, and perfection in the life to come. 

   Living the Christian faith may cost us friends today and even jobs and family members. And we accept that, and we get better ones.

   We may live in distressing times, but that’s normal for Christians!

    Paul writes of this in 2 Timothy 3:1-5,

3 You must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come. ² For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, ⁴ treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵ holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid them!

   Does any of that sound familiar? Does not “holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power” not speak to the state of many of our churches today?

   Today, many people hear Peter Paul and think, “Oh yeah, they made the Mounds candy bar. Mmmm.” Or they think about St. Paul and St. Peter, two cities in Minnesota. But we remember a pair of apostles who were bunker busters through whom God changed the world.

   God still works to bust the bunkers people make of their human hearts. God works through us, through our stories, and we all have them.

   Tell the story called, “Why I Became a Christian” or the one about “Why I Remain a Christian Today”, or “That Time When God Just Tore Me Up and I Became a New Person.”

   Live the Christian life for the renewal of the world. Be the means by which God restores the relationship with God for which all people were created, Tell your stories. Amen.

364 How to Become a Christian

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “How to Become a Christian”, originally shared on June 18, 2025. It was the 364^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   Ask many church members if they are a Christian and they’ll say something like, “Well, I try to be”. And that’s entirely beside the point. Today we’re going to find out why.

   Lots of stories could be told by those who participated in the peaceful demonstrations against the perceived abuse of power in the past week, as well as by those who exploited those demonstrations for their own violent agendas, in Los Angeles and cities nearby and throughout our country.

   The demonstrations were initiated by efforts to enforce the rule of law with regard to violent criminals but seemed to also include those who entered our country by hoping over the fence instead of waiting in line, but then it was indicated that we may be willing to look the other way  for workers in some large industries like agriculture and hospitality controlled by wealthy people. Or maybe not.

   Two of the major questions we’ve been asking ever since the age of mass media began are, “What is the story?”, and “Who gets to tell it?”.  

   I remember when the Farmer John meat packing plant in Vernon closed a few years ago. About 1,800 to 2,000 people lost their jobs. That’s a lot of people who are not happy about being out of work.

   There are also a lot of unhappy people who were dependent on the meat industry in the story of the healing of the Gerasene demonic in the Gospel reading for this coming Sunday, Luke 8:26-39, that will be read in the vast majority of churches throughout the world.

   But its message does not focus on the temporary loss of livelihoods, but on the eternal recovery of salvation. That’s a lesson that many of us are still learning.

   Jesus and the disciples had gone on a trip across the Sea of Galilee. His home base was Capernaum on the sea’s western shore and Gerasene was probably almost directly across from it, and a little to the south. Gerasene was a non-Jewish, that is “pagan” or “Gentile”, territory, as you might guess as you hear this story, given the prominence of a large herd of swine, an unclean animal for the Jews.

   Then this happens in Luke 8:26-27,

²⁶ Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. ²⁷ As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs.    

   The greeting party that met Jesus and his disciples was a naked man who used to live in the city but now lived in the graveyard.

   Most of us will read this and see lots of red flags. This is not normal.

   The people of Jesus days would see that he was not being supported by his family. That he was not wearing clothing, a thing that distinguished human beings from animals. Oh, and that he had demons.

   In our culture, demons are something we see in the movies. It’s surprising how many people believe in demons but do not believe in God. William Peter Blatty in The Exorcist has a character say, “God never talks. But the devil keeps advertising, Father. The devil does a lot of commercials.”

   In our text today, we see that God talks a lot, and that the demons believe in God. The question of who is doing the most commercials depends entirely upon whether you are a Christian or not. We see things as we are, and we see God all the time.

   And, in addition to everything else that the man had lost to the demons, the man had lost his agency, he had lost the power to speak for himself. We see this in Luke 8:28-31,

²⁸ When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”— ²⁹ for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.) ³⁰ Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him. ³¹ They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

   This man was a mess! Everything that made him human in the eyes of the world had been taken away from him.

   Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. The unclean spirit was in fact many demons, and they immediately recognized Jesus for who he was, and they were afraid, and they begged him not to send them back into the abyss. So, Jesus agreed and sent them where they wished, the unclean spirits into the unclean animals, and to extermination, as we see in Luke 8:32-33,

³² Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. ³³ Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

   What just happened? A large herd of swine was gone. Jesus had chosen the restoration of one man over the prosperity the pig owners. He had chosen a miracle for the possessed man over the food supply of the region.

   A miracle does not suspend the laws of the universe. A miracle restores the universe to what it was created to be.

   Look at what happened to the man, and how the non-believers responded in Luke 8:34-37,

³⁴ When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. ³⁵ Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they became frightened. ³⁶ Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed. ³⁷ Then the whole throng of people of the surrounding region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. 

   The people from the city and from the surrounding region found the man from who the demons had gone, “sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.”

   I studied in Israel for a semester when I was in college. Our chief guide, a graduate student who was an alumnus of my college, took our group to this location and read this text to us. He wept when he read it, and when he was finished he said, “This man was me.”

   He spoke about how he had suffered with mental illness in his life and had had a mental breakdown. He said that he believed that Jesus had come to him and healed him and when he had done it, Jesus had left him, “clothed and in his right mind.”

   Our guide said that Jesus had restored him to himself and to his family and to his community, and he had now taken up his studies again.

   How did the demon-possessed man’s community respond?

   They became frightened, and everybody from that surrounding region asked Jesus to leave them, “for they were seized with great fear.”

   Why? They were non-believers in Christ, but they did believe in the supernatural forces of evil. Maybe they were afraid because they feared the spirit world. Jesus had power there. Maybe they were afraid that he could turn it against them? They could have asked Jesus to stay and hear the good news and be freed from their fear, but they sent him away. They let their fears keep them from their blessing.

   The property owners were already mad. Jesus had killed their livelihood as well as some of the city’s food supply. They missed the blessing of eternity because their eyes were on their needs in this world.

   Jesus left, as they requested, but he didn’t leave them without a chance at salvation.

   We see this in Luke 8:38-39,

³⁸ The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying, ³⁹ “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

   What just happened? All the guy wanted was that he might be with Jesus. And who wouldn’t?

   The man had just gone from being possessed by the forces of evil to sitting at the feet of Jesus (that means learning directly from Jesus), clothed and in his right mind. He begged Jesus to let him stay. But God had other plans.

   And Jesus says to him instead, ³⁹ “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

   The man now has a blessing to share. And Jesus sends him to share the good news in his community.

   What are we, living in 2025, to make of this?

   Most of the world outside the church fears the supernational power of evil. We see things as the baptized people of God. It has no power over us.

   People in the church may or may not believe in supernatural evil, but they do not fear it. In our baptism, sin, death, and the power of these forces are overcome by God’s grace.

   In fact, there is a vestigial exorcism in the service of Holy Baptism used by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in the current hymnbook, “Evangelical Lutheran Worship”, in the “Profession of Faith” section (on page 229) where the sponsors answer for the child or the adult answers for him/herself:

Do you renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God?

Response: I renounce them.

Do you renounce the powers of this world that rebel against God?

Response: I renounce them.

Do you renounce the ways of sin that draw you from God?

Response: I renounce them.

   These words are followed by a trinitarian reading/recitation of the Apostles Creed beginning,  “I believe…”

   And the service ends with the words, “__Name__, child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.”

   This grace of God comes to the demon-possessed man through the power of God. We see that power for us on the cross. We belong to God. We have been sealed by the Holy Spirit forever.

   The man with the demons is sent home with a cool story to tell.

   How can we declare how much God has done for us?

   What commercials are you producing for God through your proclamation and your daily living?

   Sally and I are at the age where many of the programs we watch on TV contain commercials for Prevagen, an over-the-counter medication that’s supposed to help improve your memory.

   I’ve been trying to learn Mandarin Chinese for a couple of years, and I once asked my cardiologist, who is also my internist, if he thought Prevagen would help me. He told me that the best way to maintain and improve my memory is to exercise it, and I believe that my studying something hard has helped my overall memory.

   The man who had had his demons cast out by Jesus was not given a passive assignment by Jesus. He was told to tell his story. He was new to faith in Christ, but I believe that his faith was maintained and improved by doing something that was hard, by going back to his people and sharing it.

   Telling his story was an expression of his relationship with Jesus.

   We all know lost people in our lives. Who are yours? What do we have to offer them but our story when we are uncomfortable, even when it’s difficult?

   We may not have a dramatic story like the demoniac who Jesus restored to his right mind, or maybe some of us do. But we all have stories, and we can all name the name of Jesus.

   We all have stories that are true to our lives. The story of “How I Became a Christian” or, “Why I Continue to Be a Christian” are stories we all know and can share with the people close to us.

   Even just letting people know that you gather with others to worship God in response to what God has done for you in your Baptism, that’s a story.

   These are the stories that you can tell somebody right now to tell others what God has done for you.

   But what if they respond positively, and want to go deeper? What would you do? Is your church prepared to help someone go from zero to Christian? Having that kind of preparedness is not common. What can you do to prepare your Christian community to receive people new to the faith?

   Is just trying to be a Christian the answer?

   In the movie “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back”, Luke is trying to lift the X-wing out of the swamp, but he believes that his power is too small. Yoda admonishes him and Luke says, “Alright, I’ll give it a try,” and Yoda replies, “No! Try not! Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

   That is the story of the man freed of demons who goes back to his people. That is our story as well. But we become Christians by our being, not by our doing. Our doing comes from our being.

   We don’t try to be Christians. Our Christianity is a gift, a relationship with God that has transformed our being.

   What we do is not an end in itself. That’s living under just another form of religious Law. What Christians do is an expression of who we are.

   How do we become a Christian? We become a Christian by opening our heart to God, repenting of our sin, and allowing God to clean us out and make us a fitting place for God to dwell. We are now God’s people. We are born again, and we may fail, but God has made us holy by his presence within us. It’s a gift.

   What we do now comes entirely from the inside out.

   Be the good news, and share it.

363 Where God Is

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Where God Is”, originally shared on June 11, 2025. It was the 363^rd  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   Where is God? Not where you expect. Today, we’re going to find out why.

    I once saw a puzzle that asked the reader to find a message in these letters:

GODISNOWHERE

   The easy part is finding the words "God” and “is”.

   The hard part is in knowing what to do with the remaining letters.

   Do you leave them alone and have the message read “God is nowhere”, or do you do a little more work and put a space between the “w” and the “h” and make the message, “God is now here.”? This raises another question.

   Why don’t more people go beyond what they see and come to know the presence of God?

   I’ve often wondered why people who deny the truth of Christianity without understanding it don’t apply the same standards to their work or to the things they do believe in.

   What kind of scientist, for example, comes to a point where what they are doing in their field doesn’t make sense and just gives up? Does a researcher stop exploring because they find something that they can’t explain?

   Or do they try to learn more so that they can move forward?

   The popular science and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov is said to have said, "the most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny.'"

   Knowing that we don’t understand something is when learning and growth begins!

  G.K Chesterton once said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.”

   Take the Holy Trinity, for example.

   This coming Sunday will be Holy Trinity Sunday in the vast majority of churches in the world.

   It raises a difficult question? How many Gods do we believe in? It may seem obvious to some of us, but to some new Christians it is difficult.

   How many Gods do we believe in? The answer is obvious. One: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

   But wait, that’s three. How can one be three? Or is it, “how can three be one?” Today, we’re going to find out. And we’re going to find out how to find out.

   Some say that physical work requires only two tools.

   If it moves and it shouldn’t: duct tape.

   If it doesn’t move and it should: WD40. Or, if you’re old school and you want it to move, or if you want it to move faster and you don’t need those fancy aerosol cans: 3-In-One oil.

   Yes, before we had those fancy gasoline powered lawn mowers or those eco-friendlier electric ones, we used our muscle-powered manual mowers, and they moved efficiently with 3-in-one oil! When we wanted our bicycles to fly like rockets: 3-in-1 oil. When things got rusty and wouldn’t move: 3-In-One oil. Hedge clippers, bolts, pruners, bicycle chains, locks, adjustable wrenches, almost anything that turned and could rust was made more efficient by 3-in-1 oil.

   It’s been made since 1894, and you can still buy it. It’s one of the, if not the most, masculine smells I know. If you could make a cologne out of it, I think that you’d have something.

   It “Frees Rusted Parts”, “Prevents Rust”, and “Lubricates.” And yet it comes from one 4-oz. container. It’s just one oil: “3-In-One!” Get it? So, does that make it a good way to describe the Holy Trinity? Well, sort of. But “No.”

   This coming Sunday is Holy Trinity Sunday, the only Sunday in the Church year named for a doctrine. That might sound pretty dry except for the blood spilled, the churches divided, and the lives that have been spent trying to define what “the Holy Trinity” means. So, if it still sounds dry, maybe we need a little spiritual 3-In-One oil.

   There’s nowhere in the Bible that says, “there is a Trinity”, and yet the evidence for that revelation of God is found from the beginning to the end of it, and it says: God is now here.

  Sometimes just one is present, and sometimes all three persons are manifest in the same place and the same time, as in Jesus’ baptism in Matthew 3:13-27. Jesus came out of the water, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and rested on him, and a voice spoke from heaven, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

   And as in our Gospel reading for this week, John 16:12-15,

12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

   The doctrine of the Trinity is that we believe in one God who reveals Himself to us in three persons, each of which is fully God. Yet, does this make who the Trinity is any clearer?

   Martin Luther, the 16th century Church reformer, once said, “To try to deny the Trinity is to endanger your salvation. To try to comprehend the Trinity is to endanger your sanity.”

   I’d say it’s pretty much impossible to describe the Holy Trinity without slipping into heresy. But, the whole idea of heresy brings to mind the bad old days of torture, war, and hypocrisy, right? Yet it also points to a time when the truth mattered, when it was literally a matter of life and death, not just for this world, but for eternity.

   The Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed (which is 1,700 years old this year) that are central to the Christian faith, that ended much of the Church’s fighting over doctrine by setting down the central things that the Bible teaches, are both based on the structure of the Trinity.

   Remember St. Nicholas, the guy called Santa Claus in many cultures. He wears a red robe because St. Nicholas was a bishop when the Nicene Creed was being written. When the essence of the Christian faith was being decided and things got so heated that good old Santa Clause, St. Nicholas, is alleged to have smacked another bishop, Arius, over his heretical beliefs regarding the Trinity.

   Muslim evangelists in Christian areas sometimes accuse Christians of believing in three gods, not one.

   How do we explain the Trinity?

   We see in the Bible that God has revealed himself to his people in three primary ways, as God the Father, or Creator, God the Son, or Redeemer, and God the Holy Spirit, or the Sanctifier, the one who makes us saints, even while we are sinners.

   One God, revealed to us in three persons.

   How do we illustrate that? A shamrock, a triangle; ice-water in a glass, one man who is a Father/Husband/Son or one Woman, who is a Mother, wife, and daughter, are all things I’ve used to point to the Trinity. And here are three that I haven’t: an egg (shell, white, and yolk), the Sun (star, heat, light), and the three layers of an apple.

   And we could look at the three versions of Gene Simmons.

   I read a story online recently about Gene Simmons, the lead singer for the ‘70’s rock band KISS.

   He told about his first big interview with “Rolling Stone” magazine.

   He wanted to display his demon rocker credentials, so he prepared for the interview by putting on his heavy metal band hair and make-up, his spider jewelry, his shiny black costume and sky-high platformed black boots. The interview had already begun when the doorbell rang. It was his mother, a holocaust survivor.

   She came with enough food to feed a small army for what she called the “hungry boys”, and she called Gene Simmons by his Hebrew name, Chaim, and she told the interviewer that he was “a good boy”.

   Gene Simmons had wanted to establish himself as a hard rocker, but he had been exposed for what he was, “a momma’s boy”. He said that he had never used drugs or alcohol because he didn’t want to hurt his mother, who had been through enough.

   So, we could also say that there are three Gene Simmons: the entertainment personality, the demon rocker, and the mamma’s boy, but there is only one Gene Simmons.

   But, that and every one of those ways for explaining the Trinity is inadequate, some border on heresy, and some cross that border. And they all have names. 😊

   For example, saying that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not three persons of the Trinity, but are different parts of God, each equaling one third: that’s Partialism.

   Saying that the Trinity is three separate individuals: that’s Tritheism.

   Saying that we believe in one God who reveals his self in three different ways, like Father in the OT, Son in the Gospels, and Spirit in the Epistles: that’s Modalism.

   Saying that God the Father always existed, but that Jesus and the Holy Spirit were created by God and therefore are less than fully God: that’s Arianism. What’s that?

   Remember those lines about Jesus in the Nicene Creed that say, “eternally begotten of the Father” and “begotten, not made”? Or the one about the Holy Spirit that says, “proceeds from the Father and the Son” (note: “and the Son” was added later)? Those were all written against the arguments of Arius, the namesake of Arianism, the one slapped by Santa Clause. That issue split the Church in two in the year 1,000 A.D., creating the Roman Catholic Church in the west and the Orthodox Churches in the east.

   Why is this important now? Well, I think that we would agree that it’s important both to understand what we believe and to know that the things we believe are true. And, practically speaking, what we believe about the Trinity in the abstract has a major effect on how we relate to God.

   For example, sometimes, you’ll hear people say “I love Jesus. He’s so accepting and forgiving, so non-judgmental. But I have hard time with the God of the Old Testament. He seems so judgmental, so intolerant, and so punishing.”

   The thing about the Trinity is that all three persons are exactly the same. God the Son is God the Father is God the Holy Spirit is God the Son, and ‘round and ‘round. We believe in one God who is three persons, and each is fully God.

   How can God be one and three at the same time? Here are three ways to know where God is.

   First, I would say that anything that we claim that we have figured out about God is probably not true. All we can know is what is revealed to us by God. We can’t understand God any more than a loaf of bread can understand the baker, or an engine can understand the mechanical engineer.

   If anyone says they fully understand God, that god is probably not the God of the Bible. That is a god they have invented for themselves, not the Creator of all that exists, the redeemer of my soul, and the one whose presence within me and within us makes me and us holy!

   How many of us love a mystery? One of the things we like about mysteries is solving them, or not being able to solve them and then being shown the answer at the end of the movie or of the story and then working out the clues that were there all along.

   I like to read how a story ends first and then see how the story gets there. Some people think that’s weird. 😊

   The Trinity is a mystery, but not in the sense that we can solve it, or that anyone can show us the answer, or that the clues are hidden but are there for all who can recognize them. The Trinity is a mystery in the sense that it cannot be understood except as it is revealed to us by God.

   Second, do you believe in God? You give your testimony every time you read or recite one of the creeds in a worship service. The word “creed” comes from the Latin word “credo”, which means “I believe”. Those creeds are Trinitarian, they are the core of the Christian faith from which we grow. They are what the Church believes. Not what your denomination believes, but what the entire Christian church believes is central to what it means to be a Christian.

   Both of those creeds begin, “I believe in God.”

   Some people say “seeing is believing”, but believing is also a way of seeing. It enables us to see the transformational work of God, giving us new life, making us a new creation, born again, so that we may be a part of what God is doing.

   Third, where is God? God is in you!

   We have been shocked by the rioting and the civil unrest of the past days. We see desperate people who have given up. We see officials who seem to only believe in power.

   But we have not given up. And we know where true power is found.

   We know that we are better than this, that we can do better.

   Why?

   Do you believe in hate? Do you believe in love? You can’t see them. You can only see them at work in people. We see them when they come from the inside out of people.

   This is why Jesus, just before he explains how God (the Father) sent the Jesus (the Son), explains the work of the Holy Spirit in John 3:8,

⁸ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

   We see where God is by seeing the transformed lives that are God’s gift to all who believe and are baptised.

   Why do people not believe in God when they really just don’t understand Him? Who will tell them the truth about God, powered by the Holy Spirit except us?

   When people tell me that they don’t believe in God, and I ask them to tell me about the God that they don’t believe in, I find that I don’t believe in that god either.

   We are not the light. Our task as the people of God is to reflect the light of God as God is. People we know can’t move beyond their ignorance by themselves.

   God is like 3-In-One oil. When our hearts are hard against God, God will penetrate our resistance and set us free. When the rust of sin has kept us from being what we were created to be, God dies for us on the cross so that we have what we were created to have in a living relationship with the one, true living God. When we need protection from the corrosion of sin, death, and the power of the devil, and we repent and open our heart to receive God, God abides with us, and nothing can take us away from God.

   But God isn’t three oils making one oil, or three purposes doing one thing, or three solutions to similar problems. God is One, One in three persons, each fully God. We know this because it has been revealed to us through the Bible, God’s Word.

   How many Gods do we believe in? One. The Holy Trinity. We believe in one God.

   It’s not easy to understand this because it is God. God is God, and we’re not.

   All we can know about God is what God reveals to us. God is never where we expect. God is where God is. God is for you and in all who believe and are baptized.

   God is now here.

   Share the good news.