Lord God, provider and friend of those in need, you sent Jesus to show us how to welcome you into our lives by caring for others. Trusting in your compassion, we offer our prayers for all who feel lost or troubled in today’s world, as we say, give us welcoming hearts Give us welcoming hearts
We pray for the church, especially for the clergy and people of the United Church of North India, the Parishes of Labrador West and Lake Melville, and for all who minister within our parish community. As we learn to live with Covid-19, may the Holy Spirit guide each of us to joyfully share your love by caring for each other and for all of your creation.
God, our Provider Give us welcoming hearts
On Memorial Day, we remember the many lost lives of the 1st Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont-Hamel, who so willingly lost their lives in the senselessness and brutality of the First World War. We give thanks for their great sacrifice and ask your blessing for those who honour them by bringing peace, security, and relief to areas of strife and devastation in today’s world.
God, our Provider Give us welcoming hearts
This Canada Day, we celebrate our great nation, a rich land of beauty and bounty, a diverse land shared by diverse peoples from coast to coast, a land of opportunity – but also challenges. May your wisdom and compassion guide our leader’s decisions in these turbulent times of discrimination, Covid-19, economic troubles, and climate change. Open our hearts to listen, learn, and celebrate our differences, that together, Canada may grow into a community where all may live in peace and harmony with the earth, with each other, and with other nations, as you intended.
God, our Provider Give us welcoming hearts
We pray for those who struggle… with financial uncertainly, homelessness, fear, or loneliness; for those whose lives have been destroyed by hatred, violence, or greed. We give thanks and ask your blessing on all who work and volunteer each day to ease their hardships. Grant us the empathy to appreciate each person lives under quite different circumstances, that we, too, may eagerly offer meaningful help as we move into Covid-19 Alert Level 2.
God, our Provider Give us welcoming hearts
We remember all those who are ill and in need of our prayers, especially: Doris Cook, Pam Janes, David Hood, Ashton, Reg Thorne Jr., and others, who we now name, aloud or in the silence of our hearts (pause). Bless them, their medical teams and families with patience and strength as they seek healing under the current health emergency. Help us provide support and reassurance that they are not alone.
God, our Provider Give us welcoming hearts
Lord, we entrust those who have recently died into your tender care. May those who grieve be comforted by their faith and the gentle companionship of others as we share their loss.
God, our Provider Give us welcoming hearts
O God, sustainer of all, open our hearts to love and trust you as Abraham did. Fill us with your grace, that we may hurry to make you welcome, not only in our concern for others, but through our generous and faithful service to them in your name; that we may be one with you as you are one with us in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Prayers of the people for Pentecost 4 are written by Audrey Power.
One of the greatest joys of ministry at St. Mark’s has been the opportunity to get to know people from different cultures. This has come through our partnership with the Association for New Canadians, our involvement with two refugee sponsorships, and our connections to our neighborhood like the breakfast program and Home Again Furniture Bank. I have had the privilege to be welcomed into the homes of people from Syria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan and South Sudan, Laos, Bhutan, South Korea, Armenia, Serbia and Bosnia. I have also had the chance to encounter people from all over South America, Africa and Asia. I have learned so much from these amazing people, and their harrowing and inspiring stories.
One of things that has always struck me about all these people and all these cultures is their sense of hospitality. As a white person of European descent, with a very individualistic view of the world, I have been repeatedly overwhelmed by the hospitality I have experienced at their hands. A visit to their home is a huge production. There is no such thing as a quick visit. Water, coffee, tea, food, sweets, fruit…whatever they have is offered for you to enjoy. Saying no is not really an option, and if you do you can see the disappointment and hurt in their faces.
Anyone who has been on the receiving end of this kind of hospitality knows right away what is going on in our reading today from Genesis. Abraham is showering his visitors with hospitality.
But first a word about Genesis.
Genesis is a hot mess. Beyond the creation stories at the beginning of Genesis, the book is a collection of stories about human screw ups and divine wrath. Adam and Eve sin and God curses them. Cain kills Abel and then God marks Cain. The stories of the flood and the Tower of Babel raise all kinds of theological questions. But Abraham is something different. No doubt he is a complicated and fault-filled character, as some of our subsequent lectionary readings will show, but Abraham shows a capacity to care for others and an unwavering trust in God. And in our story today, he is the embodiment of hospitality.
Upon seeing three strangers approach, Abraham welcomes them into his home. He offers them water, washes their feet and gives them shelter from the hot sun. He rushes off to make sure bread is prepared for his guests. Abraham also has a prize calf cooked for the strangers, served with curds and milk. It is an extravagant feast. He also shares his presence with them as they eat their meal.
The story goes on to tell how these visitors are really divine messengers. They are there to bring the promise of the covenant that God had made with Abraham and his wife Sarah. The promise is that they would be blessed not only with a child in their old age, but also with a great lineage of descendants, land, and being a global blessing to all people.
But there seems to be no indication that Abraham has any inclination that these are divine messengers or angels. Christian interpreters and artists have certainly read the story this way. In fact, one of the most popular images of the trinity is based on this story. Russian iconographer Rublev’s painting of this scene imagines the three strangers as a symbol of the trinity. The reading seems to say that not only are these divine messengers of some sort, but the triune God being welcomed at table. There is a lot to unpack in the interpretation…God welcomed as stranger, hospitality offered to the stranger is really hospitality to God.
What does this story tell us about our own tables, whether they be the ones in our church buildings, the high altars in our chancels or the utilitarian tables in our parish halls, or in our own homes? For many Christians, this Sunday we also keep the Feast of Corpus Christi, a celebration of the “Real Presence” of Jesus in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. This feast takes on added significance as we find ourselves during a global pandemic, cut off from the very Eucharist that we commemorate this day. Many of us are starving for the sacred meal that sustains us.
But maybe when we can’t gather together like we would like to, to share the communion meal we long to share, this story of Abraham’s hospitality is a good one for us to focus on – to shift our focus away from how we have understood God’s presence, to one that sees God in and seeks out the strangers among us. To see who is overlooked, left out and trampled down. Maybe Corpus Christi is a good time for us to reimagine and remix what we mean by the body of Christ and real presence. That God’s presence could never be contained fully in bread and wine, but is always being broken and poured out, out there in the streets, and around tables built on radical hospitality and justice. That to be faithful means turning our backs on what we thought was so important and so deserving of all of our time, attention and resources.
And in a world where so many of our sisters and brothers cannot breathe, where racist systems and institutions still exact a brutal toll on black lives in black bodies. A world where indigenous communities go without the basics of clean water, sanitation and education that white communities take for granted. A world where indigenous women and girls are murdered at an alarming rate, something that few beyond indigenous communities care much about. A world where trans people are assaulted and killed simply for trying to be the people God made them to be. A world where women still earn less than men for doing the same work, and because of nothing else other than the fact they are not men. A world where immigrants and refugees are treated as second class citizens just because they come from away. In this world we always must be making more and more room at the table, putting out more chairs, creating more space, bringing more food, sharing more presence.
That’s not only following the example of our ancestor Abraham, but also of our master and brother Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth, the one we call the bread of life, reveals God’s desire to bring people together in feasting and community. He feeds the hungry multitudes. Jesus makes space for all, bringing together rich and poor, saint and sinner, male and female, and in the process he scandalizes all those who seek to separate us because of race, gender, religion and class. In Jesus, God tarnishes God’s reputation with gluttons, winebibbers, tax collectors and prostitutes, to show that at God’s table there is room for everyone. May we too, as his body, go and do the same. Amen.
Blessed Saviour, you invite us to hold the needs of our sisters and brothers as dear to us as our own needs. Loving our neighbours as ourselves we offer our thanksgivings and our petitions on behalf of the church in the world saying: Shine in our lives
Let us pray for the church and especially for Justin our Archbishop; for the Anglican Church of Canada and the work of the church within the lives of women, men and children around the world. We pray for the Anglican church in Uganda, and the Episcopal church in Newark, USA. Locally we pray for the Parish of the Holy Spirit, the Parish of the Holy Trinity and the Parish of Indian Bay. Open our ears to hear your word and draw us closer to you.
Lord of light Shine in our lives.
We pray today for all the individuals on the cemetery committee as they manage the cemeteries at Forest Road and Kenmount Road. Be with them as they make decisions that ensures that our final resting place is surrounded by light and love, a place to uphold the memory of those who have died.
Lord of light Shine in our lives.
Thank you, Lord, for the wise medical and political leadership and the brave front line workers during this Covid 19 pandemic. We pray for a safe transition into the next levels of safety and ask that you guide us to follow the rules that have been set up to keep us safe.
Lord of light Shine in our lives.
Creator God, you call us to love and serve you with body, mind and spirit through loving your creation and our sisters and brothers. Open our hearts in compassion to accept those who are different from ourselves in colour, culture, race, and sexual orientation. Guide us on our way to love our neighbour as ourselves.
Lord of light Shine in our lives.
We pray for those who are ill, lonely or in any sort of pain. We ask your blessing on Doris Cook, Pam Janes, David Hood, Ashton, Reg Thorne, Jr. and others known to us who we now name either silently or aloud. (….pause) Please Lord, draw them close to you.
Lord of light Shine in our lives.
We pray for all who have died recently (especially Greta Dawe) We pray that they are at peace and those who mourn are comforted by the presence of your spirit.
Lord of light Shine in our lives.
Dear Lord, we ask that you give us the strength and courage to serve others in your name. Help us to understand their concerns and challenges and help us make them welcome in our lives. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen
The Prayers of the People were written by Marilyn Beaton.
If you are stumbling upon this service today while channel surfing or if you are viewing this on YouTube or Facebook after it showed up randomly in your newsfeed, today is your lucky day. You get to listen to me walk the tightrope of heresy as I try to explain to you the doctrine of the Trinity. Just Kidding! If that’s what you’re looking for then maybe this sermon is not your cup of tea.
Today is Trinity Sunday and there is probably no other theological topic that will send people running for the doors like talk of the Trinity. Perhaps part of the problem is that we have turned it into a doctrine, a dogma, and not helped people see the practical implications of this most puzzling idea or tackle the difficult question: what does any of this have to do with me and my life?
Another problem is that there is no chapter and verse defence of the Trinity in scripture. Oh there are references, like in our gospel reading for today, but there is no systematic case made for Trinity in the bible. Actually, we could say that about many of our church doctrines, because the bible is not God’s big book of doctrines, but a collection of peoples’ experiences of God and each other down through the millennia. But I digress.
While this is not a comprehensive word, or the final word, or even much of an authoritative word, here are some brief thoughts that may get the juices flowing on potential further conversation. I’ll admit though that this is a topic best reserved for your favourite coffee shop or pub while sipping on your favourite dark brew. Under different circumstances I would say that I’m open to an invitation to imbibe in both conversation and beverages at any time, in either café or pub. With the current restrictions, though, maybe its best that you invite me to conversation on Facebook or Twitter, or maybe we could Zoom about the Trinity.
My first thought is the idea of Unity in Diversity. The essence of the Trinity is that God is one, God is three. While that may boggle the mind, it does tell us that God is not uniformity or sameness, God is diverse, expressed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and I might add many other ways too. We too, made in God’s image are diverse. The same applies to the church. We are all different, but our differentness expresses the mystery on the Trinity. Unfortunately, we have built our faith communities around sameness, confusing unity with uniformity. Our churches emphasize same belief and same behaviour, both of which can leave little room for belonging. If God is diverse, shouldn’t the communities that claim to worship God also reflect that diversity?
My second thought is picks up from the first and has to do with Relationship and Community. You could even go so far as to say that God is relationship or community. The Trinity attempts to express the interrelation of God and Son, which overflows into creation and through us by the Spirit. Atomic physicists tell us that the power of the atom is not in the three particles but in the relationship between them. Franciscan writer Richard Rohr says this relationship is the pattern for the universe and for us. We are not isolated or independent from each other but are a complex network of relationships and connections. Whether we know it or like it, we are living in community. Neither are we separate from the creation that surrounds us. Like St. Francis of Assisi said the stars, moon, animals, plants and elements are our sisters and brothers. Not only are we a complex network of relationships with others, but we are a part of the great, divine web of life that we call the cosmos, and that the mystics call God.
Thirdly, the Trinity is participatory. It is significant that we commemorate Trinity Sunday a week after Pentecost because it is in the coming of the Holy Spirit that we are drawn into the Trinity and its unity and community. The trinity by its very nature is participatory. God the creator and saviour of the universe now resides and works through you and me. That is both terrifying and thrilling at the same time. Early church thinkers used the word perichoresis – where we get the word choreography – to describe God. The word literally means to move around or rotate. These early scholars used words like dance, sway and flow to describe the relationship, not only within the Trinity, but of our relationship to the Trinity as well. God is a dancer or better yet the dance, calling us to the dance, teaching us the steps and gently pulling us back into the flow when we mess up the steps.
In the end the last word goes to mystery. This is not a cop out because I think we must always struggle with understanding, articulating, and living out the nature of God. Honestly, I don’t claim to understand the Trinity and I am wary, even distrustful of those who claim they do. Perhaps the best approach to the unsearchable, inexplicable, Triune God is a little humility and the ability to not take ourselves too seriously. Remember that the Trinity is meant to be lived not explained, is more of a reality than a doctrine. As the singer Iris DeMent sings, “everybody is wonderin’ what and where they all came from … I believe in love and I live my life accordingly, but I choose to let the mystery be.”
So I look forward to many invitations and conversations on such paradoxical topics at refreshment establishments near you, or on the digital media of your choice. Disagree with me if you must, maybe I have it completely wrong. But imagine how different our church, and the world for that matter, would be if we saw God in our participation in diverse, relationship driven, creation affirming communities, that not only make room for mystery and difference but celebrate it. And who knows, maybe in these days of pandemic, this understanding of God can be the starting point for building a better, more loving world. Amen.
This sermon originally aired on NTV on Sunday, June 7. Rev. Robert is the rector of St. Mark’s.
Loving and gracious God, all powerful Creator, You gave us Jesus in human form to show us how to live, and when he ascended you gave us the Holy Spirit. Strengthen us through the Holy Spirit that we may live our lives according to your will. We offer our prayers saying, Loving Father: fill us with the Holy Spirit.
We pray for the church worldwide, especially the Anglican Church of Mexico. In our province, we pray for Geoff our Bishop; for the Parish of Hermitage, the Parish of the Holy Cross, and the Parish of the Holy Innocents, Paradise, that they may be strengthened and renewed by the Holy Spirit. We give thanks for our parish family and the opportunities we have to worship together. Please help us to continue supporting one another and our neighbours, no matter how big or small the action.
Loving Father: fill us withthe Holy Spirit
We pray for governments, leaders and policy makers that they have wisdom and courage to work together and be inspired to address the many injustices in the world that are now magnified by Covid 19. Guide them to a more equitable path forward with wages, the care of the elderly, refugees, the vulnerable and global access to medicines and the Covid 19 vaccine once developed.
Loving Father: fill us withthe Holy Spirit
We are thankful for so many things: for our health care and essential workers, for all who have recovered from Covid 19. They are all an inspiration. We give thanks for the flattening of our curve allowing us to move forward with less restrictions and expanding our bubbles. We give thanks for the renewing season of spring as we watch the trees and flowers bloom, feel the warmth of the air and hear the birds singing. May we be overwhelmed by life’s beauty and be renewed with spirit and joy.
Loving Father: fill us withthe Holy Spirit
We remember George Floyd and the many others who have lost their lives simply because of the colour of their skin and as a result of systemic racism that plagues our government, legal, law enforcement and religious institutions. We pray for an end to racism. May we as a society and church repent and begin the process of building a more just world.
Loving Father: fill us withthe Holy Spirit
We pray for strength, hope and healing for all who are suffering. We pray especially for Doris Cook, Pam Janes, David Hood, Ashton, Reg Thorne, Jr and all those known to us who we name aloud or in the silence of our hearts – pause. Help them to know your Spirit and guide us to be compassionate, kind and understanding to all those in need.
Loving Father: fill us withthe Holy Spirit
We remember those who have recently died, and all victims of Covid 19. Help us to support those who grieve during this challenging time when we can not physically be with one another. May they experience your loving kindness in the midst of their pain, give them comfort and peace knowing You will always be with them.
Loving Father: fill us withthe Holy Spirit
Divine Trinity, You are awesome in your power and glory. For the wonders you created, for the life of your Son, for sending the Holy Spirit to strengthen us, we offer our prayers and adoration. Amen.
The prayers of the people re written by Deborah Randell.
St. Mark's Anglican Church 