The Holy Trinity
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VII, Cycle C
Theme For The Day
Faith helps us to endure suffering, and move beyond it to hope.
Old Testament Lesson
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Wisdom Calls
Wisdom is personified, here, as a female figure. She calls out to those who have ears to hear, inviting them to follow her ways (vv. 1-4). In verses 22-31, divine Wisdom reveals that she was created by God even before the world came to be. In extravagant poetry, the author then describes how Wisdom witnessed each stage of creation. "Happy are those who keep my ways," says Wisdom in verse 32 (just beyond the boundaries of this lectionary selection). Throughout the book of Proverbs, there are exhortations to students to be diligent about their studies, so they may gain the practical wisdom they need for faithful living. This personification of wisdom is among the most memorable of these.
New Testament Lesson
Romans 5:1-5
From Suffering To Hope
We are "justified by faith," says Paul, and so we receive the gift of peace (v. 1). Through Christ we receive "access to grace" (v. 2). In verses 3-5, Paul presents a powerful sequence of reasoning, in which he moves from suffering to hope: "suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us...." This logical sequence is a rich source of word studies, and could form the outline for an entire sermon, like a pastoral message on dealing with suffering. "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit" -- this is an unusual turn of phrase (v. 5). We are enabled to persevere through this entire sequence from suffering to hope because of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
The Gospel
John 16:12-15
More On The Spirit Of Truth
John further expands his understanding of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth (introduced in last week's reading, John 14:8-17). Jesus is promising his disciples that this Spirit will come to them in time, and will teach them all they need to know. In these few verses, all three persons of the Trinity are mentioned. The Spirit of truth, Jesus says, "will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine" (vv. 14-15). While there is no systematic theological description of the Trinity in the Bible (the doctrine was not worked out in detail until the Christological controversies of the fourth century), this passage at least mentions all three persons of the Godhead.
Preaching Possibilities
There's a story they like to tell over in Scotland, of an atheist who was spending a quiet afternoon fishing on Loch Ness. Suddenly, the man's boat is attacked by none other than the infamous Loch Ness monster. In one easy flip, the beast tosses the fisherman and his boat high into the air. Then, it opens its fearsome, toothy mouth, ready to swallow them both.
As the man reaches the highest point of his ascent, he cries out, "Oh, God! Help me!"
Immediately, the entire scene freezes. The atheist and his boat hang, suspended, over the monster's huge, gaping jaw.
Then a booming voice echoes down from the clouds: "But I thought you didn't believe in me!"
"Och, God, ye've got to give me a break!" the man pleads. "Just two minutes ago I didn't believe in the Loch Ness monster either!"
It is a fact that adversity sometimes sends people to faith. It sends them running!
It's like the old story of the World War II soldier who flings himself down into a foxhole, just as a mortar round is exploding nearby. Once the dust has settled, he looks around and sees that, sharing the foxhole with him, is a chaplain -- a Catholic priest. Grabbing hold of the crucifix the chaplain has hanging around his neck, the soldier cries out, "Quick, Padre! You've got to tell me how to work this thing!" They say there are no atheists in foxholes....
All kidding aside, it is the experience of suffering that is among the most difficult for any person of faith. It's the source of one of the questions pastors get asked most. We get asked it in hospital rooms, at funeral homes, in the study as we sit with a family in crisis. The question is, "Why? Why does God let bad things happen to good people? Why is there such a thing as suffering in this world?" Suffering may drive an atheist to God; but for a person of faith, suffering can pose a challenge to the very belief in the goodness of God.
The Apostle Paul had his own experience with suffering. He struggled all his life with something he calls his "thorn in the flesh" -- although we have no idea, to this day, what, exactly, the problem was. Here in the fifth chapter of Romans, Paul writes about suffering. He claims he is able to actually "boast" in the midst of it: "... we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope...." There's something about Paul's faith (if we take him at face value) that allows him to triumph over suffering, to boast of God's love even in the hardest of times.
For Paul, suffering is not random, devoid of meaning. It exercises a powerful effect on the person going through it. Suffering has the power to change a person, for the better.
Suffering, Paul says, produces endurance. It's something like the experience of a long-distance runner who's about ready to quit, but who then gets her "second wind." Suddenly, all is not lost. One foot continues to fall into place, right after the other. The breaths continue to be labored, but they do come -- and they're no longer so painful. The runner has received the gift of endurance: she is able to go on.
Endurance, though, is but a temporary solution. Endurance gets you through the next minute, the next hour, the next day. Yet, for Paul, endurance has its own effect on the person who's suffering. Endurance, he says, produces character.
This notion of "character" comes from a Greek word meaning, "having been put to the test." It's a lot like what we mean when we describe a person as "tried and true." That person has known something of life and its struggles, and has proven trustworthy. A person with character is a survivor -- but more than a survivor. A person with character has triumphed over adversity, has developed a hard shell for protection from future pain. Suffering is not something purely external to ourselves; it happens inside us as well. Suffering remakes us from within, transforming us into a different person than the one we were before the time of trial.
And what of this character, that is the result of endurance, that is the result of suffering? Character, Paul says, produces hope -- and hope does not disappoint us (or "put us to shame"), "because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit."
So we've come full circle. We began with hope -- the "hope in sharing the glory of God" that's the subject of Paul's boasting. We traveled through suffering and endurance and character building only to come back, by the grace of God, to hope once again. Christians -- Paul might very well say, summing up -- live from hope to hope. We begin with a naive and childish hope and, in this life of ours, we live into further, more mature hope we scarcely knew we had -- ending, finally, in the great consummation of hope that is dying. Along the way, we may encounter trials and suffering, but these have their own purpose, too, the purpose of preparing us to become the people God wants us to be.
Prayer For The Day
Lord, when we think of suffering, we are afraid.
We want to turn and run.
We want to protect ourselves.
Yet we know there are certain pains in life,
that cannot be avoided,
but can only be endured.
So strengthen us for the living of hard days
that we may be prepared not only to endure them,
but to triumph in Jesus' name. Amen.
To Illustrate
In her book, Mutant Message Down Under, Dr. Marlo Morgan tells in a fictionalized fashion of her experience on "walkabout" with aborigines of Australia. The aborigines have sent word to Dr. Morgan, a visiting American doctor, that they would like to offer her an award for all that she's done for their people. An aborigine picks her up in a jeep, outside her fancy hotel in the city. They drive into the Outback, for what Dr. Morgan imagines will be a brief ceremony -- although she quickly discovers that the aboriginal sense of time is very different from her own.
Several women are waiting for them. Now is the time, they tell her, to begin walking. The first thing the doctor must do, they tell her, with broken English and with gestures, is take off her shoes. With some trepidation, she does so, and they begin walking, barefoot, over the rough and stony ground.
Very soon, Dr. Morgan is in agony. Her feet are bruised and bleeding, burned from the hot sand. But she keeps going; the aborigines force her to keep going. Only by continuing with her walkabout, they know, will her feet grow hard and calloused. If she did not undergo this period of toughening, the day would soon come when her shoes would wear out -- and where would they find new ones in the Outback? Night after night, the women rub ointment on her aching feet; day after day, they all keep walking. In time, it's true -- she is able to keep pace with them, to walk barefoot, like an aborigine.
This is something very close to what Paul means by character. Character, to him, is like a beneficial callous on the soul: a hard, protective coating that can be gained only through pain, that's built up only through struggle.
***
The preacher Max Lucado, in a book called On the Anvil, uses the image of blacksmith's anvil to understand the meaning in suffering. In a blacksmith's shop, he points out, there are three types of tools. The first are the tools that have been brought in for repair. They are outdated, broken, dull, rusty. These sit in a pile over in one corner. They're useless to anyone.
Then there's a second category of tools: those on the anvil. These are the ones that have just been subjected to intense heat in the forge; now they are being hammered, red-hot, on the surface of the anvil.
These tools are being re-created. It's a process that, were we to be undergoing it, would be described as painful. It would involve something akin to suffering. Yet these tools are on their way to being transformed into something new.
Finally, there's a third class of tools. These are the ones being used by the blacksmith himself. They are the tongs he uses to grip the hot metal, the hammer he swings to pound it. Once upon a time, even these tools were molten metal, being pounded against the smooth surface of the anvil. But now they are seasoned tools, cunningly fashioned and balanced. They swing in a perfect arc, as though they were an extension of the master's arm. They do the master's will.
The finest tools of all are those that have had the most extensive treatment in the blacksmith's forge. These are the ones produced of something called "living steel."
Living steel, they say, is the finest example of the European sword-maker's art, still being practiced in a few places. Listen to this scientific account of how living steel comes to be:
"Most steels have a random crystalline structure. In living steel, the crystalline structure becomes highly aligned, focusing its natural energy along the edge and toward the point. Under the hammer blows, the steel becomes exceedingly dense. The hammer blows break the microscopic crystals as they form and force them into a tighter, more highly aligned pattern. The grain boundaries become so small that it becomes difficult to distinguish one crystal from another, even with a microscope.
"Modern metallurgy refers to this as super microcrystalline grain. In essence, the entire blade becomes a single crystal of steel.
"When a steel shatters, the break occurs along the grain boundaries between the crystals. Smaller crystals in a more highly aligned pattern reduce the grain boundaries, making it more difficult for a break to occur."
***
Lord, I do not ask you to remove my burdens. I ask for a stronger back.
-- Phillips Brooks
***
If there be anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe from falling, I know nothing of it -- for it was not shown me. But this was shown -- that in falling and rising again we are always kept in the same precious love.
-- Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
***
He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.
-- Harry Emerson Fosdick
***
Emptiness and fullness at first seem complete opposites. But in the spiritual life they are not. In the spiritual life we find the fulfillment of our deepest desires by becoming empty for God.
We must empty the cups of our lives completely to be able to receive the fullness of life from God. Jesus lived this on the cross. The moment of complete emptiness and complete fullness become the same. When he had given all away to his Abba, his dear Father, he cried out, "It is fulfilled" (John 19:30). He who was lifted up on the cross was also lifted into the resurrection. He who had emptied and humbled himself was raised up and "given the name above all other names" (see Philippians 2:7-9). Let us keep listening to Jesus' question: "Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?" (Matthew 20:22).
-- Henri J. M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey
Faith helps us to endure suffering, and move beyond it to hope.
Old Testament Lesson
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Wisdom Calls
Wisdom is personified, here, as a female figure. She calls out to those who have ears to hear, inviting them to follow her ways (vv. 1-4). In verses 22-31, divine Wisdom reveals that she was created by God even before the world came to be. In extravagant poetry, the author then describes how Wisdom witnessed each stage of creation. "Happy are those who keep my ways," says Wisdom in verse 32 (just beyond the boundaries of this lectionary selection). Throughout the book of Proverbs, there are exhortations to students to be diligent about their studies, so they may gain the practical wisdom they need for faithful living. This personification of wisdom is among the most memorable of these.
New Testament Lesson
Romans 5:1-5
From Suffering To Hope
We are "justified by faith," says Paul, and so we receive the gift of peace (v. 1). Through Christ we receive "access to grace" (v. 2). In verses 3-5, Paul presents a powerful sequence of reasoning, in which he moves from suffering to hope: "suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us...." This logical sequence is a rich source of word studies, and could form the outline for an entire sermon, like a pastoral message on dealing with suffering. "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit" -- this is an unusual turn of phrase (v. 5). We are enabled to persevere through this entire sequence from suffering to hope because of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
The Gospel
John 16:12-15
More On The Spirit Of Truth
John further expands his understanding of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth (introduced in last week's reading, John 14:8-17). Jesus is promising his disciples that this Spirit will come to them in time, and will teach them all they need to know. In these few verses, all three persons of the Trinity are mentioned. The Spirit of truth, Jesus says, "will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine" (vv. 14-15). While there is no systematic theological description of the Trinity in the Bible (the doctrine was not worked out in detail until the Christological controversies of the fourth century), this passage at least mentions all three persons of the Godhead.
Preaching Possibilities
There's a story they like to tell over in Scotland, of an atheist who was spending a quiet afternoon fishing on Loch Ness. Suddenly, the man's boat is attacked by none other than the infamous Loch Ness monster. In one easy flip, the beast tosses the fisherman and his boat high into the air. Then, it opens its fearsome, toothy mouth, ready to swallow them both.
As the man reaches the highest point of his ascent, he cries out, "Oh, God! Help me!"
Immediately, the entire scene freezes. The atheist and his boat hang, suspended, over the monster's huge, gaping jaw.
Then a booming voice echoes down from the clouds: "But I thought you didn't believe in me!"
"Och, God, ye've got to give me a break!" the man pleads. "Just two minutes ago I didn't believe in the Loch Ness monster either!"
It is a fact that adversity sometimes sends people to faith. It sends them running!
It's like the old story of the World War II soldier who flings himself down into a foxhole, just as a mortar round is exploding nearby. Once the dust has settled, he looks around and sees that, sharing the foxhole with him, is a chaplain -- a Catholic priest. Grabbing hold of the crucifix the chaplain has hanging around his neck, the soldier cries out, "Quick, Padre! You've got to tell me how to work this thing!" They say there are no atheists in foxholes....
All kidding aside, it is the experience of suffering that is among the most difficult for any person of faith. It's the source of one of the questions pastors get asked most. We get asked it in hospital rooms, at funeral homes, in the study as we sit with a family in crisis. The question is, "Why? Why does God let bad things happen to good people? Why is there such a thing as suffering in this world?" Suffering may drive an atheist to God; but for a person of faith, suffering can pose a challenge to the very belief in the goodness of God.
The Apostle Paul had his own experience with suffering. He struggled all his life with something he calls his "thorn in the flesh" -- although we have no idea, to this day, what, exactly, the problem was. Here in the fifth chapter of Romans, Paul writes about suffering. He claims he is able to actually "boast" in the midst of it: "... we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope...." There's something about Paul's faith (if we take him at face value) that allows him to triumph over suffering, to boast of God's love even in the hardest of times.
For Paul, suffering is not random, devoid of meaning. It exercises a powerful effect on the person going through it. Suffering has the power to change a person, for the better.
Suffering, Paul says, produces endurance. It's something like the experience of a long-distance runner who's about ready to quit, but who then gets her "second wind." Suddenly, all is not lost. One foot continues to fall into place, right after the other. The breaths continue to be labored, but they do come -- and they're no longer so painful. The runner has received the gift of endurance: she is able to go on.
Endurance, though, is but a temporary solution. Endurance gets you through the next minute, the next hour, the next day. Yet, for Paul, endurance has its own effect on the person who's suffering. Endurance, he says, produces character.
This notion of "character" comes from a Greek word meaning, "having been put to the test." It's a lot like what we mean when we describe a person as "tried and true." That person has known something of life and its struggles, and has proven trustworthy. A person with character is a survivor -- but more than a survivor. A person with character has triumphed over adversity, has developed a hard shell for protection from future pain. Suffering is not something purely external to ourselves; it happens inside us as well. Suffering remakes us from within, transforming us into a different person than the one we were before the time of trial.
And what of this character, that is the result of endurance, that is the result of suffering? Character, Paul says, produces hope -- and hope does not disappoint us (or "put us to shame"), "because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit."
So we've come full circle. We began with hope -- the "hope in sharing the glory of God" that's the subject of Paul's boasting. We traveled through suffering and endurance and character building only to come back, by the grace of God, to hope once again. Christians -- Paul might very well say, summing up -- live from hope to hope. We begin with a naive and childish hope and, in this life of ours, we live into further, more mature hope we scarcely knew we had -- ending, finally, in the great consummation of hope that is dying. Along the way, we may encounter trials and suffering, but these have their own purpose, too, the purpose of preparing us to become the people God wants us to be.
Prayer For The Day
Lord, when we think of suffering, we are afraid.
We want to turn and run.
We want to protect ourselves.
Yet we know there are certain pains in life,
that cannot be avoided,
but can only be endured.
So strengthen us for the living of hard days
that we may be prepared not only to endure them,
but to triumph in Jesus' name. Amen.
To Illustrate
In her book, Mutant Message Down Under, Dr. Marlo Morgan tells in a fictionalized fashion of her experience on "walkabout" with aborigines of Australia. The aborigines have sent word to Dr. Morgan, a visiting American doctor, that they would like to offer her an award for all that she's done for their people. An aborigine picks her up in a jeep, outside her fancy hotel in the city. They drive into the Outback, for what Dr. Morgan imagines will be a brief ceremony -- although she quickly discovers that the aboriginal sense of time is very different from her own.
Several women are waiting for them. Now is the time, they tell her, to begin walking. The first thing the doctor must do, they tell her, with broken English and with gestures, is take off her shoes. With some trepidation, she does so, and they begin walking, barefoot, over the rough and stony ground.
Very soon, Dr. Morgan is in agony. Her feet are bruised and bleeding, burned from the hot sand. But she keeps going; the aborigines force her to keep going. Only by continuing with her walkabout, they know, will her feet grow hard and calloused. If she did not undergo this period of toughening, the day would soon come when her shoes would wear out -- and where would they find new ones in the Outback? Night after night, the women rub ointment on her aching feet; day after day, they all keep walking. In time, it's true -- she is able to keep pace with them, to walk barefoot, like an aborigine.
This is something very close to what Paul means by character. Character, to him, is like a beneficial callous on the soul: a hard, protective coating that can be gained only through pain, that's built up only through struggle.
***
The preacher Max Lucado, in a book called On the Anvil, uses the image of blacksmith's anvil to understand the meaning in suffering. In a blacksmith's shop, he points out, there are three types of tools. The first are the tools that have been brought in for repair. They are outdated, broken, dull, rusty. These sit in a pile over in one corner. They're useless to anyone.
Then there's a second category of tools: those on the anvil. These are the ones that have just been subjected to intense heat in the forge; now they are being hammered, red-hot, on the surface of the anvil.
These tools are being re-created. It's a process that, were we to be undergoing it, would be described as painful. It would involve something akin to suffering. Yet these tools are on their way to being transformed into something new.
Finally, there's a third class of tools. These are the ones being used by the blacksmith himself. They are the tongs he uses to grip the hot metal, the hammer he swings to pound it. Once upon a time, even these tools were molten metal, being pounded against the smooth surface of the anvil. But now they are seasoned tools, cunningly fashioned and balanced. They swing in a perfect arc, as though they were an extension of the master's arm. They do the master's will.
The finest tools of all are those that have had the most extensive treatment in the blacksmith's forge. These are the ones produced of something called "living steel."
Living steel, they say, is the finest example of the European sword-maker's art, still being practiced in a few places. Listen to this scientific account of how living steel comes to be:
"Most steels have a random crystalline structure. In living steel, the crystalline structure becomes highly aligned, focusing its natural energy along the edge and toward the point. Under the hammer blows, the steel becomes exceedingly dense. The hammer blows break the microscopic crystals as they form and force them into a tighter, more highly aligned pattern. The grain boundaries become so small that it becomes difficult to distinguish one crystal from another, even with a microscope.
"Modern metallurgy refers to this as super microcrystalline grain. In essence, the entire blade becomes a single crystal of steel.
"When a steel shatters, the break occurs along the grain boundaries between the crystals. Smaller crystals in a more highly aligned pattern reduce the grain boundaries, making it more difficult for a break to occur."
***
Lord, I do not ask you to remove my burdens. I ask for a stronger back.
-- Phillips Brooks
***
If there be anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe from falling, I know nothing of it -- for it was not shown me. But this was shown -- that in falling and rising again we are always kept in the same precious love.
-- Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
***
He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.
-- Harry Emerson Fosdick
***
Emptiness and fullness at first seem complete opposites. But in the spiritual life they are not. In the spiritual life we find the fulfillment of our deepest desires by becoming empty for God.
We must empty the cups of our lives completely to be able to receive the fullness of life from God. Jesus lived this on the cross. The moment of complete emptiness and complete fullness become the same. When he had given all away to his Abba, his dear Father, he cried out, "It is fulfilled" (John 19:30). He who was lifted up on the cross was also lifted into the resurrection. He who had emptied and humbled himself was raised up and "given the name above all other names" (see Philippians 2:7-9). Let us keep listening to Jesus' question: "Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?" (Matthew 20:22).
-- Henri J. M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey
