Thoughts on Today’s Lessons for Sunday, June 15, 2014

Seventh Day of Creation (from the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle)

Most Episcopalians probably join the ancient rabbis who edited the Old Testament in recognizing the creation stories of Genesis as the inspiring creation legend of our distant spiritual ancestors, not literal fact. Genesis shows us a monotheistic God as a loving creative force at work in the world. As we celebrate Trinity Sunday, look closely at the opening verses, where we can discern three persons at work in one God: Divine creator; creative Word, and Spirit wind that moves over the waters and makes the world be.

Psalm: Psalm 8

Today’s Psalm beautifully knits together the ideas that we hold up on Trinity Sunday. In it we give praise and thanksgiving for God’s creation. We remember that we hold dominion over God’s earthly creation. We accept that this duty calls us to preserve and protect “the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea.” And finally we worship the majesty of God, our Creator who made it all.

Alternate Psalm: Canticle 13

This week in place of a Psalm we mark Trinity Sunday by singing Canticle 13, “A Song of Praise,” offering praise and exaltation to God as Creator, Son and Holy Spirit. Remember the story of the three young men who danced and sang in defiance of the flames in King Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace? This is what they sang in the Prayer to Azariah, an addition to the book of Daniel in the Apocrypha at the end of the Old Testament.

Second Reading: 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Paul closes his second letter to the people of Corinth in the formal style dictated for letters in 1st Century Greek culture. In brief but loving words, he urges this small, often squabbling congregation to sort out their conflicts, pay attention to each other, and love one another as God loves them. He asks this in the name of the Holy Trinity, blessing them with hope for the peace of Jesus, the love of God and the Communion of the Holy Spirit.

Gospel: Matthew 28:16-20

Last week, Pentecost Sunday, we heard of the Holy Spirit coming to the disciples in wind and fire, inspiring them to go out to the world and tell the good news of the resurrection and eternal life. Today, on Trinity Sunday, we hear the last verses of Matthew, his only account of the risen Christ, who met the disciples in Galilee and commissioned them to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.