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In his book Letter to a Man in a Fire, cancer survivor Reynolds Price responds to a letter from a young medical student named Jim, who has developed a life-threatening cancer. In his letter to Reynolds Price, Jim writes, "I want to believe in a God who cares...because I may meet him sooner than I had expected. I think I am at the point where I can accept the existence of God...but I can't yet believe God cares about me." [Reynolds Price, Letter to a Man in a Fire (New York: Scribner, 1999), 25.] In his struggle with the raging storm of cancer, this young man could have taken the words right out of the mouths of the disciples when they cried out to Jesus, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" (Mk. 4:38) It is evening and the disciples are in the boat with Jesus. They are crossing the Sea of Galilee when a great storm arises. The boat is beaten by the wind and the waves; it is filling with water and ready to sink. All the while, Jesus is asleep in the stern untroubled by the storm, indifferent to their peril and unperturbed by their fear. These words are our words too: "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" When we consider the personal tragedies that people face every day and the global crises that plague our world, we may wonder if Jesus is asleep on the job. On Easter weekend a shooting spree in Tulsa, Oklahoma, killed three people and wounded two others. Apparently, the violence by two white men against these five randomly chosen black victims was racially motivated. It's been a particularly intense year for tornados in the Midwest where I live. People of all ages have died and a tremendous number of homes, schools, businesses and churches have been destroyed. A four year old shoots a three year old with a loaded gun; a stroke leaves a young father paralyzed; a child develops a brain tumor; a woman, after one too many beatings, flees an abusive spouse. These are the kinds of things that beat against our hopes and dreams and swamp our lives. "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

Someone stopped by my office recently to say hello. He shook my hand and said something rather odd: "You staying out of trouble?" I wasn't really sure if it was a greeting or a question. I wanted to say something cute. But I decided to treat it as a legitimate query. I said: "Well, I try to stay out of trouble, but trouble always seems to find me! In fact, I've about decided that the nature of what I do in ministry is trouble." There was an awkward silence. He gave me one of those funny looks, as if to say, "I'm sorry I brought it up." And then he turned and left. I've thought about the question since. And I've come a conclusion: if you're looking to stay out of trouble, don't follow Jesus! The more I study the Book of Acts the better I understand that trouble follows Jesus. And trouble follows those who follow Jesus. So if you're earnestly seeking to be a witness for Christ's sake, you can be assured trouble will come to you! Early on in ministry, I think I envisioned discipleship as a kind of perpetual safety net, a safe haven, a warm blanket. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Discipleship always has a cross in it. Disciples don't avoid trouble. They actually inhabit trouble! While Paul was seeking refuge in Athens, he ran into trouble! The text begins with the angst of the apostle: "While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed," says Luke. The word for distressed is paroxyno. It's actually a medical term for a seizure or an epileptic fit. We use it today of someone who gets upset. "She had a fit," we say or "He spazzed out!" Another translation says Paul was "irked." For good reason, I think!

I love a good church fight! Especially when it's in someone else's church. Churches often have their spats. We debate all kinds of things: property, parsonages, pastors, sexuality, euthanasia, church & state. Church fights, however, are not always bad. It really depends on what you're fighting for. I remember in one particular church we got into it over pew cushions. We contracted to put new cushions in the sanctuary. One of our ladies became so irate over the color the committee picked that on the Sunday we consecrated the cushions she brought her lawn chair. Sometimes a good dispute--properly addressed--can lead to new insight and understanding. It happens in marriage. Oh, I know we don't like to call it fighting. Call it a discussion. It sounds more Christian. But a disagreement, honestly processed, can lead to greater clarity, a stronger bond, and a more faithful witness. I think it's a good thing occasionally when people can agree to disagree and still be friends. My best friend in the ministry is one with whom I disagree politically. We're opposites when it comes to politics. But we're very similar when it comes to faith. John Wesley had a good rule of thumb. He said, "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity." The church fight that happened in Acts 15 was over something essential! It had to do with the nature of salvation. There was a certain group of individuals--I love the way Luke says that. He doesn't call them by name. He simply says a certain group. In other words, this group doesn't represent the whole. They're not really speaking for the church; they're speaking for themselves.

In a magazine article recently, a forest ranger in Wales described the most common question that visitors to his park ask the forest rangers. Many people, he said, come to the park to hike one of the beautiful trails that wander through the forest, trails designed to display the magnificent trees and plants, to let the hikers encounter the array of wildlife in the forest, and to take hikers on to hilltops for breathtaking views of the countryside. But the most frequent question that visitors ask the forest rangers is not "Where does this trail go?" or "How long does it take to hike it?" or "Do we need bug spray on the trail" but instead "Excuse me, can you tell me where the trail starts?"[1] It makes sense. No matter how lovely or breathtaking a trail may be, if you don't know where the trail starts, you can't hike it. I thought about that question as I wondered about what to say today, because today is Trinity Sunday, a day on the church's calendar when we lift up the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity and proclaim  not only that God is one God, God alone...but also that God is in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now, quite understandably, many people consider the idea of the Trinity to be rather abstract and remote, something that theologians and philosophers might worry about but that is of little concern to us regular folk in how we live our everyday lives. But that's not true. The doctrine of the Trinity is actually like a trail in a deep and mysterious forest called the life of God. If we will walk this trail called Trinity, we will see and experience amazing things; we will discover something of what God is truly like, in all of God's beauty and wildness and splendor.

I don't know if you've ever had the slightly embarrassing experience of having someone give you a gift, only to find out when you opened it, you did not have the foggiest idea what it was or what it was for. I mean, there you are: you're at the company Christmas party, or at a wedding shower, or at your birthday party, and someone hands you a gaily wrapped package. As you pull off the ribbon and the wrapping paper, all the eyes in the circle are on you. You open the box and there it is.... But is it a pencil sharpener or a coffee grinder? ...a scarf or a bread napkin? ... earrings or fishing lures? Of course, the person who gave you the gift is looking at you with eager anticipation, as if to say, "Well, do you like it?" And finally, out of courtesy, you have to say something, so you say, "Oh, how could you have known? Thank you so much. I can really use a tire pressure gauge." Only to have a wounded voice say, "Tire gauge?! That's a meat thermometer!" There is something of the same uncertainty and perplexity, in a much deeper sense, about Pentecost. You heard the story--the leaders of the early church all gathered in one place when suddenly there was the sound of rushing wind like a tornado, then tongues of fire appeared resting on every head, and each one of them began speaking the gospel in other languages. Here on Pentecost, in dramatic fashion, something has been given to the church, a gift from God. But when we open it up, what exactly is this gift? What is it for?

This passage is the gospel assigned for the 7th Sunday of Easter. In this excerpt, the writer offers us a word for word transcript of a prayer that he has somehow overheard Jesus praying. Jesus is here talking to His Heavenly Father, quite intimately reflecting on his mission. You might say that he is offering God a kind of exit interview. He explains that he understands his mission as that of making God's name known to these few who have been pulled out from the rest of the world. These are the few who would "get it." Oh right, and there was that one who was destined to be lost--speaking of Judas. The rest--well Jesus is asking the Holy Father to guard them from the Evil One and protect them--set them aside-- keep them untainted. Now, let me confess that I have been wrestling with this passage of scripture for 40 years and it won't let me go! This is the view of Jesus' followers that I grew up with as a conservative Lutheran. I remember memorizing this whole prayer of Jesus' in the King James translation. I said these phrases over and over until they started to stick--they felt like a commissioning that I wanted to receive from God, personally. I was eager to be able to report to God that I'd done exactly as God had asked of me--secretly hoping to be a pastor as good as my father was. Finally, I got it--I could recite this whole prayer, word for word and with conviction. I mean, it felt like I was carrying my mission around in my heart --ready always to give a reason for the ministry hope that lay within me. Right. I also felt that memorizing this prayer of John's was somehow like hanging a sacred amulet around my neck. It would keep me safe from heresy. It would set me apart from those not so holy--I meant the heretics and Catholics and Episcopalians and the like! I felt like my purity of intention would earn me a place as one of God's holy ones. Surely, I would earn God's pronouncement--"This is my Beloved Thomas with whom I am well pleased."

Much has happened leading up to our reading for the day.  Catching up with the story is important for hearing today's scripture.  A quick update: Cornelius--a spiritual, but not religious Gentile living in Caesarea of some importance in the Roman legion and a member of the Italian Cohort--Cornelius had a vision.  It was a clear vision...to send for an apostle of Jesus named Peter. Peter--a devout and faithful Jew and an ardent follower of Jesus the Christ--Peter had a vision, too.  His was not so clear.  In fact, it was downright bizarre.  Peter was in Joppa, praying on the roof of his friend's house, and he was hungry.  While the food was being prepared, he fell into a trance and saw a sheet being lowered down from the heavens, filled with all of the foods that good Jews were not allowed to touch, much less eat.  There was a voice, "Get up Peter, kill and eat."  There was Peter's response, "By no means Lord!  You know I can't eat what is profane and unclean!" There was a counter-response, "What God has made, you must not call profane."  It happened twice more; and then, before Peter could make heads or tails out of the vision, the sheet was snatched up into heaven and Cornelius' men were knocking at the door to take Peter on a trek from Joppa to Caesarea.   The Holy Spirit said "Go!" so Peter went.  Arriving at the Gentile house, he realized that Cornelius was having a genuine experience of God, so he started in, preaching, to explain some things about this God who was giving Cornelius visions.  Before Peter could finish his sermon, the Holy Spirit short-circuited the usual order of things and poured through the room and all of a sudden the footprint of the church got a lot bigger....

In school, one of the books many of us had to read was The Odyssey by the ancient Greek poet Homer. Over the years I have gone back and reread it and listened to it as a recorded book. What has struck me as I have re-read and listened to The Odyssey is how much better, how much nobler, are the human heroes than the gods in this story. In The Odyssey and in the Greek myths, the gods are vindictive, petty. They are deceitful. They play favorites. They make a sport out of interfering in human lives. The goddess, Calypso keeps poor Odysseus prisoner on her island, far from Ithaca, from his wife and his son, because she wants him as her own. Poseidon, the God of the seas, also keeps Odysseus from making it home, inflicting disaster after disaster on him and his men. And while the goddess Athena is Odysseus' champion, on Olympus, the gods compete with each other, using poor Odysseus as a pawn in their power struggles with one another. It is no wonder that the Greek philosopher Socrates did not encourage his students to read these stories. He thought that the gods in Greek poetry were immoral and unworthy of respect. Like many, he gave the gods their due, probably observed the public rituals, but after that he left the gods alone. And this view of the ancient gods was fairly common. Once you had offered the appropriate sacrifices, not violate sacred places, don't harm priests, but mostly don't draw attention to yourself. Don't let the gods become too involved with you, because any glory won from the gods would be offset by a greater measure of suffering. Getting involved with the gods was dangerous and to be avoided.

What measure of love are we willing to extend to one another? Through an extraordinary story, what Mary Johnson has been able to do within her lifetime speaks volumes about unconditional love under the anvil of forgiveness. In February of 1993, her 20-year-old son was shot in the head by Oshea Israel, a 16 year old, after an argument at a party in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Originally wanting to see justice, she turned her anger into compassion. Now she and Israel are next-door neighbors. Today, she counsels mothers of murdered children while he visits prisons and churches. He shares about forgiveness and reconciliation. What could possibly compel such acts of love and care in one of the most unimaginable circumstances of life? A mother mourning the loss of her son embraces the one who caused her pain. And where do each of us fall within the limits and limitlessness of God's love? 1 John 3 verses 16-18 shares, "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth." God's love is active. It reaches far beyond the depths of human emotions and demands a deeper effort of placing one's self aside for a greater message. Yet we are incapable of reaching this level of compassion without the Holy Spirit's activity within our lives. Our corruptible nature disables us from being able to reach such levels of care, yet through the Spirit's guidance, we are enabled to exemplify by word, action and deed incredible doses of love--a love that defines us as relational with God and not pulled by the tenants of our surroundings.

Imagine that you're at a dinner party, standing by the fireplace with a small plate of hors d'oeuvres, when you mention to the people nearby that you'd like to talk about Easter. Imagine someone responding, "No, thank you, we are having a serious discussion about education in America." So you listen for a while as they discuss things like class sizes, teachers' salaries, and how high their property taxes are. Then they start reminiscing about their own school days, yellow school buses, packing a lunch, high school proms, and pop quizzes. You want to interrupt and bring up other details, such as how too many teachers burn out or end up having to buy class supplies with their own money, or how peer pressure can be so destructive that it leads many young people to consider suicide; but there's never a break in the conversation. So you walk over to another group and mention to them that you'd like to talk about Easter. Someone else responds, "No, thanks, we are having a serious conversation about hunger in America." So you listen for a while as they discuss how sad it is that people still need food pantries and soup kitchens, and how the canned food drive held last week was a big success, but the price of groceries keeps going up and you can never find a good parking place near the Whole Foods; and even with all the microwave entrees to choose from, it is hard to find things to eat. You want to interrupt and mention other details, such as how hunger is a silent reality for millions of Americans who are too embarrassed to admit the gnawing pain in their empty stomachs, like the elderly caught between buying food or buying medicine, or young children who simply cannot understand why there's nothing to eat in the house. But, sadly, there's never a break in the conversation, so you remain silent.

You may wonder, as I have, what U.S. Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver, Eliza Doolittle, and Thomas the Apostle have in common. To discern this, we need only listen to their own words to uncover a common denominator. You first, Congressman Vandiver: "I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me." And now you, Miss Doolittle: "Sing me no song! Read me no rhyme! Don't waste my time, Show me!" And finally you, blessed Thomas: "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe." Now whether or not he had ever visited Missouri or seen My Fair Lady, I believe it is safe to say that Thomas could surely be identified as the "Show me" apostle. And although he has long been identified as the doubter--to cut him some slack--I think we can upon second glance also detect something beyond doubt--a yearning, perhaps--a yearning to see with his eyes and touch with his hands that which his soul already knows to be true. And I can't help but wonder if Thomas must not have felt as if, perhaps, he was being set up.  As if the other apostles had said, "Hey, let's get Thomas back for not showing up at church on Easter."  "Yea, let's play a prank on him!"