On a not so special night:
A regular old night like any other,
Nicodemus sought Jesus out for a conversation.

Nicodemus was full of curiosity.
He had questions.
And an ordinary night,
was transformed into an extraordinary one,
Because of Jesus.

Jesus transformed a regular night, with some regular questions
Into a remarkable, life-changing event.

And by the end of the Gospel of John,
Nicodemus is a new person.
If someone asked him what made him who he was at that time,
He may have found himself returning to that regular old night,
When the extraordinary God changed his life.

And that’s often how it is.
Extraordinary experiences come out of the ordinary ones.

The extraordinary God:
Jesus Christ,
Comes to us as an ordinary human:
Yet extraordinarily God.
Dying a human death:
Yet rising to new life in the most extraordinary event of all time.

It’s the message of Christmas.
It’s the message of Easter,
And it’s the message of all life in between.
It’s the message of the Trinity: which we celebrate today.

And it’s worth asking yourself:
How it’s worked out in your own life?
What moments have made you into who you are today?
Some moments are probably spectacular.
Others earth-shattering, even heartbreaking, and more.

But when we really take the time to reflect on what made us who we are right
now:
Today, In this moment:
We will likely come up with the names of people who have filled our lives.
Little things they did, or said to us:
Things that they might not even remember today:
But have stayed with us and changed us.

Little, ordinary things:
That became extraordinary, lifechanging transformations:
Shaping us into the people we are today.

For me, one of those little moments was on Trinity Sunday, 1999.
When I stood at Trinity Episcopal Church in Pierre, SD
And preached my first sermon.
I was eleven.
All because some ordinary adults in my congregation believed that an ordinary
sixth grader could preach about the extraordinary love of God.
And that began to shape me into who I am today.
An ordinary moment, of lifechanging transformation.

This truth about the ordinary becoming extraordinary is a hint to us that God:
Our awesome, all knowing God:
Is right there with us:
Taking what might be the most ordinary of moments,
And breathing a little extra into it:
So that over time, it becomes something extraordinary.

And as Christians:
We are called to be witnesses to this reality:
Of the ordinary and mundane,
Transformed into something incredible, awesome, and extraordinary:
And seeing the world in a new way:

As we become aware of the movement of God transforming us.

In today’s Gospel story,
We see Jesus launch the transformation of Nicodemus
From a questioning leader:
To a witness to the movement of God.

And the movement of God is trinitarian:
It’s fullness:
IT’s three in one.
Physical, Spiritual, and Divine.
It takes our full selves to be part of this movement.

We can’t compartmentalize the movement of God to one hour or one day.
We can’t compartmentalize it into one part, one choice, one belief.
The movement of God is all of it.
In all of it’s fullness.
All of the ordinary:
Transformed into the extraordinary.

Just like all of those little ordinary moments,
Along side the big earth shattering ones,
That make us into who we are.

This is Trinity.
And this is difficult for us to grasp.
Because our entire world is about compartmentalization.
We count the minutes and hours of our days.
Dividing up time for work,
Time for family,
Time for celebrations,
And time for chores.

But the movement of God blurs and smudges the lines.
All the ways in which we divide and order it:
The Movement of God never stops.
The movement actually IS God’s full self:
Father, Son and Spirit:
Set loose in all of creation:
To breathe that extra into the ordinary.

During this late-night conversation in today’s Gospel story
Jesus invites Nicodemus to wake up,
Be “Born again”
And move beyond the lines and boundaries that the world tells him he should
follow.

Jesus invites him to join the movement of God:
To be born again in flesh, water, and spirit:

In all the fullness.

Jesus is not interested in simply answering Nicodemus’ questions:
Or giving him a brief summary.
Jesus is inviting him to participate in an entirely new way of seeing and living:
A way of seeing and living that only happens with the participation of his full self:
Joining in the Movement of God:
In the life of the Trinity:
The very life of God.

And it’s hard to catch on.
It’s hard to be moved from all that we know:
This one body, this one life, our understanding of science and creation.
It even takes Nicodemus some time to catch on.
He asks, “How can anyone be born after having grown old?”

And Jesus doesn’t back down.
He replies “You must be born from above.”
With these words,
Jesus calls us to move beyond our ordinary way of thinking:
Into an extraordinary:
Trinitarian way of BEING.
Jesus invites us to the place where our bodies, minds, souls and spirits meet.
Our selves, our souls, and bodies.

All of us. Each part of us: In all its fullness.

Jesus calls Nicodemus, and all of us:
To live into the realization of ALL that we are.
We are not just machines, a body moving by habit.
We are not just flesh.
God made us to be part of the Movement:
For our ordinary to be transformed into extraordinary,
Over and over again,
Becoming our full selves.

On this Trinity Sunday,
May you be moved:
With your full self:
Your emotions, your mind, soul and strength:
Your selves, your, souls, and bodies:
To join the Movement of God.
And breathe in that extra that comes from the fullness of God with us:
That extra that transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

“That they may be one.”
In the Gospel of John, we hear Jesus’ prayer:
The prayer that he prayed the night before he died.

Kind of an interesting reading to hear on this seventh (and final!) Sunday of
Easter.
But then again: There’s a reason for that:
Because it brings us full circle.

On the night before he died,
Jesus prayed a prayer for his disciples:
A prayer for everyone who would believe in him:
A prayer for us:
A prayer for the world.

Jesus says, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me,
So that they may be one, as we are one.”

To be one.
To be one with all people.
To put aside our differences:
To be in loving community:

To end fighting:
To end war.

This is a BIG prayer.
An astonishing prayer.
A prayer that seems almost impossible.

We might be tempted to say, “Who are you kidding, Jesus?”
“It didn’t happen in your time:
What makes you think it could ever happen in ours?”

But Jesus told his followers that they should be one in this world:
in their culture and their time.
It goes along with Jesus always reminding the disciples, and all of us:
That the Kingdom of Heaven is here –
not something that will come in the next world.
But to be one right now. Right here.

Its an echo of Jesus’ teachings on eternity:
The past, the now, the future:
All of it: In its fullness.

That they all may be one.
It’s not just about “later.

And what’s cool about Jesus:
Is that he ALWAYS talks about these things in positive statements:
As his dream for the world:
Not as a “yeah right”
Not as something rote, and un thoughtful.

It’s as if he’s saying to God:
“This is my wish: This is my dream:
That those who believe would be one: just as you and I are one.”
He says it as if he expects it to happen.
He says it as if he thinks we understand what he’s talking about.

But Jesus knows what he’s talking about.
Whether WE know what Jesus is talking about is an entirely different thing.
And maybe that’s just the thing.

Maybe we just don’t know what “unity” means
When Churches throughout the centuries have battled and split off from one
another repeatedly.
That’s not being one.
When the human obsession with being right consistently puts up roadblocks
against Jesus’ prayer.
That’s not being one.

But how can we even understand the image that Jesus gives us:
About our own unity as the mirror of Jesus and the father being one?
That’s pretty hard to understand.
That’s pretty hard to fully know:
It’s one of those things:
Like the peace of God which passes ALL understanding.
Beyond our comprehension.
Beyond our understanding.

But that’s no free ticket to give up.
To let the seeming impossibility of unity and one-ness make us quit.

So we have to look for the oneness.
It is our call and our duty:
To seek it in God and in each other.

And Oneness with God means being at one with all of God’s gifts:
All Cultures, peoples, nations:
And every single bit of our own human existence.
The joys and the sorrows.
The fears and the strengths.
To tear apart one bit of our gift is to put a tear in the beauty of oneness with God:
And oneness with each other.

And here’s the important part:
Being the same, is not the basis of unity.
Just like Jesus and the Father are not “the same.”
Love is the basis of unity: and nothing else.
Just like we’ve been hearing the last few weeks:
About abiding, loving, about being only one branch on the ever-living vine.

Being the same: is not unity.

When St. Paul said that there was no more male or female,
Jew or Greek.
He didn’t mean that men and women would be morphed into some other form of
human being:
Or that Jews and Greeks would become one new nationality.
He meant that each of us:
In our uniqueness would look with love on all the other creatures of God.

He meant that we would see beauty in the gifts that others have,
Instead of being jealous of another’s gifts:
Or thinking that our gifts are better than someone elses.
He meant that:
All of the gifts matter:
And all of them are necessary for us to all be one.
He meant that we should join together to build the Kingdom of God:
The Kingdom of God that IS among us.

This kind of love is hard.
Our human nature makes it hard.
Our culture makes it hard.

If we take Jesus’ words seriously, we’ll hear that the outpouring love that IS God:
Is there for all of us.
In all of its different ways:
And we’ll strive to let it guide our words and actions.

And not all of us will be called to do the same things:
We need it all:
We need everyone:
We need priests:
And we need lay readers.
We need activists:
And we need people to pray silently at home.
We need teachers,
And we need listeners.
We need the young,
And we need the old.

But here’s the other hard part:
We can do this:

We can become one:
Only if we are willing to be transformed.
Only if we are willing to be changed:
Only if we are willing to listen to God:
To let God’s love pour over us,
And relinquish some of our own control:
Some of our own sense of what’s “Right.”

And This is our heritage.
This is who we are.
Those who are constantly,
At any time, at any age:
Willing to be transformed.
Willing to receive new gifts,
Willing to try something new.
For the sake of being one in THIS Kingdom:
Right now.

Amen.

The 15th chapter of John’s gospel is filled with love.
And actually, what we heard today:
Picks up exactly where we left off last week.

Last week,
We heard about the love that’s necessary for community:
As Jesus described the vine and the branches:
As the vine and the branches live together:
Keeping each other alive.

This week, we continue reading this profound and moving chapter of the Bible,
Where the word “love” is repeated nine times in only eight verses.
The word “love” is used in this chapter:
Both as a noun and a verb.
There’s no escaping love when you read chapter 15 of Johns Gospel.
Love is a big deal.

And when we look closely:
We can see that this chapter also describes the essence of the human condition:
The essence of love:
In both its beauty and its heartbreak:
As Jesus takes the big risk of love:
Laying his heart bare and vulnerable to his friends:
Telling them: “I have chosen you: You didn’t choose me: I have loved you.”

Do you remember ever taking that risk?
The risk of telling someone you love them?
The risk of that vulnerability:
That potential for pain after you say those words?
Jesus takes this risk boldly:
As he not only loves: but literally lays down his life.

And the risk here,
Is even bigger:
Because Jesus makes it very clear that this relationship:
This mutual love:

is BIG business.
Big commitment.

It goes even beyond the general two-way relationship,
Because the source of all this love is God the father.

Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.”
Just like we heard last week, in the Epistle of 1 st John:
We love: because God first loved us.
LOVE: Is a big relationship:
A relationship between us and those that we love:
But whether we like it or not: it also includes God:
Because it ultimately comes from God.

And that’s not all:
Jesus continues with the language we heard last week as he says:
Abide in my love.
Meaning:
Stay in my love.

Remain within it.
Live in my love.

The verb in Greek has the sense of continuing:
Forever:
Eternal.
Not a short-lived experience.
Not mere infatuation.
But real, abiding love.

Abide in my love:
Live in my never ending love.

This is a powerful state of being:
And it doesn’t happen in isolation.
It’s intimately related to our actions, our living, and our being:
Which is why Jesus says:
“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.”

And here’s the rub.
Without keeping God’s commandments, we can’t have love:
and we can’t remain in this ever abiding, living, love.

But It’s not about punishment:
It’s not about eternal damnation.
Yet it IS about the fact that we just CAN’T have love:
without following God’s commandments:
Because it’s only because of God’s way of being:
Commanding us to SHARE in that way of being:
that love even exists in the first place.

Jesus exemplifies this relationship of love:
Of following God’s commandments:
Staying in constant connection with God through prayer and loving communion.
All the way to the cross…

So what’s the commandment that we must obey in order to abide in the love of
Christ?

Jesus directs us from himself, and through himself to love one another.

All of the old ritual and sacrifices and strict law following are nothing.
What matters is how we treat one another.
We hear this same thing in 1 st John today:
“By this we know that we love the children of God,
When we love God and obey his commandments.”

This love:
This abiding:
Is circular:
Perpetuating:
Continuing…
Never ending.

And keeping God’s commandments bears fruit.
That we will have joy:
The joy of knowing that we are loved by God.

It’s A state of being:
Of knowing that nothing can ever separate us from the love of God.
But we really only have joy:
If we love:
Because Joy: without love is impossible.
As impossible as life without love.
As impossible as the branches without the vine.
It just can’t happen.

In keeping the commandment to love:
The possibilities are endless.
Jesus tells his disciples:
“I have appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.”

And a few years later: Paul will list the fruits of the spirit in his letter to the
Galatians.
The fruits:
Of being one with Christ:
Of abiding in Christ:

Of keeping God’s commandments:
The fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control.

These are ways of being:
Ways of being that are not earned,
Not taught:
But springing from abiding in Christ’s love:
Living in Christ.
Being in Christ.

And the BEST part:
Is that these fruits:
This abiding love,
Are not just for Jesus’ friends.
They’re for everyone.
No one is left out in the Cold.

Peter had this Epiphany, during a visit to the gentiles:

As we heard today in Acts.

After Peter preached a sermon on the meaning of the Good News,
The Holy Spirit visited all who were present:
Not just the Jews,
But also the Gentiles.
Nobody expected that.

And Peter finally understood:
That the love of Christ is for all.
He said,
“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people?”
For Jews in this time:
This was wacky:
How could you baptize someone who wasn’t a Jew:
Someone who didn’t follow the law?

But Peter knew.
Knew suddenly:

What Jesus really meant about the New Law:
About the greatest commandment:
About loving others:
ALL others.
Peter knew:
That the all embracing love of Christ is really real:
Calling him, in turn to embrace others:
Even the gentiles.

And we are called to do the same.
To live in this cyclical cycle of Love:
Which comes from God:
And transforms us into lovers ourselves:
Continually living, abiding, and bearing much fruit.

Amen.