A Concord Pastor Comments: Homily for Trinity Sunday

Homily for Trinity Sunday
(Scriptures for today's Mass)

Audio for homily

Let me pose a simple question.

Would you prefer to be known for your wisdom or your foolishness?

Lots of wisdom in the first scripture from the Book of Proverbs today:

do we want to be wise or are we content with being foolish?

That might seem an unfair option: either/or, wise or foolish.

But really, there’s not a lot of middle ground.

If I’m wise then I’ll more readily spot my foolish tendencies

- and work to correct them.

Whereas if I’m foolish, I might not recognize what’s wise

- even when it stares me in the face.

Whether I’m wise or foolish,

what I need is to desire wisdom.

If I’m wise then it’s the continuing desire for wisdom

that will keep me from my own foolishness.

And if I’m foolish, then the desire for wisdom

will at least help me see my foolishness for what it is

and to acknowledge that there’s another way for me
to live my life - a wiser way.

Wisdom is by no means ethereal or esoteric.

Actually, in the scriptures,
wisdom is the very practical knowledge

of how to love God and others as I live in the world.

How to love God and others...
sounds like Jesus' two great commandments:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind.

And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Wisdom is the practical knowledge I need and you need

to follow these commandments.

Foolishness is what happens
when I love God with less than all my heart

and when I love my self more than I love my neighbor.

I’m most inclined to be foolish when wisdom asks more of me

than I’m readily willing to give God and my neighbor.

And of course the greatest foolishness of all

is for me to imagine, to think, to believe, to pretend

that I am wiser than God.

But we all do that, at least once in a while.

When I think and act as if I know better than God

then it's easy to convince myself that my foolishness is wise.

I’ll forget how easily today’s folly becomes tomorrow’s regret,

how easily my foolish thoughts and deeds become foolish habits.

I'll forget that a life of foolish choices
has never made anyone truly happy.

On the other hand, even simply the desire for wisdom
can open me to more than I can see with my own eyes,
or know with my own thoughts, or discern with my own mind.

The desire for wisdom can draw me out of myself,
out of my own foolishness,

to see that there’s a way, a truth, a life for me

that leads to contentment even in hard times,

to joy even in sorrow,
and to hope when all seems lost.

Foolishness is life on my terms.

Wisdom is life on God’s terms.

We live in times when foolishness is often valued as virtue

and belief in God is mocked as simple and naïve.

One need only look to what our culture celebrates

and how faith is marginalized and mocked,
to see how the wisdom of the ages
is tossed aside and forgotten
and foolishness triumphs as excellence.

Foolishness is life on our terms.
Wisdom is life on God’s terms.

On whose terms, then will we live our lives?

Will we prefer to be known for our foolishness or our wisdom?

Which will we desire?
Which will we choose?

On this Trinity Sunday we celebrate our faith in God

whom we worship as Father, Son and Spirit.

We began by acknowledging our foolishness in sins

and asking for the Lord’s mercy.

Then we opened our ears and minds and hearts to the scriptures,

to the wisdom of the Lord’s Word.

And now we go to his table to do what many would think foolish.

We’ll offer the Father gifts of bread and wine, with thanks and praise,

and we'll ask the Holy Spirit to make of them

the Body and Blood of Christ.

Then we’ll share, in this simple Supper,

the sacrifice Jesus offered for us on the Cross,

and we'll pray that we’ll be nourished and strengthened
to love God and our neighbor in the week ahead.

May God help us to put aside our foolish ways

and give us a hunger, a thirst, a desire for wisdom.