June 3, 2007           Holy Trinity Sunday

My wife and I have just returned from a fantastic trip to England. We visited many cathedrals and museums that were very interesting and inspiring. We visited Chester Cathedral. I was awe inspiring to be in the same space where George Fredrick Handel first rehearsed the Messiah Oratorio. We were at York Minster Cathedral where Constantine became emperor of the Roman Empire in the 4th century. We sat in St. Paul’s in London where Princess Di and Prince Charles were married back in 1981.

Last but not least, we walked the streets of Liverpool where the Beatles got their start. I learned that Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields are real places that John and Paul wrote into their songs. Liverpool is a busy, bustling city, and one melody that kept going through my head was “Eleanor Rigby.”

Ah look at all the lonely people! Ah look at all the lonely people!

Eleanor Rigby, you recall is a song about a poor and lonely spinstress who as the lyrics go, “picked up the rice in the church where a wedding had been.” And a lonely priest, Father McKensie, who darned his socks in the night alone and wrote sermons that no one will hear.

So was the song true? I found out that in his youth, John Lennon went to church of England in nearby Woolton. He was very active, often going four times a week to various activities. In the church graveyard there is a tombstone that says Eleanor Rigby was a beloved wife who died at age 44, just a few years before John Lennon and his family joined the congregation.

No I wonder, was this song based on gossip that young John heard while going to church? Was there really a Father McKensie who was lonely and ineffective? I can’t say for sure. Perhaps I can return one day and find out the answers to these questions. But true or not, what we can say is that the words portray a church and a priest that was ineffective at reaching lonely people. And that John Lennon saw this first hand as a youth.

It also is true that the English love their gossip stories, especially when it comes to the royal family. This past week was the tenth anniversary of Queen Dianna’s death, and the story of their divorce is still fresh for people in England. There was a story that Prince Charles was unfaithful. When Prince Charles admitted he had an affair, the public had a nasty reaction. He admitted that the third person was Camilla Parker Bowles. Price Charles and later married Camilla, but it was a quiet civil ceremony. Our of their anger towards her, the British press says that she will never receive the title of queen.

Such love triangles are always messy, yet they happen all the time. In human affairs, they are always a disaster. But God has a better way, the way of love. The Trinity is a love triangle that works to save all of us from all our failed relationships. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are a perfect triangular relationship in love.

Now I’ll bet you’ve never heard of the Trinity as a love triangle, but that’s exactly what it is, God he Father created us in love. God the Son became fully human to save us from sin by dying for us on the cross, and then is raised to show us his power over death and evil. God the Holy Spirit comes along to sweep us off our feet with the power of God’s love.

Obviously, the Triune God is not like one of those human love triangles because God's love isn't like ours. Nor is our love like God's love. With God’s love, from the very beginning, we are created in God's image to participate in the holy love triangle, the Trinity. But because freedom comes with love, human beings have freely chosen to desire the love of other people instead of desiring God's love. So we get mixed up in those unholy love triangles instead, which don’t work.

God’s love works because it is the driving force of the Triune God. St. John sums up God in one word, he simply says that God is Love. And we know about that love through the special relationship that Jesus the Son had with his heavenly Father, a relationship which he then extends to us through the Holy Spirit.

This morning the scriptures give us another example of tapping into the divine love story. Our gospel lesson gives us another small piece of Jesus' loving words of farewell to his disciples, on that night before the supreme act of divine love on the cross. Jesus tells his disciples that the Spirit of Truth will come to them.

The disciples will need the Spirit of Truth to show them how something as bloody and as terrible as the cross becomes the glory of God for all those who believe and trust in God’s love. This Spirit of Truth reveals what God has done for us. God's glory, is summed up in that verse we know so well: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." (Jn 3:16)

Here's another key to knowing God's love. It is that synergistic power that comes when believers act in concert for the sake of the gospel. When we do something well as a church we see that happen. I see it when the choir sings, when we help those in need. Here I can see that we are of one heart, of one desire, of one mind. The Spirit of Truth draws us in to actually share in the same love that God has for us and for the world.

Finally, we see the power of love in the love between a man and a woman. In the creation story, God saw that the first human, Adam, was lonely. So God gave him a mate, and created woman. Then came the joy of love, and soon after, the gift of family. This love was a tremendous gift of God.

Today we celebrate the renewing of the vows of marriage that Clarence and Jane Hildebrand gave to each other 35 years ago. Now I don’t want to give them big heads, but they are examples of a love that works. This happened because they kept the gifts of God at the center of their marriage. I think their love has remained strong because they have allowed the Triune God to come into their relationship for each other. Thus they created their family for it’s intended God given purpose, so that we are not alone. They have been with each other and God remains with them now and forever.

As they renew their vows, I ask them to do this vicariously. I mean that they what they say represents all of us, all our families when God Holy love manifests itself with us and through us. Then in the end we will all say Amen.