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A Called and Sent PeopleLectionary reflections for Trinity Sunday (C)By Butch Gamarra
Readings for Trinity Sunday, Year C, June 6, 2004
Book of Common Prayer lectionary Revised Common Lectionary Isaiah 6:1-8
Proverbs 8:1-4,
22-31
Today, more than ever, Christians are called to speak and act in the spirit of the prophets. Jesus was ever faithful and true to the prophetic voice within him. What an example we would set if we listened to and connected with the prophetic voice that lives within us but is so often stifled by other priorities and interests. Christians are a Called and Sent people. Called to a relationship of intimacy with God in order to be empowered and nurtured, strengthened and equipped, loved and forgiven, reborn and renewed. Sent to be radical disciples in the ways of love and kindness, peace and justice, compassion and generosity, forgiveness and reconciliation. Sent to bear witness to the Risen Christ in the arenas of the world, to speak with a prophetic voice and vision that denounces the oppression and dehumanization, the exploitation and injustice, and most of all, the rampant greed that has enveloped this society and culture. We are caught up in a web of greed and lust for power and privilege that translates itself into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Israel and Palestine, the Sudan and Liberia, Colombia and Haiti, and the list goes on. Then there are the socio-economic wars of inequity, race, class and gender, violence and brutality, homophobia and ageism, as well as the mistreatment of physically and mentally challenged people, that occur daily in our streets and institutions denying the divine given rights and dignity of millions in this society. A prophet must speak freely to proclaim the values of the gospel without compromise or allegiance to vested interests that oppress and abuse. The reading from Isaiah reminds us that it is God who purifies us with the burning coal of forgiveness and liberation that takes away our guilt, forgives our sin and sets us free. The scriptures for Trinity Sunday – especially Isaiah and the gospel of John – remind us of some basic realities that inform and fuel the prophetic voice of God, Jesus and the Spirit in each of us. A prophet must speak freely to proclaim the values of the gospel without compromise or allegiance to vested interests that oppress and abuse. The reading from Isaiah reminds us that it is God who purifies us with the burning coal of forgiveness and liberation that takes away our guilt, forgives our sin and sets us free. So that when God asks, “Who will go for us?” we can say, as Isaiah said, “Here am I; send me!” In the Gospel of John, Jesus says that there is much he has to say to us; but the time to say it is when the Spirit of truth comes to guide and lead us into all the truth, to help us understand, process and proclaim the truth and reality of God in Jesus as revealed in the gospels. Without the Spirit we cannot fully do what we are called and sent to do, that is, to proclaim in word and deed the values of the gospel. We are called to preach a message of life to a culture of death. It is a message of love and life, freedom and liberation, peace and justice – yet the human condition is historically more involved with war and oppression, control and domination, occupation and captivity. So, God calls us today as always to be the radical disciples who proclaim that message in word and deed. “All that the Father has is mine,” says Jesus. “He will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
The Rev. Floyd “Butch” Gamarra is rector of St. Philip's Episcopal Church in Los Angeles, Calif. He has developed and supported bilingual and multicultural ministries throughout the church, working with a diversity of racial/ethnic communities in numerous dioceses. Butch may be reached by email at fgamarra@sbcglobal.net .
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