Saint Luke's Lutheran Church

John Donne said it well in his Meditation 17 when he wrote, "No man is an island, entire of itself." What lies behind this memorable phrase is the fact that we human beings are created social. We are born to be in relationship, and therefore we are born into relationships. We are reminded of this on the third Sunday in June, just as we are reminded of this on the Second Sunday in May. One of the first relationships that we experience is our relationship with our fathers. This relationship we have with our fathers is a powerful influence in our lives - helping to shape and mold us into the kind of person we become.

In his book, Tender Warrior, Stu Weber suggests that the relationship between father and child has a power that reaches far beyond childhood. Whether the father is present or absent, whether the relationship is positive or negative, Weber writes, the power of the father is incredible.

As powerful and as important as the relationship with our father is, it is not the most important relationship that we have. And it's not our relationship with mother or spouse either. The most important relationship in your life is with God. Today is not only Father's Day, it is also Trinity Sunday. Trinity Sunday is the one Sunday in the church year that is named for a doctrine, a teaching of the Church, rather than for a person or an event. Yet Trinity Sunday is all about relationships. The doctrine of the Trinity is about the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So today we recite the Athanasian Creed, which lays out the nature of this relationship in a clear and logical fashion. This Creed describes a God who is three separate and distinct persons in one divine being. This relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is characterized by unity and equality, with no one before or after, greater or less than the other.

As some of you may know, I really like the Athanasian Creed. I like the fact that it is so theological. I like the fact that it challenging our thinking while it lays out this teaching in such a logical, structured way. I like it because on the Myers-Briggs type indicator, I am a T - for thinker, and I suspect that those who wrote the Athanasian Creed were T's too. Now, I know that this Creed, like the doctrine of the Trinity itself, is pretty heady. But that is not a bad place to start when you are trying to understand the Trinity. It's not a bad place to start, but you dare not stop there - not if you are going to be true to the spirit of this creed and of the catholic faith. There is a difference between knowing about someone and knowing the person himself. There is a difference between knowing about God and knowing God in a personal way.

The Athanasian Creed and the catholic faith are not so much about what you know, as about whom you know. They are not so much about beliefs as they are about faith. Faith is a relationship word - it has more to do with loving and trusting than with knowing and understanding.

This was a lesson learned late one night as a prominent man in his community made his way under the cover of darkness to a part of town which he would have avoided in the light of day. He had asked around - deliberately but nonchalantly - in order to find out where to go. He kept to the shadows because he did not want to be recognized - he did not want anyone to know what he was doing.

As he approached the house, he saw a light in the window. He knocked on the front door - not with a demanding rap, rap, rap, but with a soft tapping intended for only one pair of ears. The person who opened the door immediately welcomed him in, almost as though he had been expected.

His eyes squinted as he stepped inside - adjusting from the darkness of the night to the soft light coming from a single lamp on the kitchen table. His host gestured to one of the chairs, and they sat down at that table. There was no small talk - he was a man on a mission, so he went right to the point. "Teacher," the man from the shadows blurted out, "we know that you are from God. No one could do the miracles you do if God were not with him."

It wasn't a question really - more of a statement - but underneath there seemed to be a question. Here was a man on a quest - a quest to find out more about this teacher with such unusual power. The teacher also goes right to the point: "Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

What a strange thing to say. The image that it brings to mind is a little weird. "How can a man be born again when he is old?" Nick asks. "Surely he cannot enter his mother's womb a second time!"

Poor Nick. Here he is a teacher in the synagogue, a Pharisee trained in the law, a member of the Jewish Council, and he doesn't understand this basic truth about the kingdom of God. But let's not be too hard on old Nicodemus. We hear about "born again" Christians all the time these days, but back then the idea of being born again was strange and revolutionary.

Nicodemus' problem is that he is thinking physically while Jesus is speaking spiritually. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. No one can enter into the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. We can understand this. We know that Jesus is talking here about baptism. But back then, when Nicodemus went to talk with Jesus, there was no such thing as baptism with water and the Spirit.

We know about this baptism - we just had a baptism this morning and we have four more scheduled for next Sunday. And this is what we know about baptism - it's like being born again. A lot of Christians are reading Rick Warren's latest book, The Purpose Driven Life. There is a lot of good stuff in this book, but when Warren talks about baptism, he talks about it as a ritual and a symbol. He talks about baptism as if it is something that we do. Jesus talks about baptism as something that God does. Jesus says being baptized is like being born. Being born is not something that we do, it is something that happens to us. Baptism is an act of the Spirit.

Now, when we are born physically, we are born into a family - we are born into relationships. It is the same with our spiritual birth. When we are baptized, we are reborn children of God. In baptism, we are born into a relationship with the Trinity. In baptism, God becomes our Father, who gives us new life and who provides and cares for us. In baptism, Jesus becomes our brother who loves us and who gave his life to save us from sin and death. In baptism, the Holy Spirit becomes our companion and our counselor, who walks with us and who guides us as we seek to live this new life we got when we were born again.

What is important here is living the new life, but in order for that to happen you need to know who you are. People who don't know who they are are lost - they don't know what to do or how to live or where they are headed. In order for us to live the new life, we need to know who we are as children of God, and we need to remember that every day. This is why, in his Small Catechism, Martin Luther suggests that every morning when you get up and every evening when you go to bed you make the sign of the cross and say, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

This ritual is a reminder of your baptism - when you were washed in the name of the Triune God and marked with the cross of Christ. Think about the impact this practice could have in your life. Those who begin each new day remembering who they are as children of God will live that day with more joy and more faithfulness. And those who end each day remembering whose they are as children of God will sleep with more peace and security. So along with Luther, I recommend it. And for those of you who are fathers, remember this: there is no more important thing you could teach your children than that they are children of God. Amen.