St. Luke's Episcopal Church
Cleveland, Tennessee

Trinity Sunday
May 30, 2010
John 16:12-15
The Reverend Joel W. Huffstetler

One of my favorite spiritual writers has a line in one of his books that says, “Awe is the beginning of worship.” I would like for us to ponder that for a moment. Awe is the beginning of worship. We have people frequently come through here during the week for one reason or another. It is interesting to notice that every time I show someone the church, and they are seeing it for the first time, without fail when they come through that door back and come into the space for the first time, inevitably their eyes just start drifting up as they begin to take it all in. In a moment they will say something to the effect of, “This church is beautiful.” So what this space is intended to do is create a sense of awe. This church was built to be beautiful so that its beauty would inspire us to think about the awesomeness of God our Father. I would like for that phrase to hopefully stick with you this week as it has it has stuck with me as I was thinking about my sermon today. Awe is the beginning of worship.

We have something interesting happening in our culture right now. The word awesome has become very commonly used. It is one of those words that people just toss into conversations these days. Folks younger than I am use the word awesome a lot. There is nothing wrong with that. Words come into favor as a kind of a catchword periodically in our culture. Some of you remember a time when everything was groovy. That woke you up didn't it? Groovy. Some of you remember that. Things aren't so groovy any more. They are awesome now.

When I was in high school people began to use the word bad to mean good. Ever so often when I was in school someone would say about a car, “That is a bad ride.” Which meant, “That's a nice car.” Now people say awesome very loosely. It is not a problem. It is just something we need to be aware of. Several years ago a nice couple from church invited Debbie and me to a very nice restaurant. We were looking at the menu and a very young, inexperienced waiter came up. He was very nice, very polite, but very inexperienced. When he started talking about the specials, we said, “Tell us, is it good?” I remember his answer crystal clearly. His answer was, “It's extremely awesome,” speaking of the special. When he left I said to the nice couple who had invited us to dinner, “Well, if it's extremely awesome, we probably ought to have some.” These words come and go in our culture, and in due course something else will take the place of awesome. But I want us to be reminded today that awesome in its true sense has a very powerful meaning. Awesome means beyond our comprehension. So that is the God whom we worship. There is a contemporary Christian song that has been out for several years. The refrain is our God is an awesome God. That is a powerful message. It is a pretty song, but it has a powerful message when we take the words seriously. Our God is an awesome God.

I want to talk about this for just a couple more minutes. Think about creation. Think about the wonder of the world around us. When we think about the stars, the solar system, the earth, the complexity of the human body, the intricacy of the earth; when we think about the beauty of the world, the God we are here to worship today is the creator of all of this. So I think my favorite spiritual writer is right when he says, “Awe is the beginning of worship.”

Ever so often we all need to step back and hear the words of our liturgy with fresh ears. Sometimes we need to take a step back and hear the words of our hymns with fresh ears. The words of the Eucharistic Prayer that we hear a little bit later, these things can become so familiar to us that we might lose their actual power. Every word of our liturgy, every word of our prayers, every word of our hymns is meant to remind us that we worship an awesome God, a God whose majesty and power is beyond our comprehension. Yet his love is made known to us in Jesus, and his presence is made known to us through the power of the Holy Spirit.

I want to share with you briefly an experience that Debbie and I have had this week. I grew up around cats and dogs, more dogs than cats. I grew up around cows. There was a cow pasture right behind our house. Sometimes the cows would get out of the fence, and I would go out to get the morning paper and there would be a cow in our front yard. We would just call the owner and he'd come get the cow. It wasn't anything shocking. We have had adult bunny rabbits in our yard for seven years, but we have never had any babies that we knew of. We said periodically, “How cute would it be to have some baby bunnies?” Well, we have some now. There are six baby bunny rabbits in our yard. We just let our dinner get cold the other night because we saw them, and we just stood at the window looking at these bunnies indefinitely. They are so cute! Some of you have seen hundreds of baby bunny rabbits, but I never have until this week. They came out again last night. We just dropped what we were doing and watched the bunnies. At one point, I said, “Just five more minutes!” And then at one point Debbie said, “Honey, it's been fifteen minutes.” I said, “Well, just a little bit longer.” My point is this, even something as simple as baby bunny rabbits in our yard reminds us of the wonder of creation. Those little baby bunny rabbits are vulnerable right now so this isn't all easy to talk about but we see that God creates everything around us. It is so important for us to remember that when we come to worship it is to experience the awesomeness of God's love. Awe is the beginning of worship.

I want to say a few words briefly about the baptism today. When we come to baptize a child, we are reminded of the fragility of life. We are so grateful for children to be born into our community. Every child born is a miracle. We are so thankful to God when a new child comes into our midst. A baptismal liturgy is a time to remember that it is an awesome God that we are here to worship today.

I want to conclude with a very, very short story. I went to do my field education when I was a senior in seminary with a very experienced parish priest. I didn't know him well but I did know him. I knew that I thought he was the finest parish minister that I had ever known. We got to choose where we did our field education. I asked to be sent to this man's church. I was with him for six weeks. I shadowed him. I went everywhere he went, and I did everything he did in ministry for six weeks. I still look to him as my mentor. I still think from time to time what would Father Hindle do about this? He had that kind of impact on me. Fr. Hindle said something to me as my six weeks with him came to an end. He said, “Always remember, Joel, serve the Lord with gladness.” To this day, I have never forgotten that. His most important advice to me was, “Serve the Lord with gladness.” It is an awesome God we are here to worship today on this Trinity Sunday, a God whose power ultimately is beyond our comprehension. Yet God chose to make himself known in Jesus, and in Jesus we learn how to love. And, then, God has chosen to be with us through the Holy Spirit. So the awesome God we worship is with us in the every day events of our lives. Our calling is to serve him. We are called to serve this awesome God whom we worship. So today as we baptize a new child into our community, as we are reminded of our own baptismal covenant, my prayer for each one of us today, myself among you I can assure you, is that we all recommit ourselves today to the promise that we will serve the Lord with gladness. Amen.