May 31, 2026 Trinity Sunday

Pastor Emillie included a Children's sermon on this Holy Trinity Sunday. 

One of the enduring challenges of Christian formation is recognizing that people learn in different ways and at different stages of life. A child encountering the doctrine of the Trinity for the first time may need a concrete image, while an adult may be ready to wrestle with mystery and paradox.

For generations, Christian teachers have used the familiar illustration of water existing as ice, liquid, and steam to help young people begin thinking about the Trinity. The image has obvious strengths. It starts with something tangible and familiar. Children can hold ice, pour water, and watch steam rise from a kettle. The analogy communicates that there is a unity beneath apparent differences and helps young Christians take their first steps into a doctrine that can otherwise seem impossibly abstract.

Obviously, many see that the analogy is imperfect. Water changes from one state to another, while Christians confess that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are simultaneously and eternally distinct persons. Yet in the context of faith formation, the goal is often not to provide a flawless explanation but to create a doorway into wonder. A child who learns that God is somehow both one and three is already beginning to stretch beyond ordinary categories of thought.

As believers mature, however, they often discover that the Trinity cannot be reduced to any single illustration. Adults may benefit from more nuanced approaches that emphasize the relationship rather than the substance. They may explore how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in eternal communion and mutual love. They may encounter the writings of figures such as Augustine of Hippo, who searched for traces of the Trinity within the human mind, or Gregory of Nazianzus, who spoke of the Trinity with profound reverence for divine mystery.

Some are drawn to philosophical arguments about unity and diversity. Others find meaning in the relational language of the New Testament, where the Father sends the Son and the Spirit empowers the church. Still others encounter the Trinity through worship, discovering that theology is not merely an intellectual puzzle but an invitation into the life of God.

Good Christian formation recognizes the value of both approaches. The water analogy may not be the final word, but it can be an important first word. The mistake is not in using simple illustrations; the mistake is treating them as complete explanations. Just as children eventually move from picture books to literature, Christians often move from concrete analogies to deeper theological reflection.

The goal is not simply to master a doctrine but to grow in faith. Whether through ice, water, and steam, through careful theological reasoning, or through the experience of prayer and worship, believers are being led toward the same reality: the mystery of the Triune God who is beyond complete comprehension yet continually invites us into relationship. In that sense, the child's simple illustration and the theologian's subtle argument are not competitors. They are different steps along the same journey of faith.

June 15, 2025 - First Sunday after Pentecost - Honoring Holy Trinity Sunday

This weekend, many people sensed in a real way that somehow the future is watching our actions and will hear how we describe what we did. Those who attended this weekend's military parade yesterday were dwarfed by crowds that participated in the multi-city No Kings protests.  Pastor Emillie and a Creator group saw my family at one of the local protests. 

 

The Gospel reading today is John. The text is quoting Jesus about the Holy Spirit. 

 

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason, I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” 

 

Today Creator celebrated Father's Day with a Father's Day Litany and an entertaining Father's Day Children's Time by Pastor Emilllie. She dramatized how many expectations can be placed on those who fill fatherly roles.

 

The idea that God is still speaking and that the Spirit continues to reveal truth to each generation is inspiring. That encourages believers to remain open to new insights about God, justice, humanity, and creation. 

At the same time, it is hard to articulate in defining the nature of the Holy Spirit. In church, we tend to emphasize God, the Father-Creator, and God the Son-Savior.  By tradition, our Lutheran heritage dictates how we perceive God's presence and work in our lives. We like God still speaking, but we don't want to be wildly Pentecostal about it and lose control. We like our God to respect certain "boundaries". I remember many sermons trying to explain the mystery of the Trinity through metaphor. Imagine the Trinity is an egg yolk, white, and shell, and yet still just an egg. And the more the metaphor is pat and logical to the person explaining, the less I understood it. 

 

Pastor Emillie's sermon about the Trinity focused on the mystery of relationships and perspectives. She had us imagine being next to the ocean, taking in the enormity of it, under an immense sky with its stars. She felt small and insignificant in contrast Then she told us a story of how she once was told to look for living creatures on a property and did not see anything alive until a spider web caught her attention. She found tiny spiders crawling in a bush. At that moment, she felt huge. It demonstrated a delicate dance of relationships and perspectives.

 

Is the Holy Spirit an inner voice of God, something external to us, or both?  The answer, whatever it is,  seems to miss something fundamental. Particularly as we discern what is next for Creator's ministry. How do we know when we are truly hearing the Holy Spirit's voice? 

 

From a progressive Christian viewpoint, John 16:12–15 invites believers into a posture of spiritual humility, ongoing listening, and openness to growth and deep understanding. The Spirit’s guidance is not a closed book but a continuing voice calling people into deeper truth, which often leads to radical love, inclusion, and justice in today’s world. 

  

We prayed for the Emanuel 9 in the Prayers of the People. This coming Tuesday, June 17, at 7 PM, Creator will commemorate the Emanuel 9 with Our Savior's Lutheran in Lake Oswego. For those who can't attend in person, here is a link to follow on Tuesday. Or the author of the song's performance. We remember that shooter, who killed nine Emanuel church members after attending a prayer meeting, and that he his family were ELCA members.

May 26, 2024 - Solemnity of the Holy Trinity - Nicodemus and the Trinity, What Are We Talking About?

This was posted in this week's Creator Connection regarding the Holy Trinity for Sunday's worship:

When we say God is the triune God, we are saying something about who God is beyond, before, and after the universe: that there is community within God.  When we pray to God as Jesus prayed to his Abba (an everyday, intimate parental address), the Spirit prays within us, creating between us and God the same relationship Jesus has with the one who sent him.

This post's assertions about the Trinity works better than the most. The more often cited "natural world" examples of egg and butterfly commonly used as explanations of the triune God don't get to the heart of the matter for me. Yet how do we imagine this Trinity - a God who is beyond, before and after the universe? How can a "community within God" truly integrate into our being?

To meditate on these questions this week I began with a Lectio Divina reading of the Acts from last week. Traditionally, there are four steps to Lectio Divina: read; meditate; pray; and contemplate. Reading the lectionary passage from Acts was inspiring. Prayer and contemplation naturally followed.

In Creator's Lectio practice, we often isolate a standout word or phrase that personally "shimmers" for us. That leads to followup discussions of why. For the Pentecost story, the word that stood out for me was bewildered. And this week's Gospel reading left me empathetic to Nicodemus' bewilderment. I felt all these interactions and events went beyond my present apprehension.  What I prayed reflected my inability to take these truths into my being. I thought about something I had once read which commented on the wisdom of Jesus.

Serene light shining in the ground of my being,
draw me to yourself.
Draw me past the snares of the senses,
out of the mazes of the mind,
Free me from symbols, from words
that I may discover the signified:
the word unspoken in the darkness
that veils the ground of my being.

This Byzantine Hymn served as my prayer to understand God's triune nature at this moment. I imagine it also could have become a prayer for Nicodemus, judging by his interaction with Jesus. Although Nicodemus was not wrong in what he asked Jesus, he was not right either. 

Jesus’ response to Nicodemus  does cut straight to the heart of the matter. No one can see God’s reign without being born again/from above (the Greek word another means both “again” and “from above,” and both senses are important here). Unless Nicodemus allows God to change his whole way of being in the world, he will be unable to perceive God at work. 

And ultimately, Nicodemus did see that world with new eyes.  He became a follower of Christ and played another central part in Christ's story. Together with Joseph of Arimathaea, he took down and embalmed the body of Jesus. He became bold in his faith, rather than being cautiously cloaked in darkness and fear.   

I'm afraid I am over and over caught in that caution. I indulge in too many restless, reasoned reveries about what should be done rather than offering reckless responses to God's call (like Jesus made traveling the road to Jerusalem). Kierkegaard once wrote that faith is a "reception of revelation", a "happy passion that overcomes offense", and "a passionate appropriation of an objective uncertainty". He thought of faith as "a leap and a striving" and, more specifically, that it is "a striving pathos that goes against reason". 

I agree with Kierkegaard, but will add that I find his "leap" must be plural. This past Saturday marked the four year anniversary of George Floyd's death. Creator demonstrated sympathy with protesters when they marched in Happy Valley. Frequently it is hard to engage with a struggle for justice but there was a passion to be bold in overcoming an obvious injustice four years ago. Yet resting on any past laurels seems wrong.  

Sunday Worship Service Setting - Now The Feast

Matt led the congregation on this Trinity Sunday celebration in an energetic We Are the Church as our Gathering Song. More visitors than usual worshiped with us today. I appreciated the enthusiasm they brought to the service together with our regular worshipers.

Pastor Emillie gave a beautiful Children's Sermon that physically demonstrated how the Holy Spirit can support us through times of trouble. She used a cloth dipped in water to talk about how we can absorb and get weighed down by the adversities around us. I delighted in her introducing the Holy Spirit as a shield against the stresses we often encounter in life. This can be a shield that can keep us faithful.

During Announcements, the congregation sang an impromptu request - God Bless America.  This was in recognition of this Memorial Day weekend where military member s who died while serving in U.S. forces in any current or previous war are honored. Personally on Friday my family went to Willamette National Cemetery in remembrance pf my father and his service in World War II.  

I know I was in past congregations where this song was sung at worship. Today my thoughts went to Nicodemus who saw the world around him with new eyes. The Gospel often teaches in unexpected ways. I reflected on last week's celebration of Pentecost. We took steps towards diversity and inclusion that were filled with joy for so many. Granted there were unaccustomed steps for many of us as we departed from Creator's traditions. At the same time those steps were made possible last Sunday in ways unimaginable this time last year. 

Today I saw a long road that we could walk to journey to a truer reality of welcome at Creator.  We may need to reinvent our perceptions; to be open to change, expand our imaginations, and appeal to each other's better natures. As I looked around at everyone gathered in our sanctuary for this particular worship, I heard this patriotic song from my past with new ears and a changed perspective.   

Today's service and Pastor Emillie's sermon articulated and agitated what the Creator Connection sparked throughout the week. She preached that our understanding of the Trinity, while inspiring deep faith, is vague. Nicodemus' questions are still our own, all relevant and real. 

I valued the music and lyrics of the Hymn of the Day, which was Come Join the Dance of Trinity. This was a response that did not require a complete knowledge of the Holy Spirit. It was an invitation to  everyone to learn and join in that dance.

June 4, 2023 - Holy Trinity Sunday - A Remembrance Service for Creator Becoming a Reconciling In Christ Congregation

Photo by Ron Houser

 Pastor Steve wrote in last Thursday's newsletter:

The month of May ended on an exciting note with the Oregon Synod Assembly (Did you know that Creator's own Paul Stromberg was elected Vice-President?), Pentecost Sunday and a new banner created by Susan Nolte, and the ordination of Pastor Emillie!

Creator wants to have special services throughout June to remember Pride month. This Sunday, June 4th, was our Sunday to remember that Creator became an RIC (Reconciling in Christ) congregation in 2009. A congregational vote happened in January that year and passed with overwhelming approval. On April 5, Palm Sunday, Creator received the RIC Certificate that now hangs in the narthex.

Many felt this was an vital declaration of Creator's identity. Later, that same year, the Churchwide Assembly passed a Social Statement, and recommendations for Ministry Policies to allow for differing understandings of same-gender sexual relationships within the ELCA. 

Together, at the beginning of today's service, we all recited and re-affirmed Creator's Affirmation of Welcome. During Offering Matt, Luka, and I performed a song written for, and premiered at the April 5th celebration called A Coming Welcome.

 It was a memorable service for many reasons. For the Children's Time Pastor Steve read from a children's book called Three In One. He traditionally reads from this book on Holy Trinity Sunday. The book describes how identifying the different pasts of an apple help understand the Trinity, There is the peel, the flesh and the core of an apple. All these are different parts of an apple but they all come from one apple.

Pastor Steve had something special up his sleeve when he preached about part of today's Gospel. When he reached the part:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

he energetically splashed the first rows of the assembly with water from the baptismal font three times (for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit respectively). I'm sure some in the front felt the same sense of participation as the first rows of the audience feel at Sea World. 

June will center around Pride and Inclusive themes. I predict this month will be like May; where we gathered around Season of Baptism and Renewal themes; and should be another memorable month for Creator worship.

May 27, 2018 - First Sunday after Pentecost - Trinity Sunday

Hospitality of Abraham or
Trinity by Andrei Rublev

Pastor Ray's preached today on the limitation of language and as it regards our understanding of a three-in-one God. He used Andrei Rubley's Trinity as an example and offered symbolic details about the Trinity that words alone could not capture.

He observed that same limitation happened when talking about people. He related a conversation where he asked a wife to describe her husband who was in hospice,

The wife first used adjectives to describe her husband, kind, loving, head strong... but as she ran out of adjectives Pastor Ray asked her to go on. She told a story about her husband. Stories are another way to move beyond the limitation of language.

Trinity Sunday's Gospel includes a familiar story and, of course, the celebrated John 3:16 verse. Verse 8 "The wind blows where it chooses" ties back to Pentecost revelations with the wind reference that focuses on God's life breath. This is part of a long tradition of a passion to observe God's breath. In Genesis 2:17 God breathed man to life, "Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being". And God's life breath was the also the wind in the house where the disciples were. God breathed to life the church which was born from Christ on the cross and took it's first breath on Pentecost.

Considering the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus in the context of Pentecost this year is useful as well. First of all the night around them takes on a new meaning. This is a time where the seen world - Nicodemus's "what is" rather than "what could be" world - cannot be verified with sight. The story reveals how important this is to Nicodemus when the dialog opens. He makes a spiritual claim from physical evidence, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him". Jesus responds,"Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above."

Nicodemus tries to apply this response from Jesus to the world he knows by asking, "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?". The answer Jesus gives is incandescent,  "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit." Jesus conveys here that those open to the possibility of God being manifest in the world are the ones who can truly see God's kingdom.

Nicodemus and Jesus
Henry Ossawa Tanner

What is heavenly and what is earthly? Jesus maintains, "What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, "You must be born from above." and continues with a beautiful insight to contemplate, "The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." .

Everyone can hear the rush of the Pentecost wind blowing, but those open to the possibility of God made manifest in the world through the Holy Spirit can also recognize this as God breathing life into the church or world. On Pentecost and the week before I described this openness as a choice and gave some factors last week that may play a part in that choice. This verse, however, hones in on precisely what is going on. Jesus uses the words born of the spirit.  Birth is not something we choose. The wind blows where it chooses states it perfectly. The Holy Spirit (God) blows where God chooses.

What Jesus says next is challenging:

"Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. 

Jesus alludes to, but does not specify, the earthly things that Nicodemus does not believe so they must be surmised. Nicodemus may not believe Jesus as to who perceives or enters the kingdom of God. Also Jesus may be insisting that Nicodemus is wrong by believing Jesus is a teacher who has come from God because of the worldly signs. Actually there are very few things that Jesus has asserted here that Nicodemus may not believe.

Perhaps Jesus is teaching that "perceiving or entering the kingdom of God" and claiming Jesus is a teacher from God should considered as speaking of earthly things. Speaking about the kingdom of God would normally thought of as speaking of heavenly things. This may be another way of saying the kingdom of God is at hand, and that rightly perceiving or entering this kingdom is a better understood as an earthly thing.

Jesus also insists, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above." These two verses are not mutually exclusive but to consider them both true creates a complex relationship in what it means to be born of the Spirit - a relationship that is further commented on in the verse that follows.

Jesus references a story from Numbers 21:4-9 where Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. Again, another image tied with Pentecost. The bronze snake resonates differently his Sunday given the recent fiery, snake-tongue Holy Spirit that was encountered last week. The bronze snake is an image rich with associations.

This Numbers story is about the unbelief and mis-perceptions of the Israelites in the wilderness. They were discouraged and grumbling about their current journey. Poisonous serpents came as judgment into the Israelite's camp. People began to die. They recognized their sin and came to Moses to confess and ask for God's mercy. When Moses prayed for the people, God instructed him to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole to heal people.

From that serpent the Israelites learn lessons about faith. God instructed the Israelites to look up at the bronze serpent to heal themselves. This is obviously not rational to them. The serpent on the stick may be a reminder of their sin which brought about their suffering but, as a remedy for snakebites, this makes no sense at all. However, when they look up to the bronze serpent they are healed. God graciously provides an earthly thing to function as a heavenly tool.

Many years later, when the Israelites were in the Promised Land, the serpent had become an object of worship (2 Kings 18:4). Unfortunately there is always a temptation to take the things that come from God and twist them into idolatry. We must not worship either the tools or the people God chooses to use (as John is described in John 1:6-13), but always bring the honor and glory to God alone.

The implications of Jesus saying And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up makes the idolatry question trickier to navigate. Believing Jesus is God does not preclude believers from making Jesus into an idol. As I prayed about this possibility I had the good fortune to find another reason how worshiping Jesus as an individual can be detrimental to Christian faith.

I also looked into  visual similarities between the serpent on the pole in the biblical story and the Rod of Asclepius, the medical symbol and found the symbolism and context are different. The biblical account is primarily a religious and historical narrative, emphasizing divine healing and obedience, while the Rod of Asclepius is a symbol associated with the ancient Greek god of healing, Asclepius, and represents the practice of medicine and healthcare.

In summary, the biblical story in Numbers and the Rod of Asclepius have distinct origins and meanings, even though they both involve a serpent on a pole in the context of healing.
 

I listened to Pastor Amanda of Central Lutheran on a podcast about Jesus' Ascension, The podcast gave it's audience an opportunity to learn more about the importance of the Ascension and contemplate what would have happened had Jesus not ascended to heaven.

I have never been comfortable with the Acts 1:9-11 Ascension account. I fancied it as a supernatural reason to explain what happened to Jesus' body. Imagining Ascension as a physical event was awkward for me and questions naturally arose. Is the physical body of Jesus really going to heaven as physical as earth? Do I have faith in that kind of heaven? I shied away from contemplating the Ascension, from picturing Jesus as depicted below, and from all those uncomfortable questions.

Pastor Amanda presents a different and powerful view of the Ascension's importance to us today. After the Ascension God's mission, that Jesus continued in the world, moves from a resurrected one to a collective and mutually accountable body of Christ.

She points out the Ascension tends to be downplayed because it is far easier for people to "star gaze". A new insight for me that rings completely true. We like our stars and prefer looking to one savior rather than looking to the body of Christ as it exists today to bring about the kingdom of God.

I recognized myself at the end of the podcast as mostly being a star gazer. My vision of the Ascension, as just described, attests to my star gazing. My mind's eye attempted to look only to the physical body of Jesus in the sky and not to the body of Christ on earth.

All this inspired me to read John 3:16-17 and understand these verses from a different perspective and a more Trinitarian view:

First the translation often quoted and held dear:

"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. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him"

Replacing the masculine pronouns with God John 3:16-17 reads like this:

"For God so loved the world that God gave God's only Son, so that everyone who believes in God may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through God"

John 3:16-17 is a New Testament verse that Jesus, as an individual, did not write. On this Trinity Sunday replacing the pronouns feels like a subtraction of an individual identity that allows me to imagine God's more collective identity through the current body of Christ and to expansively reflect on the immensity of God's love.

April 9, 2017 - Holy Week: Sunday of the Passion - Those With Ears to Hear and the Sleeping Disciples

In last year's entry about Palm Sunday the question on my mind was, "Is an insight, a new sensation, or a deep revelation necessary to make worship meaningful?".  Is there an insatiable "something that's different" that needs to be experienced in each Sunday worship? I ran across an interesting Brian McLaren quote "It's not about the church meeting your needs; it's about joining the mission of God's people to meet the world's needs."

Today Matt led the choir singing a heartfelt On Humble Beast Now Rides the King. Katie, Annie, Pastor Michelle, Suzi, Craig, Karen, Gary and Robert read from Matthew's account of the Passion.

We at Creator, like most Christians, treasure the narratives of all the events of the last days of Jesus and share them during Holy Week worship. Many of us have heard these words and stories throughout our lives. Last year my feelings did not match my expectations during the Palm Sunday worship readings. I reasoned that this year-after-year familiarity with the text was the reason why. Last year I approached that Passion recitation for some deep meaning evoked in that particular reading at that particular moment.

Trinity Cathedral, Zimbabwe

Less than a year ago I encountered the Karl Barth observation, "The Bible is the book that reads me" which gave me a new perspective , together with the Passion narrative itself. When you question what you are reading in the Bible you find that the Bible is also questioning you. When you ask "What is this book?" you find you are also implicitly being asked in response "Who is this that reads it?"

Many times I read the Bible only to find my eyes dragging across the page and becoming lost in an overall feeling of being unreceptive.  These are the times I could and have fallen asleep while I was reading scripture. For that reason, I feel empathy for the disciples when they sleep in Gethsemane. Their inability to stay awake was not only understandable to me but I connected with the story because of it today.

Staying spiritually awake is not easy. The news of the world numbs us. Egypt's president called for a three-month state of emergency this Sunday after at least 44 people were killed and more than 100 more were injured in two Palm Sunday suicide attacks at Coptic Christian churches, each carried out by the ISIS terror group.

Another Karl Barth passage came to mind as I read about those suicide attacks “Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.”

From Thursday to now the national conversation has centered on Syria and the Tomahawk missile attack on the Syrian airbase where the chemical weapon attack that killed civilians was presumably launched. What I saw on the news was disheartening. Most news commentators fell into a strange talking point of Trump doing something when Obama, when he was President, did nothing about the chemical weapons attacks.

The Obama administration first attempted to ask congress to vote for the authorized use of military force in Syria since an attack on a sovereign nation fell outside the 9/11 AUMF. When that didn't happen they shepherded Syria to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention in 2013. The Russians were guarantors that Syria would submit to inspections and removal of what it said were stores of chemical weapons in 2014. The Syrian government would now appear to have violated that agreement and so many commentators now conclude this will be a stain on the Obama legacy. My question is how can all those efforts be categorized as having done nothing?

Interpreting this from my Biblical reading draws me to a sad conclusion about what has worth and true value for most people and what does not. When I heard praise for this attack, and some declaring Trump became President at this moment, I was reminded of a scene in The American President where this fictional President orders an airstrike (this came to mind to others as well):

President Andrew Shepherd: What I did tonight was not about political gain, Leon
Kodak: Yes sir. But it can be, sir. What you did tonight was very presidential.
President Andrew Shepherd: Leon, somewhere in Libya right now, a janitor's working the night shift at Libyan Intelligence headquarters. He's going about doing his job... because he has no idea that in about an hour he's going to die in a massive explosion. He's just going about his job, because he has no idea that about an hour ago I gave an order to have him killed. You've just seen me do the least presidential thing I do.

How do we hold what we hear all around us in our hearts, and do what we must, without falling asleep?

This is the ten year anniversary of the first blog entry I made for Creator worship.