The 1st Sunday after Pentecost-Trinity Sunday Year C

The First Sunday after Pentecost-Trinity Sunday Year C June 16, 2019 This past week, I read an article on NPR in their series American Anthem, “a yearlong series on songs that rouse, unite, celebrate and call to action.” I don’t normally follow this series, but I was caught by a headline above the link on social media. The featured song is called “Dancing on my Own” by an artist named Robyn, and the headline that caught my eye read: “The magic of Robyn’s millennial anthem is its bait and switch: It’s a fun, energetic dance song about being lonely and heartbroken. And yet, the minute you hear it, you instantly feel less alone.” Interesting. So I read the article, and it was chock full of stories of people who loved this song. “There were the DJs who spin it at wedding receptions, knowing it will get everyone on the floor. People who have played it for hours in one sitting, or kept it on repeat for a road trip hundreds of miles long, or made it the last dance at every house party they've ever thrown… The ones who have used it to get through not just breakups, but cancer, or death, or a lot more, who love that decadent drum fill toward the end more than life.”i The writer continues: “All stories of juxtaposition. People finding community in a song all about being solo.” After I finished reading the article, I listened to the song, and I thought, “meh.” “Doesn’t really do it for me (but then again, I’m not a millennial!).” But, an hour later, I caught myself singing the chorus, and I thought about the paradox of all those people mentioned in the article who have felt in community with others over a song about dancing alone! On this first Sunday after Pentecost, our tradition and our readings point us to the remembrance of the Trinity. The whole notion of the Trinity is one of paradox—the three in one and the one in three; one substance and three persons. It’s about God who is both alone in eminence but also in relationship. The early church even had an understanding of the relationship of Trinity that they called in Greek “perichoresis.” This means “to dance,” and it implies an intimate relationship. Our reading from Romans today is also made up of paradox. In the portion of Romans for today, Paul is writing to the Christian community in Rome about justification. And he talks about how we as Christians boast in the hope of sharing the glory of God, but he doesn’t stop there. He continues “that we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us…” There are actually two paradoxes here. The first paradox is that in Paul’s world, a good Jew would never boast about suffering because they believed that suffering was proof of one’s unrighteousness; that suffering was actually punishment for one’s sins from God. Paul is actually debunking this theology, and he is embracing a new theology of the cross of Christ (which ultimately represents suffering unto death) as the way of life. The second paradox is the obvious one: that bad things which produce suffering in us, through a chain reaction of producing endurance and then character ultimately produce hope. Sometimes in our suffering, we actually draw closer to, more dependent upon God, and through this process, hope grows out of suffering. There’s also a hope that can grow out of our vulnerability (which can also be a product of suffering if done well). I read an article about vulnerability this past week also. I was reminded of what sociologist Brene Brown has to say about vulnerability: [that] “Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center, of meaningful human experience.” Also in this article, the Franciscan priest, Richard Rohr, talks about how engaging vulnerability can require deliberate practice. This is yet another paradox: most of us, even though we come into this world as acutely vulnerable beings spend our lives trying to become less vulnerable instead of more vulnerable. In the article, Rohr talks about how he practices vulnerability “praying for ‘one good humiliation a day’ to challenge his ego. It might come in the form of not getting his way, or having someone disagree with him. Then, he carefully watches how his mind and body respond. [He says,] ‘My inner reaction — I’m not proud to tell you — is defensive; is, ‘That’s not true. You don’t understand me.’ I can just see how well-defended my ego is,” he says. “And of course, even your critics — and I have plenty of them — at least 10 to 20 percent of what they’re saying is usually true’.” The article continues, “Rohr’s practice of opening himself to humiliation is difficult, but the alternative may close us off to what’s at the heart of being human. As [poet] David Whyte writes, “To run from vulnerability is to run from the essence of our nature, the attempt to be invulnerable is the vain attempt to become something we are not and most especially, to close off our understanding of the grief of others.”ii And so we’ve come full circle. Suffering and vulnerability are actually what help increase true and authentic relationships. This same vulnerability is at the heart of the Trinity, which is above everything, about relationships. So, for your invitation this week. It would be really easy to invite you to take on Richard Rohr’s practice to “pray for ‘one good humiliation a day,’ but I try not to invite you to do anything that I am unwilling to do myself, and I’ll confess that I think this is beyond my level of spiritual maturity. For those of you who are ready to dive into a PhD level class on vulnerability, then you are certainly welcome to try to take on his practice. For the rest of us, your invitation is to pay attention to how you act or react in times when you are vulnerable, in times when you are suffering. Pay attention to times when you see other people vulnerable or suffering as well and lean into those moments as opposed to leaning away from them. “As Rohr says, ‘Vulnerability transforms you. You can’t be in the presence of a truly vulnerable, honestly vulnerable person and not be affected. I think that’s the way we are meant to be in the presence of one another’.” i.https://www.npr.org/2019/06/10/730641583/robyn-dancing-on-my-own-alone-together-american-anthem?utm_term=nprnews&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr ii.The Pause Newsletter from the On Being project June 15, 2019. https://onbeing.org/