Trinity Sunday

27:33 So that was pretty beautiful. It, you know... A little back story to this service. Your clergy, Derek in the facilities office, we've been getting warnings for the past three weeks about how much security there was going to be in Midtown for today's Israeli Day Parade. And we decided to make this pivot to an evening service so that you didn't have to battle your way through metal detectors and possibly get turned back and not be able to make it to the morning service. But the wonder of being able to do this is to be able to hear this incredible evening service music that our maestro has pulled together.

28:29 And it's a great blessing. Thank you. Let me add my thanks to Dr. Sose. it's been a privilege worshiping with all of you for this past year. Just a privilege. Let us pray. Shaper, potter, maker, holy one who lit the wick of the stars, who gave the whales their song, who feeds the young ravens in their nest, stand alongside us this night. Ground our feet in your abiding truths Enlist us in your divine purposes This we pray in the name of Jesus Christ Our rock and our redeemer Amen Earlier this year, the congregation of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church began a study focused on God's names.

29:44 Names recorded in scripture, names used by Christians in corporate worship and private prayer down through the centuries. And today we come to the conclusion of this study. Over the last 12 weeks, our goal has been to stir the pot of your spiritual curiosity. We hope that when you turn to God in prayer, you will feel emboldened to expand your repertoire of names for God. And we hope that you will feel encouraged to use richly textured names that come out of our tradition. Names like rock and shepherd and lion. We also hope that you will feel empowered to address the living God with new names. Names that arise out of your own encounters with the Holy One.

30:45 I have been known on occasion to start a prayer with the words, wild bird who calls from across the lake. There is rich variety in our tradition, and there is also clear permission in our tradition for naming God afresh. So friends, we encourage you to be bold and intentional when you call upon the name of the Lord. Today, in closing out our series, our attention turns to an ancient name, one we typically hear on Christmas Eve. It is a name that Christians give to Jesus, the second person of the Trinity. I am speaking of Logos, the Word. Listen now, my friends, for this unusual name as it echoes from John chapter 1, beginning with the first verse.

31:49 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God, all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life. And the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overtake it. This is the word of God for you, the people of God. Thanks be to God. I was once told that more reflections have been written on the first chapter of the Gospel of John than on any other chapter in all the Bible.

32:48 And that makes sense to me. With sweeping poetic language, John invites readers to travel back to the dawn of time. Standing there, we bear witness to the creation of the cosmos. In the beginning was the word. The Greek term that we translate as word is logos. In the beginning was the logos. Now what exactly is the logos? That's a good question. In the ancient world, logos was a weighty philosophical concept. And like most important concepts, logos is not easily defined. Logos, to quote donkey from Shrek, is like a parfait. Logos has layers, many different layers of meaning.

33:49 Some of the earliest layers come from the writings of Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher who lived in Ephesus some 500 years before the birth of Christ. Heraclitus used the word logos to describe the underlying principles that order the universe. If you study the natural world with care, Heraclitus claimed, you can discern deeply embedded patterns as to how things work. What goes up must come down. When Heraclitus speaks of logos, he wants us to picture the natural order of things, the rational principles that govern the cosmos.

34:36 Well, 200 years after Heraclitus, the philosopher Plato added another layer to Logos. Plato used Logos to describe humanity's highest intellectual calling. To pursue Logos, for Plato, was to pursue truth. Logos was also, though, a description of how people speak to each other when they are pursuing truth. In other words, for Plato, Logos was discourse. Logos was people engaged in dialogue. Logos was a philosophical conversation bent on discerning life's most important truths. Now this root, logos, can be found in many of our English words, of course.

35:35 The word biology, biologos, refers to words about a scientific conversation about life, bio. The word dermatology is a scientific conversation about skin. Garbology, and yes that is a real word, is a learned conversation about trash. Donkey was right. Layers.

36:08 Adding to these many layers is the Gospel of John. 300 years after Plato, John invites his readers to picture the dawn of time. when the stars first caught fire, something, someone stands alongside God. It is reason. It is wisdom. It is order. The Logos is there having a conversation with God. And then John takes things a step further. In the beginning was the Logos. In the beginning was the word and the beginning was dialogue. The logos was with God and the logos was God. God, says John, is order and reason. God is a holy conversation about what is true.

37:13 Now this declaration might induce some head scratching when scripture calls God a lion. well we might nod and say oh okay I get that so God is fierce and strong but when John says God from the very start has been involved in a conversation and then he goes on to say God is a conversation well that may explode a few synapses and here's the thing John's not done the gospel keeps pushing the envelope a few verses later John tells us famously that the word the dialogue the conversation became flesh and dwelt among us for centuries that declaration has stirred the imaginations of theologians and philosophers and artists and faithful people how how can a conversation become flesh wait wait is that where we get the belief that that God is triune does does God shoot the breeze with God's self what do you suppose that conversation might be like I still remember my theology professor David Kelsey, covering a chalkboard with all these diagrams, charting all the different ways in which God's internal conversations with God's self have been pictured by theologians down through the centuries. Those chalkboard diagrams of the Trinity made my head spin.

38:55 still i i keep returning to this mystery this unusual name for god god is word and and over time the notion that that god might be best understood as as a conversation has begun to feel more and more right to me. Why do I say this? Well, to answer, let me begin by distinguishing conversation from small talk, from passing chit-chat about the weather, or how about those Knicks. Seriously. we should also distinguish conversation from argument debate is an important category in human interaction but debate has winning as its goal the aim of conversation good conversation is not to prevail over your conversation partner. You know what I'm talking about, right?

40:11 I'm picturing cups of coffee on the table. You're relaxed but focused. You and another person or two are following a meandering unscripted path. Your head is not focused on scoring points. Your heart is digging deep. You're trying to form true words to get there. You sift through and offer up conflicting perspectives and half-baked ideas, doubts as well as certainties, puzzlement along with hope. You might even change your mind a few minutes along. You might find a better way of stating something that you already said. Good conversation is steeped in honesty, vulnerability, and grace.

41:09 Psychologists tell us that conversations like this are critical for our mental and physical health. Good conversations, this is a scientific fact, Good conversations release hormones that reduce stress, that decrease inflammation, that lower blood pressure. Good conversation forges human connection. It helps us feel not so lonely. So it's a bit worrisome, I think, when contemporary psychologists and sociologists express the concern that American culture is awash in bad conversation. Journalist Anand Jaridharadas laments a national climate that defaults to confrontational and sensational and dismissive speech. ironically social media platforms that that claim to foster conversation have become performance spaces where people try to outdo each other in stirring up social outrage we use our words to to fight for power we dunk on each other we seek to diminish and even destroy those who we perceive to be enemies.

42:44 Case in point, the current social media dust-up surrounding the casting decisions made by director Christopher Nolan for his soon-to-be-released film, The Odyssey. Noting that Nolan chose Kenyan and Mexican actress Lupita Nyong'o to play Helen of Troy, One commentator tweeted, not one person on the planet actually thinks that Lupita Nyong'o is the most beautiful woman in the world. Accusations of racism quickly followed. Then came counter accusations claiming political wokeness and pointing out that the poet Homer described Helen of Troy as having fair hair with a face that launched a thousand ships. Did those words describe Ms. Nyungo?

43:41 Others fired back. Helen of Troy is a fictional character for Pete's sake. Who cares what color her hair is? Then the online trolls pulled out their clubs and joined the debate. Points and counterpoints became increasingly barbed. The whole thing became, in the words of my friend, Reverend Wallace Alston, another elaborate crucifixion of difference. It wasn't a conversation. It was political performance theater. this distinction takes us back to John 1 in the beginning says John was the word according to the good book God has been from the very start in a conversation and says John God is logos God is an honest grace filled conversation.

44:44 A conversation that matters. A conversation that seeks not to score points but to pursue truth. Our faith centers this conversation. Our faith revolves around the belief that this conversation, this holy dialogue became flesh. Jesus is Logos. so what does that mean well it means that instead of tweeting at us in anger instead of baiting us with rage God sent God's beloved son to sit at table with us to tell us stories about love and forgiveness faithfulness and hope growth and new life God sent the conversation to ask us questions.

45:48 Who do you say that I am? Why are you so afraid? What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet forfeit their soul? Do you want to be made well? God sent the conversation to dine with us, to break bread, to offer cups of wine, and to rest a warm hand on our bent shoulders and to say, you, you are my beloved friends. From the very beginning, says John, God has been committed to this sacred conversation. and in Christ God became this sacred conversation.

46:43 This is the sort of thing that gets theologians writing books but more important this is the sort of thing that gets the faithful paying attention. Because it means that whenever we sit down with mugs of hot liquid and dare ask each other honest questions, whenever we listen out of compassion. Whenever we commit to building up and not breaking down the other, we are tapping into the logos, the word in our words that draws us toward mystery and truth. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. The word became flesh and invited us to join a holy conversation, a conversation about the things for which our souls hunger and thirst.

47:50 Friends, I invite you this evening to stand now in body or in spirit and to add your voices to the affirmation of faith, which comes from the ancient Nicene Creed. The text can be found printed in your bulletins and on your screens.