Stories of Wonder

Today the Church celebrates the only Sunday reserved for a doctrine, the doctrine of the Trinity.

All across the nation hapless preachers will stumble from one heresy to another in an attempt to explain what can’t be explained.  For you see, it is the experience that comes first, then come our feeble attempts to put inadequate words to it.

When the first humanoid looked up at the sky, beholding the Milky Way, when astounded by the immensity of the sea, when she beheld the wonder of a newly birthed child, when a person painted in caves the first likenesses of the beasts of the fields that provided nourishment, these were moments of sheer awe.  They may not have had words for the emotions that welled up in their being.  But as they acquired language they told Stories of Wonder.  Eventually, a sense of gratitude grew for the entire panoply of nature in which they were immersed.  Stories of Wonder.  Sacred Stories.

Gratitude to whom?  To a Great Spirit, to a Birthing Mother, to the Holy of Holies, to a benevolent and sometimes terrifying diety?  El Shaddai, Allah, Elohim, Yhwh?  One whom my tribe calls Creator — Father/Mother, for lack of other words.

As our particular tribe unquely received this heritage through the person of Jesus, we saw the same Force within his very persona.  A Force for healing and renewal.  A Force for admonishment and entreaty.  The life-giving parables he told, often against exclusionist ideologies and hateful antagonists.  Restoration and wholeness.

Such folks often confronted him, seeking to diminish him in the eyes of the crowd.  When told to love the neighbor, one such — a lawyer (and wouldn’t you have to just know it would be a lawyer) – arrogantly demanded, “Just who is my neighbor?”  So, Jesus told a story.

There was a man on the road from Jerico to Jerusalem who was beset upon by robbers, highway men.  They stole everything, beat him and left him for dead at the side of the road.

Several religious folk came upon him but didn’t want to get involved, get their hands dirty, and so they ignored his sighs and passed him by.

Finally one considered a despised outcast, a Samaritan, came upon him.  He tended to his wounds, loaded him on his own donkey and brought him to a lodge in the next town along the way.  He told the innkeeper to take care of the man, gave him some greenbacks and said he would reimburse him for any extra expenses on his return trip.

“Now, of all who came upon the unfortunate traveler, who was the neighbor?” Jesus asked.

Of course, the lawyer was cornered, for he knew the sympathies of that crowd of listeners.  Trapped, like a rat.  “The man who took care of the beaten and robbed man,” he reluctantly, and barely audibly answered.  “Go, thou, and do likewise,” Jesus commanded.  A Story of Wonder, indeed!

Through such compassion, Jesus followers and others began to believe that within himself, within his teachings, dwelt the Divine, a spark of Eternity.  “Great High Priest,” “Son of God,” “Emmanuel,” “Messiah,” “Savior,” “Bread of Life,” “Light of the World,” and many more they called him.  For in their experience of Jesus they beheld the Holy.  In him the saw their beginning and the end to which they were drawn – the Alpha and the Omega.

That was their experience, and the experience of those of us who have followed him down through the ages.  Incarnated in John the Revelator, St. Francis, and Hildegard of Bingen  –Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, John Lewis – they also, through this tradition of the Jesus Movement, have revealed all that is Holy and Redemptive.  His parables and teachings, his life, lived out down through the ages — a Story of Wonder.

And we have beheld the residue of that Glory.  Working through imagination, working through daring impulses of courage, working through moments of utter surprise and delight, working through moments of fall-down laughing humor that puts all in grace-filled perspective. Undistilled Wonder!

When my wife Jai asked me recently how my day went, I told her of the five of us planting a bunch of bareroot persimmon trees that morning in St. Francis Garden of Hope.

Without missing a beat, she asked, “Did you plant them upside down?”

She was refering to a story I had told of my Army days in basic training.  Since all of us in our Company D3 were conscientious objectors to be trained as medics, we didn’t have rifle practice and weapons training to attend.  So, the Army thought of other ways to occupy our time.

One of these diversions was called “Area Beautification.”  One Saturday morning before mail call, we were assigned to weed the bed of irises outside the orderly room.  We were being supervised by one of our fellow draftees, elevated to acting corporal, Corporal Palmer.

As we were pulling weeds, separating the iris bulbs to replant them, my friend Bob Mead nudged me and whispered, “Just follow my lead.”

As Palmer strode over to see how the work was going, Bob began replanting the irises upside down.  Palmer, in an accusatory voice, asked, “What are you doing?”

Mead responded, “Don’t you city boys know anything?  You plant the leaves down so they rot and become fertilizer,” and with a dramatic swoop of his arm, he continued, “and the flower comes up here.”  Palmer, most skeptical, responded, “What???”

Mead continuing, “If you don’t believe me, let’s go ask Sarge.”  “Yeah, Sarge will know,” I chimed in, supporting Mead.  Grabbing one of the plants, Bob strode up the stairs, Palmer in tow, and plopped the plant, dirt and all right on Sarge’s desk.

By this time we were all avidly listening at the open window.  We heard Sarge yelling, “Stop.  Your getting dirt all over my papers.”  Bob was then going on with his explanation of how the flower grew up from the inverted iris plant.

Finally, in exaspiration, Sarge responded, “I don’t know anything about these plants, they’re the lieutenant’s flowers.  Go ask him.”  By this time we were rolling around on the ground in fits of laughter.

The answer from the lieutenant after hearing Palmer’s routine?  “Maybe you should plant them rightside up so they all look the same.”

When Mead and Palmer returned from the orderly room to see us in gales of laughter, Palmer realized he had been had.  Even he, too had to crack a smile.

An outrageous Story of Wonder.

Laughter that softens a boring, demeaning experience, we can surely call a gift of the Spirit of the Risen Jesus.  Just as Sarah laughed at the incredible promise of the Three Strange Angels camped outside her tent.  Laughed so hard she named that unexpected child Isaac, Yittzak, laughter in Hebrew.

Moments of unexpected insight, could only come from that Creative Force, an inspiring force those of the Jesus Movement connected with his promise to send a Comforter, a Guide, a sustaining Spirit.

Spirit — that Justice Force now prompting thousands across our nation to rise up in protest against the inhumane and unjust treatment of sojourners in our midst from ICE and and our own soldiers.  Illegially dispatched, I might add.  Would have been nice if President Mayhem had sent them out on January 6 when we experienced an actual insurrection.  Just sayin’.

No, we did not plant the persimmon trees upside down that morning, but as I prepared to get in my car for a meeting, a monarch butterfly flitted past and then soared upwards in a current of wind.

The Spirit struck.  She summoned, “Why not reserve one or two of these thirty beds for milkweed?” 

Milkweed is the only plant monarch caterpillers will eat.  That’s where they will lay their eggs.  We can also, as cooperators with nature and God, provide food for this endangered species.  Milkweed seeds are on order.  Thanks, inspiring Spirit.

Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, aka. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  That’s my story, the story of my tribe, and I’m sticking to it.

Amen.

June 15, 2025
Trinity Sunday

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Canticle 13;

Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15

“Stories of Wonder”