This is that day in the church year when preachers all over town are trying to explain something that is beyond explaining, and we will probably all get a little creative in our attempts.  How do you really explain God?  Like Father Robert Capon says, "When human beings try to describe God, we are like a bunch of oysters trying to describe a ballerina."  We simply do not have the equipment to understand something so utterly beyond us --- but of course, that has never stopped us from trying!!

          We are made in the image of God,and which God is that? God the creator, Jesus, the Son of God, true God and true man, God the spirit that breathes over the cosmos and makes things new?  Yes, the answer is yes.  And that means that there is diversity and unity all at the same time.  As God is diverse but one, we are diverse but one.

          It was a beautiful, warm night, full of big city sounds, and fragrant with the smell of the huge blooming tree.  The Dombashowa house where we stayed was bare and basic, a school with extra rooms for us, one bathroom at the end of the hall.  WE had come from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN, USA to Harare, Zimbabwe, Africa for the Assembly of the World Council of Churches.  On this particular night I was sitting on the steps outside the small classroom of the school drawn by the rich sound of singing.  I felt a little bit like an intruder, even to be sitting there.  It seemed that whatever was going on in that room was personal, private, and yet intriguing and inviting.  A young man came to the doorway and asked if I was waiting for someone.  I felt a little caught.  I was waiting, but I didn't really know for what.  Waiting to hear more, waiting to be invited in maybe, waiting to be included, and yet so sure that I did not belong.  I stammered around a bit and then said, No, but would it be ok if I came in and listened to the music?  He invited me in to the evening praise service of a local, all black Pentecostal congregation which met every Friday night at the Dombashowa house.  Without missing a beat, someone found me a place to stand, people nodded and smiled and just kept singing.  The words were projected onto a large screen, and so I joined in, discovering inside myself an attraction to, and yet a shyness, of such rich, open, uninhibited expression of love and worship of God.  They sang, they danced, each one finding his or her own space and style, all with great freedom.  I felt warmed by their welcome; curious about their worship, embarrassed by my own often lukewarm approach, to even raise my arms in praise is almost more than I can bear!  I felt very white and very Lutheran.  Actually I felt sort of boring.  But at the same time, I felt like I was part of the group, like I belonged.  Toward the end of the service, a few people came forward and spoke about something or another that was going on in their lives, gave thanks for something, or asked for prayers, or talked about their love for Jesus --- and don't ask me what came over me, but before I knew it, I was standing up there talking.  I thanked them for welcoming me in, I told them that where I came from people could often work up great enthusiasm for a sporting event, but you rarely saw or heard that much energy or excitement in church.  The pastor told me that when I got home, I should tell everyone that the people of God in Africa know how to praise God, and then they invited me to bring any of my friends and come to their Sunday morning worship which was to be held in a downtown movie theater.  I went from feeling like an outsider to an insider.

          God, three in one, I don't know how you explain it, but I know that we live it out all the time.  We are diverse, yet we are united.  We are unique, but part of one body.  We are interrelated and interdependent all at the same time.  Not too many people come to church on a Sunday morning, desperate for an explanation of some doctrine.  They might come desperate for some sense of belonging, some sense of being connected.  God is the prime example of relationship and community.  All for one and one for all.  Separate yet together.  Sometimes we are so acutely aware of our differences, protective of our rights, certain of the fact that our way of looking at an issue, or our way of doing things is the only way.  We hold fast to our sense of the truth, and often seem to make that our god.

          As I walked around that Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Zimbabwe, our differences were obvious.  There were Coptic priests with their black robes and their long beards, there were Africans in full colorful traditional dress, there were young adults in t-shirts and shorts, and purple clergy shirts and large crosses.  There were orthodox and not so orthodox, many races and languages, many styles of worship, but when we gathered under the big worship tent, with all our differences, with all our disagreements, we were ONE because God is one.  We don't create unity, we live in it, and we proclaim that we have peace with God through Jesus Christ, and that God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.  As my Pentecostal friends had said to me that Friday evening, Go and tell them.

           I went to the Sunday morning worship service at the movie theater that weekend, and brought three of my classmates. We were ushered in like royalty, welcomed by many people in the lobby, and invited to sit in seats in the second row.  The singing began, and then, the pastor stood and welcomed the theater full of people, extended his hand to me and said, "And now we would like to call on our sister from far away to give us a message."  I thought my heart would stop right then and there. I walked to the stage of the theater, and as I looked out at them a thousand thoughts raced through my mind.  Part of me felt like breaking into a little rendition of "If They Could See Me Now, That Little Gang Of Mine"!  I looked around and I had to admit to myself that while I had been feeling like an outsider, there was a part of me that had felt a tad superior --- that THEY were the strangers, that MY way of doing and being Church was just a little more grounded, a little more "right" than there way, that my picture of God was somehow just a little more sophisticated than their picture.  In other words, part of me was being a doctrinal, liturgical snob.  Here I was, the outsider who had been welcomed in, and the same Spirit was blowing through all our lives.  Our differences were firmly intact; we were African and North American, black and white, Lutheran and Pentecostal.  As I stood before them I said something to that affect.  Honestly, I don't even remember what all I said.  But, standing there, I could see that it made no difference if we were in a movie theater or a cathedral.  We were all members of the household of God, brought together as many who were different but one.

          We are invited to be part of this work of the trinity, to live out our part as one glimpse of the image of God, and to live in the mystery of this three in one, to celebrate our unity in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

AMEN