May 31, 2026
READING
GENESIS 1:1 – 2:4a
The first passage this morning is lengthy…it’s the creation story and we need to hear it once again. Darkness, light, and new life are all aspects of our human experience. We are creatures of sunset and sunrise, of the ebb and flow of the tides of life, of darkness and light. Within our life stories are periods of darkness and periods of light. And in the creation story, comes all aspects of this from a seemingly endless void to all of creativeness. So sit back for a little while and put yourself into the creation story….
2 CORINTHIANS 13:11-13
Well in this 2nd Corinthians passage Paul offers us a comforting assurance that today’s church did not invent congregational conflicts…things like a church’s governing body changing the locks on the doors while a staff member was on vacation or a telephone campaign to plan a boycott…these could be today’s things but I assure you, in Paul’s time, they were equally as disturbing…so he states to them, put stuff in order, agree with each other… live in peace for heaven’s sakes!...and it’s the final words to them as he leaves Corinth…
MATTHEW 28:16-20
So here in Matthew we are introduced to the Trinitarian formula…Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…I like how a minister in Vermont put an understanding towards what the Trinity is…he tells of an Easter vigil in his little church on a Saturday evening and only two people show up…nonetheless, he lights the paschal candle and says the prayer…the candle sputters in the half-darkness like a voice too embarrassed to proclaim that Christ is risen…but it catches fire and there they are – three people…a Trinity of sorts…kind of reminds me of all of us being a sometimes fragmented community, with a possible fragmented faith and a fragmented understanding of the Trinitarian God and then…we go out into the world with everything that Jesus has taught us… cool!!