John 3:1-17 Dear Partner in Preaching, I find it slightly ironic that this Sunday focuses on, in my humble opinion :), one the worst possible theme for a sermon – the Trinity – and yet features some of the more interesting stories from the New Testament. As for the theme, Trinity Sunday is the only Sunday oriented to church doctrine, and I’ve always found the prospect of offering a sermon on the Trinity not just daunting but downright dicey. Which surprises me a bit, because I’m a huge proponent of using our sermons to teach our folks about our shared faith. But the Trinity? Goodness, who really understands it? And how does a...

Dear Partner in Preaching, I want to propose a radical idea: on this Holy Trinity Sunday, don’t preach on the Trinity. Don’t even mention…it, him, her, they (proper pronoun, please?) Why? Because it’s a doctrine. Because it’s a confusing doctrine. Because doctrine itself is meant to be a way of understanding and describing our experience of the living God, but perhaps as much as or even more than any other doctrine, the doctrine of the Trinity has ended up not describing an experience, but substituting for one. For many of our folks – and who knows, maybe for us – it is little more than a formula – “In the name of the...

John 3:1-17 Dear Partner in Preaching, There’s a lot going on in today’s reading from John’s Gospel. And I mean A LOT! This passage, filled with images both familiar and odd, can be a lot to take in. St. Augustine chose an eagle to represent St. John because he felt the theology of the Fourth Evangelist soared so high above the other gospels, but sometimes it reaches heights that can be hard for many of us – both in the pulpit and in the pew – to follow. My guess is that amid the imagery of water and Spirit and the serpent lifted up in the wilderness and all the rest, our hearers’ attention will be drawn to two places in...