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John 3: 1-17

As we celebrate Father's Day today, I would like to share with you a wonderful story from Sil Galvan about the effect one father had on his family.

• It seems that this particular family had three small children who were determined to have their own puppy. Mom protested because she knew that somehow or other, she would end up caring for it. However, the children solemnly promised that they would take care of it every day. Finally she relented and they brought their little puppy home. They named him Danny and cared for him diligently - at first.
  But, sure enough, as time passed, Mom found herself becoming more and more responsible for taking care of the dog. Finally, she decided that the children were not living up to their promise so she began to search for a new home for Danny. When she found one and broke the news to the children, she was quite surprised that they had almost no reaction at all. One of them even said rather matter-of-factly, "We'll miss him."
  "I'm sure we will," Mom answered, "but he is too much work for one person and since I'm the one that has to do all the work, I say he goes."
  Another child said, "But if he wouldn't eat so much and wouldn't be so messy, could we keep him?" However, Mom held her ground, "It's time to take Danny to his new home." Suddenly, with one voice and with tears in their eyes, all three children exclaimed, "Danny? We thought you said Daddy!"

We all come into this world alone - even when we're part of a multiple birth - and we're totally dependant on the care of others to survive. Certainly, some are cared for - some are loved - better than others.

But the point is that from the very beginning of life, we are designed to be relationship with others. It's part of our genetic makeup. It's who we are. We are children of the God, whom we Christians know as a Trinity - that is, an inseparable divine community of one.

The ancient African theologian Augustine once said that we are born with a God-sized hole in our hearts. Augustine's point was that we spend our entire lives trying to fill that hole with a variety of substitutes, but ultimately find that nothing fits except God. And yet we often turn away from God due to a sense of our own unworthiness.

• Charles M. Schulz once drew a Peanuts cartoon in which Lucy comes up to a forlorn looking Charlie Brown, and says, "Discouraged again, eh, Charlie Brown? You know what your whole trouble is?" And without waiting for an answer, she tells him, "The whole trouble with you is that you're you!"
  That's hardly the way to build someone's self-esteem! So naturally enough, Charlie Brown asks, "Well, what in the world can I do about that?" To which Lucy replies, "I don't pretend to be able to give advice...I merely point out the trouble!"
  Some time later, Charlie Brown isn't looking any more cheerful. So Lucy returns and asks again, "You know what the whole trouble with you is, Charlie Brown?"
  He knows better than to ask her opinion. SO, instead, he replies in a distinctly irritated voice, "No, and I don't want to know! Leave me alone!" And he walks away.
  But Lucy is determined to have the last word, so she shouts after him: "The whole trouble with you is you won't listen to what the whole trouble with you is!"

"But that would be to miss the very heart of this reading. Which is easily done, because the very heart of this gospel reading is so familiar, it goes in one ear and out the other... 'God so loved the world...'

"The world... with its darkness, as well as its light... To all of us [...] God comes, not saying, 'the whole trouble with you is...' but saying, simply, 'I love you'...

"We're tempted to put all sorts of 'ifs' and 'buts' around this [....]

"But let's get this absolutely clear: what we're talking about is [believing] that God loves us just as we are, and it is because of that love that we find ourselves becoming something even more wonderful that we could not have imagined ourselves [....]"

Somehow, people regularly read the Old Testament and find a God of terrible judgment portrayed there. But, in reality, the most characteristic picture we have of God in the Old Testament is that of the rejected lover shown in the book of Hosea.

It's an image you see over and over again in the Old Testament - a passionate God dealing with the pain of a faithless beloved. And that's the image Jesus picks up once again to serve as the background for that deeply-familiar passage from our gospel lesson: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life."

Barry Robinson once wrote, "There are so many things that make us afraid. We are afraid of losing our jobs, of being ridiculed, that people will talk, that we will fail, that our spouses will be unfaithful, that we may get cancer. We fear that we are not raising our children in the proper way, that the economy will deteriorate, that we may be the next highway fatality or victim of violent crime. We are afraid that the airplane will crash, that we will be out of fashion, or worse, old-fashioned.

"We are afraid that war will erupt in another part of the world, that there will be a nuclear accident, that the water we drink may become contaminated, that oil prices will make it impossible to live, that the ozone layer is getting thinner, that if we are not careful we may still blow ourselves to bits.

"We are afraid that we will die. Of course, we will die; and so will the people we love most in this world. So we are afraid of sickness, disease, hospitals and nursing homes; and, worse than the physical dissolution at the end of our lives are all those daily deaths of self: the fear of being tricked, taken advantage of, cheated, deceived, made a fool of, put down. They may laugh at us; and then we would die of shame.

"So, we build up massive walls of protection around ourselves. We will protect ourselves so that we will always be safe. We will have so many defenses, both inner and outer, that no threat will ever harm us. So we amass power, prestige, goods, reputation, [and] health as hedges against death. We invent mechanisms to keep others at bay, becoming silent and reserved, dominant and unrepentant, nasty and tyrannical, unreasonable and petulant, weak and pathetic, dependant and incapable - as the case may be - all in an effort to mask the reality of our fear and to keep ourselves safe from being hurt.

"And yet, there are interludes... for all of us... when all of this fear, hiding, protecting and defending seems utterly foolish, times when we see, even if dimly, that it is possible to live differently."

One of those breakthrough moments comes when we do something like we did here in worship today. Following the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, Jonah Everett Stephens was baptized in the name of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In that simple sacrament, God poured God's very heart out on Jonah and God promised to be with him always through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. We thank God for that gift in Jonah's life and for the promise of that gift in each of our own lives as well.

Another one of those breakthrough moments comes when we look at the heart of the mystery of the Trinity - a concept that makes absolutely no sense, except that it's true to how the church came to experience God - one divine being seen in different aspects.

• Lowell Hennigs tells of a man named Hans Bruntjen, who was a member of one of the churches Hennigs once served. When Hennigs left that church, Bruntjen made him a wooden Trinity cross, which had a circle for a base with three intertwined crosses coming out of it. Bruntjen explained his creation by saying that the circle at the base is the symbol of perfect unity and completeness. There is only one center and everything radiates from that center. In the same way, he said, that the one God is the base and foundation of our lives and of everything that exists.
  The three crosses coming out of that base represent the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each cross is identical to and intertwined with the others. Each cross is supported by and depends on the others.

And so, if you have an empty place in your life, open your heart to God's heart. God pours out everything so you and I can have lives of depth, meaning and purpose - here and now. God pours out everything so you and I can have that kind of life with God forever.

The Holy Trinity takes us as close to the heart of God as we can get. God invites you to open your heart to that self-giving love. The very heart of God is open to you and me today. Let us open our hearts in response. Amen.