Delivered on May 26, 2024
Bring a windwill
So it’s my tradition after the prayer of the day to bring a message to all of God’s children. And I brought something from the front of my lawn. What is it? A little windmill. It’s a decoration that does one thing. It spins. And when it spins, it makes these pretty colors that are fun to see. But it needs something to spin. What do you think? Wind. It needs moving air to whirl and take something static, something not moving, and bring it movement that others can see and enjoy.
Today is a day in the church calendar when we celebrate who we experience God to be. And the special word we use to describe that is: Trinity. Trinity means “3” – and we talk about God as One thing but with 3 expressions or abilities or ways of being in the universe. That does not mean we worship 3 gods or that one part of God is better than any other or whatnot. Rather, I see the Trinity as a way for us to try to use our limited language and human mind to put into words who we experience God to be. God is always bigger than any metaphor or idea that we have. Yet God chooses to make sure we experience God in concrete ways. One way is through God as creator – and we experience that becase we are created. We live in a world that was created, the stars were created, our food was created, and more. Just by being, we experience God’s creation – a creation we and our friends and even strangers are part of. Next we experience God as Jesus. God chose to live a human life, to experience life as if God was created, and how scary and limited and beautiful life can be. We listen to Jesus’ story through stories in our bible, through the songs we sing, as well as through the worship we do everytime we gather in Jesus’ name. But there’s another part of God that we often struggle with. And that’s God as Spirit – which is, to me, our experience of God moving and living and impacting our lives and our world. It’s the Spirit that tells us we’re loved. It’s the Spirit that inspires us to do good and kind things. It’s the Spirit that reminds us that we are not alone. And it’s the Spirit that brings us hope when we feel hopeless. But what does that look like or feel like? Well – that’s why I like the windmill.
The Bible will often describe the Spirit as wind – and wind moves things. It can be very big and scary and frightening. Yet it can also cause clouds to be in the right place so that rain can water crops that grow. The wind causes things to move – and when we see something beautiful, lovely, kind, supporative, patient, and brilliant happening – like the windmill turning and all the beautiful colors – that’s the Spirit moving.
But what happens if there’s no wind going. How could wind happen when we’re inside – like here? Accept examples but then talk about breath. We can breath out – and that wind that we generate can cause a beautiful thing to happen. You, as created and beloved children of God, carry within you God’s Spirit. And just like God’s spirit spreads love, we get to do the same. We get to be kind even when it’s difficult. We can to love even when it’s hard. We get to make sacrifices so others can experience joy. And we can remember those who did exactly that – especially those who served in our military who died so others could live – which is what Memorial day is all about. We don’t always realize how the Spirit is showing up in our life yet we do have the gift of the Spirit within us that we can give and share to others. So remember that God is with you – Jesus loves you – the Spirit is moving through you – and we see that Spirit at work when life, love, and hope are made real in our world.