Sent Into The Life of God

Genesis 1:1-2:4a 

Psalm 8

2 Corinthians 13:11-13 

Matthew 28:16-20

© 2026 The Rev. Seth Olson

 

This sermon was delivered at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hoover, AL on Trinity Sunday. A video of the message may be found here. 

Holy God, may my words be your words, and when my words are not your words, may your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen. 

Today is Trinity Sunday, which means this is the Sunday when preachers everywhere are either coming up with some terribly inaccurate analogies, being tempted to explain too much, or feeling like they must apologize for not being able to explain enough.

Because the Trinity is not easy.

One God in three persons.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Not three gods.

Not one God wearing three different masks.

Not a math problem where one plus one plus one somehow equals one.

And honestly, if we try to make the Trinity small enough to fit neatly inside our minds, we usually end up making God too small. So today, instead of trying to solve the Trinity like a riddle, I want us to begin where the Gospel begins: with eleven disciples on a mountain in Galilee.

Matthew tells us that the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him, they worshiped him. But some doubted. That may be one of the most honest lines in all of Scripture.

They saw the risen Jesus.

They worshiped him.

And some doubted.

Their faith and their uncertainty were standing on the same mountain.

And Jesus does not shame them for it. He does not divide them into the good disciples and the questionable disciples. He does not say, “Those of you with complete confidence may come forward, and the rest of you can take some time to work on yourselves.”

He gives the same commission to the whole imperfect group. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”

In other words: you do not have to be completely certain before you can be sent.You do not have to have everything figured out before you can participate in the life and mission of God.

You do not have to be perfect before Christ can use you as a witness to grace. That is good news for the Church. It is good news for Holy Apostles. And it is good news for anyone who has ever loved Jesus and still had questions. Anyone who has ever worshiped and still wondered. Anyone who has ever shown up carrying both faith and doubt, both devotion and exhaustion, both hope and fear.

The risen Christ meets the disciples as they are. And then he sends them. But notice what Jesus sends them to do. He does not say, “Go win arguments.” He does not say, “Go build an institution.” He does not say, “Go protect your own comfort.”

He says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”

This is what we in the Church call the Great Commission. But sometimes I think we have heard it too narrowly.

To make disciples is not simply to get people to join our side. It is not merely to increase religious market share. It is not to pressure people into agreement. A disciple is a learner. An apprentice. Someone whose life is slowly being shaped by the way of Jesus.

So when Jesus sends the disciples, he sends them to invite others into a way of life: the way of mercy, forgiveness, courage, humility, justice, welcome, peace, and self-giving love.

He sends them to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And that is where Trinity Sunday and the Great Commission kiss. 

The Trinity is not first an abstract doctrine to be explained. The Trinity is the life of God into which we are baptized. 

We are baptized into the name of the God who creates the heavens and the earth and calls them good. 

We are baptized into the name of the Son who takes on flesh, touches the untouchable, welcomes the sinner, forgives the enemy, washes feet, and lays down his life in love.

We are baptized into the name of the Holy Spirit, who breathes courage into frightened disciples, gathers divided people into communion, and sends ordinary human beings into the world as bearers of divine love.

The Trinity tells us that at the heart of all things is not loneliness. Not domination. Not fear. Not violence. Not isolation. At the heart of all things is communion. Relationship. Self-giving love.

God is not a solitary monarch sitting far away from the world. God is living love. Love given, love received, love shared. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And Jesus invites us into that life.

That is the point. Not that we would be able to define God perfectly, but that we would be swept up into the life of God and then sent out to live that divine life in the world. And that is where today’s Good News becomes very particular for us, Holy Apostles.

We bear the name “Apostles.” We are not only Holy People Gathered in a Church Building. We are Holy Apostles. Set apart and sent.

That does not mean we are impressive. The first apostles were not impressive in the way the world usually measures impressiveness. They were incomplete. They were uncertain. They were still carrying failure and grief. Some worshiped and some doubted, and maybe some did both at the same time.

And still Jesus sent them. So perhaps being Holy Apostles does not mean being the people who have everything figured out. Perhaps it means being a community willing to be drawn into the self-giving love of God and then sent back into Hoover, Shelby County, Birmingham, our homes, our schools, our workplaces, our neighborhoods, our friendships, our families, and all the ordinary places where human beings are aching to know that they are loved.

This is what we are sent to live. The grace of Jesus Christ. The love of God. The communion of the Holy Spirit.

That is how Paul says it in Second Corinthians. And it is more than a beautiful blessing at the end of a letter. It is a pattern for the Church. Grace. Love. Communion.

What if those became the marks of Holy Apostles? What if people encountered this parish and said, “That is a community where grace is real”? 

What if people came among us and discovered not a perfect church, but a loving one?

What if our life together became an invitation into communion in a lonely and fragmented world?

That is the divine life. And that is the mission.

And today, we hear this Gospel on a day when we are also saying thank you and farewell to Derek Kluz, who has helped lead this community in song for the last ten years. There is something deeply fitting about this.

Because music has a way of doing what doctrine alone cannot always do. Music can carry us into communion. Music can teach us how to breathe together. It can gather many voices into one song without making every voice the same.

For a decade, Derek has helped us sing the faith. He has helped us pray when words alone were not enough. He has helped us praise, grieve, rejoice, remember, and hope.

And now, on the Sunday of the Great Commission, we bless him as he is sent into a new chapter. That does not mean the communion ends. It means love moves outward. That is how the life of God works. The love of God is never stagnant. It creates. It gathers. It blesses. It sends.

Derek is being sent. And so are we.

Not in the same way, perhaps. Not to the same place. But every one of us who has been baptized into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit has been drawn into the life of God and sent to make that life visible.

And Jesus gives one final promise. “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Matthew’s Gospel account begins with the promise of Emmanuel, God with us. And his Good News ends with the risen Christ saying, “I am with you always.”

That means we are not sent alone. Derek does not go alone. Holy Apostles does not continue alone. You do not step into your own calling alone. The crucified and risen Christ goes with us.

So, beloved Holy Apostles, on this Trinity Sunday, do not worry first about whether you can explain the Trinity. 

Live the Trinity.

Live as people created in love.

Live as people gathered in grace.

Live as people sent in communion.

Go into the world as disciples of Jesus. Teach mercy by practicing mercy. Teach forgiveness by forgiving. Teach welcome by welcoming. Teach love by loving.

And invite others—not merely with your words, but with your lives—into the self-giving love of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Because that is who God is. And we are called to live and move and have our being in the Divine Life of the Trinity.

Amen.

On Tables & Reconciliation

  

What's the Parable of the Prodigal Son really about? Surprisingly, it's about tables... and reconciliation!

 

Joshua 5:9-12

Psalm 32

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

 

The Rev. Seth Olson © 2025

 

Holy One, you prepare a table in the wilderness and set it before saints and sinners alike. Let your Word meet us in this moment. Let us receive your invitation with open hearts and open minds. Amen.

There’s something sacred about a shared table.

 

Maybe it’s the table in your kitchen, cluttered with mail and homework and a stray crayon or two, but still the place your family returns to, night after night. 

 

Maybe it’s a holiday table, bursting with joy, delicious dishes, and awkward conversation. 

 

Or maybe it’s this table—the altar—where bread and wine become more than bread and wine. Where we meet the mystery of grace. Where heaven and earth kiss one another. Where we take part in a feast, which has been on-going for 2,000 years and will continue on into eternity.

 

In today’s Gospel, we hear one of Jesus’ most famous parables. But before we get to the story itself though, it’s helpful to notice what triggered it—a table. “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling, saying this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

 

Jesus was welcoming the wrong people to the table. The Pharisees—religious leaders not unlike you or I—and scribes—the lawyers of the day—began to mutter their disapproval. And so, Jesus told them this parable—not to shame them, but to show them what the kingdom of God looks like.

You know this story. Even if this morning was the very first time you ever heard it, the Parable of the Prodigal Son is our story—a tale about the human condition and God’s epic love for us. To recap it in brief, a son squandered his inheritance in a far-off land, wound up feeding pigs (not a great look for an Israelite forbidden from even touching swine), and eventually stumbled home with a well-rehearsed apology. His father saw him, ran to him, embraced him before a word was spoken. There was a feast—a raucous party. And then the elder brother, angry and excluded, was invited to the table, too. Did he go in? It’s a cliff-hanger meant for Pharisees, scribes, and us to figure out!

 

But, before you go picking on one son or the other, here’s the truth: both sons were lost. One was lost in rebellion—the other in resentment. One wandered far from home—the other far from grace.

 

And yet—this is what hits me every time—the father went out to meet both sons. The father ran to the younger and pleaded with the elder. No shame. No punishment. Only this: “Come inside. Rejoice. You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”

 

A First-Century patriarch would NEVER do this. And, I repeat, never! He would not run out to meet a son who essentially wished him dead in requesting his inheritance early. Nor would he leave a party that he was hosting. But, this is not a story meant to share the exemplary behavior of a father. No, this is a story about what the Kingdom of God looks like, who Our Father in Heaven is, and at least to me, it looks a lot like a family built not on getting it all right, but on having the grace to reconcile when we don’t get it all right.

Saint Paul knew this. Perhaps that is why in his letters to the Church in Corinth which we heard today, he wrote: “God has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” When heard alongside today’s Gospel lesson, we might just realize the Parable of the Prodigal Son isn’t just about God’s mercy—it’s about our call to join in the reconciling work of Christ. To be people who meet one another with grace. To refuse the false binary of “good son” vs. “bad son.” To say, “Come to the table. There's room for you. No matter where you’re from, what you’ve done, or what you have messed up… No matter what, there’s room for you.”

 

That’s especially important right now, in our church and our country—where it’s easy to define ourselves by who we’re not—not like those people, not like that party, not like them. And yes, it is meet and right, and our bounden duty (to borrow words from the Rite I Eucharistic Prayer) to live lives where we uphold Gospel values—to be people committed to unconditional love, service, stewardship, humility, grace, and prayer. But, anytime we put up a barrier separating us from them Christ tears down that dividing wall. Christ continually makes all things new, and we are invited to take part in that. To have the vision of Christ and to see that they are us and we are them. All of us are one.

 

At Holy Apostles, we strive to be a community that lives this out—not just in word but in action. A community where you can come back after you’ve made a mess of things. A community where resentment doesn’t harden into exile. A community where we feast on grace.

 

But, sometimes we don’t even get that right. Sometimes we hold grudges. We experience real hurt and it’s hard then to make amends. When this happens to me, sometimes I dig my feet into stubbornness. If I don’t forgive someone else, I think, I maintain power over them. However, Anne Lamott, the Christian author and pastor, described withholding forgiveness as us drinking rat poison and expecting the rat to die. It’s only hurting us. And, it is not taking seriously who God is calling this community to be. 

 

We can hear echoes of who God yearns for us to be in words we heard from Joshua. God says, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” In this story, the people eat the first Passover in the Promised Land—they take part in a new beginning, a new table in a new place. It echoes the Gospel’s table of return and reconciliation. It foreshadows the Eucharistic table we approach week after week—our own table of new beginnings.

 

In truth, the parable we heard today from Luke isn’t just a story Jesus told. This is a narrative Jesus lived. He was accused of eating with the wrong people. He was betrayed at a table. He gave himself at a table. And he invites us still to join him at table.

 

So, wherever you are today—whether you feel like the younger son, broken and unsure if you belong, or the elder son, righteous and quietly bitter—the invitation is the same:

 

Come to the table.

 

Not because you deserve it. Not because you’ve got it all figured out. But because this is what grace looks like. A father running. A feast beginning. And, a love that refuses to let anyone stay lost. 

 

Amen.

Life's Not Fair

“Life’s not fair.” Has anyone ever said that to you? I know I have heard it a few times throughout life and I bet you have too. Perhaps it was as a child when you got in trouble for doing something that your sibling had just done without punishment… “No one said life is fair.” Or, maybe it happened in school when your 10^th grade English teacher marked obviously correct grammar with red ink… “You know life is not always fair.” Then again, it could have been recently when the officer pick you out, even though everyone around you was speeding… “Life’s just not fair.”

In today’s Gospel lesson we hear a tiny sliver of one of my favorite passages in Holy Scripture that reminds me that life is not always fair. Often we hear the rest of this passage at funeral services. Jesus said to his disciples, “Do not be troubled.” Even though it was the night before he would die, Jesus spoke peacefully about the place where he was going, that he was preparing a place for them, and that there were many dwelling places there. At that moment Thomas blurts out a logical concern. When I hear about “Doubting Thomas” I think, “Sometimes life’s not fair.” For he was one who simply wanted a little bit more evidence, a little more from Jesus, and yet the Church has dubbed him the wayward cynic. Thomas spoke, “Lord we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus’ response has encouraged and perplexed the Church in the subsequent ages, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”

The Church picks on Thomas because in the cold black ink of Holy Scripture we can so easily scoff at his honest wonderings. Remarkably though one of the saints whom we celebrate today deserves a grander nickname of skepticism. Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied.” Elsewhere in John he doubted that nine months wages would be enough to feed a swarming crowd. Life’s just not fair to Thomas, he lived a curious life and he became the doubtful one.

Returning to today’s Gospel lesson, Philip had been with Jesus all along–even calling his friend Nathanael to follow Jesus—and yet he missed the signs that pointed to Jesus’ complete connection with the Father. Maybe we can start a movement to call him Skeptical Philip or Oblivious Philip. And yet, something marvelous emerges in this interaction between Jesus and Philip, for I believe we discover that there’s another way of understanding “life’s not fair.”

Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians wrote, “Since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart.” I recently had the pleasure of hearing the author Anne Lamott speak about mercy. She said that when she hears the word mercy something in her changes. She feels a sense of release such that she no longer holds something against herself or someone. Just hearing the word mercy or merciful is enough to wake her up. When Skeptical Philip made his request to see the Father right after Doubting Thomas had wondered about the way Jesus was going, our Savior could have flown off the handle. He could have said, “Look you nitwits, I’ve said it before I’m too tired to say it now. Why don’t you get it already?! You’re all gonna abandon me anyway. What am I doing this for?!” Thankfully he did not! Instead, he responded with mercy.

As I look around here this evening and see friends from Good Shepherd, St. Timothy’s, St. Barnabas, and St. John’s I am encouraged because I know that like what Paul wrote, we are engaged in God’s ministry together. I also know that in each of our cities and communities we are experiencing divisive times, as we live with deep chasms in our nation. We may want to shut people out with whom we disagree and when asked why we aren’t acting with kindness say, “Well, life’s just not fair.” However, this will only worsen our collective wounds. Instead, what if we were to look through the lens of Christ? For Christ Jesus also believed that life was not fair, except he meant that in a merciful way.

He did not punish as evildoers deserved. He did not smack Skeptical Philip and Doubting Thomas on the backs of their heads. He did not send bolts of lightning upon his torturers. Instead, he was the way, the truth, and the life. You may ask, “So what does this mean?” I think it means that we too believe life is not fair.

Life’s not fair, but through the lens of Christ that means something different. In the “fair world” we rip out an eye for an eye, take a tooth for a tooth, and take a life for a life. We disrespect that other party because they disrespected us. And yet, life’s not fair. So, we wield the weapon of forgiveness instead of the venom of vengeance. We seek to serve Christ in all as we respect the dignity of all others including that one person we think we hate that we are thinking of at this second. Life’s not fair means that when faced with the corrupted and fallen powers of this world we act with the self-emptying love that Jesus showed on the cross.

So this is the ministry we’re called to engage in together. Paul described the difficulty of it when he told of the gods of this world distracting many such that they cannot see, hear, or experience this good news. Many remain captivated by the law of an eye for an eye, the law of a fair world. And yet, this is not good news, nor is it the way, the truth, and the life. In our ministry let us band together in mercy, so that we do not lose heart. Let us go forth from here and sharing the Good News of Christ who responds to us mercifully and who show us that life is indeed not fair.