“A million lying messages a day tell us to fill the space between with fear and anxiety while the Trinity calls us to fill the space between with the healing power of love.”

Sermon by Mike Kinman at All Saints Church, Pasadena, on Trinity Sunday, June 16, 2019.

This is a story of two spaces.

The space inside and the space between.

It was 1981, and I was 12 years old.

I don’t know if you remember being 12. but I remember it viscerally. And it had to do with those two spaces … the space inside and the space between.

When I was 12, the space inside felt confused and unlovable.

I knew I believed in God … and my dad’s church left me feeling cold and my mom’s meditation group left me feeling lonely.

I knew that when I closed the door of my room and listened to Vin Scully spin tales of Fernando Valenzuela’s dancing screwball and double plays that went Russell to Lopes to Garvey, I entered a sanctuary where it was OK to show all the emotions it didn’t feel safe to show anywhere else … and I knew that I wanted nothing to do with the pre-teen jock culture where your real feelings were the last thing you ever were supposed to show.

I knew I didn’t belong … anywhere … and I didn’t know what I found out later, which was so many of the other kids who seemed like they did belong were feeling the same thing, and that like me, they were getting really good at hiding it.

My space inside was full of all the thoughts, feelings, questions and confusions of a 12-year old.

The space inside was full … the space between felt empty.

I longed to open up my heart and let whoever I was come out. To share all those thoughts and feelings and questions and confusions that filled my space inside. And… I was terrified to have anyone find them out … because the only thing I felt sure of was that the me that was living in that space inside … wasn’t anywhere near good enough.

And so, because I was more afraid that someone might reject and hurt me than I was confident that someone might love and embrace me, I kept the space between full of projections of what I thought others’ thought I should be. I kept the space between full of walls and full of fear.
And then my friend, Wells, invited me to come with him to the Episcopal summer camp in Prescott, Arizona. Wanting me to say yes, he gave the only four-word argument that this 12-year old heterosexual boy needed to hear:

There will be girls.

I went.

And yes, I did have my first kiss that week, which in all its awkwardness was super cool. But that’s not what changed my life that week.

What changed my life that week were two people who were willing to share their space inside … and what that did to the space between.

The first was Dave Bailey. Dave is Bishop of Navajoland now, but then he rector of St. Stephens in Phoenix and the priest running Middler Camp. One afternoon, I was sitting with him and some other kids and Dave started sharing his space inside. Dave started telling his story of addiction and recovery. About his struggle with alcoholism … and about how he battled it still every day. And then he talked about his space between. He talked about the love he had found that every day helped him get through that struggle. The love he found from God. The love he found in community.

Dave talked about the courage he found to face, to own, to embrace who he was in that space inside when the space between is filled with love. Love that stays. Love that transforms. Love that heals.

The second was a girl named Lisa. Lisa was a year older than me and went to my school. She was smart and funny and popular … one of those people who seemed like she belonged everywhere she went. One of those people I longed to be like and just knew I never would.

That night, we were all gathered just before lights out … the whole camp … and unexpectedly, Lisa stepped to the middle of the circle and said she wanted to read a poem she had written.
A surprised silence descended … and she began.

You know, Maya Angelou once said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said … but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

I don’t remember a single word of the poem Lisa read that night. And I will remember how she made me feel for the rest of my life. Because in that 90 seconds of bravery, she opened up her heart and poured out her space inside. And her space inside was as confused and felt as unlovable and uncertain to her as mine did to me.

Lisa opened up and let us see her space inside and it was brave and beautiful not because it was perfect and sure but because it wasn’t … because it was real. And I began to believe that maybe, just maybe, my space inside could be brave and beautiful, too.

Brene Brown writes that we attribute vulnerability as strength in others and weakness in ourselves. I could not imagine standing in front of all those people and being as vulnerable as Lisa was. I would have felt so weak being honest about my own confusion and uncertainty and unlovability. Hell, it’s 38 years later and I feel kinda weak talking about it now. Isn’t that amazing how that works?
And … that night, I was blown away by Lisa’s vulnerability. No … it was more than that. I was inspired by Lisa’s vulnerability. Lisa’s vulnerability began to touch, … and change … and heal … something inside me.

And I wasn’t the only one.

As she shared her space inside that night, something happened to the space between. As Lisa read her poem, the space between us – all of us – a space that could have been filled with judgment or rejection — the space between began to fill with love. And for a moment, we all stood there in silence. Feeling it. Feeling the space between us … a space that she had filled with the courage and beauty of her space inside … fill with the transforming, healing power of love.

And. We. Were. Changed.

In that moment, even if it was just for a moment. We were all beautiful and we were all brave.

In that moment, even if it was just for a moment. A little bit of us was healed.

In that moment, even if it was just for a moment. We were one.

In that moment, just as I had earlier that day with Dave Bailey, I knew I was standing on new ground and not feeling lost. I knew I was standing in a place of love without judgment.

If I had known enough, I would have taken my shoes off in that moment because I knew I was standing on the holiest ground I had ever stood. That’s the power, the transformative, healing power of vulnerability … of sharing our space inside. I knew I was standing on the holiest ground I had ever stood.

And it didn’t just feel good that night. It changed my life. Because in that moment, standing on that holy ground, I knew I wanted to stay on that ground. I wanted to find that ground wherever I could. I wanted to follow anyone who would lead me to that ground. And once I was there, I wanted to reach back and help others find that ground, too.

I am hesitant to talk about choosing Jesus. The language of choosing Jesus has been so weaponized to create insiders and outsiders and deceive us with lies that need to die. Lies that we have some inherent stain or unworthiness that only submitting to a condemning, judging God will fix.

I am hesitant to talk about choosing Jesus, because I know now that in a different gathering, I could have chosen any number of other faiths that celebrate the beauty and power of every space inside and the filling of every space between with the healing power of love. I know now that I was choosing a love that has come and can come in countless particularities of faith and community.

And … in that moment, I thought, “If this is what following Jesus can be about. If following Jesus can be about opening up and being honest about who each of us is and is becoming in the space inside … and then the space between all those spaces inside being filled to overflowing with love, non-judgmental, joyful, healing love … if that’s what following Jesus can be about, then sign me up!”

And 38 years later, that is still why I follow Jesus. Not because it is the only place we can find this love – certainly we find and have found this love on so many paths and in so many places. I follow Jesus because I have found in incarnation and life, cross and resurrection the transformative healing power of vulnerability and community gathered with love and justice at the center. Because even as I join others in finding it in many places, I still look at the life and teachings of Jesus and I see “whoever you are and wherever you find yourself, you are loved just as you are with a love that celebrates and transforms and most of all a love without judgment that heals.”

That is why I follow Jesus and that is why I love Trinity Sunday. Because a God who is Trinity is a God who in each aspect of the divine is fully, unashamedly who they are and who they are becoming in each space inside. A God who is Trinity is a God who is the infinite nonjudgmental, joyful, healing love that fills and overflows all the spaces between all these spaces inside.

I follow Jesus and I love the poetry of God as Trinity because I am still searching for that new ground of love without judgment where we can stand and know we are not lost. I am still aspiring to the courage of Dave’s vulnerability … and Lisa’s vulnerability … and Jesus’ vulnerability because I have seen and felt and been transformed by its healing power.

And I follow Jesus in this All Saints community because even though so often we fall short and fall back into fear, we also find that new ground, find that healing love with beautiful and transformative regularity.

We find it when our young people occupy pulpit and lectern and the circles of Wednesday night youth group and share so courageously their spaces inside and find the spaces between filling with love.

We found it a year and a half ago in the Chapel as Zelda Kennedy lay dying on the other side of our country, and we find it in countless holy spaces we create each week where we bare hearts and share stories and offer gifts of tears to ourselves and one another and find the spaces between filling with transforming, healing love.

We find it as we practice radical inclusion, begging us all not to check our sexual orientation, your theological uncertainties or our gender, racial, cultural, generational and other identities at the door, that whoever we are and wherever we find yourself, we want us all to bring everything in our space inside to this community and lay it together on the heart of our space between, on Christ’s table of transforming, healing love.

I follow Jesus and I am a part of this All Saints community because we all know what it’s like out there. It hasn’t changed since I was 12, except it sure feels like it’s gotten harder

We are still told to be ashamed of so much of what fills our space inside. We are still told only to show the pieces of ourselves that others will be comfortable with. We are told that vulnerability is weak and stupid. We are still told that what has happened to us and what we have done is all that we are and that we will be judged without love for every bit of it.

We all know what it’s like out there. A million lying messages a day tell us to fill the space between us with fear of our own unworthiness and anxiety about who has more power, less power and how we can use the power for ourselves and against one another.

We all know what it’s like out there. And we come together as All Saints to say, “it doesn’t have to be this way.”

Together we can discover and inhabit new ground of love without judgment and know we are not lost.

Together we can be the courage to share our space inside and know that it is brave and beautiful not because it is perfect but because it is real.

Together we can know that our vulnerability is our greatest strength because it frees everyone who comes within earshot of its song to know the healing power of love.

Together we can invite that love into the spaces between that are too easily filled with fear.

In so many ways, I am still that 12 year old boy. I still feel confused and unlovable and uncertain … and now I know that I am not alone. Now I can stand here and tell you that I am becoming a person who believes my space inside is beautiful and brave and good. And that’s not just because of Dave and Lisa and Jesus, it’s because of you.

I know vulnerability is scary. I know in this room we have many histories of our vulnerability being ridiculed and punished and shamed. I know we have learned to wall ourselves off not because we are weak but because it is a survival skill.

And … I am standing here to tell you that here … in this space, in this community, at this table … it doesn’t have to be this way.

Today, 38 years later, I can stand here and tell you that as we trust each other enough to share our spaces inside, no matter what terrible things have happened when we have tried to share them in the past, the spaces between can be filled with love. And that love will stay. And that love will heal.

Each of our lives and our life together is a story of two spaces. The space inside and the space between.

I’ve told you some of my story. What’s yours?