Trinity-St. Andrew’s United Church
Order of Worship
Sunday, May 31, 2026 – Trinity Sunday
We welcome Danah-Lee Krieger as our guest speaker today.
Prelude
Words of Welcome and Announcements
Lighting the Christ Candle
Today, on Trinity Sunday, we remember that God is relationship; Creator, Christ and Spirit moving together in love. In Genesis, we hear the words, “Let us make humankind in OUR image.” Before we are asked to do anything, or prove anything, we are reminded that we already bear the image of God. So today, as we light the Christ candle, we are invited to simply “Be”. Be still. Be brave. Be kind. Be loving. Amen.
Opening Song/Introit
Passing the Peace of Christ
Call to Worship
Come into this sacred space and simply “Be”. Be still before the mystery of God. Be open to the love of Christ. Be moved by the breath of the Spirit. In the beginning, God spoke life into being and called creation “good”. In Christ, we see that exact goodness embodied, love made visible among us. Through the Spirit, we are drawn into relationship with God, with one another and with the world. So let us come as we are, made in the Imago Dei and invited into worship. Come, let us worship God. Amen.
Hymn Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty VU 315
- Holy, holy, holy! Lord God almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee;
holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty,
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
- Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore thee,
casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee,
which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.
- Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide thee,
though the eye made blind by sin thy glory may not see,
only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,
perfect in power, in love, and purity.
- Holy, holy, holy! Lord God almighty!
All thy works shall praise thy name in earth and sky and sea;
holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty,
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
Prayer of Approach
Holy and Loving God – Creator, Christ and Spirit, We come before you as we are. You formed us in your image, called creation good and breathed life into all that is. Still, we confess that it can be hard to simply “be”. We measure ourselves by what we do or what we achieve. We also measure ourselves by what others expect from us, or what we fear we are not. So, meet us here in this moment. Quiet what is restless within us. Soften what has become guarded. Open us again to your love. Remind us that before we are anything else, we are Yours. We are made in Your image, held in your grace and invited to live as people of love. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
Scripture Reader: Barbara Moogk
Genesis 1:1-2:4a
Psalm 46
A reading from the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Hymn Praise with Joy the World’s Creator VU 312
- Praise with joy the world’s Creator,
God of justice, love, and peace,
source and end of human knowledge,
God whose grace shall never cease.
Celebrate the Maker’s glory,
power to rescue and release.
- Praise to Christ who feeds the hungry,
frees the captive, finds the lost,
heals the sick, upsets religion,
fearless both of fate and cost.
Celebrate Christ’s constant presence:
friend and stranger, guest and host.
- Praise the Spirit sent among us,
liberating truth from pride,
forging bonds where race or gender,
age or nation dare divide.
Celebrate the Spirit’s treasure:
Foolishness none dare deride.
- Praise the Maker, Christ, and Spirit,
one God in community.
calling Christians to embody
oneness and diversity.
This the world shall see reflected:
God is One and One in Three.
Sermon The Imago Dei: Let it Be
Special Music
The Offering
We give thanks to everyone who continues to support TSA and our many ministries. Your gifts of support and encouragement mean a lot to us. You can get more information about making a donation by contacting the church office or by visiting our website. There are also many opportunities to volunteer in our different ministries. For all the gifts you share, for all the people you bless by your serving and giving as a disciple of Jesus, we give thanks.
Offering Song We Give Thee but Thine Own VU 543
- We give thee but thine own,
what e’er the gift may be;
all that we have is thine alone,
a trust, O God, from thee.
Offering Prayer
Generous God, You have made us in Your image and called us into relationship with You and one another. Receive these gifts as signs of our gratitude and our willingness to take part in Your work of love. May what we offer today help create a community where people are welcomed and invited to be fully who You created them to be. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
Hymn/Music for the Young and Young at Heart: Creator, I Adore You
Creator, I adore You
Lay my life before You
How I love You
Jesus, I adore You
I lay my life before You
How I love You
Spirit, I adore You
I lay my life before You
How I love You
Pastoral Prayer
Holy God – Creator, Christ, and Spirit, We come before You as people made in Your image, created for relationship and love. Teach us to see Your image not only in ourselves, but in the people around us… neighbours or strangers. In those we understand easily and in those we find difficult to understand. We pray for our church community. We pray for those who are grieving, ill, lonely, tired sick or worried. May they know Your nearness. May we be a community of care and kindness. We pray for our town. We pray for the people who live and work here. For young families. Aging families. Seniors. Children. Business owners. Leaders. Every person who is trying to make a life. Where there is hardship, bring support. Loneliness, bring connection. Conflict, bring understanding and peace. Shape us into people who honour Your image in every person we meet. Whether it be in church, in town, anywhere in our travels. We thank You for the beauty of creation that sustains us. Make us mindful caretakers of this earth so that generations to come may know its wonder and its abundance. Guide our church, O God. Fill us with Your Spirit that we might be a beacon of hope, a place of welcome for all people, and a living testament to Your amazing love. Strengthen our faith for the days ahead. We pray in the spirit of Christ, who taught us to pray together, by saying*
The Lord’s Prayer
Hymn O Lord My God (How Great Thou Art) VU 238
- O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
consider all the works thy hand hath made,
I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder,
thy power throughout the universe displayed.Refrain: Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to thee,
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to thee,
How great thou art! How great thou art!
- When through the woods and forest glades I wander,
I hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;
when I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
and hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze. Refrain
- But when I think that God, his Son not sparing,
sent him to die, I scarce can take it in,
that on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
he bled and died to take away my sin. Refrain
- When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation
and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart!
Then I shall bow in humble adoration
and there proclaim, “My God, how great thou art!” Refrain
Benediction
Go from this place… remembering who you are. You are made in the image of God, held in the love of Christ and moved by the breath of the Spirit. A harmonious and mysterious choregraphed dance of wonder. So go… and simply “Be”. Be still. Be brave. Be kind. Be loving. And as you go, honour the image of God in yourself, in your neighbour, in this town and in the world. Go now in peace and “Be”, friends, Amen.
Sung Blessing Let it Be
The Imago Dei: Let it Be.
This morning I am going to start off with something that might make you have a chuckle.
I heard about this 92-year-old man. He wasn’t feeling very well, so he went to the doctor. A few days later, the doctor saw him out in the park with a beautiful young woman by his side. He looked happy and full of energy. The doctor said, “Wow, you sure seem to be feeling better!” The man said, “Yeah, Doc! I’m just following your orders. You said, get a hot mama and stay cheerful.” The doctor replied, “I did NOT say that. I said, you have a heart murmur. Be careful!”
Would you bow your heads and pray with me please.
Loving God, May the words of my mouth, the meditations of our hearts and indeed the actions of our lives always be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
It has come to my attention that this Sunday is Holy Trinity Sunday. I recently completed the Licensed Lay Worship Leader segment on Special Services and Ordinary Time, and one of the major focuses, of course, was Holy Trinity Sunday. During the course, our mentor would often ask us to reflect on our experiences with these kinds of services. Truthfully, many of us grew up outside of the United Church. And growing up a Baptist, I never really had much connection to the liturgical calendar or the rhythms of the church year. This world of seasons, feast days and special Sundays is still fairly new territory for me and it’s something I am growing into. But according to my sources…. Many preachers fear to speak on Holy Trinity Sunday… or they intentionally book this Sunday off… that said, its not lost on me that Rev. Eric very strategically booked this Sunday off. And when I reminded him on a phone call last week that it was Holy Trinity Sunday, he simply gave a little snicker. I’ll leave it at that.
Well… today is also… 1 sleep away from June. Which is Pride Month. Although many places celebrate Pride at different times, June is typically known around the world as Pride Month. So, let’s also call this today… this Sunday, “Pride Eve” … for a lack of a better term… and I thought maybe I could just kick things off with a super duper inclusive “pride” style message. And as the co-leader of our Rainbow Worship Ministry at TSA, I am happy to announce our theme this year as “BE.” Just BE. B-E. Be blank, and you fill in the blank.
And over the next few weeks, you’ll have an opportunity to help decorate this large community art piece that our youth group began creating last week. In the centre is the word “BE,” and around it, everyone is invited to add words, phrases, colours or artwork that reflect who we are called to BE: be kind, be brave, be loving, be yourself, be a peacemaker, be gay, be straight, be joyful… whatever speaks to your heart.
Fabric markers will be available, and we invite people of all ages to take part.
And on June 13, we’ll also be bringing the sheet to the Pride Picnic at Low Square, where members of the wider community will be invited to contribute as well. And then finally, on June 14, it will be displayed during our Rainbow Worship Service, where this year’s theme is simply: “BE.”
So, instead of sitting here for 3 hours while I attempt, likely with limited success, to explain the Trinity, I thought I could spend the next 15 minutes or so on “BE.” I see heads nodding up and down. All right, then I think we’re moving into our topic of BE.
Okay, if we’re going to talk about “being,” or what it means “to BE,” we need a tiny grammar lesson. Don’t worry. It won’t be painful. “To be” means to exist. For example: I am here. You are here. We are here. The verb “to be” can also help describe something. The grass is green. My eyes are green. The car is white. My cat is a pain in the butt. But it can also tell us when or where something happens. Church is on Sunday. The picnic is at Low Square. The service is at 10am. So “to be” is a small verb, but we use it all the time. I am. You are. She is. He is. It is. We are. They are. That is the basic idea. “To be” is about existing, describing and showing when or where something happens. Are you still with me?
So now we arrive at that familiar and beautiful line from Psalm 46… “Be still and know that I am God.” When we hear that in English, we hear a couple of “being” words right away. “Be still.” “I am.” But of course, Psalm 46 wasn’t originally written in English. It was written in Hebrew, and Hebrew handles words like “is,” “am,” and “are” differently than English. So, congratulations, you came for here church and accidentally got a tiny Hebrew grammar lesson. Suddenly that 3hr long Trinity sermon doesn’t sound so bad, does it? But I promise, I’ll make this concise. Quite simply, in English, we use words like “am,” “is,” and “are” all the time. We say things like, “I am tired,” “God is good,” or “we are here.” But in Hebrew, that little word in the middle doesn’t really exist. The meaning is still there. Its just carried slightly different. And with that, the word I really want us to pay attention to is the one translated as “be still.” In Hebrew, that word is raphah. And its very different than how many of us might understand it. Many of us understand “be still” to mean to “sit quietly.” But, raphah actually means to release something. To stop gripping so tightly. To stop fighting so hard and holding on to something.
So, when we hear, “Be still and know that I am God,” maybe we can hear it less as, “Sit down and be quiet,” and more as God saying, “Let go. Loosen your grip. Stop trying to hold the whole world together. I am God.” I’m sure some of you have heard that quote, “Let go and let God.” I know, it sounds a little like something you would see on a bumper sticker… but it’s not too far off from what this verse means. But traditionally, when we hear “be still,” we often think it means, “sit quietly and calm down.” And stillness is good. But most of us know that telling someone to calm down rarely works. So maybe this verse is less about forcing ourselves to feel peaceful, and more about learning to loosen our grip.
Let’s stay with this idea of letting go for a moment, because I think in our world, stillness is both rare and often misunderstood. We live in a time that doesn’t really know what to do with quiet. We’re very accustomed to noise, schedules, notifications, responsibilities and constant demands on our attention. So, when we hear “be still,” we may think it means doing nothing, or escaping from real life for a while. But biblical stillness isn’t about taking break… although that’s important… its actually about making space to become more aware of God. And all throughout Christian history, many notable spiritual mystics understood this concept. Some of them stepped away from the busyness of ordinary life or went into quiet places. Some practiced silence or solitude just because they wanted to clear away the noise long enough to hear what was underneath. They weren’t just trying to relax. They were trying to know God… on a deeper level. Henri Nouwen, the Dutch Catholic priest and mystic and theologian, explored this beautifully in his book Out of Solitude. He reflects on the sacred tension between our deep longing for quiet communion with God and the relentless noise of everyday life. And frankly, we see this friction everywhere. I think it’s pretty safe to say that most of us understand that longing to some degree, at least a little. We may not be running off into the bush or living in silence, but we do know what it feels like to want to get away from the noise. We know what it feels like to need rest, or a little breathing room from being pulled in 10 zillion different directions. And maybe that desire is not just about being tired. Maybe somewhere deep within us, we know that we were made for something more than rushing and holding everything together. This is why the stillness of Psalm 46 matters. Its not stillness for the sake of stillness. Its stillness for the sake of knowing. “Be still and know that I am God.” … letting go so you can remember. Loosening your grip so you can reconnect with the God who made you.
And this is where Holy Trinity Sunday starts sneaking back in, whether we planned it or not. Because when we ask why connection with God matters so much, we end up back at the heart of who God is. If I were going to preach a whole sermon explaining the Trinity, which I am absolutely not going to attempt this morning, I might say something like this… God isn’t an isolated being somewhere far away. God is relationship. God is communion. And if we are talking about God as relationship and God as communion, then there’s this old theological word that can help us out… perichoresis. So yes, apparently this morning you’re English, Hebrew… and now Greek…. don’t worry… the Latin is coming up soon… you’re welcome!
Perichoresis basically means going around, moving together and it’s related to our English word choreography. Perichoresis. It’s a sequence of movement in dancing. So, God as Trinity is dancing in relationship with God’s self. Its fascinating and mind blowing all in one. God is meant to be in relationship, and God invites us into that great relationship also. We’re part of the dance. We’re connected. I’m connected to God. You’re connected to God. And we’re all connected to one another in this great, grand perichoresis, this great dance of life.
And this is exactly what we find at the very beginning of the creation story. In Genesis, it starts with this exact narrative… that we are ALL created in God’s image… the Imago Dei. And this is a completely unique moment in the creation story because it’s the only element of creation where all 3 members of the Godhead are present together. And in this moment, the divine pronouns are intentionally plural: “Let US create THEM in OUR image.” We have this holy Godhead committee. I’ve heard it said before that this is the only thing a committee has ever done well! No offense out there.
But this reveals something profound. In the very first theological treatise of the Bible involving humanity… it was so important, that all 3 members of the Godhead gathered in community to create humanity for community. The Triune God, existing in perfect relationship, deliberately placed the divine image in each and every one of us. As a kid growing up in the Baptist church, I really struggled with the fact that we basically skipped over Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, and we started at Genesis 3. We constantly started by telling people they were terrible and born flawed. This little booklet here… this was something that we had in every pew. It was put out by the folks at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. And as Baptists, we loved Billy. But this booklet is meant to tell us how to attain this peace through Christ. But the thing is, it starts with the narrative that we are awful and terrible people. And I really struggle with that. It always perplexed me that we were trying to share this wonderful joyous news of Christ, but we had to start off by reminding people that we’re terrible and broken. When I wake up in the morning, I already know that I am going to miss the mark in many ways. How many of you know that you’re not perfect? Raise your hand. Yes… exactly. So, it does make me curious why so many churches and people skip right over Genesis 1 and 2… and start off with Genesis 3. Most of us don’t need to be reminded of our shortcomings.
But when we start at the beginning with chapter 1 and 2 instead of skipping into chapter 3, we get this beautiful story of a God that says… “Let US create them in OUR image.” It demonstrates a God that isn’t a lonely, isolated deity somewhere out there, but that God is in communion. God is a fellowship of mutually self donating love, and we’ve been made in the Imago Dei and that’s where our deep interconnectedness not only with each other but with all of creation originates.
In Ecclesiastes, Solomon says humanity was created upright. And so, we have in us this ability, this dignity, this Godliness that’s just waiting to come out. Every person bears the image of God and therefore has this beautiful and mysterious sacredness about them. It calls us to see and honour God’s presence in all people.
When we think about being made in the image of God, maybe one way to understand it is as a kind of family resemblance. We belong to God, and because we belong to God, there is something of God reflected in us. Its kind of like when someone says, “You look just like your uncle Frank,” or “you have your mother’s eyes.” There is something familiar there, something connected, something passed down. And I’ll be honest, there are days when I look in the mirror and I don’t immediately think, “Wow, there’s the image of God.” Some days I just see the tiredness, the flaws, the things I wish were different. But whether I recognize it or not, its still true. We carry the image of God because we’re connected to God. And that means every person we encounter carries that same sacred imprint too. Not just the people who look like us, think like us, believe like us, love like us or agree with us. Every person, of every race, religion, background, identity and story, bears the image of God. Even the people we struggle with. Even the people we disagree with deeply. Some days it hard… especially when you visit “What’s Up Renfrew “on Facebook… or live behind Central public school when they are learning recorders outside… but I digress… it’s not always easy to remember that we are all in this dance… but it is vital to our faith. We’re all human. We’re all loved by God. We’re all part of the same sacred family. So, when the Psalmist says, “Be still and know that I am God,” maybe its inviting us to stop trying so hard to prove ourselves or reducing our worth to what we produce and simply rest in who we already are. We are not just human doings. We are human beings. And as Teilhard de Chardin reminds us, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. We’re connected to God more deeply than we can explain. So be still. Remember who you are. Remember whose you are. And know that God isn’t far away from you. God is already woven into the deepest part of who you are. So, BE. Be brave. Be wonderful. Be kind. Be colourful. Be loving. Be straight. Be gay. Be spontaneous. Be weird. Be daring. Be bold. Be yourself. But just Be. Amen.
