"We Are Trinity" | Shana McCauley | January 26, 2025

"They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky, they're all together ooky."

Building on cartoons in The New Yorker, the live-action Addams Family premiered on ABC in 1964 in the lineup with Gilligan's Island, The Andy Griffith Show, and Green Acres. The Addams were a morbid standout in many ways. They are sitcom ordinary—two parents, two kids, pets, extended family—they have cousins and dinner parties, and bankers and lawyers. The kids say clever things like, "You know women!" and a laugh track reminds us when things are funny. Each episode begins with a broad shot of their home, the way that Full House and All in the Family did. It's a big Victorian mansion, dark and haunted looking, with a creepy sky over it.

The family includes a plucky son named Pugsley and a dear daughter named Wednesday. Grandma sharpens axes and sprinkles people with potions. Uncle Fester is always shooting things and blowing things up. The Addams' butler, Lurch, looks like Frankenstein's monster, and they summon him with a house-rattling gong. They have a pet octopus and spider, and matriarch Morticia is often feeding her carnivorous plant, Cleopatra.

Part of the regular trope of the show is that they are visited by normal people, defined by the narrow sensibilities of the 1960s—guests with blonde hair and tidy suits. The visitors are terrified and horrified, but also trying so hard to be polite as they navigate this strange Gothic family. The shtick of it all is that Morticia and Gomez are always the best hosts, inviting the neighbors to dinner and offering the hospitality that they would want. When people are scared or run away, they aren't offended, just surprised, making excuses for them like, "She's a bit odd," or "I guess they're high strung."

In the bizarre cast, one of the stranger characters is a disembodied hand that lives in a box, which they call Thing. Despite being only a hand, Thing can hear and see and communicate with hand gestures. Obviously, it plays card games and flips records when it's time. Thing was weird on the show when it was stuck in a box, but it gets much creepier in 1991 when the show was adapted into a movie and CG enables Thing to run around the house. It pulls on pant legs and points at things with some fingers—standing, and finger. It’s really strange. Thing will play chess and bring hammers and be the extra hand that we all need once in a while. This disembodied hand works within the context of the show, but it is super creepy because it is an anthropomorphic body part. While we are used to dogs and cats doing human things in fiction, an isolated body part shouldn’t do that. It’s gross.

If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. Paul writes to the Corinthians. The letters of Paul are written to budding Christian communities that he has founded and then left on to plant the next gospel in the next town. The Epistles are the letters he wrote back to those churches to correct or support, as was needed. Today’s epistle is from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. In this section of the letter, he is encouraging them to work together as the body of Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews and Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of the one Spirit.

He uses the body to illustrate the way that we are all part of one. Each of us is fundamentally important to each other. If the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? He goes on: "As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you,' nor again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you.'"

Hear this, Corinthians: we are all one body, and that is messy. Paul was writing to people who were doing what people do—pulling rank, gossiping, hoarding food, suing each other, pushing people out, or leaving themselves. He has earlier told them about their responsibilities to each other, to God, and to the community. Here is a tender space where Paul is reminding them, and us, how important we are to each other. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it. If one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

Have you ever been in a store and heard the wail of a newborn—not quite newborn, but like that one or two months in, when they have really fully realized the depth of their lungs and they can holler? Science has shown that we are biologically wired to respond. It’s for the survival of our species. When babies cry, we have an elemental mandate to respond. And when some poor parent is unable to soothe the baby, the whole store will be on edge.

The church in Corinth, and to the church in Corinth, Paul says that we are connected to each other—all parts of one body. When you cry, we cry together. How can my joy be full when another part of the body is drawn by sorrow? To go back to that body metaphor, you wouldn’t say you feel good with a migraine or the stomach flu, even if the rest of your body is healthy. So, Body of Christ, Body of Trinity, how are you all? How are we together?

How is the church in Portland in the year of Our Lord 2025? The answer is varied, because that is always true. There’s always concern, there’s always sadness and joy, hope and thoughtfulness. Each day may include Green Acres and The Addams Family in the church and in the wider world. There is so much uncertainty. Trinity has just begun a leadership transition. A new president has begun his tenure, and he is changing a lot of things very quickly. There are fires and wars and strikes. There is a new mayor and city council structure in Portland, and we still don’t know how that’s going to turn out. This moment feels delicate—a moment to hold on while the ground shifts.

What are the things that you do when you are stressed? It comes out all kinds of ways for all of us—maybe yelling or crying, but often smaller things like being uncompromising or skeptical, overly positive or paralyzed. Some of us will lean in and some will slip out the back door, watching from a distance. When we don’t know the whole story, when we are hurting and scared, we are susceptible to gossip and doubt. I know there has been fear that Trinity will become something else—a place that is not welcoming or friendly. But you and me, we have control over that. It means each of us doing our part, engaging, struggling, praying, loving. Even now, the spirit is working through us. We have been called together in this place, at this time, to be who we are fundamentally and authentically, to amplify God’s love to the world.

This week at Washington National Cathedral, the Right Reverend Mariann Budde asked President Trump to be merciful to those who are scared. She had been preaching for several minutes about how we work towards unity, and then she took a deep breath and spoke directly to the president. Seeing her take that deep breath and do the scary thing reminds me that I can do the scary thing too. People around the world have leaned in to her plea for mercy. This town, Portland, this town, needs the witness that we bring.

We are the body of Christ, and the body of Trinity. Trinity doesn’t exist without us here together—praying, worshiping. Teresa of Avila wrote, “Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on Earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body.”

We are the body of Christ. We are Trinity. As Christians, we should always be praying and discerning who God is calling us to be. When we are in transition, it is a natural time to pause, listen, pray, and dream together. Now you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? But strive for greater gifts.

Paul tells us to say that the Addams are unapologetic misses the point. It wouldn’t occur to them to apologize. They are simply who they are: their haunted house, their morbid daughter, their weird hair and strange pets. They fit together. Through discernment, we will learn ever more about who we are—warm, compassionate, curious, beautiful. We even have pets! Ask a staff person about the dog playgroup together, and with God’s help, we will know who we are better—whether we are spooky or kooky, mysterious or curious. Let us be who we are and hospitable to those who come our way. We are fully loved exactly as God made us, and together, as members of this one body, so let us take a deep breath and do the scary thing of being Christ in this world. Amen.

[Applause]